Sony

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Sony removes still-unmet “8K” promise from PS5 packaging

8K, gaming, graphics, packaging, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, promise, resolution, Sony / /

8K? We never said 8K! —

Move could presage an expected resolution bump in the rumored PS5 Pro.

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  • The new PS5 packaging, as seen on the PlayStation Direct online store, is missing the “8K” label in the corner.

  • The original PS5 packaging with the 8K label, as still seen on the GameStop website.

When we first received our PlayStation 5 review unit from Sony in 2020, we reacted with some bemusement to the “8K” logo on the box and its implied promise of full 7630×4320 resolution output. We then promptly forgot all about it since native 8K content and 8K compatible TVs have remained a relative curiosity thus far in the PS5’s lifespan.

But on Wednesday, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman discovered that Sony has quietly removed that longstanding 8K label from the PS5 box. The ultra-high-resolution promise no longer appears on the packaging shown on Sony’s official PlayStation Direct store, a change that appears to have happened between late January and mid-February, according to Internet Archive captures of the store page (the old “8K” box can still be seen at other online retailers, though).

A promise deferred

This packaging change has been a long time coming since the PS5 hasn’t technically been living up to its 8K promise for years now. While Sony’s Mark Cerny mentioned the then-upcoming hardware’s 8K support in a 2019 interview, the system eventually launched with a pretty big “coming soon” caveat for that feature. “PS5 is compatible with 8K displays at launch, and after a future system software update will be able to output resolutions up to 8K when content is available, with supported software,” the company said in an FAQ surrounding the console’s 2020 launch.

Well over three years later, that 8K-enabling software update has yet to appear, meaning the console’s technical ability to push 8K graphics is still a practical impossibility for users. Until Sony’s long-promised software patch hits, even PS5 games that render frames internally at a full 8K resolution are still pushing out a downscaled 4K framebuffer through that HDMI 2.1 cable.

A slide from TV manufacturer TCL guesses at some details for the next micro-generation of high-end game consoles.

Enlarge / A slide from TV manufacturer TCL guesses at some details for the next micro-generation of high-end game consoles.

At this point, though, there’s some reason to expect that the promised patch may never come to the standard PS5. At the moment, the ever-churning rumor mill is expecting an impending mid-generation PS5 Pro upgrade that could offer true, native 8K resolution support right out of the box. If that comes to pass, removing the outdated “8K” promise from the original PS5 packaging could be a subtle way to highlight the additional power of the upcoming “Pro” upgrade.

A slight majority of participants in a double-blind study saw no discernible difference between a 4K and 8K image video clips.

Enlarge / A slight majority of participants in a double-blind study saw no discernible difference between a 4K and 8K image video clips.

So will console gamers be missing out if they don’t upgrade to an 8K-compatible display? Probably not, as studies show extremely diminishing returns in the perceived quality jump from 4K to 8K visual content for most users and living room setups. Unless you are sitting extremely close to an extremely large display, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll even be able to tell the difference.

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11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5

gaming, PlayStation, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, ps4, ps5, Sony / /

Gone, but not PS4-gotten —

But PS5 users spend more money and gameplay time on their consoles.

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After nearly four years of the PS5, a lot of people are still using their old PS4s.

Enlarge / After nearly four years of the PS5, a lot of people are still using their old PS4s.

If you’re still getting use out of your aging PS4 after nearly four full years of PS5 availability, new data from Sony shows you are far from alone. The Japanese electronics giant says that both the PS4 and PS5 currently have about 49 million monthly active users, suggesting a significant number of PlayStation players have yet to spend $400 or more to upgrade to the newer console.

The new data comes from an extensive Game & Network Services report presented as part of Sony’s most recent Business Segment Meeting. Those numbers suggest that about 42 percent of the 117 million PS4 units ever sold are still in active use, compared to 86 percent of the 56 million PS5 units sold thus far.

Despite the parity in active consoles, Sony also points out that the PS5 is responsible for significantly more gameplay hours than the PS4: 2.4 billion for the new system compared to 1.4 billion for its predecessor (it’s unclear what time period this comparison covers). Sony’s monthly user numbers also include any console “used to play games or [access] services on the PlayStation Network,” so an old PS4 that serves as a convenient Netflix box in the spare bedroom would still inflate the older system’s numbers here.

Still, it’s pretty impressive that nearly 50 million people are still regularly using a console first launched in 2013 (even considering 2016’s Pro upgrade). That could be in part because the PS4 is still seeing plenty of software support well after the PS5’s release; Sony’s PSN Store listings currently include 189 “just released” PS4-compatible games, including many “best-selling” titles that don’t require a PS5 at all. The fact that those PS4-compatible titles are also playable directly on the PS5 has probably helped convince some publishers to target the older console for their less graphics-intensive games.

PS5 owners are spending less money on full games and a lot more money on

Enlarge / PS5 owners are spending less money on full games and a lot more money on “add-on content.”

The PS4’s longevity doesn’t seem to have had a significant negative impact on the PS5’s bottom line, either. Sony’s gaming division has already earned $10 billion in profit off of $106 billion in sales across the nearly four years of the PS5 generation, compared to $9 billion in profit off $107 billion in sales across seven years of the PS4.

PS5 owners have spent an average of $731 each across games, services, peripherals, and add-on content. That’s up significantly from $580 in nominal spending from the average PS4 owner at the same point in that console’s life cycle, though what sounds like a big increase is actually pretty flat when you take inflation into account.

That per-console gaming spending is now concentrated less on “full game” purchases—which are down 12 percent between the PS4 to PS5 generation—and much more on so-called add-on content—which is up 176 percent between generations. We’re guessing that big-spending, loot-box-chasing “whales” have something to do with that increase.

