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All-new PlayStation Plus launches in June with three flexible membership options
- Thread starter HeisenbergFX4
- Start date
SSfox
Member
Well about first point, sure maybe for you are Marvel fan.
And yes PS5 is the best hardware ever made, and Dualsens is incredible to say the least. Never said anything about hardware, Sony hardware are always in top notch thankfully.
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Orbital2060
Member
Thats what Im surprised they didnt figure out before launching the new PS+, because its a matter of sourcing the financials for it. And future-proofing your business. And Im only saying the above because Sony tried to make it sound like games suffer by being published on a subscription service.
Also its not only about Xbox or Playstation. Spencer has said that Sony is not their main competitor, and Sony should not view Xbox as their main competitor either. Thats something that the fandoms are preoccupied with, in a highly myopic fashion.
March Climber
Member
I guess to me whenever I think of Sony and innovation, I think of how they innovate in terms of hardware, which is why I listed PS1, PS2, and PS3(PSP and Vita are also part of this list). They were all wild departures from each other yet all managed to launch with backwards compatibility and the latest/experimental disc technology included. Ken Kuturagi felt like a mad genius back then with his ideas, whether or not those ideas ultimately cost Sony money in the end(especially with the PS3). Even down to the controller, it's size, and how much they would cram into it(especially PS3's controller) was pretty crazy. Compared to those days, their moves regarding hardware have felt way, way safer(again, aside from PSVR) since the PS4 gen. I mean for crying out loud they're seriously scared to make a successor to the Vita. From owning them, I can say that the PS4 and PS5 is are both really well built machines and Cerny knows how to do amazingly a lot with a little in terms of power and size. However, I'm sure Ken would have found some crazy ass way to make the PS5 fully backwards compatible with all previous PS generations, regardless if the thing would have looked like a tank or a barbecue grill, and Ken's controller would have had something else way wilder in it besides a nice dualsense rumble.
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Slight improvement, should be enough to increase their ARPU.
Sony is still working on the assumption that regulators will stop Microsoft and GP will fail.
Fifteen labor and consumer groups sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, which will be tougher after Alvaro Bedoya's FTC confirmation and the MGM fiasco, urging the agency to investigate Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced bill that would make mergers worth more than $5 billion illegal.
Kenichiro Yoshida, who has strong support from the Japanese goverment, needs a Plan B, in case Microsoft walks over regulators.
Whatever happens, brute force won't work and will create a bigger problem.
Sony is still working on the assumption that regulators will stop Microsoft and GP will fail.
Fifteen labor and consumer groups sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, which will be tougher after Alvaro Bedoya's FTC confirmation and the MGM fiasco, urging the agency to investigate Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced bill that would make mergers worth more than $5 billion illegal.
Kenichiro Yoshida, who has strong support from the Japanese goverment, needs a Plan B, in case Microsoft walks over regulators.
Whatever happens, brute force won't work and will create a bigger problem.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
The bolded is crazy talk though man. Phil Spencer is the President of Xbox Gaming. He isn't comparing Microsoft to its competitors. He's comparing the Xbox brand to its competitors. Because he's the lead of "Xbox", not Microsoft.
Ken burned his Sony bridge with the PS3 though. He wanted that wacky Matrix-styled boomerang controller and the CELL processor (which was a thing of beauty) killed all hopes of BC for Sony forever for that generation of games. I think Ken went too crazy in the end and wasn't keeping the business realities in mind.
SportsFan581
Member
Problem there is that if you raise the cost of the baseline tier, you will inevitably lose some subscribers. It's impossible to tell the amount of subscribers you'd lose compared to the extra revenue you'd get from remaining ones at the higher price, until you actually do it.
Or, they could just add a more expensive tier. Problem with that though is that it requires more work (to add value), and you'll only get a very small fraction upgrading to the higher tier. At some point the gains in subs to the higher & higher tiers is offset by the losses in the value created for the higher tier in the first place.
Nothing, because such a service can never exist. Not one owned by a single company, anyway.
