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Sony Doesn't Seem to be Marketing PSNow as much as they Should

ZehDon

Member
Based on Jim Ryan's comments, PlayStation is of the opinion their first party exclusives are too special to live on a subscription service. They deserve the full retail experience - and hey, when they're selling 10+ million copies of their big titles, it's hard to argue. But, this limits what PSNow can deliver. It's a catch up service. It's not a service the masses need, because it doesn't cater to wanting the big new and exiting games. It caters to people who want to play games... but are ok with waiting a couple of years or more to try them out. "Play games years after they've come out... sometimes, and stream some PS1 titles that you probably already own to your PlayStation console" isn't exactly catchy marketing. Sony are treating PSNow like an afterthought, because it is, and they're marketing it accordingly. If they tried to carpet PSNow like they Microsoft have done with Gamepass, without delivering that level of title availability, you'd have hundreds of pissed off customers. "I thought we could get NEW games on this!" "Well, you can... two years after they came out."
 

dalekjay

Member
I don’t know how it’s now, but one and half year ago was 720p with 3 hours of latency on button pressing, download only some PS4 games and only on ps4, plus no new games day 1.
it isn’t a competitive service, xCloud (but I only tested battletoads) felt offline almost and you get Bethesda games day 1, indies and a sort of a good catalog of curated games.
But Sony have the gun to flip the tables on this situation they can invest hard and in short time make it a monster, Stadia & Luna don’t have the Sony pedigree on gaming and Nintendo the only one that has (even better on my opinion) didn’t even tried to start.

The mentioned gun is to fire Jim Ryan

that Being said, for me personally, even if the streaming was zero latency, and you couldn’t download everything etc, I wouldn’t sign up because for me is for the day1games and in this case i would buy Sony games case by case.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Sony believes the old business model works better. They might be right, but only if the first party content of Microsoft won't match Sony's this gen. If Microsoft is really able to deliver AAA games on day 1, then Sony might not keep their lead
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
What are profit margins like on PSNow? I think your marketing budget has to target your big earners, or your prospects into new arenas. We'll see the PSNow marketing ramp up when the game streaming starts to shift towards profitability. For now, I assume most of their revenue comes from individual game sales.
 

FranXico

Member
Because it sucks to use. Have you tried it?


If you could download the games, it's could easily compete, but playing that shit over the internet blows donkey dicks.

In summary:

Shitty performance and not day and date 1st party releases.
Have you tried it? On a PS4?
 
Do they really need to? They’re the streaming market leader by far, and although GP has great mindshare, its market share is a different story.

GP isn’t even really a comparable service: Microsoft has openly admitted they don’t profit much (if at all) from it, which means the “15 million sub count“ is nothing but fanboy fuel. GP’s subs were also inflated by the numerous $1 Live-to-GP conversion promos MS had last year.

Financially, there’s been little reason for Sony to worry about Now vs. GamePass. In the near future, as all those $1 GP subs expire and new consoles launch, then you’ll probably see Sony push more advertising.
 
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Schmick

Member
I don’t know how it’s now, but one and half year ago was 720p with 3 hours of latency on button pressing, download only some PS4 games and only on ps4, plus no new games day 1.
it isn’t a competitive service, xCloud (but I only tested battletoads) felt offline almost and you get Bethesda games day 1, indies and a sort of a good catalog of curated games.
But Sony have the gun to flip the tables on this situation they can invest hard and in short time make it a monster, Stadia & Luna don’t have the Sony pedigree on gaming and Nintendo the only one that has (even better on my opinion) didn’t even tried to start.

The mentioned gun is to fire Jim Ryan

that Being said, for me personally, even if the streaming was zero latency, and you couldn’t download everything etc, I wouldn’t sign up because for me is for the day1games and in this case i would buy Sony games case by case.
I completed TLoU on PSN for PC a few weeks ago and have now started the Unchartered trilogy. Bought a DS4 for a more authentic experience (i normally use the Xbox controller on PC). I actually found the service really good and would actually recommend to gamers who don't have a PS but a PC to play the Sony exclusives on there.

