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Sony PC Storefront makes too much sense

Not to mention, PC isnt just an easy platform. You need alot of investment to make your store good for consumers.

Look at GOG. Its like a dead store, while Epic is bleeding money. Windows is utter trash.

Not to mention, Console isn't just an easy platform. You need a lot of investments to make your console good for consumers.

Look at Sega. It's like a dead console, while Nintendo is bleeding money. Atari is utter trash.
 

clarky

Gold Member
These games don't need to be exclusive on the PS store on PC, especially if Sony isn't paying for exclusivity.

But if Sony's royalties on PC are 20% compared to Steam's 30 percent a 70 dollar game could be sold on the PS Store for 60 dollars and still have a more profitable margin, not to mention boosting your profit on the PS5 version.

Sony doesn't need to pay more at all, they just need to give publishers a break on royalties at least initially to get the store up and running.
All of the big publishers have tried this one way or another and failed. Why would Sony be any different?

£70 games on pc would be a very difficult sell.
 
All of the big publishers have tried this one way or another and failed. Why would Sony be any different?

£70 games on pc would be a very difficult sell.

I love how you guys continue to ignore the leverage Sony has that game publishers do not.

Sony can leverage royalties on PS5 games to undercut Valve.

Sony currently charges 30% royalties on PS5 games sold. They could EASILY offer publishers deals for any games sold on both the PS5 and PC PS Stores a 20% royalty.

Can any other publisher do that?
 

winjer

Gold Member
Another launcher....

f u middle finger GIF by Midland
 

bender

What time is it?
£70 games on pc would be a very difficult sell.

Well, technically Sony could lower the price of their games since they aren't paying a cut to Steam or another storefront. We actually saw something similar in the PS2 days with some of their first party titles. That feels like an eternity ago though.
 

Braag

Member
One thing a lot of people forget to take into account about launchers/storefronts and saving the whole 30% is the actual cost of upkeep of such a launcher and cost of servers and all that.
 
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Goalus

Member
I love how you guys continue to ignore the leverage Sony has that game publishers do not.

Sony can leverage royalties on PS5 games to undercut Valve.

Sony currently charges 30% royalties on PS5 games sold. They could EASILY offer publishers deals for any games sold on both the PS5 and PC PS Stores a 20% royalty.

Can any other publisher do that?
Microsoft can easily do that, yes. And their games have much better sales stats on PC than Sony's.
 

feynoob

Banned
These games don't need to be exclusive on the PS store on PC, especially if Sony isn't paying for exclusivity.
And you need the incentive for devs to join your store. Especially, when you store has minimal userbase.

But if Sony's royalties on PC are 20% compared to Steam's 30 percent a 70 dollar game could be sold on the PS Store for 60 dollars and still have a more profitable margin, not to mention boosting your profit on the PS5 version.
Minimal userbase wont bring more profit, compared to steam and epic.
Its why PS generates more profit for devs, compared to Xbox. Userbase is the key here. You need more than 20%.

Sony doesn't need to pay more at all, they just need to give publishers a break on royalties at least initially to get the store up and running.
Doesnt that mean, Sony would bleed money like Epic?
 
And you need the incentive for devs to join your store. Especially, when you store has minimal userbase.


Minimal userbase wont bring more profit, compared to steam and epic.
Its why PS generates more profit for devs, compared to Xbox. Userbase is the key here. You need more than 20%.


Doesnt that mean, Sony would bleed money like Epic?

We see games like the Witcher 3 ported to Switch even though it will sell less than the Xbox version. It costs publishers nothing to publish games on multiple launchers, especially if it means selling games at a higher profit margin.

Sony is still going to make money selling at 20% royalties, not to mention if they grow their PC userbase sufficiently, they keep their revenue for their own games, which allows them to invest more in their PS5 games and as a result more in their PC games.
 
Microsoft can easily do that, yes. And their games have much better sales stats on PC than Sony's.

