Sony PlayStation cross-platform game strategy

[iroboto]

If there were significant payments from DB/505 to Sony it would need to be stated in their financial report. If Death Stranding is owned by Sony, why have Sony made no comment about the great sales on PC and the $27min revenue on PC? Why were PC sales not mentioned in Sony's own financial reports? Why is Death Stranding not mentioned in any Sony financial reports yet every other first and second party game is?

WHY?

lol don't know. I updated my message above.

edit: actually let me provide another possible avenue.

KojiPro is not owned by Sony. But Sony still wanted it ported to PC but own the license. But KojiPro did not want to go publish with Sony because of X or Y. So push come to shove, Sony wanted the title on PC, so they let KojiPro choose their own publisher, ie. gave blessing in exchange for some royalties.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

lol don't know. I updated my message above.

Perhaps because Death Stranding is a game developed by Hideo Kojima and he owns the IP? Because the last time he had popular IP, Konami took it from him? Because he'd have to be a f***ing idiot to let that happen again?

Because the Death Stranding IP is actually owned by Hideo Kojima and Sony, in their publishing deal for PlayStation, just registered all the trademarks and copying so he could get on developing the game..

Crazy I know.. but seriously.

 

[iroboto]

Because the Death Stranding IP is actually owned by Hideo Kojima and Sony, in their publishing deal for PlayStation, just registered all the trademarks and copying so he could get on developing the game..

Crazy I know.. but seriously.

I dunno. You'll need to provide some evidence of it. Right now I can only find a lot of people leaning into and finding evidence it's owned by Sony.
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/10/talking_point_does_death_strandings_non-exclusivity_matter

http://www.kojimaproductions.jp/en/death_stranding.html
Says Sony all over it. Shrug. Sony owns the engine. Sony likely owns the IP.

Since my understanding with Sony IPs, they've always owned them and not the developer.

 

[Sonic]

For all we know it could just be a matter of timing when Sony was considering and planning a transition to release more of their games on PC. If the decision was made earlier on they may not have wanted to take the risk but at the same time test the waters. Or maybe the contract allowed the developer to release the game on PC with a different publisher despite Sony's ownership of IP. Maybe Sony ends up buying Digital Bros to become a more prominent publisher of PC games. Maybe they only partially own the rights to Death Stranding. It's a good question I hope we get the answer to,

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I dunno. You'll need to provide some evidence of it.

Nope. According this this guy the onus of proof is on the parties claiming something, i.e. Death Stranding being owned by Sony. I have only questioned those claims in this thread by pointing out facts that would seem to contradict the claim.

You prove they are.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

KojiPro is not owned by Sony.

Yet.
IMO.

Kojima Productions and Sony seem to be following all the same dating and flirting that we saw with other studios before their acquisitions in the past.

It's not like there are much better partners for the kind of single-player(ish) immersive experiments that Kojima seems to be willing to make.

It's not like E.A., Ubisoft or Square Enix were going to give Kojima any money after hearing a pitch that said "so you're like a delivery guy, and it's this single player walking simulator.. and it's super expensive because we're hiring all these Hollywood actors...".

http://www.kojimaproductions.jp/en/death_stranding.html
Says Sony all over it. Shrug.

A screenshot from the webpage's loading screen:




Sorry @DSoup but Sony does own the Death Stranding trademark, so they probably own the whole IP as well.
Why they gave publishing rights to 505 is the big question here.

 

[iroboto]

Nope. According this this guy the onus of proof is on the parties claiming something, i.e. Death Stranding being owned by Sony. I have only questioned those claims in this thread by pointing out facts that would seem to contradict the claim.

You prove they are.

It's not air tight, as say this tweet is: (which in histories past, is the way MS handled exclusives)

https://twitter.com/x/status/983793903244525569

But, given the past history of Sony IPs, given the screenshots above. I'm more than willing to say this leans significantly in favour of Sony owning the IP and not KojiPro. I don't see sufficient evidence contrary to bring this to a coin toss.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sorry @DSoup but Sony does own the Death Stranding trademark, so they probably own the whole IP as well.

