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Amazon FR lists Horizon Zero Dawn for PC, published by Sony
- Thread starter Deleted member 8196
- Start date
The "Steam only" people are just a vocal minority. Most PC gamers have many different game launchers installed on their computers, and with the new GOG Galaxy, you can link them all together to have one place to launch their games.
Then it is not investing into MS ecosystem. So MS becomes essentially a third party publisher like Rockstar or any other publisher. Both Sony and MS are not in the industry to become just third party publishers and sell their own software across multiple stores not controlled by them. At least I dont see that as the end game.
Microsoft is offering PC gamers a choice- pay full-price to own the game on Steam, or subscribe to Gamepass, and get our games cheaper, becoming part of the ecosystem.
Pretty much every publisher that can afford it is doing that now- put the game on Steam, while makign your own launcher and offer financial incentives for people to get the games there instead.
It's the smart way of competing that people can get behind- Rockstar, Bethesda, EA and Microsoft all figured it out.
It allows people to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to preference for Steam features. And its a win-win for publishers.
Jason Shreier said it's happening so it is just a matter of the timing. No one has implied it will happen today.
Did he say recently or do you mean the article from some time ago?
Unrelated but what Daniel Dae Kim role is that profile pic from? Angel?
It's ok, there's always gonna be another random Tuesday for Sony to announce stuff on
I still don't see the downside. They can sell on Windows Store, on Steam, through Xbox, and also on GamePass. Why is having a game like Horizon only on Playstation a better value to you or Sony?
Having Halo spread out also likely means a healthier userbase to play with. On consoles we have seen time and again this huge selloff in the beginning and then this quick tail-off. That's why we see Spiderman, one of the big sellers, go down to $30 6 months later. What kind of retention rate is that? Would it not make better sense for Sony to have Spiderman come out on PS4, then 6 months later on PS Now, then 6 months after that on PC?
You also cannot look at what Sony is doing and compare directly with what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft has Azure, they have Windows, it's all tied into many products and services. You don't become the richest company in the world focusing on one thing.
I agree that it could go either way. I'm not even sure Horizon is a good test; it's an older game, a lot of people will just...double dip. But the bait strategy wont work, even if that's Sony's intention as per commentary from a few years ago. There will always be a market of people who fluctuate between systems, but the core PC audience is not going to pack up and buy a PlayStation 5 as their primary platform. At best, Sony will entice people to buy the PlayStation 5 just for exclusives. Which if that's their goal, that's fine, it'll work to some degree. But I'd argue that it's a dumb strategy because the revenue gained from marginally increasing the number of PC gamers who own a PlayStation 5 will be ultimately offset by their absolute indifference towards long term investing in the ecosystem. They'll continue to do what a lot of PC gamers (myself included do); buy the platform but only for exclusive, and be a poor source of real world revenue for Sony.
But Microsoft has already changed this; they now release their games on Steam. Gears 5 dropped on Steam. Halo Anniversary is on Steam. And Microsoft has expressed full intention of day and date dropping their titles on Steam just as they have their own store. They've conceded their own store ecosystem, while the preferred market, is not worth exclusively supporting when additional revenue can be gained from Steam. So again Microsoft has to split the market; revenue gained from people who are happy to use the Microsoft store, versus revenue gained from people who refuse but will buy the games on Steam.
I don't think Microsoft is trying to "win over" the larger PC market. I think that's actually the point; they can't. Microsoft cannot convince the PC ecosystem to pack up and move exclusively to Xbox or to Windows Store, not in significant enough numbers that it's worth the loss of broader storefront support. And I figure Sony feel or will find the exact same; PC ecosystem is not budging.
The problem is this line of thinking;
You don't see it happening because...why? It's an emotional argument, because the ideology is only supported if Microsoft and Sony want to stay single platform exclusive for no other reason than "just because", or symbolically because "exclusive". And they may feel that way but it's clear Microsoft no longer does, or has realised it's dumb. Microsoft refusing to port their titles to PlayStation makes sense because Sony is a direct competitor, PlayStation and Xbox hardware is completely interchangeable as ecosystems, and by porting their software they lose a drawcard to their own ecosystem. PC ecosystem is not comparable, and not interchangeable. Microsoft realised, or have assumed, that by porting their games to PC including storefronts they don't own (like Steam) there's no significant loss in ecosystem and marketshare on the Xbox platform or Windows storefront and they, in turn, gain additional revenue by opening up a new market to customers that were otherwise alienated.
There's literally nothing to lose if it's handled well. Sony could day and date drop The Last of Us 3 on PlayStation 5 and PC and you're not going to see millions of people suddenly packing up their PlayStations. What Sony would gain though is additional market and revenue through the PC ecosystem. Is it an ideal 100% net profit? No, but they don't get that anyway unless you buy digitally. Sony and Microsoft already lose money for every first party game you buy on a store shelf, as a cut must go to the retailer. What difference is it distributing on a PC storefront?
