Looks like Xbox got outsold 3 to 1 by Playstation in 2023.
First party for Sony probably does very well, but the ship has sailed for physical releases. Big games may continue to do that, but smaller and medium games (from western devs at least) will dry up. Most distributors won’t touch physical only deals now and want a piece of digital sales, and unless you badly need finishing funds that’s usually not worth it.
Well, I can think of three ways just off the top of my head. First, no first party games released day and date on their Game Pass competitor (I don’t remember what it’s called off the top of my head). Second, no comparable Play Anywhere option, giving you console and PC options together, plus save game transferability. Third, you can’t pop a PS1, 2, or 3 disc into your PS5 and play them locally. Though my understanding is that PS4 discs are back compatible on the PS5.
Well, sure, these are all things that Microsoft is pursuing and that Sony isn’t. But IMO, it’s a bit like saying the best football player in the world can’t dunk as well as the best basketball one. Yeah, okay?
It’s certainly possible that Microsoft will end up making the Playstation irrelevant, and that in the future the thought of buying a dedicated console to play exclusives is old timey nonsense, but for the moment, at the game of “My console is more relevant than yours”, Sony is winning.
Maybe they’re winning like Netscape was winning against Microsoft, but I’m not sure it’s a certainty that Microsoft vision for the future is the right one.
The employees are dishing on exactly how awful Bobby Kotick is…
This is only one example of the culture Kotick bred at AB: shit flowed downstream, usually landing on the lowest-paid and most overworked individuals. Management was too busy reacting to wildly vacillating direction and decisions that made zero sense.
in my first month it came out he threatened to have an employee killed. in the all-hands that followed, no-one wanted to speak first. so i demanded his firing in front of everyone
As they say, you don’t become a stinking rich CEO by being a decent human being. Positions like these reward psychopathic behaviour, and as such attract people with these traits.
As for Kotick, the less said the better. Absolute waste of oxygen. Though I’m sure some temporarily embarrassed millionaire would come to his defence and extol his financial virtues and how much money he made the shareholders.
Well, I’d like to offer both a sip from my cask of Amontillado. If the gentlemen would kindly follow me now to the vault down below…
Jesus Christ, need a content wanting on the headshot used for that article -the human suit was worn especially poorly that day
Well, Bobby Kotick’s role wasn’t to made games good, but to make tons of money with games, irrespective of their quality.
if that former CoD dev believed quality was more important than money while working on a big, international Publicly Traded Company, man, i have a bridge to sell him.
Imagine if Activision didn’t decide to mandate the annualization of the CoD franchise once it got popular with CoD4. I’m sure the games would have been better with a slower cadence of releases, but wouldn’t they made double the money with games every two years? I don’t think so.
No way to know that, but GTA V came out in 2013 and is still going strong. Annual releases are not required to make a fortune.
Blizzcon 2024 cancelled.
Additionally, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of World of Warcraft
I believe Warcraft released in 1994 so maybe that’s what they were going for.
Five years! Whoah!
Yeah, I assumed it was warcraft proper. The article suddenly made me feel ancient. Now I feel ten years less ancient.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think we’re all some level of ancient here.
My civics teacher in high school:
