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Vice: Sony documents show that single player is thriving, PlayStation users spend more time playing offline games than online ones

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
Not surprising. The MP arena has been go big or go down for quite some time now. Meaning, either you have a great idea and the thing just blows up (see PUBG) or no one gives a shit after a few weeks. Makes more sense to limit the budget and invest in SP games.
 

Warablo

Member
Guys, isnt it common sense that CoD, Gta/Rdr online and Robolox, and Minecraft are played more than God of War?
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
It's really no surprise is it?

Sony players screams for single player games, and Sony delivers these en masse.

While also having multiplat online games, it just seems like if you want to play online then there's Xbox and pc,with pc being the winner regarding the amount of online games.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
Sony is the GOAT for SP games.
Lol they are the goat of third person adventure genera. They can't touch Nintendo in platformers or SE for JRpgs or soon Microsoft for Wrpgs. I love Uncharted and ghosts of tsushima but they need some diversity like the old days so buy some studios instead of fucking timed exclusives.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Such bullshit in this thread - the post about Sony ‘single handedly saving single players’ tipped me over the edge.

There are enough single player games on all systems to keep me playing that aren’t made by Sony. In fact, for my taste, Sony make some of the most unimaginative and by the numbers single player games around. I finish most games that I start, but I have a long list of Sony exclusives half played.

I literally just bought Ghost of Tsushima to play on PS5 before it goes off sale, but I already know it’s been overhyped, like they all are. But the idea of Assassin’s Creed Samurai appeals to me, so hopefully I can plough through - but I don’t pretend Assassin’s Creed doesn’t exist so I can claim Sony as our saviours.

It’s ridiculous tbh.
Yep, that much is evident.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Lol they are the goat of third person adventure genera. They can't touch Nintendo in platformers or SE for JRpgs or soon Microsoft for Wrpgs. I love Uncharted and ghosts of tsushima but they need some diversity like the old days so buy some studios instead of fucking timed exclusives.

Nintendo? Yeah they have some good games for children.

Microsoft?

tenor.gif
 
I literally just bought Ghost of Tsushima to play on PS5 before it goes off sale, but I already know it’s been overhyped

I bought it last week as well, worried about the same thing.

Honest opinion is that it's not. I'm loving it - but that might be partly because I've been to Japan several times.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Don't be upset because they have a great collection of wrpg studios lol.

yea that they just bought. No one here is denying. But everything that has come mostly out of Sony's first party is 100% organically created within sony. Either through long standing partnerships over multiple consoles like Insomniac, or through gradual progression of a studios development like Guerilla Games who makes a witcher style WRPG called Horizon.
God of war being a combat game it's new formula is very akin to wrpg. And honestly when it comes to JRPG it is a bummer for sure Sony isn't making those anymore. After Gravity Rush I think they saw that it was a better move to let Square, Atlus, Sega, Namco Bandai make their games and just make deals with them. Sometimes adding funding to the game.

But your outlook on sony seem very short sighted. Dreams came out this year and was met with critical acclaim, astrobot is being compared to the latest Mario game because of how good it is. Same with Atro Bot rescue mission VR. SACKBOY is a 80 on meta, and everyone who's "played" it seems to draw rayman comparisons which is a good comparison to make for a platformer.
It's just you dont like what they seem to sell a lot of which happens to be third person action/adventure games.

Ratchet getting a big budget is a also a big surprise after the lower budget 2016 movie tie in game.
Sony had a couple shooters in Blood and truth which reviewed well if your a VR person. And I hear that studio is working no a non-VR title something shooter related so?
Seriously this narrative you and others have against Sony because their popular games are in third person but forget all the other high quality games they make is really absurd.

I really hope you're not talking about outer worlds and fallout because both make me puke.

Honestly Outer worlds is the best wrpg I've played in a long time. If you have a PC play it on that, I did not expect to love it as much as I did. I think it's the humor/writing that really shines in that game. I think Obsidian is going to become a more top tier WRPG developer than people think. I honestly think they are better at making games than Todd and his crew.
 
