Playstation Studios [OT]: News, hype and rumors about PS Studios and Bungie

[Bryank75]

Really wish Sony would pony up the cash to buy the big gaming IP's from Konami...

I'd love a new MGO along with some mainline entries and remakes.


Also would love a touring game, where you can drive the most iconic and scenic places in europe..... maybe base it a bit on The Transporter series or The Hire.

So you actually have a story but most of the time, you're just driving in an awesome car trying to set records among friends and then have a multiplayer element.

 

[Elder Legend]

Really wish Sony would pony up the cash to buy the big gaming IP's from Konami...

I'd love a new MGO along with some mainline entries and remakes.


Also would love a touring game, where you can drive the most iconic and scenic places in europe..... maybe base it a bit on The Transporter series or The Hire.

So you actually have a story but most of the time, you're just driving in an awesome car trying to set records among friends and then have a multiplayer element.

Yeah, I agree. Konami is sitting on a fucking gold mine, but they have become absolute shit. I am not the biggest fan of MGS, but it would make sense for Sony to purchase them. It resonates a lot with the branding. Don't forget Castlevania as well.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Really wish Sony would pony up the cash to buy the big gaming IP's from Konami...

I'd love a new MGO along with some mainline entries and remakes.


Also would love a touring game, where you can drive the most iconic and scenic places in europe..... maybe base it a bit on The Transporter series or The Hire.

So you actually have a story but most of the time, you're just driving in an awesome car trying to set records among friends and then have a multiplayer element.

You have to remember, nobody can buy something the owners do not wish to sell.

 

[AshHunter216]

Square Enix has reportedly confirmed it’s ‘looking to sell stakes’ in its studios | VGC

The publisher is said to be looking for ways to concentrate its resources on Japanese games…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Dug up an article from last year about Square's strategy in terms of selling. It seems like anything Sony were to do with them would involve buying stakes in their teams. Not sure what that looks like. Seems like outright buying them would have more benefits.

 

[Zzero]

Square Enix has reportedly confirmed it’s ‘looking to sell stakes’ in its studios | VGC

The publisher is said to be looking for ways to concentrate its resources on Japanese games…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Dug up an article from last year about Square's strategy in terms of selling. It seems like anything Sony were to do eith them would involve buying stakes in their teams. Not sure what that looks like. Seems like outright buying them would have more benefits.

I'm confused, they are looking to sell stakes in western studios in order to fund more investment in Japan but they've already sold all of their western studios (they retain IP like JC and a very select amount of others but never owned the dev teams.) They do own some mobile teams in India, but thats surely not the focus...

 

[Yurinka]

I'm confused, they are looking to sell stakes in western studios in order to fund more investment in Japan but they've already sold all of their western studios (they retain IP like JC and a very select amount of others but never owned the dev teams.) They do own some mobile teams in India, but thats surely not the focus...

Back in August (the listed article is from then) they sold most of their western development studios, basically now all their studios are Asian, keeping in the west only their American and European publishing/distribution subsidiaries for these territories.

For the remaining studios (the Asian ones), or at least some of them, they plan to sell stakes instead of selling the studios completely. Meaning, that instead of selling the whole studio or IPs, they'd sell a portion of the studio to one or more companies, pretty likely a minority so they'd continue controlling it.

By doing that, SE could still control the studio but would earn a good chunk of money from selling that portion. And depending who the buyer could be, maybe the transaction could be part of a bigger deal with the buyer that could help SE in other ways. I mean, being Sony they'd help them marketing their games or adapting them to movies or tv shows, or being Tencent they'd help them with data from all their other teams or to enter China since they are both the main platform holder, the main social media and the main ads platform there.

 

[AshHunter216]

Back in August (the listed article is from then) they sold most of their western development studios, basically now all their studios are Asian, keeping in the west only their American and European publishing/distribution subsidiaries for these territories.

For the remaining studios (the Asian ones), or at least some of them, they plan to sell stakes instead of selling the studios completely. Meaning, that instead of selling the whole studio or IPs, they'd sell a portion of the studio to one or more companies, pretty likely a minority so they'd continue controlling it.

