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[Eurogamer] Is Sony beginning to coast? With PS5 sales up and first-party releases down, gaming's eerie new normal takes shape

Expect more studio closures and less exclusives from Sony, as Microsoft slowly bows out of the console race, hope sega or Nintendo makes a home console comeback. Gaming is about get boring and expensive very soon.
 

nial

Member
The inability for a large portion of posters here (who are also probably on icon-era) to identify that PlayStation Studios is in a very bad spot right now is comical. Pure burying your head in the sand stuff.
Unless you're actually able to elaborate and participate on the discussion, you kinda have nothing to say here. I mean, it's clear why TGO TGO didn't keep with the discussion later on (not an attack, I love you TGO).
 

Woopah

Member
Expect more studio closures and less exclusives from Sony, as Microsoft slowly bows out of the console race, hope sega or Nintendo makes a home console comeback. Gaming is about get boring and expensive very soon.
I don't think one affects the other. Lengthening development times and the decision to close down poor performing studios will happen regardless of what Nintendo or MS does.
 

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
GIF by Giphy QA


Bad decisions do not = coasting, lol.
Yeah, there are legitimate criticism you can throw at Sony. Coasting is not one of them.
 
  • Releasing GOTY candidates every year = coasting
  • Selling tens of millions of copies on high profile exclusives each year which dwarfs exclusive sales of prior gens = coasting
  • Competition not doing any of that organically = give them a participation award, at least they are trying
Playstation is dominating too much. Time for more clickbait marching orders from IGN/Eurogamer, et. al.

Trying Not To Laugh Rooster Teeth GIF by Achievement Hunter
 
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Durin

Member
Sony drank the live-service cool-aid, pissing away valuable resources that could have gone to otherwise better games that would've at least made some money.

They're one of many bigger publishers that did that this gen, and in addition to longer dev cycles in general it's leading to some sparse release periods.

Doesn't really matter though, they did well enough last gen and early into this one that they're the default console, they still are producing games that sell, and they can course correct.
 
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I wouldn’t say coasting

The live service strategy was, on reflection, poorly conceived and poorly executed.

As a result, due to cancellations, there’s now a gap in releases.

Time will tell if normal service is resumed in a year or two.
Pretty much, impossible to tell at the moment because of these factors.
 
I hope this is a generation Sony will learn from. I don't mind the gaas pivot, but the implementation of it was terrible. Sony putting renowned 1st party single player studios on gaas was a very big mistake. Hopefully their gaas investment comes from investing in up and coming studios like Arrowhead

People here in Gaf like to parrot the same misinformation ad nauseum.

Can you please explain which renowned 1st Party devs did Sony put on GaaS exclusively?

Naughty Dog is the only one that was working on Live Service game, i.e. TLOU 2 Online, but that was a direct follow-up to their work on TLOU online 1. They were also simultaneously working on their SP game and incidentally decided to ditch the GaaS game when it looked like it would need to pull resources away from their SP efforts. So SP was always the priority for ND.

Every other GaaS game dev was an acquisition, not a previously SP dev. All the previously SP devs continued working on SP projects.

Sony's GaaS push was an attempt to expand their portfolio, not switch focus. It's just been misreported to hell and back by the shitty gaming media and the usual suspects on the forums whose full-time job is to spread FUD.
 
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People here in Gaf like to parrot the same misinformation ad nauseum.

Can you please explain which renowned 1st Party devs did Sony put on GaaS exclusively?

Naughty Dog is the only one that was working on Live Service game, i.e. TLOU 2 Online, but that was a direct follow-up to their work on TLOU online 1. They were also simultaneously working on their SP game and incidentally decided to ditch the GaaS game when it looked like it would need to pull resources away from their SP efforts. So SP was always the priority for ND.

Every other GaaS game dev was an acquisition, not a previously SP dev. All the previously SP devs continued working on SP projects.

Sony's GaaS push was an attempt to expand their portfolio, not switch focus. It's just been misreported to hell and back by the shitty gaming media and the usual suspects on the forums whose full-time job is to spread FUD.
I never said exclusively. And you are wrong. Guerilla games is working on Horizon online. I'm not even sure if Horizon 3 is in the works. And if Horizon Online takes off, I'm not sure if Guerilla even releases Horizon 3 because HFW didn't sell great

Insomniac was working on a cancelled Spider-Man gaas game. Sucker Punch reportedly has a gaas game after Yotei, but that report was from a couple years ago. Bend studio, who developed Days Gone was on a GOW gaas game before that was cancelled

Naughty Dog, which has enough employees to work on 2 full separate games, is only releasing 1 game this generation because of gaas failure

You can't be more wrong
 
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TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Unless you're actually able to elaborate and participate on the discussion, you kinda have nothing to say here. I mean, it's clear why TGO TGO didn't keep with the discussion later on (not an attack, I love you TGO).
I'm playing a game 😀
I have little time to argue why it isn't a Playstation Studios title 👍
 

Woopah

Member
People here in Gaf like to parrot the same misinformation ad nauseum.

