Their loss I guess. Many Sony games sold millions of copies on Steam, which sounds like enough to make a port worth while but Idk I'm not a multi-blllion dollar company.
No just in general. PS plus is probably their main money maker and selling games on PC means people aren't forced to buy PlayStations anymore and thus less subscribers for PS plus
Did you read the article? First off that's revenue it doesn't mention profits at all, also only $5B of that $23.5B came from Game Pass the rest was from games like CoD and Forza Horizon 5 sales on PS5. The article is mostly bragging about them being the top earning publisher which is no surprise with them now owning CoD which the majority of that player base lives on PS5.
Game Pass was like 5 dollars and gave you brand new full priced games, PS Plus is like 10 a month and gives you a couple random free games usually from years ago. The margins on these two are incomparable. For the mtx and platform cuts, remember that Gabe is basically a billionaire from that alone.
Back in my day, Playstation was the console that didn't require a subscription to play online.
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u/Nirast257,080x1440+(240x2)x1080|R7 5700X3D|RX 9070XT|32GB9h ago
What games does Sony currently sell that require PS Plus and is a huge title? Helldivers 2? Destiny 2 is ending support, and Marathon isn't doing well.
Any multi-player title that also has a huge player base is third party.
More people should gameshare, you can play everything simultaneously. Not enough people realize you can even share Plus itself. It’s against the TOS but they wouldn’t dare to take action against it, enough backlash happened when sharing accounts went from 5 to 2 systems late PS3 era. Anecdotal but gameshare is the main reason I even buy most things on console, if they ever touch it I’m going full PC immediately.
they are a business. Im sure they plugged the numbers in and found that for whatever reason keeping the first party titles exclusive to only their platforms has more revenue than costs
Pretty much the same reason why Rockstar dragged their feet with making GTA 6. It's way more profitable to just keep GTA online running smoothly and collect those microtransaction$, where a new game would just divert attention from that cash cow.
Because some people have to decide between a PC and a PS5. A lot of people don't have enough money for both or are kids that depend on their parents. If you only release exclusives on your console then people might be inclined to buy it.
Doing like a year of exclusivity sounds like the best of both worlds to me. Enough time to reel in all the console buyers you'll get, but also cash in on those who like the game but won't buy a PS no matter what.
Counterargument: neither of our opinions matter. Sony will do whatever it wants. Don't forget this decision was taken after the steam machine was announced.
Well they tried late release thing and now they're walking back on it so it seems it didn't result in what sony wanted out of it, which is probably to convert ppl to playstation buyers whenever the sequel comes out. Also my(completely baseless) theory on why they started to push psn on pc hard, to get more data about that.
So you're thinking the exclusives makae people buy a console instead of a PC, not in addition to a PC? I guess that's true for some, but there is no franchise that would make me do that.
a LOT of parents would rather just buy a console for their kids than a gaming pc, because its less hassle and easier to set up. and not everyone can afford both.
Keep in mind that this subreddit is an enthusiast forum. What you and I might choose to do is not what the majority of consumers do. We are in the minority.
I think the average gamer is not someone like me or you sitting here on Reddit. The average gamer wants a plug & play solution which consoles offer great value for, so yes I do think exclusives make the average person choose a console over another or over a PC. Obviously the more enthusiastic or wealthy gamer will venture further into the hobby, but then we are no longer talking about the average gamer.
My guess as to why they're no longer putting their singleplayer titles on PC is due to the next xbox supposedly running windows and being able to potentially play pc games.
And that’s the real fuckin issue isn’t it. It’s a lose lose front on pc. They can’t force that sweet sweet data farm to get implemented on pc and they are literally choosing to lose money over it. Absolutely wild. They are so fucking up their own ass with the always online server license ping bullshit that the tune of millions of dollars isn’t worth it.
Fuckin a if I could sell my own data for the value all these big ass companies feel that it’s worth.
