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Colin Moriarty calls out Hot-Take Negativity on Social Media regarding February 2025 State of Play

Killjoy-NL

Member
Representative enough to have an opinion on it. What’s the alternative? If marketing was run from an ivory tower and not focused on actual enthusiast perception, the reality wouldn’t matter at all. It wouldn’t matter if there are so many games to play
Reality is that Playstation is doing very well, despite what some naysayers are claiming.

That's the bottomline.

Everything else is background noise.

Even the failure of Concord has already easily been recouped by just the revenue from non-playstation platforms over 2024.

It's really as if people have been losing their senses left and right
 
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Raven117

Gold Member
We are just seeing that whole GasS gambit completely fall flat on its face.

While we are far from getting a “trilogy per generation” kind of development, we should be getting more than what we presently are.

Gaming is just in a funny place right now. The suits want “fortnight” returns on games and are searching for that revenue stream. As such, the games that are the reason one picks up a controller to begin with… that capture your mind in a way that makes you feel transported to a different place, are being made by smaller developers in spite of the headwinds.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
Pretty easy to crush numbers when you raise prices and keep the quality as it is like ps+.
This doesn't explain why Sony is curb-stomping the competition and carrying the console market.
Well after focusing soo much on gaas this negativity after shows is justified imo.
You say that while the latest SoP was almost exclusively non-gaas, AA/indie content (minus that one game Splitgate).
 

Bungie

Member
4d4691d1-dc60-42cd-8b91-da1844e5e8eb_text.gif
 

AGRacing

Member
He's so out of touch with the unsatisfied portion of the audience that he could work for Sony! jk.

Look - I'm willing to blame my lack of satisfaction on this generation on the fact that I was part of all 5 of them. Part of my enjoyment of the video game hobby (unapologetically) was having a front row seat in the innovation of it. Every generation felt like I was seeing something new and exciting in each genre. Even games that failed in other ways could be redeemed by at least making an effort to show me something new.

PS1 was the generation that got me INTO racing games... PS2 gave me GT3 , PS3 gave us Motorstorm and PS4 gave me DRIVECLUB. Not every game in that list was a 90. It was still incredible.
Where's the mind blowing PS5 racer? Where's the game that couldn't be done on PS4 or even PS3 in many cases?
I played RPG's in the 16 bit era. But PS1 felt like a leap into FFVII. PS3 was the generation that got me in to Fallout / Skyrim type games. Amazing ride.
Where's the RPG that takes advantage of the hardware? Even Cyberpunk (who many say was great after patches) NEVER fulfilled it's promise. Too many closed doors. NPC's that felt dead.

Colin consistently just states "But 100 games are coming out!". Is he really inspired to play any of them? None of them seem like "Oh I've seen this before" to him? If he can enjoy the hobby in spite of that - that's great. I'm just saying the PlayStation store has become the "pop music" charts of the gaming space. It's undeniably popular - but the adults are going to start saying "this sounds like garbage" or "wait - that entire baseline is ripped off from a song from 15 years ago". I'm not articulating it fully - but this is what's going on. I'm bored. At the end of the day Sony probably doesn't care and that's fine. But some of the magic is just gone - for sure.

I've seen small teams do great things recently . Robocop and Warhammer. Larger teams seem to be flailing.

All that being said. I think GTA 6 has the potential to shake the whole tree. It looks like this is potentially a game that really innovates and uses the hardware to show us things we won't have seen yet. Maybe it'll shake things up.
 

viveks86

Member
Unhappy have much higher participation rate.
It's a general concept of silent majority vs loud minority. Silent majority just don't care, while minority care very much and very active in their position, so it looks like they much bigger than it's in reality.
True. But then what? Polls are useless? Actual game unit sales are useless? Those are all we have to go on. Profit margins are a metric of how well Sony are running their ship. GT7 unit sales versus margins should give a good indicator that Sony have been extremely smart with their business (as they should be). But it’s not a measure of what the market wants from them
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Plenty of games are releasing in the fall of this year were shown.

Nothing you want to buy? Very odd take, they showed plenty of awesome games from Shinobi, Onimusha, MGS3, Saros, etc

None if these are day 1?
No to shinobi.

Oni is in 2026. Don’t care right now.

MGS3 trailer already saw days before this state of play. Yes buying.

