Will Sony's PC Push Hurt their Console Business in the Mid to Longterm?
- Thread starter Bryank75
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What have they released this year? Any triple AAA games? Any noteworthy games? Any games that would make me want to sub to gamepass? Or was Crossfire x all they released this year?
They'll still manage to put out some stinkers somehow.Can't be low quality if you haven't got any games. I see you.
Game quality will still attract people to the console. But now it will also attract PC users to software. Which is more important revenue wise than hardware sold. Especially when, again, the hardware sales aren’t going to be affected.
Sony has already been balls deep in MTX and GaaS for years. Did you miss Last of Us, which had some of the shittiest and blatantly pay to win MTX ever? Wasn’t that game still pretty good? Didn’t people still love the Factions mode where all the bullshit was?
Is there any evidence to this stuff happening? Sony started porting to PC years ago. Seems like it the same black cloud nonsense people predicted when MS bought studios and it turns out MS actually isn’t making them poop out small MTX infested GaaS filler. Probably because of that traditional model you mentioned and incorrectly claimed is being ignored. Not only is Sony not ignoring it, but they are putting bigger emphasis on it by raising prices to $70. And now putting software on another platform.
It’s going to mean more money for Sony which should mean more games. Where’s the problem?
That sony vaio case looking clean as fuck in the bottom picture !They did have a desktop line once already.
Don't think it lasted too long but it's not unprecedented.
I'd recommend you follow the topic before chiming in. Just as a reminder, I responded to the baseless claim that putting games day one on PC makes Xbox games lower quality.
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800-900k sales isnt worth porting for... except now that Big Jim has his pride tied up in it.
Rising the prices cuts out many potential day 1 buyers, particularly in Europe where base price is now 80 euro.
The fact they feel comfortable enough to port exclusives to PC means they are not concerned with competition and the whole industry should be investigated... because real competition looks nothing like this.
I don't see the big investment in single player AAA games yet, if they bought From or Capcom or Square.... I might say, 'oh yeah, they probably want to make their money back on that'.... but there is nothing like that.
Yeah one or two PS exclusives had MTX...not many though.
Hardware is extremely important in terms of revenue.... just look
Even with the chip shortage and covid, it was bigger than Full game digital revenue from all 3rd parties, bigger than network services, bigger than everything except MTX / DLC. That is why PlayStation is so big...because of the CONSOLE..... they could stop making games tomorrow and just make deals with 3rd parties and still be massive, still be way bigger than Xbox and Nintendo.
Exclusives are only meant to attract to a hardware platform, Nintendo understand that deeply.
I agree! I think as long as they continue to dip there toe in the PC space it could even up there market share, if their asses will hurry up and start upping more current gen console production.
Well there's some good news on that front. The chip shortage is most definitely over.
Chipmakers say the chip boom is over
Weakening consumer demand is turning the chip shortage into a chip glut.
fortune.com
This is like to say GoT or HZD sold maybe a couple of million on their first month or so wasn't worth to make them. Games -and portts- need patience, they make their sales during many years.
These 800-900k sales are for a very short period of time, PC gamers typically buy instead across several years specially when heavily discounted. I did extrapolate early sales of GoW 2018 PC on Steam and they were pretty much the same curve than single player games that ended selling ~5M copies on PC in all its lifetime.
This is a good amount of money, and considering the low cost of the port, means a lot of profit. I mean, with the $300M they plan to do this FY with a few PC ports released they can pay the full development of a AAA, like the next GoW or Horizon.
Ports of old single player games that don't affect their console market providing enough profit to fund the next AAA of that team means, specially combined with the money they make in console, that they won't need to move these IPs to MP/GaaS or add DLC or lootboxes and things like that to make sure they are profitable because only with the profits of the ports they'll be able to fund the games. Also means that since their profitability is more secured they'll be able to take more creative risks and being more open to very expensive new IPs, new tech and new weird/creative/risky ideas.
PC will be able something very secondary for them, at least for many years. Their core business will continue being their console because they get from there profits from the hardware, accesories, services and -mostly 3rd party- games, plus in their console they get 100% of the revenue of their 1st party games since don't have to pay a revenue share to Steam or Epic.
Compared to the business they have in console, to sell a few extra million copies on PC it's only a very secondary extra for them. But yes, they'll get some new fans and -as long as the PC ports continue being ports of games originally released on PS years ago- may also sell some consoles to a small part of these PC gamers. But not much, because the main idea with the PC ports is to reach people who never will buy a console, specially in countries where due to different reasons consoles almost don't exist.
Jimbo bought people like Insomniac, Bluepoint, Housemarque, Firesprite, Haven, Bungie, all known for having great single player campaigns (Bungie MP too) plus teams that will support SP devs like Nixxes, Fabrik, Valkyrie.
In addition to this, they are highly growing the manpower of these and all their other studios on a higher scale than they ever did, which includes the teams who make single player games.
And Jimbo won't stop here, here in the bottom right corner we see in dark blue that in the fiscal year that ends in 2026 they'll be investing in traditional/no GaaS games (which in the context of Sony pretty much means single player games) more money than they are investing now or two years go:
Also remember that this graphs didn't include Bungie because they still didn't have closed their actisition. Which means it doesn't include Haven and any future acquisitions -which very likely will include SP game devs- they'll make. So in the FY that ends in 2026 Sony will be investing even in more SP games than what is shown in the graph.