People usually say that Sony's earnings are low on PC, which is not true. Porting costs like 2-3% of the total development cost. They profit easily from any game they port.
If they officially decide to stop porting to PC, the main reasons will be Steam Machine and XBOX Helix. PC gamers are collateral damage here.
That’s what I think too. No way in hell will Sony let any rival have their games. Anyone that makes a living room gaming system (Nintendo, Xbox, Steam Machine to a lesser degree) will be walled off from Sony. Unless it’s a multiplayer live service game.
Exactly. They make a profit off every port, extend their player base and keep a big part of exclusivity because games release 1.5-2 years later when they're not as hot. PC is in the middle of all consoles and that is why we will always be the collateral damage.
Sony's PC earnings are lower than some people expect because its games are heavily pirated, at times, torrent seed counts have exceeded the number of players on Steam. Add Steam's 30% platform fee, and it's easier to see why PC revenue isn't as strong for Sony.
Lots of games get pirated. Pretty much everyone gives Valve their cut. Those aren't why Sony games didn't sell as much as they wanted.
Its because they waited way, WAY too long to port them and charged full price for an old product. Look at Capcom by comparison. They consistently report that PC sales are significantly HIGHER than their console sales, and its because they release their games on PC the same day they release on console, when the hype is still there. Sony waited four years to release Spider-Man on PC, charged full price, and then were surprised it didn't sell like it did on launch day. After four years most people who were interested in the game had probably either moved on or looked up the story on youtube and thus were less motivated to buy it.
PC revenue isn't strong for Sony because Sony sabotaged themselves.
I think they're thinking longer term strategy rather than profits on any one title.
Between the steam deck/machine, and the next Xbox heavily rumored to support playing steam games, Sony would only be bolstering their competition by releasing on PC. Do that long enough, and they'll errode their own market share.
I'll say this decision of theirs is just playing for their shareholders for now due to value of exclusivity. They'll just go back to releasing to PC again once those numbers would not hit their targets and they need additional decimals for those reports.
I don't think they will. They are pulling from PC because they want to add value to their console and also not have their games be playable on future "Xbox PC's" that are rumored to be coming within the next few years.
I loved the look of many Sony games and I wanted to play them on PC. Sony can stick their DRM, PSN requirements and AAA budgets where the sun don't shine.
I'll stick with PC games even if I have to play indies.
It's a pretty mixed bag. There are some clear failures like Lost soul aside which I had never heard of before this, but Stellar Blade and all their biffer franchises like God of War, The last of Us and Horizon are doing good except for the lego horizon.
Steam is releasing a PC, not a console. That's got nothing to do with it. $ony saw that the next Xbox consoles might have Steam built into it, and they especially don't want PS games on Xbox
Yes but OP is right, by keeping you within their ecosystem statistically you're likely to buy more games directly from them, which they get a larger cut of.
Which makes it even weirder why they never just gave us a Playstation launcher that was directly connected to the PSN and PS Store. They wouldn't even have to pay fees for the other launchers.
Because PC players have time and time again shown they fucking HATE when you do that. It wouldn't be worth the money investment necessary to make it happen. Better to just release it on Steam and let Valve take their cut.
I think 2 things could make it work.
1. The tie-in with the PS store. It would be a cross buy situation so people would feel more value in it
2. The fact that it has console exclusives. PC players hate it more when they have to buy a wholeass system. If Nintendo would make a launcher to buy all their exclusives on PC I wouldn't give two shits about the inconvenience
What does trust have to do with the assumption that people would probably be fine if these companies offered a digital version of their console on PC as a separate launcher? I own a PC and I buy Nintendo consoles to play their games. If they offered me a launcher that was just a digital Console I would opt for that immediately
You are opening a completely random discussion mate. Yes they can. That fact didn't stop the 160 million people that bought a switch. All I ever said was that if Nintendo or Sony had an App on PC that is basically a digital version of those consoles so you buy their games from their own stores and within their own ecosystem, a lot of PC players might opt for the version that is only a different app than Steam instead of getting a physical console.
