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DO THE MATH.... Sony expanding first party development is a FAR better strategy than acquiring a big third party publishers

Three

Member
Big fat fucking assumption there me ol mate lol.

COD+warzone/fortnite/GTA plus others are so big and popular, that they would be system sellers for years.
If all goes for the worse, for PlayStation only they would be excluded. COD will never go Xbox exclusive it will be always on console (Xbox) Windows PC, android , iOS , MacOS.
Warzone isn't going anywhere. It's the yearly, possibly no longer yearly, releases I'm talking about. Point being that Spiderman is just as popular on the single platform as COD. Its sales are limited by only being on one console but its popularity on that console comparable.
If COD goes single console too it essentially becomes your Spiderman or Halo after some market adjustment.
 
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Sony should just buy MS and increase the price of Gamepass to £25,000 a month. History shows that most people don't bother cancelling monthly subs so it's easy money. Do the math on that and you will see they can pay off the cost in no time.

They can give a 5% discount to anyone that can prove they own a PS5 to guarantee some good press making it a win/win.

They can keep Xbox as the budget alternative to PlayStation as Audi is the budget alternative to Skoda.
 

DragonNCM

Member
Let's look at the math here

Sony purchases a smaller dev Insomniac for $229 million who have talent but little known IP

They now have a consistent 20 million selling IP in Spiderman

If for some crazy set of circumstances Capcom wanted to sell and Sony bought them it would cost them 5 billion dollars, and they only have a couple 10 million (at best) selling franchises that are less impressive even because they're multiplats.


MS's never ending pockets can afford them to make ridiculous purchases like 70 billion for COD.

A strategy that may be good for one is not good for the other.

Nintendo is breaking sales records for Switch with first party studios alone and a lot of those games are pretty low budget to make.

Playstation's brand value and development talent is what's going to see them through because all their first party franchises are starting to put up the big numbers

GOT 8 million
Horizon well over 10 million
GOW 20 million plus
Spiderman 20 million plus
You know how hard is to gather good development team ?
It will past at least 5-10y at best till you make 1 AAA game.
Money is not a problem at all.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Warzone isn't going anywhere. It's the yearly, possibly no longer yearly, releases I'm talking about. Point being that Spiderman is just as popular on the single platform as COD. Its sales are limited by only being on one console but its popularity on that console comparable.
If COD goes single console too it essentially becomes your Spiderman or Halo after some market adjustment.
Okay I got ya! But do you think that Spider-Man sells as many consoles as COD?

You are correct about warzone, that will stay on PlayStation
 

Sygma

Member
Microsoft want gamepass and cloud everywhere for as many profiles as possible, it's not that deep. They'll not bother competing at the same level than others which is smart. Pays off for Nintendo and Sony, will still pay off in the future
 

Three

Member
Okay I got ya! But do you think that Spider-Man sells as many consoles as COD?

You are correct about warzone, that will stay on PlayStation
I don't have survey data or anything but if people are going by sales data alone then they seem comparable on a single platform. Data shows that people who buy a PS5 are more likely to get Miles Morales than COD but this may be multiplatform owners skew so there is no way of knowing. I just think it's silly to claim that people only buy spiderman because they bought a console for COD though.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Poor Nintendo, they failed with the Switch and they don't know it, yet 😔
They are probably wondering where all that money is coming from 😔
I don’t know if Nintendo works here. The WiiU was an utter failure and looking at the 1st party games on Switch, quite a few are just WiiU ports.

Their next console could well be another WiiU.

The person you replied to has a point, removing some or all of those franchises from PlayStation or Xbox and the sales would dip/decline for sure
 

Saber

Gold Member
Amazing how fine Switch is doing without GTA and CoD, huh?

You must totally check the "Nintendo is doomed/panic" thread about Activision being bought. Because according to them well...Nintendo is in panic right now.

Frankly, I'm still scratching my head over the "casuals buy PS4/PS5 because of CoD" argument.
 
