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[SlimeGooGoo]

Where are the japanese games though

 

[kingfey]

If they put all of their games Day 1 on PC though, they lose the value of double-dipping because some of the players who may've bought it on console at launch and then on PC years later, could just choose the PC version and be done with it. Even if Day 1 on PC could remove certain bonus content and enhancements that late ports afford.

Steam has 120m players, who active every month, compared to Sony 100+MAU.
That is alot of users, who can buy their games, even if some console users opted to buy it on pc.
There is also the side affect, which can attract those PC users to PS brand. Some PC like to play only on PC. If Sony gives them their games, they might be able to change their mind and buy PS consoles.
This is the current plan for Sony, until they reach the day1 in the future.

They also would need to be able to guarantee they can sell a significant portion of copies on PC to make up for the loss of potential 3P revenue (and their cut from that revenue) of players who decide to go PC for those Sony 1P games instead of picking up a PlayStation...and there are WAY more 3P games released a year than any number of games Sony (or any platform holder) can release in that same time frame.

Vice Versa. Steam and Epic has PC users, who dont have a PS console. Sony can make more money if those users buy their console.
Day1 is also about attracting those people to your console. People dont just be done playing your games on games, and call it end of the day. They would have some interest about your platform. One of the key reason, why Sony is focusing on PC. Those users have the potential to buy their system. Its untapped market. Even Japanese studios are focusing on PC market, more than consoles. See Monster hunter Rise.

So even if a platform holder like Sony gets a majority of their 30% cut from games priced at $30 or $40, if that still equates to 100 million units of 3P software sold that year, they make a lot more versus potentially reducing that 3P revenue and selling say an extra 8 million units combined on PC for 1P Day-1 games. Say that by them doing all 1P, single-player story-driven games Day 1 on PC, Sony lose 10% of their core console market but 30% of division revenue (lost 3P sales, lost subscription revenue, lost DLC & MTX purchases in their ecosystem due to lost sales, etc.).

Not every 1st party game sells 10m copies in the 1st year, or even 20m for a long time.
3P games exist on all platforms. People who have PC/PS would buy their 3P games on PC, same if those users have Xbox. That math is what destroyed xbox one. Xbox users migrated to PS, once Xbox one was considered a failure. With MS making Xbox attractive, and PC becoming a hot money printing for those 3P developers, Sony would need to look for another revenue.
Sony is entering a new age. Nintendo is overtaking the Japanese's market. Sony is losing their 3P timed exclusive games to steam. Xbox bought bethesda and Activision. Soon, Sony might be able to buy some japanese publishers. With all these acquisition, the guaranteed money is diminishing slowly. And soon Sony would lose Ps4, once most publishers start making the games only next gen consoles, making steam even more attractive.

Quantity of games is never really the problem, the question is the quality. And more specifically, as MS are a platform holder, which of those games will rise up and be a leading example for the industry to follow in terms of some or multiple aspects of game design? More sheer amount of games can give you more chances at such quality but in no way guarantee any of them will actually hit that type of quality.

As well, more devs means more overall management and it's not really a matter of talent at question with Xbox, but their management capabilities over their teams. They are still struggling very clearly at demonstrating that management has improved.

Look at games these days. Call of duty, cyberpunk2077.
People only care about their quick fix. You yourself might care about Sony quality, but majority of gamers dont. People used to buy fifa every day. Same for call of duty and battlefield.
For MS, The IP is what matters. Elderscrolls games are buggy as hell. But the journey these games offer, makes people forget about those bugs. Just like how cyberpunk2077 sold alot of copies, Skyrim sold 30m copies despite the bugs.
Gamers wont care about any management of MS, as long as the games matches their taste. These idiots bought gta anniversary.

Maybe, but that depends on player communities and what portion of them are "whales" or big spenders. All of those games you listed already have much smaller average player communities than the bigger PC live-service GaaS titles, and I doubt they have a higher density of whales compared to those games, either. So needless to say while they probably generate some money it is not as much as the more popular games.

Whales only matter on games, which sells alot of mtx. Games like fifa benefits from those. MS doesnt have those type of MTX. Their model is skins, which anyone can buy it. It doesn't bring them more money like call of duty and fifa.
Halo infinite is anomaly, since it serves 2 games. F2p and SP mode. There is no clear big picture on how many people played SP or MP mode.
Also, player count doesnt tell the whole story.
God of war had 2k players in 24 hour. 0 in 24min right now. That doesn't mean nothing, since god of war has estimate of 2m sales. That is what matters the most. People who spent money, buying the game. Not people who are playing the game.

God of War - Steam Charts

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

steamcharts.com

Yes that's correct, and maybe that approach works for Microsoft. My point is, that approach very likely won't work for Sony without causing some notable decrease in overall console sales and spending in the PS ecosystem. And unlike MS, Sony isn't a $2.5 trillion company that has a gaming division which is only a paltry amount of their total revenue, wherein the other divisions can more than cover any softening of revenue and profits for.

Sony needs console gaming and the full PS ecosystem (which includes console as the root) a lot more than Microsoft needs console gaming and the Xbox ecosystem, and it's been that way for several years now. So I wouldn't expect Sony to more closely mirror MS's approach for any 1P games that aren't easily identifiable as live-service GaaS titles, and even there, they may be a bit selective (i.e in the off-chance they ever did a Parappa live-service game (not saying they will or that I'd even want THAT type of direction for Parappa, but it's an example), it may probably not be Day 1 on PC and just be something for PlayStation).

For the 1P single-player games, especially marquee story-driven content, their approach will more closely mirror Nintendo's, then you might get PC ports much later for some or all of such titles (eventually). They won't really risk Day 1 PC for any of those.

That would have worked well, if PC wasnt that strong. Steam alone has 120m monthly userbase. 3P publishers are paying more attention to the PC landscape. And since PC is just digital only, 3P make more money on steam, than consoles. So Sony is fighting Steam, Epic, Xbox and Switch at the same time to gain more sales. With the new gen, Sony would lose their strongest PS4, once most publishers move to next gen only.
MS knows this. Its why they are making their windows store attractive now. The more 3P favors steam, the more sales steam would have.

Well I'm looking through the Top 10 right now and I don't see FH4 or Sea of Thieves in there for any point in 2022 so far.

Like I said I'm sure the games are doing pretty decent sales on average, but I would in no way say they are dominating Steam sales charts, let alone concurrent players.

Jan2 week, then the week after that. Apr 10 week, apr 17 week for Sea of thieve this year. FH4 was dominating 2021 weeks.
Most of the rise attributes to steam sales during these weeks.

Well even when their games weren't reaching those types of sales they never brought them over to PC. Also not all Nintendo games reach the level of sales Mario Kart does. Metroid Dread definitely hasn't, nor will it, should they consider porting that to PC since there's no chance in hell that game gets to even 25 million let alone 45 million?

Metro prime is like Ratchet. Sales arent that strong. Mario kart, Breath of wild, Pokémon are like the AAA Sony/MS which sells alot. And none of those AAA games come close to Animal crossing level of sale.

