Sony PlayStation cross-platform game strategy

[Karmaprof]

What sort of ridiculous overreaction is this. So you're saying sony should not have any game on PC? I can't follow the logic.

Because there is absolutly no benefits for us Consolegamers . Why do you think
that all Consolegames must coming to the Pc? Why i must serve the PC Market with my Money , or to serve the bad Cross/ Multiplatformgames? I want Quality and only Exclusivgames can deliver this. If Sony bring all their AAA Titles to the PC they cannot deliver the same Quality on Console , they didnt spend much Time to optimize the Code/Engine anymore , they must make many compromises in point of the Cost for those Crossplattform Strategy. So upcoming PS Games running on a generic Code to serve different PC Configurations, generic sterile Graphics , PS Games becoming DX12 Derivat Style Graphics, same Shader/Textur Assets etc. , etc. So the Quality goes down and down, Sony glorius AAA Titles running bad like those Multiplats , Framedropping, Tearing , so no great Gaming Experiences anymore. Nobody can say " For the Players" when they focusing on a Buinessmodel that canibalize their own Hardware Plattform and Brandname, and the PS5/PS4 is then only a another PC Plattform for them.

Many PC Gamers has a Playstation for Exclusivgames, when Sony bring those Games to the PC , there is no need for them to buy a Playstation, so Hardware Sales going down , and this a disavantage for us Console only Gamers, less Hardware Sales and then there is no Reason for the Studios to put much effort in Class A Games. And on the other Side , did serve the Pc Market the Consoleworld ? No . Come Pc Exclusicgames like Star Citizien, WoW etc . to the Console? No. So where are the benefits for us Consoleros from the PC World? We must gave up all our Avantages and good Games to the PC and become nothing back. There is no Proof that all the Profit and Money they make with porting Exclusivgames to the Pc , expanding to Crossplatform Market, use as an Investment for better Game Development, Quality etc. for us Consoleros. If the Playstation Userbase so important for Sony, why are they so silent, the last 2 Years there is zero Communication to the Public from Sony Headquarter, no officiall Statement about Multiplatformstrategy , Futureplans, Roadmaps, leaving E3 as a Place for showing their Products.

Look what happend in Februar at the Ps5 Presentation, the worst thing become real, 8-9 Tflops, no interesting Games, official Statement about Crossplattform Strategy, copying Microsofts Plans, how would be the Reaction from the People? And maybe the next Schocker , the Pc Version from HZD looks better than HZD 2 on Ps5.

Hilarious

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Because there is absolutly no benefits for us Consolegamers .

Sony's goal, which the greedy capitalist bastards share with Microsoft and Nintendo, is make money.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

The financials of the publishers seems to suggest otherwise. A successful, closed platform has proven far more profitable. However, software seems more stable. Sony's fortunes have waxed and waned across genereations, and a solid software-publisher base would help stabilise things. Perhaps, peak profits from the PS consoles will be lower, but variation between generations will be far less? Or maybe software sales will go from strength to strength?

I think they need to hit the right balance. I think timed exclusives for PS platforms are a given, this way you keep the incentives that make your consumers buy your consoles while, at the same time, expand the number of players in the long run.

IMO, Sony should expand PS Plus to PC as well. PS Now should be bundled with PS Plus the same way amazon includes amazon video in amazon prime. PS Plus users on PC should be able to: play against PS users (in some games ofc, in FPS PS players would be at a disadvantage although maybe the game could detect whether the players on PC are using M+K or a controller as an input), it should include the PC version of the third party games included in PS Plus, early access to Sony developed titles and discounts on Sony (or even third party) games.

Sony needs to stop thinking as Playstation just as a box to think about it in terms of a service.

 

[Rootax]

But if Playstation become a service, they will lose some money on the hardware. If I can have ps4/5 games on pc, on the same release date, I've no interest on a console anymore, i'll just stick with my pc.