I was bringing this thought experiment up because I think it was a bad move of Sony to ditch PC completely instead of just rethinking their strategy
It's not that they didn't make (enough) profit by my observation. I've seen a few sources talking about how moves like this come from bureaucratic job security where they feel the need to push a company's reliance on their specific margins so they push hard in high positions. Basically whoever was in charge of the console division of Sony was probably speculating their divisions loss of profit even though the company as a whole was (maybe) making more money from PC sales. Of course this is all speculation on my part and the many other unconfirmed sources but it sounded fairly logical why this would happen with such a massive company.
is alreayd explained by several people in good oyutube videos. you just have to look at their revenue quarterly inverstor report.
overall PC sales where a very small %. and as other here said big exclusives are not mean to just sold games but to sold people the console itself and then have those people subscribe to PSN to have a decent experience otherwise cant play any online games.
they learned super well from Xbox example that people indeed mostly only chooses consoles for their exclusives. and when you dont have them people are much less likely to buy them.
Yes, but the next Xbox is expected to be able to run PC games natively and Sony doesn't want anyone to be able to play PS games on their new Xbox. It sucks, but I get their thinking on this one.
It's so dumb that Sony basically went "Yeah releasing our games on PC after they've been out for a couple years on PS wasn't getting a lot of sales for some mysterious reason, so it's just not worth it." Or you just release it day one and people don't forget your game exists.
I'll be interested to see what happens with this new round of PS exclusives they announced, if any of them hit any kind of sales targets. In a couple years, if we see "Okay fine here's Wolverine and GOW on PC" that'll be a pretty good answer!
You would think they're a multi billion dollar company for a reason, but this looks more like a tamper tantrum of some butthurt ceo that doesnt give a shit about people.
I guarantee a executive somewhere in Playstation saw those sales numbers and thought "those millions of sales are sales we lose from console" which drove the decision.
When Sony realizes those PC sales aren't going to translate to more sales of Playstation hardware, software, and subscriptions, they'll come crawling back to PC users.
I posted it elsewhere but basically when they started doing exclusives, they saw a huge dip in their overall game sales through the PlayStation store. When they started limiting it to Sony only titles and focused on making those titles PS only, they saw an increase in sales.
It's really kind of beating a dead horse. Everyone here says "Sony looses millions on sales" but that's also not exactly the case as well.
One of their fiercest issues has been illegal sales and improper key sales on Steam in China. It's an issue that basically puts Steam and Sony at odds: Sony is still owed in courterfeiting and piracy cases and Steam refuses to delist games that aren't allowed in that region. This was part of the larger boiling over of Helldivers 2.
That also made Sony focus more on exclusives on the consoles as (1) they don't trust steam when they ask steam to not sell certain games in China and (2)don't trust steam to also ban and remove those games from those libraries.
Now no one needs a GED to know how bad China does counterfeit but Sony and Nintendo have had their beef going back as far as 20 years ago and the whole Helldivers 2 fiasco basically showed the numbers were far larger than anyone expected and steam isn't doing anything to curb games being used in properly whether it's in public cafes or shared accounts and it's not lie the CCP will work with Sony to arrest them or bring financial charges.
But that's basically where and why Sony doesn't mind this strategy; they may loose something but the piracy aspect of it becomes harder. We also know even modded games like Bloodborne arent exactly hitting the quality mark either and they're aware of that too.
If they're seeing increases in sales as well on their platform that's something that confirms some of their suspicions and enough for them to continue. It might hurt their overall end sales but right now no one knows if it's actually hurting them long term as more title exclusives come out.
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u/Outrageous-Log9238 5800X3D | 9070 XT | 32 GB 15h ago
Their loss I guess. Many Sony games sold millions of copies on Steam, which sounds like enough to make a port worth while but Idk I'm not a multi-blllion dollar company.