Most AAA games, including Sony's, do the bulk of their sales on launch day and within the first couple of weeks. That's just how the AAA market tends to work. Only some of Nintendo's games are excused from that type of model, and even some of Sony's have managed to show more evergreen properties these days (such as Miles Morales, which sees big sales spikes whenever PS5s are in stock despite also being available on PS4).

Also even at $40 that is still a lot of revenue Sony is bringing in, whether physical or especially digital.

Sony does tend to sell higher on day1. 2020 though was lockdown. Still 8m GOT for brand new IP was very impressive. I gotta give props to them.
Also long term would sell well. Which is why they managed to hit 20m on their games.

Well MS are the ones who introduced MAU into the conversation years back, and in terms of solid numbers MAU and such metrics (such as "lookalikes") are the only ones MS present publicly when talking gaming revenue (aside from general revenue figures per sector).

Also their GamePass sub numbers are basically another form of measuring active players, you can't be implying sub numbers are also junk for fanboy kids too, right?

MS pays attention to MAU for gamepass. Because its subscription service. But that doesnt tell the story for steam, which doesnt have a subscription service like gamepass. You have to pay money for steam games. So anyone who plays on steam, buys the game. But the keyword is play. I have bought several steam games, which I havent played it yet. Those are sales to the publishers. But steam wont record me, since I am not playing the game. Hence why steam player count doesnt tell a whole alot of story.

Except it doesn't. Or at least, we don't know for certain if it does because Microsoft doesn't provide enough data. It could be millions of cumulative players, but those might not all be 100% unique players, just player instances that log on each day over a period of days, weeks or months.

Basically the way it is on Steam when a lot of companies mention MAU. Then you look at concurrent player counts (something MS does not provide through GamePass) and you get a better picture of how popular a game really is in terms of the core mainline community, when a certain level of players can be maintained over the long-term period.

Unique players matters, when you want to know the bigger picture. It has faulty numbers, like using the same disc. But those faulty are minimal. It can give you an estimate of sales on steam for example. Anyone that opened the game, would be counted as a player. Just like how faulty players affact the numbers, there are also users, who bought the game, but didnt launch it yet. So the numbers evens out.

Except I just mentioned (and checked for 2022 at least so far) that MS games are rarely, if ever, in the Top 10 weekly sales on Steam. They do decent on Steam on average but I suspect any that do pop into Top 10 and aren't brand new releases, manage that through sales discounts or specific events.

I listed right now in my list. I made 1 wrong from my data though. FH4 was dominating the weekly sales for 2021, not 2020. SOT had 4 appearances so far in top 10 this year. FH5 affected fh4 sales, so we dont see it in top 10.

Top10 steam competes with best games on steam. Making appearance in that top 10, means you sell alot of copies. For example, SOT appeared 2 times in April sales. That is alot of copies, bypassing or sharing space with every new game on that month.


All steam/PC sales does is give more money to the publisher. If Sony wants to increase the budget of their games, Steam/PC sales would help them alot.

 

[EDMIX]

They’ll just continue to drip feed old games onto PC, a single studio isn’t enough to keep up with everything that’s releasing.

Agreed.

It sounds like they will choose the best IP, titles etc and port based on that or something.

This seems like a given and not really "news" as Sony has already stated this before about putting titles on PC

 

[MasterCornholio]

Multiple platforms…..

You hurt baby bungholio.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Pumping $300m for more first party game?

 

[ReBurn]

That's like two of their big games, right?

 

[hinch7]

Pour more money into Insomniac. Watch them crank out the games, and also put them on PC.

Instant Profit.

 

[Nocturno999]

I only want Bloodborne and a "fixed" GT7 on Steam.

 

[lh032]

i think multiplatform means PC, not surprising if Playstation bring PC PSPLUS in the future as well.

 

[Neofire]

Have fun waiting I guess
Personally I really don’t like Sony’s strategy, everything is timed exclusive to console and once the PC version is out the hype is gone and it’ll just be an old and expensive game I’ve already played or had the story spoiled. Takes away much of the fun even though it’ll be better versions. It’s such an annoying strategy even though I understand why they’re doing it.

You don't like that Sony is putting their platform, they've poured billions into making, first?

You can't make this stuff up folks

 

[Neofire]

Their main source of revenue are those PS+ subs, digital revenue from PS store and royalties. That's their business. First party sales are only a fraction of their actual gaming business.

We know this because they released the splits themselves.

70.5m units of PlayStation software for the Quarter -
14.5m units of first party games for the Quarter -
Digital Software Ratio 71%
47.4m PS+ Subscribers
106m Monthly Active Users

What's more important? 14 million first party sales in their biggest quarter with HFW and GT7 which they can only replicate once every year, maybe once every two years? Or 47 million users paying $60 every year?

They have 106 million active users on PS platforms. THAT is their moneymaker. A first party game that takes 5 years to come out and then sells an extra 1-2 million on PC is pennies compared to their main business which is making those 106 million users feel prioritized.

Insane reading a first party console manufacturer literally come out and say we are going multiplatform. If they want to go multiplatform, they should go third party.

Someone gets it

 

[Rac3r]

I know GT7 was in the Nvidia leak, but it'll be shocking if/when it gets a PC port. I wonder how it'll effect Sport mode events/daily races and if there will be crossplay. Also, it'll be weird if the console version doesn't get a FPS patch and they continue to use PS5s at world tour/esport events. I'd imagine most of the top split guys would want to use the PC version if it has a higher frame rate.

A lot of people were pissed at the online requirement for GT7, but its purpose is to prevent cheating, and for the most part it succeeds.

Look at the amount of cheaters/hackers in FH5 thanks to the PC community. Hard to imagine that Kaz wants anything to do with that shit.

 

[64bitmodels]

by the way, to all the people saying "playstation shouldn't do this, it's damaging their brand etc etc etc" The xbox series X/S has been out for 18 or so months and has been the fastest selling xbox in history, and all of its games are available on PC. Playstation is the more popular brand. Do you honestly think people are gonna stop buying playstations when the games go to PC? No. They're not gonna. Some people perfer a console experience. Some people like the nice UI. Some people like plug n play. It ain't a big deal.

 

[Varteras]

by the way, to all the people saying "playstation shouldn't do this, it's damaging their brand etc etc etc" The xbox series X/S has been out for 18 or so months and has been the fastest selling xbox in history, and all of its games are available on PC. Playstation is the more popular brand. Do you honestly think people are gonna stop buying playstations when the games go to PC? No. They're not gonna. Some people perfer a console experience. Some people like the nice UI. Some people like plug n play. It ain't a big deal.

If anything it will probably have the effect of expanding the brand appeal. There will always be people who prefer the simplicity of dedicated consoles. But at the end of the day, the soul of PlayStation isn't found in a box. It's in the games that carry the name.

 

[64bitmodels]

the soul of PlayStation isn't found in a box.

for the first 3 consoles, i'd say otherwise those UIs were otherworldly

 

[yurinka]

3 or 4 sounds a bit high, they’ve only had 1 so far this year right?

