Sony’s New Showcase Falls Short of a Nintendo Direct? 5ch Split

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The story

Sony’s new product showcase “State of Play,” which aired on September 6, 2026, drew a wave of comments on 5ch’s gaming hardware board saying it “paled in comparison to a Nintendo Direct.” Alongside complaints about the shortage of new game reveals and the show’s pacing, posters noted that overseas reactions echoed the same criticism. Meanwhile, other posts pivoted to comparing the two companies’ revenue and sales figures, turning the discussion into something bigger than just a review of the broadcast itself.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:02
Is that… okay?
4AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:03
Wait, people are only just noticing this now…?
5AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:04
Re: #1
lol
So even overseas, State of Play is seen as just "showcasing games you can already play on other platforms"
8AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:05
Re: #5
Last time they at least had BBA20, but this time they didn't even have Space Baldy
30AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:35
Re: #8
Funny how BBA20 being a newly revealed game is now considered the saving grace
53AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:21
Re: #8
I was actually looking forward to Space Baldy…
and it's still shrouded in total mystery as to what kind of game it even is
11AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:06
It's genuinely insane they filled two hours with absolutely nothing
12AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:06
For better or worse, it felt like a movie, right? "It's a movie!" was literally the only thing anyone talked about
13AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:07
This is the textbook case for the "ant vs. tank" metaphor (a comparison of wildly mismatched scale)
15AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:07
Looks like they're funneling work to activists just to burn through that $400 million development budget
They seemed desperate to blow through the budget just to stretch it into a two-hour broadcast
Just let the company die already
16AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:09
Re: #15
Left the viewers behind, huh
17AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:10
Is there anyone out there who watched the whole thing without skipping a single part?
24AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:20
Go ahead and count the episodes that were actually better than a Nintendo Direct
46AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:08
Re: #24
Can't very well tell you about something that doesn't exist, lol
43AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:01
Re: #1
Sony wraps it up in one day
but Nintendo takes a whole two days lol
77AnonymousSep 6, 2026 21:36
Re: #43
Maybe they figure Zelda hype can survive even getting hit with a Nintendo Direct the very next day
There's a small chance they're trying to say "yeah, it turned out that good"
44AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:04
Sony started copying the Nintendo Direct format, but they never copy the parts that actually help users and third parties — like the compact, well-paced structure, or making trailer videos in-house that third parties can just reuse as-is
They're seriously a bunch of incompetents
80AnonymousSep 6, 2026 21:43
Re: #44
Whether it's internal politics or just protecting their budget, I don't know, but the one thing they clearly refuse to copy is how the video itself is put together
96AnonymousSep 7, 2026 00:38
Re: #44
A guru doesn't put in effort for the sake of his followers
48AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:09
Sony ("Chony," as the haters call it) is probably bowing and begging Rockstar to let them host a GTA6 Direct, and getting turned down
All that's coming their way now is free-to-play Chinese games and cheap Chinese titles
One thing's for certain: they're definitely panicking
50AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:13
Re: #48
If they tried that now, the comments would just get flooded with "disc, disc" spam lol
49AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:13
Name one gaming event that's even in the same league as a Nintendo Direct
70AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:50
Re: #49
Pretty much only Apple's keynotes
58AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:42
Nintendo Direct wasn't great from day one either — they got there through repeated trial and error. It's kind of amazing that Sony, who's copying them, just keeps getting worse instead
Why don't they just copy the recent Direct format?
60AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:57
Re: #58
People who mistakenly believe they're talented tend to ruin a perfectly good recipe by tossing in their own "original" twist
61AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:03
Re: #58
Feels like after copying it, they try to differentiate themselves and add their own identity, and it just backfires
But since the original was a copy to begin with, they can't even tell what's bad, what's good, or what people actually wanted from it
63AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:09
Re: #60
Re: #58
Even if they wanted to copy it, they've got no material to work with
First-party comparisons go without saying, and third parties have no reason to reveal new titles on a stream with drastically lower concurrent viewers

Without the material, using the same format would just invite direct comparison and inevitably end up looking pathetically shabby
So they have no choice but to throw a curveball with a completely different structure
69AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:47
Even for multiplatform titles, showing off Switch 2 graphics in a Direct-style show would just amount to negative PR against themselves lol
76AnonymousSep 6, 2026 21:28
Re: #69
But most third parties don't see it that way — that's exactly why more third-party titles are choosing Nintendo Direct for their first reveals and new trailers, while State of Play ends up looking like… well, this
74AnonymousSep 6, 2026 21:12
★ Sony — Gaming Division
Revenue: ¥4.7 trillion (hits a new all-time high every year)
Profit: ¥470 billion
Software units sold: 320 million
Monthly active users: 125 million (all-time high)

★ Nintendo
Revenue: ¥2.3 trillion ← Even in Switch 2's launch year, totally crushed by PS5 hahahaha
Profit: ¥320 billion ← Even in Switch 2's launch year, totally crushed by PS5 hahahaha
Software units sold: 32 million combined (Switch 1 + 2) ← Even in Switch 2's launch year, totally crushed by PS5 hahahaha
Monthly active users: ← Undisclosed — probably too embarrassing, since only the annual figure gets released hahahaha
Annual active users: 120 million ← Loses even to PS5's MONTHLY actives lol

Even in the launch year of Switch 2, the console Nintendo bet the whole company on, they got completely wiped out by Sony's PS5. Washed-up Nintendo is hilarious.
82AnonymousSep 6, 2026 22:04
Re: #74
Then why are the games actually selling?
79AnonymousSep 6, 2026 21:42
Nobody wants to see something like this
83AnonymousSep 6, 2026 22:11
Re: #79
How did they not get sick of it partway through editing this image
87AnonymousSep 6, 2026 22:21
Re: #86
Re: #79
Yeah, nothing beats a top-shelf movie and a glass of wine after all 🍷
90AnonymousSep 6, 2026 22:36
Sony's literally an advertising company — so why are they so bad at this?
Guess there's zero communication between departments?
94AnonymousSep 6, 2026 23:20
Re: #90
Even within Sony itself, departments are constantly at each other's throats — no way they're keeping any cross-team cooperation going
97AnonymousSep 7, 2026 00:40
Re: #90
Currying favor with the press and stealth marketing are outdated marketing tactics
These days, all the astroturfing gets exposed
98AnonymousSep 7, 2026 01:07
Re: #90
Lack of cross-team communication is part of it, but fundamentally it's a company that wears its arrogance on its sleeve

They don't have even a shred of doubt that they might be wrong
They probably don't understand why they're unpopular, or why they get criticized and rated poorly every single time
And since their culture is to never admit failure and just pretend it never happened, they never reflect on it — so they keep repeating the same mistakes

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

“State of Play” is Sony’s showcase for new titles, while “Nindai” is shorthand for Nintendo’s official equivalent — the two are frequently pitted against each other as venues for announcing new games. In recent years, buoyed partly by the strong performance of the Nintendo Switch 2, differences in presentation content and pacing between the two companies’ shows have become a recurring topic among gaming fans. The revenue, unit-sales, and monthly-active-user figures cited in the thread come from anonymous posts with no sources or methodology given, and should not be mistaken for official company disclosures. Likewise, the claim that Sony modeled its show format on Nintendo Direct is simply users’ impression, not a confirmed fact. Behind the split opinions on the broadcast lies more than just runtime or the number of titles announced — it also reflects a difference in approach, namely whether the focus is on updates to existing titles or on brand-new reveals.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Foreigners notice: “Isn’t State of Play kind of garbage compared to a Nintendo Direct? 🥺”.”

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