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Things are not going great at Sony

Posted on 12/21/23 at 1:10 am
Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 1:10 am
The recent hack paints a very, very stark picture for the future of Sony gaming and PlayStation. Sony bet on bringing down Game Pass with "exclusives" and legal maneuvering against the MS/ABK merger, as opposed to trying to make an actually better product, and is losing big as a result.

This is starting to make the official narrative surrounding the recent Bungie layoffs after being purchased by Sony seem like a lie.

Here's some information that came from the recent leak:



The above image is not from this LINK, but the article does mention some of the same things or similar.

quote:

While the internal presentations, emails, and meeting notes released as part of the hack are a narrow and incomplete picture of the studio, they nevertheless offer a small glimpse of the types of problems Insomniac Games is thinking through at the moment, and its hopes for the future. A finance post-mortem on Spider-Man 2 delivered in November broke down the costs of the project in detail.


quote:

The final cost was roughly $30 million over the original $270 million budget, according to the presentation, requiring the game to sell 7.2 million copies at full price to break even. The game had sold 6.1 million copies as of November 12.


Game has definitely not sold 6.1M copies at "full price."
Posted by bostitch
Member since Apr 2016
778 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 6:59 am to
Never been in a corporate leadership position, have you? Take off the console-wars colored glasses.

Spiderman-Man 2 cost nearly 3x what the original game cost. To the slides question, was it 3 times better? Would gamers even notice? If not, that was a waste of money and this is a business, not a charity to gamers.

Say it is 3x better, will it result in 3x revenue too? Game prices haven't gone up 3x since Spiderman 1. And the Playstation customer base hasn't gone up 3x either. Also for additional context. SpiderMan 2 cost more than the purchase price of Insomniac Games in the first place.

Any time a budget balloons like that without clear, Objective reasons why it should cause heads to roll. If profits come down so should resources next time around. Any time a game hits $300M and isn't named GTA and isn't prepared to do GTA numbers it should trigger some serious conversation
Posted by DownSouthCrawfish
Lift every voice and sing
Member since Oct 2011
40616 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 7:09 am to
quote:

Game has definitely not sold 6.1M copies at "full price."


quote:

The game had sold 6.1 million copies as of November 12.
Posted by DarthRebel
Tier Five is Alive
Member since Feb 2013
24968 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 7:24 am to
They just want to keep doing the same thing over and over. While they have had great success and put out some amazing games, the need to adapt to changing environment is undefeated in business.


Posted by Sl0thstronautEsq
Member since Aug 2018
16621 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 7:27 am to
quote:

Things are not going great at Sony


Good, I hope things continue to get worse and worse until Sony has no other option but to:
1. Release Bloodborne on PC
2. Remaster Bloodborne for consoles (60 fps PLEASE)
3. Make Bloodborne 2

This post was edited on 12/21/23 at 7:28 am
Posted by geauxtigers87
Louisiana
Member since Mar 2011
26917 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 7:42 am to
I want ghost of tsushima on pc and the new god of war before those
Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 8:29 am to
quote:

bostitch


It's weird that you start out with the "console wars glasses" comment, and then left a comment that completely agrees with my OP. Not sure what to do with that, so to you I guess.

I will mention that this thread is not just about SM2 and the game studio behind it. The leaks mention that Sony is going to be closing at least one studio. I really doubt that's going to be that game studio.
Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 8:31 am to
quote:

Good, I hope things continue to get worse and worse until Sony has no other option but to:
1. Release Bloodborne on PC
2. Remaster Bloodborne for consoles (60 fps PLEASE)
3. Make Bloodborne 2




Remasters would definitely be a (hopefully?) cheap way to get some product out and turn a profit.
Posted by Sl0thstronautEsq
Member since Aug 2018
16621 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 8:43 am to
quote:

Remasters would definitely be a (hopefully?) cheap way to get some product out and turn a profit.


