160°

Bonus Round: Game Industry 2012: Sony’s Performance

How did Sony fare in 2012? In this new episode, we look at Sony’s performance this year and peer into the future of the company. (10:39)

Read Full Story >>
gametrailers.com
Nimblest-Assassin4170d ago

I don't think the vita is dead... but sony needs to get the third parties on board with the thing. Sony has published some great games for vita (gravity rush, Uncharted, etc) But the 3rd party stuff has been ranging from meh to abysmal

AC3:Liberation, COD declassified, were supposed to be huge system sellers, and they were not very good games

jujubee884170d ago

I can see where he is coming from.

At the same time, I will be playing All-Stars like no ones business on VITA.

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Embeepee4170d ago

It's been a poor year for Sony.

The Vitas sales have been dismal...I honestly don't think it has a place in today's market; It will sell under 20m units imo.

The PS3 is doing well though (in comparison to the Wii and X360, but it's still down YOY).

Godmars2904170d ago

Only if you don't count/compare the 360's first year.

jujubee884170d ago

Will this turn into "mobile and tablet" arguement that leads nowhere but those two words being thrown?

'Cause I can dig those.

ABizzel14169d ago

I don't think handhelds are in competition with cell phones, simply because a cell phone is somewhat of a necessity in most people lives, so a dedicated gaming device could be something they pick up eventually.

However, tablets are a serious threat to the Vita, because they're the hot item right now, and they are much better at being multipurpose devices than the problems Vita besides gaming and they generally cost less $199. This is making things hard for the Vita, among other things like:

1. A library of Content. (PS+ Vita needs 1 PS Vita game, 1 PSP, 1 PS1, 1 PS Mini, free each month, and give discounts on a couple of games and DLC for Vita games to improve the Vita library.)

2. Justifying it's price. The $250 Vita needs to go, because buying the handheld, a memory card, and a game cost between $300 - $400+ depending on the memory card and the game. That's insane. The holiday bundles cost $199 comes with the Vita, a game, and a memory card and should be the new pricing model from now on if the want the Vita to succeed.

3. Awful Marketing. Replace your entire marketing team and hire new fresh talent. The commercials for Vita were awful, boring, pieces of trash. You need a pop-culture commercial to see the Vita to the masses, not a documentary like most of the commercials have been.

4. Apps & Widgets. The huge advantage phones and tablets have over the Vita. So why not cut it out completely and allow Android Marketplace and other apps to be added to the Vita's library. It would make the VIta a better multipurpose device, as well as, a better gaming device with the inclusion of the Android HD Gaming Marketplace.

5. An audience. Cell Phones are for everyone. Tablets are for people who needs a stylish, small, convient computer, but don't want to pack around laptop. The 3DS is marketed towards kids, 3D enthusiast, and NIntendo fans. The Vita has no market beside you can play some of your PS3 games on the go, and it's powerful enough to run near console quality games. That sounds like enough, but only the most hardcore PS3 / PlayStation / Sony fans care about that. You need to apply the "It only does everything" model to Vita, but right now the quote only applies to cell phones and tablets.

If Sony can fix all 5 issues then they will have a successful device on their hands, but it needs to happen as early as March fo 2013, and thankfully most of this is completely feasible.

RivetCityGhoul4170d ago

what do you expect when sony is killing themselves. there own hardware is cannibalizing each other.

GribbleGrunger4170d ago (Edited 4170d ago )

Let me explain: 'Virtual Mud-fling', a well know rockband, have two records on the market. Their first released single, 'Heaven help us', did really well and is still popular today. 'For crying out loud' is their recent track and is currently in the lower half of the charts and not doing anywhere near as well as 'Heaven help us'. 'Virtual Mud-fling' suggest to their manager that to boost sales of their second single, they should remove the first single from the shops. Their manager looks at them puzzled, 'But it's making you money!' he says and shrugs. 'But our fans want the second single to sell,' Mud-fling says in their defence. Their manager raises his eyebrows, 'I don't give a DAMN what they want. I'm in this business to make money, any damn way I can!'

raymantalk14167d ago

i agree with your explanation GribbleGrunger but i think you are making it too complicated for the young kids on this site to understand what you gotta understand is most of the people on here are american and are not smart enough to understand what you are tying to explain to them that is why you are getting the disagrees.

Jinkies4170d ago

I'm not ignoring it but as a gamer I don't care about all this sales talk.

"Oh Sony hasn't got good sales" blah blah blah

Honestly they provide us with good games and support for the PS3 and they at least try to fix things they've done wrong...they learn from their mistakes. Remember when it used to be about support/games not how much money a company is making.

