Godot25

We know how it will go.
Sony will demand something and then dev reality will hit.
Just remember that Sony/Microsoft were talking about 4K 60 this gen. And even cross-gen games can't hit that most of the times. Native next-gen games like Immortals of Aveum can barely run in decent resolution on those machines.

So, Sony claiming 4K/60 with ray tracing is just sad at this point.

Good. Maybe Square Enix will finally realise, that confining new Final Fantasy games into "PlayStation only" box is actually hurting the brand.

And I'm not advocating or port-begging for Xbox version of the game. I'm talking more about PC day one release of those games.

Good luck to Bungie. Because it seems like that fate of entire studio is entwined with success of The Final Shape.
I won't be there, because after playing Destiny 1/2 since The Taken King up until Lightfall, I'm just burnt out.

@dark_knightmare2 And who exactly said that open world SP game can't be live service?

Assassin's Creed ringing any bells?

@dark_knightmare2 Nice way to dodge my post. So I will ask again. Why they are hiring people to transform Bend into live service studio, if they are not making live service game?

It's like if Sony Santa Monica had on their website that they are hiring for PvP Shooter, but you would try to tell me that they are working on action adventure game.

Bend wasn't on live service slide because they didn't appear at the slide at all. So arguing with that is pretty dumb in my opinion.

https://static.tweaktown.com/news/9/4/94381_24_playstation-live-games-will-focus-on-quality-not-quantity-sony-says.png

@dark_knightmare2 So...they are hiring people who will "redefine studio from traditional 'boxed product' focussed game development into live service development studio in a key leadership role" because they are not making live service game?

ehh?

"PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan Says Bungie Offers ‘Way More’ Value Than Activision Does for Xbox"

This aged like milk

@GoingTheDist But I'm talking about Xbox division vs. Reality labs division. But okay...

@GoingTheDist Unless you realise that Xbox is pretty fine. They are for sure not posting 3 billion loss every quarter.

@GoingTheDist And yet, Reality Labs division of Meta posts 3 billion loss every quarter...

@BrettAwesome From reporting it looks like Sony and Disney werent thrilled with Aspyr's work and Sony even backed away from project. But game was moved to Saber Interactive

I doubt Sony is involved with this project anymore

@naruball Ehh. No?
Comparing games that were in deep production by the time Ryan and Hulst were promoted vs. new-ish games that probably waited for their turn into full production is pretty much different thing.

Not to mention fact, that overwhelming majority of games you talked about are straight sequel to popular games which is safest bet in existence in gaming world. All they had to to is let teams cook and not ***** it up.

I mean. If you think that current management of PlayStation under Ryan and Hulst under PlayStation Studios is fine, then okay. But even many hardcore PlayStation fans have no problems to admit that they are ***** things up in a big way.

Outside of Helldivers 2, Sony don't have any big game from internal studios for entire 2024. And even labelling Helldivers 2 as a big game is a pretty big stretch, since that game is selling for 30 bucks.

So let me sum things up for you
No big-brand AAA first-party developed game until April 2025 at earliest (we would be lucky if we can get Concord)
Naughty Dog spend 5 years of internal resources and development for game that will not be released - meaning that we will be probably glad if they will be able to release at least one game for WHOLE PS5 GEN.
Ryan and co. installed Sony XDev people into management of Firesprite which lead to toxic culture and many experienced people already left the studio after they received retention bonus
Japan Studio, Pixel Opus, London Studio shuttered and Media Molecule is shell of it's former self
Bungie ***** up Lightfall expansion which lead to insufficient revenue, which in turn leads to risk that Sony will replace board of directors in the studio with their own people (and I'm sure people would not pack their bags after that happens)

I mean. It's cool resume if you ask me. /s

@naruball Probably because all of those games were greenlit under "previous regime." Ryan and Hulst came into their respective positions in 2019. Hell, even big success for PlayStation this year (Helldivers 2) was greenlit by previous management since that game was in development for 8 years.

So I'm primarily talking about their management. It was them who pushed hard into live service. They bought and mismanaged Firesprite. They shut down all of studios I mentioned. They bought Bungie (which currently looks like huge miss). They develop a partnership with Deviation.

@twitchtvpat So, letting Naughty Dog develop TLOU Online and after 5 years of development "we found out that this game would mean that entire studio would need to commit to live service" is good management? Please, spare me excuses.

