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[Victor Omega]

This of course goes back to the question, who has the better 1st and even 2nd party games.

We all know at least one person that ONLY plays sports games or ONLY plays COD and nothing else.

EA sports, COD and GTA make up a large % of gamers / consumers,

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it's probably obvious that Sony might can survive without these games even though they bring in a very large player base

 

[Marty-McFly]

They could survive, but they would probably be doing terrible numbers.

They don't have the first party IP that people care about enough, or sell enough.

Although the Bethesda acquisition should help MS some.

This is why I think MS and Sony are not as stable in the gaming space moving forward as most people think. Suppose these games are featured on many different platforms and services in the future? It will further water-down their take. This is what happens when you mostly rely on other developers and publisher's to push your platform.

 

[TexMex]

They would do just fine without every game listed. Something else would just become the new most popular thing and we’d move on with our lives.

 

[Kumomeme]

Sony already has wide and strong mindshare. their IP is going strong. they possibly can.

MS, however depend on how they play with their card. with all those studio they already acquired.

 

[JLB]

no.

 

[onesvenus]

They wouldn't without changing a lot. Without those games a lot of their install base would go away. That would limit a lot the number of subscribers and money spent on their platform which would make their profits go down a lot. Nintendo has absurd profits margin on their hardware, MS and Sony do not

 

[MagnesG]

Both could still survive, Xbox because of their money, and Sony because of the hardcore fanbase buying shit it up when they start cutting prices for their hardware to largen their revenue pool back.

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

Yes

 

[Robb]

They'd obviously be worse of without those franchises, but I definitely think they'd still be ok.

 

[Raekwon26]

......Yes.

Sometimes I wonder about the actual age of people here. PS3/360 must of been the first console their parents bought for them because questions like this just lack..... everything.

 

[TheDreadLord]

I think they would survive but definitely there would be a hit in the hardware sales.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Yoboman]

Yes? If those games didn't exist then something else would fill the void

In fact we might have some even better first party sports games if EA and 2K didn't hold the licenses

 

[ReBurn]

No. Those are the only games anyone plays ever. No other games even exist.

 

[oagboghi2]

This of course goes back to the question, who has the better 1st and even 2nd party games.

We all know at least one person that ONLY plays sports games or ONLY plays COD and nothing else.

EA sports, COD and GTA make up a large % of gamers / consumers,

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it's probably obvious that Sony might can survive without these games even though they bring in a very large player base

If you believe this, than why are you asking the question?

 

[TLZ]

They'll do just fine. They'll create their own sports titles if they need to.

So what'll happen to those franchises? Where'll they go? Make their own console?

 

[Darlingcognito]

The players won't go away they'll just play something else.

 

[Gameplaylover]

Sony already has wide and strong mindshare. their IP is going strong. they possibly can.

Most of their own IPs cost a shitload of money and the advertising possibly even more, also they drop very fast in price.There is a reason why they are porting them to Pc.

Topic:
I think they could survive, but it would hurt a lot.

 

[Fahdis]

Nintendo Fans again thinking that it represents the holy grail of 1st parties when its the same fanboys from the mid 1980's being nickled and dimed for the same IP's and downgraded remasters playing upon their nostalgia, then passing off the same shit to their offspring. Why are Nintendo fans like this? Elitist. I mean shit, I hate and love all 3 brands equally but this is ridiculous. Yes, Sony and MS can survive. I don't play any of the trash you listed.

 

[reksveks]

I think the question should be worded as
- could Sony and Microsoft survive on first party only games?

This assumes that these big 3rd party continues to exist but on something like the pc only.

I think Sony could based on their first party games but they probably would need to expand their first party live service games. Microsoft would need to figure out how to ensure their live service games become more profitable but think they are already on this path with games like Flight Sim.

I don't see anything greater than a 10% margin though for either company

 

[Banjo64]

I’m not trying to be contrarian but FIFA, CoD and Madden are all shit-tier and the last time I properly played GTA V was around 2 years after its release.

There’s plenty of superior multi-platform/exclusive games. Give me Halo, Titanfall and Battlefield over CoD 1 million times over.

 

[Outrunner]

Sony could probably pull it's own weight with it's exclusives.

 

[Orta]

Likely be a repeat of the PS360 era, Sony would still sell huge numbers but MS would push them all the way with exclusive access to COD and EA's rubbish. Probably surpass them with GTA on board though.

