Why do Sony keep making obviously bad decisions?

TSA writes: While the PlayStation 5 has been the runaway winner of the generation, running laps around Xbox for the last few years, it's been a pretty bumpy ride.

[darthv72]

I disagree... Sony may make a bad decision now and then, but to say "keep making" implies they are doing it all the time. That is MS who does that. And to be honest, Sony gives every idea a chance, no matter how good or bad the end result turns out. The "bad decisions" are more associated with the teams who come up with them than Sony who just lets them do their thing.

[pwnmaster3000]

100% agree.
One thing I like about Sony is they at least give it a try. No matter how much some fans disagree, they always take chances.

I mean look at Concord and Astrobot.
Two completely different games.

[GhostScholar]

Concord is the whole point of the article and no one wanted it and no one is playing it.

[outsider1624]

They should have researched how the fanbase would react to it.
Would the game be better as a f2p model or paid.
100 million or more spent, they could atleast have done that.

[Chevalier]

I think people forget the original Uncharted opening month only sold 50,000, but, Sony believed in the series and built it up from nothing.

They could have been complacent and said no to TLOU when Uncharted blew up too.

[Cacabunga]

It’s ok to make bad decisions, the important thing is to learn from them and improve from there.. grants you more respect

[fr0sty]

Jim Ryan steered them off course with the GaaS BS, and once you start up several projects and dump hundreds of millions into them, you have to try to at least make something back off of them. Now that these games are releasing, we can start to move past them, and back to what made Sony so great to begin with.

[thorstein]

Concord was made by a studio that Sony bought a year ago. This entire article makes no sense in that context.

[neomahi]

That's true

[Tankbusta40]

Concord wasnt a chance it was a idiotic cash grab that was 5-7 years too late to the hero shooter genre...a chance would be creating a game in a genre that wasn't established

[GhostScholar]

But people blasted Microsoft when they let the redfall devs “do
Their thing” lol

[Rude-ro]

Big difference in waiting a decade for a new AAA ip from Microsoft for it to be redfall vs A game that got hammered non stop from the beginning from Sony.
Huge difference.

[DodoDojo]

Let them do their own thing? Lol Microsoft had them rush it outdoor when clearly they needed more time and according to reports many of the devs left during development because they didn't want to make a multi-player game.

[pwnmaster3000]

Yeah like how everyone busted Sony for the same thing.

But also Sony didn’t really hype up concord. It was already blasted to hell.
Now MS hyped up redfall fully knowing it was ass.

Also red fall was really bad at launch unlike concord.

The only thing that saved red fall from having the same fate as concord was game pass. If Sony put concord on plus it would have a way more active fan base and be alive still

For me redfall is far worse then concord.

[TheNamelessOne]

@pwn

Sony didn't hype Concord? Open and closed beta, tons of advertising. They even spent the money to get it featured on that upcoming Amazon tv show - Secret Level. They outright bought the studio.

The hundreds of millions of dollars Sony spent around the Concord IP says otherwise.

[derek]

Neither the maker of Redfall or Microsoft are the victims of unfair treatment.

[pwnmaster3000]

Thenamelessone.

I rarely saw any ads for concord, compare to other games like god of war, spider etc. tons of advertising??? Literally just normal advertising for a game they own.

Open and close beta, of course they will do an open beta. It’s a multiplayer game. Has any multiplayer game not have that?? The purpose of it is to work out the kinks that people didn’t like. That is not hyping a game up. Your reaching.

They literally just released how a normal multiplayer game should be. of course they will market a game they own, it’s literally their job to do so, but they did not overhype it to be something more then it was.
Redfall had more advertising then concord and that’s fact.

[Einhander1972]

Ok, Redfall and Concord are totally different problems.

Redfall was rushed by Microsoft so much that the game was completely and obviously unfinishe. You might remember they had to put a sticker on the box because it didn't have the promised 60FPS mode, as well as the game being so broken the games enemy AI didn't work as well as textures that took minutes to fully load and many other problems, the game was barely even a beta build on release.

