While we are still in shock from the 9,000 layoffs at Microsoft, including the cancellations of Xbox projects and the studios by the collapse, it is not very pleasant to look at the present right now. When you think you have overcome the storm, you hear again talking about layoffs, studios closings, madness that takes place behind the scenes and leads some of our favorite franchises to flop with their latest iterations.
Five years ago, in 2020, the game industry seemed to know its biggest boom for a long time, and few people wanted to believe that in five years, we could be in a completely different place. It therefore seems appropriate to guess what the industry will look like in five years. What changes? What continues? Who are the main winners and losers? I don’t really know. I’m not a guess, but let’s try to guess.
1. AAA will largely disappear from our vocabulary
We start boldly, we start loudly. If 2025 has proven something so far, it is because the game can be an industry that is really difficult to predict sometimes. Games which, ten years ago, were intended to sell in the millions today remain discreet, the sales figures being revealed only in financial reports, while beginner studios or “small” developers are able to add a classic to a well -established genre. This is a trend that should continue in the near future. Given the time necessary to create a game these days, in particular by major studios, it is likely that we will see more and more known names that are less known to stand out with passionate projects that show that risk taking can bring a lot.
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In this way, I think that the border between AAA and AA will begin to fade, to the point that we may not even use these labels. Instead, we will judge the games on the quality they bring, rather than on the budget and the workforce it took to make them. I am not sure that this will help the inflated budgets today, because companies will endeavor to give their game a level of prestige comparable to that of Clair Dark, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and many others, but as traditional AAA publishers and developers have trouble accepting the fact that their formulas no longer work, I am not sure that we will refer to things with our old labels. I will not definitely call any AAAA game.
2. The live service continues
With the cancellation of games such as Concord and the revision by Sony of its live service plans, you might think that the era of combat passes and hunting for trends is over, but unfortunately, I cannot get rid of the feeling that live service is there to stay. Even if the chances are against them, it seems that publishers cannot get rid of the dream of creating the next Fortnite. From time to time, a new player also enters the dance. Just in 2024, Helldivers II and Marvel Rivals attracted millions of players, the desire of the players is therefore still clear. It is a bet to release a game live these days, but it is a risk that many companies still take, when they know that the awards can bring them millions of dollars like in Fortnite.
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It is unlikely that we are witnessing as many attempts to collect the cow from live service, but I think that the studios will continue to run after the dragon. Multiplayer games have their place, and perhaps a new mode could replace live service, but nothing has a comparable potential for profit, and that is why I think that a large number of them will not let it go out quietly.
3. Launch of the latest generation of consoles
At a time when I write these lines, it is almost certain that we are still years of any new material on the part of one of the great actors. And yet, we know that a PlayStation 6 will be released at one time or another, as well as the name that the Xbox will give to its last cube Game Pass. Many people consider the PS5/Xbox Series X/S generation as a flop, and although it does not have the impression that there was a generational graphic jump in most cases, and that the games did not flow like rock water, I always think that this generation has received a slightly unfair hand from many players, which will probably also be disappointed by the next generation of consoles.
Calling this the latest generation may be a little dramatic, but it is really difficult to see where consoles go from now on. We feel like we have reached the graphic summit in terms of what games can and must accomplish, and the most obvious thing is therefore to improve performance. But, once it’s done, how to sell a PS7, a PS8? The Nintendo Switch has proven that people were ready to accept a drop in performance if their console was more practical, and the fact that the PS4 has remained so long to ask me how many games will be exclusive to the PS6 three or even four years after the start of its cycle. But again … I don’t think we will immediately be witnessing the conviction of the material.
4. The equipment is always sold like hotcakes
The Nintendo Switch 2 was released this year, with almost a single game with which people really wanted to buy the console (I’m talking about the Welcome Tour of course). And yet, she has still broken records worldwide. Of course, Nintendo is a different beast, a beast that you can’t really study, because you would only scratch your head trying to understand it. It’s like trying to understand how a microwave warms foods much faster than an oven, or how magnets really do what they do. However, even if everyone is not Nintendo, most players will be delighted to have new equipment.
As long as the new equipment seems fresh and unique, and its price is not a kick in the gonads (I look at you, Ps5 pro), I do not see why people would not buy it en masse. Players are always ready to believe in media threw, pre -order and buy when they think something can really change their experience for the best, and I don’t see sales of equipment slow down.
5. The gloom continues
Whenever we see a new batch of layoffs, I would like it to be the last time that such news arrives on our news feed, but unfortunately, it has been years that we have been in cups despite record profits, and I do not see them slow down anytime. The Xbox, in particular, seems ready to explode again, whether by closing other studios or by significant changes from the current economic model. My colleague Ben Lyons thinks that we could see Game Pass moving away from his huge consumption goal and reverse to allow Xbox to readjust his income flows.
WB Games also seems in great difficulty. In the coming years, we will probably see the first games of its new orientation on four major franchises, and if these do not work well, then maybe other studios will be at the ax, or that the division and its intellectual properties will simply be sold to the most offering. To combat this future, industry would have to adopt a certain realism. No more question of thinking that we are at the time of Covid, no longer a question of thinking that a new game can reach 100 million players without being the biggest franchise in the world. No more massive franchise plans for games that have not yet been released. Unfortunately, the last years have proven that there are still a few important people who have taken crazy pills, driven by the idea that the number must increase, so much so that we are likely to see this industry continue to spiral towards the disaster in certain respects.
