Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
It makes entirely too much sense for Sony to go live with their own PC Launcher/Storefront, it makes sense for their games to be exclusive to that storefront and it even makes sense for them to support it with Day 1 releases.
- Sony makes 30 percent of revenue from all 3rd party software sales on PS5
- They could emulate this with 30 percent of revenue from all 3rd party software sales on their PC launcher
- Competing with Steam aka why would someone use the PS5 launcher, well Sony is arguably the top software developer for mature games on the planet right now. Their games have interest. I would be surprised if they don't go live with a launcher before Spider-Man 2 comes to PC
- Steam revolt? Let's say 50 percent of the people who would buy a Sony game on Steam would buy it exclusively on their PC launcher. Let's say the Steam game would have sold 2 million copies at 60 dollars for 120 million in revenue. Sony ends up with 84 million in this case, but no residual income from 3rd party royalties. From their own store, they would get 60 million plus 3rd party royalties
- Why would developers want to put their games on Sony's launcher? First off, why not? Second, maybe Sony makes it worth their while? Maybe 25% royalties on games that are in the PS5 and PC stores. Maybe 15-20% royalties if the games are exclusive to both stores
- Sony loses money on hardware sales, so the PC Storefront would probably have a higher margin.
- As a result, there isn't much loss involved with doing day 1 release as long as the game is exclusive to their PC storefront. Now that doesn't mean that the other PC games the person buys will be on that storefront, but I think it's worth the attempt
- Sony could probably work their exclusive deals for content to be on PS5 and PC but in their storefront only