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[Mibu no ookami]

That limit is per platform, not total

Ill take the devs at their word, not some fake engagement metric

It was not the limit per platform. The games share the same server, the CEO has said this himself.

Also it's not a fake engagement metric. For NPD to sell this to publishers, they have to have API hooks into the various storefronts.

They say they can give real time information of how many players are playing a game and what game they played previously or what game they go to next. The only way to achieve this is via API.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Source? Common sense.

What does buying them make for you in terms of profit in the next 2-3 years that you aren't going to get as the publisher? That's not to say they won't buy them, but just because a game is successful doesn't mean the developer will get bought out right away.

You don’t buy a company for 2-3 years

You buy them because you work well together and want to make a long term
Investment in the future

 

[Yoboman]

I'm not going to say that you're wrong, but buying the studio doesn't resolve short term margin issues. The only reason for Sony to buy and for Arrowhead to sell is in order to ramp up on content. The reality is that it'll be years before Arrowhead makes another game. The return on investment of buying them likely won't come for some time. Most of the benefits Sony can get with them on Helldivers 2, comes from being the publisher of the game.

Long story short, there needs to be an appreciable market for Helldivers to make it worth Sony feeling like the studio needs to be brought in in-house and the CEO of the game doesn't seem totally interested in that.



I think you're thinking of FIA not F1.

And all PC games have to deal with cheating. Not sure that this would be an outlier.

I agree with you on MLB The Show being an obvious mobile version, the monetization of which, I'm not sure what they'd need to do.

I don't get the sense that there are any M&A talks between Sony and Arrowhead. The reality is timing is everything on this. Do they want to sell? Does selling now make more sense than selling in 4 years? Does selling to Sony make more sense than say EA or Microsoft if their games can launch across platforms? There are a lot of questions to answer before any buyout would happen.



I read his post like 10 times, it just doesn't make sense. Maybe he is saying if they're playing this they aren't playing other PlayStation games?

Sony will already be dividing all profit with them now

Depending on how it does over the long term it may even end up cheaper to buy them

 

[Mibu no ookami]

PlayStation stay winning? PlayStation stay winning Sony should be doing everything in their power to support Arrowhead, they unexpectedly got a GaaS golden goose. I loved the first game but HD2 is on another level, devs deserve all the success in the world despite the issues.

I see a lot of this sentiment on Twitter, but it generally comes from people who don't know how this stuff works in real life.

Sony could send 40 engineers to help out Arrowhead, but Arrowhead needs to stop their work to train those engineers on their systems. Meanwhile these engineers aren't working on the games they've already been hired to work on, meaning these games are going to miss their sprints. Meanwhile, while they're training these engineers, no fixes are getting made.

Yes, they can get some help, but most of the short term fixes are going to be made by their own hands.

You bring in some contractors who can help in the medium term on less emergency fixes and more roadmap stuff.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It was not the limit per platform. The games share the same server, the CEO has said this himself.

Nope

If the limit was only 450k total, then we would not see 400+K concurrent users on Steam AND have many people on PSN (like myself and my friends list on PSN) able to play and find games

Common sense, the owner said PlayStation had higher sales

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You don’t buy a company for 2-3 years

You buy them because you work well together and want to make a long term
Investment in the future

Right and that doesn't necessarily need to happen tomorrow.

As the game stabilizes, they'll have a better sense of how much Arrowhead is actually worth both as the studio and as the publisher.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Right and that doesn't necessarily need to happen tomorrow.

As the game stabilizes, they'll have a better sense of how much Arrowhead is actually worth both as the studio and as the publisher.

They already know enough by now. I’m not saying it needs to happen tomorrow, but it makes a lot of sense for both parties. Sony owns the IP, and arrowhead benefited greatly from Sony’s support to make the game as good as it is

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Sony will already be dividing all profit with them now

Depending on how it does over the long term it may even end up cheaper to buy them

Sales are a two way street. Would you sell your company today if you thought it would be worth 10x more in a year? A lot goes into buying a studio that has just had a major success. That's why Sony bought Haven and Firewalk when they did or they wait to work with studios for years before buying them.

