Sony's future and possible studio/publisher acquisitions
- Thread starter Eternal_Wings
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I also love to point out facts and accept them, share them, even if I don't like them. The difference is, I'm also willing to voice why I don't like them, and suggest alternative approaches (usually with constructive criticism).
I don't ignore the macro of things, but that doesn't mean I have to do away with my own preferences along the way.
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.
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. 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.
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?
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.
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.
If that backlogged content can be played on older systems, why do I need to buy the newer system to play them? If the new content is short timed-exclusive, and I don't suffer FOMO, why buy the system they come out on first when I can wait a few months and pick the game up on PC with more visual effects, framerate & resolution support, and a cheaper price?
Well I'm not a shareholder or investor into Sony, or Microsoft, or Nintendo, so I guess how much these companies want to make doesn't ultimately matter to me, since it's not fattening my bank account or financial portfolio.
Guess they'll have to do something else for my money, like release games :/
No one is expecting Sony to only invest in gaming. 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. 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?
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?
You're saying what I've been saying.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But tell me, how many of these were greenlit and initiated under Jim Ryan & Herman Hulst's leadership? How many are 3P games that are timed exclusive (potentially with short windows between console to PC release)? How many are part of that 25 games quote, of which 12 were stated to be GaaS titles? And outside of FF VII Rebirth, how many are coming in 2024?
If you go back to that "25 games in development" quote and factor out the GaaS titles, that's 12 traditional/traditional-esque titles potentially spanning from 2022 to 2027. That's an average of 2 traditional games per year, potentially. Maybe 3 for a year here or there. Now factor out the games already released since then and those we already know about 1P-wise. That would be GOW Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, (likely) Call of the Mountain, and Wolverine. Wolverine is potentially 2024, but it could be 2025.
Basically, we've got 9 traditional 1P games from Sony to look forward from 2024 to 2027 unless, again, that number bumps up at some point. However it's very likely the number of released games in that time period could be smaller, because maybe a couple of those games only got started last year, and need 6 years to get done. That'd make them cross-gen between PS5 and PS6. If the number of games in dev gets bumped up later down the line, and that is for games just starting development, then those titles will not arrive until the PS6 launches.
Well, Tencent is smart then. There are other 70% and there's nothing stopping PlayStation or anyone else from negotiating with Tencent for their part if needed.
Can they not invest more than they already are in Arc and Dimps? They seem to actually make a lot of games rather than the publisher/developer we would expect the IP associated with.This one is no brainer.
Their value dropped to $4.61B…
Square Enix (9684.T) - Market capitalization
As of August 2024 Square Enix has a market cap of $4.12 Billion. This makes Square Enix the world's 3019th most valuable company according to our data.companiesmarketcap.com
I asked a while back but I didn't see if anyone saw it and answered, but what happens when I company folds? Some go up for auction like THQ, but I'd imagine Sony can't throw Midway games up on PS+ if they were to buy WB/NRS? But what about just buying IP and reuniting with the autors/dev teams, like whom wants to work on this IP?
It is for Microsoft.
Bethesda, Bizzard, Activision, Minecraft, Obsidian, Double Fine, inXile, Ninja Theory, IO Interactive/Kojima Productions/People Can Fly/Avalanche Xbox exclusives, Crystal Dynamics/Eidos Montreal working on Xbox exclusives, all of those were previously developing games that released on PlayStation.
But somehow none of this matters and PlayStation will be fine releasing one game a year and going all in on GaaS.
MS figured out that temporary exclusives don't add up over time and that studios output tend to get smaller over time and decided to outspend Sony on things that have long term impact. At some point if things keep going this way PlayStation will see itself at a point of no return because unlike Xbox they don't have a trillion dollar company to bail them.
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For now. What happens in a few years when all those MS studios start pumping out games? They have twice the amount of studios. Again, you're too short sighted. None of this will make an impact next year but it will a few years from now.
Nobody can predict the future.
What makes you think Sony doesn’t have more games to reveal?
What makes you think Sony doesn’t have more acquisitions and exclusive deals in the works?
What makes you think Microsoft will even make those studio acquisition’s a success. They haven’t in the past.
Again, you are paranoid.
We know Sony have 25 games in development as of October 2022, 12 being GaaS and 13 being traditional. However, of the traditional, some have already released (GOW Ragnarok, Horizon: Call of the Mountain) and one will be releasing in a couple of months (Spiderman 2).
Unless that number gets updated at some point, we are looking at 9 traditional games from Sony 1P for the years 2024 through 2027. One or more may be PSVR2 games like Call of the Mountain, so that's now at most 8 traditional games for PS5 between 2024 through 2027....