Listing image by Sam Machkovech

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Sony apologizes for interview it says “misrepresented” a Last of Us creator

druckmann, gaming, interview, last of us, Naughty Dog, PR, Public Relations, Sony / /

Who said what now? —

Move comes after Druckmann publicly disavowed some quotes: “This is not quite what I said.”

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Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, seen here not questioning the accuracy of a PR interview.

Enlarge / Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, seen here not questioning the accuracy of a PR interview.

Sony has taken down an interview with Naughty Dog Studio Head Neil Druckmann (Uncharted, The Last of Us) that the company now says contains “several significant errors and inaccuracies that don’t represent his perspective and values.” The surprising move comes after Druckmann took the extreme measure of publicly questioning a portion of the PR interview by posting a lengthy transcript that conflicted with the heavily edited version Sony posted online.

The odd media saga began last Thursday, when Sony published the interview (archive here) under the heading “The Evolution of Storytelling Across Mediums.” The piece was part of the Creative Entertainment Vision section of Sony’s corporate site, a PR-driven concept exploring how Sony will “seamlessly connect multi-layered worlds where physical and virtual realities overlap to deliver limitless Kanto—through creativity and technology—working with creators.” Whatever that means.

Druckmann’s short interview started attracting attention almost immediately, primarily due to Druckmann’s apparent promotion of using AI tools in game development. Such tools “will allow us to create nuanced dialogues and characters, expanding creative possibilities,” Druckmann is quoted as saying. “AI is really going to revolutionize how content is being created, although it does bring up some ethical issues we need to address.”

Not so fast…

By Friday, though, Druckmann ended a months-long drought of social media posting by noting that, in at least one case, the words posted by Sony were “not quite what I said. In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with Sony, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost.”

As evidence, Druckmann posted this “rambling” 457-word response to a question about a “personal vision or dream project” he hoped to create:

Well, I’ve been very lucky, in that I’ve already had that. I got the chance to make several of my dream projects. I am working on a new one right now. And it’s maybe the most excited I’ve been for a project yet. I can’t talk about it or our bosses will get very mad at me.

And I guess in general, there is something happening now that I think is very cool. Which is there’s a new appreciation for gaming that I’ve never seen before. Like when I was growing up, gaming was more of a kid’s thing. Now it’s clearly for everyone. But it’s like, if you’re a gamer, you know about the potential of games, and non-gamers, they don’t really know what they’re missing out on.

But my hope was, when we made The Last of Us as a TV show that we could change that. And why I became so involved with it. I wanted so badly for it to be good, because I wanted this to happen, which is like someone who will watch the show and really like it. And fall in love with those characters the way that we have fallen in love with those characters and their story. And then realize at the end, “Wait, that’s based on a video game?” and then go and check out the game and just see the wealth of narratives and everything that’s happening in games.

So now I feel like there’s kind of a spotlight on gaming. And you know, Fallout just came out. And that’s a big success for Amazon. And I find that really exciting. Not because games need to be movies, or they need to be TV shows, but I think it just kind of opens the eyes of a bunch of people that just weren’t aware of the kind of experiences that exist in games. I think right now we’ve hit a tipping point where it’s about to take off where people realize, “Oh my God, there’s all these incredible moving experiences in games!”

So, I’m not only excited for this game that we’re making—and it’s, it’s something really fresh for us—but I’m also excited to see how the world reacts to it. Because of The Last of Us, and the success of the show, people even outside of gaming are looking at us to see what it is that we put out next. I’m very excited to see what the reaction for this thing will be—and l’ve already said too much about it. I’ll stop there. So, you’re asking me for my dream projects. I’ve been very lucky to have worked on my favorite games with incredible collaborators and I’m very thankful for them.

For reference, here is the 127-word summary of that answer posted by Sony:

I’ve been lucky to work on several dream projects and am currently excited about a new one, which is perhaps the most thrilling yet. There’s a growing appreciation for gaming that transcends all age groups, unlike when I was growing up. This shift is highlighted by our venture into television with The Last of Us, which I hoped would bridge the gap between gamers and non-gamers. The show’s success has spotlighted gaming, illustrating the rich, immersive experiences it offers. This visibility excites me not only for our current project but for the broader potential of gaming to captivate a global audience. I’m eager to see how this new game resonates, especially following the success of The Last of Us, as it could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.

While the gist of Druckmann’s original answer is more or less preserved, the condensed version loses a lot of the specific details and flavor Druckmann highlighted in his answer. The edited version also inserts some key phrases and ideas that Druckmann didn’t use at all, such as his supposed hope that his new project “could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.”

Though we don’t know how much Druckmann’s other answers were clipped or amended in the editing process, Druckmann’s public annoyance with the edits was apparently enough to get Sony’s attention. Sometime after Tuesday night, the PlayStation-maker replaced the public interview with the following message:

In re-reviewing our recent interview with Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, we have found several significant errors and inaccuracies that don’t represent his perspective and values (including topics such as animation, writing, technology, AI, and future projects). We apologize to Neil for misrepresenting his words and for any negative impact this interview might have caused him and his team. In coordination with Naughty Dog and SIE, we have removed the interview.

Journalists often edit interview responses for concision and clarity, but this interview skips the usual step of noting the existence of those kinds of edits near the top of the piece. And while press releases often contain executive quotes that have been carefully crafted in consultation with PR professionals, there was no indication in this article that the responses here were anything other than Druckmann’s own thoughts and words.

Game publishers and console makers have a long history of sharing developer interviews directly with the public rather than having those developers’ views filtered through the press. This is the first instance we can remember where the promotional process itself has become a source of controversy.

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Sony Music opts out of AI training for its entire catalog

AI, AI training, llm, music, Sony, syndication / /

Taking a hard line —

Music group contacts more than 700 companies to prohibit use of content

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picture of Beyonce who is a Sony artist

Enlarge / The Sony Music letter expressly prohibits artificial intelligence developers from using its music — which includes artists such as Beyoncé.

Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood via Getty Images

Sony Music is sending warning letters to more than 700 artificial intelligence developers and music streaming services globally in the latest salvo in the music industry’s battle against tech groups ripping off artists.

The Sony Music letter, which has been seen by the Financial Times, expressly prohibits AI developers from using its music—which includes artists such as Harry Styles, Adele and Beyoncé—and opts out of any text and data mining of any of its content for any purposes such as training, developing or commercializing any AI system.

Sony Music is sending the letter to companies developing AI systems including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Suno, and Udio, according to those close to the group.

The world’s second-largest music group is also sending separate letters to streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple, asking them to adopt “best practice” measures to protect artists and songwriters and their music from scraping, mining and training by AI developers without consent or compensation. It has asked them to update their terms of service, making it clear that mining and training on its content is not permitted.

Sony Music declined to comment further.

The letter, which is being sent to tech companies around the world this week, marks an escalation of the music group’s attempts to stop the melodies, lyrics and images from copyrighted songs and artists being used by tech companies to produce new versions or to train systems to create their own music.

The letter says that Sony Music and its artists “recognize the significant potential and advancement of artificial intelligence” but adds that “unauthorized use . . . in the training, development or commercialization of AI systems deprives [Sony] of control over and appropriate compensation.”

It says: “This letter serves to put you on notice directly, and reiterate, that [Sony’s labels] expressly prohibit any use of [their] content.”

Executives at the New York-based group are concerned that their music has already been ripped off, and want to set out a clearly defined legal position that would be the first step to taking action against any developer of AI systems it considers to have exploited its music. They argue that Sony Music would be open to doing deals with AI developers to license the music, but want to reach a fair price for doing so.

The letter says: “Due to the nature of your operations and published information about your AI systems, we have reason to believe that you and/or your affiliates may already have made unauthorized uses [of Sony content] in relation to the training, development or commercialization of AI systems.”

Sony Music has asked developers to provide details of all content used by next week.

The letter also reflects concerns over the fragmented approach to AI regulation around the world. Global regulations over AI vary widely, with some regions moving forward with new rules and legal frameworks to cover the training and use of such systems but others leaving it to creative industries companies to work out relationships with developers.

In many countries around the world, particularly in the EU, copyright owners are advised to state publicly that content is not available for data mining and training for AI.

The letter says the prohibition includes using any bot, spider, scraper or automated program, tool, algorithm, code, process or methodology, as well as any “automated analytical techniques aimed at analyzing text and data in digital form to generate information, including patterns, trends, and correlations.”

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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Sony backs down, won’t enforce PSN accounts for Helldivers 2 PC players on Steam

co-op shooters, gaming, helldivers 2, PlayStation Network, PSN, Sony, sony playstation network, squad shooters, steam / /

Purge the stain of this failure with the peroxide of victory —

What will Sony do next for an audience that likes its games but not its network?

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Helldivers 2 player aiming a laser reticule into a massive explosion.

Enlarge / Aiming a single rifle sight into an earth-moving explosion feels like some kind of metaphor for the Helldivers 2 delayed PSN requirement saga.

PlayStation/Arrowhead

Helldivers 2 PC players can continue doing their part for Super Earth, sans Sony logins.

Sony’s plan for its surprise hit co-op squad shooter—now the most successful launch in Sony’s nascent PC catalog—Helldivers 2, was to make its players sign in with PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts before it launched in early February, even if they purchased the game through the Steam store.

Sony and developer Arrowhead didn’t enforce PSN logins during its frenetic launch and then announced late last week that PSN accounts would soon be mandatory. Many players did not like that at all, seeing in it a sudden desire by Sony to capitalize on its unexpected smash hit. Some were not eager to engage with a network that had a notable hack in its history, others were concerned about countries where PSN was not offered, and many didn’t take Sony at its word that this was about griefing, banning, and other moderation. Because of the uneven availability of Steam and PSN, Helldivers 2 was delisted in 177 countries on Steam over the weekend as Steam worked through refund requests.

The pushback made an impression, and now Sony has announced that account linking “will not be moving forward.” In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Sunday night addressed to Helldivers fans, the official PlayStation account wrote that the publisher had “heard your feedback” and was “still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable.”

“Feedback,” in this case, likely included a long weekend of both PlayStation and Arrowhead hearing from a Helldivers fanbase that had previously been relatively sanguine and cohesive, at least for an online multiplayer shooter. Steam reviews of Helldivers 2 took a sad but predictable plummet downward, the game’s subreddit pivoted from cosigned enthusiasm to protest, and lots of people tied to the game spent a lot of time over the weekend trying to address the surge of negative social media.

Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Arrowhead Games Studio, after facetiously asking if now was the moment “to tweet ‘What? You guys don’t have phones?'”, posted on X early Sunday that his firm was “talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries.” Responding to a reply that asked why he or his firm were “acting all blameless,” Pilestedt was candid. “I do have a part to play. I am not blameless in all of this – it was my decision to disable account linking at launch so that players could play the game. I did not ensure players were aware of the requirement and we didn’t talk about it enough,” Pilestedt wrote.

He added, ‘We knew for about 6 months before launch that it would be mandatory for online PS titles.” Asked why, if known for 6 months, the game was sold to countries without PSN available, he responded, “We do not handle selling the game.”

It will certainly be interesting to see what Sony does next with its success beyond consoles. Helldivers 2 is by far its most successful PC launch to date, and its seventh highest-grossing game overall. There’s a market there for the right kinds of games, but how Sony cultivates that market, and whether they’ll welcome Sony as anything beyond a publisher on Steam, remains to be seen.

