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[Goalus]

None of this is new, and none of it means the death of consoles.

It's pretty clear at this point that core gaming thrives on dedicated hardware.

Unless Xbox does it.

 

[//DEVIL//]

They couldn't get me to pay on their eco system. They want me to pay on PC ? Lol ok

 

[ProtoByte]

Unless Xbox does it.

They're going many steps beyond this, and their sales have already collapsed.

 

[Fabieter]

It won’t be enough to offset loss of additional sales. These recent leaks showed $400mil+ revenue off just the ports.

That’s a lot of additional copies to sell in compensation plus the cost of running their own store.

Those 400m are revenue of like 10 different ports that possible on their own store. Maybe they would need their games exclusive on it like some other gaf member mentioned but it makes sense to not depend on steam.

 

[bender]

Those 400m are revenue of like 10 different ports that possible on their own store. Maybe they would need their games exclusive on it like some other gaf member mentioned but it makes sense to not depend on steam.

You'd pay more in lost sales ignoring Steam than 30% cut that Valve takes. Even if they offered something like cross-buy, I don't think Sony could successfully launch a PC marketplace.

 

[Fabieter]

You'd pay more in lost sales ignoring Steam than 30% cut that Valve takes. Even if they offered something like cross-buy, I don't think Sony could successfully launch a PC marketplace.

People underestimate trophies. People prefer trophys over the other archivmenents. It would work, I know people don't want it.

 

[tusharngf]

Would love a store on pc with plus though.

better go with EPIC store since Sony has stakes in it. They should really invest some more into EPIC store. They gave 33% discount coupon couple of days ago and they are doing huge discounts on almost newly released game. Steam sales are nothing compared to epic's discounts.

 

[NeverYouMind]

better go with EPIC store since Sony has stakes in it. They should really invest some more into EPIC store. They gave 33% discount coupon couple of days ago and they are doing huge discounts on almost newly released game. Steam sales are nothing compared to epic's discounts.

Very few people buy on Epic. Mostly they just claim free games. Steam is the de facto PC gaming marketplace.

 

[Fredrik]

Yeah the future is launchers and subscriptions on multiple screens, not isolated boxes under your TV. Sony will probably have their own store with timed exclusivity, I don’t think Steam day 1 is happening anytime soon.

 

[Goalus]

Yeah the future is launchers and subscriptions on multiple screens, not isolated boxes under your TV. Sony will probably have their own store with timed exclusivity, I don’t think Steam day 1 is happening anytime soon.

Are you sure?
Hardware unit sales and boxed game sales in the UK, that's what really matters.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Are you sure?
Hardware unit sales and boxed game sales in the UK, that's what really matters.

Both matter and Sony are in a good position to capitalise on both going forward.

PC and Mobile is an expansion for them while their core console pillar is pretty much as strong as it ever has been. Even within that space they are expanding into different genres and striking up deals with new partners - the Korea deals are bigger than most expect.

If they, as is likely planned, bring an ecosystem for PS+ to PC and mobile that has streaming, trophy support, access to the PlayStation Store etc then it's going to be big for them. They've got some work to do to have a controller that'll work with TVs, sticks etc but I'm sure that's coming. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a WiFi controller in the works.

Portal feels like a Trojan horse. It's tethered to a PS5 now but you just know that's gonna end up being a reasonably cheap way to play PS+ games via Chronos. The value of that device is going to massively grow.

In general, I think Xbox has more to worry about with Sony's plans then Sony have about Xbox's but it'll all come down to implementation.

 

[Shane89]

that's not a news lol

 

[Mephisto40]

How to access PlayStation Plus on PC

Find out how to navigate the PlayStation Plus PC app and stream PlayStation Plus games on your PC.

www.playstation.com

This already exists on PC

 

[StealthGoblin]

How to access PlayStation Plus on PC

Find out how to navigate the PlayStation Plus PC app and stream PlayStation Plus games on your PC.

www.playstation.com

This already exists on PC

The proposals likely include full trophy integration, full PlayStation store functionality, access to the native PC ports etc.

 

[winjer]

Please, not another launcher....

 

[Woopah]

FWIW, Sony did stuff like game streaming and such way before Microsoft ever touched it. But I do agree in a sense.



They've done those things yes but it's not been at the expense of massively prioritizing their console. The games they put on mobile, for example, are very different from the ones they design for their own systems even if similar IP are being leveraged. And they still make several games with smaller budgets and massive profit margins.

They aren't doing things like putting their console games on a competing platform with almost all the same 3P titles like what Sony are doing or especially what Microsoft has done the past several years. So they're retaining more value within the ecosystem they have the most control over, better than Sony/SIE and much better than Microsoft are.