Saros showed me nothing so no and is 2026.

So no nothing.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
True. But then what? Polls are useless? Actual game unit sales are useless? Those are all we have to go on. Profit margins are a metric of how well Sony are running their ship. GT7 unit sales versus margins should give a good indicator that Sony have been extremely smart with their business (as they should be). But it’s not a measure of what the market wants from them
Then maybe we should acknowledge the fact that most of the time, we know fuck all about how these companies run their business.

Making most of our arguments moot.
 
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Fabieter

Member
We are, or you are?
Because all games on Playstation are Playstation library to me (that includes Xbox releases btw).

1 party releases is part of the package and they were soo badly managed. We could have gotten alot more games this generation if Sony had focused on their core strength.

Don't you think they need to do better on the game front? You are completely happy?
 

Felessan

Member
True. But then what? Polls are useless? Actual game unit sales are useless? Those are all we have to go on.
They are not useless, they just can't be taken at face value. Should be adjusted and especially filtered off loud minority pushing their agenda.
I play gaas a very long time and as I participated a bit I am also interested in other side of things, so I read quite a few about game design and CM of them. Listening to community is super important for live service games, but you should understand what community is, how it's structured, what are representation stratas and groups in it, what their activity, vested interests and agendas and properly filter out where there is an actual concerns, problem or idea and where is hysteria over unfavorable (for this particular group, not the game itself) change, manipulation or pushing agenda. Getting everything being said at face value is a way to disaster.

This forum, being non-representative by stratas, filled with bubble bullshit agenda groups and if you track accurately you'll see that it's not like very scattered opinions, often it's driven by a specific and small group of people that have uniform position and try to push it as "general consensus" across various threads.

GT7 unit sales versus margins should give a good indicator that Sony have been extremely smart with their business (as they should be). But it’s not a measure of what the market wants from them
GT7 unit sales estimations (14.4m by GTPlanet) puts it very close to the top, which it would claim very soon as game continue selling. So probably what you wants GT be and what market wants GT be are different things.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
1 party releases is part of the package and they were soo badly managed. We could have gotten alot more games this generation if Sony had focused on their core strength.

Don't you think they need to do better on the game front? You are completely happy?
As long as I've got games to play, Idc who publishes/develops them.

Currently playing Arma Reforger, before that PoE2, before that Throne and Liberty, before that Blops 6, before that Predecessor, etc.

To me it's all Playstation, because I can play them there. I know Playstation has games in development, so I'll just wait. Not too bothered if they don't announce or show anything yet.
Nor did I care that Concord flopped, even though I liked it for what it was.

Life can be so simple, really.
 
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It wasn't great. I miss the long gameplay demos that Sony used to do. I feel like I am constantly trying to be gaslit into accepting that things are worse now and that's just the way it.
 

Felessan

Member
I’m specifically talking about perception of the brand and hoping for better management of it
Strong as ever, going by general population. Sony wouldn't win console battle, obliterating MS to nothingness, if they would have problems with perception of the brand.
Particular fans perception though may suffer as they are no longer a singular focus of Sony and they feel kinda neglected
 

Crayon

Member
As far as I can tell, it's being judged on a kind of list-war criteria. It's got to have games that were developed in-house, not on any other platform including ps4 or pc, releasing within 2(?) years, AAA, not vr, tentpole 3rd -person (but apparently not?), not a remaster, not a sequel if it's shown (sequels okay when not shown). Then there has to be several of them a few times a year.

Yeah idk, guys.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
He is right in that people have unrealistic expectations. As he said the SOP's are not E3's. The make multiple ones per year. Hell in the last year the shown 3 new first party single player games. 2 of them from their biggest studios (heretic, yotei and saros now). People just love to bitch online (not only in the gaming sphere obviously but about anything under the sun).
Well, E3 died for SOPs and Showcases. Then Sony gave the middle finger to showcases.
 

viveks86

Member
They are not useless, they just can't be taken at face value. Should be adjusted and especially filtered off loud minority pushing their agenda.
I play gaas a very long time and as I participated a bit I am also interested in other side of things, so I read quite a few about game design and CM of them. Listening to community is super important for live service games, but you should understand what community is, how it's structured, what are representation stratas and groups in it, what their activity, vested interests and agendas and properly filter out where there is an actual concerns, problem or idea and where is hysteria over unfavorable (for this particular group, not the game itself) change, manipulation or pushing agenda. Getting everything being said at face value is a way to disaster.

