Square Enix shared interesting information about the sale of some of the publisher's western studios and its future investment strategy, setting the record straight on previous mistranslations and misinterpretations.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick doesn't think AI will reduce employment or lower development costs, and calls it "stupidest thing" he's ever heard.
They already have AI trained to do coding.......
How he thinks it's stupid is beyond me, Especially since we see it happening in real time.
Company A has 300 employees and lays of 200 to replace them with AI to release the same quality game.
Company B has 300 employees and keeps all 300 but instead uses AI to release a game with dramatically larger scale, scope, complexity, short dev cycle etc.
Company B would release a dramatically better product by using humans + AI and consumers would buy the better game.
I actually agree with this concept.
This is key facet. Its how the AI is used. It's actually is impressive as is and really would make an amazing addition to alot of people in their jobs, not just tech. It also has the potential for businesses to use to lay off large amounts of people, as much as they could to save money on labor. I hope too many companies don't go with the latter. But since usually companies are worried about bottom line over people...we will see some try and hopefully fail. But yeah, if its to help workers like in your company B scenario I'm totally down...Just scared Company A may be too enticing to some ceos and businesses.
Value of AI and value of humans will both be increased with human-AI complex. Each, by themselves, will not be independently better than the other. Whether AI will ever be independent from humans is the fear question of humans, ironically because of our doing. At this stage, most of the doing is because of humans, not because of AI. AI is doing exactly that by our design, until we have failed ourselves with an AI development that went awry. The biggest take is that humans have only ourselves to blame when things become wrong, and we have to decide what is the ultimate goal with AI we want to accomplish. It would take a person with high morals and high ethics to make right of AI. I would not want businessman to decide what AI should do or what capabilities it can have. AI should be in the hands of people with high moral fiber, or those operating on love, kindness, and compassion.
AI is SUPPOSED to be used as a tool, not a replacement. It's designed to do two important things artists can take advantage of immediately.
- Make the ideation/reference imaging process much quicker and easier (basically using it as a google search)
- Make mundane and time consuming tasks faster and easier so more time is spent on creation.
Unfortunately, what many have done is used it as a way to replace rather than supplement.
CS7
In the ideal world yes.
In the real world where companies have shown little desire to innovate and spent every effort to maximize profits the end result will be the same quality games (if were lucky) made by less people and more AI.
Company Real World: Fires 200 people and makes the same game cheaper using AI and the executives get record bonuses.
Edit:
Lets look at history, specifically auto manufacturing.
In the 70's and 80's the auto unions tried to oppose automation of jobs (robots) stating that they would take peoples jobs. And the people in charge who wanted to make more money said the exact same types of things that are being said about AI. But we can look at history and see that countless types of jobs were in fact replaced by automation, that was of course even compounded upon by computers.
The net effect was that the rich got richer less jobs were needed so wages were forced down by competition for the jobs that were left.
You can already make your own SFX with text prompts now as well, of course it will lower development cost and time
WARNING WARNING ‼️ SARCASM AHEAD
Sure Strauss and robots didn’t take jobs from car factories.
Edit:Sad thing is he believes it and unfortunately he won’t be replaced for a long time by AI
He doesn't, he's just lying. These people lay people off so they can get bonuses. If AI takes jobs, their bonus goes bigger and the workforce goes smaller.
Because he sees AI as a tool to aid development. He wants to use AI to help make bigger and better games in the same timeframe. Other CEOs want to replace devs with AI to cut costs and make lifeless games faster for a quick buck. Strauss has the right idea, this is how AI should be used. To extend and expand the capabilities of devs.
I think maybe sometimes we give people in these positions too much credit when it comes to intelligence.
As long as it doesn't effect his inflated executive salary or his ridiculous bonuses I'm sure he's fine with it.
Windows Central writes: "Many PlayStation Studios games that are ported to PC get dedicated PS5 DualSense support, which allows users to experience haptic feedback and adaptive trigger support without actually having to own a PS5.
According to Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, it's still the company's intent to launch the bigger single-player games on PS5 first, before later bringing the games to PC. This might not be the case for multiplayer games however, which are considered okay to launch simultaneously on console and PC."