But when you realize Microsoft have many vested interests in PC even if they don't own Steam directly, their willingness to let Xbox lose value is a lot more understandable. Sony and Nintendo don't have those same vested interests, but Sony seem willing to take a similar route anyway and in some ways that is critically unfortunate.



Not if they continue to put their games on Steam. Even if PS+ on PC had much better features than Steam out of the gate (not likely), better features can only get you so far if you don't have exclusive content.

Just ask Xbox how that's going for them.

I meant that Nintendo will be investigating things, just like Sony is investigating things in these slides. We don't know that Sony decided to actually proceed with the ideas they had here.

 

[K' Dash]

good luck selling that piece of shit service to PC gamers.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

good luck selling that piece of shit service to PC gamers.

PC is stream only at 1080p.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I meant that Nintendo will be investigating things, just like Sony is investigating things in these slides. We don't know that Sony decided to actually proceed with the ideas they had here.

Yeah, true. Agreed.

good luck selling that piece of shit service to PC gamers.

That "piece of shit service" has 47 million subscribers on PS consoles. Versus the ~ 30 million Steam users who actually purchase games at all (the other 100 million are just free accounts).

Is Steam a "piece of shit service" too?

Both matter and Sony are in a good position to capitalise on both going forward.

PC and Mobile is an expansion for them while their core console pillar is pretty much as strong as it ever has been. Even within that space they are expanding into different genres and striking up deals with new partners - the Korea deals are bigger than most expect.

If they, as is likely planned, bring an ecosystem for PS+ to PC and mobile that has streaming, trophy support, access to the PlayStation Store etc then it's going to be big for them. They've got some work to do to have a controller that'll work with TVs, sticks etc but I'm sure that's coming. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a WiFi controller in the works.

Portal feels like a Trojan horse. It's tethered to a PS5 now but you just know that's gonna end up being a reasonably cheap way to play PS+ games via Chronos. The value of that device is going to massively grow.

In general, I think Xbox has more to worry about with Sony's plans then Sony have about Xbox's but it'll all come down to implementation.

I'm curious how Sony are going to handle providing access to the PS Store for PC & mobile users. Is it really going to just be for native titles, or will they provide cloud-based versions for titles at a cheaper price, while keeping it a-la-carte? The latter could be interesting as long as it acts as credit towards reducing the cost those customers would have to pay for a native copy of that game on platforms which support it.

And baked into that price they pay, also comes the various store & subscription benefits like online play, trophies, etc. Maybe that's how they make the service and such attractive to those customers if they are simply getting the cloud versions, but can buy a native copy of the game at a cheaper price at a later date. Whereas for people on console, since you're getting the native version of the games, those service features and various perks are universally applied to all your games at a typical subscription fee pricing with tiers.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Yeah, true. Agreed.



That "piece of shit service" has 47 million subscribers on PS consoles. Versus the ~ 30 million Steam users who actually purchase games at all (the other 100 million are just free accounts).

Is Steam a "piece of shit service" too?

For a company that pulled in 27m new paying customers in less than two years time (2016 & 2017) and claims to average about 1.4m new paying customers a month, that number seems really low.

Steam attracts an average of 1.5M new customers a month

The leading PC game distribution platform has seen 27 million new, paying users since the beginning of 2016.

www.gamedeveloper.com

 

[fersnake]

streaming games on mobile? funny that you cant do that with Portal.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

For a company that pulled in 27m new paying customers in less than two years time (2016 & 2017) and claims to average about 1.4m new paying customers a month, that number seems really low.

Steam attracts an average of 1.5M new customers a month

The leading PC game distribution platform has seen 27 million new, paying users since the beginning of 2016.

www.gamedeveloper.com

Well FWIW, I didn't know it was referencing specifically new customers or new sales, I should say. So I stand corrected on that part. However it's ultimately an issue with these companies that refuse to share hard data, and use percentages instead. Couple that with Valve being a privately-owned company and a lot of metrics listed simply don't matter.

What I do know is that they have something a little over 130 million total users. We know that Steam accounts don't require a payment to set up, and we also know there are people who may've had old accounts that got lost or banned, and just set up new ones. So, those could be cases where new accounts are being made to replace old inactive or deleted accounts, and if they were a paying customer in both cases, there's essentially no net gain.

