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[MacReady13]

When I read "cloud gaming is the future",

for me it's always an indicator,
that the author has never held a gamepad.

Or they're a massive Xbox/Microsoft shill.

This article talks about no new games on Playstation or Switch, meaning that Xbox has all the games so I'm going to assume that the Series X/S will be MASSIVE sellers this xmas period, right?!?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Financial Times is owned by the Japanese company Nikkei.

Japanese companies aren't above being corrupted by American corpos. Oh and let's see what this other Financial Times gaming topic from earlier in the year was...

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/fina...nsole-wars-as-microsoft-signals-exit.1668121/

Very "interesting", that Financial Times has posted two gaming articles in the span of a few months with vaguely similar language. I.e Sony/Nintendo are the past, Microsoft is the future. Consoles are dying, multiplatform is the way, the "industry" is stagnating...

You know, all the talking points we saw people from Microsoft hawking last year and this year when they were trying to acquire ABK. I just find so "interesting" these non-gaming business outlets keep conveniently repeating rhetoric that favors Microsoft's pivot in the industry, don't you?

As Sony themselves have said, as well as what we know of Xbox and Nintendo, particularly since COVID, the time that passes from a console launch through the end of the console cycle no longer allows much for significantly reducing price, as it did in previous console cycles. The economics have changed, Sony is no more immune to that than Nintendo, Xbox, Valve, etc.

The other economics of it, is that Sony (and many of these other companies) want higher profit margins and higher revenue to sell "growth" to their shareholders. So in a way, shareholder greet and ignorance are a big part to blame for the slow reduction in pricing over the generation, among other things.

Little reason to lump Valve into this; they're a privately owned company and so don't need to cater to shareholders. Of course they'll want more revenue and profits, but their bread-and-butter is a storefront that gives Valve passive income and that passive income is like 90% or more of their revenue and profits. They're more comparable to Apple, in that sense.

As for Nintendo, they don't use the cutting edge latest tech so they can afford better margins for profit upfront in their hardware plus benefit from economies of scale in volume of production. Additionally, their games on average cost a lost less to make than say SIE's or Microsoft's. So while they have to contend with some of the same issues those two do, it's not to the same degree at all.

 

[Wildebeest]

Japanese companies aren't above being corrupted by American corpos. Oh and let's see what this other Financial Times gaming topic from earlier in the year was...

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/fina...nsole-wars-as-microsoft-signals-exit.1668121/

Very "interesting", that Financial Times has posted two gaming articles in the span of a few months with vaguely similar language. I.e Sony/Nintendo are the past, Microsoft is the future. Consoles are dying, multiplatform is the way, the "industry" is stagnating...

You know, all the talking points we saw people from Microsoft hawking last year and this year when they were trying to acquire ABK. I just find so "interesting" these non-gaming business outlets keep conveniently repeating rhetoric that favors Microsoft's pivot in the industry, don't you?

Consoles are the past. Market is stagnant, with rising dev costs and increasingly bad returns on investment on new hardware. They lost the battle against phones and tablets long ago. You have to be time travelling 20 years into the past to say that consoles are the future.

 

[March Climber]

You can criticize Nintendo without needing to involve other companies to soften the blow.

 

[midnightAI]

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Consoles are the past. Market is stagnant, with rising dev costs and increasingly bad returns on investment on new hardware. They lost the battle against phones and tablets long ago. You have to be time travelling 20 years into the past to say that consoles are the future.

As a lifelong console lover myself, hard to argue with this.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I am hoping to see a large uptick in handheld PC's this year. From all makers.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

They're not even mentioning Xbox anymore

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Sounds like microsoft paid them well.

 

[chokotoureiki]

The margin is likely to be razor thin, however. As in they don’t make a sustainable business from hardware sales alone, they need accessories, software and subscriptions.

Yeah, its like 6%. They're still paying for the Bungie buyout at a quarterly basis, coupled with rising dev costs and the depreciating yen. I'm glad they're revising their profitability strategy though. It desperately needs an overhaul.

 

[Badlucktroll]

nah we eatin

 

[kazuyamishima]

Yeah, its like 6%. They're still paying for the Bungie buyout at a quarterly basis, coupled with rising dev costs and the depreciating yen. I'm glad they're revising their profitability strategy though. It desperately needs an overhaul.

The margins are 13% for Q2 FY2024.

 

[ArtHands]

Man, consoles' pretty fucked if that's the case. At least those on PC are not affected

 

[ap_puff]

This is why I can't wait for Microsoft to leave the gaming space. Absolutely disgraceful that they would pay for this kind of thinly veiled garbage

 

[bundylove]

Fucking pachter now spreading fud at financial times.....how much pachter? How much did they pay you?

 

[EverydayBeast]

I tend to think of Nintendo and Christmas, I would suspect people will find reasons to buy the same ol’ switch especially for TOTK.

 

[zedinen]

Yoshida and Totoki are doing their best to prove PlayStation critics right.

PlayStation software keeps breaking records.

PS5 biggest problem is its price.

Weekly sales in Japan

After Price Hike avg 11,360

Before avg 30,239 (LTD)

Totoki is taking the assets from the competent people, giving them to the incompetent people, and say “Ok, now you can compete.” And so, Sony Group is terribly weakened.

When things go wrong, Totoki blames the competent people, demands price hikes and record profits

and creates a new problem: hardware sales saw a significant dip (the key to long-term profitability)

 

[Dafegamer]

Was the Author paid by MS? Suspiciously no mention of Xbox in that Article.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Consoles are the past.

Damn you speed-ran this post into the trash

Yoshida and Totoki are doing their best to prove PlayStation critics right.

PlayStation software keeps breaking records.

PS5 biggest problem is its price.




Totoki is taking the assets from the competent people, giving them to the incompetent people, and say “Ok, now you can compete.” And so, Sony Group is terribly weakened.

When things go wrong, Totoki blames the competent people, demands price hikes and record profits

and creates a new problem: hardware sales saw a significant dip (the key to long-term profitability)

Yeah, burdening the PlayStation division/subsidiary to pick up the slack for other parts of the company won't end well.

Tho TBF, in one of the charts you posted the only part that had a YOY decrease was Games & Network Services (PlayStation), for Q2. And arguably, the Financial arm, but that one was much smaller. Which, I guess G&NS being the one with the drop does reinforce the point; we just need to see if it continues to show YOY drops for Q3 and Q4.

Q3 could be tricky because a slight revenue & profit drop could be okay if it means increased number of units moved to boost the install base. Q4 will probably be a more directly applicable comparison to see if there's a trend in long-term drops beginning to take hold.

 

[digital_ghost]

Context is key. One is an RPG from a dormant series that has previously always been on a handheld, and sold single digit millions. The other is yet another spin-off that stars Zelda instead of Link, and is clearly not the “next big Zelda” that most people imagine when you say “new Zelda”. Again, low single digit millions.

It’s not one of their better holidays lineups, even by modern standards. But hey, they’re in the middle of a console transition. That they even have this many games is impressive.

Anyone expecting the next big zelda anytime soon is delirious. Tears of the kingdom released last year and took almost the whole console cycle to make.

That said it should sell well with black Friday discounts.

 

[Wildebeest]

Damn you speed-ran this post into the trash

I'm just out here keeping it real for all the PC gamers.