 

[Raekwon26]

Likely be a repeat of the PS360 era, Sony would still sell huge numbers but MS would push them all the way with exclusive access to COD and EA's rubbish. Probably surpass them with GTA on board though.

This doesn't make sense.

 

[LQX]

With the cost of making and marketing those games these days, the better question is can those companies survive if they were to do that with such big franchises. They would lose hundreds of millions, and that's not even counting the potential fallout in the stock market. Outside of maybe Madden, no way they can get way with full on exclusives of those franchises in this day and age.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Do we have numbers on how much revenue these series provide to Sony and MS?

But no, neither would do as well as Nintendo if we're talking first party. They don't have the numbers, mass appeal, or mass awareness.

 

[Bryank75]

Sony could easily...they'd probably just make their own soccer game or get PES / eFootball and help improve it.

I think eFootball would just get many of those gamers naturally anyway.

COD has a very weak year this year from all the rumors, don't think it will make any difference...plenty of shooters around.

If PS lost 20 million gamers due to losing all those games, they'd still be up around 100 million consoles sold, if Xbox lost 20 million it would be disasterous....like almost non-viable territory.

Thats just the way it's shaken out tho this point.

 

[Bryank75]

Do we have numbers on how much revenue these series provide to Sony and MS?

But no, neither would do as well as Nintendo if we're talking first party. They don't have the numbers, mass appeal, or mass awareness.

You from the States?

 

[MrA]

Nintendo Fans again thinking that it represents the holy grail of 1st parties when its the same fanboys from the mid 1980's being nickled and dimed for the same IP's and downgraded remasters playing upon their nostalgia, then passing off the same shit to their offspring. Why are Nintendo fans like this? Elitist. I mean shit, I hate and love all 3 brands equally but this is ridiculous. Yes, Sony and MS can survive. I don't play any of the trash you listed.

You seem to have nintendos customers confused with sonys. Nintendo doesn't nickel and dime though, nintendo sells complete products at fixed prices,
sony and ms do, sony being by far the worst , micro transaction and subscriptions make up the bulk of sonys earnings.
Just because you don't buy those franchises doesn't mean Sony and ms primary customers (aka sports/cod/gta casuals) don't.
Those casual annual franchises probably make up 40% of sonys software sales andgiven the absurd level of micro transactions in them probably make up the bulk of sonys revenue
If those games weren't on there those players wouldn't play something else, they'd do something else, if sports/cod/gta were gone they would probably lose a 40% of there customer base, they'd sell 10s of millions of units, but they'd never touch anywhere near the current numbers

 

[Fahdis]

You seem to have nintendos customers confused with sonys. Nintendo doesn't nickel and dime though, nintendo sells complete products at fixed prices,
sony and ms do, sony being by far the worst , micro transaction and subscriptions make up the bulk of sonys earnings.
Just because you don't buy those franchises doesn't mean Sony and ms primary customers (aka sports/cod/gta casuals) don't.
Those casual annual franchises probably make up 40% of sonys software sales andgiven the absurd level of micro transactions in them probably make up the bulk of sonys revenue
If those games weren't on there those players wouldn't play something else, they'd do something else, if sports/cod/gta were gone they would probably lose a 40% of there customer base, they'd sell 10s of millions of units, but they'd never touch anywhere near the current numbers

You are a Nintendo Fan aren't you?

 

[ksdixon]

I've never understood why, license aside but even still, platform holders never had their own lineup of sports games? Sony Sports Baseball 2k21 instead of MLB The Show, for example.

I mean, not since Sega Sports, or Mario <insert sport here>, lol.

 

[MrFunSocks]

Not if the other one still has them, no. People on here especially talk up first party games as if they’re what everyone wants, but most people could not care less, they want to play the big yearly AAA multiplayer and sports titles. That’s why they make up the top 10 on all platforms every year.

 

[MrA]

You are a Nintendo Fan aren't you?

Im someone that likes complete products and hated micro transactions and sub service
Is it too hard to accept sony loves nickel and diming people and their primarily casual Fan base loves being exploited by loot boxes and microtansaction while exclusively playing a few select franchises

 

[SSfox]

Sony can live without those.
Personally I don't care about those expect GTA (story mode I mean, I don't care much about GTA online, play it mostly in 2013 and that's it, was fun but not type of game I would play non stop for years)

 

[yurinka]

This of course goes back to the question, who has the better 1st and even 2nd party games.

We all know at least one person that ONLY plays sports games or ONLY plays COD and nothing else.