I don't recall a time when Sony ever bought a company in this type of situation.

Nope

If the limit was only 450k total, then we would not see 400+K concurrent users on Steam AND have many people on PSN (like myself and my friends list on PSN) able to play and find games

Common sense, the owner said PlayStation had higher sales

Again, just because Steam shows concurrent users doesn't mean those players are actually playing the game and logged into the server. It just means that they launched the game.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

…….on PS5

I thought this would be pretty popular but nowhere near this level.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

They already know enough by now. I’m not saying it needs to happen tomorrow, but it makes a lot of sense for both parties. Sony owns the IP, and arrowhead benefited greatly from Sony’s support to make the game as good as it is

No one has any idea how much money the game will make.

With the right direction it could be in line with a Fortnite or Apex Legends, but even those two are completely different along the spectrum of success.

Sony owns the rights to Starship Troopers. I could easily see a Starship Troopers tie-in to Helldivers, which would probably boost engagement. You could do a Killzone crossover as well. Same with Destiny. Sony could make a Helldivers movie. There is so much they can do.

The reality is this could be a major IP or it could be a flash in the pan. We absolutely don't know that yet.

There are a lot of reasons why Arrowhead might want to sell. The ability to ramp up hiring faster without as much risk for layoffs. They also probably want to be tied to the IP rather than see Sony get another developer to do a follow-up. They could also get a percentage of movie rights e.t.c.

I'm not saying Sony doesn't want to buy or Arrowhead doesn't want to sell, but its way too early to assume that is the case for either right now.

There are also reasons not to buy/sell

Arrowhead if the game is a massive success 6 months from now or 2 years from now is going to be worth way more money. Their next game could be even more successful if it is on Xbox and Switch too. EA might be willing to pay more money. Their vision for the IP might not be the same as Sony's.

For Sony, this could be a flash in the pan and then you have massive additional payroll to contend with. There is always the risk of people selling but then leaving.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

They absolutely must prioritise sorting out the servers on PC. The game is great but we can't fucking play it lol.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Time to update the title. 450,000+ CCU. 20th highest CCU of all-time on Steam

 

[Astorian]

Will be really interesting to see how Helldivers impacts Sony's Q4 financial results given they absolutely didn't expect this game to be this big of a hit and subsequently how it impacts their fiscal year report.

Wouldn't be surprised if this one game saves a lot of jobs.

This is what people meant when they said Sony only needs to hit on a couple of these GaaS games.

MLB The Show is already a perennial hit for Sony. Next they need to look to bringing it to PC and Mobile to expand the margins on it. The same goes for Gran Turismo 7.

But this will also really impact how Sony looks at Fairgame$ and Concord, not necessarily expectations, but I'm sure they're looking at lessons they can learn from the rollout of Helldivers.

I'm really not sure if this game will bring much money from MTX, the monetization is very very fair (if I can say that), the store items are 2-3 dollars and they are just re-skins of existing armors and the current premium BP is terrible.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

EA might be willing to pay more money. Their vision for the IP might not be the same as Sony's.

Huh?

Sony owns the IP so you are just buying the studio for the talent. Will not cost much

 

[Cyborg]

This game is so much fun

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

I see a lot of this sentiment on Twitter, but it generally comes from people who don't know how this stuff works in real life.

Sony could send 40 engineers to help out Arrowhead, but Arrowhead needs to stop their work to train those engineers on their systems. Meanwhile these engineers aren't working on the games they've already been hired to work on, meaning these games are going to miss their sprints. Meanwhile, while they're training these engineers, no fixes are getting made.

Yes, they can get some help, but most of the short term fixes are going to be made by their own hands.

You bring in some contractors who can help in the medium term on less emergency fixes and more roadmap stuff.

Not every post of yours needs to be a college dissertation, I can assure you it doesn't make you more erudite. Now, my post clearly states "everything in their power" which literally means *exactly* what it says. Anyone who thinks Sony doesn't recognize the gold they've struck and will do whatever they can to mine it more efficiently clearly doesn't know "how this stuff works in real life".

