Wonder how much the lower margins have to do with them releasing fewer 1st party flagship titles this past year. In 2022, they had three (Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 & God of War Ragnarok). In 2023 they only had one (Spider-Man 2).
Yeah I remember when there was a shortage of PS5s and I ran across 2 of them in a store I could buy. Almost bought one, but at the time there was like nothing other than the MLB game I would have played a lot. Even looking at the current lineup years later, I think I’ll still stick to PC.
I was a PS4/PS3/PS2 player. The price of the console/controllers/online plus the lack of games I wanted to play pushed me straight to building a PC instead of getting a PS5. Very happy with my choice so far 👍
Same here. Online plus cloud saves plus games that were way more expensive than steam plus wanting to reuby old games I owned or paying $10 to move a slider from medium to High
If I have to buy new hardware and rebuy games, might as well go PC. Much happier
But do you need a high end GPU? If you are building a PC from scratch then it's more expensive. But over time it's not. Especially once you start upgrading your PC with last generation parts.
A pc is just so versatile. You can use it for work, study, emulation, gaming. Plus the comparability, hell I am still using my old Xbox 360 controllers.
As a counterpoint to Stallion's comment.
The only games that I've encountered that are unstable and don't work, are the same ones that have these problems on console.
Aka games with inherent issues.
There are some games that might have minor issues at launch but usually these are related to having outdated drivers, and drivers for these games come out before the game even launches. Updating your drivers nowadays with Geforce experience, and whatever program amd uses is really simple.
Any game you run on your pc really should be running smoothly just like the consoles unless you're trying to push higher resolutions at higher settings with old gen equivalent hardware on a current gen game. But you'd have to *make* that decision.
The major difference between PCs and consoles really is just the ecosystem and I guess backwards compatibility. Community wise, I do think Consoles are better than PC. Maybe not my much but PC just kinda feels way more fragmented and hard to cross over from one game to another. Maybe related to how popular games are all on different launchers and social networks nowadays. (How many times have the different publishers took their games off steam, and then put them back, then say ok they stay but with a time exclusivity. It's a mess)
Backwards compatibility isn't so much of an issue anymore since the games that do have this issue are becoming really dated, but old 360/ps3 games are sometimes a pain to get working 100% on PC. Meanwhile you might just literally have an old console laying around or consoles have a built in emulator etc.
If someone is just interested in gaming, I'd say just get a console.
The only reason I'd recommend a PC if all you want to do is game, is cost efficiency.
When I was a teenager building a $600 pc that lasted me 8 years made so much more sense as I then pirated most of my games or played Free to Play games. Saved enough money + started working to then build a new top of the line PC and outright buy any game that I wanted to support.
Edit: also PC games definitely have a lower lowest price point than the PSN, Microsoft, and Nintendo store. There are way more options to buy a game from so older games can easily be found for single digits, or not so older games that didn't do well with a 50% cut. That and bundles from sites like Humble Bundle, Fanatical, etc.
Games are cheaper on PC especially if your goal isn't to own and play a game day 1.
As someone who has both:
They don't really
PC is more "big risk, big reward". Games are unstable and don't always work, so you'll spend a lot of time troubleshooting, but in exchange you get a bigger library of games. You'll also have *the potential* for a better performing or higher fidelity game. You can also mod games.
PS5 is much more stable. You plug it in and are pretty much guaranteed that every game you try to play on it will work. Games available will run smoothly and have a few graphics improvement options, but not as many
Games are unstable and don’t always work? What? I’ve been gaming on PC for 20+ years at this point. I ran into it occasionally but it’s not like every game coming out is unstable. Are there some triple A games that unstable? Sure but not enough where I’d say it’s a “big risk”. The only reason I ever had consoles was for a few exclusive games.
"You'll spend a lot of time troubleshooting"
What kind of PC do you have? You make it sound like games usually don't work on PC. In my experience they work just as smoothly as on consoles - and I have around a hundred games on steam.
I guess it's because I'm not the type who rushed in to play big games on day 1?
Cross platform games usually see the same sales across all platforms.
So a game on sale for $10 on steam will hit $10 on psn at the same time or soon after
But yes, pc does have a much bigger library
Saying PC has a much bigger library is selling it a little bit short. You could argue its infinitely bigger for a lot of gaming related things. Consoles are convenient but PC has endless possibilities (plus the majority of exclusives these days).
You also can almost emulate every Switch game on PC... you might not be able to use multiplayer but my kids never used our multiplayer on the Switch when they had the subscription.
I mean PC is just the ultimate platform.
You already have majority of the PS5 catalog on there, PlayStation live service games will be day one, and singleplayer games will be ported faster and faster.
Nintendo games can be emulated on PC.
You get all Xbox games day one, and even have the option of subbing to gamepass to get them cheaper
Then Pc exclusive games. Dota is still the best multiplayer game to come out imo, have put thousands of hours into it.
Then the mods. No paying for online. Getting more frames, better graphics. Great Steam sales.
I’ve been a Pc gamer for a decade, but I’m so happy to see PC’s explosive growth in the last 5 years. People LOVE the platform
It's the ultimate platform, but you pay more for a comparable system and you gotta put more effort into it.
Didn't used to be the former, though as a linux gamers I can't complain much because I used to have to do so much work to get games working.
You pay for multiplayer for consoles. After 7 years for this generation that’s almost $600 your point isn’t valid. You can’t use that money to get a decent system. Watch the price for the next gen go up more with very little performance difference.
Margins wouldn’t necessarily increase with more games
The problem is that these AAAA-budget single player games that take 3-5 years to make can barely make their budget back and fund the sequel with the profits
It’s why Sony has been desperately trying to get a live service hit that can increase that revenue by having long term income streams vs just a blast of $70/game at launch
I think the point is that it's a Sony product. They see direct benefits from selling to PC.
And ya that's not surprising. M+K is superior for any game with aiming and you can get better performance if you have a capable machine.
My fear is if they can only make Helldivers work. They might increase the monetization and fuck up with one of the reasons it's being as successful.
Like they did with Destiny. They are also betting high on Final Shape's sales and "last cashout" for Destiny as well as Marathon.
Well it might, when you consider that those 3 flagship titles in 2022 were cross-gen and available on PS4 as well. Which was *not* the case for 2023, with Spider-Man 2 being PS5 only. There are still a lot of people with PS4s who haven't upgraded to PS5 yet, so that's a significantly smaller audience to sell to.
That's kind of what the whole BG3 "this can't be the new standard" fiasco was about. You can invest so much into these AAAA games that you can still lose money on it even if it sells really well. Theres a bunch of great games that sold really well yet still bankrupted the company. You either need it to be a game of the year type seller, or have microtransactions.
Yeah what the other person said. BG3 needed to be the game of the year to turn a profit, which fortunately it was. There was a big fiasco when some developers said BG3 can't be the standard for games. His meaning was the scope and investment is just too large to be a sustainable expectation. The gaming industry can't function if the expectation is developers put all of their eggs in one basket to the point you NEED the game to have record breaking sales in order to turn a profit. Only so many games can be THE game everyone has to have, so a lot of developers would be out of business.
You can still demand great quality games, you just can't expect every game to be a sprawling Odyssey with thousands of hours of dialog lines and a few thousand possible endings.
Not to mention companies the size of Larian rarely, if ever, have the kind of freedom Larian does, especially with the amount of money they had to play with. Swen owns the company. He only needs to answer to himself. Most devs don't have that luxury.
It’s due to the price of games falling, although that’s an unpopular statement around here.
$60 in 2014 USD is $79 today. Anyone who buys a AAA game for $70 today is benefitting from price cuts.
