90% of PlayStation’s Released Live Service Projects Either Failed Or Were Canceled. Is it time for PlayStation to go back and focus on single-player?

Do you think PlayStaiton should keep trying to invest on GaaS?

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 30.4%
  • No

    Votes: 14 30.4%
  • They should keep doing both.

    Votes: 18 39.1%

  • Total voters
    46
  • Poll closed .

Yurinka

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Sony needs to be very careful of pc.
Nah, with more or less success or games per generation, Sony has been making PC games since the early '80s and they always have been fine. And well, PC, consoles and mobile can perfectly coexist as they always did.

Most of the top played games in consoles are multiplatform games that are also available on PC (Fortnite, CoD, FIFA etc). People won't go away if a few games are also available elsewhere, specially if the PC port is form a game released years before in PS.

The thing is, they need more money to pay their own games. And they need more people for their teams and more teams to make more games at the same time. So Sony needs to get money from where possible.

As PC publisher they've been growing a lot in recent years, already are very close to become the top 10 publisher with more user reviews (so sales) in Steam history (must be way higher this year) with a relatively small amount of games. In a handful years will be in a position to open their own PC store to get even more revenue and profit from PC (at that moment also from 3rd parties).

If by some hook or by crook they make pc a cozy big screen tv experience - (easier said than done), but murmurs in that direction are abound, and steamdeck seems to prove viability to a decent degree.
It already exists, it's called PS4 or PS5.

If that happens, PS all of a sudden has tv space competition. And that competition comes with no online fees and a digital store market that is open to competition and pricing like we currently get with retail discs. Sony pivoting to a digital sku first further takes PS down a rabbit hole of less relevance.

See how it plays out.
Valve already tried it with the Steam machines and failed. Steamdeck only sold around 3.3M units so far. Valve's devices aren't a competition for Sony at all, pretty likely stuff like PS Player already outsould it. And regarding standalone devices, even Vita did over a dozen millions.

I think that if there is a potential competiion for home consoles and specially portable consoles are (hybrid) PC handhelds as a whole, not particularly the Valve one. Unless Sony enters there and dominates that market.

Switch and PC handhelds are secondary playing devices, the majority of people who have them primarly play on PC or PS. But having their home console and PC games, it's important for Sony to dominate the money and specially time spent by players there in handhelds.

Particularly interesting for Sony if it's in the same ecosystem than in their home console one. PS Portal according to Sony had the goal, which achieved, of incresing PS5 play time and engagement. They could do the same in the future but with a PC handhelds, which on top of remote play and PS Cloud would also run games natively. If they are happy with PSPlayers, with a PC handheld would be the same but on top of that they'd sell more PC games than now.

I think it would be cool that if you buy a PS5 game you already would have it in your library to play it natively in your handheld or gaming/laptop PC without needing to buy it twice or three times. And viceversa: let them know those PC players who buy a game on Sony's PC store (in their PC or Sony's portable) that they can also play it on the PS6 without needing to buy it again.

That would increase game sales, handheld sales and home console sales. I mainly play on PS5, but sometimes in rare cases I also play on my laptop. But for me it sucks to have to buy the game twice and to don't have cross progress shared between the devices in Helldivers 2 and SF6 (the only games I play on both sides).
 
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quest4441

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Nah, with more or less success or games per generation, Sony has been making PC games since the early '80s and they always have been fine. And well, PC, consoles and mobile can perfectly coexist as they always did.

Most of the top played games in consoles are multiplatform games that are also available on PC (Fortnite, CoD, FIFA etc). People won't go away if a few games are also available elsewhere, specially if the PC port is form a game released years before in PS.

The thing is, they need more money to pay their own games. And they need more people for their teams and more teams to make more games at the same time. So Sony needs to get money from where possible.

As PC publisher they've been growing a lot in recent years, already are very close to become the top 10 publisher with more user reviews (so sales) in Steam history (must be way higher this year) with a relatively small amount of games. In a handful years will be in a position to open their own PC store to get even more revenue and profit from PC (at that moment also from 3rd parties).


It already exists, it's called PS4 or PS5.


Valve already tried it with the Steam machines and failed. Steamdeck only sold around 3.3M units so far. Valve's devices aren't a competition for Sony at all, pretty likely stuff like PS Player already outsould it. And regarding standalone devices, even Vita did over a dozen millions.

I think that if there is a potential competiion for home consoles and specially portable consoles are (hybrid) PC handhelds as a whole, not particularly the Valve one. Unless Sony enters there and dominates that market.

Switch and PC handhelds are secondary playing devices, the majority of people who have them primarly play on PC or PS. But having their home console and PC games, it's important for Sony to dominate the money and specially time spent by players there in handhelds.

Particularly interesting for Sony if it's in the same ecosystem than in their home console one. PS Portal according to Sony had the goal, which achieved, of incresing PS5 play time and engagement. They could do the same in the future but with a PC handhelds, which on top of remote play and PS Cloud would also run games natively. If they are happy with PSPlayers, with a PC handheld would be the same but on top of that they'd sell more PC games than now.
Get Down Lol GIF by Pudgy Penguins
 

Yobo

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They need to build single player games with multiplayer components. If the multiplayer takes off then build from there

The devs of Concord, Fair games etc should have their projects scrapped and they can become support studios focused on multiplayer components of TLOU, Ghost of Tsushima, GOW or the new IPs by the big studios
 
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Men_in_Boxes

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They need to build single player games with multiplayer components. If the multiplayer takes off then build from there

The devs of Concord, Fair games etc should have their projects scrapped and they can become support studios focused on multiplayer components of TLOU, Ghost of Tsushima, GOW or the new IPs by the big studios
Can't be going half in on the bulk of the industry when your competitors certainly aren't. Diverting resources away from multiplayer success sounds like a truly awful idea.
 

