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Rumour David Jaffe talks about a potential massive shakeup at Sony (Update: Referring to Connie Booth out at PlayStation)

Sony spent three generations chasing prettier and prettier graphics and presentation and less on evolving game mechanics.

What they need to do is pump the brakes on graphical complexity and focus more on art direction and actual gameplay content. The problem is they trained their base to expect the endless chase of prettier graphics and set prices. The rug needs to be pulled out from underneath that type of game making philosophy but after doing it for 15+ years you will definitely get backlash.
 
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The London Studio thing is so fucking weird that it feels like they're being set up for failure.

Prior games

Wonderbook
Singstar
VR FPS

Now tackled with making a fantasy FPS massive AAAA budget live service game.

....... They have no shot whatsoever at pulling this off?
 
I’m sure Sony will have any easier time getting out of whatever perceived fiscal box they are in than Jaffe did getting out of the first room in Metroid Dread.
 
bodokoh said:
Not surprised by this. We only need to take a look at the financial reports for CY2023 to get an idea that SIE's profits are pitifully low in comparison to Nintendo and Activision Blizzard(Microsoft). High revenues but low profits are very unhealthy business strategy.

Nintendo - $2.05bn
Activision blizzard - $1.38bn
SIE - $0.65bn
Click to expand...
Another argument against $69.99 games: look at those Nintendo numbers. If they can sustain a business with $59.99 (hell, even $50 if you consider Vouchers), so should others
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
The London Studio thing is so fucking weird that it feels like they're being set up for failure.

Prior games

Wonderbook
Singstar
VR FPS

Now tackled with making a fantasy FPS massive AAAA budget live service game.

....... They have no shot whatsoever at pulling this off?
Click to expand...
Now that media companies are all expected to make money via "big AAA media title that expects to make billions", the incentive is for these companies to go full 19th century grind and force studios to all gamble their careers on being the one or two studios who get lucky enough to meet those demands. It doesnt matter how many studios have to close down as long as at least 1 or 2 studios manage to succeed. And the best part (or the shareholders and worst part for the studios is that if the company loses confidence in something succeeding they can just close the project down before mass release in order to get big tax breaks.

Unless workers unions rebuild enough power to consistently overthrow the shareholders this will only continue to get worse.

ziggyrivers said:
Another argument against $69.99 games: look at those Nintendo numbers. If they can sustain a business with $59.99 (hell, even $50 if you consider Vouchers), so should others
Click to expand...

Except arguably NIntendo's biggest source for revenue this year was their first $70 game: Tears of the Kingdom. Some of those profits will go to smaller projects but now Nintendo is also incentivized to keep repeating that strategy which means most of TotK's profits will go towards that instead of smaller projects.
 
TomNookYankees said:
Now that media companies are all expected to make money via "big AAA media title that expects to make billions", the incentive is for these companies to go full 19th century grind and force studios to all gamble their careers on being the one or two studios who get lucky enough to meet those demands. It doesnt matter how many studios have to close down as long as at least 1 or 2 studios manage to succeed. And the best part (or the shareholders and worst part for the studios is that if the company loses confidence in something succeeding they can just close the project down before mass release in order to get big tax breaks.

Unless workers unions rebuild enough power to consistently overthrow the shareholders this will only continue to get worse.



Except arguably NIntendo's biggest source for revenue this year was their first $70 game: Tears of the Kingdom. Some of those profits will go to smaller projects but now Nintendo is also incentivized to keep repeating that strategy which means most of TotK's profits will go towards that instead of smaller projects.
Click to expand...
not just Tear of the Kingdom helped Nintendo revenue, but also the Mario movie
 
Update: Jaffe is now claiming Connie was fired, she didn't retire. Might have something to do with TLOUF2 being a flop. Apparently she might have tried to prevent the game from going full GaaS and Sony kicked her to the curb over it. This last part isn't confirmed, just some speculation based on other rumors.
 
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One should never wish someone lose their job. Ever. We are not savages. People do that shit enough on social media, it's messing with their livelihoods. I wish this person the best of luck.
 
Scrawnton said:
Sony spent three generations chasing prettier and prettier graphics and presentation and less on evolving game mechanics.

What they need to do is pump the brakes on graphical complexity and focus more on art direction and actual gameplay content. The problem is they trained their base to expect the endless chase of prettier graphics and set prices. The rug needs to be pulled out from underneath that type of game making philosophy but after doing it for 15+ years you will definitely get backlash.
Click to expand...
This is the reason I hope Nintendo doesn’t use more powerful hardware as a reason to chase higher and higher fidelity gaming. It slows down your iterations which hurt that evolution they seem to be so good at even if it leads to duds from time to time.
 
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Scrawnton said:
Sony spent three generations chasing prettier and prettier graphics and presentation and less on evolving game mechanics.

What they need to do is pump the brakes on graphical complexity and focus more on art direction and actual gameplay content. The problem is they trained their base to expect the endless chase of prettier graphics and set prices. The rug needs to be pulled out from underneath that type of game making philosophy but after doing it for 15+ years you will definitely get backlash.
Click to expand...

The Norse God of War games and The Last of Us Part II are some of the most mechanically sound games out there, with great art direction. And Insomniac has always been rock solid mechanically throughout their various games. But yes, these games are also among the most technically advanced games ever created with massive teams, long dev cycles, and tons of outsourcing. So even though they sell 20 million copies they're not as profitable as Sony would like.

I don't disagree that it may not be sustainable, but as you said, their base is trained to expect these kinds of games.
 
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