Except some of these may not even be for PS5, at least not until the very tail end of the generation. Any of those 8-9 games which were approved and started in 2022, for example, if they are AAA then we won't see them release until at earliest 2027, possibly later. I think also, when people pull up the FY 1P gaming funding chart, they misinterpret the allocation of some of that funding. Games have to be funded regularly to continue development, so any game that has a budget allocated to it starting this FY, will eat up a portion of the next year's budget, and the year after that.
At least, that is to my understanding how it works. But, considering it'd logically be better to break up funding allocation based on development needs, and to account for things like budget adjustments, I get the feeling that internally any given game has a projected overall budget cost which is then partitioned into smaller annual fiscal budget amounts depending on milestones which need to be met for its developing during that fiscal year.
I'm not in the industry, of course, so I can't say for 100% certain that's how it works. However, that would seem like the most logically sound way to go about it. Hence, when we see those FY game funding allocation amounts from Sony, we shouldn't look at each new FY's amount as a fresh investment for a whole bunch of new games. A good amount of that money is going towards continuing to fund games that are already in development.
Now let's say of the 8 traditional games left from that 25-games-in-development statement, two of them are planned for the PS6. Maybe they won't even be cross-gen. So now we're down to 6, for the years 2024 through 2027 (or 2028). That's an average of 1.5 traditional 1P games a year, which is not realistic, so some years might indeed just come down to one 1P game. In fact I think Sony had a reference to this or something like it in one of their recent fiscal reports, where IIRC they want to cover every genre, but as a spread between 1P games and 3P exclusives (full or timed).
A logical assumption to make, then, is that WRT 1P games, if they are working with that low a number for traditional games, and want to release two 1P games a year, then the other game is going to be a GaaS title. Then they may have one or two big 3P AAA exclusives, one probably a timed exclusive. We can actually map out 2024's PS5 1P/3P exclusives release schedule from this:
[OPTION 1]
-Wolverine (1P AAA traditional)
-Stellar Blade (2P AA/AAA traditional)
-Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (3P AAA traditional timed exclusive)
-Helldivers 2 (1P GaaS)
-Rise of the Ronin (2P AAA traditional)
I don't think this one is going to happen. For starters, I think Wolverine slips into 2025; it's either Wolverine does, or Rise of the Ronin does. Helldivers 2 doesn't seem like it'll be releasing this year, probably early next year where it'll have more room to get attention. I don't think Stellar Blade is releasing this year, but that can change if it has another showing by TGS with a date reaffirming 2023.
[OPTION 2]
-Stellar Blade (2P AA/AAA tradtional)
-Rise of the Ronin (2P AAA traditional)
-Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (3P AAA traditional timed exclusive)
-Helldivers 2 (1P GaaS)
This is what I feel in part what their 2024 lineup will look like in terms of 1P/3P exclusives. Of those we know Stellar Blade and Helldivers 2 will be PC Day 1. It's likely Rise of the Ronin is a console timed exclusive but will probably get a PC port within a year. Same with FF VII Rebirth.
If Sony have more in terms of traditional 1P AAA games to release, those games would have had needed to start dev back in 2018 at the latest. 1P AA traditional? For the standards I think Sony would want, 2020-2021 at latest. If anyone knows of any mentions of new games from 1P or 1P-adjacent studios from those years, please share them. Maybe one or two of such games could be surprise 2024 1P releases but, keep in mind, they'd also drop the remaining amount of known traditional 1P games down to 4-5 for the 2025-2027 (maybe 2028) period.
Unless, again, that number is updated, or the original quote was based on an earlier quantity assessment that was itself updated to include more titles, but that which Herman didn't reference when he made his quote (in terms of release pertinence, this would be preferable WRT PS5).
Dude thinks none of that is going to has an impact when it's obvious that Sony is slowing down their output of traditional games while MS is ramping up like never before.
Maybe the conclusion in a few years will be the exclusives don't matter and Sony fanboys and Jim Ryan apologists will be proven correct but that would also be rather ironic.
To me it just seems weird to have more than double the market share two generations in a row and yet over a period of 5 years (and counting) be investing far less than your competitor. Given that games now have a long developing cycle we are yet to see the entire effect of the studios MS bought in 2018.
The fact that we know where those games could come from and the fact that it's clearly taking a lot longer to develop games now. Sony is not going to announce a big new AAA game and release it immediately, usually they announce their games multiple years in advance. The GaaS games are not going to be in addition to the games we became used to get but will replace them in the lineup.
Turns all pretty the vast majority of Sony investment made recently, were for GaaS/PC, Bungie, Heaven, Firewalk, Nixxes. It was not made to offset the slowing down of AAA development. ND got stuck developing a remake, a PC port and GaaS.
