Sony president Hiroki Totoki officially begins his role as interim CEO of PlayStation. What are your expectations?

[mibu no ookami]

I don’t get the people that think PS should alienating its core playerbase on console to maybe potentially garner a fanbase on a direct competitor who youl end up making less on % plus now your core playerbase no longer has to buy your console PS would’ve made there console obsolete opening the horizon of there core playerbase migrate to PC or other platform im not even mention that PS would’ve traded gaining 100% for 30% & those 30% would’ve came from the same playerbase who would’ve or bought previous console & payed 100% on your wall garden.

Xbox revenue & profit didn’t massively increase when they went day n date on PC it’s all public you can look at the share holder meetings there’s a reason why they stop talking about concrete revenue & profits & now uses % Xbox killed there entire platform & storefront there revenue & profit year over year continues to shrink its only in 2020 & 2022 when MS bought 4 major 3rd party publisher (Zenimax, Activision, Blizzard & King) who produced games on PS & Nintendo but even then it’s still not enough to offset the loss in a shrinking Xbox console platform who’s playerbase been conditioned to not buy games due to Gamepass simultaneously harming the Xbox storefront making less & less. Give it 5 to 7 years till there console & storefront revenue/profit is so low it doesn’t make sense producing either just to lose $ when they can focus on other wall gardens that have a core playerbase & that’s why your seeing them port there games to PS & Nintendo

It's fascinating to see people continue to pedal the belief that Sony is alienating their consumers by making games that aren't profitable on PC.

Either there is a mass exodus on consumers going from console to PC or there aren't.

What you're describing is tribalism and people who are pissed off that their tribe isn't getting sole attention, but the reality is we all know console gamers aren't jumping to PC because Sony puts some games on PC years later.

But what Sony CAN do is recover a significant portion of their development costs simply by porting a game to PC.

If a game costs 100 million dollars to develop but can get 30 million dollars in largely operating income on PC, you've just covered 30% of a games development cost with a port that probably costs you a couple million dollars.

Even a 200 million dollar game adding 30 million dollars in the right direction makes it an easier pill to swallow.

We get it, you don't care about the business side of this and you're only seeing it from a tribalistic consumer side, but the reality is that Sony's AAA strategy as it exists today was not sustainable without additional revenue. And those that are lusting after Japanese titles, those games weren't moving the needle at all. In fact these PC ports probably generate more revenue than they ever did...

 

[arvfab]

It's fascinating to see people continue to pedal the belief that Sony is alienating their consumers by making games that aren't profitable on PC.

Either there is a mass exodus on consumers going from console to PC or there aren't.

What you're describing is tribalism and people who are pissed off that their tribe isn't getting sole attention, but the reality is we all know console gamers aren't jumping to PC because Sony puts some games on PC years later.

But what Sony CAN do is recover a significant portion of their development costs simply by porting a game to PC.

If a game costs 100 million dollars to develop but can get 30 million dollars in largely operating income on PC, you've just covered 30% of a games development cost with a port that probably costs you a couple million dollars.

Even a 200 million dollar game adding 30 million dollars in the right direction makes it an easier pill to swallow.

We get it, you don't care about the business side of this and you're only seeing it from a tribalistic consumer side, but the reality is that Sony's AAA strategy as it exists today was not sustainable without additional revenue. And those that are lusting after Japanese titles, those games weren't moving the needle at all. In fact these PC ports probably generate more revenue than they ever did...

So let's hope Sony goes day and date with PC and GaaS only releases. And hopefully they stop making technically advanced games to reduce production costs.
This will help them make bags of money!
Who cares if we will get shitty games, as long as they make enough money, right?

 

[klomzi]

So it's ok to disappoint and alienate your current fanbase in order to TRY to get someone else on board?

You would be happy if they stopped making console games and went full on with mobile games? At least they would (maybe) make more money!

Yes, they are a company out after peoples money. Not a charity or your friend.

 

[arvfab]

Yes, they are a company out after peoples money. Not a charity or your friend.

Well, not after my money if they keep going on like this.

 

[mibu no ookami]

So let's hope Sony goes day and date with PC and GaaS only releases. And hopefully they stop making technically advanced games to reduce production costs.
This will help them make bags of money!
Who cares if we will get shitty games, as long as they make enough money, right?

I think your extreme response kind of shows your tribalism here and lack of understanding in the really good nuance I think Sony has shown when it comes to its PC releases.

They've already shown that other than select titles they aren't doing day and date.

