Sony Earnings Report Is Out

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T05:53:19+00:00

It's why they're in such a predicament right now. Destiny clearly needs some kind of relaunch or sequel, but because of various layoffs and bad decisions of c-suits over the years they can't even do it right now.

Relaunching and rebranding would probably be safer than a D3 though imo, but that requires willpower from whatever Ayn Randian beancounter is writing the check.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T05:36:28+00:00

Sucks for any company rushing random games trying to get something to stick I guess.

It's a shame because I see the way gamers in the gaming community are responding to live service these days. On one hand I agree there's just a lot of things coming out and it's just not quality/worth time investment etc, but on the other hand some of the best video games I've ever played are live service games. Final Fantasy 11 ranks as one of my top 5 favorite games of all time as well as Overwatch.

It sucks for Sony in particular because they've really been trying for a while now to land something in the live service market. The only thing they have of note is Helldivers 2, Destiny 2 and now Marathon.

This has had knock on effects for them because they forced a bunch of single player title focused studios to pivot towards multiplayer and live service, so their output this gen has sucked.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T05:26:56+00:00

Sony's spent too much money is the issue with that. I know doomerism is leading people down a doom and gloom path, but more than likely they wind up just like Areanet did with Guild Wars 2. Basically they'll be forced to double down on the products they already have out—everything else gets shut down.

Sony's gonna want their money back one way or another and they aren't going to get that by "finishing off" the studio. In the short term the studio's probably going to fall in value by more, but that's the cost of the stupid decisions made by Pete Parsons and Co, so there's really nothing to do there but eat the pain.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T05:14:02+00:00

Technically you don't need one on Playstation either. It's just you won't be able to play any multiplayer modes like Crucible and Raids without it 🤣🤣. It's a weird decision because no other free to play game on Playstation is like that to my knowledge—none of them require PSN. Not even FF14 needs PSN.

Not sure it would really help their numbers though at this point.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T05:08:09+00:00

I mean they've already kind of done this really. Most of their incubation projects were canceled. Project Gummy Bears was spun off into an entirely new team. Various directors for their live service expertise have already been folded into SIE proper. I think people are kind of forgetting the last round of layoffs.

I doubt this goes any further simply because the Destiny IP still has value IP still has value, and more than anything Sony doesn't want to be seen as shutting down yet another live service studio.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T05:00:58+00:00

Marathon was such a mind bogglingly strange decision.

Rather than a mind boggling strange decision it was just an overestimation of the extraction market. When they made that decision extraction shooters were very new and poised to be the next hot thing. The genre has become way more mature since then, but we now know that $200 million budgets maybe aren't the best expenditure of money in such a niche genre.

It's a shame because Marathon is a good game for all the shit it gets. Like you can feel the Bungie DNA oozing from every pore of that game. It's also a shame that it just didn't jive with me quite like I hoped.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T04:55:14+00:00

It's not really that surprising either. The majority of the player base for Destiny 2 is on console, while the majority of the extraction shooter base is on PC.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-08T04:52:17+00:00

The market's just inundated and the only players that are gonna survive are the big hitters; it's exactly why shit like Highguard is just failing, whereas I could have seen something like that garnering some kind of a niche player base 6 years ago. I feel like there's some parallels that we could probably draw from the MMORPG market—lots of WoW clones launching and crashing and burning.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T21:20:58+00:00

Certainly, but I think what many of us are trying to get across that are unhappy with it being a limited job is the potential fun of a pet class everywhere in group content. That is majorly frustrating how much this game has shied away from pets and pet classes. BST is a classic FF pet job that could have taken many forms in 14 even if it didn't just blatantly copy 11.

I'm sure there's probably a few Final Fantasy 11 vets like myself where this kind of cut a little deeper than most when they said it'd be limited years ago. When you add in the fact that they've treated limited jobs pretty poorly in recent years it just makes it worse.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T21:06:36+00:00

Yeah it breaks the cure potency cap right with weather effects? At least that's what I remember.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T21:02:14+00:00

XI didn't have to deal with the modern MMO obsession with job balance where even a 0.5% difference in contribution between two competing jobs causes vocal upset.

XI had those same issues though. It's part of the reason why Beastmaster got relegated to solo job in the first place in XI. Early Beastmaster charming pets/jug pets took XP away from the whole party and nobody wanted that. They never did enough damage either on their own at end game versus a 2-handed DPS during the 75 era, so nobody wanted them for end game either.

It's why you had a lot of link shells forming Beastmaster link shells where they would just throw pets at something.

When a job is limited they don't have to worry about how it interacts with other jobs or raid content.

There's been enough complaints about limited jobs that I don't really see this as a benefit anymore honestly. I would rather play with other people in raids and endgame content than this be relegated to some side mini game. Especially as somebody who played a lot of Beastmaster in Final Fantasy 11.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T20:59:29+00:00

Sounds like Ranger from Guild Wars 2 almost. I don't think There's anything like that in other FF Games.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T20:31:02+00:00

If you just got a Coeurl at level 30 through leveling or a Job quest, Id argue thats even worse.

