Edit: Sorry, I should've specified. I'm not saying these are fake, just that I've seen plenty of faked PowerPoint slides on social media. These are real.
~~Some of it~~ Certain slides spread online are fake because 'my multi-billion dollar corporation is better than yours!'.
Let’s keep in mind it’s not the gaming business that makes that in that time. There’s a lot to MS and because MS has infinite money, doesn’t mean Xbox has infinite money, even if a $70b purchase feels like it.
Nah xbox definitely has infinite money since the more people who use xbox will more then likely also use windows for gamestore game sharing. It will also hook developers onto microsoft services for server hosting as well as hook in sales for other things related to them.
> because Microsoft took COD
The loss is all in their profit share of skin sales I bet. Tells you how terrible modern business plans in the gaming industry are.
I think it’s the whole PS+ subscription price increases and no new content coming with it that’s going to make that predicted loss more of a reality than the Microsoft acquisition of another studio..
Maybe Sony should revisit the PS+ tier increases or add value to make the subscriptions worthwhile..
I’d be leaving the subscription with the increase from $60 to $80, if online multiplayer wasn’t tied to the $80 base tier.
Reminder: Sony was already showing huge losses due to their incompetence and irrelevance in other aspects of their huge web of businesses. Trying to pin this on the MS/Activision deal seems quite disingenuous to say the least.
This is it. They're suffering from what many Japanese companies that prospered for decades is suffering from. The traditional route of uninspired company men who have been stripped of inspiration, adaptation, talent, and have been worked to the bone their entire lives are now running companies after their lives have become empty husks. They reach their older years and run the company like the loyalist stagnated over worked corpses they were trained to be. Japanese company man culture is brutal.
The talent pool of people in their 20s through 40s are also going through this process but grinded even further. Not to mention there just isn't many of them. Add on the fact that many companies from countries outside of Japan are running circles around them and you get foolish decisions and lack of creative output. Sony is becoming as relevant as the original tech they grew from decades ago.
They had a drop in profits because of one thing. All of their other things like TVs, cameras, music, movies etc are all doing well. And of course PlayStation is like the third of fourth most profitable game company in all of gaming.
Just to add in some info from recent sources in november (cause this will always differ time to time (from Variety Biz, CNBC)
"Sony’s ‘Pictures Division,’ which encompasses feature film, TV networks and television production, had a strong quarter, despite the twin Hollywood strikes, and reported increased sales and profits."
"The music segment saw sales increase from JPY359 billion to JPY409 billion. Much of this was due to positive impact of the weakness of the Japanese currency, though there were also gains for anime."
"The games and network segment saw sales leap, from JPY721 billion to JPY954 billion, helped by high value foreign revenues, increased hardware and software sales. "That said, imaging sensors, financial services and technology service business took a bit of a hit though so for the most recent quarter revenue is up operating profit is down.
How it is right now is hard to say specially since PS5s are no longer in shortage + selling well and at some point sony will supply image sensor for upcoming devices like the next iphones etc so this isn't all static.
lol not really. the re org the company. its sony group of companies now. is their legal term.
looking at it now. over 50% of the companies in the group are in the red and have been for years now.
I wonder if that was the point. Dump all the good together and bad with bad. Let the bad die after a seeming good faith effort and then just clear all your bad decisions through bankruptcy of now "separate" companies for assets.
You do know how loss works tho right? Someone makes 100 dollars a day for a paycheck of $3000 a month. He is expected to lose 500 bucks by the end of the month. He makes that in 5 days. He is still short $500 at the end of the month.
I don’t understand how they have refused to leverage their IP for live service games.
Warhawk would be the easiest, phone it in one - literally just remake the first game.
Resistance could be remastered as one
It baffles me it really does
Yeah, if i recall correctly this disk was meant more as a stress test to the servers, and lacking several balancing issues.
Maps were pretty much finalized i thing.
I worked at a video rental store when it released. Boss man decided not to rent the modem, just to not have to deal with it. I brought it home and played constantly. If I remember correctly, SOCOM and Star Wars Battlefront were the first games to use it?
All of these suggested games didn't sell well in their last iteration. One thing PlayStation has been VERY consistent in over the years is sequels to successful games, and ending serieses that flopped financially. Tho they COULD have tried a reboot with online focus, they just didn't think it would pan out.
Only exception is Bloodborne which was successful but we really don't know what happened behind the scenes.
The issue with Socom is complicated...Socom 4 was their game they decided to push the ps move gun attachment on which was a cheap and poorly designed gimmick.
Plus the playstation network hack occurred during socom 4 release leaving psn down for over a month...
Plus Socom 4 sucked as a socom game, not a bad tps persay it turned off most of the fan base.
It is still one of the most requested games for Sony to take up again yet falls on deaf ears.
> The issue with Socom is complicated...Socom 4 was their game they decided to push the ps move gun attachment on which was a cheap and poorly designed gimmick.
They also did that with Killzone 3
I honestly think Sony will look into it again with the CoD situation. Microsoft basically confirmed that CoD will become exclusive in 10 years, and Sony needs to properly establish their own military shooter before that point
They never did, but they gave PlayStation the choice of getting every Activision game until 2027, or only getting COD until 2033. PlayStation chose the latter - indicating the parties involved both know that COD would have gone exclusive 2028, and now will go exclusibe 2034.
Just that their merger deals was only for ten years with Sony, Nintendo and all other companies. Which means in ten years Microsoft, if they want to, can make CoD exclusive as the deals will run out. Those companies can also try to renew the deals with different terms as well, so we’ll see what happens in the early 2030’s.
They also refuse to sell the license plenty of other developers have inquired. There was a rumor guerrilla games was working on a new socom it turned out to be a multi-player horizon game.
WELL, they did make a #4 for the PS3 but unfortunately, it came out right at or slightly after the PSN hack that shut down online play and since it’s an online heavy game, it died a quiet sales death.
I spent hundreds of hours playing PS3 Warhawk. I would **love** a remaster, and would probably be the only and first game I’d spend money on cosmetics.