The games that make sense to release day and date so far have included Helldivers, which was a huge success. The game would not be nearly as successful only on PS5. The GaaS strategy has already produced one of Sony's most successful games of all time and it has only been out for a couple of months.

Until Dawn might be multiplatform as well, which I think makes sense too. The game is already available on PS4, was already on the PS+ collection. Releasing it Day 1 on PC doesn't injure PS5 owners and probably helps out with any marketing they want to do around the movie and its release.

The Until Dawn remake combined with a movie release and a PC release might push the game to sell more than the original games and even if it doesn't, might be the right project for a new studio that Sony might have increasing ties to.

They don't need to stop making technically advanced games, this is a straw man argument, but they might need to create new avenues to monetize those games, i.e. pc releases, handheld releases.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

What is very likely to happen:

Reallocation of the current HQ of SIE back to Tokyo, Minato.
Renaming current HQ into SIE of North America. Marks the return of regional based leaderships, by installing in SIE of Europe and North America.
Stronger focus on Japan and Asia (Korea, China, Malaysia etc.)
Trimming the fat and reducing extremely the budgets for the Western Studios. Less AAA Hollywood Blockbusters, which is a very positive aspect. Acquiring IP like he mentioned one year ago (likely in Japan).
Appointment of a Japanese CEO for PlayStation after one year of his role as temporary head of SIE.

 

[klomzi]

Well, not after my money if they keep going on like this.

Maybe not, but there are a ton of other people they will get money from.

 

[arvfab]

I think your extreme response kind of shows your tribalism here and lack of understanding in the really good nuance I think Sony has shown when it comes to its PC releases.

They've already shown that other than select titles they aren't doing day and date.

The games that make sense to release day and date so far have included Helldivers, which was a huge success. The game would not be nearly as successful only on PS5. The GaaS strategy has already produced one of Sony's most successful games of all time and it has only been out for a couple of months.

Until Dawn might be multiplatform as well, which I think makes sense too. The game is already available on PS4, was already on the PS+ collection. Releasing it Day 1 on PC doesn't injure PS5 owners and probably helps out with any marketing they want to do around the movie and its release.

The Until Dawn remake combined with a movie release and a PC release might push the game to sell more than the original games and even if it doesn't, might be the right project for a new studio that Sony might have increasing ties to.

They don't need to stop making technically advanced games, this is a straw man argument, but they might need to create new avenues to monetize those games, i.e. pc releases, handheld releases.

Yeah yeah, I'm a selfish, tribalistic person, because I want the games I PAY for to meet the high quality standards Sony themselves set and because I don't want them to continue making the same errors Microsoft did, which led them to whatever they are now.

Maybe not, but there are a ton of other people they will get money from.

Yeah, that seems like the direction they have taken. Oh well, retro/backlog + Nintendo (if they don't turn to shit, too) it will be then.

 

[Neversummer]

Yes, they are a company out after peoples money. Not a charity or your friend.

People like this are the same people running Xbox & Xbox is in a dire position where there console & storefront will soon be obsolete & irrelevant in gaming. & the same people who say “x platform needs genz” well if your platform & storefront is obsolete & irrelevant you think gen z are gonna buy & spend money on your ecosystem? No they won’t, so largely you’d self destruct yourself in gaming by making poor short term decisions while every other major player that holds a strong position in gaming is playing the long game

 

[Gediminas]

Trimming the fat and reducing extremely the budgets for the Western Studios. Less AAA Hollywood Blockbusters, which is a very positive aspect. Acquiring IP like he mentioned one year ago (likely in Japan).

this makes no sense from customer side, but also from Playstation side.

first of all, customers want that and we have sale data to support that. but also, profit margin supports that PS side.

what is better, invest 50M and get 100M profit, or invest 200M and get 500M profit?

 

[Gediminas]

Yeah yeah, I'm a selfish, tribalistic person, because I want the games I PAY for to meet the high quality standards Sony themselves set and because I don't want them to continue making the same errors Microsoft did, which led them to whatever they are now.




Yeah, that seems like the direction they have taken. Oh well, retro/backlog + Nintendo (if they don't turn to shit, too) it will be then.

oh well, we are tribalist for quality and great games, how poor we are

 

[Neversummer]

Maybe not, but there are a ton of other people they will get money from.

