@trev666 They did that by keeping the in-house team really small — fewer than 40 full-time developers (and a dog) while using UE5 and a lot of contract workers from other places.
Which could potentially be the direction Xbox is going forward: drop specialized engines like id Tech, shrink the studios to a support-studio size, and contract out the bulk of the work — since you don't have to pay contract workers the same salary as in-house staff, and don't have to provide benefits like RSUs, etc.
It funny that you talking about people being sensitive on an article about people getting laid off... That same early 2000 mentally would have had us not care, and telling everyone to 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps' and get back to work. Yet here we showing sympathy and empathy which are both deeply tied to being sensitive.
@Neuromancer Granted that a very different comparison.
@UltimateOtaku91 Shawarma is a very popular middle Eastern (I know she is not of middle eastern descent) marinated meat street food that is also very popular in India. So, caller her that can midly offensive to a degree.
The team today is about the same size we were when making DOOM (2016)
You can look at this as either a bad or good thing. You could say that iD Software is bunkering down to work on the next era of the studio. And their current size was not needed.
You have to look at the fact, that while iD Software was also working on the last 3 DOOM games, they was also playing roles as a support studio for Bethesda, Machine Games, and even Avalanche Studios. They also has enough hands to work on side stuff like DOOM VFR, Quake Champion... While releasing the 3 DOOM games in a timely fashion.
@somnambulance Yeah. My entire childhood I was dead set on moving to Washington and Seattle. I remember telling my parents as early as 2nd grade that I was going to get into tech and move there. Fast forward 15+ years — I met some friends online, and we decided to do an IRL meetup. We had people coming from all over the US and from outside the country. The moment I stepped off the plane, the crazy cost of living hit me in the face like a rocket. $5.50 for regular gas.
Back home I was driving a brand new Mustang GT, making $29/hr, and living basically like a king at 21. Gas was around $3 for premium Shell — bougie gas. I wouldn't be able to afford the insurance, much less the gas for the Mustang, if I lived in Seattle at my current wage at the time. Then the food costs hit, the sales tax hit...
After that trip I completely wrote off living in Seattle unless I was making north of $150k. Surviving isn't living.
It basically killed my mood and sent me into a depression — until I started looking at an area where some friends lived. Three hours from Seattle, on the other side of the Cascades, where the cost of living is more modest and comparable to other decent large US cities. Still expensive, but not Seattle or California expensive.
I can still enjoy the benefits of Seattle after a 3-hour drive, without the everyday wallet-bleeding cost of living.
I am surprised that more studios don’t open in the Midwest though. If they avoid Chicago, they’d probably be able to get away with paying people $50k a year rather than six figures.
The issue is the lack of talent, and lack of infrastructure to support that talent. So in order to bring talent in, you still have to make the salary worth it and cover relocation costs.
@Logonogo Yeah, and I've seen how the people who make that salary actually live. I'm less than 3 hours away, and I have friends who live in Seattle — and they are living off food stamps, parental handouts, 1–2 roommates, and almost borderline homeless. Why do you think Seattle has so much homelessness and drug use? Why do you think people are fleeing the area? Why do you think people say that area is dying?
@SBBuds Of course a quarter of a million dollars sounds like a lot to the majority — because the majority of people don't live in the Greater Seattle area. If you live in the Midwest, in states like Texas, in the poverty-ridden parts of the South where you can still basically buy a house with a pack of bubble gum and a paper clip, or in any country outside the US — you're going to see that as a lot of money.
Like I said, you have to look at that wage under a magnifying glass, not at face value. That isn't a lot of money when your Burger King meal is going to cost almost $20, you're spending close to $200 a week on gas, and a decent apartment runs $2,000–$3,000 a month.
People who say that's a lot of money are looking at it from their own cost of living — not the cost of living for that area.
I live less than 3 hours from Bungie's home office, and it's a complete murder on my wallet every time I visit.
@SBBuds The thing is you have to look at wages with a magnifying glass. The wages are only that high cause most of these studios are run out of ridiculous high cost of living areas. Bungie specifically is a Seattle based studio. If you aren’t making north of $150k a year. You’re boarder lining homelessness or housing with 1-2 roommate. The sales taxes in that area is 10%+. You’re also looking at probably $5-6 gallon for gas...etc
That 200k-240k isn’t exactly a lot of money. It what it take to basically live in the area.
@AhmadSumadi It depends on how you look at it. Going digital affects every developer, publisher, retail store, global shipping and trucking infrastructure, manufacturing, etc.
Laying off developers at Xbox isn't going to have the same global effect — nor at the consumer level — in the same way that digital does. The Xbox layoffs only hurt at the consumer level if you had interest in the titles they developed. If you have no interest... well...
Of all the purchased that Xbox/Microsoft did. Undead Labs was probably the one that fit the XBOX DNA. State of Decay has basically been part of the Xbox brand going back all the way to the 360 with it release on Live Arcade. They are also based out of Seattle, WA... So it kinda strange seeing Microsoft let them go.