Totally agree. There are so many great games they could remaster (hello, Resistance franchise!!!) yet they're content with trying to wring every cent out of franchises like The Last of Us
Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 8:52 am to
quote:

Totally agree. There are so many great games they could remaster (hello, Resistance franchise!!!) yet they're content with trying to wring every cent out of franchises like The Last of Us


I'm not sure I have any idea what they're trying to do. They just recently cancelled the Last of Us multiplayer, which makes no sense to me and seems like it would have led to a pretty easy revenue stream.
Posted by Carson123987
Middle Court at the Rec
Member since Jul 2011
67797 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 9:13 am to
quote:

Game has definitely not sold 6.1M copies at "full price."


That $69.99 PSN price has not budged since release and a very significant portion of game sales are digital. Couple that with how many people bought physical at release - the vast majority of that 6.1M is full price sales. They'll be fine, Spiderman 2 will easily clear 20m sales once the dust settles in a few years.


Your thread title should be "Things are not going great in AAA gaming." Games are too expensive too make which pigeonholes publishers into using goofy IPs (superhero shite and Star Wars) + oversaturated design tropes to basically guarantee returns on these massive investments.

I mean look at Insomniac's timeline. All superhero shite + 1 R&C for the next 15 years. It's embarrassing to see that Insomniac, one of the most talented studios out there, is basically forced to make mass market shite.

Movie industry is going through the same problem right now. We are going to see a shift back towards AA games/movies in the near future. In its current state, there is too much pressure given the bloated budgets of everything, which completely stifles creativity and ingenuity. We need more stuff like HiFi Rush, Darksiders, Sifu, Jusant, etc

This post was edited on 12/21/23 at 9:39 am
Posted by bostitch
Member since Apr 2016
778 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 9:37 am to
quote:

It's weird that you start out with the "console wars glasses" comment, and then left a comment that completely agrees with my OP. Not sure what to do with that, so ? to you I guess.


I'm saying Sony's trying to bring down gamepass or blocking mergers is irrelevant. Cost goes up 3x in any industry, any product, that's a problem. The screenshot you posted suggests a subsidiary who couldn't manage a budget and is now dealing with the corporate fallout of that than any of the context (gamepass) that you provided here
Posted by j1897
Member since Nov 2011
4305 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 9:55 am to
LINK

Just barely getting by. God damn you're retarded.
Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 10:13 am to
quote:

Your thread title should be "Things are not going great in AAA gaming."


It could be, but this seems to be uniquely causing problems for Sony at the moment. It doesn't appear Nintendo is having the same problems and their business model is similar to Sony's (reliant on first party games and exclusives as opposed to Microsoft's business model that revolves around Game Pass).

I do think Nintendo's library of old games that come with Nintendo Online is top tier so I don't know if it's completely comparable, just more comparable than Sony Playstation's business model when compared to Microsoft XBox's model.

quote:

We need more stuff like HiFi Rush, Darksiders, Sifu, Jusant, etc


Completely agree.
Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 10:14 am to
quote:

Just barely getting by. God damn you're retarded.




This board is hilarious every single time the gaming business is discussed. You guys don't have the first clue what you're talking about.
Posted by JetsetNuggs
Member since Jun 2014
15321 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 10:16 am to
quote:

(hello, Resistance franchise!!!)


Damn, you just unlocked a core memory of me playing that all day on a sick day

What a game
Posted by caro81
Member since Jul 2017
6038 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 10:18 am to
this isnt a sony problem its an industry problem. nearly 7000 people have been laid off in the industry this year across the board with multiple studios closing or drastically shrinking.

Sony itself is no hurting. We all know you love to spin things to shite on sony.
Posted by finchmeister08
Member since Mar 2011
39732 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 10:21 am to
quote:

Sony itself is no hurting. We all know you love to spin things to shite on sony.



Posted by imjustafatkid
Alabama
Member since Dec 2011
62698 posts
Posted on 12/21/23 at 10:28 am to
quote:

nearly 7000 people have been laid off in the industry this year across the board with multiple studios closing or drastically shrinking.


This isn't just about layoffs. People get laid off at gaming companies all the time and then move on to another company to work on a new game. That's pretty common in this industry.

quote:

Sony itself is no hurting.


Well true. If you remove the gaming portion of Sony from the equation, the company is doing well. That's not exactly relevant to the gaming board though.
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