@Titntin I am certain that Jim is not going to be happy with this statement, Sony actually had argued in Brazil how destructive it would be for them if CoD was in game pass. This whole thing is about preventing CoD from being on GamePass in a couple of years.
@Serialsid that was their entirety, included games that are exclusively digital. You will have to go to individual publisher releases to compare how each of them does digital/physical. Example:
Over 68% of Elden Ring‘s sales were digital, with a majority of those copies being purchased by users on Xbox or PC. For Xbox, 85% of the game’s sales were digital, trumping the 73% of digital sales on PC. On PS5 and PS4, just over half of Elden Ring‘s sales were digital.
Read that again: Xbox has a higher percentage of digital to physical sales than PC. When was the last time you saw anyone buy physical PC games?
More from that article:
While most of Elden Ring‘s digital sales were on Xbox, a majority of the game’s total sales have been on PlayStation consoles, with a total of 32% of the game’s U.K. sales going to Sony’s platform, followed by 30% on PC. Just 29% of Elden Ring‘s sales have been attributed to Xbox consoles.
PS still sold better, but just by 3 points (12 points if you count the PS4 version) despite the extreme low physical sale numbers on the UK, because that’s how much more Xbox tilts towards digital than PS.
@JustPlainLoco this is true about any company, reason we should always push for all the 3 players to be on as even ground as possible and not ever try to defend any platforms global dominance of the market.
We all win when none of them win, we al lose when one of them loses.
Anyways, this is a meaningless figure. Remember when Elden Ring supposedly didn’t sell on Xbox due to these same charts, only to have the publisher themselves report numbers and then being proportional to the install base?
Xbox users simply trend way more towards digital copies.
@WallyWest Microsoft AND Japanese devs have spoken on it: during last gen, by delaying the Japanese launch of the Xbox one by almost a full year, Japan simply took it as a message that Xbox didn’t care about Japan or their developers. Once old management was fired and changed all around, they spent almost the entirety of last gen trying to fix their relationships with the general Japanese market.
This is good right, this means more games from Japan will come over
Sadly statements like this tend to mean “we will make fewer games like Live-A-Live and Octopath and try to focus on the kind of games we think the west wants.”
@Snake_V5 it’s a statement that tends to just come from anti-Xbox ps fans, usually comes with the mindset that “Xbox users just want first person shooters.”
They tend to try to back it up with boxed copy sales of games and continuously dismiss that Xbox has a way higher digital-to-physical sale ratio.
If you are not interested in reviews of PlayStation Studios games on PC, why read the article? Are some here really that desperate to cover the sky with your hands so no one else can see it?
When they announced they were cutting ps4/XBO, I stated I was concerned they had simply decided not to optimize this game at all (or had trouble optimizing it at all) and seems that I was right. 30fps is not acceptable this gen.
@Matroska Microsoft and Sega also have a long history in gaming. The Dreamcast ran Windows CE, and quite a few of Sega games went to become Xbox exclusives after Sega dropped off making console hardware. And it’s not like it’s ancient history either, that kind of relationship went all the way through the Xbox one generation with Phantasy Star Online 2.
@JuggaloRazzam I’ll look at the arrange thing but I insist the home button should by default take me to the Home Screen in a single press, and holding it be the requirement to bring up the cards.
I’d say let me disable the cards entirely but I seen ads there so I bet they will never allow us to remove them.
To me, all the card system does is get in the way. When I press the home button, I expect to be taken to the home where I can (almost alway) shut down the console or boot another game.
Will have to wait and see how such a model looks, if it’s true we can just “slot” the drive, but am very skeptical.
This sounds like the “perfect” time for them to do a second price increase by charging a bonkers premium for the attachment in such a way that buying both ends up being a higher price tag than now.
On the other hand, would be nice to be able to easily replace the disk drive when it inevitably goes bad after multiple years of use.
@TrickyDicky99 not necessarily true. See The Witcher 3 on the Switch. That game was not designed around the Switch weak hardware, but some wizards managed to scale it down.
@naruball @extermin8or_ that’s not my point. Outselling the PS4 version does not mean that Sony is getting their expected count of unit sales only on PS5, and they need the PS4 version out there to achieve the unit count they have grown used to sell in the past.
