Publishers fireing people all over

You heard the news. Activision fires 800 people despite best year ever in terms of revenue. Arena.net, the operator of Guildwars, seems to get large layoffs. EA will fire a lot of people from their Australian studio (For Americans: that's near the Hobbit place, not the one in the Alps).

Longtime readers of my blog know why this happens now. Others can read my 6-year-old entries here:

https://teut.blogspot.com/2012/11/transition-years.html

https://teut.blogspot.com/2014/03/transition-years.html

Let's take the Activision case. Why fire 800 people when you had a record year? The reason is, you don't fire people due to the current year's results, but what you see in your forecast of the next. If you look at Activision's portfolio for 2019/2020 there is a large gap of original titles. Even Blizzard, part of Activision, said there is no new Blizzard game coming for a while. So the next one or two years will look bleak for Activision. That's why you optimize your company and fire the bottom 10%.

I am not defending this, I am just explaining. The one thing you can blame Activision is that they knew this is coming, its poor planning (and letting Bungie leave, wtf?).

Activision needs to invest their best teams into the next console generation. As the current one will drop in revenue in terms of software and the new one won't do much at first that gap is what we call transition years. EA is very experienced in this and already cut off workforce last year and will continue this year. If you google back into 2012 you will notice the same happened.

This transition year might not be as bad as the previous ones though as the rumored backward compatibility of the next generation, the Switch and the mobile market might buffer some of the previous revenue losses.

Microsoft is losing one advantage on Xbox One

Microsoft is stupid sometimes. Well maybe more often than we like. Microsoft introduced the internet to consoles. The Xbox was a good start and they made it really good on the Xbox 360. Yes, they screwed up their interface and shop over time, but still it was much better compared to their counterparts Sony or Nintendo.

Why is this? My explanation is that both Nintendo and Sony are Japanese and in Japan the Internet never took off as big as in the western world. Online games never played a major role. The reason I guess is that PC's aren't used at home much due to space restrictions. Japanese people access the internet through their mobile phone. So they had all sorts of online services much sooner than we had. They already had full internet functions when UMTS was still in development in the western world.

If you look at how Nintendo handles the internet it can't get any worse. You add friends by using cryptic numbers like 435132. They claim to protect their kids customers. Sure. That can't excuse the bad online experiences you have with their club Nintendo or their eShop. If you ever tried to buy software there, recover your password or even link new devices you know what I am talking about. Abysmal user experiences.

Sony had the same problem for a long time but patched up their systems over time. Still it is odd that when you login the PlayStation Network on your PC and click on an advertised title to buy it you are redirected to their shop and need to LOGIN AGAIN. Besides only accepting credit cards (no point cards available) they have a decent collection of movies and TV series on top of their game offers.

The PS4 is slightly better in this regard but you see the Japanese style Internet of the 2000's working on all ends. I was surprised that Sony has the lead in live streaming over TwichTV on the PS4 while the Xbone feels like a closed system currently.

And that is my point: Microsoft is losing their big advantage they once had: The internet, online games, connectivity. And Sony is catching up fast. While Nintendo still doesn't understand how the internet works Sony is implementing features fast. Besides Twitch they offer now streaming services for PS3 games through their GaiKai aquisition. If that works well or not doesn't matter, what matters is that Microsoft must speed up their operating software development and store offers, otherwise they will continue to lose against Sony.

Gamescom is behind us

Gamescom is exciting for me as I meet all industry friends easily within one location. I rarely go to that show to check out new games as websites do a much better job giving me all information I need (check out HD Titanfall trailers, or Watchdogs, even better, awesome!)

But some players need to wait for hours to peek at a new game for 5 minutes. Wtf. People. Why does Gamescom use that system to filter people (I know age rating). There were 340.000 visitors this year. Awesome record!

But less than 5000 can be jiggled through your lanes waiting for the games presentation, assuming you can get 50 people per 30 minute presentation all day long.

That is a huge price you pay for your booth to get only a fraction of the audience. 1.7%. One point seven! It is time to rethink the game show concept I believe.

Source: http://www.gamezone.de

Bad opinion II

So it continues. It comes around every couple of years that industry professionals claim it is a good idea for Nintendo to get rid of their hardware business and write their games for all platforms. Mario on PS4, iPad etc. They think it is a good idea.

Some things they forget:

Nintendo is a Japanese company. They are patient as an elephant. They don't care if they lost one generation of consoles, hey, its just 5 years.

Nintendo is a rich company. Valued billions, having billions in cash reserve. In fact it is one of the richest companies of Japan.

Mario, Zelda, Pokemon etc are the high value IP's which cause people to buy Nintendo hardware.

Nintendo always innovated the consoles, controllers and systems with Sony & MS following their lead.

