With recent news of massive Xbox layoffs and game cancellations, we can now officially call it, The SECOND video game crash of 2022-2025
- Thread starter Kotaro
- Start date
A.Romero
Member
I don't really understand some of you guys. It's like you if you hated the hobby. Why have such an opinion when we've had data that says otherwise?
Is it just that you are misinformed or you are just having a hard time assimilating that you are no longer part of the core demographic that companies are interested in?
I don't know why I can't upload pictures but check the graph at the top of this artichle: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/
Or you can see it here:
Just recently didn't Sony said they had more revenue on the PS5 gen than combining all the previous ones together?
I have a friend that has been "predicting" a crash for the last 10 years. We talked about it a few days ago and he switched his prediction to 2027 because "it won't fall instantly". Of course I set up a reminder because the industry is not going anywhere. It might contract but there will never be a crash like the 80's one.
BTW tech companies have been laying off people in mass for the last few years. Historically other industries, like the car industry, has done the same. We still have a vibrant car industry, although some players might fall.
Is it just that you are misinformed or you are just having a hard time assimilating that you are no longer part of the core demographic that companies are interested in?
I don't know why I can't upload pictures but check the graph at the top of this artichle: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/
Or you can see it here:
Just recently didn't Sony said they had more revenue on the PS5 gen than combining all the previous ones together?
I have a friend that has been "predicting" a crash for the last 10 years. We talked about it a few days ago and he switched his prediction to 2027 because "it won't fall instantly". Of course I set up a reminder because the industry is not going anywhere. It might contract but there will never be a crash like the 80's one.
BTW tech companies have been laying off people in mass for the last few years. Historically other industries, like the car industry, has done the same. We still have a vibrant car industry, although some players might fall.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Easy because they are idiots out there who think real world is like a video game and if the industry crashes everything will "reset"…..so fucking idiotic.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
You can't be serious.......
Hero of Spielberg
Member
I'd be surprised if video games even exist by Xmas time. That's how bad it is
spookyfish
Gold Member
Well, when Sony decides to stop making PlayStations and instead makes Cabbage Patch Kids and Nintendo says "You know what? We're done." THEN you can "officially call it."
Right now? No.
Right now? No.
He is on a mission to SonyToo the situation just seen the thread he found & bumped
Shifty1897
Member
PlayStation and Nintendo are more profitable than ever right now. This isn't a crash.
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
I feel like it's a bubble for sure but not a crash. Once folks get tired of all the subscription stuff, we will see that pop. I don't see it happening for a bit though. We have been trained too well.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
The only thing crashing is GAF's love for this hobby.
Ultralow35
Neo Member
Dead serious tell me the difference instead of Fanboy BS
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Ultralow35
Neo Member
No I'm making a Non fanboy point that it seems most on here are saying one is a screw up and the other is not yet both have done the same thing this gen except Xbox has released more games in the last few yrsHe is on a mission to SonyToo the situation just seen the thread he found & bumped
Unknown Soldier
Member
Looking at all industries that MS has left, more likely than not the video games industry will prosper like never before after MS officially exits the console business
Ultralow35
Neo Member
Why would you want less choices what exactly is Sony doing better ? Please don't say money
You clearly missed the " Worst PlayStation Generation ever" thread & all the PlayStation needs to fire Hermen Hulst posts & the PlayStation wasted 400 million dollars on Concord & GaaS is going to bankrupt Sony comments
I don't want less choice, I want better choice. What Xbox has done is failing to advance the industry in any direction, because there's no vision there. Xbox did great when it first came out and brought online to the masses, and then Gears with the cover system, but since then really nothing but trying to be.
Ultralow35
Neo Member
No I didn't miss it I just people acting like Microsoft is some how worst when both this gen is terrible
There is a big difference PlayStation is having its most successful generation ever while Xbox ( as a console) is basically on the chopping block .
fallingdove
Member
PlayStation isn't great but they haven't been terrible this gen. Xbox pissed away 80 billion dollars and conditioned their users to stop buying games with day one releases on GamePass. While Xbox stepped up first party production, their leadership decisions have been some of the absolute worst in any industry ever.
Maybe the most surprising thing to me is that Xbox fans act as though they were caught off guard. I can't count the number of times I read comments from Xbox diehards that they didn't care if Xbox was loosing money so long as they were getting to play games for "free". Anyone with an ounce of logic saw that Xbox was digging its own grave.
