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When the PlayStation Now was announced in 2014...

SpiceRacz

Member
There's not as much incentive there when the current model is making them so much money. I don't doubt Sony is still building this thing behind the scenes though. It's just not their primary focus right now.
 

splattered

Member
Pretty simple... to all big corporations we are just their source of revenue and profit. Sony. Microsoft. Nintendo. All of them. That being said, it has become increasingly obvious since mid-end last generation that Sony is more about wringing as MUCH money as humanly possible out of its customers with no long term goals in sight outside of doing the minimum to try and rake in more and more cash. All corporations want us to spend lots and lots of money but Sony has been more "just shut up and give me your money now". Outside of investing in the small VR space, what has Sony REALLY done to try and push the industry forward and return investment to our gaming futures? They don't even try to PRETEND to care. "This year we will be participating in hundreds of gaming events all over the world!" Really? Which ones again? Never happened. Tiny robotic blogs and almost zero interaction with the fan base. No show of appreciation to their customers. It's all a bag of $70 lies and some people are eating it up instead of asking for better.
 

yurinka

Member
I agree, and that was essentially the point I was making. After he and other senior staff members left Sony, the people who took over the mantle apparently didn't see things the same way. You can see this in the fact that they've stopped adding any new PS2 games and even PS3 games since more than two years ago. The people in charge now seem to have different priorities. Unfortunately, even some of their shared priorities (such as expansion to mobile and smart TV platforms) seem to be getting brushed aside.
Sony's strategy and particularly PS and PS Now strategy and priorities continues being the same: to iterate the previous generation to primarly sell more software than before, which also means to sell more consoles than before and to use exclusive stuff as unique selling point. And as secondary market growths to use stuff like subscriptions, streaming, VR, mobile, PC and movies to keep expanding them. None of these things were ideas of the new leadership.

A year or two ago they mentioned to their investors that they plan to continue expanding PS Now in this new gen and that part of their plan was to bring it to tvs and smartphones, to put there PS5 games etc. And filled patents related to game streaming over 5G and so on so yes, they're working on it.

Regarding (not counting remakes/remasters/collections/etc) PS2 games, they included many of them and if they don't include more pretty likely is because almost nobody is interested on them and/or there are licensing issues with titles that may interest them.
 

yurinka

Member
Outside of investing in the small VR space, what has Sony REALLY done to try and push the industry forward and return investment to our gaming futures? They don't even try to PRETEND to care.
They earnt a ton of GOTY awards in the last decade, PS4 sold more games than any console in gaming history and both PS4 and PS5 broke many gaming history hardware sales records, their gaming division is making more revenue than any console maker in gaming history, they have more game subs than anybody else and no game streaming platform claimed to have more subs than them. They are also working now to expand their IPs to mobile, PC, movies and tv shows. I think they are doing a pretty good job.

"This year we will be participating in hundreds of gaming events all over the world!" Really? Which ones again? Never happened.
What happened was a global pandemic that killed presential events.

It's all a bag of $70 lies
When did they lie?

Sony should call this service NATO game streaming since it's only available in a handful of countries. Cheap fucks don't want to invest in more servers to expand their service...
Yes, game streaming services like PS Now and xcloud are only available in some countries.

That's a weak cope my friend. Gamepass isn't losing money, sorry.

Donald Trump GIF by GIPHY News
The small data we have leads to think it would need to have around over x10 or maybe even x20 the amount of subscribers they have to be profitable (not sure if it was Layden who explained it) if we consider the costs of the 1st party games they will put there. Phil said it's sustainable, he didn't say it's profitable.
 
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reksveks

Member
The small data we have leads to think it would need to have around over x10 or maybe even x20 the amount of subscribers they have to be profitable (not sure if it was Layden who explained it) if we consider the costs of the 1st party games they will put there. Phil said it's sustainable, he didn't say it's profitable.

Layden didn't explain anything with his statements.

100m users with an average monthly sub of 10 usd is 12bn which is 75% of what Microsoft makes today across software and hardware. I am 99% confident that Sony makes less than 10bn usd on full download sales given that dlc is 60% of their software revenue.

Sony made roughly 680,000 million yen last year so roughly 6bn usd
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Azure deal was about stabilizing core services (PS +, PS Store ect) there wont be an SX style server side integration. Takes very specific silicon to do this.
Then how will sonys cloud strategy progress? They will need ps5 hardware sonewhere unless they mandate there games are developed with A PC version too.(a pc version not for public release)
 

Agent X

Member
A year or two ago they mentioned to their investors that they plan to continue expanding PS Now in this new gen and that part of their plan was to bring it to tvs and smartphones, to put there PS5 games etc. And filled patents related to game streaming over 5G and so on so yes, they're working on it.

