Totoki PS President quote clarified, multiplatform means PS & PC, not Xbox & Switch.
- Thread starter Fenton
- Start date
jeez, the dodgy interpretations are still running wild. now that the official translation is live, it is explicit that HE IS NOT ONLY TALKING ABOUT PS+PC. He doesn't say Xbox and Nintendo, so it could still mean iPhone, Amazon, Geforce Now, etc, but the phrase is unambiguous that it is PS, PC, and OTHER platforms:
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Just including PC doesn't alleviate anything tbh. PC hardware and by extension, Steam, its practical monopoly distribution store is a PlayStation (console) direct competitor.
The fact they're having to reassure people, AND reaffirm that PlayStation is their "core business" lets you know all you need to know. It's "core" for now. Btw PlayStation is the hardware, the console.
Every time I hear fanboys equate Sony PC publishing success as PlayStation (console) success my mind is blown. It can't be further from the truth. PC success is PC success, and console (PlayStation) success is console success.
The current strategy is not even serious about challenging Steam on PC for real long term growth and actually push PlayStation as a bi-platform ecosystem - which may not work at all anyway (MS failed) but better than the self-sabotage they're engaged in now.
Folks with an improper understanding of the market are in charge unfortunately.
The fact they're having to reassure people, AND reaffirm that PlayStation is their "core business" lets you know all you need to know. It's "core" for now. Btw PlayStation is the hardware, the console.
Every time I hear fanboys equate Sony PC publishing success as PlayStation (console) success my mind is blown. It can't be further from the truth. PC success is PC success, and console (PlayStation) success is console success.
The current strategy is not even serious about challenging Steam on PC for real long term growth and actually push PlayStation as a bi-platform ecosystem - which may not work at all anyway (MS failed) but better than the self-sabotage they're engaged in now.
Folks with an improper understanding of the market are in charge unfortunately.
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The SonyToo gang at it again.
Sony are striking deals with 3rd parties for PS5 console exclusives yet these morons think Sony will release their 1st party games on Xbox.
Sony are striking deals with 3rd parties for PS5 console exclusives yet these morons think Sony will release their 1st party games on Xbox.
According to Totoki, balancing the need to sell playstations, and the need to grow margins is their "greatest challenge" right now. So no, the success of Playstation the console cannot be divorced from the success of Playstation as a publisher. In fact they really need the success of software publishing to make up for the thin hardware margins.
Just drop it. The same report this info is gathered from, has a specific slide stating, PC, mobile and cloud. Stop pushing this narrative.jeez, the dodgy interpretations are still running wild. now that the official translation is live, it is explicit that HE IS NOT ONLY TALKING ABOUT PS+PC. He doesn't say Xbox and Nintendo, so it could still mean iPhone, Amazon, Geforce Now, etc, but the phrase is unambiguous that it is PS, PC, and OTHER platforms:
Totoki PS President wants to improve margins with releases outside console.
I wonder why you would be trying to put the PlayStation on the same level as Xbox? Cant stand these shills. its sad that toxic positive trashy disingenuous pricks like this gets invited to events like DICE and gets given a bunch of free stuff from Sony. Pretty reflective of the current gaming...
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their 1st party software is only 20% of their full game sales during a big release like GoW: Ragnarok, the rest of the time it's around 10% or less - and full software sales account for only half of their content sales revenue. Even if they were to release all their big titles on other platforms, it won't affect their profitability that much and it will absolutely destroy their revenue on other segments since people will just migrate to PC. There's zero argument to releasing their first party titles day one on PC or other consoles aside from bitter losers who just don't want to own a PS5.According to Totoki, balancing the need to sell playstations, and the need to grow margins is their "greatest challenge" right now. So no, the success of Playstation the console cannot be divorced from the success of Playstation as a publisher. In fact they really need the success of software publishing to make up for the thin hardware margins.
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You typed mumbo jumbo in a reflex reaction as usual for your trite. Bottomline, Sony PC publishing success is not determinant, nor a relative of PlayStation (console) success. To the contrary, it works against it in many ways, and will always be judged separately when making big decisions. Microsoft's Xbox experience is a perfect reflection of this. Microsoft's PC publishing success did not in any way alleviate or "save" Xbox hardware by infusing more cash into MS's pockets. You don't prop a laggard, and diseased appendage with a healthy one. Just because you wish to separate publishing from the hardware in abstract doesn't make the relationship in reality disappear.
