At E3, both Sony and Microsoft lavished Nintendo with praise for their bold new direction because no one knew how it would perform -- PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were sure sellers to gamers, but Wii was a question mark, so why not look good in the media? Now that Wii's out, receiving growing accolades and sellouts worldwide, at least one of those companies has changed their tune.
"We feel very confident that the PlayStation fan is going to wait until they can get a PlayStation 3. If they do pick up a Wii, it's as more of a novelty." -- Dave Karraker, senior director of corporate communications at Sony Computer Entertainment America, to the Wall Street Journal
Sony has traditionally been quick to talk down the competition, especially when they decided to enter the handheld market. Both Sony President of Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison and SCEA CEO Jack Tretton argued Nintendo DS was limiting itself to the traditional Pokemon-fueled markets.
"The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance. Those formats don't appear in our planning. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it's the truth. With the DS, it's fair to say that Nintendo stepped out of the technical race and went for a feature differentiation with the touch screen. But I fear that it won't have a lasting impact beyond that of a gimmick - so the long-lasting appeal of the platform is at peril as a direct result of that." -- Phil Harrison speaking to MCV, 08/26/2005
"We really feel like they're [Nintendo] appealing to the same audience that Game Boy has always appealed to ... They're potentially losing some of their core audience and they're not really expanding beyond that and we think we're expanding into a completely new audience as we did with PlayStation. And we'll do just what we did on PlayStation; we'll dip down to the younger consumer eventually and we'll ultimately appeal to that vastly Earth wide audience we carved out with the original PlayStation."-- Jack Tretton talking to GameDailyBIZ, 09/21/2006
Square Enix's announcement earlier this week is telling of a potentially new attitude towards game development in Japan, an attitude that has Dragon Quest jumping ship from Sony to Nintendo. With the most rapidly expanding userbase in Japan, would Sony tell Square Enix they're limiting their potential with a machine that appeals "to the same audience that Game Boy has always appealed to"?
Companies, particularly public companies like Microsoft, need to grow.
i mean its pretty simple, they spent close to 30 billion in acquiring activision, they thought they'd make it bk no problem, and that didnt happen.
its just shit that because of MS's miscalculation alot of people lost their jobs.
This is exactly what many people said would happen including the CMA and FTC. Lies lies and more lies and they allowed a $69 billion buy out to happen.
gold,
You can't be serious, right?
Do you think that MS thought they would make 80bill in a year & Half? They haven't even released titles under MS yet, lol.
But in fact, that A/B revenue is already paying off, look at the last earnings call. That $80 billion is long-term money, my guy, no sane person/company would think they would make that back in any short-term situation, it's a long-term investment.
Let's play silly then. If MS's reason for laying off staff and closing studios was due(which it really was not) to the A/B deal, tell me what Sony's reason was for past studio closures, the recent 900-person layoffs, closing Sony London, shutting down Dreams, and closing Japan Studio? Zipper? Psygnosis? cuts at all their internal studios.
Keep in mind, you are claiming MS's reason is because of the A/B deal; please explain Sony's reason.
this is not a sony vs MS debate. dont make it something it isnt.
and of course not, but im pretty sure they thought they'd make more money after the deal. they didnt, and closed off some studios.
its pretty insane to think there is any other reason for the closure of studios in this case.
(It really was) due to the Activision Blizzard deal and the loss of physical sales due to gamepass. You keep bringing up Sony in all your posts about this, stop deflecting and trying to change the topic, this is about MS and what they are doing.
once in a while you see someone too invested in their make-believe console war that everything happened has to be connected to said war…
a bit of banter between fans is normal, this crusade you’re doing now isn’t.
Wow idiotic. You bring up very old closures not that there haven't been recent ones from Playstations, but, seriously stop deflecting. This has NOTHING to do with Playstation.
Does Playstation got $3 trillion behind them and daddies wallet? No they don't so stop making a fool of yourself.