The developer of Ghost of Tsushima, arriving soon on PC, made sure to note Friday on X/Twitter that a PSN account was only required for the multiplayer mode of the game, not the single-player adventure.

This post was update at 10: 41 a.m. to note prior international delistings, and Sony’s clarification about PSN requirements for an upcoming game.

Sony backs down, won’t enforce PSN accounts for Helldivers 2 PC players on Steam Read More »

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Sony demands PSN accounts for Helldivers 2 PC players, and it’s not going well

gaming, helldivers 2, PlayStation, PlayStation Network, psn hack, Sony, sony playstation, sony playstation network, steam / /

What fresh Helldivers is this —

A surprise hit, a network with brutal baggage, and the Steam profit paradox.

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Helldivers 2 player posing in winter armor

Enlarge / This gear is from the upcoming “Polar Patriots” Premium Warbond in Helldivers 2. It’s an upcoming change the developer and publisher likely wish was getting more attention of late.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

There’s a lot of stories about the modern PC gaming industry balled up inside one recent “update” to Helldivers 2.

Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Thursday night that current players of the runaway hit co-op shooter will have to connect their Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account starting on May 30, with a hard deadline of June 4. New players will be required to connect the two starting Monday, May 6.

Officially, this is happening because of the “safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games.” Account linking allows Sony to ban abusive players, and also gives banned players the right to appeal. Sony writes that it would have done this at launch, but “Due to technical issues … we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire.”

“We understand that while this may be an inconvenience to some of you, this step will help us to continue to build a community that you are all proud to be a part of,” Sony writes in the update. The Helldivers community on Reddit is flush with dissenting posts today, and Steam reviews of the game have taken a marked turn since the announcement.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Oh, right, that PlayStation Network

It’s the combination of “safety and security” and “Sony” that make this more than just the typical grousing about game launchers, cross-play, or other user/password demands. The PlayStation Network was fully and famously hacked in April 2011, with 77 million users’ names, addresses, emails, birthdays, passwords, and logins compromised. Sony Online Entertainment also suffered a separate attack while PSN was down, exposing millions more accounts and thousands of credit card numbers. PSN came partially back online 26 days later, then fully online two weeks later, with a complimentary year of identity protection and Welcome Back packages for subscribers. Less than a month later, other aspects of Sony were hacked by LulzSec.

Sony was fined nearly $400,000 in the UK for the hack in 2013, which regulators said could have been prevented by updating software and taking precautions. Sony agreed to pay up to $17.5 million in a US class-action settlement in 2014, along with some providing free games and other benefits in 2015.

Those with a long enough memory of computers, security, and Sony might also recall the Sony rootkit debacle, which, while nearly 20 years old now, was such a notably bad and bizarre thing that it stuck around.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

An online game people want less online

Helldivers 2 was not supposed to be this big a game. Sony was still cautiously trodding into PC games after years of treating its exclusive and first-party games as console leverage. Helldivers 2 was a sequel to a game that, while well-regarded, didn’t land as a smash hit.

Within one day of its launch, Helldivers 2 was Sony’s most successful PC launch, and it wasn’t even close. Within two weeks, it passed the all-time concurrent player counts of Starfield, Destiny 2, landing at 18 on the SteamDB charts. It helped that it launched on the same day as the PS5 version, was cheaper than most AAA titles, and arrived with no (uncommonly) egregious performance or crash issues. There were, as noted by Sony, early server issues, largely due to demand. Whatever the case, it was Sony’s seventh highest-grossing game as of May 1.

That success hurts the optics of Sony’s demand, months after it had an unexpected hit, that players must now register with its far-from-trusted network to keep playing. A non-mega-budgeted game, a trial-balloon sequel, hits big, and Sony, finding its footing in this new realm, doesn’t want to leave said opportunity as a one-time Steam purchase.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Two blimps jousting overhead

Helldivers 2 is explicitly multiplayer, and the action takes place on Sony’s servers. But Steam is the means by which Helldivers 2 reaches its players, fosters engagement, and, of course, tries to entice them into DLC, further sequels, and perhaps other Sony PC games—so long as they’re on also on Steam.

There are no rock-solid numbers on Steam’s PC gaming market share, but we know that the biggest competitor, Epic Games, is losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year giving away games just to get some kind of foothold. Steam’s market position, recommendation whims, and broad 30 percent revenue cut have left many companies searching for ways to disentangle their futures from a single platform. Sony just happens to be the one making the hard ask, for reasons that don’t entirely sound obvious months later, and with a network that has some tough Google search results.

It’s worth noting that PSN is not necessarily available in all countries where Steam sells games. We’ve reached out to Sony to ask about this and for further comment on their PSN requirement, and will update this post if we hear back.

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All the ways streaming services are aggravating their subscribers this week

ads, Comcast, nbcuniversal, netflix, peacock, Sony, streaming, Tech, warner bros. discovery / /
man watching TV, holding face

Streaming services like Netflix and Peacock have already found multiple ways to aggravate paying subscribers this week.

The streaming industry has been heating up. As media giants rush to establish a successful video streaming business, they often make platform changes that test subscribers’ patience and the value of streaming.

Below is a look at the most exasperating news from streaming services from this week. The scale of this article demonstrates how fast and frequently disappointing streaming news arises. Coincidentally, as we wrote this article, another price hike was announced.

We’ll also examine each streaming platform’s financial status to get an idea of what these companies are thinking (spoiler: They’re thinking about money).

Peacock’s raising prices

For the second time in the past year, NBCUniversal is bumping the price of Peacock, per The Hollywood Reporter (THR) on Monday.

As of July 18, if you try to sign up for Peacock Premium (which has ads), it’ll cost $7.99 per month, up from $5.99/month today. Premium Plus, (which doesn’t have ads), will go up from $11.99/month to $13.99/month. Annual subscription pricing for the ad plan is increasing 33.3 percent from $59.99 to $79.99, and the ad-free annual plan’s price will rise 16.7 percent from $119.99/year to $139.99/year.

