Time between their PC port and their original PS release:
TLOU: on PC 10 years
Uncharted 4: 6 years and a half
Uncharted Lost Legacy: 5 years and a couple months
Spider-Man: 4 years
Horizon: 3 years and a half
Spider-Man Miles Morales: 2 years (+/- 1 month)
Sackboy A big Adventure: 2 years(+/- 1 month)
Ratchet Rift Apart: 2 years(+/- 1 month)
Days Gone: 2 years (+/- 1 month)
Returnal: 2 years (+/- 1 month)
Guns Up: 2 years (+/- 1 month)
Predator Hunting Grounds: 1 year
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture: 8 months
Helldivers: day one
You do notice the trend though, right? The windows are shrinking. You go from 10 years to 6, to 5, to 4, to 3, now it's 2 years for traditional 1P AAA games, 1 year to a few months for some 1P GaaS titles and Day 1 for select 1P GaaS games.
How long do you think the 2 year window for 1P traditional AAA games will hold? Even at 2 years, that sets a dangerous precedent because enough enthusiasts may just drop their FOMO and can stand to wait to play more of these games, wait to get them on PC, find themselves doing more of their 3P purchases on PC and eventually using PC for their gaming needs instead of a PlayStation.
This is already a problem we've seen occur with Xbox in real-time over the past 5-8 years; it's not a sudden onset, it takes time to gradually occur. What we don't want is to see PlayStation follow this same fate, because unlike Microsoft, Sony has no vested interests in the PC space (no dominant PC OS, no dominant API suite for game development on PC, no lucrative OEM licensing deals for a dominant PC OS on OEM PCs, etc.), and their console gaming revenue actually constitutes a major portion of their corporate revenue, unlike Xbox does for Microsoft.
So, in the case that ends up happening, Sony has much more to lose. It would be somewhat mitigated by having a launcher and storefront of their own on PC that they prioritize and push heavily, but it'd have to be a real effort, considering how entrenched Steam is. But they can never get as good a deal with Valve on Steam, as they can with their own storefront & launcher.
Exactly, everyone knows one of the biggest worries in todays gaming is the sustainability of funding big AAA games costing hundreds of millions plus marketing costs on top. PlayStation have created an aftermarket for their games on PC mitigating some financial risk. They may not sell gangbusters but have long tails of money funnelling back to help develop new games. With the ultimate feedback loop of FOMO pc players needing a PS5 to play Ragnorok, Forbidden west etc.
Where is the negative? Not software and hardware as they’re doing great. Further increased by PC players who never tried PS games before. So yeah unfortunately it does appear to be childish whining. Or those that don’t like change even if it indirectly benefits them.
The reported profits Sony made from their PC ports in FY '22 would not be enough to cover even two 1P traditional AAA games development. That's how little those PC profits actually were, go look back at the numbers.
There are much better ways to reign in costs of AAA game development than potentially cheapening and debasing the value proposition of your own gaming console by training an audience to get PC ports in shorter and shorter windows. AI implementation into the development pipeline is one example (though this needs to be regulated). Maybe not always hiring the biggest costs-demanding VAs and Hollywood script writers would also help; if Kojima wants to hire a bunch of big actors, directors and musicians for his game okay but he's either got some really advantageous financial deal with them or that's other investors willing to foot the big bill due to Kojima's industry status. But that should be the exception, not the rule.
Also, like Nintendo, Sony could equally just train their customer base to buy the games at full price or near-full price via slower movement to sales and less sales as a whole, or do a pay-installment program for new releases where people can pay in monthly installments the cost of the game, while still getting it Day 1. There are a good deal of ways they can manage costs for AAA game development without relinquishing vertical integration within their own full ecosystem (the one where they have the most input and control of frontend & backend). Taking a few more lessons from Nintendo in that regard wouldn't hurt, it'd help.