Yes, and another one announced for summer. But they are two, so you may count them as three games for this year so far.

This is the PC line-up I'd release:
-God of War Trilogy Remastered (Q4 2022, months before the PS5 only sequel)
-Spider-Man Remastered + Spider-Man Miles Morales (Q2 2023, months before the PS5 only sequel)
-TLOUDC bunble including TLOU Remake+TLOU2 remastered (Q3 2023, months after being released on PS5 and the release of the TV show)
-Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection (Q1 2024, months before the PS5 only sequel)
-Bloodborne Director's Cut (Q2 2024, half a year after PS5 version)
-God of War Origins Collection (Q3 2024)
-Knack I & II Director's Cut NFT Remastered Metaverse (H1 2025)

 

[yurinka]

100% on to something with this point; all these acquisitions DO affect Nintendo, but people want to pretend that Nintendo doesn't rely on 3P software. Even though that's a big reason the Switch has been doing so well: 3P software, particularly from Japanese developers (but also certain Western teams as well).

I don't know when the narrative suddenly changed that 3P doesn't matter for Nintendo when the Wii U primarily failed due to lack of 3P support, despite having a lot of the same 1P games the Switch now has. Kind of feels like a way for some people to excuse dreaming up acquisitions and conveniently ignore the impact on Nintendo out of the conversation, and that kind of feels cheap.

Nintendo reported this in today's FY report, do they mean 78.8% (and 79.4% the previous year) of the Switch software sales were from 1st party games? I may be wrong, but I understand that half of the money they make is from hardware, and from the part that comes from software, under a fourth of the software sales (not total sales) are 3rd party.

It's weird because it would make more sense the opposite, under a quarter of total software sales being 1st party.

In the same report, Nintendo reports a total of software sales (not only 1st or 3rd) this FY of 235.07 million units.

Aas reference for this FY Sony reported 303.2M units sold, 43.9M of them being 1st party. And 66% of their digital sales being digital.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Yes, and another one announced for summer. But they are two, so you may count them as three games for this year so far.

This is the PC line-up I'd release:
-God of War Trilogy Remastered (Q4 2022, months before the PS5 only sequel)
-Spider-Man Remastered + Spider-Man Miles Morales (Q2 2023, months before the PS5 only sequel)
-TLOUDC bunble including TLOU Remake+TLOU2 remastered (Q3 2023, months after being released on PS5 and the release of the TV show)
-Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection (Q1 2024, months before the PS5 only sequel)
-Bloodborne Director's Cut (Q2 2024, half a year after PS5 version)
-God of War Origins Collection (Q3 2024)
-Knack I & II Director's Cut NFT Remastered Metaverse (H1 2025)

>no GT7
>no Returnal
>no Demons Souls

Your list ain't it, fam. Those games are basically confirmed too (Nvidia leak).

 

[Fredrik]

You don't like that Sony is putting their platform, they've poured billions into making, first?

You can't make this stuff up folks

Eh? It’s common sense. I said I understand why they are doing it but for me it’s only an annoyance, I’ll either play an inferior version day 1 or has to wait years for a superior version or end up double dipping and pay 2x the price. Why would I like it?

 

[yurinka]

Pumping $300m for more first party game?

• Excluding the approximately 44 billion yen (~$338M) in expenses associated with acquisitions including Bungie, operating income is estimated to be essentially flat year-on-year.
• In addition, we plan to increase software development expenses aimed at strengthening first party software at our existing studios by approximately 40 billion yen (~$307M) year-on-year, and we have incorporated that impact into this forecast.

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/21q4_sonyspeech.pdf

Pour more money into Insomniac. Watch them crank out the games, and also put them on PC.

Instant Profit.

This FY they'll invest extra ~$307M to grow their existing (not counting Bungie or Haven, see above) gamedev teams.

Insomniac has open job offers for over two dozen different job positions:
https://insomniac.games/careers/

>no GT7
>no Returnal
>no Demons Souls

Your list ain't it, fam. Those games are basically confirmed too (Nvidia leak).

According to this list MS was going to release around 16 AAA games during 2022, including Scalebound and other ones that still are in preproduction.

The list may had some good guesses and a few proper leaks, but also a huge amount of bullshit like the Sony games you mention.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

What does it mean by aiming for multiple platforms? PC was already a known thing

Is Sony releasing on Xbox more now?

 

[Warnen]

PC welcomes all

 

[Bernd Lauert]

According to this list MS was going to release around 16 AAA games during 2022, including Scalebound and other ones that still are in preproduction.

Timelines are never set in stone. There is also no Scalebound on the list. And Microsoft only has 11 games on the list, 7 of which have already been confirmed

The list may had some good guesses and a few proper leaks, but also a huge amount of bullshit like the Sony games you mention.

How do you know it's bullshit? So far the list has been very accurate.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Give me bloodborne pc.

And Demon's Souls remake. And Spider-Man. And vanillaware titles. And everything else.

 

[yurinka]

Timelines are never set in stone. There is also no Scalebound on the list. And Microsoft only has 11 games on the list, 7 of which have already been confirmed

Scalebound was there in the list and listed for 2022. And they were over 11 MS games listed for 2022, I saw it.

How do you know it's bullshit? So far the list has been very accurate.

Because many of them were clear fakes. The list had a lot of bullcrap, maybe you're talking about a shortlisted version.

Example: the Resident Evil game copy pasted from the leaked Capcom schedule (whoever added it to the Nvidia list didn't know the hacker mistranslated from the Japanese its name). Or having a PSP Monster Hunter and with a typo on its name. The list also featured a PS2 MH game plus many, or even things like Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Just to name some examples.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Steam has 120m players, who active every month, compared to Sony 100+MAU.
That is alot of users, who can buy their games, even if some console users opted to buy it on pc.
There is also the side affect, which can attract those PC users to PS brand. Some PC like to play only on PC. If Sony gives them their games, they might be able to change their mind and buy PS consoles.
This is the current plan for Sony, until they reach the day1 in the future.

To the bolded, that is what their current strategy already does, without potentially jeopardizing a segment of their console install base and, therefore, 3P revenue on the console within their ecosystem. Late ports of past hits to PC enhanced with additional content, graphical settings, resolution modes, framerate options, input options etc.

They could probably provide those at lower prices (say, $50 instead of the current $60) at launch, but what you described as a possibility for Sony in bringing 1P single-player content to PC Day 1, they are already accomplishing that without bringing 1P single-player content to PC Day 1.

Vice Versa. Steam and Epic has PC users, who dont have a PS console. Sony can make more money if those users buy their console.
Day1 is also about attracting those people to your console. People dont just be done playing your games on games, and call it end of the day. They would have some interest about your platform. One of the key reason, why Sony is focusing on PC. Those users have the potential to buy their system. Its untapped market. Even Japanese studios are focusing on PC market, more than consoles. See Monster hunter Rise.

