thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Well, good to hear you've been enjoying HD2 at least. Lots of people are, clearly.
In theory "more games for more people" is nice, but in practice it only seems to matter if those games are on platforms they're already at. And if those platforms hold a vast majority in market share, customers are, IMO, ironically doing the work of the corporates on their preferred platform to simply amass more market share.
That's why companies like Valve, for example, love these types of "pro-consumer" messages; they get to have their monopolies grow without doing a lot of the work and without looking like a "typical" competitive corporation.
I genuinely don't think this makes a lot of sense though, because these systems aren't only competing in neatly-defined market segments. If PC is getting something like 99% of the same multiplat 3P games as the consoles are, AND it has lots of exclusives not even on the consoles, how does it not compete against console for the typical gamer?
If Sony want to increase their revenue and profits (but particularly profits), shouldn't mobile be a better and safer area to do that in, versus PC? Nintendo literally set a blueprint for this, even companies like ABK as well with COD Warzone. Why are Sony completely ignoring that and risking devaluing appeal of their console to hardcore/core gamers with a more aggressive PC/Steam port push of non-GaaS?
Day 1 GaaS titles won't risk devaluing the brand, at least not as much as non-GaaS would. Although, the idea of getting free online with PC, vs. paying for it on PS+, does run a growing risk. It's one Sony could easily resolve by tying free perks and such to PS+ subs, and since PS+ is only on PS consoles, that makes those perks defacto to the console.
They won't do that, seemingly. If PS follows the same strategy as Xbox, it's 100% going to depreciate the value perception of the console to some core enthusiasts. Meaning lower hardware lifetime sales, and slower early adoption of new hardware, plus (likely) lower revenue. It also means they lose out on benefits of single-platform design scope focus, optimization, brand reinforcement, so on and so forth.
The real reason that decline wouldn't look "as bad" for PlayStation as compared to Xbox, is because PlayStation is simply a much bigger global brand. So there's more cushioning when they fall. But a fall can totally happen.
Yep and like someone else was saying (maybe it was you?), coming in short of the fiscal target when Xbox AND Switch are declining in sales shows that there's a good chance at least MS and Sony are losing would-be customers to PC (Nintendo is an exception because the Switch is a relic at this point and sales decline should be expected).
So the question for Sony should be: why? Is is just because of the hardware price increase? Or is it because of things they don't want to mention, like some already shifting to PC in anticipating all of Sony's games are going to get ported there (even Day 1)? IF Spiderman 2 is underperforming, is it maybe due to a combination of superhero fatigue, game design fatigue and/or MCU fatigue affecting related games?
We don't know, we can only guess and speculate. But given declines with Xbox in particular you'd think PS5 would be able to hit the 25 million FY target, and profits would be higher. But revenue being higher while profits declining hints it could be mainly an issue with costs growing too much too fast.
For sure, always
