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Sony revenue vs GaaS
- Thread starter Mibu no ookami
- Start date
HeisenbergFX4
Gold Member
BootsLoader
Banned
Well, the way you explain it, you have a point.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
It's both.
There are way more successful Live Service games today than there was 10 years ago.
There were way more successful Live Service games 10 years ago than there were 20 years ago.
The people using the term "market saturation" never look at the numbers.
Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
Everyone stop making GaaS and force those Zoomers to do better.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Another thing I disagree with is this notion that Sony HAS to do GaaS titles. They don't.
FalsettoVibe
Member
StealthGoblin
Banned
How would you create a steady stream of income that would sustain PlayStation studios?
The answer isn't more high risk single player games with longer and longer development cycles.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
You don't see Nintendo saying "oh, well we need GaaS to survive!." They know that if they keep making games their fans love, they'll be ok. They themselves were forced to rethink their old traditional strategy, but instead of flipping off the fan base, they catered to it. Instead of chasing the latest trends, they doubled down on what their fans wanted and gave it to them.
Maybe Sony should invest in bit coin?
StealthGoblin
Banned
Sony's fanbase expect high fidelity AAA games. They are inherently expensive.
Nintendo's fanbase tolerate much cheaper to make games.
MoreJRPG
Suffers from extreme PDS
It's really simple, stop making every first party release a photo-realistic 250 million dollar money sink that takes six years to develop and requires 15 million copies to break even. There's a reason Nintendo is running the industry right now. Just look at revenue via software sales, it's not even close. Nintendo raked in 5.18 billion dollars last year compared to 2.1 billion from Sony and 1.4 for Microsoft.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
NOBODY IS ASKING FOR SONY TO HAVE ZERO GAAS GAMES! Stop the lies! We don't like the 60% to 40% money split. That's it!
MoreJRPG
Suffers from extreme PDS
Sony's fanbase expect Call of Duty and Madden ever year with GTA and Roblox on the side. First party isn't a system seller for PlayStation(for anyone other than the hardcore forum dwellers), there's a reason they fought tooth and nail to stop Microsoft from buying Activison and rolled their eyes at Bethesda. COD generated over 800 million in revenue for Sony alone in 2021, no first party came close to sniffing that figure in 2021 or ever in their history. The best selling PlayStation first party of all time is Spider-Man at 20 million, and they needed to sell 117 million PS4's to hit that attach rate. That would rank 8th in Switch software sales. That's the difference between first party being a "need-to-have" and a "nice-to-have."
Third party drives PlayStation, not first. Always has and always will.
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ShadyAcshuns
Member
Believe it or not, original PlayStation fans want jrpgs: something that made them from the start. Nintendo's fan base gets the highest quality exclusives on the market. They also get on-the-go gaming that is easy and convenient: another thing they've expected from the company.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
But many games Sony has made for years already can be or are GAAS. Helldivers, GT7, MLB The Show, etc.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Agreed. They just need to invest in those things that are already there without going "all-in" as some seem to think they need to do.
StealthGoblin
Banned
They aren't going all in though. This is the most spread SIE has been.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
They'll be fine, as long as they don't drop the budget for sp titles people expect, while investing a bit in a few GaaS titles. As others have said, they should just do that with games they already have that might be suited for it.
StealthGoblin
Banned
...that's exactly what they are doing.
Helldivers
GT7
MLB
Horizon
TLOU
Twisted Metal
Marathon
Destiny Mobile
There are a few new IPs, yes, but that's also to be expected.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Of course no one knows for sure, but I think at one point they were going to go all-in, but then upper management stepped in and said "hold the phone on that a bit here" and changed that awful strategy idea. I base that idea on those firings they recently had.
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mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Jim Ryan needs to allow his devs to talk about their games that are SP too. Anything coming out in 2024 or 2025 should have a trailer at some point next year.
protonion
Member
Sony is on top for over two decades by selling tons of hardware and non gaas games.
Yet buffoons like Jim do everything in their power to sabotage both revenue streams with their decisions.
Gaas games have been failing left and right, (even huge IPs like Diablo lately).
Just because a tiny list of games make billions doesn't mean you can just decide to make the next one out of the blue. Same like MS for many years get their ass handed to them when they try to rival Sony's games.
Every fucking time we have the people cheering chasing stupid new trends.
Remember Wii? These "lapsed gamers" that couldn't stand traditional controls and wanted everything to be motion?
I remember people in this very forum debating how this will sacrifice game design etc yet they insisted that this is the future.
How did this work out in the end? Wii died a sudden death taking it's successor with it, PS4 commited to traditional gaming and destroyed everyone.