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lock2k

Banned
While I'm playing a lot of Street Fighter and Tetris online lately, most of the time I prefer to play games alone, even fighting game on arcade mode (even though people say no one does it, I really enjoy it). More power to single player games!
 
Not surprising. The MP arena has been go big or go down for quite some time now. Meaning, either you have a great idea and the thing just blows up (see PUBG) or no one gives a shit after a few weeks. Makes more sense to limit the budget and invest in SP games.

Yeah for the industry as a whole its actually not a good deal if people spend hundreds of hours in Destiny and nothing else.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
EA learned this with Fallen Order.

The market is saturated with multiplayer games these days, and the bigger ones have been around for years. People mostly keep to the multiplayer games they know, and it takes a special one to catch lightning in a bottle.

Big budget multiplayer games that fail, fail harder than any single player game does. Look at Anthem and Avengers, how much money was poured into these games?

Playstation is the home for people that sucks in online games.

Yet there’s more people playing MP on it than any other console.

Stay bitter.
 
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Kdad

Member
It's pretty reasonable to think PS+ and XBox Live have pretty similar attachment rates. And again, PlayStation doesn't require PS+ for many games that require XBox Live which means even more can play multiplayer on PlayStation.

You just have to look at how dismally the big third party single player games do in terms of play time on XBox Live to get a gauge of how they do on PlayStation.

Nothing about this article rings true.
Xbox is highly concentrated in the US and UK, PlayStation us a worldwide seller. I don't think you can extrapolate paid live numbers from PS+ numbers.
 

Jerm411

Member
It’s exactly why I’m all in with the PS5 this gen....I can still play the multiplayer centric games I want like Fall Guys, Fortnite, etc. all while knowing I’m getting amazing, immersive single player games.

I had kind of forgot how much I missed that...getting the PS5 and playing Demon’s Souls (yes I know it has an online component to it) and Miles for instance has completely reinvigorated my love for the ecosystem and gaming.

This gen is gonna be amazing, can’t wait to see what they do!
 
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MastaKiiLA

Member
Guys, isnt it common sense that CoD, Gta/Rdr online and Robolox, and Minecraft are played more than God of War?
Even the biggest blockbuster doesn't sell to the majority of console owners. Yet, every console owner buys at least 1 game. There's no reason for Sony to lie about playtime balance, so people on here might overestimate the appeal of online gaming. Even games like COD and GTA probably have a decent number of gamers that only the SP modes. Those playtime hours get added to all the other games that are SP-only.

The other thing is that MP games require thriving online communities in order to gamers to pour in lots of time playing online. How many games have strong online communities, and how many can have those at the same time? Assuming that there are some console owners who never play online MP games, then you have fewer than the total number of consoles sold as a base. Of those remaining players, you have a relatively small number of games/franchises that sustain strong online communities. Fall Guys, COD, GTA, RDR, NBA2k, FIFA, Madden, etc don't really comprise a wide cross-section of all titles sold. How many indie games have MP?

There are a lot of games sold each year, and most of them don't have strong online communities that would squeeze many hours out of gamers. And unless a game is MP only, then we have to assume that there's always a percentage of sales that will never engage in the MP elements of the game. So it's not surprising that gamers are still spending most of their time in SP mode, because that's pretty much the only form of gaming that existed for the first half of the industry's existence. Given how Sony's first party games sell very well, and are SP-centric, it should indicate that there's still a very strong desire for gamers to engage in offline gameplay.

For me personally, other than Destiny and FIFA, I didn't care at all for online MP. I only did it in Shadowfall to complete the platinum trophy. It was fun, but I wouldn't have engaged in it otherwise.
 
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Thirty7ven

Banned
People comparing Xbox One and PS4 are forgetting the latter has a much much higher attach ratio.

Maybe your typical Xbox owner doesn’t understand that people on PlayStation buy a lot of games, and they don’t just buy First person shooters and the odd racing game.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I don’t know about Outer worlds but couldn't go further than 5 hours of Fallout 4.

Yeah regret buying that, felt like early PS3, and not the good ones more like PS2 remastered. Engine is just shit unlike Rage 2 which was a good engine.