I mean. You can't even look at situations with whole live service push, toxic enviroment in Firesprite, shuttering of several studios etc. and don't think "this is mismanaged." Unless you have rainbow googles.

It was the same way with Xbox and 343. There were plent of signs that studio is mismanaged. And people refused to accept a reality. But it took failure of Halo Infinite live service for Xbox management to realise how bad situation is and only then they acted and restructured whole studio.

@theSpectre Yes and? It's not like they didn't fund and oversaw project development.

Splending gamemaking by Sony this gen...really glorious
Naughty Dog - TLOU online game cancelled after several years into the project
London Studio - shuttered
Pixel Opus - shuttered
Japan Studio - shuttered (Asobi has risen from ashes)
Deviation Games - closed before they shipped their first game
Firesprite - Sony installed XDev devs to run the studio and they mismanaged it. Twisted Metal reboot cancelled.

Jesus Christ. I thought that Microsoft is the one who is mismanaging studios.

@DeathlySW There is no way Sony will allow Game Pass in it's current form on PlayStation like...ever
And there is no way Microsoft will be sharing 30% of subs price with Sony.

Yeah. I'm trully shocked that those "bad Xbox games" are selling on PlayStation.
It's almost like many PlayStation fans were calling them "trash" because they couldn't have them.

Similar thing would have happened if Sony started porting some of their games on Xbox. Suddenly God of War and The Last of Us would not be labelled "boring dad simulators"

@UltimateOtaku91 That's *****. Those talks are here for years, but were postponed during pandemic boom, because industry was growing rapidly and Microsoft and Sony thought that they would be able to grow their console business.
That was proven incorrect and industry is in recession for second straight year. So they need to find new audience because of ballooning cost of AAA game development.

Making games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Dead Rising 3, Street Fighter V etc. was just easy, because budget of those games was pitiful compared to today. So you are investing exponentially more millions of dollars for exclusivity in market that is not growing. ROI is close to non-existent.

Head of development of Tekken 8 recently said that Tekken 8 budget was tripled compared to Tekken 7.

And Layden was warning about this for years. So it's not like this is a new thing.

I find it hilarious that Sony layed-off people in Insomniac Games, that made 3 games in 3 years and 2 of them sold more than 10 million copies and people here are pretending that everything is okay.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner "But honestly SM2 cost £300m, it’s sold 10m. At an average of probably £55 (if not higher) which is £550m. So it’s making money and it’s making good money. So I personally don’t think big AAA need to go multi plat. For any console."
You are forgetting that
1. Sony need to send 19-26% of revenue to Marvel for license.
2. Many from those 10 millions were sold through PS5 console bundle where Sony need to send 35-50% (from price of the game) to Marvel. Also, because they were bundling that game to console and they were selling that console with discount, it's pretty much obvious that they were not profiting from those copies of Spider-Man 2.

Basically Sony confirmed that they need to sell 7,2 million copies at full price just to break even.

Of course it is.
PlayStation Studios went from AAA games costing 100 million at worst to producing games that cost 300 million and are serving SAME customers as they were few years ago.

As Spencer said. You either find a way to get more money from same people, or you need to find new customers.

I mean. I get what they are trying to say.
Hogwarts Legacy with optional seasonal content and Battle Pass system would bring even more money, so it's obvious that they want to chase that.

And I get suicide Squad comparison is tempting, but the fact is that Suicide Squad failed because it was bad game, not because it was live service game.

@Nakatomi_Uk On one hand I feel bad for Insomniac
On the other hand...the kinda brought it onto themselves.

They are currently built on power of Marvel licenses, which means that 20%+ revenue of their games are going to the Marvel. Also, they are responsible for fact that Spider-Man 2 cost 3x more then Spider-Man while looking just a touch better.

@belmont It's not hard to understand
Toys for Bob under Activision was basically COD support studio with occasional space to make their own games. By going independent they are basically waving goodbye to all COD work, but Microsoft can still pay for development of their new game on project basis. But they also can make something else alongside that project for Microsoft.

@Defcon5 And which COD game is in Game Pass or was in Game Pass day one? So how exactly could Modern warfare 3 "increase sales of Xbox consoles" or Game pass subscriptions?

