Not interested in console warring because I think it is awesome news for Sony to be taking this step and that more gamers can play these games. But I do think there is room for a friendly discussion on just how impactful the MS move to PC has been for them. I don't know if the average game fan realizes how big the gap is between the MS and Sony in terms of PC forward games and game titles that are appealling to PC users.
God of War hasn't broken 1,000,000 sales on Steam in a nearly six month release. And it is very common that the bulk of sales of titles like this occur in the first 90 days of release. Not saying it won't continue to do well. It will, incrementally. And at some point in 3-5 years God of War will definitely be over 2-3m in sales. We know this. It's an amazing game.
But by comparison, Sea of Thieves (by no means a God of War level game in terms of quality or presentation) is somewhere around 4-6m sold (and we know how SteamDB estimates can be fickle, God of War's low end estimate on SteamDB ended up being close to what the Sony reported sales were. By comparison, Sea of Thieves low end estimate in sales is 4.4-5.4m. Low end). Sea of Thieves is also vastly more popular with daily peak in-game players counts 5-6 times that of God of War even now, two years after it released on Steam. I mean, again, I'm not trying to console war but even Grounded a game that is in Alpha release on Steam from Obsidian has a more consistent daily peak in-game users than God of War by almost 30% for the last few months. Forza Horizon 5 launched a month before God of War on Steam and currently has almost 7 times the active in-game users. Forza Horizon 4 has more active users than Forza Horizon 5 currently and again almost 7-8 times the active users of God of War.
I don't know if Sony has the games that can achieve that consistent level of users right now. You need games that are more than single-player playthroughs and I think that is a massive reason Sony is moving towards GAAS and PC. Their titles, even the VERY BEST of them, are 40-80 hour playthroughs and then drop and forget. Players remember the game when putting together your favorite games of the generation but beyond that the game goes to the shelf for most players. And there's nothing wrong with that in general but I think the industry is moving towards having a few tentpole franchises that are regular plays for a portion of users. And it's not just 4-5 MS games. It's basically a large amount of the MS catalog of games are being played more than God of War and other high quality, highly decorated singleplayer Sony first party titles.
And to wrap this up, yes, Spider-man is going to be MASSIVE on Steam. Insane quality game, openworld. I think it is THE Sony first party title to truly make a mark on PC and have some staying power. But it might be the only one. And that's where Sony's GAAS and focus on replayability in future titles will start being seen I believe.
Sources:
God of War:
https://steamdb.info/app/1593500/graphs/
Days Gone:
https://steamdb.info/app/1259420/graphs/
Horizon Zero Dawn:
https://steamdb.info/app/1151640/graphs/
State of Decay 2:
https://steamdb.info/app/495420/graphs/
Forza Horizon 4:
https://steamdb.info/app/1293830/graphs/
Forza Horizon 5:
https://steamdb.info/app/1551360/graphs/
Grounded:
https://steamdb.info/app/962130/graphs/
Sea of Thieves:
https://steamdb.info/app/1172620/graphs/
Halo Infinite:
https://steamdb.info/app/1240440/graphs/
Halo MCC:
https://steamdb.info/app/976730/graphs/
A chart to better see what I'm talking about, sorted by 24 Hour Peak in-game Steam users: