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[simpatico]

Meanwhile, CDPR and From Soft are both evolved AA studios. Get a grip Yoshida. It's not our fault you guys pushed From away. You could have bought that company for the cost of a succulent ham sandwich, but you chose the sandwich (fuck I'm starving).

 

[Guilty_AI]

No indie has a millionaire budget. You're just mentioning indie games like Hades 2 and calling them AA when in fact they are not.

Except they do? You think Hades 2 is built on vodka and the devs mom's allowance? Their studio is composed of 20-40 employees and the budget of each of their games has been estimated to be from 3-4 million dollars to as much as 15 million.

 

[FStubbs]

I think Falcom is a AA developer.

 

[Astray]

Except they do? You think Hades 2 is built on vodka and the devs mom's allowance? Their studio is composed of 20-40 employees and the budget of each of their games has been estimated to be from 3-4 million dollars to as much as 15 million.

An estimate that can swing by over %70 is not an estimate at all wtf. Not to mention that you have not told us exactly where you got it either.

 

[Rising_Hei]

If "there is no market" you simply "make the market" by releasing great games.
Period.
These are POOR excuses, IMO.

Robocop Rogue City also qualify as "AA" and that game was AWESOME and sold well.
Sony is so out of touch.

 

[Mownoc]

Astro Bot has +700 people credited on Moby Games.

Astro Bot (2024) - MobyGames

JOIN ASTRO ON A SUPERSIZED SPACE ADVENTURE When the PS5® mothership is attacked by ASTRO’s long-standing galactic nemesis, scrambling its wires and scattering the crew throughout space, only ASTRO...

www.mobygames.com

This number of people being credited shouldn't be taken as indication of a game being AAA. Just look at these examples of number of people credited on mobygames.

Resogun - 393
The Tomorrow Children - 639
Flower - 334
Journey - 591

Obviously none of these titles are AAA despite what these number of credits may lead you to believe.

 

[Guilty_AI]

An estimate that can swing by over %70 is not an estimate at all wtf. Not to mention that you have not told us exactly where you got it either.

Average salary for a programmer * development time * number of developers. With that alone you'll easily get 5M-10M figures (there are still other costs on top of that). Also you can find "indie" developers talking about the budgets for their games ranging in such estimates.

 

[Astray]

This number of people being credited shouldn't be taken as indication of a game being AAA. Just look at these examples of number of people credited on mobygames.

Resogun - 393
The Tomorrow Children - 639
Flower - 334
Journey - 591

Obviously none of these titles are AAA despite what these number of credits may lead you to believe.

I mean the 1st hint that they're not AAA or even AA is the fact there's no scale to them whatsoever.

Astrobot alone probably has more content than all of them combined.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Will it? All my PS friends scoff at the idea of playing AA games. It's like trying to convince a Marvel CU stan to watch Rebel Ridge or The Order.

Sadly there are too many people like this. Its not so in pc /switch land, thankfully. I personally love indies and AA and play them all the time. Some are more in depth than AAA, they just lack some polish.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I think it had more to do with not enough people bought the games AA or not.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Jokes aside, Obsidian, Double Fine, Undead Labs, inXile, Compulsion all are AA studios. Nintendo also puts out tons of AA stuff. It really is only Sony 1st party that doesn't. It shouldn't even be a controversial point since it's plainly there for people to see. But now at least we have the guy on the inside explicitly stating it for people that can't see.

Guess which 1st party i don't buy from anymore? Sony as they don't want to make games for straight men that grew up playing their games. Sorry but I don't want to play as feminist lesbian #5 that they keep pushing out (outside of Astrobot and GT7 , that's basically it)
Give me Killzone, Resistance, Socom, Warhawk, Twisted metal, God of War (before Ragnarök), Infamous, ico/last guardian, Days Gone, Blood borne, Uncharted (with Nathan Drake as the protagonist not his lesbian daughter who don't need no man), Heavenly Sword, Demon Souls, Wipeout, Colony Wars, Lengend of Dragoon, Wild Arms, Arc the lad, Gran Turismo, etc.. and I will gladly play them again until then, no dice.

