Miss me with that mobile slop, but if legions of fake “gamers” playing exclusively on cellphones can funnel cash into Sony that feeds our Ghost of Yoteis, Returnals, timed exclusives etc than I’m behind this mobile push 100%.
That's like Xbox fans saying that they are fine with Microsoft buying up Call of Duty as long as the micro-transactions revenue helps fund smaller games like Hi-Fi Rush, Crash Bandicoot and Everwild.
If those mobile games are successful, meaning that they have a much higher return of investment than traditional games, then I think Sony will invest more in growing the mobile business.
1. ps5 as a console has lost its perceived value from core gamers. as true exclusives have become more uncommon and outright rare, the value of the ps5 has diminished. this does not help sony sell consoles. many people claim the ps5 has been an utter disappointment — it has — the lack of exclusives has only made this argument stronger.
The opinion of the vocal hard-core PlayStation fans you find here on PushSquare, who think that "PS5 as a console has lost its perceived value" due to less exclusives, isn't the same as the general opinion of the casual PlayStation playerbase, who doesn't care that those 1st party PlayStation games are also released on other platforms. The PS5 is matching the sales numbers of the PS4 despite less exclusives, despite console price increases and despite people on PushSquare saying that in general the PS4 generation was better regarding the quality of 1st party PlayStation games.
Fact: Sony is selling just as many PS5 consoles as they did with PS4, at higher prices with less exclusives.
The only reason I could think of why Sony would reduce their game releases on Steam is if they are planing to release their own PC store/launcher with "cross-buy". They've confirmed several times that they are satisfied with PC sales and like former PlayStation CEO Yoshida Shuhei said, "releasing on PC is like printing money". And PlayStation is hiring people for multi-platform releases.
@Blaze215 The thing is, PS5 units sells well in the rest of the world. People seemingly are willing to pay higher prices for PS5s. Sony wants to increase the sold units of PS5 Japan, where currently the numbers aren't there where Sony would like.
@SeaDaVie Well, traditionally consoles prices have been subsidized in US and Western Europe, and usually over the span of a generation component & production costs would decline, which resulted in big price reductions in past console generations. I'm not familiar with the buying habits of Japanese players, but I guess Sony sees how many games Nintendo and other publishers are selling in Japan and they want a bigger share of the pie.
I think Sony doesn't need to further subsidize the price of the PS5 in the West (Europe and US), because the PS5 is already selling damn well. Consumers have shown that they are willing to pay the current prices and more (remember the scalper prices at launch?) and Xbox as a console isn't competing anymore. In Japan though Nintendo is dominating the market.
It's also unclear to the public how much a PS5 truly costs to manufacture. Sony has said shortly PS5 launch that their consoles are sold at a profit and still released several revised versions with "cheaper" internal components, while Xbox admitted a subsidized loss of around $200 per Xbox Series X console.
The biggest issue I have with this is that there are plenty of third world countries in the world, and none of them get special subsidised consoles. A lot of the time they don't even get proper regional pricing in software, and that' can be discounted without incurring a loss.
I guess it's because most of the players in those "third world" countries cannot afford the expensive games and definitely won't subscribe to PS Plus. So in that case Sony wouldn't make their money back on the subsidized consoles if the playerbase only bought 1-2 games and are mostly playing free-to-play games like Fortnite and COD Warzone.
But, I can't see how a unique region locked SKU is going to be much cheaper to manufacture, so they are doing this via subsidising.
If it were cheaper to make, why aren't they doing a cheaper English only variant for UK/US.
It's being subsidized in Japan. They aren't cheaper to make (probably it adds costs as they now need to manufacture an additional SKU and test the devices).
Call it a "strategic investment", Sony invest money to get the Japanese playerbase to grow and hopefully they get a return of the investment via sold games, subscriptions from the players and increased support from Japanese developers.
It's not much different from the case where Sony raised the prices of the PS5 in Europe and Asia due to the US tariffs, but kept the price the same in the US.
@StrickenBiged Sony/PlayStation doesn't save any costs by "region locking" the PS5 to Japan. They might be losing money on this. But the business strategy is to get more people to buy their console in Japan, by losing some money. It might help them also improve the PlayStation brand with developers if the Japanese userbase is bigger.
What they want to avoid though is those cheaper consoles being sold outside of Japan. That's what the "region lock" is for. I guess it's not a true region lock in a traditional sense where only games from that region would work on the console.
@Northern_munkey I got a Thrustmaster T150 and played Project CARS for many dozens of hours. I had to adjust the steering wheel settings for the game to feel good, but you can find many decent setups online.
I only played a few rounds of GT7 on a friend's Logitech G29, but it didn't feel as good as Project CARS on my setup.
@Drax007 It's unrealistic for any new indie devloper studio to get the funding and technical support Ployphony Digital gets for the Gran Turismo series (or Turn 10 used to get for Forza Motorsport), to be on par with GT7. These games don't compete directly with GT7, they try to find their own niche and compete with games like iRacing, Assetto Corsa and the now discontinued Project CARS series. Those games have less emphasis on visual presentation and more focus on accurate car physics, tracks and vehicles.
It’s not as performant as it could be with a wheel, but that could be down to the peripheral used for review (Logitech G920).
Usually you need to adjust the wheel settings for racing simulations to your preference, as each wheel behaves differently and each player has different force feedback preference. Without a good force feedback racing wheel support this game will have no chance as an eSports game. Even Gran Turismo competitions take place with racing wheels.
The review is also missing some important details like how many cars there are (currently only 17), how many racing tracks (only 13) which car categories (GT3, TCR, hypercars & prototypes). In comparison Gran Turismo 7 currently has 551 cars and 39 tracks, Assetto Corsa Competizione has 53 cars and 24 tracks (13 of those are in DLC packs).
Can't believe they rejected Tencents take, but agreed to a mobile mmo.
@Max_the_German
The gameplay looks so interchangeable, it's no wonder Sony is afraid of X. Tencent knows exactly how to build and operate successful MMOs. Definitely an interesting competition!