I knmow the PSV is running into a few problems but the market is changing, especialy in this day and age with mobile games on the app store becoming a bigger thing.

Hopefully they'll grab third party developers attention and they'll put some effort into their PSV games. I really think Sony need an Animal Crossing styled game and a game that can compete with Mario Kart/Pokemon. Maybe they can get that Resident Evil PSP game back in development for the PSV, old school RE though.

ritsuka6664170d ago (Edited 4170d ago )

Vita is dead already........ At least Nintendo saw 3DS wasn't selling and decided to drop the price drastically. Sony is just like, 'screw it shit, let it burn'. No one is going to make software for a system that sells like shit.

KangarooSam4170d ago

1.Watch the video
2.Go play a Vita for more than 30 seconds
3.Prepare to respond to this comment with a completely different mindset

Norrison4170d ago

I have a Vita, the games aren't good, only game I liked was gravity rush. UC was average, Resistance felt generic, AC felt rushed, LBP was fun but got boring, almost no good levels, and so on; Vita games feel meh. I'm gonna play Persona 4 before I sell my Vita.

KangarooSam4169d ago

@Norrison:

UC was pretty good, in my opinion. AC gives the experience of a console AC game. Kinda agree with LBP. I bought Ragnarok Odyssey the day it came out (almost 3 weeks ago) and it just looked average so I never got around to playing it until today; GREAT game. Seems repetitive at first but then you fight more monsters, collect more cards, etc. and I haven't even gone online, yet.

So far the Vita has a few gems that I feel most gamers in general would agree make it worth a purchase.

It's not like the only future titles are Tearaway, Killzone, Soul Sacrifice, Sly Cooper, FFX HD, and PSO2. There will be more announced closer to their release dates. Not all great games are hyped up for a year. There might be another 20 great games next year. Perhaps 100 or just a handful. Either way, the announced 2013 games alone make owning a Vita worth it.

The choice is yours, but it's not like we're expecting a price drop anytime anyway (lol) so why not hold on to your Vita for a while and see what happens? Chances are it won't lose any more value, and if it does at least you personally might still get some great experiences out of it.

fresh2death934170d ago

Only reason is because it doesn't have enough good games. The Ps Vita itself is great

Studio-YaMi4169d ago

@ritsuka666

Yea well .. coming from a troll who always bash Sony on every single playstation thread,excuse me if I don't take your words seriously !

I have the Vita,have more than 25 games for it,I'm enjoying it,waiting for my JRPG fix with Persona 4:the golden

and I also have a 3DS for my Nintendo First party fix,last game I got was Paper Mario:Sticker Star

Show all comments (24)
120°

15 PS3 Games That Would Absolutely Shine as PS5 Remakes

GB: "With this feature, we talk about 15 games on the PS3 that should be remade for the PlayStation 5."

Read Full Story >>
gamingbolt.com
kenpachi9d ago

You left out The Darkness games bring those back

fan_of_gaming8d ago

The head of Nightdive Studios has posted that The Darkness is on their list of games they want to do, so hopefully something comes from that

Yi-Long8d ago

Little Big Planet 1 and 2 deserve a mention, IMO.

Good call on Motorstorm, a game released 2 gens ago but still looks and feels so good. Motorstorm 2 and Motorstorm RC were gems as well. They followed up the Motorstorm games with the brilliant Driveclub, which still manages to put modern racing games to shame. Imagine closing down a studio as talented as that ... (!) Incredible.

A little 'arcade-gem' back then was The Last Guy, a top down 'follow the leader' snake-like game where you had to find and lead survivors to safety during an alien invasion, on terrible looking 'Google-earth' maps. Graphics were poor, even back then, but would love that same gameplay with modern maps and graphics.

Street Fighter 4, once it finally had a full roster, was quite good, but it was always an ugly game, sadly. Imagine bringing that back while using the current SF6 engine.

fan_of_gaming8d ago

Good suggestions, I'd be in for
LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet 2
Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
Motorstorm: RC

purple1018d ago

God damn I love motorstorm so much

At the time I had a low-mid range sony 40” tv, The latency to the controller was waaaay too high, would to play a modern version

In saying that later I got a 3d lg tv and playing the 3d motorstorm in my bedroom with the environment crumbling around the track, was something special, specially compared to what others were playing at the time, will always remember that

Skuletor8d ago

Some good choices here and Resistance: Fall of Man is my most wanted PS3 remaster/remake. Not sure about their claim it was Sony's answer to Gears of War though.

CrimsonWing698d ago

I’d rather have sequels than remakes. Look at Dead Space 1 Remake. Would’ve been cooler if we got a new entry and it failed with sales sealing the fate of a sequel rather than just replay the same game and it fail in sales and we never get a new entry.

