PHYSINT from Hideo Kojima moves from PlayStation to XBOX

I think it's good for any project to move away from "we make exclusive" Sony, no matter the reason. It's not necessarily that xbox is better in many regards, but I still can't wrap my head around how "let's fragment the market and limit ourselves to only part of it" is compatible with people making game.

Yes, I know there'sz likely moneybags involved, but still.

Guys, you just don't understand, Sony NEEDS the extra 100 million to dump into their next live service DOA...

I think we are witnessing a full on panic in the gaming space. It was already going to be tough as there are no more growth markets. Console, PC, mobile, VR, streaming - every single potential growth market is mature at this point. Add to that the RAM/NAND crisis and we get a really tough situation. This generation could end up being longer than gen seven, and that was draged out due to the 2008 crisis.

The simplest way to survive for Sony, Microsoft and all the big publishers is to cut. Cut every single ounce of fat and wait it out. Close studios that does not perform, close studios that do perform but their last project maybe didn't meet targets, cancel all projects that aren't 99% certain to generate a win. Of course postpone gen 10 consoles. I mean just look at Steam Machine. I have been waiting for 3 months for the privilege of buying a Steam Machine at an unreasonable price, but Valve can't take my money. They simply cannot make them and after 3 months even if they did the price would probably have gone up by several 100 euros. To launch PS6 or Xbox Helix in this market would be unthinkable.

Sony has a long history with the MGS franchise and a great relationship with Kojima in the Death Stranding series. If even they are looking at a project like Physint as being too risky then the gaming market is truly in a crisis.

Another day, another idiotic decision by Sony. Boy will they suffer for this one. Good for us at least, this means day 1 on PC. Hopefully Microsoft won't do some chicanery nonsense to block Proton from working.

Quoting: BrokattI think we are witnessing a full on panic in the gaming space. It was already going to be tough as there are no more growth markets. Console, PC, mobile, VR, streaming - every single potential growth market is mature at this point. Add to that the RAM/NAND crisis and we get a really tough situation. This generation could end up being longer than gen seven, and that was draged out due to the 2008 crisis.

The simplest way to survive for Sony, Microsoft and all the big publishers is to cut. Cut every single ounce of fat and wait it out. Close studios that does not perform, close studios that do perform but their last project maybe didn't meet targets, cancel all projects that aren't 99% certain to generate a win. Of course postpone gen 10 consoles. I mean just look at Steam Machine. I have been waiting for 3 months for the privilege of buying a Steam Machine at an unreasonable price, but Valve can't take my money. They simply cannot make them and after 3 months even if they did the price would probably have gone up by several 100 euros. To launch PS6 or Xbox Helix in this market would be unthinkable.

Sony has a long history with the MGS franchise and a great relationship with Kojima in the Death Stranding series. If even they are looking at a project like Physint as being too risky then the gaming market is truly in a crisis.

While I do agree with your premise, we have to take into account that Sony hasn't been acting exactly 'rationally' for a while now. They keep investing and promptly killing countless live services games. Example being that new "Horizon" game that is just poor chinese copy of Monster Hunter. They are investing in that, while killing a project from a director that has at this point, released only financial and critical hits for 30 years straight. Not only that, but they killed a project that would certainly make their catalog far more diverse. Sony first party stuff have become increasingly similar between each other and I am sure I am not the only one noticing that. Occasional titles like Astro Bot, Death Stranding and Saros (although Saros sadly failed) were few titles that brought something truly 'new' to the table.

I don't think Sony really has the critical insight to make good decisions anymore. They thought Concord and Marathon would work, while it was clear from the onset that they would be a failure. They killed Destiny 2, despite clearly making a profit and killed development of a sequel and basically dropped all those potential players to competing looter-shooter gamers, like Arc Raiders and especially Warframe. This whole gen, they repeatedly made horrible decisions that came back to bite them. The way they treated their 'PC strategy' is a clear example of that.

As much as I wanna say "It's over for SONY", I know a giant like this will be falling for a long time before anything of the sort can actually be said, but still, losing Hideo Kojima of all people is wild.

Does this mean simultaneous console and PC release? I hope so. I hated the months long wait for Death Stranding 2 to come to PC after it was released for the PlayStation.

We still know very little about it except that it's quite a few years away - so perhaps Sony weren't willing to continue funding what is no doubt going to be an expensive game to make.

A Hideo Kojima game turning out to be really ambitious and expensive to make? That seems so unlikely!