That's the issue, which goes back to the original point of this thread. Sony has cited this "vision" for years, but they haven't made much meaningful progress. Meanwhile, Microsoft has delivered on most of those promises with Xcloud, despite entering this race about four years after Sony. Nvidia has also made great strides to grow GeForce Now in the last year or so. You've also got Stadia and Luna, both of which had slow starts and took a lot of criticism, but seem to be willing to put in the necessary effort to improve.

While Sony has done good work with some aspects of PS Now, it's a shame that they've allowed these competitors to leapfrog them in certain critical areas. They need to listen to their customers, and do what's necessary to take a leadership position in the streaming video game market.
 

kyliethicc

Member
Back then I didn't expect Sony to not fully capitalize on the vision of "play anywhere" model with a subscription service. Laptops, mobile, within the TV itself, anywhere... just by streaming the games and boom you're in!

That is the eventual future. We all know deep down that games will be played by the majority streaming to their device of choice.



PS Now was presented in 2014 as the next step in gaming. Why hasn't Sony jumped on this path as much? Xbox may have seen that presentation and said "alright we're making our own service now, that's the future and we need to do it" Microsoft jump of this idea and road those bull horns all the way up till today.

Sony will now have to respond to their response, sometime soon. The foundation is there, they have to commit because their lifeblood will be those services they started so many years ago. Does anyone think Sony will push those services more in this next year than they ever have before? Potentially combining them into 1 service

Sony doesn't seem to give a fuck about changing currently.

They are making too much money to care.
 

splattered

Member
They earnt a ton of GOTY awards in the last decade, PS4 sold more games than any console in gaming history and both PS4 and PS5 broke many gaming history hardware sales records, their gaming division is making more revenue than any console maker in gaming history, they have more game subs than anybody else and no game streaming platform claimed to have more subs than them. They are also working now to expand their IPs to mobile, PC, movies and tv shows. I think they are doing a pretty good job.


What happened was a global pandemic that killed presential events.


When did they lie?


Yes, game streaming services like PS Now and xcloud are only available in some countries.

Not trying to console war, but like i said... Sony is full of crap and some people make excuses and eat it up. "Sony get the most 1st party GOTY games every year!" is a very small short sighted thing for Sony to solely focus on at this point, the bar is no longer just about how many consoles are being sold or how many shiny awards that Geoff Keighley makes sure they get every year. Sony is constantly filing great patents that never come to fruition. The pandemic is NOT an excuse for near total lack of communication with its fans. PSNow could be absolutely incredible with their priceless back catalog of previous generation of games but they just DON'T CARE. If they reverse this in the coming years and we get an amazing BC offering like Xbox has, i will 100% happily reverse my take on this. I'm not hating on Sony because i'm a "green rat", i am just severely disappointed in what they have allowed themselves to become. Stagnant.
 

yurinka

Member
Not trying to console war, but like i said... Sony is full of crap and some people make excuses and eat it up. "Sony get the most 1st party GOTY games every year!" is a very small short sighted thing for Sony to solely focus on at this point, the bar is no longer just about how many consoles are being sold or how many shiny awards that Geoff Keighley makes sure they get every year.
Regarding the GOTY I wasn't including only the Geoff ones, I was including all the GOTY awards: the ones from the fans, the industry, the media and so on. In fact last year TLOU2 won more GOTY awards than any other game in gaming history. In all the metrics I mentioned to measure their performance or success Sony is the top dog. Nintendo is the top dog regarding 1st party game sales and consoles sold launch aligned at the life cycle point they are now with Switch. And Sony is even improving in 1st party game sales (they are selling more than ever did) and if PS5 achieves their goal for this FY will go back to being the best selling console ever launch aligned.

Sony is constantly filing great patents that never come to fruition.
The technology mentioned in patents needs time to be developed and implemented in commercial products and services. Pretty likely next year (or maybe 2023 due to chip shortages and so on) they'll release PSVR2, which pretty likely will implement many related patents we saw. Regarding PS Now they also filled many game streaming related cool stuff to reduce latency and improve image quality that very likely we'll see relatively soon too.

The pandemic is NOT an excuse for near total lack of communication with its fans.
Yes, it's a valid excuse. A ton of 2021 games from all companies have been delayed to 2022, including their own GoW, Horizon 2 and GT7. They even made some State of Plays that were embarassing because the games that were available to show. Many companies aren't even confident enough to show release dates. Regarding their exclusives and main 3rd parties released this year they had more than enough exposure.