I kind of fail to see how this is the case when, if they bring ALL of their games to PC Day 1, including all the single-player games, what PC player is going to have an incentive to then go buy a PlayStation when they're getting almost all the same 3P games and all of Sony's 1P on PC Day 1? That logic just doesn't make any sense.

Japan is not a good example to use here because unlike the West, the console market in Japan has been shrinking gen over gen, not growing. So sales Japanese 3P games that normally could not go on weaker Nintendo hardware would've seen on PlayStation, in the Japanese market, are being lost due to the continued decline of console sales in that market. Those devs/pubs have to make back up those sales so providing those on a platform like PC on Day 1 makes sense...for them.

Not every 1st party game sells 10m copies in the 1st year, or even 20m for a long time.

Same with Nintendo: not every 1P Nintendo game sells 45 million copies lifetime, or even half of that lifetime, let alone in the 1st year. So again where is the argument that Nintendo should bring their 1P games to PC Day 1?

3P games exist on all platforms. People who have PC/PS would buy their 3P games on PC, same if those users have Xbox. That math is what destroyed xbox one. Xbox users migrated to PS, once Xbox one was considered a failure. With MS making Xbox attractive, and PC becoming a hot money printing for those 3P developers, Sony would need to look for another revenue.

Wait you kind of contradict a part of your argument here. You say that users with PC & PS would buy their 3P games on PC instead of PS, especially if all of Sony's 1P games (including the single-player games, which are at the heart of this discussion) were on PC Day 1. You even admit that something similar had happened with Xbox once they did Day 1 for all 1P games on PC as well as Xbox.

So the idea of MS making Xbox an attractive option this gen doesn't really matter in this discussion when the same situation is present: all of their 1P games, including single-player centric titles & non-live service/GaaS titles, are on PC (specifically, Steam) Day 1, which for a lot of people inherently makes Xbox a less attractive option since they can get all the 1P games and virtually all the 3P games on simply PC without needing to pay for online multiplayer on top of that.

If you're suggesting that due to growth of Xbox this generation and PC/Steam becoming an even bigger priority for 3P devs, that Sony needs another revenue stream or two, again how does the logic suddenly jump to them bringing all of their 1P, including marquee single-player games, to PC Day 1 in a way which could impact console sales and 3P revenue within the console ecosystem in ways similar to what happened with Xbox? Which, as I just mentioned, is something MS were a lot more okay with happening because unlike Sony, console gaming is not a major revenue stream for the company as a whole, so they could technically afford for that type of reduction and be perfectly fine as a corporation; for a company like Sony where console gaming is a lot more vital to their structure as a company and their bottom line, that type of reduction may not be sustainable.

That's why I've been saying their PC strategy in terms of Day 1 games will almost exclusively focus on live-service GaaS-type games, and even some of those could be on a case-by-case basis. IMO I don't think any company, let alone Sony, really needs 10 live-service GaaS titles to have a big revenue stream, especially if all of those games will need regular content updates. Just a smaller handful of really strong titles would almost always be better. I'm surprised they don't do anything like a new sort of Everquest or Everquest-like, get an updated GT Sport sequel live-service, and a couple of hero shooters (or just one hero shooter and something like Dreams to PC) and call it a day. Sounds more manageable but this isn't my company to make those type of decisions.

Sony is entering a new age. Nintendo is overtaking the Japanese's market. Sony is losing their 3P timed exclusive games to steam. Xbox bought bethesda and Activision. Soon, Sony might be able to buy some japanese publishers. With all these acquisition, the guaranteed money is diminishing slowly. And soon Sony would lose Ps4, once most publishers start making the games only next gen consoles, making steam even more attractive.

Nintendo's dominated the Japanese market before with Wii & DS; Sony's answer to that was the PSP. If anything, I think a similar approach would be justified for the market there currently (except the handheld could just serve as a means for instant portability of PS4 games and streaming & Remote Play of PS5 games; maybe lower-scaled local play of PS5 games but they would need a similar RAM capacity and CPU, probably a ~ 2.5 TF GPU and some new policy for 3P devs to scale visual settings for games to 1/4 unless the hardware had a means to do that automatically. And it'd still need a pretty fast SSD).

MS buying Bethesda & ABK doesn't actually change too much for PS in terms of 3P revenue; people like yurinka have calculated total percentages of Bethesda & ABK games like COD on PS fiscal revenue and the amounts weren't large at all when looking at the combined results of everything else. Plus games like COD will still remain multiplat (and likely even come to the Switch/Switch 2) in the future.

The other acquisitions have come from companies that have all intention to maintain the status quo in terms of multiplatform support, so again nothing really changes for Sony (or MS or Nintendo) in those cases, unless companies like Embracer Group start shutting down teams they've purchased and cancelling games outright, or those like Tencent start influencing companies they have majority shares in to cancel certain games altogether. Can't see either of those two playing out.

I do agree that at some point in the very near future PS4 as far as being a "buffer" incentive for 3Ps is going to lose its power, it will probably happen as soon as next year in fact. However, as long as Sony are able to increase PS5 production and keep production numbers regularly high enough to finally start satisfying pent-up demand before that shift happens, it won't matter. It won't matter if Steam and Xbox are increasingly attractive for 3P sales because Sony will have PS5 regularly available by that point, and all three should see growth.

Look at games these days. Call of duty, cyberpunk2077.
People only care about their quick fix. You yourself might care about Sony quality, but majority of gamers dont. People used to buy fifa every day. Same for call of duty and battlefield.
For MS, The IP is what matters. Elderscrolls games are buggy as hell. But the journey these games offer, makes people forget about those bugs. Just like how cyberpunk2077 sold alot of copies, Skyrim sold 30m copies despite the bugs.
Gamers wont care about any management of MS, as long as the games matches their taste. These idiots bought gta anniversary.

I feel like this is a very poor reason to excuse questionable IP management but whatever.

Whales only matter on games, which sells alot of mtx. Games like fifa benefits from those. MS doesnt have those type of MTX. Their model is skins, which anyone can buy it. It doesn't bring them more money like call of duty and fifa.

Halo Infinite has a ton of MTX.

Halo infinite is anomaly, since it serves 2 games. F2p and SP mode. There is no clear big picture on how many people played SP or MP mode.
Also, player count doesnt tell the whole story.
God of war had 2k players in 24 hour. 0 in 24min right now. That doesn't mean nothing, since god of war has estimate of 2m sales. That is what matters the most. People who spent money, buying the game. Not people who are playing the game.

God of War - Steam Charts

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

steamcharts.com

Player count matters for a game like Halo Infinite because it's a live-service GaaS, and also F2P. So the player count will likely reflect how many of those players could be buying content, which directly influences the revenue the game pulls in.

Very different from the case of God of War.

That would have worked well, if PC wasnt that strong. Steam alone has 120m monthly userbase. 3P publishers are paying more attention to the PC landscape. And since PC is just digital only, 3P make more money on steam, than consoles. So Sony is fighting Steam, Epic, Xbox and Switch at the same time to gain more sales. With the new gen, Sony would lose their strongest PS4, once most publishers move to next gen only.
MS knows this. Its why they are making their windows store attractive now. The more 3P favors steam, the more sales steam would have.

