Last month, during Sony’s presentation at Gamescon, Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida had unveiled the User Interface of the PlayStation 4. While the demo was impressive, there was something that people may have missed that should catch your attention.
Mass Damage & Consumer Foundation in the Netherlands has filed a class action against Sony for inflating PlayStation Store prices.
My personal opinion:
Manufacturers and publishers have indeed inflated the industry.
From $700 million development costs for games like Call of Duty, to digital (store) prices for games and DLCs, online multiplayer fees on consoles (why can you play Helldivers 2 online for free on PC but not consoles?) or still preventing sell/lend digitally purchased games.
Sometime in the future, this bubble will collapse.
They should know better, but they just can't help themselves and suck even the last penny out of our wallets.
Because Sony knows people will be forced to pay those prices for single player and multiplayer games, not everyone prefers PC gaming. Sony also has a monopoly on PlayStation digital games. In 2019, they stopped allowing retailers and game key sellers to sell PlayStation digital games, making them available only through the official PlayStation Store
They should be suing the individual publishers increasing the prices to $80 instead of suing the store. There are plenty of publishers still selling game for like $50 with much success (like E33). But this proves that the publishers are the ones setting the prices.... so again nothing changes because they aren't even going after the main offender. How is suing Sony going to make Microsoft not charge $80 for the next COD? Sony being the number one store in the market doesn't mean that publisher have to charge us an arm and a leg. Again the industry is laughing at us because consumers never get real representation. Just these fake platitudes that are meaningless.
"How is suing Sony going to make Microsoft not charge $80 for the next COD"
Because Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly, I can purchase Call of Duty at a huge discount from CDKeys or other gaming retailers. The only way to purchase digital PlayStation games is through the PlayStation Store.
Weird, I swore GoW, Stellar Blade, Horizon Zero Dawn, TLoU, etc. were on the steam store....uh.....
@djI3485
I'm talking about PlayStation games that you can only purchase on PlayStation. I can purchase Steam and Epic games from 3rd party retailers and key stores.
"Sony to stop selling full-game download codes at retailers"
https://www.videogamer.com/...
About time. There is zero fair reason why digitally distributed products that you cannot recoup any value when you want to dispose of them, should be priced higher than that of physical copies that entail all of the costs and the benefits of owning.
Sony’s PS5 era has generated over $13 billion in profits, surpassing the combined earnings of PS1–PS4, with $136 billion in sales.
Their recent Playstation revenue is also more than Xbox and Switch combined, obviously in large part due to 3rd party sales.
I mean, if Sony is keeping third parties happy, kind of feels like a winning method.
I mean they have to, since they have 2 exclusives anyone cared about this generation, and those are now on PC. The rest is this creatively bankrupt string of remakes and remasters, taking advantage of the creativity of developers past efforts, and laying off teams creative side since all that work has been done already by previous teams.
By far the least creative generation ever.
@ Gaming-NEW-Troll account
"those are now on PC"
In that case. Xbox is Playstation's competition. MS have ZERO exclusives. ZERO. Nothing. Nada. Not a single exclusive.
Playstation has Astrobot. Demon's Souls, Astrobot Playroom, Gran Turismo 7, still not going to PC. They got Death Stranding 2 coming out in 3 days, NOT ON PC. Ghost of Yotei, not on PC.
That is 6 real exclusives MORE than Microsoft. Microsoft's Xbox is Playstation's competition. So lets compare.
I mean you brought it up.
Or does being "creatively bankrupt" not count when you have certain console exclusives going to PC years after they were released? In that case Returnal. Ratchet And Clank. Spiderman. Miles Morales. Silent Hill 2. And the list goes on
Kinda always been that way if you look at previous gens, exclusives are important but they aint the main revenue generator.
.While that is impressive. Microsoft made 13 billion in one quarter. Making up facts doesn't make them true.
microsoft is not xbox. a bot should know that by now. you have been told this bs 1000 times on this site alone.