I've never claimed otherwise and gave an explanation in a couple of posts why publishers sometimes handle copyright and trademarks. Warner Bros have a number of registered trademarks and copyright on Batman despite the IP being owned by DC Comics. Except in a few cases, owners of popular IP generally allow a third party to manage the right and enforcement of those rights under publishing and distribution deals.

You may have read about Sony owning the rights to Spider-Man in moves but Marvel owning it everywhere else? Yes.. it's complicated.

@iroboto your post does not address my request for a claim, you are just dodging it. Don't be that guy. If you look at the interviews with Insomniac the whole reason they partnered with Microsoft was to own the IP of their next game, because Sony own Ratchet & Clank. This tweet shows how the developers (Kojima) can own the IP and the game still be a console exclusive.

So that really undermines the claim that Sony own Death Stranding because they published it and it's a console exclusive.

edit: link to Eurogamer's interview with Insomniac's Ted Price interview about IP.

 

[iroboto]

You may have read about Sony owning the right story Spider-Man in moves but Marvel owning it everywhere else? Yes.. it's complicated.

@iroboto your post does not address my request for a claim, you are just dodging it. Don't be that guy. If you look at the interviews with Insomniac the whole reason they partnered with Microsoft was to own the IP of their next game, because Sony own Ratchet & Clank. This tweet shows how the developers (Kojima) can own the IP and the game still be a console exclusive.

So that really undermines the claim that Sony own Death Stranding because they published it and it's a console exclusive.

Listen, I'm not trying to prove that Sony owns the IP or not. As an aside, I think there is significant evidence that they do.
But there are tons of examples where
a) developers make the game but do not own the IP
b) publishers publish a game and don't own the IP
c) IP owners cannot publish or develop the game
etc. the number of permutations and examples of this is quite large honestly.

I don't see any correlation between IP holders and publishers and developers. So when you make the claim that the 505 Games published Death Stranding because KojiPro owns the IP, I'm not ruling it out. I'm just saying it does not have to be the case, it's not air tight. But in this particular case, when it comes to IP ownership, it does lean towards Sony owning it, but that's not air tight either.

MS owns a ton of IPs, in particular FASA and piranha publishes most of the FASA IPs. MS easily could. But they don't. It's not like they don't have the technical capability to either.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Listen, I'm not trying to prove that Sony owns the IP or not. As an aside, I think there is significant evidence that they do.

You have provided no evidence at all, you are confusing circumstantial correlations and evidence. Evidence would be providing a link to Sony or Kojima confirming Sony own the IP.

But there are tons of examples where
a) developers make the game but do not own the IP
b) publishers publish a game and don't own the IP
c) IP owners cannot publish or develop the game
etc. the number of permutations and examples of this is quite large honestly.

All true. And it feels like you have not read some of my earlier posts. To be fair you did enter on the premise that you were "late to this discussion" but you arguing points that I have no made, indeed we agree on much of this. I think this is a drawback of jumping into a discussion without having read what people are claiming.

That said, are there any examples of Sony owning a IP and not being the publisher? Because I cannot think of a single one. Which would be weird because Death Stranding was published in July 2020 and we know from the porting timings of Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone, that Sony must have been deep into their "experiment" to profit from publishing PlayStation games on PC. It's inconceivable that Sony, who already had a publishing arm on Steam since 2015, didn't think about how they would publish games on PC and would need somebody else to do this. Especially when the goal is to maximum profits.

But the absolute, biggest and strongest indicator, that Death Stranding is not a Sony IP is that the game has never, ever been mentioned in any Sony financial statement. Every other game Sony IP, including games that failed commercially, have got a mention. Flagging new potential profit-driving IPs to shareholders is part of what you include in financial reports.

MS owns a ton of IPs, in particular FASA and piranha publishes most of the FASA IPs. MS easily could. But they don't. It's not like they don't have the technical capability to either.

Sony aren't Microsoft.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As I said in an earlier post, the arrangement for the Decima engine may well have been exclusivity in the console space. Sony aren't a charity.