By doing that, SE could still control the studio but would earn a good chunk of money from selling that portion. And depending who the buyer could be, maybe the transaction could be part of a bigger deal with the buyer that could help SE in other ways. I mean, being Sony they'd help them marketing their games or adapting them to movies or tv shows, or being Tencent they'd help them with data from all their other teams or to enter China since they are both the main platform holder, the main social media and the main ads platform there.

In that case an arrangement like that wouldn't give Playstation nearly as many benefits as the Zenimax situation does for Xbox.

 

[Yurinka]

In that case an arrangement like that wouldn't give Playstation nearly as many benefits as the Zenimax situation does for Xbox.

Yes. But the thing is that Square Enix has many business where Sony isn't interested like mangas, arcades, merchandising, nfts... so maybe Sony prefers to spend way less money than it would cost the whole SE and to secure only the specific parts that interests them.

Maybe Sony only wants to secure quality JRPG content for PS and avoid that certain SE IPs would go exclusive for rival platforms or bought by them, and to secure from them let's say a couple of (probably timed) console exclusives per year while keeping the other ones multi, plus to get the rights for their movie/tv show/anime adaptations of these IPs.

Probably they could agree that in a deal which part of it would be buying minority stakes of some SE studios.

MS was 'desperate' because they couldn't compete in consoles against Sony and Nintendo and had a small number of superseller IPs and top teams, so they had to acquire top publishers to compensate it to make their platform more attractive and improve their market share.

It isn't the case of Sony, the market leader in consoles. Sony is only interested on slowly growing in new markets and securing key partners from the consolidation state of the industry.

 

[AshHunter216]

Yes. But the thing is that Square Enix has many business where Sony isn't interested like mangas, arcades, merchandising, nfts... so maybe Sony prefers to spend way less money than it would cost the whole SE and to secure only the specific parts that interests them.

Maybe Sony only wants to avoid that certain SE IPs would go exclusive for rival platforms or bought by them, and to secure from them let's say a couple of (probably timed) console exclusives per year, plus to get the rights for any possible movie/tv show/anime adaptations.

I think the very least they can do is make the necessary moves to ensure that certain key franchises to their brand don't end up belonging to their rivals. I do feel like they need to put aside any reservations they have about getting a publisher with the rate things are going with MS though, otherwise they're potentially stuck competing against an absolutely massive first party stable with their current studios and likely wouldn't be able to contend with the sheer volume of major franchise games such a large rival would pump out.

Sony have at least 10 billion left in their budget for acquisitions as of last year and were hiring for positions that specialize in mergers. Hopefully they plan on doing something outside of scooping up unproven live service devs.

 

[Yurinka]

I think the very least they can do is make the necessary moves to ensure that certain key franchises to their brand don't end up belonging to their rivals. I do feel like they need to put aside any reservations they have about getting a publisher with the rate things are going with MS though, otherwise they're potentially stuck competing against an absolutely massive first party stable with their current studios and likely wouldn't be able to contend with the sheer volume of major franchise games such a large rival would pump out.

Sony have at least 10 billion left in their budget for acquisitions as of last year and were hiring for positions that specialize in mergers. Hopefully they plan on doing something outside of scooping up unproven live service devs.

Part of these $10B, which were not only for acquisitions but also for investments, and not only for gaming but for the whole corporation, was already spent to buy:
-One of the biggest actors of live service games in consoles, the one who set the record of best selling new IP in gaming history popularizing live service games in console. They also created Halo before that.
-The developer of a live service game for mobile that generates to Sony over a Billion dollars per year
-A new veteran studio with key people behind record breaking AAA new IPs like Assassin's Creed or Watchdogs, and also many other top selling blockbuster AAA like Rainbow Six Siege, other key live service game in the consoles and PC market, which is also one of the top games in eSports
-A new veteran mobile gaming studio with key people from top live service games from mobile, consoles and PC such as Supercell, King, Rovio, Digital Chocolate, Kabam, Wooga, IGG (all of them top 5 worldwide in mobile gaming and/or browser gaming live service games in different ages of history, just in case you don't know them), Rockstar or Wargaming
-Investments in gaming and non-gaming companies, such as Epic (unproven makers of the live service game Fortnite or Unreal Engine), Devolver (Fall Guys and others) and From Soft
-Non gaming acquisitions

