cireza
Member
You have mastered hyperbole.
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Financial Times: Sony and Nintendo left to battle in console wars as Microsoft signals exit
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
- Opinion Business
Coloress_Kafka
Member
I don’t need Sony to invest in a bunch of diverse games like Folklore or Echochrome. Sony just needs to be a good platform holder and not do dumb shit that makes games harder to develop for indies and major 3rd party publishers. The Mark Cerny era has been glorious and I’ve found plenty of diverse stuff to play outside of AAA stuff on PS4/PS5.
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Dorfdad
Gold Member
Than fire them and place people who have a soul. This is part of the problem when you have a stock that’s on the open market. Your direction is steered by trends and market reactions.Removed paywall via archive.is
"Gibson said Sony’s problems are very different: its PS5 machine, now four years old, is popular but its games business is now guided by “accountants”, rather than people primed to manage a creative business."
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TheAtomicPile
Member
This is where I'm at. Am I going to pay for a PS6 that might still struggle to hit 4k60 consistently and might get one legitimate Naughty Dog / Santa Monica / etc game for its entire lifecycle?
PlayStation's last great value proposition is the exclusives and they are still great when they hit, but that frequency is definitely slowing down.
But yeah I'm a sucker for Nintendo stuff so I'll probably always get those regardless.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
A month late and wrong based on the very same podcast the article is referencing.
Good one Financial Times.
Good one Financial Times.
ProtoByte
Member
Is it really news? This is business. People have been making this kind of commentary for the last 15 years at least. They accused Jim Ryan of being a bean counter, now Totoki (whom I don't agree with on everything, far from it) is public enemy #1. Why? Because he identifies exactly what Mr. Shawn "Creative Exec" Layden said 6 years ago and plans to act on it?
Topher
Gold Member
Not sure Layden and Totoki agree on the solution to the same problem though.
Layden's take....
"So how can we look at that and say: Is there another answer? Instead of spending five years making an 80 hour game, what does three years and a 15 hour game look like? What would be the cost around that? Is that a full-throated experience?
"Personally, as an older gamer... I would welcome a return to the 12 to 15 hour [AAA] game. I would finish more games, first of all, and just like a well edited piece of literature or a movie, looking at the discipline around that could give us tighter, more compelling content.
"It's something I'd like to see a return to in this business."
Shawn Layden: "I would welcome a return to the 12 to 15 hour AAA game"
Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has called for the industry to examine the trend towards bigger and more expe…
www.gamesindustry.biz
XXL
Member
I think it's common sense at this point.
Playstation dominates the console market so much so they forced Nintendo to go a completely different direction.
Nintendo dominates the handheld market so much so they forced Playstation to abandon it.
Steam dominates the PC market place more than Nintendo dominates handhelds and more than Playstation dominates consoles.
As for Xbox, there is no where for them to fit it and be successful as I dont think they have a chance of gaining marketshare (as a hardware manufacturer) on any of those competitors listed above in their respective spaces.
In my opinion their business (in terms of generating revenue) would best served providing games to those who are dominating, since they are one of the biggest publishers now.
And regardless of what they tell, you they are thinking the exact same thing.
What's wild to me, is the narrative before was "Xbox isn't about selling consoles anymore" to now where the narrative is the aren't going anywhere because they said they are planning a new console.
Make up your fucking minds and have some self respect for once.
Playstation dominates the console market so much so they forced Nintendo to go a completely different direction.
Nintendo dominates the handheld market so much so they forced Playstation to abandon it.
Steam dominates the PC market place more than Nintendo dominates handhelds and more than Playstation dominates consoles.
As for Xbox, there is no where for them to fit it and be successful as I dont think they have a chance of gaining marketshare (as a hardware manufacturer) on any of those competitors listed above in their respective spaces.
In my opinion their business (in terms of generating revenue) would best served providing games to those who are dominating, since they are one of the biggest publishers now.
