-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
"Sony is in trouble." - Gaming system group under siege
- Thread starter Amir0x
- Start date
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Metalmurphy said:
Wow, that's great but has NOTHING do to with my post on the subject... the person I quoted post, or the person that person quoted. So, who the are you talking to about what exactly? Are you keeping up with the thread or just go to the last page and make a comment?
badgenome said:
The problem is that 'interesting games' does not necessarily translate into 'marketable games.' I'm not criticizing those games, just making a general statement of fact. If 'interesting games' were always 'marketable games,' I imagine this industry would look very different right now.
seattle6418
Member
Bossun said:
I think that´s not the point. What people like the Wall Street journal say, is that Playstation products need to wipe the floor like PS1/PS2 to give Sony some sort of advantage.
Just good enough won´t cut it, and that´s what those articles are trying to say.
As a Sony "fan" i am worried. Samsung, Apple and Microsoft have been giving them a lot of problems, mostly due to the fact that they are not the only kids on the block on the devices they are producing. It was a lot easier when they were going up against nobody.
One thing is clear, they cannot afford to have PS4 "just good enough". It needs to be a blockbuster.
Metalmurphy
Member
Chill dude.OldJadedGamer said:
Just saying it's understandable that he said what he did since that's something that only happened recently. They have been independent in the past. Most people probably still think they are not part of SCE.
Risk Breaker
Member
NemesisPrime said:
It seems I got quite the reaction lol. Don't misunderstand me, I said console gaming, of course I would still be playing, but on PC (and DS, because the PSP wouldn't exist either) where I could get the vast majority of 360 games that I like. That way I would only really miss Gears of War which is a shame but it's not worth THAT much. And I must say that I bought my 360 before I bought my PS3, but that was before Kinect, when I thought that MS would keep on getting and making great exclusive games in big quantities that I cared about.
Vinci said:
No, I agree with you. That's my point: Vita is already lousy with awesome games with TGS still a few months away, but whether it will succeed commercially or not is another matter altogether.
It looks amazing, and I've got my preorder in, but I wouldn't be completely shocked if the "we're in a post-smartphone world now, bitches" crowd was right and this ended up doing sub-PSP numbers.
Wow. This is nearly exactly the same argument that Nintendo fans had after E3 where they truly believed that everyone was out to get poor wittle Nintendo.Kung Fu Grip said:
This just goes to show you how ridiculous the fan persecution complex is as all fanboys no matter the company will put forth the same arguments, I meant hey can't all possibly be right, can they?
Callibretto
Member
imo, PSP failed because it has nothing going for it other than PS2 lite visual. it didn't have games experience that can only be played on PSP like with DS touchscreen, lack of 2nd analog compromise shooter genre (or basically any 3d game that have camera control), and a couple years into it's life, Sony pulled PSP support switching resource to PS3, add in overblown piracy problem, and it's PS2 lite graphics quickly lose appeal when PS360 start going full gear ahead.Maxrunner said:
all of those are acknowledge by Sony. now they have various control input so they can offer game that can't be played on console. it's fully integrated with PSN now complete with trophies, voicechat and various social network features, Sony commitment to make Vita software, having as much project in development as PS3. and PS3 lite graphics that will still matter until the next gen console appear (and by then, they can still offer unique games with it's various input options)
Kung Fu Grip
Banned
How many times must this be repeated? Are you guys expecting something magical to happen?Amir0x said:
This has been known for years now. Yes they lost profit and market share yet here they still are, selling systems and releasing over a game a month this year.
The profits were lost. Ok, we get it. Can they get a chance to get it back? Lord.
Your on that "BD is doomed" too?
Bluray is doing fine actually-
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=6632
And people need stop bringing up digital downloads. Connection speeds are nowhere near fast where it can completely take over disc. Ownership is king. people like to have tangible things. I think DD and package media will coexist.
While kinect is a success it has done pretty much nothing to PS3's sales. Especially overseas. How can you say "only because of japan" when europe is one of the sony's biggest markets? The PS3 sells more than 360 there half the time. Even with kinect the PS3 still had no problem selling.
Im glad you see this yourself. And its always mostly bullshit. The same bullshit. Because, as i posted a few pages back, the world seems like it has a fucking hard on for sony. Even in this very thread. You posted a small section about Sony pictures, not the games division, and look at the discussion it generated.
