Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that it is ending the Sony Rewards program on December 31, 2024, and as a result that date will be the last time possible to redeem points and access your account.
Ex- employees Hope Studio Gets "Consolidated Into Sony"
Former Bungie employees speak out in a new report, blaming greed and leadership for the studio’s troubles, and say full Sony consolidation is the best way forward.
Interesting article, even with some actual names of the people voicing their thoughts.
I think that we've had enough similiar situations at other studios and publishers already, hell even completely different businesses, to know that OF COURSE it's always about hostile environments at work and the search for rather effortless profits than causing excitment with great ideas.
All deflecting statements, wether from managements or other people in charge, have always, literally always been untruthful. Always.
And it's so silly.
Nothing of this crap causes a nuclear war.
But all the people in charge act like everything is top secret f'n CIA like intel, trying everything to not stand up for their mistakes.
I mean it's pathetic, it really is. In the brand scheme of it all it's truly pathetic.
Right I actually agree with you here. Something doesnt' seem right almost like Sony wants them to look bad because it is trying to takeover. I can't figure out Sony's intentions here but they are already wholely owned so full consolidation means that they can bring in their own management. And honestly this is probably NOT what Bungie wanted.
"Well the obvious answer to that is that it kinda looks like Bungie is getting torn to shreds without Sony's help. And clearly there is no way Sony is going to spend all that money and not step in to help steady the ship at Bungie because that would be a huge wasted investment."
Exactly!
Phil allowed Pete Hines to run the show at Bethesda and we got Redfall as result. Now that he´s gone and Bethesda reports directly to Matt Booty at XGS, things are definitely getting better!
It´s past time to Sony to take over Bungie and fire that POS Pete Parsons.
Sony has literally given these guys chance after chance, they gave them an extra BILLION to try and keep talent along with telling them to sort their s**t out
What else can they do here? They gave them free reign, extra money and they've spat in their faces.
If they took full control when they bought them they might have been able to salvage them.
Bungie will be torn to shreds with Sony in full control. Another addition to the cemetery like Zipper or Sony Liverpool
Well the obvious answer to that is that it kinda looks like Bungie is getting torn to shreds without Sony's help. And clearly there is no way Sony is going to spend all that money and not step in to help steady the ship at Bungie because that would be a huge wasted investment.
Whatever mental gymnastics you just went through must be exhausting.
It sounds like you have some baggage from Microsoft's acquisition spree.
Bungie was indie, so they depended on in game monetization. Sony makes money from other sources: music, movies, psn, ps hardware...
...so devs are hoping by full Sony consolidation they will cut down the monetization part, and make things easier for them...
...but keep in mind, Sony bought them because of their monetization and live service model and design, so much so they tried to make every Sony IP into a live service spinoff.
So I don't see much change in anything, for us consumers, if Sony takes full control.
A variety of new updates are available this month across the gaming platforms. Coming today, Retro Classics games are available to play for Xbox Game Pass members. Players who stream on the Xbox app on PC now have an additional streaming option with GeForce Now. Game Bar introduces quick settings, visual updates for Widgets in Compact Mode, and coming soon, Microsoft Edge Game Assist, an in-game browser that brings an immersive game-centric experience to Edge. And Xbox gift cards can now be redeemed for any amount via Xbox Rewards.
While i appreciate the gesture.... all of these retro classics have been made available everywhere else. I am hoping to see some other Activision properties make their way out of the shackles of the 5th, 6th and 7th gen. Licensing be damned... bring back the Transformers Cybertron games.
Love the Cybertron games! TF games have been shit lately. Would love to see that era revisited. I even did the multiplayer!
Metaphor on Gamepass just announced! O.o
Seriously, this is the best generation of Xbox ever!!!
We can´t catch a freaking break from awesome games arriving all the time!!!
It’s a HELL of a game. If you like JRPGs in the family of Persona, you will be in heaven… that is until you hear the various battle music…. then you’ll be somewhere BEYOND heaven!
Shuhei Yoshida offers his take on the recent industry implosion and ponders whether there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Greed crippled the game industry and other things I won’t go into.
Ironically, so did tech advancements.
New tech creates pressure to take full advantage of the power for people to feel a box is worth it. That expectation bloats team sizes (and by extension, costs) and to be more secure in a high risk-high reward project, they play it safe (which is why I think a lot of the industry is facing creative bankruptcy). Few franchises are proper exceptions because they're damn near entitled to a ROI.
But other than that? I'd say the adoption of Blu-ray in the PS3 kind of acted as the architect to some of the things some of us hate today. The decision to adopt it resulted in painfully show loading times because the drive was slow in the PS3. The result was mandating every console to have an HDD for installs, and Xbox 360 then discontinued those arcade models and every console came with an HDD. That adopted standard lead to a lot of games that were physical only to be available via download and that laid a path for digital distribution and the gradual death of physical media we're witnessing now. It was always going to be this way eventually, but it's hard to think that guaranteeing a HDD didn't lay some important groundwork. And now with crazy fast SSD storage and download speeds, it's gotten worse and now we're bloody streaming games via cloud computing.
Really great take on how we got to this point. Will add that the weaponizing/monetizing of the "console warring" concept, accelerated/facilitated all of your points. When you take what used to be simple bantering and jabbing between different fanbases and throw money/resources at it as the most effective marketing tool, instead of improving any areas that might add longevity to your products, you only improve sales while creating a destructive environment. Which now has come full circle. Gaming media/tech sites capitalized on this as well. So we now end up in a landscape where we get less for more, nobody is held accountable (unless you are Nintendo in which case, you will always be blamed for everything including world hunger) and what you now call and parade as "greed" to defend you own greedy company is years upon years of every asshat that has paid in $$$ what these companies get away with today, but yeah that "burn" or "you got ratioed" or "fanboy" this and that was worth it huh.