Your defense of Microsoft is only highlighting Lord Phil's and the lame MS mismanagement. Since you're talking about MS as a whole, imagine having trillions in the bank and still losing to ''tiny'' Sony PS and Ninty. It doesn't get any more lame than that.
If what Microsoft made as a whole was all that mattered, we would still have Windows Phones and Zunes. I would love to see Xbox' operating profits. Love to see it.
I prefer Playstation over Xbox when it comes to consoles but how does this news justify their layoffs?
But the execs brother. You got to think about them. How could they otherwise buy yet another mansion and yacht?
People are generally paid for the work they are doing. Layoffs generally occur when there is no work for them to do (project cancelled, business slowing down, etc). I’ve been laid off from two jobs during my 40+ years of working so I know about these things. A company is not going to just keep paying people if there is no work for them to do, no matter how much profits they made.
And this is why the game output for ps5 has been a tad slower…
1) they needed to be… games take longer to develop, and they’d burn out their teams trying to maintain the same pace as ps3.
2) they can afford to… games cost more than ever to push boundaries, so Sony had to figure out a way to match Xbox’s clever profit strategies in order to afford to continue to innovate and take risks.
So much time was wasted on those Live Service shits. Glad they learned their lesson and have scaled that way back. Still haven't killed it, but I like it being in the background and not at the forefront
Honestly, I love Helldivers 2 so much that I can forgive them for over investing in GaaS. At least they got one gem from the endeavor.
And I still dream of Factions releasing one day.
I don’t hate GaaS inherently, most are just implemented poorly.
@ s2killinit
Thats xbox which includes other services. The playstion division also includes other services as well. Its mostly playtion but not all playstation. What's up with all the double standards around here.
Yeah double standards like some idiots who got to talk about unrelated profits as a talking point. Wish those damn parrots could stay on topic with game related profits.
Next thing these idiots will talk about is something unrelated like Nintendo made more off the Mario movie than all of Xbox studios TV/movie endeavors combined you know?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
@Chevalier
Mind you that’s only AFTER buying all those other companies adding them to the revenue. It was a LOT lower. This is Activision, Bethesda, and others COMBINED to get that number.
“The sales of windows professional on the other hand trounces god of war sales” 😂
All you did was prove that you dont know what revenue is. Tencent is no.1 in profits. Buts that's ok because unlike Tencent and Microsoft, Sony isn't in it for the money, right.🤔
That’s what Xbox fanboys do. They’ve been doing this since Xbox one.
They will use all of MS, one of the biggest company in the world and play it like every dollar they earn comes from Xbox just to one up PlayStation.
Is actually pretty sad.
"Mind you that’s only AFTER buying all those other companies adding them to the revenue. It was a LOT lower. This is Activision, Bethesda, and others COMBINED to get that number."
Guys we're off topic here you know? Can someone bring us back on topic and tell us how much revenue Xbox studios does for movies and TV? Pretty sure we should also discuss how much Nintendo stands to make at Universal studios on Nintendo land and the rides should be a hot ticket this summer.
"Ouch! hahaha no wonder reaper wanna hide behind profits made by windows XD"
Yeah idiots with some sort of inferiority complex needs to get their win somewhere though. But wait shouldn't we get back on topic guys? Like seriously how much money do you think Fallout Season 2 will bring in?!
Nah, reaper's not hiding behind anything. I'm just pointing out some facts. At first the narrative was Microsoft isn't going to make the money back from the ABK deal to now their profits wouldn't be as high if they didn't get the deal. This very topic is part of the reason why the deal was secured. Sony's dishonesty and reluctance to tell the truth about how much money they're making and lying about how much this deal would hurt their business. That strategy failed. They're are making a lot of money. No doubt about it and its good for the industry but don't get butthurt when Microsoft post their profits and you guys see they are also making a lot of money as well.
@reaper.
Microsoft don't reveal Xbox profits, sales numbers, or gamepass numbers, I wonder why that is?
You call Sony dishonest but at least they don't hide and obfuscate meaningful playstation numbers like MS do with Xbox.
"All you did was prove that you dont know what revenue is."
