5 ms·

Is this one of those "we're doing great, you're fired" situations, or is there a real market reason? The PS5 seems to be selling well.

tapoxi 3y ago
London Studio and Firesprite were recently working on VR titles, and the PSVR2, while a neat product, does not seem to be selling well.
dtx1 3y ago
Sony is saying PS5 is entering ‘The Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle’[0] while there are only 13 PS5 exclusive titles available [1]. So PS5 is propably not doing well. [0] https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-entering-the-latter-stage-of-its-life-cycle-sony-says https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-entering-the-latter-stage-o... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_5-only_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_5-only_ga...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- miohtama 3y ago
  I spoke with some console game devs who worked with PS5 title: there is a major problem with AAA title development. Because the games have become so big, it takes 5 years to produce one. The console life cycle is 5 years as well. Thus, as a game studio, you can only cram one AAA title for each console generation. Then you need to start from the scratch with new console, new SDKs, new bugs and so on.
  - selectodude 3y ago
    Isn’t the PS5 just a juiced up PS4 at this point? How much is the SDK really changing from generation to generation anymore?
    - neocritter 3y ago
      The life of the juiced up Gamecube (Wii) might offer some guidance here.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    Someone should invent a game console that is modular so it can be updated as time goes on. It would also be wise to use a standard architecture, so that games remain compatible across different modular configurations. Call it something like "Parts Console" or "Personalized Console".
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- epolanski 3y ago
  PS4 is selling at similar rates as PS5, at this point in the lifecycle they had similar sales. That being said: - sales have been inflated by pandemic - most games are released on older gen consoles too - PS5 has too little console-selling exclusives. - Even of those that have, they are pretty much all sequels to PS4 selling games: spiderman TWO, horizon TWO, God of War TWO. Safe for Bloodborne all these first 4 years games got a PC release, so not really that exclusive - Graphical generation jump is just "meh". Especially if you play on your sofa few meters from your TV, you're hardly to appreciate higher resolution, because besides higher resolution the PS5 only offers marginal graphical updates to games that you really need to look for (shades, reflections) and are highly dependent on the effort of the developers
- doughnutstracks 3y ago
  For transparency, the number of PS5 exclusives has gone down because of Sony's strategy of porting some of their older exclusive games to PC [1]. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/playstationstudios https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/playstationstudios
slothtrop 3y ago
They recently announced that PS5 is entering it's twilight phase. Sold better than series X but apparently not well enough. We're still getting new games released for both ps4 and ps5, and the value added on the latter appears marginal.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  I only own a switch but if I had to buy a console right now I would buy a second hand ps4 over a ps5 and max out its internal storage. Much cheaper and huge list of games, many available for very cheap on the second hand market.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    Can't the PS5 run any PS4 game?
    - xnyan 3y ago
      Virtually all PS4 games. There are currently 6* PS4 only titles, none of which are especially noteworthy. *https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/games/ps5-backward-compatibility-games/#only https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/games/ps5-backward...
      - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
        There are other titles that are, at least last I checked, essentially unplayable on PS5. Namely, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus. Graphics are glitchy enough it's not worth the trouble. Which is a SHAME, because it was my favorite guilty pleasure on the PS4
  - culopatin 3y ago
    What’s the price difference? $100? I’ve seen used ps5s sell for 250-300 in my area. I got a PS5 last year (my first non portable console since the N64) and what I was expecting was the old feeling of playing with friends on a big tv. The only game I enjoy doing that in is FIFA/FC24. Unfortunately my gf is not into it. Other than that… not a lot to choose from. I ended up building a PC and now I’m considering selling the ps5. What’s the point of having this in the living room if I can only play alone? The games are basically the same now. Pc has more games, especially indie, I can also use the pc for other things, and I don’t have to hoard the living room for my individualistic activities. Also shooters with a controllers is just frustrating when you’ve played with a mouse.
this_user 3y ago
They only recently announced that the PS5 is rapidly reaching its EOL. It is seemingly not selling well at all. The early issues with supply and the lack of actually interesting games that are not just remakes has clearly not helped.
- Grazester 3y ago
  It's selling well. It may not be "omg we are drowning in sales". Sony has also broken even on the cost of hardware within a year of hardware sales
  - dspillett 3y ago
    In a company like Sony, where shareholder value trumps any other value, "omg we are drowning in sales" is the definition of selling well and anything less is seen as a problem.
- ErneX 3y ago
  They said it was entering its latter stage, which makes sense given it is been close to 3.5 years since it came out and their generations usually last 7 years. It is selling pretty well too, I think I read even better than PS4 if you align their launches?
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I don't think that is what they announced, it did not reach their sales targets but they may have been expecting people to "upgrade" to the slim PS5 in those sales targets. It could still be selling well by every metric except for a higher expected sales than it should be. Especially since they also increased the prices in a few markets.
- cwbriscoe 3y ago
  The PS5 is selling above PS4 at this time in their respective console cycles.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  Despite a slow start it’s currently selling at a rate that would allow it to catch the PS4 which is the 5ᵀᴴ most sold console ever. I’m not sure what the guidance was, but even if they were off 4% this last quarter that still puts the PS4 ahead of the Wii by the end of its life. I doubt a company would ever announce a console is EOL befor their next one is on the shelves. Are you sure that wasn’t about the PS4?
rychco 3y ago
Playstation doesn't appear to be doing poorly, but it's hard to ignore that margins are likely worse than previous generations as AAA game budgets have skyrocketed. In fact, the lifetime sales of PS5 aren't that far behind PS4 (at the equivalent point in the PS4 lifetime). IIRC the insomniac leak contained some internal slides that claimed at least ~6 million full-price sales of Spiderman 2 would be needed to break even on development costs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
sandofsky 3y ago
It seems relevant that the company has scaled back its live service ambitions in recent months. https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-commits-to-launch-just-six-of-playstations-12-live-service-games-by-march-2026 https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-commits-to-launch-just-six... It seems many game companies thought they could build the next Fortnite/Destiny, but 1) it’s hard to start with that goal and move backwards, and 2) attention is a scarce resource, with most people only having enough room in their lives for a single live service game. It's also very likely that live service revenue was unusually high starting in 2020, due to everyone stuck at home craving social interaction. So just like FAANG companies over-hiring during that period, the games industry was due for a correction.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  It's interesting that you use Destiny as an example given that was purchased by Sony Interactive Entertainment and is one of their live services for which they are scaling back. (It's also fascinating on a longer scale of history with Sony being a huge investor in Live Service Games as Sony Online Entertainment in the 90s through to 2015 and spinning that off to Daybreak Games in a previous lull in Live Service Games revenue. History repeats itself in strange echoes.)