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I'm really not sure if this game will bring much money from MTX, the monetization is very very fair (if I can say that), the store items are 2-3 dollars and they are just re-skins of existing armors and the current premium BP is terrible.

Might not be massive on MTX, but you'd be surprised how much even cosmetics can garner for revenue, especially when a game is only 40 dollars.

Huh?

Sony owns the IP so you are just buying the studio for the talent. Will not cost much

The studio might be more valuable than the IP or the IP might be more valuable than the studio. We won't know that yet, and do you know who else doesn't know? Sony and Arrowhead.

How quick are you to sell or buy something that you don't know the value of?

Not every post of yours needs to be a college dissertation, I can assure you it doesn't make you more erudite. Now, my post clearly states "everything in their power" which literally means *exactly* what it says. Anyone who thinks Sony doesn't recognize the gold they've struck and will do whatever they can to mine it more efficiently clearly doesn't know "how this stuff works in real life".

I'm sorry you don't like to read. You can just ignore my posts too. The reality is Sony doesn't have much power here. (edit)

 

[Gaiff]

There’s another thread already tracking the CCUs. Did we need a new one?

 

[Yoboman]

Sales are a two way street. Would you sell your company today if you thought it would be worth 10x more in a year? A lot goes into buying a studio that has just had a major success. That's why Sony bought Haven and Firewalk when they did or they wait to work with studios for years before buying them.

I don't recall a time when Sony ever bought a company in this type of situation.



Again, just because Steam shows concurrent users doesn't mean those players are actually playing the game and logged into the server. It just means that they launched the game.

Yes a two way street, and this may be the first time they've been approached. Arrowhead has been around 15 years, for all we know their CEO will be interested in striking while the iron is hot. Or maybe not, we don't know either way

Sony bought Naughty Dog post Crash Bandicoot and Jak success. Insomniac post Spiderman blowing up. Bluepoint and Housemarque post successful PS5 game launches. Bend Studio post Syphon Filter success. Media Molecule post LBP success.

In fact it is very much Sony's pattern to try and acquire devs they've built a successful relationship with. And fortunately for Sony approx $10 billion of acquisition budget just became available again after their deal with Zee fell through

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Yes a two way street, and this may be the first time they've been approached. Arrowhead has been around 15 years, for all we know their CEO will be interested in striking while the iron is hot. Or maybe not, we don't know either way

Sony bought Naughty Dog post Crash Bandicoot and Jak success. Insomniac post Spiderman blowing up. Bluepoint and Housemarque post successful PS5 game launches. Bend Studio post Syphon Filter success. Media Molecule post LBP success.

In fact it is very much Sony's pattern to try and acquire devs they've built a successful relationship with. And fortunately for Sony approx $10 billion of acquisition budget just became available again after their deal with Zee fell through

Sony bought Naughty Dog after Jak but well after Crash. Meanwhile Insomniac who they had already worked with and had tremendous success with Spyro, wouldn't sell.

Demon's Souls wasn't all that successful and neither was Returnal. Certainly not smash hits.


Sony bought Eidetic in 2000, a year after the launch of Syphon Filter.

They bought MM two years after the release of LBP.

Not saying they won't buy them, again, just saying I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't right away.

Also the deal with Zee is back on and it isn't a cash deal, so even if it didn't happen it's not like they have an additional 10b.

 

[Astorian]

Might not be massive on MTX, but you'd be surprised how much even cosmetics can garner for revenue, especially when a game is only 40 dollars.

Yeah, there is a lot of potential when it comes cosmetics, collaborations with PlayStation IPs and other companies can be really big, but first they need to sort these servers because it's limiting the reach of the game.

