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[cormack12]

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-big-video-game-industry-predictions-for-2024

Switch 2 will have an unexpected twist
But I also think it will come with some strange quirk, be it unpleasant (charging fees for backwards compatibility with Switch games) or just plain weird (augmented reality integration). My longshot prediction: a more complicated console with a detachable screen for portable gaming.


Saudi Arabia will go big on gaming
I expect that it will continue to follow that path in 2024, making a big splash with the purchase of a major video-game developer or publisher. This will lead to some fallout. Many Western employees have strong feelings about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. They’ll have to grapple with whether to stay at their jobs or venture into an uncertain market.


Consolidation will return
game companies are going to return to merging and acquiring. Potential buyers include Saudi Arabia and several US tech giants: Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. (Microsoft Corp. will stick with smaller moves rather than risk another drawn-out battle with regulators.) Potential sellers include Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Electronic Arts Inc. as well as a handful of mid-sized game companies, such as Borderlands-developer Gearbox Entertainment, which is on the market following the implosion of parent company Embracer Group AB.


Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.


The union effort will begin for real
The North American video-game industry is not unionized, although we’ve seen the beginnings of a few organization efforts at companies such as Activision and ZeniMax. I expect that to change significantly this year.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-big-video-game-industry-predictions-for-2024


Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.

 

[Lokaum D+]

 

[DenchDeckard]

Sounds so fun! Thanks Jason

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Looking forward to none of this being the case.

 

[clarky]

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-big-video-game-industry-predictions-for-2024

Switch 2 will have an unexpected twist
But I also think it will come with some strange quirk, be it unpleasant (charging fees for backwards compatibility with Switch games) or just plain weird (augmented reality integration). My longshot prediction: a more complicated console with a detachable screen for portable gaming.


Saudi Arabia will go big on gaming
I expect that it will continue to follow that path in 2024, making a big splash with the purchase of a major video-game developer or publisher. This will lead to some fallout. Many Western employees have strong feelings about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. They’ll have to grapple with whether to stay at their jobs or venture into an uncertain market.


Consolidation will return
game companies are going to return to merging and acquiring. Potential buyers include Saudi Arabia and several US tech giants: Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. (Microsoft Corp. will stick with smaller moves rather than risk another drawn-out battle with regulators.) Potential sellers include Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Electronic Arts Inc. as well as a handful of mid-sized game companies, such as Borderlands-developer Gearbox Entertainment, which is on the market following the implosion of parent company Embracer Group AB.


Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.


The union effort will begin for real
The North American video-game industry is not unionized, although we’ve seen the beginnings of a few organization efforts at companies such as Activision and ZeniMax. I expect that to change significantly this year.

So Switch 2 will have something different to Switch, someone will buy someone else, a few games will get cancelled and people will join a union?

Give Captain Obvious a round of applause.

 

[Fake]

Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.

I hate this guy, but I hope this is true.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

Switch 2 needs to have achivements.....unacceptable at this point if it doesn't.

 

[Del_X]

Unionized games development just means Korea, China, Japan, and Eastern Europe will continue to make games that massively outshine the narrative-laden slop pushed by AAA devs.

 

[Guilty_AI]

eh

Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.

Anyway, rip Men_in_Boxes or something

 

[Banjo64]

Wow, he’s regurgitated commonly held opinions.

 

[Robb]

Switch 2 needs to have achivements.....unacceptable at this point if it doesn't.

I’ll make an easy prediction and predict that it’ll definitely not have achievements/trophies.

 

[Fbh]

My 2024 prediction is Schreier will write at least 2 hit pieces against some development studio where he talks with "anonymous current and ex employees" about how terrible it was to work there.
Everyone he talks to will just happen to have blue/green/pink hair as well as a Twitter profile with pronouns, at least 4 flags and possibly a furry avatar.

 

[March Climber]

Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.

