Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki says PlayStation is reforming currently their gaming business

Yurinka

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Sony President, COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki says that PlayStation are currently reforming their gaming business with the following steps:

- Changing business structure
- New look at game development approach
- Portfolio concept to be introduced
- Cost cuts in different areas
- Optimization in investment in sales and marketing


There is nothing new in what Totoki said.

Totoki was just explaining what we already knew they have been doing over a year: to make some cuts and optimizations to improve profitability (fired people, shut down a few productions and studios etc.), reorganizing SIE into two groups each one with its own CEO, creation of the center of excellence for live service games where the experts from their different studios share knowledge and review GaaS specific things from all their GaaS games, plus other changes they've been making in recent years, like expanding in the GaaS/PC/accesories/movies/tv shows/mobile gaming/etc areas.

Regarding portfolio, I don't know what the tweet means. Like any company they always had a portfolio strategy since forever. Hermen explained their current one for first party titles months ago, when showcasing the fiscal year report:
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To be specific, Hermen mentioned they plan to release at least one major first party 'single player tentpole' title per holiday season going forward.

Regarding the 3rd party side of their portfolio strategy the last thing they announced was when Jim Ryan said that they had signed more 3rd party exclusives for the entire PS5 generation than in any previous generation, and that they were making efforts to expand their partnerships to also include teams from other Asian countries (China, South Korea, etc).

Totoki has been only for several months being in charge. Since April 2024 to be precisely. He is definitely not pro America. He is a conservative Japanese. Modern fanboys worst nightmare.
In 2021, he became Director, Executive Deputy President and CFO, Representative Corporate Executive of the Sony Group Corporation.

He was appointed to President, COO and CFO of Sony Group Corporation in 2023.

Regarding SIE, he was interim CEO since Jim Ryan retirement (announced September 2023, effective April 2024) until the new CEOs Hulst and Nishino started their job in June 2024, moment where Nishino moved back to be 'only' chairman of SIE.

https://recruit-holdings.com/en/about/leadership/totoki/
 
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Gediminas

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21 Jun 2022
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No Spider-Man 1 didn't have 200m lol.



Still 200m should be not approved for any future game. That's simply a waste. The Californian egos need to be shattered once and for all.

Spider Man remaster costed 40M$ and Morales budget was 150M$.

but to make Spider Man costed 90M?

it isn't a waste if it used accordingly, especially with those sales.
 

Killer_Sakoman

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Honestly, all they need is to shed the bloat and the too much nonsense.

Develop single player games in the size and scope of PS3 and early PS4 games.

Develop multiplayer/GaaS games that are INNOVATIVE. Not a copy paste of current garbage. During PS3 generation they experimented alot with multiplayer. Experimenting with multiplayer is the real risk that could bring on the success and huge revenue.

Cut consultancy firms for She/Shim. You don't need to pay millions of dollars to tell your fans that our character is a tranney with a BBC.

You don't need 1000 writers to develop game plot. Max 2 writers and Chatgpt are all you need.

You don't need to pay Hollywood actors to act in your games and scan their ugly plastic surgery faces. Make your own characters and contract young passionate talented actors.

Let people buy your consoles and subscribe to PS+. You know how to it. You know why people bought your consoles in first place. You know why xbox went to shit.
 

Zzero

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It’s happening as I have been exactly saying for years. Sony is done with California and will now look at cheaper areas to operate the PlayStation business. This makes the reallocation of the PlayStation division to Japan pretty realistic. Also this plays in with what Donald Trumps has announced: there will be an tax for gaming companies in America and an extra tax for foreign companies such as PlayStation up until to 40%, for operating on American soil.
This inlines with everything I have said. Sony will move the PlayStation division back to Japan. The expenses and upcoming changes by Trump are not viable anymore for Sony. And we know Totoki is a money guy. They will now focus on cost-effective regions such as Japan, Korea and China. For example see Astrobot. It was reported on the business update as a very successful game. In 9 weeks it sold 1.5m copies for a moderately budget. Also the Yen is weak and operating the PlayStation division in Japan will be much more profitable for Sony and easier to control. This is the future PlayStation needs. Sayonara California!
If by "Japan" you mean the Netherlands then sure.
 

On Demand

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PC loser race sure loves to read into what they want PlayStation to become.

Just buy a PS5 already.
 
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Sircaw

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He doesn't need to use specific words to understand what he means. Today is a victory for GAAS gamers around the world. Celebrate my friend.
Dial back with the trolling!

Don't think I have not noticed.

And don't give me any off that "I am innocent Jive rubbish."

Cool it or I will put you on ICE.

I See You GIF by HBO Max
 
24 Jun 2022
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No Spider-Man 1 didn't have 200m lol.



Still 200m should be not approved for any future game. That's simply a waste. The Californian egos need to be shattered once and for all.


I kinda disagree that $200 million shouldn't be approved for any game going forward. However, I think those types of games would be better off as semi-episodic expansion installments. You know, 15-hour or so experiences that feel like whole games unto themselves, but are technically part of a series of entries building towards an even larger gaming experience.

