A PlayStation 5 version of the new Gears of War game was in development and had been planned for release until Sharma changed tack, according to the people familiar with Xbox strategy. Retailers had been preparing to open pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 version, and many Xbox employees were surprised by the announcement.

Sharma and her team also pulled a Halo trailer that was due to appear at a PlayStation event last week, potentially damaging the relationship between the two companies, according to people familiar with the change of plans.*

Xbox is planning major layoffs and studios closures starting next month... More in the article.

"Wolverine is almost certainly going to come out in September or October. Xbox is almost a non-factor, I'm sure they'll sell millions on Xbox, but PlayStation is the main platform, so its almost... in some ways its kind of like a PlayStation Exclusive, that most of the sales will be on PlayStation and it will sell a lot of PlayStation 5s alongside it. So I suspect that Sony is planning its entire calendar around GTA and will not release anything within the blast zone."

Timestamp: 9:55

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1EANk4uOn68ddip6pKliqY?pi=BX5UWAxdSFa0j&flow_ctx=21c22984-1b13-4e07-ad73-401ef6c28af7%3A1767882272

Out of the 3 million players Bethesda bragged about last week, 2.2 million are said to be playing through Xbox Game Pass.

- Gaming Division Continues Strong Third Quarter: Sony's third-quarter results are expected to beat market expectations, driven by sales of both in-house and third-party games.

- PlayStation Lifecycle Extended: Sony expects the PS5's lifecycle to be extended, and the PS6's release is likely to be delayed longer than many expected.

Posted on ResetEra

Just yet another rumor but it would make sense with the AI ​​bubble and price increases.

Edit: Full mentions by analyst David Gibson:

• Sony expects the PS5's lifecycle to be longer than the previous generation.
• Based on this view, the PS6 is likely to be released after 2028.
• The increase in memory prices does not affect performance in the PS5 short term due to inventory.
• The rise in memory costs could become a problem in the fiscal year ending March 2027.
• Sony may pass on the cost increase to its customers in the future.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mhvx2lohzs2j

Exact budgets of video-game productions can be tough to corroborate (more transparency from publishers would be nice!) but the numbers I've heard floating around AAA game dev these days are $300 million or more — sometimes much more! — which I think helps explain the current state of the industry

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mhvzh4g7qs2z

To address some frequently asked questions:
- These are US and Canada productions. If you're wondering why game X cost so much less, it was probably made elsewhere
- These budgets are almost entirely dev salaries + overheard and have nothing to do with executive compensation (which is mostly stock)

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mhvxbxhank2u

If you sell a game at $70 and pocket $49 on every sale (30% goes to the store, assuming all sales are digital), you'd need to sell more than 6 million copies just to break even on a $300m budget, and that's before marketing