Dang. Hopefully the PS4, or whatever it is that they end up announcing, boosts investors' confidence and Sony starts to do better.

i'm not surprised with shit consoles they sell lucky if they last 12 months i want be buying another one robbing bastards

With the ps4 being essentially a mid-range PC, that by the launch will be easily bought for less than $499. And Sony offering the most abysmal online service, never mind the most inconvenient DRM in history, over many consecutive launches of consoles and software on every single platform they've ever used -- is anyone really expecting the trend to turn around with the ps4?

I mean, this is the Sony Playstation that fired Psygnosis after they made WipeoutHD. They've killed off every major IP they've owned, closed all their studios, and made the ones who didn't close go multiplatform.

Imo, it'd be amazing if they haven't considered retiring the Playstation brand already.

I actually agree with the marketing thing. Almost every time I see in game footage prerelease, previews and reviews, they tend to be done through the 360 rather than ps3, then there is the problem with console unique psp vita memory sticks, but we should not forget about the court case of the guy who uploaded the video showing how to jailbreak the ps3. Sony has been digging its own hole in the western market.

Then again, Sony has been working on 3D tv technology, which may have been introduced into the market at the worst time possible as the world is still recovering from economic issues and many of those affected can't afford to be the first to embrace it.

No profit without some loss, eh Sony? PS4 shall make the investors drool :3

quote samwise995

That's not even including Insomniac, Media Molecule, Sanzaru, Quantic Dream, and all the other SCE studios.

Insomniac went multiplatform. Sanzaru is a new 3rd party developer - they've taken over Sly for Sucker Punch. They've done nothing other than digitalize the old Sly Cooper games. Sucker Punch was bought up from being an independent studio - there's no real explanation for what Sony's plans are here. But it's safe to assume it's no more cartoony, but physicky and brilliantly animated platforming action. We hear motion capture is involved.

Media Molecule was also bought up - which was then followed by no new announcements for a game, the end of LBP. And lately a vita game, which looks sweet - but still.. No new major IP. Quantic Dream is a 3rd party studio - they're also very weak when it comes to declaring their plans ahead. If you remember, they were literally expecting Heavy Rain to sell 4 copies - even asshole journalists eventually started rooting for David Cage because he was presented as such a pitiful character at every expo.

Guerrilla Games are also releasing vita games - they do not continue with Killzone titles, for good reason, because the sales are horrible, and the online population in their games has dropped so low they could just as well close the service and no one would notice.

Meanwhile, they're all weened off the ps3 and over to multiplatform targets. That's what you're seeing with the vita releases - the studios are asked to focus on motion control and input, rather than internal coding. Essentially with the "next gen", all the spu-code can be thrown out the window. Sony washes their hands off all of it. And that means there's no good reason for anyone to stay platform exclusive unless Sony owns their company.

This has been by design. And now the most successful remaining studio is the compound group making Buzz. The remains of SL, or Psygnosis, are now upgraded to making SingStar slots. Sure, Sony manufactured that crisis themselves - but they have been preparing for it to happen since the ps3 launched.

As you say: the marketing for the ps3 has been abysmal. But the reason for that is that the marketing department and their retail partners - especially in EU and the US, hate the kit. The ps3 makes no sense from a business-standpoint - because: amazing animation, technical solutions that allow 256+ players in the same game, real-time spline correction, etc., none of this translates into money.

quote

And seriously, nipsen, Spark is right. Sony's online is much better than Microsoft's. They fell behind in early sales, and didn't back themselves up with a powerful enough ad campaign. That is why they are trailing Microsoft. Not because of the quality of their product, but the quantity of their advertising.

Yes and no. It's a very good point that the complete product package is great, and that only Sony could find a way to screw it up. And the online package as well is not bad. In fact, if you don't live in Europe, the online features Sony offers are excellent. Ps+ offers actual value as well, rather than being advertisement you pay for, like xbl.

The problem is that the online connection management has been mandated by Sony to have no connection filtering. This used to be up to the developers. Who of course are on top of this. But after Sony got the first threat from some jackass in a trailerpark insisting they would sue Sony for not allowing him to play the game he just bought -- they made sure none of the online games actually had connection filtering.

This is the difference between an online game working perfectly smooth for everyone, every time you play. And between there being seconds worth of lag between updates for some clients. And that of course cheating works great.