Quoting: Lop1

Quoting: BrokattI think we are witnessing a full on panic in the gaming space. It was already going to be tough as there are no more growth markets. Console, PC, mobile, VR, streaming - every single potential growth market is mature at this point. Add to that the RAM/NAND crisis and we get a really tough situation. This generation could end up being longer than gen seven, and that was draged out due to the 2008 crisis.

The simplest way to survive for Sony, Microsoft and all the big publishers is to cut. Cut every single ounce of fat and wait it out. Close studios that does not perform, close studios that do perform but their last project maybe didn't meet targets, cancel all projects that aren't 99% certain to generate a win. Of course postpone gen 10 consoles. I mean just look at Steam Machine. I have been waiting for 3 months for the privilege of buying a Steam Machine at an unreasonable price, but Valve can't take my money. They simply cannot make them and after 3 months even if they did the price would probably have gone up by several 100 euros. To launch PS6 or Xbox Helix in this market would be unthinkable.

Sony has a long history with the MGS franchise and a great relationship with Kojima in the Death Stranding series. If even they are looking at a project like Physint as being too risky then the gaming market is truly in a crisis.

While I do agree with your premise, we have to take into account that Sony hasn't been acting exactly 'rationally' for a while now. They keep investing and promptly killing countless live services games. Example being that new "Horizon" game that is just poor chinese copy of Monster Hunter. They are investing in that, while killing a project from a director that has at this point, released only financial and critical hits for 30 years straight. Not only that, but they killed a project that would certainly make their catalog far more diverse. Sony first party stuff have become increasingly similar between each other and I am sure I am not the only one noticing that. Occasional titles like Astro Bot, Death Stranding and Saros (although Saros sadly failed) were few titles that brought something truly 'new' to the table.

I don't think Sony really has the critical insight to make good decisions anymore. They thought Concord and Marathon would work, while it was clear from the onset that they would be a failure. They killed Destiny 2, despite clearly making a profit and killed development of a sequel and basically dropped all those potential players to competing looter-shooter gamers, like Arc Raiders and especially Warframe. This whole gen, they repeatedly made horrible decisions that came back to bite them. The way they treated their 'PC strategy' is a clear example of that.

I hear you. Sony's decisions looks drastic today, but they come of a (let's call it overly optimistic) strategy that started during the pandemic. The gaming market did not continue to grow like it did during those years, their live service bets have not payed off and on top of that we have a component crisis that is a threat to their entire console business (and probably the last nail for their mobile division).

It's easy to see in hindsight what they did wrong. Overpaying for Bungie, forcing single player studios to shift to live service games and their whole PC bet didn't pay of either. I think it's like 10% more sales per title on average. They did not make much money on PC at all. It's a lot harder to say what Sony should do today and what strategy they should employ for success with PS6. I honestly have no idea.

I must say I really don't like massive game publishers and I don't think the stock market is a good place for them. Most of the successful private US companies have been bought (except Valve and Epic of course) up but look at Europe. We still have private companies left and they are killing it. Larian, Arrowhead, IO Interactive. I think Moon Studios have a bomb on their hands with No Rest for the Wicked in March.

Quoting: Brokatt

Quoting: Lop1

Quoting: BrokattI think we are witnessing a full on panic in the gaming space. It was already going to be tough as there are no more growth markets. Console, PC, mobile, VR, streaming - every single potential growth market is mature at this point. Add to that the RAM/NAND crisis and we get a really tough situation. This generation could end up being longer than gen seven, and that was draged out due to the 2008 crisis.

The simplest way to survive for Sony, Microsoft and all the big publishers is to cut. Cut every single ounce of fat and wait it out. Close studios that does not perform, close studios that do perform but their last project maybe didn't meet targets, cancel all projects that aren't 99% certain to generate a win. Of course postpone gen 10 consoles. I mean just look at Steam Machine. I have been waiting for 3 months for the privilege of buying a Steam Machine at an unreasonable price, but Valve can't take my money. They simply cannot make them and after 3 months even if they did the price would probably have gone up by several 100 euros. To launch PS6 or Xbox Helix in this market would be unthinkable.

Sony has a long history with the MGS franchise and a great relationship with Kojima in the Death Stranding series. If even they are looking at a project like Physint as being too risky then the gaming market is truly in a crisis.

