Doctor_MG said:
I don't quite understand why the ecosystem matters in the context of this when I'm complaining about the fact that they got rid of several studios and fired a bunch of staff. Their profit is at an all time high at the same time that they decided to cut staff. Even if the PS4 has been a large contributer of this generation, the fact is that in 3.5 years they've earned as much as the previous 7 years. So they've earned more profit in half the time and STILL decided to make significant cuts. Sure, the argument can be made that they are thinking about the future and not wanting to take large hits, but it's doubtful that they are going to take such a hard hit when a huge portion of the profit is microtransactions and games continue to take longer to develop. What they need to do is keep a steady stream of games to get people to buy into their platform and spend their money on in-game purchases from things like Fortnite, Call of Duty, etc. They wouldn't make the profit off of the games themselves, they would put those as an investment into what really gives them the return. But that's not what they are doing, and I don't understand why. Heck, if the idea is to trim costs of games they could have kept the employees and made more games with smaller budgets. Increase their output and get more people to invest into the ecosystem. Yet, what we are currently getting is a situation where, for the second year in a row, Sony is releasing only one major first party game. Spiderman 2 was last year and this year it's Astrobot. |
It's about the last 2 years and the certainty it will continue this way if they don't change anything.
Both those years saw records of high profits yet lower profits than 2018-2022 and a 10-year low ROI.
they may have made record profits but those have been achieved through record expenses lowering their overall ROI to the point investments are better made elsewhere. That's why investments to maintain the gaming industry have been cut.
I agree with your point of view, but the point of view of the investor is if I have 2 option 1) Give me $7 profit for $100 invested and 2) give me $7.01+ for 100$ invested they're going to pick the number 2 without a second though. Playstation and pretty much all of the gaming industry with few exceptions is option one.