It's also screwing over gamers with limited budgets for PC hardware, well Nvidia is trying to at least.
OK, but what did Shu do about this while he was working in the industry?
If he felt so strongly about it, why didn't he quit sooner?
I'm honestly getting a bit tired of seeing this guy come out with all this stuff, week after week, yet he didn't seem to do anything about it when he was a prominent figure IN the industry.
*I got passed over for the CEO role and sidelined into an Indies CRM role, but I just sucked it up and did it for several years.* Great.
"If he felt so strongly about it, why didn't he quit sooner?"
Jim Ryan held him and down and demoted him to Indy role as you pointed out. We all wondered why Shuhei was never put in charge in the past and everyone else seemingly passing him up in high position's. Everyone getting promoted except him. He also spoke up about the LS awhile ago then folded and was actually help make Concord.
If it's not making the most money and attempt to have conversation that maximize profit they won't promote. Why? Because Shuhei was seemingly for the ppl.
Despite his 80$ comment on games.
'then folded and was actually help make Concord'.
Right, so once again he just sucked it up and went against what he thought was the correct path.
He also clearly didn't turn things around for Concord.
Seriously, if he felt so strongly about this stuff he should have quit ages ago; not just suck it up for years and then bitch about it to the public AFTER he quit.
Agree.
It’s easy to armchair QB other people’s decisions, but it’s all speculation. Maybe he loved Sony and wanted to see if things would turn around. It’s also hard to leave a place when you have been there so long. You think you have friends who will help you out, until you don’t. The corporate world really is dog eat dog. Having obligations like family also makes you do things you may not want to do in a perfect world. But this world is far from perfect, and so are we. So I will cut Shu some slack.
"Right, so once again he just sucked it up at went against what he thought was the correct path."
I mean yeah. He didn't have much of a choice. It was either go with what Jim wanted or get fired.
He went against LS but had to help with it anyway. Probably talked about all the bad spending that Sony was doing (and still are.) Corps don't want you to talk sense, they want to I to talk cents. That's goes for everybody.
Not sure why he didn't leave earlier he probably wanted to wait for the right opportunity to leave on a high note or leave on his terms. Much better than getting forced out.
Yeah, and sure, leadership don't want anyone rocking the boat; they just want 'yes' people through the ranks, but Shu didn't quit and make a point; he sucked it up for months or years. Nor did he go out on a high note.
If he felt so strongly about this stuff he should have told Jim to shove it, and join xbox, but he didn't.
At least he's talking about it and it's not just some anonymous internet person. That's why I posted his take. He was on the inside.
He knows better than most what's going on.
We live in a weird world where primary sources don't mean anything, evidence and reason hold no weight, but rumors and speculation hold the day.
Yeah, agree in general, but pretty much everything he's said since he quit could have been covered in a 30 minute interview.
Next week:
In a new interview, Shu reveals that he knew factions was going to get canned months in advance, but was powerless to do anything about it so just sat back and kept his mouth shut (and getting a juicy salary).
@SO1D
Was just going to say this. You can say this about anybody. Anyone on n4g that complains about greed but are doing nothing at their jobs to stop it... How dare you!
@ Outside
It's not just greed though; it's flat out bad decisions and poor leadership, and Shu was one of those leaders.
Because everyone knows you can really change the industry by quitting and being an outsider. I mean, his comments now aren't changing the industry at all. What would have been the advantage of doing it 8 years earlier?
He didn't, and doesn't, have to be an outsider though.
And great job by him calling out all of this stuff in hindsight. 'The Embracer thing turned out to be a train wreck'. Was he predicting this as it was happening?
As gamers we also need to make it clear what we want. Do we want fancy RT and RT
shadows, global illumination etc? Oh that's right we have to do the internet thing and brag about all those things. What we need is innovative gameplay mechanics and deeper more dynamic story telling and reactive realistic worlds and characters imo. Emphasis on Innovative gameplay mechanics. Expedition 33 was made by a tiny group of 30 ppl. Not sure what the budget was but I know it wasn't no 400m$ project or nothing crazy like that.
They join the Baldurs Gate team for being independent and releasing great game with out corporate meddling and stupidly big budget's that kills jobs and studios. If more groups get to together remain independent and create games for gamers and fans this industry would be better off in the future. Again it's about getting away from big corpos because corpos aren't gonna change, ever, they're just not. Scary to be out on your own? Yes but high risk high reward again as we've seen.
This is a shame. I've been using it since the start. It had a few problems and issues but overall I did end up saving a little bit over 60 dollars using this program. There was probably not enough people using it.
I've gotten so many free games throughout the years w this program, this sucks. I've been with it since the beginning.
I just run a majority of my needed purchases through it and pay it off immediately instead of using cash or debit. The most recent was on Tuesday I got a $10 dlc free. It was great as long you're not borrowing out large amounts of money that you don't have.
I never owned the credit card. Was this program available in Europe and Asia?
Seriously it was awesome Ive gotten a few free psn vouchers out of it.
i remember getting Assassin creed black flag for free with Redeeming my Points for 10 dollars when it was on sale this is very sad news.