Like PlayStation and Xbox compete to see who can annoy the players the most, a reader gets fired up about the current state of video games business.
It’s been a while since I last wrote on GC, mostly due to being a busy dad with two kids, etc. But I’ve been keeping an eye on the industry and I don’t feel it’s hyperbolic to say the industry is in a mess. How to Ubisoft AND EA potentially being in financial difficulty, and Mass layoffs in industry. Unsurprisingly, after the billions spent on studio acquisitions.
Some of the decisions coming out of the industry are crazy, Sony decide to win money in live service gamesdespite the fact that no one is interested in them. Microsoft going to multiformat, then not going to multiformat. buying Activityto make them appear to kill slowly Call Of Duty; they’ve already killed Halo, stopped making their own games (mostly), etc., etc. I read a comment that made me laugh at how absurdly correct it was: Sony and Microsoft are having a bad news competition and both are winning.
Then we have the final own goal for Sony, announcing that they will it will no longer produce physical disks for the games after next year. Now, I’m not naive and most of my games are digital these days, but I don’t buy new games anymore. I tend to wait months, if not years, for games I like to drop low enough to even consider it.
An all-digital future will happen 100%, it makes sense for the lack of transportation and use of plastic, etc. but anyone who has used Sony stores will be fully aware of how bloated their games are after monopolizing digital sales.
And here lies the problem, Steam has been around for a long time and seems to have a much better user experience, including timely refunds, etc. But Sony has already proven that they are more than happy to improve their customer base.
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All of this seems to come hot on the heels of news that Sony has deleted hundreds of previously paid movies due to licensing issues.
For me, at least, there have always been three main reasons to have a console over a PC: price, plug and play, and physical media. From what I gather, the rumor is that the PlayStation 6 is likely to cost upwards of £1,000. With the price and the lack of physical media, I honestly can’t see any reason for me to choose to buy a PlayStation 6 right now.
Slide, there are some positives in the industry. The indie side of gaming is incredible and getting better year on year, the triple-A market doesn’t seem to be struggling massively, but it has turned games around for the double-A market.
There are a handful of studios that still knock it out of the park and they seem to be the studios run by gamers or at least people with a keen interest in gaming. Seeing Capcom return to form has been a special moment for me. I love Resident Evil and having Resi 4 and 9 has been amazing.
It seems to me that the big corporations in the West are now run exclusively by money men, and as they do in every single industry they feed into, they are actively killing companies while they siphon off every penny they can.
From reader Dr Gonzo
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