Sony Consoles and Updates

[Nag]

You can always count on a good bar chart to liven up a dreary Friday... 

[DisturbedSwan]

Now a chocolate bar chart is something I could get behind lol.

[OCH]

1 hour ago, DisturbedSwan said:

chocolate bar chart

😉

[mmmark]

 

[mfnick]

£70

[shinymcshine]

It's almost like the business model of traditionally buying games (at £70) is broken, and that some sort of subscription based model to access new releases (and back catalogues) would be a way forwards......

[Nag]

💡... a subscription service where first party games were added on day one would be so cool!...💡

[one-armed dwarf]

There's a lot of people in that twitter thread and on resetera who get really enraged by this guy for some reason, because they think he makes stuff up cause he hates Sony or whatever. But the reasons why there would be a softening in consumer demand for gaming software products should be pretty uncontroversial so I don't even really get the defensiveness in the first place

 

The more I think of it the more I think sub services might be needed to facilitate wider access cause taking a punt on something like Forspoken for the cost of an entire Gamepass sub doesn't make a ton of sense. Like with that game in particular it might have been mildly successful in the same way something like Crackdown 3 was (very similar games in fact, when you look at their design)

[HandsomeDead]

On 24/04/2023 at 13:24, HandsomeDead said:

But I'm coming from a place that thinks this whole industry as it exists is unsustainable.  I don't think it'll crash like in 80s America, it probably has protected itself from that by being buoyed by more outside elements, though in the long run it would be healthier if it did.  

 

From 5 days ago in the MS thread.  

 

I guess my response to every story like this has this response.  I only say it maybe should crash not out of nihilism but the industry is getting by thinking there's a chance to be the one company that has a hit, but it will be at the expense of others since costs are too high.  But it is resulting in ultra high budget games that don't have the audience they desperately need.  A crash would force a reconsideration in how to do business to anyone who wants to make money in gaming.

 

I understand why the companies themselves aren't honest about this, but God I wish gamers were instead of giving a guy reporting on a market study some shit.

[DANGERMAN]

it doesn't feel like there's been a huge number of new games worth buying this year. We know Resident Evil and Potter sold really well, so there is demand. Like a Dragon Ishin, Forspoken, Atomic Heart, for various reasons they aren't going to fly off shelves

[Nag]

Dead Island 2 is doing pretty good numbers... or it was at least.

[Snaggletooth]

I prefers to buy games that I really want on release, and wait for the others to fall in price to me the problem with Sony is to an extent the Price, but lets be fair we were paying this for some Super Nintendo titles back in 90's.

 

For me Sony isnt selling as many titles because they arent putting them out, they have taken a recent obsession under Jim Ryan particually of really hammering out remakes or Sequels, which some have been fine, but you can see their biggest focus is a move towards the Online / Games as a service platform.

 

Pumping endless competitive online titles which flood the PSN store, I went through the list I could see of titles due that I am interested in buying and compared to PS4 its small, compared to PS2 days its just sad.

 

Want to sell more games, be more original thats what got them where they are, rather than doing what every other developer does and have pie in the skyambitions of hoping to rake in the cash with the Next COD or Fortnite.

 

Gimme a reason to be excited.

 

At the moment all I have an interest in is -

 

Armored Core 6

Final Fantasy XVI /VII part 2

Diablo 4

Tekken 8

 

on the plus side it does make the hobby more affordable, if a lot less interesting than it used to be.

[OCH]

By the same token, the elephant in the room being they should have cut the cord on PS4 sooner. N64 games were £70 in the late 90's. But they weren't still peddling SNES games at the same time (for the most part). Pacifying an existing user base or not, that split was always going to hit PS5 game sales.

[HandsomeDead]

The economy was very different in the mid to late 90s, and I'd say the cost of N64 carts probably did have an effect on the sales of those games.

 

If love to see some parallel universe where they cut off last gen development in 2020 and see how things would have turned out.  I'm sure it would be all rosy.

[shinymcshine]

1 hour ago, Nag said:

Dead Island 2 is doing pretty good numbers... or it was at least.

 

Does that include all the preorders from 2014 ? 😉

[OCH]

23 minutes ago, HandsomeDead said:

love to see some parallel universe where they cut off last gen development in 2020 and see how things would have turned out.  I'm sure it would be all rosy.

Minus Pandemic and component/console shortages, it would have been perhaps the best time for them to do so. Conversely, I had a look back and the aspect most point to as a "failure" for the N64, was 3rd party publisher support. Not price. A familiar song for Nintendo.

 

Oh and, for giggles. I thought to look up lifetime worldwide sales for Playstation and Nintendo. I didn't quite appreciate how much of a market share Sony has over them. The highest seller for Nintendo - Switch. Still 30+ million shy of the Mighty PS2. The figures for Handhelds are a bit closer though.

Spoiler

NES - 61.91 million
SNES - 49.10 million
N64 - 32.93 million 
GameCube - 21.74 million
Wii - 101 million
Wii U - 13.56 million😬
Switch - 122.55 million

PS1 - 102.4 million
PS2 - 155 million😲
PS3 - 87.4 million
PS4 - 117.2 million
PS5 - (currently) 32+ million

 

[HandsomeDead]

Yes, Sony had a considerable lead during the 90s.  They also sold games for between £30 - £45, to Nintendo's £40 - £70.  And the PSX's library being much larger.  

 

If you're going to compare eras you have to also consider what the development costs were then, we've talked about it before but the stakes were also lower then.  You can't take one element and just say "so do what we did then" without a big broad view of everything from the dynamics of game creation to the economics they exist in.

 

It would have been disastrous if they didn't have a longer generational transition.  Sony and MS knew this, it wasn't because of reluctance or laziness.  I guess there is an argument if it needed to be as long as it is but ultimately, like I've said a few times, the real elephant in the room too few want to acknowledge is this shit is peaking and unsustainable.  Maybe too many still have dreams of the Star Trek holodeck or whatever but the future of videogames is hindered by the current industry.

 

I think that's my last thoughts on business weirdo shit, I don't think I can articulate any more why micro obsessing over stuff like this just misses the big picture so I'm just gonna enjoy the gems that accidentally come out of this mess.

[OCH]

39 minutes ago, HandsomeDead said:

Maybe too many still have dreams of the Star Trek holodeck

I think that is where people think VR will soon lead. But that level is still way, way off from where the tech is right now.

 

As an aside, I didn't realise the Wii U was that much of a failure!? Even the Sony equivalent - PS Vita - still roughly averaged more (around 15 to 16 million). Although Sony never gave exact numbers. 

[Nag]

How is the Vita (a portable) the equivalent of the Wii U (a home console)....?

[OCH]

29 minutes ago, Nag said:

How is the Vita (a portable) the equivalent of the Wii U (a home console)....?

No one said it was. We were talking about the sales numbers of respective company "failures".