My guess is after god of war. Probably last of us 2 that's a almost 4 year old game now and by the time it's released on pc it will be more than 4 years old or close to 5.
Right. I definitely see what a headlined from a website named windows central was trying to do though. It's cute little wordplay to help out the green box
As PlayStation announces its new strategy to encourage PC users to choose PS5 it is a bitter-sweet moment for PC gamers.
I mean, it's a business based on hardware market. Do we expect them to not even try? It's not like Nintendo doesn't do the same by not putting any games on PC and Microsoft until recently did the same. I don't care what they attempt, as long as they don't abuse the community or lie about their goals/requirements.
Will it work? Not likely. Should we care? No. Let them waste their time, it doesn't affect anything.
let them try ... at the end of the day, we get few extra PC games ... yay ... and also promotes game preservation via PC ... so double yay.
If only Playstation games provided the ease of pc gaming features.
Primary being very few PS games support m/kb.
If only PC games supported controllers more. Main reason I play primarily on console. So many games have shit support on PC. Playing Dark Envoy now, and it's quite frustrating since I have to switch to keyboard during cut scenes just to make sure advancing conversation doesn't also auto-select a decision. Let alone it's quite rough to select between characters and inventory screens are bad bad bad.
Anywho, similar complaints for both I find. But, I 100% agree that both PC and consoles should support both as best as possible.
PS may push more kb support in the future to get more PC converts, we'll see.
As someone with a high end PC, I feel like the ease is on PS5. Too many PC games are a troubleshooting nightmare, which few people have the time for when all you want to do is pop in a game & play it.
I just use an Xbox controller on my laptop for everything 😆 .. I haven't used a keyboard / mouse combo for PC gaming since 1996
I don't think you understand what I mean by the lack of m/kb support on PS.
Over a thousand titles have PS controller support on PC.
Not even 30 titles have m/kb support on PS5.
Once you are done with the single player title, you'll go back to playing your daily shooter/looter/mmo etc which the pc gamer has mastered with their mouse and keyboard.
Why would any pc gamer make the switch?
PC is secondary to PlayStation for them. Mouse and keyboard would affect development. Live service will have it but most single player games aren’t going to have it as PC is not the focus
I wish them the best of luck.
But PC players are often a patient bunch, many will even wait for Epic launcher exclusivity to end until a game comes to Steam.
If they didnt buy the console when its games were exclusive, why would they do it now theyre not?
All you need is that one game that'll make a few switch at a time. Like a game a PC player REALLY wants.
It just doesn't work that way though. Plenty of the best games ever made were never available on PC. That didn't make PC gamers buy consoles to play them. This kind of strategy has never worked in the past and it won't work now. It's fine for PS to hold their games back and release on PC later, but to think that will boost console sales is wishful thinking. All this will accomplish is some double dipping, which is obviously good for business.
People aren't going to switch from pc to ps5, why would anyone do that for a game?
Most sony exclusives aren't all that to begin with, and pc has the option to upgrade what they want when they want it. Having access to some ps5 games, gamepass and steam.
Thinking this would happen is naive
I mean if there's 10 million pc gamers out there...getting atleast just 1 million from there is probably a good thing..right?
PC players are not a monolith, I don't know why people keep thinking they speak for the entirety of all PC gamers like they all know each other personally. You think out of the millions of PC gamers not one single person will be impatient?Well Sony is willing to bet there will be. Why would they do it now? People's feelings change and new PC gamers come along all the time that may also feel different about waiting, that's why.
PC gamers are just too patient and loyal to their gaming set ups, something they've spent a lot of money on to perfect. They have backlogs of games which many never get round to finishing or get round to at all and will always have other multiplatform releases to keep them going.
Over the many years Sony has published so many awesome titles such as The Last of Us, Uncharted, Heavenly Sword, Infamous, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, Dreams, Puppeteer, Resistance, Heavy Rain, Gran Turismo, Motor Storm, God of War, Horizon, Ratchet and Clank, Spiderman, Ghost of Tsushima, Bloodborne
If none of those games BEFORE all these PC ports convinced a hardcore PC gamer to get a PS5 console then why on Earth would porting them them to PC now make any difference? All PC gamers now know 100% is that they just have to be patient, which they are good at anyway to get a PS5 game 2 years later.
