PlayStation Wants to Improve Operating Profit with a More Aggressive PC First-Party Games Release Plan

Microsoft has announced its next Xbox Partner Direct scheduled for Wednesday, March 6th, at 10am PT / 1pm ET.

Firesprite was one of several studios to be impacted by PlayStation’s recent mass layoffs, which will result in around 900 job cuts across the entire company. Alongside redundancies, reports have claimed that the studio also saw its rumoured live service Twisted Metal game get cancelled. In the wake of all that, a new report has been published by Eurogamer that sheds light on alleged workplace problems within the studio.

The Sims 4 introduced an aggressive way of advertising DLC in its latest and highly controversial update. Over the course of nearly a decade,The Sims 4 has come a long way. Features that were missing in its lackluster launch were slowly introduced through a long list of updates, game packs, and expansions that improved on the base game. However, in order to enjoy the full breadth of content in The Sims 4, new players are expected to spend over a thousand dollars, as the fourth installment of Maxis' legendary series boasts 15 expansions, and nearly 60 game packs, stuff packs, and kits in its list of DLCs.

Sony is the latest company in the video game industry to announce massive layoffs in 2024. We’ve learned that Sony Interactive Entertainment is letting go of about 900 people across several studios; PlayStation’s London Studio will shut down as a result.

Pentiment, a former Xbox exclusive just released for the PlayStation 5, runs at double the frame rate on Sony's console. The PlayStation 5 version of Obsidian's 2D RPG includes additional enhancements not seen on the Xbox version.

The PlayStation platform just had a significant update to its security measures. It’s always a good idea to make sure you’re taking the necessary steps to keep your accounts secure and safe. So it’s a big plus to see that Sony is implementing new methods to ensure you’re not having your account potentially compromised while making the sign-in process to your account far easier. Today, we’re looking at a new security method from Sony called Passkey.

The first in-game footage has been revealed for Age of Empires Mobile, over a year after its initial announcement. 

Xbox Game Studios has flaunted extraordinary lifetime player numbers for some of its most successful first-party games, including Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, and more. Xbox's first-party portfolio is set to grow even larger this year, with several major titles planning to release, like Ninja Theory's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 in May, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Avowed in the fall.

With Diablo 4 becoming the first Activision Blizzard game to launch for Game Pass on March 28th, the door is seemingly open for other titles to follow. Speaking to Game File’s Stephen Totilo, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said the company intends that “the full portfolio of games from ZeniMax, Activision Blizzard and XGS – Xbox Game Studios – will be on Game Pass, day one.”

After a long wait and many rumors prompted by the developer's Steam backend tweaking, FromSoftware has finally announced that the first gameplay trailer for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree will air later today at 4 PM Central European Time (7 AM Pacific Time) on YouTube. The trailer will be three minutes long.

Bungie has not been in the greatest spot as of late. Sony recently hit the studio again publicly as the PlayStation CEO interim, Hiroki Totoki, spoke about Bungie in a recent financial results briefing. There are areas that PlayStation would like to see handled better at the studio and would like Bungie to take more responsibility. I’m sure this will be great for the studio’s morale. 

Sony’s most recent earnings report wasn’t a great one for the previously-strong-seeming PlayStation brand. As we reported, Sony downgraded their fiscal year 2024 (which runs from the beginning of April 2023 to the end of March 2024) target for PS5 sales from 25 million to 21 million. They also admitted that no major AAA franchise entries will be published over the course of this coming fiscal year. Needless to say, this wasn’t received that well, partly leading to a plunge in Sony stock that subtracted an estimated $10 billion from the Japanese company’s value.