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Sony's plan to compete with Xbox: Stay the course

Zannrebel

Member
See what I'm talking about. Hopes and dreams are important.

Dream Big Jimmy Fallon GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
When you have nearly 3 times the amount of AAA developers it becomes less hopes and dreams and more inevitable.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
I mean you can hate on TLOU2, it's not my favourite game.

But I'd imagine internally Naughty Dog is still very much the bar. In terms of sales, critical acclaim (reviews, GOTY, etc) it's hard to deny.

Thats not what I was saying. i was saying in terms of "New" IP and development execution. Because naughty dogs are such perfectionists their development timelines suffer. Insomniac has made more titles in a span of 6 years and is half the size and budget.

Insomniac is not dollar for dollar worth more in terms of revenue generated. Miles morales is already outselling The last of us part 2, and it was being sold more on a smaller install base than PS4. Ratchet will sell bangers. 2 titles in 6 months.

Look at insomniac's efficiency? They on average release more games than Naughty dog. ANd now both their current releases are going to chart and be metacritic darlings. And in 2023 we will probably hear or see spiderman 2 full release.

Naughty Dog released a remaster, Uncharted 4, lost legacy, and last of us part 2 in one gen. Insomniac launched Into the nexus, sunset overdrive Ratchet 2016, Spiderman, Miles Morales, and now Rift apart in June. In about the same time frame. And Im not counting the smaller titles they also put out for VR.
 

Agent X

Member
I think this is largely overrated by a lot of gamers.

The industry is littered with examples of no name studios that release breakout hits. Once the hit comes, proper funding + time seem to keep those studios at a certain status.

Proper funding and time is what Microsoft can give it's developers in spades now. They couldn't do that during the XBox One generation.

We hear time and time again how developers like working with Sony because of their hands off approach. A hands off approach in combination with resources doesn't seem like much of a hurdle for MS.

So, would you say that the best strategy for Sony is...to stay the course?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Three ways PlayStation can compete long term...

1. Mega merger with a high profile publisher.

2. GAAS future.

3. 11 studios vs 23...but what are the team sizes at these studios? If Microsoft only has 20 percent more developers than Sony, then the 12 studio advantage isn't that big of a deal and Sony can "stay the course".
 
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Papacheeks

Banned

Go look at how much The last of us part 2 and Uncharted 4 cost them, and go look how bloated their production was to get those titles out. They had over 1200 employee's at one point employed at Naughty dog to finish Last of us part 2. ANd still got outsold by a spiderman expansion by a studio with a third of that work force.

Effeciency is what Sony is now cracking down on hence jason's article talks about other studios working on other projects from other studios. Insomniac has shown they are efficient in working on multiple projects at a time. Naughty dog though works on different projects in development at varying levels, when one needs everyone on deck they seem to go all in on one project.

Insomniac was able to put out miles morales, a remaster/update to the original spiderman, and a new ratchet within 6 months of each other? So your response when talking about awards makes no sense what so ever.

Thats not what Sony cares about. Metacritic scores they care about, and also how well the game performs relevant to those scores.
 

Maxwell Jacob Friedman

leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
Go look at how much The last of us part 2 and Uncharted 4 cost them, and go look how bloated their production was to get those titles out. They had over 1200 employee's at one point employed at Naughty dog to finish Last of us part 2. ANd still got outsold by a spiderman expansion by a studio with a third of that work force.

Effeciency is what Sony is now cracking down on hence jason's article talks about other studios working on other projects from other studios. Insomniac has shown they are efficient in working on multiple projects at a time. Naughty dog though works on different projects in development at varying levels, when one needs everyone on deck they seem to go all in on one project.

Insomniac was able to put out miles morales, a remaster/update to the original spiderman, and a new ratchet within 6 months of each other? So your response when talking about awards makes no sense what so ever.