Although it would be nice to have at least 1080p.
 
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Jigsaah

Gold Member
Sony was pretty clear when they said they valued their exclusives too much to put them on PSNow day and date. Until they do that, PSNow will always be 2nd best.
 

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
There are three main issues with the service:
- It's not available worldwide. They should expand, especially since you can download some games and therefore don't need a stable, fast connection.
- It's not offering day 1 releases like game pass. The selection in general is much weaker even though on paper it looks like it offers more games than GP.
- Games from PS Now and PS+ are sometimes the same which makes it a poor decision to sub to both.
 

Reindeer

Member
It's a dead service unless Sony puts their new games on it 6 months to a year after release.
 
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Kerotan

Member
Is PS NOW now close to 1,000 games in the US? Sony aren't massively pushing it because they'd rather we buy our games. Much more profitable and actually better for the consumer too. They'll let it grow naturally. If you want to sub you can.
 

sol_bad

Member
Sony believes the old business model works better. They might be right, but only if the first party content of Microsoft won't match Sony's this gen. If Microsoft is really able to deliver AAA games on day 1, then Sony might not keep their lead

Look forward to even more microtransactions in Fallout 5.
;)

*EDIT*
Does anyone have the sales numbers for all of Sony's first party games?
 
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Kumomeme

Member
with their recent stance of increasing price for AAA game and how jim ryan said subs model wont suffice for AAA game development cycle, i believe they didnt bother to push ps now marketing is due to this gonna contradict their stance. Or they actually did believe subs model hindered AAA game development. So they want to push more on selling game than subs.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Look forward to even more microtransactions in Fallout 5. ;)
Why? Fallout 5 is different from Fallout 76 which is an MMO. I think it's normal that MMO have microtransactions, as long as it's cosmetics of course. I think it's ridiculous in SP games, but I haven't seen that from Microsoft as far as I know.
 

dalekjay

Member
I completed TLoU on PSN for PC a few weeks ago and have now started the Unchartered trilogy. Bought a DS4 for a more authentic experience (i normally use the Xbox controller on PC). I actually found the service really good and would actually recommend to gamers who don't have a PS but a PC to play the Sony exclusives on there.

Although it would be nice to have at least 1080p.
Gotta try again then, I have a 1gb internet and was really bad.
xCloud still isn’t on pc browsers just for the same reason methinks, because people will want a higher resolution, and on cellphone they can get away with less than 1080p.
 

yurinka

Member
They focus their marketing on PS5 and its games, as it should be because it's their main market, very profitable for them and the key piece of their strategy.

Game streaming isn't a profitable market for them so doesn't make sense to scale it too fast. They are reworking PS Now for the next gen, so I assume they will market it once done marketing PS5 launch and once they have the new PS Now is ready because I assume the new PS Now won't be ready for launch.

They are moving their PS Now cloud to Azure, adding PS5 support, improving its codec to boost resolution and image quality or latency, etc. And seems they will also rework its business model because as of now doesn't make sense specially for the platform holder and the publishers.

Seems to work for players to have a huge library of old games, but people also wants new games there and to put new AAA games there inside a subscription doesn't make sense in a financial way. So in addition to have the subscription for old games, they may allow you to purchase any other game (including the brand new AAA ones) for streaming in a Stadia way. This would give enough money to the publishers per copy and would help the platform holder to pay the insane related server costs.

As of now, services like PS Now or xCloud doesn't have a worldwide coverage and are limited to some countries for several reasons. One of them is that for it working properly, needs to have a data center very close to you. Other that many countries have shitty internet connections or data caps. Other one is that people uses wifi or shitty routers. But the main one is that the current business model doesn't seem to be profitable enough to scale it massively. So it would be dumb to market it a lot because growing too much a non-profitable business would increase its loses.

And well, they don't need to rush. Even if it will grow, game streaming is a tiny market and will continue being a small, secondary market during all the generation, like VR. Because most people around the world have shitty internet connections and data caps, shitty LAN&router setups, wifi6 and 5G have and will have a relatively small support and so on and the related technology needs to continue improving to reduce latency and improve image quality.
 
