Sony’s controversial PlayStation Network requirement for its PC games is once again in the spotlight after the company delisted the original Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam and the Epic Games Store and added the PSN requirement to the upcoming single-player remaster.
They're competing with PC now and simultaneously trying to turn this into a vector to convert people to PS5. It won't work, but the fact that there are PC versions at all show how they can't just do what they want with impunity.
It'll be interesting to see what Sony will do considering they're not going to pull PC players to PS and PC ports open to door to piracy which is definitely going to increase with the PSN shit. I doubt the PSN data is so valuable they're just going to let people pirate their games. Either they're going to pull out the PC market to prevent piracy or they're going to get rid of the PSN for PC. The latter makes too much sense so it's probably going to be the former.
Sony has sold double the consoles this generation (60 vs 30 million I think). And the Series S is very unpopular with devs, increasing the complexity of developing games for Xbox to get just half the PS market.
Game Pass is popular, but it’s just one stream of revenue, and a lot people are only using it on PC. Sony is selling consoles, 70 EUR games, and in addition their own subscriptions.
I understand MS’s strategy, and maybe this was the best they could have done for this gen, but Sony and Nintendo is dominating console gaming, with MS lagging far behind.
Don't forget how much money MS is spending on these game company acquisitions just to close other studios they already have that released great games instead of funding them to make even more great games. I feel as though game pass really relies on getting more customers to sign up for its success and eventually there will not be enough to sustain itself and that is why we are already seeing price increases and changing of the tiers
Nintendo just doing what they've always done is ironically what gamers have been calling for all this time.
Just make fun games with no silly BS.
Say what you will about Nintendo's litigation strategy (its to protect the value of their IP in their mind), but they're kind of crushing it even compared to Sony.
Sony has sold double the consoles this generation (60 vs 30 million I think).
Sold consoles isn't that great of a cathegory to judge the two, since both lose money on every sold unit.
And the Series S is very unpopular with devs, increasing the complexity of developing games for Xbox to get just half the PS market.
Get ready for the same thing to happen on the vanilla PS5. Devs will target the PS5 pro for trailer footage and the games will run like shit on the old PS5.
Game Pass is popular, but it’s just one stream of revenue, and a lot people are only using it on PC
It's very cheap to offer and if they don't need to sell xboxes to have a wider customer base, that's a bonus - not a drawback.
but Sony and Nintendo is dominating console gaming, with MS lagging far behind
We'll see how far they'll be lagging behind once they leverage their Call of duty monopoly.
Even if they sell at a loss, the number of consoles mean the potential number of buyers for games. More consoles sold means they can sell more games and other profit generating products/services.
Sony is barely selling any PS5 Pros as there is a low interest at this high price, which is unlikely to change in the future. The current console is not even fully utilized, lot of recent games are still PS4 cross-gen. 0 chance of the base PS5 being left behind
MS will not make COD an exclusive, as they will not give up on the chance to sell a 70 USD/EUR game to 60 million PS5 users, which is double the size of their own market
You said yourself that a lot of gamepass subscriptions were on PC. You know how many people own PCs?
That's what happened with the Xbox one X and the PS4 pro. Game devs want to make their games look best for trailers, so the graphics will be focused on instead of optimizing for the lower tiered consoles. It'l be like "if you want stable 60fps, you'll need the PS5 pro".
Starfield already didn't come to the PS5. There even was a version for the PS5 in development.
I don't think Sony is making much more money than Microsoft is, though. They may have sold twice the consoles, but the generation is brutal in terms of actual profits.