Can you please explain which renowned 1st Party devs did Sony put on GaaS exclusively?

Naughty Dog is the only one that was working on Live Service game, i.e. TLOU 2 Online, but that was a direct follow-up to their work on TLOU online 1. They were also simultaneously working on their SP game and incidentally decided to ditch the GaaS game when it looked like it would need to pull resources away from their SP efforts. So SP was always the priority for ND.

Every other GaaS game dev was an acquisition, not a previously SP dev. All the previously SP devs continued working on SP projects.

Sony's GaaS push was an attempt to expand their portfolio, not switch focus. It's just been misreported to hell and back by the shitty gaming media and the usual suspects on the forums whose full-time job is to spread FUD.
Bend and BluePoint were single player studios put on GAAS no? And isn't GG supposedly now working on a multiplayer game?
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
These people are stupid. They had a whole year filled with exclusives but doesn't count because of goalposts.

2nd party doesn't matter.

100% THIS! I was gonna say the same thing, but you said it first. Like, come on with the dishonesty. I feel these articles will be the new normal, now that Xbox is going 3rd party.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
I wouldn’t say coasting

The live service strategy was, on reflection, poorly conceived and poorly executed.

As a result, due to cancellations, there’s now a gap in releases.

Time will tell if normal service is resumed in a year or two.

I only half agree with this. People overstate how much has been lost and understate how long games take to develop.

The biggest "loss" is that Naughty Dog probably lost between 2-3 years in development production and who is to say those assets won't end up in a multiplayer mode for TLOUP3?

Sony Bend made no PS3 titles and only 1 PS4 game... This is the biggest loss in terms of pure development time. Their 1 PS4 game was ill-received, though it sold decently.

Bluepoint did 2 ports/remasters and 1 remake on PS4. We've lost probably 2 years of their development time since they were working on God of War Ragnarok with Santa Monica. Their remaster/remake work has been picked up both others like Nixxes, Ballistic Moon, and Climax.

Firewalk didn't exist before this generation... nothing was lost. Same with Deviation Games.

London studio was shut down, but we have no idea what they were really working on, same with Pixelopus.

Games are taking longer to develop and I think everyone gets a pass for that except Sony. No one is out there criticizing Fumito Ueda who hasn't put a game out since 2016. What if Sony bought Quantic Dream? They haven't put out a game since 2018... Should they have bought Ready at Dawn who has now been closed?

Sony got shit for re-using assets on Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok, yet Nintendo got no shit on Tears of the Kingdom.

Sony is still producing way more quality games in the last 4-5 years than anyone else in the business, but it seems like the standards keep rising for them while dropping for everyone else.

The amount of attention put on games like Indiana Jones and Avowed is laughable given their critical reception and commercial reception.

I think we should have high standards for Sony and I'll be the first to call them out when they don't meet their standards, but I think the double standard is a bit much.
 
"Sony's Current Strategy: Sony's major studios like Santa Monica and Guerilla are quiet"


I'm sorry man, this shit irks me. They both released games in 2022, with SSM having free DLC in 2023. Are we really expecting them to have a game at the ready this soon? If so, where is the outrage for all other devs or publishers. Its just fake outrage imo. Nintendo took SIX years for a new Zelda game, where copied the same map. Game development takes longer than in the last. This isn't unique to Sony, it's an industry wide problem.

I'm not thrilled with everything Sony is doing. Their GaaS push has been a colossal failure, helldivers 2 withstanding. I also think they should go for more shorter experiences that don't necessarily need a full story/narrative, like Astro bot. But so much of their criticism is such nonsense.
 

Ebrietas

Member
It's pretty wild how many Sony fan boys there are here. I know it gets mentioned, but I always read it as a joke. You really gotta be coping hard to think the PS5 has been anything more than a wet fart. Hardware I like, software though, get real if you think you're eating good.
So then who is "eating good"?
 

Mister Wolf

Member
With Microsoft fizzling out in the console market they now have no direct competition. It will be worse next gen. Same way you see Nvidia arrogantly do whatever they fuck they want in the GPU market.
 
