Comment on Sony Pulls Back From PlayStation Games on PC
64bithero@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Putting games on PC works for third party publishers because it works perfectly with their business model. It works for Microsoft because they whole sale lost the console market and are slowly slinking their way out. Sony is still a huge contender in the console space and has no plans to cede any share. While it’s great for the consumer to have PC releases it hurts the console business. Regardless if you have a small sect of people who would never buy a console to begin with. For me I own a ps5 as well as a PC. I am more likely to buy the game on PC. Sony from there loses out on the maximum cut they could get from the game. They lose out on me needed to have ps plus to play online. Not to mention if the ps6 does cost close to the same as a PC having games on both leaves little incentive to buy the console.
I am to mad about it, I rarely play my PS5 now I’ll have more incentive to buy the games knowing I won’t get a PC release.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
During the PS2 era, there were lots of reasons that a game might end up exclusive to one platform even if there was no deal involved. Now the only exclusives are the ones Sony makes themselves, so there’s maybe one or two of those per year, and that doesn’t guarantee that those one or two are going to be your cup of tea, let alone justify buying a dedicated machine for $500 just to play those few games. As opposed to a PC that plays every video game that isn’t made by Sony or Nintendo. It gets harder and harder for that $500 to make sense, and the PC ports Sony had been doing was any attempt at all to recoup the money that they spent on blockbuster games that weren’t growing their console install base.
64bithero@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I called those “soft exclusives” and I argue it killed Sony in the 7th console generation. Metal Gear , Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Devil May Cry, Ridge Racer were all exclusive because the publisher made enough money on one console. Then the Xbox had its small time to shine. And boy did Sony regret it…
(GTA and MGS eventually had releases but much later on)
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The 7th gen was exactly where this started to break down, in large part because these machines are all so, so similar these days, rather than having a completely different set of capabilities. I think consoles as we knew them years ago are just reaching the point where they’ve outlived their usefulness. Sony can try to fight it by holding onto exclusives, but I think it’s actually only going to hurt them.
64bithero@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s a catch22. After that generation things became a lot easier to develop for across the board. At the same time I believe became easier to develop the console. Rather than build chipsets entirely in house you just contract a chip manufacturer. And shockingly when your competitor uses the same company things get samey.
I don’t know if this was ever avoidable. The capabilities of modern day processors would be hard to fathom console companies building their own unique variants on. I’d argue if they did consoles would cost even more now than they already do.
It’s interesting to think what could have been. Definitely would have made console reveals more interesting. And even ports more interesting. But I can’t sure for sure better …