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[BootsLoader]

Underperforms? You know about his past sexual relationships?

No I have no idea. Were you a past sexual relationship of Phil?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yeah that would be fun, I think it would be a gigantic boost to be on PC day 1 when the hype is the most intense.

Look at Steam Charts numbers on Ratchet, everybody was talking about it but it maxed out at 8k concurrent players.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

I’m sure they sell enough to be worth the dev effort and Nixxes acquisition though. Spidey maxed at 66k concurrent players which is good.

It's a tough balancing act however: if Sony did Day 1 for their big games on PC it could risk a sizable portion of their enthusiast console base to shift all their spending habits to platforms Sony don't own or have any say in QA on.

And by "sizable" I don't mean in terms of net player count, but rather purchasing power per player or ARPU. They would risk a lot of their biggest spenders on the console side, who probably use the console exclusivity of the 1P titles (whether permanent or a few years ahead of PC), to just buy the 1P games on Steam and drop console. Meaning no PS6 for them, no PS+ subscriptions, no more 30% cuts for Sony off 3P sales from those users, less overall revenue and profit for Sony's 1P games from those users, etc.

It would hurt console-side the most in the early years of a console generation, because those types of high-ARPU enthusiasts are almost always the vast majority of early adopters for new consoles. There's extremely high correlation between the two. If Sony want to risk cannibalizing the first few years of PS6 hardware sales, software sales, sub revenue etc. then yeah, sure, push Day 1 for your marquee 1P non-GaaS titles to PC. However, I'd like to think Sony are smart enough to not do this.

Not to mention, that just makes it magnitudes more difficult to justify needing a console, and ruins a lot of a console's sovereign brand identity to many of the enthusiasts. Also, unfortunately, Sony aren't in a position where they can continue to remain a strong, independent platform holder for 3P if they heavily prioritize PC to the point of bringing all their games to that platform Day 1.

Because, ultimately, there is the elephant in the room that PC is still, in terms of gaming, primarily a Windows platform, even if the popular storefront & launcher is Steam. Much of Microsoft's motives for their gaming M&A strategy is to (some would say coyly) make competitors like Sony more dependent towards them in one or all levels of the console market system (software revenue, exclusivity rights, marketing rights, publishing & distribution, middleware, backend services, catalog leverage, cloud technology, servers etc.).

It's in Sony's best interest not to placate that or hasten a market reality where that plays out.

I've been a corporate controller through 4 company purchases and my experience is.. It's rough when the entire company drops 2 rungs down the ladder, the good people who can go elsewhere; usually do. The not so good people who can't, are typically who remain behind.
Realistically how long would anybody expect Bobby Kotick to report to Phil.. These guys don't do that.

Activision won't be the same company and it is typically a long and painful process replacing good fit people.

True, Bobby is basically the Phil Spencer of ABK, but with much more financial success (for his company) to his name. There would probably be a clash of egos at some point, about any number of things.

Though it's not even so much Kotick leaving, but the creative leads in various positions, that would (or in this case, likely will, at least among some of the studios) cause massive headaches and disruptions. Although I'm guessing with ABK, those who decide to leave initially will just do so for being tired of working on the same property so long, and want to do something else. Maybe some of them join one of the other Microsoft teams? I bet a lot won't.

I'm really curious to see if there are further notable Zenimax departures, though. In fact I still want to know why Pete Hines is departing. Well, I can assume some reasons why, but none of that is necessarily true unless either he says it himself or sources very close to him more or less say it.

 

[Fredrik]

It's a tough balancing act however: if Sony did Day 1 for their big games on PC it could risk a sizable portion of their enthusiast console base to shift all their spending habits to platforms Sony don't own or have any say in QA on.

And by "sizable" I don't mean in terms of net player count, but rather purchasing power per player or ARPU. They would risk a lot of their biggest spenders on the console side, who probably use the console exclusivity of the 1P titles (whether permanent or a few years ahead of PC), to just buy the 1P games on Steam and drop console. Meaning no PS6 for them, no PS+ subscriptions, no more 30% cuts for Sony off 3P sales from those users, less overall revenue and profit for Sony's 1P games from those users, etc.

It would hurt console-side the most in the early years of a console generation, because those types of high-ARPU enthusiasts are almost always the vast majority of early adopters for new consoles. There's extremely high correlation between the two. If Sony want to risk cannibalizing the first few years of PS6 hardware sales, software sales, sub revenue etc. then yeah, sure, push Day 1 for your marquee 1P non-GaaS titles to PC. However, I'd like to think Sony are smart enough to not do this.

