With Xbox's backward's compatibility out in full force for preview members, what steps can Sony take to compete?
The console maker’s first mobile game studio acquisition says it is making “action games with epic stories”.
KeenGamer: "The concept of the videogame mascot is dying out. Learn how abandoning the need for a mascot can lead to better and more diverse console exclusives. PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo all have differing strategies, for better or worse."
Depends on the character and how relevant they are or were, was the game they were in a good game that left an impression on you as a kid. If the character is over saturated and has shitty games like Sonic has had then people are tired of that character until they are rethought out and reworked from the ground up. You need a mascot for a brand when people see Link or Mario the first though that comes to mind is Nintendo, you see Kratos, Nathan Drake, Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank you think Playstation. When you see yes Master Chief you think Xbox but when I see Marcus Fenix I see Xbox I am not a big Master Chief fan myself. You see Mega Man, Chun Li , Ryu you think Capcom. I have never played Blinx the Cat but his game from what I read sounds like it was poorly thought out and just slapped together to try and lure children into getting their parents to buy an Xbox. You need the character well thought out relatable and to have a fun game Super Lucky's Tale could have been an Xbox mascot as well but the game felt generic and bland. Mascots are needed to help push a brand whether they are old characters from older consoles or well planned out relatable characters that bring in a fun game to play. If mascots were truly dead then Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Ratchet and Clank, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot would not need games but they do. If I had a kid I wouldn't mind introducing them to Mario, Sonic, Spyro show them how fun these characters are. Then when they get older introduce them to Kratos, Nathan Drake, Marcus Fenix. Mascots will never die you need mascots whether its a video game or Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse they are brand recognition.
More like "The inability of Sony and MS to develop and support mascots."
Hell, as badly as they've managed games, Sega still has Sonic.
Sony has invested $250 million for a minority stake in Fortnite maker Epic Games, the companies announced today. With the new money, Epic Games has raised $1.83 billion to date. The companies said the deal cements an already close relationship between the two companies and reinforces the shared goal to advance the state of the art in technology, entertainment, and socially connected online services.
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See that comment marked spam up above?
Censorship at its finest. Exclusively on N4G with superfast loading of down votes and flagging the truth. Echo chambers can't get any better than this.
Epic is laughing all the way to the bank with Sony's 💰. I don't want to say I told ya so...but...🙄
Man, Sony fans have to be in such a dillusioned state, I think they are going to need some hugs after this one.
@above
What are you talking about? This partnership is beneficial for both companies. The cash helps Epic, and in turn Sony will make profit on their investment. Nothing wrong there. Furthermore Epic and Sony informed each other regarding next gen, for years. Thats a big win for both there too, and theres nothing wrong with any of that. Unless you're an xbox fan boy of course.
As for your comment marked spam. Many people are using the system to silence opposition. Which bites. I didn't see it but I only mark actual spam as spam.
@dook... Epic is part owned by Tencent. If they need $$ they just get it from them. And MS also paid more than sony for the use of UE over the course of three console generations.
What MS did generations ago is immaterial. This isn't Unreal 3 its U5. As Janet said, what have you done for me lately.
Even if MS didn't, this investment doesn't give Sony any rights to control Epic or any of its properties.
It is a tired old franchise now. I'd be quite happy to never see another Gears game ever again.
It'd be for whatever Epic does. Sony has a stake in the company. They don't control the company though. They'll get dividends based on whatever Epic makes, which is usually a lot.
Sony isn't likely to want to change up whatever Epic is doing. Restricting Epic's marketplace just means it isn't making as much money, which means less of a return. Epic I guess wanted an infusion of cash, and Sony gave it to them.
People saying it's anything more don't understand what investment means, and are reading more into it than is really there.
any publisher that has fortnite really doesnt need any other game its a quality title and is free to play
*Invested* is not Paid
Sony still owns the money and they will get paid in huge back, they are making this bet anticipating the blowup with Unreal Engine 5.
I mean...isn't it even more clear now that we learned it was a major investment? It's one thing if it was maybe 6 figures to do some cross promotion, but we're talking 1/4 billion Paid here.
@Atom666
It isn't considered a Major investment. Article states they invested in a minority stake. You know what "minority" means right?
@stoney
250 million is a large investment, even if it's into a billion dollar company.
@TheRealTedCruz
Yeah its a large amount of money but its still a minority investment in the company like the article says...
250 Mil invested into a 17 Billion dollar company is definitely not a major or large investment.
@Yoshi
That made be chuckle. Isn't this investment larger than the check they wrote for all of Insomniac?
Name me the marketing deal that comes close to 250mil. That's the point. They invested a truckload of cash here, and it's mutually beneficial to promote UE5 on PS5.
There's no reason or way to spin it as "no big deal." It's a meaningful move for both, and explains a lot of things.
Someone should explain what Epic gains from this besides $250 million dollars, and if they really believe that Sony felt that $250 million was what it would cost to get Epic saying nice things about them.
To me, if Sony's investment was contingent on having Sweeney say the PS5 was a good console, and talk up the SSD and other features of the PS5, that seems kind of like him selling out. One thing I've never considered Sweeney to be is a sell out.
Sometimes, the simplest answer is the real one....not some made up conspiracy or extrapolating extenuating circumstances to try and find an answer that doesn't exist. Epic has nothing to gain by talking up the PS5 now. It would tarnish their reputation, which has generally always been fairly neutral. Even when MS was funding Gears of War for them, they didn't hold back the PS3 tools for Unreal, nor were they prone to talking crap about it.
