- Joined
- Dec 22, 2019
That comment about the lunches being the reason we didn't get baisha is such bs
could have been the most extravagant meal ever created and wouldn't have made a dent in their budget

What if this $3 Million dollar tuna was served?That comment about the lunches being the reason we didn't get baisha is such bscould have been the most extravagant meal ever created and wouldn't have made a dent in their budget
I donât want to hear anymore talk about this âShenmue 0â. Itâs embarrassing and signals a disconnect from reality.
Yu Suzuki is a big ideas guy who Sega knifed in the back and put out to pasture in what should have been his prime.
Now heâs an old man with no money to fund anything relevant and his talk of âShenmue 0â is just residual sparks of his ideas- a signal trying to get through a wire that Sega severed long ago.
Sega needs to get off their ass and fund Shenmue 4 and 5 right now. They make most of their money in the dirty gambling business and I bet dollars to donuts Yu Suzuki has tons of dirt on Sega but heâs too classy to go to the press about it. Sega has the (dirty) money and funding Shenmue 4 and 5 is the least they can do after cheating Yu Suzuki of his prime and robbing the world of the games he could have given us between 2000-2010.
The 80s he gave us a few arcade gems.
In the 90s an exponential leap with Virtua Fighter and Shenmue.
Can you IMAGINE the games he would have given us in the 2000s?? It would have soared so far beyond even Shenmue.
Screw Sega.
Remember that Sega isn't really a video-game company anymore.I vehemently agree with everything you said.
What makes this more perplexing is that Sega just recently funded some underhyped project (Hyenas) as the "biggest budget ever" and it didn't even get released. I can bet that whoever is responsible for Hyenas won't get ostracized nearly as bad as Yu Suzuki did.
Sega could have made Shenmue IV and V for 1/10 of the price by the RGG team and recouped their investment very quickly.
I could keep going on and on, but Sega's mishandling of the Shenmue IP pisses me off the more I think about it.
It isn't just like that, is more beingImagine being angry Sega puts money into their biggest franchises.
Im gonna be a bit picky, ofc you're making the point that Sonic is really profitable for Sega atm. Sonic is in shape again and even catched up with a new young generation used to other modern icons. But is bigger than it was in the 90s, when Sega and Nintendo were facing-off each other at sunset? I don't think so. Same with the return of Dragon Ball this autumn, It will make noise again but never like at the early days.Sonic is bigger than itâs ever been. Thereâs a huge new movie coming out and itâs going to make a ton of money.
What lesson? Outside of Nintendo, Sony is probably the most consistent AAA publisher pushing in-house single player games (Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, Guerilla Games, Sucker Punch and Insomniac are all Sony studios that exclusively develop bleeding edge single player games). And most of their hardware is sold on the back of those games, since they push the envelope graphically in a way that no online game can.Youâd like to think Sony will learn their lesson this time
This is very much a recent trend and many of these bombs entered development the better part of a decade ago (see: Concord, Suicide Squad, Hyenas), when giving those games the greenlight made sense. Also, most of the successful GAAS games are free to play, which is not something those $100+M projects could justify, so they tried to have their cake and eat it. I wish the service model would die as much as the next gamer, but Apex Legends has made $3.4B so far. There isn't a single player only game that even comes close to those numbers.GaaS model have pretty much always bombed.
Shenmue did return though, we can't discount that.I would hope that the desire for more AA/AAA single player narratives lends more power to Shenmue to make a return.
About wasting money on games that nobody asked for rather than having their studios focus on what they do best, which is to make single-player, narrative-driven games.What lesson?
Iirc, Sony first released details about its live service strategy in 2022, by which point, it was already pretty clear that players werenât all that interested in the GaaS model outside of a select few already established games. Obviously some of the twelve games that they were originally working on will have been greenlit before that announcement, but theyâve had plenty of time to take the many failings and total lack of enthusiasm from the gaming community into account since then.This is very much a recent trend and many of these bombs entered development the better part of a decade ago (see: Concord, Suicide Squad, Hyenas), when giving those games the greenlight made sense.
For every successful live service game there are ten or more that fail or donât make it out of production.I wish the service model would die as much as the next gamer, but Apex Legends has made $3.4B so far. There isn't a single player only game that even comes close to those numbers.
But they do that. I named you 5 Sony-owned studios that exclusively do that very thing. Do you think Sony should only be making single-player games? Also worth pointing out that nobody asked for God of War PS4 either, it was a huge departure for the series, and it paid off.About wasting money on games that nobody asked for rather than having their studios focus on what they do best, which is to make single-player, narrative-driven games.
A company as big as Sony is a slow moving ship and no one wants to be the one responsible for turning down the next Apex or Destiny and/or letting another publisher capitalize on it. There are still plenty of GaaS coming out that are going to be huge and the big boys all want to have one in their back pocket.Iirc, Sony first released details about its live service strategy in 2022, by which point, it was already pretty clear that players werenât all that interested in the GaaS model outside of a select few already established games. Obviously some of the twelve games that they were originally working on will have been greenlit before that announcement, but theyâve had plenty of time to take the many failings and total lack of enthusiasm from the gaming community into account since then.
This is true of basically every type of game, though GaaS have a large upfront cost and rely on being a significant hit upon release.For every successful live service game there are ten or more that fail or donât make it out of production.