Bottomline that is simply not how it works in business. Push comes to shove, in MS case, PC publishing will stay, and Xbox hardware will get the cut. MS can sugar coat it with buzzwords for the low IQ halfwits, or even fool themselves but that is about it. And MS definitely deluded itself when MS devised these strategies that totally backfired for Xbox hardware which instead of incentivizing adoption, encouraged consumers to drop it. More broadly speaking this "self-fooling" has happened time and again with other execs in this industry with their market misreads when trying to re-invent the status quo, or trying to break away from the fundamental structure of the market - usually due to the pressure-incentive for "growth" - the art of staying still is not mastered by many in the corporate world as it's inherently discouraged.
More to the point for Sony.... you can't make an exception and say you're going to just compete with PC, a direct hardware and ecosystem competitor with just hardware pricing, accessibility and retail presence, while erasing the software differentiation aspect of the competitive mix and believe everything will work out. For that matter then why not go ahead and as Microsoft execs just said...... why not publish Helldivers 2 on Xbox and compete with Xbox hardware using that same rationale? Sony is already there with MLB the Show? "When we all make money, we all win". What is the hold up?
Let me speculate: "Because pricing and accessibility for Xbox hardware is more in line with PlayStation hardware unlike PC hardware"? What happens when that changes for PC hardware, or is alleviated? I mean you're literally drafting a strategy that rests on the decisions of Nvidia with its enthusiast business for PC and MS's Windows OS back-end refinement (lack of). The distribution model in Steam is already world class on PC. Moreover developers already have a well know favoritism towards PC, as a multi-purpose, and incubation device. Not to mention that social trends in gaming, fueled by the streaming age, of influencers overwhelmingly rest on PC. Erasing some of the still standing strengths for PlayStation hardware will surely work out long term..... surely.... even more considering what it's already lagging behind in, in no small measure because of lack of initiatives to seriously co-op these trends and claw back from PC.
If there is something that MS has been successful at is getting Sony to slowly go along with their redefining of what a platform holder looks like, by hook or crook, and setting up the seeds for PlayStation's own debasement in the future. It's not a disease of the body but of the mind. Eventually if this disease of the mind continues to progress, the body will degrade with it. Perfect triple EEE, embrace, extend, extinguish.
None of this shit makes sense at all because it's not meant to make any fucking sense. This is a flawed read of the market, based on a lot of assumptions, and resting on flimsy assumptions of the future state of the competitive market.......that comes as a result of Sony executives pressured for growth at all cost and thus are throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks aka the code loaded word "balance".
What happens when the pricing and accessibility strengths of console hardware degrade vis a vis PC? Valve already brought order to that ecosystem, once a jungle with its distribution model. Or what about if Valve decides to enter the high-end home-console market? Valve is already half way there with the Steamdeck to tackle Nintendo. There is nothing stopping Valve from making the next logical jump and I think they are rightfully waiting for MS to pack their bags and leave the console hardware market, so as to exploit the opening, and fill the vacuum. Of course Nintendo, if smart, should also try to jump in and in doing so partially cockblocking Valve. Regardless, the incentive to challenge PlayStation console hardware will be there for many reasons to Valve, even if Nintendo tries to as well.
Point is simple, Valve releasing a home console with Steam as the unifying backbone will erase Playstation's software differentiation vis a vis a direct home-console competitor because Sony already supports Steam via publishing. Hence in that hypothetical a direct console competitor will have all the PlayStation console software "exclusives". Even if Sony were to then, suddenly, realizing their folly, simply stop Steam publishing, the PR battle would be a nightmare, and serious brand damage would have been dealt, not to mention that a leg up would have been given - gratuitously to a competitor. Lets not even talk about the very real threat of Valve selling to a more wealthy, and fully pocketed company ready for serious war.
Fools at the top of Sony are unfortunately running the ship.
The word "balance" is the bullshit meter buster of the day. There is no such thing as balance. On the pendulum, one type of hardware will benefit more than the other from that publishing policy shift on a net basis - always - and it will eventually play out and be reflected in results. Whether those results are immediate, and easily correlated or as a slow poison working in the shadows in 10 or 15 years time and "hard" to correlate.
The loser here is PlayStation hardware, bottomline.
The options for them are simple:
1. Grow PlayStation hardware adoption significantly beyond 120-130m and into the 150m range, and bring publishing/developing costs under control. Part of that push will require, in no small measure, a strong software differentiation competitive mix, exclusionary of as many platforms as possible, to attract consumers from any and all platforms - zero sum competition in a finite market. Double down hard on an Asian operations push (Singapore, Indonesia, China, India, Vietnam, Korea, Russia etc). They've decided for whatever the reasons to not be serious about this route judging by their actions - it's same old on autopilot with little movement.