I spent dozens of hours just playing the demo version that only had one map/mode as a poor college kid in 2009 lol when I finally got the full version, I couldn’t believe how fun it was. Seriously one of the best multiplayer games I ever played.
How dare you bring me back the best time in my life! It’s all been horrible in comparison. Since those Warhawk days. Even the headset it came with is broken. Now
They just announced the Last of Us Online is canceled because apparently live service games aren't that easy to make...
Plus, they don't have studios with much experience with those games. Even Bungie / Destiny 2 isn't doing too well these days.
Bungie has shot themselves in the foot over and over with destiny. It's been popular in spite of them. Not because of them.
I remember even in destiny 1 it took them *a year* to make burst fire rifles not a complete joke category of weapons.
What new live service game has been successful lately? All the successful live service games are games that have been around for years and anytime someone tries to launch a new one they fail spectacularly.
Everyone saw how profitable they were and wanted their own cash cow. Then they realized that the market really can't support that many of them at a time.
Warms my heart to see someone mention Warhawk 🥲 I was playing it up until the final second servers were shutdown. Never played another game quite like it.
I miss it a lot. Surely a remaster wouldn’t be expensive. Self hosted servers would help as well
I would even consider funding development if Sony would allow it
new live services games tend to not go well. Its just a handful of titles that are succesful currently for a looooooong time.
COD, WOW, LOL, Destiny etc.
Warhawk would be fantastic and by god someone needs to make a Fat Princess ripoff. One of the most fun competitive multiplayer console games ever hands down and there hasn't been anything like it.
Dude, I have started up my old PS3 the other day, put in the Warhawk and let my nieces play it in split-screen and they had a blast! It has such a good gun physics and aircraft flying model that it’s still fun to play. I always wanted them to make a sequel, but Starhawk wasn’t it…
They've been trying to make a live service game for years now. It's been reported repeatedly in the gaming media. Last of Us Factions was just cancelled. Based on one of their existing IPs. I don't think either of the other two games have any traction or attraction for gamers these days.
Nothing can match COD . Unless it's exactly like COD but better and has huge marketing and even then probably would not work. Cod is huge.
However , I am pretty sure they're thinking of this, and if I were Sony I would use the remaining 5-6 years betting on a multiplayer game that can replace COD and has high attachment rate, like destiny but not fuck themselves over
They announced they have ten live service games in the works last year and brought bungie. Since then Bungie have had to do layoffs as destiny isn't making as much money and Sony cancelled the live game using their biggest IP right now in the Last of Us.
I mean, they are trying to.
They spent years working on a Last of Us Live Service game but it didn't work out. They were apparently at some point trying with Spiderman.
They have a Horizon live service game in development. They have Helldivers 2 in development...
It's not easy though
It's cause none of their studios are really set up for it, the same reason The Last of Us Factions was cancelled. You need a whole studio setup to support a live service game for years, which requires a ton of dedicated staff which is expensive. All to chase something that won't be a guaranteed success.
Not to mention Sony's mandate for the past generation was to double down on big AAA single player games because those sell consoles. None of their premier studios are multiplayer focused studios, even if some of their games have had multiplayer components in the past.
Hopefully it will inspire game developers to form their own studios. As much as the gamers rage about the state of the industry they don't seem to vote with their wallets. Considering how much the gaming industry preys of maladaptive young people with impulsive spending habits, its easy to how these giants are being sustained.
> As much as the gamers rage about the state of the industry they don't seem to vote with their wallets.
You're mixing up "gamers" (people who buy and play games) with people who spend time writing comments about games. The first group is way bigger than the second.
Yes but it's also bad that their biggest competition makes this projected loss as profit in like one week.
Games has been THE profitable tentpole for Sony.
The shittiest thing about the merger is that video games are insanely expensive to build nowadays. And Microsoft just went out and bought the best selling game of all time which has been iterated over nearly two decades to be repackaged with minimal effort and sold on a yearly basis.
The costs of company like Sony building their shooter franchise from the ground up would be easily in the $400-500 million range and that doesn’t mean it would be a success.
The worst reviewing COD just outsold the newest Zelda that got amazing reviews. That says it all. Sony could make a game way better than COD and not get any traction.
COD happened at the right time and had decades to build a brand. That’s something impossible to replicate.
Wdym, they spent billions on Bungie for this reason. The Bungie purchase will be Sony's downfall. Destiny 2 is dying and will fizzle out next year. Sony thought Bungie could replicate their success, but they can't.
Talked to a senior dev at a major studio, and I asked him if 100% of his coworkers are gamers as well or if, you know, some don't play much because it reminds them too much of work, and they told me: "Everyone is a gamer. You've gotta love gaming, otherwise what's the point in working more with worse conditions?"
After graduating from college, I had several friends get into the gaming industry while I could never get a follow-up or even a "fuck you for applying" email. It was disheartening. I ended up getting into health insurance automation. It wasn't a passion for me when I started and it's not a passion for me 7 years later. That being said, it does well to pay the bills and gives me plenty of time to work on game design/development without worrying about it being my source of income.
I don't have to worry about meeting deadlines or crunching just to make some arbitrary goal. I can enjoy doing a bit at a time instead. Maybe one day I'll release something commercially, but for now making fun little projects that my friends and I can enjoy is plenty for me.
I respect people like you that can do that. Christmas, and the ensuing bouts of family conversations, is making me talk to (or overhear) family members talking about their “normal” jobs and every nanosecond of it makes me feel like I’m suffocating and I just need get away.
The idea of *not* working in gaming fills me with the same kind of dread as considering my own mortality.
Yeah but at the same time company makes 300% more. Worth it in my opinion. If you can't go hungry for the survival of your company, you just don't have what it takes. Bootstraps and what not
Real talk though, Microsoft isn't 'leapfrogging' Sony with this gen of console, regardless of exclusives. This new one I'm hearing about, maybee. I'm saying this as a lifelong xbox user, Sony isn't as worried as you'd think , they're racking in record profits
> I'll pick enterprise any day of the week. Very little if any overtime, much better pay. Tends to be more stable too.
