Honest question, are there numbers out there to show this to be true? Because in this day and age a game can sell 4 million copies and still not be profitable. Plus companies tend to hide non profitable stuff among their profitable items in their balance sheets to make things look rosier than they really are. Personally I had heard the opposite, that most of their 1st party games actually lost money but were considered a necessary evil, just part of doing business in the console space as the old argument goes. But if there are numbers that show the opposite I'd be curious to see them. Incidentally the argument of discarding 1st parties has come up many times in the past, it's not cut and dry anymore that they are all worth keeping. Someone like ND serves dual purpose as both custom content and tech support so they make sense, but beyond that the financial drag (and risk) of many of these studios is quite severe.
PS4 proves that Sony should cut 1st party production
- Thread starter babybumb
- Start date
Honest question, are there numbers out there to show this to be true? Because in this day and age a game can sell 4 million copies and still not be profitable. Plus companies tend to hide non profitable stuff among their profitable items in their balance sheets to make things look rosier than they really are. Personally I had heard the opposite, that most of their 1st party games actually lost money but were considered a necessary evil, just part of doing business in the console space as the old argument goes. But if there are numbers that show the opposite I'd be curious to see them. Incidentally the argument of discarding 1st parties has come up many times in the past, it's not cut and dry anymore that they are all worth keeping. Someone like ND serves dual purpose as both custom content and tech support so they make sense, but beyond that the financial drag (and risk) of many of these studios is quite severe.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
I for one would be very surprised if all of Sony's first party games made a profit, particularly those in the earlier launch years. Not because they aren't great games (some of them clearly aren't, in mass appeal terms) but from because the install base is so low.
I entirely expect that Sony (and Microsoft and Nintendo) release games they suspect will not be commercially successful but which are intended to enrich the diversity of the game library to make platforms appeal to wider audiences. Of course tight the current generation, this role can partly be left to indie developers many of whom naturally want to do something "different" or non-mainstream. But I'd be very disappointed if Sony didn't continue to fund things like Flow, Flower, Journey, Rain, Quantic Dreams stuff (none of which I like) and Afrika (which looked great and which I never got a chance to play).
Yoshida spoke about this...
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/07...ke-money-but-sony-will-always-support-talent/
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/07...ke-money-but-sony-will-always-support-talent/
If they would finance only the genre du jour to maximize short term profit, it would kill the platform in the long run. Worst case being like a platform were only, say, FPS sells because it became a vicious cycle. Sony's first parties are important regardless of how much profit they individually make.
I don't think it's hard at all. Reasons to choose PS3 over XB360 were mostly down to exclusives like LBP and U3. Individually they may have only attracted a couple of million buyers that PS3 without that game would have missed, but all together, they were the major selling point.
PS4 on its own could probably proceed without exclusives, but those exclusives will bring in more customers by reaching a wider audience. Sony can specifically appeal to non-mainstream demographics with content like EyePet.
Edit: added a poll, because it's an easy question to measure and we can ascertain consensus without needing to read through a thread.
Whether "people" like PS4 exclusives or not is a different scenario altogether form the one presented here (PS4 with exclusives vs PS4 with zero executives).
BTW everyone Shadow Fall sold well over 2mil and Second Son as well sold over 1 million copies so we can safely say that Sony has a good reason to keep investing in these franchises/exclusives.
Sony would be foolish to stop producing first party titles, the software companies are not too far away from being able to stream their IPs to whatever platform they like and in that scenario all 3 platform holders would struggle if they can't provide a compelling reason for consumers to make the investment into their platform. Also I personally really enjoy the exclusives offered MS, Nintendo and Sony and would be very sad to see games which add some much character to the platforms no longer developed.
djskribbles
Legend
God of War, Gran Turismo, Uncharted, Last of Us, MLB The Show, LittleBigPlanet say no.
You have to look at the big picture at what is financially sustainable. Gamers also want these companies to sell $1000 hardware at $400, but that's just not realistic. Given the cost of making games today, financing a dozen software companies may not be realistic anymore either, especially when 100% of those games lose money at console launch, and most still lose money even deeper into the generation.
To pose a counter argument, would a company be more successful with their console compared to the competition if they forgo exclusives and take all those millions spent on such ventures and instead used them to subsidize their console such that it would launch at $299? Or worded another way, would they be better off spending money to make sure their console was the best at multi platform games and was always $100 cheaper to buy than the competing console, and forgo exclusives in the process?
Without 1st party studios PlayStation Consoles will become pretty much redundant.
If all the PS4 did was play games better than the Xbox One what reason would people have to buy it over a gaming PC?
I'd argue that lower price and better multi platform game performance is the lions share of the reason people pick ps4 over the xb1, likely with emphasis on the price component. I'd further argue that those so caught up in exclusives will likely buy both consoles anyways.
Some do and I agree, keep those with ND being the most obvious case like I mentioned in an earlier post. Many don't though, or can be viewed as performing duplicated efforts. At some point they have to analyze their dev fleet and decide if the dollars really make sense anymore.
If we go back to the PS1 and PS2 days, it was the exclusives that carried over the brand name. You can argue that the console had 3rd party exclusives anyways. But this is the reason why Sony needs 1st party. Multiplatfrom games can see their way to competition. It happened a lot with the PS3.
A few games like GT, UC, GoW, KZ etc helped maintain a unique image for the brand.
I am not sure how Sony could market the PS3's unique gaming experience without these exclusives.
Sony would have had nothing while XB had games like Forza, Gears of War and Halo as well as better multiplatform games.
Sony should keep them
Even though the PS4 is more powerful and hence gets the best versions of multiplatform games, it is important to build strong franchises and strengthen 1st party studios for the future. They might need them someday. Competition will get its own list of exclusive games this generation and the next.
How did it hurt them or hurts them now? Especially now.. the fact is Sony 1st party is not doing its job to sell boxes as well but is costing much more to maintain.
MS first party is much better managed than Sony. The average title reviews better, sells better and sells the platform. This was true also on Xbox 360 vs PS3. Its just much better operation
And yes reviews matter A TON for sales these days
The people who are managing Sony 1st party mostly dont understand the importance of substance over fluff. Greenlighting titles like 1886 is insane if its not doing something better in gameplay than Gears of War. And it obviously isnt
steveOrino
Regular
Its threads like these that make me think the mods should have as system to approve new thread topics before they are cleared for posting.
I think MS and Sony exclusives sell and review about neck and neck.
I certainly am not seeing MS doing "much better" than Sony.
but the "popular" and "unique-feature" exclusives on xbox are not 1st party.
Kinect Party - double fine
Gears - epic
Halo - bungie
etc
Kinect Party - double fine
Gears - epic
Halo - bungie
etc
