Forbes - Game industry veteran American McGee has been involved in some of the biggest shooter franchises of all time. These days, as head of Spicy Horse Games, he has been focusing on original mobile games designed for cross-platform gameplay. He made the news recently by asking his Facebook fans if they’d be interested in a new Alice 3 game – something gamers answered with an overwhelming yes. He’ll be meeting with Electronic Arts, which owns the Alice IP, at GDC 2013 to see if there might even be the potential for a third Alice interactive adventure.
McGee, who lives in Shanghai and has seen firsthand why DRM is important to fight piracy, addresses the still-burning controversy with a candid response. He also explains why he’s more excited about the exploding mobile gaming category than Sony’s PlayStation 4 and talks about going to hell in his brand new game in this exclusive interview.
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.
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.
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.
There are no thoughtful ads in Video Games, EA. Leave them be.
I think the only type of games that can gets away with it would be sport games, having those sponsors ads on the side like on real life.
But don't put freaking Doritos ads in Star Wars or something, it breaks the immersion. If it is a pop-up ads, then big no.
EA coming back for the crown of being perceived as the worst company in gaming.
One of my favorite series is the THPS franchise, and it was packed with ads, but it didn't bother me. Posters for skateboard companies, JEEP, and Nokia phones. It did sort of fit in with the game world, but that was the past, these days ad would be intentionally intrusive or unskippable loading screen type of imagery. Ugh, I know EA would do it in a horrible fashion. Screw them.
... I do enjoy the Alice games, but seriously... This guy seems to have things really backwards.
Interesting take on SimCity and DRM from a PC guy.
No gamer is gonna skip consoles/pc for mobile games.
I enjoyed Alice Madness returns. I would love to see a third one and maybe a port to the Vita with Cross Save.
This guy needs a slap.