And regardless of what they tell, you they are thinking the exact same thing.
What's wild to me, is the narrative before was "Xbox isn't about selling consoles anymore" to now where the narrative is the aren't going anywhere because they said they are planning a new console.
Make up your fucking minds and have some self respect for once.
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Negotiator101
Member
I'm not seeing signals Microsoft are exiting the hardware console space but it's pretty clear that even PS with all its sales are not impressing the powers that be.
Well, as Sony president Hiroki Totoki explained in the company's recent financial earnings report, the PlayStation business is profitable, but not profitable enough. STAT | 5.8% - Sony's projected profit margin for the Game and Network Services division for fiscal year 2023, which ends March 31, 2024.
I imagine this will have repercussions with the innards of the PS6 as they will want bigger profit margins going forward.
Well, as Sony president Hiroki Totoki explained in the company's recent financial earnings report, the PlayStation business is profitable, but not profitable enough. STAT | 5.8% - Sony's projected profit margin for the Game and Network Services division for fiscal year 2023, which ends March 31, 2024.
I imagine this will have repercussions with the innards of the PS6 as they will want bigger profit margins going forward.
The article seems a day late to me as well. I think one way or another they protect that closed eco-system. Even if they don't want to stay in hardware long term, they also wouldn't want to be the biggest third party with only one high spec console on the market. They would have much less leverage on the revenue splits.
Deerock71
Member
And yet Nintendo just keeps coming. They are inevitable.
Solidus_T
Member
Sony had a kick ass handheld division and eventually left it to get wiped out by the 3DS as well. They both ceded ground in their respective areas.
XXL
Member
Switch 2/3 etc is a generation behind the PS6/7 etc, they can launch on PS6/PC and re-release on Switch (being a generation behind). For example HiFi Rush and Sea of Thieves will come to Switch 2.
ProtoByte
Member
You're just not going to make a game that stands up to its contemporaries in 3 years with the current workforce mentality you have now. That gets you Miles Morales - or hell, even Spider-Man2. Good game, reused assets, and not what any publisher would feel confident charging 70+ bucks for, nor would consumers want that from mainline games (only reused assets apply to SM2 here, but I do not think SM3 in the same vein will satisfy people).
At risk of being presumptive in "knowing better", I also think that Layden's cone up with something of a fallacy there. Unless you're playing completionism on Ubisoft games, most games are nowhere near 80 hours. This is especially true of PS first party. Only one that comes close is Horizon 2 at completionist level, and that's not PlayStation's most expensive game. It's similar in expensive than SM2 accounting for Marvel's license fee and 100 million less otherwise.
Game length gets way too much focus on the "why" of why games are taking longer to make, similar to graphical fidelity. Yes, the bloat adds something to the budget, but it's bloat because it's less intricate.
Games are simply more intricate than they used to be back in 200x.
Layden is speaking from a perspective of an older guy who has worked a high intensity, higher than average time-for-work job for most of his adult life, who never grew up with the option to play F2Ps for potentially 1000 hours and never pay a full game's price for that time."Personally, as an older gamer... I would welcome a return to the 12 to 15 hour [AAA] game. I would finish more games, first of all, and just like a well edited piece of literature or a movie, looking at the discipline around that could give us tighter, more compelling content.
"It's something I'd like to see a return to in this business."
Shawn Layden: "I would welcome a return to the 12 to 15 hour AAA game"
Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has called for the industry to examine the trend towards bigger and more expe…
I don't think he's entirely wrong, but I think it's a stretch. Frankly, can you even deliver the quality of story people expect these days in 15 hours from a "full game"? Spider-Man 2 is lean, and people think it's way too rushed.
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Shut0wen
Member
With microsoft going hard on cloud gaming this article couldnt be so far from the truth, wifi alone isnt enough to carry cloud gaming but little console bandwidth machines would carry it until its possible plus without a third contender i dont think theyd actually be good for sony if nintendo decided to make a beast of a console
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twilo99
Member
to the console wars.