If, for example, game X sells 6 million units on PS5 and 4 million on PS4, that means they still need the PS4 version to achieve their usual 10 million of years past. You don’t just give up on 25%-40% of your unit sales simply because it’s a new generation. Investors are expecting every year to sell more units, not less.
Personally, I don't care if PS games go to PC day one. I dont like playing games on PC. I would rather get the console version. As it stands, my backlog is so large that I would not care about simply a year difference otherwise. I mean, as it is I wait about that long to buy games on sale.
No more designed for the PS5 coding to the metal anymore soon.
No one works on the metal anymore. That mindset died with the PS2. Assembly programming has not been a viable way of making games since the X360/PS3 generation.
Plus people seem to forget that the PC player base isn't actually that big compared to console players, steam figures alone tell us that. There's like 5-1 ratio of console players to pc.
This is heavily dependent on the game. Some games sell way better on pc. But honestly i have never seen any stat pointing a 5-1 ratio, just a small 2 digit percentage advantage of any platform over the other. You would have to sum games that are available on all platforms, and combine all console sales, to get anything that gets to 2-1 or higher in favor of consoles.
The thing that is true is that there is usually no much crossover between PC and Console players. While a console player might actually switch platforms by going XBox first over PS first (or vise-versa), you rarely get that from PC players, so providing a console game also on PC will not yield Sony any losses.
Edit:
Seriously, during the launch years of the platform, I didn't mind, in fact, I encouraged, all games run in prev gen. Games launched during that window tend to start their development in last gen hardware, and get upgraded for the next gen, so releasing last gen versions along them is perfectly sensible.
But 3,4, 5 years out? At that point you are actually holding development back.
To me this sounds like they are not happy with the software sales figures of PS5 versions of their games, and feel they need to keep selling these games to PS4 users to sustain their expected yearly sale figures.
What I want to hear is more unique bosses. I liked the story on the previous one, but was highly disappointed in the lack of unique boss encounters. It felt like a bunch of ogres (or whatever they were called) and valkyries with varying patterns, oh and Baldur a few times.
@Porco doubt it. Look at TLOU. New models, accessibility options and improved visuals is exactly what they did for TLOU “remake”. The older game was patched a while back with token stuff. They will charge full price for this. You wait and see.
Year one:
Demons Souls + Spider-Man remakesters
Year two:
Uncharted 4 + TLOU remakesters
Year three:
Horizon 1 + … Bloodbourne(?) remakesters
Sony plans to pad every year with at least two remakesters. And yes I’m going to keep using that word to keep making fun of what Sony calls “a remake”.
Edit: oh wait!! I forgot about Death Stranding “Directors Cut” and Ghost of Tsushima “Directors Cut” and Nioh collection and that announced remake of Kotor… they really investing heavy on the remakesters! So.. 3 to 4 remakesters per year. Let’s see what next year holds!
@Ward_ting They had multiple issues. Them trying to sell cloud only games was a big one, but I don't think as big as many would guess, given right now the likes of Capcom are selling cloud only versions of their games on Switch rather successfully.
I think the biggest issue was they refused to license windows servers, and wanted their cloud to run entirely on Linux. This meant that any and all games for the platform had to be re-built exclusively for their platform. Amazon's Luna might still fail eventually, but at least they rely on windows based servers, so its much easier to get content on their services.
A lot of the games we define PS by weren't PS exclusive because they were brought to us by Sony, they were PS exclusive by natural monopoly because devs built games for it for its unique at the time storage media and thus it couldn't work on other devices.
Yep. This is one of the big reasons, IMO, that the PS Classic mini was such a disaster. Didn't help the hardware sucked, but the things everyone associated with the PS1 the most didn't belong to Sony: Tomb Rider, Crash Bandicoot, Spiro, Final Fantasy, Oddworld, Dino Crisis, Metal Gear, Symphony of the Night... yea a few of these ended up in the device, but they are not actually Sony games to do as they please. Most the games have plenty other ways to be played these days.
Edit: And now, the biggest game they have, is another license, even if they develop it themselves, they don't own Spider-Man. They could lose the license as easily as Activision lost it in the past.
