🎮 PlayStation 5 Pro Reveal, Ubisoft continues to struggle and layoffs in Midnight Society
PlayStation 5 Pro Reveal, Ubisoft is urged to go private, Major layoffs at Midnight Society, Ex-Sony President on layoffs and more!
Hello friends,
Today is September 12th 2024 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 PlayStation 5 Pro Reveal
🎮 Ubisoft is urged to go private
🎮 Major layoffs at Midnight Society
🎮 Ex-Sony President on layoffs
⚡ Lightning Round!
🫡 True Tribute!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 PlayStation 5 Pro Reveal
So, it’s been almost 4 years since the initial release on PS5 and we are finally here. In a surprise unveiling event, Sony finally showed the console, talked about costs, release date and other relevant news. The response so far is a bit mixed, to say the least.
But first, let’s talk about the console itself.
The console comes with a 2TB SSD, a DualSense controller, and a copy of Astro’s Playroom pre-installed.
If you want to add a disc drive, you’ll need to buy one for $80.
Sony upgraded to a GPU with 67% more Compute Units than the current PS5 console and 28% faster memory. Overall, this enables up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay.
Added even more powerful ray tracing that provides more dynamic reflection and refraction of light.
With this console, they are also introducing PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, an AI-driven upscaling that uses a machine learning-based technology to provide super sharp image clarity by adding an extraordinary amount of detail.
Also, it should include PS5 Pro Game Boost for backward compatible PS4 games on the console.
And it has Wi-Fi 7 as well as VRR and 8K.
But the price tag is a bite in the wallet as it is 700$.
The release date is set for November 7 2024.
With all that said, I’ve heard a lot of people praising the arrival of the Pro and other people saying that either the price is too high, there’s no difference in visuals so far or saying that they’d rather buy a bunch of Switches than a PS5 Pro. I honestly think that the presentation botched it. They couldn’t “sell it” properly.
As for myself, you know I’m a PC gamer (at least for the time being) and I definitely don’t have 700$ lying around to buy this thing. But even if I did, I’d rather buy a Steam Deck or a Switch at this point.
What do you think? Did anybody already reserve 700 in the bank account for this?
🎮 Ubisoft is urged to go private
According to Insider Gaming, a few days ago a certain hedge fund (AJ Investments) that has a small 1% stake in Ubisoft released a letter urging the company to make changes following a not-so-great release for Star Wars: Outlaws:
Ubisoft at current state is mismanaged and shareholders are hostages of Guillemot family members and Tencent who take advantage of them. Management is focused on pleasing investors with beating quarterly results and not focusing on long-term strategy to provide exceptional experience for the gamers. Our company has extensive knowledge about the gaming industry and we were longterm shareholder in Activision Blizzard and we started our Ubisoft position couple weeks ago and still adding to it.
They also suggested that Ubisoft should go private and “implement a comprehensive cost reduction program and optimize staffing levels to be more comparable with industry leaders.” That includes replacing Yves Guillemot as CEO of the company.
All in all, I think it’s a fair assessment. In my humble opinion, Ubisoft could be so much greater than it is right now. It has a lot of very powerful IPs that could be leading the industry, but instead, we are left with mostly mediocre experience with only a few games hitting the mark for players. The company forgot what makes their games great and focuses too much on milking their fanbase. To be fair, this assessment is true for too many companies right now and I hope that they (as well as others) will start at least thinking about where this is going until it’s too late…
🎮 Major layoffs at Midnight Society
For those of you who don’t know, this is a relatively recent AAA game studio formed by Dr Disrespect along with Call of Duty and Halo veterans that’s working on the NFT extraction shooter Deadrop. After all the scandals regarding the infamous streamer and his departure from the company, it looks like they are not out of the woods.
This week they announced "significant" layoffs at the studio, but said that they are committed to releasing the game in 2025 despite the cuts.
Unfortunately, Midnight Society has faced multiple unexpected challenges in recent months. To adapt to these changes and secure the future of Midnight Society, Deadrop, and our commitment to providing innovative gaming experiences, we've made the tough decision to streamline our operations, which includes a significant workforce reduction. We wouldn’t be here without the contributions of those who are affected and we thank them for all their incredible work, support them, and wish them the best.
