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[Hector Hall]

Told ya.

There was some kind of All-Windows or All-PC warfront creating just in front of Sony. Pc is PC, Magnus is PC, consolized handhelds are PC, Steam Machine is PC.

It would have been idiot to keep releasing tentpole games on PC with that looming horizon.

 

[Killer8]

You're misunderstanding his point.

Yes, Sony are making money releasing the games on Steam. But in the process they are also reducing reasons for people to buy a PlayStation. And if people don't buy into PlayStation, it makes it less likely for that person to invest in their ecosystem full stop. Exclusives get people through the door but Sony then make the money off the 30% cut on everything.

There is the old Phil Spencer quote about how every time they ship a game on PlayStation, Sony captures 30 percent of the revenue. Phil didn't actually grasp the sheer magnitude of how problematic releasing on other platforms is.

Yes, releasing on another platform is a problem because it means 30% of your revenue is lost to a rival company. But releasing on another platform is also a problem because it completely disincentivises people from buying into yours.



In the time since that quote was made, Xbox sales collapsed and now Microsoft are fully third party.

There's a big reason Nintendo is not fucking around with porting games or multiplatform because it fucks your value as a brand.

But the point of bringing up the Phil Spencer quote was that this thinking drove Microsoft to branch out in a more multi-platform direction and it ultimately ended up killing the brand. People stopped buying Xbox because you can just get it elsewhere. That is the risk here.

(Higher ups imposed that because they wanted to chase rapid short term profits at the expensive of long term longevity. A tale as old as time.)



That's revenue data for their own first-party releases. Let's say in an absolute best case scenario they consistently pulled that number yearly over the last 5 years (they didn't) = so i'll be generous and assume $3 billion, tops.

In the last 5 years on PS5 they pulled in revenue of $136 billion. People don't realize that Sony barely make their money off their own releases, it's from the cut they take for everything. There are nearly 4000 games released on PS5 and SIE have made, what, a couple of dozen?

Their PC numbers sound impressive on paper but it's pocket change in the grand scheme of things.

Exclusives are a gateway drug to get people into an ecosystem and spend money.



You're painting Nintendo as ignorant when it's the exact opposite. They're smart for protecting the long term health of their business.

Here's what happens if they start selling on other consoles:

- People slowly stop buying their hardware, because why bother? It's all on PC and PS5 now. This is especially pertinent for Nintendo, as they are one of the few companies who tend to make directly profitable hardware rather than selling it as a loss leader and making it up with software sales.
- As their hardware sales decline, people engage with and spend less on their ecosystem, resulting in the decline of online subs, microtransactions and their 30% cut from spending on third parties.
- Eventually once they've transitioned fully to a software company, hardware sales reach rock bottom (like Xbox), and they become completely third party, losing the entirety of those other highly lucrative revenue streams
- those hypothetical higher sales numbers which the investors pushed for (who are retards btw), now totally reliant on coming from other platforms, then fails to bring in nearly as much money than if they had just locked them down to their own platform

 

[duck_sauce]

What do you think?

Valve clearly want to move Steam into the living room, there are rumors of console-like SteamOS devices and Steam Deck 2 will arrive some day and SteamOS is on other handhelds, Steam will also be on future PC Xbox things if they ever launch.

There was already some PC vs console fighting within the gaming communities. And Steam is the main store on PC. Now that Xbox is dead, is The War simply Steam vs PlayStation now?

If so, do you think Sony will pull out of Steam with their PC ports?

If they already own the 150m or so traditional console market, do they even need to be on PC?

Or do you think they'll take on Steam head on with their own PC launcher and storefront?

Why does there have to be a war? They're simply two storefronts/ecosystems of video games. They can coexist.

 

[Radical_3d]

Why does there have to be a war? They're simply two storefronts/ecosystems of video games. They can coexist.

 

[vodka-bull]

It died 5 years ago.

Actually it got murdered on E3 2013.