Im pretty sure it'll do better than the PSP. 3DS is not the raging success people thought it would be and i think the vita will capitalize on that.
Graphics Horse
Member
I always thought 'hard on' was a positive term... this is where I've been going wrong all my life.
njean777
Member
Vinci said:
Don't think they are in the same arena, one is a decent phone with crappy game controls aside from the rare game that actually knows that the thing is not a dedicated game player, the other is a purely competent gaming device that has all the necessary components to play any game that the iPhone has or any other mobile device plus more. Whether the Vita will be successful has yet to be seen, I will be getting one, but any non gaming person probably will not.
Callibretto
Member
badgenome said:
I keep wanting to say that we're also in a post-tablet era now and anything a tablet can do, Vita can technically do it too, but until Sony get their act together and start making essential productivity app running, I can't say anything to the smartphone crowd.
Vinci said:
I think people are talking past each other here.
The premise of the discussion - or Amir0x's question, at least - is whether we should be concerned about the Playstation/Sony business because of how it might affect Sony's output.
In that respect, the past performance of the business is kind of immaterial, except I suppose with respect to any debt incurred due to past performance that the business may continue to be paying off. The current state of the business is what's most relevant to that point. My point was that if SCE managed to maintain, more or less, high product development investment during their toughest financial days, I'm not sure why I should be concerned about them doing so now and going forward, when the financial situation has improved and appears to be going forward on a better footing. The prior losses in this context are kind of immaterial to that. No one is denying the financial history of the PS3, they're just pointing out its limited relevance to the business going forward (again, unless SCE incurred debt in that period that will be crippling going forward - but the business has been profitable for the last number of quarters, so one presumes whatever debt they have is serviceable/manageable with the current state of the business).
I could understand people fretting a few years ago about how things might affect Sony's creative output. But it turns out any such fretting would have been fairly unwarranted, their output has remained strong. In that light it seems alarmist to fret now when current circumstances are better than they were.
Grampa Simpson
Banned
It's actually capable of being either negative or positive, but it's generally positive. I usually take it to mean raging obsession. Usually when it's negative though, I hear it as a 'mad on'.Graphics Horse said:
Strange thing, language.
Mr_Brit said:
I like how you're still finding an avernue to troll Nintendo. Maybe you should own up to that post you made earlier that blew up in their face.
The complaints you're referencing to were almost entirely because of your spin everything in a negative way and make a new thread approach to discussion than the current status quo of a few information threads where the virals can still work their magic.
Don't take it personally that you got called out for being a tool.
Kung Fu Grip said:
Apparently there are still a large number who don't 'get it,' otherwise various posters wouldn't have the damn charts sitting idly by for almost daily exposure. If you 'get it,' great, but don't assume that everyone does because they don't.
I don't know. How often does a PS2 come around?
Within the context of company profits, Blu-Ray is a drop in the bucket compared to what Sony lost. And yes, it's perfectly reasonable to bring up DD. Sure, CDs still exist, but they're hardly as significant as they once were. DD will eventually overtake physical media. This is happening in the music industry, the publishing industry, and will in the movie and games industries too. Not soon, per se, but it will.
Based on what exactly? I'm really curious.
If the 3DS is not the market leader in handhelds this generation, it will have nothing to do with the Vita.
@gofreak: The people who are concerned about Sony - yes, I would characterize my comments and Amirox's as concern - is that they don't appear to be doing anything especially novel. And if they continue on the same trajectory with the PS4 as they are with the Vita, I cannot foresee the company rising like a phoenix out of the ashes.
Oh, they definitely won't. Tretton himself said they're not aiming for the multimedia casual crowd like the PSP, they're going after gamers.njean777 said:
That casual market was lost to the DS back in the day, and now it's lost to the iOS devices. Sony at least knows this going into the Vita, but Nintendo still seems certain they can win that crowd back. We'll see.
Vinci said:
of course it matters if its making a profit now, and yes its a failure due to the previous losses. But it matters that its making a profit now because that will impact how they approach PS4 and confidence in heavily investing in another launch. If it had continued to make significant losses, it may have resulted in Sony being under pressure to not release a PS4, come out so late that Nintendo and MS will have locked them out, or underspec so much that they become irrelevant.
a strong PS3 now (or at least a competitive one) is important for PS4
HamPster PamPster
Member
chubigans said:
I like to think of the Vita as a kindle. Sure you can read (and more people do read this way) on your smart phone or tablet but hobbiest will seek out the best device for that hobby. A kindle won't be the mass market device that the kindle app is but that doesn't mean there isn't enough people to support it. I'm sure more people will play games using PSSuite then Vita but that doesn't mean the Vita market doesn't exist.