 

[crackajack]

I don't know how providing the necessary framework for your game is an achievement at all. Every game is supposed to just run, and especially in their start days and weeks most mp games have strong(er) numbers and capacity generally can and will be scaled down afterwards. But those cost cutting measures later require scalability anyway. How you can plan for doing a fixed amount x is beyond me. Just always plan like it could be a massive hit and reserve (rented) hw for that case. It's not like you need to run 1000players in one instance and later only 64 or whatever. The matchmaking just needs to work, for each anyway small coop group, kinda regardsless of total numbers. Might cost something to not use reserved servers though, but server problems, wait times, cost some consumer good will certainly too, and Sony should be big enough to move and rent capacity around as needed. It's hardly Driveclub levels of embarrassing but still mp should just run flawless, at launch, months later, up until official server closure, and working crunch time after launch should not even be necessary. Make it scalable as the default.

 

[IlGialloMondadori]

I don't know how providing the necessary framework for your game is an achievement at all. Every game is supposed to just run, and especially in their start days and weeks most mp games have strong(er) numbers and capacity generally can and will be scaled down afterwards. But those cost cutting measures later require scalability anyway. How you can plan for doing a fixed amount x is beyond me. Just always plan like it could be a massive hit and reserve (rented) hw for that case. It's not like you need to run 1000players in one instance and later only 64 or whatever. The matchmaking just needs to work, for each anyway small coop group, kinda regardsless of total numbers. Might cost something to not use reserved servers though, but server problems, wait times, cost some consumer good will certainly too, and Sony should be big enough to move and rent capacity around as needed. It's hardly Driveclub levels of embarrassing but still mp should just run flawless, at launch, months later, up until official server closure, and working crunch time after launch should not even be necessary. Make it scalable as the default.

 

[Gudji]

Sony make a special ops team you dumb fucks.

 

[Yoboman]

Sony bought Naughty Dog after Jak but well after Crash. Meanwhile Insomniac who they had already worked with and had tremendous success with Spyro, wouldn't sell.

Demon's Souls wasn't all that successful and neither was Returnal. Certainly not smash hits.


Sony bought Eidetic in 2000, a year after the launch of Syphon Filter.

They bought MM two years after the release of LBP.

Not saying they won't buy them, again, just saying I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't right away.

Also the deal with Zee is back on and it isn't a cash deal, so even if it didn't happen it's not like they have an additional 10b.

Nobody is saying these discussions if they are happening will come to a conclusion overnight. They take months and months. Sony could commence discussions tomorrow and not have an agreement for 6-12 months

Sony bought ND barely 12 months after their final Crash game in January 2001. Jak didn't come out until December 2001. Insomniac didn't want to be bought for a long time, but they clearly were ready to sell when they had their biggest hit. Again, striking while the iron is hot for the seller

 

[Ribi]

That's not even as much as Palworld in its prime. Xbox stay winning

 

[Fafalada]

How you can plan for doing a fixed amount x is beyond me.

Time and budget constraints. For better or worse, ppl usually optimise for that before anything else.
And yes, its not always the smart or the right thing to do, but hindsight is 20/20.

 

[The artful mincer]

This is what people meant when they said Sony only needs to hit on a couple of these GaaS games.

It's crazy that they achieved it on there first attempt lol.

 

[GHG]

It's crazy that they achieved it on there first attempt lol.

It's not their first attempt.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Nobody is saying these discussions if they are happening will come to a conclusion overnight. They take months and months. Sony could commence discussions tomorrow and not have an agreement for 6-12 months

Sony bought ND barely 12 months after their final Crash game in January 2001. Jak didn't come out until December 2001. Insomniac didn't want to be bought for a long time, but they clearly were ready to sell when they had their biggest hit. Again, striking while the iron is hot for the seller

Someone literally said they're in conversations right now. We just don't know that, regardless of how long they take. And talks for a studio this size don't take months and months. When M&A takes that long its usually because one company needs to do proper due diligence and look into years of financial data as well as personnel data.

Why did Insomniac not want to be purchased but Naughty Dog did? Because not all studios want to sell small. Jason Gavin rues selling Naughty Dog early. CDPR doesn't want to be bought and neither does Capcom.