Also would love a new hot shots golf (nothing has replaced it), and tokyo jungle, gravity rush , AA games that were amazing.

Sony's 3rd party support has been good this gen though. Stellar Blade, Silent Hill 2 remake, FF7rebirth/remake, Rise of Ronin, etc..

I don't think Sony cares about their core older players at all. If it wasn't for 3rd party, I wouldn't want a ps5, sadly. That is how its gone. I've owned every playstation and this is first gen where i felt (From first party) left out.
They bow to men in boxes or woke types. I don't play gaas, and mostly single player. You make those types of games, I will buy.

Thankfully I have a pc, steam deck, switch, series x, and mini consoles modded (genesis, snes, tg16, ps-classic). It just sucks as they legit used to make games that i liked from PS1 - > PS4.
Only thing I see that changed was:
1. Gaas
2. Moving to San Fransico
3. Woke cult of Era/Reddit in their ear. (A friend in the business(indie dev) says apparently its in design school to be like this now, the classes he took that weren't infected now are).
4. Microtransactions / insane amount of dlc.
5. Engagement over sales.

How do they get out of this mess. Follow Nintendo? They seem to be doing it right and cater to everyone! Even when they make kids games they are still fun for adults.
The adult and teen games can be played by people in their 30s+ as guess what there isn't some insane ideology pushing them.

 

[Negotiator]

Will it? All my PS friends scoff at the idea of playing AA games. It's like trying to convince a Marvel CU stan to watch Rebel Ridge or The Order.

10-hour long linear PS3 AAA games such as Uncharted 2 would be considered "AA" these days.

The "modern" PS audience (ugh!) demand 200-hour long open-world collectathons with RPG elements, otherwise they won't bother.

I believe we need games like Uncharted 2-3 priced at $50 to fill the schedule gaps, they'd be fine AA productions and they can also offer a very remarkable MP experience compared to Battle Royale games (they're basically open-world MP games).

Killing AA games means killing linear games. It's a shame, especially for arcade/linear gamers like me.

 

[Kvally]

Give me some examples of AA games.

The Alcoholics Anonymous Game​

A game about alcoholism and recovery

Description​

The AA Game is a story-telling game about alcoholism and recovery.
On your turn, you move your pawn to a new space and draw a card. Each card has a story, and every story is true.
The stories were collected during real AA meetings. Names have been changed to preserve anonymity.
By playing this game and reading these real-world stories, you will learn about life as an alcoholic. When you are drinking in the game, bad things happen. But the game also lets you get into recovery. People can help each other. You can go to meetings, work the 12 Steps of AA, and find out how to do better. In this game, like in real AA, everybody can win. It works if you work it.

 

[Shadowstar39]

And Capcom is a remake factory. In their defense they did try Kunitsu-Gami and Exoprimal but no one cared. Pragmata shit the bed from the looks of it. They're a great publisher but this is not exactly their strongest generation or anything. More RE and more MH. Onimusha is a bright spot, but again they seem to only be able to capitalize on existing IP.

Yet Capcom will not touch Mega Man Legends (i just want a switch port a remake would work too, but damn is this too much to ask for a collection? )
Konami will not resurrect Castlevania. Suikoden (it took 3 years to get their collection of 1 &2 , where is the rest and a Suikoden 7? )

I really don't get it. so many amazing games that never got 3d games or sequels, from Japanese studios.

 

[Shadowstar39]

It didn't though it just moved digital

If we are being honest Sony's real issue is that AA games became a $40 product

Then they should sell them for $40 to 50. They aren't as big of a team or budget, why expect $70?

 

[Negotiator]

Then they should sell them for $40 to 50. They aren't as big of a team or budget, why expect $70?

We had $40 games during the PS3 era.

