PSN generated more revenue than Nintendo's total revenue and Microsoft's whole gaming division revenue for 2018
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I've been thinking the same thing. I started buying digitally on 360, but ultimately it was a whole lot of smaller arcade style games and few (if any) full priced releases. This generation I've picked up quite a few big release titles on PSN, plus even more indies etc.
Obviously I know nothing about next generation, but assuming there are no major shifts, I'm already leaning towards PS5 because my PSN account is much, much more valuable than my XBL account. Basically, I think Sony have made a timely play and it's bound to pay off massively for them in the long run.
Especially the PS+ discounts are amazing. I'm buying way more games thanks to the PS+ discounts.
Anecdotal but I'm 1 of 4 brothers and no matter how many times I tell them to just put the games in their library they dont. Also have no idea how many times i hear oh i wanna try "blank" game and my response that was a psn game ""x" months ago among friends and family. Like damn guys just put it in your library! I myself go through it and find gems I didnt know I had.
I feel like this isn't as big a deal as people seem to be suggesting and is just an indicator of a bigger digital/retail split which is still better from a profit perspective but makes it sound like a much bigger deal based on revenue.
Let's say you sell 100m units of (third party) software. Then say Sony sells 40% digital, 60% retail. I think the licence fee on a $60 title is like $12? They'd book $2.4 billion revenue on the digital side and $720 million on the physical. Then there's a $1.68 billion expense to pay the third party their share of the digital sale. Ignoring everything else like hosting costs and such, you're left with $1.44 billion profit on $3.12 billion revenue.
The same thing, but with a 10/90 digital/ physical split gives only $1.68 billion total revenue but still $1.26 billion revenue.
So yes, the bigger digital split is better, but it's not as dramatic as the revenue split appears at first glance.
It's just instead of Gamestop, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, etc sharing that revenue, it all gets booked by the platform holder.
Let's say you sell 100m units of (third party) software. Then say Sony sells 40% digital, 60% retail. I think the licence fee on a $60 title is like $12? They'd book $2.4 billion revenue on the digital side and $720 million on the physical. Then there's a $1.68 billion expense to pay the third party their share of the digital sale. Ignoring everything else like hosting costs and such, you're left with $1.44 billion profit on $3.12 billion revenue.
The same thing, but with a 10/90 digital/ physical split gives only $1.68 billion total revenue but still $1.26 billion revenue.
So yes, the bigger digital split is better, but it's not as dramatic as the revenue split appears at first glance.
It's just instead of Gamestop, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, etc sharing that revenue, it all gets booked by the platform holder.
Only one link from Psyonix (Rocket League). I've heard the same from sources I can't link. Devs are very very careful to not give out any numbers publicly. This is all very common sense, as you figured it to be.
"Obviously, developers can't go into the details of the deal they have with Sony, but you fight for an amount that they pay you and hope that's enough if nothing else happens."
Psyonix also got the marketing boost (they had zero money to do their own marketing). Then when the Plus promo hit, there were so many players they were concerned they'd be paying server costs for so many players without income to pay for it. They said they learned in hindsight to always offer something for players to buy from week one.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/rocket-league-devs-discuss-difficult-decision-to-g/1100-6445031/
He has many apparently, with all those times the "(I'm an expert)" post is copy-pastaed.
Well, the one I copied was serious. What did you write?
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It's even more than that. If Sony actually goes ahead and just reduces the monthly games to 2 as most people are expecting, PS Plus will be making a lot more money than just 30% of a $60 game.
This paid online shit might be the most profitable thing Microsoft ever came up with and Sony executives have to be really happy when they decided to copy it.
this isnt surprising when you can lean on 3rd party sales and are the preferred platform...
for every dark souls remastered on switch, you have REMake, Ace combat, far cry, hitman, assassins creed, monster hunter world and call of duties on ps4... it's really not a fair comparison.
for every dark souls remastered on switch, you have REMake, Ace combat, far cry, hitman, assassins creed, monster hunter world and call of duties on ps4... it's really not a fair comparison.
That's on Nintendo to mend those relationships and put out hardware that will take games being played on other platforms. Instead most ports have to be reworked a lot, and downsized to fit/play on switch with it's different power modes.
Sony/Microsoft create consoles that support third party developers/publishers. Nintendo chooses to do their own thing and make decisions based on just their own games mostly.
And you can see that in how they approached certain things like multiplayer, online service, party chat, and just choosing portability over power.
Can't have it both ways. And honestly unless they fit the bill for certain games, you are only going to see certain big budget games come to switch. And there will be hefty changes to how the game looks and possibly plays.
I have an og ps4 and pro and buy things off psn on the store itself with no issues. So sorry but we are not all experiencing that. Never ever got an error checking out either and I buy tons of stuff.
I think with that steady income they get complacement too. A few things they could add which would generate more revenue:
1. Gifting. It's been a thing on Live for about 16 months I think. Let people gift games on PSN.
2. ID change. People have been asking for it for years. Seems like it may finally be coming?
3. Let people buy games they already have on Plus.
1. Gifting. It's been a thing on Live for about 16 months I think. Let people gift games on PSN.
2. ID change. People have been asking for it for years. Seems like it may finally be coming?
3. Let people buy games they already have on Plus.
We have to give a shout out to the man who made this all happen.
But yeah, the years will not be kind to Don Mattricks legacy at Xbox.
lol too funny.We have to give a shout out to the man who made this all happen.
I believe you're having this problem, but it's the opposite of my experience. The PSN store has been great for me whether I'm paying with a gift card, credit card, or PayPal. In fact, I regular just but stuff on my phone, and it's waiting for me already downloaded on my console by the time I get home from work. It's incredibly smooth and and easy, regardless of how you access the store.
Have you contacted customer support about your issues? That just doesn't sound right. Are you using a university connection for your system?
Congratulations to Sony. Well deserved. And yeah, no way is Sony (or Microsoft/Nintendo for that matter) going to end charging to play online. It simply makes too much money. PS Now earning more money than Game Pass is somewhat surprising considering that it's nearly all streaming. Adding in PS4 Backwards Compatibility for PlayStation 5, Sony is setup to dominate for a very long time barring some kind of major fuck up.
94 million PS4 versus 41 million Xbox 1. That install base difference does a lot of work.
The audience for PS Now and GP are probably similar even if PS Now is mostly streaming. Also people could be using it for mostly those games that can be downloaded and skipping most of the streaming games, who knows.
Yeah Nintendo is going to mop up the floor with those services. Why don't we group up in a party chat on our switches and discuss. Hold on..... brb I'm going to go tether my cell phone to the switch so we can chat.
It's not just that PS Now has double the install base to work with, but let's not forget that the service started rolling out in January 2014. Sony made a big deal out of streaming from jump. It's been around all gen, whereas Game Pass got going in 2017.
Not really a good reason to own discs anymore other than the occasional sale. Too inconvenient.
i love physical...but its my sadness that Sony has done things the consumer friendly right way in this instance, easing people into digital through extremely generous sales and gradually carrot incentivizing instead of simply putting the hammer down
Yeah, game is in flash sale maybe, want to ensure ownership regardless of future Plus sub status, want to reward devs, whatever. If customers want to give you money, let them.
Now if only they could invest money in improving it. There's no reason why they can't provide dedicated servers like Microsoft does with this kind of success.
You don't need to pay for PS+ to be able to play fortnite, for starters.
Sure, but that doesn't negate how much money comes from Fortnite. There's a reason that Sony tried to keep people locked into only buying shit for it within their ecosystem.
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