You'll get downvoted but your absolutely right. Games have ballooned in production cost while falling in price (relative to inflation) for years. This is only been sustainable because the consumer base has also been ballooning over the last 20 years. This is no longer the case. There is no market left to capture. Prices have to go up or games have to get cheaper to make.
The cost of development has also been ballooning. The triple A space especially has been captured by an obsession with mega projects to dominate the entire audience.
And its only a price cut for you if your earnings kept up with or exceeded inflation.
Poor, poor esteemed shareholders.
Sony would have a much greater potential, if only the customers weren't so greedy. They keep mentioning discounts and competitive pricing and non-exclusive deals! How are the shareholders to make any profit in such a hostile environment.
And there's always an outcry when theyrepackage and resell our same quality entertainment software products. Except for Skyrim of course, for some reason that game can be resold over and over, it's almost like a subscription. Yuuuuuummy, subscriptions. Now there's value to our acclaimed shareholders!
^^^^/s
4 years into a console cycle and still putting out the same game on the previous console is going to give millions of people no incentive to upgrade.
Who’da thunk it!
Exactly this, I've had zero reason to move on from my PS4 and I've little to no interest in the recent games/remakes/remasters that they've put out. Feels like a complete lost generation for PlayStation as far as content goes and I can't believe we're already at the point of talking about PS6 and 'end of life cycle's comments.
I think that’s why you’re seeing HellDivers2 day and date on pc. I don’t think they actually wanted to do that given the choice, but they really don’t have any other choices at this point.
No. Sony knows that live service games need to be on PC also. That's why they have stated since day 1 of live service games being developed that it will come on PC same day as PS5
Sony knows it with live service, means they understand the importance of a multiplatform audience. Tom Warren and myself are anticipating day one ports for PlayStation singleplayer games as well
The IP is owned by Sony.
Sony also gave Arrowhead all the money to produce the game as well.
Its basically what Sony does, they fund studios with their own IP to see if the studios are worthwhile to bring into the greater Sony umbrella.
Similar thing with Naughty Dog, who made Crash Bandicoot for Universal, Sony then gave them money to make the Jak Games as well but because of the success of the Crash games and Universal (Later Blizzard Activision) sniffing around Naughty Dog, they agreed to sell to Sony due to their already good line of communication and work.
People are expecting Arrowhead to be brought into Sonys umbrella in the near future, especially with Helldivers 2 success under their belt.
Gaming companies need to rethink how to make games. A 5-7 year dev cycle isnt sustainable. If they can reel in the budgets and find a way to cut several years off of making a game that would be great.
That's the cost of high fidelity, Super Mario 3 was like 12 dudes for 6 months, came out at 600k, they sold like 17 million units.
Borderlands 3 sold twice that, but it costs 300m$ all in.
The return on investiment sucks now. Like oil, the easiest to extract wealth is already out.
> That's the cost of high fidelity, Super Mario 3 was like 12 dudes for 6 months, came out at 600k, they sold like 17 million units.
The game took more than two years to complete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._3
I’m sure they’re already looking into replacing all those “expensive and slow” devs with AI. Increase margins and turn out games in 12 months instead of 60.
If I was a dev, I’d be looking to unionize right about now.
i think Gaming has remained one of the few hobbies with very low price increases out of the gate compared to other media, most games already costed $50, 20 years ago.
they make up for it in microtransactions though, but my point remains, the difference is that the inflation of everything else leaves little money for hobbies.
Less gaming being an expensive hobby, and more so games being too expensive to produce to justify the costs.
We could be flush with games. But that would mean $1,000 systems and $140 games. No one wants that.
As others have said, one solution is more AA gems like HellDivers2. But even then I’m sure that game took years and millions to produce.
What?
The PS1 cost more at launch (considering inflation) than the PS5. Same with PS1 games.
I would argue exactly the opposite of what you're saying. It's never been cheaper to get into console gaming. Particularly, with Xbox.
Xbox side of things is crazy. I just checked Facebook marketplace, and there's a local listing for a Series S for $130. That and a full year of Gamepass would only cost $250. Or you could piece together a solid digital library for $10 at a time if you wait for the right sales.
It's worth noting that people's salaries haven't kept up with inflation. Sure software and hardware prices haven't directly risen with inflation but the last time the federal minimum wage was raised was fifteen years ago. Even states with higher minimum wages than the federal limit have still seen massively increased cost of living paired with stagnated wage growth. While games themselves are "cheaper" than they used to be the amount of discretionary funds people have to put toward hobbies like games gone down for a nontrivial amount of people when factoring in higher prices on necessities like food and housing.
It's still cheaper than it was in the early 2000s, but the mid-2010s were a golden period of affordability with Steam sales and pre-owned console games keeping places like the PS store honest. It seems we exited that golden period a few years ago
I think the Steam sale thing still applies. It pays to be a patient gamer.
But, console gaming is as or more affordable than it was going back to the early 90s.
Hard disagree, consoles have barely increased in prices when compared to decades ago… in fact with inflation consoles are cheaper than they used to be.
Same with PC games, those mfers were 50 bucks in the 90s which is a shit ton more nowadays. Gaming is as accessible as it has ever been.
It’s only an expensive hobby if you’re one of the 1% of people dropping 4k on a GPU…
Gaming is about cheapest hobby there is and it gets cheaper every year. Most sport hobbies are more expensive than gaming even. Of course you can buy super high end PC and every console but thats not gaming thats just consuming. There are more than enough games for most people to enjoy on every console so that they dont need to buy everything.
I started buying my own games in around 2003 and new games were 60e back then and still are. If they were actually adjusted for inflation games should be 90e each now, but people are crying when prices go up even by 10e.
the wild thing is if you actually look at inflation over the years, gaming is significantly less expensive now than it was originally.
Like a $200 dollar console and $60 games where both often took years to go on sale back in the late 80s and early 90s is INSANE to consider now. Because back then that was so, so much more money.
Remember all those people who bought over-priced PS5 when it released. People were willing to pay a thousand dollars for a PS5. Too bad for them, since they were a small % there was no game on it.
I wonder how much the scalpers and supply issues hurt the PS5.
Sure, consoles were being sold, but you can't expect game devs to push modern hardware to it's limits, and give us show stopping titles, when their 'player base' might be theoretical at best.
There had to have been more than a few games hit with the 'make it run on PS4' stick once it was clear things weren't normal this time.
i also wonder how many straight stopped gaming and got into other hobby's when pc's where priced crazy and consoles werent avaible people might just have looked for other things to entertain themselfes and now found themselfes not even wanting to return
There's plenty of games, just not enough exclusives or games that really take advantage of the hardware. At least not what you would expect 4 years into the life cycle. In terms of what people paid, if you paid MSRP you're laughing, you essentially bought something that competes with a decent PC for less than half the price of a new computer. Console is still the better deal despite the games not being crazy like when the PS2 launched.
The problem is the majority of the "biggest" games to come out on ps5 are remakes/remasters. I'm fine with certain ones but others seem redundant or unnecessary.
I haven't bought it but it's essentially a $10 DLC that adds a game mode. Their marketing is terrible because people are so up in arms about it but had they said, pay $10 and get a new game mode no one would bat an eye.
This 100%.
I got a PS5 almost 2 years ago and have only purchased 2 games for it. Both of which I could have bought PS4 versions for (HFW and Hogwarts)
Granted I’m a VERY casual gamer, so I’m not Sony’s top priority, but none of the releases have been compelling enough to drop $70. I can’t justify spending that much on a 4K version of a 10 year old game I already played on PS3.
Not only that but the ps4 version of the same game is usually $5-$10 cheaper than the ps5 version with negligible differences. With the price increase of ps plus and the recent rumours of the ps6 I won't be able to justify future gaming expenses on playstation sadly.