In any case, even if shipping consoles at gaming history record levels each new system get sold out in minutes, so wouldn't make sense for them to rise the hype more because it would only cause frustration. Considering the situation it makes more sense to wait until the games are ready to be shown and once they have more consoles to sell.

i am just severely disappointed in what they have allowed themselves to become. Stagnant.
It's your personal opinion, the market numbers (so the opinion of the majority) say they are killing it in many fronts and breaking records.
 

yurinka

Member
That's the issue, which goes back to the original point of this thread. Sony has cited this "vision" for years, but they haven't made much meaningful progress. Meanwhile, Microsoft has delivered on most of those promises with Xcloud, despite entering this race about four years after Sony. Nvidia has also made great strides to grow GeForce Now in the last year or so. You've also got Stadia and Luna, both of which had slow starts and took a lot of criticism, but seem to be willing to put in the necessary effort to improve.

While Sony has done good work with some aspects of PS Now, it's a shame that they've allowed these competitors to leapfrog them in certain critical areas. They need to listen to their customers, and do what's necessary to take a leadership position in the streaming video game market.
Nothing says any of these competitors are more successful than PS Now. They didn't reveal their numbers, so we can't say they are doing a better job than PS Now.

Regarding to the investment of Sony on PS Now and how fast/how much resources they put on PS Now to improve it, I think they saw it's still too early for the game streaming market so it's a super low priority for them, and they keep working on it very slowly and without a lot of resources 'wasted' on them.

But again, they are slowly working on it. In recent years they did open in more countries, ported it to PC, improved its pricing, added 60fps and 1080p support, added some cool games and as a result its userbase even if still humble is experiencing a good growth. Now I remember Sony (not PS) recently also mentioned a few months ago that one of the key goals for Sony now will be to push their subs, specifically mentioning PS Now or Crunchyroll. So I assume that in the next year or so we'll see some results.
 
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Why are people acting like there’s a more successful game streaming service than PSNow?

Not that there’s a high bar. Amazon, Google, Sony, and Microsoft just have one, cause they dont want to be left in the dust when it takes off. They all marketing to the wrong market though.
 

yurinka

Member
Layden didn't explain anything with his statements.

100m users with an average monthly sub of 10 usd is 12bn which is 75% of what Microsoft makes today across software and hardware. I am 99% confident that Sony makes less than 10bn usd on full download sales given that dlc is 60% of their software revenue.

Sony made roughly 680,000 million yen last year so roughly 6bn usd
This FY PS division made $25B, $3.6B of them with game subscriptions, $5.1B from digital game sales, $1.3B from physical sales and $8.6B from DLC+MTX. The division had $3.23B of operating profit.

oS85HnQ.png


Gamepass (not xCloud, not GP Ultimate) had ~18M subs at the end of June, and we don't know which portion of them are $1 deals, free month promotions from Discord Nitro and so on, etc. We know their server costs should be high and same goes with putting all these games day one there. Specially the AAA games that costs hundreds of millions to make and MS plans to put several of them day one on Gamepass every year. Layden did some numbers to get a rough estimate of what would it needed to keep GP profitable and I don't remember the details but I think it was like around 500M subscribers.

Something not realistic specially considering the current console players userbase is around 300M and obviously a big portion of us won't be able or won't want to access game streaming in the next few years. Plus there are some users who will stay with Sony or Nintendo. And I highly doubt they'll get enough users from mobile and PC who don't play on consonle to compensate it and reach 500M. In fact I think it will be very difficult (but not impossible) to get 100M subs.
 
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TexMex

Member
PSNow is no where near as good as GamePass - but it gets way too much hate. From people I’d be willing to wager have never even tried it. I’ve gotten a ton of value out of it for a relatively low buy in.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
You were supposed to try games and demo immediately via streaming, you know, what MS essentially announced just now. Gaikai has probably been a shitty investment.

The problem I have with Sony, is that Now is another sub on top of Plus. Let alone EA Play without legacy games, but I never play them on Xbox either (well, Dead Space soon ish lol). Now games have online play, but games not in Now program don't. So you need both subs. I think this is stupid. Its baffling that there isn't a premium sub that includes both Now and Plus for like 10-12 a month or so.

I've used Now, its not that bad but absolutely no resolution boost to PS3 games is not what I want. Most of them look and play rather awful nowadays. I tried Infamous 2 for a few hours and Killzone 2 briefly but I noped out. Those games just need an upgrade. I think every game you stream also gets added to your dashboard.
 
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Kerotan

Member
They did support SmartTVs and mobile (Xperia) early on, but quickly dropped those platforms because there wasn't enough interest.