As it's often the case with IT projects, I wouldn't be surprised if PlayStation approaches both Tencent and NCSoft to pitch them a mobile live-service MMO for Horizon and while both built a working demo, NCSoft won the contract. Tencent might have decided to go on with the project on their own and publish it under a different name.
Prompting Fury from PS5 Fans
...
“A new PlayStation game not coming to PlayStation, and the gameplay is actual fire,” one fan wrote on X (or Twitter). “Please bring this to PS5.”
The hot fury of the PS5 fanbase is burning strong here. 🔥 Never change PushSquare. 😄
With Marvel Tokon being a live-service competitive fighting game, what are the chances of this game releasing on Switch 2 and Xbox a few months after the initial release?
Weird how the majority of those games are releasing on all major platforms, but PlayStation still refuses to show all platforms in their trailers. All it takes is to check those trailers on the publisher/developer channels, so it's a minor inconvenience for the viewers and no benefit for PlayStation.
@TrollOfWar Anthem is a game that absolutely SHOULD always have been playable offline in my view. I was actually thinking of picking it up for £1 at CEX and giving it a whirl before this date... because FOMO! But who's got the time!
Anthem ain't a terrible game. The combat and level design are quite decent, the flying mechanics are a big highlight. But the story and the mission objectives are generic and forgettable. I spent around 50 hours to unlock 90% of the trophies.
@themightyant @Ainu20 Just wanted to add, that both of your sides are valid.
Taking Anthem as an example (since I played through the game a few months ago). If you bought the Anthem, you literally won't be able to play the game anymore after January 12, 2026. Everyone who paid money for Anthem will be left with nothing (or a non-working physical disc) after the servers are shut down. Despite Anthem being designed as an online live-service game, I can tell from my experience that it's perfectly playable as a single-player game, where you don't need to interact with other players. After January 2026, all I will have are the memories playing the game. And in case of Warzone, maybe there is someone who would like to play alone on a big empty map, role-playing some apocalypse scenario and driving around the deserted town.
But the problem with all these live-service games is that the player accounts with their progress and transactions/spendings are stored online on the servers of the games, not on your local drive. They would have to reengineer the games to store player progress offline including bought micro-transactions, which is probably a big challenge
Also there are games like Sea of Thieves or Microsoft Flight Simulator, where game logic (wave, weather calculations and world events in Sea of Thieves) and game data (locations in MS Flight Sim) are loaded from the servers. Could community members be able to get their own server instances running and what would be the impact of that? Companies would need to expose their proprietary server technologies to the public. Some people running a game server in the community might have bad intentions and could inject malicious code into the servers which then run on the client/player side.
Games are more complex than ever before to develop and maintain, with the largest exceeding the budget of a modern Hollywood blockbuster. That can make it extremely challenging to implement plans for video games after formal support for them has ended ...
I think the point of the "Stop Killing Games" movement is to have an "end of life" plan for online games from the beginning. When a company like Amazon wants to create the next MMO, they should already have a plan of making a part of the game available for offline play once they choose to shut down the servers for the game. Or at least allow the game's community to run their own servers. I wonder what I will be able to see or do, if Microsoft would decide to shut down Sea of Thieves, a game where I invested 2000+ hours.
This topic is similar to "data privacy", where it's in the consumer's benefit that companies handle user data with care and only collect data for the intended purpose, but it's an inconvenience for the companies. It would be a lot easier for companies to collect all the user data they want and not have to invest in consent managment platforms and not having to dealing with data privacy requests from users.
... and risks creating harmful unintended consequences for gamers, as well as for video game companies.
I'd love them to give at least one example of a harmful unintended consequence for gamers. Who will complain that an online game, which they paid for, is left playable in some form rather than not being able to play at all?
Halo Infinite is a pretty good game: The campaign is decent and the multiplayer is fun. Microsoft should have ported ar least the multiplayer part to PS5, it would have given the game a 2nd life.
I don’t believe Kojima is capable of developing both versions simultaneously, they will finish one and hopefully depending on other projects convert to PS.
As far as I know "OD" is built on Unreal Engine 5, so technically a multi-platform release for both Xbox and PlayStation would be possible. Of course it's additional effort to translate to PS5-specific systems (input icons, trophies, stat tracking, etc.), test and have the game licensed on PS5, but it's all doable in time for the launch. So a multi-platform release (including PC) is reasonable to consider, unless Xbox has signed a timed-exclusive deal.
Some games didn't release for PS like Bravely Default remaster, DQ Monsters: The Dark Prince, DQ Treasures, etc. I'm not surprised if SE will released less games on PS but more exclusives for Switch.
Square Enix has released Nintendo and mobile exclusive games for decades. Didn't seem to bother anyone until now that they decided to go multi-platform with their big titles. Personally I would welcome it if they release those games on additional platforms. Games like Octopath Traveler were received well on PlayStation and Xbox. Not sure why they would port a Switch game to PC but not to PlayStation and Xbox.
I don't know. Did recent Sony ads showed Final Fantasy or any words that say "Playstation as the best place to play Final Fantasy"?
An electronics shop in my town had a bunch of Sony TVs at the entrance with the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth trailer on an endless loop for a few months
Just like Sony/PlayStation profits from having a marketing deal with GTA or like they had with Call of Duty in the past, so can they have an effective marketing with Final Fantasy where the idea is to attract as many people to buy the PlayStation version.
I never say they are war alliances. But that's why i said Sony should stop throwing a lot of money and support for SE. All PS exclusives from SE including big ones like FF XVI and Rebirth didn't give significant impact for PS5 sales. Meanwhile games like Black Myth Wukong not just sold a lot better than all PS exclusives from SE, but it managed to significantly boost PS5 sales. https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2024/08/21/black-myth-wukong-boosts-ps5-sales/#:~:text=Alibaba Tmall sees %27unusual%27 PS5,with the site since 2014.
