Sony PlayStation cross-platform game strategy

We're getting a lot of movement in the store and services area. They are cheap to make, cheap to fund, and they are actually what generates profits.
In contrast, hardware is actually super expensive to market, build, design, support, maintain, distribute, channel. And a single mistake is costly because it impacts your store profits (see Xbox One, see Kinect).

If you move to hardware agnostic, you put the pressure of delivering hardware on 3rd Party vendors. You don't need to deal with supporting nvidia, intel, amd. You don't need to deal with Apple, or Android devices. You don't have this freakish amount of up front costs every 7 years. You just sell the content that they want.

Except you have to compete with all the other stores, it's the sole reason consoles exist so you don't have to. You are over thinking this.

Do you think Microsoft would release there Xbox exclusives on PC if it wasn't because of Windows?
The day you can play Forza or Gears of War on a Mac or Linux (and no streaming from Xcloud doesn't count) will be when what you suggesting might be true.
 
Sony is just going to the position between MS and Nintendo. Nearly 100% of Ms xbox exclusives are ported to PC, But 0% of nintendo exclusives go to PC.

Sony wants to find the best proportion which can attract more players from PC than losing customers from PS.

That’s why SONY ports horizon to PC. Besides, there are 3 studios which will only make PlayStation games: Polyphony, Santa Monica and Naughty Dogs because they are the most famous in PS users.
 
Sony wants to broaden their market, sell more games. MS started this way too.
MS doesnt care really because Windows is their own platform as well. Whether Windows or XBOX their ecosystem or platform is supported. There is no real competition between XBOX and Windows. Its only movement within their own ecosystem. The idea of the XBOX was a response to the once dominating console gaming industry, bridge the gap between Windows and console and gradually absorb the console industry into their ecosystem.
But Sony on the other hand gets its top revenue from it's own games and from 3rd party games sold on Playstation.
The exclusives serve as a system seller to get more people to buy their platform to generate more revenue from overall game sales.
First party games on PC may be seriously cannibalizing revenue from their platform since Windows is someone else's platform that competes with their own. If there isn't much incentive to buy Playstation there is no incentive to buy a game on Playstation. So it's not guaranteeing that they broaden their market. It's like pulling the rope from opposite sides.
 
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100million bought a ps4, 10% of them bought hzd, most ps users dont seem to buy those games. Hardly system sellers, most ps gamers play CoD and fortnite.
There's where I dont fully agree. The 10% that bought HZD are not 100% the same that bought Uncharted. There is some overlap. So a 10% who bought Uncharted and the 10% that bought HZD could mean a market of 10% to 20%. The real number lies in between. Add more exclusives into the mix and that in between number becomes bigger and may surpass that 20%. In addition these exclusives build a brand name and word of mouth that increases the chances of owning a Playstation even though that consumer may not be buying exclusives. And lastly that in between number is still a significant amount of people who bought a Playstation and games that brought in revenue through COD and Fortnite
 
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:
What about all those PS owners who bought it for the exclusives who now won't because they'll get them all on PC? What about all the future potential PS owners who won't? It's not just about getting more PC users involved, but devaluing the entire ecosystem. Potentially, I no longer have to choose between a PC and a console. I can get a PC and play everything.

You also have to think where Sony's eye here is. I can only guess a Sony Ecosystem on every device, so they aren't limited to hardware and can sell $50 a year subs to 500 million console, PC and mobile owners. They've tried this before on mobile with no success whatsoever, so they'll have to change things up. But I reckon this is a sea change for Sony and we're just seeing the first step. Ten years from now, everything may be different. Exclusivity may just mean software portal in future.
 
100million bought a ps4, 10% of them bought hzd, most ps users dont seem to buy those games. Hardly system sellers, most ps gamers play CoD and fortnite.
System sellers don't work that way. System sellers are what makes someone choose a platform over another. So, those 10 million could have bought an XBox or PC instead to play CoD and Fortnite, but the fact if they wanted to play HZD (or rather, or the PS exclusives), they had to own a PS, they bought a PS to play their bread-and-butter cross-platform games.