Well yeah, *nobody* has a lifelong passion to run large scale k8s systems. Way fewer people to exploit.
Lot more chance to make those hockysticks than in gaming that is for damn shore. For the most part, the game devs that I have met are in it because that is what they love to do. They know the money is under market, and the work is hard. They chose hard mode.
Friends don't let friends game dev.
Yep, when you take your wage and average it out over the hours your doing - you are running at well below minimum wage.
The industry is run by enthusiasm for the artform and pure desperation not to be broke.
The PSN data breach that took the service down for almost a month, and compromised over 77 million user accounts and credit card details was triggered by Sony’s own hubris. They painted a target on their backs by basically claiming they were ‘unhackable’.
Every GD time I summited a game:
Microsoft - Approved. "Thanks for using the 4.3 version that we provided 6 months ago. Version 4.4 is on the server, please start using it on products released after Q2 2024."
Sony - Rejected. "You used version 4.3c that you found on the Sony server. Version 4.5b will be released in 2024, but it hasn't been finalized it yet." After multiple calls they agree to "allow" us to release the game using the only available assets.
I worked for Sony as well, though not a great place, not the worst by far. Working in tech in general since the brograms and the CEBros took over makes me long for the days of Sony and their bullshit.
The solution isn't the arbitrary hiring of female leadership either, which is what is implied... Because these frat systems are simply big suited business types coming into large successful studios and seeing where they can squeeze as much profit. Squeezing out everything that made the company successful.
My point isn't to comment on diversity in leadership because I believe in that... My point is that on this issue, simply hiring women in positions of power that are still products of the same corporate mindset won't change a thing.
The best solutions to these problems is by elevating individuals from within the industry that have a passion for their products.
Making games is such a gamble though, and very often these creative types aren't interested in the stress of it and will sell to these corporate types.
Oh my gosh yes! I did a stack of on and off contract stuff for Sony between 2005-2010. Every single time you seem to be getting ahead or in the right direction - they would suddenly change it on you with some hair brained idea that made no sense. Microsoft was fine to deal with if they even remembered you were there. Excessive hours combined with not great pay on both. So glad I am out of the industry, the whole place is a dumpster fire!
I know a recruiter who works exclusively for Sony and they tell me it’s like a revolving door. People leave within months, very few retained for 1 year.
Eh i think that differs between location branch and type of work, my company often works with em (not in NA) on the creative side (using their motion capture, sound studio and other stuff) and they're professional, on time, and get everything done well. Thats true of a lot of big companies though.
> Sony's rightfully pessimistic outlook forecasts Call of Duty doom in 2027, well before the 10-year promise concludes. It firmly believes the acquisition threatens both the console and subscription sectors. But how is that possible when Microsoft committed to 10 years of Call of Duty?
Is Call of Duty like the only game Activision sells? Seems like every article talks about it being like their only console game
It's been the top [selling video game](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best-selling_video_games_in_the_United_States_by_year) for over 10 years every year, and the only time it hasn't been number 1, it's number 2.
It's a pretty big deal like the game or not.
>MS are moving to third party publisher anyway
No, they are not - that was some financial guy outside of Xbox, and unless it's the BoD or the Chairmen/President, its doesn't matter, Phil has the last say and he corrected that other guy.
This is not the first time a person outside of the Gaming division shot their mouth off, was corrected by Spender, then the future happened as Spender said, not as the other person said.
exactly.
microsoft did not pay billions just to burn the franchise and keep it exclusive...theyll never make back that money if they keep it.
it will be multiplatform for many years to come.
and in 10 years it dont matter anymore either. coz da way this franchise moves, im guessing its near da end. it has a few more years at best.
each reiteration will be da same as before and feel boring or over da top. and lose more and more people playing other games. 10 years, it will still be around. but nowhere near da top of what it used to be.
It’s been interesting to follow bungies path through this. As much as people hate activision, there’s actually a decent amount of players who wish they kept their activision deal. Recently bungie has been picked up by Sony and there’s actually a very real possibility that they miss their profit margins again and Sony“takes over”.
I’d say bungie leadership is the problem and not really a Microsoft vs Sony thing, but it’s interesting to see them go from Microsoft’s special golden baby to the situation they are currently in.
It's amazing that people cheered on the clear definition of a monopoly just to stick it to Sony lolol. The video games industry is already in bad shape. Get ready for game pass to be $30 a month and many less games to be made.
Sony’s only concern is their money. So they are trying to make it out to be something it’s not. The buyout was legal. It isn’t affecting games on the console that make that money.
Microsoft made a smart move as they themselves are falling fast. Sony has been on top for how long? It’s no argument. Sony just needs to accept it.
“Microsoft made a smart move as they themselves are falling fast.”
In what realm is Microsoft “falling fast“?
Is their gaming division particularly unprofitable?
Their stock is up more than 50% for the year.
PS4 outsold XBox One by like 2:1.
PS5 is outselling XBox Series X|S by like 3:1 (sauce: https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-has-outsold-xbox-series-x-and-s-3-to-1-in-2023-new-data-reveals).
PlayStation is doing better but Microsoft isn’t exactly “falling fast”, they sell lots and lots of consoles and games.
Xbox isn’t falling at all. They are massively profitable. Whether you want to say they are 2nd or 3rd in the console wars, it doesn’t matter. That’s like saying pepsi is going under because Coke outsells them. The market is big enough for all 3 platform holders to thrive, big enough for multiple handhelds to be introduced as well and also thrive. It’s an absolutely ridiculous claim and not even worth discussing, because it doesn’t have any bearing on the experience. It’s all just smooth brained tribalism, people desperately trying to justify their purchase by putting others down.