Those already subscribed to Peacock won’t see the changes until August 17, six days after the closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, which will stream on Peacock.

The pricing changes will begin eight days before the Olympics’ opening ceremony. That means that in the days leading up to the sporting event, signing up for Peacock will cost more than ever. That said, there’s still time to sign up Peacock for its current pricing.

As noted by THR, the changes come as NBCUniversal may feel more confident about its streaming service, which now includes big-ticket items, like exclusive NFL games and Oppenheimer (which Peacock streamed exclusively for a time), in addition to new features for the Olympics, like multiview.

Some outspoken subscribers, though, aren’t placated.

“Just when I was starting to like the service,” Reddit user MarkB1997 said in response to the news. “I’ll echo what everyone has been saying for a while now, but these services are pricing themselves out of the market.”

Peacock subscribers already experienced a price increase on August 17, 2023. At the time, Peacock’s Premium pricing went from $4.99/month to $5.99/month, and the Premium Plus tier from $9.99/month to $11.99/month.

Peacock’s pockets

Peacock’s price bumps appear to be a way for the younger streaming service to inch closer to profitability amid a major, quadrennial, global event.

NBCUniversal parent company Comcast released its Q1 2024 earnings report last week, showing that Peacock, which launched in July 2020, remains unprofitable. For the quarter, Peacock lost $639 million, compared to $825 million in Q4 2023 and $704 million in Q1 2023. Losses were largely attributed to higher programming costs.

Peacock’s paid subscriber count is lower than some of its rivals. The platform ended the quarter with 34 million paid users, up from 31 million at the end of 2023. Revenue also rose, with the platform pulling in $1.1 billion, representing a 54 percent boost compared to the prior year.

Sony bumps Crunchyroll prices weeks after shuttering Funimation

Today, Sony’s anime streaming service Crunchyroll announced that it’s increasing subscription prices as follows:

  • The Mega Fan Tier, which allows streaming on up to four devices simultaneously, will go from $9.99/month to $11.99/month
  • The Ultimate Fan Tier, which allows streaming on up to six devices simultaneously, will go from $14.99/month to $15.99/month

Crunchyroll’s cheapest plan ($7.99/month) remains unchanged. None of Crunchyroll’s subscription plans have ads. Crunchyroll’s also adding discounts to its store for each subscription tier, but this is no solace for those who don’t shop there on a monthly basis or at all.

The news of higher prices comes about a month after Sony shuttered Funimation, an anime streaming service it acquired in 2017. After buying Crunchyroll in 2021, Funimation was somewhat redundant for Sony. And now that Sony has converted all remaining Funimation accounts into Crunchyroll accounts (while deleting Funimation digital libraries), it’s forcing many customers to pay more to watch their favorite anime.

A user going by BioMountain on Crunchyroll said the news is “not great,” since they weren’t “a big fan of having to switch from Funimation to begin with, especially since that app was so much better” than Crunchyroll.

Interestingly, when Anime News Network asked on February 29 whether Crunchyroll would see prices rise over the next two years, the company told the publication that predicting a price change for that time frame would be improbable.

Crunching numbers

Crunchyroll had 5 million paid subscribers in 2021 but touted over 13 million in January, (plus over 89 million unpaid users, per Bloomberg). Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini has said that Crunchyroll is profitable, but not by how much.

In 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated that Crunchyroll would represent 36 percent of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s profit by 2028, compared to about 1 percent in March.

However, Purini has shown interest in growing the company further and noted to Variety in February an increase in “general entertainment” companies getting into anime.

Still, anime remains a more niche entertainment category, and Crunchyroll is more specialized than some other streaming platforms. With Sony making it so that anime fans have one less streaming service option and jacking up the prices for one of the limited options, it’s showing that it wants as much of the $20 billion anime market as possible.

Crunchyroll claimed today that its pricing changes are tied to “investment in more anime, additional services like music and games, and additional subscriber benefits.”

All the ways streaming services are aggravating their subscribers this week Read More »

putting-microsoft’s-cratering-xbox-console-sales-in-context

Putting Microsoft’s cratering Xbox console sales in context

gaming, microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation, ps4, ps5, Sony, Switch, xbox / /

Down but not out —

Why declining quarterly numbers might not be awful news for Microsoft’s gaming business.

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Scale is important, especially when talking about relative console sales.

Enlarge / Scale is important, especially when talking about relative console sales.

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it made 31 percent less off Xbox hardware in the first quarter of 2024 (ending in March) than it had the year before, a decrease it says was “driven by lower volume of consoles sold.” And that’s not because the console sold particularly well a year ago, either; Xbox hardware revenue for the first calendar quarter of 2023 was already down 30 percent from the previous year.

Those two data points speak to a console that is struggling to substantially increase its player base during a period that should, historically, be its strongest sales period. But getting wider context on those numbers is a bit difficult because of how Microsoft reports its Xbox sales numbers (i.e., only in terms of quarterly changes in total console hardware revenue). Comparing those annual shifts to the unit sales numbers that Nintendo and Sony report every quarter is not exactly simple.

Context clues

Significant declines in Xbox hardware revenue for four of the last five quarters stand out relative to competitors' unit sales.

Enlarge / Significant declines in Xbox hardware revenue for four of the last five quarters stand out relative to competitors’ unit sales.

Kyle Orland

To attempt some direct contextual comparison, we took unit sales numbers for some recent successful Sony and Nintendo consoles and converted them to Microsoft-style year-over-year percentage changes (aligned with the launch date for each console). For this analysis, we skipped over each console’s launch quarter, which contains less than three months of total sales (and often includes a lot of pent-up early adopter demand). We also skipped the first four quarters of a console’s life cycle, which don’t have a year-over-year comparison point from 12 months prior.