If they had invested in media propaganda, it would have "picked up" pretty quickly, I guess.
Yeah but they'd make way less money and devalue full price sales if they did so. Sony are strategically not pushing this service hard but have it in a position if it ever becomes viable they can.
 

zaanan

Banned
Sony have a bit of an ace up their sleeve when streaming does become mainstream,

They make televisions so the PlayStation app would be embedded and they can cross sell. All the player will need is a joypad.
They used to have that actually, but killed it off. I thought it was boneheaded at the time, seems monumentally stupid now.
 

Agent X

Member
Nothing says any of these competitors are more successful than PS Now. They didn't reveal their numbers, so we can't say they are doing a better job than PS Now.
Whether or not those competitors are more successful from a financial perspactive is unknown. But, unquestionably they have made great gains from a mindshare perspective.

Look at almost any industry article about video game streaming. They almost always mention Stadia, Luna, and Xcloud, but PS Now is often left out of the conversation, or (if they do happen to mention it) treated as an afterthought.

Look at the new Atari VCS system. They have a dedicated area of their user interface just for streaming game services. They have like 8 or 9 services included in their interface. These include Stadia, Luna, Xcloud, GeForce Now, Antstream, and about 3 or 4 other minor services whose names I forgot. Yet, there is no presence of PlayStation Now. That's one heck of an achievement, where they feature UI spots for B-tier and even C-tier services, but the service from a recognizable name like PlayStation is absent.

Do you want to know why PS Now isn't on the Atari VCS? Simple. Because they don't have a way of accessing the service through a Web browser. All of those other services can be accessed through Chrome. As far as I know, all Atari did was put up icons which are just browser links to those services. They don't have any special software in the VCS. If Sony were to make browser access possible, then I'm sure Atari would be happy to feature it in their user interface. Sony just needs to put forth that effort.
 
Then how will sonys cloud strategy progress? They will need ps5 hardware sonewhere unless they mandate there games are developed with A PC version too.(a pc version not for public release)
I don't think that is a part of their strategy, if it does shift to that they'd likely have to pursue non-azure solutions. But I doubt sony wants to get into the game of having to maintain evergreen servers comprised of custom tech as PS5s weren't built with server integration in mind.
 
Being able to enjoy AAA games anywhere where there is a high-speed internet connection available and a screen is a novel idea that is finally gaining real traction now because of Microsoft and their unprecedented marketing and vast infrastructure capabilities.

Sony would have had a better shot back in 2014 if they weren't at the same time digging on Xbox for trying to offer an-always online premium experience with the OG Xbox One and if Sony fans hadn't dug into their trenches with a whole bunch of drivel like, "I guess armed forces serving in submarines don't deserve to play consoles since they don't have internet there" and other nonsense like that.
 

Agent X

Member
They used to have that actually, but killed it off. I thought it was boneheaded at the time, seems monumentally stupid now.
They removed support for a lot of those devices because they were upgrading PS Now at the time for PS4 games and improved video quality. Most of those devices either didn't have the processing power to handle the new codecs, or (if they did) had too small of a market presence to be worth the effort.

The act of removing access from those devices wasn't "boneheaded" in and of itself. The real problem was that Sony made no attempt to fill the void by adding support for other more capable devices, such as newer TVs and streaming video devices.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I don't think that is a part of their strategy, if it does shift to that they'd likely have to pursue non-azure solutions. But I doubt sony wants to get into the game of having to maintain evergreen servers comprised of custom tech as PS5s weren't built with server integration in mind.

Jim Ryan said:
“We could conceivably use the cloud for our technical infrastructure, but the cloud gaming experience we’re offering will be unique and only on PlayStation.”
“We’re still having conversations with [Microsoft] about exchanging ideas,” he said. “We’re still talking to them about exchanging ideas, and there’s some very interesting stuff, so when the time is right, we’ll announce our cloud strategy.


It seems sony have not fully unvealed there cloud gaming strategy. When Jim Ryan says it will be unique, I wonder if hes talking about content or features or tech? Theres only so much that can be do in cloud gaming. I doubt it will be something like cloud processing.
 

On Demand

Banned
They’ll expand it when they’re ready. There’s no need or rush to right now. They have everything in place already for when they’re ready to move forward.

If what they’re doing now is the bare minimum and they have hundreds of more games than gamepass, then Sony putting more resources into PSnow will pretty much destroy gamepass as we know it. All that money MS spends for day one games and they still don’t have as much content as PSnow.
 
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Dr Bass

Member
Just a hint, when you buy a publisher worth 7.5 billion dollars, you have a publisher worth 7.5 billion dollars. It's not like the money is gone.