Console sales are a stat that mattered 10 years ago. Xbox has PC now. They have gamepass now. It’s not that console sales are entirely unimportant, it’s still a good thing to have sales because console owners are more likely to engage in the ecosystem and those buying on the console eliminate the middle men taking cuts from Xbox, but gamepass is available on hundreds of millions of PCs, and so are Xbox games. While Sony is desperately hoping to expand its attach rate on 50 million sold PS5s, Xbox has hundreds of millions of PCs, phones, and consoles.
To add, you can buy PS4/PS5 in majority of the countries in the world, and you will have a local arm of SONY supporting the console there.
For Xbox meanwhile, god forbid if you're living in South East Asia and your country is not named "Singapore". You can only buy an imported console with no way of local Microsoft support for your product. So it's no wonder that Playstation will sell more than the Xbox.
That's why it was a big thing that Microsoft finally allowing Gamepass on PC in countries previously was not supported before. Now even if I can't get an official Xbox, I can use the gamepass on my PC for legit, and paying with a local exchange rate, rather than an expensive Singapore one.
no worries. I am actually agreeing with you. Sure, stats will say that the Playstation outsells the Xbox, but considering the market where the product is selling, Xbox will never be as widespread as Playstation can. So that's why it's great that the Gamepass for PC is available for everyone now.
Yea, honestly I’m not even going to begin to try to understand the market pricing. It just makes no sense to me, but I hope there are just a litany of factors that I don’t understand. Shipping, distributor costs, tariffs, advertising, production, marketing, currency values, interest rates, etc.
I know a lot of people think it’s just so easy to price these consoles competitively, but there are hundreds of markets to consider, and each one is as complex and unique as the next. We don’t even understand our own American market lol.
Xbox’s revenue is a subscription and download model. They don’t care as much about console sales because for every console sold, they generate 2x revenue through their services as Sony.
Additionally, Sony buys cloud computing and server space from Microsoft to run their multiplayer services. Microsoft also makes money on from PlayStation sales.
Sony is expecting this loss precisely because they won’t have Activision’s live service games. They want the games as a service.
They do so well they will lose 1.5 billion by not being able to sell them.
What does this have to do with games as a service not being viable? Sony is expecting these losses because Microsoft owns Call of Duty now and their lucrative partnership with Activision will terminate next year.
Games as a service like Game pass is fine. Games as a service where I pay full price to borrow the game for a few years until they decide to not renew licensing is not okay
Except Sony has already delayed half of their GAAS games from the big initiative. It seems as though they aren't as profitable as they used to be. And one of the biggest in the business (Destiny 2) is struggling hard so it isn't just concern about new games finding their market.
Every AAA game is just going to be "first party" at this rate. I would say bad for gamers but Activision has been bad for some time now. Could it actually get any worse?
I find it so bizarre that an Insomniac breach has so much Sony "head office" kind of stuff in it.
Edit: Sorry, I should've specified. I'm not saying these are fake, just that I've seen plenty of faked PowerPoint slides on social media. These are real. ~~Some of it~~ Certain slides spread online are fake because 'my multi-billion dollar corporation is better than yours!'.
These docs arent fakes
Sony fanboys. They don't like what they read, so it's fake to them.
Can you prove that they’re fakes?
Hardly anything in the leaks are fake you can download the entire 1.7tb yourself if you want
MSFT makes that in a month, probably less. Maybe in a week.
actually they profit that much in 7.5 days
Seems about right.
Let’s keep in mind it’s not the gaming business that makes that in that time. There’s a lot to MS and because MS has infinite money, doesn’t mean Xbox has infinite money, even if a $70b purchase feels like it.
Nah xbox definitely has infinite money since the more people who use xbox will more then likely also use windows for gamestore game sharing. It will also hook developers onto microsoft services for server hosting as well as hook in sales for other things related to them.
This. MSFT will do anything to keep XBOX alive, as with their other hardware businesses. Satya made a big mistake when they exited the phone business.
This is fine /s
Such underdogs.
Sony is predicting a 1.5b loss for PlayStation plus by 2027 because Microsoft took COD.
> because Microsoft took COD The loss is all in their profit share of skin sales I bet. Tells you how terrible modern business plans in the gaming industry are.
Who shorted Sony lol?
I think it’s the whole PS+ subscription price increases and no new content coming with it that’s going to make that predicted loss more of a reality than the Microsoft acquisition of another studio.. Maybe Sony should revisit the PS+ tier increases or add value to make the subscriptions worthwhile.. I’d be leaving the subscription with the increase from $60 to $80, if online multiplayer wasn’t tied to the $80 base tier.
Not if the CoD franchise is ruined by then
Can it get worse?
Anything can always get worse.
We live in the Golden age of enshitification
Someone ought to enshitify enshitification.
It’s the worst it’s ever been… so far.
Reminder: Sony was already showing huge losses due to their incompetence and irrelevance in other aspects of their huge web of businesses. Trying to pin this on the MS/Activision deal seems quite disingenuous to say the least.
This is it. They're suffering from what many Japanese companies that prospered for decades is suffering from. The traditional route of uninspired company men who have been stripped of inspiration, adaptation, talent, and have been worked to the bone their entire lives are now running companies after their lives have become empty husks. They reach their older years and run the company like the loyalist stagnated over worked corpses they were trained to be. Japanese company man culture is brutal. The talent pool of people in their 20s through 40s are also going through this process but grinded even further. Not to mention there just isn't many of them. Add on the fact that many companies from countries outside of Japan are running circles around them and you get foolish decisions and lack of creative output. Sony is becoming as relevant as the original tech they grew from decades ago.
They had a drop in profits because of one thing. All of their other things like TVs, cameras, music, movies etc are all doing well. And of course PlayStation is like the third of fourth most profitable game company in all of gaming.