It's all business right? Which is more reason for Sony to find better partnership who will give them more $$$$$. Cause right now, SE just doesn't worth the investment anymore.
I don't think Sony is throwing money at Square Enix. There were definitely some terrible exclusivity deals which didn't work out at all in Sony's favor like Foamstars and Babylon's Fall. But in general Sony got the benefits for which they paid for.
When it comes to Final Fantasy and possibly even Forspoken, I think they fulfilled their purpose to get everyone who was undecided to choose a PS5 over an Xbox Series console if they wanted to play Square Enix' next games. Forspoken, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Integrade and Final Fantasy 16 were some of the very first PS5 games shown in 2020 before the launch. I don't think anyone can tell what impact those reveals had on people choosing PS5 but I'm confident that it was pretty significant.
Going forward I see this Square Enix' multi-platform move benefit Sony more, as they now have the "Square Enix fanbase" on the PlayStation platform without the need of paying for exclusivity.
@Questionable_Duck If really that many PC players bought a PS5 just to play Final Fantasy, then I guess we will truly see a "dramatically decline" in the PS5's share of sales.
@TrollOfWar All correct points but nobody is holding a gun to these devs heads and making UE5 compulsory. Death Stranding 2 is a prime example of a studio developing their own engine, doubling down on a single ecosystem and then technically knocking it out of the park. It's too convenient to default to using UE5 this gen; let's see more artistry and individuality in the industry again. Make a profit yes, but prioritise quality first and foremost.
Death Stranding 2 uses the Decima Engine from Guerrilla Games, which was used for the Horizon games. It's an amazing engine, well optimized for consoles. But it also has it's limitations. Not sure if it's an engine which Sony would license to 3rd party studios, from what I can tell it's mostly designed around outdoor open-world games. Unreal Engine 5 is much more versatile for many different genres and it's easier to find developers and designers who are familiar with it.
Death Stranding Director's Cut looks amazing on Xbox and PC, so I expect Death Stranding 2 to play just as well.
@TrollOfWar Maybe SE still release FF or any of their games for PS. But their actions looks clear that they are done with Sony.
To me it's still not clear how Square Enix are "done with Sony". They'll continue releasing games on PlayStation, right? Final Fantasy will continue selling best on PlayStation, correct? Sony might be allowed to advertise the game with "PlayStation being the best place to play Final Fantasy".
And that's why i said Sony should stop treating SE like a special partner and allocate their support / money for other 3rd party devs especially the ones who want to work closely with Sony. SE isn't an important partner for PS anymore.
What is an example of an "important partner* dor Sony? Epic Games (Sony owns 5.4%) despite them releasing their games multiplatform? Fromsoft/Kadokawa (Sony owns 14. 09%) despite Fromsoft releasing most their games multiplatform? Take-Two, despite GTA releasing on PS5 and Xbox?
AMD has a close partnership with Sony and Microsoft. Should Sony stop their partnership with AMD, because Xbox also has AMD components?
These are business partnerships, where these companies hope to benefit financially from each other. This aren't "war alliances". Square Enix and Sony will remain partners, it's just that Square Enix intends to rely less on exclusivity contracts from platform owners.
@TrollOfWar it could result in that for sure, my only worry are the devs continuing to hold back the PS5 even more after finally beginning to release from the shackles of the PS4. Always great to have a game run 60fps but you want it looking half decent too, especially if you just shelled out for a PS5 Pro.
I think what is holding back PS5 and in general this generation are the cost of game development, and the usage of Unreal Engine and image upscaling. Many developers were able to create incredibly looking games on PS4, getting that level of graphics with a steady 60fps would be enough for many players. But having fancy 4K graphics, high quality assets and motion-captured animations is super expensive. And Unreal Engine offers a great middleware for multiplatform games, but it's too performance taxing and many developers don't know how to optimize it.
To some it is just a shallow response - the 'its only on my console / that make me feel special' point of view, which may be wrong but it does affect a lot of people.
I don't want to tell people how they should feel about gaming and their favorite brand, but basically there are 80+ million PS5 owners, so I don't feel like I am anything special. Plus if I enjoy a game, I think that more people should play and enjoy it as well, and the added success will hopefully result in better sequels. It doesn't make me feel better because others cannot play a game.
Xbox players aren't all that different from PlayStation players, I see them all as one console gaming community. So I think everyone should enjoy good games and not be excluded because they bought a different device.
To me 'exclusive' means its likely to be better optimised for the hardware - though given SE's recent track record that really does not apply these days any more sadly.
That might have been the case for PS3 and maybe PS4, but I think ever since the PS5's launch there are definitely more 3rd party games where the optimizations for PS5 weren't the best, despite launching "console exclusive" for a limited time on PS5. Forspoken, FF16, Lost Soul Aside, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Black Myth Wukong, Baldur's Gate 3 (funnily the optimizations for Series S improved the performance for PS5 on this) Quantum Error. Even Helldivers 2, a first party game, has performance issues on PS5.
As long as they don't allow the Switch 2 and Series S releases to botch the PS5 edition in any way I don't see a problem with it, go and make your money Square Enix!
Makes you wonder, if optimizing for Switch 2 and Series S will result in a smoother performance on PS5?
SE already showed their stand that they don't want to work exclusively with Sony anymore. They're done with Sony. So there's no need for Sony to treat SE like they're a special partner. That era already done.
I don't see how stopping console exclusivity means that they are done with Sony. They will continue releasing Final Fantasy on PlayStation in the future, PS5 probably is still the lead development platform. Sony can continue having a marketing deal like they did for Call of Duty before the ABK acquisition or how they do the marketing for GTA. They can continue showing off their new line of TVs with fancy Final Fantasy 7 Remake trailers.
Square Enix will probably continue being a special partner for Sony, but just as Square Enix isn't Sony's only partner (who would have thought that Microsoft is now one of Sony's partners), so can Square Enix have multiple partners.
Our guess is that the PS5’s share of sales will dramatically decline, but the overall numbers will stay roughly similar, although we’re open to being proven wrong.