Yobo

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Can't be going half in on the bulk of the industry when your competitors certainly aren't. Diverting resources away from multiplayer success sounds like a truly awful idea.
Nobody is buying Sony games for multiplayer. That's just a fact, they don't have a reputation for that like Valve do for example

And how did Valve get there? By building multiplayer projects on the back of the singleplayer hook

If Concord launched published by Valve it would have had 100 times the players just on reputation alone

What Sony does have is a great reputation for singleplayer and by giving great value through combine SP MP products they will build a more positive reputation
 

Men_in_Boxes

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Nobody is buying Sony games for multiplayer. That's just a fact, they don't have a reputation for that like Valve do for example
Nobody is buying Helldiver 2 for multiplayer? What?
And how did Valve get there? By building multiplayer projects on the back of the singleplayer hook
PlayStation is doing the same thing. They're using their SP resources to fund MP projects just like Valve did so many years ago. It's the naturally progression of game development.
If Concord launched published by Valve it would have had 100 times the players just on reputation alone
Nope. Nobody plays games based on reputation of a splash screen. People play games to have fun.
What Sony does have is a great reputation for singleplayer and by giving great value through combine SP MP products they will build a more positive reputation
Sony also had a great reputation for rice cookers. Then they made music players.
Sony had a great reputation for music players. Then they made the PlayStation.
Sony had a great reputation for single player games. Then they made GAAS.

Evolve or die. That's the way of business.
 
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Yurinka

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Nobody is buying Sony games for multiplayer.
Sure, nobody bought Destiny 2, Helldivers 2, Gran Turismo 7 or MLB to play multiplayer. xDD

And well, they didn't start making MP games with these ones. They have a long history of MP games but they are reaching now a higher level of success they didn't have before.

Nobody is buying Sony games for multiplayer. That's just a fact, they don't have a reputation for that like Valve do for example

And how did Valve get there? By building multiplayer projects on the back of the singleplayer hook

If Concord launched published by Valve it would have had 100 times the players just on reputation alone

What Sony does have is a great reputation for singleplayer and by giving great value through combine SP MP products they will build a more positive reputation
Yes, if Valve would have released Concord it would have been way more successful because they wouldn't have a horde of PS 'fans' constantly trashing about it because can't see Sony making PC games or GaaS.

Regarding SP, do Counter Strike GO/2, Deadlock, Artifact, Dota Underlords/Auto Chess or Dota 2 have SP campaigns? I thought they were MP only games. These are the non VR/tech demos they made in the last decade or more.

Before that, back in the PS3 days most Sony MP games also featured SP. Not only the Valve ones.
 
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Yobo

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Sure, nobody bought Destiny 2, Helldivers 2, Gran Turismo 7 or MLB to play multiplayer. xDD

And well, they didn't start making MP games with these ones. They have a long history of MP games but they are reaching now a higher level of success they didn't have before.
Nobody bought them because they are from Sony. Helldivers took off despite Sony, Destiny was already popular when Sony bought it, MLB is popular because it's the only baseball game and GT has always had a massive single player hook so only furthers my point

Yes, if Valve would have released Concord it would have been way more successful because they wouldn't have a horde of PS 'fans' constantly trashing about it because can't see Sony making PC games or GaaS.

Regarding SP, do Counter Strike GO/2, Deadlock, Artifact, Dota Underlords/Auto Chess or Dota 2 have SP campaigns? I thought they were MP only games. These are the non VR/tech demos they made in the last decade or more.

Before that, back in the PS3 days most Sony MP games also featured SP. Not only the Valve ones.

Team Fortress was free with Half Life, Counter Strike was a free mod, then Counter Strike Source released for free with Half Life 2. Team Fortress 2 released free with the Orange Box

Only after that reputation was built could they really get away with stand alone multiplayer. And they have always been free to play - CSGO free to play, DOTA2 is fee to play. Artifact F2P and Deadlock likely will be too
 
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Yurinka

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Nobody bought them because they are from Sony. Helldivers took off despite Sony, Destiny was already popular when Sony bought it, MLB is popular because it's the only baseball game and GT has always had a massive single player hook so only furthers my point
Helldivers 1 and 2 wouldn't exist without Sony and they have been way more successful than the previous games they did thanks to Sony's money and support. And the GaaS sequel made way more money than the previous non-GaaS one. Mainly because Sony did put there way more money on it.

There are more baseball games, if something this is the one with the MLB license. But despite this if people wouldn't like it wouldn't buy it.

And yes, all of them are mostly played multiplayer. With the exception of GT7, which after GT Sport went back to have a meaty SP part.

Team Fortress was free with Half Life, Counter Strike was a free mod, then Counter Strike Source released for free with Half Life 2. Team Fortress 2 released free with the Orange Box

Only after that reputation was built could they really get away with stand alone multiplayer. And they have always been free to play - CSGO free to play, DOTA2 is fee to play. Artifact F2P and Deadlock likely will be too
Team Fortress and CS were released in 1999. Many people who play them weren't even born and things changed a lot since then.

And well, they are first party games. Meaning, many players of their platform are fans of that company, and like any platform holder when advertising or highlighting games in their channels prioritize their own ones. This helps them a lot to be more successful. But well, if people wouldn't like the games wouldn't be that successful.