Honestly Outer worlds is the best wrpg I've played in a long time. If you have a PC play it on that, I did not expect to love it as much as I did. I think it's the humor/writing that really shines in that game. I think Obsidian is going to become a more top tier WRPG developer than people think. I honestly think they are better at making games than Todd and his crew.

Nah, I won't play it even for free.
 

XXL

Member
This shouldn't be shocking.

Playstation gets extremely high quality exclusive single player games at a very consistent flow. This has carried on into the PS5 and doesn't look to be slowing up. 2021 is going to be the same scenario. This is why there is more interest in PS5 than Series X, you know what you're getting and they keep hitting them out the park consistently. This began mid way through the PS3 and hasn't stopped since. The only hiccup in the cycle was last gen at the launch of the PS4 (with decent but not great launch titles) and they corrected that mistake with the PS5 in a big way.
 

kuncol02

Banned
EA learned this with Fallen Order.

The market is saturated with multiplayer games these days, and the bigger ones have been around for years. People mostly keep to the multiplayer games they know, and it takes a special one to catch lightning in a bottle.

Big budget multiplayer games that fail, fail harder than any single player game does. Look at Anthem and Avengers, how much money was poured into these games?



Yet there’s more people playing MP on it than any other console.

Stay bitter.
Anthem and Avengers would probably fail as much as single player games. They are just not good.
 
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TrebleShot

Member
Sony and Nintendo are masters of their art and head and shoulders above in terms of quality of their games.

There isnt a single third party dev/publisher that has anything close to the quality of their output, whilst they are now honing and transitioning their game cycles into the next iteration (hoping for shorter, higher quality with immediate access games) the others still haven't been able to create anything that comes close to the base level they have established.

It will be another 5 - 10 years before anyone gets close and by then they will be on the 2nd or 3rd iteration from now.

In terms of MP they have alot to catch up on.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Sony leans heavy on SP games that isn’t a shot against MP games, if you’re truly a console you have them all, SONY is due a big AAA FPS game.
 

oagboghi2

Member
1+1 = 2 doesn't make sense to you?

If they are known for NOT making noteworthy multiplayer games it's really not that strange that players are playing more offline games. Otherwise they would've bought a Xbox with the superior online infrastructure.
No it doesn't. The majority of consumers don't care what company makes the game. People aren't going to think "well Sony made a multiplayer game so I have to play it."

Their is tons of multiplayer content on the PS. If the people are playing majority single player, than It is because single player content is what they want to consume.

"The problem with multiplayer gaming is it give's you infinite replayability"



Who want's to play online games with infinite replayability due to online player skill, outside of Madden and Tekken or CoD.



I wouldn't want to play MP gaming if I was stuck believing PS3 had a game that allowed 250 players to play together simultaneously either - particularly when in actuality it only allowed for a handful of player's to play together at a time, then loaded up and chauffeured players/forced them to wait in a room with another group of people forced to wait and with objective to resolve... while waiting for the next portion of the map/next group of player's to load.



Truth is, console gamer's wont ever genuinely enjoy MP gaming until it reaches exact parity with PC - which it should this gen; unless of course you want to play an amazing MP game of Starcraft 2 or something like Star Citizen/Elite Dangerous - that's the other part of the equation - controller's don't match mouse and keyboard/Flight Sticks for online gaming/Strategies/Massive MP games.



Until Console Gamer's get a proper taste of MP gaming without being subjugated to smaller level's, lower player count's, inferior graphic's to make multiplayer work, loading zones, inferior controls, inferior netcode, zero mod support, bad online communities, gameplay mechanics better suited to PC - while PC has non of the above issues and you can remain playing PC games on Ultra Setting's even during MP - they will continue playing single player game's and love it.



Meanwhile, I can easily play a MP game that jumps from First Person Shooter to Top Down RTS, to Isometric Dungeon Crawling online rpg - then easily grab my flight stick when it jump's into flight sim Space Flight without any hassle whatsoever.

No one cares. Go play fortnite



The PC crowd is becoming as insufferable as any console fanboy
 
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Anthem and Avengers would probably fail as much as single player games. They are just not good.

But would they really be the same quality if they were designed by single player games and made by studios who specialized in sp games?