Xbox has never been profitable really and they just keep losing money so between their worst hardware sales, terrible 3rd party sales and now terrible 1st party sales.
Gamepass numbers that are no longer being announced shows their numbers after 3 years of missed targets has flatlined. Plus their recent gains up to 34 million were ONLY because they folded Gold members in too. Absolutely take your idiotic rhetoric out of here. Keep on topic without deflecting.
Drake,
"this is not a sony vs MS debate. dont make it something it isnt."
You are correct that it's not an MS Vs Sony Topic, but when exaggeration and imagination mix from a one-sided social group, similar examples are needed to ground radical thoughts; in this instance, the example was that shutting down 3,4,5, even 6 studios during a restructure/ buyout/acquisition is not some anomaly(it can suck) that has to be dissected or spell doom and gloom.
"But I'm pretty sure they thought they'd make more money after the deal. They didn't, and they closed off some studios."
But they did make more money, a lot, actually; the last earnings call showed a huge growth in profit, almost all due to A/B revenue.
"its pretty insane to think there is any other reason for the closure of studios in this case."
The fact that they did make money, kinda throws this out the window, and besides, you don't wake up and say, hey let's close a studio, you look at the output, you look at the dev as a whole, the long term and short term, you weigh it against all other studios and goals, you keep key members, ect..then you close if they are the weakest links...which by MS analysis they were.
Again, I will make a small Sony comparison, just so some of you can understand and see past the bias; Insomniac, ND, and Bungie have made some of the best games ever created, yet Sony saw fit to cut jobs in every of these studios, even tho Insomniac & ND are the biggest producers of PS games, leagues ahead better than Tango and Arkane, yet, they saw cuts, mind you, while being the TOP produces of PS first party. They were told to cut costs, and more jobs may be on the line, and Bungie is being threatened by a hostile Sony takeover. Put that in perspective, as I know that layoffs and dev closures are different, but if the best of the best is getting cut off, it is less than surprising, that lesser studios are closing.
@Cheva,
My response fits well with your comments as well. You even went on to prove that the dev closures are not just due to A/B acquisition. Then you point out Sony has less money than MS, inferring that MS should keep devs open that they see as lesser earners, while Sony having less money makes it okay to close them. lol...it doesn't work that way.
im not reading all of that. u have ur opinion, i have mine.
thats rly it.
but this aint sony vs ms.
You're trying to compare a 100 billion company to a company that has 3 TRILLION worth. SIE has to live or die on their own. And in turn, PlayStation has helped the main company again and again. Sony has to balance out what is working and not working in the company.
While Xbox has Daddy Warbucks footing the bill to keep the platform afloat. They have been bleeding money from Nvidia hardware in the OG Xbox, the RROD fiasco, the attempted 2013 DRM nonsense and the lies about being the most powerful console in the world and the losses of paying out millions to prop up a service hoping it catches on with enough subscribers to justify its existence.
They're not comparable if Xbox isn't allowed to live or die by its actions. It's subsidized. Revenue isn't profit. And if they were profiting on their own, they wouldn't be closing developers. If they were profiting, they wouldn't need Daddy Warbucks spending 80 to 100 billion buying up 3rd party publishers to sustain a loss leading platform.
They stopped announcing game sales, stopped announcing hardware sales, stopped announcing game pass subscribers, they are putting games on their competitors platforms but you're telling us that they are doing great even after killing jobs and closing developers at Xbox.
Stop drinking the Kool aid. You're drunk.
They are going to use AI for a large portion of the game development process. Upper management need bonuses and the shareholders need more money. So, people will lose their jobs.
Maybe they were already using AI to make business decisions, which would explain why they closed Hi-Fi Rush's studio, then said they need more games like Hi-Fi Rush not long after that announcement.
They shouldn't have bought any studios. Some is okay...but they went on a shopping spree...stupid
The better question is why did Microsoft buy publishers for a service they were subsidizing they knew couldn't support.