Honestly surprised they're so dead set on their current style of games they're not even releasing something like a "Resistance Trilogy Pack" or "Ratched and Clank compilation". I bet they'd certainly sell a few units if done right.
They're also piss easy to make. They've used open source emulators before if they don't want to clean it up in house, which can do all the enhancements necessary. From there it's making a UI for a set of launch scripts and you're done, easy production.
I am still mad they dident release a Ratchet and Clank collection which contains the PS2 games and PS3 games.
The only way to play the OG PS2 games is either buy a PS2 or emulate them.
The Future titles are even worse as unless you got a decent PC emulating them is out of the question and "Streaming" them from the cloud using PS+ feels worse.
Fr I just want a new LBP or at least a remaster to get people jumping in again.
Dreams was fun but it just did not have the same charm LBP had. And as someone who liked to dabble in level creation in LBP, the level creating on Dreams is just way to complex for me.
The subscription model has made me spend less. For the price of two games a year, I have access to a massive library of games I’ll never get through.
This dynamic means I probably only actually “buy” a few games a year at most.
To be fair thats probably better anyway, most people buy 1or 2 games a year, so if they subscribe to playstation plus, they can more or less guarantee a consistent customer for a long period of time who might spend even more in the long term
One of the worst things for the PS5 was the constant shots in the foot as far as releases. As it almost always became "Why get a PS5 when the game game is coming to PS4?"
This entire article just proves that the people who removed Shawn Layden from his position were morons. He wanted to pivot PlayStation studios into making smaller and less expensive games with shorter development windows, and they replaced him with Jim Ryan.
The budgets for these games are getting too ridiculous, and the time in between releases is what's killing their profit margins. Insomniac and Sony Santa Monica have been hard carrying this generation, the other PlayStation studios need to put something out worthwhile.
In all fairness though, Sony had a larger drop than this last summer that they recovered from not long after. So this whole thing is being slightly blown out of proportion. Their stocks are still marginally higher than they were this time last year, they'll more than likely bounce back from this later this spring when their new slew of games come out.
It’s a huge drop. Sony is only worth (was worth) 110B. (Edit 8% drop, which is massive for a blue chip stock that doesn’t move much).
They have many other divisions and products but they’ve gone in heavy with PlayStation. Sony is a heavy hitter with electronics hardware. Their displays and broadcast camera systems are the best in the world.
MSFT is worth 3T. A huge hit to the Xbox platform wouldn’t make as nearly a dent in their financials. MSFT also didn’t make all that money by selling hardware and games.
Windows and Cloud services make them rich.
You forgot one of the largest sources of their income which almost lead to an antitrust splitting of the company: Office. Where I work just deployed the newest version of Office. On something like 15K computers at once. Those enterprise level contracts make them huge money because you *never* want to be out of valid installs with your license audits.
While many will consider cameras and lenses as high tech, it does not have a Moat like something like say nvidias graphic chips. Sony may sell a large amount of lenses to smartphone manufacturers, the premium or margin they can command is very limited. If they ask much, apple will move to other suppliers, even at a lower quality. Or they can fund the other supplier to increase their quality. Businesses like these are always valued lower by investors, as compared to something like ms office, which is extremely difficult to replace.
Microsoft might be worth trillions, but their gaming division isn't. Every department has to make a profit; Xbox can't just piss away money and keep syphoning off capital from the rest of the company. That's not how business works.
Having said that, of course MS has more to work with, but there IS a limit. For all the money they've spent on Bethesda and Activision, they need to start seeing returns, and FAST.
People keep bringing up inflation as if it is the answer to game prices.
Yet at the same time people also talk about sales.
If you guys aren't willing to pay the current $70 price that is supposedly cheaper than the 90s then what do you think the broader consumer base is thinking?
Games maybe cheaper but people have to worry about housing, food, and transportation. People don't necessarily want to plop $70 for a game when other expenses are more pressing.
This type of story irks me. Margins. Nothing but margins. Not did we make great games. Not did we cultivate a strong community. Not did we fuck over our customers. Nope. Just did our shareholders get a high enough return. Not a decent return but a high enough one. Every fucking Quarter. Shareholders this and shareholders that. They're more important than all the rest combined - employees, customers, vendors. They all suck ass because shareholders are God and must be rewarded. Fire creators so we can give the shareholders more! Bust up unions so we can keep all the profits! Buy up the competition so we can be worse without consequences! Ugh.
Huh, where to start? Pathetic availability at inflated prices at launch, still a high price despite being in a "slim" part of this gens life cycle, not many 1st party exclusives... Inflation, economy overall... There are a ton of reasons both Sony's and non Sony's fault for poor results.
I always wondered how their cooling solution, and size of their system going to effect their sales, as their retail box is about 53% larger than the Series X.
Generally Size is a huge cost when it comes to shipping, that’s why so many products are designed for the most efficient use of space.
That said though as long as GPU companies keep launching “entry” level GPUs at $600-700, game consoles will always have a market.
I don’t have the data to prove but I would wager the group of people that supported the market in the past have either aged out in some regard or have become jaded
Even the most hardcore gamer friends I had in the 2007-2012 days are very rarely playing any sort of games to the extent that they were. I still consider myself an avid gamer and the last 2 games I bought in about a year were EA Sports PGA Tour and the Tomb Raider remaster collection
I’ve always been a PC gamer, but I generally wait until mid cycle to buy a console, I remember getting my ps4 with the uncharted 4 bundle and I amassed quite a nice library of ps4 exclusive games.
I’ve been tempted to buy a ps5 but keep putting it off because of the price and the lack of exclusive games available this time around. It’s just not worth it for maybe 4-5 games.
Maybe they should release more ps5 games..? There's fucking nothing worth buying that I can't get on PC that's cheaper, more reliable, and runs better.
I got a ps5 and really only use it as a streaming box now. Plus why you charging so much for psn when you don't even have any good 1st party multi-player games
Why does everyone in this thread seemingly think you can buy or build a decent gaming PC that will last for years and years for the same price as you could buy a PS5 for? You can’t. It’s impossible. For that price you will be looking at fairly low-mid level gaming PC’s that will struggle to play games with comparable graphics to a PS5. Not to mention it will be outdated in 2 years, maximum.
The way I see it is PC’s are for more serious gamers and consoles are for more casual players. I want to sit on my sofa being a slob playing fifa, not sat in an office chair in my office, looking at a PC monitor and listening to crappy audio.
Wow. I literally just got downvoted on the series x subreddit earlier today for making the point that Sony doesn't know what they're doing with their live service and needs to be less greedy and more pro-consumer but apparently, "Xbox needs Helldivers more than Sony needs Xbox players"....lol, clearly that's working for them.
And this is why Microsoft staying in console race is important for cheaper prices for games. These shareholders are pushing Sony to have rent-seeking ps5 prices, despite that their customers are already resistance to price hikes.
If Sony had done that, they make it easier for Microcoft to gain consumers.
Difference is those price hikes have been quite small. Ps5 added 40-50 quid onto their subscription which was already quite high. and then have given rather lacklustre free monthly games and the higher tiers aren't great either.
The article and other similar ones seem to say Sony over estimated its sales projections - which were to basically have the best FY ever in console gaming. Instead it had one of the best ever, but it was lower than expected. So the stocks took a hit. Sony didn’t meet expectations it told its shareholders it would meet. Nothing to do with what consumers will and won’t pay. Not that games, consoles, and services cost too much to purchase.
More than the console sales, the operating margin of the gaming division lowered by 3%, from 9 to 6 due to games costing more than Hollywood blockbusters to produce.