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Kotaro
Member
Microsoft =/= Video game industry…
some of you think that I'm just referring the recent massive XBOX layoffs and game cancellations as the crash, NO, that's not what I think.
I'm referring to the on-going bad news in the industry in the last three years, including Sony's massive blunder in their GAAS ambition and culminating with the XBOX news, as the industry crash
Ultralow35
Neo Member
The reality right now nobody needs an Xbox or ps5 to play the main games on either console period that's how far these gen has failed period
Kotaro
Member
PlayStation is HORRIBLE this generation, easily their WORST generation by far, if we see it from their first party outputs perspective
SegaSnatcher
Member
No, there is the Xbox crash and everyone else will be fine.
Durin
Member
Yeah...the industry is crashing even though it's still worth billions, 2 of the 3 consoles are doing great, Steam still never stops growing, and the mobile gaming market continues being gigantic.
No, what we're seeing is a similar contraction in the AAA space that we saw around the late 2000s during the Great Recession. For those who forget multiple larger studios saw layoffs or outright bankruptcy as the industry adjusted going into the PS4 generation where things did improve...but AAA was still losing sustainability. You even had less people working in the industry back then, but it still contracted anyway.
An actual crash like the 80s can never happen again given the ability of smaller devs to have free tools to build games, and digitally distribute them on the cheap.
No, what we're seeing is a similar contraction in the AAA space that we saw around the late 2000s during the Great Recession. For those who forget multiple larger studios saw layoffs or outright bankruptcy as the industry adjusted going into the PS4 generation where things did improve...but AAA was still losing sustainability. You even had less people working in the industry back then, but it still contracted anyway.
An actual crash like the 80s can never happen again given the ability of smaller devs to have free tools to build games, and digitally distribute them on the cheap.
I do wonder how many people talk about the crash were actually alive or aware of it at the time. It's like people talking about how bad the great depression was without actually experiencing it.
As a kid I remember the bins full of cheap coleco vision, intelivision and atari 2600 cartridges. It was a great time to buy games for $5 or even $1. Systems were cheap.
The crash was fairly specific to North America, the Leader Atari dropping like a turd. It did not impact the micro space of C64, Apple etc. It has even less to no effect in europe and their micro scene. Micros in North America got hit pretty hard by the peak NES days of 88/89.
Same thing is happening here, Microsoft is the new Atari, but with nearly unlimited pockets. Rest of the world is pretty good, Sony is making more than ever and Nintendo is being Nintendo. Not to mention Valce and STEAM is killing it globally.
The console space continues to be stagnant and hasn't grown in years. The install base eats itself and subscription ans microtransactions are taking over.
As a kid I remember the bins full of cheap coleco vision, intelivision and atari 2600 cartridges. It was a great time to buy games for $5 or even $1. Systems were cheap.
The crash was fairly specific to North America, the Leader Atari dropping like a turd. It did not impact the micro space of C64, Apple etc. It has even less to no effect in europe and their micro scene. Micros in North America got hit pretty hard by the peak NES days of 88/89.
Same thing is happening here, Microsoft is the new Atari, but with nearly unlimited pockets. Rest of the world is pretty good, Sony is making more than ever and Nintendo is being Nintendo. Not to mention Valce and STEAM is killing it globally.
The console space continues to be stagnant and hasn't grown in years. The install base eats itself and subscription ans microtransactions are taking over.
Nydius
Member
Sony has completely shit the bed with the GaaS initiatives and slowing first party output… and yet it's the most profitable generation for PlayStation ever.
Nintendo pissed everyone off with $80 games, game key cards, and console bricking EULAS… yet broke single day sales records for the Switch 2.
The only "crash" is Xbox collapsing under its own weight and incompetence. They're the only ones losing money.
LordOcidax
Member
The video game industry is making more money than ever…. Sony and Nintendo stocks are all time high right now, even Xbox thanks to the Activision acquisition is generating more revenue than ever too… There's not such thing as industry crash. The Switch probably sold 6 million units in the first month, PS5 is on the way to 100 million, Xbox probably around 45 Million.
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Plies
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
Emedan
Member
I work IT for a couple of development studios and one already went belly up, they claimed at the very least that the market was TERRIBLE now so there's something to that, but also I think the budgets are way bloated. This failing studio spent 10 million dollars in 2 years for around 35 employees, I think that's a waste. Seem to be difficult to secure additional funding unless you have a banger well known team though.
