Sony in trouble?

[maflynn]

Its a long video, with a hefty amount of speculation but I do like these guys.

With MS buying Blizzard and having bought Bethesda, there will be less non-exclusive games being available for the playstation. Sony is quickly being painted into a corner. One possible solution is to permit Microsoft's GamePass to be sold/played on the PS5. I think that will be the case at some point

 

[TSE]

They are definitely in trouble. No Call of Duty would be an absolute bust. This move isn't going to hurt Sony in the next 2 years, but in the next 5? Absolutely.

Sony's ginormous size and hands in everything is it's biggest reason for its success. Its huge, slow moving bureaucracy is also the biggest reason why it trips and falls on itself a lot. Microsoft is doing what Sony started but at a much faster pace.

Hopefully this is a wakeup call and they can self correct and make some big moves for gaming.

 

[Taustin Powers]

So what's next? A race between MS and Sony to buy up the most popular franchises? I hope everyone realizes that this hurts us gamers. For decades, both major consoles had a huge joint catalog of third party titles and a handful of exclusives. So no matter which system you bought, you wouldn't really miss out on much. When most IP's become exclusive to one platform, gamers who don't want to buy two systems, will start missing out on a lot of great games.

 

[Lihp8270]

I’d be extremely surprised if games such as Call Of Duty go platform exclusive.

CoD makes huge amounts of money on cosmetics etc, it would make no sense to cut off such a huge market after buying them.

 

[maflynn]

They are definitely in trouble. No Call of Duty would be an absolute bust.

It seems that Phil Spenser shot this down, so COD will remain on Sony, but I suspect there will be exclusives to anyone using the Xbox. They're in the "quiet" period right now and they cannot comment on how they'll run the business, lest they endanger the merge with the feds

So what's next? A race between MS and Sony to buy up the most popular franchises?

The video goes into detail as to why Sony cannot compete with MS in an arms race. They've largely been asleep at the switch and in many respects its really too late. Plus they mentioned the relative size of both and MS is basically 10x the size of Sony. With MS, Xbox is but one of many very profitable divisions, with Sony, its one of the few profitable divisions. To put it another way, a loss in Xbox won't impact MS' bottom line much, but a loss on the playstation would have a higher impact.

The video goes through some what ifs, including some other studios and why buying them out doesn't make financial sense for Sony (as a whole).

I think the writing is on the wall that Sony will negotiate with MS to permit Xbox gamepass to be available on the playstation and permit Microsoft's entire catalog to be available to the PS5. This probably many years away but I do see it happening at some point.

Sony is prepping its own updated subscription service, but they've already committed to not having day 1 releases available on a subscription service. They need to provide some value added incentives, if they're going to compete with GamePass AND not offer day 1 releases.

 

[the8thark]

I’d be extremely surprised if games such as Call Of Duty go platform exclusive.

CoD makes huge amounts of money on cosmetics etc, it would make no sense to cut off such a huge market after buying them.

I would not be surprised at all if this happens.

For the time being till the deal goes through in 2023 or 2024 all existing agreements have to be kept. Past then, anything is on the table. Which games will be made exclusive? Which of the small studios will be dissolved? Who will end up fired?

After the Zenimax deal was finalised Microsoft was rather quick to tell everyone that most of the new games in those related IPs, will be gamepass (Xbox and PC for now) exclusive. I feel the same will happen when the Activision deal goes through.

I Microsoft's grand plan is to eliminate Sony from gaming as competition to gamepass. Microsoft as a copy has the cash mountain to be able to do this. Even if they take a revenue hit on COD for a few years to get it done, they will.

I think the writing is on the wall that Sony will negotiate with MS to permit Xbox gamepass to be available on the playstation and permit Microsoft's entire catalog to be available to the PS5. This probably many years away but I do see it happening at some point.

If this happens, I do not see much life for the Playstation past that. I am sure gamepass on the Playstation will be structured in such a way that Microsoft get the vast majority of the profits from it. I am not sure Sony want a console where the main digital platform on it is owned by another company. I feel if that were to happen, Sony would just leave gaming and double down on all the other parts of their business.

So what's next? A race between MS and Sony to buy up the most popular franchises? I hope everyone realizes that this hurts us gamers.

