Sony COO: SIA doesn’t have an understanding on how to translate their work into profit.
- Thread starter MeachTheMonster
- Start date
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
MoshpitMazi
Moshpit Gxng/ Anti Fash
COO a clown for throwing his people under the bus like that.
Should've been kept in house.
Should've been kept in house.
CEO of Morgan Industries
Superstar
These numbers are doo doo, but Sony has themselves to blame. They abandoned the AA market and made every first-party game a super-expensive AAA game.
Had they continued to build AA games and franchises like in the PS2 era, they'd be better positioned to keep dev budgets down AND to have more releases every year.e
They need to look at Nintendo as their model. They can put out an AA 2D Mario and an AA remake of a SNES game in the same quarter and sell 14M copies combined of those games at sixty dollars apiece.
Had they continued to build AA games and franchises like in the PS2 era, they'd be better positioned to keep dev budgets down AND to have more releases every year.e
They need to look at Nintendo as their model. They can put out an AA 2D Mario and an AA remake of a SNES game in the same quarter and sell 14M copies combined of those games at sixty dollars apiece.
it is a pretty spicy public statement. was this from an interview?
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Funny how you’re so quick to google and point out fake news for xbox but pretend to be dumb with Sony
Full quote:
"Actually, I am the chairperson [of SIE]. It's been about four months, and I am trying to demonstrate leadership and trying to have as many meetings as possible with the management team. I also visit studios and everyone is working really hard to fulfill their responsibility to try to optimize the business, and I understand that. But overall growth and sustainable profitability or increasing margin, how will that translate to these goals? I don't think people understand that deeply. I think that is the problem of the organization. So as far as I'm concerned, I try to understand what is happening in the company, in the industry, and also in the perspective of the analysts, and try to explain in a transparent manner so that people can recognize and notice these issues so that we can have a harmonized approach going forward. That is a very general comment since I became the chairperson. There are concrete points which I will not go into today.
"Now, about visiting the studios, and I've had meetings with the leaders there, the studios. People who work in the studios have very high motivation. They're very highly motivated. They're very good people. And they're very creative people. They have great creative minds. And they also have knowledge about live streaming. However, having said that, when it comes to the business itself, I think there is room for improvement. And that's got to do about how to use the money or about the schedule of development or how to fulfill one's accountability towards development, et cetera. Those are my frank impressions. So I will continue to engage in dialogue with the people so that we can find the right way to proceed."
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
What works for nintendo don’t work for everyone else. If sony stops making AAA games, Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, Capcom will continue to. All that would do is diminish what makes playstation special.
They can make AA games but the market ain’t gonna accept them for 60 dollars and they ain’t gonna buy them by the millions like god of war, last of us, horizon, etc.
CEO of Morgan Industries
Superstar
The schedule of development is the big one. They need AA releases that are on 2-3 year cycles. We should be getting a new Ape Escape every three years, for example.
I actually did google it, but most of the results were just the same tweet. they should put the source in the tweet
edit: also seems like cac tweet paraphrased (why googling the exact text didn't help), but put it in quotes. I think that's wack, especially without a link to the actual quote
edit2: searching around more it seems your (english) quote comes from resetera. so I guess the different interpretations might come from the translation
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He says the people are nice but they ain’t making no money. What are you trying to point out here???Funny how you’re so quick to google and point out fake news for xbox but pretend to be dumb with Sony
Full quote:
"Actually, I am the chairperson [of SIE]. It's been about four months, and I am trying to demonstrate leadership and trying to have as many meetings as possible with the management team. I also visit studios and everyone is working really hard to fulfill their responsibility to try to optimize the business, and I understand that. But overall growth and sustainable profitability or increasing margin, how will that translate to these goals? I don't think people understand that deeply. I think that is the problem of the organization. So as far as I'm concerned, I try to understand what is happening in the company, in the industry, and also in the perspective of the analysts, and try to explain in a transparent manner so that people can recognize and notice these issues so that we can have a harmonized approach going forward. That is a very general comment since I became the chairperson. There are concrete points which I will not go into today.
"Now, about visiting the studios, and I've had meetings with the leaders there, the studios. People who work in the studios have very high motivation. They're very highly motivated. They're very good people. And they're very creative people. They have great creative minds. And they also have knowledge about live streaming. However, having said that, when it comes to the business itself, I think there is room for improvement. And that's got to do about how to use the money or about the schedule of development or how to fulfill one's accountability towards development, et cetera. Those are my frank impressions. So I will continue to engage in dialogue with the people so that we can find the right way to proceed."
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Another thing people don’t realize:
AA and ‘smaller’ games don’t take any less time to make. Hi Fi Rush took over 5 years, Helldivers took 8 years, Hellblade 2 took over 6 years, Hades 2 is going on 6 years, No new hollow knight, no new dead cells, psychonauts 2 took a decade to make, etc.
New game by Celeste creators is tbd this year, thats 6 years as well
Ori creators new game is early access this year, 4 1/2 years
No new cuphead in sight
Kena came out in 2021, they haven’t announced a new game
If yall can point out AA games that take less than 4 years to produce I’d like to hear about them. They are practically unicorns in this day and age. Games despite their budgets are not decreasing in development time.
Meanwhile Ragnarok and Horizon had 4 & 5 year development cycles, the latter having DLC inbetween.
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CEO of Morgan Industries
Superstar
Not saying they should stop making AAA games, and nowhere did I say that. Even Nintendo makes AAA games (see the latest 3D Zelda games as an example).
But what I did say was that AA games are necessary. I don't expect Sony to develop an AA release and sell 11M copies in its first quarter of release like Mario Bros. Wonder.
I do expect them to develop a handful of AA IP that they can fill release gaps with and that, properly budgeted, will allow them to sell 3-5M copies at or near full price and get those profit margins up.
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
See above comment
CEO of Morgan Industries
Superstar
Even if I stipulate this, Hi Fi Rush didn't cost Starfield money to make and it successy filled a release gap for Microsoft.
So even if a new Ape Escape or Hot Shots Golf takes five years to release, if it's less costly and you only need to sell 3-5M copies and not 15-20M copies to turn a decent profit margin, you've lowered your operating budget and increases your profit margins, which SIE needs to do.
They can't keep doing what they're doing with every game being AAA because only Insomniac has figured out how to consistently release good AAA games on a reasonable cycle, and even if the other Sony developers figured this out, that doesn't address spiraling costs.
It is what it is. The math ain't mathing.
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
I’m saying that the output won’t increase with smaller games and the profits margins won’t greatly increase selling 500k-1.5 million copies of a 30 dollars game
The reason they spend so much money on those AAA games is because they sell a lot of copies. Something selling like Sifu, while great for SLO Clap doesn’t really move a needle for a company the size of Sony
People seem to forget the last decade of Japan Studio was a complete money pit