Why would that be the case? Are there that many people who own a PS5 and other platforms, who would rather play Final Fantasy on anything other than PlayStation? Or what's the reasoning behind this statement?
Personally I think if the sales of FF7 Remake Part 3 decline on PS5, it will be because some people didn't enjoy Final Fantasy 7 Remake and/or Rebirth. But in general the sales numbers could be higher compared to the first 2 parts if it launches on all major platforms including PC and Switch 2. Games usually sell the best during the launch period when there is hype around them.
@themightyant There have been reports that booking sites displayed different prices for hotel bookings based on the devices (laptop, vs. mobile). As you say, these dynamic prices can be abused by corporations, like for example having higher prices on a PS5 Pro as those users are more invested in the ecosystem and are willing to pay more.
I do not believe this is legal in europe so i don't expect it to be on here, ...
There have been some "just for you" discounts on the Xbox store also in Europe. So either Microsoft is breaking the EU law or it's actually legal. In case of the Xbox store such discounts are clearly labeled with a "just for you" tag.
If they stop selling games on Steam and only having them on their launcher it would be an a-hole move for PC players but I can totally see it coming, because that way they’ll be able to keep 100% of the sale (same as the PS Store), collect all the data they want and most importantly, restrict the devices that can install that launcher as a move to keep PS games off the next Xbox.
But why would they want to restrict the PC launcher on the next Xbox, if it will be a Windows PC with an Xbox branding? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a having a PC launcher if you restrict on which PCs it runs? Should Sony restrict the launcher on all Windows-based PC gaming handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and MSI claw when they run Windows in the full-screen Xbox mode? They would earn 100% for all 1st party and 30% for all 3rd party games, content and micro-transactions via that store/launcher.
Just an observation here, but it's funny that some users on here always complaning "why do PS keep making articles about Xbox?" obviously for the people who read understand why, but here we have an article purely about Playstation and yet xbox is getting mentioned more often then not...... like I said it's just a funny observation.
It's because people are still stuck in the "PlayStation vs. Xbox console wars" mentality. Whatever the hell Microsoft/Xbox are doing and however the rest of the industry is adapting is at odds with the traditional console business strategies of the past 30 years. Some people don't want to accept any changes. 🙂
Surely this is a response to the next Xbox being able to play steam games, and therefore Sony games? If Sony launch their own PC launcher, and make that the only way to play PS games on PC (no longer releasing on steam) then the next Xbox 'console' players will no longer be able to access PS games via PC stores?
I don't see how Sony could launch a PC store/launcher which they would block on Windows PC's with an Xbox branding, unless they would restrict their PC launcher to Linux OS.
Also, if Sony releases a PC launcher, why should they block it on an Xbox-branded gaming PC? It's a PC, so blocking the access to the launcher would defeat the point of releasing it on PC. Would they block it also on other devices like the Asus Xbox Rog Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and MSI Claw handhelds if they run Windows in the new "Xbox full screen mode"?
Hypothetical question: If Sony could release a storefront on Xbox Series consoles, where they earn 100% from all transactions via that storefront, do you think they would do it or not?
I think it could be used to indicate games which can be cross-bought for PS5 and PS6
. Was there anything like that between PS4 and PS5? As far as I remember all PS4 games worked fine on PS5, but some had an optional $10 upgrade path. If the "cross-buy" label is only for PS5 & PS6, then it seems that the next cross-generation phase will be longer than the last one.
Is PlayStation going multiplatform? A PC store/launcher might be good if Sony doesn't want Steam and Epic Games Store to get 12-30% per sold game, and PC players who buy their games on the PlayStation store would require a PSN account. Such a store might also be available on whatever Microsoft Xbox is creating next.
But of course it would reduce the appeal for PlayStation consoles, as PlayStation games would be available on other devices.
I bet Sony has several business and data analysts who crunched the numbers, to get to a decision.
If the next "Xbox" is a PC and you can buy games from Steam, Epic Games and GOG, then there won't be a point in charging for online play.
Hmm... Going with rumors from previous days about the expected price difference between PS6 and Xbox Next, if you don't have to pay for online then you would even that price difference in 4-5 years.
Maybe Sony could take a lesson from Microsoft and re-release some of those old games like Killzone or Resistance remastered as multi-platfom releases including PC, Switch 2 and Xbox. It worked well for Gears of War: Reloaded. 😏
@daveofduncan Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer already admitted that they lost the console wars 2 years ago. I am not sure what more you want them to say about it? 😄
It's a predictably unconvincing, empty, nothing answer. This is surely profit/cost motivated - why add more if it de-incentivises further purchases down the road.
The thing is, Halo Infinite's multiplayer was free-to-play, so if a new multiplayer release follows the same approach, it won't be about "incentivising further purchases down the road". The problem Infinite's multiplayer had was the lack of new content after the release. Halo Studios only recently shifted to Unreal Engine 5, they need to create a new multiplayer framework and probably Forge Mode which allows for community created maps and modes. This Halo 1 remake is a quick sure-bet financial profit for the studio.
Back when they did MCC, I was amazed that every single game had it's multiplayer in tact.
For the Halo MCC the developers only had to update the visuals of Halo 2, all the other games basically had the same visual assets. Unfortunately on launch that ambitions multiplayer offer was a disaster and it took several months for the developers to fix all the issues. I guess that's one of the reasons why Halo Studios is now more cautious with their multiplayer releases.
@Rich33 Unfortunately these large corporations make decisions based on data. ABK was very profitable at the time, plus Microsoft/Xbox were looking for live-service games (COD, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Candy Crush Saga) and success in mobile gaming.
It's not much different from Sony/PlayStation's way of thinking that they cand release 12 live service games over the span of 5-6 years with the help of Bungie.
