Sony: We Should Probably Develop Less Games

[Jay520]

happydolphin said:

theprof00 said:
This is a sad development, but one that is completely true. If sony wants to compete on the same level as microsoft, they need to act more like microsoft.
It's really sad because in the end, all microsoft will have achieved with their "attack" on Sony is a stifling of creativity. Sony will be able to respond and restructure, but in the end the gamers will lose. Sony can easily cut 10 or so IPs and really really focus on their big games and advertising. This will prevent MS from pounding them as hard, will sell more games and consoles, and is generally better business. It just sucks for people like me.
I agree that Resistance should be cut though. I just don't think it's a very compelling game.

@as far as creative liberty, Sony gives far more license to their devs than the other two. Nintendo is super controlling, even with the third parties they are controlling, and MS is super controlling with their first party, forcing them to make games that MS wants to sell. Look what they're doing to Rare for evidence.
Sony's problem is mismanagement. They aren't strict enough, they pay their devs too much, they give too much leeway to fail (look at last guardian), and they don't drive focus within their games. If sony is supposed to be pushing little big planet, why isn't there things to centralize it?
EVERY SINGLE GAME SHOULD COME WITH A SKIN FOR LBP, PERIOD.
You buy god of war, you should be given a code for kratos, zeus, hades, sackboys, and wings. You buy infamous, you should be given a code to make your sackboy electric, or allow you to have new tools to lbp with electricity.
You buy Gran Turismo, you should be able to insert cars into the levels.
The same goes for modnation.

The problem is that Sony has disrupted the chain of command at SCE. Their is no centralization. Everyone acts almost independently and their is no "vision-guy" roping them all together. I had the idea for playstation suite in the early ps3 days. If I can think of it, why can't they? A system like steam where their games can work on pc but only if you're a member. I mean, they're in the PC business with Vaio! How hard can it possibly be to say, gee, we should be selling these on pc too, there are bluray drives in pcs now. They should play ps3 games. If we're losing money on ps3 sales, then why push people to buy a ps3 to play the content?

Sony has problems selling games because they simply are not focused on it. They're focused on making quality games, and frankly that's not good enough. They need someone to look at how they make and sell games, and realize that they're doing pretty much everything wrong...aside from making quality games. IMO nobody makes games that are as compelling as Sony's first party (except maybe atlus), but they really don't have any idea how to make money, because nobody is there telling them how. They are saying, "make good games and we will make good money", and that's really all they think.

I mostly agree. You know, what good is a quality+appealing game if nobody knows about it, if nobody talks about it, if nobody is going to play it?

Marketing is important beyond money, it's important in the community aspect of it. If nobody is told about the game (via marketing for example), and the community is smaller, it's less fun to be part of that community, in general (there are exceptions). I remember back when OoT 64 and FFVII launched. It wasn't just the games that were awesome, it was the fact that people were talking about them,sharing tricks, sharing answers to plot holes. These were social phenomenons. That's a VERY important part in the industry, and sadly a part not alot of people on the online forums understand or talk about. The fact that you know that others genuinely enjoyed a game you enjoyed is a great sense of belonging I have personally felt. Yet if a game is barely marketed, how can that realistically happen? It really can't.

And also, to be fair, the games need to be genuinely appealing for this kind of thing to happen. I don't think Resistance or KZ are the type of game to make the cut.

Sure, marketing is important, but I believe that quality/appeal comes first. I'm a firm believer that if a game is top quality & appealing, then sales will come. I think a passively marketed, top quality/appealing game will be more successful than a highly marketed, average game in most cases. Of course, marketing is necessary to cross into the "huge" territory, but quality/appeal comes first IMO.

You can't advertise a B-Level game to sell like an A-Level game. This is the reason I think Sony didn't heavily market games like Killzone or Resistance. They simply weren't made to be blockbuster games, so why waste money trying market them as such? Now, if the games were top quality like Uncharted, then I'm sure they would have naturally gotten the marketing love like Uncharted. Marketing is used on games only if they are good enough. For that reason, the game's content is more important than marketing.

Had all the games Sony released last been developed with superb quality/appeal, then I'm sure heavy marketing would have naturally been used. But sadly, that was not the case.