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Will Sony find out?

Will PlayStation keep its size no matter what they do?

  • Total voters
    249
Radical_3d

Radical_3d

Member
Americans have a funny saying about doing something wrong and face the consequences of their actions. Xbox did found out in 2013, and when they bought Activlizzard, and then later found out that Netflix wasn't a viable business plan in this industry. Nintendo found that the casual customer of the Wii wasn't really loyal or returning. Nobody is above bad managing decisions. Will PlayStation be?
 
fuckaroundfindout-fuckaround.gif
 
Radical_3d said:
Americans have a funny saying about doing something wrong and face the consequences of their actions. Xbox did found out in 2013, and when they bought Activlizzard, and then later found out that Netflix wasn't a viable business plan in this industry. Nintendo found that the casual customer of the Wii wasn't really loyal or returning. Nobody is above bad managing decisions. Will PlayStation be?
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Sony will pay the price for the industry change that Steam made like 20 years ago??



Brady Bunch K GIF
 
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It depends who's going to be buying the majority of games in the next 10 years. I was playing online earlier and talking to someone in their 20s and they couldn't comprehend how this was a problem. Even though they were talking about currently playing and buying loads of PS3 games that they missed out on because they were too young, and they were buying mostly physical editions because digital editions were more expensive. Even mentioning the loss of digital films and TV, the closure of the PS3 store. It just wouldn't register. I must've been talking to a clinical moron, but this is the youth. It came down to, I only buy new games digital anyway so this doesn't affect me. So dumb.
 
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Radical_3d said:
Americans have a funny saying about doing something wrong and face the consequences of their actions. Xbox did found out in 2013, and when they bought Activlizzard, and then later found out that Netflix wasn't a viable business plan in this industry. Nintendo found that the casual customer of the Wii wasn't really loyal or returning. Nobody is above bad managing decisions. Will PlayStation be?
Click to expand...
What has Sony's "Fuck Around" been?

Also, Nintendo's failure with the WiiU was because they gave people no reason to switch from the Wii until they released the Switch. Their software (and to a certain extent, hardware)strategy has not changed at all. The WiiU platform was just a mistimed dud.
 
I don't think digital only matters.
That said, they've lost a lot of players this gen but because of their stupid strategies (like pc ports) and shitty games. They will be fine if they release good games regularly again. I have doubts.
 
Honestly, I'm a Fisical Fo'Ever YO guy, but I think Sony will be fine.

Especially if the other players do the same thing. They'll save pennies in the short run, and make us have to re-buy etc. in the long run.
 
Radical_3d said:
Nobody is above bad managing decisions. Will PlayStation be?
Click to expand...
The opening was created; all it takes is for a competitor to exploit it.
Sony is not the only producer of optical or solid-state media in the world.
Remember: never buy a game at full price this needs to be the mantra. it's as simple as that.
 
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Regionally yes. PlayStation's global brand is going to take a hit. More people will stick with prior gens. Some accountant probably churned out numbers that said this was a good idea.

Puts a big exclamation point on the worst PlayStation gen ever. You had a good run, Sony, but you fucked it all up
 
It will hurt them, but still be ok given Microsoft has made dumb choices as well, and Nintendo is in their own portable world.

You have GTA 6 fans foaming at the mouth to digitally pre-order the $100 version, and calling other people broke boys for daring to complain its anti-consumer.
 
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I mean they'll find out with continous rejections of their GAAS initiative and there will be some backlash to the extraordinarily high price of the PS6 and digital only.

But the price of the PS6(and other things) isn't their fault and I would *assume* they already know there's not a snowballs chance in Hell it'll get a hefty install base at that price line.

Not in this economy, there's absolutely no way. Inflation is causing many classes of people to be priced out of *life*, so a lot mainstream gamers are ass out at that price.

The digital only thing is basically Rockstar's enormous power to force an entire industry trend shift. We've already seen how quickly games shuffled around it before when even rumored dates existed.

They essentially just followed behind them, which is what I expected though not necessarily as quickly.
 
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They're just creating the perfect storm for their demise.

We're looking at:
  • $1000 console
  • $80 games
  • No physical option, giving them a monopoly on price setting
  • No ability to resell or trade your games
  • The closure of digital storefronts (just as their digital-only future is announced)
  • Purchased products being removed from people's digital libraries
Bear in mind, this is on the heels of objectively the absolute worst PlayStation generation in terms of game output and variety. Now, they've squandered every last ounce of goodwill they had developed with core gamers while likely pricing themselves out of the normie market.

I hope they fail. I'd rather see them leave the industry at this point.
 