Because Modern Warfare 3 still had marketing deal with Sony (hence why Sony was selling PS5 COD: MW3 bundles). And for game that "is not doing well at the moment" MW3 was still best selling game on PS5 in January

@MrMagic Good for you.

See you until then (probably in year 2100)

@MrMagic Since 9% of Activision Blizzard revenue was accounted to Xbox (and even less of that was purchases for Call of Duty), I guess Microsoft will be more than fine...

@Jamesblob What?
1. Microsoft haven't ordered Sony to created bloated first-party games that costs 300 million dollars to make. But that's what you need to spend to create huge open world game with 10 hours of cinematics and other unnecessary ***** included.
2. Since OG Call of Duty deal with Activision was abolished, Sony will earn even more from Call of Duty, because Sony got only 20% cut from every purchase based on deal with Activision. That is now reverting back to standard 30%.
3. It's not Microsoft's problem that Sony can't afford it. No business in the world should care if XYZ competitor can create something to compete with them.
4. Nobody ever asked Helldivers 2 to come to Game Pass. Are there requests for Xbox port? Absolutely. But not for Game Pass.

So yeah. Sony will basically fund ability of Microsoft to put Call of Duty into Game Pass. So...thanks in advance

@MrMagic It more looks like PlayStation players with their COD purchases will be funding ability of Xbox Game Pass members to play COD in Game Pass

@MrMagic You know that Game Pass isn't going anywhere right?

Currently it seems like Microsoft will put Call of Duty into Game Pass day one. Which speak for itself.

@MrMagic "sooner it dies the better"
Ehh. Sea of Thieves was released 6 years ago. It's really taking it's time to die

I would not be surprised if it sold 2-3 additional millions copies on PlayStation.

Problem for Sony is that they just can't scale back with scope of their AAA single-player games.

They trained audience to expect best visuals, no microtransactions, plenty of features and smorgasboard of cutscenes. So the most expensive features of their game development are exactly the things that audience expects from them as a standard.

I honestly wonder what the want to do with that.
I expect PC day one releases are matter of "when" not "if." Because as Spencer said. Either you find a way to extract more money from same audience or you will find a new audience.

@SJBUK They subsidized sales of PSVR2 so they can later recoup that investment through software sales. How exactly do you want to do that if you allow PSVR2 to work with PC where people wouldn't give you single dollar though software purchases?

Like. Nobody actually believes that Sony is doing that from kindness of their heart. They are doing it to salvage their investments into device. They stopped reporting sales numbers of headset, they slashed manufacturing of the device.

Whole proposition of PSVR2 was insane from beginning. You have 550$ VR device that needs 500$ console to work properly. While your competition is offering similarly priced device that can work on it's own.

Even Sony doesn't think PSVR2 is doing enough. Hence why they are working on PC support...

@xDD90x And Obsidian wasn't even responsible for Pentiment port on PlayStation. All recently announced ports were outsourced to third-party studios.

Considering what Totoki said about inability of Sony to drop prices of PS5 permanently because of low margins I fully expect this Pro console to cost 650$ at best.

@guitarpete987 But here is the kicker. Nobody gamer has any idea about "sustainability" of this type of service. On one hand you have Jim Ryan saying it is unsustainable, on other hand you have Phil Spencer saying that Game Pass is not only sustainable, but also profitable.

And both of them HAVE to say things that they are saying, because of their corpo strategy regarding sub services.

It's hilarious to be talking about sustainability, when whole concept of console making with subsidized console manufacturing is unsustainable. But still people don't want to pay 700$ for consoles...

@dark_knightmare2 This is exactly what people said about possibility of PlayStation releasing their games on PC few years ago. And look where we are now.

And then goalposts shifted towards "but no PlayStation game will be on PC day one." And look where we are now.

Current goalpost is "but no PlayStation story-driven game on PC day one." Just wait for that

Sony is just boiling frog same way as Microsoft. Only difference is that Microsoft started boiling process in 2016, while Sony started it in 2020.

@Fyz306903 ???
It really doesn't matter. Because whenever you will bring next generation we will have another 3-4 cross-gen period. Because that's how long game takes to develop.
Cutting budgets have nothing to do with shortening of generation. It has everything to do with bloat in AAA games (every game has to have skill trees, crafting, huge open world, 2 hours of cutscenes etc.) and excessive marketing spend.