EA sports, COD and GTA make up a large % of gamers / consumers,

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it's probably obvious that Sony might can survive without these games even though they bring in a very large player base

Over 1500 million games have been sold for PS4. Madden, FIFA, CoD and GTA are only a small portion of them. Without them PS4 would still have sold more games than Switch or Xbox. Most of them aren't available for Switch and the ones available are poor versions that don't sell so yes, Switch can survive without them. MS is moving their business to subscription and PC, so don't care much about them.

You seem to have nintendos customers confused with sonys. Nintendo doesn't nickel and dime though, nintendo sells complete products at fixed prices,
sony and ms do, sony being by far the worst , micro transaction and subscriptions make up the bulk of sonys earnings.
Just because you don't buy those franchises doesn't mean Sony and ms primary customers (aka sports/cod/gta casuals) don't.
Those casual annual franchises probably make up 40% of sonys software sales andgiven the absurd level of micro transactions in them probably make up the bulk of sonys revenue
If those games weren't on there those players wouldn't play something else, they'd do something else, if sports/cod/gta were gone they would probably lose a 40% of there customer base, they'd sell 10s of millions of units, but they'd never touch anywhere near the current numbers

You're totally wrong.

As someone who did work for years working on very successful casual games and have friends working on some of the most successful casual games of the recent years, I can tell you sports, CoD and GTA aren't casual games. They are mainstream AAA games.

Regarding PS4, over 1500 million games have been sold for PS4 (+ many more to come since it still has almost 100M MAU), more than any other console in gaming history. And there are 116 million PS4 consoles sold, which means an average of about 13 games sold per console. These sports, CoD and GTA are very popular, but are only a small portion of the games sold.

Switch instead sold 632 million games and 89 million consoles, an average of about 7 games per console. These numbers are with Switch being 4+ years in the market and PS4 almost 8 years in the market, so Switch's average will still grow but very likely will always remain behind the PS4 average.

 

[TransTrender]

Yes
Piss soaked troglodites just enable multi million dollar C-Suite quarterly bonuses.
Remove that and somehow, life would go on.

 

[Fahdis]

Im someone that likes complete products and hated micro transactions and sub service
Is it too hard to accept sony loves nickel and diming people and their primarily casual Fan base loves being exploited by loot boxes and microtansaction while exclusively playing a few select franchises

I'm not talking about industry practices for morons that eat up everything. I'm talking about innovative IP's. Nintendo slaps Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon (I am aware they reinvent these from time to time) or some other side franchises and calls it a day. They will come out with 1 or 2 IPs every gen that may do something different. How do you compare this with Sony's Portfolio?

 

[Dream-Knife]

You from the States?

The largest market in the world, yes.

P.S. Japan agrees.

P.S.S I don't like most of Nintendos franchises, but the sales numbers don't lie.

 

[Bryank75]

The largest market in the world, yes.

P.S. Japan agrees.

I think you underestimate how popular PS is globally.

PS1 sold over 100 million before COD and with Fifa only local play. PS2 had COD and Fifa but they were not a phenomenon till online play really.....


' The best-selling video game of all-time on Sony's original PlayStation console is Gran Turismo. A sim racing game developed by Polyphony Digital, Gran Turismo was originally released in Japan on December 23, 1997, and went on to sell 10.85 million copies worldwide. The second game in the series, 1999's Gran Turismo 2, sold 9.37 million units to become the third best-selling PlayStation game of all-time. The second best-selling title on the console is Final Fantasy VII, which sold just shy of 10 million units. Tekken 3 is the fourth best-selling PlayStation game, with over 8.3 million units sold, while Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is fifth.'



'The best-selling game on the PlayStation 2 is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. An action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North, San Andreas was originally released in North America on October 26, 2004, and went on to sell 17.33 million units worldwide. The second-best-selling game on the console is Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (2001), which sold just under 14.9 million units. The top five is rounded out by Gran Turismo 4 (2004) selling 11.76 million units, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) with 9.8 million units sold, and Final Fantasy X (2001) with 8.5 million units sold.'

Also, here is the PS3 list.....

List of best-selling PlayStation 3 video games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So you can see that PlayStation actually already leans heavily on their exclusives....and always did.