I get GaaS games or multiplayer focused titles but if people really want to play these games they'd have gotten a PS console years ago.
Not sure they're aiming to convince the hardcore PC gamer.
Not sure why people are obsessing over his comment...it seems pretty simple to me.
He will do all he can to entice gamers to move to his ecosystem. As you say....exclusives existing hasn't moved many gamers over. But if they get to try them and love the games then they might change their mind about waiting 2 years.
We're in an echo chamber on this site...I've Personally seen people with Xbox and PC setups but no PlayStation. I've also seen people with small PC setups but no console. Not every pc gamer invests thousands and many may decide to put one in the living room.
They're not looking to convince all of players to buy a PlayStation...just a few...and really it is just a PR statement after all...they have to give a reason why single player won't release day 1....not to mention they also have to ensure current PlayStation gamers don't jump ship to PC. It goes both ways and they're ignoring the big L by putting any of their games off their platform.
it's not just about loyalty or sunk cost, pc is an open platform while consoles are closed platforms. If you for example want to mod, you will play on pc, no question about it. Also if you like indie games, steam is a fucking goldmine for that. I've been playing a lot of indie games over the last years and there just seems to be an endless amount of them on steam. Also not having games locked to a certain fps is a prettty big deal for me and I assume a lot of other pc players.
@Walalon Steam sales are basically the same as PS sales. I was going to buy a Steam Deck and I heard about these Steam sales but the games I was interested in were not any cheaper. Indie games were cheap and older AAA were cheap but the same can be said for PS store sales. I didn’t end up getting the Steam Deck as there weren’t any games that I wanted to play that wasn’t already on PS and prices aren’t much different
And how do you know out of the millions of PC gamers that not one single person ever went ahead and bought a PlayStation console for one or more of those games? People keep speaking for the entirety of millions of PC gamers like they know them all personally. Here's one example for you, I'm currently typing on a recently purchased PC that cost me over twenty five hundred dollars and is more than capable of running any game including Sony exclusives that come to PC and yet I still bought a PS5 so apparently I'm not patient or loyal enough to my set up, hope it's not mad at me for not being loyal.
Some of those people will consider getting a PS5 some wont. I was a PC gamer for a long time and I’m a console only gamer now. Everyone’s different.
Who cares? Then just stay on PC and play the waiting game. No big deal. Sony wins in the end anyway.
Yup. If the strategy doesnt work, all they have to do is to change their mind, publish the games on PC, and they still win anyway.
I mean if there's any single player Sony games that I actually want that aren't on PC then I would buy said console to play them on. But the ones that I like that aren't on PC are few and far between anyway so no loss for me.
If I game, it's usually multiplayer titles, otherwise I like playing around with some other software.
Astro Bot is the game that just did it for me. I'm gonna have to grab a PS5 again for that.
I did this for Ratchet Rift Apart too but ended up selling the PS5 after getting my plat. Rebought it on PC and other than GoW Ragnarok and Horizon FW (which eventually I could get anyway), I haven't had a reason to downgrade my graphics, controller features, ease of recording, and increase my game costs and monthly subscriptions throughout this entire generation.
I play on a TV with a controller but this has been the absolute worst console gen for both consoles. Never in my life thought I'd be a PC gamer but I've been spoiled by the cheap costs, cross-platform controllers and mostly the unbelievably useful Steam controller config.
“The cost of developing a single title is on the rise. As such, owning studios outright means that while you can expect major returns, your downside risk is also substantial. The result of this is greater‐than‐expected earnings volatility. Therefore, rather than insisting on full ownership, we want to additionally adopt other approaches such as forming joint ventures and taking minority stakes... "
Interesting to see this spelled out so clearly. Props to the studios that actually do take the risks and deliver constantly- it's obviously a difficult thing to do
Cost of developing a single title is on the rise and yet Square Enix are still making exclusive deals with their games.
Now, that's a very smart move... /s
In case someone is wondering, this is the actual official translation that came out today of the bullshit we saw about Square Enix allegedly being afraid that western games would "cannibalize the sales of Japanese games" or that they wanted to sell stakes in their existing studios.
Both points were false, coming from websites that took obvious mistranslations/distortions from a dude on Twitter and ran them as news. 🤔