2024 is over and once again turmoil has ravaged the video games industry, but what were the biggest stories of the year and how will they impact 2025?
The worst thing we can say about 2024 is that it wasn’t very different to 2023. It still had all the same problems, with constant job layoffs and a constant lack of big announcements. Publishers were still obsessed with live service games, despite most of them still flopping, and we never did learn anything new about the Switch 2 and GTA 6.
By the very end of the year, after an unusually good The Game Awards, there were reasons to be optimistic for 2025, but the unfortunate truth is that for most of 2024 we were still in a holding pattern, although what exactly we were supposed to be waiting for still isn’t clear.
If Xbox and PlayStation have some great masterplan it really wasn’t obvious, but let us remind you of the biggest stories of the year and you can draw your own conclusions about what they all add up to…
1. Xbox goes mostly multiformat
Almost the very first news story of the year was a rumour that Xbox exclusives were going to start appearing on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. The fan response to this was predictably emotional, with most either denying it or accusing Microsoft of betrayal. In what became a pattern for the rest of the year, Microsoft allowed the speculation to drag on for weeks until they finally announced that four games were indeed coming to PlayStation 5 and, in some cases, Switch. Although for no good reason they refused to say which ones at first.
Rather than pulling the Band-Aid off in one smooth action, the annoucement saw the assembled execs looking sheepish and embarrassed, while at the same treating the idea of games like Starfield and Indiana Jones coming to PlayStation 5 as absurd – even though they ended up announcing one of those before the year was out.
Even now, Microsoft’s exact policy with regards to multiformat releases isn’t clear, despite a tacit admission that there are no redlines and that even key exclusives such as Halo and Gears Of War could come to PlayStation 5. Multiple sources, throughout the year, have suggested that Microsoft employees themselves have little clue what is going on, with one respected source proclaiming that Xbox is ‘just a disaster.’
That shouldn’t suggest that Sony’s policies are much clearer though, with the company having made several extremely vague comments about supporting other ‘formats’, without ever specifying what it was talking about. Although given their claim that ‘tentpole’ PlayStation 5 exclusives will not be released at the same time on PC, it seems as if they’re not giving up on the concept of console exclusivity just yet. Which is the opposite of what insiders claim for Xbox.
2. Job cuts without end
At least 14,600 jobs have been lost in the games industry during 2024. Add that to the 10,000 layoffs in 2023 and it’s clear the post-pandemic period has been the most disruptive the video games industry has seen since the US crash of 1983. According to experts, the constant stream of layoffs and closures is certain to continue into 2025, making the video games industry seem an increasingly unappealing prospect for veterans and students.
The reasons for all this are complicated but, as usual, mostly the fault of short-sighted companies who thought (or wanted to pretend to investors) that the growth seen during lockdown would continue forever. The same companies who also failed to prepare sensibly for the increasing costs of development and the fact that live service games were clearly not a licence to print money for everyone.
This, together with Microsoft’s reckless spending spree – which has in turn encouraged other publishers to get out their pocket books – has led to thousands of job losses at Microsoft, over a thousand at Sony, and similar numbers at EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Epic Games, Twitch and others.
As was the case last year, the Japanese games industry has barely been affected at all, with what job losses there have been being restricted to their Western divisions. Except for the one Japanese developer Microsoft used to own.
3. Disasters in live service gaming
The appalling level of job losses in the games industry right now are almost unprecedented but the nonsense over live service games is worryingly similar to the rush to copy World Of Warcraft (which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year) during the mid-2000s. Back then, every publisher under the sun tried to make their own rival MMO while ignoring the fact there was clearly only space for a small number of successful titles in the genre.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was clearly doomed, long before it eventually launched, and its complete failure came as a surprise to no one, the only silver lining so far being that developer Rocksteady hasn’t been shut down as a result.
Ubisoft’s XDefiant and Skull And Bones were also high profile victims, but the most infamous failure of the year was Sony’s Concord. A multi-million flop that took eight years to make and didn’t even last two weeks before it was announced it was being shut down. In its 30th anniversary year, it was the biggest flop in PlayStation history and yet their immediate response was to assure investors that they were still going to plough on anyway, with more live service games that nobody wants and the market hasn’t got space for.
4. Xbox console collapse
Microsoft’s multiformat plans are just one part of the puzzle when it comes to the increasingly uncertain future of the Xbox brand. It was clear last year that Xbox console sales are already in a dire situation but Microsoft’s response to this was to announce that they are already making a next gen console, while constantly hinting at a portable as well – although it’s still unclear if those are supposed to be one and the same device.
Xbox’s first party line-up this year has been better than previous years, in large part thanks to Indiana Jones And The Great Circle (coming to PlayStation 5 in spring), but Microsoft has long ago acknowledged that the Xbox’s fortunes cannot be reversed by quality games alone, or at least not without something truly groundbreaking.
Their bizarre ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign, that seemed to actively encourage people not to buy an Xbox console, shows they think the future is streaming, despite the obvious technical and practical limitations. As Game Pass and PS Plus subscription levels continue to stagnant, it’s not clear that Xbox has any future beyond that of a third party publisher with their own streaming and subscription services.
There’s no shame in that – streaming is the future, at some point – but the mixed messages and disingenuous comments from Microsoft execs has made this a frustrating and confusing year for Xbox fans.
5. Live service games are not dead
What a publisher tells the outside world and what it actually intends to do are not always the same thing, but while there has been some indication from Sony, and particularly Warner Bros., that they realise live service games are not the easy grift they initially thought, there have been enough successes from new titles to give publishers hope.
