GamesBeat writes: "The PlayStation spokesperson and faux-executive Kevin Butler is in trouble with Sony. On September 11, Sony Computer Entertainment America filed a lawsuit against the Bridgestone Tires company and Wildcat Creek, Inc advertising firm. Actor Jerry Lambert, who plays the hilarious and arrogant Kevin Butler character in PlayStation commercials, is the president of Wildcat Creek according to Corporationwiki.com. SCEA claims that Bridgestone and Lambert violated one of Sony’s intellectual properties. Which one? Well, Kevin Butler."
During Sony’s recent business segment meeting and investor presentation regarding its game and network services, the PlayStation company revealed that PlayStation 5 is the company’s “most profitable generation to-date.”
It’s the top slide of the presentation, showing that in its first four years, the PS5 generation has already hit $106 billion in sales, having almost caught up to the PS4’s total $107 billion generated.
Operating income for the PS5 generation has also already surpassed that of the PS4, having now reached $10 billion.
I wouldn't doubt it. They released a high quality system. A lot of high quality games from themselves and their support of 3rd party developers and indies. They released many high quality remakes and remasters. They released a high quality GaaS game going against the naysayers thinking Sony would abandon single player games. And they most likely are profiting a lot more than PS1, PS2 PS4 and the loss leading PS3 that drained all their profits.
Now, I'll wait to see what's cooking tomorrow. But can you use some of those profits to better support your high quality VR headset? Because, by supporting it, you can sell more games and more systems and make more profits?
If it had some rpgs I would buy right fking now. It looks dope and alot of fun, but it's biggest game resident evil 4(maybe) I've got no interest in. I'm not a fan of racing games, even with that metro game coming i was never much into that series. Rpgs would be fantastic.
Lemme know if ya wanna play some Zenith 🙌
Bought it at release, but haven't played it more than 1-2 hours but for sure on my "todo list".
Normal when they released mostly cross gen games so far. That’s a lot of money saved..
We haven’t seen what PS5 can do yet. 4years in and PS4 games still look great to me. The gen leap isn’t quite there yet.
The interesting metric for me is the $106billion in operating income/profit (not sales as mentioned in the article) reaching the same as the PS4 did with only half the consoles sold.
In particular because they all are supposed to be making the most per hardware sold after a few years when manufacturing costs are down.
So even putting inflation aside(and the higher console price), it is interesting that they could reach PS4 $ with just half the consoles sold.
Maybe there is more to the metric thats whats seen at face value, but they have clearly been making a lot more money than before on the software side (with also less games released I suppose, given its only been half the generation so far)
The bulk of the money has to be coming from the 30% cut on all games and microtransactions. Especially on all the free to play juggernauts like genshin, apex, fortnight, etc.
@Versus
They are definitely making a lot on that for sure (which the $70 price increase factors into as well), but its not like many of those games werent around for the PS4 too.
They might be counting the gen as a whole and not just PS5 itself (so extra profit from PC sales, whatever that may be)
PS+ price increase and different tiers probably amount to part of that too.
But in general, its still quite a surprising metric. Half the time, half the consoles sold, less first party games released so far and still already making more of a profit than last gen is quite something, and as mentioned, there is probably more to it that we dont know, after all, since we are talking about operating income, all the expenses they have also factor into it, so it is also possible that they have found ways to significantly reduce that + all the means of increased revenue that appear to be factoring into the equation
All in all, just an interesting situation from a business perspective
This will surely shut up all the new trolling accounts trying to spread lies and non facts in other articles comment sections before this article is posted.
Obscurely, those trolls or troll will not show in these articles as the truth is contradictory to his or their orchard-sized daily dose of copium and hopium.
Or... They're intentionally trolling you guys specifically. Because they know it upsets you so easily.
Name-dropping Orchard, after this many months? How long has it been and he's still in your thoughts?
I'm quite sure the individual is reading these positive comments downvoting & seething at the same time. Edit: It just downvoted my comment...lol!!
No I'm entertained by this individual. I love unhinged people, they are so interesting lol.
lol Tacoboto is right, this dude still talking about Orchard.
Dude hasn’t been on N4G for over a year and is still living in your head rent free
Wow! I am super impressed that in just 4 years, ps5 already caught up to the PS4's. Congratulations.
"AI is not a substitute for human creativity. We position it as a technology that supports creativity. Creativity resides in people. We will continue to contribute to people's creativity through technology," the CEO said.
...not yet but 100% within the next 10 years!
..Then Sony will use it like the drop of a hat. They're no different to the others.
They used to be 😞 sure it was always a business, and money's always the priority, but they used to have a very strong stance on supporting artists and creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" was a phrase they touted a few times back in the ps1-ps3 era, a philosophy carried over from their music branch PlayStation was created from. It's not COMPLETELY gone, but it's barely there compared to what it was back then, i just want them to return to that.
I am highly encouraged by their statement about human creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" is exactly what they are saying. But at the same time, I don't think people understand that Sony is a corporation. If they don't realize growth, they don't get to exist. When you say 'Sony', you are talking about a bunch of investors. To speak about them any other way is a illogical and incorrect. They haven't changed. They have been a group of investors since they became a public business.
Ugh, i really wish people would stop gambling people's livelihoods by turning a project/game into their political soapbox. Im all for statements and having your own opinion, but there's more people working on this than just druckman, ham fisting your political beliefs onto just seems inconsiderate for everyone elses job security when it can result in a failure due to people avoiding it for that reason.
I play games for escape, im so tired of nearly every AAA game blatantly dragging real world issues to shove in my face when I'm trying to take a break from it all. They don't even bother to be subtle about it, quite the opposite, it's blasted and force fed to you and it's just getting exhausting
People are taking a whole interview and cutting it down to clips that make him look bad and take what he actually was saying out of context. For example he also said things like this AI has "ethical issues we need to address"
@Einhander
Why defend him at this point?