So cut half of your PS current playerbase & potential future new playerbase to gain another potential half so you’re still at the same amount of customers that’s not growth. Xbox went day 1 everywhere they didn’t see growth, till they spend 100 billion in 2023 now there forced to release on direct competitor PS & Nintendo because they killed there own platform, storefront & ecosystem nice! GROWTH! gotta get the genz at the cost of your own platform even thoe these gen z don’t give a fuck about Xbox LMAO

Like arrowhead said a game for everyone is for no one. Xbox going for everyone in 10 years they’ll end up w no one in there platform & storefront lol death by a thousand cuts

 

[Eternal_Wings]

this makes no sense from customer side, but also from Playstation side.

first of all, customers want that and we have sale data to support that. but also, profit margin supports that PS side.

what is better, invest 50M and get 100M profit, or invest 200M and get 500M profit?

This not accurate. Hiroki Totoki was openly criticising the Western Studios of PS, that they will need to make drastic changes in terms of budgets. He named Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games and a bunch of others. The era of expensive AAA Hollywood blockbusters are over once and for all. Sony won’t ever again finance those horrendous budgets.

 

[Gediminas]

This not accurate. Hiroki Totoki was openly criticising the Western Studios of PS, that they will need to make drastic changes in terms of budgets. He named Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games and a bunch of others. The era of expensive AAA Hollywood blockbusters are over once and for all. Sony won’t ever again finance those horrendous budgets.

he talked about bungie!?

how it is not accurate? we have sale data and profit data. did you just tell us that PS is falsifying their own data?
plus, do you accusing people for lying everywhere that they don't want AAA blockbuster games?

 

[Puff]

I don't have a good feeling about this guy

 

[Eternal_Wings]

he talked about bungie!?

how it is not accurate? we have sale data and profit data. did you just tell us that PS is falsifying their own data?
plus, do you accusing people for lying everywhere that they don't want AAA blockbuster games?

No not only Bungie, he was talking about all PS Studios. Well you will get used to it, the AAA Hollywood blockbuster will disappear. Sony will never again spend more than $100m for a single game. 150-300m is not sustainable for a single game. The games will become much smaller in scale overall. It’s good that this sickness will be purged. So tired of this mass CGI loaded games. Game needs to be fun and cool. If I want to watch a movie I go to the cinema, I don’t need that in games. Anyway you will need to get used to it, the western rule is over. Welcome new Japanese era.

 

[Yurinka]

Sony barely had 1st party success on the PS1. Outside of Polyphony Digital almost all of their games were 2nd party games.

The main reason of the huge success of PS1 and PS2 was highly growing the console market in PAL lands, particularly Europe, offering decent localization and successfully targeting a new audience for consoles: young adults.

The first hit in Europe to achieve this was Wipeout, a first party PS1 launch game. Later came other ones like Gran Turismo, Destruction Derby, Rollcage, NFL GameDay, Legend of Dragoon or Syphon Filter (codeveloped by the 1st party 989 Studios and the 2nd party Eidetic).

But yes, other than these ones their other best selling PS1 1st party games were 2nd party: Crash, Spyro, Everybody's Golf, Twisted Metal, Parappa, Arc The Lad, Jet Moto...

Most of these sold over 1 or 2 million copies, which back then were very good sales. They were successful (including their internal 1st party studios like Psygnosis, Japan Studio, 989 -previously known as Sony Interactive Studios America and Sony Imagesoft- and Polyphony). But yes, their only big 1st party hits who sold considerably more than that were Crash, Spyro (both 2nd party) and specially Gran Turismo.

The same was true with the PS2 except for the success of God of War. During the PS2 generation, Sony started investing more in first-party development, purchasing several studios.

Well, for the PS1 they bought Psygnosis, created Japan Studios, and branched out Polyphony from there, created SCE Studio Cambridge (later renamed to the defunct Guerrilla Cambridge), moved into SCE Psygnosis and what ended being 989.

SSM started releasing games for PS2 but was founded in 1999. PS2 was released in 2000, but PS1 was still being sold and getting games until 2006 and in this 2000-2006 period -PS2 but also PS1 days- they made several acquisitions.

In 2000, the year Syphon Filter 2 was released they bought Eidetic renaming it Bend Studio.

In 2001 they also acquired Red Zone Interactive and merged it with 989 Sports to create the San Diego studio. Their first game was the PS2 title Mark of Kri (2002). They also bought Naughty Dog.

In 2002 Sony bought Incognito, who as Sony studio also started making PS2 games, after having released a PS1 and a PS2 titles as second party in 2001 and having people who previously also made PS1 2nd party stuff SingleTrac. They also did open Londo Studio that year, who also started making PS2 titles.