Our relationship with the high street is different in the US and the UK, so it’s not really the same, but I still think having a presence in stores is important.
This is the big thing here ^
When you have a brand that has become more and western/Americanized and less quirky Asian/Japanese with each new generation. All you are left with is a company who is trying to find areas to cut cost, and one area to cut cost without hurting your bottom line is store presence cause some where in the chain... All those nice store displays is costing Sony/Playstation money.
When you have a leadership team full of nothing but American/English/Europeans. They are looking at markets like the US and UK where their profit has done nothing but increase, but store presence has decreased.
Look at the US. Gaming hasn't has a major presence in most stores in over a decade. Gaming section are empty and lifeless. Yet the United States is the second-largest individual country for gaming revenue, and probably PlayStation biggest market... Yet we don't get any of the nice displays or fancy marketing that I've seen other places get.
@get2sammyb @ElectricWizard Obsidian was also responsible for Grounded. Which you would think the long term success of the first game, and now the second would avoid closure especially since we’re getting other forms of media from it.
If the studio who made Grounded aren’t safe… Not even Halo Studios, The coalition, or even Playground games are safe.
Even if Sony brings back physical. I can see them massively increasing print order requirements. So it’ll only end up benefiting the large AAA companies who ship and sell a large quantity of games that would make the continued cost of printing worth it
@get2sammyb They probably couldn't have picked a better time to drop this and then run and hide. It's right before a US holiday weekend. The team was probably like, "Drop it now, and we'll deal with it on Monday" then left the office to start their holiday.
telling others it may be time to move on to other hobbies because you've decided to isn't really needed.
So if someone is in an abusive relationship... you wouldn't tell them to end it and move on? You would rather they continue and take the abuse? The industry is taking a direction that not everyone is comfortable with. Telling someone to look for a different hobby that respects their time isn't a bad thing. It's basically voting with your wallet — stop giving these companies the time of day.
I'm not bothered about ownership but having a £50-70 game that I can sell if I don't like it has saved me £100s in the last year. Yotei, Silent Hill F, Crimson Desert.
I'm really not sure how you can buy a game you only need. Personally I need to play the game first before knowing this as reviews and recommendations can only go so far.
Uh... because I know what I like, and I just don't tend to try things outside of that.
I like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Marvel, etc. — so I buy Marvel games.
I like Batman and DC, etc. — so I buy DC games.
I like Star Wars — so I buy Star Wars games.
I like Sci-Fi — so I buy Halo and Mass Effect.
I like military stuff — so I buy CoD and Battlefield.
I don't like horror — so I won't buy Silent Hill.
If something falls outside my general interests, I wait for a deep discount or until I have extra funds, so there's no financial loss from buying something I might not enjoy. At least I got to experience it.
I didn't know if I would like Ghost of Tsushima, so I waited until it was $10–$20. Bought it, played it, realized it wasn't exactly for me — so I haven't bought the sequel yet.
Running out and spending however much on things you may not even like shows a strange lack of maturity or conscious spending habits. Which is funny, because you very much assumed I wasn't an adult who purchases my own stuff. Someone who buy their own stuff doesn't exactly run out and buy random thing at full price that they may or may not enjoy.
@Sulleymonster I've been buying my own games for the last 10+ years. I've never seen a need for resale because I don't buy games I don't need, and I make a good enough yearly $alary to support my hobbies. Also, I'm self-aware that as I get older, the industry interests me less and less, and has been doing things I don't agree with. So I've been investing in other hobbies, like learning how to ride a motorcycle this summer and traveling more.
@Lanmanna LMAO. Don't know if this was reply to me.
No. Gaming doesn't have an expiration date. But we got way too many grown ahh adults in these comments, some old enough to be my parents, being way too upset and vocal that gaming is ditching physical. They are still clinging to this like the 80s, 90s, or 2000s. Not realizing that it maybe time to pack away the controller and find a different hobby. It not that big of a deal time to move on.
I used to buy a lot of Physical games... Then I move to eastern Oregon, and my drive to the closest big box store became an hour drive to and from. The amount of money I was losing to drive to buy a video game. I was not seeing any benefits.
@wildcat_kickz A ton of my coworker switched to Starlink, and they all love it. They are PC gamer, so physical wasn't even an option for them. Grant, it is pricier than non satellite services. But stuff like that still have room to improve as time goes on.
Burning bridges with Studios is a bad thing. But burring a bridge with such a legendary gaming industry icon such as Kojima is not even something Microsoft is willing to do or a bridge they are willing to cross.
@wildcat_kickz I wouldn't feel too bad for the rural gamers. My friend lives in bum *** middle of nowhere North Carolina and gets 2gbs down. Even as someone who live in Eastern Oregon, my internet speed is 500mbs fiber... You would have to live deep deep deep rural to get really bad internet nowadays.