Steam may have a slightly larger base than PS4, but considering Steam itself is free (not the content on it, of course) and there are billions of PCs in the world, at what point do you look at the storefront platform and at what point do you focus on the actual hardware that storefront platform is available for?

MS only now making Windows store better after having a good decade to attempt doing so kind of feels like a lost cause; they might as well just settle with using Steam as that is what the community for their 1P have become comfortable with, and they don't really have the newness factor or brand appeal to leverage something else like Xbox to tie in with Windows Store to work against Steam.

Sony could still, if they want, either build their own storefront, or enter a strategic partnership with something like EGS, and fully integrate that with PSN & PS+ on the console side, to still maintain full vertical integration in the possibility they do Day 1 for all 1P content. They could also have a means of monetizing such a thing on the PC side and making PS+ subs have full access to perks between console & PC, and/or provide equivalent perks and tier benefits for PC-only at a reduced cost, to disable an ad-supported model of this type of hypothetical PC storefront. Other benefits too, such as getting PS or PC version of games at half price if you get the other version at full price, etc.

Jan2 week, then the week after that. Apr 10 week, apr 17 week for Sea of thieve this year. FH4 was dominating 2021 weeks.
Most of the rise attributes to steam sales during these weeks.

Right so what does the situation look like outside of steam sales?

Metro prime is like Ratchet. Sales arent that strong. Mario kart, Breath of wild, Pokémon are like the AAA Sony/MS which sells alot. And none of those AAA games come close to Animal crossing level of sale.

My point being not every game from Nintendo is a Mario Kart pulling in 45 million lifetime sales. And it's not just Metroid Dread that's the exception, either.

Sony does tend to sell higher on day1. 2020 though was lockdown. Still 8m GOT for brand new IP was very impressive. I gotta give props to them.
Also long term would sell well. Which is why they managed to hit 20m on their games.

Exactly. Meanwhile I wish the same could be said for something like FH5 because it's a legitimately great arcade racer, outside of certain issues. But that isn't the case; same for Halo Infinite though in that game's case it comes down to a multitude of reasons.

MS pays attention to MAU for gamepass. Because its subscription service. But that doesnt tell the story for steam, which doesnt have a subscription service like gamepass. You have to pay money for steam games. So anyone who plays on steam, buys the game. But the keyword is play. I have bought several steam games, which I havent played it yet. Those are sales to the publishers. But steam wont record me, since I am not playing the game. Hence why steam player count doesnt tell a whole alot of story.

Right but the difference for something like Halo Infinite is that the MP is F2P live-service GaaS. So you don't even have to pay for it upfront; the money comes from MTX which depends on the number of players active in the player base.

Which is why concurrent player count is kind of important of a measure. It's less a factor for things like Forza Horizon 5, where you still had to buy it in order to access it at all.

Unique players matters, when you want to know the bigger picture. It has faulty numbers, like using the same disc. But those faulty are minimal. It can give you an estimate of sales on steam for example. Anyone that opened the game, would be counted as a player. Just like how faulty players affact the numbers, there are also users, who bought the game, but didnt launch it yet. So the numbers evens out.

Right, and my thing is MS doesn't provide # of unique players for total player counts in things like Forza and Halo. But to be fair, almost no one seems to, so I'm not singling out MS for this. It would be neat if they did provide # of unique players but they aren't going against the grain by not doing so.

I listed right now in my list. I made 1 wrong from my data though. FH4 was dominating the weekly sales for 2021, not 2020. SOT had 4 appearances so far in top 10 this year. FH5 affected fh4 sales, so we dont see it in top 10.

Top10 steam competes with best games on steam. Making appearance in that top 10, means you sell alot of copies. For example, SOT appeared 2 times in April sales. That is alot of copies, bypassing or sharing space with every new game on that month.

Actually, do we know the specific number of sales for games on the Steam charts? I hear position rankings a lot but haven't heard any actual sales. I guess this is why people use Steam Spy? It was used a lot for Elden Ring although higher estimates ended up being way too high.

All steam/PC sales does is give more money to the publisher. If Sony wants to increase the budget of their games, Steam/PC sales would help them alot.

Right but they have to be very smart & careful about what those games actually are, and the proximity of their availability on PC versus PlayStation. And I'm saying that for 1P single-player games, Day 1 is not viable, especially for the big AAA titles.

 

[kingfey]

Scalebound was there in the list and listed for 2022. And they were over 11 MS games listed for 2022, I saw it.


Because many of them were clear fakes. The list had a lot of bullcrap, maybe you're talking about a shortlisted version.

Example: the Resident Evil game copy pasted from the leaked Capcom schedule (whoever added it to the Nvidia list didn't know the hacker mistranslated from the Japanese its name). Or having a PSP Monster Hunter and with a typo on its name. The list also featured a PS2 MH game plus many, or even things like Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Just to name some examples.

The Nvidia list is legit. It's already being proven.

The problem is that some titles gets canceled. Or out right scrapped.

 

[kingfey]

And Demon's Souls remake. And Spider-Man. And vanillaware titles. And everything else.

Only bloodborne. Nothing else. We have to respect PS users. We dont want to take all their shiny games. Or else, we will steal them clean, like we did with xbox.

 

[yurinka]

The Nvidia list is legit. It's already being proven.

The problem is that some titles gets canceled. Or out right scrapped.

No, a ton of the games of the list are fake. Nintendo doesn't pan to release games on PC, MS won"t release over a dozen games this year, Capcom won"t port PS2 or PSP MH games to PC and Sony doesn't plan to releade recent games on PC. All these things are total bullshit even if it got some guesses or rumors right and a few legit leaks.

 

[kingfey]

I kind of fail to see how this is the case when, if they bring ALL of their games to PC Day 1, including all the single-player games, what PC player is going to have an incentive to then go buy a PlayStation when they're getting almost all the same 3P games and all of Sony's 1P on PC Day 1? That logic just doesn't make any sense.

Because PS is more than a first party console. There are also 3P games on the system.
While PC is great system to have. Sometimes, you want to play away from your pc.
So if you are having fun with games like God of war, you will prefer to play them on your TV, using Ps5.

Japan is not a good example to use here because unlike the West, the console market in Japan has been shrinking gen over gen, not growing. So sales Japanese 3P games that normally could not go on weaker Nintendo hardware would've seen on PlayStation, in the Japanese market, are being lost due to the continued decline of console sales in that market. Those devs/pubs have to make back up those sales so providing those on a platform like PC on Day 1 makes sense...for them.

That is plain false. PS4 systems didn't disappear from Japan overnight. There are over 9m ps4 in Japan.
The problem is that switch exist. Most Japanese gamers bought their games on Switch.
And games that couldn't be run on consoles, performed higher sales on steam.
Switch is the defacto reason, why ps4 is losing Japanese devs and sales.
Then you have steam, which Japanese devs don't have to make disc, selling higher copies.