 

[bgroovy]

Sony needs to stop thinking as Playstation just as a box to think about it in terms of a service.

It's amusing to hear so many people say this about PlayStation when being "just a box" has made the division more profitable than ever this gen. It's easy to see why MS want to overturn the apple cart emulating services like Netflix that rack up debt faster than they increase revenue, because they've never been able to win in the current market paradigm.

But for Sony, there's no incentive to risk everything that has been working so well on a wish and a prayer. They're willing to experiment. There may very well be a sizable untapped market for them in PC, but just like with VR, they are being conservative and not blindly making it the centerpiece of their platform before they see results.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

It's amusing to hear so many people say this about PlayStation when being "just a box" has made the division more profitable than ever this gen. It's easy to see why MS want to overturn the apple cart emulating services like Netflix that rack up debt faster than they increase revenue, because they've never been able to win in the current market paradigm.

But for Sony, there's no incentive to risk everything that has been working so well on a wish and a prayer. They're willing to experiment. There may very well be a sizable untapped market for them in PC, but just like with VR, they are being conservative and not blindly making it the centerpiece of their platform before they see results.

I think that Sony should be able to market PS5 as the premium device to get the PS experience. The same way you can have some Apple software on Windows and other devices but it all works much better if you have the Apple hardware as well. I'm not saying that Sony should go all in with offering their games on other platforms, I'm just saying that they need to expand.

And I don't think that it is a risky move, if the steam machines or other PCs designed to be in the living room had succeded then Sony would be in a tough position. But the market has shown people want a separate device under their TVs, something that is easy to use. People will still want a PS even if some of the games are available on PC.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The financials of the publishers seems to suggest otherwise. A successful, closed platform has proven far more profitable. However, software seems more stable. Sony's fortunes have waxed and waned across genereations, and a solid software-publisher base would help stabilise things. Perhaps, peak profits from the PS consoles will be lower, but variation between generations will be far less? Or maybe software sales will go from strength to strength?

True, but when you drill down into it the economics of publishers and console manufactures (who are also publishers) they are only peripherally alike. Console manufacturer's are generally publishing to just one or two platforms so they're often working with a more restricted market, plus as manufacturer you're increasingly (with digital sales) skimming the retailer cut regardless of what is sold, along with the licensing cost of the software itself. It's swings and roundabouts. Activision, EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar aren't investing billions in risky new hardware which will invariably sell at a loss for some time, but they're doing fine financially.

This new generation will rock this stable boat. The videogame industry, revived and evolved following the 80s collapse, has proven to be a robust industry predicated on a predictable and safe. New consoles would come out and people would buy new games and accessories for them because, for the most part, old games and accessories did not work. Publishers had assurance that games for new consoles would sell if the console sold because players would need new games. Roll forward to Holiday 2020 and we have two consoles that play all your old games. And certainly with PS5, old peripherals work as well. There is a distinct possibility people will buy a new console, not as many accessories and fewer games, because they'll be replaying old games. With hardware sold at a loss, manufacturer's and publishers could be seeing less revenue/profit.

Sometimes what is good for consumers is not good for industry. Less profit can lead to instability, less investing which leads to less innovation and less competition.

 

[Xbat]

PS5, old peripherals work as well. There is a distinct possibility people will buy a new console, not as many accessories and fewer games, because they'll be replaying old games. With hardware sold at a loss, manufacturer's and publishers could be seeing less revenue/profit.

I'm not sure about that, speaking for myself I've owned every console capable of backwards compatibility and I think I might of spent like 1 hour playing a previous gen game.
People buying consoles at launch usually are all about the new hotness.

 

[PSman1700]

What I think makes HZD more an experiment than a concerted change in future strategy is what we've heard about PS5's custom SSD and I/O solution. Mark Cerny has said enough to know that PS5 can pull data from storage way faster than any PC and even if/when this tech comes to PC, it will take a long, long time before it is prolific. If PS5 has some nutty fast SSD and I/O then first party games are going to use it and any game that is using for it anything more than just faster loading, such as pulling incredibly dense and detailed geometry and rendering a massive world that you can zoom through super fast, may not be able to run on Windows at all. So then is you strategy not to make games that can't work on Windows?

