Sony: Our first-party dev is as big as Microsoft and Nintendo's combined

[NJ5]

hsrob said:

NJ5 said:

hsrob said:
Let's consider two facts.

1. Sony planned on loss-leading this gen as they have with previous generations, meaning they planned on selling the hardware at a loss and making the money back on software.

2. Most money is made from first party software.

With those facts, is it surprising to that Sony has the largest internal games development studio? If they didn't, how in hell were they planning on making their money back?

Their former plans are kind of irrelevant now, since things didn't go as planned (they had to cut prices faster than they expected).

Surely they need first party studios to be profitable, but they still seem to have too many. Look out for downsizing and more studios merging in the next few months and perhaps years.

 

Well of course it didn't go according to plan but it stands to reason that many of those studios have been in place since the the PS3 was launched with the purpose of producing software that would propel the Playstation to the generation lead. Afterall it worked twice before

While i agree that there may come a time that Sony will be forced to trim some of the fat i don't think Sony can turn around and start operating their studios like Nintendo, nor do i think they should. They have to stick with what they are good at. Given that this is their best chance to make back their money i think downsizing their studios will be a last resort.

I agree with your first paragraph, not so much with the second. Operating their studios like Nintendo will probably not happen (not soon at least), but I think we should expect some fairly significant changes given Sony's declarations on the gaming division's restructuring.