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MrFunSocks

Banned
Only if you're daft. Spiderman launched in 2020. It outsells COD on Playstation most months.
Vanguard launched this year and so would for 2021. September NPD for Playstation for example before Vanguard launch

1 Madden NFL 22
2 FIFA 22
3 NBA 2K22
4 Deathloop
5 Tales of Arise
6 Ghost of Tsushima
7 Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
8 Diablo II: Resurrected
9 Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War

October NPD
1 Far Cry 6
2 Back 4 Blood
3 Madden NFL 22
4 FIFA 22
5 Demon Slayer
6 Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
7 NHL 22
8 NBA 2K22
9 Ghost of Tsushima
10 Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales


If people were buying a Playstation for COD and then only end up playing Spiderman as a result why is it that those who buy a PS5 end up getting Spiderman instead of the latest COD?

Because the idea that Spiderman only sells because of COD is daft.
Once again you and a lot of others seem to have problems with basic comprehension.

I didn’t say Spider-Man only sells “because of COD”. I said spider man can only sell 20 million because games like cod/fifa/madden/fortnite are the reason for all those consoles being sold in the first place. Without them shifting hardware by the millions every year, Spider-Man wouldn’t have 20 million people to sell to.

COD sells more than spider man every year. Fact.
 
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Leyasu

Banned
I don't have survey data or anything but if people are going by sales data alone then they seem comparable on a single platform. Data shows that people who buy a PS5 are more likely to get Miles Morales than COD but this may be multiplatform owners skew so there is no way of knowing. I just think it's silly to claim that people only buy spiderman because they bought a console for COD though.

Yeah I agree that it is a silly claim. If this was indeed what was being claimed.

Although my gut feeling that side by side or any other way I don’t know. Would be that COD would shift more PS5s than spider-man. I am not going to die on that hill though, because there’s not enough data to validate it plus I don’t want to sound like I am console warring.

My opinions or gut feelings don’t mean shit.
 
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wolffy71

Banned
The smartest thing MS can do is leave COD on Playstation. I think its correct that if they pull the biggest FPS game in the world, it will create a void in Sonys massive player base. It would allow sony to attempt to fill it with a new shooter( socom?)

What MS will do imo, is launch the next console with full Cod exclusivity. That allows all new buyers to weigh that exclusivity when making their console purchase. While not allowing Cods marketshare to be lost to a new mid console lifecycle, shooter filling the void.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
This isn’t the best thing to happen to them by any stretch of the imagination.

They are going to lose not only a massive cash cow, but A reason (don’t confuse with the only reason which is not what I am implying here)to buy their console and by extension the people who would’ve have bought it to play with their friends.

Those new I.Ps in development are not guaranteed to be major successes either. Same with any new I.P. Although I do see what you mean by having relied on 3rd party devs for certain genres, any reboots of dormant games from their back catalogue will take years to appear.

Trying to correlate the success of the PS2 without cod back then makes no sense. The PS2 was propelled great heights by being released before Xbox and GameCube, coupled with GTA providing the rocket fuel. Madden and Gran tourismo helped to. Obviously with a large market share and install base, other good games will sell in their millions too.

I am not saying that Sony is dead, they will be fine. But they will lose market share and install base, and by extension they will see lower sales of games. So no, it’s not fine or the best thing that could have happened at all imo. And I would imagine that the executives at Sony are thinking the same too.

That cash cow has only equated to most 260Million in generated profit, compared to the entire year(12months) which was 8.8 Billion. It's a good chunck but compared to the entire year its not a deal breaker.


But the numbers are: Key financial experts like CitiGroup estimate that Sony will lose 10 billion yen to 30 billion yen ($87.5 million to $262.6 million) if Call of Duty doesn't release on PlayStation systems.

Activision's megaton franchise contributes hundreds of millions in distribution payments to Sony, Microsoft, and other platform-holders like Valve every year. The annualized release cadence is a dependable source of third-party earning contributions for Sony. It could also be the same for Microsoft, who would pocket Activision's 70% cut of all Call of Duty game sales and revenues.

After all, Sony's ecosystem consists of over 116 million shipped PlayStation 4 consoles and Microsoft would also forgo millions--or perhaps billions--in revenues if it pulled Call of Duty from PlayStation platforms.