Im referencing the recent info about how much COD, day1 on GP has cost them
That big headline of "COD losing $300m as a result of being on GamePass" isn't quite that simple. Circana analyst Matt Piscatella shared some aspects that last year's COD sold "extremely well" and "the network effect of it on Game Pass resulted in stronger engagement, and perhaps even better sales, on PS5 and PC because of it". So yes, it sold less on Xbox but the game being on GamePass resulted in more engagement (and probably revenue) via all platforms.
Comments 281
Re: Talking Point: Will PlayStation's Mobile Push Be a Success or a Flop?
@Balaam_
That's like Xbox fans saying that they are fine with Microsoft buying up Call of Duty as long as the micro-transactions revenue helps fund smaller games like Hi-Fi Rush, Crash Bandicoot and Everwild.
If those mobile games are successful, meaning that they have a much higher return of investment than traditional games, then I think Sony will invest more in growing the mobile business.
Re: 'Very Vague' Rumour Claims Sony May Scale Back PC Ports of PS5 Games
@Porco
The opinion of the vocal hard-core PlayStation fans you find here on PushSquare, who think that "PS5 as a console has lost its perceived value" due to less exclusives, isn't the same as the general opinion of the casual PlayStation playerbase, who doesn't care that those 1st party PlayStation games are also released on other platforms. The PS5 is matching the sales numbers of the PS4 despite less exclusives, despite console price increases and despite people on PushSquare saying that in general the PS4 generation was better regarding the quality of 1st party PlayStation games.
Fact: Sony is selling just as many PS5 consoles as they did with PS4, at higher prices with less exclusives.
Re: 'Very Vague' Rumour Claims Sony May Scale Back PC Ports of PS5 Games
@Max_the_German But we were told that PC isn't a 'major risk' to PlayStation's console business. 😁
Re: 'Very Vague' Rumour Claims Sony May Scale Back PC Ports of PS5 Games
The only reason I could think of why Sony would reduce their game releases on Steam is if they are planing to release their own PC store/launcher with "cross-buy". They've confirmed several times that they are satisfied with PC sales and like former PlayStation CEO Yoshida Shuhei said, "releasing on PC is like printing money". And PlayStation is hiring people for multi-platform releases.
Re: Here's Why Sony Is Making a Japan-Specific PS5 Console
@Blaze215 The thing is, PS5 units sells well in the rest of the world. People seemingly are willing to pay higher prices for PS5s. Sony wants to increase the sold units of PS5 Japan, where currently the numbers aren't there where Sony would like.
Re: Here's Why Sony Is Making a Japan-Specific PS5 Console
@SeaDaVie Well, traditionally consoles prices have been subsidized in US and Western Europe, and usually over the span of a generation component & production costs would decline, which resulted in big price reductions in past console generations. I'm not familiar with the buying habits of Japanese players, but I guess Sony sees how many games Nintendo and other publishers are selling in Japan and they want a bigger share of the pie.
I think Sony doesn't need to further subsidize the price of the PS5 in the West (Europe and US), because the PS5 is already selling damn well. Consumers have shown that they are willing to pay the current prices and more (remember the scalper prices at launch?) and Xbox as a console isn't competing anymore. In Japan though Nintendo is dominating the market.
It's also unclear to the public how much a PS5 truly costs to manufacture. Sony has said shortly PS5 launch that their consoles are sold at a profit and still released several revised versions with "cheaper" internal components, while Xbox admitted a subsidized loss of around $200 per Xbox Series X console.
Re: Here's Why Sony Is Making a Japan-Specific PS5 Console
@SeaDaVie
I guess it's because most of the players in those "third world" countries cannot afford the expensive games and definitely won't subscribe to PS Plus. So in that case Sony wouldn't make their money back on the subsidized consoles if the playerbase only bought 1-2 games and are mostly playing free-to-play games like Fortnite and COD Warzone.
Re: Here's Why Sony Is Making a Japan-Specific PS5 Console
@Rich33
It's being subsidized in Japan. They aren't cheaper to make (probably it adds costs as they now need to manufacture an additional SKU and test the devices).
Call it a "strategic investment", Sony invest money to get the Japanese playerbase to grow and hopefully they get a return of the investment via sold games, subscriptions from the players and increased support from Japanese developers.
It's not much different from the case where Sony raised the prices of the PS5 in Europe and Asia due to the US tariffs, but kept the price the same in the US.
Re: Here's Why Sony Is Making a Japan-Specific PS5 Console
@StrickenBiged Sony/PlayStation doesn't save any costs by "region locking" the PS5 to Japan. They might be losing money on this. But the business strategy is to get more people to buy their console in Japan, by losing some money. It might help them also improve the PlayStation brand with developers if the Japanese userbase is bigger.
What they want to avoid though is those cheaper consoles being sold outside of Japan. That's what the "region lock" is for. I guess it's not a true region lock in a traditional sense where only games from that region would work on the console.
Re: Mini Review: Rennsport (PS5) - A Sim Racer That Just Can't Match the Competition
@Northern_munkey I got a Thrustmaster T150 and played Project CARS for many dozens of hours. I had to adjust the steering wheel settings for the game to feel good, but you can find many decent setups online.
I only played a few rounds of GT7 on a friend's Logitech G29, but it didn't feel as good as Project CARS on my setup.
Re: Mini Review: Rennsport (PS5) - A Sim Racer That Just Can't Match the Competition
@Drax007 It's unrealistic for any new indie devloper studio to get the funding and technical support Ployphony Digital gets for the Gran Turismo series (or Turn 10 used to get for Forza Motorsport), to be on par with GT7. These games don't compete directly with GT7, they try to find their own niche and compete with games like iRacing, Assetto Corsa and the now discontinued Project CARS series. Those games have less emphasis on visual presentation and more focus on accurate car physics, tracks and vehicles.
Re: Mini Review: Rennsport (PS5) - A Sim Racer That Just Can't Match the Competition
Usually you need to adjust the wheel settings for racing simulations to your preference, as each wheel behaves differently and each player has different force feedback preference. Without a good force feedback racing wheel support this game will have no chance as an eSports game. Even Gran Turismo competitions take place with racing wheels.