Insomniac by all rights was seemingly on the verge of going under until this Spider-Man deal worked out. They couldn't do Spider-Man 2 without Sony so it made sense to sell finally.

You should ask yourself why Sony didn't purchase a series of successful studios that they've worked with over the years. As I said before it is a two way street. You both have to want to buy/sell and you both have to agree on a price. That's hard to do when a studio just has a hit.

Spider-Man was a hit, but it was a licensed game and it was expensive to develop. Say Insomniac licensed the sequel themselves so they could put it out on all platforms, but it didn't sell well. It would have bankrupted them.

Arrowhead is worth significantly more today than they were worth a month ago and similarly, they could be worth significantly more in a year or two.

 

[Gen.Grievous]

Will be really interesting to see how Helldivers impacts Sony's Q4 financial results given they absolutely didn't expect this game to be this big of a hit and subsequently how it impacts their fiscal year report.

Wouldn't be surprised if this one game saves a lot of jobs.

This is what people meant when they said Sony only needs to hit on a couple of these GaaS games.

MLB The Show is already a perennial hit for Sony. Next they need to look to bringing it to PC and Mobile to expand the margins on it. The same goes for Gran Turismo 7.

But this will also really impact how Sony looks at Fairgame$ and Concord, not necessarily expectations, but I'm sure they're looking at lessons they can learn from the rollout of Helldivers.

A single game will have negligible impact I'd assume.

 

[funking giblet]

I don't know

fyp

 

[Porticus]

Maybe, but the assumption and it is a really big assumption is that these people would have bought a PS5 for helldivers 2. It just doesn't really add up.

Part of a multiplatform strategy is recognizing who are and aren't your customers. The old lady who plays candy crush on her phone isn't going to buy a PS5 most likely.

I think Sony has to crunch the numbers on the financials of having their own PC Storefront selling their first party games for full value and getting a cut of 3rd party games. Games like Helldivers 2 should really put that into perspective for Sony. Pure speculation on my part because we don't have the agreement between Arrowhead and Sony, but if they have a 40-60 profit split and 20 percent off the top goes to valve, Sony is really only making 48% of the revenue on the game and still need to breakeven from the development costs.

If this game sells 8 million copies on Steam for 40 dollars (I know there is a 60 dollar version as well, but let's assume some level of future discounting as well, and refunds) that's "only" 153.6 million dollars. If the game costs and again I'm speculating 50 million dollars to develop, the operating profit for the game is only 100 million dollars. Of course it is on PS5 as well, but where Sony would generally make money off this game is on-going MTX opportunities.

And that's assuming they get a 60 percent cut, I'm leaning towards a heavier number since they own the IP.

The moment Sony create their own PC Storefront and miss Steam is the time those sales are gonna crater like on the Epic Store, thank god you are not a decision maker at SIE.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I don't know how providing the necessary framework for your game is an achievement at all. Every game is supposed to just run, and especially in their start days and weeks most mp games have strong(er) numbers and capacity generally can and will be scaled down afterwards. But those cost cutting measures later require scalability anyway. How you can plan for doing a fixed amount x is beyond me. Just always plan like it could be a massive hit and reserve (rented) hw for that case. It's not like you need to run 1000players in one instance and later only 64 or whatever. The matchmaking just needs to work, for each anyway small coop group, kinda regardsless of total numbers. Might cost something to not use reserved servers though, but server problems, wait times, cost some consumer good will certainly too, and Sony should be big enough to move and rent capacity around as needed. It's hardly Driveclub levels of embarrassing but still mp should just run flawless, at launch, months later, up until official server closure, and working crunch time after launch should not even be necessary. Make it scalable as the default.

This is what happens when someone make a comment about something that they truly don't know about. Some people think you can just flip a button and add server capacity.

First it is really difficult especially for a game like this to ascertain the appropriate server capacity needed. Second, the problem is more than the server capacity, it's the way the code was written that takes up additional capacity. Everything needs to save and be processed across the board and that is what they weren't able to account for.

