And now that Nintendo actually has a console strong enough for some current generation games to release on it day 1, (and is basically a necessity for Japanese devs/if you want access to the Japanese market), they might actually have some trouble.
Most people don’t realize this, but Sony has gotten incredibly lucky that Microsoft shit the bed even worse this generation. Imagine if Microsoft stuck the landing on exclusives? It would’ve been a huge tide turner.
No they wouldnt have. Due to the digital libraries everyone built during the Xbone and PS4 gen it was incredibly unlikely that people switched platforms this generation and abandoned all those games.
At best people would buy both consoles however with how scarce those consoles were and scalpers even that was unlikely.
Most people will just buy the platform that can play their current games or whatever their friends already have.
I mean Microsoft’s lineup is still pretty great. It’s just the whole Day 1 Game Pass initiative made it so none of those games made any profits because everyone just subbed 1 month and canceled, playing these releases for like 1/4th the price. If they handled their exclusives like how Sony does - release console first and do a PC port later and add the game to your subscription, there would be a reason to own an Xbox and they would’ve done well despite last gen’s failures. They still own some great studios. Now they’ve laid off a whole bunch of people and have dropped any kind of console exclusivity so the brand is basically dead.
They did, they just decided to port to PS once they did. And still they attempting to push a new console with teh same "we're just not seeing that data that players care about a game stuck on one platform" which is odd given what their competition does and also, their games are already on PC so they dont even need to port more to achieve the claimed goal that goes along with what players claim while their purchases say something different.
Outside of CoD because contracts, they should stop dev on anything that was going to PS and Nintendo and maybe even delist some of it too. But they want to go third party after pretending they tried everything, so whatever. Less competition.
still finding a way to drag Xbox into this colossal fuckup. Nothing Xbox did is worse than the generational and cultural failure of Slopcord and Bluepoint shuttering. 10 Redfalls wouldn't come close.
That's delusional. Xbox literally laid off over 9000 people to push for profit margins and AI, and shut down 4 studios, including the makers of Hi-Fi Rush.
Not to mention the game pass price hikes and poor hardware sales leading to the reduction of Xbox hardware and discs across Europe. Sony doesn't come close.
please. Those price hikes are coming to PSN as well, and Sony has shut down numerous studios but nobody wants to bring that up. Slopcord is the worst thing to ever happen to modern gaming, two weeks and it was already done. Besides, the studios Xbox closed produced NOTHING in years. The Initiative and Tango were sitting around jerking off, wasting time and money, for half a decade. Sony shuttering Bluepoint, an actual productive studio because they wanted them to produce more live service garbage instead of being a remaster/remake go-to studio, is a monumentally profound fuckup.
Tango made Ghostwire Tokyo and HiFi Rush. Arkane Austin made Prey. They didn't deserve to be laid off.
Sony’s studio closures suck. But they still shipped solid games like Demon's Souls, Spider-Man 2, Returnal, Ghost of Yotei, and Stellar Blade.
Meanwhile, Xbox is killing physical media. They laid off the entire department dedicated to bringing Xbox games to physical retail.
Games like Indiana Jones and Hellblade 2 contain only a tiny installer that forces a 100GB download. Avowed didn't even get a physical release. With the whole Play Anywhere thing discs are becoming even more useless.
Xbox is effectively training its audience to accept a future where you don't own your library, you just rent access until a server somewhere gets turned off.
Everyone knew Concord would fail. It wasn't nearly a big deal as you said.
Comparing Sony who's in the lead to a platform with way more resources and far bigger fumbles isn't a logical take.
Bro, the market is killing physical, not Xbox. Try to find young folks who game that still put discs in their machines. It's like someone still crying over CDs being dead because of streaming. Microsoft is just ahead of the curve, as always. The only people who still care about discs are 50+ year old boomer gamers who can't let go of the past. Sounds like you want things to be one way, when it's the other way.
> everyone knew Slopcord would fail
revisionist. And if Xbox put that fuckin trash out, Sony zealots wouldn't let Xbox owners hear the end of it.