Considering Sony have developed and offered their own cross-platform engine for free AFAIK, I'm not sure the Decima Engine kept to PS consoles would be considered a noteworthy prize. It's not like it's the driving force of their studios either which seem turned on to UE5 if going external.

If there were significant payments from DB/505 to Sony it would need to be stated in their financial report. ...Why is Death Stranding not mentioned in any Sony financial reports yet every other first and second party game is?

What exactly is the interest in DS anyway? What is it supposed to be demonstrating regard Sony games on PC?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You have provided no evidence at all, you are confusing circumstantial correlations and evidence. Evidence would be providing a link to Sony or Kojima confirming Sony own the IP.

I feel the argument is getting a little het up and at the moment is toing and froing over a single point in a 'I need to not be wrong' kind of internet way rather than 'answering a question' kind of way.

I suggest people take a step back and be ready to drop the subject if that's best for the overall discussion. Focus on what the question actually is and whether Sony owning/publishing Death Stranding answers that question. If the situation regards DS isn't that important to the the topic, people can save time posting wordy point-counterpoint arguments that aren't really headed anyway.

/2cents

 

[iroboto]

I feel the argument is getting a little het up and at the moment is toing and froing over a single point in a 'I need to not be wrong' kind of internet way rather than 'answering a question' kind of way.

I suggest people take a step back and be ready to drop the subject if that's best for the overall discussion. Focus on what the question actually is and whether Sony owning/publishing Death Stranding answers that question. If the situation regards DS isn't that important to the the topic, people can save time posting wordy point-counterpoint arguments that aren't really headed anyway.

/2cents

it is a moot point as it has no bearing on the topic. So I'm dropping it. I can neither confirm or deny whether I'm right, so it's best to leave it. At least with respect to this topic of Sony games coming to PC, I wouldn't trend based off Death Stranding, but after they trademarked Playstation PC LLC. At least that is an official announcement for the PC space as opposed to whatever it was before that, this wouldn't be much different from the day Xbox announced their titles to be Xbox Play Anywhere going forward in 2015. I wouldn't count anything pre-2015.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

More Sony on PC is a gimme given they've announced more titles and said there'll be more. So far we have HZD and after the initial opener for this thread, that's been followed with Days Gone, Uncharted 4, and Dad of War. The question is more what games will come to PC and how long between console and PC releases? Is Sony intending PC games to funnel users to console? Or as suggested, these PC players never, ever going to get a PS console, just cash in on big titles to maximise ROI? If the latter, what's the threshold for avoiding cannibalising PS sales? If it's not that large, day 1 PC versions could happen.

I guess Sony will push some smaller titles nearer console launch to see how console sales seem effected, trying to sniff out the best time for a PC version.

The other question is how much a PS5 game will be designed cross-platform with PC in mind. Likely not at all to begin with as Sony can't risk undermining the PS5 experience, but long term might be cross-plat developers.

Personally I want an end to platform exclusives. It's an eco-concern now. Spending world resources to create a console to play Naughty Dog games and then the same amount of resources on a different box to play Bethesda games when one box would suffice is objectively wasteful. Given there's nothing particular to differentiate the hardwares, even exclusive features like fancy controllers getting little real-world use, one box to rule them all is the only sane solution.

 

[PSman1700]

As per the topic;

Sony have a long history of releasing games on Windows.

Not AAA exclusives and all though, thats something Sony started with quite recently.

ony must have been deep into their "experiment" to profit from publishing PlayStation games on PC.

Well, that experiment seemed to work out well for them, seeing their aquistion and branding along with what they said would be coming in the future.

Personally I want an end to platform exclusives. It's an eco-concern now. Spending world resources to create a console to play Naughty Dog games and then the same amount of resources on a different box to play Bethesda games when one box would suffice is objectively wasteful. Given there's nothing particular to differentiate the hardwares, even exclusive features like fancy controllers getting little real-world use, one box to rule them all is the only sane solution.

Yeah, cant agree more. Same with timed exclusives, exclusive characters in cross-plat games etc and all that other bs. It seems Sony is agreeing with this too, seeing their modern stance
Great for everyone.

