Only brain rot fanboys think PS is not SIE's main business and focus, Sony doesn't need to prove or show anyting on that regard, every year they announce several exclusive games plus new console hardware or accesories and some OS or services improvements.SIE have to get in the act of showing the console's still paramount in their ecosystem and that also includes balancing out new game announcements to where no matter what they bring to PC, the console's still either getting those games earlier, or a new game is releasing exclusively on the console around the same time (or not far behind it). I already went into that strategy extensively in this post, if you're interested.
Parts of that post may not work anymore and I'd also concede that in the case SIE do a PC launcher soon, they won't make 1P games exclusive to it that have already seen quite successful releases on other launchers like Steam. So the Horizons, God of Wars, Spidermans, Ghosts ofs, Destinys etc. (and if they acquire Kadokawa, Elden Rings) will still see releases on Steam either simultaneously to a PS launcher or within a couple years or so after the console versions (assuming the PS launcher gets those games Day 1). But the general idea I had in that post still stands, and I still feel it's a very viable multiplatform strategy for them if they want to actually engage in a multiplatform strategy.
However, considering the optics they already have with their strategy, having ported so many games (I'm focused on non-GAAS here) to Steam the past four years, those optics do hurt the console some. You don't need to do a business analysis to see that, because at this stage a lot of that impact would be more in general enthusiasm around long-term outlook for the console within communities online & offline, even if these groups only represent a small portion of the customer base. And any lowered enthusiasm could have a range of financial impact on revenue & profits; a much, MUCH more intensive example of this is with Xbox consoles this generation.
So why flirt with that possibility, when you don't have to?
They -in this case SSM- are working on big ass games (new IP, GoW in a new mythology) but they take time to be done. It's totally unrealistic to expect them to announce a new GoW every year or something like that, and they also need to do smaller stuff like adaptations, ports or remasters/remakes to fill catalog, make extra money, reach new players, train new workers, etc.
I think Sony shouldn't announce anything at the Doritos events, and to keep their announcements for their own SoP/Shocases/etc. The smaller announcements, with just a PS blog post and related handful videos is enough. Medium and big sized ones should be on their SoP/Showcases/etc.
There's absolutely no objective metric that indicates that their PC stuff is negatively affecting their console busines. The objective metrics say the opposite: their console business is growing in all areas and their off-PS business grows a lot every year and they are making over $700M/year with that, so it would be nonsensical to stop it. Looking at the objective data, any reasonable people would continue with their PC business, the only reason to be against it is being a butthurted fanboy who cries because more people can play some games of their favorite console elsewhere.
Regarding their own PSN PC store & launcher, we know they are working on it. But it will need time to have a good catalog to start, so they need more PC stuff to fill it before. Unless they make all the games published there crossbuy with console, their starting userbase and catalog very limited on its begginings. So it wouldn't make sense to make their PC titles exclusive there since the release of the store. Most of the userbase and PC money will continue being on Steam, so the correct strategy would be to publish their games both on Steam and their own store (with some appealing perk from players to choose the Sony one, as could be crossbuy with PS) until their own store has a volume of revenue and userbase big enough to make sense to cut Sony's Steam revenue source, which as of now it may be almost half a billion per year (not a small one).
Their new IP and next GoW in a new mythology will be shown when ready, they don't want another TLOU Online case of announcing something that later gets cancelled, or the typical complains about downtgrades when games are shown too early. Plus also they want to keep the devs focusing on making games themselves and not gameplay demos for marketing videos.At the end of the day most all of such remasters of old games are to drum up short-term revenue & profits, but there can still be a way of doing that with class and building towards longer-term value (financial & otherwise) for the IP and platform brand as a whole, without risking diminishing enthusiasm from a core subset of the audience.
If they want to do a GOW Trilogy collection for console & Steam, fine. But at least (finally) show SSM's new space game, or even in this case something as small as affording console owners a cheaper way to access those games & any QOL features vs. the Steam version would at least be showing priority and rewarding their most loyal customers within the ecosystem.
Big games take a lot of time and need patience. The next IP should be shown in the near future, could be shown in the next few months. But seems that before being ready to show it, they will be ready to show something else smaller. Which who knows, maybe it's just the Secret Levels episode, maybe it's a trailer of the movie adaptation, or maybe it is the rumored remakes/remasters of the original Greek saga titles.
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