This forum, being non-representative by stratas, filled with bubble bullshit agenda groups and if you track accurately you'll see that it's not like very scattered opinions, often it's driven by a specific and small group of people that have uniform position and try to push it as "general consensus" across various threads.
Sure. All I'm advocating for is to get a pulse of gamers and actively use it as a feedback loop to get better. Sony should not dismiss all of it as as agenda driven nonsense, is all I'm saying.

GT7 unit sales estimations (14.4m by GTPlanet) puts it very close to the top, which it would claim very soon as game continue selling. So probably what you wants GT be and what market wants GT be are different things.

You misunderstood my point there. I wasn't suggesting GT7 wasn't what the market wants, or even what I want. It's a fantastic game (and my personal forever game)! I was trying to say that the sales numbers of GT7 (#1 most revenue/#5 unit sales) proves that you can still be #5 and be the most profitable. So profit margins shouldn't be a metric for how well a brand is doing. Unit sales is at least a more reliable metric than profit was my point there.
 
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Fabieter

Member
As long as I've got games to play, Idc who publishes/develops them.

Currently playing Arma Reforger, before that PoE2, before that Throne and Liberty, before that Blops 6, before that Predecessor, etc.

To me it's all Playstation, because I can play them there. I know Playstation has games in development, so I'll just wait. Not too bothered if they don't announce or show anything yet.
Nor did I care that Concord flopped, even though I liked it for what it was.

Life can be so simple, really.

Well it's your opinion.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Tangentially, it's also why Chinese dev is such a threat. Those boys do not give a fuck about driving huge teams hard for the entire cycle.
They're slow af over there too, tbh. Does Lost Soul Aside have a release date yet? It was revealed like 10 years ago. I know that the game allegedly started as a one man project, but I don't trust any story coming out of China.

Other than that, all of their games are generic character action or soulslop. I don't think they pose much a threat at all. One of their games showed up at this disappointing showcase, remembers.


A bunch of interesting third party games were shown too during the SOP.
The view counts on the trailers for those games speak for themselves.

Monster Hunter Wilds is overexposed, not interesting.
Hell Is Us looks and sounds generic af.
Mindseye looks like something that should be on the crumb side of Steam. Despite not releasing one game over the 9 years since Lezlie Benzies started his own studio, the game looks like low rent GTA if all you could shoot or interact with was cars, and if you like your assets to looking like they're floating over the ground.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
As long as I've got games to play, Idc who publishes/develops them.
What you and Colin don't get is that this flood of games isn't impressive to people.

Last year, they couldn't even fill out the GOTY roster without allowing the nomination of DLC. The third party games are not good either. No one is impressed by slop like Mindseye, and they do actually care about where it's coming from. I am not interested in buying games from fly-by-night indie studios with no track record or an irrelevant one. Nor do I appreciate being shown that stuff by Sony as if it adheres to what I expect out of the PS5.
 

viveks86

Member
I agree.

Apart from Concord, I can't recall any Sony release failing.
Because, to Hermen's credit, they are getting cancelled instead of being stillborn. Again, I'm not even suggesting all their IPs are struggling. Just that that's a better conversation to have than "Sony making tons of money guys, you are all delusional".
 
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Felessan

Member
Sure. All I'm advocating for is to get a pulse of gamers and actively use it as a feedback loop to get better. Sony should not dismiss all of it as as agenda driven nonsense, is all I'm saying.
Pulse of what? That there is just one of many opinion?
There is no uniform opinion even amongst hardcore crowd. What Sony should do in your opinion, affect other parts of their playerbase just because one part of one strata are somewhat unhappy? It's very unlikely.