This one needs a big asterisk next to it. The big AAAs will find another predatory way to make money, it just won't technically be called 'GAAS' anymore. They will figure it out eventually because they have to.

 

[March Climber]

Switch 2 needs to have achivements.....unacceptable at this point if it doesn't.

This is only happening if more Japanese publishers and fans push for it. Otherwise, Nintendo has zero reason to include them.

The main reason I'd want their inclusion is for the potential of a more robust rewards system.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Nintendo charging for BC sounds very Nintendo.

 

[ManaByte]

I hope his wife's boyfriend is able to get him a Switch 2 at launch.

 

[Topher]

Wow, he’s regurgitated commonly held opinions.



edit: damn Banjo64 copying what others say actually works. I copied your post and I have more likes than you do.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

My prediction

Jason Schreier will continue being a rat

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

My big predictions for 2024, GaaS games will continue to be played, games will continue to be made, consoles will be sold, trailers will release.

You're welcome

 

[Ronin_7]

Looking forward to none of this being the case.

As always nothin of that will probably happen.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Will any of the Saudi gaming be available for foreign investors? Or will it all be private held?

 

[cormack12]

My prediction

Jason Schreier will continue being a rat

Please post a picture without the beauty filters.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Where’s his predictions or dirt digging any time Kotaku hits the shitter?

Cmon Jason. Don’t tell you’re a biased journalist not wanting to cover old stomping grounds.

 

[Hudo]

Schreier also maintained that the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster/remake is coming.

Dude is less reliable than 4chan. He can eat shit.

 

[Holammer]

So... We're expecting the opposite to come true then? Isn't that the GAF rule when it comes to anything Jason says, unless you agree with his analysis that is.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

So... We're expecting the opposite to come true then? Isn't that the GAF rule when it comes to anything Jason says, unless you agree with his analysis that is.

Bingo.

 

[SneakersSO]

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-big-video-game-industry-predictions-for-2024

Switch 2 will have an unexpected twist
But I also think it will come with some strange quirk, be it unpleasant (charging fees for backwards compatibility with Switch games) or just plain weird (augmented reality integration). My longshot prediction: a more complicated console with a detachable screen for portable gaming.

It does! Looking forward to seeing Nintendo's software take advantage of it.

Saudi Arabia will go big on gaming
I expect that it will continue to follow that path in 2024, making a big splash with the purchase of a major video-game developer or publisher. This will lead to some fallout. Many Western employees have strong feelings about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. They’ll have to grapple with whether to stay at their jobs or venture into an uncertain market.

This has been happening for a little bit already. I think the larger question is what are SA's goals here. Sure, divestment is good and is important, but in reality, there needs to be something they are working towards other than finding ventures outside of oil. They seem perfectly keen on potentially losing a lot of money, and I really am not sure this is a smart play for the industry long term, cause when SA ultimately decides to lower their stake to something far more fiscally responsible, you're gonna see a ton of layoffs and even potential shutterings of some really big names this industry has revolved around at times.

Consolidation will return
game companies are going to return to merging and acquiring. Potential buyers include Saudi Arabia and several US tech giants: Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. (Microsoft Corp. will stick with smaller moves rather than risk another drawn-out battle with regulators.) Potential sellers include Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Electronic Arts Inc. as well as a handful of mid-sized game companies, such as Borderlands-developer Gearbox Entertainment, which is on the market following the implosion of parent company Embracer Group AB.

I think he's fundamentally incorrect on who he views as being the players in the buyers seat of these deals. Amazon is still losing far more money on their gaming venture than gaining, and an acquisition just doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense for them, outside of Ubisoft, for the sole purpose of getting the set of rights to Tom Clancy's name and various other associated IP. Google just lost an absolute fuck ton of cash in gaming with Stadia, and unlike Amazon/AWS, Google's networking service suite is just not very well tailored to gaming like PlayFab and AWS currently are. Google has a much larger set of problems they are gonna have to tackle this year, so them giving traditional gaming yet another try just seems highly foolish. On the flipside, I do see Google making more attempts at broadening the reach of the Play Store and Apps on the play store into other mediums and platforms.

