Sony Downplays the Risk of PlayStation Users Switching to PCs in a Recent Q&A.
- Thread starter Puff
- Start date
Wtf people who play games on PC like PC ports how could this happenOf course you have the usuals in here defending PC ports.
Great "Sony too", show us your source that sony is deceiving stakeholders and us.
Don't come with sources from just @MrAss
It’s not enough for you to play on PC. You all must create false analytics as a reason why Sony putting games on PC is good and causes zero harm to hardware sales and PS5 game development.
There never was one. You guys made that one up.
PS5 performance trending downward != "PS5 doomed". And in ways it is already trending downward; install base vs. PS4 when launch-aligned, as just one example.
We know that the PSN MAU are on all time highs:
We know that as of end of April 2024 the active userbase split was 50-50% between PS5 and PS4, and that the gameplay hours and revenue per user is considerable higher in PS5 than in PS4:
So despite PS5 being slightly behind PS4 launch aligned (in units, not in revenue) in some European countries (to the point that worldwide numbers are still a bit behind) and despite having a bigger previous gen active userbase still not having upgraded to current gen, their userbase continues growing, which means PS is getting new users.
New users that must come mostly from PC, Xbox and the movies/tv shows.
And well, outside launch aligned units (not revenue) in some EU countries and worlwide, PS5 is performing in record numbers for any console ever in pretty much everything else: the mentioned life-to-date spent per user, hardware revenue, game revenue (games + addons sold), game subs revenue and peripheals revenue.
And well, year after year they keep improving most of these numbers, in addition to the revenue made with their first party games outside PS.
So PS5 performance is not trending downward at all, that's fake news bullshit debunked by the oficial numbers.
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Yep. Xbox console sales have basically collapsed this gen yet PS5 isn't ahead of PS4 launch-aligned? Where are those Xbox users going then? Most likely, they're switching to PC and only a smaller portion are going to PlayStation.
Which is likely not even enough to make up for the PS-only players last gen who have jumped over to PC this gen (or are still sticking with their PS4 instead of upgrading to PS5).
OK then, if you want to play this game...
It's not 100% about hardware sales. Take Japan for instance; why do you think PC has nearly matched console market share there in just 4 years? That's mainly due to software sales. If Switch 2 software sales are strong as usual in Japan, and Xbox has always been an also-ran with no real Japanese software market, then where is PC making the gains from to grow as much as it has? They're coming mainly from PlayStation software sales cratering, and we can see that in the Famitsu and Media Create charts!
Now let's look at Europe; why do you think SIE have been doing regular sales promotions in parts of Europe for most of the year? To stimulate hardware sales. If sales have been tracking above PS4 in America, and slightly ahead/at pace with PS4 in Japan (until more recently), yet PS5 was already more than 1.5 million behind PS4 launch-aligned globally, where do you think the drop was mainly happening? The answer is Europe. Hence, the sales promos.
Why do you think SIE have been doing those promos? Because they also know, that a drop in install base will lead to a drop in total sales & services revenue and, therein, profits, especially if the drop is happening during the early or mid-phase of the console cycle, as that is before most purchases shift to the casual & mainstream crowd (who spend less on average than hardcore & core gamers). SIE didn't want to see a repeat of Japan happen across parts of Europe, that's why they got aggressive with pricing promos.
If they have what's happened in Japan happen in Europe (and t's possible; in a lot of European countries PC is a major presence and can easily cement itself even more over time), then no uplift in America would be able to make up for it. Also in various countries SIE want to grow the console, like South Korea & China, PC is dominant and they already have to compete with PC in Day 1 releases for those markets which puts a cap on what growth console can get from those games there.
So yeah, executives can say what they want to shareholders, obfuscating details and whatnot to paint a different picture. But it's not hard to see what competition PC brings to a platform like PlayStation. SIE's current saving graces are that they haven't committed to Day 1 for all their titles yet, they still have some big 3P exclusives not currently on Steam, and that most of the games they've ported the past year (either as late ports or Day 1) haven't "clicked" with most people on Steam.
Considering those, they haven't kicked off an avalanche effect of console users shifting to PC, yet some of their own actions with Steam are probably deterring users there to consider picking up a console, which is probably reinforced with them knowing that they can expect SIE's big games within a year or so from console launch, and they're willing to wait as a result, especially with so many games already on their platform. Including, a LOT of Japanese & Asian 3P games that just last gen either skipped PC altogether or took forever to get a Steam port.
Those are the challenges SIE are facing with their current PC strategy (the way they've going about it and likely will continue or even accelerate going about it), and only a fool would think this won't cause bigger problems long-term. Let's see how PS5 Pro sales hold up over the longer term, let's see what early adoption rates for PS6 look like. Hell, let's see what subscription retention looks like going into 2026, because that's probably when a huge chunk of PS4 folks finally move on, and there's a big chance they forgo PS5 in favor of other options like Switch 2 or PC.