It'd have to be like a joint consortium or something with every publisher sharing the sub revenue. But then, you'll inevitably get some publishers/developers demanding they get more of that revenue because they'll try finding other metrics saying their games are bringing in more subscribers than the other publisher/developer, so on and so forth. Infighting and disagreements would probably cause that to break down.
Giving such a service to a single publisher/platform holder gives them too much power, they can just BS metrics and obfuscate data that would empower publishers providing games to the service, lowball payments for 3P games into the service, etc. Which might actually be a concern some publishers have with GamePass, I'm not 100% sure what hard metrics/numbers Microsoft shares with publishers in getting games into the service, especially Day 1 big releases, especially if inclusion into the service could impact purchasing habits of the game on other platforms simultaneously.
That's actually a good point, I didn't account for it before. They wouldn't have to pay for all potential sales on other platforms too, you're right. But, if the game is available on those platforms Day 1, while also available in GamePass Day 1, you know there will be some loss of sales on those other platforms by gamers who gravitate towards getting it in GamePass since it would work out to be so much lower. Microsoft knows that, too, otherwise they wouldn't try netting the game for Day 1 in GamePass to begin with.
So Microsoft would still be on the hook for paying for some of the lost sales on the other platforms. Say the game sells 20% less on the other platform because it's in GamePass Day 1, and it sells 25% less on Xbox because it's in GamePass Day 1. Microsoft would still have to cover for the 20% less being sold on the other platform in some way, same way Sony has to cover lost sales of timed exclusives for not being on Xbox or Switch Day 1.
Also fair points. But to the first question, it's because the game being in the subscription will inevitably have a small impact on total sold copies. There are going to be some people who would've normally purchased it, now not purchasing it because it's in the service. So the service needs to generate enough revenue off subs in order to offset the loss in sales, even for a 1P game.
Otherwise yeah, production costs (I rolled advertising into this as well) would be a factor whether it's in the service or not, but inclusion of it in the service would impact total capacity of sold copies, and that has to be accounted for. It's kind of an invisible cost taking out from the absolute revenue the service would generate in the time frame. For advertising, the service itself being advertised can offset some of the cost to a degree, but it can't completely replace a traditional advertising route especially for a AAA game.
A lot of people are not going to bite in terms of subscribing to a service unless they know enough about the actual specific content inside of the service first, and a lot of that is still going to be done through traditional advertising, which will cost more money. So I don't think the part of advertising just pushing the service alone would cover, covers any significant amount of the total advertising budget. Maybe it does for smaller AA and indie games, but not AAA releases.
I guarantee you we're going to see a massive traditional marketing blitz for Starfield, just as a case in point. It's Bethesda's first new IP in over two decades, they're going to push this as a magnum opus across as many big channels, shows, film trailers etc. you can imagine...if they're doing it the right way
What I was getting at with the double subtraction of the production costs, is that those costs would be static either way. If a game grossed $600m without the sub, the $150m is coming out of that. So, gross revenue minus those costs would be $450m. Now if we said the sub lowered the numbers and the game grossed $400m because of the sub, you are looking at a $200m loss in sales. But, in your example (where you are passing both the $150m in production costs and the $200m in lost sales to the sub) you are "billing" the sub for 350m. When the real differential continues to just be the $200m in lost sales (production costs were there either way). On paper, the sub probably would cover the production cost of the game, but because those costs were now covered in advance, the lost sales would move the cost adjusted number down just $50m.
Then there is the issue of subscription profits, which would obviously be the goal. Assuming you are profitable, then you need to figure what percentage of the subs profits you think could be attributed to this game. If that is more than $50m, you could be in the black here without even figuring MTX/DLC revenue increases from a potentially larger player base.