Sony did that, in spite of some of us being damned bloody forceful in the betas, and outside of that as well. But Sony's asshole publisher spawn, along with the "community handlers" gave us the finger. One of the guys who sits on these decisions told me that I was an idiot. Of course, he said, the first concern should be to get everyone into the game! ..how it looks or plays was not important. Oh, no. If the hit-detection would be shot - who cares, as long as they can join!

Then people started complaining about the aiming not working, because it lagged so much -- and they patched the aiming systems out well. Oh, you only needed some auto-aim, was the theory then. I'm not joking - that was the argument. Anyone could see it was the lag - but Sony's people didn't know what it was, were too *bleep*ing stupid, atechnical and dumb. Or they were just too servile to their HQ folks.

And when someone couldn't instantly connect to their clan on the opposite end of the world, people actually called Sony up to complain. And Sony obliged, and had their devs patch out the connection filtering from Killzone 2, WipeoutHD, MAG, and so on and so forth. And now they "did what the fans wanted", because they fulfilled the request of some guy in a trailer-park who couldn't connect to Killzone 2 on wifi. (This is a real example - I'm not making that up).

If you take a look at LBP now, you have another great example. With filtering, the game played exactly like in the advertisements. Without filtering, it's a jittery mess. At launch, Sony sold the console on for example having the ability to make the transition between online and offline seamless. But that too, according to marketing, had no monetary value.

So what we have now are games on the entire psn that look like shit when they're played online. I explained why that would happen to Sony years ago, and Sony's "community folks" couldn't care less.

And that's what makes Sony's online service abysmally bad. Of course, in their defense, EA and Activision has also adopted this scheme for their online games. On all platforms. Because apparently no filtering means less angry calls to the support department. And forcing even the paid servers in Battlefield 3 to maintain an open lobby regardless of ping is just what was needed to save pennies on local server space.

But "people" accept it as well. So Mission Accomplished. This is what we're going to get for the next 20 years or so, for all major publishers. Because you guys think it's awesome, and because you don't notice when something is broken. So congratulations, this is as good as it gets.

Does that answer your question?

quote nipsen

quote samwise995

That's not even including Insomniac, Media Molecule, Sanzaru, Quantic Dream, and all the other SCE studios.

Insomniac went multiplatform. Sanzaru is a new 3rd party developer - they've taken over Sly for Sucker Punch. They've done nothing other than digitalize the old Sly Cooper games.

Ok, so I was mistaken about Insomniac. They're going multiplatform with Fuse.

But YOU'RE wrong about Sanzaru [no offense intended, the emphasis on the word "you're" doesn't mean antipathy], they did more than just release The Sly Collection. They are also making Sly Cooper 4.

And anyway, you're not even acknowledging some of the companies Spark listed, such as Naughty Dog, who never ceases to make brilliantly fantastic games (Uncharted, The Last of Us), and Sucker Punch, who made inFamous (their next project unknown at this point).

quote nipsen

Yes and no. It's a very good point that the complete product package is great, and that only Sony could find a way to screw it up. And the online package as well is not bad. In fact, if you don't live in Europe, the online features Sony offers are excellent. Ps+ offers actual value as well, rather than being advertisement you pay for, like xbl.

The problem is that the online connection management has been mandated by Sony to have no connection filtering. This used to be up to the developers. Who of course are on top of this. But after Sony got the first threat from some jackass in a trailerpark insisting they would sue Sony for not allowing him to play the game he just bought -- they made sure none of the online games actually had connection filtering.

All my games run fine online. And it's free. My brief experience with XBL was horrendous.

quote nipsen

But "people" accept it as well. So Mission Accomplished. This is what we're going to get for the next 20 years or so, for all major publishers. Because you guys think it's awesome, and because you don't notice when something is broken. So congratulations, this is as good as it gets.

I tend to notice when things are broken. You can call it "broken" if you want, but if I still have an enjoyable time with a product that I own- particularly if it's much more enjoyable than its competitor- then I don't care what you call it. As for me, well, I call it "great."

And, the way things are going (and of course this information is based on rumors and alleged leaks, so it's impossible to say for sure at this point), the PS4 is shaping up to be a MUCH stronger platform than the Xbox Durango. So, in talking about the future of Sony, I think they'll do just fine.