I hope so. I am curious what we are going to be looking forward for the next year. So far its Spider Man 2 and a few third party exclusivity deals (Final Fantasy XVI for example.)
So far we been "eating through" games that were all first announced during the PS5 reveal and launch. I think the only things from that list that we have not seen dates for yet are Spiderman 2 and Wolverine, and I honestly don't expect Wolverine until 2024.
Just hope they don't flood us only with VR announcements.
Also, please, no more showing games that wont show up 2 or 3 years down the line. Focus on the 12 months following the presentation, please!
@Milktastrophe "If anything, I guess the rental subscriptions should pay devs even less because they're only temporary licenses. If you can own something forever* why pay more to rent it for less time?"
I dont have numbers but Phil Spencer has noted that their contracts fluctuate from title to title, and publisher to publisher, since not everyone is comfortable with the same terms. Some get paid based on time share (how many subscribers played the game within a calendar month) while others prefer an up-front bulk sum. How big either of these numbers are likely fluctuates too, and I would imagine the number would be higher the closer the deal occurs to launch (since that's when interest is highest.)
Right now we see A Plage's Tale Requiem launching on the service day one, I would say that at least tells us that the publisher was more than happy with the performance of Plage's Tale Incense had on the service. So far, I have not seen any developer complain about the performance their games had on Game Pass. Only article I read complaining about it was someone complaining about not being able to get into the service.
I also saw lots of extrapolation when the Oddword developer complained about how much they felt they lost in the PS Plus deal on PS5 launch, but that was due to how many subscribers claimed the game, something that left them scratching their heads as to how many of those could had actually been sales. Even users without a PS5 claimed the game, basically killing any chance the game would have to even monetize itself later on its life cycle.
Thought experiment, I looked for some average cost per episode for some netflix shows, and calculated how much each season of the select list cost netflix to produce.
$40m House of Cards
$52m Orange is the new black
$56m Bridgeton
$64m The defenders
$70m Bloodline
$80m The Witcher
$108m Sense 8
$121m Get Down
$130m The crown
$270m Stranger Things
To clarify: these are for a single season, not every season of any of those shows.
Most recently, Amazon Prime has tossed nearly half a billion on Rings of Power.
By contrast, The Last of Us 2 reportedly cost $100 million, and its one of their most expensive games.
Point is, yes, these big budget productions going into subscription services day one can be sustainable (well, might have to see about Rings of Power) but the key is huge volume of subscribers. Although at the same time, when the subscription numbers are low, that means there are plenty of users simply buying the game. Forza Horizon 5, for example, was charting on the top 5 when it launched on Steam despite being available for "free" on Game Pass, so this stuff self-balances, so long as the games are desirable.
At the end of the day, the issue is that if you don't go day one on content, the service is not likely going to hit mass appeal, it will just be a supplementary service for hardcore fans.
@Milktastrophe That is not the same as game Pass, if anything, its closer to the basic PS Plus experience, albeit Epic Games does not charge any subscription fees and are just trying to get players to build libraries and then feel too attached to the store to uninstall it.
If anything, the PSPlus/Gold model hurts devs more than the Game Pass model. When you offer a game for free for a month, everyone claims it, even if their interest in the game was minor. This results in the example you bring up, where the dev might get pennies per copy given away to players.
In the GamePass/Extra model, there is no point on claiming the game unless you going to play it, because it will eventually leave the service anyways (unless its first party.) This allows the service runner, be it Microsoft or Sony, to pay more per used copy to the developers than they would under the Plus/Gold models.
Comments 1,002
Re: As Long As There's PlayStation, Call of Duty Will Release on It
@Titntin I am certain that Jim is not going to be happy with this statement, Sony actually had argued in Brazil how destructive it would be for them if CoD was in game pass. This whole thing is about preventing CoD from being on GamePass in a couple of years.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Sells Best on PS5
@Serialsid that was their entirety, included games that are exclusively digital. You will have to go to individual publisher releases to compare how each of them does digital/physical. Example:
Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/elden-ring-sales-uk/
Read that again: Xbox has a higher percentage of digital to physical sales than PC. When was the last time you saw anyone buy physical PC games?