@Divergent95 I can only speak for the US. But what retailers are they going to kill? Most of the gaming sections in big-box stores have been a shell of their former selves for the last 15 years — empty and sad sections where you can't even stand and test-play the latest games anymore, like you used to when I was a kid in the mid-2000s to 2010s. Some stores don't even have the games on the shelves. You have to take a card cutout of the game to the front desk to get it.
Stores like GameStop were long in the tooth anyway and needed to go. All those mom-and-pop shops aren't probably going to be as fazed by this, since most of their stock is retro gaming anyway.
It whatever. The only people who are clinging to physical are collectors, people who are probably way past their prime to still be playing video games, and people who still cling to the idea that this industry is still for them.
Most people have either moved on to all digital, and kids growing up will never really know what physical games are, so there is no lost for them.
I think Meta/Microsoft are aiming for the Valve approach of just making some hardware and selling games through their market while no longer making games themselves.
Which would be a crazy thing to do. Valve and Meta can at least get away it with since they have well above 60% of the market share in their respective space (VR and PC). Microsoft going nuclear and not making any games would really push the last few remaining Xbox players to Playstation or Nintedno... which would leave them with nothing.
If this was the case, they are really trying to trim down the fat for sale, or spin off which would in turn cripple gaming on Windows.
I don't think I'm rewriting history, because my comment had nothing to do with Microsoft's earlier-gen success or sales numbers. It was about the better performance, better features, and better third-party support — none of which has anything to do with beating Sony to market by a full year or pricing the 360 more competitively.
Even if the PS3 and 360 had launched at the same price and time, the 360 would have still been the better system. It was vastly easier to develop for, had vastly better social features, and its XBLA was a pioneering storefront at the forefront of the indie boom we saw during that generation.
The PS3 never really gained parity — only in sales did it edge out the 360, and that was solely due to Sony's increased focus on generation-defining first-party single-player titles. The 360 was still the better system for third-party and multiplayer gaming, as we started to see the shift from disc to digital, with an even heavier focus on multiplayer and online features.
it's hard to imagine a version of the current day where they wouldn't be trailing PlayStation.
I could easily see a timeline where Xbox wasn't trailing PlayStation. Roughly 40–50% of PlayStation 4 owners never owned a PS3, meaning they either came from the Xbox 360, the Wii, or were new to gaming altogether.
Had Microsoft simply delivered a "next-gen 360" — priced at roughly the same point as the PS4 with comparable performance — Xbox players would have stayed. We wouldn't have seen the heavy shift of Xbox owners to PS4.
Microsoft would have already had massive third-party support going into that generation, making it much harder for Sony to secure exclusives without paying a large sum or fully taking on development costs. Since Sony would still have been recovering financially from the PS3 era, they likely wouldn't have had the budget to do so. We probably wouldn't have seen things like Street Fighter V or the FF7 Remake become PS4 exclusives so easily. The COD–Xbox partnership likely wouldn't have ended either, meaning that DLC and beta exclusivity probably would have continued for another decade, giving Microsoft a continued leg up in the US market.
Microsoft probably wouldn't have felt the need to launch Game Pass or acquire the publishers they did, because Xbox would have been in a much healthier position — consoles selling, people buying games, and so on.
All people wanted was simply a better Xbox 360. Nobody wanted a multimedia hub that restricted game sharing and blocked used games. In many ways, the PS4 was better 360 with support of the Sony 1st party. And that continued on with PS5... No need to reinvent the wheel
Historically, PlayStation was always the de facto ‘3rd party machine’. People bought them due to massive 3rd party support, and these games were of all manner of genres and game types.
That wasn’t the case during the 360 gen, and had Microsoft just create a next gen 360 for last two generations. The 360 had more 3rd party support, better performance, and feature. We would be having a very different conversation. PlayStation success relies heavily on the fact that Microsoft continues to shoot themselves in the foot, and Nintendo has completely departed the traditional console space. PlayStation has survived on the pure incompetence of their main rivals. Them being the main de facto console also comes from the fact they strong arm developers with almost monopoly style tactics.
Perception is one thing, but financially speaking most of Sony revenue comes from 3rd party stuff (much of it multiplayer).
You can say that about Nintendo and Microsoft. All of these companies main revenue is from 3rd party and particularly multiplayer.
@PuppetMaster 3rd party games that have a significant performance advantage on PlayStation and PC. Indies do very very very well on Nintendo compared to PlayStation or PC. If we had a more traditional Nintendo console….
This is the problem with both Microsoft and Sony. They have done nothing but hurt their brands by poorly conditioning their players based to support only a specific type of game. In Microsoft case also conditioned their fanbase to not support any kinda of game directly.
This is something that Nintendo has done very very well. Their fanbase will support anything from smallest of indies to largest AAA game. Single or multi player.
Sony is just lucky that their console just happens to be the best one on the market in terms of performance and features.
