Sony PlayStation cross-platform game strategy

JPT said:
I am not sure its the death of consoles, more and more people are even more clueless about computers.
Everybody just expects plug n play deluxe, I work with some phd students and some of them are like øhh hd is that the box?

Computers, seems to me, to be very niche field of interest. Maybe a gaming habit might boost your tolerance for googling (youtube*) to do stuff, but in general it does not look like it to me.
What is it with kids and 10-15 min youtube videos which shows you which button to click vs reading a tip/walkthrough written in 15 lines..... Gahh it really really annoys me :D
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PC's nowadays are just like consoles in ease of use, not quite as 'plug & play' but its close. Most dont build themselfs, but buy pre-build pc's and laptops with OS instealled. The hardware/technology itself might be 'niche' as an intrest, but not the use of it (gaming etc).
 
If you are buying a PC to replace a console, with a console like OS, it'll cost more then the console as the hardware has to be profitable. If you don't have the tech savvy to build your own, you also need to pay someone to assemble it. To date attempts to create such console-like PCs have failed.

If you are playing games on PC instead of a console, you have the added value for the PC for everything else, the Home PC, but then the OS is not console like and you can't use that at the same time as PC work. As such, if someone needs the PC to work and you want to game, you don't. That's when you'd turn to the console, which now is a PC that does the same thing as a console but costs more and is bigger and has shader compilation stutters etc.

There is no direct replacement for consoles. PC's are way better than they were, but it's not an effortless ecosystem. I think until PC offers a true console experience in parallel with a 'work' OS, people won't switch, and that interface struggles to manifest. A dual-boot Linux Steam-OS/Windows computer? That could do it, but at what price? And what library do you offer if your games are Linux, not Windows? Of course users can swap between, but then you ned the tech savvy user, not the layman.
 
Theres clearly a market for both, though it must be said that the pc as a gaming platform made great strides over the decades while consoles have always been easy to use. The PC cant be as 'easy' because its versetile, while the console is just for hassle-free gaming, however thats also it then.
Back in the day you had to search for and manually update your gpu, audio, chipset drivers. Same for game patches, you often didnt even know they'd be there. Driver support was quite a hassle too, some games where just broken to the point you couldnt play. PC's where also extremely expensive back in the mid 90's/early 2000's, often you needed the highest end to match/exceed consoles, not even mentioning upgrading every two years to be able to keep playing. Yet the platform was very popular as a gaming experience.

Todays 'problems' are a luxury compared to backthen, i think atleast.

Shifty Geezer said:
I think until PC offers a true console experience in parallel with a 'work' OS, people won't switch, and that interface struggles to manifest.
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True, i think something like Valve is doing (big picture mode, steamdeck os) could be a potentional replacement for some.
 
eastmen said:

Ryzen 9 7950X 128GB ddr 5 and a rx 6900xt running steam os 3 aka steam deck.

It's extremely close to a console like OS. I am sure with some modifications valve could release a home version. Right now valve has almost weekly updates for steam os for the index constantly adding features.
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I did a thread about that a month ago.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
There is no direct replacement for consoles. PC's are way better than they were, but it's not an effortless ecosystem. I think until PC offers a true console experience in parallel with a 'work' OS, people won't switch, and that interface struggles to manifest.
Click to expand...

Steam Deck seems to work for most users.
 
Valve tried console-like PCs with Steam Machines and couldn't make it work, discontinuing them after three years. Maybe Valve could make it work now, but the economics of a closed-ecosystem console with manufacturer's profiting from licensing and sales/mtx is quite different to the PC space. The pros and cons are all reversed so making them meet somewhere in the middle is likely really challenging.
 
DSoup said:
Valve tried console-like PCs with Steam Machines and couldn't make it work, discontinuing them after three years. Maybe Valve could make it work now, but the economics of a closed-ecosystem console with manufacturer's profiting from licensing and sales/mtx is quite different to the PC space. The pros and cons are all reversed so making them meet somewhere in the middle is likely really challenging.
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They would have to just make and ship their own device like the steam deck but for the living room. Valve could sell at cost while having oems involved they would expect to profit on the machines
 
DSoup said:
Valve tried console-like PCs with Steam Machines and couldn't make it work, discontinuing them after three years. Maybe Valve could make it work now, but the economics of a closed-ecosystem console with manufacturer's profiting from licensing and sales/mtx is quite different to the PC space. The pros and cons are all reversed so making them meet somewhere in the middle is likely really challenging.
Click to expand...

Thats awhile ago though. If it works out so well for the Deck it could potentionally scale up from there.
 
PSman1700 said:
PC's nowadays are just like consoles in ease of use, not quite as 'plug & play' but its close. Most dont build themselfs, but buy pre-build pc's and laptops with OS instealled. The hardware/technology itself might be 'niche' as an intrest, but not the use of it (gaming etc).
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I have to disagree on that, because the PC runs a general multipurpose OS, which means fuck ups will happen. The crud that accumulates in OS in regards to files etc etc.
I utterly loath windows, last version I used daily was XP. Then I went with Ubuntu and then MacOs, so I am open about Windows being better today, but it does not seem like it the way my coworkers always are having an issue or another with their work and home computers.

Still when things break, which they do, because you need to do either some updates or change to something to run game x that does not work with game y.
The solution is you either go and reinstall everything or you bog down into an hellscape of windows pain :D

Ohh yeah, I banned Windows servers in our company to the extent it was possible (did I mention I do not like windows?), we got one for AD stuff and one for our accounting system, rest is Linux something.
 