More from that article:
PS still sold better, but just by 3 points (12 points if you count the PS4 version) despite the extreme low physical sale numbers on the UK, because that’s how much more Xbox tilts towards digital than PS.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Sells Best on PS5
@Grumblevolcano technically, Sega started it with the Master System having a digital game burnt into the systems internal memory.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Sells Best on PS5
@JustPlainLoco this is true about any company, reason we should always push for all the 3 players to be on as even ground as possible and not ever try to defend any platforms global dominance of the market.
We all win when none of them win, we al lose when one of them loses.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Sells Best on PS5
@naruball
Because they want Horizon charting, not Sackboy.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Sells Best on PS5
Who buys a physical copy of **this** game???
Anyways, this is a meaningless figure. Remember when Elden Ring supposedly didn’t sell on Xbox due to these same charts, only to have the publisher themselves report numbers and then being proportional to the install base?
Xbox users simply trend way more towards digital copies.
Re: Japan Simply Isn't Enough Anymore as Square Enix Calls Global Market a 'Critical' Priority
@UltimateOtaku91 I think forspoken is a big hint at what they think the west wants. Let’s see how it turns out whenever it launches.
Re: Japan Simply Isn't Enough Anymore as Square Enix Calls Global Market a 'Critical' Priority
@WallyWest Microsoft AND Japanese devs have spoken on it: during last gen, by delaying the Japanese launch of the Xbox one by almost a full year, Japan simply took it as a message that Xbox didn’t care about Japan or their developers. Once old management was fired and changed all around, they spent almost the entirety of last gen trying to fix their relationships with the general Japanese market.
Re: Japan Simply Isn't Enough Anymore as Square Enix Calls Global Market a 'Critical' Priority
@UltimateOtaku91
Sadly statements like this tend to mean “we will make fewer games like Live-A-Live and Octopath and try to focus on the kind of games we think the west wants.”
Re: Japan Simply Isn't Enough Anymore as Square Enix Calls Global Market a 'Critical' Priority
@Snake_V5 it’s a statement that tends to just come from anti-Xbox ps fans, usually comes with the mindset that “Xbox users just want first person shooters.”
They tend to try to back it up with boxed copy sales of games and continuously dismiss that Xbox has a way higher digital-to-physical sale ratio.
Re: Japan Simply Isn't Enough Anymore as Square Enix Calls Global Market a 'Critical' Priority
Company that refuses to make most of its games available on Switch at launch complains Japan is not enough… what a shocker!
Re: Voice Actress Laura Bailey Keen to Reprise Role in Potential Sequel to The Last of Us: Part II
PS6 launch title 🙃
Re: Dog Lovers Left Devastated as Resident Evil 4 Remake Rewrites History for the Worse
They ruined the game! 😭
Re: Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves Collection (PC) - Treasure Hunting Never Looked So Good
If you are not interested in reviews of PlayStation Studios games on PC, why read the article? Are some here really that desperate to cover the sky with your hands so no one else can see it?
Re: Poll: Will You Buy the DualSense Edge PS5 Controller, Now We Have a Price?
It really seams Sony wants to go back to the days of The Sony Tax.
Re: Sony Studio Haven Wants to Change Game Development Forever
So they plan to start using Dropbox?
Re: Trio of PS Plus Assassin's Creed Games Won't Be Playable on PS5
I love syndicate, one of my favorite AC games. Glad I own and can play it on my XSX.
Re: Despite Scrapping PS4, Gotham Knights Is Just 30fps on PS5
When they announced they were cutting ps4/XBO, I stated I was concerned they had simply decided not to optimize this game at all (or had trouble optimizing it at all) and seems that I was right. 30fps is not acceptable this gen.
Re: Persona Fans on PlayStation Get Sold Short Again as Xbox Deal Reveals Native Ports
@Matroska Microsoft and Sega also have a long history in gaming. The Dreamcast ran Windows CE, and quite a few of Sega games went to become Xbox exclusives after Sega dropped off making console hardware. And it’s not like it’s ancient history either, that kind of relationship went all the way through the Xbox one generation with Phantasy Star Online 2.