@get2sammyb Yeah, they did hire acquire and hire the mod team behind FiveM and RedM. So that could be the reason for the delay, since they would want to make the sure the Mod Tool kit is good to go from day one.
Tencent, like every major company (Microsoft, Sony, Embracer, EA, etc.), vastly overextended itself. They wanted to have their fingers in everything.
They own Riot Games and Sumo Group and hold majority shares in companies like Techland, while still investing in very large publishers like Ubisoft, Epic, and Krafton, as well as prominent studios like FromSoftware, Remedy, Bloober Team, and Don't Nod. Don't Nod recently stated that they won't exist come fall if they don't secure further investment, which suggests Tencent may have pulled out.
A lot of these companies are just money pits and most likely haven't seen any major return on investment — but that never seemed to bother Tencent. They always acted like silent watchers from the shadows, allowing their companies to continue business as normal.
@kmtrain83 Like I said, SteamOS is nothing but Linux with a console wrapper. It’s out of box experience will allow you to do everything that a normal PC can do.
I don't believe the selling point is that you can exit to Windows to launch Excel and Powerpoint, unless I haven't read up on all the marketing.
Actually, they do market it as should. There is a desktop mode that they show off being able to used a modeling program and programming tools.
Simplifying user experience doesn’t make it a toy. Granted, SteamOS purpose is to simplify Linux user experience for the average consumer.
But console is a toy, it sole purpose is to play video games.
the games running through the compatibility layer almost always compare favourably so not a low blow at all
Those comparisons are usually set to show how bloated windows is and the performance loss that comes with running all the process in the background. Console like PS5 don’t have that issue and their games are native. Those comparisons are also usually done with stronger Windows hardware
Is it really fair to compare the pricing of a toy vs. an actual PC, though? I mean… if you could only afford one device say, a PC but also want a console, this is probably your best option. It's a prebuilt Linux desktop running a console wrapper.
Also, comparing PS5 game performance to games that have to run through a compatibility layer is a low blow.
It will be interesting to see how this performs compared to a similarly specced Windows desktop, or in a dual-boot configuration.
@Swandivetotheasphalt The post was done by the Sr. Community Manager who been with the company for over 10yrs, so not exactly a random intern C&P information.
@Swandivetotheasphalt It a Q&A on the official Halo website. There no way this could be a mistake unless the person answering the questions don’t know anything about PlayStation… etc
@get2sammyb Yeah, we have the upcoming Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls as an example of them not giving up. But I personally wanted to see more first-party stuff, instead of them money-hatting second- or third-party teams because the risk isn't as high if those games fail.
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Re: 'Staff Are Being Asked to Do More with Less': Brutal Xbox Layoffs Leave Those Spared in Limbo
@trev666 They did that by keeping the in-house team really small — fewer than 40 full-time developers (and a dog) while using UE5 and a lot of contract workers from other places.
Which could potentially be the direction Xbox is going forward:
drop specialized engines like id Tech, shrink the studios to a support-studio size, and contract out the bulk of the work — since you don't have to pay contract workers the same salary as in-house staff, and don't have to provide benefits like RSUs, etc.
Re: 'Staff Are Being Asked to Do More with Less': Brutal Xbox Layoffs Leave Those Spared in Limbo
@Neuromancer
It funny that you talking about people being sensitive on an article about people getting laid off... That same early 2000 mentally would have had us not care, and telling everyone to 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps' and get back to work. Yet here we showing sympathy and empathy which are both deeply tied to being sensitive.
Re: 'Staff Are Being Asked to Do More with Less': Brutal Xbox Layoffs Leave Those Spared in Limbo
@Neuromancer Granted that a very different comparison.
@UltimateOtaku91 Shawarma is a very popular middle Eastern (I know she is not of middle eastern descent) marinated meat street food that is also very popular in India. So, caller her that can midly offensive to a degree.
EDIT: Offensive ≠ racist
Re: 'We're Going to Keep Building Great Games': DOOM Dev Denies It's Been Cut to 'Support Studio' Size
You can look at this as either a bad or good thing. You could say that iD Software is bunkering down to work on the next era of the studio. And their current size was not needed.
You have to look at the fact, that while iD Software was also working on the last 3 DOOM games, they was also playing roles as a support studio for Bethesda, Machine Games, and even Avalanche Studios. They also has enough hands to work on side stuff like DOOM VFR, Quake Champion... While releasing the 3 DOOM games in a timely fashion.
Re: 'Staff Are Being Asked to Do More with Less': Brutal Xbox Layoffs Leave Those Spared in Limbo
@UltimateOtaku91 Calling her shawarma is crazy work
Re: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remake Studio Faced with Layoffs Despite Successful Launch
@SBBuds 40 million to make a game is cheap. That AA or a lower-end AAA title budget. Average AAA game now are in 200+ million range now
Re: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remake Studio Faced with Layoffs Despite Successful Launch
@somnambulance Yeah. My entire childhood I was dead set on moving to Washington and Seattle. I remember telling my parents as early as 2nd grade that I was going to get into tech and move there. Fast forward 15+ years — I met some friends online, and we decided to do an IRL meetup. We had people coming from all over the US and from outside the country. The moment I stepped off the plane, the crazy cost of living hit me in the face like a rocket. $5.50 for regular gas.
