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Sony CFO insists AAA game quality ‘will deteriorate’ if it adopts Game Pass-style strategy

mxbison

Member
They will look for other ways to make money like more Season Passes and MTX. The biggest games on GamePass (Halo, Forza, Flight Sim) have quite a bit of monetization in them.

Depends on your stance on those things I guess. For me it's definitely a decline in quality.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
It's like i can see where this is going...basically release games like Life is Strange. In chapters...like we get TV shows on streaming platforms or something. Yeah...no. I'd rather get the full game experience and pay for it full price.


Where's Sackboy? Ratchet? Killzone? Gran Turismo? Dreams? Spider-Man? Concrete Genie? Returnal? That probably wouldn't fit the narrative, right?

Funny thing is that picture was created to mock people that criticize PlayStation games...and it's now being used like a serious thing by that same crowd, lmao.

Let me grab the Nintendo template. I'm sure they also have trees in more than 2 games...or MS.
Killzone

Its Been A Long Time Reaction GIF
 
even with that, what COD killer WILL come out? MS basically owns every studio responsible for the most popular shooters, excluding epic. That's a pretty low chance of a COD killer even happening IMO.

I think this is an interesting way of thinking. Studios change their identities all the time in gaming.

Just look at Naughty Dog. They made a fighting game, then a largely vertical platformer, then a 3d platformer, then the 3d action game.

Would you think the team that did Spyro was well suited for an open world Spider-Man game?

Guerrilla was known for fps through vietnam and killzone but what are they known for now a 3rd person action/adventure game

Polyphony Digital made a mech game and a crappy toon racing game before making Gran Turismo...

I find your premise really faulty here.
 

Neofire

Member
Smart man, I'm glad he's in the Sony CEO with this logic. The subscription model I can't stand and GAAS. Hopefully they will keep this sentiment for a while.

MS just wants to charge you for every little thing for any reason MS office comes to mind as a good example of something you could buy is not behind a high ass subscription. Hence why their behinds are getting dragged on Social media for the recent DRM mess.
 

Bragr

Banned
lol at the people slurping up this marketing speech

i could tell you smoking is healthy and you all would be doing 2 packs a day
 

Zeroing

Banned
What makes a game "Quality" is the real question? Is it this...
MnlyNFW.jpg

Seems the loud majority have decided that 3rd person single player adventure games are the bar for which "quality" is judged. Beyond this one genre of games I don't see where Sony's "quality" is any better than any other developer.
RIP
“quality” “quality” and “quality”
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
"we don't want to launch a service where people can't for a smaller fee play all our games, because then we can't get 80 euros up front from millions of players and use it in our charts so our fanboys will fight for us.

It will hurt the customer if they can get cheap access to our gaming catalogue and some third party titles as well.

Please understand. "

XOXO,
Jim Ryan


Isn't it obvious talking bad about something about a product the competitor has, that you don't?

Sony also talked bad about cross play until they were forced into the ball game.

It's funny to see how negative Jimbo is towards Microsoft, while Spencer is simping positive comments about Sony.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
It's funny to see how negative Jimbo is towards Microsoft, while Spencer is simping positive comments about Sony.
Yes, because Lord Phil has NEVER thrown shade subtly towards Sony when releasing statements, ever. And Sony has never congratulated or said praise either.

We only have a message board that has posted all of the above for all of the above over the years.

The fucking Kool aide some of you drink, I swear.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Smart man, I'm glad he's in the Sony CEO with this logic. The subscription model I can't stand and GAAS. Hopefully they will keep this sentiment for a while.

MS just wants to charge you for every little thing for any reason MS office comes to mind as a good example of something you could buy is not behind a high ass subscription. Hence why their behinds are getting dragged on Social media for the recent DRM mess.
I don't understand how options is bad.

"I don't like GaaS, I don't like subscriptions, Microsoft ruins gaming by giving me options."

You aren't forced to rent your games only. You can still buy them, unlike Nintendo with n64 games and Sony with streaming ps3 games.

Regarding office, I think I have a free version that's permanent l for some reason?

And Microsoft has the audacity to, besides supporting a free version of office, also an alternative called one drive, and Google drive fully supports it as well.

Less choices, more walled gardens and being forced to do what our great leader says.