However I'm willing to support the idea that total paying customers is higher than 30 million. Although again, they refer to it as "purchasers". There's the textbook definition of a purchaser which basically describes them as buyers, but there's a market definition where a buyer is one who purchases whole, complete goods. Whereas the purchaser is also known as a purchasing agent, and buys the parts that comprise the whole good. So it's clever in a sense Valve use "purchasers" in those graphs because it could mean whole individual unique customers, or singular customers making repeat purchasing transactions, or a range of customers buying games and various components of game content across the storefront, or a mix of the three.

Even so I still stand by the idea that the ARPU for a Steam customer is notably lower than that of a multi-console customer, or even just a PlayStation or Nintendo owner of their own, even factoring out console sales revenue. Steam ARPU is likely lower than Xbox ARPU as well though in Xbox's case you may have to include console sales revenue. That said, Valve have a very Apple-like model to Steam where they don't do much with their own software to help drive sales, and mostly collect money from everyone else who sells content on the storefront. So I imagine they have profit margins somewhere between SIE and Nintendo not in absolute amounts, but relative to the portion of revenue they generate.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Well FWIW, I didn't know it was referencing specifically new customers or new sales, I should say. So I stand corrected on that part. However it's ultimately an issue with these companies that refuse to share hard data, and use percentages instead. Couple that with Valve being a privately-owned company and a lot of metrics listed simply don't matter.

What I do know is that they have something a little over 130 million total users. We know that Steam accounts don't require a payment to set up, and we also know there are people who may've had old accounts that got lost or banned, and just set up new ones. So, those could be cases where new accounts are being made to replace old inactive or deleted accounts, and if they were a paying customer in both cases, there's essentially no net gain.

However I'm willing to support the idea that total paying customers is higher than 30 million. Although again, they refer to it as "purchasers". There's the textbook definition of a purchaser which basically describes them as buyers, but there's a market definition where a buyer is one who purchases whole, complete goods. Whereas the purchaser is also known as a purchasing agent, and buys the parts that comprise the whole good. So it's clever in a sense Valve use "purchasers" in those graphs because it could mean whole individual unique customers, or singular customers making repeat purchasing transactions, or a range of customers buying games and various components of game content across the storefront, or a mix of the three.

Even so I still stand by the idea that the ARPU for a Steam customer is notably lower than that of a multi-console customer, or even just a PlayStation or Nintendo owner of their own, even factoring out console sales revenue. Steam ARPU is likely lower than Xbox ARPU as well though in Xbox's case you may have to include console sales revenue. That said, Valve have a very Apple-like model to Steam where they don't do much with their own software to help drive sales, and mostly collect money from everyone else who sells content on the storefront. So I imagine they have profit margins somewhere between SIE and Nintendo not in absolute amounts, but relative to the portion of revenue they generate.

What is this nonsense? I know it’s hard to cope with steam having more MAU than the entirety of PSN but you are just so incredibly wrong. Valve just released a game this year that regulary gets 1 million players a day and is the #1 most played game on the platform. They also made the #2 game which also has insane amount of players. Something Sony is desperately chasing. They are also CONSTANTLY adding things to the software client and making it better.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Psst Psst a lot of that comes from 3rd parties who only pay any fees from console sales. If Sony were to move tons of players to PC, great job… Valve would be super happy .

You are assuming that Sony's PC ecosystem will go through Valve. It will not. Launcher work started a while ago. If people want the PSN compatibility and functionality then it'll run through a PlayStation App.

 

[Panajev2001a]

You are assuming that Sony's PC ecosystem will go through Valve. It will not. Launcher work started a while ago. If people want the PSN compatibility and functionality then it'll run through a PlayStation App.

Sony makes money on third party games selling (game and mtx) on PS4/PS5. They would not get a dime on PC and I doubt that Steam can be dethroned this easily and PC third party publishers would give Sony or MS a dime…

 

[StealthGoblin]

Sony makes money on third party games selling (game and mtx) on PS4/PS5. They would not get a dime on PC and I doubt that Steam can be dethroned this easily and PC third party publishers would give Sony or MS a dime…

It's not about dethroning. It's about having a cohesive ecosystem. A majority of those third party PC publishers also massively rely on PlayStation in the console space.

So they'll be able to sell through Steam, but they'll also be expected to sell through the PlayStation PC store.

And if users want cross buy, trophy support, cloud access to their PS1, PS2, PSP, PS3, PS4 and PS5 games etc as well as discounts that apply to both PlayStation and PC games then they'll need to buy through Sony.

 

[DaGwaphics]

@ P Panajev2001a , the MS game store (Xbox PC) already has third party games on it (lots of them) as does the Epic store. Not sure what you are on about there. Third parties will put their games on the smaller stores as well if there aren't exclusive contracts in the way or something like that.

 

[justiceiro]

Everything but ps portal. Truly the follow up of vita.