Compared to Sony and Microsoft Entertainment Nintendo had profitable console generations. MS did not. Sony did not.

Why should they bother about other platforms? Nintendo often enough stated that they do not see MS or Sony as competitors. They merely see bicycles, girls and TV as competition as they steal entertainment time from their consumers.

German article on Krawall.de mirroring my opinion:
http://www.krawall.de/web/Wii_U/special/id,65290/

And a video / Statement with the same position:
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/uujebd/the-final-bosman-what-about-nintendo-

XBox One Big Brother is watching you

Many things have been said about the epic fail of Microsoft's presentation of their XBox One (and the bad name), but this here basically cuts my interest to buy one in half:

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/139706-microsofts-new-kinect-patent-goes-big-brother-will-spy-on-you-for-the-mpaa

Yes, this is really a plan. Do you really want Microsoft watching your living room. Really?

Nintendo - again and again

With each transition year the same discussions appear generation after generation - and I can't really hear it anymore: Nintendo is in deep shit and should stop making consoles - instead they should release their core IP's like Mario & Zelda on all other platforms.

WTF.

This is the worst decision they could make. The sole existence of that argument proves that Nintendo should not do it: if you want to play their great games then buy their hardware.

And Nintendo still builds the best console hardware. Microsofts XBox is louder than a vacuum cleaner and red circles all the time. The PS3 is huge, can't be stacked and its only advantage is the Blue Ray.

Nintendo has one weakness they need to learn fast: online. That's where Sony and their PS4 learned very fast - the XBox paved the way but Microsoft screwed it up.

Let's see what may 21st will bring when Microsoft spills their beans.

Only one ting is clear: Nintendo, being 125+ years old, having a market cap others are envious about - has patience like an elephant. If this generation isn't theirs then it might be the next.

NEVER underestimate Nintendo!

I was a huge Sony fan

In my younger years I was a huge Sony fan. In the time of Hifi, Walkman and classic Tube TV's Sony was the #1 quality manufacturer, they were the 'Apple' of their time.

Now Sony is in trouble since some years and even the PS3 didn't seem to make Sony happy. Now they announced the PS4 and somehow developers are excited - why?

First: the PS4 is a powerful machine considering its a high end PC but without all the compatibility brakes from Windows PC's. It features 8GB of ultra fast memory. And the graphics card is pretty nice but actually is better than its PC counterparts as games can use it to its full extend without worrying about backwards compatibility of 15 years VGA graphics. It will be actually much faster than comparable PC graphic cards.

But that is not the most important thing, we expect new consoles to be powerful. What is important is that somehow Sony learned from its past mistakes and someone up there at Sony decided to correct all of them.

First Sony announced to make their approval process easier for games - switching to a one step process just like the App store from Apple. For my readers who do not know how the approval process works on XBox360 or PS3 should google it, its a pain in the arse for developers and actually very expensive - impossible to finance by smaller studios.

Speaking about smaller studios: Sony wants to embrace indies (about time!) and is actively seeking them out for partnerships. They also announced the partnership with Unity3d, a good development engine for everyone.

And here is the kicker: usually you need very expensive development kits to create games on consoles, not this time: Unity3d compiles on retail PS4 machines, i.e. everyone owning Unity3d and asking Sony can develop for it and try to get approved. AWESOME.

The future looks suddenly brighter for the next generation of consoles if Microsoft follows Sony's example - from the past news though they seem to screw it up.

And just to make it clear: I play on PS3 - and will order a PS4. I AM a Sony fan!

Update 2013: Sony is back: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/09/sony-2012-earnings/

PS4: Managing Expections

The new Playstation has been announced and featuring a 8 Core CPU and PC like graphics card many people think why they should buy a PS4 when they got a high end PC already.

Here is the thing: the games on a PS4 will look better than on your PC, even if your specs are better on paper. Why?

Because on the PS4 you can fully utilize the graphic cards power without worrying about backwards compatibility or performance for small machines. You can go all in. On the PC this is not possible.

Want proof? Ask yourself why most XBox360 games look better than many of today's PC games although the XBox is now 6 years old. The reason becomes obvious.

Another thing you should not forget is that the hardware of the PS4 won't change much in the next few years so devlopers can fully commit to its features in the their pipeline, something which is not possible on the PC. Besides the development cycle of 2 years fits much better to a stable platform than on a moving one like the PC.

In other words the still-stand of PS4 hardware specs for the next 5+ years becomes an advantage, not a disadvantage.

Here is the funny quote on the link above: "The games looked amazing, but we’re skeptical that everything was gameplay. A lot of the videos seemed like target videos, examples of what the developers have in mind, rather than actual working games"

It was gameplay, real time rendering.