Sony president Hiroki Totoki officially begins his role as interim CEO of PlayStation. What are your expectations?
- Thread starter Gamernyc78
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So many of you need to give up on this idea that Japanese leadership is some panacea that is going to result in a new focus on more poor-performing Japanese titles.
That's over. It absolutely is.
And I get why that might upset people to a degree, but people should recognize that those games never sold particularly well.
Not to mention that the failures of the PS3 and Vita were largely under Japanese leadership, but revisionism will ignore that.
You should also recognize why an engineer is not in charge of SIE and probably never will be again. It's an entertainment company that's part of a larger entertainment group. Ken Kutaragi was an Engineer. Kaz Hirai wasn't. None of his successors have been either.
The West has greatly surpassed Japan in building up major game companies. Activision, EA, T2... all bigger companies than Konami, Capcom, Square Enix, Namco Bandai.
Capcom has made a large comeback, but Square Enix and Konami... they've been driving their companies into the ground for years.
It's okay to miss a certain type of game, but to argue that Japanese leadership is this magical thing is pretty tone-deaf and ignores reality while putting Japan on a pedestal.
That's why everyone has this weird obsession with Totoki taking Sony back to Japan, while forgetting that he is a finance guy, driven largely be profit, margins, growth, and return on investment. It was Totoki not Ryan who closed London Studio. It was Totoki that called for layoffs, just as he has in the past. He might buy FromSoftware, but outside of that I wouldn't expect much Japanese investment and that might have happened under Ryan just as easily.
That's over. It absolutely is.
And I get why that might upset people to a degree, but people should recognize that those games never sold particularly well.
Not to mention that the failures of the PS3 and Vita were largely under Japanese leadership, but revisionism will ignore that.
You should also recognize why an engineer is not in charge of SIE and probably never will be again. It's an entertainment company that's part of a larger entertainment group. Ken Kutaragi was an Engineer. Kaz Hirai wasn't. None of his successors have been either.
The West has greatly surpassed Japan in building up major game companies. Activision, EA, T2... all bigger companies than Konami, Capcom, Square Enix, Namco Bandai.
Capcom has made a large comeback, but Square Enix and Konami... they've been driving their companies into the ground for years.
It's okay to miss a certain type of game, but to argue that Japanese leadership is this magical thing is pretty tone-deaf and ignores reality while putting Japan on a pedestal.
That's why everyone has this weird obsession with Totoki taking Sony back to Japan, while forgetting that he is a finance guy, driven largely be profit, margins, growth, and return on investment. It was Totoki not Ryan who closed London Studio. It was Totoki that called for layoffs, just as he has in the past. He might buy FromSoftware, but outside of that I wouldn't expect much Japanese investment and that might have happened under Ryan just as easily.
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Execs are execs no matter what nationality they come from and of course you have some execs tht are diehard gamers and know games like Shu.
People put Yoshida on a pedestal too. He thought Demon's Souls was trash. Had it not been for him, Sony probably has Dark Souls and probably owns FromSoftware at this point, which probably would have saved Japan Studio.
Nobody is perfect and that is true of Yoshida too. People associate him with much of the greatness that happened on PS1 and PS2, but these were all team efforts as everything in gaming is. He's played a vital role for PlayStation, but people should stop putting him on a pedestal. While he ran WWS, Japan Studio absolutely floundered. In fact under his watch a number of studios were closed down. And none of that is to say it was his fault, but as easy as people want to give him credit for things he could just as easily take blame for things.
A massive mismanagement of Team Ico probably lead to the closure of Japan Studio.
So while everyone wants to blame western executives for the Japanese first party titles, they should probably start with Shuhei.
So as much of a gamer as he was didn't prevent him from making serious mistakes. I think we as gamers like executives who game, because we like to see gamers themselves as infallible so the executives who are also gamers are infallible.
No one will confuse Jim Ryan as a gamer, but as an executive he navigated unprecedented waters during covid and ultimately put Xbox away. Who was the executive in charge of Xbox? Phil I play thousands of hours of games Spencer... All those hours gaming has not helped him conjure up those stolen data tapes... I mean release even a single killer app internally since Halo (which was not developed internally) despite a ten year tenure.
Personally, im expecting Totoki to be the actual CEO because he's going to start streamlining costs, making more revenue and in turn, more profits for Sony Corp. which as the CFO is basically his job to do. In regards to PlayStation, Sony has been doing great this entire generation so I truly don't understand how any PlayStation fan could have any issues whatsoever. Game wise, they've had an excellent 3 1/2 years and especially for me, surpasses all previous four generations in the same time span.
The only real major adjustments that I see Totoki doing is by the start of next generation, releasing all their first party games on PC day one because it's simply leaving too much money on the table and at the end of the day, all consoles have an expiration date and building up the IP's that you have by widening the audience and gaining more sales which will always be day one when the hype, hoopla and zeitgeist is at the highest is the way to do it. This also saves money by marketing the game(s) once instead of twice.
Aside from that, I see more full/timed console exclusive deals as well as expanding into mobile where it just rains money. I can also see Sony acquiring more studios between now and next generation to build up their first party going into next generation. Besides what I mentioned, Sony will simply keep doing what they've been doing for decades - release great to excellent games and dominate the market with little to no competition.