.... @Yurinka the MAU metrics don't mean much because we know roughly half of that is coming from PS4, so SIE already have a problem on their hands in that regard: they don't have enough value proposition in PS5 to convince more PS4 owners to upgrade.
The longer it takes them to upgrade within the ecosystem, the higher a chance they ultimately decide to upgrade outside of the ecosystem instead. So in terms of long-term console ecosystem health, it's not too different from the PC situation.
Especially considering, most remaining on PS4 at this point & going forward are likely there for the F2P and casual games like Fortnite. Games that are both multiplatform and platform-agnostic in terms of their communities & carrying over profile data.
Hasn’t affected Sony overall revenue and profits.
That’s all that matters.
That's not how statistics work.
All that matters is whether or not it's a statistically relevant sample, and it definitely is at least for Nvidia cards.
It was supposed to be clarification so that anyone who isn't a happy Pay Pig oinking for their favorite console to know there were already more people with a PC more powerful than a PS5 Pro before it released, than even the best possible projections for the Pro's lifetime sales.
I.e. the info was for people who are intellectually capable of processing it.
First off, there aren't 65 million active PS5 users. A bunch of people buy consoles to play games and then stop playing and spending money on the platform.
Sony had said half of their PSN monthly active users were PS4 users. But that was before they started inflating PSN numbers by forcing PC gamers with 1st party multiplayer or single player games to subscribe and connect to PSN every time they play those games.
At this point, PS5 users might be quite a bit less than half the current 116 million PSN monthly active users because a number of those are actually playing on the PC.
Based off this graph it's all the cards above the RX6700 10GB.
Meaning:
RTX 4060: 4%
RTX 4060 Ti: 3.3%
RTX 3060 Ti: 3.3%
RTX 3070: 3.3%
RTX 4070: 2.8%
RTX 3080: 2%
RTX 4070 Super: 1.5%
RTX 3070 Ti: 1.4%
RTX 4070 Ti: 1.2%
RTX 2070 Super: 1%
RTX 4090: 0.9%
RTX 4070 Laptop: 0.9%
RTX 4080: 0.7%
RTX 3080 Ti: 0.7%
RX 6700 XT: 0.7%
RTX 3070 laptop: 0.6%
RTX 4080 Super: 0.6%
RTX 4070 Ti Super: 0.5%
RTX 3090: 0.5%
RTX 2080 Super: 0.4%
RX 7900 XTX: 0.4%
RTX 2080: 0.4%
RTX 2080 Ti: 0.3%
RTX 3070 Ti Laptop: 0.3%
RX 6800XT: 0.3%
RX 6750 XT: 0.3%
RX 6900 XT: 0.2%
RTX 4080 Laptop: 0.2%
RX 6750 GRE 12GB: 0.2%
RX 6800: 0.2%
RTX 3080 Laptop: 0.2%
Around 33.3%, so a third of all Steam users, around 44 million active users, already own a PC with similar or better performance than a PS5.
44 million active PC users with performance similar or above the PS5, vs. 58 million (at best) active users on the PS5.
It's not that far off.
If the exclusives are gone and the hardware isn't subsidized anymore, the number of reasons to stick with console are going down pretty fast.
I think that's the crux of it. We don't know what internal projections for Astro Bot were on the high-end, and even 1.5 million in 6-7 weeks is great for a non-Mario or Sonic 3D platformer in this market.
However, I guess there is always some back-of-head thought we'll have, if the sales could've hit 2 million or even more in that same time frame if there weren't people holding off for what they feel is an inevitable port to Steam or even the Switch 2. That's the type of doubt & speculation SIE have created now with their games due to how they've been doing this multiplatform strategy of theirs, not multiplatform support in and of itself.
Like, if LEGO Horizon were instead a remaster port of Jak & Daxter 1 & 2 with some QOL improvements, we wouldn't have room for any of that type of thought regarding Astro Bot's sales or any speculation if it'd be getting a Switch 2 port in the future. But when you make a multiplatform move with a game like LEGO Horizon, the timing SIE have done, then yes you "open the discussion" as it were to that type of speculation & talk which could see some portion of people hold off purchasing Day 1 for what they feel will be a preferred version ported later.
Just inviting that type of discussion to form kills a chunk of the FOMO and might convert some people who were Day 1 buyers into taking a wait-and-see approach. We've certainly seen that perhaps with, say, FFVII Rebirth, although that's a 3P game.
No, that's not all that matters, because HOW they get that revenue & those profits shows the bigger picture.
If it's coming from squeezing more & more money from the same base through things like higher console prices, higher sub prices, and various merchandise, then it can be argued they aren't growing their install base, which can have long-term negative impacts when some of those hardcore users phase out. If it's coming heavily from 3P sales, then it can be argued they're too reliant on 3P for the bulk of their money, especially if it's with IP that SIE don't even own and can't leverage themselves.