Yeah, much unproven teams and much unproven business model. It only generates the majority of the gaming revenue worldwide, same as mobile. And like mobile is also the biggest growing business model of the market since several years ago both in users and revenue. So I wonder why they would want to invest more on it.

PlayStation's division posts several record numbers every year and grows in many areas and is the market leader in consoles while MS lays off 10000 people and after spending almost $100B still can't compete against Sony in gaming. MS is the one who has to take decisions to become competitive, not Sony.

Now seriously: yes, even considering all this Sony still has budget, acquired people related to acquisitions and will continue acquiring. But pretty likely won't buy big publishers at least soon.

 

[AshHunter216]

expand...Part of these $10B, which were not only for acquisitions but also for investments, and not only for gaming but for the whole corporation, was already spent to buy:
-One of the biggest actors of live service games in consoles, the one who set the record of best selling new IP in gaming history popularizing live service games in console. They also created Halo before that.
-The developer of a live service game for mobile that generates to Sony over a Billion dollars per year
-A new veteran studio with key people behind record breaking AAA new IPs like Assassin's Creed or Watchdogs, and also many other top selling blockbuster AAA like Rainbow Six Siege, other key live service game in the consoles and PC market, which is also one of the top games in eSports
-A new veteran mobile gaming studio with key people from top live service games from mobile, consoles and PC such as Supercell, King, Rovio, Digital Chocolate, Kabam, Wooga, IGG (all of them top 5 worldwide in mobile gaming and/or browser gaming live service games in different ages of history, just in case you don't know them), Rockstar or Wargaming
-Investments in gaming and non-gaming companies, such as Epic (unproven makers of the live service game Fortnite or Unreal Engine), Devolver (Fall Guys and others) and From Soft
-Non gaming acquisitions

Yeah, much unproven teams and much unproven business model. It only generates the majority of the gaming revenue worldwide, same as mobile. And like mobile is also the biggest growing business model of the market since several years ago both in users and revenue. So I wonder why they would want to invest more on it.

PlayStation's division posts several record numbers every year and grows in many areas and is the market leader in consoles while MS lays off 10000 people and after spending almost $100B still can't compete against Sony in gaming. MS is the one who has to take decisions to become competitive, not Sony.

Now seriously: yes, even considering all this Sony still has budget, acquired people related to acquisitions and will continue acquiring. But pretty likely won't buy big publishers at least soon.

Pretty sure the 10 billion figure was calculated after the purchases you mentioned, not before.

I am fully aware of what you mentioned, no sarcasm necessary, I'm just not convinced purchases like Haven or any mobile studios have any tangible benefit to me as a core gamer and I'm not convinced that having big names attached to a new studio guarantees a good game. I also personally don't care for live service games and don't like that Sony seem to be diverting so much attention away from the types of games I enjoy while attempting to produce the next cash cow using a business model that is very controversial for its use of sometimes predatory monetization and may backfire in terms of consumer goodwill. Meanwhile, if Xbox is allowed to continue their shopping spree, who's to say they don't end up with Sega or KT next and have a massive number of IP popular with core gamers like Persona or Yazuka or Nioh while Sony double down on everything but their core audience to court a fickle casual audience while their potential future library shrinks.

Maybe my fears are unfounded, but current trends in the industry and Sony's current response to them don't YET inspire confidence that my platform of choice will continue to have the same wide variety of titles available that it has enjoyed in the past.

 

[Yurinka]

Pretty sure the 10 billion figure was calculated after the purchases you mentioned, not before.