It's only a 1.4% investment, that's a tiny sliver of the pie.
$250mil may seem huge to the average person but these are multibillion dollar companies.
This doesn't give Sony any decision making power over UE5 and it's not going to stop MS or anyone else from using this engine.
Y'all are truly weird. So the ps5 isn't actually any good, epic is just lying because Sony invested in them 2 months after the praise..... yeah ok
Exactly, it must mean that every other developer that’s praised the PS5 must secretly be working at or owned by Epic lol.
Invested yes... do you really think after Tim Sweeney and Sony Ceo would toast pinacoladas under the sun, Tim wouldn’t throw in a free hype marketing for ps5?! Of course he would.. not saying the ps5 is bad in anyway but he kinda went hard on that. Probably the most vocal Tim I have ever heard Tim ever!
it no use, the fanboys are in full droves in this thread, I guess what Tim said really cut them deep to conclude the guy is a shill. proof is in the pudding when the games come out
True. But it means what they DIDN'T SAY can be explained now.
UE5 will be utilized to great results on XSX and PC. We now know why they "chose" to really highlight only one platform.
Your efforts to defend Sony aren't necessary. There's nothing to defend...it's just business.
You’re correct, I think what they said is still true.
Problem was a lot of people were saying the *reason* they came out and said those things, made the exclusive tech demo etc was out of the goodness of their hearts, while others suggested that money looked like it had changed hands.
This shows the latter - doesn’t mean what they said isn’t true, just implies they were incentivised to come out and say it
So, Epic games promoted Sony, held off on talking about Xbox, all for the hope that Sony would invest $250 million in their company? Seems rather precarious to do such a thing unless the investment was contingent on that, and I can't imagine any $250 million dollar investment would rely on something so fickle.
Said good things, sure. But there are devs also saying good things about the new Xbox as well.
Epic is a giant name in the industry, and they chose to concentrate only on the PS5 - of which Sony invested a quarter of a billion dollars.
This is straight up marketing. Not a sincere developer simply commenting on a piece of tech.
Sweeney's comments were literally an ad for PS5, as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah....that the PS5 is a really good console.
Pretty simple explanation.
You think Epic couldn't raise 250 million from any number of sources? They're worth billions. Sweeney has never been one to pander to companies just to raise money, and has never had a problem praising or criticizing. He even criticized MS when MS was making them money with Gears of War.
Of course epic could raise 250 million some other way. And they do, all the time. The question is, if 250 mil really is such a small amount like some fools say, then what could Sony really be helping them with by giving it to them? The fact is, it's NOT a small amount of money.
Destiny 2 and Halo Infinite had/have a 500 million + dollar budget. That's huge. 250 Million was paid for the kind praise for PS5 and maybe as a financial Vote of Confidence and Support for Epic's advances in technology. But more than anything, it was to get an Exclusive promotion from the Stunning and clearly industry Leading tech giant of Game engines to say good things about the PS5.
You say Sweeny has never been one to sell out or pander? Are you freaking kidding me? He is the PC KING of sell out practices and has done all kinds of deals back and forth on both sides of the PC digital marketplace with
Epic Game store exclusivity and Epic does all kind of deals with Fortnite all the time.
Get over your delusions.
It's really not some huge deal Sony did this, it's just business. What is pathetic tho, most of all, is people like you deflecting the obvious because it makes you feel better about PS5.
PS5 didn't need to go this route to be successful and dominate tho. It's a good system supported by a Company with a big and broad vision for gaming. And we reap the benefits of that vision all the time. Is should make you worry so much either way you look at it. And you are clearly worried about something. You and many others on this site...
Worried Enough that some, (like you) create denials and excuses.. Over something that isn't even really that big of a deal in the first place.
It's kind of bad form, trying to Make it seem like it could only be done on a PS5, and to take money to act like the PS5 is what made it possible instead of Epic's engine, but oh well.
Life goes on.
If MS did this people would talk about how MS is the poison of the games industry probably. But no, it's just business and all 3 of the big 3 do things like this.
Dollars go to and fro with big tech companies all the time. If you ask me, The secret from now on should be transparency so people can decide which ethics and practices to support instead and marketing programs to support or buy into instead of making it seem like a promotion wasn't part of the boost in Positive comments and hype.
All that downplaying of the ps5 ssd architecture by exclusive ms developers has the same explanation.
Yeah they're really excited for PS5 and its architecture, it was self explanatory.
No saltiness here. Them turning a profit will only help Sony crank out some better games in the end. Good for the Sony consumer 👍🏽
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"Of course, this is all free as long as you own the game of course and have a Gold subscription." wrong, it's free with or without Gold come it's release in November. Completely free and available off line once game has been downloaded once.
LOL this guys solution is for Sony to charge a lot less for psnow! I'm pretty sure if Sony could afford to charge less they would. Psnow is too pricey and always will be since it costs a lot of money to stream gameplay for hours on end.
Sony's best solution would be to try and emulate the ps3 2 and 1 like the x1 does. Though it's probably impossible due to cell's unique design.
Ridiculous article.
I've still got my PS3 and 360 so I'm not too worried about backwards compatability. It's a nice feature for the X1 though I wouldn't say Sony needs to compete with it.
sub for ps plus members or put game in ps4 that u own and then it scans psnow and boom we are in
Just make it cheaper, add 6 month and yearly price options with discounts and if you already own a game that is available on PS Now you can get free unlimited streaming.
I say to start they can either make PSNow free or incredibly cheap (like a dollar a month) for Ps+ members.
idk, also make PS1 and PS2 games compatible.