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dalekjay

Member
There’s no problem on PSNow be the second place, if Sony gets a big bucks on their today’s model, and have the option on a whim invest in PSNow they are golden. Because they will be second on this service but be first overall.
If you make the same case against Luna, Stadia or Apple Arcade it isn’t even a conversation we need to have right now.
 
Do they really need to? They’re the streaming market leader by far, and although GP has great mindshare, its market share is a different story.

GP isn’t even really a comparable service: Microsoft has openly admitted they don’t profit much (if at all) from it, which means the “15 million sub count“ is nothing but fanboy fuel. GP’s subs were also inflated by the numerous $1 Live-to-GP conversion promos MS had last year.

Financially, there’s been little reason for Sony to worry about Now vs. GamePass. In the near future, as all those $1 GP subs expire and new consoles launch, then you’ll probably see Sony push more advertising.

Right, but Xbox now have 23 game studios vs Sony 15 and if even half of them start matching the quality of Sony first party and are being offered day one on Gamepass, then what does PlayStation do? Just rely on previous hype?

That scenario is likely to come soon. Sony aren’t invincible and they will eventually be overtaken or make some flops of their own. I’m not hoping they do either just because Xbox, but it’s very likely to happen at some point, all empires fall eventually.

Not everyone pays just $1 either, I pay the full monthly fee and have just bought two full years of GP for £200+ for two years, so just get that myth out of here as it just isn’t true at all. Maybe the cheap people who don’t appreciate great value with only pay £1, but I’d rather congratulate them by paying the minimal asking price. At least they’ll have incentive to keep it cheap.

personally, I think Xbox are planning to hoard their first party until they can start to release a new game every 3-6 months for Gamepass with a flood of new games.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Sony has been terrible at marketting since Jim Ryan became the head honcho. I now 100% do not like the guy at all. I guess he lives by the philosophy of silence is golden. The Sony brand is very strong and that is carrying them, but he is the most bland guy I have seen in a while.
 
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Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
Sony was pretty clear when they said they valued their exclusives too much to put them on PSNow day and date. Until they do that, PSNow will always be 2nd best.
Better games but later or worse games but now? Just because you're impatient doesn't make the service lesser
 
It's not even that difficult to market. For the price of a single game you get access to hundreds which can either be downloaded or streamed on console, with an optional PC app that lets you stream everything.

It is a little surprising the service has been going since 2014 and is sustainable with such little marketing from Sony.

Not that I'm complaining as it usually means good deals on it during sales, got a year of PSNow for £35 just a few months ago
 

NullZ3r0

Banned
PSNow is the digital equivalent of the Walmart old DVD bin. Jim Ryan doesn't believe in putting new games there so that's all it will ever be.
 

chonga

Member
It is a matter of revenue.

If PS Now is pushed harder, if PS Now had more decent titles added to it you alter the purchasing dynamic of the average user.

Sony is just waiting for that change to naturally start. That change will come, and it will likely be led by more major third party publishers getting interesting in getting involved in a major way.

The reason it exists today is simply so that they have the oven ready and they can therefore react quickly to consumer changes. No waiting around to design a system. Just add more servers and away you go.
 

Agent X

Member
All they need to do are:
1. Release it in more countries
2. Release it in more devices
3. Release it with more recent games (hopefully a bundle with PS+)

I agree.

Regarding your point #2, they especially should find a way of getting PS Now on smart TVs and streaming media devices (e.g. Roku. Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV). They should also provide a PS Now app for mobile phones, seeing as Stadia and Xcloud are there already, but I would prioritize the "big screen" experience more.

Also, the PS Now client for PC could use a serious refresh.

Seems to work for players to have a huge library of old games, but people also wants new games there and to put new AAA games there inside a subscription doesn't make sense in a financial way. So in addition to have the subscription for old games, they may allow you to purchase any other game (including the brand new AAA ones) for streaming in a Stadia way. This would give enough money to the publishers per copy and would help the platform holder to pay the insane related server costs.