I am fully aware of what you mentioned, no sarcasm necessary, I'm just not convinced purchases like Haven or any mobile studios have any tangible benefit to me as a core gamer and I'm not convinced that having big names attached to a new studio guarantees a good game. I also personally don't care for live service games and don't like that Sony seem to be diverting so much attention away from the types of games I enjoy while attempting to produce the next cash cow using a business model that is very controversial for its use of sometimes predatory monetization and may backfire in terms of consumer goodwill. Meanwhile, if Xbox is allowed to continue their shopping spree, who's to say they don't end up with Sega or KT next and have a massive number of IP popular with core gamers like Persona or Yazuka or Nioh while Sony double down on everything but their core audience to court a fickle casual audience while their potential future library shrinks.

Maybe my fears are unfounded, but current trends in the industry and Sony's current response to them don't YET inspire confidence that my platform of choice will continue to have the same wide variety of titles available that it has enjoyed in the past.

Sony isn't diverting from the games you like, they are expanding their business, in order to be able to pay the insane amount of money that the games you like cost.

Sony will make more PC ports and mobile games than before, but also will release more console games than before.

Sony will more MP and GaaS than before, but also more single player non-GaaS games than before.

Sony willl make more new IPs than before, but also will make more sequels than before.

Sony will invest more on PS movies than before, but also will invest more in gaming than before.

Sony is working on more 1st party, 2nd party and 3rd party exclusive games than they ever did before. And are growing to increase these numbers.

Regarding Microsoft, they just posted a 13% decline YoY in revenue and console hardware, while for PS5 was their best selling quarter. EU and USA regulators don't seem happy with the ABK acquisition, let's see how it ends. I was really confident that they weren't going to have any issue with regulators at least once regulators investigated the market data but seems it isn't the case.

 

[KiryuRealty]

I'm confused, they are looking to sell stakes in western studios in order to fund more investment in Japan but they've already sold all of their western studios (they retain IP like JC and a very select amount of others but never owned the dev teams.) They do own some mobile teams in India, but thats surely not the focus...

It’s an old article.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Sony isn't diverting from the games you like, they are expanding their business, in order to be able to pay the insane amount of money that the games you like cost.

Sony will make more PC ports and mobile games than before, but also will release more console games than before.

Sony will more MP and GaaS than before, but also more single player non-GaaS games than before.

Sony willl make more new IPs than before, but also will make more sequels than before.

Sony will invest more on PS movies than before, but also will invest more in gaming than before.

Sony is working on more 1st party, 2nd party and 3rd party exclusive games than they ever did before. And are growing to increase these numbers.

Regarding Microsoft, they just posted a 13% decline YoY in revenue and console hardware, while for PS5 was their best selling quarter. EU and USA regulators don't seem happy with the ABK acquisition, let's see how it ends. I was really confident that they weren't going to have any issue with regulators at least once regulators investigated the market data but seems it isn't the case.

It was NEVER going to go through, or it already would have.

 

[Muddasar]

I've seen people on twitter massively overhype the potential of a killzone or Socom reboot as one of these 10 live service games Sony want to do. Some even think Sony 1st party ought to abandon the single player games they're so good at in favor of multiplayer only games, which is really dumb imo.

I think Socom has potential to be a decent live service game in the mold of Pubg/The division.

Killzone on the other hand is a rubbish franchise which should be left abandoned.

 

[Zzero]

It’s an old article.

I thought I did the math and it came out after the Eidos sale was announced. I'm probably wrong though because, as I said, it doesn't make sense otherwise.

 

[KiryuRealty]

I thought I did the math and it came out after the Eidos sale was announced. I'm probably wrong though because, as I said, it doesn't make sense otherwise.

It was from just before they divested Eidos.

 

[Sharinghack]

funny how ?

 

[voke]

Forspoken is a great game, don't listen to all these internet people shitting on it. 15 hours in so far. If it looks up your alley please don't hesitate.

 

[AshHunter216]

Forspoken is a great game, don't listen to all these internet people shitting on it. 15 hours in so far. If it looks up your alley please don't hesitate.

Yeah, I think a certain community is going to use that game to attack Playstation for the next 6 months at least.