You misunderstood my point there. I wasn't suggesting GT7 wasn't what the market wants, or even what I want. It's a fantastic game (and my personal forever game)! I was trying to say that the sales numbers of GT7 (#1 most revenue/#5 unit sales) proves that you can still be #5 and be the most profitable. So profit margins shouldn't be a metric for how well a brand is doing. Unit sales is at least a more reliable metric than profit was my point there.
Those data from US and US racing games declined over years, so they are not particularly accurate. And I never actually propose to use revenue as a metric for performance. It is misleading. So is unit sales. The market itself can shrunk due shifting consumer behavior and even if games is good and brand is strong it still see a decline. It's even worse when we are talk not about paid games where you have to pay to state your opinion, but something free, and forums polls are free. Free games metrics are easily manipulated, unstable and can be reasonably judged only on prolonged time series, otherwise it's quite easy to fall into trap of false success.

At the same time GT7 situation shows that market can grow outside your field of view and perception of market dynamics only reflect your bubble market dynamics and general trajectory might be very different - this is very common on this forum.
 
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shoegaze

Member
I thought this thread will be full of people wishing him good luck, and reassuring that he's definitely out of touch, but colour me surprised.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
Because, to Hermen's credit, they are getting cancelled instead of being stillborn. Again, I'm not even suggesting all their IPs are struggling. Just that that's a better conversation to have than "Sony making tons of money guys, you are all delusional".
Astro bot was greenlit under Hulst though.
 

viveks86

Member
Pulse of what? That there is just one of many opinion?
There is no uniform opinion even amongst hardcore crowd. What Sony should do in your opinion, affect other parts of their playerbase just because one part of one strata are somewhat unhappy? It's very unlikely.
Affect other parts of their player base? Which part of the player base is affected by planning and managing better state of plays and having a more streamlined release schedule? Who is affected by doing anything better? Isn't that the topic here? People being disappointed about the State of Play? The point of getting a pulse of enthusiasts, the primary consumers of a State of Play, and adapting is to simply better align expectations to their output. That's it. I'm not telling them how to run their business based on my feedback. I'm just saying they should take my feedback. Period. And by "me", I mean the enthusiast community and all the different views. Feedback isn't just one thing or just what I personally want. I mean all of it. Just want them to be more receptive.

Astro bot was greenlit under Hulst though.

Your point being?
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
They're slow af over there too, tbh. Does Lost Soul Aside have a release date yet? It was revealed like 10 years ago. I know that the game allegedly started as a one man project, but I don't trust any story coming out of China.

Lost Soul Aside was slow because it was a micro-startup, basically 1 guy and a couple of helpers.

These other teams are large and well funded, and this is a trend that's going to increase going forwards. Black Myth: Wukong was basically 5 years, including COVID and a switch from UE4 to UE5 in 2021. For a new team, that's impressive. Compare that to Granblue Fantasy Relink's 8+ years.

Or perhaps more pointedly think of how little has actually come from Xbox's 2018 acquisitions in the near 7 years since.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
What you and Colin don't get is that this flood of games isn't impressive to people.
I get it. What you don't get is that to the vast majority, it's a non-issue.

Lego horizon was successful?

What about the billions they lost with all the cancelled games? The opportunity costs. Yea everything is fine as long as I can play third party games. 🤣

Destruction All-Stars
Forgot about those. Lol

As for the cancelled games, Sony was aware there was a possibility for this and that was probably taken into consideration beforehand, as per Jim Ryan.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Forgot about those. Lol

As for the cancelled games, Sony was aware there was a possibility for this and that was probably taken into consideration beforehand, as per Jim Ryan.
In your defense I think Destruction All-Stars might actually be 2nd party, and I forget that every time.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
It's not disingenuous. We never had major announcements at TGA, followed by another major announcement at a February State of Play only 2 months later that revealed another first party game. You got these announcements all at once at one show each year (typically, not always - obviously there are exceptions going back to the PS3 era). As he said, the games are still coming and there's plenty they have revealed that we know is in the pipeline. Insomniac continues to have multiple games each generation like they have in the past. No doubt games take longer to develop in general, but there's still usually multiple major releasing every single year from first and second party.
The games are not coming. I have developed a hatred for "Let them cook!!"

Guerilla is wasting time on Horizon GaaS. The series is already on the brink of becoming "mid". Nobody wants a Fortnitified live service version of it. Assuming it doesn't get shitcanned like everything else. It's clearly having dev problems.

FairGame$, another live service title coming from professional disappointment Jade Raymond, is nowhere to be seen.
Marathon is practically confirmed to be having major development problems, and is multiplatform in any case.