This is something else they should do. Sony has hinted at this in the past when talking about their PS5 strategy. In order to accomplish this, they'll need to negotiate with publishers to make all of their forthcoming games available for streaming, much like they did a decade ago for digital distribution.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
Bad first impression. PSNOW really sucked at the start. Barely any games except for PS3 games and some crap 3rd parties. Also Sony's first party games sell to well and would lose to much revenue if on NOW day 1 so they can't give up that much cashola especially when they are the leading console manufacturer, makes no sense.

But over the last 18 months or so NOW has gotten pretty good and its a good value and there are a ton of PS4 games, both 1st party and 3rd party. AGain like I said you can't blame Sony for not putting a game like Spider Man or TLOU 2 day 1 because these games will sell for months even years so its just to much money that Sony would lose. And since they aren't in 3rd place like MS it doesn't make sense.

What I would do if I was Sony is continue to try and bring on 3rd parties, offer more 1st party stuff when possible (ya it won't be day and date but maybe smaller 1st party games can be) but I would get rid of PS+ and essentially bundle all the non cloud/MP features into NOW. So PS+ would be like 1 or 2 dollars a month for online play + cloud saves. PSNow would be online+cloud+games+discounts+whatever else. So basically PSNow would replace PS+, or you could just have a bare bones online excperience.

But in the end I don't think Sony wants Now to take off because selling a game for 70$ is much more of a money maker than hosting a Netflix like service of games and it leaves a ton of money on the table. And as long as Sony sells 100 Million consoles a generation they have no reason to play Google/Amazon/MS game.

What might get them to start moving could be Japan and how the PS5 does there, but Sony doesn't seem to care much about Japan. PS4 wasn't exactly that hot and if PS5 continues a downward trend they might feel they have to get into a more mobile style gaming by offering cloud streaming so PSNow might get more focused. But I doubt it since Sony has become more western focused the last decade or so.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
yeah my mind was blown when i found out Gamepass only has 250 games on it. the way everyone talks about it like it's the best thing ever, i thought it would be way more than that. like lol i've been using PSNow for a year or more, gotten tons of free games off it. fucking Spider-Man was free for a while. God of War. they come and go, but yeah, it's a great service.

it is funny tho, everytime i brought it up, people would shit on it, "fuck paying to play games", etc., but now, Gamepass is sold as this incredible deal, THE FUTURE OF GAMING, even, it's really funny to me.
 
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Zog

Banned
do you have an ethernet cord? I tried a free trial awhile ago and it worked fine for me.
Depends on a few factors, your connection type, your connection speed and the speed on Sony's end. I have 1 Gb down and am using a wired connection and Sonic still didn't feel like it was running at full speed.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
I agree.

Regarding your point #2, they especially should find a way of getting PS Now on smart TVs and streaming media devices (e.g. Roku. Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV). They should also provide a PS Now app for mobile phones, seeing as Stadia and Xcloud are there already, but I would prioritize the "big screen" experience more.

Also, the PS Now client for PC could use a serious refresh.



This is something else they should do. Sony has hinted at this in the past when talking about their PS5 strategy. In order to accomplish this, they'll need to negotiate with publishers to make all of their forthcoming games available for streaming, much like they did a decade ago for digital distribution.
When it launched PS Now was available on Samsung Smart TVs, they officially supported the Dualshock 4 on them. However they deprecated it back in 2017.

But yes, they need to get it back on as many platforms as possible, especially Android (and if possible iOS)
 

FeldMonster

Member
When it launched PS Now was available on Samsung Smart TVs, they officially supported the Dualshock 4 on them. However they deprecated it back in 2017.

But yes, they need to get it back on as many platforms as possible, especially Android (and if possible iOS)
This is my main feeling as well. Release it for Android, Android TV, Firestick, etc. and I can actually access it. It is ridiculous that I need a PS4 to stream PS4 games. Like what? Why would I stream a game on the same hardware that can play it natively? Obviously there are use cases, such as demos/trials, but these are minimal.