Only Nintendo has single=game system-sellers that everyone buys just to play. But that's because their library lacks the 3rd party games so you'd never buy a Nintendo to play those. ;)
 
We've seen many PS games migrate to PC over the last couple of years:

-Heavy Rain
-Beyond Two Souls
-Journey
-Flowers
-Detroit
-Death Stranding
-Nioh
-Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
-Street Fighter V
-Ethan Carter
-Adr1ft
-Daylight
-Obduction
-Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut
-Yakuza 0
-Yakuza 1
-Yakuza 2
-God Eater 1
-God Eater 2
-God Eater 3
-God Eater: Resurrection
-Tales of Symphonia
-Tales of Zestiria
-Tales of Berseria

.. and several others, now we have Horizon Zero Dawn and Dreams, there is pattern here .. and it's accelerating.
 
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We've seen many PS games migrate to PC over the last couple of years:

-Yakuza series
-Heavy Rain
-Beyond Two Souls
-Journey
-Flowers
-Detroit
-Death Stranding

.. and several others, now we have Horizon Zero Dawn and Dreams, there is pattern here .. and it's accelerating.
HZD is the only game that comes from a Sony owned studio. The others are up to the developers to do whatever they want with their games.
Sony isnt earning a dime from those games being sold on PC except for those they already own.
 
We've seen many PS games migrate to PC over the last couple of years:
They were just timed exclusives. Sony published them on PS but the IPs remained with the creators who were free to release on other platforms (possibly with a contracted clause in the publishing deal that they couldn't release to non-Sony consoles).
 
HZD is the only game that comes from a Sony owned studio. The others are up to the developers to do whatever they want with their games.
And the developers are not content with doing PS exclusives anymore, they want more gamers to try their games out, what does that leave Sony with? one exclusive game every year? That's not enough to fend off both PC, Xbox, and the cloud, it's also VERY expensive on Sony. Things needed to change.
 
Also predator hunting grounds got from exclusive status to being pc too, small game/studio but still. There was this Tetris game being a PS exclusive that made it to pc.

He also says ’more is coming’.
What im seeing is PS users heavily disliking all this, if the AAA output quality doesnt decrease with pc versions, then what is the problem, PS people got the option to play a better version.
 
As long as when they are making the games they only target PS5, I don't really care that much.
Basically I don't want devs that make a PS5 exclusive game (a real exclusive, not timed) to be told that their games need to be able to run on Intel i3 or AMD R3 with GTX 1050 or RX 460.
I also don't like to see them launching a console with 2 spec with different power, especially if the games ended up need to be able to be playable on the lower spec hardware.
One of the good thing with a platform exclusive game is that it only need to run good on that platform. I want to see devs trying to make a game that absolutely need 8 core 3.2GHz CPU* that will not be playable with lesser CPU. I want to see a game where 9TF of GPU and RTRT* power is absolutely necessary, using it for things that can't be scaled down. Also the storage solution* thing, if it is indeed really fast, faster than what is commonly available on PC, they should use it to the fullest so that using something slower will just make the game stutter.
TL/DR I just want devs making PS5 exclusive to not care about spec other than PS5. If the game ended up can only be playable with at least a 2070 with an 8c CPU and a really fast SSD, then so be it.
*I'm just randomly putting in the spec

In the PS4/ONE era, the hardware itself is just a low spec CPU with a mid GPU without having anything special thus the games can potentially be ported to PC rather easily and run on a wide range of hardware. But PS5 with RTRT and fast storage solution, I hope they can utilize those in an absolutely necessary manner for the game, just like back then when you don't have a graphics accelerator you can't play a certain game or you need a sound card to play a certain game.

Of course in the end, a good game is a good game regardless of what tech/features they are using. If a PS5 exclusive dev want to make a game without using RTRT and only use 1TF of computing power, then so be it. Just don't tell them to make that game be able to run on a wide variety of hardware.
 