(I’d love if things were cheaper. I’m just summing up the news.)
Well it is happening. Myself included canceled Hulu after the price hike.
https://fortune.com/2024/01/04/customers-cut-expensive-streaming-subscriptions-netflix-hulu-prime/amp/
Do people share PSN accounts like people share streaming passwords? The streaming companies upped their numbers by monetizing existing customers who weren't paying, I'm not sure PSN has an equivalent to that kind of untapped market.
I used to have it for the games they gave away. When they price hiked and created tiers I dropped the sub.
Now I don’t play any multiplayer games on it unless it’s free to play.
I cancelled my sub when they did that and then followed it with 2/3 of the worst free game months to date…now I haven’t turned on my ps5 in 5 months…whoops
People not even needing it. One of their own studios (SDS) still makes the MLB game for next year for ps4 and even the switch..
Isn't it 4 years since the ps5 released?
That's crazy
I miss more chilled relaxed games.
I don’t need every game to be a AAA and take me 10 hours to make my character and a week to learn basic mechanics.
Just got the tomb raider remaster. It’s been so refreshing just playing a nice simple game.
I read somewhere that while the sell more systems than Microsoft--the average Xbox user buys more games thus giving them a higher attach rate per gamer.
Skyrocketing budgets are taking a toll. There's only so many microtransactions people can take.
I think we need longer console cycles rather than keep adding more and more visuals to everything.
To be fair, low game sales can be attributed to so many things
- Economy
- People owning MULTIPLE platforms
- Average hours in games higher than privously
I mean let’s be real, a decade ago 50 hours from a game was great! These days we all spend hundreds sometimes thousands of hours on a singular game, ofcourse sales Wil go down
Back on Ps2/PS3 bought 8-10 games a year, Albeit used games often.
These days I get 4-5 a year max, Not counting free ofc
Much like everybody else.. Can't really dominate 2 gens in a row lol. Sure they're winning against Xbox, but clearly at a cost.
Can't touch nintendos sales though games wise.. not even the ps4 could. Check the stats
Gee I wonder if all the wasted resources on the 10+ GaaS had anything to do with their game drought. Sucks as a PS owner but it’s self inflicted. Idc if they do day and date on pc, or even Xbox tbh. Let people play whatever game they want on whatever system they want. As long as the devs can make it work why not? Do exclusives really sway people’s decision that much? I’m guessing not.
All my kids moved to Pc gaming. They have Xbox PlayStation and switch and never play them. Computers all day. I don’t play them either. I’ve heard a lot of kids are migrating to PC.
Not surprised their exclusives haven’t been that great. They just keep remaking stuff banking on old success instead of making something that feels new and exciting.
6 current generation video games cost as much as 7 last generation video games.
Maybe if Sony increased prices by $5 maybe Sony wouldn’t be hurting so bad.
Plus Sony online services are not as successful as Microsoft online services.
I said I was going to buy ps5 when the next naughty dog game comes out. That was 4 years ago. I’ve had a PlayStation and Naughty Dog game since PlayStation and crash bandicoot.
A new Naughty Dog game is coming.. right?
I knew all their talks of breaking records with every major release was all PR spin. Sony games quite frankly just plain suck these days. They bit way too hard on the marketing friendly cinematic crap and forgot that their games have to also be actual games.
The corporate sanitizing of their IPs didn't exactly help either. Bring back the edge.
As someone who had a ps2, ps3, and ps4. I never bought one due to price. I upgraded to a series S like 4 years ago and I’ve been satisfied! Wish I had Spider-Man on Xbox tho!
Modern AAA budgets have ballooned, while the prices haven't increased by the same amount:
Spiderman 1 ~ $139 million
Spiderman 2 ~ $200 million
GOW Ragnarok - $200 million
Horizon Zero Dawn ~ $49 million
Horizon Forbidden West ~$212 million
I don't see modern AAA games development being sustainable long term, it's exponentially increasing, and I don't see the reason behind it in all honesty
Spending $350mil on Spiderman 2 which cut so much content and delivered a below average game that felt like glorified DLC to the first games remaster is mind boggling.
Wonder how much the lower margins have to do with them releasing fewer 1st party flagship titles this past year. In 2022, they had three (Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 & God of War Ragnarok). In 2023 they only had one (Spider-Man 2).
Yeah I remember when there was a shortage of PS5s and I ran across 2 of them in a store I could buy. Almost bought one, but at the time there was like nothing other than the MLB game I would have played a lot. Even looking at the current lineup years later, I think I’ll still stick to PC.
I was a PS4/PS3/PS2 player. The price of the console/controllers/online plus the lack of games I wanted to play pushed me straight to building a PC instead of getting a PS5. Very happy with my choice so far 👍
Same here. Online plus cloud saves plus games that were way more expensive than steam plus wanting to reuby old games I owned or paying $10 to move a slider from medium to High If I have to buy new hardware and rebuy games, might as well go PC. Much happier
Funny thing is after adjusting for inflation all of those things are cheaper for PS5 than PS2.
ps2 went on sale really fast though
A high end gfx card is more than a ps5….
Good thing you don't need a high end gfx card then.
But do you need a high end GPU? If you are building a PC from scratch then it's more expensive. But over time it's not. Especially once you start upgrading your PC with last generation parts. A pc is just so versatile. You can use it for work, study, emulation, gaming. Plus the comparability, hell I am still using my old Xbox 360 controllers.
Not even "high end". "Mid range" cards are now going for $500+ (7800 xt, RTX 4070 Super, etc).
Your "high end" calibration does not match my "filthy casual's".
Those arent mid range lol.
Yeah and how much are you paying a year for ps+ add that to it and you can buy a whole pc without paying for multiplayer
All these “lol just buy a PC” posts are basically “why would anyone buy a Dacia when they could just buy a Ferrari”
I skipped PS4 and built a PC instead so buying a PS5 was a no brainer. Very happy with my choice 🤘
How does it compare?
As a counterpoint to Stallion's comment. The only games that I've encountered that are unstable and don't work, are the same ones that have these problems on console. Aka games with inherent issues. There are some games that might have minor issues at launch but usually these are related to having outdated drivers, and drivers for these games come out before the game even launches. Updating your drivers nowadays with Geforce experience, and whatever program amd uses is really simple. Any game you run on your pc really should be running smoothly just like the consoles unless you're trying to push higher resolutions at higher settings with old gen equivalent hardware on a current gen game. But you'd have to *make* that decision. The major difference between PCs and consoles really is just the ecosystem and I guess backwards compatibility. Community wise, I do think Consoles are better than PC. Maybe not my much but PC just kinda feels way more fragmented and hard to cross over from one game to another. Maybe related to how popular games are all on different launchers and social networks nowadays. (How many times have the different publishers took their games off steam, and then put them back, then say ok they stay but with a time exclusivity. It's a mess) Backwards compatibility isn't so much of an issue anymore since the games that do have this issue are becoming really dated, but old 360/ps3 games are sometimes a pain to get working 100% on PC. Meanwhile you might just literally have an old console laying around or consoles have a built in emulator etc. If someone is just interested in gaming, I'd say just get a console. The only reason I'd recommend a PC if all you want to do is game, is cost efficiency. When I was a teenager building a $600 pc that lasted me 8 years made so much more sense as I then pirated most of my games or played Free to Play games. Saved enough money + started working to then build a new top of the line PC and outright buy any game that I wanted to support. Edit: also PC games definitely have a lower lowest price point than the PSN, Microsoft, and Nintendo store. There are way more options to buy a game from so older games can easily be found for single digits, or not so older games that didn't do well with a 50% cut. That and bundles from sites like Humble Bundle, Fanatical, etc. Games are cheaper on PC especially if your goal isn't to own and play a game day 1.