I understand the business model though, Sony makes more money from direct sales, so streaming is less lucrative for them.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Have you tried it? On a PS4?
Years ago. As it is it has no value. All multiplats that are on their play 100% better on my PC, and I own all the exclusives that Sony has put out that are worth having anyways, last few I bought being Tlou2 and Ghosts of Tsushima. If it gave me first party titles day and date and let me save a bit of money and it let me download locally on my PC I'd be waving that PSPlus flag obnoxiously as hell. As it is, it's like the Myspace of gaming service, it works, but no-one gives a shit and it's competition is much better.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
This is my main feeling as well. Release it for Android, Android TV, Firestick, etc. and I can actually access it. It is ridiculous that I need a PS4 to stream PS4 games. Like what? Why would I stream a game on the same hardware that can play it natively? Obviously there are use cases, such as demos/trials, but these are minimal.

I understand the business model though, Sony makes more money from direct sales, so streaming is less lucrative for them.

I think you summed it up why they don't push it harder.

Sony sells 100 Million + PS4s. They sell Millions of their first party games, and though they aint Nintendo, their 1st party is still pretty evergreen and the squeeze a lot of sales out of their games.

It doesn't make sense for Sony to push it since it will take away money from system and game sales.

MS is a clear third, they don't push as much hardware and their games don't have the same evergreen as Sony/Nintendo so it makes sense that they would try and be disruptors.

If the tables were flipped and Sony sold 40 Million PS4's and MS sold 100 Million Xboxs I bet Sony would by hyping PSNow and putting all their 1st party titles day and date. But for now it doesn't make economic sense for them to shoot their golden goose.

I think the one big area that Sony is leaving money on the table is they could turn PSNow into a "PS Classic" service like Nintendo online and put all their 1st party PS1-PS3 games on their. (throw in some classic 3rd party games). I think a streaming/download service across multiple devices that allow you to play classic PS1/2/3 games would generate a lot of buzz and attract more people to PSNow.
 

Agent X

Member
What I would do if I was Sony is continue to try and bring on 3rd parties, offer more 1st party stuff when possible (ya it won't be day and date but maybe smaller 1st party games can be) but I would get rid of PS+ and essentially bundle all the non cloud/MP features into NOW. So PS+ would be like 1 or 2 dollars a month for online play + cloud saves. PSNow would be online+cloud+games+discounts+whatever else. So basically PSNow would replace PS+, or you could just have a bare bones online excperience.

I do think that it might be good for Sony to borrow a small part of Microsoft's "Day One" strategy, and strike deals with some independent third-party developers to introduce their games on PS Now on the day of release. They could possibly even release some small-scale first-party downloadable games this way...but I don't envision them releasing their top-tier games immediately.

Let's suppose Sony decides to wait 6 months before putting their big blockbusters on PS Now. Here's an example of a policy for how Sony should approach both first-party and third-party new releases.

First-party games are added to the service either:
  • Day of release (for some small-scale downloadable games or episodic games)
  • If not day of release, then exactly 6 months later (plus or minus a few days for scheduling purposes--no more than a week in either direction)
Third-party games are added to the service either:
  • Day of release
  • If not day of release, then it will definitely not be added until at least 3 months later
By doing this, a customer who is anticipating a new game can see whether it is announced to be available on "day one" for PS Now. If such an announcement is made, then the customer can be confident that he'll have access to it on the day of release. If not, then the customer can decide whether he wants to buy it right away, or wait a few days/weeks to buy it, or wait a few months for it to get added to PS Now (a certain thing for first-party games, a possibility for third-party games).

The entire point of adhering to the schedule is to give the customer confidence in both the PS Now service, as well as individual game purchases. You don't want the customer to feel like he made the wrong decision by suddenly posting a game on the PS Now service too early as a surprise (so that he feels like he "wasted his money" by purchasing it early), or by waiting too long to buy a first-party game, thinking it will get added sooner rather than later.

When it launched PS Now was available on Samsung Smart TVs, they officially supported the Dualshock 4 on them. However they deprecated it back in 2017.