Also when you say the US is the biggest market in the world for gaming.... maybe but Europe is the biggest for Fifa..... 8.6 million units in 2018 on PS4 alone

Sales of FIFA 18 on PS4 worldwide 2020 | Statista

Released towards the end of 2017, FIFA 18 is part of the hugely successful FIFA franchise of video games.

www.statista.com

 

[TheKratos]

Easily. We ain't gonna pretent the games mentioned are system sellers are we? If it's not FIFA any other football game will fill the itch, same with COD.

 

[AV]

Yeah, because something else would always fill that niche. Always. If dudebros didn't have their annual COD and sports games it would be Battlefield and racing games, or something.

 

[Dream-Knife]

I think you underestimate how popular PS is globally.

PS1 sold over 100 million before COD and with Fifa only local play. PS2 had COD and Fifa but they were not a phenomenon till online play really.....


' The best-selling video game of all-time on Sony's original PlayStation console is Gran Turismo. A sim racing game developed by Polyphony Digital, Gran Turismo was originally released in Japan on December 23, 1997, and went on to sell 10.85 million copies worldwide. The second game in the series, 1999's Gran Turismo 2, sold 9.37 million units to become the third best-selling PlayStation game of all-time. The second best-selling title on the console is Final Fantasy VII, which sold just shy of 10 million units. Tekken 3 is the fourth best-selling PlayStation game, with over 8.3 million units sold, while Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is fifth.'



'The best-selling game on the PlayStation 2 is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. An action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North, San Andreas was originally released in North America on October 26, 2004, and went on to sell 17.33 million units worldwide. The second-best-selling game on the console is Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (2001), which sold just under 14.9 million units. The top five is rounded out by Gran Turismo 4 (2004) selling 11.76 million units, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) with 9.8 million units sold, and Final Fantasy X (2001) with 8.5 million units sold.'

Also, here is the PS3 list.....

List of best-selling PlayStation 3 video games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So you can see that PlayStation actually already leans heavily on their exclusives....and always did.

Also when you say the US is the biggest market in the world for gaming.... maybe but Europe is the biggest for Fifa..... 8.6 million units in 2018 on PS4 alone

Sales of FIFA 18 on PS4 worldwide 2020 | Statista

Released towards the end of 2017, FIFA 18 is part of the hugely successful FIFA franchise of video games.

www.statista.com

PS1 was pretty big. It came out a year before N64 and had cheaper media. It also had a huge piracy issue.

PS2 was a great DVD player.

Those GT numbers are pretty good. FF7 was also on PC.

I loved GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. I played them on original Xbox though.

 

[MrA]

I'm not talking about industry practices for morons that eat up everything. I'm talking about innovative IP's. Nintendo slaps Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon (I am aware they reinvent these from time to time) or some other side franchises and calls it a day. They will come out with 1 or 2 IPs every gen that may do something different. How do you compare this with Sony's Portfolio?

You contended nintendo customer base is nickled and dimed, but you were wrong and that title belongs with sony first, sony loves them some mtx even in first party whenever possible. Even in their generally complete packages they almost always try to stick a deluxe digital bundle in there.
Then you've now admitted that sonys first party stuff can't compete with nintendos , nintendo keeps bringing back these big franchises because they are that good, If sony could have made jumping flash a legacy title they would have, they simply haven't made as strong of properties.
as far as new IP's nintendo tries tons, probably far more than anyone else, they just tend to be smaller releases

Easily. We ain't gonna pretent the games mentioned are system sellers are we? If it's not FIFA any other football game will fill the itch, same with COD.

They're sonys biggest system sellers, a quick look ay the top sellers on sonys console and it is dominated by those franchises, 10s of millions buy playstation for fifa and nothing else, gta and nothing else, cod and nothing else

 

[MrA]

Over 1500 million games have been sold for PS4. Madden, FIFA, CoD and GTA are only a small portion of them. Without them PS4 would still have sold more games than Switch or Xbox. Most of them aren't available for Switch and the ones available are poor versions that don't sell so yes, Switch can survive without them. MS is moving their business to subscription and PC, so don't care much about them.


You're totally wrong.

As someone who did work for years working on very successful casual games and have friends working on some of the most successful casual games of the recent years, I can tell you sports, CoD and GTA aren't casual games. They are mainstream AAA games.

Regarding PS4, over 1500 million games have been sold for PS4 (+ many more to come since it still has almost 100M MAU), more than any other console in gaming history. And there are 116 million PS4 consoles sold, which means an average of about 13 games sold per console. These sports, CoD and GTA are very popular, but are only a small portion of the games sold.