Not to mention, that just makes it magnitudes more difficult to justify needing a console, and ruins a lot of a console's sovereign brand identity to many of the enthusiasts. Also, unfortunately, Sony aren't in a position where they can continue to remain a strong, independent platform holder for 3P if they heavily prioritize PC to the point of bringing all their games to that platform Day 1.

Because, ultimately, there is the elephant in the room that PC is still, in terms of gaming, primarily a Windows platform, even if the popular storefront & launcher is Steam. Much of Microsoft's motives for their gaming M&A strategy is to (some would say coyly) make competitors like Sony more dependent towards them in one or all levels of the console market system (software revenue, exclusivity rights, marketing rights, publishing & distribution, middleware, backend services, catalog leverage, cloud technology, servers etc.).

It's in Sony's best interest not to placate that or hasten a market reality where that plays out.

I just think the group of people who would buy a Sony exclusive day 1 on Steam from hype and getting the latest biggest thing is magnitudes bigger than the group that buy their games when they’re kinda over-priced late ports with the story spoiled on the internet for years. It’s the old leaving money on the table scenario here. Ratchet should not just be a 8k concurrent game on Steam, it’s too great for that.

But if they do day 1 PC releases the ports needs to be spot on. And that’s clearly not easy so there’s a risk that it’ll be more noise than usual. On the other hand, there will be less noise coming from the console exclusivity side of things.

Regarding hardware cannibalization, personally I don’t think the group that would skip buying a Playstation console and buy a gaming PC instead because of day 1 PC releases is worth thinking about. The price difference is enormous, I don’t see 30 million people go ”Cool then I’ll skip PS and get a RTX 4000 serie PC instead!”. There will be a small drop in console sales though. And drop in sales on 30fps titles, but there aren’t many of those, not yet at least.

 

[ThaMonkeyClaw]

Here is why we will always see Minecraft and Call Of Duty on all the consoles going forward...I feel like this along with Gamepass is their new business model.

 

[GamesDontSuck]

And it would instantly lose 3/8ths of its market share.

Then what was the point of spending 70 billion?

 

[Gavon West]

Because they didnt spend 70 Billion dollars on Minecraft
Minecraft is aimed mainly at children, it doesn't move expensive consoles like COD does.
Exclusive COD at launch would give MS a massive, MASSIVE killer app launch title on their next console.
Come on man. You actually think they will keep COD on PlayStation forever? Even after Phil retires? lol

The man literally said: We are in a unique posistion to spend Sony out of business. Everything he said in that interview was a bold faced lie. The ONLY reason they bought Activision is to win the next generation and have zero competition. This is a trillion dollar company.

You sound legit.......lemme stop. Lol

Phil has said many times that there would be parity on all consoles and platforms for CoD. And he's right; they are in the unique position to out spend Sony. Doesnt mean that's the plan. Tranquillo amigo. You gone be a'ight. Lol

 

[Gavon West]

Just buying call of duty gets MS money, so of course there's no need to make one better than the other.

Not to mention being able to say "Get it on Gamepass Day One!"

 

[I'm nobody]

Wait until the marketing deal with Sony expires.. and they become a bit desperate for an edge

I expect cod to be dead within the next 10 years

It's the same over and over and with ms track record of fking games up
Yea pretty much dead

Also I ain't getting a Xbox or anymore cod games some may agree it's the same shit over and over and over

 

[Gavon West]

Its already 2023 and people still believe his words eh

I wished my ex believed me as much as u all believed a corporate head

You sound straight.......................lemme stop.

 

[Gavon West]

If COD is on Gamepass.... and MS don't keep putting GP prices up as they have been, then yeah, Sony will 100% make more profit.

MS track record speaks for itself.

Dude, stop this! Posts like these will have the mods administering drug tests before you can even enter these forums. And Im not stopping crack! Just stop!

 

[RickMasters]

Why limit exposure of the game to one only platform?
Surely getting more people on other platforms to play will do wonders for your game in terms of engagement, revenue etc, no?

I’d also add….. COD can remain an multiformat cash cow for them. Plenty of other IP they can use as exclusives.


Personally I’m holding out for single player games set in the StarCraft and WoW universes.



And the next spyro, crash etc. will more than likely be Xbox/ gamepass exclusives. Sure they are not as big as COD but as long as they make good games out of them they should add value to gamepass and grow Xbox stable of exclusives going forward.