I don't think the market has shrunk for $500 consoles. Sony just needs to get the main console price down to $300 last year and the market would be huge. Also stop putting stuff on PC or you'll indeed see your console market shrink. Be Nintendo and you will get Nintendo numbers
the whole reason there putting stuff on pc is because game dev budgets keep going up but the amount of customers on consoles has not increased along with budgets in 15 years you do understand that right?
I think the problem is 2-fold. Gaming PCs are much cheaper now; even high end gaming laptops can be found at reasonable prices compared to say 10 or 15 years ago.
And then second, PC gamers have built up huge libraries on Steam the past 5-7 years and elsewhere and are now more willing to wait for ports or skip games that don't get ports.
Of course the console market isn't going anywhere, clearly PS5 is showing good strength and with its exclusives like GoW/Spiderman/Uncharted/Last of Us/etc. they'll be fine.
It's hard to see what Xbox can do, they need to be selling games on PC because that's probably where they get a giant portion of sales for their titles.
And yeah Nintendo is unique, their fanbase is so big now for their franchises that it's self-sustaining, especially with them off the "maximum graphics fidelity" train and with better budgets on their games.
PS3 silm with the price cut was a pretty good deal. At the end of the day PS3 amassed a respectable library that remains unaccessible to other platforms.
They can't be Nintendo when their games cost five time more to develop than Nintendo games. That's why they put those games on PC. They need to sell more copies to be as profitable as Nintendo.
I didn't mean that Nintendo is unique. I'm saying Sony needs to copy their exclusivity strategy. Give games like sackboy more their own window and spotlight and same with astrobot. Get budgets under control
Create your own self sustaining ecosystem. Embrace your past like Nintendo. Do it with higher end hardware sure but that doesn't mean chasing PC specs
My favorite games library of all-time. It's wild that it started off as a system that I hoped would fail to my favorite purely due to the quality of games that came out for it
That's true.
The big blockbuster style games were still there. Uncharted, TLOU, GOW3, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Killzone, etc.
But it had lots of small creative games. And a lot of mid tier stuff like Motorstorm, Warhawk, Wipeout HD, infamous, etc.
The system itself was just slow and clunky to use.
it had TRASH PANIC, UNCHARTED 2, WARHAWK and TOKYO JUNGLE
it wins
People actually think those kind of games only started on the PS4.
Honestly, PS3 and that generation in general were by far the worst and the only generation that I can say that was a major disappointment for me.
It's amazing that he has OUYA sales data stored lmao. I hope someone ask him about sales compared with Jaguar.
For people wondering if this is good, think about it.
The PS5 has had no price cuts. In fact, in many places it had a price -increase-.
At the same point in time, the PS4 had 2 price cuts, and was going for $299.
The PS5 is, in the US (but I think WW too) ahead of PS4 sales, even if only slightly.
It's doing great. Relatively.
Now this being said, even with Switch and PS5 doing great, I think the market as a whole is just not growing. At all (to people answering "b-but Switch", I would respond : "what was the install base of Wii+ 2DS/3DS"?).
It feels like whatever marketshare you can grow on, it has to come from a competitor, or whole new markets.
The PS5 has had no price cuts. In fact, in many places it had a price -increase-.
At the same point in time, the PS4 had 2 price cuts, and was going for $299.
The PS5 is, in the US (but I think WW too) ahead of PS4 sales, even if only slightly.
It's doing great. Relatively.
Now this being said, even with Switch and PS5 doing great, I think the market as a whole is just not growing. At all (to people answering "b-but Switch", I would respond : "what was the install base of Wii+ 2DS/3DS"?).
It feels like whatever marketshare you can grow on, it has to come from a competitor, or whole new markets.
Man, if anybody in the industry could be Nintendo, I imagine they would already be working toward it. I don't think it's possible anymore, at least not in the immediate/nearish future.
Sony would be wise to stick with their current strategy and start doing day and date on PC. Helldivers 2 should be giving them a nudge in the right direction I would think considering the records it is breaking.
Accurate. Throw in abandoned/forgotten markets as well.
Considering they're selling the most consoles while releasing the fewest exclusives, by their own standards, they deserve a Michelin star.
Well not if they're not even going to try. They grew from 87m and single digit millions sales for first party with many losing money but probably making it in the end with consoles sold to 117m with first party selling in the tens of millions and being profitable. They have had a system do 160m before. They COULD have tried to keep growing. They just gave up despite seeing switch getting the returns for generational commitment. Now we shall never know as they've thrown everything away for some short term PC sales.
The prices are likely hurting them much more outside of NA and EU, which is understandable where they thought the 25 million FY sales would come from. With all the investments they are making internationally, this hardware price is going to have to come down, or at least a lower baseline needs to be established.
Straight fax no printer. PS3 had everything from blockbusters to quirky little games
I'm with ya. I thought that the in-house exclusivity model that Nintendo runs would be largely adopted by the majors after the PS2. For a time it even looked like that, but you're right, for whatever reason they just gave up on it and doubled down on the 3rd party strategy. MS and Sony are beasts though, so there's still time to revisit and try again. We'll see.
