The trend of software and hardware sales declining has been consistent over the past few months. The industry might be the biggest it’s ever been, but unless you’re Call of Duty or Battlefield, it’s difficult to both keep the lights on and make money. Many people see this as a sign of the end of home consoles, but for Sony, that’s just not the case.
Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony's Worldwide development studios, sees the many layoffs and studio closures as a sign of a generational decline, and not pure console fatigue.
"It's not the decline of consoles, it's the decline of a generation," he told Game Industry International. "This generation has been the longest on the PS3 and the Xbox, it's the seventh year. In older times we would have launched a new system already. Really, developers hit the limits after a couple of games on the same system, typically.”
Not every developer has run out of current-generation horsepower. Yoshida believes his company’s first-party standouts are continuing to push technological boundaries.
"There are a few developers like Naughty Dog or Quantic Dream who are doing more, but that's kind of the exception,” Yoshida continued. “After you see the sequels to the same three games people feel like they've seen everything before. That's natural, but that's nothing like the end of the consoles."
People are behind the PlayStation 4 and its user-friendly features. There’s a certain buzz in the industry that we haven’t felt in quite some time, but for Sony, it’s not about what the console offers out of the box. The company is betting on the possibilities of the PS4 over the next 10 years, which are almost limitless.
"We are launching this holiday but we already have plans on the roadmap for additional features and improvements on the services side which will constantly evolve with time,” he said.