Sly Cooper for example... $50 with inflation sounds about right for today.

 

[yogaflame]

It still goes back to there shifting focus into Live service. That really killed PS momentum in game development. Good thing sales of console is still up due to the PS name is already a pop culture phenomenon, MS xbox failure, Nintendo stayed on hybrid handheld market and so many loyal and patient PS fans.

 

[Space Runaway]

One of the issues that could be foreseen all the way back in the 00s as an expected result of the videogame industry's quest to chase the movie industry.

 

[nial]

Give me Killzone, Resistance, Socom, Warhawk, Twisted metal, God of War (before Ragnarök), Infamous, ico/last guardian, Days Gone, Blood borne, Uncharted (with Nathan Drake as the protagonist not his lesbian daughter who don't need no man), Heavenly Sword, Demon Souls, Wipeout, Colony Wars, Lengend of Dragoon, Wild Arms, Arc the lad, Gran Turismo, etc.. and I will gladly play them again until then, no dice.

Also would love a new hot shots golf (nothing has replaced it), and tokyo jungle, gravity rush , AA games that were amazing.

Sony's 3rd party support has been good this gen though. Stellar Blade, Silent Hill 2 remake, FF7rebirth/remake, Rise of Ronin, etc..

Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin are 3rd party, but not Killzone (1), Resistance (bar Retribution), Twisted Metal (bar 3-4 and Head-On), Infamous (1-2), Bloodborne, Heavenly Sword, Demon's Souls, Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, Everybody's Golf and Tokyo Jungle?
Also, Gran Turismo?

 

[Negotiator]

Companies like Sony will always want to market everything as AAA, even if the game is leaning more towards AA. Should Returnal be considered a triple A game? Probably not, but calling it that will justify the 80€ pricetag.

Same thing with No Man's Sky a decade ago.

Nothing wrong with AA, they just need to be priced accordingly. $40-50 tops.

ps: This whole discussion feels like discussing GPUs.

What constitutes a "mid-range" GPU? Is it 256-bit bus? Or 128-bit bus? Or 192-bit? I bet we won't agree with each other.

AA is the mid-range tier of video games, indie the low-tier and AAA the high-end.

 

[Negotiator]

One thing I liked about Sony is that they also fostered internal talent, Polyphony did not start with GT but with far less successful content, and allowed projects to be published that were not meant to sell a LOT but to enrich the software offering and with PS+ they have an avenue for those releases and a need for them again.

First party titles were not just about making money but to prove concepts, to make a case for the HW, to add variety to the software output (each of the games could lead to small sale figures but to different audiences per game thus giving one more incentive to each group to jump on the console… last drop in the bucket can be very helpful, might be what tips the scale ) to lead their party devs showing them what the potential of the HW could do. To take smaller calculated risks for them. There is a lot of value for first party funded A and AA games beyond the sales.

This whole notion "every video game needs to be profitable" is total horseshit and it's almost always coming from uneducated folks (including industry execs/"experts").

Here's why:

So, no, not everything needs to be profitable! Some games can exist to enrich the 1st party portfolio.

This is the diversity we need: genre diversity... not the woke one (which is more like homogenization, rather than true diversity).

PS3 had both cinematic AAA games and AA/indie quirky projects. PS4 too (to a lesser extent). PS5 not so much.

Imagine if ND didn't get a chance by releasing smaller projects early in their careers...

Sony has made a huge mistake by indoctrinating their modern audience that only cinematic AAA is worth playing and nothing else.

The first company that starts using AI extensively to create AAA games will put a lot of pressure to Sony's AAA narrative/monoculture.

It could potentially be Microsoft due to Azure and investing heavily in AI accelerators. The modern "cinematic AAA or bust" audience will abandon Sony in a heartbeat.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The first company that starts using AI extensively to create AAA games will put a lot of pressure to Sony's AAA narrative/monoculture.