 

[see colon]

The numbers came from 505's parent company's financial report. If they omitted to declare that particular financial commitment or liability, wouldn't that be all kinds of illegal under most countries trading regulations? Particularly when Death Stranding was by far the most profitable game on sale. This generally falls under no 'no misleading shareholders' requirement.

So I'm willing to drop this topic as I feel I've opened up a can or worms here that has people drawing lines and that wasn't my intention. But I wanted to comment on this because the financial reports that are public facing often are obtuse in ways to protect the details of contracts for all parties involved. If 505 is paying Sony or Kojima Productions for the rights to publish Death Stranding it would in the same "Royalties" line item. It wouldn't be listed as "Payments to XXXXX for game YYYYY", just like their operating costs don't have detailed break downs for how much they spent on toilet paper or salami.

The same would be true from Sony's side. They collect revenue from all sorts of licenses, and that would be listed with minimal details to protect the details of their individual agreements.

Here's a link to Digital Bros financial report from December 2020, where they talk about the success of DS, in case anyone is interested.

What exactly is the interest in DS anyway? What is it supposed to be demonstrating regard Sony games on PC?

Yeah, sorry. This is my fault. For context, though, if DS is a Sony IP, then it being published by 505 while Sony shifted to self publish it's more premium IPs on PC soon after I though was topical because it showed an evolution of Sony's position on IP exclusivity. But I think I might have thrown a carrot into a briar patch and got a lot of us thorned up chasing it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Perhaps because Death Stranding is a game developed by Hideo Kojima and he owns the IP? Because the last time he had popular IP, Konami took it from him? Because he'd have to be a f***ing idiot to let that happen again?

Because the Death Stranding IP is actually owned by Hideo Kojima and Sony, in their publishing deal for PlayStation, just registered all the trademarks and copying so he could get on developing the game..

Crazy I know.. but seriously.

There is one convoluted process that might resolve conflicting thoughts on this.

First we have Kojima stating that he wants all games he produces to appear on multiple platforms and prior to Death Stranding being announce mentioning that his next game would appear on multiple platforms.

Then we have Sony trademarking the game implying that they might own the IP.

It's possible that in negotiations with Sony in exchange for allowing them ownership of the IP, Kojima stipulated that it must also ship on at the very least one other non-Playstation platform (PC in this case).

It could also be possible that if Sony do (or did) own the IP for Death Stranding that there is wording in the contract that stipulates that at some point after the launch of the game, ownership rights of the IP would either automatically pass back to Kojima or he would have the option to buy back the IP with Sony not being able to refuse such an offer as long as it exceeded X amount of currency.

Considering how ownership of IP that Kojima creates was one of the reasons he left Konami, it's hard to envisage him voluntarily giving up the IP of the very next game he creates after leaving Konami. But it may have been a situation where he was unable to raise enough capital to fund his next game and thus he was forced into a situation of having to negotiate ownership of the IP for his next game in order to secure funding from Sony for the production of the game.

So I guess, it'll be one of these situations.

• Sony permanently owns the Death Stranding IP.
• Sony temporarily owns the Death Stranding IP.
• Kojima Produtions owns the Death Stranding IP.

While Sony did release some smaller titles on PC under PlayStation Mobile (Helldivers and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture), it may be that for the first AAA title to get the PC treatment they were hands off. Basically with Kojima Studios handling the PC version of the game, perhaps Kojima Studios was thus also allowed to choose who would publish the PC version of Death Stranding despite Sony potentially owning the IP. This could also be part of the contract involving potential Sony IP ownership if Kojima did indeed allow Sony to have the IP to Death Stranding.

It's also possible that in said contract, there might be stipulations in place that all non-PlayStation profits for the game would go directly to Kojima Productions. Basically in order for Sony to have the rights to the IP they had to give up any non-PlayStation revenue for the game. At the time that may have been acceptable to Sony in order to secure the IP rights as they may not have had any AAA aspirations for PC back then (teaser for Kojima's next game after Konami was a quite a few years ago).