Forcing every studio to make multiplayer GAAS games due to resorces allocation was what destroyed most of EA studios last gen.
 

GribbleGrunger

Dreams in Digital
As I've said many times before, a great singleplayer experience with good writing, great acting, interesting and exciting gameplay, will have an infinite shelf life. A great multiplayer game will more often than not have a relatively short shelf life.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
:messenger_tears_of_joy: I know

The same people jizzing their pants over Fable and Elder Scrolls 6.
What's that have to do with if the article which has zero evidence to back up the claim of more hour played on single player games than multiple player. Which makes zero sense when the average attach rate is around 10. That is around 2-2.5 games a year. Unless people think people play thier ps4 100 hours a year and pack it up. No they get a single player game or 2 with a rocket league, fifa, COD, fortnight, fall guys that they play most of the year online. This place is heavily biased most of us play single player games. It is like going to a northern Canadian forum asking for the best sport. When it comes back hockey assuming hockey is the most popular sport in the world when it is soccer. This is about an article where the numbers don't add up.
 

Moogle11

Banned
This is about an article where the numbers don't add up.

I think it's just reflective of the console base. Sony's strength in their first party games are cinematic, narrative-driven, single player games. So I wouldn't be surprised if most PS owners spend more time on SP games than MP games. Xbox has always been known more for online MP so I'm sure that base is spending more time online than PS gamers. Same with PC with the crazy hours people put into MMORPGs, MOBAs, shooters like counterstrike etc.
 

oagboghi2

Member
What's that have to do with if the article which has zero evidence to back up the claim of more hour played on single player games than multiple player. Which makes zero sense when the average attach rate is around 10. That is around 2-2.5 games a year. Unless people think people play thier ps4 100 hours a year and pack it up. No they get a single player game or 2 with a rocket league, fifa, COD, fortnight, fall guys that they play most of the year online. This place is heavily biased most of us play single player games. It is like going to a northern Canadian forum asking for the best sport. When it comes back hockey assuming hockey is the most popular sport in the world when it is soccer. This is about an article where the numbers don't add up.
Sigh...read the article.

Neither Sony or Vice are claiming people are playing PS4 100 hours a year or whatever nonsense you are claiming. What Sony's data is showing is that a significant chunk of their userbase is playing single player games, which we know because single player games sell a great deal more on playstation. That's why sales number matter, by the way Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes and that fact influenced how they designed some of the PS5 features, to better serve their audience.

Whether or not they play a multiplayer game is fucking irrelevant. That was never the point. if a playstation owner buys a single player game along with a multiplayer game, there is no guarantee they spend more time on that multiplayer game. You're making a lot of assumptions into what people are choosing to play
 

kuncol02

Banned
But would they really be the same quality if they were designed by single player games and made by studios who specialized in sp games?

Forcing every studio to make multiplayer GAAS games due to resorces allocation was what destroyed most of EA studios last gen.
Yes. They would be probably same quality. Their problems weren't caused by being GAAS but by being bad games. Core game loop of both is broken in it's core. Anthem as single player rpg wouldn't be better game, Look how bad Andromeda was.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Sigh...read the article.

Neither Sony or Vice are claiming people are playing PS4 100 hours a year or whatever nonsense you are claiming. What Sony's data is showing is that a significant chunk of their userbase is playing single player games, which we know because single player games sell a great deal more on playstation. That's why sales number matter, by the way Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes and that fact influenced how they designed some of the PS5 features, to better serve their audience.

Whether or not they play a multiplayer game is fucking irrelevant. That was never the point. if a playstation owner buys a single player game along with a multiplayer game, there is no guarantee they spend more time on that multiplayer game. You're making a lot of assumptions into what people are choosing to play

I believe the crux of the article was that Sony said their players spend more time on single player games than multiplayer games.

I don't think that's true. I'm skeptical of anyone who says "I saw the slide but I won't show it because it would reveal my source". I'm going to need to see that slide myself.

If PlayStation gamers were rabid for single player games we would see third party single player games sell significantly better on PS4 (when adjusted for install base). But we don't see that.

PlayStation gamers show similar behaviors to XBox gamers and PC gamers.
 
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