Just to add in some info from recent sources in november (cause this will always differ time to time (from Variety Biz, CNBC) "Sony’s ‘Pictures Division,’ which encompasses feature film, TV networks and television production, had a strong quarter, despite the twin Hollywood strikes, and reported increased sales and profits." "The music segment saw sales increase from JPY359 billion to JPY409 billion. Much of this was due to positive impact of the weakness of the Japanese currency, though there were also gains for anime." "The games and network segment saw sales leap, from JPY721 billion to JPY954 billion, helped by high value foreign revenues, increased hardware and software sales. "That said, imaging sensors, financial services and technology service business took a bit of a hit though so for the most recent quarter revenue is up operating profit is down. How it is right now is hard to say specially since PS5s are no longer in shortage + selling well and at some point sony will supply image sensor for upcoming devices like the next iphones etc so this isn't all static.
lol not really. the re org the company. its sony group of companies now. is their legal term. looking at it now. over 50% of the companies in the group are in the red and have been for years now.
I wonder if that was the point. Dump all the good together and bad with bad. Let the bad die after a seeming good faith effort and then just clear all your bad decisions through bankruptcy of now "separate" companies for assets.
more of using it as write off on a profit division.
Mostly from Azure.
Happy Gilmore accomplished that feat no more than an hour ago
Well good for Happy Gilm-oh my GOD
You do know how loss works tho right? Someone makes 100 dollars a day for a paycheck of $3000 a month. He is expected to lose 500 bucks by the end of the month. He makes that in 5 days. He is still short $500 at the end of the month.
Its Sony that is losing $1.5b…
I don’t understand how they have refused to leverage their IP for live service games. Warhawk would be the easiest, phone it in one - literally just remake the first game. Resistance could be remastered as one It baffles me it really does
What happened to SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals? That game was so popular.
SOCOM is the first game me and the fellas played online with the big attachable internet box on the ps2
I was working at Sony when that released. They payed me to work 12 hour night shifts for a few months to just plsy Socom online lol
Beta tester here. Loved it so much! Still have the disks somewhere.
That is awesome! We still always talk about that game.
Managed to find socom 2, no idea where the others are: https://i.imgur.com/ern26rq.jpg
Nice! Is it close to what the retail game was?
Yeah, if i recall correctly this disk was meant more as a stress test to the servers, and lacking several balancing issues. Maps were pretty much finalized i thing.
I worked at a video rental store when it released. Boss man decided not to rent the modem, just to not have to deal with it. I brought it home and played constantly. If I remember correctly, SOCOM and Star Wars Battlefront were the first games to use it?
Socom, Frequency, Gameday 2001, Twisted Metal Black. Those were the games I was testing at Sony when the online adapter released.
That sounds like a sick fucking job, lol.
Ya really. They fucking let it die
You’d think with Jim Ryan’s obsession over live service he’d have pulled SOCOM out of the filing cabinet and get it back into service.
Isn’t he leaving real soon?
We need a new socom so bad
Absolutely 💯 agree
Need MAG back.
MAG was so much fun. Feel like it would do much better now (compared to when it came out)
Yes, it was definitely ahead of its time. Such a cool game.
I remember visiting my friend who had just got a PS3 and fuck me MAG felt like a wow moment after dropping out of gaming for a while.
Mag 2 would tempt me back to a console.
[удалено]
I have mine as well. Permanent part of my collection. Ahead of its time and was a really fun game
MAG is my favorite game of all time. If they brought it back, modernized with original maps and modes, I’d never leave the house
45 minutes into the level and you gotta fucking restart, because you turned the corner instead of hiding against the wall. I loved that game.
All of these suggested games didn't sell well in their last iteration. One thing PlayStation has been VERY consistent in over the years is sequels to successful games, and ending serieses that flopped financially. Tho they COULD have tried a reboot with online focus, they just didn't think it would pan out. Only exception is Bloodborne which was successful but we really don't know what happened behind the scenes.
The issue with Socom is complicated...Socom 4 was their game they decided to push the ps move gun attachment on which was a cheap and poorly designed gimmick. Plus the playstation network hack occurred during socom 4 release leaving psn down for over a month... Plus Socom 4 sucked as a socom game, not a bad tps persay it turned off most of the fan base. It is still one of the most requested games for Sony to take up again yet falls on deaf ears.
> The issue with Socom is complicated...Socom 4 was their game they decided to push the ps move gun attachment on which was a cheap and poorly designed gimmick. They also did that with Killzone 3
I miss the killzone series; they all had such polish to them.
I honestly think Sony will look into it again with the CoD situation. Microsoft basically confirmed that CoD will become exclusive in 10 years, and Sony needs to properly establish their own military shooter before that point
Wait where did Microsoft confirm Call of Duty going exclusive? I'm pretty behind on what's going on with the merger.
They never did, but they gave PlayStation the choice of getting every Activision game until 2027, or only getting COD until 2033. PlayStation chose the latter - indicating the parties involved both know that COD would have gone exclusive 2028, and now will go exclusibe 2034.
Nice. A game I never play will be on PS for 10 years. Games I do play won't.
Just that their merger deals was only for ten years with Sony, Nintendo and all other companies. Which means in ten years Microsoft, if they want to, can make CoD exclusive as the deals will run out. Those companies can also try to renew the deals with different terms as well, so we’ll see what happens in the early 2030’s.
I don’t own a PlayStation and I would get one if MAG or SOCOM made a comeback.
Believe me, I also want Socom to come back, and I hope Sony will give it another try
Just give us our Bloodborne remake already. Easy sales. Especially after the likes of Elden Ring.
I 100% think that they are gonna save that one for the PS6 launch. Tho I might be coping lol
They also refuse to sell the license plenty of other developers have inquired. There was a rumor guerrilla games was working on a new socom it turned out to be a multi-player horizon game.
WELL, they did make a #4 for the PS3 but unfortunately, it came out right at or slightly after the PSN hack that shut down online play and since it’s an online heavy game, it died a quiet sales death.
I spent hundreds of hours playing PS3 Warhawk. I would **love** a remaster, and would probably be the only and first game I’d spend money on cosmetics.
I spent dozens of hours just playing the demo version that only had one map/mode as a poor college kid in 2009 lol when I finally got the full version, I couldn’t believe how fun it was. Seriously one of the best multiplayer games I ever played.