MS is likely going to steer clear of any major purchases for quite a bit - they have bitten off far more than they are able to chew and this entire operation needs to be properly manned before they start adding more bodies onto their management nightmare. Sony's already said they have intentions on conducting more acquisitions and planned on announced some of their intentions before the close of the current Fiscal Year, so i'm a bit surprised Jason didn't mention them.

Games as a service will face a reckoning
Sony’s PlayStation, which inexplicably said in 2022 that it planned to release ten live-service games in the next few years, will be the biggest victim of this collapse. It has already canceled several of its service games, and it’s reasonable to expect that more will follow.

Yeah, Jason is correct that this is a bit of cheating, but GAAS is going to go through a major contraction this year. One of the big stories to note last year was just how absolutely terrific SP & Co-Op experiences sold (outside of something like AW2), and I imagine that trend is only going to continue this year. Instead, I wish Jason had spoken more on services in general within the industry. There seems to be a hard growth cap for the two major network services (PS+ & GP/XBLG) that simply isn't being talked about yet. Considering so many games were being greenlit as a means to push these subscription services, I think the fate of GAAS is somewhat linked to the growth (or lack thereof) of these subscriptions. This is a broader discussion though.

The union effort will begin for real
The North American video-game industry is not unionized, although we’ve seen the beginnings of a few organization efforts at companies such as Activision and ZeniMax. I expect that to change significantly this year.

Its about time. Too many talented colleagues I know lost their roles at companies that were posting profit, just not enough profit. Talk amongst everyone in the industry, even the successful shops, seems to be that even more layoffs are coming. This just seems counter-intuitive to a degree that no one seems to really even attempt to understand anymore. The industry is easily more profitable now than its ever been, but last year had the highest amount of layoffs in a single year, and all the talk amongst speculative finance seems to be that the industry needs to cut jobs even further. And this is after so much consolidation and investment has already occurred.

One of the notions I hoped Jason would touch on here is about game dev unionization and its impact on the ever-growing 'indie' scene. Thanks to consolidation, more devs than ever before have their own independent outfits, all with far larger budgets and financing than we'd ever seen before. Unionization and its benefits cannot simply be something that only affects the big studios, as the working practices and employment instability affects devs at every finacing level.

 

[DonF]

there has been a lot of talk about the demise of GaaS but hell, most profitable games have a GaaS model so I dont see it going away. BUT! I do see the battlepass model changing. FOMO based stuff should not be the norm. I feel like if I dont religiously play a game that has a GaaS model Im missing out and after sometime I dont feel like playing it anymore.

We have a finite amount of time and some games are very aggresive with the retention.

Personally, I would love it if a game came along with 0 FOMO based battle pass shenanigans but a live service model to keep it fresh and entertaining.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

there has been a lot of talk about the demise of GaaS but hell, most profitable games have a GaaS model so I dont see it going away.

Games media (Jason Shreier) feasts off clicks, not truth.

He knows his audience. They need to hear this stuff.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

6) Boobs in games and white people in dev studios will keep irking Jason for no discernible reason at all.

 

[Shut0wen]

Looking forward to none of this being the case.

Only prediction that potential is saudis interest in the video game market, theres alot of companys that they have approached, i reckon they'll snatch EA and get fifa licence back, amazon more then likely to snatch ubisoft, theres also talks of chinese publishers selling certain developers to, heard theres a huge possibility of sumo digital being one of them, wouldnt be surprised if saundis invest in a console in 10-20 years from now

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

I’ll make an easy prediction and predict that it’ll definitely not have achievements/trophies.

Indeed. You’ll probably unlock red, blue or green shells instead.

 

[The Pleasure]

Is he playing Forspoken? My friend bought Forspoken and he looks like that when playing.