The Xbox isn't the leverage that the PS4/5 are... Not even close... This is why after the Microsoft Store failed they shifted to leverage GamePass on PC rather than MS Store.
 

feynoob

Banned
Not to mention, Console isn't just an easy platform. You need a lot of investments to make your console good for consumers.
same with pc store front. Steam took years to where they are now. Epic is bleeding alot of money to catch up steam. Windows is being left on dust. Gog is like baby store.

Look at Sega. It's like a dead console
like windows store.

while Nintendo is bleeding money.
Makes more money than Sony(Profit). Since they charge 60$ for cheap made games, thus generating insane profit.
 

feynoob

Banned
We see games like the Witcher 3 ported to Switch even though it will sell less than the Xbox version. It costs publishers nothing to publish games on multiple launchers, especially if it means selling games at a higher profit margin.
Switch has 85m+ userbase. Higher than xbox. I dont know if you know that. Plus porting to switch is cheap, and they gain more profit at that 60$ price.
Information from April of this year indicated that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sold around 700,000 copies on Switch in 2019
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-complete-edition-switch/

Sony is still going to make money selling at 20% royalties, not to mention if they grow their PC userbase sufficiently, they keep their revenue for their own games, which allows them to invest more in their PS5 games and as a result more in their PC games.
But they would have to bleed money first. I doubt Sony is willing to do that. You dont build a pc store front with 3rd party, without bleeding money like epic.
 
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Switch has 85m+ userbase. Higher than xbox. I dont know if you know that. Plus porting to switch is cheap, and they gain more profit at that 60$ price.

https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-complete-edition-switch/


But they would have to bleed money first. I doubt Sony is willing to do that. You dont build a pc store front with 3rd party, without bleeding money like epic.
The entirety of the switch userbase isn't playing the witcher...
 

Hugare

Member
I think the eventual move will be the way rockstar does it. Put games on their own launcher with trophies and all that. Get their sales from people who can’t wait and keep 100% of revenue. Then a few months later put them on steam.

A launcher that competes with Steam for 3rd parties would be a guaranteed flop.
Yeah, exactly

"Play GOW Ragnarok 6 months before releasing on Steam"

Making a store like EGS would be completely dumb.
 

Beechos

Member
I want sony to stay as hands off as possible from pcs, i still remember the rootkit debacle back in the days. Theres already enough launchers as it is.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
I'd rather just better integration between Steam and PSN. Seamless integration would be nice, such as having a "PSN Friends" section on the friends & chat tab in Steam (or maybe just a PSN icon next to their name). Steam achievements should match up with the trophies, and count towards your PSN account. That would be enough for me.

I don't think Sony's exclusive catalog is deep enough for their own shop yet. If they went back and started porting all of their exclusives from the PS3 until now then maybe (those exclusives in which it's feasible to port given licensing and all, anyways).
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Launcher would do fine, it would have tons of exclusive content.

However, this contention that it's all sunshine and roses if they move customers over to pc.

If they lose millions of console gamers, it makes thier console business look weaker. Worse than that, anyone who moves over to pc is distracted by third party games and ms games potentially pulling them away from your games. And on top of that, you lose the 3rd party cut on everyone who switched to pc instead of gaming on console.

As much as I personally think it would be cool for Sony to go day and date and fully support pc, I think it's potentially a terrible decision long term. Do they really want to drive people to a platform they don't control?
 
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clarky

Gold Member
Well, technically Sony could lower the price of their games since they aren't paying a cut to Steam or another storefront. We actually saw something similar in the PS2 days with some of their first party titles. That feels like an eternity ago though.
Don't think that would wash with Ps5 users if they did go day and date. If they don't and stick to 2-3 year old games, then i can't see this imaginary store being successful.
 

bender

What time is it?
Don't think that would wash with Ps5 users if they did go day and date. If they don't and stick to 2-3 year old games, then i can't see this imaginary store being successful.