Concord was a fully finished and highly polished game that consumers simply didn't want. The game was not bad on the technical level at all, it was 100% made to Sony's highest standards.

[neomahi]

Different deal, man

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

@pwnmaster3000

I think I only ever saw one or two ads before Concord released, and even then, I saw more from streamers talking about the game, otherwise it's like this game barely existed, or at least the marketing barely existed.

[CrimsonWing69]

Jim Ryan has been a complete sh*t show from the very start. In fact, this whole Gen has been maybe the weakest I’ve seen since… well, ever for Sony. I thought with Jimbo out things would be brighter, but… well, we’ve got a bunch more GaaS coming our way. Let’s just hope it gets balanced out with their stellar traditional games.

[DarXyde]

Frankly, we shouldn't really care if they do GaaS. Why not?

The issue, for me, is having the very competent non-GaaS studios work on GaaS. If they want Haven to do Fairgame$, I really don't care. Bungie can make Destiny and Marathon forever. But when you try to get Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, Insomniac, Guérilla, etc etc on that?

Now we have a problem.

[CrimsonWing69]

@DarXyde

What is the point of the GaaS business model vs just making a traditional game? I guess the real question is why would you choose to develop GaaS games? I’ll give you a hint, it’s to f*cking continuously milk consumers through recurring revenue on a budget stretched thin over years.

The model is disgusting and quite frankly it’s some Frankenstein’d concept stemmed from the mobile game design model. I don’t care how fun a GaaS game is, it’s a model that is the cancer of this industry and the fact that they keep forcing it after failure after failure is revolting.

[DarXyde]

Mate, I'm not a fan of GaaS games. I also don't like online multiplayer or first person shooters.

So what do I do?
Avoid all of them. I just pretend they don't exist. And really, I don't care for the studios making them either. Never played a Treyarch, Bungie, or whatever game I couldn't just tune out.

Same deal. Allow them to exist, but don't engage. They can be super scummy pay to win models, but we've got to let the community decide. Sony has already learned the hard way that a great single player studio doesn't mean they're a great GaaS studio.

I think they're learning the lessons quickly, really. Even if they still have some GaaS in the pipeline, we see how quickly they pulled the plug on Concord. They've been letting Insomniac cook, so I tend to believe they're being cautious and not letting their golden geese make those games.

[0hMyGandhi]

why do I get the impression that no one actually reads the articles anymore.
Read the article.

[BehindTheRows]

They'd rather argue with each other. If it wasn't so typical, it'd be funny.

[Jin_Sakai]

You don’t keep making bad decision when you just released one of the best games of the generation.

[Goodguy01]

This gen has all but been odd.

[Philaroni]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this. I don't want to even guess what's next. For all I know we could finally divide by zero. And the Mc Flurry machine will work at every Mc Donald's.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I don't even know what's going on anymore, it seems like dumb decisions all around despite clear warning signs, from Microsoft/Sony, from multiple developers, etc... The entire gaming landscape is just baffling at the moment.

[VivaChe]

The writer's take on PSVR -- totally true. But it's not just PSVR; for whatever reason all the VR companies just don't invest and support the platform like they should. Even the mighty Oculus Quest 2 + 3 have oddly feeble software support. I see mostly the same games and apps on the store now as I did 3 years ago. PSVR is another one of Sony's "abandonware" examples (along with Vita, PS TV, etc. etc.) that are just head scratchers. Like why even develop and release a piece of hardware if you're not going to support it? I don't know.

But the writer isn't correct about the Portal. That one has been a success I think. It works pretty well, and lots of people love it. Now notably, that one doesn't require much ongoing support from Sony -- it has one purpose and it does it fine enough -- so maybe that has helped.

[ChasterMies]

VR companies are appropriately investing in and supporting the platform. VR is still niche, generally uncomfortable to wear, difficult with glasses ,still causes motion sickness, and requires a play space that a lot of people don’t have.