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ZehDon

Member
The article is click bait, sure, but there's a kernel of truth inside. I've said it before: it's going to get a lot worse for the rest of this generation. With Sony's GAAS initiative basically imploding, we're now in the drought Jim Ryan left behind. About half of their studios are changing direction and their development times are as long as a console generation. The second-half of the PS5's life looks like its just going to be Sony getting whatever games it can to market, and plugging the holes with pointless remasters. Most of their heavy hitters are done for this generation with Naughty Dog left to go - and their initial showing clearly missed the mark. Frankly, Sony knows they won the console wars. So, the generation is basically over, and Sony knows they don't really have to do anything and can safely let third party's carry the rest. If revenue falls off, they'll just increase their PSN prices again and keep on trucking. Game, set, match.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
  • Releasing GOTY candidates every year = coasting
  • Selling tens of millions of copies on high profile exclusives each year which dwarfs exclusive sales of prior gens = coasting
  • Competition not doing any of that organically = give them a participation award, at least they are trying
Playstation is dominating too much. Time for more clickbait marching orders from IGN/Eurogamer, et. al.

Trying Not To Laugh Rooster Teeth GIF by Achievement Hunter

100% correct!

- It's okay to say you didn't like PSVR2
- It's okay to say you didn't like PS Portal
- It's okay to say you aren't interested in Sony's 1st party games that are coming out in the next 18 months.


But to say they are coasting is ridiculous. Why can't IGN/Eurogamer just acknowledge that Jim Ryan got some things wrong and Totoki is pushing the ship back into the right direction and getting away from their 12 GAAS games idea. That's not coasting AT ALL!!!!
 
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Gaming Discussion
100% correct!

- It's okay to say you didn't like PSVR2
- It's okay to say you didn't like PS Portal
- It's okay to say you aren't interested in Sony's 1st party games that are coming out in the next 18 months.


But to say they are coasting is ridiculous. Why can't IGN/Eurogamer just acknowledge that Jim Ryan got some things wrong and Totoki is pushing the ship back into the right direction and getting away from their 12 GAAS games idea. That's not coasting AT ALL!!!!

These outlets expect perfection (from Sony, apparently)

Every generation, every platform holder has made mistakes. Even when those platforms were still highly successful.

We don't need to go into detail on the PS3 era, but the PS4 era had plenty of mistakes. Early games were lacking, and they had a number of very high profile project cancellations (Sucker Punch, Sony Santa Monica, etc) in addition to outright flops (The Order 1886)

People act like those other gens were all rainbows and unicorns and they weren't.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
What a shame for the press, every few hours a paid FUD article against Playstation, it seems that they received orders and gave their all.




3 posts from them in a 4-hour timespan. Did Phil's paycheck really mean they had to post this same lame post 3 separate times in a span of 4 hours on Twitter?

I don't understand how an outlet can report on the studio closures, live service failures, and canceled games, and then be like, "whoa what's going over there?"

Exactly!
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Gaming Discussion


These outlets expect perfection (from Sony, apparently)

Every generation, every platform holder has made mistakes. Even when those platforms were still highly successful.

We don't need to go into detail on the PS3 era, but the PS4 era had plenty of mistakes. Early games were lacking, and they had a number of very high profile project cancellations (Sucker Punch, Sony Santa Monica, etc) in addition to outright flops (The Order 1886)

People act like those other gens were all rainbows and unicorns and they weren't.

And god forbid we talk about the times when Nintendo hit internal lulls. But they seem to be too scared to talk about them for some reason.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
If all you play is first party games and nothing else then yes you are going to have bad time.

There is so much high quality games coming out I’m having hard keeping up which puzzles me when people complaining about lack of games to play.
 
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yurinka

Member
These Eurogamer anti-Sony folks are retarded.
  • Sony just won over 200 awards for their 2024 first party releases, getting awards for Astro Bot, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Destiny 2 The Final Shape, MLB and even Lego Horizon, being (not the first time at all) the company that released more award winning games this year
  • PS keeps breaking records, just sold over 20M consoles in the 2nd year in a row and achieved their all time high active userbase
  • In 2025 top selling IPs like GTA, Monster Hunter and Assassin's Creed (and who knows if more like CoD, EAFC etc) will release their first current gen only game, plus also MS is coming with games like Forza Horizon 5, Indy, etc. This means they'll sell a ton of consoles in 2025 without needing to release any first party game.
  • So their first party teams could take a nap this whole year and still would sell a ton of consoles, but they'll release -minimum- the GoT and DS sequels, MLB and some minor projects like a couple of Chinese games. And who knows if Marathon, maybe minimum some closed alpha or something like that
  • So 2025 will be a very successful and busy year with the eyes of the players put in these 2025 games, so it's better to save for later the marketing bullets of 2026 games and beyond (Wolverine, Intergallactic, the other SP ND game being developed, SSM new IP, the next GoW, Saros, Horizon Online, Horizon 3, Media Molecule's new IP, Fairgame$, Firesprite's horror game -pretty likely Until Dawn 2-, Matter/'Gummy Bears'), etc.
  • AAA games take nowadays 4-9 years to be made on average, and some of them get cancelled or not greenlighted. It doesn't mean they have any issue: it's part of the business, how things work for all companies, not only Sony.
Sony putting games on PC had nothing to do competing with Xbox. They did it to make extra money and improve their profit margins.
Yes. AAA have big ass budgets that keep growing every generation a lot, and need as much revenue as possible from any source to reduce the risk involved for when they get cancelled or tank.