I'm not advocating for the OP's idea, just saying what Sony could do and what they've done in the past.

Sony's doing what they should be doing on the PC front.
 

Corndog

Banned
It makes entirely too much sense for Sony to go live with their own PC Launcher/Storefront, it makes sense for their games to be exclusive to that storefront and it even makes sense for them to support it with Day 1 releases.

  • Sony makes 30 percent of revenue from all 3rd party software sales on PS5
  • They could emulate this with 30 percent of revenue from all 3rd party software sales on their PC launcher
    • Competing with Steam aka why would someone use the PS5 launcher, well Sony is arguably the top software developer for mature games on the planet right now. Their games have interest. I would be surprised if they don't go live with a launcher before Spider-Man 2 comes to PC
  • Steam revolt? Let's say 50 percent of the people who would buy a Sony game on Steam would buy it exclusively on their PC launcher. Let's say the Steam game would have sold 2 million copies at 60 dollars for 120 million in revenue. Sony ends up with 84 million in this case, but no residual income from 3rd party royalties. From their own store, they would get 60 million plus 3rd party royalties
  • Why would developers want to put their games on Sony's launcher? First off, why not? Second, maybe Sony makes it worth their while? Maybe 25% royalties on games that are in the PS5 and PC stores. Maybe 15-20% royalties if the games are exclusive to both stores
  • Sony loses money on hardware sales, so the PC Storefront would probably have a higher margin.
    • As a result, there isn't much loss involved with doing day 1 release as long as the game is exclusive to their PC storefront. Now that doesn't mean that the other PC games the person buys will be on that storefront, but I think it's worth the attempt
  • Sony could probably work their exclusive deals for content to be on PS5 and PC but in their storefront only
It would fail if it is exclusive. Better to put them on steam as well.
 

Corndog

Banned
I love how you guys continue to ignore the leverage Sony has that game publishers do not.

Sony can leverage royalties on PS5 games to undercut Valve.

Sony currently charges 30% royalties on PS5 games sold. They could EASILY offer publishers deals for any games sold on both the PS5 and PC PS Stores a 20% royalty.

Can any other publisher do that?
Epic already does don’t they?
 

Gp1

Member
Epic had to bribe people with a free game every week for the last several years, and it still barely put a dent in Steam's marketshare. It's over.

shhhh... let them keep trying

Buy CDPR, get GOG, Witcher and Ciberpunk as change.
 

EekTheKat

Member
Until Sony corrects/matches Valve in features, customer service, and policies then this will pretty much be a non starter in the PC gaming space.

From personal experience, refunding a broken PC game that didn't work with my setup on Steam was painless. I actually re bought it months later after the devs updated it to work .

Sony support is nowhere near as good from experience.
 

clarky

Gold Member
I love how you guys continue to ignore the leverage Sony has that game publishers do not.

Sony can leverage royalties on PS5 games to undercut Valve.

Sony currently charges 30% royalties on PS5 games sold. They could EASILY offer publishers deals for any games sold on both the PS5 and PC PS Stores a 20% royalty.

Can any other publisher do that?
What leverage? They charge 30% on PS store why would they take less on the imaginary pc store? They'd have to give the same deal across both no? otherwise it would be really hard to justify charging 20% to say Capcom on one of your storefronts but 30% on the other.
 

ergem

Member
They have a chance if Sony and Nintendo join forces for a PC storefront. 50-50 joint venture.

Sony and Nintendo already have servers operational. They could leverage that to share expenses between console store and pc store.
Nintendo brand as a handheld is unshakable. I don’t think having a delayed release on PC of their 1st party games would affect Nintendo sales at all in any meaningful way.

It doesn’t mean I would like this to happen. Just throwing it out there for some hypothetical scenario.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Is there a reason certain people seems to insist on a Playstation PC store?
To be honest I believe it is fanboy extremists who wants everything being related to Sony because its the greatest.

