“PlayStation 4 was such a great redemption… making that platform such a success quite frankly contributed to me being more comfortable with getting on to the rest of my career.” — Former Sony Computer Entertainment head Jack Tretton, reflecting on his 19 years at Sony and his new role on the advisory board of AI firm Genotaur.
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “Inevitably, though, I know at some point I’m going to flop. There’s going to be shit games. There’s no creative in history which has made hit after hit.” — Mike Bithell, creator of Thomas Was Alone, talking about his path to success.
QUOTE | “The next really big growth wave in computer gaming is likely to come from gamers shifting to tablets as their primary gaming device.” — Kristian Segerstrale, COO of Super Evil Megacorp, explaining why they are working on hardcore games for tablets.
QUOTE | “Imagine we went to the schoolyard, left our lunchbox unattended, someone was eating it. We’re just kind of picking up our lunch now.” — Zynga CEO Don Mattrick, explaining how not putting FarmVille on mobile let Supercell make a million dollars a day on Hay Day.
STAT | 26 million — Number of downloads so far of Colopl’s Quiz RPG mobile game in Japan; the game is poised to pass GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons as the #1 downloaded mobile game in Japan.
STAT | Four million — Number of copies of Watch Dogs Ubisoft sold through to customers in its first week; the company says that’s the highest first week sales of any new IP in the video game industry.
QUOTE | “It scares me a little bit thinking too much about the commercial implications of it and worrying how that might taint the actual substance of the game in some way.” – Jonathan Burroughs, co-founder of developer Variable State, talking about the excitement and challenges of being indie.
QUOTE | “I believe that mobile is the true next generation gaming platform.” — Turbo founder and CEO Yohei Ishii, a start-up signed recently by Nexon, talking about why they are serious about core gaming on mobile platforms.
QUOTE | “Whether it makes you laugh or cry or whatever feeling is involved, as long as it’s not boring then we’re doing our jobs.” — Adrian Chmielarz, developer of Bulletstorm, talking about his goals in making games.
QUOTE | “Today I feel like people would almost rather not take a job and sleep on their friend’s couch than accept a job that doesn’t fit with their criteria.” — Jade Raymond, head of Ubisoft Toronto, talking about how the game industry should mentor employees.
Image via Shutterstock
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3 responses to “This Week In The Business: The PlayStation 4 Redemption”
lol @ all these devs who think mobile gaming is the next big thing for ‘core’ gamers or primary gaming devices…. No clue at all.
Jesus what the hell is with all these toolbox CEOs who keep insisting that gamers are ‘moving’ to tablets/mobile?
We’re not fucking moving anywhere god dammit, it’s a different fucking market. People are not giving up ‘core gaming’ for mobile gaming, they’re doing it when they’re on the shitter/public transport or otherwise unable to get back to the mothership. They discovered it because it had cool casual games on it, not because they’re tired of awesome console/PC experiences.
The future of gaming does not lie in games which are hamstrung by shit-house system specs, the hardest market to get visibility in, and a control system which ties up damn near a quarter of the available screen real-estate with your fucking thumbs.
Worst still, these assholes keep saying this shit, and next thing you know great IPs and dev resources are moved over to this completely fucking different market which just HAPPENS to have some overlap.
They COULD stop talking out of their asses and say, “We’d much rather be in the mobile business where you can invest a few hundred thousand and get back billions instead of investing a few hundred million to maybe get back billions,” but that wouldn’t make them sound like savvy innovators who are revolutionizing the industry.
Amen to that – phones and tablets are a race to the bottom. It’s not even about specs – it’s the controls – why these morons can’t see that is beyond me – I invite all of them to try the DS version of Call of Duty so they can observe what happens when devs try to shoehorn bad controls into a good game