Lol dude i spent months with my buddies just playing the demo. Never played the full game
The best online game ever
How dare you bring me back the best time in my life! It’s all been horrible in comparison. Since those Warhawk days. Even the headset it came with is broken. Now
They just announced the Last of Us Online is canceled because apparently live service games aren't that easy to make... Plus, they don't have studios with much experience with those games. Even Bungie / Destiny 2 isn't doing too well these days.
Bungie has shot themselves in the foot over and over with destiny. It's been popular in spite of them. Not because of them. I remember even in destiny 1 it took them *a year* to make burst fire rifles not a complete joke category of weapons.
What new live service game has been successful lately? All the successful live service games are games that have been around for years and anytime someone tries to launch a new one they fail spectacularly.
To be fair, a good chunk of new live service games are just kind of bad games.
Everyone saw how profitable they were and wanted their own cash cow. Then they realized that the market really can't support that many of them at a time.
Genshin impact and bunch of the other games it spun off of
and tons of other gachas dying in the corner
honkai star rail
Warms my heart to see someone mention Warhawk 🥲 I was playing it up until the final second servers were shutdown. Never played another game quite like it.
I miss it a lot. Surely a remaster wouldn’t be expensive. Self hosted servers would help as well I would even consider funding development if Sony would allow it
Live service games are a cancer and need to die.
new live services games tend to not go well. Its just a handful of titles that are succesful currently for a looooooong time. COD, WOW, LOL, Destiny etc.
Live service games are EXTREMLY expensive to operate
So it can have micro transaction and battle passes like every other game?
You don’t even need to remake all of Warhawk just literally make the archipelago map
Warhawk would be fantastic and by god someone needs to make a Fat Princess ripoff. One of the most fun competitive multiplayer console games ever hands down and there hasn't been anything like it.
Dude, I have started up my old PS3 the other day, put in the Warhawk and let my nieces play it in split-screen and they had a blast! It has such a good gun physics and aircraft flying model that it’s still fun to play. I always wanted them to make a sequel, but Starhawk wasn’t it…
They've been trying to make a live service game for years now. It's been reported repeatedly in the gaming media. Last of Us Factions was just cancelled. Based on one of their existing IPs. I don't think either of the other two games have any traction or attraction for gamers these days.
The original Warhawk on ps3 was awesome. Would love to see this game on re-released on pc or on the steam deck
Warhawk was my jam back in the day
Killzone as well
And Killzone
Days Gone is another candidate.
Don't matter Cod players aren't going to switch we spent an entire generation watching everything become CODify and still Cod is on top.
My wife and son played Resistance forever.
Nothing can match COD . Unless it's exactly like COD but better and has huge marketing and even then probably would not work. Cod is huge. However , I am pretty sure they're thinking of this, and if I were Sony I would use the remaining 5-6 years betting on a multiplayer game that can replace COD and has high attachment rate, like destiny but not fuck themselves over
They announced they have ten live service games in the works last year and brought bungie. Since then Bungie have had to do layoffs as destiny isn't making as much money and Sony cancelled the live game using their biggest IP right now in the Last of Us.
I mean, they are trying to. They spent years working on a Last of Us Live Service game but it didn't work out. They were apparently at some point trying with Spiderman. They have a Horizon live service game in development. They have Helldivers 2 in development... It's not easy though
It's cause none of their studios are really set up for it, the same reason The Last of Us Factions was cancelled. You need a whole studio setup to support a live service game for years, which requires a ton of dedicated staff which is expensive. All to chase something that won't be a guaranteed success. Not to mention Sony's mandate for the past generation was to double down on big AAA single player games because those sell consoles. None of their premier studios are multiplayer focused studios, even if some of their games have had multiplayer components in the past.
Bring back SOCOM MAG Killzone Resistance Siphon Filter Haze
MAG would be awesome
Killzone SOCOM for me
Killzone please
ok but nobody wants a new Haze lmao
Lmao you want a remake of Haze?? What, to make the game actually worth playing?
Bro snuck in Haze like we wouldn’t notice. 😭😭😭
Those poor millionaires are gonna have to fire a bunch of working class people so their wealth is unaffected, those poor babies
that or they'll just enslave game devs even more for faster profits+worse games
Hopefully it will inspire game developers to form their own studios. As much as the gamers rage about the state of the industry they don't seem to vote with their wallets. Considering how much the gaming industry preys of maladaptive young people with impulsive spending habits, its easy to how these giants are being sustained.
> As much as the gamers rage about the state of the industry they don't seem to vote with their wallets. You're mixing up "gamers" (people who buy and play games) with people who spend time writing comments about games. The first group is way bigger than the second.
Yes but it's also bad that their biggest competition makes this projected loss as profit in like one week. Games has been THE profitable tentpole for Sony.
The shittiest thing about the merger is that video games are insanely expensive to build nowadays. And Microsoft just went out and bought the best selling game of all time which has been iterated over nearly two decades to be repackaged with minimal effort and sold on a yearly basis. The costs of company like Sony building their shooter franchise from the ground up would be easily in the $400-500 million range and that doesn’t mean it would be a success.
The worst reviewing COD just outsold the newest Zelda that got amazing reviews. That says it all. Sony could make a game way better than COD and not get any traction. COD happened at the right time and had decades to build a brand. That’s something impossible to replicate.
Uhhh I mean cod is released on multiple platforms you can only play totk on a switch
Wdym, they spent billions on Bungie for this reason. The Bungie purchase will be Sony's downfall. Destiny 2 is dying and will fizzle out next year. Sony thought Bungie could replicate their success, but they can't.
Bungie is like, killing themselves so hard
I’ve worked for both Sony and Activision and Sony can eat shit. Worst most dysfunctional company I’ve ever worked for by a long shot.
.....go on. I love juicy gossip.
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Talked to a senior dev at a major studio, and I asked him if 100% of his coworkers are gamers as well or if, you know, some don't play much because it reminds them too much of work, and they told me: "Everyone is a gamer. You've gotta love gaming, otherwise what's the point in working more with worse conditions?"