This still isn’t a perfect comparison. Unit sales don’t map directly to total hardware revenue due to things like inflation, remainder sales of Xbox One hardware, and price cuts/discounts (though the Xbox Series S/X, PS5, and Switch still have yet to see official price drops). It also doesn’t take into account the baseline sales levels from each console’s first year of sales, making total lifetime sales performance on the Xbox side hard to gauge (though recent data from a Take-Two investment call suggests the Xbox Series S/X has been heavily outsold by the PS5, at this point).

Even with all those caveats, the comparative data trends are pretty clear. At the start of their fourth full year on the market, recent successful consoles have been enjoying a general upswing in their year-over-year sales. Microsoft stands out as a major outlier, making less revenue from Xbox hardware in four of the last five quarters on a year-over-year basis.

Falling like dominoes.

Enlarge / Falling like dominoes.

Aurich Lawson

Those numbers suggest that the hardware sales rate for the Xbox Series S/X may have already peaked in the last year or two. That would be historically early for a console of this type; previous Ars analyses have shown PlayStation consoles generally see their sales peaks in their fourth or fifth year of life, and Nintendo portables have shown a similar sales trend, historically. The Xbox Series S/X progression, on the other hand, looks more similar to that of the Wii U, which was already deep in a “death spiral” at a similar point in its commercial life.

This is not the end

In the past, console sales trends like these would have been the sign of a hardware maker’s wider struggles to stay afloat in the gaming business. However, in today’s gaming market, Microsoft is in a place where console sales are not strictly required for overall success.

For instance, Microsoft’s total gaming revenue for the latest reported quarter was up 51 percent, thanks in large part to the “net impact from the Activision Blizzard acquisition.” Even before that (very expensive) merger was completed, Microsoft’s total gaming revenue was often partially buoyed by “growth in Game Pass” and strong “software content” sales across PC and other platforms.

Owning Call of Duty means being one of the biggest PS5 game publishers almost by definition.

Enlarge / Owning Call of Duty means being one of the biggest PS5 game publishers almost by definition.

Activision

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Microsoft has shown increasing willingness to take some former Xbox console exclusives to other platforms in recent months. In fact, following the Activision/Blizzard merger, Microsoft is now publishing more top-sellers on the PS5 than Sony. And let’s not forget the PC market, where Microsoft continues to sell millions of games above and beyond its PC Game Pass subscription business.

So, while the commercial future of Xbox hardware may look a bit uncertain, the future of Microsoft’s overall gaming business is in much less dire straits. That would be true even if Microsoft’s Xbox hardware revenue fell by 100 percent.

Putting Microsoft’s cratering Xbox console sales in context Read More »

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Report: Sony stops producing PSVR2 amid “surplus” of unsold units

gaming, headset, PlayStation, PlayStation VR, ps5, psvr, Sony, tethered, virtual reality / /

Too many too late? —

Pricy tethered headset falters after the modest success of original PSVR.

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PSVR2 (left) next to the original PSVR.

Enlarge / PSVR2 (left) next to the original PSVR.

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica

It looks like Sony’s PlayStation VR2 is not living up to the company’s sales expectations just over a year after it first hit the market. Bloomberg reports that the PlayStation-maker has stopped producing new PSVR2 units as it tries to clear out a growing backlog of unsold inventory.

Bloomberg cites “people familiar with [Sony’s] plans” in reporting that PSVR2 sales have “slowed progressively” since its February 2023 launch. Sony has produced “well over 2 million” units of the headset, compared to what tracking firm IDC estimates as just 1.69 million unit shipments to retailers through the end of last year. The discrepancy has caused a “surplus of assembled devices… throughout Sony’s supply chain,” according to Bloomberg’s sources.

IDC estimates a quarterly low of 325,000 PSVR2 units shipped in the usually hot holiday season, compared to a full 1.3 million estimated holiday shipments for Meta’s then-new Quest 3 headset, which combined with other Quest products to account for over 3.7 million estimated sales for the full year.

The last of the tethered headsets?

The reported state of affairs for PSVR2 is a big change from the late 2010s when the original PlayStation VR became one of the bestselling early VR headsets simply by selling to the small, VR-curious slice of PS4 owners. At the time, the original PSVR was one of the cheapest “all-in” entry points for the nascent market of tethered VR headsets, in large part because it didn’t require a connection to an expensive, high-end gaming PC.

In the intervening years, though, the VR headset market has almost completely migrated to untethered headsets, which allow for freer movement and eliminate the need to purchase and stay near external hardware. The $550 PlayStation VR2 is also pricier than the $500 Meta Quest 3 headset, even before you add in the $500 asking price for a needed PS5. Sony’s new headset also isn’t backward compatible with games designed for the original PSVR, forcing potential upgraders to abandon most of their existing VR game libraries for the new platform.

Even before the PSVR2 launched, Sony was reportedly scaling back its ambitions for the headset (though the company denied those reports at the time and said it was “seeing enthusiasm from PlayStation fans”). And since its launch, PSVR2 has suffered from a lack of exclusive titles, featuring a lineup mostly composed of warmed-over ports long available on other headsets. An Inverse report from late last year shared a series of damning complaints from developers who have struggled to get their games to run well on the new hardware.

Put it all together, and PSVR2 seems like a too-little-too-late upgrade that has largely squandered the company’s early lead in the space. We wouldn’t be shocked if this spells the end of the line for Sony’s VR hardware plans and for mass-market tethered headsets in general.

Report: Sony stops producing PSVR2 amid “surplus” of unsold units Read More »

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Lost, circa-2008 Timesplitters 4 prototype discovered on PS3 dev kit

Free Radical, gaming, PS3, Sony, Timesplitters / /

A historic find —

Redditor paid a reported $670 to rescue the unit and archive the game for posterity.