It could potentially be Microsoft due to Azure and investing heavily in AI accelerators. The modern "cinematic AAA or bust" audience will abandon Sony in a heartbeat.

I am not sure, it might even be Sony to use AI extensively to create AAA games, not sure what that has to do with it though…

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

That's what a aa game is. AA doesn't corelate to the amount of people.

Stardew valley was made by 1 guy. It's a AA

No it ain't...AA is about budgets. That game is indie.

 

[Negotiator]

I am not sure, it might even be Sony to use AI extensively to create AAA games, not sure what that has to do with it though…

MS owns the Azure infrastructure and Sony can only rent services from them.

It's a matter of leverage.

 

[Panajev2001a]

MS owns the Azure infrastructure and Sony can only rent services from them.

It's a matter of leverage.

I still do not think there is only one supplier investing there, market is very young, and I do not think they would tank the service meant to sell to anyone starting to abuse it against people they sell access to.

 

[Negotiator]

I still do not think there is only one supplier investing there, market is very young, and I do not think they would tank the service meant to sell to anyone starting to abuse it against people they sell access to.

Sony has decided to partner with Microsoft, probably because they think Azure is better than say Amazon or Google and rightly so:

Sony and Microsoft to explore strategic partnership - Stories

Companies to collaborate on new cloud-based solutions for gaming experiences and AI solutions TOKYO and REDMOND, Wash. — May 16, 2019 — Sony Corporation (Sony) and Microsoft Corp. (Microsoft) announced on Thursday that the two companies will partner on new innovations to enhance customer...

news.microsoft.com

Microsoft bought nearly 500K Nvidia Hopper chips this year

Microsoft bought more than twice as many Nvidia Hopper chips this year than any of its biggest rivals. The tech giant bought 485,000 Nvidia Hopper chips across 2024 according to reporting from the Financial Times, which cited data from tech consultancy Omdia. To compare, Meta bought 224,000 of...

finance.yahoo.com

They don't have to "abuse" anything per se, but if Microsoft decides all their AI resources need to go to next-gen XBOX AAA development, then what can Sony do?

I guess they can switch to Amazon/Google, but a migration is not that easy.

That's why it's crucial to own & build infrastructure (that's what Kutaragi had envisioned with Cell blades and PS Now, which is now defunct, since they outsourced everything to Azure).

It's the same reason Intel has an inherent advantage compared to nVidia/AMD: they own fabs.

Outsourcing crucial infrastructure to 3rd party/competitive entities is not the wisest move... it's just cost-cutting/short-term thinking to please investors.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Sony has decided to partner with Microsoft, probably because they think Azure is better than say Amazon or Google and rightly so:

Sony and Microsoft to explore strategic partnership - Stories

Companies to collaborate on new cloud-based solutions for gaming experiences and AI solutions TOKYO and REDMOND, Wash. — May 16, 2019 — Sony Corporation (Sony) and Microsoft Corp. (Microsoft) announced on Thursday that the two companies will partner on new innovations to enhance customer...

news.microsoft.com

Microsoft bought nearly 500K Nvidia Hopper chips this year

Microsoft bought more than twice as many Nvidia Hopper chips this year than any of its biggest rivals. The tech giant bought 485,000 Nvidia Hopper chips across 2024 according to reporting from the Financial Times, which cited data from tech consultancy Omdia. To compare, Meta bought 224,000 of...

finance.yahoo.com

They don't have to "abuse" anything per se, but if Microsoft decides all their AI resources need to go to next-gen XBOX AAA development, then what can Sony do?

MS’s Azure makes a lot of their money supporting companies they do not try to crush competitively. If MS started to direct Azure against one of their clients like you suggest their other clients may jump ship.

I guess they can switch to Amazon/Google, but a migration is not that easy.

But not impossible, the way AI is done and run is also changing.

It's the same reason Intel has an inherent advantage compared to nVidia/AMD: they own fabs.

It used to be, but it might be their Achilles’ heel.