Thats not what Sony cares about. Metacritic scores they care about, and also how well the game performs relevant to those scores.
NO SHIT, do you realize Spider-man is the most famous marvel character, regardless if its Peter or Miles? The IP is a banger no matter who makes it, are we actually going to dick measure Spider-man which has: comic books (which have a longgggggg history and lore and character development), several movies franchises and coming off of the recent movies with infinity war and endgame being the highest grossing move of all time for then Avatar to retake it again, as well as more public acknowledgement, toys, actions figures, shirts, comforters
 

Topher

Gold Member
When you have nearly 3 times the amount of AAA developers it becomes less hopes and dreams and more inevitable.

3 times? Sony has 13 or 14 studios. MS has how many? 23? Now count how many games those studios produced last gen that were GOTY or even nominees. Sony has shown the ability to consistently crank out games of high quality. Microsoft is definitely in a better position now than they were last gen, but their production is still lacking.
 

Arkam

Member
Or when you are good at you job.
Nope. Business 101. Do what works til it doesn't (or degrades past a threshold). Change for the sake of change would be incredibly stupid. You only change when you are not profiting/gaining (enough) or if you are seeing/forecasting your profits/gains slipping. In both instances you would be losing/starting to lose to you competition and thus institute change to remedy.

I think you might be confusing the art/creative aspect of game design with the platform/Publisher business aspect. And even then, most dont tamper too much with a winning formulas. Seriously, look at the big franchises, mostly iterative changes that don't "rock the boat".
 

Three

Member
How is xcloud working out so far?

The reality is that it's too soon for any of these streaming services to have mass market appeal.

But to say they don't have their eye on the ball in that regard is not factual.
People are too dumb to realise that this is Plan B.

Sony when they first started heavily investing into PSNow and buying companies was during the PS3. When PS+ was born and giving the best games out was during the PS3. They had to make those investments to build their subscriptions.
Now their console sales are healthy, and their game income is great.
MS had to shift to services and invest heavily now because now they don't have that. If there comes a time were Sony need to bolster PSNow and move to that model they will but people need to realise that this is Plan B just as it is for MS.

MS isn't spending billions buying established studios or shifting to services because of competence in making and selling consoles and games, it's doing it because it needs to to remain competitive.

It's really strange how Sony needs to compete with MS when they are market leaders whereas what MS are doing is actually trying to remain competitive.
 
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Dr Bass

Member
No. I think if Sony does what they've done over the PS4 generation they'll get surpassed in the next 3 to 4 years.

Based on Sony's accelerating domination'? Everyone on the planet is just going to change their mind in terms of what they want?

The media is insane in this area. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Something where one competitor is clearly winning, and not only that but winning by increasingly larger margins, and almost ALL of the reporting is why that winner is in trouble.

People citing things like "streaming" and comparing Sony to Blockbuster or Blackberry ... it's not the same at all.

First off, streaming is worse for games, not better.

When the iPhone was released it was mind-blowing compared to what we had. The only thing mind-blowing right now on console is on PS5. Look at the response to Ratchet yesterday when twitter was generally calling it a CG movie.

Blockbuster ... again, not the same situation at all. Also what really killed Blockbuster initially in regards to Netflix was the convenience of mailing DVDs, which it seems everyone forgets. That's how they existed for a very long time. The Blockbuster experience sucked, so Netflix was able to take them out. The experience on PS5 is great, you get what you want, when you want. And it actually HAS stuff you want.

Stupid, stupid comparisons that bear no resemblance to actual reality. Again, this whole naysaying about PS5 when Sony is releasing game after highly rated exclusive game ... is insanity. Microsoft has been playing this strategy since 2013! When are the loyalists going to wake up and see that they've been given nothing but promises going on year eight now. And now we are being told it's going to take years for the output from the "23 studios!"

Man .. it's just getting sad.
 

ToadMan

Member
You referenced blockbuster.

Blockbuster never made an attempt to start investing in streaming infrastructure/services until it was too late. The mail in service wasn't even the problem, it was the rapid transition to streaming that blindsided them.

