Sony's PlayStation 4 launch event on Wednesday has drawn excitement, criticism and curiosity from the gaming community. While some were intrigued by the company's vision of a powerful PC-like console at the centre of a broad range of connected devices, others were frustrated by the lack of a physical product reveal, and by the familiar range of games on offer.
Stage-managing the development and roll-out of the console is Shuhei Yoshida, Sony's head of worldwide studios. A vital cog in the PlayStation R&D machine since the very beginning, Yoshida is a passionate gamer and habitual tweeter, providing a human face to the corporate edifice that is Sony.
I got chance to talk to him on Thursday, in his last interview of the day before returning from New York to Tokyo. Here's what he had to say.
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.
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.
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 CEO Hiroki Totoki and CFO Lin Tao talked about the state of the PlayStation business and the strategy and targets going forward, including how they're responding to the tariffs.
Sony announced its financial results for the fiscal year 2024, and things are certainly looking up, despite a decline in PS5 sales.
If their profits fall next quarter, we'll probably see more price hikes. I can't imagine having to pay £20 a month for PlayStation Plus.
Decline in hardware sales.
Behind on lifetime sales and decline in first party sales.
Third party content and PSN came through to save the day.
Things will improve starting with the next Ghost game.
Hopefully a steady flow of first party content by end of '25
i think it was smart not showing it.. Imagine how much more u will want it after u actually see that sexy beast.. The controller was just a tease for the real deal
I'm curious why there's such a big deal about them not showing the console yet. If anyone has some legitimate concerns about it, I'd like to know why.
i certainly don't have a problem with them not showing their whole hand at the meeting. its definitely smart due to the fact that Microsoft is now behind in the war and they need to come hard with what they have to match or at least wow us enough to make us want what they have. but im not getting a nextbox you have my word on that.
I really isn't THAT big of an issue but I do wonder why they didn't show it when you announce something you're generally meant to show it
you wanna light the sparklers now. and save the grande finale for e3. Smart on them for not showing us everything. personally i was expecting them to just say " Yes, the ps4 exist and go into minor details about it". E3 ...is where the magic will happen i'm hoping.