PlayStation Studios Development

[BananaKing]

because from doesn't make good games anymore.

i defended the early games for not having difficulty settings because the games were not actually difficult.   they were like puzzles where 1 approach could be impossible but another approach and you could slaughter things with reckless abandon.  

from has lost all of that and things are just straight up difficult now.   long gone are the days of just learning where an ambush will come from or that a boss is massively weak to fire or that there is a "safe spot" from which you cannot be hit.  

i suggest you just go back to the 2 really good from games (demon's souls, darksouls 1) and abandon eldin ring.   the game was hyped but the game sucks.  i couldn't even finish the main game because it just straight up wasn't fun anymore.

I wouldn't say they are bad games, on the contrary, I'd say they are great games, that have some flaws.

The annoying thing I found in Elden Ring, that wasn't really in Bloodborne, was that If a boss was destroying me, I could upgrade a little and come back and beat him, if I upgrade a good deal, I'd destroy him.

In Elden Ring, these bosses at the end Deal insane amount of damage, and spam attacks like crazy. But these are purely unfair and infuriating.

[Horizon]

Point I was getting at with Japan studios is that they were being starved for funds.  Whether the rumour that it was because none of the directors wanted to make big blockbusters is true or not (Gravity Rush's director was hinting at something like this), we'll never know.  But how much better would Gravity Rush have sold if it had better marketing?  Probably better, though I'll concede not super better, but I'm sure it would sell as much as Astro Bot.  Even Astro Bot, how well did the first game sell?  Second game sold well, but not even amazing and Sony is making out that it sold 10 million like their other tent-poles.  I'm sure a few of the older ps3 games probably would have sold as well if they had Astro Bot's marketing.  Even now, how hard is it to patch up and re-release Pupeteer and what have you on PS4/PS5?  Or PC?  I think they'd be pleasantly surprised with Gravity Rush PC port sales and Bloodborne PC sales if they existed.

Tinfoil hat me honestly believes they starved Japan Studios so they could shut it down and move the headquarters out of Japan to support their tent-pole games that was coming out of Naughty Dog and Santa Monica.  Hell, the arrogance I read about how they'd purposely can Japan only releases because it didn't align with their beliefs (Senran Kagura literally dying and Naruto having to censor Minato's arms...).  Now it turns out western development is in a seriously rough patch (I say this nicely as I think its currently the drizzling nuggets) and they need Japan Studios back.  Why else would they be pushing Astro Bot, despite selling ... I don't even want to say bad, but bad compared to their behemoths?

P.S. I honestly believe Astro Bot and Helldivers 2 sold as well as they did due to us being starved for games in those genres.  Astro Bot just being a good game and Helldivers being an average game in a genre that doesn't have anything out, or has seen a release in a long time.

Either way, I do believe Sony needs to look at the entirety of their development pipeline.  They gambled, what, a billion dollars on these GAAS games and it looks like none of them are releasing?  When people are complaining about Sony's GAAS strategy, the defense is "They're studios still working on single player games.", no their studios weren't and now they're 3 years out at the very least while Japan Studios would have been filling in the much needed gaps.  Whether from internal games or 3rd party partnerships.  Stellarblade currently comes to mind to what Japan Studios used to do more or less, and yes I'm aware they have a studio setup for it, but Shu's probably going to retire soon and I'm sure their Japanese publishing arm needs their talent back to carry on.

Whilst I agree Sony have made it clear big single player games are coming after April 2025. All the way up to fall 2028 you could see:

Ghost of Yotei
Death Stranding
Wolverine
Naughty Dog game
Santa Monica game
Bluepoint game
Bend Game
Firesprite Game
Housemarque game
Another Insomniac game
Horizon 3
Xdev games

I truly believe the second half of this gen will be packed. They just packed a lot content in the first 2 years of the PS5 and have had to reload. Some of the delays can be attributed to the GAAS failure, covid and their two biggest devs working on new IP's which are by far the hardest and longest in dev.

[the-pi-guy]

Yeah next few years should be pretty solid.

[kitler53]

PlayStation is cooked as the kids say. 

[BananaKing]

There are rumors that Sony is buying kadakawa.

I just want it to happen to see the meltdowns.

Spoiler for Hidden:

And Bloodborne 2

[kitler53]

There are rumors that Sony is buying kadakawa.

I just want it to happen to see the meltdowns.

Spoiler for Hidden:

And Bloodborne 2

doubt.  

but to be honest it's probably a not terrible target for Sony with their movies and anime.   

in today's environment though I think there is zero chance fromsoftware goes exclusive.  I would take it as a sign the sony is following MS's path towards full 3rd party. 

[the-pi-guy]

Reuters

Not some random insider.

[Legend]

Fromsoft makes sense. They have a big ps fanbase but they could easily be bought by ms.

Does the company own anything else that matters?

[the-pi-guy]

Fromsoft makes sense. They have a big ps fanbase but they could easily be bought by ms.

Does the company own anything else that matters?

Anime, which Sony is working on monopolizing at this rate.

[kitler53]

Fromsoft makes sense. They have a big ps fanbase but they could easily be bought by ms.

Does the company own anything else that matters?

what Pi said,..   anime.  not something that MS would want but due to sony buying crunchyroll something sony would use.   i looked though this list and afaik there are no massive frachises in there but i do recognize some of them, the ones i've watch were good, and they seem to have a lot.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/producer/1696/Kadokawa

[kitler53]

*Update* Kadokawa Corporation has published a statement confirming reports that Sony Group Corporation has expressed the intent to acquire Kadokawa Corporation, but a decision has not yet been made. https://t.co/8ljzVfJl9Z https://t.co/LPgn4wFCmN pic.twitter.com/pA1nlN1axx

— Gematsu (@gematsu) November 20, 2024

[BananaKing]

Holy shame. This is huge. Do think MS will step in and start a bidding war?

[the-pi-guy]

Holy shame. This is huge. Do think MS will step in and start a bidding war?

The issue is Kadokawa is mostly not gaming.

Biggest chunk of their operations is publishing. They publish anime, manga, I think they even publish other things like textbooks.

Gaming only makes up like 10% of their business.

[kitler53]

Holy shame. This is huge. Do think MS will step in and start a bidding war?

what Pi said.  while Nintendo or MS will resent Sony for this it would be a giant waste of money for MS to spend 3-5 billion just for fromsoftware and not know what to do with the rest of them.  

[Horizon]

Holy shame. This is huge. Do think MS will step in and start a bidding war?

I don't think Satya is going to let Xbox go big until they get their stuff sorted in house.