This is the Beginning of the End for us Consolegamers
...
So the Message is pretty clear with 8-9 Tflop and maybe 399€ they targeting the Casual Market , they didnt adressed the Core Market or Core Games anymore. The Core Market for Playstation Games goes to the PC, the PC is the new PS5 Pro. If you want to play HZD 2 and Gran Tourismo 7 in optimal Quality you must take the PC Version. They cannot say to the People "Ps5 is the best Place to play" anymore, like Andrew House does with the Ps4.

Eek - overreaction! They specifically introduced Pro to stop gamers migrating from their consoles just a few years ago and now you think a complete U-turn?

In my mind:
They made the 4pro a long time ago, things change, New Strategies. The landscape has changed, we've had virtually no new console entrants since Sega left. Ouya doesn't count. Handhelds largely cut back, Nintendo has this hybrid device.

It wasn't that long ago and they're doing just fine with their current setup with the 2nd biggest ever selling console...so things haven't dramatically changed...and if they had, why bother with BC!?

100million bought a ps4, 10% of them bought hzd, most ps users dont seem to buy those games. Hardly system sellers, most ps gamers play CoD and fortnite.

Oh dear...

There's where I dont fully agree. The 10% that bought HZD are not 100% the same that bought Uncharted. There is some overlap. So a 10% who bought Uncharted and the 10% that bought HZD could mean a market of 10% to 20%. The real number lies in between. Add more exclusives into the mix and that in between number becomes bigger and may surpass that 20%. In addition these exclusives build a brand name and word of mouth that increases the chances of owning a Playstation even though that consumer may not be buying exclusives. And lastly that in between number is still a significant amount of people who bought a Playstation and games that brought in revenue through COD and Fortnite

This.

Exclusives are what set consoles apart and why I'm not fussed about Xbox (I personally find Halo boring and rarely enjoy their exclusives for some reason). Each gen I know I will buy PlayStation because of the exclusives, and this includes ones I don't know about, I generally enjoy what SOny bring to the table - The Last Guardian is a great example.
 
And the developers are not content with doing PS exclusives anymore, they want more gamers to try their games out, what does that leave Sony with? one exclusive game every year? That's not enough to fend off both PC, Xbox, and the cloud, it's also VERY expensive on Sony. Things needed to change.

You think dev have something to do about this. This is a business decision. Sony will probably keep PS5 games exclusives and let all the PS4 games go to 4 years later when the game commercial life is finish on consoles.
 
I was thinking Dreams. the greater power (plus PS5 support?) will really help creations, but no idea how Sony would monetise it. Plus it lacks Move controller support on PC.

Presumably they'd monetise PC Dreams by selling it? ;-) Mouse & KB support might be an interesting substitute for Move. PC VR creation with it's 'better than Move' controllers as well?
 
All PS4 exclusives selling above 10 millions are probably in the top 15 of games sold on PS4. Out of GTA 5, some FIFA version and Minecraft probably no PS4 version of a multiplatform games sold more 20 millions. The only exclusivity which will maybe reach this number is Spiderman.

All Call of Duty sales need for example to be nearly divide by two to have the real number of sales for the PS4 version. On the most popular games out of japanese games the PS4 advantage is 60/65% of the sales.

It is simple people play different things.
 
And the developers are not content with doing PS exclusives anymore...
this is nor different to business since forever. See things like Epic Game Store exclusivity. Devs make games. They then find ways to monetise and make a living, from just selling to making deals to favour a platform for a while to contracting into a single platform.

This HZD move is complete different because this is Sony's own team, who don't get to decide what platforms they release on. That's Sony's decision. Death Stranding was Kojima's choice as an independent. HZD is Sony's choice, some executive. It's worth noting that the head of Guerilla Games, Hulst, recently became head of WWS. I wonder if his appointment was to support a move to cross-platform?

, they want more gamers to try their games out, what does that leave Sony with?
What? Sony's in exactly the same boat as MS, Epic, Google. They all either pay for (timed) exclusives from 3rd parties, or they make their own in-house. 3rd parties releasing games on PC has zero baring on Sony's move to publish their own first-party games on PC.
 
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