Sony Corp., the Japanese electronics and entertainment company, is headed in the right direction although its comeback is not yet complete, its chief executive said Thursday.
Kazuo Hirai told reporters that Sony is now more nimble and focused under his leadership which began nine months ago. Sony has lost money for the past four years, and has fallen behind powerful rivals such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in profitability and innovation.
Hirai acknowledged Sony had gotten bogged down in its sprawling bureaucracy, and stressed he is making a point of personal involvement in product development to make sure good ideas don't get squelched.
"I'm shepherding several of those projects personally myself to make sure that it doesn't get held up in the bureaucracy, or it doesn't suddenly fade away in the approval process," he said at Tokyo headquarters.
Like other Japanese electronics makers, Sony is taking a beating from Chinese, Taiwan and South Korean rivals that offer products at much cheaper prices. Hirai said Sony will target customers willing to pay more and won't get sucked into a price war.
The make of Bravia TVs and PlayStation 3 game machines reports earnings next month for last year's final quarter. The numbers are expected to highlight a Sony midway through its recovery.
Sony has recruited Bungie's head of revenue Jaremy Rich to head up its live-service gaming division, Rich has announced on social media.
Please do not put Destiny’s monetization into Sony’s first party games. The monetization is what’s driving players away from Destiny.
The new temp boss is the sony cfo bean counter so i can see this being a thing get every penny.
@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/...
@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.
@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.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sony has patented to add multiple dialogue modes to let players switch between how many conversations with NPCs they want in the game.
Sony is like the only ones outta the 3 that has atuff like like this pop up changing thing in ways.
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.
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.
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.
Genuine Enabling Technology was seeking damages, claiming the tech allowing PlayStation consoles and controllers to communicate infringes its rights.
Crazy to think the savings from this lawsuit allows them to develop one AAA game.
Make it Bloodborne 2, please and thank you.
Sounds like patent trolling they tried the same thing against Nintendo with the same pattern.
Motion and control input traversing over higher and lower frequencies seperate from each other allowing the controller to do both
So to recoup the money Genuine is going to take on Nintendo or Microsoft next. I hate patent lawyers they are some of the worst bottom feeders out there.
To me, it seems Hirai has really kicked the ball out of the park. Sony did so much last year, it's unheard of. Sure, there are plenty of things that remain to be done, like making a profit, but hey, I won't be surprised if they get there eventually!
He's sped up the company and he's drifting around the difficult turns. Ridge Racer has taught him well.
Now that the company is in good hands, it will move forward again.. The previous idiot really ruined their great name.. In gaming, over priced tvs, tabs, cameras, etc.. I know hes leading sony teams to create a unified ecosystem w all sony products.. Kinda like apple has but the sony way.. I will continue my support for PS & if they make it worth my money, itl expand beyond that into tvs, tabs, cameras, phones, etc
Well things certainly seem to be moving in the right direction. Earnings per share showed Sony was losing almost $5 per share just a year ago, and the most recent report (not this one coming up in a couple of weeks) showed the company was almost out of the red with a loss of only 0.20/share. I don't care who you are, that's obviously tremendous improvement.
And with the foreign exchange rates stabilizing and projected to continue, this should help mitigate the losses due to selling to the US and Europe. At one point after the market crash, the yen was up 25% compared to the Euro and US dollar. So for every dollar spent overseas, Sony was losing 25% revenue compared to the year prior. That's huge.
Part of the problem has also been Sony's reluctance to outsource development outside of Japan to cheaper asian markets to the degree of their competition. In staying loyal to their Japanese workers, they weakened their position due to the costs of doing business in Japan. They've started outsourcing the past few years finally, which is good for the company in order to stay competitive, but you've got to feel a bit sorry for them losing that particular battle. No one likes to see a company forced to outsource, but that's the global marketplace for ya.
Another issue with being as large as Sony, after time you tend to become bloated, with your hands in too many things. They've also come a long way in terms of focusing their product offering, and there's still much to be done. Sometimes you have to contract to expand.
Ultimately though, they have to be happy with how the PS3 performed last year compared to it's competition. The entire industry was down but PS3 sales and software managed to more or less keep pace with the year prior (from what we saw reported Jan-Sept) while their competition saw year over year sales fall by almost half.
Hitting the 70 million milestone and, if industry reports are correct, ultimately taking second place globally despite being nearly 9 million consoles behind the 360 after their first holiday season just proves that despite the PS3's higher price point, demand has always been there. I never understood that myth that the PS3 botched it's launch or got off to a slow start that we hear parroted so often in the media despite numbers showing otherwise. Sales of the PS3 may have been on pace with the PS2 at the start, but the worst recession in a generation tends to put a bit of a damper on sales when you're the most expensive console on the market, and the PS2 dropped below $199 so quickly you really can't compare sales of the two. Given the market and economic environment, I'm honestly surprised the PS3 sold as well as it has, and continues to sell even 6 years in.
I wish Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo the best of luck leading into the next gen. Hell, here's hoping the next few years are more profitable for everyone in the industry.
Edit: Kinda puzzled by the disagrees. Everything I mentioned is easily verified with a simple google search. If you want to offer a counter point, feel free to hit me up on PM (only one bubble for years so can't really talk here). I'm always up for a spirited debate about the gaming industry. Cheers!
I really do love Sony, not just the PS3 I have a Bravia, ipod dock, headphones, blu ray player. Always solid, well made & reliable.
If 4K OLED or that Xperia Z is any indication then maybe Sony is ready to join the ranks of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Vizio, etc. I think that would be best really. If you could but some Sony hardware behind some really impressive software I think many people would flock to it.
Sony at CES was actually impressive only really upstaged by Nvidia and that isn't really fair because the Tegra 4 is a real beast.