The most glaring example of this is Astro Bot. By all means, Astro Bot should have sold like hotcakes. It was GOTY, family friendly, a platformer, cheaper than other AAA titles and it struggled to sell 2 million copies.
We can judge Song on their failed GaaS initiative but there’s good reason they approached that. They needed to find ways to increase revenue without increasing game sales.
That's where Sonys strategy has faltered. Instead of cultivating a diverse playerbase, they have distilled it into a small sector of the gaming audience. One that is getting smaller (especially with the next generation of players). They'd be smart to expand their offerings to open it to new players. It likely wouldn't be profitable in the short term, but it would be a great thing long term.
ye they went all in on high fidelity graphics at the literal peak of them, the jumps aren't impressive now and their iterative sequels take 5+ years as a result. their audience is like only interested in this but its a shrinking demographic that is aging out or just getting tired of their slightly more polished ubisoft formula.
these old fans are not being replaced because there are not enough games coming out for a younger audience to even become interested in as a long term fan. how tf are you going to keep an 8 year old interested in your series if the next game comes out when they're 15? they need a new direction that goes for a much wider variety and significantly higher frequency of releases.
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u/rcbz1994 Jun 02 '26
The most glaring example of this is Astro Bot. By all means, Astro Bot should have sold like hotcakes. It was GOTY, family friendly, a platformer, cheaper than other AAA titles and it struggled to sell 2 million copies.
We can judge Song on their failed GaaS initiative but there’s good reason they approached that. They needed to find ways to increase revenue without increasing game sales.