@themightyant I honestly think that idea of "Pro" consoles in this gen is stupid. I get why it was obvious during last gen. PS4 and Xbox One were ancient by the time they released with pathetic laptop-grade CPU's. Also there was surge of 4K TV, so Pro consoles "made sense."

But they don't make sense currently. It would be honestly way better just to cancel Pro consoles, and maybe shorten current gen to 6 years.

@themightyant No. PS4 Pro sold 14,3 million consoles using 2020 data (thanks to Insomniac leak). So it's 14,3 million of Pro vs. around 102,5 base PS4 consoles.

Even after Pro launched, console never outsold base PS4 outside of it's launch window.

Also, problem is that even if you are selling great number of PS5 Pro consoles, there is huge chance, that you are selling that console to the same people that bought base PS5 years ago. So you subsidized base PS5 when you sold the console in 2020 to the customer, and now you are subsidizing sale of PS5 Pro. So you lost on two hardware SKU's sold to the customer in span of 4 years.

How exactly does that make business sense?

Second option is to not subsidized PS5 Pro, but from what Totoki said recently, they can't even bring PS5 down in price because margins are razor thin. So you are looking at 600$ - 700$ console. And good luck selling that...

@GeeEssEff Well.
Since new CEO of PlayStation is finance guy and since PS Plus already hit it's ceiling (so much so that Sony stopped reporting PS Plus numbers), I fully expect that they will go to the second phase of lifecycle of service "pulling more money from one customer" so I don't expect that those "good deals" lasting very long tbh.

@GeeEssEff Okay. I'm not arguing that Sony have to do "day and date" first-party games. But. If they are not willing to do that, it would be nice, if price of PS Plus Extra reflected that.

Currently, PS Plus Extra is 13,99€ in my region, while Game Pass Ultimate is 14,99€. For one € extra I have access to "day and date" games.

I'm currently subscribed to both Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PS Plus Extra and it's not even a contest between those two services. Not only through "day and date" first-party games, but also third-party games that are coming to Game Pass day one/EA Play inclusion and access to streaming.

Only reason why I'm not fully regretting subscribing to the PS Plus Extra is because I managed to snag a deal for 12 months of PS Plus Extra for 72€. Which is exactly the price where you can say "it's worth it." But I can't imagine to continue my subscription for full price.

@Suppressed Sony already knows about release of PS5 Pro and they still expect gradual decline in sales.

So it's pretty clear that PS5 Pro wouldn't move a needle that much. It will be either brutally expensive (600$+), or heavily subsidized by Sony, or both.

And considering fact that only 14,3 million of 117+ million of PlayStation 4 was Pro consoles, everybody who thinks that Pro will bring reversal of fortune is setting themselves up for disappointment.

I'm kinda baffled with these types of articles. Instead of requesting as much value as possible from corporation, people are cheerleading getting less value for same price as competition.

truly strange.

insert "but what about a corporation" meme

It's pretty obvious where things are heading long term. To everybody who isn't a dumb fanboy.

Even new PlayStation president said that - console market isn't growing and Microsoft and Sony needs to find new audience ie. PC market and "other consoles" market. Which is obvious since big AAA games are increasingly becoming unsustainable and things will only become worse and worse.

Sony is effectively mirroring Microsoft's strategy, but because they have higher instalbase of console players, they have a cushion of doing that slowly. At first it was staggered PC releases. Then it was day one PC releases and last step is staggered "other consoles" releases or "you don't ned a console, because we have streaming service."

So yeah. Starfield will eventually end up on PlayStation 5. Several years after Xbox release when nobody from Xbox audience will even care anymore. But I think that by the end of this gen, same thing will be true even for games like Spider-Man 2.

Sony is basically currently in position where Xbox was in 2016-2017. And they are following almost each step except first-party games in sub service day one.

Yeah. More rumors. Like those, that Starfield is hiting PlayStation 5 this year.

@Kraven Yeah. Microsoft is responsible for people kneejerk reactions base on words of "insiders"
Jesus.

I mean. He is right.
Game is already on PC day one. So you don't need PlayStation to play it. And it isn't a system seller. So if Xbox port existed, nothing would have happened. Except Sony having more money. Which they kinda need.