Gaas games are mostly shit and not something that a good developer would want to make.
Sony employees were not happy I read here somewhere.
Also, regarding Sony. Spare us with your narrative that gaas investment is an addition to their traditional staff that will not affect anything.
Every single big release this gen has suffered from an uncharacteristic for Sony lack of polish and rushed development feeling. It is not a coincidence.
They wasted a whole gen with Jim's stupidity.
This guy and the other clown that is still there did so much damage that will affect them until next gen.
Yet buffoons like Jim do everything in their power to sabotage both revenue streams with their decisions.
Gaas games have been failing left and right, (even huge IPs like Diablo lately).
Just because a tiny list of games make billions doesn't mean you can just decide to make the next one out of the blue. Same like MS for many years get their ass handed to them when they try to rival Sony's games.
Every fucking time we have the people cheering chasing stupid new trends.
Remember Wii? These "lapsed gamers" that couldn't stand traditional controls and wanted everything to be motion?
I remember people in this very forum debating how this will sacrifice game design etc yet they insisted that this is the future.
How did this work out in the end? Wii died a sudden death taking it's successor with it, PS4 commited to traditional gaming and destroyed everyone.
Gaas games are mostly shit and not something that a good developer would want to make.
Sony employees were not happy I read here somewhere.
Also, regarding Sony. Spare us with your narrative that gaas investment is an addition to their traditional staff that will not affect anything.
Every single big release this gen has suffered from an uncharacteristic for Sony lack of polish and rushed development feeling. It is not a coincidence.
They wasted a whole gen with Jim's stupidity.
This guy and the other clown that is still there did so much damage that will affect them until next gen.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
If 60% of the market are GAAS gamers (and rising) why wouldn't you devote 60+% of your resource towards them?
StealthGoblin
Banned
That 40% is still larger investment then they've ever put into SP games. They've got a huge development budget going on at present.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Probably because the GaaS bubble might burst.
Their actual lifespan is too short actually, roughly 3 weeks then we move to something else, that doesn't validate the wait for years.
ReBurn
Gold Member
I don't know that there's any indication it's a bubble.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Destiny 2, long considered the prize pig of such, is floundering hard right now.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
It won't. It's the healthiest segment of the market.
ReBurn
Gold Member
Considered the prize pig by whom? It never was the pinnacle of live service games.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
Sony and Jim Ryan get a lot of hate from pursuing GaaS revenue but I really think that people have no idea how much GaaS generates in revenue compared to a traditional model and traditional AAA storyline games and just how unsustainable it is to be on the outside looking in on this.
Fortnite - 6 billion dollars in 2022
PUBG - 2.5 billion revenue in 2022 (PC, Console, and Mobile)
Roblox - 2.2 billion in 2022
Genshin Impact - 2 billion annually
League of Legends - 1.8 billion in 2022
Warzone - 1.8 billion~
Apex Legends - 2 billion in 3 years
CSGO - 6.7 billion in 10 years
Rainbow Six Siege - 1.12 billion in 4 years
Sony made 27 billion in 2022 in revenue but they aren't retaining much due to the high operating cost
I've said it many times, that I have zero interest in GaaS or even online games, but I think Jim Ryan has correctly understood that Sony needs at least one or two major GaaS titles to bolster operating incomes, otherwise, it's going to fall well behind other publishers. I think they were overly ambitious with the numbers they wanted to introduce, but I also think those numbers were inflated by games like MLB The Show.
He promised 10 by March 2026
Personally, if I was Sony my GaaS push would have looked like this:
1. Dreams on PC and PS5 + VR Support
2. Gran Turismo 7 on PS5 and PC
3. MLB The Show
4. SOCOM US Navy Seals
5. Destiny 3
6. Marathon
7. Last of Us Online
8. Fairgame (just because we know it exists)
9. Concord (just because we know it exists)
10. Twisted Metal
When you consider the likely canceled Deviation game, we also know of probably two Horizon projects that might fall under that. All in all, I don't think anything is really ridiculous in nature. That being said, we know Dreams isn't one and I don't think they're including Gran Turismo.
You throw in some other things that people might actually like, like Motorstorm, Warhawk, Starhawk, MAG, Resistance, Killzone, and JetMoto/WipeOut.
Regardless, I think they have some diversity in the types of games they're looking to make, but more importantly, I don't think any of this really has much of an impact on their single-player games. I don't think ALL their studios have been "FORCED" to make GaaS games. You swap out a Destiny 3 for Deviation's game that was canceled and SOCOM for Horizon.