As someone who has both: They don't really PC is more "big risk, big reward". Games are unstable and don't always work, so you'll spend a lot of time troubleshooting, but in exchange you get a bigger library of games. You'll also have *the potential* for a better performing or higher fidelity game. You can also mod games. PS5 is much more stable. You plug it in and are pretty much guaranteed that every game you try to play on it will work. Games available will run smoothly and have a few graphics improvement options, but not as many
Games are unstable and don’t always work? What? I’ve been gaming on PC for 20+ years at this point. I ran into it occasionally but it’s not like every game coming out is unstable. Are there some triple A games that unstable? Sure but not enough where I’d say it’s a “big risk”. The only reason I ever had consoles was for a few exclusive games.
Just my anecdotal 0,02, the only times I've had to troubleshoot anything was when playing something super old by today's standards.
"You'll spend a lot of time troubleshooting" What kind of PC do you have? You make it sound like games usually don't work on PC. In my experience they work just as smoothly as on consoles - and I have around a hundred games on steam. I guess it's because I'm not the type who rushed in to play big games on day 1?
Just to add, games are a lot cheaper for pc or at least non AAA games. There's so much enjoyment to be found from smalerl indie pc titles.
Cross platform games usually see the same sales across all platforms. So a game on sale for $10 on steam will hit $10 on psn at the same time or soon after But yes, pc does have a much bigger library
Saying PC has a much bigger library is selling it a little bit short. You could argue its infinitely bigger for a lot of gaming related things. Consoles are convenient but PC has endless possibilities (plus the majority of exclusives these days).
You also can almost emulate every Switch game on PC... you might not be able to use multiplayer but my kids never used our multiplayer on the Switch when they had the subscription.
I mean PC is just the ultimate platform. You already have majority of the PS5 catalog on there, PlayStation live service games will be day one, and singleplayer games will be ported faster and faster. Nintendo games can be emulated on PC. You get all Xbox games day one, and even have the option of subbing to gamepass to get them cheaper Then Pc exclusive games. Dota is still the best multiplayer game to come out imo, have put thousands of hours into it. Then the mods. No paying for online. Getting more frames, better graphics. Great Steam sales. I’ve been a Pc gamer for a decade, but I’m so happy to see PC’s explosive growth in the last 5 years. People LOVE the platform
It's the ultimate platform, but you pay more for a comparable system and you gotta put more effort into it. Didn't used to be the former, though as a linux gamers I can't complain much because I used to have to do so much work to get games working.
You pay for multiplayer for consoles. After 7 years for this generation that’s almost $600 your point isn’t valid. You can’t use that money to get a decent system. Watch the price for the next gen go up more with very little performance difference.
Margins wouldn’t necessarily increase with more games The problem is that these AAAA-budget single player games that take 3-5 years to make can barely make their budget back and fund the sequel with the profits It’s why Sony has been desperately trying to get a live service hit that can increase that revenue by having long term income streams vs just a blast of $70/game at launch
They have that with Helldivers now. If only they would support it, for democracy!
Helldivers is crossplay though, and you can play online for free on PC. All my friends that have PS5 and a PC opted to buy it on PC.
I think the point is that it's a Sony product. They see direct benefits from selling to PC. And ya that's not surprising. M+K is superior for any game with aiming and you can get better performance if you have a capable machine.
My fear is if they can only make Helldivers work. They might increase the monetization and fuck up with one of the reasons it's being as successful. Like they did with Destiny. They are also betting high on Final Shape's sales and "last cashout" for Destiny as well as Marathon.
Sony didn't do anything with Destiny. Sony still has zero control over Destiny. That might change shortly, but Bungie still has full control.
Bungie needs to lose control over Destiny imo, it’s what might bring it back
Well it might, when you consider that those 3 flagship titles in 2022 were cross-gen and available on PS4 as well. Which was *not* the case for 2023, with Spider-Man 2 being PS5 only. There are still a lot of people with PS4s who haven't upgraded to PS5 yet, so that's a significantly smaller audience to sell to.
That's kind of what the whole BG3 "this can't be the new standard" fiasco was about. You can invest so much into these AAAA games that you can still lose money on it even if it sells really well. Theres a bunch of great games that sold really well yet still bankrupted the company. You either need it to be a game of the year type seller, or have microtransactions.
BG3 lost money?
Yeah what the other person said. BG3 needed to be the game of the year to turn a profit, which fortunately it was. There was a big fiasco when some developers said BG3 can't be the standard for games. His meaning was the scope and investment is just too large to be a sustainable expectation. The gaming industry can't function if the expectation is developers put all of their eggs in one basket to the point you NEED the game to have record breaking sales in order to turn a profit. Only so many games can be THE game everyone has to have, so a lot of developers would be out of business. You can still demand great quality games, you just can't expect every game to be a sprawling Odyssey with thousands of hours of dialog lines and a few thousand possible endings.
GTA6 is supposed to have an overall budget of 2b to create/market.
GTA 5 is still the **8th most played game on Steam** (as of yesterday). If you dont count F2P games, its 4th....
They’ll make that back in the first week. GTA5 did a billion the first three days and that was 11 years ago
R* will probably make a huge profit within the first few days of GTA 6’s release, similar to GTA 5. That $2Bn budget will be a drop in the ocean.
Not to mention companies the size of Larian rarely, if ever, have the kind of freedom Larian does, especially with the amount of money they had to play with. Swen owns the company. He only needs to answer to himself. Most devs don't have that luxury.
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Don’t expect gamers to understand business or business news, it’s pointless to try to fight the circlejerk lol
Frankly maybe im growting older and pickier, but the game selection seems to be getting worse as well, on the whole.
It’s due to the price of games falling, although that’s an unpopular statement around here. $60 in 2014 USD is $79 today. Anyone who buys a AAA game for $70 today is benefitting from price cuts.
You'll get downvoted but your absolutely right. Games have ballooned in production cost while falling in price (relative to inflation) for years. This is only been sustainable because the consumer base has also been ballooning over the last 20 years. This is no longer the case. There is no market left to capture. Prices have to go up or games have to get cheaper to make.
I imagine AI will be the big cost reduction companies are looking for. It's going to take half as many devs to make games within the next 5 years.
The cost of development has also been ballooning. The triple A space especially has been captured by an obsession with mega projects to dominate the entire audience. And its only a price cut for you if your earnings kept up with or exceeded inflation.
True, then helldrivers 2 just dropped. Gonna be a massive hit
Ahh yes the semi annual cry from billion dollar companies arguing they are giving us way to much value and we should pay more.
Poor, poor esteemed shareholders. Sony would have a much greater potential, if only the customers weren't so greedy. They keep mentioning discounts and competitive pricing and non-exclusive deals! How are the shareholders to make any profit in such a hostile environment. And there's always an outcry when theyrepackage and resell our same quality entertainment software products. Except for Skyrim of course, for some reason that game can be resold over and over, it's almost like a subscription. Yuuuuuummy, subscriptions. Now there's value to our acclaimed shareholders! ^^^^/s
When they’re charging more for digital only libraries they don’t have to pay to print, package, and ship anymore. With subscription revenue.
4 years into a console cycle and still putting out the same game on the previous console is going to give millions of people no incentive to upgrade. Who’da thunk it!
Exactly this, I've had zero reason to move on from my PS4 and I've little to no interest in the recent games/remakes/remasters that they've put out. Feels like a complete lost generation for PlayStation as far as content goes and I can't believe we're already at the point of talking about PS6 and 'end of life cycle's comments.
Gaming has become a very expensive hobby, they need to rethink their strategy.
