Spencer writes:
"Square Enix seems like one of the strong PSP supporters with the recent announcement of the 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy Agito XIII shifting from mobile phones to the PSP. However, just a few weeks ago at E3 there weren't many PSP titles shown. Resistance: Retribution was the most notable announcement from the show and the title Sony Computer Entertainment America seemed most excited about. The reminder of this year's PSP forecast looks light on the games and this isn't limited to North America. Even in Japan where the PSP remains immensely popular, thanks in part to Monster Hunter, it feels like retail releases are dwindling."
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" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
A good, in depth article. More please.
But I'm a huge FFVII fan, so I bought a PSP to play Crisis Core.
And now I'm a huge fan of it. I feel like its a PS2 in my pocket.
it's great.
I didn't care much for Agito or the 3rd birthday either, but now that that they're on PSP, I'm going for it.
its just way to easy to hack a psp, combine that with the fact that the games are mostly very small in size and you have your reason for this decline. Its alot like pc gaming, your game has to be of very high quality for people to want to buy it when they can have it for free.
Everyone I know who has a DS or kids have a DS also have the Firecard - none of them buy games, they just download the rom off the net - same for 360, I even had a chipped 360 and got games for £1.50 each!
PS3 is the only console/gaming device that cannot play pirate games.