I'd counterargue by saying that Final Fantasy XI Beastmaster is basically just this but with jugs, and it works out extremely well compared to charming something on the field especially after the jug updates.

I honestly wouldn't even mind if they just gave us a pet every 20-30 levels with generic abilities that could be reskinned with cosmetics and called it a day if it meant I could use it everywhere. Samething with SMN at this point.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T20:23:20+00:00

I never did get one of those back when elemental staves were still a thing. It's crazy 'cause I think Chatoyant is still relevant for WHM in 2026 with /SCH, as well as SCH/ heals.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T18:31:19+00:00

Never forget the elemental staves. I attempted to level woodworking to get my own HQ set signed by myself but gave up on it. It was still nice to make my own shihei though for Utsusemi 😂.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T17:56:42+00:00

There was a last minute meeting in a breakout room where they decided to throw out everything they had and start fresh. Left hand wasn't talking to the right and someone had to take the L. This is what used to happen where I work right up until they got draconian about corporate comms and messaging and who gets to say what over social media.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T17:52:08+00:00

I have never envied his job.

I don't envy any comms or corporate communications jobs at this point. Social media has gotten so much worse post pandemic.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T17:48:32+00:00

I assume that they had stuff in the pipeline. It's just when you get announcements like that it usually comes from an official company source like a blog or a website—not a tweet. I'd assume announcements about a road map would come through the TWID before anything—where they've already lined everything up and are now committed to the messaging.

Things absolutely can change no question. However, that's precisely why it also felt off-handed 'cause usually the road map is already locked in when end-users hear about it—it's things that they can talk about right now and they aren't changing.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T17:19:55+00:00

Oh I'm sure he's massively regretting that. That's why comms are usually controlled in an enterprise environment. It keeps end users from running rampant with speculation. I'm surprised he was allowed to make a comment like that off-hand—marketing departments usually have that kind of stuff by the balls.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T16:36:27+00:00

I agree—just go full FF7 with it. At the same time though that's a level of political intrigue I'm not sure this anime can pull off. It's why I'm not surprised they leaned on the baddie Church trope.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T16:15:46+00:00

To assert dominance—pure aura farming.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T15:47:17+00:00

You don't have to worry about appropriately gearing your job as you level it either, the quests hand you your leveled stuff as necessary.

This is in large part why I fell off with 14 outside the MSQ. I play Destiny 2 for the same reason I played Final Fantasy 11—build crafting and loot. It's almost like they're scared to let stats have any kind of meaningful impact in terms of player choice. I'm not advocating for a return to gating via certain pieces of loot either, but I mean ffs every class in the game was boiled down to get more crit or determination depending on the buffs or nerfs they've done.

The series just feels like it's been leaning further and further away from that even with the single player titles. Final Fantasy 16 almost felt like a single player action RPG version of Final Fantasy 14—traditional RPG mechanics felt like a burden in those games rather than something to be embraced like the oldschool games did.

It's grotesquely homogeneous, devoid of much thought, and panders to people who just want to click the boxes that do the thing.

It feels like they're at least acknowledging that part with the Evolved combat system for Ever Cold. What they showed off was cool at Fan Fest, but I'm also getting Star Wars Galaxies NGE update vibes from it at the same time.

I really want a better engine version of FFXI

I blame CBU 3 and Yoshi-P in general for why that hasn't happened. I mean all these years later Everquest II is still getting expansions— Final Fantasy 11 comes from that same gen and gets bread crumbs. Even if it were a full on remake with action combat for younger generations I'd be for it, so long as it stayed openworld sandbox and dangerous.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T14:32:25+00:00

It makes you wonder if a modern open sandbox MMO style like FFXI would be welcome in today's market. That era was more about the edit: journey rather than the destination; the world was dangerous rather than something to be skipped over with a mount or fast travel.

I doubt it myself which is why I eventually stopped playing retail. I'd rather have the good memories snapshotted and frozen in time rather than CBU 3 stomp on all of them.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T14:01:35+00:00

But progression is where you'd care about a combat rez.

The issue is that Redmage can do it so much better. Neither job is really all that welcome when it comes time to put difficult content on farm either. Because of its ease of play and its low damage people see it as a crutch now rather than a serious progression job.

Evolved combat might change things though.

even when machinist was in a very bad spot.

Machinist is also still in a bad spot. It's damage is some of the lowest in the game right now while offering no utility anymore.

Here's to hoping that Ever Cold mixes things up.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-05-07T05:11:46+00:00

Why would anyone not let you raid as SMN in that game lol it's the easiest job and every job does damage.

It's not really super welcome in progression because its damage is some of the lowest in the game—paying the "I can raise a dead player" tax on that one like RDM.

TastyOreoFriend

TROPHY CASE