4 ms·

>Sony's Concord crash, and generally confused strategy of exclusives vs PC ports/remasters. Sony has two subsidaries making games: * Sony Music Entertainment

>Sony's Concord crash, and generally confused strategy of exclusives vs PC ports/remasters. Sony has two subsidaries making games: * Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) through their subsidary Aniplex. They are not to be confused with Sony Music Entertainment (SME), another subsidary. * Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), who are the PlayStation people and historically Sony's video game division. They were previously Sony Computer Entertainment before they moved to California and rebranded. * SMEJ and SIE are equals under the Sony Group Corporation conglomerate. SMEJ more or less minds their own business, their operations concern all entertainment media in Japan including games. Their subsidary Aniplex is their anime, video game, pop music, and overall otaku division. Aniplex's games have been generally well received, with Fate/Grand Order (developed by DelightWorks and subsequently bought out by Aniplex, this is important for later context below) being the foremost example and others such as all the Sword Art Online games. SIE loathes SMEJ and Aniplex because their games by comparison have crashed and burned again and again, Concord being just the most recent example of many. They even spun up a game dev studio called ForwardWorks to defeat Aniplex's DelightWorks, but ForwardWorks like most of their other ventures failed while DelightWorks just kept moving along. SIE is also in the awkward position of approving PlayStation ports of Aniplex's games, despite their hatred. So if you ever wonder why some of Sony's games are crashing and burning, just remember: It's probably by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and they are too busy trying to drag their fellow co-workers down to be making good games.

oersted 2y ago
Yes, relatively speaking Sony is not doing too badly. They might have been doing better a few years ago, but it hasn't changed that much. PS5 was a real success story despite supply-side struggles the first few years. They still have a highly respected portfolio of exclusives, and now that Xbox is not really competing, they can afford to loosen their grip a bit and cashing-in by also slowly releasing them on PC, generally encouraging players to pay for a game multiple times through remasters and cross-platform ports. They might not be doing as well with first-party games, but that's fine. Astrobot has been a pleasant surprise and unexpectedly successful.

oersted 2y ago

Yes, relatively speaking Sony is not doing too badly. They might have been doing better a few years ago, but it hasn't changed that much. PS5 was a real success story despite supply-side struggles the first few years. They still have a highly respected portfolio of exclusives, and now that Xbox is not really competing, they can afford to loosen their grip a bit and cashing-in by also slowly releasing them on PC, generally encouraging players to pay for a game multiple times through remasters and cross-platform ports. They might not be doing as well with first-party games, but that's fine. Astrobot has been a pleasant surprise and unexpectedly successful.