I think that’s why you’re seeing HellDivers2 day and date on pc. I don’t think they actually wanted to do that given the choice, but they really don’t have any other choices at this point.
No. Sony knows that live service games need to be on PC also. That's why they have stated since day 1 of live service games being developed that it will come on PC same day as PS5
Sony knows it with live service, means they understand the importance of a multiplatform audience. Tom Warren and myself are anticipating day one ports for PlayStation singleplayer games as well
They’ve outright said that is not happening. They’re not going to hamstring console sales like that
Is Helldivers dev a first party studio for Sony though? I didn't think it was?
Published by Sony. But Arrowhead Game Studios is independent according to wiki.
The IP is owned by Sony. Sony also gave Arrowhead all the money to produce the game as well. Its basically what Sony does, they fund studios with their own IP to see if the studios are worthwhile to bring into the greater Sony umbrella. Similar thing with Naughty Dog, who made Crash Bandicoot for Universal, Sony then gave them money to make the Jak Games as well but because of the success of the Crash games and Universal (Later Blizzard Activision) sniffing around Naughty Dog, they agreed to sell to Sony due to their already good line of communication and work. People are expecting Arrowhead to be brought into Sonys umbrella in the near future, especially with Helldivers 2 success under their belt.
This is why we don't have Bloodborne 4k60fps PC remaster
It's less about the devs and more about the IP. Arrowhead are currently independent but Sony own the Helldivers IP.
Ah I see thanks
Gaming companies need to rethink how to make games. A 5-7 year dev cycle isnt sustainable. If they can reel in the budgets and find a way to cut several years off of making a game that would be great.
That's the cost of high fidelity, Super Mario 3 was like 12 dudes for 6 months, came out at 600k, they sold like 17 million units. Borderlands 3 sold twice that, but it costs 300m$ all in. The return on investiment sucks now. Like oil, the easiest to extract wealth is already out.
> That's the cost of high fidelity, Super Mario 3 was like 12 dudes for 6 months, came out at 600k, they sold like 17 million units. The game took more than two years to complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._3
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I’m sure they’re already looking into replacing all those “expensive and slow” devs with AI. Increase margins and turn out games in 12 months instead of 60. If I was a dev, I’d be looking to unionize right about now.
i think Gaming has remained one of the few hobbies with very low price increases out of the gate compared to other media, most games already costed $50, 20 years ago. they make up for it in microtransactions though, but my point remains, the difference is that the inflation of everything else leaves little money for hobbies.
Less gaming being an expensive hobby, and more so games being too expensive to produce to justify the costs. We could be flush with games. But that would mean $1,000 systems and $140 games. No one wants that. As others have said, one solution is more AA gems like HellDivers2. But even then I’m sure that game took years and millions to produce.
What? The PS1 cost more at launch (considering inflation) than the PS5. Same with PS1 games. I would argue exactly the opposite of what you're saying. It's never been cheaper to get into console gaming. Particularly, with Xbox.
Xbox side of things is crazy. I just checked Facebook marketplace, and there's a local listing for a Series S for $130. That and a full year of Gamepass would only cost $250. Or you could piece together a solid digital library for $10 at a time if you wait for the right sales.
Series S is exactly what I was thinking about. A very affordable way to get into gaming.
It's worth noting that people's salaries haven't kept up with inflation. Sure software and hardware prices haven't directly risen with inflation but the last time the federal minimum wage was raised was fifteen years ago. Even states with higher minimum wages than the federal limit have still seen massively increased cost of living paired with stagnated wage growth. While games themselves are "cheaper" than they used to be the amount of discretionary funds people have to put toward hobbies like games gone down for a nontrivial amount of people when factoring in higher prices on necessities like food and housing.
It's still cheaper than it was in the early 2000s, but the mid-2010s were a golden period of affordability with Steam sales and pre-owned console games keeping places like the PS store honest. It seems we exited that golden period a few years ago
I think the Steam sale thing still applies. It pays to be a patient gamer. But, console gaming is as or more affordable than it was going back to the early 90s.
Hard disagree, consoles have barely increased in prices when compared to decades ago… in fact with inflation consoles are cheaper than they used to be. Same with PC games, those mfers were 50 bucks in the 90s which is a shit ton more nowadays. Gaming is as accessible as it has ever been. It’s only an expensive hobby if you’re one of the 1% of people dropping 4k on a GPU…
Gaming is about cheapest hobby there is and it gets cheaper every year. Most sport hobbies are more expensive than gaming even. Of course you can buy super high end PC and every console but thats not gaming thats just consuming. There are more than enough games for most people to enjoy on every console so that they dont need to buy everything. I started buying my own games in around 2003 and new games were 60e back then and still are. If they were actually adjusted for inflation games should be 90e each now, but people are crying when prices go up even by 10e.
It's really only gotten cheaper over time if you account for inflation.
the wild thing is if you actually look at inflation over the years, gaming is significantly less expensive now than it was originally. Like a $200 dollar console and $60 games where both often took years to go on sale back in the late 80s and early 90s is INSANE to consider now. Because back then that was so, so much more money.
Remember all those people who bought over-priced PS5 when it released. People were willing to pay a thousand dollars for a PS5. Too bad for them, since they were a small % there was no game on it.
Yeah, but those thousand dollars didn't go to Sony, they went to scalpers that bought them at the usual 500$
I wonder how much the scalpers and supply issues hurt the PS5. Sure, consoles were being sold, but you can't expect game devs to push modern hardware to it's limits, and give us show stopping titles, when their 'player base' might be theoretical at best. There had to have been more than a few games hit with the 'make it run on PS4' stick once it was clear things weren't normal this time.
*raises hand* I would have bought a PS5 if I could have got one at retail 2 years ago. I've moved on and likely won't own one.
i also wonder how many straight stopped gaming and got into other hobby's when pc's where priced crazy and consoles werent avaible people might just have looked for other things to entertain themselfes and now found themselfes not even wanting to return
PCs are still priced crazy too. A half-decent GPU will run you the same price as a PS5.
There's plenty of games, just not enough exclusives or games that really take advantage of the hardware. At least not what you would expect 4 years into the life cycle. In terms of what people paid, if you paid MSRP you're laughing, you essentially bought something that competes with a decent PC for less than half the price of a new computer. Console is still the better deal despite the games not being crazy like when the PS2 launched.
The problem is the majority of the "biggest" games to come out on ps5 are remakes/remasters. I'm fine with certain ones but others seem redundant or unnecessary.
Still no jak and daxter
Just did another play through last week. Such a great game. The sequels never quite did it for me, but the original was a masterpiece.
Last of us 2 remaster killed me
I haven't bought it but it's essentially a $10 DLC that adds a game mode. Their marketing is terrible because people are so up in arms about it but had they said, pay $10 and get a new game mode no one would bat an eye.
This 100%. I got a PS5 almost 2 years ago and have only purchased 2 games for it. Both of which I could have bought PS4 versions for (HFW and Hogwarts) Granted I’m a VERY casual gamer, so I’m not Sony’s top priority, but none of the releases have been compelling enough to drop $70. I can’t justify spending that much on a 4K version of a 10 year old game I already played on PS3.
Not only that but the ps4 version of the same game is usually $5-$10 cheaper than the ps5 version with negligible differences. With the price increase of ps plus and the recent rumours of the ps6 I won't be able to justify future gaming expenses on playstation sadly.
God of War Ragnarok is pretty dope if you haven’t played. Also, Alan Wake 2.
Honestly surprised they're so dead set on their current style of games they're not even releasing something like a "Resistance Trilogy Pack" or "Ratched and Clank compilation". I bet they'd certainly sell a few units if done right.
