Mobile & Apps: "Recently Sony officially announced its next-generation video game console, the PlayStation 4. Everything Sony showed proves that the company means business, and this could potentially force Microsoft to delay its next console, in order to be a true contender for years to come."
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.
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
After laying off almost 2,000 people, Xbox finds itself in a position at odds with the community-first image it has cultivated for itself.
lol I’m not a big MS gamer but Sony and a number of others have laid off ton of people as well. Where are the ridiculous articles about them not being your friend? Gaming news is such a joke and these sites wonder why they have to beg for money/patreons or flood with 5x more ads.
I think the sentiment is corporations are there to make money they are not out friends that are harsh and cutthroat when lt comes to the bottom line so why do we proclaim our love for any gaming company from the rooftops when they wouldn't care about us unless we are buying the next thing.
We need to beore objective with how we view these "teams"
This is the absolute truth. The only part of you these companies, ALL companies, want to be friends with is your bank account. They don't care what they have to say, who's job they have to cut, or what shady underhandedness they must engage in. Bottom line is all that matters.
Because people unfortunately make these companies and products part of their own persona, so when they are scrutinized, they see it as an attack on themselves. There is some neuropsychological research around this phenomenon, but it basically has the same effect as religion. It helps foster a sense of community that humans need to feel comfortable. So that is not happening unless we have a sudden surge of people actually understanding how they work and taking control of themselves.
While it's true Sony isn't a friend either, let's not pretend that they're even in the same ballpark as MS's anti consumer practices. Sony is not a friend but atleast they're not an enemy like MS.
@twopickles, were you not paying attention? Sony was heavily criticized when they laid off people weeks ago, more than Microsoft did with their massive abk layoffs.
That’s Whataboutism. Sony and other game companies didn’t pay more than $80B to buy up publishers. Microsoft said in court that it wasn’t going to have redundancies and fire people. Microsoft told Xbox owners that they would have a AAA on GamePass each quarter. But here we are with Microsoft Game Studios shrinking. Consolidation doesn’t benefit the consumer, and no company has consolidated more than Microsoft.
Exactly. They love their SonyToo instead of looking at everything in its totality. You spend $80B to buy up so many pubs/devs, you damn well should have something to show for it.
That said, this article is old and someone is clearly looking for clicks!
I’m glad you see the thru the reality distortion field so many on this site don’t. My brother-in-law was just let go from PlayStation (here in PV/LA) literally just weeks ago after taking the job just 2 months before. He quite his previous job that was doing just fine to work for Sony.
I agree that every corporation is part of the problem, but bit perhaps in the future have more of an argument than a whatsboutism? It makes it sound like your only issue is that people are complaining about Microsoft.
ok here is a reality check. Tech companies have been firing thousands of employees the last couple of years.
I find it odd that the percentage of employees sacked from MS
QUOTE
"Microsoft announced approximately 1,900 job cuts across its gaming division, including Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, and Xbox. 8.6% of its colossal 22,000-strong global workforce. "
is worth writing an article condemning the company, when Sony Interactive fired 8% of its workforce (900 people approximately).
https://news.crunchbase.com...
Is the writer concerned about the percentage of the workforce fired or the number of employees?
Lets not forget that Unity laid off 25 percent of its workforce (1800 people) and Discord laid off 17 percent of its employees.
You also have to take into account the AI issue reported in the article. MS is heavily invested in A.I. They have invested in Open A.I (chatgpt 4+Dalle 3), in Abu Dhabi’s G42 and in French AI company Mistral.
These LLMs have already replaced thousands of jobs as A.I usage becomes more common
https://www.cbsnews.com/new...
https://www.theverge.com/20...
https://tech.co/news/compan...
This is the new reality. Even nvidia CEO said that games will fully A.I generated.
https://www.pcgamer.com/sof...
Nevertheless, no company should be ever viewed as "your friend". MS had numerous anti consumer practices in place and the same is true for Sony (not only in video game space) and Nintendo (60$ dollar games without permanent discounts, remasters of 10 year old game with full price, no console price cuts, expensive joy cons which are prone to drift, to name but a few).
Hahaha, I was thinking the same thing.
Silly nonsense that applies to all companies. Do people really think these companies care about them? we are consumers, and they track us by $$$, not our character, personality, family, or this over-inflated console war.
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
They can form a company if they want, they are just as jobless as if "Microsoft had left them as 3rd party".
"MIcrosoft leaves Bethesda do what they know how to do best" ... close! Oh the irony ....
(Citation from a week old article)
I think Microsoft and other game publishers are letting people go because they think ai will replace them. Doesn’t matter how much profit they make. They were always going to be let go.
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
that's a shame for you to say that, i'm sure Elite loves hearing what you just said.
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
It's France too, there's a high likelihood only 1-2 people on the team even had an Xbox.
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
I think it would have been better for all parties really especially gamers
The recently purchased Activision French offices might take over all the licensing and marketing for Microsoft in France from now on.
While most opinion pieces are worthwhile, the sheer amount of ads on that site lead me to believe this is a hit generator peice with little foundation outside of "what if".
MS would be shooting themselves in the foot by delaying release. While Sony has the upper hand MS is no slouth, they must have something up their sleeves. No doubt MS has been developing the next Xbox for the last few years, Sony's reveal probably did little to hinder that.
i thought it was understood both Sony and Microsoft are taking two separate paths to be successful next generation.
Sony is going after the primarily gaming only crowd, while introducing social features to integrate its games into everyday life making "social gamers" out of all of us. Sony still plans on offering media and apps but this will all revolve around gaming is first and central, the philosophy they outlined at the reveal.
Microsoft is continuing the route they've been on with Kinect, media and apps. Why fix what ain't broke? Kinect was confirmed by Guinness World Records as the fastest selling tech of all time back in 2010. Microsoft will continue to push hands free software as well as media capability with Kinect 2. At the same time, Microsoft will also strive to make the next xbox a complete media box rivaling the cable providers or even services like netflix and hulu. Games will still be there, but i would expect mostly third party titles with a few new first party ip's.
Anyone who purchased a 360 the first year should give Microsoft a hard time until the hardware is solid. "Rushing" hardware should be the LAST thing they ever do again. Jeez!
And billions of dollars in losses for microsoft !