While I do agree with your premise, we have to take into account that Sony hasn't been acting exactly 'rationally' for a while now. They keep investing and promptly killing countless live services games. Example being that new "Horizon" game that is just poor chinese copy of Monster Hunter. They are investing in that, while killing a project from a director that has at this point, released only financial and critical hits for 30 years straight. Not only that, but they killed a project that would certainly make their catalog far more diverse. Sony first party stuff have become increasingly similar between each other and I am sure I am not the only one noticing that. Occasional titles like Astro Bot, Death Stranding and Saros (although Saros sadly failed) were few titles that brought something truly 'new' to the table.

I don't think Sony really has the critical insight to make good decisions anymore. They thought Concord and Marathon would work, while it was clear from the onset that they would be a failure. They killed Destiny 2, despite clearly making a profit and killed development of a sequel and basically dropped all those potential players to competing looter-shooter gamers, like Arc Raiders and especially Warframe. This whole gen, they repeatedly made horrible decisions that came back to bite them. The way they treated their 'PC strategy' is a clear example of that.

I hear you. Sony's decisions looks drastic today, but they come of a (let's call it overly optimistic) strategy that started during the pandemic. The gaming market did not continue to grow like it did during those years, their live service bets have not payed off and on top of that we have a component crisis that is a threat to their entire console business (and probably the last nail for their mobile division).

It's easy to see in hindsight what they did wrong. Overpaying for Bungie, forcing single player studios to shift to live service games and their whole PC bet didn't pay of either. I think it's like 10% more sales per title on average. They did not make much money on PC at all. It's a lot harder to say what Sony should do today and what strategy they should employ for success with PS6. I honestly have no idea.

I must say I really don't like massive game publishers and I don't think the stock market is a good place for them. Most of the successful private US companies have been bought (except Valve and Epic of course) up but look at Europe. We still have private companies left and they are killing it. Larian, Arrowhead, IO Interactive. I think Moon Studios have a bomb on their hands with No Rest for the Wicked in March.

Yes, of course, in hindsight it is clear, but what I am saying that most of these decisions looked like a poor idea from the moment they were made. 4 billion on 1 studio was clearly an insane deal, even if it was Bungie. Live service investment when it was already oversaturated completely is another.

As for PC strategy, I am referring to the fact that sales will of course be poor, when good chunk of those ports had catastrophic issues and/or were ported years after initial release. Most sales are made in first few weeks. If you release a game years after, for the same price or even higher no less and then on top of that you have PSN bullshit and port runs poorly, results are obvious.

Even after all that, if increase of sales was really 10%, then it's a clean profit, considering that porting games is not all that expensive of an endeavour.

Hardware crisis is really just making them panic and making hasty and......frankly poor decisions, that even short term appear horrible.

You are absolutely right that stock market is a shitty place for them. Sony is atm sinking to the same level as Microsoft, while Microsoft is pretty close to the bottom with gaming. It seems only Nintendo is not doing horribly here.

Sony are shooting themselves in the foot big time lately...the lights' on but nobody's home...

What's going on with Sony lately? Anyway, let's hope it eventually get to SteamOS as well.

This is genuinely so damn stupid. I personally account 30% of PlayStations' history and heritage to Metal Gear Solid and Kojima. The games directly mention and feel specifically made on -and only for- PlayStations. They literally went through this song and dance by correctly being the first to snatch him after Konami dropped him with the unfinished Phantom Pain and unreleased Silent Hills. To see them do basically the same thing is remarkably backwards, even business-wise Kojima games are guaranteed to sell, this makes no sense.

The lack of sales on death stranding 2 (it was brilliant) probably did not help Hideo Kojima, so maybe Sony thinks it's not worth the risk. 2.8 mil sold so far which is around 170 million with a budget (including marketing) estimate of 300 million, I can see Sony's point.

And no, please don't say it sold bad because Sony said it would quit the single player pc market, of all the steam players out there I would say 0.5% cares.

We'll always have HellDivers 2 at least...

I think that instead of cutting the guy out, executives need to have the guts to tell developers that spending over 100 million on a single game is not okay anymore*. If they do not do that, they will be closing a lot more studios over the years.

The proof that you can have a successful title spending a lot less, is the growing number of indie games exploding in sales. Those were made for pennies compared with your average AAA nowadays.

*Although that could be exactly what made Kojima look elsewhere for a publisher. Lets not ignore ego must be involved here.

Quoting: Lop1

Quoting: Brokatt

Quoting: Lop1

Quoting: BrokattI think we are witnessing a full on panic in the gaming space. It was already going to be tough as there are no more growth markets. Console, PC, mobile, VR, streaming - every single potential growth market is mature at this point. Add to that the RAM/NAND crisis and we get a really tough situation. This generation could end up being longer than gen seven, and that was draged out due to the 2008 crisis.

