@_sa_: Xbox is very strong actually. They got Warcraft and Call of Duty now. As well as all the games from Zenimax and Bethesda. They have a big line up of game franchises.
As well as Halo, Perfect Dark, Gears of War and other older game franchises too.
I think it is their sales of game consoles which is a problem, not the games.
But 2024 might be a bad year for games maybe. At least exclusive games. Nintendo and Sony might not have many big exclusive games during 2024. 2024 might not be able to compete with 2023.
Especially Nintendo seem a bit thin in 2024 so far.
as for Xbox, i guess they might earn a lot of money with any new Call of Duty game at least. But it is not an exclusive game of course.
@die_yng: I guess when each big triple A game is developed for 4-5 years, then each new project is a big risk and each game is too big to fail, and each game which fails could mean the end of the studio. Unless a studio has multiple projects at once being developed.
" Meanwhile, Adam Boyes, the co-CEO of Iron Galaxy Studios, simply shared a screenshot of a GeekWire article from April revealing that Microsoft saw a 17% increase in revenue and declared $21.9 billion in profit in the most recent financial earnings report. "
But the 17% number says nothing about the Xbox division or about specific game studios or specific games, like Redfall. So it is kind of pointless. A company which keeps unprofitable units or studios might be less profitable and eventually unprofitable as a whole.
I understand why people complain, shutting down studios is not fun for anyone, but small studios never complain when they get funding and get to develop games with other people s money and almost no risk. They only complain when they loose the funding.
I think Microsoft shut down Lionhead too soon because they were succesful for many years. Just one unprofitable game might not be enough to shut down a studio.
But to be fair, gaming industry faces a few threats at the same time. After the pandemic, the demand for games decreased. Then interests got raised to fight off inflation. And then there is the game changer with automatically generated content which means a company which still does games the old fashoined way has a tougher time to compete with companies which uses the auto generated content. The autogeneration of images is kind of horrible because it sort of crushes the whole industry and cuts the number of jobs available a lot, maybe cuts them in half. But a big company like EA or Take 2 (or others) needs to stay competitive and it might be hard to just ignore the changes if everyone else changes the way they develop games..
" This is absolutely terrible. Permission to be human : to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you.
— Dinga Bakaba 451 (@DBakaba) "
What a rude and immature thing to write. Permission to be human, as an investor:
"Given your logic, why the **** would i spend money on you and give in to your childish demands and your tennage demeanor if the games you produce are supposed to create value for me but they flop and make me loose money? If it is just a business transaction, as you imply, why would i support games which makes me loose money rather than make money? And what gives you the right to be obnoxious towards owners and investors, but you expect them to finance your high risc, probably low reward projects??"
surprise reveal now in june at "E3" period, and a launch as early as september.
And worst case might be a reveal in march next year, march 2025. And a planned launch in september 2025 which slips into february or march 2026. (Well, i guess it could be a super worst case scenario where it slips into autumn 2026)
So we could get Switch 2 realistically anywhere between september 2024 and november 2025 perhaps.
Meanwhile, we should talk about the so far not very impressive launch schedule for Switch 1 in 2024.
They keep working on new games for the next game console, i think. Probably Mario Kart 9, "Super Mario Galaxy 3" (or another 3D Mario title); Splatoon 4 and Metroid Prime 4.
I think the hardware is almost finished but the games are not. So i think the release of the game console depends on when they finish the games.
In 1996, Nintendo 64 got delayed from april 1996 to june 1996 in Japan and one reason was Miyamoto wanted a bit more time to finish Super Mario 64 (and maybe also Pilotwings 64).
In 2016 and 2017, maybe Switch missed the 2016 holiday season because they needed more time to finish Zelda. Or maybe they postponed Zelda because they could not produce enough units of Switch in the factories for the holiday 2016 season.
In 2006, Ps3 got delayed in Europe and pushed back to spring 2007, and less units than originally planned got produced for the US and Japan release.
In 2011 or 2012 i think 3DS got a release as planned, but they put it out on the market at a way too high price and as a result it did not sell very well until they cut the price quite substantially.
In late 2012, Wii U got a release as planned but it was kind of a horrible flopp. Hardware was not terribly impressing. Games like Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U did not have a huge impact like Wii Sports did. And some consumers might have been confused about what Wii U actually was. A portable console or a stationary. Some games got cancelled or delayed.
I think in 2001 a lot of europeans got kind of disappointed, since Gamecube would not get a release in autumn 2001, instead europe had to wait until spring 2002, in may. But GC was quite nice when it arrived even though there was no Super Mario 128 at release. But the Star Wars game was awesome, Melee was quite cool, Pikmin and Luigi were a bit odd games but funny still.
And in fall 2002 we did not get Metroid Prime either, it was a spring 2003 release here.
Same thing also happened in 2001 with MGS 2, Xbox and Halo. Autumn titles in america but spring titles and a spring Xbox release in Europe.
But since Wii in 2006, i think every Nintendo console has released at roughly the same time in USA and Europe. Maybe the pre-HDMI era had bigger challenges with the different PAL and NTSC systems? OR maybe they just got better at "worldwide" releases. (Not really worldwide just because Japan, USA and Europe, and maybe Australia or South Korea, gets it simultaneously obvio..)
Simonthekid7's comments