That doesn't begin to touch games like Firewall Ultra, Helldivers 2, and London Studios' game that probably actually round out the rest.
Personally, prior to this year, I'd of gone for four GaaS titles:
1: Dreams (PS4, PS5, PC with an actual storefront and monetization model to sell your own games/creations)
2: MLB The Show (multi-plat AND a mobile version, kind of like how COD has Warzone on mobile)
3: GT7 (PS4 & PS5) with full GaaS GT Sport 2 integrated & standalone package; potentially F2P (PS5 & PC)
4: TLOU Factions Remake GaaS (integrating some content and features from Factions 2)(PS5 & PC)
That would have been more than enough for Sony in terms of GaaS content from 2020 onward. Then from 2023/2024-onward they could expand into some other stuff and replace some stuff such as:
1: GT Sport 2 Phase 2 (whatever that would entail)(PS5 & PC)
2: TLOU2 Factions (phase out Factions 1 Remake for Factions 2, as a free upgrade for subscribers of Factions 1 (subbed for a certain amount of time at least) and paid upgrade for new players with a F2P option they can try out if they wish (PS5 & PC)
3: Helldivers 2 (PS5 & PC)
4: Hot Shots Golf, Rhythm game, or fighting game-style GaaS (PS5, PC, mobile)
5: Marathon (I'm assuming this will be replacing Destiny 2)
6: Spiderman/Marvel GaaS (succeed where The Avengers failed)
And there you go. That'd be enough to get them along the whole gen and even start of 10th gen where GaaS is concerned. A slew of well-established IP making initial visibility much easier, good genre and demographic variety as well. This should have been the GaaS strategy IMO, but it's too late now for things like Dreams and Factions Remake. They can still do something MLB The Show-like for mobile, full-fledged GT Sport sequel using the GT7 engine and assets, etc.
Do Sony really need games like Fairgame$, Concord or whatever Deviation's game is? No. But those teams could be extremely beneficial to supporting more surefire hits. I get that SIE want more profits and GaaS is a means to achieving that, but IMO that's only part of the equation. They still need to cut back on the PC ports of non-GaaS modern titles, still need more 1P (in-house or with 3P partners) AA games (leveraging classic IP could be very useful here), and so on.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Popularity. Now it's down to around half a mil user base.
EDMIX
Member
I'm not seeing the difference.
An online game still is going to require the same things to be successful. GaaS, Live Service, Online etc what ever anyone wants to call it, still needs the same things to succeed and I don't see enough if any differences to have the term magically mean something brand new.
You could apply this term to the last several generations of online games. I feel people using the term, are making it out to be like Sony is doing something radically different then generations prior
tbh, they are just doing another round of Sony Online Entertainment with a set of different teams.
Gojiira
Member
Warhawk would be the best franchise for GaaS, seasons adding new maps,vehicles,cosmetics is a no brainer.
Killzone as well could work well if t seasonal model was focused on cosmetics and characters kinda like Apex maybe, each season could bring a new ‘sector’ that the ISA and Helghast are fighting over, launch the game with Season 1 like normal but with a stellar single player campaign and your golden.
Dreams is for sure a no brainer, and Destiny 3 is 100% coming, and they have Marathon in the meantime. I think these alone would be enough.
Killzone as well could work well if t seasonal model was focused on cosmetics and characters kinda like Apex maybe, each season could bring a new ‘sector’ that the ISA and Helghast are fighting over, launch the game with Season 1 like normal but with a stellar single player campaign and your golden.
Dreams is for sure a no brainer, and Destiny 3 is 100% coming, and they have Marathon in the meantime. I think these alone would be enough.
Generic
Member
In GaaS you get new content for free, while in normal games you have to buy DLC.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
I don’t mind give money for good DLC like Old Hunter for Bloodborne, Future Redeemed for Xenoblade 3 and upcoming Elden Ring DLC. The best part all the games i mentioned even without DLC they are complete games.
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
Multiplayer gaming. a change for the worse. But people will still be able to play their familiar SP games like usual because there's always a demand for those
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
Yes, Sony's smart enough to know that not every GaaS they make will succeed and they're bargaining on 1 or 2 games that make a decent chunk of cash. I think it's safe to say that they will try to avoid making more and taking more risks once they get their golden goose GaaS.
When you're a public company with many investors who demand more and more growth, "already very successful" is BS and not enough. You plateau you lose.
Humdinger
Member
Sure, I understand how lucrative GaaS games are (or can be, when they hit big). I mean, that's why Sony is going after them -- because they are so damn lucrative.