Isn't the DS the most successful system of all time or close to it? I find it hard to believe that even with Apple, Smartphones and tablets there isn't a big enough market left over to support a dedicated gaming handheld. It won't put up DS numbers but nothing else this gen did either
At least this is what I hope. I <3 Gravity Daze ::swoons::
Vinci said:
I can only speak for the thread of debate I and some others were having with Amir0x. He expressed his point in this post, and comments I made after that about the relevance of current profitability vs prior profitability were in that context - the context of not giving a fiddler's piss about corporate performance, but just what impact the business side could have on creative output of Sony's. My point, again, is simply that I do not see cause for concern now when that creative output has weathered pretty terrible days, financially, and SCE's business, the sustainability of that business, has improved since those days. That PS3 has accumulated losses of XYZ is sort of irrelevant if you want to consider the production capacity's vulnerability to impact - you want to look at the business now and going forward.
As for earlier points that may have been made about needing to spark something so as to 'reconnect' with the market - look, I think it's easy to overstate things there. I think it is overstating things to talk about Sony being completely disconnected from the market and not serving anyone. You don't make you way into tens of millions of homes and hands every year (as SCE has for the last couple of years), if you have some fundamental and critical problem with connecting to customers. A little perspective is all I'd ask for on that end. WRT Vita and PS4, in particular, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens with the latter seeing PS3's performance given all its self-inflicted handicaps, if Sony avoids those handicaps with their next. I think Vita gives a bit of hope that they will. I think Sony has both with Vita and particularly with PS4 a big opportunity for generation-on-generation growth, perhaps big growth in PS4's case.
This is a ridiculous thread. If this was 2006/2007, there was at least a reason for the "Sony is doomed! DOOMED I TELL YA!" postings. At that time Sony was lving in an alternate dimension where everything it did turned out bad. But that course was changed years ago and they've improved immensely. Yes, compared to the previous console generation they've lost a lot of ground but they've clawed their way back to relevancy in the gaming world.
Sony will probably sell more consoles than MS at the end of this generation, they've established Blu-Ray as a HD movie platform, their gaming studios have been turning out great games, software sales have improved, PS3 hardware and software is profitable, etc. If it weren't for that PSN hack, I'd have said that currently Sony's PS division is looking a lot better than it did in the previous years. With the $250 PS Vita coming out at the end of the year and the weak sales of the 3DS they're in a good position to battle Nintendo in the handheld games console market. It's a certainty that when the PS4 is introduced, Sony won't make the mistakes they made with the PS3 (cutting edge hw sold below cost, $599 price tag, hard to program exotic CPU, losing substantial marketshare to MS because of 12 month delay, losing casual audience to Nintendo, incomplete online feature set for the first two years, etc)
Sony will probably sell more consoles than MS at the end of this generation, they've established Blu-Ray as a HD movie platform, their gaming studios have been turning out great games, software sales have improved, PS3 hardware and software is profitable, etc. If it weren't for that PSN hack, I'd have said that currently Sony's PS division is looking a lot better than it did in the previous years. With the $250 PS Vita coming out at the end of the year and the weak sales of the 3DS they're in a good position to battle Nintendo in the handheld games console market. It's a certainty that when the PS4 is introduced, Sony won't make the mistakes they made with the PS3 (cutting edge hw sold below cost, $599 price tag, hard to program exotic CPU, losing substantial marketshare to MS because of 12 month delay, losing casual audience to Nintendo, incomplete online feature set for the first two years, etc)
njean777
Member
chubigans said:
Well at least I can be happy at Sony for not trying to go after casual land, they know they will not win it and will cater to gamers on the Vita. I have a 3ds and like the system, but if Nintendo thinks they can beat apple/android I'm sorry but I do not believe that will happen. IF Nintendo actually changes face and starts to cater to the core (fantasy?) maybe they can push for 3rd parties on the 3ds, but we will have to wait to see that.
badgenome said:
Yeah these games are interesting but it's not nearly enough. Especially if you consider that not ALL of them will be released on the day of the Vita release.