Just double the servers -- And blow any sort of profitability you had and utilize probably none of the space most times during the day.

Sony make a special ops team you dumb fucks.

This is why Sony should standardize tools and documentation across studios and I'm sure there is some element of that with internal studios, but many external studios probably have legacy tools. When you look at the credits for 1st party games you often see other studios helped out.

The idea of a special ops team on developers is probably not realistic in this day and age, since games are so complex.

That's not even as much as Palworld in its prime. Xbox stay winning

What does this have to do with Palworld? Outside of console warring, I'd say the big difference as it relates to the manufacturers is that one of these games is owned and the other isn't. Microsoft didn't even publish palworld. They saw no money from palworld on steam and only 30 percent on xbox.

Time and budget constraints. For better or worse, ppl usually optimise for that before anything else.
And yes, its not always the smart or the right thing to do, but hindsight is 20/20.

If you think you're going to sell 100-200K over the life of the game but you sell 4 million within a couple weeks... there is no optimzing or planning for that.

It's crazy that they achieved it on there first attempt lol.

I'm sure Jim Ryan took a lot of flack, it might even be why he is leaving Sony, but this game really does prove that he was right. This is probably the biggest success story for Sony since TLOU. We'll see ultimately.

People thought oh Sony needs to have success with 12 GaaS games... and it's like, no they don't.. a handful of big and moderate successes is enough.

If you look at what Sony is doing in the GaaS space and what they've done with TLOU on tv and Uncharted and Gran Turismo via movies... they're having tremendous success with their expansion.

If I'm Totoki, I'm asking Jim Ryan to reconsider as I don't think he has a great alternative.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

The moment Sony create their own PC Storefront and miss Steam is the time those sales are gonna crater like on the Epic Store, thank god you are not a decision maker at SIE.

Tell that to Fortnite.

Sony can do a lot of things that Epic can't. They have way more leverage than Epic and way more exclusive titles than Epic. No one is more primed to have success with a storefront than Sony.

Edit: Except maybe Nintendo.

 

[StueyDuck]

I'm so happy for the studio and the game, helldivers 1 was an underrated gem back in its day.

And their other titles like magicka have interesting enough mechanics to be unique.

They could really be one of the best AA studios if properly budgeted and given the time needed (as helldivers 2 quality shows)

I hope they drop the mech suit and sort out the servers soon enough.

Unfortunately with GaaS is that now you need to keep those players.

I know the third big enemy is bound to drop but I don't see them doing that till at least 6 months in

 

[Three]

It's not their first attempt.

That's not even their first attempt either. Plenty before it including GT. If you go back far enough they even had an entire division dedicated to it called SOE.

 

[Porticus]

Tell that to Fortnite.

Sony can do a lot of things that Epic can't. They have way more leverage than Epic and way more exclusive titles than Epic. No one is more primed to have success with a storefront than Sony.

Edit: Except maybe Nintendo.

Ahah I don't need to tell anything to Fortnite, despite the huge success of Fortnite and the huge customer base no one buys game on the Epic store and there's a reason for that, Steam is a platform nowadays and not only a storefront.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

A single game will have negligible impact I'd assume.

I'd bet against you on that.

Quarterly and annual reports are so baked in that they try to account for everything as accurately as possible. Being flush 100+ million dollars...This revenue would be like having a second major christmas title randomly. It'll definitely be called out on the financial report unless the terms are really unfavorable to Sony.

This is looking to potentially generate more operating income for Sony than any title not named God of War Ragnarok since 2020. It's a big deal.

Sony has advised of missing their expectations which is why their stock dropped, but their stock might seriously rise in april when they announce earnings for this game and if that revenue is continuous it's potentially a game changer for them.

 

[Three]

Tell that to Fortnite.

Sony can do a lot of things that Epic can't. They have way more leverage than Epic and way more exclusive titles than Epic. No one is more primed to have success with a storefront than Sony.

Edit: Except maybe Nintendo.

How? Epic pays for a lot of exclusives with fortnite money and yet it still struggles. They have literally the biggest game in existence on there too and they have made only a small dent.