In 2020 alone, Call of Duty generated $3 billion in total revenues across Warzone, mainline games, and mobile titles.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/8413...f-call-of-duty-goes-xbox-exclusive/index.html

262.6 Million at the highest. Sorry Sony will be fine. They will pick up the slack with other titles that are GAAS titles or have renewables.
 
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reksveks

Member
That cash cow has only equated to most 260Million in generated profit, compared to the entire year(12months) which was 8.8 Billion. It's a good chunck but compared to the entire year its not a deal breaker.
Source and whose numbers are you talking about?

I assume 260m is the Sony's profit from Activision revenue.
8.8bn is Sony's wider group's profit.
 

Three

Member
Once again you and a lot of others seem to have problems with basic comprehension.

I didn’t say Spider-Man only sells “because of COD. I said spider man can only sell 20 million because games like cod/fifa/madden/fortnite are the reason for all those consoles being sold in the first place. Without them shifting hardware by the millions every year, Spider-Man wouldn’t have 20 million people to sell to.

COD sells more than spider man every year. Fact.
you're telling me that if a console doesn't sell, a game selling on that console alone can't sell that much?
And your argument for that is if miraculously ALL the popular games disappeared from a console. That's not really insightful. PS5 is the fastest selling console and all those games aren't disappearing.

Your exact words were

"Spider Man and co only sold that many copies because people bought the console they are on because of games like Call of Duty. This argument falls flat on its face instantly."

So what you are arguing is that multiplatform games become the huge sellers by default and exclusives only sell because of them. Or is it that popular games sell consoles? notice that the games listed as most popular by you don't have exclusives in them yet on a single platform Spiderman and COD are comparable in popularity.

Even if strictly hypothetically speaking ALL currently popular multiplatform games disappeared it still wouldn't be true because Nintendo is proof of that. They do even higher numbers than 20M without them.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Once again you and a lot of others seem to have problems with basic comprehension.

I didn’t say Spider-Man only sells “because of COD”. I said spider man can only sell 20 million because games like cod/fifa/madden/fortnite are the reason for all those consoles being sold in the first place. Without them shifting hardware by the millions every year, Spider-Man wouldn’t have 20 million people to sell to.

COD sells more than spider man every year. Fact.

You’re absolutely right and I can’t believe this even has to be hammered in so many times in this thread. It’s either head in the sand situation or a copium overdose.

Sony first party sales ARE benefited by huge 3rd party sellers, duh. What is there even to argue? CoD is HUGE for mainstream. Denying that is mind boggling.
 

Leyasu

Banned
That cash cow has only equated to most 260Million in generated profit, compared to the entire year(12months) which was 8.8 Billion. It's a good chunck but compared to the entire year its not a deal breaker.
Taken on its own it is not. But if the people that buy the console for the game are not there, then the downturn is across the board. Some people probably just play cod only but I doubt that they are the majority.

I just read your edit. I don’t why you are saying “sorry but Sony will be fine” for?
 
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Three

Member
You’re absolutely right and I can’t believe this even has to be hammered in so many times in this thread. It’s either head in the sand situation or a copium overdose.

Sony first party sales ARE benefited by huge 3rd party sellers, duh. What is there even to argue? CoD is HUGE for mainstream. Denying that is mind boggling.
Sony first party sales are benefited by huge 3rd party games. 3rd party games are hugely benefited by console sales. First party games create console sales too. Nobody is denying COD isn't mainstream. It's the idea that Spiderman, God Of War etc can't be mainstream too but are entirely dependent on COD to sell consoles.
 
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SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
MS's strategy is different because GamePass. They are buying up publishers not just because they need marquee titles to lure people to the Xbox ecosystem but because they need to be able to produce the volume of content needed to sustain a service like GamePass as well as a back catalog of content that can live there permanently and fill out the library.

We saw Netflix gradually shift their resources from licensing third party content to producing or buying permanent exclusive rights to stuff for similar reasons. Licensing content isn't as profitable and those deals need to be renewed, which means they get more expensive for popular stuff... It's hard to make enough original content for a subscription service but MS needs to get there.