I know, that's why I said what I said. Clearly Sony doesn't need help on the single-player front, they need a multiplayer hit. They've been trying for this ever since Killzone back on PS2.As for no single-player only game making billions, while this may be true, I think itâs important to remember that the success of the PlayStation brand is built largely around single-player IPs. A lot of people I know only bought PS5s for the exclusives, so it could be argued that a lot of the money that Sony makes from software sales (both first and third-party) can be indirectly attributed to series like God of War, Marvelâs Spider-Man, and The Last of Us.
It still costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to make a AAA single player game, which is a similar cost to a GaaS, but nowhere near the potential revenue. This site is dedicated to perhaps the most infamous example of this inherent risk. Worth pointing out that Respawn's (developers of Apex) previous game was Titanfall 2, one of the best single player FPS campaigns that year, and it wasn't a hit.Itâs also worth pointing out that with the resources wasted on Concord and the many other live service games that were canned before release, Sony could probably have put out another three or four big single-player games (twice that, if we count the other six that are still being worked on), which, between them, would likely have brought in close to what an Apex Legends-style game could (iirc, Marvelâs Spider-Man had generated more than three quarters of a billion dollars before the remastered edition for PC and PS5 came out, so itâs not like these games donât still make bank).
Of the five studios you mentioned, three are (or were at one point) developing live service games at the request of Sony rather than focusing on single-player games (The Last of Us Factions, Spider-Man: The Great Web, and Horizon: Hunting Grounds).But they do that. I named you 5 Sony-owned studios that exclusively do that very thing.
Not at all, but when you have some of the best single-player studios in the world at your disposal, having them focus on live service games that will more than likely fail seems like a poor use of resources, especially when thereâs still a huge demand for more first-party single-player games on the PS5 (not to mention a massive shortage).Do you think Sony should only be making single-player games?
Perhaps, but then youâd also like to think that nobody wants to be the one responsible for a $200 million+ hole in the companyâs accounts either.A company as big as Sony is a slow moving ship and no one wants to be the one responsible for turning down the next Apex or Destiny and/or letting another publisher capitalize on it.
Sony has Destiny now, and in Bungie, a studio with experience successfully bringing a live service multiplayer game to market.I know, that's why I said what I said. Clearly Sony doesn't need help on the single-player front, they need a multiplayer hit. They've been trying for this ever since Killzone back on PS2.
The difference is, people actually want new single-player Uncharted, Spider-Man, and God of War games, so whilst the potential RoI is a bit lower, the chances of those projects turning a profit (or even just making it through to release without being cancelled) are significantly higher. Itâs like Sega pivoting to Shenmue Online when many people were still crying out for Shenmue 3.It still costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to make a AAA single player game, which is a similar cost to a GaaS, but nowhere near the potential revenue.
Of the five studios you mentioned, three are (or were at one point) developing live service games at the request of Sony rather than focusing on single-player games (The Last of Us Factions, Spider-Man: The Great Web, and Horizon: Hunting Grounds).
This is true but they weren't only developing those games. They were being developed in tandem with single player games. But single player games of this caliber take forever to make and cost a fortune in production value (voice acting, mocap, writing, cutscene direction etc.) so it may not have been a waste, rather than a reallocation of resources. Who knows?Not at all, but when you have some of the best single-player studios in the world at your disposal, having them focus on live service games that will more than likely fail seems like a poor use of resources, especially when thereâs still a huge demand for more first-party single-player games on the PS5 (not to mention a massive shortage).
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The problem is when the money people interfere with the devs, the devs always eat shit. All the money people have to do is point out that they made a sound decision when betting on the devs (ie: this team has guys that worked on Call of Duty, Destiny, etc.).Perhaps, but then youâd also like to think that nobody wants to be the one responsible for a $200 million+ hole in the companyâs accounts either.
Good point, but Destiny is far more of a "real game" than most GaaS. It's basically a MMORPG FPS with cutscenes, a story, bosses etc. Compare that to Apex, Valorant, Fortnite etc. which are just content factories and you can see how it's orders of magnitude more difficult to develop and expand a game like Destiny. Hell, Overwatch 2 pretty much cancelled their single player plans for this reason.Sony has Destiny now, and in Bungie, a studio with experience successfully bringing a live service multiplayer game to market.
But they're still getting those games. Spider-Man 2 just came out last year and God of War Ragnarok the year before that. Uncharted is also the rare example of a game that gracefully bowed out with an actual ending, so it's possible that fans don't even want to see a sequel to that. Just look at what happened when they dug Indiana Jones out of retirement.The difference is, people actually want new single-player Uncharted, Spider-Man, and God of War games, so whilst the potential RoI is a bit lower, the chances of those projects turning a profit (or even just making it through to release without being cancelled) are significantly higher.
Not disagreeing at all and Sony's lineup of exclusives has consistently proven to be more enticing to consumers than Xbox's for at least the last 2 console generations. Even Elder Scrolls and Fallout (and Bethesda in general) have fallen out of favor in recent years like Halo and Gears before them, so that alone probably isn't enough.And as I said in my last post, these games have more value to Sony than just unit sales. With game sales now leaning more towards digital than physical, the 30% platform fee that Sony takes from all third-party games sold through the PlayStation store is worth far more than any GaaS game could ever be. If they donât start to put out some more first-party exclusives, they may not be able to rely on that when the next console generation rolls around, especially if MS decides to make the next Elder Scrolls and Fallout games X-Box exclusives.