These services lose money intially in the content fight to build content reserves. Netflix could easily cut down on building content ( which is stupid) for short term large profitsm
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Kyle Orland: PlayStation Now is still suffering from the branding and baggage leftover from its streaming-focused launch
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Yes it is an investment. An extremely long one and who knows when it will pay off? And Netflix is about to get some serious competition from Disney so they will have to invest even more money because they are gonna lose some extremely valuable content.
Yeah 60$/year for >700 games is terrible.
and there are first party games permanently in the service.
U4/GoW will join the permanent catalogue eventually, it is just a matter of time.
I think for a game pass like service it will pay of when they have about 10 million subs, and a revenue of $100 million a month, of it course it will be better when they at 20 million subs.
I've got no doubt that Sony will rebrand PS Now at some point. It's just been a bit of a mess from a disappointing, expensive launch to a place where it's actually pretty good now but has confused the market with what it is and what you get. This thread itself is proof of that.
I'm on a year sub at the moment so I'm locked in but I still maintain they can do better. There's a lot of things they don't need to do but that would certainly make Now a better product for us gamers.
I'm on a year sub at the moment so I'm locked in but I still maintain they can do better. There's a lot of things they don't need to do but that would certainly make Now a better product for us gamers.
It doesn't need rebranding, it just needs to be pushed. Sony's never really *tried* with it, treating it like Vue, Vita, PS TV, etc. It's been a side project to date and that's fine. It can be elevated by pushing it and talking about it. If they put a prompt on console setup the way they do with PS Plus that will go a huge way and cost them almost nothing; if they make it an icon instead of part of PS Store sidebar bloat that will also do a lot; and that's before you start planning like an ad campaign or something. It's not toxic, it's just not known about by a critical mass of people that own PS products and that's a fine place to start a real push from.
Since they dropped the price to 9.99 they gained over 300k subs. Nothing to scoff at. And their focus isn't on it because their games actually sell and make more than what the subs for both bring in.
Not discrediting the core discussion that Sony needs a rebranding/soft relaunch of sorts with the service, but has Orland ever written anything not-negative and critical of Sony? lmao this guy has been on a bender since the launch of PS4. It's kind of embarassing how obvious it is when you really look at the overall arc of articles he's written during this generation.
They already began the marketing push last month with TV ads, ads at sporting events, ads in movie theaters, internet ads and probably more. This is just the start and I feel it won't be long until we're past the point where people don't realize that you can download games on the service.
There's no need to rebrand something they just began a massive marketing campaign on, they just need to keep going with the marketing and make sure it's nice and clear what the service can do.
Now has a lot of big changes coming up in the next year or so including the move to Azure, addition of PS5 hardware to the servers, expansion to more countries, expansion to more devices and probably further enhancements to its business model. The service should be very different by the time next gen launches, I think.
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This, their marketing push with the price drop literally added 300k "paid" subs.
Also I would not mind if the name changed to PS PASS, PlayStation Pass.
300k is not a lot, these services should have millions at least not 1 million
Their target its 5 million down the road.
Something that probably GP hasn't achieved yet and they plan to achieve in a health way - at least so far - not throwing away keys and years and years of subscription for a penny.
Off the back of a single months worth of marketing it's not bad. It's not like it's going to stay at just over 1 million, it will keep growing and we will likely get another update in the next quarterly report. With the marketing push continuing and the holidays coming up I could pretty easily see it hitting 2 million before the end of the year.
It would be indeed.
But no trustful source, no MS numbers and the coded wording "9.5 million monthly users" - instead of the obvious one that should be subscribers - make it hard to believe.
Even die hard fans were speculating around here something around 3mi.
This is precisely why they need to dedicate time when unveiling the PS5 to reintroducing PSNow to people.
I tried the PSNow week free trial and then let it run a month after that and I thought it was a cool little service. Loved that I could download PS4 and ps2 games, hated that I couldn't download PS3 games. I cancelled because my backlog is way too big for me to also pay for this monthly but I could see myself resubscribing in the future definitely.
I agree with this. Rebrand it and make it a big deal on PS5
Why does it need to be a big deal? I think positioning it as good optional service is enough.
because if you don't position it as a big deal all the rebranding in the world won't get people to buy it
Thank you!
BTW a few questions since i'm thining of susbcribing for a month to try it out. I can't find the answer on official faqs
- if i buy PS now can i use it on PC and PS4 with the same account?
