130°

Sony Appoints Former PlayStation Exec Lin Tao as First Woman CFO Role at Company

Lin Tao has been appointed as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Sony, making her the first woman to hold this position at the company.

gold_drake62d ago

if shes more than qualified for it, sure go ahead

GamingSinceForever61d ago

Why else would they have hired her?

330°

Sony Leaks New Stealth Warbond for Helldivers 2

Sony has inadvertently leaked the upcoming Silent Salvation Warbond for Helldivers 2, fueling speculation about new stealth gear and ongoing faction battles ahead of the game's one-year anniversary.

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gamegator.net
96d ago
MrDead96d ago

...how did a site that's primary focus is selling digital keys get posted here?

Now I see they're using this poorly written "article" to push digital keys "Will you be diving into the fight? You can find a cheap Helldivers 2 key in our price comparison."

darkciide96d ago (Edited 96d ago )

It's a price comparison - how do you think news sites make money? At least this page isn’t selling your data to advertisers or anyone who wants it.

290°

Sony Wants to Release Big Single-Player Games Every Year From 2025; Discusses Lessons Learned & More

Sony hosted its quarterly financial conference call, and CFO and COO Hiroki Totoki provided more insight into the the PlayStation business.

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simulationdaily.com
Zeke68184d ago

"Astro Bot has sold 1.5 million units copies in the 9 weeks since its release. Interestingly, 37% of those who purchased the game had not bought any first-party game from Sony in the past 2 years."

Not that Sony released a bunch of games during that timeframe huh?!!

RaiderNation184d ago

Release a great game at a reasonable price and it sells. Wow what a concept! :)

Cacabunga184d ago

So Sony wants to be good old Sony? Not a bad idea but then stop with horizon milking and gaas for a while

Eonjay184d ago (Edited 184d ago )

I don't really think people would very harping on GAAS if Sony had released more single player games. Although my two most played games this year are Sony's Helldivers 2 and Microsoft's Call of Duty... which are both GAAS.

Sony is big enough to make both work but they should do more of this and let their fans know the single player games are coming (even though we already know about at least 8 of them)

By the way this is good news. I love their single player games too.

Relientk77184d ago

Yes, that would be great, do that. We sure got some bangers this year with Stellar Blade, Astro Bot, and FFVII Rebirth.

RaidenBlack184d ago

2025 Yotei and DS2
2026 Wolverine + Horizon MP
2027 Naughty Dog new IP and Venom
2028 Santa Monica new IP and FFVII-3
2029
2030 Physint

goken184d ago

I hope they manage Yotei properly, put a gag order on that Voice actor, stop her from antagonising the whole player base.
Seriously, they should have been more careful choosing who represents their games. I have no issue with her, but i do see why her choice may be a concern for many people. It’s just not a risk worth taking

goken184d ago

All great games, but i think Sony talking about 1st party and i think in their minds Astro Bot isn’t one of those big games and wasn’t expected to be as successful as it turned out.

TheKingKratos184d ago

Finally... Sony this gen seems to learn all the mistakes Microsoft done and just repeated them.

TheKingKratos184d ago

Sony still on board with that sh1t too

No wonder this gen is so damn slow and boring... I need to see what Ps5 can do and play amazing single player games but the output has been very poor so far and we still see Cross gen games and now they release another Ps5.2

Notellin184d ago

Yeah Indiana Jones, Avowed, Doom, Fable, Clockwork Revolution, Perfect Dark, and Everwild are all GAAS.

Oh wait you're a liar and just making stuff up.

Cacabunga184d ago

Check their last showcase and let us know once more.. you are so clueless and speaking of pure ignorance..

goken184d ago

Yup about sums it up. At least some one at HQ is stepping in to steady the ship.

RaidenBlack184d ago

But what about smaller experimental/more-fun projects?

