He’s probably correct in that some games would suffer, but not because they’re cheaper/easier to access.
It’s because Sony culled most of their multiplayer elements in the PS3/PS4 cross over and so
god of war lost its multiplayer
the last of us lost its multiplayer
Horizon didn’t have multiplayer and Killzone did
Same for Spider-man and resistance
You want a game with multiplayer today you need
Another 60-100 people per studio
a 5 year plan for DLC, expansions, free performance updates
Sony didn’t grow their studios employees enough, so now they have a bunch of one and done games, you subscribe once a year, play the one and dones, and unsubscribe.
The alternative is add a thriving multiplayer component…with no employees to spare.
Bingo bango. Phil wants more people playing games. 3 billion gamers right?! Sony wants to fleece fewer gamers by delivering games without multiplayer and $10 patches and $60 expansion packs. Phil and Microsoft are happy to “grow the market” by bringing more customers in, exactly what they did with Office 365.
This entire thing reeks of….”well we have to do SOMETHING….”
Sony was woefully outflanked on this and they know it…MS read the tea leaves, took a gamble, and now it’s paying off in spades because it’s the future and they’re way out in front in this regard.
I don’t think they’ll ever put their first party stuff on it Day 1 and that’s the only play they have…
Technically, if you are to count PS+ as a subscription service, shouldn’t you count Xbox Live Gold as one as well? How much do Game Pass+ Xbox Live Gold numbers amount to?
I learned to program on an Apple II. It gave me a career and for that I always defended Apple. After apple started to do things that was actually hostile to their customers (i.e. remove headphone jack), I can no longer defend Apple. Eventually people will start to realize these companies are not their friends.
I never understood the “Sony can’t afford to put their 1st party games day and date” when they’re out spending millions and even billions on acquisitions……
What I really don’t understand is why can’t you play ps3 games natively on a PS5? Surely, it’s powerful enough to do ps3 emulation. I think native ps3 games would make the service look a little better.
This is said to mean that they make a lot of money from their games so they would lose money by putting them in a sub.
When in reality it is that each person that subscribes (assuming gamepass prices) spends a whole lot more on them than someone that buy a console. However, now that the ship has sailed, they don’t have money to support the amount of content they need to drive the subs up
Let’s just look at how much Netflix spent on original content over the years:
They were able to start small (still a lot compared to what Sony or even Ms used to spend on a pre sub era) because back then there was no competition, by the time the competition realized netflix was dominating they already had exponential growth and the amount of money they spent reflected that.
Why I’m saying sony doesn’t have the money to support it?: 14bi in content production would literally eat away every profit they made with Ps4 over the whole generation. Netflix bet the entire company on it and it paid off, but could have fall flat if the competitors with stronger IPs started competing sooner.
Would Playstation be able to convince sony to invest all the money they made in the last decade into expanding their gaming business? I don’t think so, that’s why they went with this approach: Since they are not able to ramp up on content production as much as Ms had they are ramping up on revenue generators. That’s why they purchased Destiny (that and also because it was the next big thing up for grabs after Cod was taken) to remain multi. That’s why half of the 25 games they are producing right now for Ps5 are service games, that’s why they are centering their subs around ps plus: Their plan is to increase the amount of Ps plus subscribers up from the 47mi barrier they never managed to cross despite selling 120mi+ consoles. Then get those players to spend more with mtx, and finally have the second wave of SP games (the ones that are going to be Ps5 exclusive) launching day one on the higher tiers to drive the 47mi+ people to increase the tier they are in.
It’s a solid strategy given what they are but, there are 4 major points that can harm them:
It relies a lot in Cod, and the Ps5 maintaing the de factor multiplayer console, and now that Ms will going to own Cod it throws a massive wrench in that (Imo, that’s why they went for Bungie even being multi, it was the next big thing that was up for grabs, and they needed a big game even if f2p to have perks with their sub)
They are late to the party in ramping up game production. Ms started in 2018 and has way way way more games in production than Sony right now (just see how much each has announced), that is about to start coming, and as we saw with netflix, that can lead to exponential growth (they are kinda there already)
No short or mid term plans to expand streaming. Sony had the upper hand there but failed to make any deals or capitalize in any way in that headstart. Before sony started offering Ps4 downloads Psnow had around 300k subscribers and the infra was so small that even this number would cause queues. Meanwhile during the early previews, like 3 years ago Xcloud had already crossed the 1 million users mark and since then they increased capacity and availability A LOT
For some reason Sony is failing to secure enough chips to make consoles compared to Ms or Nintendo. So Ps5 couldn’t be the runway success they wanted. They are also behind on Pc where Ms has their own store and sub. So the reach of Playstation 5 ecosystem, be it on streaming, on the native console, or through the Pc is failing to expand as well as the Xbox one.
Now, while Sony has a lot going for them, I would say they absolutely lack the capital to move things fast enough to stop the growth Xbox is going to have. They will probably still do very well, but they came from a position of complete dominance with Ps4, that they could have used to cement their position as the market leader “forever” but failed to capitalize on that, and now is seriously facing the possibility that they are not even the market leader in console sales anymore
SONYS exclusives are no way near premium btw. The fans think they are, but as its shown this year with how Elden Ring completely outclassed Horizon, the truth is far from what they think.
They are very good games. Sony markets them as premium because they are good at marketing. The fanbase and media in general repeat Sony’s marketing points for them and this is why there is the idea that these games are on a tier of their own when in reality the majority of their games are pretty normal AAA games.
Arguably maybe even more so than 360/OG BC was for Xbox
I just really doubt Sony is interested in making that investment for something that the majority of their customers won’t use.
Even Microsoft, who already made the investment and supported it, are no longer doing so so that should give you an idea. If you wanna play PS3 games (like I do), then deal with paying and streaming or keep your PS3