Re: Persona Fans on PlayStation Get Sold Short Again as Xbox Deal Reveals Native Ports
So are the PlayStation versions emulation of the PSP/Vita games?
Re: PS5 Firmware Update Makes Massive User Interface Improvements
@JuggaloRazzam I’ll look at the arrange thing but I insist the home button should by default take me to the Home Screen in a single press, and holding it be the requirement to bring up the cards.
I’d say let me disable the cards entirely but I seen ads there so I bet they will never allow us to remove them.
Re: Sony Cocks Up PS Plus Reveal, Swaps Two PS3 Games for PS4
Who could had predicted this program would be a bigger convoluted mess than the PS4>PS5 upgrade program?
Re: PS Plus Premium's Logic Doesn't Even Make Sense to Sony
3 tiers as a baffling move. Should had always been just two tiers, PSN+ and PSN++, done.
Re: PS5 Firmware Update Makes Massive User Interface Improvements
To me, all the card system does is get in the way. When I press the home button, I expect to be taken to the home where I can (almost alway) shut down the console or boot another game.
Re: Rumour: Sony Will Flood Stores with PS5 Stock in 2023, Revised Model Due in September
Will have to wait and see how such a model looks, if it’s true we can just “slot” the drive, but am very skeptical.
This sounds like the “perfect” time for them to do a second price increase by charging a bonkers premium for the attachment in such a way that buying both ends up being a higher price tag than now.
On the other hand, would be nice to be able to easily replace the disk drive when it inevitably goes bad after multiple years of use.
Re: This Is How Much It Costs Sony for You to Complain About the PS Plus Games
@get2sammyb the ark 2 price might be on top of whatever additional deal secured their timed exclusivity, and that might had lowered the GP payment.
Phil Spencer also has talked in the past that some publishers opt for either upfront payments, time share royalty payments or a hybrid.
It’s posible they will get additional money based on how much time any given player spends playing Arc 2.
Re: These Could Be All the Atari Anniversary Collection Games on PS5, PS4
I know I’m likely the only one hit was hoping for 2600 Phoenix to be there.
Re: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Is Old Enough to Apply for Its Learner's Permit
@KidBoruto they would likely sell us every entry for $70 individually.
Re: Sony Will Continue to Make PS4 Games Moving Forwards
@TrickyDicky99 not necessarily true. See The Witcher 3 on the Switch. That game was not designed around the Switch weak hardware, but some wizards managed to scale it down.
Re: Sony Will Continue to Make PS4 Games Moving Forwards
@naruball @extermin8or_ that’s not my point. Outselling the PS4 version does not mean that Sony is getting their expected count of unit sales only on PS5, and they need the PS4 version out there to achieve the unit count they have grown used to sell in the past.
If, for example, game X sells 6 million units on PS5 and 4 million on PS4, that means they still need the PS4 version to achieve their usual 10 million of years past. You don’t just give up on 25%-40% of your unit sales simply because it’s a new generation. Investors are expecting every year to sell more units, not less.
Re: PS5 Exclusives Will Take at Least One Year to Launch on PC
Personally, I don't care if PS games go to PC day one. I dont like playing games on PC. I would rather get the console version. As it stands, my backlog is so large that I would not care about simply a year difference otherwise. I mean, as it is I wait about that long to buy games on sale.
Re: PS5 Exclusives Will Take at Least One Year to Launch on PC
@-Sigma-
No one works on the metal anymore. That mindset died with the PS2. Assembly programming has not been a viable way of making games since the X360/PS3 generation.
Re: PS5 Exclusives Will Take at Least One Year to Launch on PC
@UltimateOtaku91
This is heavily dependent on the game. Some games sell way better on pc. But honestly i have never seen any stat pointing a 5-1 ratio, just a small 2 digit percentage advantage of any platform over the other. You would have to sum games that are available on all platforms, and combine all console sales, to get anything that gets to 2-1 or higher in favor of consoles.
The thing that is true is that there is usually no much crossover between PC and Console players. While a console player might actually switch platforms by going XBox first over PS first (or vise-versa), you rarely get that from PC players, so providing a console game also on PC will not yield Sony any losses.