 

[March Climber]

So... We're expecting the opposite to come true then? Isn't that the GAF rule when it comes to anything Jason says, unless you agree with his analysis that is.

You're thinking of Michael Pachter, who has been notorious for predicting polar opposite trends in gaming. Jason has been 50/50 with predictions.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

The dude just hit his article quota for the month.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

 

[Senua]

(charging fees for backwards compatibility with Switch games)

Nintendo, Nintendo never changes

 

[Damigos]

Death to live service games

 

[Killjoy-NL]

I hate this guy, but I hope this is true.

Why? You can always choose to just not play live-service games.

 

[Fake]

Why? You can always choose to just not play live-service games.

I used to think that, until those games start to harm single player companies.

Is like Digital vs Physical. Some folks trick you into this 'they can live together', but some companies tried so hard to destroy physical in favor of DRM/Always Online digital media.

Same as this. I do believe they can co-exist, but in reality their push this so fucking hard at the point of forcing single player devs to pursuit this cash grab mentality at the point of affect singleplayer games.

 

[Ogbert]

Ogbert’s one big assertion for 2024:

Jason Schreier is a cunt.

 

[Godot25]

From what we know Sony cancelled TLOU MP project, MP project from Deviation, MP project from Final Strike Games, Spider-Man online game. Anything else?

 

[Killjoy-NL]

I used to think that, until those games start to harm single player companies.

Is like Digital vs Physical. Some folks trick you into this 'they can live together', but some companies tried so hard to destroy physical in favor of DRM/Always Online digital media.

Same as this. I do believe they can co-exist, but in reality their push this so fucking hard at the point of forcing single player devs to pursuit this cash grab mentality at the point of affect singleplayer games.

But Digital vs Physical proves both can co-exist. Neither isn't going anywhere.

Same will go for GaaS vs SP.
Last-gen it was said SP was dead. Turned out to be completely wrong.
Now they suddenly start saying GaaS is dying, but that too will stay.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

From what we know Sony cancelled TLOU MP project, MP project from Deviation, MP project from Final Strike Games, Spider-Man online game. Anything else?

No idea honestly I just always reference the drink Ybarra and Spencer shared when they heard Jimbo took over PS saying he would run it into the ground

Seems Jimmie jumping out when he knew all these projects were getting cancelled that he pushed for

Just personal musings

 

[MiguelItUp]

Switch 2 needs to have achivements.....unacceptable at this point if it doesn't.

For as behind as they are on all things multiplayer related that isn't local, I don't know if this will happen, or at least anytime soon. But man, it'd be great. It's insane they haven't done this yet, lol. Well, or improved online multiplayer experiences. There's no reason why adults can't enjoy it comfortably and children can be protected.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

No idea honestly I just always reference the drink Ybarra and Spencer shared when they heard Jimbo took over PS saying he would run it into the ground

Seems Jimmie jumping out when he knew all these projects were getting cancelled that he pushed for

Just personal musings

Jimbo would run things into the ground when Playstation is crushing the competition and almost beat PS4 sales (same timewindow) despite a pandemic and shortages?

 

[Fredrik]

Oh I see that he starts off the new year in his usual positive manner…

 

[Clear]

Unionized games development just means Korea, China, Japan, and Eastern Europe will continue to make games that massively outshine the narrative-laden slop pushed by AAA devs.

Yep, especially if its accompanied by more heavy-handed political messaging Asian devs and their products are going to eat them alive.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Consolidation will return
game companies are going to return to merging and acquiring. Potential buyers include Saudi Arabia and several US tech giants: Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. (Microsoft Corp. will stick with smaller moves rather than risk another drawn-out battle with regulators.) Potential sellers include Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Electronic Arts Inc. as well as a handful of mid-sized game companies, such as Borderlands-developer Gearbox Entertainment, which is on the market following the implosion of parent company Embracer Group AB.