So why are you talking about it as if we should care? If a Sony M&A has nothing to do with gaming, outside of anime I'm not interested. And it has no bearing on SIE, for better or for worst.
A movie/tv/music giant with no movies, shows or music that I'm aware of that I'm interested in. This is the equivalent of stanning for K-pop idols, Taylor Swift, Beyonce or some other pop diva and then telling someone who has no taste for that music they should care a lot because they're mega-huge artists in the industry.
I'm not interested in musicals, personally. And yes I'm allowed to express my personal opinions/preferences here, that's also a part of reality. The micro and the macro; you bend over so much for the macro that your micro has become muted, IMO.
I don't talk about it as if we should care. Companies make different products that target different markets, different regions and different user demographics.
This one isn't targeted for us, I assume it's targeted for Indian people who like Indian cinema, tv and music.
I only explained to someone who complained about Sony having bought it instead of spending the money on gaming acquisitions. I explained that Sony has other divisions and why this acquisition is important for them and the whole Sony, plus some potential side benefits may have for Sonys gaming indirectly, specially considering the Indian market growth.
And also that is selfish, egocentric and childish to think that a global corporation should only make products that appeal to you.
On what metrics? Concurrent player counts aren't anything amazing. The game was essentially a map pack expansion of Forza Horizon 4. The biggest DLC content drop was a rehash of DLC from Forza Horizon 3.
The game is a semi-success but nothing to really write home about among the truly successful GaaS titles in the industry.
92 metacritic in Xbox, 91 in PC.
132K Steam user reviews (87% positive), which using the quick x25 estimation makes around 3.3M units sold in Steam (plus related DLCs and season passes) alone.
Being a MS game is fair to assume that it sold more than that in Xbox + MS PS store, plus related DLCs and passes there, plus whatever it may generated for them via GP.
After Sea of Thieves (292K Steam reviews), Halo MCC (211K reviews), and Forza Horizon 4 (190K Steam reviews) I think it may have been the most successful MGS game on Steam.
13 out of 25 games aren't GaaS. That's barely beyond 50%. And, some of those games have already released (HFW, GOW Ragnarok), or are due to release in a couple of months in the case of Spiderman 2, as the comment was from October 2022.
Hermen said 'more than 25', not '25'. We did some maths and they had to be more than 30 not counting PC ports or Bungie.
After releasing some of these games he kept saying again 'more than 25'. Same happened when mentioning the amount of GaaS under development: they said first 'more than 10' or '12'. They released some GaaS and kept saying 'more than 10' and '12'.
We have seen nothing of this for almost two years, in terms of updates. And the last showcase was very much focused on GaaS titles aside from Spiderman 2.
In the last 2 years or so they talked about or shown plently of non-GaaS stuff several states of play, showcases, events like ChinaJoy or CES, blog posts, interviews etc. I posted the long list of non-GaaS multiple time that you keep ignoring.
Obviously they won't talk about all the games they have in store in all their events or talk about upcoming games because they'd need 5 hours in each events.
If ignoring the 3rd party games of the showcase and only looking the 1st party games yes, that time they focused more in GaaS when normally isn't the case. But that doesn't mean they cancelled Stellar Blade, Wolverine, Death Stranding 2, Cory's next game etc.
It only means that they have a limited amount of games they can show in each event of the many they have every year and this time happened to have more GaaS than usual.
1 is Factions 2, which is probably undergoing a soft reboot and won't release this year, may even cut it close to being ready for end of 2024. The other is TLOU3, which just started development VERY recently, and won't release until at least 2027 if not later. The last is supposedly an unannounced fantasy game, where there is nothing known about it aside from its genre.
Yes, pretty likely these are their 3 big games.
I think there may be a 4th one, maybe codeveloped with someone else (or almost totally developed by other people) which would be the game of the Uncharted girl teased in the news from PS5 campaign ad. Which who knows, it could even be an Uncharted VR spinoff by Firesprite like a bigger Horizon CoM or Cory's new IP by SSM.
I think that if they teased a game with the girl is because they will announce it probably this or early next year.
How many are timed exclusive? How many are AAA games? AA games? Traditional games? GaaS games? PC Day 1? From big IP? Unknown IP? Proven 3P teams? Upstart/unproven 3P teams?
You don't stop to ask many questions, when you should.