I really don't think MS and Sony are playing the same game. Sony doesn't have to worry about their ability to make great hugely successful games to bring in players, they are masters at that. But if they launch a GamePass competitor don't expect them to keep up with the volume of games on there.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Tell Oh My GIF by Robert E Blackmon



OP was a jaguar fan I knew it


 
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wolffy71

Banned
Sony first party sales are benefited by huge 3rd party games. 3rd party games are hugely benefited by console sales. First party games create console sales too. Nobody is denying COD isn't mainstream. It's the idea that Spiderman, God Of War etc can't be mainstream too but are entirely dependent on COD to sell consoles.

Its not that they aren't msinstream but they aren't really comparable games.

The amount of time spent playing cod/warzone dwarfs time spent playing some of those games. Maybe even all of those games combined. That makes a difference. Thats the hole that could be created. A massive loss in hours played.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Long version:

Sony will just have to move their ass like they have in the past, this might be a blessing in disguise for PlayStation.

Activision Blizzard has been nothing but a COD factory anyway, at least on consoles, and if MS doesn’t make COD exclusive then not much changes for PlayStation.

The ugly side of this obscene consolidation going on is if an Apple comes in and buys Sony or some crazy shit like that. I’m sure a lot of people would throw a party because that’s the age we live in, a bunch of morons excited about dystopian mega corps that have more lobbying power than you can imagine. Holla back in twenty years so I can read your tears about the golden days of gaming.

Short version:

Sony needs to buy SE, EA, Capcom, Etc etc etc suck my banana
 

Ezekiel_

Banned
Once again you and a lot of others seem to have problems with basic comprehension.

I didn’t say Spider-Man only sells “because of COD”. I said spider man can only sell 20 million because games like cod/fifa/madden/fortnite are the reason for all those consoles being sold in the first place. Without them shifting hardware by the millions every year, Spider-Man wouldn’t have 20 million people to sell to.

COD sells more than spider man every year. Fact.
COD/FIFA/Madden/Fortnite are on all platforms, so the differentiators are exclusive games, no?
 

MonarchJT

Banned
Poor Nintendo, they failed with the Switch and they don't know it, yet 😔
They are probably wondering where all that money is coming from 😔
then if we want to put it this way ..... Sony has nothing comparable to Nintendo's IPs. The switch continues to outsell whatever Sony or Microsoft throws at it. The switch market is d different from that of the PS5 and Xbox.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
Warzone isn't going anywhere. It's the yearly, possibly no longer yearly, releases I'm talking about. Point being that Spiderman is just as popular on the single platform as COD. Its sales are limited by only being on one console but its popularity on that console comparable.
If COD goes single console too it essentially becomes your Spiderman or Halo after some market adjustment.
ok you are another one of the small circle ... that thinks after a 70b acquisition and Sony begging Ms to keep cod available that "nothing happened .. everything is fine" ..spiderman will take COD place Okay. we will see
 
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reksveks

Member

Three

Member
Its not that they aren't msinstream but they aren't really comparable games.

The amount of time spent playing cod/warzone dwarfs time spent playing some of those games. Maybe even all of those games combined. That makes a difference. Thats the hole that could be created. A massive loss in hours played.
Definitely in terms of engagement and microtransactions it dwarfs them. It can create a hole on the platform if it goes. That hole is filled by another multiplatform game that becomes a more popular bestseller for releasing on all. Somebody mentioned Gears. Gears is about player engagement, a multiplayer game with microtransactions like COD. That should be comparable yet its sales will never reach multiplatform COD now. At its peak it sold more on the 360 than COD did on the 360 though.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
If you think MS is buying Activision Blizzard just to snatch a couple of exclusives to spite Sony then you're not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. This is clearly bigger and more future directed than just being Sony's competitor. Think Meta, Google, Netflix, Amazon.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
This is the big question for me. How does the transition from product to service pricing affect quality and/or production time in the long-term, if at all? If it turns out that neither suffers then I'm inclined to agree based on sheer volume.

I think it will be similar, but slightly less pressure for the gamepass model because if a big game does not review amazing there likely wont be a loss. Its only if games kept on disappointing they would see reduced subscriptions.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
If you think MS is buying Activision Blizzard just to snatch a couple of exclusives to spite Sony then you're not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. This is clearly bigger and more future directed than just being Sony's competitor. Think Meta, Google, Netflix, Amazon.
This is such nonsense.

