At the end of the day, they are providing a service that others don't. You can moan about it all you want, but the reality is that without them, very few niche games would get a physical release. It's niche and they don't get the benefit of large volume manufacturing and sales.
They are a business; they have many costs. They employ staff, probably pay out benefits, have to invest in capital and property, have to work out licensing and contract agreements, hav...
The problem with this thought is that is that had it been a normal release and gotten even a little bit of marketing, the true potential of the title might have been realized. No developer wants to pour their passion into a project only to see it overlooked and become a market failure. There's pride in knowing something you've created has been successful on a larger scale than just a few niche hardcore players.
Or perhaps it's more about cutting through years of hype to get down to the mustard. Regarding studios shutting down.... Do all studios deserve to exist? The great people in each studio, even if they close, will have no problem finding work elsewhere.
"More, more, more!!! I don't care what it takes - I deserve more! And I won't PAY a dollar more!"
That's the mindset of some people out there.
I don’t like it either. But I understand that there are reasons important enough to have to face the “wrath” of weekend warriors for them to be doing it.
The sad thing is that if most people were in Sony’s position to decide and were offered a nice incentive for implementing a login system, they would be their true hypocrite selves and take the bait. Humans are inherently greedy creatures and most only talk a good game until they themselves are in a position to reap benefi...
The review bombing is childish behavior and it’s only serving to undermine the “review” system in the end. If you don’t like something, don’t buy it. It’s okay. You don’t have to go out of your way to sling mud and burn down couches in the street to express your displeasure.
How about this… if I create a product, I am allowed to sell it the way I want to sell it. Sony’s not requiring a login just because they want to be funny or to piss people off. They are establishing an ecosystem and there is rationale, some known and some unknown to us, for why they would want to do it. If a consumer does not agree, they have the option of not buying the product. Seems like a fair situation.
Agreed. My favorite gen next to PS1. The leap from jagged PS2 games with blurry textures to HD bliss like in Ridge Racer 7 or Motor Storm was unbelievable.
PS4 was just a refinement of PS3 games, and PS5 is just so more spit-and-polish on top that.
Not just analysts. These very message boards were full of people throwing as much shade on the idea as they possibly could. I saw it for what it was, a great authentic and plug-and-play way to access your system from another room (or house). Glad it’s finding success.
It's the implosion I keep talking about. Expectations and reality in the industry are no longer aligned. This will continue until some sort of market equilibrium is reached.
I mean.... okay. While I can appreciate the virtue-signaling of it all, this along with the recent Helldivers 2 debacle is only proving that Metacritic scores really can't be trusted and are just something that can be used to manipulate. If a game/movie/etc is not rated solely on its own merit, what good are the reviews to a consumer actually looking to make the best choice in selecting a piece of entertainment?
Might be a great game but it clearly did not make enough money to justify having the team make another game (under the MS umbrella).
It's never been just about whether your game is good or bad. The industry is full of great/underrated games that have a cult following or critical acclaim, but that fail to make great sales. Sad but true. It's a high stakes game, and at the end of the day, companies have to be profitable and make profitable investments. At the very...
The article is essentially focusing the blame on MS. GamePass was a hail mary play to change the gaming paradigm and carve out a special niche for themselves, emulating the Netflix model, that might have led to MS becoming the leader in the long-term. Unfortunately, the subscriber growth isn't really there, and the model isn't really built to weather that lack of revenue. MS is now in a restructure mindset to figure out how they balance out their model in a way that can still make ...
I'm thinking mid-to-long term. At the beginning of this gen/end of last gen, the focus was still on the blockbuster. That ratio will begin to shift to better economize the library.
And of course as we are seeing, things can change quickly.
The denial is strong with this crowd. The implosion is happening. This big budget “race to the top” that started in the 2000s is reaching its peak, and may fall off a cliff. With MS throwing in the proverbial towel, that leaves Sony with the most to lose. There’s no more growth in the industry to facilitate ever-growing game budgets, and with consumers not willing to pay more than $60 for a new game, publishers have only one choice to survive…. Consolidate, downsize, and downscale.
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This is exactly it. There is more of this coming. MS runs from one bad idea to the next, and GamePass is an unsustainable train wreck that we get to watch in real time.
GamePass is stalled for subscriber growth, and all that they can hope for is to either A) Reduce the quantity of games (i.e. shutter game studios), B) Reduce the quality of games (to make more mediocre but lower budget offerings), or C) Raise prices on existing customers. Or some combination of those.
Didn’t move the GamePass needle and the PlayStation port couldn’t save the return on investment….
This. ^
Publishers are slowly mitigating all development risk since every new big/medium budget game has become too big to fail. Games are too expensive to make and the profitability for titles rests on a hair’s edge. When you need to sell 5 million copies of a game to be profitable, you know that we’ve turned a new page in gaming. The real victims here are the smaller studios/games that bring so much character and variety to the industry, like with Hi-Fi Rush.
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It’ll be announced. Unless they are going to eat the loss for the principle of it all.
Exactly. It was such a ridiculous fever dream that just mucked up the lore. A proper prequel to the original game has so much potential to really tie things together and delve into Bravo Team’s final hours…. RE Zero wasn’t it.