The only real major adjustments that I see Totoki doing is by the start of next generation, releasing all their first party games on PC day one because it's simply leaving too much money on the table and at the end of the day, all consoles have an expiration date and building up the IP's that you have by widening the audience and gaining more sales which will always be day one when the hype, hoopla and zeitgeist is at the highest is the way to do it. This also saves money by marketing the game(s) once instead of twice.
Aside from that, I see more full/timed console exclusive deals as well as expanding into mobile where it just rains money. I can also see Sony acquiring more studios between now and next generation to build up their first party going into next generation. Besides what I mentioned, Sony will simply keep doing what they've been doing for decades - release great to excellent games and dominate the market with little to no competition.
These people, who often are the same ones blaming Sony/Jim Ryan/Hermen for the Sony GaaS and PC ports, have to remember that the Sony GaaS and PC ports push was decided and started by Yoshida, the also Japanese John (Tsuyoshi) Kodera, and Shawn Layden.
If that would be the case he would have been announced as such, but instead has been announced as interim CEO. Meaning, he basically will only do the transition to the new permanent CEO.
Totoki and the next CEO will:
- Streamline costs where possible to bump profitability (after having fired people and shutting down games and studios they'll now do something to reduce the costs of manufacturing and shipping consoles, accesories and physical games) o bump profiability
- Continue the previous plans of doubling down on GaaS and PC with the already planned (and in several cases, announced) releases to bump profitability
- Continue the previous plans of doubling down on movie/tv shows adaptations with the already planned (10 projects announced) to bump profitability
- To continue working on their expansion on mobile and release the projects they already have in the works: PS cloud gaming clients for mobile and PS Portal, partner with external top mobile gaming devs and creating and growing inernal mobile gaming studios to bring their IPs to mobile gaming to bump profitability
- To release their own PSN store for PC and mobile games to bump profitability
- Once thes points are ready, specially the 3 ones, and already released some of the first projects of the studios acquired in the recent few years, around fall 2025 once they sell thier banks stuff will go back to acquisitions if they improved enough their profitability by then, which I assume will be the case.
- At the same time of point 6, they'll also continue growing their already existing teams to allow them to work in more games at the same time, pushing beyond Jim Ryan's record of amount of 1st party games developed at the same time. And as Jim Ryan did in PS5, they'll break record investments for both 2nd and 3rd party deals for PS6 generation
- After point 6, being the leaders in both console and PC gaming, and having heavily expanded their IPs in cinema/tv adaptations, while they start to expand in mobile and Asia they'll also start to expand in other non-gaming markets bringing their gaming IPs to other non-gaming markets (as could be toys/figurines/model kits, board games/TCG/pen and paper RPGs, books, comics/mangas, making Sony / PS theme parks, apparel...)
- They'll release PS6 as usual, with a heavy improvement in RT/lighting, their own DLSS and using AI for many other things. And well:
- PSVR3 will address any flaws PSVR2 had compared to competitors like Oculus 3/4 or Apple Vision Pro 1/2, to in addition to be the king of non-standalone VR, to also be the kind of standalone VR
- "PS Portal 2", in addition to have remote play and PS cloud gaming like the first one, very likely will also feature natively Sony's PC and mobile games. The aim will be to dominate the PC+console handheld market with it or at least to make a first big step. After having kicked away MS and Nintendo from the handheld market, they'll focus to also dominate them in the handheld one
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We all know about the Demon Souls story that's life, no one gets things 100% correct and to his defense Demon Souls was very rough when he did view it according to info. You feel the way you do but there is no doubt this dude is a gamer and gets games. Kaz Hirai on the other hand was more of an exec but made the right choices. He literally turned the PS3 around and made PS4 and Sony the juggernaut it becanevafter it's missteps and I've heard ppl say the same thing "why do ppl put him on a pedestal". Can't please everyone and ppl always have something to say.
A fair number of them have been cancelled, and have occupied the time and resources of many of Sony’s top studios. Bungie has infamously had a lot of sway over the direction of these projects thanks to their assumed GaaS expertise while their own GaaS is failing spectacularly.
Infamous? Only in your own mind, the man on the street doesn't know what they are doing in regards to helping studios and for all you know them picking and choosing has saved Sony a lot of time and money. So far we only have one game to go on and its a hit.
He just said “the man on the street”
My brother in Christ the man on the street doesn’t even play console games. FOH with this joe six pack fallacy nonsense
So did the old Nintendo CIO Yamaguchi abd he took them to the top.
No clue on source accuracy but a quick google of "US console population" says that as of last year 53 percent of households own a video game console.
Not true, they have more of their "12+ GaaS" released, and most have been very successful:
- MLB (success)
- Gran Turismo 7 (success)
- Destiny 2 (success)
- Firewall Ultra (fail? dev did shut down after launch)
- Helldivers 2 (success)
- Concord
- Marathon
- Horizon Online
- Matter
- Fairgame$
- Bend's new IP
- Firesprite MP game with on foot and vehicular combat
TLOU Onlince (cancelled)London new IP (cancelled)Deviation game (cancelled? may have been moved to the new secret team)Twisted Metal (not greenlighted for production)Insomniac MP game (not greenlighted for production?)
The "2022 Essential Facts About the U.S. Video Game Industry" report from the ESA, the association of the main video publishers with presence in USA, said "69% of Americans have at least one video game player in their household".
The 2023 edition says "62% of adults (18+) from play video games" and "76% of kids (under 18) play video games".
Probably the 53% quote is from an older edition of this yearly report.
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