The review is also missing some important details like how many cars there are (currently only 17), how many racing tracks (only 13) which car categories (GT3, TCR, hypercars & prototypes). In comparison Gran Turismo 7 currently has 551 cars and 39 tracks, Assetto Corsa Competizione has 53 cars and 24 tracks (13 of those are in DLC packs).
Re: The Next Horizon Game Is an MMO for Mobile and PC, Prompting Fury from PS5 Fans
@CutchuSlow
@Max_the_German
As it's often the case with IT projects, I wouldn't be surprised if PlayStation approaches both Tencent and NCSoft to pitch them a mobile live-service MMO for Horizon and while both built a working demo, NCSoft won the contract. Tencent might have decided to go on with the project on their own and publish it under a different name.
Re: The Next Horizon Game Is an MMO for Mobile and PC, Prompting Fury from PS5 Fans
The hot fury of the PS5 fanbase is burning strong here. 🔥 Never change PushSquare. 😄
Re: PS5's Biggest Game Has Not Released Yet, PlayStation Boss Teases
Marathon? Just joking, it's definitely GTA6.
Re: No New Characters Revealed for Marvel Tokon, PS5 Beta Returns in December
With Marvel Tokon being a live-service competitive fighting game, what are the chances of this game releasing on Switch 2 and Xbox a few months after the initial release?
Re: Round Up: What Was Announced in Sony's State of Play Livestream for November 2025?
Weird how the majority of those games are releasing on all major platforms, but PlayStation still refuses to show all platforms in their trailers. All it takes is to check those trailers on the publisher/developer channels, so it's a minor inconvenience for the viewers and no benefit for PlayStation.
Re: The UK Government Shoots Down 'Stop Killing Games' Campaign in Official Debate
@themightyant
Anthem ain't a terrible game. The combat and level design are quite decent, the flying mechanics are a big highlight. But the story and the mission objectives are generic and forgettable. I spent around 50 hours to unlock 90% of the trophies.
Re: The UK Government Shoots Down 'Stop Killing Games' Campaign in Official Debate
@themightyant @Ainu20
Just wanted to add, that both of your sides are valid.
Taking Anthem as an example (since I played through the game a few months ago). If you bought the Anthem, you literally won't be able to play the game anymore after January 12, 2026. Everyone who paid money for Anthem will be left with nothing (or a non-working physical disc) after the servers are shut down. Despite Anthem being designed as an online live-service game, I can tell from my experience that it's perfectly playable as a single-player game, where you don't need to interact with other players. After January 2026, all I will have are the memories playing the game. And in case of Warzone, maybe there is someone who would like to play alone on a big empty map, role-playing some apocalypse scenario and driving around the deserted town.
But the problem with all these live-service games is that the player accounts with their progress and transactions/spendings are stored online on the servers of the games, not on your local drive. They would have to reengineer the games to store player progress offline including bought micro-transactions, which is probably a big challenge
Also there are games like Sea of Thieves or Microsoft Flight Simulator, where game logic (wave, weather calculations and world events in Sea of Thieves) and game data (locations in MS Flight Sim) are loaded from the servers. Could community members be able to get their own server instances running and what would be the impact of that? Companies would need to expose their proprietary server technologies to the public. Some people running a game server in the community might have bad intentions and could inject malicious code into the servers which then run on the client/player side.
Re: The UK Government Shoots Down 'Stop Killing Games' Campaign in Official Debate
I think the point of the "Stop Killing Games" movement is to have an "end of life" plan for online games from the beginning. When a company like Amazon wants to create the next MMO, they should already have a plan of making a part of the game available for offline play once they choose to shut down the servers for the game. Or at least allow the game's community to run their own servers. I wonder what I will be able to see or do, if Microsoft would decide to shut down Sea of Thieves, a game where I invested 2000+ hours.
This topic is similar to "data privacy", where it's in the consumer's benefit that companies handle user data with care and only collect data for the intended purpose, but it's an inconvenience for the companies. It would be a lot easier for companies to collect all the user data they want and not have to invest in consent managment platforms and not having to dealing with data privacy requests from users.
I'd love them to give at least one example of a harmful unintended consequence for gamers. Who will complain that an online game, which they paid for, is left playable in some form rather than not being able to play at all?
Re: Halo Infinite Is in Fact Finite, Dev Focusing on Campaign Evolved for PS5
Halo Infinite is a pretty good game: The campaign is decent and the multiplayer is fun. Microsoft should have ported ar least the multiplayer part to PS5, it would have given the game a 2nd life.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 606
Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure on Evercade
Re: Physint, OD Teams Are Staffing Up for Development of Anticipated Games
@Leinad7
As far as I know "OD" is built on Unreal Engine 5, so technically a multi-platform release for both Xbox and PlayStation would be possible. Of course it's additional effort to translate to PS5-specific systems (input icons, trophies, stat tracking, etc.), test and have the game licensed on PS5, but it's all doable in time for the launch. So a multi-platform release (including PC) is reasonable to consider, unless Xbox has signed a timed-exclusive deal.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@PuppetMaster
Square Enix has released Nintendo and mobile exclusive games for decades. Didn't seem to bother anyone until now that they decided to go multi-platform with their big titles. Personally I would welcome it if they release those games on additional platforms. Games like Octopath Traveler were received well on PlayStation and Xbox. Not sure why they would port a Switch game to PC but not to PlayStation and Xbox.
An electronics shop in my town had a bunch of Sony TVs at the entrance with the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth trailer on an endless loop for a few months
Just like Sony/PlayStation profits from having a marketing deal with GTA or like they had with Call of Duty in the past, so can they have an effective marketing with Final Fantasy where the idea is to attract as many people to buy the PlayStation version.
I don't think Sony is throwing money at Square Enix. There were definitely some terrible exclusivity deals which didn't work out at all in Sony's favor like Foamstars and Babylon's Fall. But in general Sony got the benefits for which they paid for.