To mods: my post ain't fanboying, its just to show Neofire Neofire how absurd his comment is by reversing his logic.
 
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They will look for other ways to make money like more Season Passes and MTX. The biggest games on GamePass (Halo, Forza, Flight Sim) have quite a bit of monetization in them.

Depends on your stance on those things I guess. For me it's definitely a decline in quality.
Forza Horizon 5 is much less "monetized" than Gran Tursimo 7. Only one of them is on GamePass.
 
Look at all the problems 1st party Gamepass games are having, they cant invest the same amount of money Sony does they will lose profits
How can you say this with a straight face after Microsoft literally spent over $76.2 billion in the past 3 years expanding their first party portfolio.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Yes, because Lord Phil has NEVER thrown shade subtly towards Sony when releasing statements, ever. And Sony has never congratulated or said praise either.

We only have a message board that has posted all of the above for all of the above over the years.

The fucking Kool aide some of you drink, I swear.
I'd never said neither of those things.

They congratulate each other over sales, anniversaries whatever, because they are not competitive in the same way as fanboys are.

My kool aid abuse probably made my post more aggressive than it had to be, but my point still stands regard Ryan's statement and game pass.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I'd never said neither of those things.

They congratulate each other over sales, anniversaries whatever, because they are not competitive in the same way as fanboys are.

My kool aid abuse probably made my post more aggressive than it had to be, but my point still stands regard Ryan's statement and game pass.
Dave Chapelle GIF by MOODMAN
 

samoilaaa

Member
One things Sony can't do very well is the RPG games. While horizon and God of War have some element RPG, it's not really a true RPG games.
to make true rpgs requires alot of talent , look at baldur's gate 3 , the story is mature and complex , the choice and consequence is a very big part of the game , ive played it for over 100 hours and i still find it hard to pick a side
and not to mention there are so many ways to play the game , the enviornment gives you the option to use ur imagination

look at god of war or hfw , no matter what you do ur the same character doing the same thing and having the same result
 
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Filben

Member
Maybe bloated AAA games should become rarer altogether? Costs are mostly rising because they've decided to ever increase their margins by selling millions of copies now to the broadest audience possible instead of a few hundred thousands. The issue is self-imposed. No one's forcing them to hire hundreds of people and make the most expensive games.

If there's one thing sure is that AAA budget doesn't say shit about a game's quality.

So I'm not entirely sure if that conventional business model will hold up in a few years time. However, right now it's Sony's track record what speaks for them to continue their business model. Guess we'll see.
 

sainraja

Member
From a consumer point of view, getting access to new releases day one for a monthly subscription service of $10-$15 dollars is good value. On the Xbox side, that is still a promise to come as new first-party releases aren't being released in a consistent reliable pattern. On the PlayStation, there is no such option. Right now there are some third-party releases being put on Gampass along with a bunch of indie games.

If subscription services do become the main way for consuming game content then you can definitely count on it affecting the type of games that are created. I think we are at a phase where they will experiment a bit, mix it up and have all types of games being put on it from traditional to ones designed for a sub. It will impact the type of games Sony makes if they were to adopt a similar strategy and depending on where the market goes, they might have to do that and could certainly find success.
 
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sainraja

Member
Can't wait for this argument to be rendered mute by the influx of shitty GaaS titles Sony has already announced to take priority going forward.
That's not an argument in favor of subscription services or against. GaaS games are basically their own thing. They are a different way for game studios to engage with their customers and earn money.

Basically we have the traditional option of purchasing games at cost. Getting access to a set of games via subscription and lastly GaaS.
So no, this argument won't be rendered mute by the influx of GaaS titles.

EDIT

People that are immediately seeing this statement as an attack on Game Pass who jump into fanboy mode are missing this important bit:
Speaking as part of the Q&A session following Sony’s financial results this week, CFO Totoki inferred that were Sony to follow Microsoft’s Game Pass model, it could result in fewer resources allocated to first-party titles, and thus a decline in quality.
We know Sony invests money into creating first-party titles to sell to us. In order to support a service like Game Pass, they'd have to allocate resources towards it; with a good library of games it will mean nothing. Can Sony continue making the type of games they make with resources divided between that and a sub service that they also need to promote?