The Metaverse is buzzword being used to pump up investors.

The whole thing is a gimmick that will never take off. It has absolutely nothing to do with COD.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
This is such nonsense.

The Metaverse is buzzword being used to pump up investors.

The whole thing is a gimmick that will never take off. It has absolutely nothing to do with COD.
Fuck off trying to put words in my mouth. Never said anything about "metaverse" [edit: well, it's about that too, point is, it's not just about that]. Did you forget that Netflix is into gaming now.
 
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phil_t98

#SonyToo
Please don't move goalposts to bloodborne and FIFA, GTA etc. You're only exaggerating everything. The console isn't missing the games you listed and we aren't talking about bloodborne here. We're talking about Spiderman. In the top 5 of your source of most played games and it's on a single console.

"Spider Man and co only sold that many copies because people bought the console they are on because of games like Call of Duty. This argument falls flat on its face instantly."

Spiderman could be one of those games that influences a console purchase. If anything a lot of these games outsold COD on a given platform. Spiderman is more popular on PS4/PS5 than COD is outside of its launch month. It constantly outsells it if you look at NPDs throughout the year.
So call of duty doesn’t make people think about a console purchase?

I think you better tell Sony that because they spent a shit ton of cash making sure that the PlayStation logo came up on tv ads and alsorts when ever call of duty is promoted
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Long version:

Sony will just have to move their ass like they have in the past, this might be a blessing in disguise for PlayStation.

Activision Blizzard has been nothing but a COD factory anyway, at least on consoles, and if MS doesn’t make COD exclusive then not much changes for PlayStation.

The ugly side of this obscene consolidation going on is if an Apple comes in and buys Sony or some crazy shit like that. I’m sure a lot of people would throw a party because that’s the age we live in, a bunch of morons excited about dystopian mega corps that have more lobbying power than you can imagine. Holla back in twenty years so I can read your tears about the golden days of gaming.

Short version:

Sony needs to buy SE, EA, Capcom, Etc etc etc suck my banana

realy love these kind of post, like in a realy dystopian future we gonna have time to worry about what toys the adult babies play with…
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
Yeah I did forget because nobody cares.
I don't care about streaming myself right now, but that's not the point, nobody should care about what you and me think about current states per se. That's why I'm trying to leave my preferences aside and try to discuss what substance there could be in these things (including "the metaverse") to be evolved and iterated into edible form in the future. Thus we revisit the point of MS buying AB. The tech and entertainment giants are all obviously trying to get the biggest pieces of the future entertainment cake.
 
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Three

Member
ok you are another one of the small circle ... that thinks after a 70b acquisition and Sony begging Ms to keep cod available that "nothing happened .. everything is fine" ..spiderman will take COD place Okay. we will see
Where did I say nothing will happen or that Spiderman will take CODs place? MS will gain marketshare. I imagine that's why they did it. Sony will continue to sell consoles though. New games and new multiplatform IPs akin to Fortnite will come and be bestsellers. Your only point against exclusives being that they don't sell as much as multiplats due to being exclusives to begin with.
 

Bragr

Banned
You got a point, but you need to think about how every part fits into a whole. Meaning, the appeal from the PS5 comes from more than its first-party studios.

Gamers ask themselves a few questions when they purchase a device, is it affordable? what games are on it? what do my friends have?

Call of Duty, Minecraft, Madden/FIFA, first-party support, it all comes together and builds a whole. If you reduce the offering on one of these aspects, the console sales will go down, and the first-party sales will go down with them. Call of Duty is a very important part of that whole and adds a lot to that ecosystem.

By Microsoft buying Zenimax and Activision/Blizzard, they have added to their whole, while Sony has lost a lot of it. Luckily for them, Microsoft is willing to have Minecraft and Call of Duty available across consoles.
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
This is such nonsense.

The Metaverse is buzzword being used to pump up investors.

The whole thing is a gimmick that will never take off. It has absolutely nothing to do with COD.
For $70b, ambitions must extend beyond consoles, and by extension, Sony and Nintendo.
 
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