I'm just playing Brotato on Game Pass and playing retro games on my jail-broken 3DS and Wii U. Life is good.
Love Brotato! Top tier entertainment..
twilo99
Member
A month late and wrong based on the very same podcast the article is referencing.
Good one Financial Times.
Must be struggling for clicks
Pelta88
Member
tell me about it
He's now one of the most vocal critics of XB on social media. What weird times we live in.
Bojanglez
The Amiga Brotherhood
Pretty sure after the CMA reporting, the Financial Times don't publish articles about Microsoft without either being instructed to do so by Microsoft or at least getting sign off on doing so.A month late and wrong based on the very same podcast the article is referencing.
Good one Financial Times.
As i don't have xbox don't you still need at least a capable pc to use game pass and only then its the selection of pc games ? so techinicaly i still need some sort of xbox console curently if not a gaming pc?
pc is costly for gaming and so many options to build one seems a hassle and if your not tech savvy might just put you off.
i think there will still be some sort of box or console for a while from xbox till the point you can vritually just play it on your tv or other device without anyting else needed but the controller.
unless i'm missing somthing and thats all ready the case. excuse the ignorance i haven't had xbox since the 360.
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justiceiro
Marlboro: Other M
All hail Japan, the savior of console gaming.
ABnormal
Member
My God, THIS!Removed paywall via archive.is
"Gibson said Sony’s problems are very different: its PS5 machine, now four years old, is popular but its games business is now guided by “accountants”, rather than people primed to manage a creative business."
Please make come back House, put again Yoshida as head of WWS, and get back the rest of the crew.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Cloud gaming is far off from being mainstream. Probably 10+ years. The tech and infrastructure is simply not there.
Microsoft strategy seems to be about boxing out Apple and their ecosystem as they glacially move into gaming and waiting to see what happens which bring us to...
The state of the industry is not in a good place, but it will correct itself. If Sony and Microsoft keep screwing up, another competitor will jump into the space, be it Valve, Apple, whomever.
Mibu no ookami
Member
We've probably reached a point in gaming where having an Xbox that sells so few units doesn't really create competition, but it does create more work and reduces margins on games.
At this point it would probably make more sense to have one primary console platform just as we have one primary computer platform in Steam/Windows.
You see the comments Square Enix made about being able to streamline development. Same with Bethesda with Starfield.
At this point it would probably make more sense to have one primary console platform just as we have one primary computer platform in Steam/Windows.
You see the comments Square Enix made about being able to streamline development. Same with Bethesda with Starfield.
Dick Jones
Gold Member
Fabieter
Member
Don't think so. Pc, cloud and Nintendo will be the only thing going forward. With sony and ms basically being third party pubs. Not today but they will end up like this
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
So, basically nothing changes?
LordOcidax
Member
Why in gaming forums some people assume that everyone have a gaming PC?
Killjoy-NL
Member
Who does that?
Kagoshima_Luke
Gold Member
MSFT hasn't had the games to justify a dedicated console since the 360 days.
magnumpy
Member
as it was in the old days, the days of my father and my fathers father. the way it was meant to beSony and Nintendo left to battle in console wars as Microsoft signals exit
Japan set to become undisputed home of games hardware once more, but analysts worry about industry’s long-term prospectswww.ft.com
DeaDPo0L84
Member
6502
Member
MS are wasting time with another revision let alone a next gen xbox. They could buy the universe and not manage to get games out in any reliable rate / quality for the SP gamer. Their management have failed considerably and consistently.
Open goals like more single player dlc for Halo / Gears are not considered or only done once despite acclaim - compare it even to Mario Kart, it is shocking to me. No matter how awesome the box is they simply cannot support it, and now that I can get their softwarere as a 3rd party - if they get something worthwhile out the door - I would be twice the fool giving them anymore of my money rather than going for a Japanese system. I expect many people will feel the same.