If 1P revenue & profits are mainly coming from one massive AAA release, then chances are high following years will see a massive drop due to timetable budgets for AAA non-GAAS titles, which can also impact the frequency of 1P releases until the next big AAA non-GAAS releases. So on and so forth.
Conclusion after all your effort trying to inflate Steam numbers and reducing PS5 active users.
I was correct.
This graph basically shows us their MAU now is only 2 mil bigger than in 2020.We know that the PSN MAU are on all time highs:
Jun 2020 - 114 mil
Jun 2024 - 116 mil
It even dropped to 102 mil in 2022
It was a steady growing from 2014 until 2020. It is stagnating since they announced multiplatform initiative. They have definitely gained new players (chinese market for example) but they are also losing the existing ones. Now they are trying to inflate it with PSN account requirement for PC ports
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We know that the PSN MAU are on all time highs:
We know that as of end of April 2024 the active userbase split was 50-50% between PS5 and PS4, and that the gameplay hours and revenue per user is considerable higher in PS5 than in PS4:
So despite PS5 being slightly behind PS4 launch aligned (in units, not in revenue) in some European countries (to the point that worldwide numbers are still a bit behind) and despite having a bigger previous gen active userbase still not having upgraded to current gen, their userbase continues growing, which means PS is getting new users.
New users that must come mostly from PC, Xbox and the movies/tv shows.
And well, outside launch aligned units (not revenue) in some EU countries and worlwide, PS5 is performing in record numbers for any console ever in pretty much everything else: the mentioned life-to-date spent per user, hardware revenue, game revenue (games + addons sold), game subs revenue and peripheals revenue.
And well, year after year they keep improving most of these numbers, in addition to the revenue made with their first party games outside PS.
So PS5 performance is not trending downward at all, that's fake news bullshit debunked by the oficial numbers.
Your quoting the wrong person.
The context of my post is a quote from ps saying soon after launch that 30% of ps5 owners are new users.
You can't extrapolate those numbers to say 30% have left playstation. That is what @MrAss said.
And we don't know the current split between new and existing customers upgrading to ps5. Which is what I said in the post you quoted.
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Angry fanboys are upset with Sony for not focusing 100% on PlayStation and 100% on single player AAA games.
They want Sony punished and have created a boogeyman out of PC in hopes that that boogeyman will prove them right and punish Sony.
The only problem is there's just no evidence that console gamers are leaving to PC anymore than PC gamers are leaving to console.
The reality is that the most popular PC games are pretty firmly PC games.
And most of them could run on a potato --hence why they're popular because players can play them on poor rigs.
All of this combined with the steady increase in MAUs for PS is ignored by doomers who were convinced PS5 would sell less than PS4 but are not changing their tune that the boogeyman will take on the PS6.
Not only will the PS5 outsell the PS4, it'll do so by a pretty decent number. It's sales won't drop off to 0 in 4 years, and it'll remain an entry level PlayStation option.
This back and forth has been interesting the last few months, but mods really need to reign these guys back in.
They want Sony punished and have created a boogeyman out of PC in hopes that that boogeyman will prove them right and punish Sony.
The only problem is there's just no evidence that console gamers are leaving to PC anymore than PC gamers are leaving to console.
The reality is that the most popular PC games are pretty firmly PC games.
And most of them could run on a potato --hence why they're popular because players can play them on poor rigs.
All of this combined with the steady increase in MAUs for PS is ignored by doomers who were convinced PS5 would sell less than PS4 but are not changing their tune that the boogeyman will take on the PS6.
Not only will the PS5 outsell the PS4, it'll do so by a pretty decent number. It's sales won't drop off to 0 in 4 years, and it'll remain an entry level PlayStation option.
This back and forth has been interesting the last few months, but mods really need to reign these guys back in.
So you're like Hermen. Because they got a win in Helldivers, EVERYTHING MUST GO TO PC NO MATTER WHAT.
Helldivers was lightning in a bottle, everything else flopped bad and they had to close 3 studios and fire 1k employees to stop the massive bleeding in their first-party organization.
They had a winning formula and they gave it up to chase people that don't exist. When are they going to give up?
Concord flop
Lego horizon flop
Until dawn remake flop
Horzion zero dawn remake flop
Horzion forbidden west pc port flop
GOW ragnarok pc port flop
Sackboy pc port flop
Ratchet & clank pc port flop
Uncharted 4 pc port flop
By the way, Lego Horizon is number 269 on Steam LMAO
I believe there are few people in here that could run SIE better than the current leadership
This.
If anything, the MAU numbers from the last 4 years show that Sony failed to raise their PSN engagement numbers beyond the ~115 million mark. It raises a bit during Q4 thanks to Christmas but declines throughout the rest of the year.
It puts a new perspective on them insisting so much to force PSN in all their 1st party PC games, including single player titles.
Totoki and other executives must have their KPIs attached to MAU thresholds.