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Timesplitters 4 available to the public until this month.” height=”238″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/ts4monkey-300×238.png” width=”300″>

Enlarge / This image from a 2007 teaser was one of the only remaining bits of Timesplitters 4 available to the public until this month.

Longtime readers and first-person shooter fans might remember how excited we were for the announcement of Timesplitters 4 in late 2008. Unfortunately, an intriguing trailer was the last we saw of the game before the project was killed amidst Free Radical’s bankruptcy later that year.

Today, though, we actually have a chance to see and play what we missed over 15 years ago. That’s thanks to an eagle-eyed eBay trawler who grabbed an aging PlayStation 3 development kit that happened to have a prototype of Timesplitters 4 sitting on its hard drive.

Reddit user Flimsy-Zebra3775 posted about the find earlier this month, asking the PS3 subreddit community for guidance on what looked like a working prototype of the long-lost game. After reportedly asking the seller “a lot of probing questions” and confirming that the prototype could be booted, Flimnsy-Zebra reportedly paid 525 pounds (about $670) for the dev kit, saying, “for history and my collection, it’s worth it.”

Footage from the now-archived prototype, running on an actual PS3.

Once the dev kit was in hand, Flimsy-Zebra shared the prototype files with the Timespliters subreddit and Hidden Palace, a site devoted to archiving these kinds of prototypes for posterity. While the incomplete build doesn’t work on PS3 emulator RPCS3, fans have uploaded a few videos of the game running on actual PS3 hardware, showing off battles with computer-controlled bots outside a gothic castle (and some incredibly kick-ass music, to boot).

Free Radical founder (and noted GoldenEye/Perfect Dark developer) David Doak confirmed the footage’s authenticity on social media, reminiscing that “this is exactly the kind of nonsense that [insert any publisher name] wasn’t interested in back in 2008. You’re welcome.”

After Free Radical closed for good in 2014, a studio with the same name was re-formed under publishing conglomerate Embracer in 2021 to once again try to make a version of Timesplitters 4 a reality. Ironically enough, that Timesplitters 4 project was also shuttered amid massive layoffs at Embracer late last year. Who knows, maybe in 2040 a prototype version of that completely different Timesplitters 4 will turn up on some random dev kit, ready for archiving.

Lost, circa-2008 Timesplitters 4 prototype discovered on PS3 dev kit Read More »

what-a-potential-post-xbox-future-could-mean-for-sony-and-nintendo

What a potential post-Xbox future could mean for Sony and Nintendo

consoles, gaming, microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation 5, Sony, Switch, syndication, xbox, xbox one s / /

shifting landscape —

“All signs point to the hardware becoming less and less important to Microsoft.”

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What a potential post-Xbox future could mean for Sony and Nintendo

Aurich Lawson

Microsoft’s decision to ease off its 23-year competition with Sony and Nintendo over supremacy in games hardware has opened a path for Japan’s return as the world’s undisputed home of the console.

The prospect of a new, less internationalized era of console wars has raised hopes of happier times for the Japanese survivors but has also caused analysts and investors to revisit the question of how much longer the whole genre of dedicated games machines will continue to exist.

Microsoft head of gaming Phil Spencer last month revealed plans to release what would previously have been exclusively Xbox games for use on rival platforms, as part of a new focus on cloud-based gaming.

While the US technology giant has said it is still working on a new generation of more powerful consoles, analysts think its long-term direction is clear.

“All signs point to the hardware becoming less and less important to Microsoft, so there is that possibility that we could go back to a point like we were in the 1990s where the viable choices of console were all Japanese,” said Serkan Toto, head of the games consultancy Kantan Games.

Giving up the console fight to concentrate on software could be taken as a huge victory for Japan. To many, the birthplace of Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, and Pokémon is the spiritual home of the console and has featured the industry’s fiercest “golden age” 1980s and 1990s clashes of Nintendo vs Sega, and later, Nintendo vs Sony.

“It may not happen immediately because the technology of cloud gaming is clearly not ready yet, but from what Microsoft is indicating, there is a possibility that we go back to an all-Japan console industry with Sony and Nintendo each dominating their part of that market in their different, unique ways,” said David Gibson, an analyst at MST Financial.

But the return to a Japan-only industry for dedicated games hardware could more clearly define the console as a commercial cul-de-sac.

That issue, said independent games analyst Pelham Smithers, could be particularly acute for Sony, which last week announced plans to cut 900 staff from its games unit.

“It was tough enough for Sony arguing the need to investors for a PS5—and a lot of people at the time were saying that the PS5 could be the end of the line—but Microsoft’s commitment to console gaming helped,” said Smithers.

Nintendo, meanwhile, faces an issue of timing. Its Switch machine, released in 2017 and now significantly underpowered even when compared with some mobile phones, is to be replaced with a next-generation successor. But the Kyoto-based company has yet to say precisely when and what it will look like.

Analysts said Nintendo is still traumatized by the experience in 2012 when it launched a poorly conceived successor to the global blockbuster Wii console.

Sales of the existing Switch are respectable, said Toto, but more or less everyone who wanted the console has bought one by now. The market, he said, will be waiting for Nintendo’s successor and may hold back on buying games for the Switch ahead of a new machine being released.

Gibson said Sony’s problems are very different: its PS5 machine, now four years old, is popular, but its games business is now guided by “accountants,” rather than people primed to manage a creative business.

Previous generations of the PlayStation had been launched with an expectation that the machine would initially be sold at a loss, before the price of components quickly fell, allowing the company to break even and, in time, allow price cuts for customers.

By its fifth year of release the PS4 had two price cuts totaling $100. The PS5 has had none. “With the accountants in charge, Sony is not prepared to cut prices by $100 to stimulate demand because that would cost $2 billion in profits,” Gibson said.