Switch instead sold 632 million games and 89 million consoles, an average of about 7 games per console. These numbers are with Switch being 4+ years in the market and PS4 almost 8 years in the market, so Switch's average will still grow but very likely will always remain behind the PS4 average.

You're the one who's wrong, they may have a hardcore niche. But they sell to casual gamers just because you don't like them being described that way doesnt make it false

 

[yurinka]

You're the one who's wrong, they may have a hardcore niche. But they sell to casual gamers just because you don't like them being described that way doesnt make it false

Casual gamers are the ones who play games like match 3 games, puzzle games, The Sims or Animal Crossing and similar family friendly slow paced games with very simple and intuitive controls, and a good portion of them are relatively new to videogames and only play these kind of games. They have absolutely nothing to do with Call of Duty, GTA or FIFA.

And they aren't a niche, they are some of the best selling mainstream games: the GTA/CoD/FIFA players on average play a lot (more than the average player), spend a lot of money on these and other games (more then the average player) and have been playing videogames during many years, many of them for decades.

These is what the factual data from their publishers and all the main market analysis data says. I am right because I have been working for more than a decade with this in related top companies and know the related market research.

 

[MrA]

Casual gamers are the ones who play games like match 3 games, puzzle games, The Sims or Animal Crossing and similar family friendly slow paced games with very simple and intuitive controls, and a good portion of them are relatively new to videogames and only play these kind of games. They have absolutely nothing to do with Call of Duty, GTA or FIFA.

And they aren't a niche, they are some of the best selling mainstream games: the GTA/CoD/FIFA players on average play a lot (more than the average player), spend a lot of money on these and other games (more then the average player) and have been playing videogames during many years, many of them for decades.

These is what the factual data from their publishers and all the main market analysis data says. I am right because I have been working for more than a decade with this in related top companies and know the related market research.

boy sony (nickel and dime kings) fans sure don't like the truth about the play (soccer casually) station, maybe sony's fans should cut the childish insults if they don't want their feelings hurt with accurate description of their favorite toy.

 

[Shut0wen]

Well nintendo could make any sports game, add mario and itd sell, i remember mario football did pretty well on both gamecube and wii (they werent fifa numbers but still) but Nintendo do seem to make a mario golf game on every console as well, personally i feel like cod will come to an end, i mean there numbers were declining until modern warfare came out and its funny how afew talented people came to infinity ward to create that game and then leave but fifa and gta will always have high numbers, probably last flrever as well

 

[FranXico]

The gaming market has outgrown EA fortunately.

 

[kingfey]

Sony could easily...they'd probably just make their own soccer game or get PES / eFootball and help improve it.

I think eFootball would just get many of those gamers naturally anyway.

COD has a very weak year this year from all the rumors, don't think it will make any difference...plenty of shooters around.

If PS lost 20 million gamers due to losing all those games, they'd still be up around 100 million consoles sold, if Xbox lost 20 million it would be disasterous....like almost non-viable territory.

Thats just the way it's shaken out tho this point.

Sports isn't easy thing to do.
Most sport players have a team. If you dont have the license of that team, good luck attracting customers.

I cant play juventus on fifa. Since Konami pes has a deal with them. I would need to see what they are called on fifa. Plus you can't use the jersey too. You are stuck with different name, and different jersey.

Not much people would play that type of game. Sony would cancel the game soon.

Xbox is pretty much sports/MP game console, due to x360. Ms would close it down, if sports is gone. Or buy more SP studios to attract more customers.

Playstation on other hand, has different genre, due to ps1 and ps2. And also ps3 being too garbage on MP mode. The lack of Sony MP ip helps them alot too.

Halo/Gears MP would dominate Xbox again.

 

[yurinka]

boy sony (nickel and dime kings) fans sure don't like the truth about the play (soccer casually) station, maybe sony's fans should cut the childish insults if they don't want their feelings hurt with accurate description of their favorite toy.

I only provided factual data, you're the one posting wrong stuff and insulting instead of debating facts with more factual data. I'll give you another fact: soccer games don't even represent a 5% of PS4 games sold units.

If there is a butthurted fanboy here who can't handle the truth and insults instead isn't me.

Sports isn't easy thing to do.
Most sport players have a team. If you dont have the license of that team, good luck attracting customers.

Sports always has been a top genre since the first years of the videogames in the arcades, consoles, computers and even in mobile (at least during the early years of this market). Many of them have been super successful without licenses, but it's true that to have to licenses always is a huge help, both inside and outside sports.