I wouldn't expect a killer showcase. As far as the whole David Jaffe Connie Booth thing goes, I think Connie was the first head to fall before Herman Hulst for a lack of game production.
I think 2024 is going to be a somewhat rough year for Sony 1P games. Maybe we see Wolverine if it is rushed, but outside of that, it's a toss-up, mainly of minor 2nd party titles.
I think Sony looks for a general formula: 1P + 2P + 3P games in a year. If you know 1P is going to be really light, you have to go heavier on 3P and maybe you rush out some 2P games before they're ready like Destruction All-Stars, but 3P is REALLY expensive and has no guarantee of success. If you look at FF16, my guess is Sony probably regrets paying for it, especially since people aren't buying XS to buy games at this rate.
Overall, Sony is probably betting they can have a really weak 2024 without much impact on hardware sales and rebound in 2025.
I think that's why you're seeing cuts now where Sony was able to withstand them earlier in the year and late last year. They can't sustain the higher operating costs for a whole year with reduced revenue likely to be forecasted for 2024 on the basis of less 1P software and they're not going to have anything as big as Spider-Man, so that's certainly the reality of things.
Yeah, lot to agree with here. And I'm just gonna say it now so people don't act surprised: it's going to be a lot closer between Sony, Nintendo, and even Microsoft the next couple of years than some might want to think. The Switch 2 is not going to be a joke and will have a lot more 3P support early on compared to the first. I'm expecting Capcom's gonna be there big from Day 1 probably with ports of RE4 Remake, Street Fighter 6 and RE9 (if it's ready for next year) plus Monster Hunter. Square-Enix is probably going to have a double-package of FF VII and Rebirth for it near launch or shortly after. Baldur's Gate 3 is going to have a port to it near launch. Tekken 8 will be there from early on, and I bet a lot of the new Western 3P AAA releases coming next year will have ports on Switch 2.
Microsoft's going to go hard with marketing ABK stuff and tying all their content to Microsoft brand (Game Pass & Xbox). They're going to tie a massive amount of guns/cosmetics/skins/EXP/etc. bonuses to Game Pass subscriptions to drive COD, Diablo, Overwatch, Candy Crush etc. players to the service. And a lot of those will probably be focused specifically on Xbox Game Pass, because they'll want to drive console sales growth. Hell, if that plays out well Microsoft'll probably start being more aggressive with similar perks tied to Game Pass subs for 3P games, too. Not anything "exclusive" BTW; I just mean that you can either get that gun for "free" with a Game Pass sub, or pay $10 to get it on PlayStation & Steam. Stuff like that.
Sony still has a lot going for them next year, even if internal 1P non-GaaS releases might be pretty light. They got Rebirth (albeit only 3 months exclusivity), should have Stellar Blade, and Rise of the Ronin as well. Also most likely Death Stranding. GaaS-wise they have Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show (that one's a regular). There will be new content for GT7 and Destiny 2 as well, and possibly either Fairgame$ or Concord. However I don't think Wolverine is coming 2024, that's more likely 2025 at this point.
I just hope things like the rumor of SIE working with SEGA and Bandai-Namco on bringing back legacy IP are true, because Sony needs more games like that. They don't have to be AAA games, either, so less pressure for them to sell 20 million copies (or even 10 million copies, or even 5 million copies in some cases) in order to have big profit margins. They need to make other changes too, mainly with PC. Porting the current-gen non-GaaS titles to PC is just a bad strategy and damages the value proposition of the console long-term IMHO. The ports don't even sell particularly well on PC anymore so, what's the effort honestly for?
If they want to bring those IP to PC that is perfectly fine, but make games
TAILORED for the PC audience. Don't port GOW: Ragnarok; make a GOW RTS/4x-style game and put that on PC (like what MS did with Gears Tactics & Halo Wars). They should be doing for PC & Mobile, what Nintendo's done for Mobile. You didn't see Nintendo wholesale port Mario Kart to Apple & Google because that would damage the value proposition of the game on Switch (and the console itself) so what did they do? They made a mobile spinoff with the IP instead, which was the smart decision. Sony need to be doing that with their games going from console to PC or mobile. That way they still grow the IPs beyond console but without jeopardizing the console or lowering its value proposition over time.
But yeah, 2024 & 2025 are going to be very interesting and possible indicators of longer-term fortunes for the consoles. So for Sony/SIE in particular, I want to see if they make the right changes. History shows they usually do, so I'm expecting the same here too. If not? Welp, it's been a hell of a run.
![[Sigma]](/data/avatars/m/701/701747.jpg?1726376545){kind=avatar}