Microsoft, which has spent huge sums on acquisitions of game studios such as the $75 billion purchase of Activision, is facing similar issues with its hardware economics. Analysts said the US company may have greater motivation than Sony to become an all-platform king.

“The state of the console market right now may not be an advertisement per se for Japan getting its mojo back. It feels more like these three very idiosyncratic businesses are doing well or not for idiosyncratic reasons,” said Robin Zhu, games analyst at Bernstein.

There is a chance that Microsoft’s new direction is a “win, win, win situation,” according to Atul Goyal at Jefferies, because of the different situation each company finds itself in.

Microsoft, he said, could pump up returns by offering its games across different platforms, while Nintendo and Sony would face “less intense competition” and benefit from having a wider choice of titles for customers.

But, as Zhu said, one factor that might keep Microsoft from killing off the Xbox entirely is the same thing that will keep Sony and Nintendo in the market—the fierce loyalty of gamers.

“The concern [Microsoft] will have is that you’ve already convinced your customers to buy the hardware; by telling them that Xbox games will be on every other platform, you risk upsetting your highest engagement and most dogmatic customers,” he said.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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Sony claims to offer subs “appropriate value” for deleting digital libraries

anime, crunchyroll, funimation, Sony, streaming, Tech / /

(No) Funimation —

Customers confused as Sony claims to work with affected users individually.

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Luffy from One Piece smiling with a treasuer

Enlarge / A scene from One Piece, one of the animes that Funimation has distributed.

Sony is making an effort to appease customers who will lose their entire Funimation digital libraries when the anime streaming service merges into Crunchyroll. Currently, though, the company’s plan for giving disappointed customers “an appropriate value” for their erased digital copies isn’t very accessible or clear.

Earlier this month, Sony-owned Funimation announced that customers’ digital libraries would be unavailable starting on April 2. At that time, Funimation accounts will become Crunchyroll accounts. Sony acquired Crunchyroll in 2021, so some sort of merging of the services was expected. However, less expected was customers’ lost access to online copies of beloved anime that they acquired through digital codes provided in purchased Funimation DVDs or Blu-rays. Funimation for years claimed that customers would be able to stream these copies “forever, but there are some restrictions.”

Rahul Purini, Crunchyroll’s president, explained the decision while speaking to The Verge’s latest Decoder podcast, noting that the feature was incorporated into the Funimation platform.

“As we look at usage of that and the number of people who were redeeming those and using them, it was just not a feature that was available in Crunchyroll and isn’t in our road map,” Purini said.

The executive claimed that Funimation is “working really hard directly” with each affected customer to “ensure that they have an appropriate value for what they got in the digital copy initially.” When asked what “appropriate value” means, Purini responded:

It could be that they get access to a digital copy on any of the existing other services where they might be able to access it. It could be a discount access to our subscription service so they can get access to the same shows through our subscription service. So we are trying to make it right based on each user’s preference.

Clarifying further, Purini confirmed that this means that Sony is willing to provide affected customers with a new digital copy via a streaming service other than Crunchyroll. The executive said that the company is handling subscribers’ requests as they reach out to customer service.

Notably, this approach to compensating customers for removing access to something that they feel like they purchased (digital copies are considered a free addition to the physical copies, but some people might not have bought the discs if they didn’t come with a free digital copy) puts the responsibility on customers to reach out. Ahead of Purini’s interview, Sony didn’t publicly announce that it would offer customers compensation. And since Funimation’s terms of use include caveats that content may be removed at any time, customers might have thought that they have no path for recourse.

But even if you did happen to demand some sort of refund from Funimation, you might not have been offered any relief. The Verge’s Ash Parrish, who has a free-tier Funimation account, reported today on her experience trying to receive the “appropriate value” for her digital copies of Steins;Gate and The Vision of Escaflowne. Parrish noted that Steins;Gate isn’t available to stream off Crunchyroll with a free subscription, meaning she’d have no way to watch it digitally come April 2. Parrish said Funimation support responded with two “boilerplate” emails that apologized but offered no solution or compensation. She followed up about getting compensated for a premium subscription so that she’d be able to stream what she used to digitally own through Crunchyroll but hadn’t received a response by publication time.

Following up with Funimation’s PR department didn’t provide any clarity. Brian Eley, Funimation’s VP of communications, reportedly told Parrish via email: “Funimation users who have questions about digital copies can contact Funimation here. A Funimation account associated with a digital copy redemption is required for verification.” Ars Technica reached out to Crunchyroll for comment but didn’t hear back in time for publication.

The downfalls of digital “ownership”

Sony’s plan to delete access to customers’ digital properties shows the risks of relying on streaming services. The industry is infamous for abruptly losing licenses to programming, changing prices and accessibility to titles, mergers, as is the case here, and collaborations that change what customers are entitled to.

When asked about this broader industry challenge on Decoder, Purini acknowledged customer inconvenience but noted the importance for Crunchyroll to “keep our resources and teams focused on what would help us bring the best experience for the broader audience.”

It’s unclear how many users were using their Funimation digital copies. However, some may consider their digital copies backups that they won’t use unless they’re no longer able to play their physical copy, giving Funimation customers peace of mind.

Although Funimation claimed that digital copies would be viewable “forever,” their terms of use note that Funimation can remove content “for any reason.” However, it’s not uncommon for customers to avoid reading lengthy, wordy terms of service agreements. Terms of service are easy to understand for an industry participant like Purini, he said, but “that might not be the case with a broader general audience.”

That said, with streaming becoming a more substantial part of people’s media libraries, users must understand what they’re spending money on. Access to beloved shows and movies over the Internet isn’t guaranteed, and inconsistent compensation plans are often the result.

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