Mat Piscatella - I get fans ❤️ consoles but US video game hardware market is mature market at this point. Have to get beyond the boxes to find growth.

[Gods&Monsters]

What is it with all the journalists coming out with "consoles are dead" since Xbox announced they've going 3rd-party? Sounds like manufactured damage-control sponsored by Phil so he can show to Nadella it's not his fault.

Sony sold 20+ millions last year and the same this year. They are fine.

 

[voke]

Console doom and gloom, we in the early 2010s again?

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Growth growth growth I miss the days when Devs would make a good game because they were passionate about it now it's just corporate twats that are never happy no matter how much money they make

 

[Hezekiah]

Mat isn't wrong.

It's why Xbox is going third-party.

 

[peter42O]

It's why Xbox is going third-party.

No argument here. Even though they have been third party since 2014 or whatever year it was when they acquired Mojang.

 

[Say1nMan]

Consoles won't go away. Consoles have always been the entry level hardware and the alternative to expensive PCs for the mass general consumers. I just think there isn't going to be this huge avalanche of the moms and dads going out there and forking over $1500 plus for a PC for their kids. That's why we have consoles.

 

[Hezekiah]

No argument here. Even though they have been third party since 2014 or whatever year it was when they acquired Mojang.

Not the same though, that was the odd exception like Minecraft which was multiplatform pre-acquisition. Now everything major is going to be ported.

 

[Dr Bass]

No argument here. Even though they have been third party since 2014 or whatever year it was when they acquired Mojang.

Not even close to the same thing.

Also the existence of a box that costs a couple hundred bucks is not what is "limiting" the console market.

Not everyone likes the hobby. There is a natural limit to the market. Making a sub par streaming "experience" is not going to expand the market.

 

[flaccidsnake]

They could but that would also means cutting back on pushing tech and being more scalable in prices, ignoring hard resets gens and going for incremental upgrades.

"pushing tech" as Playstation does still involves some kind of financial balancing. it's not like PS5 is close to the most powerful console they could have made. What they achieved with the $399 discless model (not that I would buy it) is pretty incredible. It goes a long way to discrediting the also discless, and much less powerful Series S.

I agree there needs to be incremental updates, and a big reduction in forced obsolescence. If you want to play Baldurs Gate 3 on a PS4 and suffer nasty framerate dips or ugly low resolution, you should be able to as much as the hardware allows.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

No argument here. Even though they have been third party since 2014 or whatever year it was when they acquired Mojang.

Sony was publishing Minecraft at the time. It's not like they could take it away even if they wanted to

 

[AshHunter216]

Console doom and gloom, we in the early 2010s again?

Michael pachter in particular has been claiming that Playstation will die any minute now since the early ps3 days.

 

[FatKaz]

What is it with all the journalists coming out with "consoles are dead" since Xbox announced they've going 3rd-party? Sounds like manufactured damage-control sponsored by Phil so he can show to Nadella it's not his fault.

Sony sold 20+ millions last year and the same this year. They are fine.

Wait till they find out how how much Sony will grow in the console market when Xbox is done.

 

[Nimrota]

It's a bit redundant to attack Mat here. He's telling you what the market data shows, and we know how the executives and shareholders will respond. People are here in threads attacking the Totoki for his statements addressing this challenge and then attacking Mat for saying it's a challenge for the market. Sony could build an alternative solution but that takes a strong vision and arguably this is what Sony lacks most at the moment.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Sony and Nintendo (less so) will grow with Xbox's demise. No new competitors will enter the market, but grunty portables may eat into Nintendo's market share. The way I would approach growth, which is necessary only if costs keep ballooning, is to add features valued by consumers on other platforms.

• Mod support and Steam-like community features integrated into the platform to lure over users from PC.
• Doubling down on exclusive content, with a particular focus on excluding the PC platform.
• Returning to free online, particularly as MTX is now a large part of a game's monetisation, and F2P games are the most played on the console anyway (Fortnite, Warzone).
• A commitment to backwards compatibility, and the extension of licenses across all platform access points within the ecosystem.

Leave very few reasons to invest in Steam and own a PC for gaming purposes. There are always more consumers willing to have a pre-built, affordable, and powerful platform than there are desperate for the highest specced/most powerful platform.

 

[peter42O]

Not the same though, that was the odd exception like Minecraft which was multiplatform pre-acquisition. Now everything major is going to be ported.

Microsoft porting everything is part of a long term strategy to grow beyond the console that they offer. Same as in that they became a third party publisher once they acquired Mojang. Even if Minecraft wasn't on PlayStation to begin with, it would have been in time.

Not even close to the same thing.

Also the existence of a box that costs a couple hundred bucks is not what is "limiting" the console market.

Not everyone likes the hobby. There is a natural limit to the market. Making a sub par streaming "experience" is not going to expand the market.

Console market is limited because like you said, not everyone likes the hobby but if you expand beyond the box, you're going to get other people into your platform and eco-system.

Sony was publishing Minecraft at the time. It's not like they could take it away even if they wanted to

True but that was the PlayStation 3 version. Sony obviously hasn't published Minecraft since then.

 

[flaccidsnake]

Leave very few reasons to invest in Steam and own a PC for gaming purposes. There are always more consumers willing to have a pre-built, affordable, and powerful platform than there are desperate for the highest specced/most powerful platform.

I would wait to make sure Helldivers 2 isnt 4x more players on Steam before you apply to be Playstation CEO.

 

[Hezekiah]

Microsoft porting everything is part of a long term strategy to grow beyond the console that they offer. Same as in that they became a third party publisher once they acquired Mojang. Even if Minecraft wasn't on PlayStation to begin with, it would have been in time.

I'm fairly certain it's a new strategy. They absolutely wanted to buy Sony out of the console market, partly by removing CoD - but regulators forced them to port to Playstation and Switch.

Booty's email said it all. But they badly overestimated their own abilities.

Any idea this was always their strategy is revisionism at its finest.

 

[Cool hand luke]

I would wait to make sure Helldivers 2 isnt 4x more players on Steam before you apply to be Playstation CEO.

It's not, don't worry. And now I'm taking @thicc_girls_are_teh_best's advice and putting you on ignore because you're spreading blatant misinformation.

 

[Darth Vader]

Growth growth growth I miss the days when Devs would make a good game because they were passionate about it now it's just corporate twats that are never happy no matter how much money they make

This is not about you, it's a general comment.

People: capitalism is awesome
Capitalism does capitalism things
People: why is everything turning to shit?

 

[Danja]

"pushing tech" as Playstation does still involves some kind of financial balancing. it's not like PS5 is close to the most powerful console they could have made. What they achieved with the $399 discless model (not that I would buy it) is pretty incredible. It goes a long way to discrediting the also discless, and much less powerful Series S.

I agree there needs to be incremental updates, and a big reduction in forced obsolescence. If you want to play Baldurs Gate 3 on a PS4 and suffer nasty framerate dips or ugly low resolution, you should be able to as much as the hardware allows.

I am more saying we have reached a sweet spot when it comes to graphics so there's really no need for them to rush out and do a hard reset when it comes to consoles. Incremental updates would work better, just keep them within the same numbered famiily.