Sony were the first of the major console manufacturers to start investing in a consumer ready streaming service. There's also the fact that right now xcloud doesn't even work as intended (which is understandable since it's still in beta):



If anyone is "blockbuster" in this scenario it's Nintendo.


Please don’t use rational arguments with an idiot. It is literally a waste of your time googling stuff.

Just saying for your mental health 👍
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
If Sonys plan is to stay the course against a growing ms and a value proposition like gamepass, they are definately going to lose some market share. (To say nothing of Nintendo even) The history of the gaming market proves over and over again that companies who fail to innovate and or underestimate the competition pay a high price.

As the first party studios for ms start to deliver aaa games in year 2 and 3 of this gen on gamepass the value proposition of it will increase, and start to draw away some more customers. And they may even aquire more studios in that period, or pay for more third party games to be on gamepass. It just can't be ignored while releasing $70 games.
That said I don't think Sony is set to do nothing.....they are thinking and planning and may have a counter punch ready.
 

Agent X

Member
No. I think if Sony does what they've done over the PS4 generation they'll get surpassed in the next 3 to 4 years.

That's a fair enough response, but I disagree. It's Microsoft who needs to prove that they have a winning strategy.

Most of Sony's biggest game studios, whether purchased or home-grown, were nurtured under Sony's umbrella. Sony managed them properly in order to grow into the respected powerhouses they had now. Microsoft had numerous opportunities to do the same over three generations of hardware, but for the most part they failed to replicate Sony's success. Consequently, Microsoft feels the urge to re-roll the dice every few years, hoping that they'll get a different outcome with a different set of studios.

There's no sign yet that Microsoft is poised to surpass Sony in the next 3-4 years. They've already bought several studios over the last 3-4 years, yet most have yet to bear fruit. We can all hope that this will change soon, but we haven't seen any tangible evidence of this change yet.
 
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i like some of the stuff microsoft are doing with BC and their services but fuck me, can we get a new 1st party game from them already? theres something not right with them when it comes to actual development. thats why im still doubting what these new games will be like from them.

a publisher plays a huge part in the kind of games thats comes from under their studios and microsoft have a pretty awful track record. just look at stuff like crackdown 3, sea of theives or state of decay? very long development times and people were geninely excited about these games yet they turned out mediocre. they honestly looked like games that could be made by small indie teams with 2-3 years of development. you think its different now? just look at the halo infinte reveal. how could microsoft think that was ok?

something is just wrong with the actual game development side of things. you know you will get quality from sony, nintendo or rockstar games for example. they've built that trust up over many great games. microsoft is the opposite. i dont know what i'll get from them. they havent built that same trust. the only thing they really did was buy up a 3rd party publisher who makes a few games i like. once microsoft can consistenly release great game after great game than they would also earn that trust and hype that the others get. hopefully we can get tnat true competition eventually because sony are literally competig with themselves right now.
 
I'm starting to think that they are not really in competition with each other per se but against themselves. I'm probably 100% wrong but maybe Xbox is looking at it like "Are we doing better now with our Series S|X compared to the One?" within the same time period regardless of what Sony is doing and Sony is like "Are we keeping the same momentum that we had with the PS4 and are we building on that?" regardless of what Microsoft is doing.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
NO SHIT, do you realize Spider-man is the most famous marvel character, regardless if its Peter or Miles? The IP is a banger no matter who makes it, are we actually going to dick measure Spider-man which has: comic books (which have a longgggggg history and lore and character development), several movies franchises and coming off of the recent movies with infinity war and endgame being the highest grossing move of all time for then Avatar to retake it again, as well as more public acknowledgement, toys, actions figures, shirts, comforters

So how do you explain Ghost outselling Lat of us part 2? ANd I'll bet my account that RATCHET in June outperforms the last of us part 2.
 

Tg89

Member
When you have nearly 3 times the amount of AAA developers it becomes less hopes and dreams and more inevitable.
I dunno where the 3x number is coming from. But quality > quantity. MS doesn’t have much to show for it yet, whether they do in a year? Who knows.
 