The other topics you bring up, specifically whether a subscription lowers sales on platforms outside the subscription would be up for debate. You'd need real numbers to argue that either way. It's hard to believe a user with a PS box at home is going to purchase another $500 box and a $15/mo. subscription just to avoid paying $70 for the game on PS. This would probably have more of an effect on the player's choice of platform to start with than on the direct sales of one game. Thus a buyer might choose to buy the console with the sub they like best, shifting their purchases over to that platform in the process. But there would be multiplatform gamers in the mix, some complicated calculations for third-parties there.
Basically, we don't have real numbers, so, all the back-of-the-napkin math in the world can't figure anything out.
Basically, before GP, MS was sales + MTX/DLC - costs = profit/loss. Now they are revenue from GP subs + sales revenue + MTX/DLC - costs (both first-party and for the third-party content on GP) = profit/loss. Only MS knows if GP with the day one inclusions is helping or hurting their bottom line.
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Dlacy13g
Member
I would agree that is the proper comparison if we really are looking at apples to apples. I would wager in the coming months any conversation around PSNow disappears and they will talk about PSPlus wholistically vs by tiers in any conversation that compares to GamePass.
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mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I hope not. I don't want Sony "hiding" the real numbers for the higher tiers of PS+
Swift_Star
Banned
People ITT can't read. That
False. PC users keep buying MS games.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
I had to go back to the original post to see something, because I think something in that first part might be causing some confusion. Looking at it I never actually used the combined $600 million of production costs for the three 3P AAA games (in that example) against the revenue total of the service. Instead I took their combined sales revenue and used that as a subtraction against the baseline subscription FY revenue, but you did point out that was wrong of me to do, and it was. Mainly because the game would still sell copies on not just the platform with the sub service but other platforms too, so a company like MS doesn't need to cover all of those sales because most of those sales wouldn't be lost anyway due to GP inclusion.
So yeah, it was really just the combined sales revenue being reduced; just to be safe though you could just cut that $1.8 billion down by 80% so in that example MS would only need to cover for around $360 million in possible lost sales across all the platforms. That's about 6 million for the three games, 2 million each.
Well let's see about that with some corrected numbers. I'm gonna assume worst-case in lost sales is 20% across all platforms (platform split, can't really determine that, but I figure it'd be the most on the platform with the service getting the game Day 1). For 3x 3P AAA games that'd sell 10 million each, that's $360 million like mentioned above. Even split of $120 million per game; assume we don't use production costs as a weight against the subscription service (because as you said, the costs for production would exist regardless). If the median sub price is $12.5, then you'd need only 2/5 of a month's revenue from a pool of 25 million active subs to cover the $120 million for one of those games; after that all other revenue is basically going straight to the service for that specific game (unless there are other payment setups agreed to based on player user metrics and stuff like that).
That's an ideal situation, anyway.
It depends on how many users own both platforms but still do most of their gaming on the one without the subscription service getting the game. Assuming the game's not on that service, they'd probably buy the game on the system they do most of their gaming on. However, if it's now in the service of a certain platform, that user may choose to get the game through the service on one system instead of buying it on the other.
That's a lost sale for the other platform, the ratio I would assume is how many dual-console owners there are. Considering hardcore & core gamers, the early adopters, tend to buy multiple systems, it might be fair to say at least 50% of them own a PlayStation & some other system, such as an Xbox. It's probably not too much different from that point for those who own all three, considering there's less overlap between Nintendo's system (in target markets/advertising) than Sony & Microsoft have with each other.
Anything with a percentage that high, I think there's a decent chance a game being on Platform A with a Subscription Service Day 1 versus Platform B with the game but no inclusion in an equivalent sub service Day 1, the latter will suffer some notable percentage of lost sales, while Platform A could get an increase in subscriptions to access the game.
But in order for them to know which sub they'd like best, they'd need to know what games are in the service, or coming to the service. Because people, a lot of them anyway, are ultimately going to decide which service to sub to based on the content in the service. And with services being such a new battleground this generation (compared to their role last gen), most buyers can only go off of what 1P games released last gen and what the platforms got in terms of 3P support, as potential indicators for what content the services on the new consoles for this gen can provide them.
