One reader is dismayed by the problems Sony and Microsoft are currently facing and is concerned that they will try to kill console gaming instead of trying to solve the problem.
This week has been pretty gloomy, and I’m not just talking about the weather. Never mind the talk of a Switch 2 delay, the continued talk of the Xbox and PlayStation going multi-format is a big deal for the gaming industry, especially given its parallels to the 1983 US crash. I’m very concerned about its long-term health.
This happened because too many cheaply made, low-quality games flooded the market, but the problem now is just the opposite: there are too few high-quality products and companies can’t afford to make any more. there is not. Oddly enough, this issue also focuses heavily on the American gaming industry, while Japan doesn’t seem to be affected by the same issue, in part because gaming budgets aren’t as ridiculously large.
As GC pointed out, Xbox and PlayStation seem to refuse to accept the budget issue at the heart of things, or the length of time it takes to make a modern game. Most big developers only have one chance, maybe two. , a new game has now come out a generation ago. Not only are they not doing anything about it, but instead of solving the problem they are going to the very drastic extreme of making exclusive content multi-format.
The idea of not having to buy three consoles to get all the exclusive titles is obviously appealing, but many of these exclusive titles are available on each console.
The obvious solution to this problem is to cap game budgets or make the majority of PlayStation and Xbox games into mid-budget AA titles, with the odd $300 million blockbuster once or twice a generation. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to introduce it. Either they do that, or they make more semi-sequel games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but it already seems obvious that that’s not going to happen.
Neither company seems to have any interest in avoiding the problem, instead trying to eliminate the differences between the two consoles and throw the baby out with the bathwater by going multi-format. In the case of PlayStation, it’s even worse, as they’re madly obsessed with anything but live service games, tantamount to giving up on single-player games altogether.
I don’t know where console gaming will go from here. Nintendo will survive as usual, but Xbox and PlayStation seem to have no interest in copying them, even though they seem much better prepared than either of their potential future rivals. is.
Both Sony and Microsoft act as if they would rather give up on the traditional console market than limit the budgets for their games. I don’t know why, but the changes they are making are so extreme that it is clear that they are no longer interested in the status quo.
Around the same time, I think it’s because we both had financial reports for Christmas, all of a sudden we both wanted to go multi-format and at the same time we started talking about growth and cutting margins. . You’d think they’d both know which way the wind was blowing, but they seemed completely taken aback by their poor results and quickly abandoned ship rather than try to make sense of the situation.
According to Microsoft and Sony, the future of gaming now appears to be live service gaming and mobile, not consoles. I don’t know if even PCs will be able to survive in the future, especially if streaming becomes a reality. Consoles and the kinds of games that have always thrived on them are dying, and Xbox and PlayStation’s lack of control over them is causing the current crisis.
By refusing to even try to fix things, they are essentially just leaving it alone and trying something else. If it wasn’t for Nintendo and the Switch 2, I think I would have a very negative view of the future of gaming, but it’s still not good news. 2023 was one of the best years ever for the gaming world, but 2024 is already set to be one of the worst, and I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse. Especially for Xbox and PlayStation.
From reader Rempton
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