Celine

Member
Sony's biggest risk is a paradigm shift to how third-party content is accessed.
The idea that the platform is a digital service instead of a PlayStation box or a Xbox box could become a dangerous one.
 
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What's that got to do with anything? You do know every console is sold at a loss right? Microsoft are looking at a much wider scope than selling the most consoles.

I agree, Sony will win this generation no worries, I'm more concerned about their business model after that. If the market stays the same then they're fine but what if it doesn't? Regardless all 3 are doing great and us gamers reap the benefits.
More console = more subscriptions. It's not that hard.
 

nerdface

Banned
Yeah, buying Bethesda makes the xbox space even more attractive to me. Plus BC, patches for framerates, and gamepass.

I'm starting to think Switch/SeriesS is a better plan for this next gen than Switch/PC was these last 4...for me anyway. I'd be looking at an expensive upgrade or new PC and that's PRE-COVID...the prices now are astronomical. The only thing I hate is paying for online, but live comes with gamepass doesn't it? I guess I give the assholes at nintendo money every month to play online, I can pay for a service-based company like MS.


When SeriesS was announced I laughed at it...but it seems like a pretty smart SKU now.
 

Tomeru

Member
Nope. Business 101. Do what works til it doesn't (or degrades past a threshold). Change for the sake of change would be incredibly stupid. You only change when you are not profiting/gaining (enough) or if you are seeing/forecasting your profits/gains slipping. In both instances you would be losing/starting to lose to you competition and thus institute change to remedy.

I think you might be confusing the art/creative aspect of game design with the platform/Publisher business aspect. And even then, most dont tamper too much with a winning formulas. Seriously, look at the big franchises, mostly iterative changes that don't "rock the boat".
I think I confused your previous post. Did you mean to say that sony would change something only if they were losing? And since they are not losing, its logical to keep doing what theyre doing?
 

Maxwell Jacob Friedman

leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
So how do you explain Ghost outselling Lat of us part 2? ANd I'll bet my account that RATCHET in June outperforms the last of us part 2.
In all time sales to my knowledge TLOUP2 is still on top of Ghosts
Ratchet has a broader appeal.
Also what this man said, TLOUP2 is an M rated game which appeals to a certain demographic where as Rachet can appeal to everyone
 
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Still head of XBox since 2014.
There is a difference between lead of the division and vice president. Different budgets.
Basically budget goes to Windows -> Windows lead decides whether to give the bigger budget to Xbox or not.

I don't think you can give me any info that I don't already have on this.
If you have that you should be aware why being Xbox lead and gaming vice president are the different things
 
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There is a difference between lead of the division and vice president. Different budgets.
Basically budget goes to Windows -> Windows lead decides whether to give the bigger budget to Xbox or not.


If you have that you should be aware why being Xbox lead and gaming vice president are the different things

Xbox had bangers for exclusives during the 360 era

Even the first quarter of the Xbox Ones life was miles better than the PS4

Stop making excuses
 
I'm thankful for Gamepass, without it Sony would have sold games @ 80$

When those Bethesda games hit gamepass day 1 boy are we gonna see some lovely things from the expensive 30fps machines

if we being thankful..

im thankful for my Job, it allows me to buy games i want and to give full support to Dev's whose games i buy so in the Future they can make even better games
 

Krizalidx11

Banned
if we being thankful..

im thankful for my Job, it allows me to buy games i want and to give full support to Dev's whose games i buy so in the Future they can make even better games

Most of the time you support the hardware maker that works the devs 13 hours a day and fires them when they make - profit YTY

Supporting the devs would be buying their games on PC where they get a lot of your money directly not 50% of it
 
Most of the time you support the hardware maker that works the devs 13 hours a day and fires them when they make - profit YTY

Supporting the devs would be buying their games on PC where they get a lot of your money directly not 50% of it

lol Bro its part of life putting in extra Hours at work, sometimes everyday.. every job may require it sometime in our lives..
it shouldnt be a problem if youre working on something you Love and its your passion.