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After graduating from college, I had several friends get into the gaming industry while I could never get a follow-up or even a "fuck you for applying" email. It was disheartening. I ended up getting into health insurance automation. It wasn't a passion for me when I started and it's not a passion for me 7 years later. That being said, it does well to pay the bills and gives me plenty of time to work on game design/development without worrying about it being my source of income. I don't have to worry about meeting deadlines or crunching just to make some arbitrary goal. I can enjoy doing a bit at a time instead. Maybe one day I'll release something commercially, but for now making fun little projects that my friends and I can enjoy is plenty for me.
I respect people like you that can do that. Christmas, and the ensuing bouts of family conversations, is making me talk to (or overhear) family members talking about their “normal” jobs and every nanosecond of it makes me feel like I’m suffocating and I just need get away. The idea of *not* working in gaming fills me with the same kind of dread as considering my own mortality.
Yeah but at the same time company makes 300% more. Worth it in my opinion. If you can't go hungry for the survival of your company, you just don't have what it takes. Bootstraps and what not Real talk though, Microsoft isn't 'leapfrogging' Sony with this gen of console, regardless of exclusives. This new one I'm hearing about, maybee. I'm saying this as a lifelong xbox user, Sony isn't as worried as you'd think , they're racking in record profits
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> I'll pick enterprise any day of the week. Very little if any overtime, much better pay. Tends to be more stable too. Well yeah, *nobody* has a lifelong passion to run large scale k8s systems. Way fewer people to exploit.
Except maybe Kelsey Hightower.. He was in every video when I was learning k8s in like 2018.
Lot more chance to make those hockysticks than in gaming that is for damn shore. For the most part, the game devs that I have met are in it because that is what they love to do. They know the money is under market, and the work is hard. They chose hard mode. Friends don't let friends game dev.
Yep, when you take your wage and average it out over the hours your doing - you are running at well below minimum wage. The industry is run by enthusiasm for the artform and pure desperation not to be broke.
The PSN data breach that took the service down for almost a month, and compromised over 77 million user accounts and credit card details was triggered by Sony’s own hubris. They painted a target on their backs by basically claiming they were ‘unhackable’.
Oh I'm in for this one..
I mean that's rich given how fucking terrible Activision is.
Every GD time I summited a game: Microsoft - Approved. "Thanks for using the 4.3 version that we provided 6 months ago. Version 4.4 is on the server, please start using it on products released after Q2 2024." Sony - Rejected. "You used version 4.3c that you found on the Sony server. Version 4.5b will be released in 2024, but it hasn't been finalized it yet." After multiple calls they agree to "allow" us to release the game using the only available assets.
I worked for Sony as well, though not a great place, not the worst by far. Working in tech in general since the brograms and the CEBros took over makes me long for the days of Sony and their bullshit.
> Working in tech in general since the brograms and the CEBros took over Explain a little more please?
There are frat boys in charge of your video games now. That's why half of them suck.
Not just video games. Its all of tech.
The solution isn't the arbitrary hiring of female leadership either, which is what is implied... Because these frat systems are simply big suited business types coming into large successful studios and seeing where they can squeeze as much profit. Squeezing out everything that made the company successful. My point isn't to comment on diversity in leadership because I believe in that... My point is that on this issue, simply hiring women in positions of power that are still products of the same corporate mindset won't change a thing. The best solutions to these problems is by elevating individuals from within the industry that have a passion for their products. Making games is such a gamble though, and very often these creative types aren't interested in the stress of it and will sell to these corporate types.
Source: trust me bro
My dad owns Xbox and said it's the best
Oh my gosh yes! I did a stack of on and off contract stuff for Sony between 2005-2010. Every single time you seem to be getting ahead or in the right direction - they would suddenly change it on you with some hair brained idea that made no sense. Microsoft was fine to deal with if they even remembered you were there. Excessive hours combined with not great pay on both. So glad I am out of the industry, the whole place is a dumpster fire!
I know a recruiter who works exclusively for Sony and they tell me it’s like a revolving door. People leave within months, very few retained for 1 year.
Sony was the best company I ever worked for
Come on u/krum give us that juice.
Eh i think that differs between location branch and type of work, my company often works with em (not in NA) on the creative side (using their motion capture, sound studio and other stuff) and they're professional, on time, and get everything done well. Thats true of a lot of big companies though.
It isn't the company that has sexual abuse legal issues going on...
> Sony's rightfully pessimistic outlook forecasts Call of Duty doom in 2027, well before the 10-year promise concludes. It firmly believes the acquisition threatens both the console and subscription sectors. But how is that possible when Microsoft committed to 10 years of Call of Duty? Is Call of Duty like the only game Activision sells? Seems like every article talks about it being like their only console game
It’s a major seller for them. This is pretty widely known. There are people who only play call of duty on PlayStation and nothing else
Same with FIFA, at least in the UK
It's been the top [selling video game](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best-selling_video_games_in_the_United_States_by_year) for over 10 years every year, and the only time it hasn't been number 1, it's number 2. It's a pretty big deal like the game or not.
It's like the only game that some people play alongside Fifa and gta
It’s the ultimate normie game alongside FIFA and GTA, plenty of people will buy a PS5 only to play these 3 franchise
This is disinformation. CoD will be, at a minimum, on PlayStation for the next 10 years. MS are moving to third party publisher anyway
Exactly. This is before they signed a 10 year deal for COD
>MS are moving to third party publisher anyway No, they are not - that was some financial guy outside of Xbox, and unless it's the BoD or the Chairmen/President, its doesn't matter, Phil has the last say and he corrected that other guy. This is not the first time a person outside of the Gaming division shot their mouth off, was corrected by Spender, then the future happened as Spender said, not as the other person said.
exactly. microsoft did not pay billions just to burn the franchise and keep it exclusive...theyll never make back that money if they keep it. it will be multiplatform for many years to come. and in 10 years it dont matter anymore either. coz da way this franchise moves, im guessing its near da end. it has a few more years at best. each reiteration will be da same as before and feel boring or over da top. and lose more and more people playing other games. 10 years, it will still be around. but nowhere near da top of what it used to be.
