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Sony insists it really likes crossplay now, PlayStation CEO says the number of titles supporting it will continue to grow

ksdixon

Member
Yes things are not in a bubble. It's about engagement. I'm sure there are Xbox owners that convinced a Playstation owner to buy a game so they could play together. That game purchase and possible DLC wouldn't have happened if crossplay wasn't a thing. It's such a shortsighted view to think Sony (and their users) don't benefit from this.
Engagement? Sony have the higher market share. They have the marketing deals for franchises that XB used to have. They have exclusive content only on PS, like Spiderman in Marvel Avengers, or Joker levels in Batman Arkham. Sony put a picture of the PS5 logo on social media and got the highest liked gaming related post in history. Then they topped that with the controller pic like a month later. "Engagement", pffft!

I'm not seeing it. PR wise Sony should get a small boost and a pat on the back for doing it. But as we've seen, they still getting dogged for not doing it sooner, or for wanting a something positive from it via the royalty fee.

But business wise? It still makes no sense. The gaming media are all like "C'mon Mr Sony Hare, let the little old XB tortoise catch you up, it's not fare, it's anti consumer of you even".

Meanwhile MS aren't "playing fair", backing the money truck up to Bethesda and spunking out 7.2B. But no one seems to call them on that, because everyone wants game pass for cheap.

If you start down the slippery slope of removing reasons for people to want your new box, eventually you're fucked and you lose the ability to effectively market your console the next time.
 

ksdixon

Member
Random side note: I'm actually for crossplay as a consumer. But the mental gymnastics by some posters and the games media at large to vilify Sony over not supporting it fast enough, or wanting a royalty fee is truely baffling to me. With the aspect of it harming Sony to enrich their competition, it takes the convo into a diffeent area than people dogging Sony over something like their lack of backwards compatiblity support.

Sony have enough issue of their own such as lack of bc support, cross gen creep and lyin' Jim Ryan's "we believe in generations" bullocks to where people thing they're causing themselves bad pr already, without people pretending like it makes sense for them business-wise to do this, or that gaming is a charity where they should do it without the royalty fee just because.
 

ksdixon

Member
I m mad at Sony, this is BS like their BC, its almost a year since ps5 launch and 90% of PS4 first party games are locked at 30fps, cant be that hard to unlock framerate on first party games .

Doesnt the PS5 run PS4 games in PS4 or PS4 Pro mode tough?

Developers have to go back and write specific performance patches, like TLOU1 did and saw a massive load time decrease even when played on a launch PS4; or they usually wrap these improvements into a PS5 upgraded version of the game, like FF7 REMAKE PS5.
 

BeardGawd

Banned
K ksdixon you are missing my point entirely. Crossplay increases sales for ALL PLATFORMS including Playstation. If an Xbox/PC/Switch player convinces their PS friend to buy a game so they can play it together. That's a sale for Sony. This whole idea that they are losing something by enabling crossplay is nonsense.

Also this helps the developers because if friends on different consoles can play together that obviously boosts sales all around.
 

IDappa

Member
And how does that affect you in any way?


Yep everyone should just get freebies and handouts. Running a profitable business is old school and outdated.
Wouldn't it affect him by having game developers that do no want to pay not support the feature which in turn hurts gamers?. Whereas Sony getting paid affects you how?. Need to get your tongue outta Sony's arse bro.
 
Make Guilty Gear Strive and Melty Blood Type Lumina have cross-play so that event orgs don't have to run separate platform (console/pc) tournaments for each game.
 
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ksdixon

Member
K ksdixon you are missing my point entirely. Crossplay increases sales for ALL PLATFORMS including Playstation. If an Xbox/PC/Switch player convinces their PS friend to buy a game so they can play it together. That's a sale for Sony. This whole idea that they are losing something by enabling crossplay is nonsense.

Also this helps the developers because if friends on different consoles can play together that obviously boosts sales all around.
I'm clearly not getting your point. In your scenario above, you think Sony would be happy someone spending £70 on a game to play with their XB friend, rather than that XB friend needing to buy their own ps5 and then the game? Of course Sony want some form of financial compensation from the devs whom are begging for crossplay because it helps the devs and competing platforms. As market leader, it helps Sony not, but at least now they're getting some money out of it. And with the other pr issues Sony has, I'm sure that money is something lyin' Jim Ryan can point to to deflect criticism "fuck you I monetized crossplay". Fiddle-on precious Nero, as your company burns around you.
 

ksdixon

Member
Ok then make Borderlands 3 cross play like every other platform including Stadia.
I don't think borderlands wants to pay the royalty fee. Which is their right, just as it's Sony's to allow crossplay under their own terms.

Besides that, I really need to look into it more if it's truely about in-game-store cross platform transaction cuts, rather than about simply allowing for crossplay itself.

I just dislike the narrative of "Sony bad over crossplay/royalty", when there's plenty legitimate things to ding them and especially Jim Ryan over.
 