PC never catching up seems a strange idea. There will be 7000mb/s ssd solutions available already this year, and i doubt you will need that anyway. First party games like HZD will be designed for PS5 first and at a later date ported to PC. If someone is still left on aging hardware that's their own decision to not upgrade.
Sony is doing what MS was doing awhile ago, we see more and more PS4 titles appearing on PC, and now that Sony 1st party AAA also make their way that's a door opener.

Why do you think
that all Consolegames must coming to the Pc? Why i must serve the PC Market with my Money

There is zero disadvantage to you as a Sony only gamer, you will get HZD2 designed on Decima2 from the ground up on PS5. That there most likely will be a PC version later doesn't affect you at all. If you want the better experience then you need to wait long also.

Sony needs to stop thinking as Playstation just as a box to think about it in terms of a service.

They already started doing that, now also AAA sony only are coming, and more to come they said. MS didn't either blast off at once but slow and safe.

It's amusing to hear so many people say this about PlayStation when being "just a box" has made the division more profitable than ever this gen.

If there is more money to make, they will. And there sure is more to it then just one box.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm not sure about that, speaking for myself I've owned every console capable of backwards compatibility and I think I might of spent like 1 hour playing a previous gen game. People buying consoles at launch usually are all about the new hotness.

I doubt many people buy a new console unless they can also afford one or more games and, if couch co-op is important, that important second controller. PS4 owners can buy PS5 on launch day without else and have plenty to do with the system. If this is a signifiant number of people this makes Sony's RoI a longer-term prospect. For many, assuming the gameplay experience is better (the SSD will guarantee it I think), it won't be too different to those who upgraded to PS4 Pro or Xbox One X.

PC never catching up seems a strange idea.

I didn't say that.

There will be 7000mb/s ssd solutions available already this year, and i doubt you will need that anyway. First party games like HZD will be designed for PS5 first and at a later date ported to PC. If someone is still left on aging hardware that's their own decision to not upgrade.

700mb/s is around 20% of the speed the PS5's drive is purported to be PS5 should be able to load that data direct into VRAM (as PS4 does). PC cannot because it has separate RAM pools. This is why there are some GPUs with their own SSD. Data on the GPU's SSD cannot be loaded into main RAM. This just how PCs are architected.

Sony is doing what MS was doing awhile ago, we see more and more PS4 titles appearing on PC, and now that Sony 1st party AAA also make their way that's a door opener.

You posted this yesterday and it's not true. It's still not true today.
If you believe it is, please list the the first-party PlayStation exclusive games that have been released on PC. Plenty of games the are released on PS4 as a timed exclusive appear on other platforms, including Xbox and Switch. This is very different to Sony publishing first-party exclusive games on other platforms.

edit: correction - thanks, Chris!

 

[chris1515]

I doubt many people buy a new console unless they can also afford one or more games and, if couch co-op is important, that important second controller. PS4 owners can buy PS5 on launch day without else and have plenty to do with the system. If this is a signifiant number of people this makes Sony's RoI a longer-term prospect. For many, assuming the gameplay experience is better (the SSD will guarantee it I think), it won't be too different to those who upgraded to PS4 Pro or Xbox One X.

I didn't say that.

700mb/s is around 20% of the speed the PS5's drive is purported to be. It is expected that PS5 can load that data direct into VRAM (as PS4 does). PC cannot because it has separate RAM pools. This is why there are some GPUs with their own SSD. Data on the GPU's SSD cannot be loaded into main RAM. This just how PCs are architected.

