I'm not sure I agree that this is an incident that could result in the decline of PS. MS, for example, made moves (XBone) that directly impacted their console audience and then were completely tone-deaf in their response (initially). There were also multiple other issues too - a huge one being a compelling game line-up over the course of many years. The HD2 debacle is, imo, not even remotely similar in scale. As well, PC gamers are not a monolith. No doubt many are invested in what is happening with HD2, but there's also going to be many who are not. For example, a person who did not purchase HD2 is not directly impacted by this and may not care much as a result.
I also think there are many people who play on PS who don't know or don't care about what happens in the PC space with PS games. The number of people online is not a good reflection of the far vaster number of people who game on PS. So, the impact is likely minimal there too. Don't get me wrong, I think Sony definitely fucked up here but believe it's too soon to draw far-reaching scenarios from it - especially since we don't have full info. yet: eg. Sony's official response.
Okay, I'll adjust what I meant with that statement. By saying an event like this could be pointed to as the start of a decline with PlayStation, I was suggesting more in terms of it being representative of how they handle potentially negative optics and messaging, both in causing it and then resolving the issue, especially if it also creates strains between 3P partners. As the way they handle those things, could have ramifications on other situations going forward, that create a snowball effect. And at some point, while it may begin with questionable choices on the PC side, eventually I feel that would spill over to console-side decisions too.
The XBO had terrible rumors and then a completely botched reveal, but they kind of reeled back some of the damage with the following E3 until the $499. SIE undercutting them by $100 made the XBO E3 look a lot worst in retrospect, then they were still dealing with the Kinect 2 stuff not helped by the NSA leak at the time. As bad as all of taht was though, XBO still had a strong launch lineup (arguably better than PS4's), and at least at the time MS still were focusing on the console primarily and chiefly. Their actions still showed that their console audience was the priority.
What's going on right now with the Helldivers 2 situation is a situation compounding upon the Stellar Blade issue (a nontroversy IMHO), which compounded on the runaway rumors of FFVII Rebirth underperformance in sales, compounded on the SIE GAAS cancellation news and PSVR2 PC compatibility, the ports of yet more 1P exclusives to PC, the studio closures (even if some like London Studio didn't have much of a great track record post-PS2 era), the PS5 price increases, the PS+ price increase, the revelation of games like Wolverine being co-developed for PS5 & PC simultaneously etc. It's just been a lot of bad little things with SIE happening over the past year or two with sprinkles of good and still getting some big games out there, but the games should be expected from the job of a platform holder.
So it's just all this stuff compounding on each other and it just shows a clear problem: SIE are very poor at messaging and presenting good optics with their fanbase & the community at large. They make contentious decisions and then don't think to balance them out with good moves or, more lately over the past 1-2 years, things that show (not tell) that the console is still their chief priority. And now this latest thing with Helldivers 2 seems to have put a bit of a rift between SIE and Arrowhead. They
FINALLY got a massive GAAS hit and right after MS bought their way into COD ownership at that, and they bungle forcing of PSN requirement like this? Why risk ruining what seemed like a great partnership?
If SIE wanted to give an official response, they should've done so shortly after announcing the mandate for PSN account linking. Not wait the weekend afterwards. Shades of Microsoft with those initial rumors of going 3P multiplat/ports of HiFi Rush & others to PS and Nintendo and then taking a whole weekend before clarifying. And like that situation, I don't think SIE would let this negative blowback happen unless the "official" statement were that they're full steam ahead with this PSN mandate.
The actual mandate isn't the issue for me; it's how they've gone about announcing and enforcing it. But it also gives me pause to think they're doing it because they are going to double down on PC ports going forward, and not just for GAAS. But non-GAAS too, probably with even shorter porting times between console & PC. Apparently Mystic heard a rumor of a big 1P non-GAAS going Day 1 on PS5 & PC next year. If that happens, then I'll know what SIE's direction is and it'll be a very bad one for their console.
That type of direction will be what leads to PlayStation consoles suffering a similar slide into irrelevancy as Xbox has. But I don't think Sony has the massive non-gaming pillars to offset that or make a major adjustment, the way Microsoft as a corporation does. And in that context it could be worst a situation for PlayStation than it has been for Xbox.
variety.com
