If Rift Apart, released on PC for $70 2 years after PS5 sold "half" what it sold on PS5, that would be an incredible success.
It seems like some Iconers don't realize how close this is to free money.
PS5 supply was heavily constrained and much smaller back in 2021. Meanwhile, Steam install base was already over 100 million and around at least 120 million once Rift Apart came to the platform...but it could only do "half" the number it did on a platform with under 20 million when it originally came out in 2021?
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Yeah, I can't ever remember so many bugs getting through before the PC ports happened, I don't know how it is impacting the pipeline but it is...
GAAS on PC was never really an issue for me and even MLB...since it's such an american centric sport...makes sense to put on all platforms, I guess.
I always maintained that the Nintendo way of doing things is the right way. I don't even mind if the graphics have to be scaled back a little or the length of games comes down from 40 hours to 15 hours on average. But having full exclusives is an absolute necessity as a platform holder.
The ONLY reason a platform holder should be making games is for exclusive content to attract customers. Look at Valve... they make hardly any games anymore... they have no interest cause people come to their platform anyway and If the PS exclusive games are so expensive and they keep complaining about that, maybe they should just stop making all games and focus everything on hardware sales....
Yeah Nintendo's strategy in terms of expansion has easily been the best out of the three. When they went to mobile, they didn't straight port their Wii U/Switch games because they knew that'd cheapen the value proposition of buying their hardware and also force lower margins on software sales. So, they outsourced specific mobile versions of those IP for the mobile platform, leveraging the specific benefits of mobile smartphone devices (e.g Pokemon GO!).
Meanwhile, they've made no moves on PC because they likely realize the crossover with the PC gaming market and console/portable console market. In absolute terms, they know PC/Steam competes with console space, even Jim Ryan's admitted it. So, if PC gamers want to (legally) play Nintendo's games, they need Nintendo hardware. Create the demand and the players will come.
Microsoft have no real reliance on gaming revenue or profits to prop up their bottom line, and they have a vested interest in PC via the Windows OS monopoly (and, yes, Windows is a monopoly; look at the practices MS used with OEMs to box out alternative OSes from IBM, BeOS etc. back in the late 80s and through the '90s, for example. It's current existence is built on anticompetitive, monopolistic practices from the '80s and '90s). For them, Day 1 and bringing ALL of their games to PC is a logical choice to maximize their production budgets and cover multiple vested interests (console gaming, PC gaming, PC OS, middleware, SDK saturation etc.) simultaneously.
Sony have almost zero vested interests in PC anymore; it's not like back when they developed the 3.5 inch floppy or had the VAIO computer line. At
BEST, they have a vested interest in Decima engine proliferation, but that is still a proprietary, in-house engine with very selective licensing out to only very few developers (such as Kojima Productions), mainly on the basis of developing PlayStation exclusive or timed-exclusive games with SIE publishing in some capacity. It isn't an "open" engine the way UE5 is.
So, Sony have no vested interests on PC (no open-use engine, SDK, hardware product line, majority middleware solution, OS, launcher/storefront etc.), yet they are prioritizing PC over mobile, where they actually
DO have some vested interests (Sony Ericsson smartphones, Aniplex mobile games, etc.), and where the platform itself creates much less ecosystem conflict with the PlayStation console. Logically speaking, it makes no sense and just creates increasingly longer-term conflicts and damage to the console side, which is their bread and butter.
Worst yet is that if Sony limited the PC focus to just GaaS titles and at most legacy catalog titles from prior generations getting QoL compilation updates, then the PC strategy would be more synergetic with console and not create a cannibalization threat. But at least so far, that has not been the case and who's to say if other non-GaaS marquee current-gen releases that only came out on the console 1 or 2 years ago suddenly get PC announcements too. Or, if the window for PC ports shrinks down to 1 year, or even Day 1, for non-GaaS.
Wishful thinking: the thread. Sadly for you folks this train ain't stopping
2024 will likely have HFW, Demons Souls/Ghosts and Ragnarok, plus the GaaS releases like Helldivers 2. Consoles won't go anywhere, just chill.
PS5 sales won't nosedive in a single year. But you'll see a small, slowly increasing drop in the tail end within the latter years of the gen. And, depending on how aggressive the PC strategy establishes itself by the next gen, you'll see quite slower PS6 adoption vs. PS5 and PS4.
Why? Because the early adopters will have been conditioned to buy into PC, especially if they don't have FOMO, or if cross-gen will be persistent for the first couple of years, or by some crazy move Sony does Day 1 for non-GaaS titles to PC. Like I said, you won't see the decline until a few years after it's set in, same with Xbox.
Sony are just fortunate that PlayStation has a higher ceiling than Xbox as a console brand, so at worst they'd probably see a decline to 70-80 million lifetime unit sales if they did everything in their power to prioritize PC for non-GaaS 1P titles. Which is looking to be 20-25 million higher than where Xbox Series is seeming to end this current gen (assuming MS launches another gen in 2028).
Disproven and buried by Baldurs Gate 3. PC gamers don't like paying full price for 2+ year old games. Nobody does. PS needs to get to day and date PC releases.
BG3 is a VERY PC-centric IP, and style of game. Sony's marquee non-GaaS titles do not fit that mold whatsoever.
No I’m not wrong, I was actually listening to the conference call live, PC wasn’t brought up a single time. That’s a contrast from previous earnings calls where PC was talked about. Which is what I said in my original post if you actually read it. Please READ what people say before blindly typing long pointless paragraphs.