Remakes are great for things like PS2 and earlier games to really get a crazy new graphical coat, but I think we should ease up on all these remakes and actually do sequels.

fan_of_gaming8d ago

Yeah for sure, sequels would be ideal. But in the current market environment where many big publishers are risk-averse, I'd rather get a remaster or remake that a developer can do on a budget that will be approved, rather than nothing for an IP.

Inverno8d ago

I rather they remaster and port over to PC and current gen all the games permanently stuck on PS360. Those games don't need remakes, they need to be given a chance to live again outside of their confined consoles and then give a few proper sequels. Like Sleeping Dogs, Motor Storm, LA Noir, should get another entry.

fan_of_gaming8d ago

Yeah I'd be fine with remasters of PS3 games too, they don't have to be remakes.

Show all comments (17)
280°

Sony Taps Bungie's Head of Revenue to Lead Live-Service Games

Sony has recruited Bungie's head of revenue Jaremy Rich to head up its live-service gaming division, Rich has announced on social media.

Read Full Story >>
techraptor.net
ChasterMies15d ago

Please do not put Destiny’s monetization into Sony’s first party games. The monetization is what’s driving players away from Destiny.

just_looken15d ago

The new temp boss is the sony cfo bean counter so i can see this being a thing get every penny.

Cacabunga15d ago

PlayStation officially losing it.. fans will never support gaas games

just_looken15d ago

@car

The new boss did a interview in japan he wants to tap into the mobile market like nintendio so he give 0 fucks about gamers/fans

https://www.pushsquare.com/...

Redemption-6415d ago

@Cacabunga
You only speak for you and those who think like you, but most fans will support what they want. Playstation and PC fans are literally supporting Helldivers 2 and that is a gaas. Maybe you wouldn't, but many more would if they like it.

Huey_My_D_Long15d ago

@Redemption-64
Look, Im not making any judgement calls about this guy, but I will say that Helldivers 2 GaaS model is unique to Helldivers, and legit the only other game I can think of thats similiar was the Avengers game except HD2 pass is still better.
The fact that you can earn in game currency in a way that doesnt make you feel like you have to grind forever, as well you being able work on that pass that you bought...on your own time without a time limit...that right there is fucking huge to me, and I can't name any game other than avengers that avoided trapping players with FOMO logic...I think GaaS on HD2 shouldn't be compared to the rest of the industry...it should be copied.

Einhander197214d ago

Cacabunga

Helldivers 2...

Redemption-64

In Europe it's a 60 40 split favoring PC.
In the US its a 60 40 split favoring PS5.

So PlayStation owners supported the game just fine, it's not getting carried by PC or anything like that.

FinalFantasyFanatic14d ago

@just_looken,
I'm perfectly fine with the way Nintendo entered the mobile market, I never touched their mobile games, meanwhile, the console/handheld stayed the way it is. As for being a bean counter, he's probably going to reel in these massive budgets that Sony's studios have had lately, I haven't played Spiderman 2, but I cannot see how they almost tripled the budget for that game.

@Redemption-64,
That's an exception to the rule, I'm expecting a lot of these GAAS games from Sony to fail, to be fair, they only need a few to succeed, but I would have preferred that they put more of their resources into other types of games.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 14d ago
DivineHand12515d ago

True their monetization is driving players away and at the same time, their decision to chop out content and convoluted systems is keeping new players away from the game.

Joe91315d ago

I don't think that will happen based on how things worked out at Naughty Dog now that we know what we do, seems they had the option to fully commit to live service games or stay making single player experences so they gave up on their live service game. We are not sure how things came about with Bend making a live service game but I hope that was not a forced situation. Sony doesnt seem like they are forcing studios to switch up but we will see, Sony's bread and butter is single player games it is how they dominated the console market.

Obscure_Observer15d ago

Yeah, I though Sony learned something from all their failures in the LS segment under Bungie´s disastrous leadership and supervision which led to games been cancelled, studios closed and all the people laid off.

Looks like Bungie still plays a major role in Sony´s LS initiative and Sony is not backtracking on their GaaS plans.

S2Killinit15d ago (Edited 15d ago )

Are we forgetting that Destiny is also a highly successful franchise? I feel like that definitely deserves mention here.

Besides, there is no reason why a person cant learn from past experiences.

Joe91314d ago

I agree, people act as if Destiny flopped when it came out lol it took 9 to 10 years for the numbers to fall yet people are still playing it add the success of Helldivers 2 no wonder Sony is going forward down this path.

