DavidGraham
Veteran
Sony PlayStation cross-platform game strategy
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
I think demon souls was kinda expected for me.
GT7 would solidify a philosophical shift. It's a tentpole PS exclusive, system shifter. Racing games don't have they pull they used to, but it's still iconic. To release on PC within a short time-frame of the PS5 release would show Sony are serious about transitioning to content maker.
I think its also due to it being a game with an online mode?
Yep. I think even now, you can feel the shift in language with the fact that now they are starting to advertise their PC ports a bit more and actually announce them at State of Play's.. They're less apprehensive about speaking of them. It's obvious that new management at Sony is about maximizing their IPs potential in all facets, such as platforms (PC, Phones), media (Movies and TV Shows), and cross promotions and tie-in's.
Sony see's their IPs as the platform now, and to really drive growth, they've got to nurture it in the right way for each specific IP. So a game like GT7.. is a nice fit for a "closer to console launch" release on PC, because PC gamers like Racing games and sims, and Sony wouldn't mind getting in on that and disrupting that market and growing it.
well yea they announced it with the slide that was a mistake lol.
I am excited since that was the game I would have eventually bought a ps5 (or borrowed one) for. Now I will just grab it on pc
FH5 is over 18 million players in a few months. Did racers have higher pull than that?
Maybe thats why Sony went multiplatform (FH is). That or Forza is a more popular racing genre nowadays? Ive never been into these so i dont know.
Horizons isn't a straight track game so for many people its more fun to play because its more forgiving. I don't really care to much for racing games but have always perfered horizon to motorsport. It was the same with virtua racing + daytona vs sega rally for me. The majority of people I know feel the same way.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
When you look around there are still quite a lot of racers released every year but they do feel less prominent than when every publisher had a premium racer. It feels like the generic racer was been replaced by a bunch of niches. On-track, street, off-road, open world, F1, car, bike, other vehicle, simulation, arcade etc.
Based on nothing other than subjective feeling, it does feel like racers are second-fiddle to first person shooters and third-person action/shooters but 18m is 18m. Maybe we've hit a resurgence. Maybe it never went away.
Last i played any of this was on the PS2 and OG xbox, GT4 and Forza on respective platforms. Both didnt entertain me for long, never touched any racing game since. I'd rather play fighting games even
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Racing games are definitely still a niche. A niche where the average racing game player has a lot of disposable income (not uncommon to spend 2000+ USD on racing gear in addition to a 2000+ USD PC) but still a niche from the standpoint of how many people are playing them.
Forza Horizon 5 has a couple key things going for it.
- Forza Horizon 5 isn't a straight racing game. You can think of it as a spectacle driving game that happens to have racing in it.
- Most of your average gamers aren't interested in racing games enough to pay for a straight racing game.
- But a great looking open world driving game that happens to have racing in it?
- Speaking of which, Forza Horizons sells better than Forza Motorsports.
- At the time of this article, the 2 most recent FH games prior to FH5 sold faster than the 3 most recent FM games. FH5 and Halo: Infinite would push 2 of the FM games off the list if the list was updated today.
- Xbox One: The 10 Fastest-Selling Exclusives (& How Much They Sold) (thegamer.com)
- Additionally you can see how sales of the traditional racing game (FM) were dropping off. FM5 sold ~351k in one week, FM 6 sold only 221k in that time and FM 7 only sold 176k in one week.
- Forza Horizons on the other hand increased sales over time. FH3 sold ~407k in one week while FH4 sold ~2 million in one week. And FH5 sold better than FH4.
- Forza Horizon 5 is on Game Pass.
- Not interested in paying for a racing game because it doesn't seem exciting? Try it on Game Pass.
- Don't have Game Pass? It's a cheap way to sub for one month to try it, or some other game and then try Forza Horizon 5 just for the heck of it.
- If they enjoy it, they'll talk about it to their friends who are also probably not racing game fans.
That said, it may help to spark renewed interest in racing games among non-racing enthusiasts. After seeing GT7 in the Sony spotlight, I'm hoping it sells really well also. It looks great. However, if Forza Motorsports sales is anything to go by, it'll likely sell well as the only PS exclusive racer, but it's unlikely to sell in anything close to FH5 numbers.
So for me, as good as it looks I'm not interested in playing GT7 or a future Forza Motorsport because I'm one of those people from the first point. I'm not really interested in racing games, but I absolutely LOVE FH5. Probably because it's not "just" a racing game. I primarily play it to just drive around and rarely race in it.
I'll be surprised if the next Forza Motorsports sells even half as many copies as FH5.
Regards,
SB
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It'd certainly be something to see both Forza and GT on the same platform. Bet they'd look nice sitting next to each other in my Steam library.
It was free on Game Pass. GP figures aren't comparable to other figures and don't provide a comparison point. Kinda like a chocolatier having a slow decline, so one day offering free samples and then reporting "10x more people visited this month than ever before."
Does it matter if the chocolatier went from selling chocolate to selling access to their shop ? Both ways make the chocolatier money. In fact selling access to the shop means even if they create a new combination or flavor of chocolate and it fails they can still make a profit from visitations. Previously if the new flavor failed they would be out all that money on product and no other revenue stream to help them.
DavidGraham
Veteran
They also speak about them in their financial calls.
https://wccftech.com/sony-calls-god...s-structured-to-encourage-employee-retention/
Yes if you're trying to measure and compare visitors to the shop. Furthermore, if visit to chocolatiers everywhere are down, and then one opens up free samples and reports the highest number of visitors ever, that doesn't indicate increasing interest in chocolate either. For all we know, 90% of those visiting the chocolate tried chocolate, hated it, and will never buy any. Footfall is no use. In the case of GP, the price of entry is the shopping mall. Just because there's a chocolatier there handing out free samples that lots are trying, doesn't mean those people are interested in chocolate.
Any product changing to a free model is not going to be generating data comparable with previous data, and can't be used as such. Once established as a free model, future comparisons between products in the same sales model will be comparable and useful, but between GP titles and non-GP titles, it's useful numbers.
My view may be wrong. I'm chiefly basing it on activity some years back where a number of driving game studios closed/were absorbed and someone, possibly Codemasters, said car games just weren't selling. Maybe things have turned around since then? But size of a free sample driving game userbase is not indicative of growth or even a healthy market for paid-for driving titles. That evidence will have to come from elsewhere.