We don't know for sure, and he didn't specify, because it wouldn't have make sense. But I think it's fair to assume it would be similar to what they are doing recently (same as the other console makers are doing recently too):
-A mix of mostly AAA and indie but also AA
-Mostly non GaaS/traditional but also some GaaS
-Some top tier known IP, some popular IPs, some niche IP, some promising new IP, some indie new IP
-Some total console exclusives but most of them timed exclusives (win/win for both sides)
-Most available day one (or later) in PC, other console only games (win/win for both sides)
-Some by top tier popular companies, some by former devs of top tier popular companies, some by other proven teams, some by promising new teams
Basically a mix of everything to appeal most tastes and niches with many different game types for many different types of players in different markets.
That doesn't equal more games. Per-game costs for those deals goes up as budgets go up, and sales expectations to cover budgets and make profits go up.
True, doesn't equal more games. But what would pretty likely meant less games would have been to decrease or keep flat the investment and they instead raised it to records levels.
So pretty likely they increased the number of games. Specially considering their China and India Hero Projects, where with a cheap investment they sign many games.
And if I don't like that reality, if I don't think that reality may have the intended results for the entities in question, then I'm free to express those thoughts. You are free to agree or disagree with them.
Yes, obviously everyone is free to express any opinion.
But don't act like you're the only one looking at the data; you're just upset myself and a few others aren't blindly accepting corporate statements as gospel.
I don't accept them as gospel, I accept them as facts. If a company lies to their investors in fiscal reports may face huge legal consequences, so I assume that what they show there is real.
If Sony releases trailers of Wolverine, Spider-Man 2, Stellar Blade or Death Stranding 2 etc. I take as a fact that they are working on these games, I don't go to say that they are stopping making SP non GaaS games or something like that.
If the head of their 1st party studios say they have MORE THAN 25 games under development and that 12 of them are GaaS, I take for a fact that what he said that and the majority of their games under development aren't GaaS. He may lie (I don't see why he would lie in that topic), or I may consider that maybe the number of GaaS is a bit too high but it's a fact that he said that.
We have an entire history of the industry to look at to show us, that a good amount of the time in-the-moment corporate statements and perceptions might not be aware of larger developments, or certain historical events repeating themselves for the worst.
Sometimes you need outside eyes looking in to see that, and as enthusiasts we can provide that type of perspective so should we choose.
Yes, they are human beings and sometimes may be wrong or make some mistakes. And you are free to like or dislike what they do.
But often their decisions are taking looking at objective market data and projections that shows them what work (meaning what players play most or where do they prefer to put their money) and what doesn't, so their decisions often can be explained looking at the related charts. And I share these charts to let you know why they take these decisions.
What fictional issues are being presented that don't exist? More specifically, what things do you think I'm bringing up are fictional and not based on facts of the matter?
As an example, acting as if the Sony GaaS were going to replace or reduce the number of Sony non-GaaS just because for a specific promotional video they did choose mostly GaaS to represent their 1st party games. As if they wouldn't also have many other games not shown in that video.
And to keep repeating concerns about it while in many other promotional videos, events, interviews and blog posts in the recent months mentioned many non-GaaS in development, and even the boss of their 1st party games mentioned they have more games under development than ever at the same time and that the majority of them aren't GaaS. And also showing them a graph where they show they'll push their bet in non-GaaS too.
Because we know what Microsoft's roadmap is. We know they now have so many internal teams and so many acquired GaaS titles, that in reality they don't have to expend any teams to make new GaaS; they're just buying COD Warzone, Diablo, Overwatch, WoW, Candy Crush etc. and making them their GaaS like they did Minecraft years ago. And the amount of teams they have leftover for non-GaaS is still a large amount.
Halo, Forza Horizon, Rare moved to GaaS. This upcoming Forza will be GaaS too. Fallout or Elder Scrolls moved to GaaS before being acquired too.
Is there any big seller/relevant IP from MS that didn't move to GaaS other than Gears of War? (maybe in the recently acquired ones Doom)
Because seems that their pattern is to move all their big IPs to GaaS, so I'd be the next Gears and Doom will be GaaS.
Nintendo have a small handful of games with live-service/GaaS models built on top of traditional model footprints, like Mario Kart and Smash Bros. But by and large, the majority of their output is dominated by traditional games. Their GaaS model implementations are also generally nowhere as egregious as some other publishers in the industry. They went through the process of turning wildly successful MP-centric games from generations past into live service-friendly titles that still keep all the usual traditional gaming models intact (unlike, say, what the new Forza Motorsport is doing).
Almost all of Sony's planned GaaS seem to be new IP, and at least a good chunk of them likely not focusing very much on traditional content like strong GOW/TLOU-type SP campaigns or local MP, or in-game unlocks like older games for extra content you can do in lieu of buying MTX.
MLB and GT7 have a meaty amount of SP content. Several of the upcoming Sony GaaS mentioned they want to make a big effort in the narrative side similar to their SP games. We don't know the SP content or MTX strategy they will have.
