That's a bit of a stretch you can get quality SP games while they put out decent MP experiences. Sony themselves were doing this on PS3.
Look at Microsoft's future titles. Elder Scrolls VI. Fable. Avowed. Starfield. Perfect Dark. Outer Worlds 2. All AAA single player games.
Those kinds of games aren't going anywhere, but the transactional paradigm by which they're made available to play will be different.
yall are so dramatic lmao
Please save this thing you just wrote and look at it in 5 years so you can have a good lol.
Just do an 8-year introspective. Compare the industry in 2014 to the industry in 2022. How much change has occurred in these years to the norms and conventions expected from video games? What sort of extrapolations can be performed as you look into a future dominated with discussions of the Metaverse, Crypto, NFTs, VR, etc.?
These SP projects from both MS and Sony games are larger in scale, complexity, and cost than ever before. They also have immense costs on developers' physical, mental, and emotional health. There's a reason Nintendo decided to not get into the arm's race with them. I don't think it's just about whether they could compete, but whether it is sustainable, and I don't believe AAA development with either Xbox/PlayStation studios is.
As transactional paradigms continue to shift, cost cutting to drive up earnings will be the focus. If current leadership doesn't focus on it, they will be replaced by BoDs with leadership who do.
This isn't about my emotions about video game preferences but about the cold, impersonal science businesses use to adapt their practices overtime, especially as market share and industry growth reaches maturity. If you like how things have been, then you won't like where things are going, and this discussion will be even more interesting by 2027.