tapoxi 3y ago

London Studio and Firesprite were recently working on VR titles, and the PSVR2, while a neat product, does not seem to be selling well.

dtx1 3y ago

Sony is saying PS5 is entering ‘The Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle’[0] while there are only 13 PS5 exclusive titles available [1]. So PS5 is propably not doing well. [0] https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-entering-the-latter-stage-of-its-life-cycle-sony-says https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-entering-the-latter-stage-o... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_5-only_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_5-only_ga...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
miohtama 3y ago
I spoke with some console game devs who worked with PS5 title: there is a major problem with AAA title development. Because the games have become so big, it takes 5 years to produce one. The console life cycle is 5 years as well. Thus, as a game studio, you can only cram one AAA title for each console generation. Then you need to start from the scratch with new console, new SDKs, new bugs and so on.
- selectodude 3y ago
  Isn’t the PS5 just a juiced up PS4 at this point? How much is the SDK really changing from generation to generation anymore?
  - neocritter 3y ago
    The life of the juiced up Gamecube (Wii) might offer some guidance here.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  Someone should invent a game console that is modular so it can be updated as time goes on. It would also be wise to use a standard architecture, so that games remain compatible across different modular configurations. Call it something like "Parts Console" or "Personalized Console".
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
epolanski 3y ago
PS4 is selling at similar rates as PS5, at this point in the lifecycle they had similar sales. That being said: - sales have been inflated by pandemic - most games are released on older gen consoles too - PS5 has too little console-selling exclusives. - Even of those that have, they are pretty much all sequels to PS4 selling games: spiderman TWO, horizon TWO, God of War TWO. Safe for Bloodborne all these first 4 years games got a PC release, so not really that exclusive - Graphical generation jump is just "meh". Especially if you play on your sofa few meters from your TV, you're hardly to appreciate higher resolution, because besides higher resolution the PS5 only offers marginal graphical updates to games that you really need to look for (shades, reflections) and are highly dependent on the effort of the developers
doughnutstracks 3y ago
For transparency, the number of PS5 exclusives has gone down because of Sony's strategy of porting some of their older exclusive games to PC [1]. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/playstationstudios https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/playstationstudios

slothtrop 3y ago

They recently announced that PS5 is entering it's twilight phase. Sold better than series X but apparently not well enough. We're still getting new games released for both ps4 and ps5, and the value added on the latter appears marginal.