You posted this yesterday and it's not true. It's still not true today.
If you believe it is, please list the the first-party PlayStation exclusive games that have been released on PC. Plenty of games the are released on PS4 as a timed exclusive appear on other platforms, including Xbox and Switch. This is very different to Sony publishing first-party exclusive games on other platforms.

He said 7GB/s not 700 MB/s.

After I agree with you it will take a long time before the PC market or very fast SSD will be big enough for release games designed around it. I don't expect PS5 games on PC before PS6 probably

 

[Deleted member 11852]

He said 7GB/s not 700 MB/s.

Thanks - will edit.

 

[PSman1700]

700mb/s is around 20% of the speed the PS5's drive is purported to be.

We have no idea how fast that PS5 SSD actually will be, but i doubt PC won't be able to catch up, or even already have it before. Yes it is going to be more expensiv, but if people really are going to be stuck o aging hardware that's themselfs to blame. Before 8th gen, pc's had to be upgraded when new consoles launched.

t is expected that PS5 can load that data direct into VRAM (as PS4 does). PC cannot because it has separate RAM pools. This is why there are some GPUs with their own SSD. Data on the GPU's SSD cannot be loaded into main RAM. This just how PCs are architected.

Yet there are zero problems for PC to run PS4 games on ballpark equal hardware. I doubt again PC will be unable to match, and again aside from that we have no idea if the PS5 will be using AMD's SSG tech or a form of it.

 

[chris1515]

Currently PCIE4 SSD are very expensive. How much will it cost 300/350 dollars and being slower not as fast as the PS5 SSD.

This will not be something common and the software(OS and games) is not ready at all. NVMe goes just a bit faster than SATA SSD out of some operation like copy files.

 

[PSman1700]

Currently PCIE4 SSD are very expensive. How much will it cost 300/350 dollars and being slower not as fast as the PS5 SSD.

This will not be something common and the software(OS and games) is not ready at all. NVMe goes just a bit faster than SATA SSD out of some operation like copy files.

For now. Btw, Star Citizen doesn't really agree

 

[Deleted member 11852]

We have no idea how fast that PS5 SSD actually will be, but i doubt PC won't be able to catch up, or even already have it before. Yes it is going to be more expensiv, but if people really are going to be stuck o aging hardware that's themselfs to blame. Before 8th gen, pc's had to be upgraded when new consoles launched.

Again, it's not about the raw speed of the drive. It's about getting the data where it needs to be. A unified memory system has advantages that PC's disparate RAM and VRAM pools cannot match. But to revisit what Mark Cerny actually said: "The raw read speed is important, but so are the details of the I/O [input-output] mechanisms and the software stack that we put on top of them.". A bespoke console architecture can be purposefully engineer out the innate bottlenecks that exist in PC architecture.

Yet there are zero problems for PC to run PS4 games on ballpark equal hardware. I doubt again PC will be unable to match, and again aside from that we have no idea if the PS5 will be using AMD's SSG tech or a form of it.

Because PS4's architecture doesn't do anything that PC can't brute force. The SSD and I/O of PS5 can change that. It'll be fundamentally different. Not unlike why the reason there are no fully-working PS3 emulators is PC just can't brute force Cell emulation.

edit: typos. so many - new keyboard!
edit2: wow - sound like Trump!

 

[Xbat]

We have no idea how fast that PS5 SSD actually will be, but i doubt PC won't be able to catch up, or even already have it before. Yes it is going to be more expensiv, but if people really are going to be stuck o aging hardware that's themselfs to blame. Before 8th gen, pc's had to be upgraded when new consoles launched.

It's not about the raw speed and you would know that if you had an NVME drive and a SATA SSD. My NVME drive does not give me the load speeds it should compared to my SATA SSD.

 

[chris1515]

For now. Btw, Star Citizen doesn't really agree

Star Citizen work well on all SSD SATA too.

Reading the patent Sony has a game archive file optimized for SSD and like with game streaming on consoles from HDD or BD or DVD the goal is to have the data as sequential as possible. On game HDD on current gen console the data are as sequential as possible and worse because of HDD head movement they add duplication of data to hide HDD head access penalty.