Basically a unique situation that's unlikely to come up again.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Considering Sony have developed and offered their own cross-platform engine for free AFAIK, I'm not sure the Decima Engine kept to PS consoles would be considered a noteworthy prize. It's not like it's the driving force of their studios either which seem turned on to UE5 if going external.

Not the engine, the game. This could have been agreed even before the game concept was even fully fleshed out and before anybody knew it was going to be weird post-apocalyptic Amazon delivery simulator. Much like Microsoft's bankrolling Sunset Overdrive on Xbox. Insomniac made clear it was their IP but it never appeared on PlayStation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

What exactly is the interest in DS anyway? What is it supposed to be demonstrating regard Sony games on PC?

I think it's just to add +1 to the number of 'first party games Sony have released on PC'.

More Sony on PC is a gimme given they've announced more titles and said there'll be more. So far we have HZD and after the initial opener for this thread, that's been followed with Days Gone, Uncharted 4, and Dad of War. The question is more what games will come to PC and how long between console and PC releases? Is Sony intending PC games to funnel users to console? Or as suggested, these PC players never, ever going to get a PS console, just cash in on big titles to maximise ROI? If the latter, what's the threshold for avoiding cannibalising PS sales? If it's not that large, day 1 PC versions could happen.

Potentially both of these. Particularly as Sony have chosen two games (Horizon, God of War) which have imminent sequels coming to consoles. As for the last point, nobody here would be able to provide a definitive answer. We know that currently, sales of Sony's games on PC are having no impact on their financial reports and it is known that first party games are there to add value of the appeal and allure of the platform. Sony obviously want as many people on their platform, and buying as many games, as possible because they make quite a chunk of change through licensing, i.e. people buying any games on a PlayStation. GTA V was great for both Microsoft and Sony.

If Sony feel releasing their games on PC at (or much closer) to PlayStation launch date has no real impact then it could make a lot of sense to roll PC port effort into main development, as long as this in itself does not overly slow the development. But consoles are changing and I would argue that they have never been so close to a decent-spec'd PCs in terms of 60fps and solid graphical settings and I think they could be very appealing to some people who only game on PC for 60fps. In which case, not releasing sought-after games on PC quicker may bring some of those PC holdouts over to consoles.

Back in 2016 ahead of the PS4 Pro launch, Sony's Andrew House said their mid-gen console were to slow the bleed of PlayStation gamers switching to PC mid-generation so they clearly have some metrics to weigh the PlayStation owners switching to PC for some games and they may well have metrics that demonstrate a switch the other way. The word Sony used for their raft of PC ports was "experiment". This could be a short or a long-term experiment. Presumably at some pint, Sony will validate their research and made a decision about what they will do going forward.

edit: typos/grammar.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Particularly as Sony have chosen two games (Horizon, God of War) which have imminent sequels coming to consoles.

Don't forget that sandwiched between those 2 games was a game with no imminent sequel, Days Gone. Granted the sequel was cancelled, but it's unknown whether the sequel had any impact on their decision to port the game to PC as the PC version launched over a month after rumors started to emerge that the sequel had been cancelled.

As well, the next exclusive PS title to come to PC is Uncharted and the rumored next game in the series has also allegedly been cancelled.

So that would make 2 titles that could make someone interested in the PS platform and 2 titles that do nothing to entice someone to the PS platform. Assuming the rumors of GoW: Ragnarok coming to PC in a year or two are incorrect then the upcoming GoW will up the talley of games with a sequel to 3. If the rumors are correct then it would up the titles that aren't enticements to PS to 3.

IMO, this makes it inconclusive whether Sony's main goal with PC releases is to entice people to the PS platform or just be another avenue to maximize profits.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Don't forget that sandwiched between those 2 games was a game with no imminent sequel, Days Gone.

I'm not forgetting this. Given the popularity of zombie survival games and that DG's engine was Unreal, I think these factors contributed to Sony's decision include this game in the initial batch - not to mention it didn't do as well as Sony wanted on PS4 (hence a sequel being cancelled) so is all the more reason to recoup costs via a PC port.