Re: PS5 Exclusives Will Take at Least One Year to Launch on PC
@Sqush-Pare "The Xbot 'day and date' brigade won't be happy."
I mean, except they said that all multiplayer games will very likely be day and date.
Re: Sony Will Continue to Make PS4 Games Moving Forwards
We Believe in Generations, baby!
Edit:
Seriously, during the launch years of the platform, I didn't mind, in fact, I encouraged, all games run in prev gen. Games launched during that window tend to start their development in last gen hardware, and get upgraded for the next gen, so releasing last gen versions along them is perfectly sensible.
But 3,4, 5 years out? At that point you are actually holding development back.
To me this sounds like they are not happy with the software sales figures of PS5 versions of their games, and feel they need to keep selling these games to PS4 users to sustain their expected yearly sale figures.
Re: God of War Ragnarok Game Length Is Reportedly Worthy of Jörmungandr Himself
What I want to hear is more unique bosses. I liked the story on the previous one, but was highly disappointed in the lack of unique boss encounters. It felt like a bunch of ogres (or whatever they were called) and valkyries with varying patterns, oh and Baldur a few times.
I hope this one is not just ogres/valkyries/Thor.
Re: Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster for PS5 Reportedly in Development
@Fyz306903 it almost certainly will happen at this step, and I would not be surprised if it’s scheduled for next year.
Re: Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster for PS5 Reportedly in Development
@Porco doubt it. Look at TLOU. New models, accessibility options and improved visuals is exactly what they did for TLOU “remake”. The older game was patched a while back with token stuff. They will charge full price for this. You wait and see.
Re: Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster for PS5 Reportedly in Development
Pattern is forming.
Year one:
Demons Souls + Spider-Man remakesters
Year two:
Uncharted 4 + TLOU remakesters
Year three:
Horizon 1 + … Bloodbourne(?) remakesters
Sony plans to pad every year with at least two remakesters. And yes I’m going to keep using that word to keep making fun of what Sony calls “a remake”.
Edit: oh wait!! I forgot about Death Stranding “Directors Cut” and Ghost of Tsushima “Directors Cut” and Nioh collection and that announced remake of Kotor… they really investing heavy on the remakesters! So.. 3 to 4 remakesters per year. Let’s see what next year holds!
Re: Once Considered a PlayStation Competitor, Google Stadia Is Shutting Down
@Ward_ting They had multiple issues. Them trying to sell cloud only games was a big one, but I don't think as big as many would guess, given right now the likes of Capcom are selling cloud only versions of their games on Switch rather successfully.
I think the biggest issue was they refused to license windows servers, and wanted their cloud to run entirely on Linux. This meant that any and all games for the platform had to be re-built exclusively for their platform. Amazon's Luna might still fail eventually, but at least they rely on windows based servers, so its much easier to get content on their services.
Re: Once Considered a PlayStation Competitor, Google Stadia Is Shutting Down
@Milktastrophe them refunding every purchase is a testament on how few customers they actually had.
Re: Sony Gates Customer Service Priority Behind New PS Stars Program
Ah, once more: PlayStation, for the payers!
Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2.0 to Be Separate But Integrated Installs
So, I don’t play this game but I’m curious: what happens to Warzone 1.0? Will it continue to be a separate game and stay online on its own?
Re: Marvel Not Planning MCU-Esque Connected Universe for Games
@UltimateOtaku91 "so playstation can at some connect their wolverine and spiderman universes, added with venom?"
They could, but that game was already made.
Re: Marvel Not Planning MCU-Esque Connected Universe for Games
I always found the idea floated around of a MGU (marvel gaming universe) naive at best. Its just not realistic.
Re: Talking Point: Is a PlayStation Showcase Really Happening This Year?
@NEStalgia
Yep. This is one of the big reasons, IMO, that the PS Classic mini was such a disaster. Didn't help the hardware sucked, but the things everyone associated with the PS1 the most didn't belong to Sony: Tomb Rider, Crash Bandicoot, Spiro, Final Fantasy, Oddworld, Dino Crisis, Metal Gear, Symphony of the Night... yea a few of these ended up in the device, but they are not actually Sony games to do as they please. Most the games have plenty other ways to be played these days.