On HDD it was too slow and moving the HDD head had a big penalty and duplicate data was a must.

On SSD each read request will probably need to be as sequential as possible and the team will need to transform the game engine I/O from serial to parallel. But doing the things well like what Baidu as done in datacenter. You can nearly reach theoretical speed of the SSD in an application. Here for 8MB read request 99% of theoretical bandwidth and at worst 8kb file 76% of read speed.

https://thessdguy.com/baidu-goes-beyond-ssds/

It means exclusives game tailored for PS5 streaming will have problem to work on slower HDD and slower SSD.

But the biggest reason PS5 games will release on PC when PS6 will arrive or when full transition to streaming is revenue and profit. Sony make all if it on PS hardware and I highly doubt PC and streaming will make more money for Sony than PS hardware ecosystem before a very long time maybe a decade.

Edit: On PS5 all from hardware to software OS is customized for the SSD storage. Out of the games where it is the work of dev to optimize the game engine and installed data to be able to push the speed as fast as possible.

Edit2: There is an easy solution have many RAM on PC 128 GB for example of DDR4 and being able to load the totality of the game on RAM. You just pay the penalty by a very long first loading time of the game but you can play with a HDD or a slower SSD. But better have a SSD than wait 16 minutes for fill 100 GB of data with a HDD.

 

[chris1515]

https://www.senetic.es/product/SSDPED1D960GAX1

This is a good solution too.

 

[goonergaz]

If Sony release their games on PC there is no reason for me to buy PS5.

PS4 Pro was designed in part to prevent playstation users from migrating to PC mid-gen. Maybe instead of making a PS4 Pro, the economics make more sense to take games that are 2-3 years old and just put them on the PC for those people that want a more high-end experience. Maybe there's no PS5 Pro and they just release PC software instead. Two year old games are considered old by most gamers, and I doubt shifting from full exclusive to a timed exclusive would really hurt their hardware sales in a way that wouldn't be offset by the new software market they open up. Also as others have mentioned, they could make their own store where they earn all of the revenue, and move some Sony services to pc along with the games.

Edit: Also, how much do we think developing a next-gen is going to cost? Cost of development is already astronomical, especially for the AAA quality titles. Putting older stuff on PC will just help games earn more money longer.

For me it was designed to stop people like me migrating when the gen got on as 3rd party titles struggled to run and looked crap. And it worked.

if the PS5 costs..., say 450€, and the Xbox Series X costs 500€ -following rumours- you can buy a PC for that price that is way way better in every possible way and play the games of both.

I haven't touched the settings of my games -save resolution- when I played on a 60Hz monitor and playing on PC is easier now than ever. I don't overclock the GPU or mod the PC a lot, just use what works well by default.

Erm, no. There’s no way for 500 you’re building a PC that’ll be way way better.

Yup, if Sony were to start publishing all of their exclusives on PC, it's only positive for gamers, there is no downside from the perspective of a gamer. Whether it's a net benefit for Sony is, of course, arguable.

Taking a moment to hypothesize here. What if...