It’s not taking things out of context, he said what he said.
Old ND would never talk about soulless AI taking over so many creative things they are well known for. The whole “ethical issues” is just a good PR spin people who push this crap fall back on to make their statements not seem as bad. So many AI lovers do this.
AI has no place is so many creative based things.
Well yeah, because everyone else is using it so they need to stay competitive. It's the same as paid online, they didn't want to go that route but their competition was making so much money they needed to add paid online just to keep up.
AI will never replace humans in game development in terms of conceptualizing new games. Humans still need to come up with the ideas and what they want to implement. However much of the day to day menial coding could be AI driven to reduce production time and team size. I could also see AI being used for bug testing/optimization that could lead to better quality games at launch. I'm actually very optimistic about how AI can positively impact game development.
People that aren't software developers just don't understand the benefits of AI. People who's only exposure to A.I is the Terminator movie and other related sci fi films won't understand the benefits it provides.
It's not about replacing human labor. It's about making human labor easier.
Many years ago, I had laser eye surgery done. It was performed by a robot. The doctor took my measurements and calibrated the machine to make sure it would do what needed be done. And then the robot corrected my vision in 10 seconds.
15 years later and I still have 20/20 vision.
AI in and of itself is not a 'bad'. Money is bad. Money is evil, and corporations will do whatever they can to get more of it. They will find ways to implement AI to replace as may jobs as possible. This isn't even up for debate. It is the charge of the corporation to maximize returns for the investors. They have no choice. I'm a developer and I know that my job will absolutely be replaced. Therefore, I have decided to become an AI dev. AI has a lot of potential to help us solve problem on a scale most can't even imagine. The issue, as ever is that our monetary system only ever allows us to focus on greed and fiscal growth.
But I am a pragmatist. Perhaps an AI model can be built to help protect us from our most dangerous instincts and habits. And perhaps Congress can pass laws to protect us from people who would use AI to manipulate and control us (spoiler: they wont).
Progress is inevitable. Nobody driving cars today is complaining that the horse and buggy is no longer around. Yes, some jobs will be lost but guess what? With innovation comes new job opportunities. It's how the cycle of the job market works.
A new patent recently published by Sony wants to gather biometric data of gamers to track whether one is being harassed using AI tools.
I hope this is one of those patents that never comes to fruition.
I already dislike the fact you can pay a significant amount for a online service buy associated games and content on said service and get banned from that service over potentially a misunderstanding the bans are already handed out for flimsy reasons
I'd rather see money invested in a ban that simply removes the offensive players ability to communicate with unknown players allow them to continue party chats with friends but not with Joe blow on cod.
Agreed. Blizzard recently banned a college Overwatch 2 player who's dependent for saying "shit." Pretty harsh.
How rediculas really. You can't say a word that's allowed in most PG films and prime time TV but the game is based around killing the enemy team using guns, explosives etc.
It's just backwards.
What your talking about is called block list
In 2006 a spaceship dropped of the playstation 3/xbox 360 i say that that generation was the last great gen with game functions/tech that has yet to comeback
Anyhow the playstation 3 if you block listed a id they could not talk to you in chatroom with either text or voice. But that was pre mind fucked 2018 when people were more human than sheep.
But hey gta 6 is coming out billion dollar budget without a single player custom character creator and without singeplayer coop off/online something saints row 1-3 had on the xbox 360.
Take my social security and bank account numbers too! Here’s a picture of my wife and our address.
At this rate I feel Sony will eventually sell a room to play games in it where they can monitor your every breath
I genuinely get a bit worried sometimes when a friend says something that could be offensive In a party
Because I have no trouble believing some bans would happen when in a private party for saying something wrong
I want them to censor erotic content by measuring my groin temperature so i dont get too distracted while playing black ops 2.
Terrible idea. Not only do I not consent to providing my biometric data, the potential for mishandling biometric data is almost a certainty. Positive stress and negative stress can produce similar changes in biometrics. Interpreting the precise emotion a person is feeling is not only invasive but could be easily misconstrued. I hope this never comes to fruition.
"For the love of money People will rob their own brother"
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
When I first heard of Sony's lawsuit, I had hoped there was something legit about Sony moving forward with the case, not this nonsense. While I don't think anyone could dispute Jerry Lambert IS Kevin Butler, it's an ad with him playing a second if not third character. He's not the focus. A little common sense should've prevailed with Sony's legal team, but alas, the company hasn't really built a reputation on that.
the thing is, character had no name. He's just some actor in the commercial with no name. I really want to see where this case goes.
I think it's entirely down to the fact it's a competitor's console, not the fact the character is similar. If he's been just advertising tyres, it would have been fine, but to use a very similar persona with a rival console is not going to sit well. It's an intentional reference to the character, at the very least but considering Lambert owns the advertising company in question, I'd say it's foolish to think he wasn't using the "Kevin Butler" character intentionally.
Surley though in the fine print of his contract there would of been something like
"You cannot participate in advertising or promoting rival brands for 3-6 months after this contract ends"
or something like that....
Logicaly wouldn't it of been wise to make him look a little differnt in the advert so people don't assume it's Kevin Butler even though he's just playing a no name character. Give him black hair, thick glasses, a goatee or maybe a crazy "Back to the Future Doc Wig" to go along with that scientist costume...it wouldn't of killed them to do that.
Hopefully they will work this out and maybe make another advert where the take the mick out of the situation to laugh it off....maybe Kevin being sued by Jack trenton stalking him, then saves his life so Jack drops it blah blah blah you get the point.