The losers are all of us gamers. Consolidation of the industry is never a good thing, as you also realise. There is a precedent for this, sort of. In Europe a couple of decades ago Infogames went on a spending spree and acquired up a huge number of smaller indie studios. The end result? The gaming landscape totally changed. All those quirky little indie releases just stopped coming. Sure Infogames owned the IPs but never made the games for them.

This is the other issue. If Phil lets the acquired studios exist mostly independently then fine. But if he sees them as part of a bigger Microsoft whole, then there is only so many releases you can put out in one year. Microsoft are looking to have too many IPs to know what to do with and all the lesser IPs will just get ignored or their game quality will be poor. Microsoft do not have decades of managing a large number of IPs and ensuring all the games are good, like Nintendo do.

When most IP's become exclusive to one platform, gamers who don't want to buy two systems, will start missing out on a lot of great games.

This could be upon us sooner than we think. The two platforms will be gamepass and whatever is the latest Nintendo console.

 

[diamond.g]

I would not be surprised at all if this happens.

For the time being till the deal goes through in 2023 or 2024 all existing agreements have to be kept. Past then, anything is on the table. Which games will be made exclusive? Which of the small studios will be dissolved? Who will end up fired?

After the Zenimax deal was finalised Microsoft was rather quick to tell everyone that most of the new games in those related IPs, will be gamepass (Xbox and PC for now) exclusive. I feel the same will happen when the Activision deal goes through.

I Microsoft's grand plan is to eliminate Sony from gaming as competition to gamepass. Microsoft as a copy has the cash mountain to be able to do this. Even if they take a revenue hit on COD for a few years to get it done, they will.


If this happens, I do not see much life for the Playstation past that. I am sure gamepass on the Playstation will be structured in such a way that Microsoft get the vast majority of the profits from it. I am not sure Sony want a console where the main digital platform on it is owned by another company. I feel if that were to happen, Sony would just leave gaming and double down on all the other parts of their business.


The losers are all of us gamers. Consolidation of the industry is never a good thing, as you also realise. There is a precedent for this, sort of. In Europe a couple of decades ago Infogames went on a spending spree and acquired up a huge number of smaller indie studios. The end result? The gaming landscape totally changed. All those quirky little indie releases just stopped coming. Sure Infogames owned the IPs but never made the games for them.

This is the other issue. If Phil lets the acquired studios exist mostly independently then fine. But if he sees them as part of a bigger Microsoft whole, then there is only so many releases you can put out in one year. Microsoft are looking to have too many IPs to know what to do with and all the lesser IPs will just get ignored or their game quality will be poor. Microsoft do not have decades of managing a large number of IPs and ensuring all the games are good, like Nintendo do.


This could be upon us sooner than we think. The two platforms will be gamepass and whatever is the latest Nintendo console.

I wonder where all the jrpg’s would go, to Nintendo?

 

[throAU]

I don’t think Sony will be in particularly big trouble.

MS may have the game studios, but sony have a huge amount of the TV, film and music industry artists to generate or exclusively license content.

Microsoft need to be careful that they keep the talent at the companies they have purchased. They’ve been bleeding engineers at a huge rate to Meta as of late, and if they’re buying say, bethesda, Activision, etc. but not keeping the teams responsible for the actual products, they’re just burning money.

 

[maflynn]

I don’t think Sony will be in particularly big trouble.

Yes, the video (and my title) is a bit click baity. I can't see how this is NOT bad news for them. Sony has been caught sleeping at the switch, While MS has made moves to purchase studios, like Obsidian, Bethesda, Blizzard, etc, what has sony done? Delayed their PS5 content. Microsoft has strengthen their gaming subscription where as Sony's subscription is nowhere near has good.

MS has now a better more comprehensive catalog of studios, If this purchase goes through, they will have improved their position and at the same time weakened Sony's

but sony have a huge amount of the TV, film and music industry artists to generate or exclusively license content.