I have a friend who had a Samsung smart TV (and also a PS4), that tried PS Now on the smart TV, and said that it worked well.
 

Agent X

Member
I think the one big area that Sony is leaving money on the table is they could turn PSNow into a "PS Classic" service like Nintendo online and put all their 1st party PS1-PS3 games on their. (throw in some classic 3rd party games). I think a streaming/download service across multiple devices that allow you to play classic PS1/2/3 games would generate a lot of buzz and attract more people to PSNow.

This one of the ideas that I alluded to earlier. In fact, I want them to go even further, and actually license games from older systems. They could actually have sections for (example) Atari 2600, Intellivision, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, NeoGeo, and (of course) all of Sony's systems. The old GameTap service did something like this over a decade ago. If Sony were to expand PS Now in this manner, then they could market it as a one-stop destination for retro gamers, spanning a wide range of overall video game history.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
This one of the ideas that I alluded to earlier. In fact, I want them to go even further, and actually license games from older systems. They could actually have sections for (example) Atari 2600, Intellivision, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, NeoGeo, and (of course) all of Sony's systems. The old GameTap service did something like this over a decade ago. If Sony were to expand PS Now in this manner, then they could market it as a one-stop destination for retro gamers, spanning a wide range of overall video game history.

I don't know if they could get older systems, it would be really cool, but they can for sure put up their entire PS catalogue of 1st party games. With the PS5 coming out why not go PS1-PS4. You can even drip them out like Nintendo does with a few games a month. I know Sony is not Nintendo as far as retro games, but there are still plenty of Sony 1st party fans and they have plenty of games they can release across 4 systems.

I think it would of been a better idea than trying to cash in on the Nintendo mini with the PS mini.
 
Right, but Xbox now have 23 game studios vs Sony 15 and if even half of them start matching the quality of Sony first party and are being offered day one on Gamepass, then what does PlayStation do? Just rely on previous hype?

Of course the potential is there, but right now, all you have are "what ifs" instead of actual results. MS has to actually deliver: so far, they've sold nothing but "potential" for the last 3 years.

Take Sony in the PS3 era as an example. Having more 1st party studios than MS/Nintendo at 2006 launch wasn't what helped them: those studios actually delivering great games around 2008/2009 was.

That scenario is likely to come soon. Sony aren’t invincible and they will eventually be overtaken or make some flops of their own. I’m not hoping they do either just because Xbox, but it’s very likely to happen at some point, all empires fall eventually.

Not really sure what the point of this was. Obviously no company's invincible...

Not everyone pays just $1 either, I pay the full monthly fee and have just bought two full years of GP for £200+ for two years, so just get that myth out of here as it just isn’t true at all. Maybe the cheap people who don’t appreciate great value with only pay £1, but I’d rather congratulate them by paying the minimal asking price. At least they’ll have incentive to keep it cheap.

Try calming down and actually reading what I post.

I never said everyone pays $1. I said GP sub numbers are inflated because MS aggressively marketed the $1 promotion: it had a TON of traction last summer, even from people who didn't own an Xbox/PC. It remains to be seen how many of them are willing to pay the full price of GP after their "$1 trials" expire.

Consider that Sony got to 2 million PS Now subs, a service they profit off of, while keeping it completely separate from Plus, keeping their newest 1st party exclusives off of it, and using only moderate price promos. It isn't hard to see which one is the better business model right now.

personally, I think Xbox are planning to hoard their first party until they can start to release a new game every 3-6 months for Gamepass with a flood of new games.

MS is clearly playing the long game. Let's see how that works out for them.
 
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Business wise you're correct.

As a gamer that doesn't want to see these services pick up. Good.

Let Xbox players parrot Phil's push for rentals.


Me think round wheel bad. No pain in back mean a back that no strong. Always carry and lift with back. Laugh at man who sell wheel. Die at old age of 19 like grandfather. Eat raw meat and egg like grandfather. That how work. That how always work! Laugh at Grognor with fire and wheel!

You post in the matrix but your mentality is that of a caveman.
 
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