2. Create a bi-platform strategy that looks at seriously growing on PC aka creating a digital distribution storefront on PC to directly compete against Steam, with PlayStation software exclusive to it, on top of third-party publishing support. That is, to create a unified ecosystem akin to what MS and Xbox tried to do but failed to do. So far, a lot of rumors but nothing concrete. Requires a big initial up-front investment for the store, specially to compete against one as feature rich as Steam and is a loss-leader type move, with no guarantee to success. Half way solutions akin to Origins or Uplay are guaranteed to fail. Besides Microsoft, Valve is also a practitioner of this strategy, in practice, with the Steamdeck, just not on the home console side of the equation - yet. Runs the risk in failure, of completely undermining PlayStation hardware adoption.
3. Publish on PC for crumbs, encouraging PC hardware adoption at the expense of PlayStation hardware adoption, creating adverse consumer conditioning to PlayStation hardware adoption future wise, and thus strengthening PC hardware appeal and Valve/Steam reign on PC as the one-stop shop monopoly for premium gaming. Current strategy - guaranteed to fail long term.
Sony execs are simply out of their god damn minds, and a hallmark of poor leadership.
That they're so late to serious mobile publishing says it all really. Fossils.
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I got the idea that the "new" CEO now wants to ensure a "quick profit" and thus raise the overall performance of the entire Sony parent company, at the expense of the gaming division.
"We fucked up with Movies, Phones, and other home appliances, so it's time to try to milk more out of the gaming division."
I've never seen someone be owned multiple times and come back for more. This is a gaming forum, not an S&M community.
Another problem that Xbox is about to face is when your games no longer even have the aura of being console exclusives, let alone exclusives, how much mindshare will they garner?
They won’t be able to fall back on their fans to fight for their failures. Without the aura Xbox is just… Ubisoft lite. Sure good games will sell, great games will sell, but the mindshare dissipates and the idea that “it’s an Xbox game” well who gives a shit. Nobody gives a shit that “it’s an Ubisoft game”. There’s no intrinsic value in that.
And the more you want to reach out and get everyone on your side the more diluted your stuff becomes too, we can see that with big third party publishers.
Is that what PlayStation wants for themselves?
Are you making games for the PlayStation audience or are you now making games for everyone? Because that’s going to change the games.
Hopefully I’m wrong and don’t know what I’m talking about.
They won’t be able to fall back on their fans to fight for their failures. Without the aura Xbox is just… Ubisoft lite. Sure good games will sell, great games will sell, but the mindshare dissipates and the idea that “it’s an Xbox game” well who gives a shit. Nobody gives a shit that “it’s an Ubisoft game”. There’s no intrinsic value in that.
And the more you want to reach out and get everyone on your side the more diluted your stuff becomes too, we can see that with big third party publishers.
Is that what PlayStation wants for themselves?
Are you making games for the PlayStation audience or are you now making games for everyone? Because that’s going to change the games.
Hopefully I’m wrong and don’t know what I’m talking about.
Everyone, can we PLEASE just put flaccidsnake on Ignore? None of his arguments are in good faith, they're extremely disingenuous and aren't much any different from Infinity or Sleepy Brown.
Constantly replying to their BS just makes them think they have a good narrative. At least Infinity and Sleepy Brown are blatant fanboys and shitpost so obviously it's hilarious. At least there's entertainment value in their bad takes.
Constantly replying to their BS just makes them think they have a good narrative. At least Infinity and Sleepy Brown are blatant fanboys and shitpost so obviously it's hilarious. At least there's entertainment value in their bad takes.
It helps deflect attention (general) and their individual attention away from the absolute state Xbox is in. We've gone from "case by case" to 'Xbox first-party games will be available only on platforms where Game Pass is' to 'all games going forward are exclusive' - only to end up with 'we're porting games to PS and Nintendo'. I reckon even the most extreme Xbox fans know what this means deep down. Hard to accept, though, so ignoring reality and Sonytoo is the current cope.
Everyone who was arguing that he meant Xbox and Switch were either dumb fanboys or were just lying to push narratives.
Actually those slides are not from this earning release (unless they've reused them) but they're just reiterating the strategy to investors. Those are the other platforms.Just drop it. The same report this info is gathered from, has a specific slide stating, PC, mobile and cloud. Stop pushing this narrative.
Totoki PS President wants to improve margins with releases outside console.
I wonder why you would be trying to put the PlayStation on the same level as Xbox? Cant stand these shills. its sad that toxic positive trashy disingenuous pricks like this gets invited to events like DICE and gets given a bunch of free stuff from Sony. Pretty reflective of the current gaming...
Correct. I had to check and they weren't on the latest presentation. My mistake.