With regards to all the running costs you mentioned, those are covered by Gamepass fees and other Xbox revenue. That's what sustainable means after all.
The money isn't gone? The money is absolutely spent, i.e. gone. The question is did MS get 7.5 billion+ in value out of the transaction. Zenimax was trying to offload itself for years. And it was supposedly valued at 2.5 billion a few years ago. There is such a thing as overpaying, and it happens all the time in business. MS paid 8 billion for Skype, a basically dead, behind the times service. They paid 7.6 billion for Nokia, and then ran that into the ground. This idea that they are buying things, at a price that is a good deal or is equivalent to the real intrinsic value is demonstrably false.

Why would a company valued at 2.5 billion, that wants to offload itself, be actually worth 7.5 billion? Why would a company want to sell itself if it felt it had a healthy future outlook? They saw the huge cash out and took it.

By the way, Spencer clearly said sustainable not profitable. It means MS is probably willing to subsidize it for a very long time. They are playing such a ridiculous smoke and mirrors game with all this. "Hey yeah, it's sustainable, 10 million players for Forza ... wait what? You want numbers? No! Those are secret!" It's silly and stupid beyond belief the way they act, paired with the narrative they try to sell. I don't understand why the discussion around Xbox can never just be taken at face value. They clearly have things to hide.

Got a news flash for you. Big corporations do not keep positive numbers a secret. :messenger_beaming:
 

T0minator

Member
Sony doesn't seem to give a fuck about changing currently.

They are making too much money to care.
We can't really make that kind of statement without knowing what's going on behind the scenes.
Sony knows that streaming within a subscriptions service is the future...we all expect it but foresee it being the norm waaaaay into the future. Microsoft is pushing for it to be in the near future.

It's kind of amazing to me that Andrew House in that video about PS Now had a speech similar to Phil Spencer...before Phil Spencer even said it. Play anywhere wherever on all devices. Sony started this conversation years ago but hasn't fully committed like Microsoft is trying to do right now. I say within this next year we'll see what Sony has in store for PS5 services
 

kingfey

Banned
The money isn't gone? The money is absolutely spent, i.e. gone. The question is did MS get 7.5 billion+ in value out of the transaction. Zenimax was trying to offload itself for years. And it was supposedly valued at 2.5 billion a few years ago. There is such a thing as overpaying, and it happens all the time in business. MS paid 8 billion for Skype, a basically dead, behind the times service. They paid 7.6 billion for Nokia, and then ran that into the ground. This idea that they are buying things, at a price that is a good deal or is equivalent to the real intrinsic value is demonstrably false.

Why would a company valued at 2.5 billion, that wants to offload itself, be actually worth 7.5 billion? Why would a company want to sell itself if it felt it had a healthy future outlook? They saw the huge cash out and took it.

By the way, Spencer clearly said sustainable not profitable. It means MS is probably willing to subsidize it for a very long time. They are playing such a ridiculous smoke and mirrors game with all this. "Hey yeah, it's sustainable, 10 million players for Forza ... wait what? You want numbers? No! Those are secret!" It's silly and stupid beyond belief the way they act, paired with the narrative they try to sell. I don't understand why the discussion around Xbox can never just be taken at face value. They clearly have things to hide.

Got a news flash for you. Big corporations do not keep positive numbers a secret. :messenger_beaming:
Somebody got a degree in business here.
 
You'll be waiting for a long time then because MS only report revenue for individual business units like their gaming division.
You can spend that time voicing your "concern" for Game Pass sustainability though, so that it doesn't feel as long.
You can also spend the time getting triggered by everyone who says anything you don't like of your pos service.
 
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reksveks

Member
Gamepass (not xCloud, not GP Ultimate) had ~18M subs at the end of June, and we don't know which portion of them are $1 deals, free month promotions from Discord Nitro and so on, etc. We know their server costs should be high and same goes with putting all these games day one there. Specially the AAA games that costs hundreds of millions to make and MS plans to put several of them day one on Gamepass every year. Layden did some numbers to get a rough estimate of what would it needed to keep GP profitable and I don't remember the details but I think it was like around 500M subscribers.

First the server costs are largely irrelevant thanks to the huge benefits of Microsoft owning the servers and being able to rent them out when it isn't being used for xcloud. There is an opportunity cost yes, but it's a very different equation and factor.

Making AAA every year doesn't really change with or without gamepass. I don't think that scales with users base so can assume that's fixed.

500m at a monthly subscription cost of 10 usd is 5bn a month, at 5 usd its 2.5bn a month. That's 60bn or 30bn a year. You really think that's the cost of gamepass or is the point where Microsoft break even? How do you think the individual costs scale?

