Sony has made a somewhat grandiose statement, and it’s hard to see how the company will be able to follow through.
Sony has said that PlayStation Studios will release successful games “regularly and consistently”. Sony Interactive Entertainment will tweak the development process and release schedules to make this happen, although PlayStation Studios recently admitted that it is struggling to make sustainable profits despite having successful games. The PC port of Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered were not enough to prevent the cuts.
More than 900 people have been laid off from PlayStation Studios and a new management structure has been put in place with two CEOs: Hermen Hulst, formerly of Guerrilla Games, and Hideaki Nishino, now at the helm. Sony, by the way, released its quarterly report a few days ago, and here is the almost half-witted sentence: “The Studio Business Group is strengthening its development schedule management and optimizing development projects to consistently and continuously release hit titles.”
Meanwhile, the goal is to maintain and increase the number of active PlayStation users, and to increasingly tie them in to provide a stable source of revenue. That’s why the company is pushing live service games, and that’s what Concord, coming soon to PlayStation 5 and PC, will be. By the way, PlayStation 5 sales were worse than expected, and although there was a profit, operating income was down 25.9% year over year.
In addition to Concord, Sony is also preparing to launch Astro Bott and Lego Horizon Adventure, but these will do little to reverse the declining PlayStation Plus membership, as the public is not very happy with the games on offer (wonder why, after poking fun at subscribers with Among Us on PlayStation Plus Essential in July?)
The rumored PlayStation Showcase in September should turn things around in a big way.
Source: WCCFTech, Irwebmeeting
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