While reading this I wondered how much of those crazy numbers were Helldivers II, glad we got a hint at the end of the post.
The numbers I posted are the closest thing we have to know the amount of money made by Helldivers 2. We also know is the fastest selling Sony game ever, that sold over 12M units very quickly (and more millions since then, plus microtransactions) and that it was one of the top 10 grossing games of the year in Steam, top 3 in the NA PS5 PSN store.
I think the strategy of select multiplats is sound. I wouldn't buy Bungie and then pull everything they have from PC. That would be insane especially as a FPS company.
But I don't think increased PC numbers from buying Bungie and financing a game that wasn't a Sony property (Helldivers II) necessarily means any and all games should walk away from the console, like Last of Us, Ghost and Horizon.
Helldivers 2 always has been a Sony property: Helldivers is an IP owned by Sony. Not only in Helldivers 2, also was in Helldivers 1. As happens in basically all AAA games, Arrowhead represents only around 10% of the people who worked in Helldivers 2. The rest are Sony staff or -like Arrowhead- external teams hired and managed by Sony. As of now if Sony wants so, Sony can make Helldivers 3 without Arrowhead, but Arrowhead can't make Helldivers 3 without Sony.
The reason of Sony SP AAA games being outside PS isn't the Bungie or Helldivers 2 success. That plan started way before (around 2017/2018) because of their own cost: AAA games get way more expensive every generation and their price and sales in console don't grow in the same proportion at all. It reached a point where big AAA titles being released nowadays cost over $250M-$300M and need to sell around 8M-10M copies to be profitable.
This means most AAA games released in PS4 or previous generations wouldn't be profitable being released only in PS5 or only in PS6, specially if don't have meaty DLC stuff. And even less in the next generation, where costs will increase again. Meaning, games like Death Stranding, Bloodborne, Days Gone, Dreams, Detroit, Ratchet, Returnal wouldn't be profitable, so they wouldn't make them and would only their super selling IPs: Spider-Man, GoW, GoT, TLOU, Uncharted, GT and Horizon.
To avoid this and keep the non-GaaS SP AAA titles profitable and more sustainable without having them being a money pit during this or the next generation, they needed more revenue and profit. The growth of console market has been tiny for decades, so they only could keep eating market share inside the console market (what they did, are almost killing MS) but still considering that they needed more: so needed money from some GaaS and on top of that to find new users elsewhere, both to milk them outside and inside PS.
And this is why they expand to PC, mobile, movies and tv show adaptations: to attract new fans to their console but also to monetize other ones outside it who are in other markets and never would buy a console. Or are in countries where consoles are a tiny part of the business so to make gaming IPs popular there must be in other platforms, particularly PC and mobile, markets that are way bigger than PS so there's potential of making a shit ton of money there.
And it isn't only the cost of each single specific game: each generation the big AAA games not only get more expensive: they also require more time to be made. Meaning, each team takes longer to release a game. Which means they need to have more teams working at the same time to keep a similar output pace. Meaning, the total yearly costs spent in development as a whole gets even higher.
Example: let's say before they made at the same time a dozen games of around $150M each (spent across 4 years on average each) and now have two dozen games of around $300M each (spent across 6 years on average each). This means with this example before they spent $450M/year on development and now $1200M.
And in my post above you can see what they generate now they also have the GaaS and PC. A generation ago made way less from first party games.
It's like Nintendo financing a sequel to a GAAS title with a PC audience, seeing the numbers, and going "oh wow. We should put DK, Mario and Zelda on PC too." Except they already have the highest operating margins and doing so would deconstruct their money machine after one generation.
No, because the cost of Nintendo games is way smaller than the Sony games, so they have enough with the sales on their own console. The only big AAA games that Nintendo made are Zelda BoW and TotK, and sold like bonkers, plus they also have the profit from the hardware to compensate.
Revenue from first party titles is not the whole story. If you are receiving maximum revenue from software by spamming it everywhere, there must be a correlation of a weaker console business. The first party titles exist to make people buy the console so that more money is made passively from everything else you do with it.
The thing is that game subs, accesories and 3rd party gave them some profitability to compensate loses from selling hardware at a loss, and eventually maybe loses from 1st party too.
During these years Jimbo highly increased to record levels the revenue from game subs, accesories and 3rd party. But due to inflation and component costs the loses from selling hardware increased.
They have been trying to adress the hardware profitability, but first party games can't be a black hole money pit: they have to be sustainable for themselves too.
When Nintendo coerces you to buy a system for Zelda they get 30% of any other third party game you buy there after that event, passively. When they put Zelda on PC you just buy it there, and then Nintendo must immediately get back to work to make another sale.
PS too, with the difference that PS sells way more 3rd party games.
Sony is sacrificing their leverage in consoles for short term profits, wanting both the platform holder money and third party publisher money. This will hurt their operating margins in the end, even if they have boosted sales for those 1p games. I'd rather have first party games that make my console essential, so that it's already in the living room when it's time to buy Vbucks or a Resident Evil title comes out. Right now they are coasting because 1) Xbox tanked hard and 2) The gen started expecting more of PS4 strategy, now the cat is out of the bag for PS6.
The opposite: Sony's GaaS+PC+mobile+movies helps to continue having non-GaaS AAA games for the medium and long term. Without them, in the medium term there would be only non-GaaS AAA games of the few top selling IPs and in the long term there wouldn't be (or there would be way less) AAA games.
Even more considering that revenue from game sales keeps being replaced by revenue from addons more and more every year, and that playtime keeps getting focusing more and more in GaaS games. The space for non-GaaS keeps getting smaller particularly if limited to a single console.
Since they can't stop the budget and development length from growing every generation, looking at the long term they must expand their revenue sources getting new fans elsewhere and monetizing them there (other gaming platforms, tv, cinema) in addition to bringing part of these new fanse -as they are doing- to their console.
And since the growth in console is limited, they also have to bring their platform, PlayStation/PSN to other places like PC and mobile to not only monetize there 1st party games, but also 3rd party games. And also have to secure a safe place in the GaaS market that already has the majority (and growing) of the userbase, revenue and playtime of gaming.