Anyway, I don't see the harm in expecting Sony to do a better job, but I do see the harm in some fans that will make up excuses for anything.
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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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, obviously everyone is free to express any opinion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nobody said you should be excited by a non-gaming acquisition.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I didn't see you saying that, but I also find some of them samey.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Many.
He never said they were 25, he said twice they were MORE THAN 25 PS Studios games (so can be 234292 games) in any stage of development (not counting Bungie and not counting 3P, but including 2nd party games). Meaning some were barely greenlighted and others were almost to be released.
He didn't specify release date for them. And since it also includes 2nd party, they can add here later many games more that may be in an advanced stage of development as could be CHP or IHP games.
Said that around half of them new IPs, that include both SP and MP games, big and small games, some unique/experimental like Dreams or Death Stranding while other being more traditional blockbusters, and also included a wide variety of genres.
They also said that planned to release before March 2026 GaaS titles of 12 SIE franchises. Out of which GT7 and MLB already are released and soon Firewall Ultra and Helldivers 2 will be too. Games often get delayed, so very likely some of them will end getting delayed beyond March 2026 and will be replaced by Bungie games (which weren't initially included in the group of 12).
The estimate of amount of games released until March 2026 was for GaaS, they didn't have a similar estimate for non-GaaS. So we don't know how many games are planned to be relesed until 2026, and less until 2027. In fact we don't know the total amount of games they will release in 2024 because they focus on marketing games -in general, not only 1P games- to be released very soon.
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Whatever happened to a deep and special partnership with Fromsoftware? they lose their partnership with Fromsoftware?
Can we get some executives that actually knows what they're doing
Can we get some executives that actually knows what they're doing
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Sony just doesn't seem to care beyond Kojima and Square Enix....and they even managed to fumble Square lol. They better hope the next Nintendo console isn't too powerful or they'll have complete control of every Japanese dev.
Crazy the Series X has a special edition for Armored Core but not Starfield
.But yeah, it seems when it comes to Japanese support Sony is simply on cruise control, as @JAHGamer was basically saying. Seems like they feel a couple big Final Fantasy timed exclusives and a marketing deal here or there (not even bold marketing deals in quite a few cases) is "just fine".
They feel similar IMO to how Nintendo felt with Japanese devs/pubs during the end of the Super Famicom era, like they would "just be there by default" for the N64. Well we see how that played out. I know Sony has some marketing deal with Armored Core in Japan but why not outside of Japan? What an odd choice to go region-specific for a From Software game.
For Sony's sake they better hope Switch 2 isn't a complete disruptor and becomes a viable platform tech-wise for Japanese & Western AAA games, because that could cut into PS5 deeper than Xbox ever could. Although, as time goes on I get the feeling that a lot of this "competition" we see between the Big 3 is mostly theatrics, like they're all at a golf club having drinks on the regular and everyone's got their assigned turf/area to control. Like there's some pact between them.
Maybe an actual new platform holder stepping in not a part of the club would stimulate some more cutthroat competition again. But maybe I'm being slightly jaded.
MS always does those sweepstake limited edition consoles with any and ever company and brand.
As for Nintendo, I’ve been saying a powerful console that can run all AAA 3rd party games wold be dangerous for Sony. Switch 2 getting Square Enix big games would pretty much make it the primary platform for all of SE games. Nintendo would also be able to get exclusives of them like they do with SE AA titles.
This is why is so important for Sony to hurry up and by Square Enix already.
As for Nintendo, I’ve been saying a powerful console that can run all AAA 3rd party games wold be dangerous for Sony. Switch 2 getting Square Enix big games would pretty much make it the primary platform for all of SE games. Nintendo would also be able to get exclusives of them like they do with SE AA titles.
This is why is so important for Sony to hurry up and by Square Enix already.
What are you talking about? This is a one-off case mod being raffled off. Microsoft has already done the same thing with a Starfield Xbox. Or, at least, they announced and showed it off.Crazy the Series X has a special edition for Armored Core but not Starfield
How did they fumble Square Enix? I hope you all aren’t still falling for MS theatrics with FF14?
MS had said plenty times already they want to improve the relationship with SE. it doesn’t amount to anything. It’s just talk.
Don’t bring up Sega. MS always had a thing with Sega. Sony is close with SE.
By the time Switch 2 releases there will be 70-80m PS5 in the market.
So No, it won’t become the primary platform for SE games.
I doubt the Switch 2 will even run FF16 and so don’t expect future games to run on it.
At best the Switch 2 will be on par with the Steamdeck and that is barely a PS4 struggling to run games right now at 30fps.