KAL2006

Banned
K ksdixon you are missing my point entirely. Crossplay increases sales for ALL PLATFORMS including Playstation. If an Xbox/PC/Switch player convinces their PS friend to buy a game so they can play it together. That's a sale for Sony. This whole idea that they are losing something by enabling crossplay is nonsense.

Also this helps the developers because if friends on different consoles can play together that obviously boosts sales all around.

I think the idea of Sony's policy is they only ask for a fee if you bought the game on PS4 and play majority of the time on PS4. But when you buy microtransactions on a competing platform they ask for that money.

So for example if I bought and play Rocket League majority of the time in my PS4. But I buy DLC on the Switch version Sony want that money.
 

CeeJay

Member
I think the idea of Sony's policy is they only ask for a fee if you bought the game on PS4 and play majority of the time on PS4. But when you buy microtransactions on a competing platform they ask for that money.

So for example if I bought and play Rocket League majority of the time in my PS4. But I buy DLC on the Switch version Sony want that money.
Surely this would even itself out though by the law of averages. If PS4 has the majority of players then it stands to reason that the majority or MTs or DLC will be purchased there as well.

It is just as likely for a person who owns multiple systems with multiple copies of the game to buy the MTs and DLC on Playstation as any of the other platform.

In the bolded example, what if you bought and play Rocket league the majority of the time on Switch but then buy DLC on your brothers PS4 that you use rarely because you got some PS store credit for your birthday? Does Nintendo get a cut of that? Nope
 

MikeM

Member
I want crossplay, so long as I have the option to turn it off when I don't want to play with PC cheaters.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
But didn’t all the sony fans on here say they didn’t like cross play. Microsoft also said they didn’t like cross play, its a good thing we have it and only benefits gamers and helps friends play when they have differing platforms
 

reksveks

Member

This and Borderlands 3. We need some more companies taking a stand too.
If the xbox and PC platform gets more players then the bigger the demand from consumers and smaller the 'risk' that Sony is taking.

Consumers whom have the option and care about this should be signalling their discontent by buying these games on Non-Sony platforms.

If EA throws Sony under the bus, it might make a small difference but think the smarter strategy is MS paying EA for cross-play and see if it has an impact.
 

LMJ

Member
If the xbox and PC platform gets more players then the bigger the demand from consumers and smaller the 'risk' that Sony is taking.

Consumers whom have the option and care about this should be signalling their discontent by buying these games on Non-Sony platforms.

If EA throws Sony under the bus, it might make a small difference but think the smarter strategy is MS paying EA for cross-play and see if it has an impact.


It says that Sony cross play isn't feasible ATM...maybe they're working on it...

Also likely due to it being an ooooold game, but Sony best get on the ball as these games hitting gamepass could very well give them a shot in the arm and revitalize interest

Still...not a good look Sony :messenger_pensive:
 
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reksveks

Member
It says that Sony cross play isn't feasible ATM...maybe they're working on it...

Also likely due to it being an ooooold game, but Sony best get on the ball as these games hitting gamepass could very well give them a shot in the arm and revitalize interest

Still...not a good look Sony :messenger_pensive:
I think it's likely to be a legal thing but its possible it's technical, maybe the xbox solution was the easiest to implement. I do wonder what backend service it is using cause its also missing cross-play on Steam.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster

This and Borderlands 3. We need some more companies taking a stand too.

Taking a stand for what exactly?

You make it sound like some noble cause, when all its actually about is more money for themselves.
If it actually is about policy and fees, which is uncertain.
 
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93xfan

Banned
Taking a stand for what exactly?

You make it sound like some noble cause, when all its actually about is more money for themselves.
If it actually is about policy and fees, which is uncertain.

Sony has a policy that will affect how many games get crossplay.

It’s odd that you frame it as developers “keeping more money for themselves.” Not wanting to pay a ridiculous fee that PC, mobile, Nintendo, and Xbox don’t charge isn’t being greedy. And it’s not as if Sony is doing some hard work that merits compensation.
 

yurinka

Member
Well yeah, but that's somewhat irrelevant. Sony have long done PS2-PC, PSP-PS3, VITA-PS4, and I believe PS4-PC, PS4-PS5 and PS5-PC initiatives like cross platform play, cross gamesave usage, and cross buy.

I didn't say from the user's point of view. I said from Sony's business pov. You can't even say "oh go-on, be fair, papa Sony", they're gonna turn round and say "but we have most market share, if they want to play together then the person on XB or whatever platform should get a PS". Why should Sony hurt themselves and give a free boon to their direct competition, and not at least get some financial compensation for it?

... Because people cry on twitter?

Cross play and cross gen/PS-PC all devalue the reasons for needing to get Sony's latest and greatest machine, but that's a wider conversation for a later time.
Crossplay benefits Sony users and their console being the only one not supporting it for some games made them look bad, so some player may have decided to buy it in another platform because it didn't support it.