And why are so many websites trying to make people feel sorry for Microsoft instead of truly criticizing the fact they are closing studios and killing jobs that would have been fine if Microsoft themselves hadn't gotten involved.
Quit feeling sorry for Microsoft and start feeling sorry for the industry and the all the gamers who are actually losing out.
THIS IS MICROSOFTS FAULT.
The first thing that happens after any major acquisition or merger is a consolidation of the whole new portfolio, which includes cutting any excess, bloat or portfolios that don't fit the larger MO of the big boy. So far, it's been par for the course with Microsoft and that's why gamers have been so against this acquisition. Tango Gameworks is the beginning. You think Microsoft wants to pay to keep small timers like Ninja Theory in business?
There is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that Microsoft will improve any of these studios, but plenty to suggest that they will get rid of what they don't need and hold onto the IP. The real agenda of the acquisition was always to acquire The Elder Scrolls, Diablo, Fallout, Call of Duty, Candy Crush etc. that will create millions in passive revenue stream for Microsoft regardless of where the games release. Microsoft simply wants their cut.
Because of Games Pass Microsoft has no interest in investing in new IP which is risky and requires creative talent they can neither nurture nor manage. Game Pass has also not grown in the way Microsoft expected it to, even post acquisitions. Therefore the logical thing to do, without serious money makers to release, is to cut as much cost as possible.
Backward compatibility works for many games on newer consoles, but titles such as The Simpsons: Hit and Run have been left out.
From base building to swinging willies, here are the best survival games around, which include a couple of less than obvious picks.
Ha! actually funny story, I work at Pac sun as an assistant Manager and I was on break and theirs a target nearby and I had to go look at some stuff, well I had some extra time so I decided to stop by the gaming section, I figured I'd check out the PS3 basketball, because I have played motorstorm and resistance on my roommates PS3 but not the basketball game. Well this lady is talking to her husband and she's like "yeah guess we will have to wait til they get more ps3's" but than she taps me "Excuse me, do you know what the difference is between the PS3 and that other machine?" " I was like what the Xbox?" "she says yes" so I straight up told her I was like, um the PS3 is $500 and $600 and the 360 is $400, and the PS3 is a Blu-Ray player, and has motion sensitive controllers, that's the major difference. She scoffed at the price, thanked me and bought a 360. So not to look like a mad fanboy, but like as I thought it would be, parents most surely just like the lower price this time around...but kinda still shows not everyone knows what an Xbox is...
people have been waiting...and waiting...and waiting...and if people are smart and realise that ps3 really offers nothing new they should stop waiting for the inferior ps3 and get an xbox 360! damn next gen will be here again before ps3 finally goes global! what a joke...
I agree that people who really want a PS3 will wait for them to be readily available. I myself jumped ship but that doesn't mean everyone is.
As for the Wii being a novelty? I do halfheartedly agree with this as well. It's a gimmicky machine that will be driven by exclusives such as Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Just like the Gamecube was.
But people will buy into this gimmick and Nintendo will make millions upon millions of dollars. I mean, its only $250 and you know in about a year and a half it will be down to $199! And as we all know, the DS actually prints money. So Nintendo will do just fine. I just feel that the Wii will end up beind a dust collector in-between exclusive releases. Just like the Gamecube.
But people will still want power, speed, and beauty! So a 360 or PS3 will be a must own for any Wii owner. And a person will get the system that suits them the best. The 360 and PS3 are "everyday" use machines.
I have my reasons for taking a 360 over a PS3. No need to go into it in thorough detail at this point. God knows, I already have numerous times.
Well I like to say Sony does it thing. But I enjoy watching them eat their words. So they said the DS is nothing but a novelty but well we know it's not and can't stop selling. So with the Wii it could be just like the DS all over again. We'll see though no one knows how it's going to be in a few years
is a perfect example of why so many people HATE Sony!! There arrogance and lies are sooo annoying! I also "Jumped In!"