I do want the Vita. I don't even care if it doesn't succeed as the DS as long as it succeed enough to survive and have games on it.
It might go the same way as the PSP more or less, not a huge success outside Japan but a very good console nonetheless, and sufficient enough.
Though they seemed to already have western oriented games in development. More than when the PSP came out. Hope it does some good.
get2sammyb
Member
gofreak said:
How dare sense prevail in this thread!
TheBanditKing
Member
Souldriver said:
This. It would be horrible for them not to be around, I am still recovering from Sega's exit which has really hurt the creativity of their company and the industry. Leaving me with just Microsoft and Nintendo to choose from would just not do. I could elaborate but I don't feel like doing the back and forth as people point out how I'm some "fanboy" or how "baseless" something is. Plenty of companies have done much worse for longer and are still around.
gofreak said:
gofreak said:
Part of the broader point is that none of their divisions are doing well and they are no longer in a position to subsidize the laggards. Well SCE actually subsidized a lot of things during its hayday.
The issue now appears to be an organizational wide rot and their traditional strengths and conglomeration can no longer be relied on.
Mr. B Natural
Member
badcrumble said:
Remember when a company could go single platform cause it just wanted to? Cause it really wanted to push 1 hardware and not have to concern about others? It's simply not viable anymore.
Remember when "the man of the house" could work fulltime for the middle class family and the wife can stay home with the kids if she wanted to? It's not necessarily because the family is full of greed or all about success and the bottom line. Sometimes you can't justify sitting revenue when the world starts to claw at your wallet. Expectations change. Costs change. Risks change. Competition changes. The world gives you less options.
NemesisPrime
Banned
Vinci said:
No
Callibretto
Member
chubigans said:
they're not giving up the multimedia crowd, it's just that they're focusing on the core gamer first. they'll announce it's multimedia capability later, and casual gamer (and kids) will certainly in their plan once they can price drop it to more mass market price.
Vinci said:
End of discussion only for a very narrow venue of discussion: namely whether the PS3 will ever recoup its losses. Of course it won't. For broader, more interesting discussions, such as Sony's strategy for the future, this history doesn't matter as much as some of the usual 'business GAF' pundits seem to think it should. The current state of affairs will have a much greater influence into Sony's continued support of the brand. And as gofreak has pointed out, probably repeatedly, from our vantage-point Sony is circling the wagons around Playstation. Hell, Hirai is on the short-list for next CEO. And based on that, a good deal of this thread is 'Playstation/Sony is doomed' histrionics.
That's not even taking into account the idiotic truism of 'Sony should make a new walkman'. Well, yeah, it'd be great if they could just do that. It's stupid to assume that every company out there isn't trying to do exactly that. Barring actually coming out with a revolutionary new product, what they should focus on is profitability, and over the last couple of years we've seen SCE make great strides in that direction.
Deku said:
Yeah, and we talked about that too, or at least I made glancing references to that. I'd just say again that SCE doesn't need subsidizing right now - isn't relying, for the moment at least, on performance elsewhere in the business - and in terms of subsidy made elsewhere detrimentally impacting SCE's product output...if in the face of PS3's financial calamity, SCE moved to more or less protect and maintain product development (which they did), it is hard to think of external circumstances at other units forcing some change in that stance. Particularly given Playstation's role in the company, and the strengthening of its position within the company in the last couple of years wrt priority. Like I said, I think they would seek to do some of things suggested in the OP's article before they would allow subsidising of fat elsewhere substantially harm the Playstation business.
So, tl;dr - I'm not worried, or at least, find it difficult to understand people fretting over this now vs periods in the past. The blog post in the OP offers nothing new to discuss or worry about wrt Sony's situation.
TheBanditKing
Member
obonicus said:
Exactly, I'm glad at least a few people seem to get it, I get so tired of all these "death watch" articles written by "journalists?" who're paid to write these sensationalist headlines to help keep the stock market folks entertained. Imo its not impossible for me to imagine a Sony that consists only of the Playstation brand, and I think that will happen long before they back out of gaming.
Sorry if discussed...
This slide from the EEDAR report has to be troubling, no matter how specific the information source.
Dead last. I was at E3 and the buzz seemed healthy, but I would never have figured that back home the reception was so lukewarm among the more mainstream. It seems to me that Sony has lost the faith of their consumers in the handheld realm. They have A LOT of work to do in order to turn things around or this thing is going to just be a repeat of the PSP.