If you can find his maths, I would be really grateful.

This FY PS division made $25B, $3.6B of them with game subscriptions, $5.1B from digital game sales, $1.3B from physical sales and $8.6B from DLC+MTX. The division had $3.23B of operating profit.

So 6.4bn came from first party and third party sales. Gamepass removes/reduces what revenue stream?
Hardware? I doubt it
Third party sales? I doubt it but let's say it halved
DLC and mtx? Again nope.

Layden didn't do the maths right.
 
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The money isn't gone? The money is absolutely spent, i.e. gone. The question is did MS get 7.5 billion+ in value out of the transaction. Zenimax was trying to offload itself for years. And it was supposedly valued at 2.5 billion a few years ago. There is such a thing as overpaying, and it happens all the time in business. MS paid 8 billion for Skype, a basically dead, behind the times service. They paid 7.6 billion for Nokia, and then ran that into the ground. This idea that they are buying things, at a price that is a good deal or is equivalent to the real intrinsic value is demonstrably false.

Why would a company valued at 2.5 billion, that wants to offload itself, be actually worth 7.5 billion? Why would a company want to sell itself if it felt it had a healthy future outlook? They saw the huge cash out and took it.

By the way, Spencer clearly said sustainable not profitable. It means MS is probably willing to subsidize it for a very long time. They are playing such a ridiculous smoke and mirrors game with all this. "Hey yeah, it's sustainable, 10 million players for Forza ... wait what? You want numbers? No! Those are secret!" It's silly and stupid beyond belief the way they act, paired with the narrative they try to sell. I don't understand why the discussion around Xbox can never just be taken at face value. They clearly have things to hide.

Got a news flash for you. Big corporations do not keep positive numbers a secret. :messenger_beaming:
I know you're coping, but just notice that Microsoft doesn't report profit numbers for any of their subdivisions. Now do some mental gymnastics and explain to us how Azure isn't profitable :messenger_smirking:
 

Godot25

Banned
The small data we have leads to think it would need to have around over x10 or maybe even x20 the amount of subscribers they have to be profitable (not sure if it was Layden who explained it) if we consider the costs of the 1st party games they will put there
If Layden thinks XGP needs 200 million subs to be profitable and can fund 23 XGS he is just insane.

200 mil. subs means 2 billion dollars per month at 10$ per month and 24 billion dollars per year just from GamePass. Not counting other revenue streams.
 
The small data we have leads to think it would need to have around over x10 or maybe even x20 the amount of subscribers they have to be profitable (not sure if it was Layden who explained it) if we consider the costs of the 1st party games they will put there. Phil said it's sustainable, he didn't say it's profitable.
Layden can't do basic maths. His estimate is hilariously wrong.
 
If Layden thinks XGP needs 200 million subs to be profitable and can fund 23 XGS he is just insane.

200 mil. subs means 2 billion dollars per month at 10$ per month and 24 billion dollars per year just from GamePass. Not counting other revenue streams.
Yeah so? The costs will also keep going up, if they want to hit it big, if they're comfortable with not growing the service and userbase, then they can stay right around where they are and probably achieve profitability but only a measly sum that of course won't be worth the investment and certainly not what they're shooting for. There's profitability and there's also "why the heck did we go into so much trouble? profitability". It's obvious Layden is thinking about making big money not achieving profitability making peanuts in profits.
 
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yurinka

Member
If Layden thinks XGP needs 200 million subs to be profitable and can fund 23 XGS he is just insane.

200 mil. subs means 2 billion dollars per month at 10$ per month and 24 billion dollars per year just from GamePass. Not counting other revenue streams.
I double checked it. He said around 500 million subs, not 200. Btw, a lot of people doesn't pay $10 for GP. Same goes with GP Ultimate.

Layden can't do basic maths. His estimate is hilariously wrong.
Unlike you he was CEO of SIE. So it means he knows the costs of AAA games, of paying 3rd parties to include games in a subscription service, the costs of the infrastructure, how the money of the subs gets split, etc and obviously knows basic math.
 
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yurinka

Member
First the server costs are largely irrelevant thanks to the huge benefits of Microsoft owning the servers and being able to rent them out when it isn't being used for xcloud.
If they are irrelevant they why is xcloud only available in a few countries instead of being available worldwide?

Making AAA every year doesn't really change with or without gamepass. I don't think that scales with users base so can assume that's fixed.
What changes is that selling them at $60 and selling a few millions of copies for each AAA they make more money than putting these on a subscription that only has some millions of subs and many of them paid a small $1 fee.