ShadyAcshuns
Gold Member
So yeah, it's not a industry crash, it's a Western gaming philosophy crash. Whoring yourself out to other companies, by giving away exclusives was a mistake. Exclusives matter to platforms. That's not a warrior stance, it's just good business to make your platform desirable and gives us all a reason for owning them.
Remember the sixth gen? Each system, including PC had their own exclusive games, and owning each of them felt like a worthy investment. Remember when software was tailor made for the system they were on? We didn't use to see all these bugs, and the developers seemed to get more out of the hardware when games were made specifically for them.
Remember the sixth gen? Each system, including PC had their own exclusive games, and owning each of them felt like a worthy investment. Remember when software was tailor made for the system they were on? We didn't use to see all these bugs, and the developers seemed to get more out of the hardware when games were made specifically for them.
drganon
Member
It's time to stop posting.
LazyParrot
Member
You're free to call it whatever you want whenever you want, of course, but the industry as a whole is pumping out more games and raking in more cash than ever, so you'd objectively be wrong.
During the 1983 crash sales and revenue cratered so hard that people were seriously concerned that the medium was dead, that video games just been a fad and that kids would ditch them in favor of physical toys. Needless to say, there's no way anyone would believe that this time around.
During the 1983 crash sales and revenue cratered so hard that people were seriously concerned that the medium was dead, that video games just been a fad and that kids would ditch them in favor of physical toys. Needless to say, there's no way anyone would believe that this time around.
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Fess
Member
I'm… scared. Don't know who that is so don't know what'll come from it. And I watched that whole video and still don't know what they're actually doing. Comes in part 3 I guess
Not sure what I need as a fan though, besides ways to revive breaking ancient hardware, sooner or later it won't be possible to buy working computers anymore.
Either way I think it's difficult to recreate the magic of old school gaming for a new audience. To make it good they need to bring back joysticks as standard, playing tight 8-way stick games with an analog stick is awful. And kids have no idea how to play that way. Plus the joystick for the TheC64 was trash, I snapped the stick when doing a Fist 2 playthrough. They need to bring back the sturdy Tac-2. Metal. No flimsy plastic. Or the Wico sticks, I still have my old ones, impossible to break.
Right now I'm interested to see how it goes for System 3, they're at the final stretch to release The Last Ninja on PC/Xbox/PS/Switch/Switch 2. Sounds like it's close now. It'll be interesting to see if it's possible to play a joystick game with highly advanced tight 8-way controls on analog sticks. They say it feels good, but we'll see.
fallingdove
Member
if you are willing to wait 1 to 2 years for a Playstation game on PC.
The Xbox and Playstation strategies were dramatically different.
Day One PC devalued the Xbox brand but Gamepass and conditioning platform owners not to buy your games and instead pay a fraction of the cost of a game to play every first party title you'd like is what killed the brand.
I don't disagree that the whole PlayStation on PC is kind of a bummer but if every console owner that wanted to play the game has already played it, I am less bothered by Sony porting the game to PC to make a little extra money to fund more titles.
The PlayStation platform has been solid, the first party output has been lower quantity for sure. But I've still gotten to play a more than a dozen great 1st party/2nd party/3rd party exclusives. I don't really care who the games are made by so long as Sony is investing in providing me with experiences other platforms don't have access to (timed or otherwise).
duck_sauce
Member
How do you know that is what's going on at Sony?
Fess
Member
Nice to hear you still have fond memories of that era!
I still have my old Amiga stuff, modded to work on modern screens, the Amiga 1200 is literally on my keyboard shelf always ready for action. And I've ripped my floppies so I even have my old Deluxe Paint pixel art and Soundtracker modules. Even a complete AMOS game I made in my youth.
If you like shoot'em ups. Don't miss Battle Squadron. It was arcade quality at the time.
X-Out is cool too, very unique.
And Blood Money of course, classic by the GTA devs.
Z-Out is great too but maybe too much of an R-Type clone.
If you're willing to go back one step to C64 then you should try IO. It was incredibly difficult but VERY good, one of the tightest old school shoot'em ups I now.
Fess
Member
I just don't see any of that resulting in a crash. Maybe the AAA-AAAA isn't working, requires too many devs and takes too long to reach the finish line. But then it'll just fall back to AA. I don't see any reason why it would lead to an industry wide crash.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Its a number of factors thats causing all the layoffs:
1. The industry was in a bubble state following Covid. Pretty obvious really, most of the world was locked down for 18 months, so revenues went up matching demand.