I suppose the big elephant in the room in this equation is, well, Nintendo. We know they've diversified a bit beyond console-exclusive titles, though that's only in the mobile space, and mainly to shut up investors who were howling at them to do it. But they also have an appealing console that provides a use case that no other console nor PC can match - portability. Sure, there are laptops, but gaming-capable laptops are expensive, usually don't have much in the way of battery power for gaming, and aren't as portable, and while GPDWin and similar stuff exists, those are comparatively niche, and only the original GPDWin, to my knowledge, is remotely competitive in price.
The Switch has almost exclusively created a GROUP 3 - PC gamers who prefer the PC ecosystem as their primary platform, but also enjoy playing their games on the go with proper tactile controls (aka not mobile), and will buy a portable console mainly for that purpose, with exclusive games being an added bonus. The Switch is the only dedicated gaming console that caters to this group.
Do you think that Nintendo could potentially benefit more or less from porting their exclusives to PC? It's a bit of a tough question, because in theory Nintendo doesn't really have much to lose from trying to court GROUP 1 PC gamers, as their systems usually not loss leaders, and considering how restrictive they can be with some features on the Switch already, I think they might balk at the notion of releasing their games on a completely open system like PC due to things like users being able to freely backup and modify save data without restrictions (which they would consider a problem when it comes to games like Animal Crossing and Pokemon). That being said, I also don't really think they have all that much to lose either from courting GROUP 2 PC gamers, either.
Probably will...but the fact that its taking them as long as epic to announce something...makes me wonder...if its egs exclusive.
I am ike 99% sure its still happening, but the original rumor said itll be announced/released in february iirc. The only way i can see it not happening is if Sony backed down because of reactions of their fanbase to leaks, but that is very unlikely.
perhaps it is EGS exclusive...but that's a small price to pay to have the game on the PC platform
Sony would be willing to make a big business decision based off of how their fanbase reacts to it rumored??
As i said this is extremely unlikely to happen.
Again, I dont think that happened at all, but its not impossible that the market analysis of the reactions suggested itll hurt their profitability rather than help it and so they backed away.
Lol. That'd be a shame for their fans. Imagine being pissed off by a game coming to other platforms and yet smiling and taking the crap when the online stopped being free. That'd be pathetic.
Because people get too dramatic and can't have a proper conversation.
but in this extremely unlikely scenario though, what is sony's rationale in giving into fans' reaction?! that the fans are correct in assessing that it'll be a bigger loss in hardware sales than a bigger profit in software sales bringing the game to PC?
Literally nobody thinks Sony are going to release it as Steam only. People are wondering whether it will be Steam at all.
I am just speculating as I dont know much about how those market analysis work and what goes into consideration, but their worry is probably that if their fanbase "loses" the incentive to buy a console, then they also lose on hardware sales as well as third party sales and services, and if overall this announcement and strategy leads to less profit (each PC consumer only pays for the game, not the hardware or third party software or services, while also Sony also getting a smaller cut on third party storefronts on PC when compared to basically 100% revenue on FP software) for their business, then it means the move isnt good for them.
Again huge disclaimer, there is almost no chance this happened, just discussing in hypotheticals.
I'm going in with low expectations, hoping to be surprised if I can get it outside of Steam.
Before, I wanted to avoid Steam to avoid Valve's customer service, now I'm hooked on GOG Galaxy now that I have a sweet way to keep full Steam Controller functionality with it, but I have to undo some things if I want to play a Steam game. This game with Steam Controller is going to be amazing.
Ah man, hoping it won't be exclusive to Steam is one thing, but hoping it will be available on GOG at all is an entirely separate deal. I think the options for a game like this are some permutation of EGS, Steam, and a Sony launcher. I'm not confident in saying Sony is ready to jump on the PC while also being DRM free.
Sony embracing GOG for its first-party releases would be truly earth-shattering stuff.
I love GOG, it's my primary storefront, but there is no way in hell I can see this happening.
I would buy the shit out of this Day 1, if it was a GOG release, though.
I love GOG, it's my primary storefront, but there is no way in hell I can see this happening.
I would buy the shit out of this Day 1, if it was a GOG release, though.
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No not GOG, GOG Galaxy 2.0 is just a launcher that can store links and box art to all games that you own even if you don't have them installed. It's just unfortunately, because of the thing that I have to do to get Steam Input to work with all outside games via GOG Galaxy 2.0, that Steam's own games require me to exit the setup in order to launch the game.
GOG Galaxy 2.0 is darn sweet, it shows me everything, and I'm more likely to play a game that would have been out of sight and mind just to play it. I tried the other stuff like SteamDB's app to add and give art to non steam games on steam, but changing the name of the game, or moving it to another folder or hard drive would just screw everything up. GOG Galaxy 2.0 auto update everything without me doing anything.
Microsoft owns Windows so at the very least they benefit from making sure Windows remains the definitive gaming OS and that games continue to use Microsoft technologies like DirectX. They've seemingly determined that PC game sales don't significantly impact console game sales, so the money them make from Steam and PC Gamepass is essentially a bonus.