But yes, apparently some of these games will be MP only like some past Sony games like Warhawk or MAG were, or like some of the most popular games in recent times like Fortnite, PUBG, and so are.
However, that doesn't mean we need to be excited about what acquiring non-gaming entities will mean for the gaming side, when the connective threads are not really there.
Nobody said you should be excited by a non-gaming acquisition.
And in the case revenue boosts in those areas may back towards funding gaming development, then the question becomes what games are being funded. When, and for how long will it take those games to be developed? And how pertinent is any of that to PS5's commercial lifespan?
The development time required depends on the game, the amount of available resources and the amount of stuff they decide to cut to reach each milestone in time.
Having more money means being able to hire more people to the team of games they have under development at that moment, or to pay more outsourcing teams to help them. So this mean making the game faster or more polished, or to include more stuff on it. Or to increase the marketing budget.
So the results would help games being released that or the next year and beyond. So in the current context, PS5 games.
Depending of the amount of extra money put on it, if it's a few hundred millions, then they also use that to completely fund the development of a whole AAA with it, either one under development for PS5 or a new one they could start now and would be released for PS6.
But you don't know for sure. None of us do. The revenue & profits earned through Zee could just go towards more TV & film content for Zee and whatever platforms its content extends to. If it goes back to games, the question becomes what games does it go back to? What's the release schedule for those games look like? What platforms are prioritized, and how?
Well, I think it was their CEO who said recently that they wanted to focus and entertainment, particularly in gaming, and in the future they were going to sell most of their banks business and spend that cash basically in acquisitions for entertainment.
So yes, normally most of the money made by a division gets primarly reinvested in that division which generated it. But often part of it goes somewhere else where needed or strategically decided.
Part of that Zee money could start going to gaming as soon as the start of the FY after completing the acquisition, once Sony assigns budgets for the next FY, depending on what they decide to do and how Sony decides to assign their own money.
Meaning that games being marketed, developed and released that same fiscal year after completing the acquisition (or later) could benefit from it.
The PS5 is already in India and sold 60K units in one year. 1.4 billion people, 60K consoles sold. Just because a market may look bigger for something, doesn't mean it actually is.
Of course maybe it's early days in India for console gaming, but in this case we'd be talking about Archean Era levels of early.
Yes, as happens in many other Asian countries like China (or in some South America) the console market is relatively small there, because as of now they play mostly in PC and specially mobile.
So in this particular case, Sony's gaming approach in the short/mid term more than with console would be to approach these markets more via PC, mobile and movies to start getting their IPs there and generate a userbase and maybe later move a part of them to console (or not, to continue milking them in their current platforms).
India is the fastest growing country in terms of gaming revenue and game userbase.
No copyright for Stellar Blade has been registered yet. That usually happens before a game goes gold, and that before it's released. A short GOW Ragnarok or Spiderman 2 type of marketing campaign won't work for a new IP like Stellar Blade. It needs months to cook presence in the media, and possibly get a demo out for gamers to try as well.
If Sony starts that this month, then the earliest the game will release is probably November.
Stellar Blade is a waifu hack & slash game like Bayonetta made by an unknown dev, so I don't think they expect GoW like sales, but something maybe around Bayonetta numbers or below maybe.
I assume it's a minor niche game for them. So I wouldn't expect a big marketing campaign, but only a launch trailer, a few tweets and maybe a blog post.
The cost of these games potentially taking many years to get off the ground, or even worst ending up as vaporware, in terms of the time lost, is magnitudes more than whatever is sunk into their development.
I'm not saying that's going to happen with all or even most of the CHP or IHP games. But it will likely occur with some of them. Of course that is a risk no matter what region games are coming from; cancelled games happen even with big 3P devs and pubs, even today.
However at the end of the day anything from the CHP or IHP won't mean anything until it actually releases. And since almost all of these are new IP (or new to console), they have that much more to prove in terms of standing up to or beating out established IP, and drawing from their fanbases to start building up their own new fanbases.
I assume they expect that out of each batch of let's say 10 of these games, 6 will flop hard, 3 will do ok and be slightly profitable and 1 may have good but not stellar sales resulting on providing enough profits to make the whole batch profitable.
And maybe 1 or 2 of every 3 batches they may have a game good enough that will make them work again together
Plus also helping Sony to get more local support in this country from the press and future promising indies.
How's this worked out for Deviation Games so far going by what we know? Or how about The Initiative, as an even better example? Having worked on AAA games in the past as part of other teams with other pubs doesn't guarantee you can get a bunch of those folks together at an upstart and deliver the same results, without serious complications arising.