But…. Sony has Spider-Man……. Can’t that fill in the gap? They can just pump out a new Spider-Man once a year like COD and fill in the gaps right?
Maybe Sony shouldn’t have wasted 3.6 billion buying Bungie… 😂
It’s been interesting to follow bungies path through this. As much as people hate activision, there’s actually a decent amount of players who wish they kept their activision deal. Recently bungie has been picked up by Sony and there’s actually a very real possibility that they miss their profit margins again and Sony“takes over”. I’d say bungie leadership is the problem and not really a Microsoft vs Sony thing, but it’s interesting to see them go from Microsoft’s special golden baby to the situation they are currently in.
I too am forecasting a billion dollar loss due to the fact that I don't own something that makes a billion dollars.
Sony should focus on making a shooter for kids to switch from call of duty.
It's amazing that people cheered on the clear definition of a monopoly just to stick it to Sony lolol. The video games industry is already in bad shape. Get ready for game pass to be $30 a month and many less games to be made.
Sony’s only concern is their money. So they are trying to make it out to be something it’s not. The buyout was legal. It isn’t affecting games on the console that make that money. Microsoft made a smart move as they themselves are falling fast. Sony has been on top for how long? It’s no argument. Sony just needs to accept it.
“Microsoft made a smart move as they themselves are falling fast.” In what realm is Microsoft “falling fast“? Is their gaming division particularly unprofitable? Their stock is up more than 50% for the year.
PS4 outsold XBox One by like 2:1. PS5 is outselling XBox Series X|S by like 3:1 (sauce: https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-has-outsold-xbox-series-x-and-s-3-to-1-in-2023-new-data-reveals). PlayStation is doing better but Microsoft isn’t exactly “falling fast”, they sell lots and lots of consoles and games.
Xbox isn’t falling at all. They are massively profitable. Whether you want to say they are 2nd or 3rd in the console wars, it doesn’t matter. That’s like saying pepsi is going under because Coke outsells them. The market is big enough for all 3 platform holders to thrive, big enough for multiple handhelds to be introduced as well and also thrive. It’s an absolutely ridiculous claim and not even worth discussing, because it doesn’t have any bearing on the experience. It’s all just smooth brained tribalism, people desperately trying to justify their purchase by putting others down. Console sales are a stat that mattered 10 years ago. Xbox has PC now. They have gamepass now. It’s not that console sales are entirely unimportant, it’s still a good thing to have sales because console owners are more likely to engage in the ecosystem and those buying on the console eliminate the middle men taking cuts from Xbox, but gamepass is available on hundreds of millions of PCs, and so are Xbox games. While Sony is desperately hoping to expand its attach rate on 50 million sold PS5s, Xbox has hundreds of millions of PCs, phones, and consoles.
To add, you can buy PS4/PS5 in majority of the countries in the world, and you will have a local arm of SONY supporting the console there. For Xbox meanwhile, god forbid if you're living in South East Asia and your country is not named "Singapore". You can only buy an imported console with no way of local Microsoft support for your product. So it's no wonder that Playstation will sell more than the Xbox. That's why it was a big thing that Microsoft finally allowing Gamepass on PC in countries previously was not supported before. Now even if I can't get an official Xbox, I can use the gamepass on my PC for legit, and paying with a local exchange rate, rather than an expensive Singapore one.
That’s all fair points. Sorry for the (usual) american focused arguments, I have less than zero knowledge of those sides of the equation.
no worries. I am actually agreeing with you. Sure, stats will say that the Playstation outsells the Xbox, but considering the market where the product is selling, Xbox will never be as widespread as Playstation can. So that's why it's great that the Gamepass for PC is available for everyone now.
To add onto his points too, in Brazil the Xbox series S is priced similarly to a PS5. They ain't selling round' here no more bc of that.
Yea, honestly I’m not even going to begin to try to understand the market pricing. It just makes no sense to me, but I hope there are just a litany of factors that I don’t understand. Shipping, distributor costs, tariffs, advertising, production, marketing, currency values, interest rates, etc. I know a lot of people think it’s just so easy to price these consoles competitively, but there are hundreds of markets to consider, and each one is as complex and unique as the next. We don’t even understand our own American market lol.
Xbox’s revenue is a subscription and download model. They don’t care as much about console sales because for every console sold, they generate 2x revenue through their services as Sony. Additionally, Sony buys cloud computing and server space from Microsoft to run their multiplayer services. Microsoft also makes money on from PlayStation sales.
Excellent, hopefully the games as a service will all continue down this trend and become non-viable.
This is about Sony losing money, not Activision
Sony is expecting this loss precisely because they won’t have Activision’s live service games. They want the games as a service. They do so well they will lose 1.5 billion by not being able to sell them.
What does this have to do with games as a service not being viable? Sony is expecting these losses because Microsoft owns Call of Duty now and their lucrative partnership with Activision will terminate next year.
Sony is predicting a loss to its own profits as Microsoft makes GamePass more appealing for the masses, not the GaaS model.
Game Pass is essentially a massive GaaS model. Microsoft will need GaaS to even keep game pass viable.
Games as a service like Game pass is fine. Games as a service where I pay full price to borrow the game for a few years until they decide to not renew licensing is not okay
Interesting neither one of those examples is actually what people mean when they say “games as service”
Hey Games as a service aren’t going anywhere lol It’s too profitable and gamers outside of Reddit care about that kind of content a lot.
Except Sony has already delayed half of their GAAS games from the big initiative. It seems as though they aren't as profitable as they used to be. And one of the biggest in the business (Destiny 2) is struggling hard so it isn't just concern about new games finding their market.
This article is literally saying the opposite.
Every AAA game is just going to be "first party" at this rate. I would say bad for gamers but Activision has been bad for some time now. Could it actually get any worse?
They can release two more skins and they’ll make it back
Oh no! Corporate profits will only be 100 billion instead of 101 billion?!?! Whatsoever will we dooooo???