Yeah, but if you look at profitability, how many business units are more profitable then Sony's gaming division? Now consider that MS bought two large high profile gaming studios, thus reducing the number of games on the Playstation. Can you play a day 1 game on the PS5 with the subscription? No. Can you on the Xbox, Yes. MSFT is out playing and out spending Sony to the point where its going to have a negative impact on the playstation. I mean, not having Starfield, and the next elder scrolls game on PS5 - that's a huge loss.

if they’re buying say, bethesda, Activision, etc. but not keeping the teams

AFAIK, there's no proof with that and in fact it appears they are largely hands off with the game publishers that they have purchased. Just look at Obsidian and see how its been a positive aspect for them and the team there as remained.

 

[diamond.g]

Yes, the video (and my title) is a bit click baity. I can't see how this is NOT bad news for them. Sony has been caught sleeping at the switch, While MS has made moves to purchase studios, like Obsidian, Bethesda, Blizzard, etc, what has sony done? Delayed their PS5 content. Microsoft has strengthen their gaming subscription where as Sony's subscription is nowhere near has good.

MS has now a better more comprehensive catalog of studios, If this purchase goes through, they will have improved their position and at the same time weakened Sony's


Yeah, but if you look at profitability, how many business units are more profitable then Sony's gaming division? Now consider that MS bought two large high profile gaming studios, thus reducing the number of games on the Playstation. Can you play a day 1 game on the PS5 with the subscription? No. Can you on the Xbox, Yes. MSFT is out playing and out spending Sony to the point where its going to have a negative impact on the playstation. I mean, not having Starfield, and the next elder scrolls game on PS5 - that's a huge loss.

View attachment 1949154

AFAIK, there's no proof with that and in fact it appears they are largely hands off with the game publishers that they have purchased. Just look at Obsidian and see how its been a positive aspect for them and the team there as remained.

"Largely hands off" you know except for no more multi-platform games...


Sony has been acquiring studios, just not as fast or as flashy as MS has been doing. Sony has 16 dev studios but have only announced maybe 7 games for the PS5 in '22 and beyond. Sony (and Nintendo) is still home to games like the Persona series where Xbox support is weak in Japan so developers there don't bring the more wacky titles over to that platform (and the one time MS tried wooing Japanese players they basically failed miserably and more or less have given up since then).

 

[MBAir2010]

Sony® has been in trouble ever since 1987
when i left their corporation as a part time graphic designer
to compose newspapers and draw cartoons for a media company.

 

[MisterSavage]

When the PS4 started the lineup was weak and there were some magnificent exclusive titles that were released eventually. I really love the Dishonored series and will be sad if that's not available to Playstation anymore, but other than that the buyouts don't affect me. I gave up on Blizzard a long time ago.

 

[maflynn]

Largely hands off" you know except for no more multi-platform games...

Apples and oranges, they're hands off in letting the studios develop and run, but yes, of the studios they've acquired, they've used the new IP as exclusives - Sony does the exact same thing.

Sony has been acquiring studios, just not as fast or as flashy as MS has been doing.

Flashy is not a word I would use, simply looking at this wiki seems to indicate that they bought up some rather small independent studios. I'm not saying its poor purchases, but its not something that would allow them to go head to head, game vs. game with MSFT.

where Xbox support is weak in Japan

No question, Sony and Nintendo, both Japanese companies are stronger in Japan, I'm not really sure how that has anything to do with Sony and Microsoft competing and seeing how Sony is painted in a corner with less AAA publishers available to them

 

[diamond.g]

Apples and oranges, they're hands off in letting the studios develop and run, but yes, of the studios they've acquired, they've used the new IP as exclusives - Sony does the exact same thing.


Flashy is not a word I would use, simply looking at this wiki seems to indicate that they bought up some rather small independent studios. I'm not saying its poor purchases, but its not something that would allow them to go head to head, game vs. game with MSFT.


No question, Sony and Nintendo, both Japanese companies are stronger in Japan, I'm not really sure how that has anything to do with Sony and Microsoft competing and seeing how Sony is painted in a corner with less AAA publishers available to them

I guess my point can be summed up as this: Nintendo gets a fraction of AAA Publisher support Sony does and yet Nintendo is doing fine in the market place. SIE will/can be fine as well (especially if they fall back on owned IP).

 

[MisterSavage]

Good video related to this.

 

[wonderings]

I’d be extremely surprised if games such as Call Of Duty go platform exclusive.

CoD makes huge amounts of money on cosmetics etc, it would make no sense to cut off such a huge market after buying them.