That for Microsoft unfortunately is something they still have an uphill battle to fight because the track record of 8th-gen is still such a big factor. And Microsoft's performance last gen in terms of 1P and 3P content, compared to rivals, wasn't great after the first couple of years. All 1P being Day 1 still may not carry weight for a lot of would-be subscribers when they only have middling 8th-gen track record of 1P MS content to look to for basing what "All 1P Day 1 in GP" actually means, at least for right now.
But getting more back on the topic, I agree that actually determining how many sales would be lost, it's too tough to calculate so there's almost no point in doing so. However, it's fair to conclude at least that most of the potential lost sales would be on the platform where the service is at in which the game goes to Day 1, that seems like an obvious correlation to make IMO.
SportsFan581
Member
@
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
we definitely have our wires crossed a bit. In the second post I was only referencing the first-party releases in the first two paragraphs. 
It would be complicated for third-parties to know how things would work out for them, maybe that's why we haven't seen many AAA day ones from third parties. Probably a much easier decision to make for lower budget games where the publisher can more easily ensure there are no losses by adding the title to a sub on day one, or when they add older titles where they know their money has already been made (mostly).
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
we definitely have our wires crossed a bit. In the second post I was only referencing the first-party releases in the first two paragraphs. It would be complicated for third-parties to know how things would work out for them, maybe that's why we haven't seen many AAA day ones from third parties. Probably a much easier decision to make for lower budget games where the publisher can more easily ensure there are no losses by adding the title to a sub on day one, or when they add older titles where they know their money has already been made (mostly).
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Nah, Sony can do it.
PS Plus right now makes more money per year than any of their biggest releases.
You set the right price, they will get more revenue yearly, get more engagement on their platform, and more spending on their eco-system. I think Sony is worried about legitimizing Game Pass at a time they're likely not well equipped to compete against it with Microsoft purchasing Bethesda and Activision. I think they will wait till when they feel they have the right release schedule and they'll do it day one releases.
Sony drops their game prices over time, the subscription costs aren't dropping. The subscription route means more money. Sony brought out these higher priced versions of PS Plus for the purpose of spurring more subscribers and a lot more revenue. If they're satisfied by what they see, they will feel they have earned enough to get out ahead of what they feel is the downside of day one releases.
NewYork214
Member
Not interested in all of this warring shit. Question tho. Anyone know if any stores are selling any of the PS Now cards still. Totally would load up if they convert to premium. Would be huge savings
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Those PS1 games must look so sexy on y‘all’s 75” OLEDs.
Sounds like a good deal if you haven’t invested in PlayStation all these years. If you’ve missed PS4, this is great to make up for it.
Sounds like a good deal if you haven’t invested in PlayStation all these years. If you’ve missed PS4, this is great to make up for it.
kyliethicc
Member
Just the 1 month PS Now cards at $10 each. Any 3 or 12 month Now cards are going away. And the 1 months will die soon too.
Sony Confirms It's Pulling PlayStation Now Cards Globally for Cash Denomination Cards
Sony has confirmed that it's begun pulling PlayStation Now cards globally to focus on cash denomination cards.
www.playstationlifestyle.net
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SportsFan581
Member
You needed to do that when the whispers first started to circulate.
There are still some 1yr cards left on key sites, not sure if they are still redeeming those as is or if those would just hit your account as cash value. G2A had 1yr keys for only $27 a while back, looks like they've gone up quite a bit now.
Those prices are hilarious.
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NewYork214
Member
Damn. I told myself to do it then and never pulled the trigger. I'm gonna call some of these smaller scale game stores around here. Maybe luck out lolYou needed to do that when the whispers first started to circulate.
There are still some 1yr cards left on key sites, not sure if they are still redeeming those as is or if those would just hit your account as cash value. G2A had 1yr keys for only $27 a while back, looks like they've gone up quite a bit now.
