They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn. Sony better hope so. since Sony is still struggling to break even on the PS3, the seven-year-old PS2 remains by far the company's most successful console. That's certainly a testament to the PS2's capabilities and top-notch game library. But it's also an indictment of the PS3, and a painful reminder that Sony has, so far, managed to disregard every lesson it should have learned from its past two consoles.
Anyway, what's done is done.
Sony can't go back in time and unrelease the PS3 and wait another year to get the cost of the components down before putting the system on store shelves. And it can't reverse the migration of previously exclusive titles to other systems (notably the 360).
But the company does have two advantages heading into this year.
Gary Green said: You’ll be forgiven if you haven’t heard of the Ar Tonelico trilogy. The previous two games arrived so late in the PS2’s life-cycle that they simply went unnoticed. While most were tinkering with their shiny new PS3s, Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia and Ar Tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica were being ‘returned to sender’ by your local Game stores. Luckily, you won’t need to have played them to understand and appreciate this third and final chapter, Qoga (pronounced k-yoga) tells the story of a racial war between humans and Reyvateils, a breed of biologically produced female cyborgs capable of reproduction, while still having a digital mind.
Oh my god. I kinda wish this would get a remaster on PS5, it would be awesome. One of my favorite games on PS3.
That and 3D Dot Game Heroes. It's a shame that some stuff is stuck on PS3.
Ar Tonelico 3 is good I still prefer the first AT game. The music is solid in all the games and Akiko Shikata is a very talented singer bringing life to the game. Only annoying part is well I find is Saki I always choose Finnel or Tyria. KOEI so needs to HD remaster the franchise along with Ar Nosurge and Ciel Nosurge since it never came to North America. I would day one the Ar Toneliceo games and Ar Nosurge if they were remastered.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)
MS: "Xbox services and content without AB up 1%, with AB up 62%. Hardware down 31%. In total a loss of 350 mill."
darthv72: "Seems about right."
MS: "Excuse m ..."
darthv72: "I don't hardly play on my consoles directly."
MS:
What he said was facts. How he plays games is no concern of you. Don't get too mad about it.
I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..
If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.
to you it may seem like the minority... but your bubble is shrinking because more and more are following suit. convenience is a hell of a drug and its also why physical sales only amount to 30% of overall game sales. times are changing, you either get with them or you get left behind.
But that's been ms for years. When things aren't going their way they try to change the way things are said. For instance console sales are down, they stop telling how many sold instead telling us how many hours spent in halo or headshots. So it makes sense console sales down just say people are playing on more devices then previous. What they won't say is how many xbox players jumped ship to ps5.
Hardware sales are so bad that Sony and Nintendo are blowing the sales off the water with their hardware.
If Xbox are losers, others aren’t..
Xbox already tried everything with Xbox live then subscriptions went down so much that they had to find something else. Their fans subscribed then reached saturation rather quickly.
Hardware and exclusive games is where it’s at! Keep gamers excited, announce decent software and people will support you
@shin
Well keep it simple Sony 's operating income is down 26% and Microsoft's is up 32%. No MS spin there, just facts. 😉
Cheers
MS is after diminishing consoles as a medium. They want to destroy this market because they couldnt win. MS’s vision is to dissolve console gaming.
Odd that a company that touts you dont need the hardware to play is already touting another console in the works.
They are not reliant on the HW but still want to maintain a presence (no matter how small) is a good thing. It shows commitment to the craft. It reminds me of SNK and how they made games for their own hardware (Neo Geo) while also making them for others because they knew there was a market to do so. They knew they would sell more to others but also sell to their own niche fan base.
Perfectly reasonable post down voted by insecure corporation friendly folk.... But not gamers. Real gamer want accessibility and ease of acquisition for all.... Company shills are the only ones still telling us that hardware locking people from games is good for us.
In the last two years they've started exiting the consumer market altogether. All of the newest Surface products are business models only. They can't seem to work out what they want to do with it.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"
Microsoft: "why's that"
Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'
Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk
It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD
The only growth MS will get out of the console industry is if it supports it's rivals platforms. Xbox is a pointless machine now. I can see them on a big push for live next, and they won't give up on trying to buy Steam.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
Because all their lies will fail and people will realize that they believed in hype.
Quick statements of the day from me (former game developer).
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1. PS3's GPU holds multi platform games back. Cell will not help make graphics so much better because GFX-programming is single threaded, not parallel like Cell. So multiplatform games will always look better on XBOX. PS3 will have good games with great physics (LittleBigPlanet) but no with better GFX. Unified architecture of XBOX Xenos GPU is Nvidia 8800 level while PS3's RSX GFX is Nvidia last gen 7xxx series.
2. Sony know this. That is why they over hype and lie to their customers. But software sale shows us that customers didn't get fooled. More than expected amount of people buy PS3 for..for movies first and don't buy PS3 games.
3.SonyDefence forse is acting on this site and all over internet. That is a group of people that write great user reviews on SONY product all over internet. So be careful receiving information about SONY products. If product is bad SonyDefenceForce will make it look better than it is by posting reviews and their lying opinions at most popular internet sites.
LOL... one minute the PS3 is a success, the next its bombing...
eitherway, i dont think that Sony would mind their biggest compition being themselves.
the fact that sony is still very determined to support the ps2.. it does get in the way to usher the current userbase onto this gen. i'm pretty sure there are a lot of ps2 users wanting to make the transition but at the moment it isn't the right time for them because:
a) the price is still too steep
b) this gen is a little intimidating since it seems you need
an hdtv and 5.1 surround to get the full effect
c) the franchises that they loved on the ps2 aren't available yet or are available on other platforms.
the majority of the 120million ps2 owners WILL eventually make the transition to this current gen. but to which platform is still to be determined. but i can pretty much say that a lot of them will move on to get a ps3 if the IP's they love remain exclusives.
It's a fair enough article, a bit overly-critical and obviously US-centric, but does make a good point!
Keeping the PS2 buisness going for as long as they have, has hurt the PS3 early adoption levels. I rather suspect that having shown such support to the previous platform will pay dividends in the long run with the average consumer, who will trust the brand to be supportted for a while. This will likely show more when the price falls another level and the more casual audience of the PS2 will start to migrate to the newer platform.
@Imad. You are not, and never have been a developer, and that is blatently obvious from your purile inaccurate asertions and obvious bias. I AM a developer, and have been for 15 years - have worked for Sony, Microsoft, E.A and many many others. You are simply another hate filled troll my friend, so please don't play pretend games to try and give your fanboy lies some more credibility - its embaressing to see..
it is the GAMES!!!!! Im still holding on to my ps2, Im waiting on more varity of games. not everyone is hardcore gamer, so those of us not are waiting on companies to make different games to suit non-hardcore gamers as well. plus long as sony dont bring back b c its more undesirable to buy a ps3. not able to play your ps2 games on it. sony should have kept the 20 gb bc ps3. I believe most ps2 gamers will wait til the 80gb ps3 go down to 299.00 before making that move.