Abriael184d ago (Edited 184d ago )

They closed all the studios that did these. Japan Studios, Pixelopus, etcetera.

northpaws184d ago

I think we will only get those from indie developers now.

anast184d ago

Not enough people buy them, even the ones that clamor for them.

BlackCountryBob184d ago

Unfortunately 97% or PS5 owners didn’t buy AstroBot, they’re a money making enterprise in the end and if people don’t buy the games, they won’t keep making them

DarXyde184d ago

The problem with that approach is the scope of gaming contracts. There's a reason we're seeing fewer experimental titles and many of the newer ones play similarly to popular games.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 184d ago
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230°

Ex-Sony Boss Shawn Layden Explains How to Make Games Faster, Cheaper

Khayl Adam: "Former president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Shawn Layden, began foretelling the current, apocalyptic state of the video game industry in 2020. A piece of conventional wisdom industry onlookers will often cite, Layden himself says it was no remarkable feat, gleaned by observing trend lines over decades. He even offered some suggestions for how developers can cut costs in the future and get their games out quicker."

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pushsquare.com
DarXyde326d ago

A very fair assessment. I think it's fair to say Nintendo runs away from photorealism at a million miles an hour, and that's really the best approach there. Maybe once in a while if you have a great idea, but you should really have a massive financial buffer to offset potential losses from an unsuccessful project.

Procedural generation is a great idea, but I fail to see how it differs very much from AI—sure, AI requires there to be some precedent to pull from, but I think both have the "green cow" restriction, where something novel is constructed from something that exists (in this case, recognizing a cow and the color green).

To that end, with the talk of more time and less money vs less time and more money, it sounds like Layden believes fewer games being made but with procedural generation will occupy gamers longer...? The challenge there is those games don't really have an end. But he does have data on his side that most people don't actually finish their games. I do, and this lack of closure on an undertaking would drive me a bit mad. But that's just me.

His approach is certainly more sustainable and he's got a great point. Remember how hard games were back on SNES and Sega Genesis? How many of us saw the end of all of those games without cheats or emulation? Many of those games may as well have been procedurally generated because you're hoping to beat it, but in reality it's just about how far you got that day (most games didn't save, in case you're reading this and a bit younger).

I personally prefer to see an end, but I can't really dispute his point either.

Michiel1989326d ago

you actually got it twisted, with AI you shouldn't have to have a set of presets or precedent to pull from, it should be able to come up with that itself, with procedural generation you need to have a "ruleset" in which you need to design a level/map. Think of something like how tilesets from hades/diablo work, there is some freedom but if you play a decent amount of time, you will see the same layouts over and over, with AI that shouldn't be the case. If you wanna see some pretty advanced AI in gaming, check out open AI, they did some really impressive stuff with Dota 2 and with at least 1 other game which I can't remember.

DarXyde326d ago

Michiel1989,

I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that AI would be able to construct something entirely novel. Let's use the example of Google AI creating its own language between two AIs:

An AI would define language in a way that we define language: that is, it is possible to crack the code of this "novel language" because it must follow pre-existing rules for language. Grammar, syntax, etc. AI is essentially restricted to the information it is fed or pulls from, is it not? We often hear how AI models must be trained on something, so like people, it draws inspiration from existing ideas to create something new. If this is not the case, how could two AIs understand the language that is created? There has to be a set of existing rules to allow communication.

I don't mean to say you're wrong, I just don't think there is much distinction between it and procedural generation in game design.

You mention Dota 2 is doing something in this regard. I'll have to take a look at that and see what you mean.

Michiel1989325d ago

in the case of ai vs procedural you can basically compare it to:
Procedural being tilesets that can be placed vs AI giving them a full blown level editor.

AI doesn't need to communicate with itself because you can kind of merge them together from what I understand. With openai they gave them only 2 objectives, killing the enemy base is good and dying is bad. From there on they kept the ai playing games against eachother at 10times normal speed or even faster, don't remember exactly how fast and then they managed to merge it somehow. The AI beat the best teams in the world, although after a while it got cheesed because the AI had very little playtime against people compared to playing vs ai, but just the fact that they managed to do that with AI, I'm sure it can handle a level editor and placing some objectives in them.