[TheNamelessOne]

They've definitely fumbled hard in the live service space (buying Bungie, the utter failure of Concord, spending years on Factions 2 just to cancel it), Even Helldivers 2, which was a hit at launch, has lost most of its user-base due to weak post-launch support.

Other than that though, they've been doing well.

[RhinoGamer88]

Spoiled and arrogant. PSVR failures should have resulted in a house cleaning. The Discord Sony team should be fire...lots of talent on the market.

[EternalTitan]

Concord is dead. Yay.

[Chocoburger]

The Jim Ryan era is over, it'll take some time for things to improve under Herman Hulst, assuming it does, but he comes from a game developer background, so there is hope.

[fsfsxii]

Hulst is worse lmao
He was confident in Concord and was instrumental in the GAAS push.

[SonyStyled]

You must be young

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I hope so, it's painful seeing this happen, especially to Playstation, I think we'll have to wait for the remainder of Jim Ryan's plans to play out first though.

[Chocoburger]

Yeah indeed, plans can't shift in an instant, especially with such long development times these days. We won't see Herman Hulst's 'touch' for awhile longer still. It could take a year or two before we're fully past Ryan's affect on PlayStation.

[GhostScholar]

I think they put so much energy into worrying about the abk deal that they got a little behind as to what people want now. Not one Sony fan wanted the overwatch knock off. They’ll be fine because they have beloved franchises they can default back to. That being said okay Astro for the love of god. It’s so good!

[derek]

If you're too afraid to try something new because it may fail, then you're doomed to never progress in life.

[hiawa23]

To be fair, Covid, chip shortages, and worldwide forces have fundamentality changed this generation and how it has played out like we have never seen.

[ZacultronTheFirst]

Because they can afford to? Because they don't really have much competition anymore? Because they think they can get away with it? Because they think they just need one cash cow gaas? Because,why not?

[DivineHand125]

I think every company makes bad decisions every now and and then. If we take a look back, those decisions would be:

Telling us they believe in generations then limiting the 1st party exclusives in the first 2 years of the PS5 to be cross gen.

Telling us those upgrades would be free for PS5 owners then turn around and charge $10.

Acquiring Bungie for 3.6B

Investing so much in live service games thus wasting hundreds of millions.

Requiring a PSN account to play PC games on steam essentially locking out half the planet from buying their games.

Significantly increasing the price of their subscription service without doing anything to add more value to the essential tier.

Releasing PSVR 2 without backwards compatibility and PC support. Also not giving it strong support from 1st party.

Those are the mistakes I can remember from this generation but compared to Microsoft that has a scandal every month and Nintendo in the old days where they had significant gaming droughts with no 3rd party support. Sony's mistakes are not as bad so long as they keep their greed in check.

[The Wood]

I agree but that 'Telling us they believe in generations' seems to be misconstrued just like the 'get another job' comment that was made. They did not say we believe in backwards compatibility. New generations should be different. Returnal for example.... without the new tech like the ssd that game wouldn't be what it was. Sometimes the old gens tech needs to be left behind or what's the point paying for new hardware. Look at the s and x....the x is clearly being held back buy the s and thats within the same gen like wtf

[The Wood]

Keep.......... or occasionally make. They've made more good decisions than dud ones hence the ever growing gappage they acquired against their direct competitor

[fsfsxii]

When you’re supremely successful and a market leader, every little mishap is painted as a “are they doomed?” article.

[isarai]

Jim, that's why he was put out with no fan fair before they even had a replacement ready. I could be wrong but i think they are just following through on what they can from Jim's initiative to recoup some of the money dumped into it. Putting all their eggs into the GAAS basket was a ridiculous decision, and i hope once all the crap he startiruns it's course we get back to what made PlayStation great. Some liver service games is fine, but to put ALL your studios on it?!! Basically threw out their bread and butter for the sake of gambling.

[blackblades]

Yawn!