Those prices are hilarious.
envyzeal
Wants protagonists to make his peepee soft
PlayStation Plusの新サービスが6月開始へ。数百のPS4/5タイトルが定額プレイ可能なExtraと、PS1/PS2/PSPタイトルなども遊べるPremiumの2種が上位版として登場 | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com
PlayStation Plusの新サービスが発表。従来のものと合わせて3種類となり6月より提供開始予定。
s.famitsu.com
-Are there any additional functions from the original version such as high frame rate support for the new classic game to be provided this time?
Jim Ryan: I'll talk more about it in the future, but I've heard from people who actually played it that it looks really good on PlayStation 4 and 5. However, the content of the correspondence will depend on the title.
TheGodfather07
Member
Sony are keeping their options open. Imo they will put their multiplayer service games on ps plus at launch. The big premium single games will go into the library 1 year after release at the earliest.
Tiago Rodrigues
Member
Sony is too safe now?
- Developing 10 Gaas titles at the same time to be released in the next 4 years, something that could backfire tremendously;
- Investing on creating a lot of new IPs in a time most publishers rely on the same old known and safe ones...
- Acquiring studios that have yet to release one single game - Haven. That's a bit of a bold move if you think about it;
- Plenty of interesting and out of the box ideas for the PS5 hardware...at least for consoles: Their SSD solution for the PS5, liquid metal cooling solution, etc...;
- Dual Sense is another great evolution for their console business. Games like Gran Turismo 7 gain a lot from this.
- Their VR push is not stopping any time soon. Want something more niche than this?
- Releasing games like Returnal is also something i wouldn't call safe.
You have hardware innovations, you have subscriptions, you have gaas, you have single player experiences, vr, more hardcore gaming experiences (returnal), etc...they are doing a bit of everything really...i wouldn't call it safe.
Killing off the Knack studio was not a mistake btw. They hadn't done anything good in god knows how long. Specially for a studio that had so many senior talent. It was probably too expensive to maintain for a support studio at that point. They basically removed the working pieces of it and didn't renew contracts with the people not giving them anything. We got Asobi and an XDev division from it.
Insomniac didn't stop developing other games. We just got Ratchet last year.
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TheGodfather07
Member
Yeah but they don't give away their games day 1 on a subscription service! That's all that matters!
Papacheeks
Banned
There's a difference between being safe and making calculated smart decisions based on your ability/funds.
Nintendo has been the epitome of safe. Literally Zelda, MArio, Mario Kart, Smash, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Monster Hunter like clock work. Look at their most sold games. Pretty much are those, maybe Animal Crossing is a outlier because it caters to people who also like Pokemon style of games.
But they literally have just in past couple years started offering paid online, their online still sucks. They have not invested this entire time in more developers as in acquiring, or opening more studios. Their release schedule is very predictable every year. It's going to be a first party Mario, Zelda title and some games like Fire Emblem and maybe a port of a Wii, Wii U game.
It's very predictable. Sony though maybe not as out in left field as they have been last gen, have been making moves. Bungie being bought was kind of out of left field and is anything but playing it safe. Investing Billions in VR after PSVR didn't set the world on fire is not what I call playing it safe.
Especially when there's a good amount of competition in that space. Making a low end Quest like VR headset would be playing it safe. Going all in on a all in one solution, that rivals the top end VR with your own haptics is not playing it safe. it might be predictable but playing it safe to me means you make very little risk investment.
PSVR2 is insanely expensive they are spending billions on this venture in the tech, manufacturing, support and studio talent.
Microsoft is risking everything on their Gamepass venture but I would argue because they are so rich the risk is minimal because risk means you have a lot to lose. Xbox could fail tomorrow and Microsoft would shrug it off and continue business as usual.
Thats how rich they are, they make Billions each month.
IF PS5, PSVR2 tanks Sony is in trouble. Playstation has to succeed. IT's their main Pillar. So there for in my eyes there's way more risk involved.
Tams
Member
Don't even have a PlayStation, so I wonct be getting any if them.
But they all seem fine to me. All very realistic.