So, they have both self-contained stories and stories that are built upon in other installments, fleshed out game mechanics & campaigns with a good difficulty curve, maybe some secrets & optional content that can be rewarded in the next installment, etc. One of the golden examples of what I'm talking about is the Shining Force III series of games with their Scenarios 1-3.

This way they can earmark some amount to each installment, have them release in 2-3 year increments (depending on complexity), price them lower per installment (e.g $40), then package them together as an all-in-one once all the installments are out as a $70 release and, IF they want, port that version to Steam. Which will have been a good 4-6 years or so since the first installment was made available anyway.

Now, if they had their own storefront, they could probably do Day 1 for that type of game between console & the PC launcher, per installment and such, tie in rewards for users across both platforms etc. But there are other things about their own storefront they'd need to resolve first, mainly around monetization and also courting 3P software support to the storefront. Which, IMO, should also include netting 3P PC-exclusive software to their storefront in order to increase chances of those games getting console ports to PS5 & PS6.
 

Neversummer

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27 Jun 2023
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There is nothing new in what Totoki said.

Totoki was just explaining what we already knew they have been doing over a year: to make some cuts and optimizations to improve profitability (fired people, shut down a few productions and studios etc.), reorganizing SIE into two groups each one with its own CEO, creation of the center of excellence for live service games where the experts from their different studios share knowledge and review GaaS specific things from all their GaaS games, plus other changes they've been making in recent years, like expanding in the GaaS/PC/accesories/movies/tv shows/mobile gaming/etc areas.

Regarding portfolio, I don't know what the tweet means. Like any company they always had a portfolio strategy since forever. Hermen explained their current one for first party titles months ago, when showcasing the fiscal year report:
image.png

image.png

image.png

image.png

image.png


To be specific, Hermen mentioned they plan to release at least one major first party 'single player tentpole' title per holiday season going forward.

Regarding the 3rd party side of their portfolio strategy the last thing they announced was when Jim Ryan said that they had signed more 3rd party exclusives for the entire PS5 generation than in any previous generation, and that they were making efforts to expand their partnerships to also include teams from other Asian countries (China, South Korea, etc).


In 2021, he became Director, Executive Deputy President and CFO, Representative Corporate Executive of the Sony Group Corporation.

He was appointed to President, COO and CFO of Sony Group Corporation in 2023.

Regarding SIE, he was interim CEO since Jim Ryan retirement (announced September 2023, effective April 2024) until the new CEOs Hulst and Nishino started their job in June 2024, moment where Nishino moved back to be 'only' chairman of SIE.

https://recruit-holdings.com/en/about/leadership/totoki/
World class franchise

Concord massive flop
Until Dawn massive flop

Fairgames looking to be the next massive flop by Sony/PS

Not sure why when PS was going to expand into live service they didn’t use there already established franchise.

GOW Diablo like live service
Demon Souls/Bloodborne (Soulsborne) Diablo like live service
SOCOM Tom Clancy/COD like live service
KILLZONE Star Wars Battlefront 2 like live service
Demon Slayer Genshin like mobile gacha
inFAMOUS Genshin like mobile gacha
LBP4
PS Home 2
PS AllStars 2
Twisted Metal top down brawl stars like mobile gacha

How much money did Jim, Herman & Totoki lost Sony & Sony investors? Like almost 1 billion💀 Concord & Fairgames alone is 500 million I can’t even count the waste of money spend on studios that had no worth & or game cancelled 💀 either way it looks like 1 to 1.5 billion been wasted in the last 4-5 years & this is not even counting Bungie
 

Neversummer

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Now, if they had their own storefront, they could probably do Day 1 for that type of game between console & the PC launcher, per installment and such, tie in rewards for users across both platforms etc. But there are other things about their own storefront they'd need to resolve first, mainly around monetization and also courting 3P software support to the storefront. Which, IMO, should also include netting 3P PC-exclusive software to their storefront in order to increase chances of those games getting console ports to PS5 & PS6.
I still find it hard to believe they would make there games exclusive to a PS PC launcher even if I agree that the PS PC launcher will fail if it doesn’t have some sort of exclusive such as these ports or multiplayer & acting more like Riot or Hoyoverse which seeing Herman as CEO I doubt he looks at long term like that.

Also if PS was going to make there PC port exclusive to the PS PC launcher they would save notable games like Spiderman 2, GOW ragnarok & Horizon monster hunter, again I think Herman & PS leadership are to short sighted to think long term.

I think PS will have a PS PC launcher in 2025 that will ultimately fail because it didn’t have some sort of exclusive & PS PC port & multilayer games still releasing on Steam which PC gamers already prioritized. Will PS cut sales on PC to get 100% + push a PS+ PC on PC (which ofc doesn’t gates online but it’s more of a multilayer centric exclusive cosmetic instead) I doubt. PS is moving more like Xbox than even Riot, Hoyoverse or even Netflix. Because of this failing I think PS will just further rampant PC port diminishing the PS platform & it will just be a never ending of self inflicted damage till they fully spiral like Xbox & have to publish games on PC, Nintendo & Apple devices to make back the investment & profit they themselves have lost because they spend the last 4+ years harming there own storefront, hardware & ecosystem.
 
