I'm happy that the window may still be open at SIE for more internal AA titles, and AA expansions to AAA tentpole releases. Hopefully that also includes 2P co-development partnerships leveraging legacy IP (like the rumored stuff with SEGA/Atlus and Bandai-Namco with IP like Wipeout). Otherwise the obvious takeaway is that it'll at least continue to be stuff like Stellar Blade (
) and the various Hero Projects (also
)
Aside that, the other thing that did immediately stand out to me was the responses to the PC ports. Not the no Day 1 for non-GAAS; that was basically a given. No,
I'm interested in the stated effect they see in the PC ports bringing some of those players to buy PS5s.
BUT, the reason I'm interested is because there was both no direct clarification on how that'd happen (a bit understandable given the format of the presentation, and they don't have all the time to answer questions too in-depth), and that what answer was given sounded to me like they don't necessarily have as much hard data to prove the current strategy will result in that pickup.
The giveaway to me was when the lady (sorry, I didn't catch their name, but I think it was the translator) admitted that there could be some drift of console owners who'd go to PC because of the strategy. They didn't give an exact number, they didn't reference an exact data set; they just said "some", then basically said they were confident it wouldn't be that many. Which, hey, I agree with that. I just find it kinda interesting they don't have hard data to cite on that part.
And I know why they don't. For one, it's kinda too soon for SIE's own data to prove things one way or another. Secondly, no other platform holder has done a PC port strategy particularly like SIE are doing, with the 2+ year (on average) stagger windows between console and PC. But thirdly, the
only platform holder in the console market who has also made a big PC strategy core to their brand, Microsoft, obviously wouldn't share that data with SIE.
Meaning, the only thing anyone, including SIE, can do WRT determining the impact of SIE's current PC strategy on console adoption & revenue, is infer from extrapolating circumstantial data from business strategies by Microsoft Gaming. And, what makes that more difficult is that even the current situation with Xbox is in no way 100% due to PC strategy; it's multifaceted.
I'll say again that IMO, SIE supporting PC was
never a bad idea in itself. Bringing GAAS titles Day 1, makes sense. Bringing non-GAAS titles 2-3 years (or later, like with Ghosts of Tsushima) to PC, was
not a bad thing to go for. I think the long-term problems will happen because of the
frequency of their current gen (games released from 2020-onwards) titles have been ported to PC right before the midpoint of this generation. Outside of just a handful of titles, everything else is already on PC.
So, this idea that there are PC gamers by a large amount (especially if they are Steam players specifically), who will buy a console to play new 1P titles, doesn't seem like it holds as much water now vs. maybe in 2020 or 2021. And that is because of not just the cadence timing of ports between then and now, but the total
number of ports between then and now, too. If those PC players aren't necessarily suspect to FOMO (and with so many games released these days, people are spoiled for choice), they can just wait a couple years for the eventual Steam port of those SIE games. After all everything else has basically came, why would they expect that to change?
That's the potential wrench in that idea for SIE; then there's the question of what percentage of hardcore & core enthusiasts on the console, seeing that cadence, might decide to wait the couple years to eventually play those games on PC? Or, what about GAAS titles Day 1 on both platforms, but there may be better performance options, cheaper pricing, and free online for the PC version? Of course this assumes those PS owners also have capable enough PCs, and even among the hardcore & core enthusiasts I doubt most of them do. But 1-2 million over time might, and that maybe can add up.
Of course none of this matters if SIE can cover potential shifts and losses in revenue & profits on that front in other ways while still hitting growth projections. I just think, the PC strat as it currently is presents unnecessary friction. Also while I understand Herman's explanation for why it's been more aggressive on PC vs. mobile (because PC shares more with their development platform tools and pipelines than mobile currently does), I gotta wonder what a choice of being more modest on the PC front, and building up mobile development pipelines aggressively the past few years, would have looked like. Not only is the mobile market still seeing big growth in revenue yearly (unlike PC), it has monetization opportunities at least comparable to GAAS on PC & console, if not better (even if some cases are egregious).
SIE could've had mobile versions of certain games up and going by now with a different content delivery structure suited for mobile, leveraging that monetization, and even if those games were Day 1 across console and mobile, at least console would have the clear advantages in terms of traditional content structure, better graphics, framerate, and native device input options. Less friction, less encroachment, bigger revenues and bigger profits. It'd probably be in SIE's best interests to get mobile development pipelines going and prioritize that platform ahead of PC (Steam), while scaling back on the PC ports. Slow down the frequency of ports, and maybe take a 3-4 year stagger option on Steam/PC instead.
Though, I don't know what plans they have for a PC storefront/launcher of their own, and that would change a lot of things in terms of their PC strategy for me. Because while it'd still create some friction (more than mobile), at least that would be a 100% vested interest in SIE's ownership on the PC side of things.
Ass of Can Whooping
will stop calling me a cunt