The simplest way to survive for Sony, Microsoft and all the big publishers is to cut. Cut every single ounce of fat and wait it out. Close studios that does not perform, close studios that do perform but their last project maybe didn't meet targets, cancel all projects that aren't 99% certain to generate a win. Of course postpone gen 10 consoles. I mean just look at Steam Machine. I have been waiting for 3 months for the privilege of buying a Steam Machine at an unreasonable price, but Valve can't take my money. They simply cannot make them and after 3 months even if they did the price would probably have gone up by several 100 euros. To launch PS6 or Xbox Helix in this market would be unthinkable.

Sony has a long history with the MGS franchise and a great relationship with Kojima in the Death Stranding series. If even they are looking at a project like Physint as being too risky then the gaming market is truly in a crisis.

While I do agree with your premise, we have to take into account that Sony hasn't been acting exactly 'rationally' for a while now. They keep investing and promptly killing countless live services games. Example being that new "Horizon" game that is just poor chinese copy of Monster Hunter. They are investing in that, while killing a project from a director that has at this point, released only financial and critical hits for 30 years straight. Not only that, but they killed a project that would certainly make their catalog far more diverse. Sony first party stuff have become increasingly similar between each other and I am sure I am not the only one noticing that. Occasional titles like Astro Bot, Death Stranding and Saros (although Saros sadly failed) were few titles that brought something truly 'new' to the table.

I don't think Sony really has the critical insight to make good decisions anymore. They thought Concord and Marathon would work, while it was clear from the onset that they would be a failure. They killed Destiny 2, despite clearly making a profit and killed development of a sequel and basically dropped all those potential players to competing looter-shooter gamers, like Arc Raiders and especially Warframe. This whole gen, they repeatedly made horrible decisions that came back to bite them. The way they treated their 'PC strategy' is a clear example of that.

I hear you. Sony's decisions looks drastic today, but they come of a (let's call it overly optimistic) strategy that started during the pandemic. The gaming market did not continue to grow like it did during those years, their live service bets have not payed off and on top of that we have a component crisis that is a threat to their entire console business (and probably the last nail for their mobile division).

It's easy to see in hindsight what they did wrong. Overpaying for Bungie, forcing single player studios to shift to live service games and their whole PC bet didn't pay of either. I think it's like 10% more sales per title on average. They did not make much money on PC at all. It's a lot harder to say what Sony should do today and what strategy they should employ for success with PS6. I honestly have no idea.

I must say I really don't like massive game publishers and I don't think the stock market is a good place for them. Most of the successful private US companies have been bought (except Valve and Epic of course) up but look at Europe. We still have private companies left and they are killing it. Larian, Arrowhead, IO Interactive. I think Moon Studios have a bomb on their hands with No Rest for the Wicked in March.

Yes, of course, in hindsight it is clear, but what I am saying that most of these decisions looked like a poor idea from the moment they were made. 4 billion on 1 studio was clearly an insane deal, even if it was Bungie. Live service investment when it was already oversaturated completely is another.

As for PC strategy, I am referring to the fact that sales will of course be poor, when good chunk of those ports had catastrophic issues and/or were ported years after initial release. Most sales are made in first few weeks. If you release a game years after, for the same price or even higher no less and then on top of that you have PSN bullshit and port runs poorly, results are obvious.

Even after all that, if increase of sales was really 10%, then it's a clean profit, considering that porting games is not all that expensive of an endeavour.

Hardware crisis is really just making them panic and making hasty and......frankly poor decisions, that even short term appear horrible.

You are absolutely right that stock market is a shitty place for them. Sony is atm sinking to the same level as Microsoft, while Microsoft is pretty close to the bottom with gaming. It seems only Nintendo is not doing horribly here.

There is a lot that could be said but I think everything comes back to Sony's decision to stop using physical media. Why release PC games on Steam were Valve take a 30% cut, when they could publish on PSN and keep it all to themselves? Microsoft on the other hand is perfectly fine to publish both on Xbox and Steam, because 95% of PC users are on Windows. Some might use Office 365, Copilot, Bing and all these other services that are sources of revenue. Sony has none of that. They are all in on a single product and that is Playstation 5 and soon 6.

Absolutely baffling decision by Sony. Kojima made system sellers for the PS1, PS2 and PS3 and this is how they treat him?

But yeah, at least this means PC gamers might reap the benefits of having a new tactical espionage game.