541–550 of 981 posts
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>where is microsoft putting this money that is going to earn it more? Sure, https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/
yeah good post, it does nothing to support your point or answer my question, thanks for sharing.
At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfull…
> Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat Sony has been pretty successful with that though, and there was a time where they pushed many fan favourites in the cinematic genre. They aren’t arcadey games like Nintendo ones of course, but something like The Last of Us has its own value and audience. It sells too.
And it's not like it had to be Naughty Dog: They had some dozen titles published or in house being prepared (including one that sunk what could have been an amazing remaster/remake studio). And in the end they really had one come out as the dark horse, with one megaflop, and 2-3 stragglers that don't seem long for this world (one of which seems to be taken down the existing, safe life service Sony spent billions on).
Gen 9 will be a huge blemish carried by their very smart acquisitions of Insomniac and Housemarque, with some decent support coming from Santa Monica and Guerilla. But at what cost?
> While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. That this is seen as a problem tells you everything about business today. It has to be explosive growth or it’s pointless, according to execs and shareholders.
At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfull…
I'll personally take spirals, ups and downs of the whole industry over Nintendo selling yet another Mario, Zelda and Pokemon for 40 years straight.
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The mismanagement here was actually Microsoft giving studios free reign and they flopped with projects like Starfield. This needs to be understood really within the larger industry trend of quality decline of AAA, which I suspect has to do with changes in overall dev culture and discourse than corporate decisions. There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now.
> There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now. There are studios that routinely put out games that people love. For example, my wife and I will happily pre-order the next co-op game from Hazelight Studios. FromSoftware, Ghost Ship Games, and others fall into the same boat for many people. The difference, in my opinion, is that games from these studios don't focus…
I wish devs would stop trying to make every game an uber-game. They need all the monetization because they've already blown the budget before work even started.
Nintendo figured this out. When will the other big players?
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150M at 5B revenue is not great: that's 3% margin! The bigger issue is that console manufacturer revenue is highly cyclical. This is hard to see in e.g. Xbox and Sony since they are both part of a larger conglomerate, but really obvious for nintendo. You generally have a cycle of - "Launch": high marketing costs, low/negative HW margins - "Mid-cycle": lowering manufacturing costs, large game sales, high margin DLCs -…
> The bigger issue is that console manufacturer revenue is highly cyclical. This is hard to see in e.g. Xbox and Sony since they are both part of a larger conglomerate, but really obvious for nintendo. There is absolutely no reason to be in sync with Sony on their console release date. They could have effectively released consoles bit more frequently. But they choose not to do so. Their acquisition has been questiona…
Nintendo get a pass because Switch is a very different console, closer to Game Boy.
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I like the idea of the next console supporting PC games. Xbox with steam and emulators right on my tv would be a dream.
I can't see this happening without either Windows getting in the way, negating much of the advantage of a console (have a look at the Windows handhelds and how they're not selling and how they're not a great experience), or Microsoft swallowing a massive part of their pride. Valve started directing work towards Linux literally because of Microsoft trying to close down the Windows ecosystem,[1] and Valve wanted an esc…
The intraorg combat that seems to be the default at microsoft is really going to be one of their persistent problems.
Oh, you were talking about the product not the business unit.
At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfull…
Nintendo survives on a few banger licenses. Innovation left the house a long time ago.