Back home I was driving a brand new Mustang GT, making $29/hr, and living basically like a king at 21. Gas was around $3 for premium Shell — bougie gas. I wouldn't be able to afford the insurance, much less the gas for the Mustang, if I lived in Seattle at my current wage at the time. Then the food costs hit, the sales tax hit...
After that trip I completely wrote off living in Seattle unless I was making north of $150k. Surviving isn't living.
It basically killed my mood and sent me into a depression — until I started looking at an area where some friends lived. Three hours from Seattle, on the other side of the Cascades, where the cost of living is more modest and comparable to other decent large US cities. Still expensive, but not Seattle or California expensive.
I can still enjoy the benefits of Seattle after a 3-hour drive, without the everyday wallet-bleeding cost of living.
The issue is the lack of talent, and lack of infrastructure to support that talent. So in order to bring talent in, you still have to make the salary worth it and cover relocation costs.
Re: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remake Studio Faced with Layoffs Despite Successful Launch
@Logonogo Yeah, and I've seen how the people who make that salary actually live. I'm less than 3 hours away, and I have friends who live in Seattle — and they are living off food stamps, parental handouts, 1–2 roommates, and almost borderline homeless. Why do you think Seattle has so much homelessness and drug use? Why do you think people are fleeing the area? Why do you think people say that area is dying?
@SBBuds Of course a quarter of a million dollars sounds like a lot to the majority — because the majority of people don't live in the Greater Seattle area. If you live in the Midwest, in states like Texas, in the poverty-ridden parts of the South where you can still basically buy a house with a pack of bubble gum and a paper clip, or in any country outside the US — you're going to see that as a lot of money.
Like I said, you have to look at that wage under a magnifying glass, not at face value. That isn't a lot of money when your Burger King meal is going to cost almost $20, you're spending close to $200 a week on gas, and a decent apartment runs $2,000–$3,000 a month.
People who say that's a lot of money are looking at it from their own cost of living — not the cost of living for that area.
I live less than 3 hours from Bungie's home office, and it's a complete murder on my wallet every time I visit.
Re: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remake Studio Faced with Layoffs Despite Successful Launch
@SBBuds The thing is you have to look at wages with a magnifying glass. The wages are only that high cause most of these studios are run out of ridiculous high cost of living areas. Bungie specifically is a Seattle based studio. If you aren’t making north of $150k a year. You’re boarder lining homelessness or housing with 1-2 roommate. The sales taxes in that area is 10%+. You’re also looking at probably $5-6 gallon for gas...etc
That 200k-240k isn’t exactly a lot of money. It what it take to basically live in the area.
Re: The Elder Scrolls 6 Heavily Impacted by Xbox Layoffs, Team Morale at Rock Bottom
@AhmadSumadi It depends on how you look at it. Going digital affects every developer, publisher, retail store, global shipping and trucking infrastructure, manufacturing, etc.
Laying off developers at Xbox isn't going to have the same global effect — nor at the consumer level — in the same way that digital does. The Xbox layoffs only hurt at the consumer level if you had interest in the titles they developed. If you have no interest... well...
Re: 'I Know This Is Painful': Xbox Confirms 3,200 Job Losses in Industry Bloodbath
Removed
Re: 'State of Decay 3 Is Still Coming': Undead Labs Commits to PS5 Survival Game As It Exits Xbox
@Banjo- Uh… no. They didn’t. Because I never asked a question. 😑
Re: 'I Know This Is Painful': Xbox Confirms 3,200 Job Losses in Industry Bloodbath
I’m just gonna leave this here:
https://www.marketscale.com/industries/software-and-technology/microsoft-launches-25b-frontier-co-unit-as-enterprise-ai-deployment-race-intensifies
Re: Newly Independent Devs Thank Xbox and Keep IP Rights to Their Games
@Kakun Japan Studio still live on in Team Asobi and many other SIE teams.
Re: 'State of Decay 3 Is Still Coming': Undead Labs Commits to PS5 Survival Game As It Exits Xbox
Of all the purchased that Xbox/Microsoft did. Undead Labs was probably the one that fit the XBOX DNA. State of Decay has basically been part of the Xbox brand going back all the way to the 360 with it release on Live Arcade. They are also based out of Seattle, WA... So it kinda strange seeing Microsoft let them go.