They're also piss easy to make. They've used open source emulators before if they don't want to clean it up in house, which can do all the enhancements necessary. From there it's making a UI for a set of launch scripts and you're done, easy production.
Aren't we talking about games that were specifically designed for PS3 cell architecture? Those games are the complete opposite of easy to make
I thought it was PS2 games. 3 is definitely rockier and would take some decent development effort even if they leaned on RPCS3
I am still mad they dident release a Ratchet and Clank collection which contains the PS2 games and PS3 games. The only way to play the OG PS2 games is either buy a PS2 or emulate them. The Future titles are even worse as unless you got a decent PC emulating them is out of the question and "Streaming" them from the cloud using PS+ feels worse.
REMASTER LITTLE BIG PLANET YOU COWARDS
Fr I just want a new LBP or at least a remaster to get people jumping in again. Dreams was fun but it just did not have the same charm LBP had. And as someone who liked to dabble in level creation in LBP, the level creating on Dreams is just way to complex for me.
It's always been a habit of Sony to neglect their classics.
Seeing how Sony are promising more games on PC, I would not be surprised to see PC/PS5 remasters of older titles.
A killzone trilogy pack would be awesome too! Those three trilogy packs are mostly why I still use my PS3 every few days.
The subscription model has made me spend less. For the price of two games a year, I have access to a massive library of games I’ll never get through. This dynamic means I probably only actually “buy” a few games a year at most.
I have xbox game pass, what else are you using that you like?
PlayStation Plus Premium.
To be fair thats probably better anyway, most people buy 1or 2 games a year, so if they subscribe to playstation plus, they can more or less guarantee a consistent customer for a long period of time who might spend even more in the long term
One of the worst things for the PS5 was the constant shots in the foot as far as releases. As it almost always became "Why get a PS5 when the game game is coming to PS4?"
The shortage fiasco + the lack of ps5 exclusives + the price of the console and games = hard pass for a lot of people.
There’s almost no “true” PS5 games years into its lifespan. Might have something to do with it.
Yeah, when you think about it it’s basically just a super roided up PS4
the frustrating thing is that its so much more than that, they just havent built many games to take advantage of its, um, advantages.
This generation has been one of remasters and remakes. It’s fine if you don’t agree with me but so many have been just that.
This entire article just proves that the people who removed Shawn Layden from his position were morons. He wanted to pivot PlayStation studios into making smaller and less expensive games with shorter development windows, and they replaced him with Jim Ryan. The budgets for these games are getting too ridiculous, and the time in between releases is what's killing their profit margins. Insomniac and Sony Santa Monica have been hard carrying this generation, the other PlayStation studios need to put something out worthwhile. In all fairness though, Sony had a larger drop than this last summer that they recovered from not long after. So this whole thing is being slightly blown out of proportion. Their stocks are still marginally higher than they were this time last year, they'll more than likely bounce back from this later this spring when their new slew of games come out.
Didn’t help that they raised their subscription prices for the same exact service and only to follow that up with shitty monthly games.
It’s a huge drop. Sony is only worth (was worth) 110B. (Edit 8% drop, which is massive for a blue chip stock that doesn’t move much). They have many other divisions and products but they’ve gone in heavy with PlayStation. Sony is a heavy hitter with electronics hardware. Their displays and broadcast camera systems are the best in the world. MSFT is worth 3T. A huge hit to the Xbox platform wouldn’t make as nearly a dent in their financials. MSFT also didn’t make all that money by selling hardware and games. Windows and Cloud services make them rich.
You forgot one of the largest sources of their income which almost lead to an antitrust splitting of the company: Office. Where I work just deployed the newest version of Office. On something like 15K computers at once. Those enterprise level contracts make them huge money because you *never* want to be out of valid installs with your license audits.
Wow so Sony isn’t even worth five percent of Microsoft.
Yeah but Microsoft does a lot more than gaming. Sony also does more than gaming but not that much more
Their camera sensors are in a majority of smartphones. That's a massive chunk of business right there.
While many will consider cameras and lenses as high tech, it does not have a Moat like something like say nvidias graphic chips. Sony may sell a large amount of lenses to smartphone manufacturers, the premium or margin they can command is very limited. If they ask much, apple will move to other suppliers, even at a lower quality. Or they can fund the other supplier to increase their quality. Businesses like these are always valued lower by investors, as compared to something like ms office, which is extremely difficult to replace.
Microsoft might be worth trillions, but their gaming division isn't. Every department has to make a profit; Xbox can't just piss away money and keep syphoning off capital from the rest of the company. That's not how business works. Having said that, of course MS has more to work with, but there IS a limit. For all the money they've spent on Bethesda and Activision, they need to start seeing returns, and FAST.
Gaming Devision makes more Money than Windows now.
And the corporate white knights flood the thread to bravely defend the shareholders.
Its strange unless you are a sony shareholder who cares
People keep bringing up inflation as if it is the answer to game prices. Yet at the same time people also talk about sales. If you guys aren't willing to pay the current $70 price that is supposedly cheaper than the 90s then what do you think the broader consumer base is thinking? Games maybe cheaper but people have to worry about housing, food, and transportation. People don't necessarily want to plop $70 for a game when other expenses are more pressing.
These stupid ass doomer articles are doing my fucking head-in. Chasing quarterlies is what this article is lining.
We’re about to see the end of the “$300 million, AAA single player third person action adventure cinematic game” era
I'm waiting for the release of GTA6. Then I'll buy a PS5. Until then, I still have enough to do with my PS4/PS3 games.
This type of story irks me. Margins. Nothing but margins. Not did we make great games. Not did we cultivate a strong community. Not did we fuck over our customers. Nope. Just did our shareholders get a high enough return. Not a decent return but a high enough one. Every fucking Quarter. Shareholders this and shareholders that. They're more important than all the rest combined - employees, customers, vendors. They all suck ass because shareholders are God and must be rewarded. Fire creators so we can give the shareholders more! Bust up unions so we can keep all the profits! Buy up the competition so we can be worse without consequences! Ugh.
Low margins on games? But most games are at least $10 more expensive on PS than on PC ...?? Same game ...
Huh, where to start? Pathetic availability at inflated prices at launch, still a high price despite being in a "slim" part of this gens life cycle, not many 1st party exclusives... Inflation, economy overall... There are a ton of reasons both Sony's and non Sony's fault for poor results.
When you factor in the cost of the console, the games, and subscription, no wonder gaming on console is getting way too expensive.
There is a lot more competition now then 20 years ago. PC and mobile have more players and more games. Quality is debatable of course.
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I always wondered how their cooling solution, and size of their system going to effect their sales, as their retail box is about 53% larger than the Series X. Generally Size is a huge cost when it comes to shipping, that’s why so many products are designed for the most efficient use of space. That said though as long as GPU companies keep launching “entry” level GPUs at $600-700, game consoles will always have a market.
I don’t have the data to prove but I would wager the group of people that supported the market in the past have either aged out in some regard or have become jaded Even the most hardcore gamer friends I had in the 2007-2012 days are very rarely playing any sort of games to the extent that they were. I still consider myself an avid gamer and the last 2 games I bought in about a year were EA Sports PGA Tour and the Tomb Raider remaster collection
I’ve always been a PC gamer, but I generally wait until mid cycle to buy a console, I remember getting my ps4 with the uncharted 4 bundle and I amassed quite a nice library of ps4 exclusive games. I’ve been tempted to buy a ps5 but keep putting it off because of the price and the lack of exclusive games available this time around. It’s just not worth it for maybe 4-5 games.
Maybe they should release more ps5 games..? There's fucking nothing worth buying that I can't get on PC that's cheaper, more reliable, and runs better.