24 Jun 2022
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I still find it hard to believe they would make there games exclusive to a PS PC launcher even if I agree that the PS PC launcher will fail if it doesn’t have some sort of exclusive such as these ports or multiplayer & acting more like Riot or Hoyoverse which seeing Herman as CEO I doubt he looks at long term like that.

Also if PS was going to make there PC port exclusive to the PS PC launcher they would save notable games like Spiderman 2, GOW ragnarok & Horizon monster hunter, again I think Herman & PS leadership are to short sighted to think long term.

I think PS will have a PS PC launcher in 2025 that will ultimately fail because it didn’t have some sort of exclusive & PS PC port & multilayer games still releasing on Steam which PC gamers already prioritized. Will PS cut sales on PC to get 100% + push a PS+ PC on PC (which ofc doesn’t gates online but it’s more of a multilayer centric exclusive cosmetic instead) I doubt. PS is moving more like Xbox than even Riot, Hoyoverse or even Netflix. Because of this failing I think PS will just further rampant PC port diminishing the PS platform & it will just be a never ending of self inflicted damage till they fully spiral like Xbox & have to publish games on PC, Nintendo & Apple devices to make back the investment & profit they themselves have lost because they spend the last 4+ years harming there own storefront, hardware & ecosystem.

Yeah, a lot of what's in the last paragraph is what I worry about with the subsidiary. A cycle of bad decisions that create a self-fulfilling prophecy and creating a Catch-22 for the brand. I'm already of the mind a shift in the GAAS plans that reduces them significantly could result in them accelerating their ports to Steam with much shorter intervals or even Day 1, which will just have a negative impact on console revenue for B2P, subscription, & MTX sales going forward, but especially cutting into early adoption rates for the PS6.

A PC launcher for PlayStation only works if they make their 1P titles exclusive to it (at least for a good measure of time), rescind the trend of porting most or all of their games to other launchers (Valve keeps their non-GAAS and even GAAS titles exclusive to Steam, for example, and on PC Epic keeps Fortnite exclusive to EGS), get 3P support on the storefront similar to console, and find a way to monetize the storefront in non-intrusive ways that don't require a person to sub to PS+ (to make up for removing PS+ requirement for paid online, among other things). They'll also have to remove the paid online requirement on console side, to establish feature parity between the console and storefront, or else they'll have to add a LOT more value to the console PS+ to justify the price and keeping online paywalled behind it for non-F2P titles.

What's the confidence on SIE doing all of this? It's honestly 50/50 at best; I also don't think they'll have a storefront ready by 2025, but whenever it IS ready, anything they do for the storefront will be directly compared to the console and if the value proposition is better on the storefront side, SIE WILL see a drop in console sales as a result. And that assumes a "small" drop, which is dependent on their 1P lineup remaining strong, still getting big 3P exclusives (something that seems less and less likely), and not raising prices any further (decent chance they still increase prices going forward).

I was watching Moore's Law Is Dead today and they were discussing the possibility of Nintendo (yes, Nintendo) putting games on PC. The consensus he and NX Gamer arrived at, is that IF Nintendo did any sort of thing, it'd be a verrry drawn-out process and would only involve very old games like NES, SNES, N64 or maybe some Gamecube titles. And, they'd basically look at how all of that goes.

TBH, I think Nintendo would have the best approach expanding to a platform like PC where it doesn't cannibalize their console, because they've already proven they can do this with mobile. And, if they decided to bring new games to PC, it wouldn't be any of the games on their console; rather it'd probably be some F2P MOBA/adventure-whatever type of game made with a 3P developer specifically for PC & mobile platforms. You know, like what SCE used to do with their older PC initiatives when they prioritized PC-centric IPs like EverQuest for that platform? That's the type of thing I could see Nintendo doing within the next 10 years, after re-releasing a few of their older classics to platforms like Steam.

So at least that way, if someone who played say Super Mario 64 or Sunshine on PC wanted to play Mario Odyssey 2, they'd have to get a Switch 2. Nintendo's traditionally been a lot more conservative than even Sony, let alone Microsoft, and that won't be changing anytime in the future, so I can see the culmination of any efforts on PC or other platforms (e.g mobile, PlayStation) being that type of aforementioned bespoke, 3P-developed F2P GAAS-type title based around an IP or two. But it'd be its own experience, to leverage the IP in appealing to those gamers and enticing them to try other games of that IP, specifically the newest ones exclusive to Nintendo's system.

AKA, the strategy SIE should've taken with their own multiplatform push, but it's too late now. They can make adjustments of course, but whether SIE make the right adjustments or not, I am 50/50 on at best.
 
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