When it comes to Final Fantasy and possibly even Forspoken, I think they fulfilled their purpose to get everyone who was undecided to choose a PS5 over an Xbox Series console if they wanted to play Square Enix' next games. Forspoken, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Integrade and Final Fantasy 16 were some of the very first PS5 games shown in 2020 before the launch. I don't think anyone can tell what impact those reveals had on people choosing PS5 but I'm confident that it was pretty significant.
Going forward I see this Square Enix' multi-platform move benefit Sony more, as they now have the "Square Enix fanbase" on the PlayStation platform without the need of paying for exclusivity.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@Questionable_Duck If really that many PC players bought a PS5 just to play Final Fantasy, then I guess we will truly see a "dramatically decline" in the PS5's share of sales.
Re: Physint, OD Teams Are Staffing Up for Development of Anticipated Games
@Czar_Khastik Fingers crossed that it works out for you. 🤞🏼
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@omadeli
Death Stranding 2 uses the Decima Engine from Guerrilla Games, which was used for the Horizon games. It's an amazing engine, well optimized for consoles. But it also has it's limitations. Not sure if it's an engine which Sony would license to 3rd party studios, from what I can tell it's mostly designed around outdoor open-world games. Unreal Engine 5 is much more versatile for many different genres and it's easier to find developers and designers who are familiar with it.
Death Stranding Director's Cut looks amazing on Xbox and PC, so I expect Death Stranding 2 to play just as well.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@PuppetMaster
To me it's still not clear how Square Enix are "done with Sony". They'll continue releasing games on PlayStation, right? Final Fantasy will continue selling best on PlayStation, correct? Sony might be allowed to advertise the game with "PlayStation being the best place to play Final Fantasy".
What is an example of an "important partner* dor Sony? Epic Games (Sony owns 5.4%) despite them releasing their games multiplatform? Fromsoft/Kadokawa (Sony owns 14. 09%) despite Fromsoft releasing most their games multiplatform? Take-Two, despite GTA releasing on PS5 and Xbox?
AMD has a close partnership with Sony and Microsoft. Should Sony stop their partnership with AMD, because Xbox also has AMD components?
These are business partnerships, where these companies hope to benefit financially from each other. This aren't "war alliances". Square Enix and Sony will remain partners, it's just that Square Enix intends to rely less on exclusivity contracts from platform owners.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@omadeli
I think what is holding back PS5 and in general this generation are the cost of game development, and the usage of Unreal Engine and image upscaling. Many developers were able to create incredibly looking games on PS4, getting that level of graphics with a steady 60fps would be enough for many players. But having fancy 4K graphics, high quality assets and motion-captured animations is super expensive. And Unreal Engine offers a great middleware for multiplatform games, but it's too performance taxing and many developers don't know how to optimize it.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@Rich33
I don't want to tell people how they should feel about gaming and their favorite brand, but basically there are 80+ million PS5 owners, so I don't feel like I am anything special. Plus if I enjoy a game, I think that more people should play and enjoy it as well, and the added success will hopefully result in better sequels. It doesn't make me feel better because others cannot play a game.
Xbox players aren't all that different from PlayStation players, I see them all as one console gaming community. So I think everyone should enjoy good games and not be excluded because they bought a different device.
That might have been the case for PS3 and maybe PS4, but I think ever since the PS5's launch there are definitely more 3rd party games where the optimizations for PS5 weren't the best, despite launching "console exclusive" for a limited time on PS5. Forspoken, FF16, Lost Soul Aside, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Black Myth Wukong, Baldur's Gate 3 (funnily the optimizations for Series S improved the performance for PS5 on this) Quantum Error. Even Helldivers 2, a first party game, has performance issues on PS5.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@omadeli
Makes you wonder, if optimizing for Switch 2 and Series S will result in a smoother performance on PS5?
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
@PuppetMaster
I don't see how stopping console exclusivity means that they are done with Sony. They will continue releasing Final Fantasy on PlayStation in the future, PS5 probably is still the lead development platform. Sony can continue having a marketing deal like they did for Call of Duty before the ABK acquisition or how they do the marketing for GTA. They can continue showing off their new line of TVs with fancy Final Fantasy 7 Remake trailers.
Square Enix will probably continue being a special partner for Sony, but just as Square Enix isn't Sony's only partner (who would have thought that Microsoft is now one of Sony's partners), so can Square Enix have multiple partners.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
Why would that be the case? Are there that many people who own a PS5 and other platforms, who would rather play Final Fantasy on anything other than PlayStation? Or what's the reasoning behind this statement?
Personally I think if the sales of FF7 Remake Part 3 decline on PS5, it will be because some people didn't enjoy Final Fantasy 7 Remake and/or Rebirth. But in general the sales numbers could be higher compared to the first 2 parts if it launches on all major platforms including PC and Switch 2. Games usually sell the best during the launch period when there is hype around them.
Re: Some PS5 Owners Might Be Paying More Than Others on PS Store
@themightyant There have been reports that booking sites displayed different prices for hotel bookings based on the devices (laptop, vs. mobile). As you say, these dynamic prices can be abused by corporations, like for example having higher prices on a PS5 Pro as those users are more invested in the ecosystem and are willing to pay more.
Re: Some PS5 Owners Might Be Paying More Than Others on PS Store
@Nem
There have been some "just for you" discounts on the Xbox store also in Europe. So either Microsoft is breaking the EU law or it's actually legal. In case of the Xbox store such discounts are clearly labeled with a "just for you" tag.
Re: Some PS5 Owners Might Be Paying More Than Others on PS Store
"All PlayStation fans are equal, but some fans are more equal than others."
/joking, this is a reference to Animal Farm 😄
Re: Leaked Cross-Buy Icon on PS5 Hints at Mysterious Pro-Consumer Move from Sony
@IOI
But why would they want to restrict the PC launcher on the next Xbox, if it will be a Windows PC with an Xbox branding? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a having a PC launcher if you restrict on which PCs it runs? Should Sony restrict the launcher on all Windows-based PC gaming handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and MSI claw when they run Windows in the full-screen Xbox mode? They would earn 100% for all 1st party and 30% for all 3rd party games, content and micro-transactions via that store/launcher.