Re: Bethesda Reducing Workforce, Refocusing on Its Biggest Franchises Amid Xbox Layoffs
@ThorsHammer Nah. Indiana Jones, Rage, Commander Keen... All the the side mobile project..... etc
Re: Reaction: Travelling the World Made Me Realise What PlayStation Is About to Lose
This is the big thing here ^
When you have a brand that has become more and western/Americanized and less quirky Asian/Japanese with each new generation. All you are left with is a company who is trying to find areas to cut cost, and one area to cut cost without hurting your bottom line is store presence cause some where in the chain... All those nice store displays is costing Sony/Playstation money.
When you have a leadership team full of nothing but American/English/Europeans. They are looking at markets like the US and UK where their profit has done nothing but increase, but store presence has decreased.
Look at the US. Gaming hasn't has a major presence in most stores in over a decade. Gaming section are empty and lifeless. Yet the United States is the second-largest individual country for gaming revenue, and probably PlayStation biggest market... Yet we don't get any of the nice displays or fancy marketing that I've seen other places get.
Re: PS5 Is Finally Getting Its Own Beyblade Game
Crazy. I had all the Metal Fight beyblade games for DS. Never occurred to me they was only on DS.
Re: The Outer Worlds Dev Obsidian Not at Risk of Closure, It's Now Claimed
@get2sammyb @ElectricWizard Obsidian was also responsible for Grounded. Which you would think the long term success of the first game, and now the second would avoid closure especially since we’re getting other forms of media from it.
If the studio who made Grounded aren’t safe… Not even Halo Studios, The coalition, or even Playground games are safe.
Re: 'It Kills My Desire to Develop for the PS5': Acclaimed Indie Devastated by Sony's Physical Games Decision
Even if Sony brings back physical. I can see them massively increasing print order requirements. So it’ll only end up benefiting the large AAA companies who ship and sell a large quantity of games that would make the continued cost of printing worth it
Re: Sony Takes Social Media Time Out After Controversially Killing Physical Games
@get2sammyb They probably couldn't have picked a better time to drop this and then run and hide. It's right before a US holiday weekend. The team was probably like, "Drop it now, and we'll deal with it on Monday" then left the office to start their holiday.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@Sulleymonster LMAO Okay. My dude 😂
Re: SEGA Expects 5 Million Sales from 'Flagship' Games Persona 4 Revival and Stranger Than Heaven
I could see P4 revival hitting that number. There is a lot of nostalgia behind P4 that P3 didn’t really have. Idk about Stranger than Heaven
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@Sulleymonster
So if someone is in an abusive relationship... you wouldn't tell them to end it and move on? You would rather they continue and take the abuse? The industry is taking a direction that not everyone is comfortable with. Telling someone to look for a different hobby that respects their time isn't a bad thing. It's basically voting with your wallet — stop giving these companies the time of day.
Uh... because I know what I like, and I just don't tend to try things outside of that.
I like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Marvel, etc. — so I buy Marvel games.
I like Batman and DC, etc. — so I buy DC games.
I like Star Wars — so I buy Star Wars games.
I like Sci-Fi — so I buy Halo and Mass Effect.
I like military stuff — so I buy CoD and Battlefield.
I don't like horror — so I won't buy Silent Hill.
If something falls outside my general interests, I wait for a deep discount or until I have extra funds, so there's no financial loss from buying something I might not enjoy. At least I got to experience it.
I didn't know if I would like Ghost of Tsushima, so I waited until it was $10–$20. Bought it, played it, realized it wasn't exactly for me — so I haven't bought the sequel yet.
Running out and spending however much on things you may not even like shows a strange lack of maturity or conscious spending habits. Which is funny, because you very much assumed I wasn't an adult who purchases my own stuff. Someone who buy their own stuff doesn't exactly run out and buy random thing at full price that they may or may not enjoy.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@Sulleymonster I've been buying my own games for the last 10+ years. I've never seen a need for resale because I don't buy games I don't need, and I make a good enough yearly $alary to support my hobbies. Also, I'm self-aware that as I get older, the industry interests me less and less, and has been doing things I don't agree with. So I've been investing in other hobbies, like learning how to ride a motorcycle this summer and traveling more.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@Lanmanna LMAO. Don't know if this was reply to me.
No. Gaming doesn't have an expiration date. But we got way too many grown ahh adults in these comments, some old enough to be my parents, being way too upset and vocal that gaming is ditching physical. They are still clinging to this like the 80s, 90s, or 2000s. Not realizing that it maybe time to pack away the controller and find a different hobby. It not that big of a deal time to move on.
Re: Just 15% of All PS5 Software Was Purchased Physically Last Quarter
I used to buy a lot of Physical games... Then I move to eastern Oregon, and my drive to the closest big box store became an hour drive to and from. The amount of money I was losing to drive to buy a video game. I was not seeing any benefits.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@wildcat_kickz A ton of my coworker switched to Starlink, and they all love it. They are PC gamer, so physical wasn't even an option for them. Grant, it is pricier than non satellite services. But stuff like that still have room to improve as time goes on.
