Sony PlayStation cross-platform game strategy

It's huge now because it shows Sony is willing to devalue their PS franchise somewhat by enabling people to play PS games on PC.

This is a game Sony sold to PS4 owners, improved for PS4 pro, sold at multiple discounts through various sales then included in a PS+ 'free' (*Note: not free) monthly games. There is no more money to extract from PS4 owners, which is the goal of Sony as a profit-driven organisation. Sony already enable folks with only PC's to play PlayStation games with PS Now. Anybody who had any inkling to give Sony money to play HZD has been given their chance over and over. This is the final, last scraping of the bottom of the barrel for any folks that exist wholly outside the Sony/PlayStation comms channel to throw Sony a little cash and perhaps hook them enough to consider PS5 to play the sequel.
 
When you have a board and shareholders enough is rarely enough.

So they're greedy just like all other corporations.

now Sony are leveraging that work so Decima games can be sold to PC users who may then consider a PS5 to play sequels whereas previously that wasn't a remote consideration.

If PC gamers didn't buy a PS4 before, then I don't see how it will get them to buy a PS5 for sequels. They'll just wait for them on PC now. They have now set an expectation. Genie is out of the bottle now.

Tommy McClain
 
Sony's hand is being forced. They were just the last to respond to it.
With Google and MS moving into the streaming space, as well as MS moving into the PC space. EGS and Steam competing. Sony's position becomes increasingly niche; you can get your 3P titles anywhere, and cheaper, and play them anywhere and it doesn't have to be with Sony. Hell I just got into the Geforce Now Beta.. sweet ;)

While the exclusive strategy for Sony is incredible, the realities are that a majority of it's profits will come from 3rd party titles. If the only reason people are buying a PS5 is to play exclusives, your profits are going to go to shit really fast. So they need a way to draw them back into the ecosystem. It's basically the same play that MS had to do.

And once again, this is why I said in another thread that ecosystem matters more than specs will - and I still stand behind that statement. There is still a year left for announcements, too many people have been locked in on specs because that is historically the warzone. But that won't be the case for next gen. There are all sorts of new vectors that have been introduced and some still waiting to be.
 
They said mid-gen was to avoid losing some gamers to PC because the power gap would become too big with third parties. It's irrelevant to first parties.

Consider we have PC gamers saying they have no interest in the sony franchises they never played. They have no idea. Sony cannot convince of the quality of these games with a trailer or even a demo. You have to play the full story arc to appreciate most of these games.

Releasing a few of them on PC is a big gamble but not so much if it's only a couple games. If it sells well, it makes money and adds a bunch of sony fans in the mix who might end up buying a ps5 for the sequel, and if it doesn't work, nothing lost really, they didn't like sony franchises anyway.

... it could also increase interest in PSNow on PC. A pretty low hanging fruit compared to buying a 499 console.
 
Sony's hand is being forced. They were just the last to respond to it.
How about Nintendo? Nintendo are, at industry best guesses, within a year of Switch sales surpassing Xbox One in terms of consoles sold.

Why is Sony's hand being forced they were the first of the three to begin streaming games on PC or Mac at all? WTFHUH!?! :neutral:
 
If PC gamers didn't buy a PS4 before, then I don't see how it will get them to buy a PS5 for sequels. They'll just wait for them on PC now. They have now set an expectation. Genie is out of the bottle now.
You need a reason to buy something, i.e. if you've never consumed anything exclusive to a particular platform then there is no real draw to engage in that ecosystem beyond the usual marketing. If you invest in something, like becoming invested in a game or its characters, then you may now consider buying something that you otherwise would not to further than investment. This is almost the entire reason that franchises, sequels and licensed IP exists at all. And drugs. :yep2:
 
Only if platform agnosticity (is that a word?) comprises only Microsoft platforms. When Microsoft release Halo Infinite on PS5, then we'll talk. You can play PS Now games on Microsoft Windows platform. And macOS. I cannot play any Halo or Gears game on a non-Microsoft platform. I'm disregarding Minecraft because it was was on more platforms before Microsoft bought it, it's now on less.

How are we scoring this?
 
Only if platform agnosticity (is that a word?) comprises only Microsoft platforms. When Microsoft release Halo Infinite on PS5, then we'll talk. You can play PS Now games on Microsoft Windows platform. And macOS. I cannot play any Halo or Gears game on a non-Microsoft platform. I'm disregarding Minecraft because it was was on more platforms before Microsoft bought it, it's now on less.

How are we scoring this?

I can play those games on my Android or iOS devices.
 
I still forget some maniacs play Minecraft on touch-screen devices.

I'm in the xCloud beta. I can play any game from my console on Android or iOS. I can play any of the 50 test games from the cloud.
 
I'm in the xCloud beta. I can play any game from my console on Android or iOS. I can play any of the 50 test games from the cloud.
50 games!?!?! :runaway:

Cassette50.jpg


Sorry, I so remember these ads in Crash!!! and Zzap!64!
 
How about Nintendo? Nintendo are, at industry best guesses, within a year of Switch sales surpassing Xbox One in terms of consoles sold.

Why is Sony's hand being forced they were the first of the three to begin streaming games on PC or Mac at all? WTFHUH!?! :neutral:
Yea sorry I meant the industry is what is forcing everyone’s hand. Not just the movement in the gaming space. I think what we’re seeing is a response to the lack of physical ownership. Brick and mortar stores like GameStop etc dying out. Best Buy and the like have pivoted away from electronic entertainment and now holding appliances like fridges; blenders etc. It’s the industry shifting.

My intuition in a few words is that we are witnessing what the internet has done to newspaper, music and movies/TV. It is now finally doing it to AAA games. I’m not so convinced that mobile gaming is what caused the change. Just that physical is dying out. That and perhaps the living room is dying out. Big screen televisions cannot compete with all these small screens. People are perfectly happy in operating in smaller spaces; real estate seems a premium. We will likely be seeing a lot of new competitors in the “store space” as software continues to go hardware agnostic; and we already have when I think about it.

I think one could actually argue Nintendo was the first to move. They specifically talked about death of living room when they designed the switch.
 
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