4 ms·

First-party Sony studios are reportedly “uncomfortable” with pivot towards GaaS

21 points by c420 3y ago

athorax 3y ago
Side note, I got super excited when I saw the name xfire. Hadn't thought about it in years, but it was such an awesome tool before steam and other services has integrated chat + overlays. Apparently this new site has nothing to do with the original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfire
lucasyvas 3y ago
If Sony has a major online multiplayer title coming out, I can't blame the approach for those particular games even though I'm not the biggest fan of the trend. But if they're lowering investment in their bread and butter - world class single player titles - that would be hard to believe. Sony would be killing the golden goose. Their closest competitor console-wise is Microsoft. Sony's one differentiator is that they produce way higher quality first party titles, many story driven. Nintendo would quite literally be walking away with an uncontested W if this happened.
tired_star_nrg 3y ago
When did we decide to start calling online multiplayer games “Games as a Service”? This feels some weird branding tactic to get investment funds to apply tech industry growth expectations to gaming
- 1123581321 3y ago
  They don’t mean the same thing. GaaS is a genre-independent term refers to a revenue-over-time game that requires some ongoing investment, which includes multiplayer but also new maps, season passes, DLC, loot, etc. You could think of GaaS as a non-genre-specific version of MMORPG. Multiplayer games don’t fall under GaaS when the publisher funds matchmaking solely from the one-time purchases of the game and doesn’t invest beyond making sure it runs until sales have dried up. Though, there’s some blurring when expansions become frequent enough that they start to look like recurring revenue. There certainly is that reframing of publishers to attract investors but it’s reflected in business model and design changes in the portfolio of games.
pangolinja 3y ago
if Sony was in any way competent, they would bundle Sony music and Sony movie catalogue into a media player on the Sony PlayStation, and then use it as the streaming device it should have been since PS2. Instead the fucking amateurs at Sony continue to ruin their perfectly good reputation, and make sure no one will buy a PS6. Already gamers are switching to pc in droves because consoles are more expensive for less functionality. this just gets worse.

21 points by c420 3y ago

Side note, I got super excited when I saw the name xfire. Hadn't thought about it in years, but it was such an awesome tool before steam and other services has integrated chat + overlays. Apparently this new site has nothing to do with the original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfire

lucasyvas 3y ago

If Sony has a major online multiplayer title coming out, I can't blame the approach for those particular games even though I'm not the biggest fan of the trend. But if they're lowering investment in their bread and butter - world class single player titles - that would be hard to believe. Sony would be killing the golden goose. Their closest competitor console-wise is Microsoft. Sony's one differentiator is that they produce way higher quality first party titles, many story driven. Nintendo would quite literally be walking away with an uncontested W if this happened.

tired_star_nrg 3y ago

When did we decide to start calling online multiplayer games “Games as a Service”? This feels some weird branding tactic to get investment funds to apply tech industry growth expectations to gaming

1123581321 3y ago
They don’t mean the same thing. GaaS is a genre-independent term refers to a revenue-over-time game that requires some ongoing investment, which includes multiplayer but also new maps, season passes, DLC, loot, etc. You could think of GaaS as a non-genre-specific version of MMORPG. Multiplayer games don’t fall under GaaS when the publisher funds matchmaking solely from the one-time purchases of the game and doesn’t invest beyond making sure it runs until sales have dried up. Though, there’s some blurring when expansions become frequent enough that they start to look like recurring revenue. There certainly is that reframing of publishers to attract investors but it’s reflected in business model and design changes in the portfolio of games.

pangolinja 3y ago

if Sony was in any way competent, they would bundle Sony music and Sony movie catalogue into a media player on the Sony PlayStation, and then use it as the streaming device it should have been since PS2. Instead the fucking amateurs at Sony continue to ruin their perfectly good reputation, and make sure no one will buy a PS6. Already gamers are switching to pc in droves because consoles are more expensive for less functionality. this just gets worse.