Once the PlayStation identity/differentiation is lost the console market will be wide open for Steam to dominate it (or even worse MS with Windows if they ever become minimally competent and realize they had a massive advantage all along that they never managed to leverage because of Xbox).
I bet the crossroad was between following Xbox lead and continuing as they were. Clearly those wanting to follow Xbox lead won.
True. MS could open up Xbox to Windows in everything but alternative storefronts (particularly gaming-wise, so no Steam) and still otherwise keep to the traditional console business model. That could be the differentiator they needed all along, particularly if Sony are dumb enough to reduce the value proposition of their own console by porting all 1P titles to PC with smaller windows.
People don't understand that it's not the casuals who are going to shift, but the core enthusiasts. And THEY are the early adopters. The moment many of them realize they can wait a few months or even get the new 1P AAA banger on Steam Day 1, they are NOT buying a PS5 Pro and they are
NOT buying a PlayStation 6. What's the point? Virtually all the big 3P titles come to PC now as well, they get all of Microsoft's games Day 1, and they have actual exclusives (League of Legends, VALORANT, Counterstrike 2, Only Up, Wallpaper Simulator, Half Life: Alyx just to name a few) that have never and likely will never come to any console (that includes tons of AA and indie titles).
It's Sony's way of effectively signaling that PC is the best place to play and they're going to struggle very hard with early adoption for new hardware if they ever officially shift that way
OR if enough core enthusiasts figure out that's the plan. And future consoles like PS6 will be lucky to reach PS3 numbers, but potentially likely lower. PS3 had actual exclusives that appealed to a wide gamut of core enthusiasts, especially later into that gen when 360 started dropping the ball on that front.
Also can we take a moment to talk about how the simultaneous PC development is potentially going to hurt game innovation and optimization specific to PlayStation hardware for the 1P titles? Again, same issues we've been seeing with Xbox. I doubt we ever get Sony 1P games that push the limits of their respective hardware, the way games like TLOU, GT4 and TLOU2 managed to do. Games that punched well above their weight in the industry as far as production values, fidelity, AI, physics etc. were concerned.
You simply can't do that when optimizing not just for two console profiles (PS5 & Pro), but also a litany of PC configurations with in ways very different means of API access calls, I/O integration routines, and various bottlenecks not present with embedded console systems. Like I said, it'll really be the end of an era and PlayStation's best years left behind.
But hey, anything for an extra dollar, amirite? The PC ports are "free money", as certain deluded people want to say. Anyway, I'll still wait until some of this stuff is officially clarified before finalizing thoughts on the matter.
You are right, PlayStation users are PlayStation's main userbase. If Sony starts to lose them, I doubt they can be replaced by Steam users.
I personally don't care if the games I play are available elsewhere, but I care if the games I play start to have more and more technical issues which weren't there in past releases.
By adding more platforms into the development process you automatically have to
make compromises (engines need to be adapted and become less specialized for a single-target platform; QA costs increase OR the worst but more probable scenario, the same budget is split between platforms; etc.)=> reduction in quality
distribute resources differently => reduction in quality
We have seen it with cross-gen first-party games, we are continuing seeing it with current releases of multiplatform games. People were willing to accept them at the beginning, because of the pandemic, but are already starting to not accept such sloppy work anymore.
Steam users simply are much cheaper. And by that, I mean they have a much lower ARPU - average revenue per user - than PlayStation users. This should be obvious simply WRT the hardware purchases, but even if you remove the hardware out of the picture, the same holds true when looking at software.
We know that only 30% of Steam users buy games full price, but that's out the portion of users who even BUY games! You don't need money to make a Steam account, and lots of free games (be they rom hacks, F2P etc.) have Steam integration. Some people make accounts simply for the community aspect.
The point is, a Steam user will never provide the ARPU to Sony that even a mid-end ARPU PlayStation user does, but with this PC strategy (if critical changes aren't made) they risk turning at least a decent portion of the
HIGH ARPU PlayStation owners into primarily Steam users. People have to stop look at only the install base counts: yes future PlayStation systems would still sell to many casuals and mainstream types, but they are among the lowest ARPU in the ecosystem. And most of their ARPU would just come from the console purchase itself, something that is low margin for Sony in terms of profits.
So they're basically setting up a proverbial death trap for themselves, where they bleed high ARPU hardcore/core enthusiasts who see little reason to buy the console anymore, and who will shift the vast majority of their spending power to non-PlayStation ecosystems like Steam. Them buying Sony's games on Steam will always be an inferior solution compared to buying them from the PlayStation Store, on PlayStation consoles, for Sony. The Valve cheerleaders here and abroad who claim they enjoy Sony games and PlayStation as a platform need to get their heads out of the sand and recognize the grim reality of what they're incessantly begging for.