Re: Leaked Cross-Buy Icon on PS5 Hints at Mysterious Pro-Consumer Move from Sony
@HonestHick It was a rhetorical question. 😉
Re: Leaked Cross-Buy Icon on PS5 Hints at Mysterious Pro-Consumer Move from Sony
@Oram77
It's because people are still stuck in the "PlayStation vs. Xbox console wars" mentality. Whatever the hell Microsoft/Xbox are doing and however the rest of the industry is adapting is at odds with the traditional console business strategies of the past 30 years. Some people don't want to accept any changes. 🙂
Re: Leaked Cross-Buy Icon on PS5 Hints at Mysterious Pro-Consumer Move from Sony
@Dimey
I don't see how Sony could launch a PC store/launcher which they would block on Windows PC's with an Xbox branding, unless they would restrict their PC launcher to Linux OS.
Also, if Sony releases a PC launcher, why should they block it on an Xbox-branded gaming PC? It's a PC, so blocking the access to the launcher would defeat the point of releasing it on PC. Would they block it also on other devices like the Asus Xbox Rog Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and MSI Claw handhelds if they run Windows in the new "Xbox full screen mode"?
Hypothetical question: If Sony could release a storefront on Xbox Series consoles, where they earn 100% from all transactions via that storefront, do you think they would do it or not?
Re: Leaked Cross-Buy Icon on PS5 Hints at Mysterious Pro-Consumer Move from Sony
@Max_the_German
.
Was there anything like that between PS4 and PS5? As far as I remember all PS4 games worked fine on PS5, but some had an optional $10 upgrade path. If the "cross-buy" label is only for PS5 & PS6, then it seems that the next cross-generation phase will be longer than the last one.
Re: Leaked Cross-Buy Icon on PS5 Hints at Mysterious Pro-Consumer Move from Sony
Is PlayStation going multiplatform? A PC store/launcher might be good if Sony doesn't want Steam and Epic Games Store to get 12-30% per sold game, and PC players who buy their games on the PlayStation store would require a PSN account. Such a store might also be available on whatever Microsoft Xbox is creating next.
But of course it would reduce the appeal for PlayStation consoles, as PlayStation games would be available on other devices.
I bet Sony has several business and data analysts who crunched the numbers, to get to a decision.
Re: As PHYSINT Begins Early Development, Hideo Kojima Visits Long-Time Ally Guerrilla Games
Maybe they were discussing how to port further Decima Engine games to Xbox? /joking 😉
Re: PS6 Could Be the Only Next-Gen Console Charging for Online Multiplayer
If the next "Xbox" is a PC and you can buy games from Steam, Epic Games and GOG, then there won't be a point in charging for online play.
Hmm... Going with rumors from previous days about the expected price difference between PS6 and Xbox Next, if you don't have to pay for online then you would even that price difference in 4-5 years.
Re: Random: Fans Can't Believe Halo Is Coming to PS5 Before Killzone
Maybe Sony could take a lesson from Microsoft and re-release some of those old games like Killzone or Resistance remastered as multi-platfom releases including PC, Switch 2 and Xbox. It worked well for Gears of War: Reloaded. 😏
Re: 'Our Biggest Competition Isn't Another Console': Xbox Doubles Down on Multiformat After Halo PS5 Shock
@daveofduncan Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer already admitted that they lost the console wars 2 years ago. I am not sure what more you want them to say about it? 😄
Link: https://fortune.com/2023/05/05/microsoft-exec-phil-spencer-admits-the-console-war-lost-sony-playstation-nintendo-switch/
Re: Halo PS5 Is Great, But Why Doesn't It Have Competitive Multiplayer?
@AK4tywill
The thing is, Halo Infinite's multiplayer was free-to-play, so if a new multiplayer release follows the same approach, it won't be about "incentivising further purchases down the road". The problem Infinite's multiplayer had was the lack of new content after the release. Halo Studios only recently shifted to Unreal Engine 5, they need to create a new multiplayer framework and probably Forge Mode which allows for community created maps and modes. This Halo 1 remake is a quick sure-bet financial profit for the studio.
For the Halo MCC the developers only had to update the visuals of Halo 2, all the other games basically had the same visual assets. Unfortunately on launch that ambitions multiplayer offer was a disaster and it took several months for the developers to fix all the issues. I guess that's one of the reasons why Halo Studios is now more cautious with their multiplayer releases.
Re: Halo PS5 Is Great, But Why Doesn't It Have Competitive Multiplayer?
Maybe Halo Studios finally releases the Halo Infinite multiplayer mode on PS5. That would be easier than creating a new one.
Re: 'Our Biggest Competition Isn't Another Console': Xbox Doubles Down on Multiformat After Halo PS5 Shock
Microsoft and Activision actually considered buying TikTok together, before they starting thinking about the ABK acquisition.
Re: This Is Why Xbox Is Bringing All of Its Games to PS5 Now
@Rich33 Unfortunately these large corporations make decisions based on data. ABK was very profitable at the time, plus Microsoft/Xbox were looking for live-service games (COD, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Candy Crush Saga) and success in mobile gaming.
It's not much different from Sony/PlayStation's way of thinking that they cand release 12 live service games over the span of 5-6 years with the help of Bungie.
That big headline of "COD losing $300m as a result of being on GamePass" isn't quite that simple. Circana analyst Matt Piscatella shared some aspects that last year's COD sold "extremely well" and "the network effect of it on Game Pass resulted in stronger engagement, and perhaps even better sales, on PS5 and PC because of it". So yes, it sold less on Xbox but the game being on GamePass resulted in more engagement (and probably revenue) via all platforms.
Link: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bhqrrxt7yyfpwguioa7rwa7x/post/3m2elnk7eak26