• The number of players that got a PS4-P was roughly analogous to how many people play on both PS4 and PC. IMO, I think it's larger as not everyone with a PS4-P plays on PC. Conversely there may be players that stayed with base PS4 that also game on PC. But at least in my group of friends and aquaintences (including streamers and streamer audiences that participate in chat), PC owners are much more likely to get a PS4-P than a PS4 while I see few people that stayed with base PS4 that also gamed n PC.
• So, if we go with that supposition
  • What was the cost of bringing the PS4-P to market?
  • How much did Sony make off of 3rd party games on PS4-P?
    • If we hypothesize that most PS4-P owners also game on PC, then it would be likely that they also buy most of their 3rd party games on PC.
  • Did the revenue from royalty of 3rd party games sold to PS4-P owners exceed the Cost of Sales and R&D for PS4-P?
  • If not, then...
• It may end up being more profitable to sell 1st party exclusives to PC owners than to try to keep them on the Playstation ecosystem.
  • I didn't included the exclusives above as Sony would get money from them regardless of whether it was a PS4-P owner or that person buying it on PC if there was no PS4-P.
  • Again this pre-supposes that the greater majority of people that play on PS4 and PC got a PS4-P. This may not be true, although I think it is likely to be true.
  • This moves even more in favor if you consider.
    • Sony would gain a LOT more sales of their exclusives.
    • Was PS4-P a net positive in terms of profitability when considering the Cost of Sales and R&D?
    • Most base PS4 owners (unlike customers who got a PS4-P) are unlikely to game on PC due to a combination of cost and convenience.
      • IE - if they didn't get a PS4-P due to cost, they are unlikely to get a PC because it's even more expensive. And if they do game on PC, in general, they can afford to get and probably did get a PS4-P.
• The exclusives are only sold in the PlayStation store.
  • Microsoft attempted to do this for a while but couldn't get as many people to buy from there on PC as they would have liked. Thus they now simultaneously release on Steam as well.
  • Sony has much less of an image problem compared to MS. So as long as they don't screw up their storefront for PC games, they shouldn't need to use an existing PC storefront unless they wish to greatly expand their reach on PC. If that's the case, then they'd be far more likely to use Steam than any other storefront.

So, while I still think it highly unlikely that Sony are suddenly going to release their exclusives on PC similar to what Microsoft is doing, I can kind of see a train of reasoning that could make it possible for Sony to consider it.

It'd certainly be a lot easier to hypothesize if we had access to the user demographics numbers that Sony has access to.

For example, just being able to see the buying patterns of PS4-P owners. Do most of them only buy PS4 exclusives? Or do they also buy a lot of multiplatform games on PS4-P. IE - are most PS4-P owners mostly buying 3rd party games on PC instead of PS4 already anyway?

Regards,
SB

As above, I bought Pro mainly because I used to migrate to PC for the 3rd party games because the ran like shite on the consoles.

It depends on the timeline, at launch a PC is going to be more expensive, but then you dont pay for online, games are usually cheaper etc. You probably get more hardware too, a zen3 CPU 8 cores at 4Ghz is more likely, as is more main ram, more powerfull GPU. It's the context he means perhaps.



I see Sony doing more of what they do now, not design as cross platform, but design for PS in mind, max profits there, and then at a later date sell it to PC gamers, perhaps in their very own store.

So no you can’t then.

Another way to think of it ... If PS5 sells 100 million console units during its lifetime, is that enough units to recoup the costs of a first party game? If you reach 10 million copies sold (10% of the user base), is that enough? Is 15 million enough? If they're at 20 million console units after 1 year, is that a big enough market to recoup expenses on a first party launch title?

I doubt the sustainability of the console cycle, unless they can somehow expect that ps5 will outsell ps4 by a wide margin. I'm not sure that's realistic. Maybe it is, but that's a big bet. It seems to me that opening your software sales to a wider market is the best way to make the most money and making sure niche titles can break even.

Model seems to work just fine for them, or is the implication PS4 wasn’t a success?

Dreams make a lot of sense, they need content creators, and it's a niche game needing exposure.

They might want to offer the Decima engine to third parties and smaller studios in exchange of console exclusivity, games which otherwise would be completely multi-platform. That worked well with Death Stranding, which otherwise would be everywhere and come much later.

Some multi player games need critical mass. That can be a good strategy there too.

HZD made it's money, and the sequel will have more weight with more people playng it. They need to have played the first game to be excited about the second. That one is clearly a gamble for more exposure to the franchise and drag PC gamers to ps5, it's not for a quick buck.

I agree, it’s much like giving away HZD on PS+ when the sequel is near (Mark my words).