One of the biggest announcements of the year so far was the one that involved Phil Harrison leaving his role as president of Sony Worldwide Studios, where he'd overseen the creation of brands such as SingStar and EyeToy and was keeping a watchful eye on PlayStation Home, to join the ailing Infogrames/Atari - a company that looked like it only had one life left: Alone in the Dark.
But that decision to join David Gardner began to make more sense with talk of reinvigorating the brand and riding the new wave of casual users - here the two top men, Gardner and Harrison, talk to GamesIndustry.biz and offer more details on their thinking for the company's next steps.
Q: GamesIndustry.biz: What exactly do you mean when you talk about your online titles?
Phil Harrison: There are two things going on which I think will help. One is that the Flash technology is getting better all the time, so there is just a rising tide that means in-browser doesn't mean simple 2D any more. You can have 3D really immersive experiences.
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.
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.
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.
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" -
GL compiles a list of some of the most mind-blowing video game narrative twists in recent memory, from The Last of Us to Outer Wilds
With articles like these cant you tag the games mentioned so that we can know ahead of time if there’s a spoiler to avoid?
Not clicking on your article otherwise.
the fist to comment out of Kaz Hirai, Sir Ken Kutarigi and Jack Tretton wins an egg!
i hope it pays off for Phil Harrison, Atari and the gamers.
Alone in the Dark looks impressive so far.
It sounds like they're really counting on Alone in the Dark to do well. I sure hope they start putting more content and hype out there, because quite frankly, it sounds like its getting lost between gta, mario kart, and metal gear solid.