JPT said:
I have to disagree on that
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JPT said:
did I mention I do not like windows?
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I respect that, everyone has their preferences. From WinXp to 11 though many things have changed for the better, its not just the OS but the time-frame aswell. I mean PC gaming in that context was quite the different beast backthen.
I for one truly dislike macOS, though that doesnt mean its a bad OS either. If PC gamers could live with windows pc's as gaming systems two decades ago they sure can today with W11.
PC and console have grown closer in that regard, which is for the better i think.

JPT said:
Still when things break, which they do, because you need to do either some updates or change to something to run game x that does not work with game y.
The solution is you either go and reinstall everything or you bog down into an hellscape of windows pain :D
Click to expand...

Its really, really seldom that something like that happens. It was much more often in the XP days for sure. Nowadays games just run as it should, GPU drivers update automatically, so do games and patches, even windows at automated times.
 
I don't think anyone can really talk about the state of gaming on Windows until they've tried it extensively in the current version. It's history was poor, but things have clearly improved a lot. I don't regard it as a fabulous OS, but Win 10 is doing me okay in day to day use. I still think the Registry kludges up but I keep this machine pretty clean. I'm aware Steam does a lot of maintenance and I tried Big Picture some years ago, it was clunky, but not since. But unless you are installing and uninstalling and trying these games, you can't tell how kludged the OS gets over time or not and how many real issues there are or not.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the PC gamers who say it's largely trouble free are doing little routine maintenance, or have tweaked pro settings, almost subconsciously that the layman console-grunt couldn't do, and that there's little usability issues that would greatly impact someone wanting to switch from console to PC.

Pretty sure everyone here has to be the 'IT Support' of the family and friend groups, so we know what it's like dealing with Windows nonsense. I get far, far less of that these days than pre Win 10, but I can't say it's zero whereas in that respect consoles are a zero effort machine still.

Or rather, I don't think anecodtal evidence and feelings gets us very far in this conversation and you'd need a proper usability survey to ascertain how Joe Public can get along with gaming on Windows. Prejudices can run pretty deep when founded on bad experience.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
I don't think anyone can really talk about the state of gaming on Windows until they've tried it extensively in the current version. It's history was poor, but things have clearly improved a lot. I don't regard it as a fabulous OS, but Win 10 is doing me okay in day to day use. I still think the Registry kludges up but I keep this machine pretty clean. I'm aware Steam does a lot of maintenance and I tried Big Picture some years ago, it was clunky, but not since. But unless you are installing and uninstalling and trying these games, you can't tell how kludged the OS gets over time or not and how many real issues there are or not.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the PC gamers who say it's largely trouble free are doing little routine maintenance, or have tweaked pro settings, almost subconsciously that the layman console-grunt couldn't do, and that there's little usability issues that would greatly impact someone wanting to switch from console to PC.

Pretty sure everyone here has to be the 'IT Support' of the family and friend groups, so we know what it's like dealing with Windows nonsense. I get far, far less of that these days than pre Win 10, but I can't say it's zero whereas in that respect consoles are a zero effort machine still.

Or rather, I don't think anecodtal evidence and feelings gets us very far in this conversation and you'd need a proper usability survey to ascertain how Joe Public can get along with gaming on Windows. Prejudices can run pretty deep when founded on bad experience.
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PC gamers in some ways remind me of Linux users.

Both make similar claims (gaming is easy on PC/Linux is easy to use). And that might be true for both statements since they are accustomed to dealing with any issues that might arise while gaming on PC or using Linux as a daily driver. But those statements aren't necessarily true if you don't have knowledge of the system you are using and how to easily/routinely deal with any small or large issues that might pop up.

Hell, just using a Mac occasionally renders statements that MacOS is easy to use a flawed statement if you are coming from another system with which you are accustomed. MacOS always feels so awkward and backwards when I've been forced to use it, although it's gotten significantly better for me as they've adopted more Windows centric ways of doing things (resizing windows from more than just one corner of the window for example. :p). I'm sure the feeling is mutual for any MacOS user that is forced to use a Windows system.

Regards,
SB
 
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Definitely a sign that Sony are happy where things are. I wonder what their expectations are, given the PC sales of all games are below their console equivalents. Of course, if they release something day and date on both platforms, that gap may be narrow.
 
Have we any decent data on PC sales? The anecdotal evidence I'm hearing is these ports aren't selling at all well. If not, that begs the question why not and if PC gamers are different in their tastes, certainly towards some genres.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Have we any decent data on PC sales? The anecdotal evidence I'm hearing is these ports aren't selling at all well. If not, that begs the question why not and if PC gamers are different in their tastes, certainly towards some genres.
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While they aren't PlayStation sales numbers, Sony has revealed that they've sold in the millions. Day's Gone was the worst selling and even that is likely over a million now or will be by the end of the year (Steam Holiday Sale).

www.dsogaming.com

Sony reveals official PC sales numbers for God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn & Days Gone

Sony has just revealed the official PC sales figures for God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone.
www.dsogaming.com www.dsogaming.com

Sales on PC tend to have long tails. All titles released thus far haven't been day and date which hurts sales.

Regards,
SB
 
Things like UC4 and sackboy arent big hitters, for obvious reasons. However GoW, Spiderman, Horizon.... these do very, very well on pc.
 
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