Re: Hideo Kojima's New Horror Game Not at Risk of Xbox Cancellation
Burning bridges with Studios is a bad thing. But burring a bridge with such a legendary gaming industry icon such as Kojima is not even something Microsoft is willing to do or a bridge they are willing to cross.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@wildcat_kickz I wouldn't feel too bad for the rural gamers. My friend lives in bum *** middle of nowhere North Carolina and gets 2gbs down. Even as someone who live in Eastern Oregon, my internet speed is 500mbs fiber... You would have to live deep deep deep rural to get really bad internet nowadays.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
@Divergent95 I can only speak for the US. But what retailers are they going to kill? Most of the gaming sections in big-box stores have been a shell of their former selves for the last 15 years — empty and sad sections where you can't even stand and test-play the latest games anymore, like you used to when I was a kid in the mid-2000s to 2010s. Some stores don't even have the games on the shelves. You have to take a card cutout of the game to the front desk to get it.
Stores like GameStop were long in the tooth anyway and needed to go. All those mom-and-pop shops aren't probably going to be as fazed by this, since most of their stock is retro gaming anyway.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
It whatever. The only people who are clinging to physical are collectors, people who are probably way past their prime to still be playing video games, and people who still cling to the idea that this industry is still for them.
Most people have either moved on to all digital, and kids growing up will never really know what physical games are, so there is no lost for them.
Re: Layoffs at IO Interactive as Project Fantasy Ends 'Relationship with External Partner'
@PloverNutter
Which would be a crazy thing to do. Valve and Meta can at least get away it with since they have well above 60% of the market share in their respective space (VR and PC). Microsoft going nuclear and not making any games would really push the last few remaining Xbox players to Playstation or Nintedno... which would leave them with nothing.
If this was the case, they are really trying to trim down the fat for sale, or spin off which would in turn cripple gaming on Windows.
Re: PS5 Dominates Xbox for Single Player Games, New Data Suggests
@Ainu20
I don't think I'm rewriting history, because my comment had nothing to do with Microsoft's earlier-gen success or sales numbers. It was about the better performance, better features, and better third-party support — none of which has anything to do with beating Sony to market by a full year or pricing the 360 more competitively.
Even if the PS3 and 360 had launched at the same price and time, the 360 would have still been the better system. It was vastly easier to develop for, had vastly better social features, and its XBLA was a pioneering storefront at the forefront of the indie boom we saw during that generation.
The PS3 never really gained parity — only in sales did it edge out the 360, and that was solely due to Sony's increased focus on generation-defining first-party single-player titles. The 360 was still the better system for third-party and multiplayer gaming, as we started to see the shift from disc to digital, with an even heavier focus on multiplayer and online features.
I could easily see a timeline where Xbox wasn't trailing PlayStation. Roughly 40–50% of PlayStation 4 owners never owned a PS3, meaning they either came from the Xbox 360, the Wii, or were new to gaming altogether.
Had Microsoft simply delivered a "next-gen 360" — priced at roughly the same point as the PS4 with comparable performance — Xbox players would have stayed. We wouldn't have seen the heavy shift of Xbox owners to PS4.
Microsoft would have already had massive third-party support going into that generation, making it much harder for Sony to secure exclusives without paying a large sum or fully taking on development costs. Since Sony would still have been recovering financially from the PS3 era, they likely wouldn't have had the budget to do so. We probably wouldn't have seen things like Street Fighter V or the FF7 Remake become PS4 exclusives so easily. The COD–Xbox partnership likely wouldn't have ended either, meaning that DLC and beta exclusivity probably would have continued for another decade, giving Microsoft a continued leg up in the US market.
Microsoft probably wouldn't have felt the need to launch Game Pass or acquire the publishers they did, because Xbox would have been in a much healthier position — consoles selling, people buying games, and so on.
All people wanted was simply a better Xbox 360. Nobody wanted a multimedia hub that restricted game sharing and blocked used games. In many ways, the PS4 was better 360 with support of the Sony 1st party. And that continued on with PS5... No need to reinvent the wheel
Re: PS5 Dominates Xbox for Single Player Games, New Data Suggests
@Balaam_
That wasn’t the case during the 360 gen, and had Microsoft just create a next gen 360 for last two generations. The 360 had more 3rd party support, better performance, and feature. We would be having a very different conversation. PlayStation success relies heavily on the fact that Microsoft continues to shoot themselves in the foot, and Nintendo has completely departed the traditional console space. PlayStation has survived on the pure incompetence of their main rivals. Them being the main de facto console also comes from the fact they strong arm developers with almost monopoly style tactics.
You can say that about Nintendo and Microsoft. All of these companies main revenue is from 3rd party and particularly multiplayer.
Re: PS5 Dominates Xbox for Single Player Games, New Data Suggests
@PuppetMaster 3rd party games that have a significant performance advantage on PlayStation and PC. Indies do very very very well on Nintendo compared to PlayStation or PC. If we had a more traditional Nintendo console….