I agree. Sony is big and has some amazing exclusives already that is why I stick with playstation. The playstation is not going anywhere so why a company would want to cut off a very large money making game simply to bolster console sales does not make a lot of sense.

 

[th0masp]

Sony - I think they are in trouble, yes. Losing something as big as COD, if that happens that's going to hurt. That and how many other properties now from the several rounds of acquisitions that happened in the last couple years?

I'm not sure Microsoft is on a winning streak either though - buying up all these long established studios/organisations with their money earned from other divisions is one thing, managing and nurturing them a very different one. I think their track record as well as the track record of the Xbox platform over the last 20 years speaks for itself in this regard.
Wouldn't be surprised if it's a real mess internally by now.

They'll still be able to push out sequels to established franchises I imagine. But I wonder how many new successes we will see coming from their corner. Layers upon layers of middle management in how many locations now?

 

[diamond.g]

Sony - I think they are in trouble, yes. Losing something as big as COD, if that happens that's going to hurt. That and how many other properties now from the several rounds of acquisitions that happened in the last couple years?

I'm not sure Microsoft is on a winning streak either though - buying up all these long established studios/organisations with their money earned from other divisions is one thing, managing and nurturing them a very different one. I think their track record as well as the track record of the Xbox platform over the last 20 years speaks for itself in this regard.
Wouldn't be surprised if it's a real mess internally by now.

They'll still be able to push out sequels to established franchises I imagine. But I wonder how many new successes we will see coming from their corner. Layers upon layers of middle management in how many locations now?

CoD sells the most on PlayStation (but that is because more of them are in the wild), I am not sure it would be in MS best interest to kill that income (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they did). How much would that impact Sony remains to be seen. Sony has some IP that could be brought back (like SOCOM) as an alternative. We know they are purchasing Bungie to get help with live services (their internal studios are more single player oriented these days), so yeah we will see how this all turns out.

 

[th0masp]

Hm, to me COD is the biggest name in shooters and has been for like 20 years. Several studios working on it around the clock, a big release every two or so years and a seemingly popular free to play game in parallel. Established fanbase, experienced developers, only a few missteps, huge name recognition, you know what to expect, etc.

SOCOM on the other hand - that's some name from the PS1/2 era, using that must be like going up against Resident Evil with Siren. You might as well start from scratch in my opinion.

If it's even possible to establish yet another military shooter these days. I think COD massively benefited from being released at the right time (Modern Warfare 1 was the key for widespread popularity IMO, came out right around the climax of the post 9/11 anti-terror-wars).

If Microsoft wasn't trying to get out of the rut where Playstation sells like 70% of units of most popular games then I don't see why they did offer 70 billion in the first place. Could have just paid for a few exclusives here and there to boost their platform a little. Their goal must be to rise above their competition for good and sideline them. Conan-style: "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women" .

I bet new games from these studios will not be ported to Playstation, only existing commitments fulfilled.

 

[cynics]

As a PS5 owner and a pretty big Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Bethesda fan overall it was disheartening when I heard MS/Xbox bought them.

I don't like exclusives regardless of who is doing it. I gain absolutely nothing from someone else not being able to enjoy a game that I enjoy. It blows my mind how brainwashed some people are though, because there favorite billion dollar company (who doesn't give two ***** about them) screwed over a large group of people with the same hobby......really?

Do I think Sony is in trouble? Not in the slightest. Are they in the best place they could be? Nah. But keep in mind, they aren't going to sit on their hands. Sony Interactive Entertainment have produced some great games. There is nothing stopping them from buying other publishers or even creating new ones. Even if we assume worst case scenario thats MS/Xbox's Bethesda acquisition financially hurt Sony's business (which it hasn't, at all, according to PS5 sales figures) and they were just going to have go out of business what would happen? What would happen is Microsoft would by them and keep the brand.

I mean I like Bethesda games but its the minority of my collection. EA/Blizzard? Lol. Think about that investment though. Bethesda made Skyrim and sold it 15 different times over 10 1/2 years. Some estimates for Skyrim's revenue are as high as 1.3 billion dollars, revenue, not profit. And keep in mind they only did that much because they were the opposite of exclusive, they put Skyrim on every console some consoles multiple times.