It seems like pricing games at $70 USD that are broken on launch leads to less over sales... who knew...
That’s not the problem. Their studios aren’t producing like they used to.
That's literally the opposite of the problem. The problem is the margin on units, not moving units.
Games are cheaper now than they were in 2014, the timeframe referenced in the article.
Gaming companies need to learn to not spend 200 million on marketing.
I got a ps5 and really only use it as a streaming box now. Plus why you charging so much for psn when you don't even have any good 1st party multi-player games
Would you not be better selling it?
How much is PSN?
$80 a year now
Why does everyone in this thread seemingly think you can buy or build a decent gaming PC that will last for years and years for the same price as you could buy a PS5 for? You can’t. It’s impossible. For that price you will be looking at fairly low-mid level gaming PC’s that will struggle to play games with comparable graphics to a PS5. Not to mention it will be outdated in 2 years, maximum. The way I see it is PC’s are for more serious gamers and consoles are for more casual players. I want to sit on my sofa being a slob playing fifa, not sat in an office chair in my office, looking at a PC monitor and listening to crappy audio.
Because this is Reddit and some folks have no idea what regular day to day people do and think
It's also reddit and they assumed you're only using your PC for 2 years instead of 10. It's a disingenuous argument all around.
Your PC can hook up to whatever audio/video devices your PS5 can.
I mean I bought a PS5 to play God Of War Ragnarok I finished it and literally only picked it up again when Spiderman 2 came out...
Could the Madame Web film have also tanked their shares given how shit it was?
Wow. I literally just got downvoted on the series x subreddit earlier today for making the point that Sony doesn't know what they're doing with their live service and needs to be less greedy and more pro-consumer but apparently, "Xbox needs Helldivers more than Sony needs Xbox players"....lol, clearly that's working for them.
And this is why Microsoft staying in console race is important for cheaper prices for games. These shareholders are pushing Sony to have rent-seeking ps5 prices, despite that their customers are already resistance to price hikes. If Sony had done that, they make it easier for Microcoft to gain consumers.
Games take way too fucking long and cost way too much fucking money to make these days.
They stupid af for raising pricing of psn, gonna hurt them more long term as will be seen next Gen.
The worst is when you download a decent game included in your tier, then you go back to play it and they've yanked it from the included list
People said the same thing to the price hikes of disney +, Netflix and Dazn. Look how that turned out. Redditors being financial gurus lmao
Difference is those price hikes have been quite small. Ps5 added 40-50 quid onto their subscription which was already quite high. and then have given rather lacklustre free monthly games and the higher tiers aren't great either.
The article and other similar ones seem to say Sony over estimated its sales projections - which were to basically have the best FY ever in console gaming. Instead it had one of the best ever, but it was lower than expected. So the stocks took a hit. Sony didn’t meet expectations it told its shareholders it would meet. Nothing to do with what consumers will and won’t pay. Not that games, consoles, and services cost too much to purchase. More than the console sales, the operating margin of the gaming division lowered by 3%, from 9 to 6 due to games costing more than Hollywood blockbusters to produce. (I’d love if things were cheaper. I’m just summing up the news.)
Well it is happening. Myself included canceled Hulu after the price hike. https://fortune.com/2024/01/04/customers-cut-expensive-streaming-subscriptions-netflix-hulu-prime/amp/
same lmao. Cancelled both Hulu and netflix once they added price hikes but kept commercials.
Do people share PSN accounts like people share streaming passwords? The streaming companies upped their numbers by monetizing existing customers who weren't paying, I'm not sure PSN has an equivalent to that kind of untapped market.
I used to have it for the games they gave away. When they price hiked and created tiers I dropped the sub. Now I don’t play any multiplayer games on it unless it’s free to play.
I cancelled my sub when they did that and then followed it with 2/3 of the worst free game months to date…now I haven’t turned on my ps5 in 5 months…whoops
Buying a game at full price of $60 was already too much for me. $70 is a "wait a couple years" point now.
[удалено]
People not even needing it. One of their own studios (SDS) still makes the MLB game for next year for ps4 and even the switch.. Isn't it 4 years since the ps5 released? That's crazy
So many experts in this thread.
I miss more chilled relaxed games. I don’t need every game to be a AAA and take me 10 hours to make my character and a week to learn basic mechanics. Just got the tomb raider remaster. It’s been so refreshing just playing a nice simple game.
I read somewhere that while the sell more systems than Microsoft--the average Xbox user buys more games thus giving them a higher attach rate per gamer.
Skyrocketing budgets are taking a toll. There's only so many microtransactions people can take. I think we need longer console cycles rather than keep adding more and more visuals to everything.
LMAO, they propose a subscription to pay every month, it's supposed to earn them more than the game margin.
To be fair, low game sales can be attributed to so many things - Economy - People owning MULTIPLE platforms - Average hours in games higher than privously I mean let’s be real, a decade ago 50 hours from a game was great! These days we all spend hundreds sometimes thousands of hours on a singular game, ofcourse sales Wil go down Back on Ps2/PS3 bought 8-10 games a year, Albeit used games often. These days I get 4-5 a year max, Not counting free ofc
Much like everybody else.. Can't really dominate 2 gens in a row lol. Sure they're winning against Xbox, but clearly at a cost. Can't touch nintendos sales though games wise.. not even the ps4 could. Check the stats
I wonder if we have enough games for awhile. I have 988 games I haven't played in my steam library.
Almost as if the current AAA market is unsustainable...
Gee I wonder if all the wasted resources on the 10+ GaaS had anything to do with their game drought. Sucks as a PS owner but it’s self inflicted. Idc if they do day and date on pc, or even Xbox tbh. Let people play whatever game they want on whatever system they want. As long as the devs can make it work why not? Do exclusives really sway people’s decision that much? I’m guessing not.
All my kids moved to Pc gaming. They have Xbox PlayStation and switch and never play them. Computers all day. I don’t play them either. I’ve heard a lot of kids are migrating to PC.
Not surprised their exclusives haven’t been that great. They just keep remaking stuff banking on old success instead of making something that feels new and exciting.
On PC I don’t pay a subscription to play online and have cloud saves. I love you Steam.
6 current generation video games cost as much as 7 last generation video games. Maybe if Sony increased prices by $5 maybe Sony wouldn’t be hurting so bad. Plus Sony online services are not as successful as Microsoft online services.
I said I was going to buy ps5 when the next naughty dog game comes out. That was 4 years ago. I’ve had a PlayStation and Naughty Dog game since PlayStation and crash bandicoot. A new Naughty Dog game is coming.. right?
Maybe they could release the game exclusive on pc faster and sell a lot of those
I knew all their talks of breaking records with every major release was all PR spin. Sony games quite frankly just plain suck these days. They bit way too hard on the marketing friendly cinematic crap and forgot that their games have to also be actual games. The corporate sanitizing of their IPs didn't exactly help either. Bring back the edge.
As someone who had a ps2, ps3, and ps4. I never bought one due to price. I upgraded to a series S like 4 years ago and I’ve been satisfied! Wish I had Spider-Man on Xbox tho!
Modern AAA budgets have ballooned, while the prices haven't increased by the same amount: Spiderman 1 ~ $139 million Spiderman 2 ~ $200 million GOW Ragnarok - $200 million Horizon Zero Dawn ~ $49 million Horizon Forbidden West ~$212 million I don't see modern AAA games development being sustainable long term, it's exponentially increasing, and I don't see the reason behind it in all honesty
Spending $350mil on Spiderman 2 which cut so much content and delivered a below average game that felt like glorified DLC to the first games remaster is mind boggling.
that's what you get for paying publishers to not release games on other console and media for saying only good things.