I think that after all the layoffs during the past few years, nobody is buying “streamlining the operation” bullsh!t anymore. I mean, I’ve heard some amazing white-collar lies and maybe it was viable to say such things when companies just started laying off people, but after years of seeing the same thing over and over again… Nobody believes that and everybody can see through this. Translation: “We’ve lost some funding because one of our founders is a media person and is the centre of a major scandal. Sorry.” At least this way it’s honest 🤷♂️
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🎮 Ex-Sony President on layoffs
Warning! A lot of rants are incoming.
If you listen to My Perfect Console podcast, you know exactly what I’m talking about. One of their recent guests was Ex-Sony President Chris Deering. During the episode, host Simon Parkin and Chris talked about the recent widespread industry layoffs.
Here are some of the highlights:
Now, of course, there was just recently a big layoff of Sony Studios and in London, but what whole studio setup has been run out of Amsterdam now for a few years, and I don’t know… if the money isn’t coming in from consumers on the last game, it’s going to be hard to justify spending money for the next game. I think it’s probably very painful for the managers, but I don’t think that skill in this area [of game dev] will be a lifetime of poverty or limitation. It's still where the action is, and it's like the pandemic but now you're going to have to take a few… figure out how to get through it.
Drive an Uber or whatever. Find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year. But keep up with your news and keep up with it, because once you get off the train, it's much harder.
For those of you who are interested, this is the guy who started in video games as VP of Marketing at Atari, then transitioned to Sony (where he was president of the company), after this guy jumped from one board of directors (frequently being a chairman) to another between multi-million dollar companies.
Holy crap!
I mean, yeah, sure. Totally makes sense dude. It’s definitely not corporate greed if it’s coming from a source as reputable as you are. I bet that since you joined the industry you had plenty of opportunities to drive Ubers or whatever. I imagine, how would this guy feel if a company that he trusted and relied upon just decided to pull the rug from under him, stripping him of all his livelihood and then putting him in a position where he has to compete for ANY job with thousands of other people. And I’m not even talking about visas, work permits or other things now.
I mean, I saw some people having the nerve to say some f**ked up thing, but this is the one that takes the cake (at least based on recent events). It’s exactly because of people like this guy that our industry is so screwed right now. Seriously, if I was the one interviewing this guy, I’d slap the taste right out of his mouth.
⚡ Lightning Round!
1…2…3…Go!
🎮 PUBG Publisher decided to invest in short-form video platform
According to Insider Gaming, Krafton, the publisher behind PUBG Studios, Striking Distance, and Tango Gameworks decided to invest $89 million into Spoon Labs, a short-form video platform. In a recent press release, it was confirmed that this is the largest non-gaming investment that KRAFTON has ever made.
I mean, sure, yeah. But also, I’d rather you guys invest into your own game and maybe you’ll have more money to invest…
🎮 Satisfactory goes 1.0
Satisfactory is a factory simulation game created by Swedish video game developer Coffee Stain Studios. It was released in Early Access back in 2019 and almost 5 years later, it’s finally released a 1.0 version and the player count just skyrocketed! For the past few days, it has reached more than 100,000 concurrent players.
Now, I haven’t played it yet, but it definitely looks like something that I should try!
🫡 True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and the recent publication about Rebel Ridge!Besides other things, this publication is a great inspiration for me in terms of films, streaming/TV shows, comic books and other stuff! Overall, a great place to find something to watch or read 🤩
😄 Personal Update
This week is probably one of the hardest I had while working with Rovio. A lot of activities on the project and I’ll definitely need those weekends to rest. So much documentation and game activities…
Other than that, I’m still trying to figure out those fine details related to the community and on that note, I have a question for those of you who are interested.
What do you think about Skool as a platform to host it?
Some of you suggested it, but I honestly never used it before and know about it only the things I could learn on Reddit and YouTube. And the opinions are somewhat controversial. But on paper, it sounds like a good place to start.
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
If you feel like supporting me and my work, consider Powering-Up GameDev Relay 🎮
Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
I remember the PS2's final years. That's when its most impressive games came out, stuff like God of War, doing things that console was not meant to handle. I think this push to make consoles more powerful before developers have figured out how to push the hardware is daft. It's the same reason why PC hardware is so bloated and why you never really see the full potential of your PC rig before you have to upgrade. I'll give this to Nintendo, at least their lower specs push devs to be smarter and more creative.
I still have to get a PS5 so now have to consider whether to get the Pro or not. Hmm.