Meanwhile the games are mostly flopping on pc, on steam where everyone swore to buy their games. Epic already struggles, and Sony would suffer the same fate because there's zero console loyalty on pc.

Jyst look at the Xbox store. I refuse to believe people buy games there, and Jyst mainly uses it for GP.
 
What leverage? They charge 30% on PS store why would they take less on the imaginary pc store? They'd have to give the same deal across both no? otherwise it would be really hard to justify charging 20% to say Capcom on one of your storefronts but 30% on the other.

please look up the word leverage... this can't be a difficult concept to understand...

What does Sony want... more revenue... how can they get it? from a PC store that generates revenue from 1st and 3rd party sales. How do they get 3rd party sales? They can leverage their existing business to generate new business.

And trust me I'm just spitballing, but the idea would be, hey if you publish Final Fantasy 16 on PS5 AND PC (in the sony store), you'll qualify for a reduced royalty across both platforms.

So it's not like 20% on PC and 30% on PS5 though, there's no reason they couldn't do that either. Especially since consoles are a loss leader and royalties SHOULD be higher on them than PC.
 

Solidus_T

Member
Sony should really keep going with Steam for the high exposure and sales, but I would definitely use a PC launcher if there was integration with PSN and if even some of my PS store purchases worked on PC too.
 
Sony should really keep going with Steam for the high exposure and sales, but I would definitely use a PC launcher if there was integration with PSN and if even some of my PS store purchases worked on PC too.
I think we'll see the Trophy and maybe saves crossover, but I can't imagine sales would cross over unless there was a special edition crossover and they still somehow limited it so you could only play 1 account at a time.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Mibu no ookami Mibu no ookami , as a PC gamer I just want you to know that this is a ridiculously stupid idea/suggestion. PC gamers aren't going to run to another publisher's digital storefront. We hate storefronts popping up just so publishers don't need to pay better storefronts a cut. No new storefront has ever competed with Steam, because they have never looked at what Steam does for its customers. They just open crappy stores with limited features and expect people to flock to it. Sony won't do anything different, and even if they did, we don't like exclusivity. Sony would make more money by continuing to use Steam and let Valve have their cut.
 
I could see that working out pretty well.

The only ones that don't are clearly biased.

Sony could easily undercut Steam by 5-10 dollars per copy on every game and still generate the same revenue for 3rd parties, meanwhile keeping all their revenue to themselves on their 1st party PC games.
 
Mibu no ookami Mibu no ookami , as a PC gamer I just want you to know that this is a ridiculously stupid idea/suggestion. PC gamers aren't going to run to another publisher's digital storefront. We hate storefronts popping up just so publishers don't need to pay better storefronts a cut. No new storefront has ever competed with Steam, because they have never looked at what Steam does for its customers. They just open crappy stores with limited features and expect people to flock to it. Sony won't do anything different, and even if they did, we don't like exclusivity. Sony would make more money by continuing to use Steam and let Valve have their cut.

Great response... not really though...

I'll concede that no other storefront has been as successful as Steam if you'll concede that

a) no other competitor has had the leverage that Sony has
b) that Sony can generate significant revenue without overtaking Steam's market leader position
 
Salty about what? You're not even using the word in the correct context here. If anything your response to me is salty because I pointed out the obvious.
You're salty because another launcher will mean a more segmented market on PC, which you're desperate to avoid.

I'd challenge you to have some imagination and recognize at least that Sony has significantly more leverage to produce a compelling PC store than competitors like Microsoft, EA, Activision, Epic, and CD Projekt.

-More highly desired games than any of these individual companies (None of these companies have the quality of franchises to compete directly with Sony)
-Largest console market for 3rd party royalties currently at 30 percent (EA, Activision, and CDPR struggle to get 3rd party content)
-Ability to undercut the competition on price for 3rd party content (Microsoft could have done this)
 
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