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Jim Ryan says Sony’s games ‘could suffer’ by adding them to PlayStation Plus on day one (VCG)

fart town usa

Gold Member
Xbox analyst Colteastwood disagrees

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Sylvester Stallone Facepalm GIF
 

SaucyJack

Member
Is the game different when put on a service like GP versus buying it full price? You are getting exactly the same code and pixels.

In the end of the day, yes.

For a subscription service to be sustainable in the long-term the platform owner will need to one or more of three things: a) acquire content more cheaply, quantity over quality; b) have additional revenue stream (i.e. MTX) ; or c) push the prices up. In reality it’ll probably be all three to some extent.

In the long run if everything is on a subscription service then you'll get many more mid tier games, pushed out before they’re ready and full of MTX. I’d rather not have this.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
The media influenced people on the Internet to make Jim seem like the bad guy, or someone who doesn't know what he's saying. I said from the beginning of this gen. When MS and Xbox were chest-beating with. Powertalk about their console, and how much better multiplatform games would run on the Series X (CRINGEEEE). I already knew it would hit them hard, because PS knows how to make consoles. Mark Cerny's presentation was very clear, and was already an indication of how this console would evolve. Look...3 years later and not a single game shows a big gap between the 2 consoles.
 
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Yoboman

Member
The media influenced people on the Internet to make Jim seem like the bad guy, or someone who doesn't know what he's saying. I said from the beginning of this gen. When MS and Xbox were chest-beating with. Powertalk about their console, and how much better multiplatform games would run on the Series X (CRINGEEEE). I already knew it would hit them hard, because PS knows how to make consoles. Mark Cerny's presentation was very clear, and was already an indication of how this console would evolve. Look...3 years later and not a single game a gap between the 2 consoles.
Jim Ryan has been delivering nothing but Ws for Sony since the PS1 days. Since day one

People expected him to stop now?
 

Dick Jones

Gold Member
The media influenced people on the Internet to make Jim seem like the bad guy, or someone who doesn't know what he's saying. I said from the beginning of this gen. When MS and Xbox were chest-beating with. Powertalk about their console, and how much better multiplatform games would run on the Series X (CRINGEEEE). I already knew it would hit them hard, because PS knows how to make consoles. Mark Cerny's presentation was very clear, and was already an indication of how this console would evolve. Look...3 years later and not a single game shows a big gap between the 2 consoles.
Cerny's only fail is the PS Vita and that problem was the lack of sustained support from Sony devs. I know people use the memory card thing but is it really?

I love the PS Vita. I'd have done without the backpad and include another 2 shoulder buttons are my only issues, along with them committed to using the closed area that would have allowed it be hooked to a TV. That was stupid.
 
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Three

Gold Member
No i was serious, do you think PS+ is the reason the game bombed, or it just sucked. (Like Redfall, but not like Hi-Fi Rush)?
No, but it going to subs is a result of it not being high enough quality to sell but the engagement for subs and the "I guess I'll stay subbed and try this" mentality made it a subscription release. It was worth more in mtx and engagement and not a game good enough for people to go out and buy.
 
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Cerny's only fail is the PS Vita and that problem was the lack of sustained support from Sony devs. I know people use the memory card thing but is it really?

I love the PS Vita. I'd have done without the backpad and include another 2 shoulder buttons are my only issues, along with them committed to using the closed area that would have allowed it be hooked to a TV. That was stupid.

I think the memory card definitely hurt it. Just went towards additional cost and cost matters a lot with a handheld. Not to mention ease of use.

I think an all-digital handheld with a nvme hard drive could do really well right now, but not sure it makes sense to split development across a platform that might not sell enough.

Unlike PC you can't really justify just porting all the same games to the handheld version. It needs exclusives to warrant its existence because PC has its own games you can't get elsewhere.

They probably didn't want to have it hook to the tv at the time (later would release Vita TV) because they didn't want it eating into PS3 sales.
 
People don't understand the need to restrain costs for content with subscription services.

If a game goes over budget but its B2P, it can recover that investment with additional sales.

The ability for an individual game or even a group of games to recover from going over budget in a subscription service is really limited as individual games don't really drive the sustained subscription unless they are GaaS type games.

A single-player game like God of War has to release within budget, which means it needs to release on a fixed schedule. God of War Ragnarok was delayed and they couldn't have afforded that if it was going on PS+.

Nearly every major Sony PS5 game has been delayed at one point with the exception of the launch titles like Demon's Soul, Sackboy Adventure, and Miles Morales.

One of them is a remake, one is a minor title, and the other is kind of an expansion.

Ratchet was delayed, Horizon was delayed, GT7 was delayed, and God of War Ragnarok was delayed.

This is why Sony doesn't really announce release dates anymore.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
I agree with him 100%. The subscription model is not conductive to the AAA investment necessary for us to have that signature PlayStation First Party Title level of polish.

We used to hear "GamePass is the best value in gaming" every 5.03 seconds.

No one on earth has uttered that phrase in the last week. Fascinating how narratives shift over time.
 

FrankWza

Gold Member
Anyone who believes this BS is a moron. The games wouldn't suffer in the slightest. Having games go into a sub services wouldn't cause any issue with development.
If it hurts sales then yes, eventually it would hurt development. Less money to reinvest means less talent and less resources. You know subs cannibalize sales according to some companies statements?
Y'all have Sony Stockholm s
From owning a console?
 
Microsoft is on the hunt for MAUs. They aren't looking to sell consoles. Sony is looking to sell as many consoles as it can because they know that they can generate money from the 1st party but also every console sold results in 3rd party software sales for which they generate revenue on B2P sales as well as MTX. Add in GaaS and you get even more revenue and operating income, but their goal is still selling more consoles.

Because Microsoft is focused on MAUs, the quality of individual games becomes a VERY different equation. Rather than Revenue per unit sold - minus cost = operating income you have Total revenue from MAUs minus operating cost = operating income.

One of the major focuses of running GamePass is limiting the cost that goes into it, especially if the growth isn't there.

Microsoft took 70 billion dollars and did they put it into increasing the quality of their games? No. They were trying to buy MAUs.

Phil Spencer said the quiet part out loud that we've been saying for years. Microsoft does not care about game quality, they care about quantity and MAUs. They need as much content as they can get to drive a diverse group of subscribers to join gamepass and keep gamepass. Do they want to put out bad games? Obviously not, but they aren't looking to spend 200 million on AAA bangers like God of War, not quarter after quarter, maybe you'll see that once a year or once every two years.

You're basically looking at maybe Fable and Elder Scrolls on top of Starfield at this point and I'm not sure that Fable actually qualifies, we'll see.

Jim Ryan said this specifically and people thought he was full of shit, but you can't run a subscription service with 200 million dollars titles unless it's growing faster than belief, that would HAVE to include PC subscriptions too, but what have we seen the last two years? Microsoft missing growth objectives. GamePass isnt' growing fast enough for Microsoft to sustain it, again why they wanted to buy ABK and essentially buy MAUs.
 

Portugeezer

Gold Member
We used to hear "GamePass is the best value in gaming" every 5.03 seconds.

No one on earth has uttered that phrase in the last week. Fascinating how narratives shift over time.
When you don't release many first party games on it, it's basically on the level of PS Plus Extra.
 
We used to hear "GamePass is the best value in gaming" every 5.03 seconds.

No one on earth has uttered that phrase in the last week. Fascinating how narratives shift over time.
I haven't heard it on gaf in ages tbh.

When I look at what's on offer it's full of old games and indies. A few new releases here and there don't make it the best deal in gaming.
 
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