You also have Sony, which is slowly distancing itself from Japan. All of these are affecting Japanese devs, which forces them to move to a place, where they can their games to.

Sony wouldn't have lost Japan to switch, if they put some effort to Japanese market.

Wait you kind of contradict a part of your argument here. You say that users with PC & PS would buy their 3P games on PC instead of PS, especially if all of Sony's 1P games (including the single-player games, which are at the heart of this discussion) were on PC Day 1. You even admit that something similar had happened with Xbox once they did Day 1 for all 1P games on PC as well as Xbox.

When did I say that? All I said, was that people moved on from Xbox to PS. Ps to pc. It's normal thing that happens, when people don't find your platform interesting.
Xbox one was a lost cause to alot of people. This caused them to buy Ps4.
Then you have multiplatform users, who buy games on certain platforms. These affect sales.
If you have those system, then you are not the target.
The actual target, are those users who are only PC users.

So the idea of MS making Xbox an attractive option this gen doesn't really matter in this discussion when the same situation is present: all of their 1P games, including single-player centric titles & non-live service/GaaS titles, are on PC (specifically, Steam) Day 1, which for a lot of people inherently makes Xbox a less attractive option since they can get all the 1P games and virtually all the 3P games on simply PC without needing to pay for online multiplayer on top of that.

Just because it's on pc day1, doesn't PREVENT PEOPLE FROM BUYING XBOX.
This mindset, is why you are not getting this. Your games being day1 on pc isn't detriment to your console sales.
There are people who literally owns all 3 systems. These would still buy these consoles.
Consoles have 1 objective. Make the job easier for the user. They are for that. You can go grab them, and plug in.
Its why xbox is having hot sales, despite their games being day1 on pc. Because people want the console.

If you're suggesting that due to growth of Xbox this generation and PC/Steam becoming an even bigger priority for 3P devs, that Sony needs another revenue stream or two, again how does the logic suddenly jump to them bringing all of their 1P, including marquee single-player games, to PC Day 1 in a way which could impact console sales and 3P revenue within the console ecosystem in ways similar to what happened with Xbox? Which, as I just mentioned, is something MS were a lot more okay with happening because unlike Sony, console gaming is not a major revenue stream for the company as a whole, so they could technically afford for that type of reduction and be perfectly fine as a corporation; for a company like Sony where console gaming is a lot more vital to their structure as a company and their bottom line, that type of reduction may not be sustainable.

Because Sony can't stop it. PC is already an attractive platform without day1 or Ms/Sony games.
Every timed exclusives which both of these systems plus Nintendo gets dropped to PC, aside of FF games. That is already a great deal.
1P games are just miniscule to that.

Xbox resurrection has to do with gamepass, and MS focus on xbox brand, Xss, and focusing more on 1st P studios. These things which Xbox one didn't have at all.
That is what the Ps5 is going to face. Plus switch which had 107m already in 5 years. And now Steam, who has 120m userbase, plus is getting their timed exclusives and it's competition exclusives.

Its not going to be ps4 vs Xbox one+wii U.

That's why I've been saying their PC strategy in terms of Day 1 games will almost exclusively focus on live-service GaaS-type games, and even some of those could be on a case-by-case basis. IMO I don't think any company, let alone Sony, really needs 10 live-service GaaS titles to have a big revenue stream, especially if all of those games will need regular content updates. Just a smaller handful of really strong titles would almost always be better. I'm surprised they don't do anything like a new sort of Everquest or Everquest-like, get an updated GT Sport sequel live-service, and a couple of hero shooters (or just one hero shooter and something like Dreams to PC) and call it a day. Sounds more manageable but this isn't my company to make those type of decisions.

Live service games aren't a hit on first try. If Sony isn't careful, they could have some serious damage to their brand. Destruction all star is what happens, if you focus on live service that isn't successful.

Nintendo's dominated the Japanese market before with Wii & DS; Sony's answer to that was the PSP. If anything, I think a similar approach would be justified for the market there currently (except the handheld could just serve as a means for instant portability of PS4 games and streaming & Remote Play of PS5 games; maybe lower-scaled local play of PS5 games but they would need a similar RAM capacity and CPU, probably a ~ 2.5 TF GPU and some new policy for 3P devs to scale visual settings for games to 1/4 unless the hardware had a means to do that automatically. And it'd still need a pretty fast SSD).

I am sorry, but Sony doesn't stand a chance against switch. We know what happened after psp. Psvita was their last chance for that market.

MS buying Bethesda & ABK doesn't actually change too much for PS in terms of 3P revenue; people like yurinka have calculated total percentages of Bethesda & ABK games like COD on PS fiscal revenue and the amounts weren't large at all when looking at the combined results of everything else. Plus games like COD will still remain multiplat (and likely even come to the Switch/Switch 2) in the future.

It changes too much, when it can move consoles.
You dont bring revenue over night. You sell more hardware, and you bring more revenue that way.
Xbox one didn't have the games, which can move console. Now they have the game. Plus COD is the console seller for xbox, after that is elderscrolls and doom.
The more console you sell, the more 3P support you get. Xbox one failed this miserably.

The other acquisitions have come from companies that have all intention to maintain the status quo in terms of multiplatform support, so again nothing really changes for Sony (or MS or Nintendo) in those cases, unless companies like Embracer Group start shutting down teams they've purchased and cancelling games outright, or those like Tencent start influencing companies they have majority shares in to cancel certain games altogether. Can't see either of those two playing out.

It depends on who MS and Sony can negotiate with.
MS cant negotiate Japanese devs with timed exclusives. Sony wins in that department. But if it's embracer or western big publishers, MS has more chance on getting timed exclusives.
That is the only change it does.
That is if Google/Amazon and other gaint companies don't get in these acquisition.

I do agree that at some point in the very near future PS4 as far as being a "buffer" incentive for 3Ps is going to lose its power, it will probably happen as soon as next year in fact. However, as long as Sony are able to increase PS5 production and keep production numbers regularly high enough to finally start satisfying pent-up demand before that shift happens, it won't matter. It won't matter if Steam and Xbox are increasingly attractive for 3P sales because Sony will have PS5 regularly available by that point, and all three should see growth.

It matters to Sony alot.
One of the main reason for Sony success during the Ps4 was xbox one and Wii U failing. It helped the ps4 capitalize on the weak market.
MS and Nintendo aren't making that mistake.
Sony would have to make their console more attractive. But with them losing the Japanese market to switch, Japanese publishers focusing more on steam, and MS building the xbox brand, it's a tough for them to sell alot like they used to.
Deadline for Sony is 2024. If they don't get it faster, MS and Nintendo would have strong line up ready by that time.

I feel like this is a very poor reason to excuse questionable IP management but whatever.

Look at Sony. They are holding tons IPs on hostage for new IPs. They aren't that different from MS.
Socom has been on storage since ps3.
Only reason people don't care about, is that Sony found their winning formula.

Also, only halo infinite has mismanagement. The rest really don't. Rare had successful SOT. The Initiative is still working on perfect dark with crystal dynamics.
Until MS releases poor game, or cancels their games, then there is mismanagement like you are making out to be.
MS has 23 studios by now, if we don't count Activision. And you only see the 3 that I listed.