Honestly what pisses me off too with Sony is they also oughta sell on some damn variety. They had a game that could have been massive in sackboy and they sent it out to die by releasing beside Spidey and demons souls and all the big third parties that fall. Give it a spotlight and a push like Nintendo did to Splatoon or something. Hell a lot of their franchises weren't mega hits until switch and after many installments like Pikmin or animal crossing. Commit Sony! TRY to make something other than the TLOU template stick. Hell even with that it's not like uncharted games were doing 10+m and yet they got a trilogy and then TLOU and built that audience. They could do the same with other types of games. They seem to be ignoring dreams which is one game that would actually work the best out of their entire library on PC lol
Nobody talks about Trash Panic. I played the f out of it.
Not sure I really agree here. They released Sackboy has a launch exclusive, kid friendly game to encourage families to buy their new system. And it worked because my wife saw a commercial for it and had me buy it for us to play coop.
I want more platform games, but outside Nintendo, is there a market for these as full price tiles?
To me it got lost in the noise and they honestly could have given astrobot more of a spotlight too. It's 4 player co-op and yeah very family friendly. Don't recall seeing a commercial for it or anything. I think it just needed its own window
So PS5 is doing better than PS4 everywhere besides Europe where it's lagging behind a bit. That's good I guess.
The only REAL issue I've had with the PS5 is that there are only literally 20 or so PS5 ONLY games... and of those... like only 11 are of actual note (there are a lot of VR games exclusive to the platform).
That said the PS5 versions of the cross platform releases do look and play very, very nicely... but at this point my PS5 feels like a PS4 Pro-er. I just wish there was more of a reason for me to have bought it. The PS5 Pro doesn't really have me all that excited because I don't have a huge reason to get one. They should definitely hit it with a price cut for the holiday.
That said the PS5 versions of the cross platform releases do look and play very, very nicely... but at this point my PS5 feels like a PS4 Pro-er. I just wish there was more of a reason for me to have bought it. The PS5 Pro doesn't really have me all that excited because I don't have a huge reason to get one. They should definitely hit it with a price cut for the holiday.
Sackboy was my youngest son's Mario, so it hurt watching the ip get mishandled into irrelevance. I'm hopeful for a real return at some point tho. Sony def has the studios and the talent to make it happen but I feel like the allure/pressure of immediate gains gets in the way.
And yeah, Dreams should have been on PC by now. Perfect fit and an audience that's essentially begging for it (for years). SMH.
Nintendo was able to weather these sorts of storms because they're owned by a family in majority and with Sony I just feel the shareholders are never gonna pass up a short term profit. They'll only see "we sold more copies than needed to cover the port cost" and not realize the long term identity being lost.
Hell they shut down the lbp3 stuff with no warning and trying to disguise it as a temporary shutdown at first. They're just scummy in supporting anything that seems to break into a new market or have the potential to do so.
Dreams would not have done well on PC without significant changes (multiplayer support, monetisation both of levels and standalone parts, discovery) - it's a better platform for that kind of creative game, sure, but it's also a platform with significantly better options for people trying to do that sort of thing.
$500 in 2020 is already $603.40 now. That's your price cut right there.
The days of $300 consoles are not coming back, inflation is offsetting any chance at MSRP cuts.
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Fucking Trash Panic. Hell yeah.
Astrobot is free on every single PS5. I'm sure Sony have data on every single online console that bothered to play it.
Sony learned during the PS3 generation that their audience wanted big budget and multiplayer games over their smaller and experimental stuff. PSN had a few hits for that time but that space is significantly more competitive now.
I don't think people spend $500 on these consoles with high specs to play low budget games for the most part. It's just a different mindset compared to gamers on PC and Switch. It would take a complete overhaul in strategy to try and change that mindset and I don't think it would be worth it anytime soon.
Sony learned during the PS3 generation that their audience wanted big budget and multiplayer games over their smaller and experimental stuff. PSN had a few hits for that time but that space is significantly more competitive now.
I don't think people spend $500 on these consoles with high specs to play low budget games for the most part. It's just a different mindset compared to gamers on PC and Switch. It would take a complete overhaul in strategy to try and change that mindset and I don't think it would be worth it anytime soon.
I think what's worth to keep in mind is that the PS5 had quite a catch up last year after a prolonged shortage. Plus it's a generation where there is less competition from Microsoft than ever. As such I would say the results are neither cause for celebration nor for much doom and gloom. It will remain to be seen how sales continue to evolve against the backdrop of ever increasing development costs (and the associated need to sell ever more games).
All said and done I don't think Sony needs to worry about the PS5.
All said and done I don't think Sony needs to worry about the PS5.
Imagine saying that after Helldivers 2 being Sony's fastest selling first party title.
A lot of Sony's install base is made up of people who play multiplatform games primarily on PlayStation like FIFA, GTA, COD etc.
Sony doesn't have nearly the same first party pull as Nintendo - they never had anything on the scale of Mario Kart or Animal Crossing.
"Be more like Nintendo" is basically useless advice to both PS and Xbox because their business fundamentals are completely different.
They can get those on Xbox and PC. The exclusives are the swing vote. Even if their attach rate is only 10% or 5% then another one could being a different 5% in and so on and so forth. Out of 10 gamers who choose ps over Xbox they could all buy cod but each one also buys a different exclusive so an exclusive was still the reason each chose to go the way they did
It seems to not do as OK as Sony hoped and then a day later an entire bunch of threads with very very specifically scoped charts that show it's doing amazingly if you compare this specific number to that specific number and BTW Xbox is toast then everyone seems happy