Re: PS5 Dominates Xbox for Single Player Games, New Data Suggests
This is the problem with both Microsoft and Sony. They have done nothing but hurt their brands by poorly conditioning their players based to support only a specific type of game. In Microsoft case also conditioned their fanbase to not support any kinda of game directly.
This is something that Nintendo has done very very well. Their fanbase will support anything from smallest of indies to largest AAA game. Single or multi player.
Sony is just lucky that their console just happens to be the best one on the market in terms of performance and features.
Re: Sony Will Continue to Chase Live Service Dream, Despite Mostly Disastrous Execution to Date
@Balaam_ Easy to accessible and easy to consume.
Re: DOOM: The Dark Ages Gets 'the Cleanest Image We Can Deliver' with PSSR 2 on PS5 Pro
Wait? It doesn’t already support PSSR? x-x
I picked it up on sale a while back and been playing on and off. The game already looked pretty clean…
Re: GTA 6 Is a 'Single Player Experience', No Word on GTA Online at Launch
@get2sammyb Yeah, they did hire acquire and hire the mod team behind FiveM and RedM. So that could be the reason for the delay, since they would want to make the sure the Mod Tool kit is good to go from day one.
Re: GTA 6 Is a 'Single Player Experience', No Word on GTA Online at Launch
@Gremio108 Yeah. No reason to force people off GTA5 when it continues to make money, and will be vastly cheaper entry price for plenty of people.
Re: GTA 6 Is a 'Single Player Experience', No Word on GTA Online at Launch
@get2sammyb One of the most unfortunate sacrifices we have to make for playing on console is outdated GTA Online.
GTA Online on PC tho. With some of these roleplay server, you couldn't even tell it was the same game that released in 2013.
Re: Tencent Looking to Offload Game Dev Investments, Even at a Loss
Tencent, like every major company (Microsoft, Sony, Embracer, EA, etc.), vastly overextended itself. They wanted to have their fingers in everything.
They own Riot Games and Sumo Group and hold majority shares in companies like Techland, while still investing in very large publishers like Ubisoft, Epic, and Krafton, as well as prominent studios like FromSoftware, Remedy, Bloober Team, and Don't Nod. Don't Nod recently stated that they won't exist come fall if they don't secure further investment, which suggests Tencent may have pulled out.
A lot of these companies are just money pits and most likely haven't seen any major return on investment — but that never seemed to bother Tencent. They always acted like silent watchers from the shadows, allowing their companies to continue business as normal.
Re: Valve's New Steam Machine Costs Almost Twice as Much as a PS5
@kmtrain83 Like I said, SteamOS is nothing but Linux with a console wrapper. It’s out of box experience will allow you to do everything that a normal PC can do.
Actually, they do market it as should. There is a desktop mode that they show off being able to used a modeling program and programming tools.
Simplifying user experience doesn’t make it a toy. Granted, SteamOS purpose is to simplify Linux user experience for the average consumer.
But console is a toy, it sole purpose is to play video games.
Re: Valve's New Steam Machine Costs Almost Twice as Much as a PS5
@NerdyPaul
Those comparisons are usually set to show how bloated windows is and the performance loss that comes with running all the process in the background. Console like PS5 don’t have that issue and their games are native. Those comparisons are also usually done with stronger Windows hardware
Re: Valve's New Steam Machine Costs Almost Twice as Much as a PS5
Is it really fair to compare the pricing of a toy vs. an actual PC, though? I mean… if you could only afford one device say, a PC but also want a console, this is probably your best option. It's a prebuilt Linux desktop running a console wrapper.
Also, comparing PS5 game performance to games that have to run through a compatibility layer is a low blow.
It will be interesting to see how this performs compared to a similarly specced Windows desktop, or in a dual-boot configuration.
Re: The Last of Us 2 Is Finally Getting Multiplayer, But Naughty Dog Ain't Making It
This is the real reason Sony stopping PC ports. They are tried of being out shined by PC community/modders.
Better to continue to release only on PS where players have no choice but to eat the slop you feed them 😂
Re: Uproar as Halo PS5 Demands 2 PS Plus Subscriptions for Local Co-Op
@Swandivetotheasphalt The post was done by the Sr. Community Manager who been with the company for over 10yrs, so not exactly a random intern C&P information.
Re: Uproar as Halo PS5 Demands 2 PS Plus Subscriptions for Local Co-Op
@Swandivetotheasphalt It a Q&A on the official Halo website. There no way this could be a mistake unless the person answering the questions don’t know anything about PlayStation… etc
Re: Sony Finally Speaks on PC Cancellations, Wants to Enhance Value of PS5
@get2sammyb Yeah, we have the upcoming Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls as an example of them not giving up. But I personally wanted to see more first-party stuff, instead of them money-hatting second- or third-party teams because the risk isn't as high if those games fail.