AAA games also take longer to be made every generation, which means that they had to hire or acquire more teams to work in more games at the same time than before, further increasing their total yearly budget spent on gamedev after combining all their games, furthere incresing the risk and also need of extra revenue to self fund it.

Most Sony AAA games released in the PS4 gen had sales that wouldn't be enough to turn a current gen Sony AAA budget like Spider-Man 2 profitable. So since every generation they get more expensive, even less in the next generation.

So they have need the extra revenue from PC, having some GaaS, movie/tv show/anime adaptations and somewhere in the future mobile gaming adaptation of these IPs. And in the future they'll need more.

If I'd be them I'd further expand on adapting them to apparel, OSTs, tribute music albums, well made 'making of' documentaries to be added in tv/video streaming subs, etc. and I'd create a handful new Sony divisions where I'd throw not only all their existing or acquired from places like Kadokawa, Bandai Namco, Lego or Hasbro (which I'd acquire), but to make adaptations of SIE, Sony Pictures and Sony Music brands and artists:
  • Sony Books: novels, artbooks, comics, mangas
  • Sony Toys: board games, toys, figurines, statues, plushies, collectible random merchandise
  • Sony Experience: virtual (PS Home 2.0) and physical theme parks (one in USA, other in Spain, other in Japan, each one focusing more in the content from each continent) with rides inspired on classic Sony games, movies, tv shows, anime or music artists, but also featuring arcades (that would also have gameplay stations with new/upcoming PS stuff), Sony museum, restaurants (featuring recipes and drinks inspired in their brands or artists) and (again, virtual and digital version of everything) Sony stores to buy them all kind of Sony products centralized in a single place: games, movies, music, cameras etc., (these stores would also be available outside the parks, and the digital one would centralize all digital Sony stores and services, merging many of them)
I'd also restructure Sony to move all gaming publishers, dev teams and games under SIE (now there are several ones under Sony Music or Pictures), and all movie, tv show, and anime teams and content under Sony Pictures (there are several under Sony Music).
 
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Paasei

Member
Everything will sort itself out eventually. It can take a very long time for it to happen, though.

“New normal” won’t last if it’s shit. A temporary necessity for people to figure out where the priorities should really be.

And there still plenty of good games around. You just have to broaden your horizons a little. I for one never played so many Japanese games before as I do now.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
your mom, lol.

I'm eating good cause I'm not relying on Sony Studios for gaming.

What person buys a console and then "JUST" relies on that company's first-party games to play? Do Nintendo Switch ONLY gamers even think like this? I'm sure they also look forward to buying non-1st party games too.
 
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What person buys a console and then "JUST" relies on that company's first-party games to play? Do Nintendo Switch ONLY gamers even think like this? I'm sure they also look forward to buying non-1st party games too.

Can’t think of any generation where this was the case.

It’s certainly a heavier focus on Nintendo consoles than others…which is why it collects far more dust for me…but there’s still other third party stuff to play
 
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Ozzie666

Member
Starting too? been that way for a few yeas now. Can you blame them? Microsoft self imploded and opened up a path to victory, simalr to Nintendo/Sega with Saturn and N64. I miss the despeate late gen PS3 Sony.

Profits are up, hardware doing well. This is even with a resurgent Nintendo.
 
Not gonna read frauds gaming sites.

But this is yet another example of why PR/Marketing is important for setting narratives and building perception(reinforcing status/damage controlling-spin) and if there are competent people inside Sony, they should take note.

Ubisoft, Disney, and of course, Xbox are dealing with the consequences of bad decisions, where the outcome has been so so bad that PR/Marketing can't change public perception

PlayStation as a business just broke sales and profits records. Last year, they had several exclusive GOTY contenders/ winners and Sony has been proactive with its hero initiatives.

so, they have been killing in everything but First Party Development and PR.

The reception to the latest SoP, reflects the overall sentiment the brand has gained this generation.....is this a big deal?

FAl6iv3.jpeg


If their studios/games lose cachet, so will the brand. The prime example of this happening and its consequences is Disney, and is not pretty.
 
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