They also acquired Guerrilla in December 2005.

The year PS1 got discontinued they acquired Zipper in 2006, and after that Evolution+Big Big in 2007 and Sucker Punch in 2011.

Sony will never again spend more than $100m for a single game. 150-300m is not sustainable for a single game.

Big AAA games today cost over $200M (already did in the previous gen) and sometimes even over $300M. Sony will obviously continue making mainly big AAA games with these budgets (Wolverine is estimated in $305M, Spider-Man 3 in $385M), combined as always with smaller sized games (such as Ratchet, Morales, Lost Legacy, etc.).

As a reference, Morales being a smaller game with many rehashed stuff it did cost $156M. And Ratchet being a shorter game $85M.

And these budgets are for non-GaaS SP games. In case of MP GaaS titles you have to add (scaling depending on game performance) additional budget for servers and post launch content.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The poor takes I'm seeing here are super disappointing. Thought there would be better analysis here.

Sony is in their strongest position in gaming since the early 2000s. They've made several investments to ensure that position improves over the next 5-10 years.

Jim Ryan has left PlayStation considerably stronger than any other executive has and that's simply undeniable.

• Has entered into higher margin businesses that can bring in revenue AND operating income at times when new games are not be released
  • PlayStation Productions
  • Audeze
  • PC Game ports
  • GaaS
• Has rapidly expanded the size and scope of PlayStation Studios and SIE
  • Haven, Bluepoint, Housemarque, Insomniac, Bungie, Nixxes, Firewalk, Firesprite, Valkyrie, e.t.c.
• Successfully navigated the pandemic
• Gained additional market share
• Forced its primary competitor into releasing games for PlayStation

Jim Ryan's success since becoming CEO in 2019 despite the significant hurdles in front of him has been pretty staggering.

The amount of hate he gets from small children is pretty laughable.

Well from MY POV, a lot of these investments and gains don't mean anything of significance unless they bring the games that I want to see, and those games providing as much value proposition to their console as possible. When people start becoming fans or supporters of the corporations instead of the games, I think they sometimes lose sight that for us customers, it's always ultimately about the games and in this case, what those games offer for the console that can't be offered by other platforms.

For example, the PC ports were sold to us on the promise they'd lead to more 1P games. In practice, the opposite has happened: midway through the generation and there are fewer 1P releases (especially those current-gen only) than the back half of the PS4 generation. And yes I'm comparing to the latter years of PS4 not the first 3 or so years because the transition from PS4 to PS5 should have been seamless. It's not like going from PS2 to PS3, or PS3 to PS4 where entire architectures change so you'd expect devs to take time transitioning hence a softening in new 1P exclusives for that console the first couple or so years.

Mentioning the GaaS stuff doesn't mean much right now because even Helldivers 2 was greenlit before the newer form of that initiative. Yes, it did benefit from Bungie input, but that input was probably during the tail end of the game's development. They have gained market share, yes, but arguably could be gaining more if they didn't weaken the value proposition of their console by porting over virtually every 1P release aside a super-small handful by only the midpoint of the current generation. And, by this time 2025 we could be looking at a situation where the PS5 has two or less 1P exclusives to its name (Spiderman 2, Astro's Playroom) if the Nvidia leak continues to be accurate for Sony-related PC ports (which it has been thus far).

I'm not mentioning any of this out of hate for Jim; I actually respect what they've done for the brand and he's a super-shrewd businessman. However I don't think it's hard to take a step back and see that despite SIE's gains so far this gen, they could've done a few things quite a bit better or more measured.

 

[Yurinka]

If Sony releases a handheld as they are rumored to do, it's going to be put a lot of pressure on Switch 2, which already has a lot of pressure. The 3DS didn't sell anywhere close to the 2DS. The Gameboy Advance didn't sell anywhere close to the GB/GBC. The Wii U didn't sell anywhere close to the Wii.

Nintendo retired from the home consoles market because with Wii as exception their home consoles sales declined every generation since the NES. This is why this gen they had instead a portable with tv out.

Switch got particularly successful because they had no competition in the portable market, so got the 3DS+Vita or DS+PSP market for themselves, and combined it with what they had in consoles with WiiU.

Switch 2 will have to face the competition of the PC handhelds, and mobile starting to get AAA console-like games, either in some cases native and in others via cloud. Markets which are small but will continue growing over years.

Sony and the 3rd party publishers won't make a portable that requires dedicated games, can't support it with games because now are too expensive and there is no market for it.