[northpaws]

Almost as if someone got paid to release negative articles for Sony on the day of a masterpiece launch. But I must be delusional, has to be a coincidence.

[0hMyGandhi]

Listen. Not every negative article is a conspiracy theory.
Jesus Christ.
I mean this in the nicest possible way: go outside.
Unless you own stock in Sony or have a family member that works there, it should be of absolute zero importance to you that articles like this exist, or that your gut reaction is "NEGATIVE ARTICLE must mean 2+2=5".

[Rols]

Sony make bad decisions when they listen to noisy activists pushing their ideas or beliefs into games. Making a character with DEI inspiration doesn’t make them interesting or compelling. How the character interacts in the world, the voice actor and dialog is what makes a character interesting. Not many people cared Ellie (TLOU) was girl because her character was interesting, same with Aloy or Miles Morales. Call of Duty has a diverse roster of characters but apart from a select few fan favourites (from the OG MW or Black Ops), none of the others are really remarkable or interesting.

[WelkinCole]

I have been saying since last gen. I have seen them double down this gen. PS3 was the high watermark imo.

Diverse New IP AAA story focused 1st or 2nd party game is what made PS dominant.

After the PS3 gen Sony learned the wrong lesson thinking that online multiplayer game is the way to go with a few new IP in between.

How many new IP AAA story driven PS games this gen? How many remasters of past games?

By this time in the PS3 gen we had Resistance, Motorstom, Heavenly sword, Demon Souls, Valkrie Chonciles, Infamous, Uncharted, LBP, MAG as new AAA IP's. This not including other AAA games like GOW3, Killzone 2, Warhawk, MGS4 etc

Again compare to this PS5 gen?

And the crazy thing is the PS3 was harder to make games on than the PS5

Decisions have been made and Sony following MS is the fastest way for them go down and its seems like they have not learned thier lesson since they keep selling more PS5

If Sony does not change next gen this will be my last PS

[neomahi]

It's "Obvious Bad Decisions", and you get paid and are a "professional". Wow! People these days. I don't know how they get jobs. I was taught to proof read anything being submitted that mattered.

Anyway, PlayStation hasn't been perfect, true, and Jade Raymond's studio, for first as a CEO, is about to face the same fire and she's about to head through the ringer unless she steps back, cancels her project, and recognizes she's creating an experience for a PlayStation audience that has been bred from the very beginning to have single player story driven experiences. She's next and it's gonna jam up her reputation and her once chance and having something she owns and is her in a male majority market business. But, hey, what do I know?

Even then, PlayStation pales in comparison to Xbox, Xbox's failures they're trying to erase by convincing consumers consoles don't really have a place anymore. They're going to try and cheapen their value to make them seem obsolete to move on to more subscription type services and then claim they were ahead of the game all along. Problem is, Sega Channel existed in the 90s, then OnLive and Gaikai went at it on the battle of Game Streaming Wars where Gaikai sold their business to PlayStation which became PlayStation Now on the PS3 long before Xbox and is now part of the Top Tier PlayStation Plus. Xbox wasn't first, just like they weren't first with Kinect. EyeToy on PS2 was first it's just..... Xbox fashionably late as usual

[gold_drake]

this could very well be applied to alot of other companies.

especially a fertain other videogame one.

[Lolyta]

Shutting down talent like Japan studio really puts a bad taste in my mouth, the damage Jim Ryan left on Playstation is beyond repairable and them saying they don't have enough IP's is just ... ignorant!

[Tankbusta40]

Anytime you chase GAAS money you fail...anytime

[JimBeans]

Jim Ryan came in, ordered everyone work on live service crap, he got fired, now everybody is back to working on singe player games, but they lost 2 years of progress.

[ChasterMies]

“keep making”

One bad game and Sony is somehow a stumble bum. PS5 is an huge success. PS Portal was a huge success. Astrobot is looking like it will be huge success. Amazingly, all of Sony’s single player games are some of the best games ever. It has not been a bumpy ride.

[MaximusPrime_]

Nobody's perfect