 

[winjer]

Surprise hit of the year.

 

[Porticus]

How? Epic pays for a lot of exclusives with fortnite money and yet it still struggles. They have literally the biggest game in existence on there too and they have made only a small dent.

He lives in fairyland, let him dream.
Actually sounds a bit like a Spencer in the making i.e. leverage, primed to success, Sony (Microsoft) can do lot of things that Epic (competition) can't.
Really amusing and out of touch from reality.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

That's not even their first attempt either. Plenty before it including GT. If you go back far enough they even had an entire division dedicated to it called SOE.

None of their games before this really fit the criteria of their modern strategy here. Even MLB and GT7 don't. This game released on PS5 and PC and is GaaS. MLB and GT7 are GaaS-lite.

Sony Online Entertainment fell under Sony Pictures and only shortly under SIE before being sold off. They've never been dedicated to PC and GaaS like they are now.

This is definitely their first true attempt at this.

Ahah I don't need to tell anything to Fortnite, despite the huge success of Fortnite and the huge customer base no one buys game on the Epic store and there's a reason for that, Steam is a platform nowadays and not only a storefront.

EGS isn't profitable because they have to give away free games in order to get people to use it, but Fortnite is the most popular game in the world.

If Epic had more exclusive titles, they could populate EGS without giving games away and it would be immediately profitable.

Sony unlike Epic has their own library of games. Sony unlike Epic has the ability to leverage royalties from PlayStation. Sony unlike Epic has the ability to leverage existing playstation users.

People always seem to assume failure rather than look at the reasons for failure. It's really lazy analysis.

It's like saying the Sony handheld 3 will fail because the Sony handheld 2 failed, ignoring that the Sony handheld 1 was a massive success.

Some things fail and they fail for specific reasons. Sometimes those reasons are difficult to resolve and sometimes they aren't.

Why did Blackberry and Windows Phone fail but Android has succeeded? If Blackberry and Windows Mobile failed shouldn't Android have also failed?

Why did so many CD based game systems fail but PlayStation succeeded?

 

[STARSBarry]

Will be really interesting to see how Helldivers impacts Sony's Q4 financial results given they absolutely didn't expect this game to be this big of a hit and subsequently how it impacts their fiscal year report.

Wouldn't be surprised if this one game saves a lot of jobs.

This is what people meant when they said Sony only needs to hit on a couple of these GaaS games.

MLB The Show is already a perennial hit for Sony. Next they need to look to bringing it to PC and Mobile to expand the margins on it. The same goes for Gran Turismo 7.

But this will also really impact how Sony looks at Fairgame$ and Concord, not necessarily expectations, but I'm sure they're looking at lessons they can learn from the rollout of Helldivers.

I suspect not as much as you would think since it's relatively low priced and monetisation is very fair and earnable by playing.

This is one of the reasons it's so popular as it feels more "fair" than recent titles. I assume this will go over the suits heads and they are already crying for heavier monetisation.

 

[Krieger]

Hopefully Sony realizes people want just fun games to play, and not some pandering bullshit with a "message" created by the retarded Sweet Baby Inc. idiots who don't play games anyway.

 

[T-0800]

Someone literally said they're in conversations right now. We just don't know that, regardless of how long they take. And talks for a studio this size don't take months and months. When M&A takes that long its usually because one company needs to do proper due diligence and look into years of financial data as well as personnel data.

Why did Insomniac not want to be purchased but Naughty Dog did? Because not all studios want to sell small. Jason Gavin rues selling Naughty Dog early. CDPR doesn't want to be bought and neither does Capcom.

Insomniac by all rights was seemingly on the verge of going under until this Spider-Man deal worked out. They couldn't do Spider-Man 2 without Sony so it made sense to sell finally.

You should ask yourself why Sony didn't purchase a series of successful studios that they've worked with over the years. As I said before it is a two way street. You both have to want to buy/sell and you both have to agree on a price. That's hard to do when a studio just has a hit.