Nah all you did was confirm you're an idiot.
You seem to be fluent in idiocy. Not everyone speaks it. So next time speak slowly and clearly so we all can understand. Getting emotional doesn't really make you smarter. Before you post a link with info make sure you know what it says.🫡
"Nah, reaper's not hiding behind anything. I'm just pointing out some facts"
🤡 What facts? 🤣
Please share with everyone your idiocy
What does Xbox make in revenue and profit? What are their sales? How much money does Gamepass cost them? Oh right you got ZERO numbers to post.
"Before you post a link with info make sure you know what it says."
Says the idiot who can't even tell the difference between Microsoft and Xbox? Lmao. Seriously all you're showing everyone again is how much of an uninformed parroting idiot you are.
But go ahead and post your evidence! Oh right again ZERO from a ZERO. Absolutely 💯 hilarious to see you stumble like the idiot you are.
Only because of games prices otherwise it’s the worst generation in PlayStation history especially for games
Thats true. The article did mention game and prices were a reason. Its also shows their greed is no different than Microsoft. Laying off all those people but yet bragging about profits and still tried to stop ABK deal. What the hell!
Closing studios, layoffs, leadership changes, PS plus increases, multiple game cancellations and delays, total flops like concord. Slowest release of first party games of any generation and they just shut down PS stars I guess because it was costing to much.
Yet they announce record profits…..the greed here is insane, MS and Nintendo too. All of them milking gamers and we just keep lapping it up like a blood hound for a meal.
Them tariffs are really hitting them hard I see.
Well a part of running a business is a tight grip on that P&L sheet. In project management. It’s a known fact that the farther into a project you go, the more costly the corrections. Having something reach the definition of done, the end of the road, and it’s hated is a monumental loss of money. As games are usually made iteratively it’s like how was this not caught and course corrected several times before this point. Sony is definitely known as trusting and allows teams to make the games they want to make. They “trust the process”. The caveat to that big budget and freedom is if it bombs, especially if it’s your first game, you’re outta there. They have shareholders/stakeholders to keep happy. Where as normally a done game like Concord would give ROI as it was out in the wild. The cost of the project is recouped and turned into profit or delivered whatever value they wanted. If the game is now NOT coming out, how do they get that money back and stay profitable? By not paying wages for that team over a course of time that would have still been on payroll working on the next potential bomb, DLC for a dead game, and essentially costing more money.
It sadly isn’t greed, it’s business. They release these great profits because 1) it’s enticing for more stakeholders to invest, and 2) Despite failures they are still balancing the books and turning record setting profits.
How many live service games died at various stages of development? They are still this profitable? Imagine if the games came out and were hits to add onto the profits?
So, you're saying that over $10B of this is from $10 to $20 software price increases? Zero to do with increased market reach? Massive MTX from third-party games?
They're talking about Microsoft quarterly profits like any true gamer would be doing.
Oh, that's coming, it's a mandatory thing just wait for next gen and you'll see infinite articles from the shills and the green fanbase saying ''tHiS GeN WiL Be dIfFerEnT''
over twitter xbox fanboy you tube are saying saying sony is broke cant afford warner bros.
The tour is coming to the states as new dates have been revealed.
In before someone says the 360 had this first. Great feature to have though, wish the PS3 had it.
I wouldn't be surprised if they do something with the speaker on the dualshock 4 since it comes with that ear-bud mic now. Obviously this is yet another feature in from of the Ps+ pay wall which is great. I know some people out there that really wanted to voice message on PSN because text chatting is inconvenient and slow. Great news if you were wondering if PSN on Ps4 was going to have it or not. I wonder if the Ps Vita will have some sort of software update it's possible for that handheld since it'll have cross platform party chat with the Ps4 (Ps3 though obviously not)
found this video other day figure they would of posted this closer up than but good now everyone else can see it closer who wasnt able to
Cool new feature now i can send voice message to my psn friends.
I dont think the voice message is behind the ps+ paywall i think is a free feature.
it required a next generation console for sony to do this but well done on their copy & paste mission :thumbs up