Halo Infinite has a ton of MTX.

MTx cosmetic. The most generous mtx so far, since you can buy it anytime you want.
They can't be compared to the ones Ubisoft+Rockstar+EA+Take2 has. Those make too much money, compared to halo infinite.

Player count matters for a game like Halo Infinite because it's a live-service GaaS, and also F2P. So the player count will likely reflect how many of those players could be buying content, which directly influences the revenue the game pulls in.

Very different from the case of God of War.

Only for halo infinite MP, not the SP, which alot of halo infinite player care about.
Also, games with lower player count gets pulled out of the cord.
If halo infinite was getting 50k players every month or less from steam, MS would have canned the f2p version bSteam, something people fail to recognize, when they criticise halo infinite.
There is a number, which GAAS has to maintain a monthly. If it doesn't keep those numbers, the game is canceled.

Steam may have a slightly larger base than PS4, but considering Steam itself is free (not the content on it, of course) and there are billions of PCs in the world, at what point do you look at the storefront platform and at what point do you focus on the actual hardware that storefront platform is available for?

Your argument would make sense, if PC was 1 store front. PC has tons of launchers. Each launchers has their own games. Ubisoft, EA, take 2, epic store, steam, bethesda, Activision.

That is alot of launchers, which exist on these computers. There are also launchers for Asia, and china.

Which is why consoles are small. Steam is the global launcher for western. And it's the one that has the most userbase.

MS only now making Windows store better after having a good decade to attempt doing so kind of feels like a lost cause; they might as well just settle with using Steam as that is what the community for their 1P have become comfortable with, and they don't really have the newness factor or brand appeal to leverage something else like Xbox to tie in with Windows Store to work against Steam.

MS only started to focus lately. They didn't give 2 shit about windows store, and made it too much hell, by doing drm. It's why pc gamers hate windows store.

Sony could still, if they want, either build their own storefront, or enter a strategic partnership with something like EGS, and fully integrate that with PSN & PS+ on the console side, to still maintain full vertical integration in the possibility they do Day 1 for all 1P content. They could also have a means of monetizing such a thing on the PC side and making PS+ subs have full access to perks between console & PC, and/or provide equivalent perks and tier benefits for PC-only at a reduced cost, to disable an ad-supported model of this type of hypothetical PC storefront. Other benefits too, such as getting PS or PC version of games at half price if you get the other version at full price, etc.

They are open to. They don't have to be exclusive to steam. They can open their own launcher if they want to.

My entire argument is that, they are leaving money on the table, with PC. PC has the userbase. Its up to Sony, if they want to make money. Having their own launcher with day1 games, would build their store front and can sell 3P games on that launcher too like steam.

Right so what does the situation look like outside of steam sales?

Getting top 10 steam weekly sales is big achievement for sales. Every game is on sale during those weekly sales. So getting top in row, indicates strong sales.
Outside of top 10 isn't bad. It's still selling.
You will want your games to hit top 10 weekly sales.

My point being not every game from Nintendo is a Mario Kart pulling in 45 million lifetime sales. And it's not just Metroid Dread that's the exception, either.

Same for Sony games and MS. Not every game would hit 20m mark. It just indicates your biggest title can sell tons of copies with larger userbase.

Exactly. Meanwhile I wish the same could be said for something like FH5 because it's a legitimately great arcade racer, outside of certain issues. But that isn't the case; same for Halo Infinite though in that game's case it comes down to a multitude of reasons.

Halo 5 sold 9m on 50m console. If it had ps4 numbers, it could have sold more.
The reason why platforms sell alot of copies, is because of userbase. The higher the userbase/harder you have, the more copies you can sell.

This is where steam is coming for MS. It helps sell alot of their 1st party games, because of the xbox one disaster, which shrieked their userbase.

Right but the difference for something like Halo Infinite is that the MP is F2P live-service GaaS. So you don't even have to pay for it upfront; the money comes from MTX which depends on the number of players active in the player base.

Which is why concurrent player count is kind of important of a measure. It's less a factor for things like Forza Horizon 5, where you still had to buy it in order to access it at all.

Concurrent userbase means nothing for f2p. For steam, it registers as all players logged at the same time, during that period. It changes after certain period of hours.
That doesn't indicate how many players are playing your game.
You cant make money from 10k users, if halo infinite steam concurrent was something to go bye. That is axe moment for the game.

Actually, do we know the specific number of sales for games on the Steam charts? I hear position rankings a lot but haven't heard any actual sales. I guess this is why people use Steam Spy? It was used a lot for Elden Ring although higher estimates ended up being way too high.

They use estimate reviews. Only those who owns the game can review it. So the more review it has, the more sales it has.

Forza Horizon 5 -

Steam Spy automatically gathers data from Steam user profiles, analyzes it and presents in simple, yet beautiful, manner. Steam Spy is designed to be helpful for indie developers, journalists, students and all parties interested in PC gaming and its current state of affairs.

steamspy.com

That is for forza horizon 5. Halo infinite numbers is being impacted by the f2p version.

Right but they have to be very smart & careful about what those games actually are, and the proximity of their availability on PC versus PlayStation. And I'm saying that for 1P single-player games, Day 1 is not viable, especially for the big AAA titles.

That would have been the case for Sony 5 years ago.
But right now it's different.
Sony could do no day1 and still be successful. But by doing that, MS would gain more market share from steam, with their day1 games.

That what boils down to. Would Sony allow MS to roam Steam for free, and make those money, or would challenge them on steam ground?

 

[kingfey]

No, a ton of the games of the list are fake. Nintendo doesn't pan to release games on PC, MS won"t release over a dozen games this year, Capcom won"t port PS2 or PSP MH games to PC and Sony doesn't plan to releade recent games on PC. All these things are total bullshit even if it got some guesses or rumors right and a few legit leaks.

Some titles are fake holders. That is to be expected, if you are trying to minimize leaking.
The one thing how ever you cant deny, is how many games the list have been Right?
As time goes on, that list would still be more true. Kingdom heart was the news one of that list.

 

[nikolino840]

I think 200M only at naughty dog and the rest to the others

 

[Gamerguy84]

Well I've been reading gaf for about an hour tonight and have had 6 facepalm, wtf moments.

Goodnight

 

[reksveks]

Anyone know what the current budget/expenditure is?

 

[Ic3man]

Cool, bring the pc ports.

 

[Dolodolo]

The clowning in this thread continues.

Some PC fans are desperate for Sony to make day one games and recommend the strategy of a company that lags behind and is forced to buy entire publishers to make any difference.

Dude, Sony knows better what to do when their successful strategy is working now and they have found a way to make extra income.

 

[DukeNukem00]

I think 200M only at naughty dog and the rest to the others

Thats probably accurate, even if you were joking. I ocasionally see people say "1st party money". For some unkown reason, some folks believe that somehow a game that only sells on a single platform has more money than 3rd party games that are budgeted for sale on 4 platforms. Games are budgeted based on market research and expected ROI. You will not get the same budget from a game that has a fraction of the market as potential clients as a game that has the entirety of the gaming market.