500m at a monthly subscription cost of 10 usd is 5bn a month, at 5 usd its 2.5bn a month. That's 60bn or 30bn a year. You really think that's the cost of gamepass or is the point where Microsoft break even? How do you think the individual costs scale?
Not all GP subscribers pay $10 a month and part of that money goes to taxes. AAA games cost 100-200+ million+almost the same in marketing, then there's the money for putting 3rd party games there, server and infrastructure costs, etc. I assume he includes there having to recoup $10B+ MS invested on acquiring studios recently.

If you can find his maths, I would be really grateful.
He didn't explain it too much, he said:

"With each console generation, the cost of games goes up 2x. So PS4 games were $100 to $150m, so it stands to reason that PS5 games -- when they hit their stride -- will be in excess of $200m."
...
""It's very hard to launch a $120m game on a subscription service charging $9.99 a month. You pencil it out, you're going to have to have 500 million subscribers before you start to recoup your investment. That's why right now you need to take a loss-leading position to try to grow that base. But still, if you have only 250 million consoles out there, you're not going to get to half a billion subscribers. So how do you circle that square? Nobody has figured that out yet.""


He didn't detail the costs of everything, how many games he'd cover with these 500M subs, what percentage of them would pay the full subs, how many of them wouldn't be paying it, how many of them would be paying $1, etc.

So 6.4bn came from first party and third party sales. Gamepass removes/reduces what revenue stream?
Hardware? I doubt it
Third party sales? I doubt it but let's say it halved
DLC and mtx? Again nope.
Right now doesn't reduce almost anything because it only represents a very small of the market. If it grows a low, it would affect game sales first. And having all games available on PC day one hardware sales too.

I don't think it would negatively impact DLC and MTX, in fact I think MS will turn many of their big IPs (Halo, Forza, Gears, Doom, Quake, Fallout, Elder Scrolls...) into GaaS or even F2P trying to compensate the revenue lost moving from sales to GP, so they would pretty likely increase DLC and MTX.
 
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sainraja

Member
Pretty much this, like MS with VR, Sony won’t do much with it til the market shifts.
Well, Sony has invested money into both VR & streaming. The difference is, Microsoft hasn't put any money towards VR for Xbox (yet); while Sony hasn't pushed their streaming service any further. They could integrate it into their OS and allow people to try out games (similar to what MS has rolled out recently) or what Google was planning with Youtube (watch a video and jump right into a game.) Personally speaking, I don't mind the delay since I am not a big fan of streaming but in order to stay competitive, they can't ignore PS Now anymore, specially when they were the first player in it.
 
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yurinka

Member
Whether or not those competitors are more successful from a financial perspactive is unknown. But, unquestionably they have made great gains from a mindshare perspective.
"Mindshare" is just a wildcard word to use as an excuse when there are zero facts or objective data to back up your claims.

You can say you personally prefer a service or another but you can't know how popular is something without having it sales or revenue numbers or something like that.

Look at almost any industry article about video game streaming. They almost always mention Stadia, Luna, and Xcloud, but PS Now is often left out of the conversation, or (if they do happen to mention it) treated as an afterthought.
Yes, there are many Sony haters and uncultured people out there.

Look at the new Atari VCS system. They have a dedicated area of their user interface just for streaming game services. They have like 8 or 9 services included in their interface. These include Stadia, Luna, Xcloud, GeForce Now, Antstream, and about 3 or 4 other minor services whose names I forgot. Yet, there is no presence of PlayStation Now. That's one heck of an achievement, where they feature UI spots for B-tier and even C-tier services, but the service from a recognizable name like PlayStation is absent.

Do you want to know why PS Now isn't on the Atari VCS? Simple. Because they don't have a way of accessing the service through a Web browser. All of those other services can be accessed through Chrome. As far as I know, all Atari did was put up icons which are just browser links to those services. They don't have any special software in the VCS. If Sony were to make browser access possible, then I'm sure Atari would be happy to feature it in their user interface. Sony just needs to put forth that effort.
I had it at home during a few weeks thanks to a friend who is a youtuber, it's nice. Yes, PS Now doesn't work in a website like the other ones and Sony won't do a PS Now client for another console (specially one nobody is going to buy) in the same way they don't release games for other consoles. They want you to buy their own console instead to play them there because their business mostly is focused on it.
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Not trying to console war, but like i said... Sony is full of crap and some people make excuses and eat it up. "Sony get the most 1st party GOTY games every year!" is a very small short sighted thing for Sony to solely focus on at this point, the bar is no longer just about how many consoles are being sold or how many shiny awards that Geoff Keighley makes sure they get every year. Sony is constantly filing great patents that never come to fruition. The pandemic is NOT an excuse for near total lack of communication with its fans. PSNow could be absolutely incredible with their priceless back catalog of previous generation of games but they just DON'T CARE. If they reverse this in the coming years and we get an amazing BC offering like Xbox has, i will 100% happily reverse my take on this. I'm not hating on Sony because i'm a "green rat", i am just severely disappointed in what they have allowed themselves to become. Stagnant.