prmoustache 3y ago
I only own a switch but if I had to buy a console right now I would buy a second hand ps4 over a ps5 and max out its internal storage. Much cheaper and huge list of games, many available for very cheap on the second hand market.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  Can't the PS5 run any PS4 game?
  - xnyan 3y ago
    Virtually all PS4 games. There are currently 6* PS4 only titles, none of which are especially noteworthy. *https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/games/ps5-backward-compatibility-games/#only https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/games/ps5-backward...
    - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
      There are other titles that are, at least last I checked, essentially unplayable on PS5. Namely, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus. Graphics are glitchy enough it's not worth the trouble. Which is a SHAME, because it was my favorite guilty pleasure on the PS4
- culopatin 3y ago
  What’s the price difference? $100? I’ve seen used ps5s sell for 250-300 in my area. I got a PS5 last year (my first non portable console since the N64) and what I was expecting was the old feeling of playing with friends on a big tv. The only game I enjoy doing that in is FIFA/FC24. Unfortunately my gf is not into it. Other than that… not a lot to choose from. I ended up building a PC and now I’m considering selling the ps5. What’s the point of having this in the living room if I can only play alone? The games are basically the same now. Pc has more games, especially indie, I can also use the pc for other things, and I don’t have to hoard the living room for my individualistic activities. Also shooters with a controllers is just frustrating when you’ve played with a mouse.

this_user 3y ago

They only recently announced that the PS5 is rapidly reaching its EOL. It is seemingly not selling well at all. The early issues with supply and the lack of actually interesting games that are not just remakes has clearly not helped.

Grazester 3y ago
It's selling well. It may not be "omg we are drowning in sales". Sony has also broken even on the cost of hardware within a year of hardware sales
- dspillett 3y ago
  In a company like Sony, where shareholder value trumps any other value, "omg we are drowning in sales" is the definition of selling well and anything less is seen as a problem.
ErneX 3y ago
They said it was entering its latter stage, which makes sense given it is been close to 3.5 years since it came out and their generations usually last 7 years. It is selling pretty well too, I think I read even better than PS4 if you align their launches?
nerdjon 3y ago
I don't think that is what they announced, it did not reach their sales targets but they may have been expecting people to "upgrade" to the slim PS5 in those sales targets. It could still be selling well by every metric except for a higher expected sales than it should be. Especially since they also increased the prices in a few markets.
cwbriscoe 3y ago
The PS5 is selling above PS4 at this time in their respective console cycles.
jonhohle 3y ago
Despite a slow start it’s currently selling at a rate that would allow it to catch the PS4 which is the 5ᵀᴴ most sold console ever. I’m not sure what the guidance was, but even if they were off 4% this last quarter that still puts the PS4 ahead of the Wii by the end of its life. I doubt a company would ever announce a console is EOL befor their next one is on the shelves. Are you sure that wasn’t about the PS4?

rychco 3y ago

Playstation doesn't appear to be doing poorly, but it's hard to ignore that margins are likely worse than previous generations as AAA game budgets have skyrocketed. In fact, the lifetime sales of PS5 aren't that far behind PS4 (at the equivalent point in the PS4 lifetime). IIRC the insomniac leak contained some internal slides that claimed at least ~6 million full-price sales of Spiderman 2 would be needed to break even on development costs.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sandofsky 3y ago

It seems relevant that the company has scaled back its live service ambitions in recent months. https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-commits-to-launch-just-six-of-playstations-12-live-service-games-by-march-2026 https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-commits-to-launch-just-six... It seems many game companies thought they could build the next Fortnite/Destiny, but 1) it’s hard to start with that goal and move backwards, and 2) attention is a scarce resource, with most people only having enough room in their lives for a single live service game. It's also very likely that live service revenue was unusually high starting in 2020, due to everyone stuck at home craving social interaction. So just like FAANG companies over-hiring during that period, the games industry was due for a correction.

WorldMaker 3y ago
It's interesting that you use Destiny as an example given that was purchased by Sony Interactive Entertainment and is one of their live services for which they are scaling back. (It's also fascinating on a longer scale of history with Sony being a huge investor in Live Service Games as Sony Online Entertainment in the 90s through to 2015 and spinning that off to Daybreak Games in a previous lull in Live Service Games revenue. History repeats itself in strange echoes.)