2024 video game review – a year to forget but there's hope for 2025 UK WIRE

PlayStation and Xbox logos — Are Sony and Microsoft going to sort their acts out next year? (Sony/Microsoft)

After another year of layoffs, flops, and endless live service games what were the positives in 2024 and what could they mean for 2025?

It’s not been a good couple of years for the video games industry. Nintendo and most of the other big Japanese publishers have carried on as usual but, as we’ve explored in our round-up of the year’s biggest news stories, it’s been nothing but disaster after disaster in the West. Yes, great new games are still being released every month but a glimpse behind the curtain reveals an industry without direction or leadership. Or any sense of shame as to what has happened this year.

We made these same observations during last year’s review of the year and very little has changed in terms of the quality of stewardship from Sony, Microsoft, or any of the other Western publishers. There were more layoffs this year than the last and, in most cases, not even the barest flicker of guilt from any of the execs responsible.

That’s unsurprising given that they’ve never acknowledged that any of this is their fault; that they failed to prepare for the increasing cost of developing new games and that they were too greedy and stupid to realise that recklessly throwing everything into live service games, as everyone else did exactly the same thing, wasn’t going to work. None of that has changed this year but what does make it different from 2023 is that there is now a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

If the truth is ever known about what has been happening behind closed doors at Microsoft and Sony, for the last two years, it’s not likely to be for a long time, given how poor a picture it will paint of both companies. There’s been reports of civil wars at both console makers – Microsoft’s over whether to go multiformat or not and Sony’s over whether to abandon single-player games in favour of live service games – and while it can’t be proven, it would certainly explain a lot.

During the course of this year the two issues have evolved, with the question of Xbox exclusivity becoming even more existential, as many fans worry that Microsoft is becoming a de facto third party publisher, with little interest in making its own consoles. Given the conflicting signals they’ve been putting out, about just about everything, it’s become increasingly difficult to take anything Phil Spencer and co. say seriously but the ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign seems to make it clear that Xbox consoles are an increasingly small focus for the company.

Whether that’s a good idea, given the intrinsic limitations of video game streaming at the moment, is a matter of debate but, as is so often the case with Microsoft, it’s not clear whether they’re ignoring the problem or are confident they can overcome it. Given the confusion still hanging over their multiformat machinations it’s difficult to imagine their hardware plans are going to be explained in any more straightforward a manner.

Concord trailer image — Concord couldn’t have been a bigger failure (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

There’s a similar confusion over what Sony’s masterplan may look like at the moment. The embarrassing failure of Concord must surely have lessened their obsession with live service games but their hints to that effect are ambiguous at best. Not least because it’s still not clear whether the new CEOs appointed this year are the ones that fought for or against the move away from single-player games.

Nevertheless, Sony did announce new single-player games this year, and no more live service titles, so together with comments from the likes of Warner Bros. and Ubisoft there’s reason to hope they’ve finally given up trying to make the next Fortnite. Or at least devoting their every resource to doing so.

That has offered hope, as has Microsoft’s increasingly interesting line-up of new games – Indiana Jones And The Great Circle may have been the last big release of the year, but hopefully it’s a sign of things to come. The same could be said of The Game Awards 2024, also from December, which was not only the most watchable incarnation of the show so far but featured a large number of varied and interesting new titles.

Mock up of Nintendo Switch 2 from case manufacturer — This is probably what the Switch 2 looks like (YouTube)

The greatest hope though comes from things that were constantly in the news headlines during 2024 but about which virtually no official information was ever released: the Nintendo Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto 6.

Both are assumed, but not quite guaranteed, to be released in 2025. Following the logic of a high tide raising all boats, that should be a positive for the industry at large, where their prominence will make them, and by association video games in general, a mainstream hot topic in a way they’ve not been since lockdown.

It’s especially important given all the warning signs we’ve had recently, with people playing fewer new games than ever and only half of PlayStation owners upgrading to PlayStation 5. The market seems to be shifting towards older and more hardcore gamers, and yet publishers continue to focus on exactly the sort of games they’re least likely to enjoy.

Former PlayStation America boss Shawn Layden has been dropping truth bombs all year but when he warned that rising costs would cause publishers to be even less adventurous in the games they produce it doesn’t bear thinking about, given how safe and predictable their current output already is. But he’s probably right and his suggestion that companies should make cheaper and shorter games will almost certainly be ignored.

Publishers keep talking about how the games industry is changing but it’s hard to be convinced that they understand exactly how. There’s an increasing disconnect between what games companies are producing, in terms of both hardware and software, and what their customers actually want and what’s most worrying about this is the publishers either don’t seem to realise or simply don’t care.

The lack of direction and excitement in gaming over recent years has been depressing and dangerous (just look at the list of the best-selling titles in 2024) but there are good solid reasons to think that 2025 will not continue in the same manner. If that is the case then perhaps the last two years will eventually be seen as an anomaly, with no lasting effect on the industry.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking but at least it’s possible to hope that the madness is coming to an end. Because if it doesn’t do so soon there may never be any getting out of the nosedive the industry is currently still stuck in.