To anyone complaining about not getting the biggest releases day one with any tier... that's just financially sustainable. Microsoft, if they continue as Games Pass is for years, will have to subsidize it from other parts of their business. I doubt they will prices will go up.
And for comparison, services like Netflix 1) aren't too stable financially and b) often don't get big things day one, with the odd exception.
But they all seem fine to me. All very realistic.
To anyone complaining about not getting the biggest releases day one with any tier... that's just financially sustainable. Microsoft, if they continue as Games Pass is for years, will have to subsidize it from other parts of their business. I doubt they will prices will go up.
And for comparison, services like Netflix 1) aren't too stable financially and b) often don't get big things day one, with the odd exception.
Tams
Member
PlayStation is no longer the only profitable part of Sony.
Their imaging division is turning a profit, as is their entertainment division. I believe even their mobile devices division are now. Plus, they have many other things like banking and insurance.
Papacheeks
Banned
True, but the amount their other divisions make pales in comparison to Playstation. Playstation by far consistently makes most money out of all of their divisions.
Mephisto40
Member
Or he still thinks pushing a console as a set top box that plays games is still a good idea...
Tiago Rodrigues
Member
As far as i know PlayStation isn't even Sony's most profitable part right now.
Papacheeks
Banned
It is.
Consistently it makes them Billions. Music and FIlm division is the only one that has been making anything close to what Playstation makes division wise. ANd it has not been as consistent over a 5 year period as Playstation has.
saintjules
Gold Member
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Sid Of Bee
Member
Sony betting on GaaS instead of a Netflix style game service...
To each their own, but Gamepass still doesn't have a contender.
To each their own, but Gamepass still doesn't have a contender.
SportsFan581
Member
I'm in total agreement regarding the slim model, hope they have that out by mid gen. The current PS5 is one fugly beast.
Let's see if they up the quality of the monthly additions even further now, they already seemed to be working on that a bit over the last year or so. A bit of competition in the space will be great for subscribers.
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He is right .. that’s what everyone is thinking who are not on GAF and being Sony warriors
TBiddy
Member
The 'Extra' tier seems to be great value, but that of course depends which games are actually included. But for someone like me that skipped the PS4, there's a lot of games waiting for me I think.
And also, pardon my french. Why the fuck is cloud storage for save games still hidden behind a paywall?
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Tiago Rodrigues
Member
"arrogant sony stricks back" for asking us to...pay for games. oh my...the arrogance! how's nintendo doing?
ZywyPL
Banned
People and the media seem to be missing the greater picture here - the foundation has been laid. Sony now has a full-fat subscribtion-based gaming service (not a forced paid online) which they can fill with games whenever they see fit. There mignt not be day one titles yet, but that can change just overnight since they have all the tools to do so now, whereas as of now they can just fill the service with games few years after they launch, just like with PC ports.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Because people are willing to pay for it. I'm not going to stop as a form of protest. I don't blame Sony for charging for it.
There will be day one PS5 games on the service. Most will more than likely be live-service games or some 3rd party games. Like a Rocket League styled game.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
What is different now (well in june) than what psnow was?
Swift_Star
Banned
That's exactly what it's happening as stated by Jim when they said they're working with third party publishers.
Swift_Star
Banned
PS Now didn't have significant investments and ps5 games. This revamped service will have both. They stated that.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
So far I wouldn't consider it a significant investment, maybe once there will be a list of supported ps5 games I will change my mind but I try to never believe words over actions.
Swift_Star
Banned
Another concerned citizen.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
Nope I don't show concernor anything either they provide something I am interested in or they don't , I just don't get excited until I see an actual list.If you want to be all defensive check my post history you'll realise you were wrong by quite a lot.
TBiddy
Member
It's capitalism 101, of course, but I don't get why people are accepting it.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
Lack of organisation, unwilligness to stop playing online to get your voice heard and the games each month that are like a foot in the doorstep.
Craig of War
Banned
It not free though nothing is free
TrebleShot
Member
Did they forget about PS vita?