The PS4 will almost certainly make them money. They haven't blown billions on R&D and have hardware that immediately turns a profit (and won't be taking any losses on it pretty soon). Kaz won't be going anywhere because of the PS4. If anything happens to him it'll be because they've beenhemorrhagingmoney on their TV division for just about10 years straightnow. Their console division is really the only technology part of their company making them money and most of their profits come from their Insurance side of the business. Sony's got a LOT of shit they have to fix, but the console side isn't one of them (they already fixed it).
They've fixed it for now, but tomorrow is another day. Technology moves so very quickly and the PS4 has a lot of things going against it. Console launches are inherently risky, too. Nintendo was on top of the world with the Wii and the NDS - look at them now.
Looking at the PS4, I think it has the following hurdles to overcome.
- Price; $400 is a lot to ask of people. People are willing to pay $60 for the latest GTA game, but are they willing to pay $400 + $60? I'm not sure.
- Competition; smartphones and tablets are competing for people's entertainment dollars. People are going to find themselves asking the question 'Should I get a new tablet/smartphone or a PS4?', and I think a lot of more people are going to choose the tablet/smartphone option.
- Competition for games; smartphone and tablet gaming are on the rise, stealing away people's gaming time (I've spent more time playing Marvel Puzzle Quest this week than any 'traditional' games.. hah), and Steam is a growing threat, particularly in countries where Sony has little to no presence. We also know a low cost Amazon console is coming, which could be huge.
And then, as I said above, there's the lost opportunity cost. What if the people working on the Playstation were working on Xperias instead? Sony would probably be in a much healthier condition right now.
And yes, the television division is a mess. They should have dropped it years ago.
I think Tuco's point was that since the PS4 and SteamOS are both Unix-like systems and both use OpenGL for games it may help more SteamOS ports happen. Right now Valve is going to have an uphill battle convincing everyone to do yet another SKU of their games. Developers on the whole aren't going to bend over backwards to do that and anything thatpotentiallyhelps that is a good thing.
Are you fucking kidding me? Do you not remember when I linked several financial statements for EA, Activision and Ubisoft that showed that the PC market was driving huge revenue for them? Have you completely missed the fact that PC ports have become common as fuck over the past few years?
Maybe in the US, where people seem to be enamoured by console gaming, PCs are falling by the wayside, but not anywhere else.
Edit - Look, some data!
And this is
retailonly. Throw in digital and the numbers would be significantly closer.