From my own perspective, though, I find that style of game uninteresting. So although I understand Sony's (and Microsoft's) motivation to pursue live service games -- it makes perfect sense from a business perspective -- from a gamer and an artistic perspective, I'm disappointed.
From my own perspective, though, I find that style of game uninteresting. So although I understand Sony's (and Microsoft's) motivation to pursue live service games -- it makes perfect sense from a business perspective -- from a gamer and an artistic perspective, I'm disappointed.
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
1. Nintendo doesn't take a loss on anything they sell like Sony. Hardware is at a profit, games never go on sale, games in general are lower budget due to not having as high production values, etc. That's not to mention that Nintendo lives and dies by their first party, i'm pretty sure most of their profit comes from first party sales which don't have a cut that needs to be given to the publisher, they just get 100% of the cash. Sony lives by third party with some sprinkled in first party.
2. Nintendo multiplayer games already implement a few GaaS aspects... Mario Kart 8 is a 9 year old game getting new updates and content. Splatoon is just straight up GaaS. Smash has paid DLC characters, and for a time had constantly added content. Those are 3 of their most popular franchises, we just don't call them GaaS because it's Nintendo and they get a pass over for pretty much everything they do.
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
I'm willing to bet "original Playstation fans" make up like 1% of the audience that actually buys Playstation products. Look dawg NeoGAF is not representative of the wider gaming audience.
I mean it's less photorealism as it is length, but sure, I agree. Sony could take notes from Nintendo (and even Microsoft) and invest more into some few indies that will cover the gaps between their gigantic first party releases. Those indies however will make a fraction of the money a (successful) GaaS will do, and we are talking about money hungry businesses here, soooooooooooooo
sachos
Member
Man we really do be in a bubble uh?
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Yes. NeoGAF is one of the last remaining places to not understand GAAS.
Dude normies eat that shit up, its mostly a medium for people to socialize more than game.
Aces High
Member
GAAS is how online multiplayer games are designed.
Even Nintendo jumped on the GAAS train with Mario Kart and Smash Bros which are getting content updates to keep the experience fresh.
Not having online multiplayer games in their first-party portfolio is a big mistake for PlayStation.
They have Gran Turismo, but they fucked up the monetization. Gran Turismo is not fun once you reach a certain level of progress. Instead of selling cosmetic livery items for real money, they decided to force you into buying cars for money in order to progress the single-player content. They were too greedy.
TLOU would have been a perfect IP for battle royale, but they had to go overboard with political content in part 2. TLOU is dead in the gaming world. A part 3 would sell much worse than the first two games. I'm really interested to see how the non-gaming audience reacts to season 2 of the TV show. Past years have shown that political content doesn't sell well in entertainment.
Then there's some Horizon online multiplayer game which looks absolutely awful based on leaked screenshots.
I see the biggest potential in Insomniac's superhero games. They can add an online multiplayer on top of the single player content like Rockstar did with GTA5.
Marathon is a key project for PlayStation since Microsoft bought CoD. Bungie is an amazing studio so I'm expecting them to deliver.
Even Nintendo jumped on the GAAS train with Mario Kart and Smash Bros which are getting content updates to keep the experience fresh.
Not having online multiplayer games in their first-party portfolio is a big mistake for PlayStation.
They have Gran Turismo, but they fucked up the monetization. Gran Turismo is not fun once you reach a certain level of progress. Instead of selling cosmetic livery items for real money, they decided to force you into buying cars for money in order to progress the single-player content. They were too greedy.
TLOU would have been a perfect IP for battle royale, but they had to go overboard with political content in part 2. TLOU is dead in the gaming world. A part 3 would sell much worse than the first two games. I'm really interested to see how the non-gaming audience reacts to season 2 of the TV show. Past years have shown that political content doesn't sell well in entertainment.
Then there's some Horizon online multiplayer game which looks absolutely awful based on leaked screenshots.
I see the biggest potential in Insomniac's superhero games. They can add an online multiplayer on top of the single player content like Rockstar did with GTA5.
Marathon is a key project for PlayStation since Microsoft bought CoD. Bungie is an amazing studio so I'm expecting them to deliver.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Yeah, I should edit that post, already caused a bit of confusion.
Honestly, I don't see any problem with continuous support for mp games.
Predatory practices are on the developers/publishers, not on GaaS itself.
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T0minator
Member
As long as there's good variety with multiple different multiplayer games, each with their own consistent updates, it wouldn't be a bad move.
I'm looking forward to something new in the multiplayer space. The doom and gloom before they even released anything yet is kind of crazy, isn't it
I'm looking forward to something new in the multiplayer space. The doom and gloom before they even released anything yet is kind of crazy, isn't it
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