Spider-Man was a hit, but it was a licensed game and it was expensive to develop. Say Insomniac licensed the sequel themselves so they could put it out on all platforms, but it didn't sell well. It would have bankrupted them.

Arrowhead is worth significantly more today than they were worth a month ago and similarly, they could be worth significantly more in a year or two.

Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

How? Epic pays for a lot of exclusives with fortnite money and yet it still struggles. They have literally the biggest game in existence on there too and they have made only a small dent.

Epic's payment of exclusives is largely unsustainable.

First they aren't getting the biggest games exclusive. Second, it's extremely expensive.

Sony can pay for some exclusives with the budget they've been spending on PS5 exclusivity to foreclose from Xbox, but what's more important is they can offer boutique royalties for games that appear on both the PS5 and PC storefronts.

They have the largest game, but what else do they have? They don't have anything else.

Epic isn't a big publisher, so its storefront lacks games from them as a publisher. Individual publishers have tried to have their own storefronts as well, but it's the same problem.

Sony somewhat uniquely is both a big publisher AND has the ability to attract 3rd party publishers at favorable rates. They also have their own VR platform. Sony checks a lot of boxes that NO ONE else can check.

If you're going to argue that I'm wrong by all means, I relish the debate, but actually argue the merits.

 

[Porticus]

None of their games before this really fit the criteria of their modern strategy here. Even MLB and GT7 don't. This game released on PS5 and PC and is GaaS. MLB and GT7 are GaaS-lite.

Sony Online Entertainment fell under Sony Pictures and only shortly under SIE before being sold off. They've never been dedicated to PC and GaaS like they are now.

This is definitely their first true attempt at this.



EGS isn't profitable because they have to give away free games in order to get people to use it, but Fortnite is the most popular game in the world.

If Epic had more exclusive titles, they could populate EGS without giving games away and it would be immediately profitable.

Sony unlike Epic has their own library of games. Sony unlike Epic has the ability to leverage royalties from PlayStation. Sony unlike Epic has the ability to leverage existing playstation users.

People always seem to assume failure rather than look at the reasons for failure. It's really lazy analysis.

It's like saying the Sony handheld 3 will fail because the Sony handheld 2 failed, ignoring that the Sony handheld 1 was a massive success.

Some things fail and they fail for specific reasons. Sometimes those reasons are difficult to resolve and sometimes they aren't.

Why did Blackberry and Windows Phone fail but Android has succeeded? If Blackberry and Windows Mobile failed shouldn't Android have also failed?

Why did so many CD based game systems fail but PlayStation succeeded?

This is the problem right there dude, things in life sometimes are really simple and straightforward, making it complex for the sake of it is detrimental to the end result and the outcome of it.

I'm sorry dude if Sony want those money they can't leverage shit, they need to go through the go to platform on the PC space and that's Steam, nothing else matters, that's how you nurture a good player base and good will.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Tell that to Fortnite.

Sony can do a lot of things that Epic can't. They have way more leverage than Epic and way more exclusive titles than Epic. No one is more primed to have success with a storefront than Sony.

Edit: Except maybe Nintendo.

Steam gets a lot of credit for this and Palworld. Its just a storefront created with these goals in mind.

These games wouldn’t be as popular with the way Sony / Nintendo operate.

I do believe Circana data was correct. 50-50 sales split was close to launch, before it went viral.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin.

Yeah it's super late/early and my brain goes to mush. That's what I meant.

This is the problem right there dude, things in life sometimes are really simple and straightforward, making it complex for the sake of it is detrimental to the end result and the outcome of it.

I'm sorry dude if Sony want those money they can't leverage shit, they need to go through the go to platform on the PC space and that's Steam, nothing else matters, that's how you nurture a good player base and good will.

Netflix was the go to platform for streaming media too. That hasn't stopped people from challenging that position. And another problem you have is in thinking that Sony's storefront has to be able to overtake Steam, it doesn't. It only needs to be profitable. And the amount of money they hand over to Valve on every game, the incentive is there for them to try.