Xbox can do it because they have MS backing it. Sony has to be smarter with their approach.
 
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yurinka

Member
Sony sold 43M first party titles last year. Assuming an ASP of $30, that translates to $1.3B.

Sony currently has 47M PS+ subscribers. If they could convert 30M of them to a super high tier of Plus that costs an additional $130 a year, that would translate to $3.9B of new revenue. The problem is that Sony would also need to supplement this service with a ton of 3rd party deals, or AA first party games. Subscription services are all about quantity and they would need to make sure there’s a steady stream of content to keep people subscribed.
These 43.9M copies are only for PS4 and PS5. They also sold in PC and Xbox. And on top of that these games also generated money from being included in their game subs. Plus there were also sold add-on content for them like DLC or MTX. They generated much more money than these $1.3B.

The thing is their development costs increase every year because they need larger teams with longer devtimes plus more teams to fill these gaps in roadmaps created by longer development times. This year, in addiion to pay some billions to complete the acquisition of Bungie and others, they'll pay an addition ~$340M+ in expenses of these acquisitions and ~$300M+ to grow their other existing gamedev teams.

More teams and devs give them more revenue, and with that revenue they pay the cost of gettting more devs and teams in a self-sustainable and profitable way, and this is what they want to continue doing.

image.png


On top of that we have to consider that a business model paradigm shift as would be to include all their games day one on a subscription wouldn't only affect them, but the 3rd party companies too. And what the 3rd parties generate in sales of games and addons is way, way more money.

You also have to consider they only had 3M paying PS Now, which was $60/year. Now it will be bundled with PS+ and additional content for $120/year. Being way more expensive maybe less people will pay for it. And if they'd had an even more expensive tier the'd have even way less people there. So that way more expensive tier wouldn't generate enough money.

Hermen said PS Studios has over 25 games under development. We did some numbers and that didn't include VR, PC ports and maybe even remasters, and probably didn't include games in preproduction. The total amount of projects would be over 30-40. And add at least 3 more from Bungie. That's an insane amount of money to cover.

Btw, this FY Sony's game division game subs this FY generated 409.4B Yen of the 2,739.8B Yen revenue (346.1B Yen profit) of their game division, a small percent. And remember, Sony's game subs have 2X the subs of GP, earn more money than GP and have a more profitable business. Sony's game subs already make way more money than GP and that's only a small portion of the revenue their game division makes, which is very profitable and is in a growing trend.

It would be a retarded financial move to put their games in the game sub day one. Sony pays the bills and growth of their gaming business with the money made by that gaming business so need the biggest possible revenue and profit. MS doesn't care because if they have huge loses with gaming they cover it with the huge revenue generated by the other divisions.
 
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AllBizness

Banned
How can you say this with a straight face after Microsoft literally spent over $76.2 billion in the past 3 years expanding their first party portfolio.
That's worth it to keep those games off PlayStation. That's just business. Corporate America acquires companies all the time just so the competition doesn't get those products or services.
 

Neofire

Member
I don't understand how options is bad.

"I don't like GaaS, I don't like subscriptions, Microsoft ruins gaming by giving me options."

You aren't forced to rent your games only. You can still buy them, unlike Nintendo with n64 games and Sony with streaming ps3 games.

Regarding office, I think I have a free version that's permanent l for some reason?

And Microsoft has the audacity to, besides supporting a free version of office, also an alternative called one drive, and Google drive fully supports it as well.

Less choices, more walled gardens and being forced to do what our great leader says.


To mods: my post ain't fanboying, its just to show Neofire Neofire how absurd his comment is by reversing his logic.
My opinion is absurd but yours isn't? Shall me out the with that "walled garden" catch phrase. It's been proven that GAAS can and had hurt developers. If MS was to force feed it's user base with subscription's then that's their prerogative but it doesn't mean Sony has to or even Nintendo.

Even your "choices" on MS platforms and services and I will enjoy what Sony has been doing for almost 3 decades of being in the industry with the choices I like.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
I think quality depends on the devs themselves. While budget can give them the resources to make the game big. It still is possible to make smaller high quality titles with a low budget.
Exactly.. Budget doesn't equate quality necessarily.
 
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