- would the save games be available in both platforms?
- Can i use the xbone/360 controller on the PC version?
- In the PS4 can i choose between streaming vs download?
- If I unsusbcribe for a few months and then return will i lose all my saves?
- Do i need PS+ to play online even in the PC version?
I didn't know that games were downloadable until I tried a 7 day trial earlier this year. My reason for not keeping it was just that there weren't enough PS4 games on offer that I cared about, and all the ps3 games are streaming only, which had annoying latency issues when I tried them.
- if i buy PS now can i use it on PC and PS4 with the same account?
- would the save games be available in both platforms?
- Can i use the xbone/360 controller on the PC version?
- In the PS4 can i choose between streaming vs download?
- Do i need PS+ to play online even in the PC version?
Because the thread title suggested it was something other than just a streaming service.
Ergo people showed up saying they didn't know about downloads.
And the threads titled "Downloads now supported on PS Now" didn't suggest that?
Yeah I could see relaunching/rebranding it as a good idea. I think a lot of people don't really understand what it is.
No, it's really not.
Why does Microsoft constantly offer brand new games on Gamepass then? That's not a good excuse.
Because Microsoft's games are built with micro transactions in mind. Spider-Man, God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us and Days gone are not.
Because Microsoft's big hitters don't sell as well as Sony's and they're mostly GaaS game with post-launch monetization where as Sony's are Single Player focused or even Single Player only games with little to no post-launch monetization. Microsoft also needs to give people another reason to buy their console due to the decline in sales compared to the Xbox 360, where as the PS4 sales are insanely high.
Sony needs to fix this before the next console gen
It makes Scorpio much more economical than the PS5.
It makes Scorpio much more economical than the PS5.
300k In 2-3 months is really good. Now they are starting to push it harder, but are not relying on it like Microsoft is with gamepass.
It's no big deal. The service was basically in beta this gen and recently after they ramped up the push subscribers grew. Did they offer any €1 deals? Genuinely don't know but they did add some big titles.
They could rebrand it to PlayStation Pass but Now sounds fine. When the PS5 launches and it has even more big games the subscriber numbers will get big.
They could rebrand it to PlayStation Pass but Now sounds fine. When the PS5 launches and it has even more big games the subscriber numbers will get big.
I wouldn't necessarily scoff at those gamepass numbers. Does it specify xbox gamepass or just gamepass? Remember they have pc too. Not that much of a stretch to get to 10m if they include console AND PC.
Either way, Gamepass is leagues ahead in terms of brand awareness and perceived value.
The issue for Sony is they simply don't have the infrastructure to just pivot and flick the switch to embracing full subscription services. There is a reason why they are going cap in hand to MS to use Azure.
That said, if Sony do get to a position where they have a subscription service with all 1st party day 1, they will rake in subscribers.
The problem for Sony is making it profitable. MS can afford to do it because gaming is effectively using Azure during its "downtime". In each timezone demand for "business" azure is in the day but it'd be kicking its heels in the evening. Gaming takes up a lot of that spare capacity.
Either way, Gamepass is leagues ahead in terms of brand awareness and perceived value.
The issue for Sony is they simply don't have the infrastructure to just pivot and flick the switch to embracing full subscription services. There is a reason why they are going cap in hand to MS to use Azure.
That said, if Sony do get to a position where they have a subscription service with all 1st party day 1, they will rake in subscribers.
The problem for Sony is making it profitable. MS can afford to do it because gaming is effectively using Azure during its "downtime". In each timezone demand for "business" azure is in the day but it'd be kicking its heels in the evening. Gaming takes up a lot of that spare capacity.
PSNow is clearly a second rate service compared to Game pass, I don't see how that's even debatable. Sony had first mover advantage and did nothing with it.
Sony treats it as second rate, never pushes it, no day-and-date 1st party titles, it's a total afterthought for them.
Game Pass is treated as a premier service by Microsoft, and they're reaping the benefits from that approach now, and will continue to get payoff from the early investment for years to come.
Sony treats it as second rate, never pushes it, no day-and-date 1st party titles, it's a total afterthought for them.
Game Pass is treated as a premier service by Microsoft, and they're reaping the benefits from that approach now, and will continue to get payoff from the early investment for years to come.
Yeah, I'm another "wow, really?" and I spend a lot of time gaming. I don't pay much attention to game streaming services and I guess I didn't get the memo.