"On May 19th (2023), Humble Games, the publishing team of the beloved Humble Bundle brand, debuted the Humble Games Showcase to a public audience, sharing insight into their slate for 2023 and beyond." - Humble Games.
The move was made “in response to the lower profitability of the European region”
Honestly smart move, there's enough pvp, operator/hero based pvp GAAS games with this same generic style out and upcoming.
That is really sad. Not only cancelling Hyenas, but the other unannounced game and cutting funds yet again for Creative Assembly. This would be the first time in a decade that Sega let those guys do something other than the Total War series and the last time this happened, Creative Assembly delivered one of the best horror experiences out there in the form of ALIEN: ISOLATION.
I get that profitability is low. But maybe it's because Creative Assembly has been stuck putting out yearly releases of the Total War series. Those games are great, don't get me wrong but the market is extremely saturated with them and they are limited in public as they are only available on PC and PC players are know for making their favourite titles last a long time. To the point that people are still playing Total War Shogun 2 from 2011 at reasonable numbers...
So I feel this is a very bad move. It basically boxes the studio in a situation where they are unlikely to improve their profitability. Now not only they will go back to the same yearly franchise, but they will have to do that with a lower budget and likely team as well.
The problem with Total War is that they (CA) themselves saturate the series to death. Out of the last 5 Total War games I felt only Three Kingdoms was presenting new bold ideas. Troy, Britannia, Rome Remastered and Warhammer 3 all felt sloppy or lazy.
That is the issue with yearly releases. There is no way a company could manage that and create original and innovative content for each entry. It's a pretty much mutually exclusive situation. And why this cancellations and cuts just sucks. Now TW is literally everything this studio has but with less budget and likely fewer people to work on each entry.
So if you thought their last releases were sloppy or lazy. I would expect that to get even worse and then I would be surprised if Sega closes them, just like they did Creative Assembly Australia before.
Can't understand how it would save them money.
If the game was basically finished then surely release it and get a little cash. Surely the money has been spent already and now the easy bit is to release it. ?
It was supposed to be an online only game that gets updates for years. These would have cost em more than the development so far probably if the game bombs
They could have canceled it months ago already after seeing the reaction to the trailer(s). Nobody was caring or hyped about this.
Jim Ryan has departed Sony Interactive Entertainment, after roughly 30 years at the company.
Less live service nonsense, I hope. Maybe more than one or two first-party releases a year would be nice as well. It'd be nice if they fixed the PS+ price hike too, but that's less likely because the only reason they would have increased the price in the first place is if it wasn't making them enough money to satisfy shareholders.
We won't see the real effects of Jim leaving for another 2-3 years and it all depends on who is replacing him.
With how much money they make, I really doubt we'll see the end of Live Service experiments at Sony. Even if it's last few have been... under-whelming.
@crazyCoconuts @Crows90
Sony's definition of live service is pretty broad. Stuff like Gran Turismo 7 and MLB The Show count for them. Helldivers 2 will count. I'm not sure if they're including Marathon or Destiny 2 as Bungie remains seperate from Playstation Studios
Oh please, the last ps+ price hike was 6 years ago in 2017 while Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime etc. raise their price nearly every year.
Unlike those services, the PS+ price hike wasn't by dollar amount, it was by percentage. Across the board the prices for each PS+ tier increased about 30%. The lowest tier went up by way less than the highest tier. It's a clear money-grab, especially when they haven't even offered more Classics to warrant the huge increase on the Premium tier.
Also, unrelated, but it's still bad when those other services increase the price of their subscriptions as well, so I don't understand the use of this argument.
There's no way they would buy Bungie for the life service stuff to drop those plans after this guy leaves.
"We won't see the real effects of Jim leaving for another 2-3 years and it all depends on who is replacing him."
I believe we´ll have news regarding the future of Playstation rather sooner than later.
As Ryan steps down next month, demands for what´s next for Playstation will not only be made by gamers, but shareholders, investors and board directors.
PS games on PC will still to be a thing? Will those games come to PC sooner or even later?
Day One Playstation games on PS Plus will be a thing? Will those games be released sooner on the service? There´ll be AAA third party day one releases on the service?
GaaS will continue to be a focus?
Will Playstation continue and invest in third party exclusives?
Will Playstation establish new partnerships with Microsoft and or Nintendo?
Will Playstation continue and invest in acquisition of studios? Will they now invest in publishers as well?
There will be more PSVR2 games from first party studios?
There´s lots of questions that needs to be addressed by the new leadership.
Of course, Totoki also might answer all of it with a single note: "All of Playstation future plans and direction, remains the same" and call it a day.
Day One Playstation games on PS Plus will be a thing? Will those games be released sooner on the service? There´ll be AAA third party day one releases on the service?
I don't see this happening. The only reason ms did it is cause they were desperate imo. I'd rather Sony not do day one. I'm also of the mindset I prefer to physically own my games not rent or digitally have them. I've got no issue paying for a game I will truly enjoy.
@shinoff2183
"I don't see this happening."
Just because you don´t see it happening doesn´t mean it won´t happen.
I don´t think you remember but there´s a lot of "I don't see this happening" type of comment in the comment history of many people here regarding both Playstation games on PC and some Playstation "Gamepass" type of service.
"The only reason ms did it is cause they were desperate imo."
By the time MS announced day one first party games on Gamepass the general opinion were that it would never happen! All that bs talk about "it´s not sustainable" blah blah bah.
Now we have not only all of the first party games day one on Gamepass but AAA third party games day one as well.
Imo, PS Plus will never outperform Gamepass if Sony is not willing to heavily invest on it specially now after that 40% price hike, and yet, they had the nerve to remove Spider-Man from its content list.
According to FTC documents MS had made more profit out revenue in 2022 than Sony, while numbers from both Bethesda and Activision weren´t even accounted.
You might think Sony have nothing to worry about, but that sudden retirement announcement does sound an alarm, and things about to change, again. Like it or not.
“Less live service nonsense, I hope.”
Don’t bet on it. All the top grossing games are live service games. It’s apparently where the masses want to spend their money.
I just hope an actual gamer gets the position. I wouldn’t mind Herman Hulst. He knows how gaming development works inside out.
At the end of the day, if you want to run a billion dollar company, you need to make money for the shareholders. If not they will throw you out like yesterdays garbage.
A return to the old Sony hopefully, way less focus on gaas, don't overly secretive about what games you have coming, keep providing AAA single player games.
Basically do what they have always done before Jim.
