• Quazatron@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 month

    Treating your customers decently can lead to profits in the long run. What an insight. They should teach that at business schools.

    • Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1 month

      Best I can do is create shareholder value by making our product shittier and more expensive. Take it or leave it kid

  • NOPper@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1 month

    Remember when PC gaming was dead according to every outlet for two solid years?

  • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 month

    I mean…on one hand, it’s pretty easy for Steam Valve to be doing well. They’re the only major platform that’s released a new console this year (except for Nintendo), they’re the hardware manufacturer with the biggest recent success (except for Nintendo) in the Steam Deck, and they’re the only major platform without any well-publicized egg on their face (except for Nintendo). It also helps that they basically own the entire PC space outright, where the other platforms are fighting amongst themselves (except for Nintendo).

    But that brings up the Italian-plumber-with-a-powerup-that-turns-him-into-an-elephant in the room. Nintendo has been doing really well, too; and while, since the Wii, they’ve largely abandoned the power gamer space to the three players mentioned in this headline, the Switch 2 was a crazy release.

    Obviously, Steam has made a lot of great bets that have paid off, they’ve managed to keep up customer goodwill by limiting anti-competitive behavior and focusing on good product and service over vendor lock-in, and they’re clearly the least anti-consumer player in the space right now. But Nintendo’s strategy of “make the games so compelling and polished that people won’t care about the lock-in” is basically the polar opposite, and it’s working too; so I don’t know how well we can draw conclusions about the industry from this.

    • ForceTen@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1 month

      Nintendo lost me when they declared they could remotely brick my switch 2 if they didn’t like what I did with it. Their wars against modders who make better versions of their games than Nintendo does is also lame. Most people won’t care but for me at least, I’m not interested in them anymore.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 month

        I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m not even saying I disagree, but I don’t think those move the needle on public sentiment like the Sony and Microsoft stuff. “Well, I don’t pirate Switch games, so my console won’t get bricked.” vs “Hey! But I buy physical copies of games!” and “Hey! They’re laying off a bunch of people, and I can imagine how that would feel.”

        Honestly, what Sony is doing to capture platform lock-in isn’t substantially different from what Nintendo did. They were just quieter about it, or maybe they phrased the announcement better, or maybe they just get away with it because it’s not as visceral.

        • Nugscree@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1 month

          Sony is also not actively getting patents that are so broad the it stifles competition like Nintendo does, and did specifically to try and win the Palworld lawsuit.

          • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1 month

            No, they’re probably doing it too. They definitely did it in mobile phones, suing Apple for having phone call ringer silencing tech in their phones for instance; I would be surprised if they aren’t doing it in gaming too.

            • Nugscree@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1 month

              But did Sony get that patent after the fact, or did they already have it and went after Apple for using the tech? Both are stupid, the first is just worse than the other.

              • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1 month

                Personally, I don’t think the patent should’ve been granted in the first place, so either way I think it’s totally stupid.

  • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1 month

    In case anyone’s not clear as to why: Sony has announced that they’ll stop producing discs and that they can take your content at any time for any reason.

    Historically, Steam has promised they will never do that and will offer DRM-free (clarification: they’ll remove the Steam DRM) downloads.

    Also, all of them have jacked prices up. Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam have raised hardware prices around 35-40%. However, Steam runs on PCs they don’t sell, as well as Macs, and they have a Linux distribution they provide for free called Steam OS.

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    1 month

    Valve’s main advantage is they don’t have to make up heinous policies in the quarterly game of “tug off the shareholders”.

    It’s all been fucked by AI RAM and SSD (and still GPU) prices. If anyone tries for a next gen £1000 console, they’ll be going the same way as Sega.

  • DEJED@feddit.orgEnglish
    1 month

    I hear this every time: CEOs and Exec management of companies telling their employees that costs of production or whatever have gone up, there is need for layoffs in order for the company to stay afloat. At the end of the fiscal year: champagne bottles popping because record profits have been made… and we all play along in this circus show

    • nosuchanon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 month

      Executives have obligation to the board of directors and shareholders to constantly bring record profits. Technically they are doing exactly what they are paid to do.

      Until that changes, every large corporations will continue to enshittifiy everything for profits.

      • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
        1 month

        If a corporation does something good, it’s OK to say, “Hey, good job. I love that!”

        If a corporation does something legitimately shitty, it’s definitely OK to criticize them mercilessly too (I do it all the time, would recommend).

        What’s not OK is trying to tell people what they can or can’t praise/criticize.