I'm not sure what you exactly mean with communicating, that a game will have several AI's in one game? because that's not how they do it now, it's one AI running everything, it only needs to communicate with itself. They idea behind is that the game devs will create/train the ai, not put in a blank slate ai and that hopefully after tons of hours for each individual player it will finally be half decent.

I don't mean that the ai will create everything, lore, assets and gameplay, if that's what you're thinking.

Can definitely recommend checking out the dota 2 openai stuff, although it might be hard to understand how good the AI actually is if you didn't play the game. (it also did plenty of terrible stuff, or at least things that people would never do)

derek326d ago

@Darx do you want more Nintendo type games? I don't. Use to be a big fan of Nintendo but they do not change they've been making largely the same games for over 30 years, like they're stuck on repeat. They're fun especially for kids but Nintendo will never make a game like gt7vr.

gold_drake326d ago

its also the fact that nintendo sets a budget for even their mainline games.

darthv72326d ago

When i was younger, games were short and to the point because they were meant to keep taking your $ at the arcades. Then came home games, and people wanted more for their $$ so the games got longer. Now that im older, i prefer shorter games. i have a shit ton of games i have started but never finished due to limited time and patience. This includes a laundry list of big AAA titles and RPG's.

i just can't do it anymore, which is why i play more arcade style games. I always buy the new big game in the hopes i can get into it... but always return to the shorter and easier to pick up and play ones.

gold_drake326d ago

im with ya.

im definitely cautious to what i buy these days.

anast325d ago

I'm the opposite. I used to prefer arcade fighters and etc, but as I get older I enjoy 80hr to 100hr experiences over the course of a few years. My focus has actually gotten stronger as my time has gotten more limited and there aren't that many actual good games to be in a hurry. We have been experiences quantity over quality.

anast325d ago

*experiencing

My typos aren't a good sign of focus here.

TiredGamer325d ago

Totally there. With the exception of a few games, I generally feel that games today are full of filler and the experience, even if it is a good one, gets stale after the 10 hour mark and I subconsciously reduce the effort to return to it and finish.

The original God of War is a title that I have never completed. I have gotten about 80% of the way through 3 separate times (original PS2, PS3 Remaster, and Ps Vita version), but I run out of steam at about the same mark and will just fail to return to it. And this kind of thing exemplifies my feeling with a lot of modern games. I just don’t have the desire to continue for hour upon hours once the concept wears thin.

The one modern example I will make an exception to are the FromSoft Souls titles. Those have that wonderful risk/reward old-school play style that keeps my interest for a good deal of time, and I have finished all of the mainline titles.

anast326d ago (Edited 326d ago )

This guy wants people to lower their expectations...I bet the prices will still keep going up though...A company like Sony should have almost impossible expectations, they're good for it, around $97b good with gaming being almost $6b good.

gold_drake326d ago

oh im fully expecting them to go up next gen. either right at the beginning or in the middle.

TiredGamer325d ago

Rational discussion is critical in this stage of game development. We are reaching a point now where you need hundreds of artists to make super detailed graphics in a game that most people don’t notice. I can appreciate photorealism, but the “wow” factor is gone for me and it’s not worth the extra time and money to chase diminishing returns.

Shawn is just talking sense. I’m a lifelong gamer and I only finish a fraction of the games that I start because they are too long for me. And I find myself more interested in retro gaming since the game concepts tend to be more pure and grounded. After PS3/XBox360, I have rarely been “wowed” by game graphics as they have achieved a general level of being good enough.

anast324d ago

I'm good. They can lower the prices and lower the pay and concentrate on making easier games to manage.

gold_drake326d ago

i also think games are so expensive cause of the seasoned directors in most cases. and you know, if you have 100 ppl working on a case, it stacks up fairly quickly.

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