PS5 Players Spend Much More Time Playing Single Player Games Than Multiplayer Ones, Leaked Documents Suggest

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
  • Newly leaked PlayStation data has revealed that PS5 users spent more time playing single-player offline titles than others.
  • The multiplayer online and F2P titles appeared to be leagues behind in the charts as of January 2023.
  • The charts reveal a slew of other notable details. PS5 users had a lower initial engagement ramp up rate than PS4 users.

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One particular slide breaks down the total gameplay hours by the collective PS5 userbase month-by-month, and as per that slide, every month since the console launched, its user base has spent the majority of its time player single player games, generally accounting for more than 50% of the playtime for the month- and often much more than that, like in December 2022, when out of a total of 1.6 billion gameplay hours, 59% were spent in single player games, 20% in free-to-play multiplayer titles, and 21% in multiplayer titles for which a PlayStation Plus subscription is required.
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I mean its mainly what I want from PS, the big boy blockbuster AAA single player experiences

But the shift towards GAAS makes me wonder where the next major single player game is at

Jack Daniels Whiskey GIF by ALLBLK
 
Hey does everyone remember ages ago when that EA git said single player games were dead... Great to see loads of people continuing enjoying the single player stuff.
 
This data is from January 2023 AFAIK.
VitoNotVito said:
But Jimmy wanted to push GAAS? Why?
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Even tho more time is spent playing single-player games, people can still spend more money on GaaS content as a whole, on a per-title basis, while spending less time playing it than a single-player game.

Because most GaaS titles allow for quick gaming sessions; meanwhile when you're settling in for a single-player experience you're probably spending at least 2-3 hours each session playing. So from that perspective, I can understand to some degree the GaaS push from SIE/Jim Ryan.

That said, they were definitely too bullish on it too quickly, and could've done things better with a balance of 1P traditional AAA, traditional AA, 1P GaaS and 3P traditional/GaaS exclusives. And prioritizing IP like MLB The Show for mobile earlier (probably with a F2P model).

The overtly bullish GaaS push and PC porting strategy are probably the biggest shortcomings of the Jim Ryan era, in retrospect. The ideas themselves weren't bad (he didn't even start the PC ports for example, that was under Shawn Layden), but SIE should've been more measured and less contentious (in terms of any conflicts with the main audience on console) on both fronts.
 
The key thing is which types of games make more money.

Maybe SP gamers do play a lot more. But if they arent spending much money aside from the initial purchase, the game studios will freak at limited revenue. While casual gamers messing with COD and Fortnite and FIFA might be buying mtx every week.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
The key thing is which types of games make more money.

Maybe SP gamers do play a lot more. But if they arent spending much money aside from the initial purchase, the game studios will freak at limited revenue. While casual gamers messing with COD and Fortnite and FIFA might be buying mtx every week.
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Yep, that's basically why Sony (among others) were pursuing GaaS so fervently. It's about the revenue, not player engagement, in this case. Someone can buy a game like Horizon on sale for $30 - $40 and play it for many dozens of hours...they can also buy $150 worth of MTX in Fortnite and play a total of maybe 5 hours in the same span of time they spend playing Horizon.

Guess which one would have generated more revenue ARPU-wise, tho? Not Horizon. That's why companies like Sony have been looking at expanding into GaaS...though I think in Sony's case the original plans were too aggressive and needed culling & adjustments (which seems like they've been made, or are in the process of being made).
 
The platform that prides itself on massive Hollywood single player experiences?

Shocked Patrick Stewart GIF
 
StreetsofBeige said:
The key thing is which types of games make more money.

Maybe SP gamers do play a lot more. But if they arent spending much money aside from the initial purchase, the game studios will freak at limited revenue. While casual gamers messing with COD and Fortnite and FIFA might be buying mtx every week.
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But how many of those games can coexist?
 
mckmas8808 said:
But how many of those games can coexist?
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As many as there are good ones.

Rocket League, Fortnite, Genshin, Honkai, LoL, WoW, FF14, ESO, Sea of Thieves, NMS, Apex, Destiny, Finals, Warzone, R6S, GTA Online, etc.

There's a ton right now that are doing moderately well to very well. They don't all need to be Fortnite level successful. They just need to be good enough and engaging enough to keep people playing.
 
I remember when Jim said that their big AAA blockbuster games will continue to carry their platform, and Twitter was in full rage mode.
 
Sounds right. I spend most of my time on SP games on my PS5 and most people on my friends list do the same as well. Yea, we still hop on multiplayer games but not as much as we spend in our SP games. Multiplayer games individually may be the most popular but overall I have no doubt single player is the most popular by a large margin. Sony built their fanbase on single player games so it's only right SP is popular on the platform.
 
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Its also important for console makers to drive online gaming. Not just for the endless mtx that can can come from it, right off the bat there's the monthly or annual sub fee they get from online gamers.
 
I've never been able to get into multiplayer online gaming.

I tried it a few times, but never got past a couple of matches before deciding I've seen it all, and returning to single player games.

Maybe I'm too old school? First game I ever finished was Fire Ant, back on the Plus 4, so it wasn't really until 2007 that I first tried online gaming.
 
Duchess said:
I've never been able to get into multiplayer online gaming.

I tried it a few times, but never got past a couple of matches before deciding I've seen it all, and returning to single player games.

Maybe I'm too old school? First game I ever finished was Fire Ant, back on the Plus 4, so it wasn't really until 2007 that I first tried online gaming.
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For me, online gaming is something you got to put in time at whichever game you play.

I guess some people dont care and they just randomly join matches at any time and dont care if they are a noob or not. They probably hope matchmaking puts them in a lobby that fits them. For me, always jump into COD during launch because it's important to learn maps and level up fast. But for the COD games I didn't give a shit about (Ghosts, AW and Infinite) I never bothered playing those games aside from a handful of matches because I didnt feel like grinding it out 4 months after launch when shit loads of people are already good at it.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
It still seems fishy considering how the top played PlayStation games every month are GAAS titles.
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You can spend 1000 hours playing 5 single player games and 210hrs playing a single multiplayer game. In fact this would be pretty normal. People gravitate towards a very small handful of popular multiplayer games but play a lot of shorter singleplayer games.
 
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