I really don’t see how Sony can even function in the console business if they keep increasing prices in the future when they are struggling now. Other than Helldivers they’ve been mulling with flop after flop. The console industry to me needs a reset just this 3 are not able to grow it, you need more players and a system that allows anyone to participate. Frankly I think the PC like console that pretty much make the platforms digital stores is fine. Just look at the handheld industry, you have so many taken part that it is now reaching phones. Something similar for consoles would be fine.
I think you might be overstating Sony’s demise. They are the market leader, they are profitable.
I struggle to see how the various ideas you’re putting forward are connected.
Accessibility to more people: Keep hardware costs down to get hardware into people’s hands. Incompatible with: Mobile Phone market where phones can cost more than 3 times the most expensive console on the market.
Get more stores on consoles: Destroys revenue (or reduces share of revenue) - result: Subsidised hardware has to become unsubsidised and more expensive. Pushes people to mobile and or brings PC gaming hardware prices closer to console prices.
I think that this gen is a bit of an anomaly, hardware is more expensive than it was at launch, the Pandemic created hardware shortages and an extended crossgen period will have got people used to continuing to play on their existing consoles. There’s a good chance that there’ll be plenty of people who’ll consider upgrading from Xbox One / Ps4 to Xbox next/PS6, IMO.
According to this list:
Sony have had 3 exclusives in the top 20 and the number one seller (Helldivers). I think all the other games on the list are on Playstation and they’ll be getting a cut of those sales.
Whichever way you slice it, as far as I can tell, Sony would be mad to shake up their business model when they are leading the market. If I were them, I’d keep on keeping on and watch to see which moves are gaining traction. At the moment, if you want to play AAA games for less than $1000 your choices are Xbox or Playstation, and there’s little suggestion that’s changing - other than the persisten rumours that Xbox is going to put all their games on Playstation and pull out of the hardware market.
At that point Sony, unopposed, could clean up with day and date PC releases, and look to exploiting the mobile market. For Sony, disrupting the market wouldn’t be a smart move, IMO.
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Good. The Gears and Halo players base ain’t what it used to be.
They need all the new players playing them franchise as much as possible.
Especially Gears it needs all the new players it can get. Halo numbers are way down also but it not dire like Gears is.
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The elephant in the room is Sony’s stock, which keeps falling…whichever way you slice it.
Helldivers was a MASSIVE win for arrowhead, but has gone from 1st-3rd to 20 in the past week. Nothing is forever and shows how the market shifts very quickly.
I know this is an xbox forum, but really, let’s try to be realistic.
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I am looking at the numbers right now lol, so yes lets
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Ok mate.
If Sony corp’s stock is in freefalling entirely because the playstation division isn’t growing the market and Helldivers wasn’t no.1 for long enough, I concede that has taken me by surprise.
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To me, the discussion was about new entries into the market; Sony has had HUGE success with Helldivers and Ghosts. But it has quickly eroded to the same old games (Minecraft, Roblox, COD) in three months for HD, and two weeks for others.
It doesn’t mean that it is a failure in any way, but it’s not a ‘market disrupter’ as much as honestly if not for innovation’s SOMETHING to shake things up.
The stock ticker just means less investment in new ideas (that goes for Sony and MS)
Yes MS has 4 in the top 10, probably why a multiplat strat will continue. Interesting that it is the same point of old games being played the most.
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Jeez, look at Stellar Blade, one of Sony’s flops.
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Microsoft is doing amazingly well, spots 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, and 13.
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Is it really though?..hmmm click this link please. (Stellar blade is great and I love that team)
Slow month and the only somewhat big release to be honest. Let’s see how well it does next month.
I know some people don’t like to hear it, but consumer behaviour on xbox and playstation is very similar. It’s safe to say if a game does well on xbox it will do well on Playstation and same with the opposite. It’s why we saw Pentiment and HiFi Rush not move many units, and its why we saw Grounded and Sea of Thieves move a ton of units.
I think the real test for Microsoft is to see how much it affects console sales and they might have to test day and date to see that impact. I’ve always said Microsfot doesn’t make bad games, but the major issue is people aren’t willing to purchase an xbox to play their games. That of course plays into the negative discource about Microsoft games because most would’ve that Microsoft games have a very low metacritic but most MS games get 80+
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To be fair, I think the game looks really cringe-y.
Part of me thinks that it got bought by a load of culture warriors who think it’s some sort of assault on “woke” - I expect it’ll drop like a stone and be forgotten fairly soon.
But, it has sold better than anything else .
I wish we can get numbers like before.
I believe it was a slow month if Stellar Blade was #1 but only #16 in YTD. NO matter how you slice it, it’s crazy for a game that’s 5+ year old to be #1 in Europe and top 5 in the US. Also same thing with Grounded. I assume these games made a ton of revenue and will continue to make revenue due to the type of games they are
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Stellar blade? I would absolutely think/hope so. Surely sales wise it’s made enough (sure it has at a random guess) to warrant a sequel or five and I think Sony had a lot of props for doing that. At a studio level It’s just people trying to make something cool, which I admire a lot.
I’m not an investor, seeing cod, Fortnite, minecraft etc in the charts does nothing for me.
Not really talking about their demise but more where the industry is and their place in it. I’m also just speculating since that is what we’re all doing. They (Sony) are not the market leader they may be selling more consoles than Xbox, but they are not the market leader in sales or revenue and sure they are profitable, but their margins are shrinking with every report, and their market cap has fallen off the hill. They have also made it clear games are expensive and they may be moving away from the cinematic games they are known for considering resources are scarce. Consoles are 500plus now the PS5pro will be more, and I’d imagine a next gen console will even be more. I’m not sure you will see people rush out to buy NextGen consoles with the way things are right now. Sure, close to 60 million PS5s have been shipped but there are people that have more than one PS5s and that is not even accounting for returns or replacements. the MAU for PlayStation has also been stagnant. What I’m seeing now isn’t great and at their corporate meeting they didn’t even talk about PlayStation all they did was talk about PSN and how they will leverage it in the movies and with Crunchy roll.
For me I would rather prefer a proper NextGen hardware not one that cuts corners to be affordable and becomes obsolete so quickly, but proper Nextgen tech will be expensive. Xbox said they were losing 100 to 200 bucks per console. For accessibility they can continue the All-Access program or bundle them with Phone deals or bills.
Getting more stores on consoles doesn’t destroy or reduce revenues compare it to movies you get to buy or rent from a multitude of providers all on one device. If everyone sold from their stores games would be cheaper, and the stores would make more money. Indeed,strong text hardware is more expensive but their ways to alleviate those expenses like we have for phones which sell in the billions yearly. This gen is an anomaly maybe, but that anomaly has set in now. It’s clear the prospect of selling consoles at a loss is one in which Microsoft is no longer interested in and I would like to see how Sony skirts by this as well.
I won’t argue on that list, but the thing is we don’t see the numbers or the dollar equivalent. Some of the games on the list hardly broke a million worldwide. Rise of the Ronin was a miss but it’s on that list. FF7rebirth and suicide squad were mises as well.
I’m not saying Xbox is any better just that there are real issues facing the industry
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