Crossplay did hurt Sony in games with DLC or IAP and cross save because multiplatform games Playstation is the best selling platform for most multi games, but there was the risk of being spending PSN's server and customer support costs on them while DLC and IAP may have been bought cheaper in other stores.

So by including a fee for the case where crosssave+crossplay games compensate Sony in the case it happens, plus the publisher agreeing Sony doesn't take responsability for the users that aren't from their platform solves any issue Sony may have with crossplay. So with them solved, Sony is ok with crossplay.

Taking a stand for what exactly?

You make it sound like some noble cause, when all its actually about is more money for themselves.
If it actually is about policy and fees, which is uncertain.
Their publisher is now a Microsoft studio, so they decided to include it on Game Pass and to not implement crossplay in PS.

That's exactly what I said, no? I don't care what happened 5, 10, 20 years ago, what matters is what's going on now. And what's going now is the opposite of what Ryan says, you could say he's Sony's Michael Patcher.
Bullshit. Mention and single thing Ryan said now and that what's going on right now is the opposite providing a fact.

Sony has a policy that will affect how many games get crossplay.

It’s odd that you frame it as developers “keeping more money for themselves.” Not wanting to pay a ridiculous fee that PC, mobile, Nintendo, and Xbox don’t charge isn’t being greedy. And it’s not as if Sony is doing some hard work that merits compensation.
It will only affect those games with crossplay and cros-ssave who discount their DLC and IAP in other platforms and not in PS to a point that there's a huge disproportion between the % of PS players and the % of revenue in PS.

This means it only would affect Epic and MS in case they wanted to fuck Sony on their crossplay game selling these DLC and IAP cheaper on their own platforms.

Sony is only covering their ass for not being over spending server costs for matchmaking, trophies, text/voice chats, customer service, etc. with players that are mostly buying their stuff in other store.

Nintendo and Xbox don't need to do this because their userbase % on multi games is way smaller compared to Sony, so they need crossplay at all costs because without it most people would prefer to play on PS because on average they have more friends there, so Sony is the only one who loses with crossplay. Without crossplay, more players would buy the PS version because their friends are there. And with a bigger % of the users Sony is the one who can be more fucked if not covering their ass because we're talking about dozens of millons of players playing crossplay games on PS, while the number is way smaller in the other ones.
 
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Faithless83

Banned

This and Borderlands 3. We need some more companies taking a stand too.
I don't think PS platforms were lacking player base last I checked.
Xbox is the one begging for it, but I saw people buying PS4 just so they could game with the guys I work with, since no one played on xbox.

The ones that recently got an XSS, use it for gamepass and get back to their PS4s to game with me and my friends.

Nothing, absolutely nothing was lost if you are on a PS platform, there are plenty of people to play with.
 
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martino

Member
Sony has a policy that will affect how many games get crossplay.

It’s odd that you frame it as developers “keeping more money for themselves.” Not wanting to pay a ridiculous fee that PC, mobile, Nintendo, and Xbox don’t charge isn’t being greedy. And it’s not as if Sony is doing some hard work that merits compensation.
it's the ethical way to help cross play organic growth /s
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Sony has a policy that will affect how many games get crossplay.

It’s odd that you frame it as developers “keeping more money for themselves.” Not wanting to pay a ridiculous fee that PC, mobile, Nintendo, and Xbox don’t charge isn’t being greedy. And it’s not as if Sony is doing some hard work that merits compensation.

Do you know what the conditions are that have to be met for Sony to get any money in "fees"?
 
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I think with any thread where people are throwing quotes around from people like Jim Ryan, Phil Spencer or a few of the other well known board members it's usually best to keep a distance from what's been quoted and just look into it yourself. It may well be accidental at times but I feel that far too often people can be incerdible selective about how they interperate quotes and sometimes can even use the exact words that were said but somehow completely lose the context of what was said and therefore the meaning.
Context is paramount to language and it's ability to communicate and with time quotes get bounced around and seemingly get further away from their actual meaning the more they've been used.
More than often I feel it's unintentional but of course, not always.
 

93xfan

Banned
Do you know what the conditions are that have to be met for Sony to get any money in "fees"?

I’m guessing it may be a case by case scenario, unless you know otherwise.

All we know is 2 developers recently excluded PlayStation. I imagine it’s for a good reason.
 

Topher

Gold Member
I’m guessing it may be a case by case scenario, unless you know otherwise.

All we know is 2 developers recently excluded PlayStation. I imagine it’s for a good reason.

In a nutshell, gamers have to spend a lot more time playing a game on PSN while spending more money for that same game on other services like Xbox or Nintendo. If PSN is where most gamers are playing a game then it makes sense that the revenue should be reflected as such. If not, well.....PSN isn't a charity network and Sony only gets paid the difference. One would think most gamers would spend money where they play and if that is the case, Sony doesn't get any anything extra at all. This is more of a safeguard than anything else.
 
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