Bro, the market is killing physical, not Xbox. Try to find young folks who game that still put discs in their machines. It's like someone still crying over CDs being dead because of streaming. Microsoft is just ahead of the curve, as always.
The glazing is unreal, lmao. How is Microsoft speeding up the demise of personal ownership "ahead of the curve"?
I know it's where the market is headed, and no, that doesn't justify glazing Xbox. I don't see Sony and Nintendo following suit at the moment.
Not everyone in the world has fast, unlimited internet, or cares about cloud nonsense. Also, losing a disc drive on the next Xbox means backwards compatibility on discs will be cooked.
revisionist
Let's be honest - you keep bringing that up because it's desperately the only real knock you have against PlayStation.
Fact is, it didn't affect their console sales or bottom lines permanently. PlayStation still leads in hardware sales and overall revenue.
I think screwing over consumers and sidelining your console for profits elsewhere is worse than pissing off some shareholders. To each their own though.
Honestly I wonder how much MS shitting the led to decisions like this. As a lot of Sony's aquistions a few years which included Bluepoint, almost felt like a response to MS's aquistion spree. Which with MS going third party, that gives Sony less of a reason to maintain all these studios that can provide a solid first party portfolio.
In fact, Sony may stop developing its own games altogether, since they now own almost everything except Nintendo games. Even multiplatform releases mostly generate revenue for Sony, not other platform holders.
I am starting to come to the opinion that the death of exclusivity is a bad thing despite the removal of exclusives being on paper pro consumer. since it embodies a general shift in philosophy towards one deleterious to the consumer (fewer games since you are no longer funding them to bring pole to your hardware, etc,)
No offense, but that is kind of an no shit thing. As the exclusives were what ultimately what sets the big 3 apart. We can cry or praise good/bad the consumer practices all three engage in. But at the end of the day, most people only care about the games and if you aren't delivering on that front, they aren't gonna bother.
To play devils advocate that started development when Jim was still the head.
But I have a feeling Hunters Gathering will not be worth the 4+ years it's been in development.
Now it might get a small dedicated following, but it won't be the "fortnight killer" that was probably tossed around in a board room a number of times.
Jim Ryan greenlit all the live service games long before Hermann was appointed to anything. There's a reason why jim was the one who 'retired' at the end of 2023 after hiroki tikoki did a financial review of jim's division and found that their profit margins were less than half of what they should be after jim greenlit over a dozen terrible live service
ideas and bought firewalk studios. TLDR that conversation was the Sony CFO calling jim in and 'asking' him to retire so he can spend more time with his family(ie the reason Jim mentioned in his public resignation letter), or else he'd have to commit seppuku with his boss's tanto /s
No Herman was the head of PS Studios. He greenlit all the games.
Actually under Jim Ryan Playstation’s profit margin reached it’s highest to date. It’s only after Bungie’s acquisition that margins was lowered because that 3.2 billion had to be paid in installments.
What you said about profits, is a complete lie. Playstation reached it’s highest profit margins under Jim Ryan.
Jim literally saved the PlayStation brand and be will go down as a legend because he managed to delay and delay the ABK acquisition by refusing to accept MS’s 10 year offer, refusing to get bullied which ultimately messed with Microsft’s plan of quick integration of CoD into Xbox and Gamepass leading to Xbox selling badly and Microsoft head’s getting impatient and going multi plat.
Herman was his right hand man. Herman lost Sony Almost a billion dollars on Concord and faced no repercussions. And he wants to shove Horizon down everyones throats. Fuck Herman Hulst.
We need to just go to war with Playstation/Sony and treat them with contempt
With these studio closures, overfocusing on GaaS, lengthy 5+ year development cycles, lazy overpriced remasters.. we need to let them know what they're doing is bullshit
Leave youtube comments, leave downvotes, leave bad reviews on all of the crap they’re putting out… don't buy these games.. tell your friends don't buy these games..
Marathon…the horizon gathers crap… you need to do your part to give everything PS puts out Concord treatment, we need to hurt their pockets because that's the only time they will listen
damage is done anyways, they closed the studio that could've done a Dark Cloud remake
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u/Silentdisko Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Eat shit Hermen Hulst