Other than ND at sony no studio had budgets that could compare with the most expensive AAA games, so when you see people say "sony or microsoft should buy this studio so it can give it 1st party money", its funny, because that studio would receive a lower amount

 

[Nickolaidas]

The clowning in this thread continues.

Some PC fans are desperate for Sony to make day one games and recommend the strategy of a company that lags behind and is forced to buy entire publishers to make any difference.

Dude, Sony knows better what to do when their successful strategy is working now and they have found a way to make extra income.

.... Bryank?

 

[OsirisBlack]

Thats probably accurate, even if you were joking. I ocasionally see people say "1st party money". For some unkown reason, some folks believe that somehow a game that only sells on a single platform has more money than 3rd party games that are budgeted for sale on 4 platforms. Games are budgeted based on market research and expected ROI. You will not get the same budget from a game that has a fraction of the market as potential clients as a game that has the entirety of the gaming market.

Other than ND at sony no studio had budgets that could compare with the most expensive AAA games, so when you see people say "sony or microsoft should buy this studio so it can give it 1st party money", its funny, because that studio would receive a lower amount

Perhaps the scale of the project didn't warrant that type of budget.

Yes and no it's a case-by-case thing and completely product and pitch dependent. First-party game studios still pitch new ideas to their parent company all the time for funding, the same thing happens in the film industry. Let's say for the sake of conversation that I work at Bad Hombre, which would be a subsidiary of Good Universe, which is also a subsidiary of Lionsgate and I had a new film idea that I wanted to pitch. I wouldn't just be trying to pitch an idea to my boss it would have to make its way up the chain and my funding would be completely based on what the higher-ups thought of that pitch/presentation.

 

[DukeNukem00]

Perhaps the scale of the project didn't warrant that type of budget.

Yes and no it's a case-by-case thing and completely product and pitch dependent. First-party game studios still pitch new ideas to their parent company all the time for funding, the same thing happens in the film industry. Let's say for the sake of conversation that I work at Bad Hombre, which would be a subsidiary of Good Universe, which is also a subsidiary of Lionsgate and I had a new film idea that I wanted to pitch. I wouldn't just be trying to pitch an idea to my boss it would have to make its way up the chain and my funding would be completely based on what the higher-ups thought of that pitch/presentation.

Sure, but even bigger projects had a fraction of other similar, but 3rd party games. For example, Horizon 1 had around 40 million if i recall. Whereas for Shadow of TR we have on the high end a budget of 135 million dollars and we were told that this was a normal budget at the time for games of similar nature. So even on the low end, TR was double the budget of Horizon. If you play God of War 2018. This game came after the poor reception of the previous game and all its ideas, single cut camera, change in dirrection, these were deemed risky by sony. Nobody would have given the game some huge budget. If you look at the game, the empty maps. The nearly non existent npc's throughout the game. The reskined minibosses. The sparse combat encounters that have an arena design. A single model of puzzle that keeps repeating the whole game. Two animations for when kratos drops chains and picks atreus up for the entire game. These are all cost cutting measures, because there were no money for more.

You can easily see in the trailer for Ragnarock how the world is much more detailed, more characters, richer in everything. Since the first game was a success, now they increased the budget. Same for Horizon 2. But normally, "1st party money" doesnt mean what people think it means. You dont want 1st party money for a game if you want it to be the biggest and most lavish it can be. You want 3rd party money for that

 

[Dolodolo]

Other than ND at sony no studio had budgets that could compare with the most expensive AAA games, so when you see people say "sony or microsoft should buy this studio so it can give it 1st party money", its funny, because that studio would receive a lower amount

Have you played Horizon FW?

People can relate to this game however they want, but no one will argue with the fact that a colossal budget has been invested in it.

Maybe not as big as the Tlou 2, but close to it.

I'm just as sure the new god of war has comparable amounts to Naughty Dog's latest game

And the second Spider-Man in general (my opinion) is going to cost even more.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Mu assumption is that the money is going into having each studio porting to PC at the same time during development, like every other studio in the world does.
Makes sense. Doesn't mean they have to release it day and date.

 

[ArtHands]

Make sense. PC gaming has grown drastically larger in recent years, and now Sony has to switch focus to PC.

Though I’ll admit their 300 million investment for PC gaming was beyond my expectation. It seems their PC gaming sales is better than we all thought.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Make sense. PC gaming has grown drastically larger in recent years, and now Sony has to switch focus to PC.

Though I’ll admit their 300 million investment for PC gaming was beyond my expectation. It seems their PC gaming sales is better than we all thought.

What?

 

[Hendrick's]

Exactly. People forget these companies are more than just selling games. Sony knows that if their games were multiplatform they would sell more. I'm sure they figured that out even before releasing their first console, lmao.

It's about what's going to give them the most money as all corporations. Sony is a hardware manufacturer. They will always want to sell consoles.
Consoles are the only place where you can be subscribed to their services. This is their target audience. It's not the 2 million Horizon copies sold on PC where a lot of them were double dipping basically..even Jim Ryan once mentioned how important that crowd is for the pc game releases.

I also imagine these gaas games will be getting some great crowds on PC. I'm almost sure some will be released on PC day one...and that could be their triumph. Not saying a lot of people will buy a PlayStation because Sony will release their online games on PC day one...but it's definitely a market they will explore. It's like I can imagine free skins if you're a ps plus subscriber and stuff like that, not available on PC. It's Sony...they will do this lmao.

I think the chip shortage has them 100% reconsidering their focus on hardware.

 

[Neofire]

Eh? It’s common sense. I said I understand why they are doing it but for me it’s only an annoyance, I’ll either play an inferior version day 1 or has to wait years for a superior version or end up double dipping and pay 2x the price. Why would I like it?

I say be lucky when and IF you get any of the games. PC isn't Sony's platform and has no obligation to provide games to it.

Too many people act so entitled when it comes to Sony's games and PC but I don't see all these comments regarding Nintendo in the same fashion.

If they come to PC then they do, if not then move on .

 

[John Wick]

They’ll just continue to drip feed old games onto PC, a single studio isn’t enough to keep up with everything that’s releasing.

Agreed!
No way their top games arrive day and date with PC.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

I think the chip shortage has them 100% reconsidering their focus on hardware.

Considering the increase in units produced for the new year (almost 60% more than this past year) and this:


Sounds to me that their focus is the same as always

 

[Fredrik]

I say be lucky when and IF you get any of the games. PC isn't Sony's platform and has no obligation to provide games to it.

Too many people act so entitled when it comes to Sony's games and PC but I don't see all these comments regarding Nintendo in the same fashion.

If they come to PC then they do, if not then move on .

The problem now is that we kinda know they’re coming. So what do you do? Play the inferior version? wait for the superior version and risk have everything spoiled? or play both?

 

[akaFullmetal]

Well that's sounds nice, nice to have more games coming.