Consoles all day enjoy your uber PC
 

Tg89

Member
lol Bro its part of life putting in extra Hours at work, sometimes everyday.. every job may require it sometime in our lives..
it shouldnt be a problem if youre working on something you Love and its your passion.

Consoles all day enjoy your uber PC

Hard disagree on that one.

If you're working voluntary overtime on any sort of frequent basis you're being exploited. Always get paid for your work, don't be a charity to a corporation.
 
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Portugeezer

Member
The biggest risk to Sony is Arrogant Sony ™ (which I don't think they are, but people take their abruptness or silence as "arrogant"), when in reality the Internet just overhypes anything about Gamepass then wonders "why doesn't Sony respond [to us overhyping xyz news]".

Yeah, buying Bethesda makes the xbox space even more attractive to me. Plus BC, patches for framerates, and gamepass.

I'm starting to think Switch/SeriesS is a better plan for this next gen than Switch/PC was these last 4...for me anyway. I'd be looking at an expensive upgrade or new PC and that's PRE-COVID...the prices now are astronomical. The only thing I hate is paying for online, but live comes with gamepass doesn't it? I guess I give the assholes at nintendo money every month to play online, I can pay for a service-based company like MS.


When SeriesS was announced I laughed at it...but it seems like a pretty smart SKU now.
It does seem like a nice console, especially if you haven't upgraded to 4k.
 
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Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Ok.. so Sony's plan is to make good games and Microsoft's plan is to have Bethesda (or somebody) make good games for them.

I am ready to play these games!

Oh and gamepass gamepass gamepass. Every thread must say gamepass 52 times per page. Gamepass! Pass gas with gamepass.

didn’t Sony just close there studio in favor of having purchased stuidos like Naughty Dog and Insomniac making there games? Glass houses and all…
 

Tg89

Member
It's also curious that there seems to be this new narrative where Microsoft has their finger on the pulse of the industry. We're like half a year removed from having to have the entire internet laugh at Infinite to convince them to put it back in the oven for a bit. They frankly don't seem to have a working barometer for what a good game is these days.
 

nerdface

Banned
The biggest risk to Sony is Arrogant Sony ™ (which I don't think they are, but people take their abruptness or silence as "arrogant"), when in reality the Internet just overhypes anything about Gamepass then wonders "why doesn't Sony respond [to us overhyping xyz news]".


It does seem like a nice console, especially if you haven't upgraded to 4k.


I'm not really sold on 4k, from a gameplay perspective. I'd rather spend that money on more stuff to play.
 

Malcolm9

Member
Yeah but as customer, I would like Sony to follow MS in some of their strategies.

I would like them to at least pay more attention to BC titles. I mean it’s fine even if they aren’t getting those BC upgrades like Xbox but I would like for them to make it possible for me to transfer my digital purchases of PS1-PS3 to the PS5. I don’t want to bust out my PS3 whenever I want to play them. It was fine last gen because I seriously doubt the base PS4 could emulate the PS3 but the PS5 is much more powerful now not to mention PS1 and PS2 which they already did for the PS4.

I realize it’s not at the top of the priority list but I would like to at least know what they’re planning to do with it.

BC with the PS3 will never happen, it will be streaming only via PS Now. But I'm down for them adding more PS1/PS2 titles.
 

Arkam

Member
I think I confused your previous post. Did you mean to say that sony would change something only if they were losing? And since they are not losing, its logical to keep doing what theyre doing?
More or less. Cuz from my vantage point, what MS has been doing the last ~3 years is what makes sense for them. They had to change and try new things. For Sony it makes less sense right now to do any major changes as they are making solid profits and growing their user base. They will want to ride that as long as they can. They will make changes for sure, but I wouldn't expect anything too radical anytime soon. I think we all expect some sort of revamp of the PS+/PSNow (and friends) to improve the value proposition in light of GP gains. In fact I think we already see the baby steps with those "Play at Home" games they have been "giving" away.
 
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