Naughty Dog is making Intergalactic. The likes of Colin will refuse to acknowledge it, but that game has a non-insignificant chance of punting ND from their pedigree status.

Insomniac is having dev troubles with Wolverine after a disappointing Spider-Man 2.

Ghost of Yawntei and Sleep Stranding 2 clearly aren't making a splash - even Colin's said as much.

Bend and Bluepoint are off the board.

Only other hope is SSM. And you can only hope that Barlog hasn't lost perspective the same way Druckmann has.

This gen is cooked. Reform is needed, and we need to reinforce that by voicing our displeasure with the current state of affairs. PS4 only happened because Sony got shellacked for the first 60% of the PS3's life.
 

viveks86

Member
People like to rant about failings, while ignoring successes.
I feel like you are using my posts to criticize others. Lol. I'm neither talking about their failings nor their successes. Just their current way of marketing their games and what discourse would be productive
 
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Fabieter

Member
As for the cancelled games, Sony was aware there was a possibility for this and that was probably taken into consideration beforehand, as per Jim Ryan.

The problem isn't with GAAS. The issue is that they waste time and money on studios that should be working on single-player games or projects that were clearly bound to fail.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
I get it. What you don't get is that to the vast majority, it's a non-issue.
As said before, this just comes off very Xbox 360-ish. A weak competitor platform and an over reliance on 3rd party titles. Only this time, the 3rd parties aren't even doing their job. The market is staking the last 5 years of this decade on one game.

Sony's profit margins this gen have been cut in half compared to last. The spending on actual games is down by 12%. These are long term problems that will have an impact on the end of the PS5's lifecycle when the shine of GTA6 fades, and when they need to start selling people on the PS6.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
I feel like you are using my posts to criticize others. Lol. I'm neither talking about their failings nor their successes. Just their current way of marketing their games
Could be. Sometimes I use posts as jumping boards and it might not necessarily be a direct response to the person I'm replying to. Lol
 
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Killjoy-NL

Member
As said before, this just comes off very Xbox 360-ish. A weak competitor platform and an over reliance on 3rd party titles. Only this time, the 3rd parties aren't even doing their job. The market is staking the last 5 years of this decade on one game.

Sony's profit margins this gen have been cut in half compared to last. The spending on actual games is down by 12%. These are long term problems that will have an impact on the end of the PS5's lifecycle when the shine of GTA6 fades, and when they need to start selling people on the PS6.
To me it looks more like PS3, where Sony is restructuring during the first half and gets into their stride during the second half. We'll probably not see the actual results until next-gen, like we did last-gen.
 
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ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
To me it looks more like PS3, where Sony is restructuring during the first half and gets into their stride during the second half. We'll probably see the actual results next-gen, like we did last-gen.
I hope so, but that doesn't change the fact that this gen is washed.
They need to fire Hermen Hulst ASAP and find someone in the like of Shuhei or even pre-Tencent Layden.
 

Fabieter

Member
The games are not coming. I have developed a hatred for "Let them cook!!"

Guerilla is wasting time on Horizon GaaS. The series is already on the brink of becoming "mid". Nobody wants a Fortnitified live service version of it. Assuming it doesn't get shitcanned like everything else. It's clearly having dev problems.

FairGame$, another live service title coming from professional disappointment Jade Raymond, is nowhere to be seen.
Marathon is practically confirmed to be having major development problems, and is multiplatform in any case.

Naughty Dog is making Intergalactic. The likes of Colin will refuse to acknowledge it, but that game has a non-insignificant chance of punting ND from their pedigree status.

Insomniac is having dev troubles with Wolverine after a disappointing Spider-Man 2.

Ghost of Yawntei and Sleep Stranding 2 clearly aren't making a splash - even Colin's said as much.

Bend and Bluepoint are off the board.

Only other hope is SSM. And you can only hope that Barlog hasn't lost perspective the same way Druckmann has.

This gen is cooked. Reform is needed, and we need to reinforce that by voicing our displeasure with the current state of affairs. PS4 only happened because Sony got shellacked for the first 60% of the PS3's life.

It's insane how badly they managed this gen. Imagine fill up your line up with last of us part 2 remastered, days gone remastered and hdz remastered haha. We are clearly in the wait for next e3 era of Sony. Xbox got memed to hell for it. Don't see how we can't do the same for Sony.
 
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