But what Sony can do is a PC handheld for the next generation, as PS Player successor. Which in addition to Remote Play and PS Cloud gaming, it would also play natively Sony's PC games and also the 3rd party ones from Sony's upcoming PC store.

If they are smart and want to make it successful, like the other PC handhelds should allow dual boot to allow you install there Windows, Steam OS or Linux to install there games from other stores and emulators.

Sony is very much on the right track, they just might need to speed up their pace a bit, but I like most of the moves they are making.

I agree. Regarding the pace, during the Jim Ryan era they grew their teams a lot, made many acquisitions and many 2nd and 3rd party deals. Not only targeting their console, but also PC and mobile.

But games require several years to be made, so the results of these efforts will need time. Once they start to be seen the pace will increase, but it will require time and patience.

I also think they are moving in the right direction.

For example, the PC ports were sold to us on the promise they'd lead to more 1P games.

Sony never said that. What they said was that AAA are starting to be too expensive and even if they increased price and sales, the budgets keep growing every generation and are reaching a point where the traditional SP AAA game fully exclusive of a single console won't be profitable anymore outside the few top selling cases.

So in order to continue being able to made them -at least outside the few top selling blockbuster IPs- in a sustainable, profitable way they had to find extra revenue sources, as is the case of GaaS, PC versions and movie/tv show adaptations.

Because outside the few top selling cases, with budgets of around $300M-$400M (or even more) they'd be losing many millions releasing them only in a single console.

The only profitable alternative of expanding their AAA games to GaaS, PC, movies+tv show adaptations (+ in the future, mobile) is to stop making AAA games, at least outside their few main top selling IPs. And move instead to AA games like Nintendo.

What will lead to more 1P games (in a few years, not tomorrow) is the headcount growth of internal 1P teams, lead development and support studio acquisitions, plus breaking records on their 2nd and 3rd party game deals investments for the generation. Because obviously since every generation AAA games take longer to be made, each team needs more years to release a game, so obviously releases less games per generation. So if you want to keep having the same or more games you need more teams (in addition to grow the existing ones).

 

[mibu no ookami]

Well from MY POV, a lot of these investments and gains don't mean anything of significance unless they bring the games that I want to see, and those games providing as much value proposition to their console as possible. When people start becoming fans or supporters of the corporations instead of the games, I think they sometimes lose sight that for us customers, it's always ultimately about the games and in this case, what those games offer for the console that can't be offered by other platforms.

For example, the PC ports were sold to us on the promise they'd lead to more 1P games. In practice, the opposite has happened: midway through the generation and there are fewer 1P releases (especially those current-gen only) than the back half of the PS4 generation. And yes I'm comparing to the latter years of PS4 not the first 3 or so years because the transition from PS4 to PS5 should have been seamless. It's not like going from PS2 to PS3, or PS3 to PS4 where entire architectures change so you'd expect devs to take time transitioning hence a softening in new 1P exclusives for that console the first couple or so years.

Mentioning the GaaS stuff doesn't mean much right now because even Helldivers 2 was greenlit before the newer form of that initiative. Yes, it did benefit from Bungie input, but that input was probably during the tail end of the game's development. They have gained market share, yes, but arguably could be gaining more if they didn't weaken the value proposition of their console by porting over virtually every 1P release aside a super-small handful by only the midpoint of the current generation. And, by this time 2025 we could be looking at a situation where the PS5 has two or less 1P exclusives to its name (Spiderman 2, Astro's Playroom) if the Nvidia leak continues to be accurate for Sony-related PC ports (which it has been thus far).

I'm not mentioning any of this out of hate for Jim; I actually respect what they've done for the brand and he's a super-shrewd businessman. However I don't think it's hard to take a step back and see that despite SIE's gains so far this gen, they could've done a few things quite a bit better or more measured.

Game development takes YEARS. The idea that the "opposite" has happened ignores any reality that any dividends from PC game releases would have trickled to game development budgets and that we'd see those results yet. It's been less than 4 years since Horizon released on PC.

You and many others continue to ignore the impact the pandemic had on game development pipelines. Everyone has generally lost 1-2 years and that is time you'll never get back.

The transition from PS4 to PS5 MAY have been seamless had it not been for a historic international pandemic.

Helldivers was greenlit before the GaaS strategy was announced, but that doesn't mean that strategy didn't influence the size and scope of the game. Bungie may have influenced 2 years of Helldivers development and maybe some of the most crucial decisions, truth is we may never know.