We don't know because these teams continue working in their games. But worked very well in a gazillion studios made by former devs in top tier companies.
On PC and mobile. Not on console. And if that means Sony's investments result in a lot more Day 1 releases of non-GaaS titles to PC, even if they're 2P, then that creates less incentive to get the console for those games. If the intervals between console & PC release are too small, same problem.
Microsoft's been suffering this in concept since 2015. In practice, since at least 2017/2018 I'd say.
No. Hermen said they don't consider to release non-GaaS games day one on PC. They'll only do it with some GaaS.
The non-GaaS window keeps being around 2 or more years from the original release, he's happy with that window. In a few cases the window is smaller but compared to a PS5 remaster or remake, but not to the original release.
Didn't you see me say that I feel a lot of the CHP games shown so far seem kind of samey? A lot of them have a Soulsborne template to them, with some theming/setting changes but otherwise look functionally very similar.
So you could argue, until we learn more of those games, that some of them seem like the same game with different coatings of paint.
I didn't see you saying that, but I also find some of them samey.
So you're saying most of the gaming investments we know of Sony right now in terms of 2P software and even some 1P software, among traditional sector, we aren't going to see until the PS6?
Because that's what I've been saying, and not necessarily as a great thing WRT the PS5. You know, the system currently already out.
No, I didn't say that and this is nonsensical. Sony will continue releasing multiple 1P and 2P, in addition to several 3P exclusives, every year as always.
By investments for long term I didn't mean the development of a specific game. I meant things like buying a company or make things like buying EVO or creating the CHP. These kinds of investments give them some small benefits in mid to long term, but they are made with some bigger goal for the long term.
As could be in case of acquiring Bungie and Firewalk to be a key player in shooters and console GaaS. Or in case of EVO to become a key player in eSports, grow the fighting genre and reach certain yearly revenue from that genre. Or in case of CHP, to have more presence in Chinese media and social networks and get the support from most of the best future Chinese indies and sign with the next Genshin Impact as a 2nd party or even acquire them before grow too big and become too expensive.
Also, investments as could be acquisitions normally take over 5 years to recoup.
Agreed. But, it'll only manifest if their GaaS offerings are unique among each other and among the larger market. From the games we know of so far, all seem to be FPS shooters; most seem to be military sci-fi themed shooters.
Not exactly a market starved for entrants.
Every few years there's a big shooter, and there are big shooter IPs like Halo, Gears, Battlefield or Overwatch in a weak shape, plus other ones like CoD had some year weaker than usual and their players often complain a lot. Also, Rainbow Six Siege and Destiny 2 will sunset soon.
So there's a good opportunity to replace several of them. And Sony would prefer to do it with a 1st party game.
Are we talking about their games in general or GaaS titles? Of course Spiderman 2 is going to set sales records be critically well-received. Wolverine should potentially do well. FF VII Rebirth should hopefully do well (and stronger than XVI has been doing, although XVI has done better than some of its doomers want to pretend). Death Stranding 2 will probably not be a massive seller but could be a critical darling.
I'm 100% sure Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, FFVII Rebirth, Marathon, TLOU Online will be huge sellers, I think will end above 15-20M each for sure. I'm also pretty confident with Concord, Rise of the Ronin, Death Stranding 2, I think they may end at least close to 10M.
But tell me, how many of these were greenlit and initiated under Jim Ryan & Herman Hulst's leadership?
Spider-Man 2 isn't clear, but I'd bet it started just after Spider-Man 1 released, so maybe just before they got promoted or just after being promoted. Wolverine and Death Stranding 2 got greenlighted by Hermen and Jimbo since they are made by the Morales and DS1 teams. Not sure about FFVII Rebirth, but we saw in the leaked deal that Jimbo signed the PSVR2 versions of RE Village and future games of the IP in PS4 (RE4R).
Helldivers 2 is in development since 2016, Rise of the Ronin since 2017, Horizon Online and Concord in 2018, so before Jim and Hermen. Marathon and Bungie's next new IP were greenlighted before joining Sony, and Fairgame$ came from Google but maybe only as a pitch/prototype. TLOU Online was branched out to a standalone game on an unspecified date between June 2018 and September 2019, so before Hermen.
How many are 3P games that are timed exclusive (potentially with short windows between console to PC release)?
We don't know, but a big percentage of Sony, Nintendo and MS 3P exclusives are timed because it's a win/win for both sides: the dev gets money from moneyhat plus selling it in all platforms and extra time to make ports, while the platform holder gets the PR and marketing benefit but gets the game at a cheaper cost than with a full exclusive.