This slide from the EEDAR report has to be troubling, no matter how specific the information source.
Dead last. I was at E3 and the buzz seemed healthy, but I would never have figured that back home the reception was so lukewarm among the more mainstream. It seems to me that Sony has lost the faith of their consumers in the handheld realm. They have A LOT of work to do in order to turn things around or this thing is going to just be a repeat of the PSP.
Jeff-DSA said:Sorry if discussed...
This slide from the EEDAR report has to be troubling, no matter how specific the information source.
Dead last. I was at E3 and the buzz seemed healthy, but I would never have figured that back home the reception was so lukewarm among the more mainstream. It seems to me that Sony has lost the faith of their consumers in the handheld realm. They have A LOT of work to do in order to turn things around or this thing is going to just be a repeat of the PSP.
The PS Vita has just been announced but we hardly know anything about the games (except for Uncharted) it seems. The PR machine hasn't even been activated yet. I wouldn't worry about that at this point in time. It would be completely different if those stats stayed the same a couple of weeks before the official launch.
.... dude...Jeff-DSA said:Sorry if discussed...
This slide from the EEDAR report has to be troubling, no matter how specific the information source.
Dead last. I was at E3 and the buzz seemed healthy, but I would never have figured that back home the reception was so lukewarm among the more mainstream. It seems to me that Sony has lost the faith of their consumers in the handheld realm. They have A LOT of work to do in order to turn things around or this thing is going to just be a repeat of the PSP.
TheBanditKing
Member
ymmv said:
What I find even more alarming is how low the 3DS placed on that list. Beating out a 10 yr old console by only a million views is hardly good news for Nintendo, especially after a strong 3DS line up.
How is it moving the goal posts when the game in question is for a handheld system? And everyone who played the PSP Syphon Filters sung their praises. It is one of the best gaming experiences you can have on a handheld and they followed it up with an excellent FPS with Resistance: Retribution.JasoNsider said:Kinda moved the goal-posts a bit thereLast I saw, there wasn't wild song and praise over Syphon Filter PSP....Uncharted 2, however, is another story.
Bend and Ready At Dawn are the portable equivalent of triple A development teams.
Of course software always wins. But the software needs the right medium to deliver it. Geometry Wars on the DS was ok, but Geometry Wars on the 360 was great. Dual analogs, more horse power, and a better screen went a long way in making that a better game. Super Stardust in a portable format as long as it keeps visual fidelity and the same user interface (with the Vita allows) is an exceptional piece of software. An exceptional piece of software that Sony will likely be selling at or near launch through PSN for a quarter of a full retail release.
That is Sony's software strategy. They see a large base of excellent pick up and play content on PSN in the form of full PSN releases and with PS Minis. They are a fun diversion on a console but on a handheld they match up with the best protable-centric retail releases you can find.
From day of release on the Vita you'll be able to play things like A Space Shooter for Two Bucks, Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess, Angry Birds, etc. for just a few dollars out of pocket. You'll have the launch lineup including Vita exclusive versions of Uncharted, Wipeout, Hot Shots Golf, and Super Stardust. Then not so far down the road you'll see almost all PSN releases coming out as Vita compatible, making way for games like Outland, Flower, Pixeljunk games, etc. on the go. On top of that PS3 games will start having Vita releases with cross system play.
Like I said, this is a major software offering if Sony and 3rd parties construct a good model for PS3 owning double dippers and keep a strong stable of PSN based $1-$15 releases. This is where the Android and iOS markets have headed and Sony can offer that experience along with the more traditional, fleshed out games within one piece of hardware.
There is plenty to get excited about for people who have familiarity with the franchises coming to it, the developers who are behind many of these games, or the software lineup already in existence that will be available day one (PS Minis) or shortly thereafter (update patches for PSP titles to make use of Vita's additional hardware).
The Vita was only revealed a few weeks ago and already its core title launch lineup is looking promising. At the same time it immediately steps into a content delivery system loaded with a catalog of excellent compatible titles.
The 3DS offered nothing new and still its most powerful software offering is a game Nintendo has re-released several times before. Meanwhile Sony has lined up versions of its top disc based PS3 franchises, new big budget IPs, and quality transitions of some elite PSN content to the Vita. The software offering isn't weak for anyone who has interest in what the Vita offers as a platform, when judged with any objectivity. And that is before any major 3rd parties show anything substantial.