I just hope it doesn't collapse before gta6 and the Sega reboots hit series x.
Open goals like more single player dlc for Halo / Gears are not considered or only done once despite acclaim - compare it even to Mario Kart, it is shocking to me. No matter how awesome the box is they simply cannot support it, and now that I can get their softwarere as a 3rd party - if they get something worthwhile out the door - I would be twice the fool giving them anymore of my money rather than going for a Japanese system. I expect many people will feel the same.
I just hope it doesn't collapse before gta6 and the Sega reboots hit series x.
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
Not good if another doesn't take there place.
But they gotta go.
But they gotta go.
Shut0wen
Member
The tech isnt there because of wifi, but theres been countless of prototypes in recent years with built in bandwidths that help with smoothing the experience out, ive triee it on 250mps wifi and works fine, wouldnt play fighting games with it
bitbydeath
Member
These sorts of articles often come with inside information we aren’t privy to.
Keep that in mind as to why it appears late.
Keep that in mind as to why it appears late.
King Dazzar
Member
Interesting. Makes me wonder about the monetisation though. For one I'm sure they'd love to keep the current pricing and deliver less. And my second is that they're all for engagement and this would be a step further away from player engagement time and any GaaS like elements (even for single player). If the game doesn't keep players attention as long, do they lose potential microtransactions etc. And lastly, they'd have to manage players expectations who are very used to big open world lengthy games.Not sure Layden and Totoki agree on the solution to the same problem though.
Layden's take....
"So how can we look at that and say: Is there another answer? Instead of spending five years making an 80 hour game, what does three years and a 15 hour game look like? What would be the cost around that? Is that a full-throated experience?
"Personally, as an older gamer... I would welcome a return to the 12 to 15 hour [AAA] game. I would finish more games, first of all, and just like a well edited piece of literature or a movie, looking at the discipline around that could give us tighter, more compelling content.
"It's something I'd like to see a return to in this business."
Shawn Layden: "I would welcome a return to the 12 to 15 hour AAA game"
Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has called for the industry to examine the trend towards bigger and more expe…
magnumpy
Member
the problem isn't bandwidth, but latency. the time it takes for X to talk to Y, Y to form a response, and then send that result back to X. while that entire transaction might account for merely a matter of milliseconds, when you consider that ~16-17 milliseconds is all a 60 FPS "frame" lives for, wifi and the relative "slowness" of internet communication (vs. entirely local) becomes a big problem
if you want 60 fps, or even solid 30 fps gameplay the internet/wifi just isn't up to the task. fwiw I can ping microsoft.com in 49 milliseconds from my current home internet.
Raven117
Member
Microsoft has always been positioning against Apple. They only cared about Xbox as long as it helped them position against apple.
It’s clear they never quite viewed Sony as a competitor insofar as Sony could limit MS ability in the gaming space to position against Apple.
They said it years ago. They want to win the living room. And apple… has a lot going on in the living room.
It works both ways.
Sony and nintendo did do battle.
And Sony got their asses handed to them, left and right.
Now both are in a place they can coexist but only one fired 900 employees worldwide recently.
semiconscious
Member
as a sony gamer since the ps1, it took me almost exactly 2 years to finally get a ps5, which's about the longest I've gone without buying into the next gen. & here we are, 3 years in, & we're being told there'll be no major in-house stuff forthcoming for a bit? yeah, like you, I'll be thinking long'n'hard before grabbing a ps6...
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
If the console market is unsustainable, then the PC gaming market is TRASH!!! Full stop!
It's Todd Howard and his likes who share the same mindset, he always wanted to build bigger worlds, why they keep insisting on making bigger games? I don't understand, I believe what will happen is the downfall of traditional aaa titles, it's inevitable.
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UltimaKilo
Gold Member
1. You're probably close to a data center 2. "Fine" is not good enough 3. There's not enough servers or data centers 4. Not everyone has access to low latency, high speed internet (most people do not).
In 15+ years? Possible.
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