S2Killinit14d ago

Personally, I see no problem with Sony also having service games as long as they make good ones, and more importantly they deliver the AAA story driven games that they are known for. So yeah, I agree 100% with you.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 14d ago
Christopher15d ago

I mean, this person made some pretty bad decisions at Bungie. I hope they've learned from them because I definitely don't see those type of ideas as good for PlaySation in general.

CrimsonWing6914d ago (Edited 14d ago )

Honestly, what’s to learn from? How to make people happily continuously dump money into a single game over its life-time? Buy season passes continuously for several years with a smile on our faces?

GaaS is a design decision that is everything wrong with this industry. The fact that Helldivers 2 did so well and people defend the monetization because it was $40 and is a fun game, scares the sh*t out of me to see that the door is open and all shift will probably be to replicate that in future games. We already know the ROI for traditional game dev cost isn’t doing it for them.

I thought with Jimbo leaving we’d see a change for the better… I’m not so sure now.

S2Killinit14d ago

Service games are being offered by everyone. Sony cannot afford to only create single player AAA games. No one can. They already said they will be doing both.

Abnor_Mal15d ago (Edited 15d ago )

Ps5 gamers in 2023 seemed to play more live service types of games, so regardless to how people feel about them, numbers don’t lie and Sony is going where the money is. I mean look at the excitement around Helldivers2, people are showing that they want live service games.

Christopher15d ago

They play long-time existing live service games like CoD, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Destiny 2, and the like. Mass majority of new live service games are considered failures and aren't moving gamers away from older games.

just_looken15d ago

Yep the huge issue with live service is they need paid players along with a reason to play them.

You forgot mobile market that also taps into that player base as well as the eve online style games there is only a certain amount of krakens/whales blind supporters compared to the amount of live service games we have its not sustainable math wise.

700 restaurants making food for every seat for 1000-3000 eaters just does not work out

Einhander197214d ago (Edited 14d ago )

Christopher

I am not a big live service fan and literally own zero of the games you listed, but that is not true, unless you call games that aren't the top games to be failures.

There are tons of live service games that are profitable.

Games don't have to be the biggest game ever they just need to make more than they cost.

I challenge you to show professionally prepared data that shows that more live service games fail than make enough to keep going.

Because all the data that I have seen shows that live service is less of a gamble than making a big AAA budget game which needs to survive off retail sales.

FinalFantasyFanatic14d ago

I sometimes wonder if we're at saturation point, where it's hard for a new game to join those ranks unless it's particularly exceptional, people only have so much time and money to devote to these types of games.

romulus2315d ago

Correction, they have no issue playing good live service games

shinoff218315d ago

Lol it's not even a quarter of the ps5s sold. Helldivers may have been a hit but let's not say most are enjoying it because truth is most(the real most ) don't care about it.

S2Killinit14d ago (Edited 14d ago )

I play what is fun. If a live service game is good I’ll play it as long as its not a money scheme which Helldivers is not.

And Im a single player gamer.

mastershredder15d ago

How do you kill a franchise that already been killed?
Destiny’s grind, cash-in-on-playbass-cha-Ching, and pop-culture-insertion mainstream-me-too bs totally killed any rep Bungie had. Sony/Bungie, if you are doing this to ward-off players, it’s already working.

crazyCoconuts15d ago

Headline truncated:
"... off a cliff"

Show all comments (43)
80°

Sony May Soon Let You Decide How Much NPCs Talk In Games

Sony has patented to add multiple dialogue modes to let players switch between how many conversations with NPCs they want in the game.

blackblades21d ago

Sony is like the only ones outta the 3 that has atuff like like this pop up changing thing in ways.

just_looken21d ago

Sony in the past has always been first at bat with new ideas/tech but in the end never fully use it or just toss it away.

blackblades21d ago

I think they did use some but yeah most usually never happened but at least they thought about it. Sony seeks things like this and other, Nintendo seek different ways of playing going by there different controler designs and console designs.

just_looken21d ago (Edited 21d ago )

some of the other stuff sony want's/owns never used
https://gamerant.com/sony-p...
https://gamerant.com/sony-p...
https://www.eurogamer.net/s...
https://metro.co.uk/2023/03...
https://decrypt.co/114754/s...

monitor/adjust game difficultly as you play
https://www.techradar.com/g...

Sony nfts
https://www.theblock.co/pos...

Pay ai to play the game for you
https://thebusinessofesport...

Oh all the above last 12 months

I just imagine a evil scientist with test subjects when it comes down to sony recent patent reports.

Kaii21d ago

Will we get dialogue options that won't spoil puzzles in a matter of seconds? :p