2. During Covid the industry largely moved towards remote working, which hurt productivity, meaning the post-Covid fall-off was even more dramatic.
3. As general economic conditions have become more difficult for everyone, people are spending less generally. In the industry funding has dried up significantly.
4. The thing that's been driving industry growth for decades, is constant expansion of the addressable market/earning potential, at this point that growth has faltered.
5. Xbox' pivot to a service model was due to Microsoft believing that they could not achieve the level of desired growth via the traditional console platform offer. To serve the content pipeline for GamePass they have expanded rapidly their first-party through massive acquisitions. This sort of activity inevitable results in a bloated, inefficient mess due to duplication of function. Hence mass layoffs as they trim things down to a leaner organization.
Points 1-4 apply across the industry. Point 5 is specifically to do with MS pivoting their business strategy.
I could add a bunch of observations based on the shifting cultural/political landscape causing further instability, because its hard to argue that its not played a major role in hurting outcomes for specific AAA projects, but its impossible to argue that there were no high-profile failures outside the DEI/Modern Audience era also...
So basically I'd say while its definitely had an impact, especially in terms of the sort of hires being made (too many activists lacking regard for the business imperatives) I'd put it on a tier below the 5 key points I outlined above.
1. The industry was in a bubble state following Covid. Pretty obvious really, most of the world was locked down for 18 months, so revenues went up matching demand.
2. During Covid the industry largely moved towards remote working, which hurt productivity, meaning the post-Covid fall-off was even more dramatic.
3. As general economic conditions have become more difficult for everyone, people are spending less generally. In the industry funding has dried up significantly.
4. The thing that's been driving industry growth for decades, is constant expansion of the addressable market/earning potential, at this point that growth has faltered.
5. Xbox' pivot to a service model was due to Microsoft believing that they could not achieve the level of desired growth via the traditional console platform offer. To serve the content pipeline for GamePass they have expanded rapidly their first-party through massive acquisitions. This sort of activity inevitable results in a bloated, inefficient mess due to duplication of function. Hence mass layoffs as they trim things down to a leaner organization.
Points 1-4 apply across the industry. Point 5 is specifically to do with MS pivoting their business strategy.
I could add a bunch of observations based on the shifting cultural/political landscape causing further instability, because its hard to argue that its not played a major role in hurting outcomes for specific AAA projects, but its impossible to argue that there were no high-profile failures outside the DEI/Modern Audience era also...
So basically I'd say while its definitely had an impact, especially in terms of the sort of hires being made (too many activists lacking regard for the business imperatives) I'd put it on a tier below the 5 key points I outlined above.
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Danny22
Member
A few things have to happen for an actual industry crash;
1. Valve becomes a public limited company and Gabe Newell dissapears with his billions.
2. Sony goes full microsoft.
3. Nintendo make a wii u 2 instead of a switch 2.
4. Microsoft does what it's doing right now.
When all these things happen simultaneously is when an actual crash occurs. And even then, there will be gacha games, live service MMOs, Mobile. Frankly, games industry is too big for that to happen at this point.
1. Valve becomes a public limited company and Gabe Newell dissapears with his billions.
2. Sony goes full microsoft.
3. Nintendo make a wii u 2 instead of a switch 2.
4. Microsoft does what it's doing right now.
When all these things happen simultaneously is when an actual crash occurs. And even then, there will be gacha games, live service MMOs, Mobile. Frankly, games industry is too big for that to happen at this point.
Drell
Member
MS and other western big publisher doing shit != The whole industry going upside down.
Nintendo and Sony are fine, steam is fine. Japanese devs like capcom release great games and now China and South Korea have joined the AAA industry with Wukong and Stellar blade. Just let MS and other shitty US megacorps cry and embrace good games
Nintendo and Sony are fine, steam is fine. Japanese devs like capcom release great games and now China and South Korea have joined the AAA industry with Wukong and Stellar blade. Just let MS and other shitty US megacorps cry and embrace good games
Kotaro
Member
The reason Sony has record revenue/profit in PS5 era, because
- subscription services
- peripherals (PS5 Portal)
- releasing their games on PC
- licensing their games for TV shows
- market expansion in other countries, especially China
but in term of their games, they are BANKRUPT creatively. They don't make more money because of their games, they make more money by getting creative with their business model and other revenue streams.
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