Don't worry, we'll eat good everywhere. They'll grow in PC and mobile but in console too. They'll grow in GaaS but in traditional games too. They'll grow in new IPs but in sequels too. And as a bonus they'll also grow in VR, game subs, cloud gaming and movies/anime/tv shows. Jimbo has all the bases covered.
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It's crazy how some people think that 1M or so sales isn't worth porting for... when apparently they expect Sony's games to do 5M+ instantly on a new platform.
What 1M+ sales shows Sony... is that there is a massive growth potential in the platform. Which is why you see their expected revenue grow so much in the coming years on PC. These are their older games too with relatively little to no marketing... as they dial in their release schedule and begin announcing things closer in line with the console releases, these numbers are going to change drastically.
Their plan... is to GROW. They have a lot to prove to PC gamers.. and there is definitely a big market out there for their games. They just have to continue to release in a good cadence with high quality ports. Add to that the fact that they're purchasing MP, PC centric developers who create the types of MP games that do extremely well on PC.. and you have a winning combination to build up favor and rapport with PC gamers.
This will benefit PS gamers as well, because the money the will make from PC will be funneled back into creating great SP games for their consoles as well as PC.
What 1M+ sales shows Sony... is that there is a massive growth potential in the platform. Which is why you see their expected revenue grow so much in the coming years on PC. These are their older games too with relatively little to no marketing... as they dial in their release schedule and begin announcing things closer in line with the console releases, these numbers are going to change drastically.
Their plan... is to GROW. They have a lot to prove to PC gamers.. and there is definitely a big market out there for their games. They just have to continue to release in a good cadence with high quality ports. Add to that the fact that they're purchasing MP, PC centric developers who create the types of MP games that do extremely well on PC.. and you have a winning combination to build up favor and rapport with PC gamers.
This will benefit PS gamers as well, because the money the will make from PC will be funneled back into creating great SP games for their consoles as well as PC.
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@Yurinka @Remij 800-900k in a year vs 2-3 million in 3 months is quite a difference.
But my point would be this.... Nixxes and Valkyrie could be working on GOW 1&2 remakes instead, that would sell about 5-10 times the amount on PS5 compared to anything they released on PC. It adds to THEIR platform and creates another reason for people to buy THEIR hardware.
They do the PC ports cause they need so little effort...not cause they make the best strategic sense. It's easy money but not really a lot of money.
For Jim Ryan it's fine cause he probably wont be around to deal with the fallout if the ceiling on PS5 sales isn't as high.
But my point would be this.... Nixxes and Valkyrie could be working on GOW 1&2 remakes instead, that would sell about 5-10 times the amount on PS5 compared to anything they released on PC. It adds to THEIR platform and creates another reason for people to buy THEIR hardware.
They do the PC ports cause they need so little effort...not cause they make the best strategic sense. It's easy money but not really a lot of money.
For Jim Ryan it's fine cause he probably wont be around to deal with the fallout if the ceiling on PS5 sales isn't as high.
I believe so.
But it depends and we’ll have to see.
If some users leave the PS console eco system for PC then those 1st party sales Playstation normall makes, a certain percentage will go to Steam instead etc.
Also they would lose money on people buying games from the PS Store. If they fully migrate from Playstation to Steam/PC.
For the users who wouldn’t buy a Playstation, there is some money to be made there and double dippers.
But it depends how many people migrate to PC from Playstation.
If Playstation can increase its console userbase past 120+ while selling on PC then it will be great for them.
They lose more than people 5-10% of PS console owners (there biggest spenders) to Steam then they might lose alot more money in the longterm. Ive spend thousands on games since the PS3 era, so that might go to Steam.
If playstation can increase its install base higher than 120million then it will be ok.
If not, then they might lose some users who spend the most on the PS store, which would be more money compared to the Sale they would make on Steam
But it depends and we’ll have to see.
If some users leave the PS console eco system for PC then those 1st party sales Playstation normall makes, a certain percentage will go to Steam instead etc.
Also they would lose money on people buying games from the PS Store. If they fully migrate from Playstation to Steam/PC.
For the users who wouldn’t buy a Playstation, there is some money to be made there and double dippers.
But it depends how many people migrate to PC from Playstation.
If Playstation can increase its console userbase past 120+ while selling on PC then it will be great for them.
They lose more than people 5-10% of PS console owners (there biggest spenders) to Steam then they might lose alot more money in the longterm. Ive spend thousands on games since the PS3 era, so that might go to Steam.
If playstation can increase its install base higher than 120million then it will be ok.
If not, then they might lose some users who spend the most on the PS store, which would be more money compared to the Sale they would make on Steam
Reminded of the actual numbers:
GoW PC: 971K in a month and a half
DG PC: 852K in 10 months and a half
HZD PC: 2.4M in a year and 7 months
And well, the difference in the cost of a port and a brand new game is way higher than the diference in sales.
They are small teams that make ports, not remakes. A port only requires a small team working during some months, while Sony remakes require big teams working during years.
A remake requires way more work than a port, it's almost like to make a new game without having to do again a lot of its design part but having to do almost everything else. To release a handful PC ports per year doesn't affect the development of brand new games or remakes.
In fact regarding remakes, Sony recently released Demon's Souls and soon will release TLOU1. I'd bet the next ones will be GoW 1 and Uncharted.
And well, PC ports are only for a few old games that already generated all the money they could in their hardware. If the PC player likes these ports and want to play all the other exclusives not ported, like the new games/sequels of the ported game, must have to buy their hardware. Or wait many years and hope they get lucky with the ports.
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Even then there are so many games stuck on PS3 etc that could just be ported... but I get your points!
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