I agree with this. Its really scary when people equate winning awards and selling more games as "pushing the industry forward", when from the players' perspective it should be about making the environment better and fairer for everyone and not just the shareholders. Like fairer refund system, game preservatory through backward compatibility and PC release, free online, Play Anywhere program, those sort of bigger things. Sony is getting richer yet price for their games are increasing, while lagging behind everyone in those initiatives.
 

reksveks

Member
What changes is that selling them at $60 and selling a few millions of copies for each AAA they make more money than putting these on a subscription that only has some millions of subs and many of them paid a small $1 fee.

Data for many of the users paying 1 dollar and you really think Layden was using that in his calculations?

The cost of those games doesn't change with/without GP. Revenue of first party full games might take a hit but as mentioned that the revenue of first party games for a successful company like Sony is still a fraction of the total revenue. Xbox will easily sacrifice that for the majority of the revenue (3rd party dlc/mtx)

If they are irrelevant they why is xcloud only available in a few countries instead of being available worldwide?

Again xbox are in a beneficial place being apart of Microsoft, they aren't going to be making servers just for xcloud (to ensure quality) but for the whole azure infrastructure. You could want to associate that cost to xbox and gamepass but Microsoft doesn't have to.

Not all GP subscribers pay $10 a month and part of that money goes to taxes. AAA games cost 100-200+ million+almost the same in marketing, then there's the money for putting 3rd party games there, server and infrastructure costs, etc. I assume he includes there having to recoup $10B+ MS invested on acquiring studios recently.
That's why I included the very conservative 5 usd example unless you believe that Layden thought the average sub fee would be lower for some unknown reason. Happy for you to show data on the average sub cost or it is going to have to be an area that we fundamentally can't agree on an estimate.

He shouldn't be including the Bethesda costs cause its an asset that still has fundamental value. It is also not really bought up in his quotes in terms of the calculations. Also Sony would not need to buy a Bethesda to make a gamepass like service so does his numbers change?

I don't think it would negatively impact DLC and MTX, in fact I think MS will turn many of their big IPs (Halo, Forza, Gears, Doom, Quake, Fallout, Elder Scrolls...) into GaaS or even F2P trying to compensate the revenue lost moving from sales to GP, so they would pretty likely increase DLC and MTX.
Another part of the equation that Layden forgot to account for. With 500m subscribers, and no change to dlc/mtx from the first party software side. What happens to dlc/mtx revenue for xbox? It stays the same or goes up? This is part of the equation that Layden is missing/ignoring.
 
Unlike you he was CEO of SIE. So it means he knows the costs of AAA games, of paying 3rd parties to include games in a subscription service, the costs of the infrastructure, how the money of the subs gets split, etc and obviously knows basic math.
Yes, he was CEO of SIE. That's what makes his horribly bad estimate even more funny (or sad).
 

Godot25

Banned
I double checked it. He said around 500 million subs, not 200. Btw, a lot of people doesn't pay $10 for GP. Same goes with GP Ultimate.


Unlike you he was CEO of SIE. So it means he knows the costs of AAA games, of paying 3rd parties to include games in a subscription service, the costs of the infrastructure, how the money of the subs gets split, etc and obviously knows basic math.
Then he is even more insane. 500 mil. subs at 10$ is 5 billion in revenue per month. That's 60 billion per year just from GamePass. FYI Sony had 25 billion dollars revenue from all Playstation businesses and that was a record. Not counting other revenue streams like selling games, MTXs, HW and accessories.

Now I probably know why Sony marked Days Gone as a failure.

And yes, many people are paying less then 10$. But on the other hand many people are paying more then 10$ because of Ultimate.

If Phil goes to Nadella and said "we are building a business that needs 500 million subscribers to reap a huge profit" he would told him to fuck off. Especially since no other sub service is anywhere near 500 million.
 

Fuz

Banned
Oh Im with you on this one, I'd rather not stream and worry about lag or artifacting but ppl want convenience. Streaming and quick resume in and out of games is the end game years from now
You know what would help? Stop giving it for granted. Push back every occasion. Don't open Overton's window.
 
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