They are going to have to seriously up their quality and reduce there publishing time to make the a worthwhile deal. And yes I'm not forgetting ID and the others. Honestly I think it was the worst time to buy Bethesda, Star Field won't be enough motivation to push a measurable amount of people to the Xbox brand which means the games sales won't be anywhere where it could have been.

Oh well, we can only wait and see. Worst case and I'll build a PC use Steam.

 

[diamond.g]

As a PS5 owner and a pretty big Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Bethesda fan overall it was disheartening when I heard MS/Xbox bought them.

I don't like exclusives regardless of who is doing it. I gain absolutely nothing from someone else not being able to enjoy a game that I enjoy. It blows my mind how brainwashed some people are though, because there favorite billion dollar company (who doesn't give two ***** about them) screwed over a large group of people with the same hobby......really?

Do I think Sony is in trouble? Not in the slightest. Are they in the best place they could be? Nah. But keep in mind, they aren't going to sit on their hands. Sony Interactive Entertainment have produced some great games. There is nothing stopping them from buying other publishers or even creating new ones. Even if we assume worst case scenario thats MS/Xbox's Bethesda acquisition financially hurt Sony's business (which it hasn't, at all, according to PS5 sales figures) and they were just going to have go out of business what would happen? What would happen is Microsoft would by them and keep the brand.

I mean I like Bethesda games but its the minority of my collection. EA/Blizzard? Lol. Think about that investment though. Bethesda made Skyrim and sold it 15 different times over 10 1/2 years. Some estimates for Skyrim's revenue are as high as 1.3 billion dollars, revenue, not profit. And keep in mind they only did that much because they were the opposite of exclusive, they put Skyrim on every console some consoles multiple times.

They are going to have to seriously up their quality and reduce there publishing time to make the a worthwhile deal. And yes I'm not forgetting ID and the others. Honestly I think it was the worst time to buy Bethesda, Star Field won't be enough motivation to push a measurable amount of people to the Xbox brand which means the games sales won't be anywhere where it could have been.

Oh well, we can only wait and see. Worst case and I'll build a PC use Steam.

Why not buy a Series S?

 

[44267547]

⬆️ Buying a ‘Series S’ is a critical mistake. It’s underpowered, and you will quickly run out of storage with digital downloading with updates, game downloads and other media. The people who I’ve come across they have purchased a Series S, maybe had owned it a month before they upgraded to the X, with significant differences in performance. Sometimes trying to save money, isn’t always completing the experience to the gamer.

 

[diamond.g]

⬆️ Buying a ‘Series S’ is a critical mistake. It’s underpowered, and you will quickly run out of storage with digital downloading with updates, game downloads and other media. The people who I’ve come across they have purchased a Series S, maybe had owned it a month before they upgraded to the X, with significant differences in performance. Sometimes trying to save money, isn’t always completing the experience to the gamer.

??‍♂️ Seemed like a cheaper solution than build a pc. Especially if you are not sure about the game library. At least you can use GamePass to play the games and not worry about full priced games you didn’t find as interesting as you thought.

 

[maflynn]

Seemed like a cheaper solution than build a pc.

Xbox S is an excellent option, especially if its intended as a non-primary gaming console. Its indeed much much cheaper then building a PC, given the horrible prices that GPUs have. It is limited to 512GB, and non-4k gaming but overall those are easy enough to manage. Also I believe there is a storage expansion slot on the console like the Xbox X and unlike trying build a PC or buy a Xbox X, you can actually find them in stock very easily.

 

[44267547]

not worry about full priced

The difference between a hardcopy physical game and a ‘digital download’ game is approximately $10, and that’s not factoring tax either on the game for the digital download. Again, why would anybody want to have a gimped experience with the Series S is beyond me. Any veteran gamer, knows that the X outperforms the ‘S’ without comparison, especially with performance when you look at the titles like Microsoft flight simulator as an example that requires the boost that the S apparently can’t handle with crashes and frame rate drops. That’s just one many examples that’s been discussed.

Regardless if somebody wants to build a PC, then that’s their prerogative. But if they’re balancing between the S and the X, if they choose the S, it’s probably because they can’t find an X in stock for MSRP or they don’t care about performance aspects or ‘tech specs’.