Topher said:
Regionally yes. PlayStation's global brand is going to take a hit. More people will stick with prior gens. Some accountant probably churned out numbers that said this was a good idea.

Puts a big exclamation point on the worst PlayStation gen ever. You had a good run, Sony, but you fucked it all up
Click to expand...

Gen started with a failed live service push that resulted in prominent studios bought and closed.

Gen ends with the death of physical media, and 7 year dev cycles have become the norm.

I hate it here.
 
Yes but it won't because of physical media, lmfao, 90% of games are already sold digitally.

It will be because of high prices, and lack of value.
 
Yes, and when they do I have a gut feeling that they'll flip flop back on releasing their first party stuff on PC, maybe on its own storefront this time though.
 
GoldenEye98 said:
People talk as if Sony doesn't have any literal internal metrics on digital vs physical sales...
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Considering they never publish them, it's obvious they don't or the data doesn't support the official narrative.

Every time people defend the physical versus digital debate, they fall into the same fallacies as in the "gender inequity salary gap" by comparing apple versus oranges.
 
Need a little more definition of which "f-around" they're going to find out about... there are too many options.

I don't think it's the digital part.

I do think they'll eventually find out about the problem of shifting gaming to be more and more a Western mass media factory with movie aspirations and "diverse" games and devs who hate the actual player base. If that's their only vision -- and it's all they've shown us this generation -- then yes, they'll find their audience vanish, deservingly.
 
Radical_3d said:
Americans have a funny saying about doing something wrong and face the consequences of their actions. Xbox did found out in 2013, and when they bought Activlizzard, and then later found out that Netflix wasn't a viable business plan in this industry. Nintendo found that the casual customer of the Wii wasn't really loyal or returning. Nobody is above bad managing decisions. Will PlayStation be?
Click to expand...
The most important thing is that according to the insomniac leaks there's still an overall big portion of gamers buying physical. Less than 50% of total individual game sales were digital according to their own internal data - did 40% of gamers over a 3 year period suddenly go all digital?

Unless there's a real report that isn't trying to show me all digital revenue is beating physical from shit like Fortnite twerking emojis and long term digital sales of DmC being 5 dollars I'm just not understanding it.
 
MisterXDTV said:
Sony will pay the price for the industry change that Steam made like 20 years ago??
Click to expand...
Only way it works out the same way for them is if their next digital-only console has an open ecosystem. One of the key reasons that Steam has been successful is that they allow publishers to generate keys to sell elsewhere, where Valve gets 0% commission. This has been what's let sites like Humble Bundle and GreenManGaming thrive, and also why games are usually cheaper on websites that aren't Steam (maybe Humble only takes 10% instead of 30%, so you can discount your game an extra 20% and still make the same profit). Valve also knew they had to compete with other storefronts, because their customers were free to buy games elsewhere (physically at first, now from other digital storefronts).

Also - Steam has been around since 2004 but didn't really gain much popularity until 2009 when they implemented this policy. In 2010 there were only like 300 games on Steam. Even well into the mid 2010s you could still find physical PC releases, though more and more they started including Steam keys with their physical products because people demanded it.

Anyway - people think that Steam was invented, and suddenly all PC gamers just collectively shrugged and accepted it. But that's not how it happened at all, and the only reason we've arrived at where we are now is because of the insanely consumer-focused policies that Valve has put in place to get us here. Somehow, I have my doubts that PlayStation is going to be so generous.
 
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MisterXDTV said:
It's time for a reality check:

Please note that 2028 is a year and a half away

PS5 Game Sales (current trend)

image.png
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Yeah, probably by 2028 digital sales will be in the mid 90s. It sucks, but I know it was inevitable. Xbox sales were already mostly digital, now Nintendo are the only ones left in the physical media realm.
 
What will do Sony in is the combination of every retarded decision they made.

1. digital only
2. shitty exclusive lineup
3. ridiculously expensive console
4. paid online

We're simply at a breaking point here. If you have the choice between a $1000 console that doesn't even have physical games, has zero worthwhile exclusives and paid online on top of it all might as well just get a PC.

Sony pretty much pissed away every single advantage consoles had in the past.
 
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No. Even if they turn off some customers it is not enough to hurt them. They have crunched the numbers and will make more money only offering digital and controlling the prices to their advantage. Plus they kill off the reselling market too.
 
They're throwing away one of the main reasons why people still prefer console gaming. So yes, they will find out. How much they find out remains to be seen.
 
Btw, there's a high chance this was also brought by the rising costs of hardware. Sony said they wanted to compensate by "making use of their existing playerbase", and destroying the used market - as well as removing disk printing costs - is one way to do it.

So they might've announced so bluntly like this as a way to appease shareholders.
 
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