None of Sony’s homemade games have been a hit yet but they did publish Helldivers 2, which went on to become the fastest selling PlayStation exclusive of all time – where the majority of its sales were on PC. Palworld was another smash hit at the start of the year, breaking Steam records and causing Nintendo’s lawyers to break out the heavy weaponry.
But after the first few months both titles saw a significant dip in interest. While they are usually still within the top 50 played titles on Steam (the only real way to monitor their success) that’s a far cry from their record-breaking beginnings and further proof that becoming the next Fortnite is a lot harder than games companies like to admit. And yet together they were just successful enough to ensure they won’t give up just yet.
6. PS5: the peak of hubris
While the problems at Xbox are clear for all to see, Sony’s position is hardly any less precarious. PlayStation 5 console sales continue to trounce Xbox Series X/S, but they’ve peaked early and are now falling faster than expected. Something which Sony doesn’t seem to have connected with the fact that they’ve announced and released so few first party games in the last two years.
After the exit of Jim Ryan, PlayStation spent several months without any permanent boss, with the interim one making a number of disturbing comments about how he thought the PlayStation business doesn’t understand growth and that there wouldn’t be any major franchise releases for the entire financial year (the eventually award-winning Astro Bot apparently didn’t count in his eyes).
Instead, Sony continued releasing new hardware, rather than new games, with the incomprehensibly expensive PS5 Pro and it’s surreal unveiling, which seems specifically designed to show the console offered no obvious improvement at all.
Sony did at least announce some new first party games this year, that weren’t live service titles, in Ghost of Yōtei and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, so there is some hope that 2025 will be more positive. But at the moment it is just hope and Sony’s future intentions remain as opaque as when 2024 began.
7. Nintendo Switch 2: almost a secret
If Microsoft and Sony were having another annus horribilis, Nintendo were far more comfortable, as the Nintendo Switch did a final victory lap – with a much busier year of releases than either of its would-be rivals have managed in years. The Switch is headed for retirement but in 2024 we learned almost nothing about the so-called Switch 2, other than it’ll definitely be revealed before April 2025 and that it is backwards compatible.
Fans went crazy with theories and rumours, even going as far as to track shipping manifests around the world, but in the end the console was leaked via a series of production line photos and images of third party peripherals.
The Switch 2 seems to look almost exactly the same as the original Switch, but with a couple of mysterious new buttons whose function can currently only be guessed at. There’s been no proper leaks about any of the games though (just that weird, semi-secret online game currently being tested on the Switch), so all that will still be a surprise in 2025.
Current rumours suggest the unveiling will take place in the first half of January but considering how insiders haven’t been right about anything else yet it’s hard to know how much faith to put into that.
8. AI actors
While the constant job losses are very much a current problem in the video games industry, it seems clear that AI is going to be the next one after that. Games publishers already need little incentive to lay off talented creatives but the advent of AI (or rather the unreliable, plagiarism-based technology which is referred to as AI at the moment) has given them a whole new avenue of excuses.
Again, one of the first news stories of the year was how badly publishers are handling the situation, with video game voice actors furious over a new deal forced on them, which eventually led to them going on strike – the effects of which will become very obvious in two or three years, when the games they were meant to be working on come out.
Overall though, big publishers have been slower to jump on the bandwagon, at least publicly, than you might have expected. EA seems keenest, and many of the voice actors from Black Ops 6 quit working with Activision, but Nintendo made it clear it didn’t want to use the technology for anything substantial.
It was impossible to understand what one of PlayStation’s bosses was saying about the subject though, when they tried to address it, so this is clearly not a subject that’s going to go away quickly…
9. GTA 6 MIA
There were two subjects fans wanted to know about, above all else, in 2024 and that was the Switch 2 and GTA 6. Frustratingly though, we learned almost nothing about either. In fact there was more official information about Nintendo’s new console than there was Rockstar’s blockbuster-to-be.
Not a single thing was said about it officially in 2024 and, surprisingly, there was no second trailer, after the first one premiered in December 2023. At the beginning of the year there were a lot of reports about the game being behind schedule and subject to a delay into 2026. Rockstar owner Take-Two went to great pains to deny this but no second trailer for more than a year is peculiar and there’s now no way to predict when it will arrive.
A former Rockstar developer suggested that no decision will be taken until 2025, as to whether the game needs to be delayed or not, but at this point, and with the amount of hype already behind it, it’s clear they can afford to take as long as they like.
10. The next gen no one wanted
The Nintendo Switch may be overdue a replacement but the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 were only four years old in November and while, under normal circumstances, that would be around the time you’d expect to hear the first whispers of a new generation these are not normal circumstances. The pandemic meant serious stock problems for more than a year and combined with the sudden slowdown in new releases over the last two years it really feels as if the generation has barely begun.
Not for Microsoft and Sony though, for who falling console sales means only one thing: begin planning in earnest for the next generation. Microsoft has officially announced it’s making a next gen console and has also heavily hinted about a portable, but it’s still not clear if they’re one and the same (the portable could be based on the Xbox Series X/S, although when they suggested it wouldn’t be out for a long time that implied it wasn’t).
Sony has been less explicit about their plans, but rumours also suggest they’re working on a portable, especially after the PlayStation Portal did better than they expected. Although most rumours suggest somewhere between 2026 to 2028 for the next generation there’s no reliable way to know at the moment, which makes it one of the key questions for 2025 to answer.
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