Edit: And now, the biggest game they have, is another license, even if they develop it themselves, they don't own Spider-Man. They could lose the license as easily as Activision lost it in the past.
Re: Talking Point: Is a PlayStation Showcase Really Happening This Year?
I hope so. I am curious what we are going to be looking forward for the next year. So far its Spider Man 2 and a few third party exclusivity deals (Final Fantasy XVI for example.)
So far we been "eating through" games that were all first announced during the PS5 reveal and launch. I think the only things from that list that we have not seen dates for yet are Spiderman 2 and Wolverine, and I honestly don't expect Wolverine until 2024.
Just hope they don't flood us only with VR announcements.
Also, please, no more showing games that wont show up 2 or 3 years down the line. Focus on the 12 months following the presentation, please!
Re: Sony Reiterates Stance on PS Plus Day One Releases, Believes in Premium Launches
@Milktastrophe "If anything, I guess the rental subscriptions should pay devs even less because they're only temporary licenses. If you can own something forever* why pay more to rent it for less time?"
I dont have numbers but Phil Spencer has noted that their contracts fluctuate from title to title, and publisher to publisher, since not everyone is comfortable with the same terms. Some get paid based on time share (how many subscribers played the game within a calendar month) while others prefer an up-front bulk sum. How big either of these numbers are likely fluctuates too, and I would imagine the number would be higher the closer the deal occurs to launch (since that's when interest is highest.)
Right now we see A Plage's Tale Requiem launching on the service day one, I would say that at least tells us that the publisher was more than happy with the performance of Plage's Tale Incense had on the service. So far, I have not seen any developer complain about the performance their games had on Game Pass. Only article I read complaining about it was someone complaining about not being able to get into the service.
I also saw lots of extrapolation when the Oddword developer complained about how much they felt they lost in the PS Plus deal on PS5 launch, but that was due to how many subscribers claimed the game, something that left them scratching their heads as to how many of those could had actually been sales. Even users without a PS5 claimed the game, basically killing any chance the game would have to even monetize itself later on its life cycle.
Re: Sony Reiterates Stance on PS Plus Day One Releases, Believes in Premium Launches
Thought experiment, I looked for some average cost per episode for some netflix shows, and calculated how much each season of the select list cost netflix to produce.
$40m House of Cards
$52m Orange is the new black
$56m Bridgeton
$64m The defenders
$70m Bloodline
$80m The Witcher
$108m Sense 8
$121m Get Down
$130m The crown
$270m Stranger Things
To clarify: these are for a single season, not every season of any of those shows.
Most recently, Amazon Prime has tossed nearly half a billion on Rings of Power.
By contrast, The Last of Us 2 reportedly cost $100 million, and its one of their most expensive games.
Point is, yes, these big budget productions going into subscription services day one can be sustainable (well, might have to see about Rings of Power) but the key is huge volume of subscribers. Although at the same time, when the subscription numbers are low, that means there are plenty of users simply buying the game. Forza Horizon 5, for example, was charting on the top 5 when it launched on Steam despite being available for "free" on Game Pass, so this stuff self-balances, so long as the games are desirable.
At the end of the day, the issue is that if you don't go day one on content, the service is not likely going to hit mass appeal, it will just be a supplementary service for hardcore fans.
Re: Sony Reiterates Stance on PS Plus Day One Releases, Believes in Premium Launches
@Milktastrophe That is not the same as game Pass, if anything, its closer to the basic PS Plus experience, albeit Epic Games does not charge any subscription fees and are just trying to get players to build libraries and then feel too attached to the store to uninstall it.
If anything, the PSPlus/Gold model hurts devs more than the Game Pass model. When you offer a game for free for a month, everyone claims it, even if their interest in the game was minor. This results in the example you bring up, where the dev might get pennies per copy given away to players.
In the GamePass/Extra model, there is no point on claiming the game unless you going to play it, because it will eventually leave the service anyways (unless its first party.) This allows the service runner, be it Microsoft or Sony, to pay more per used copy to the developers than they would under the Plus/Gold models.