Is it really a matter of greed to be running a successful business and then try and branch out and serve a different clientele?
Seems reasonable enough to me!
It sounds reasonable, until it is not. It is a risky move if you do not have daddy MS money to branch out in being one of the biggest multiplatform publishers out there. Sometimes it is the sheer hubris that gets you.
It can be a good expansion but they can get burned too.
Not really. Its not a problem for their massive existing user-base on console, and any extra members they get on PC looks good for MAU. Its a win-win.
Until they give too many reasons not to buy PlayStation anymore and they do not have PSN+ and/or an established PS Store on PC… this would be bad for them. It is nice to want your cake and eat it too sure, but you need those MAUs to actually mean equal or more revenue, you do not pay interests on debt or dividends with MAUs.
People have got this backwards. Sony always stand to gain more by mandating PC users have a PSN sub than not. If a percentage of the market has an issue with that, then its no skin off Sony's nose.
I know that they stand to gain more if PC users have a PSN sub, that is the hedging they should be doing in case they get a critical mass of players moving from PlayStation to PC. They cannot just give up the royalties and services revenue for a bit more sales of their first party games (losing 30% of the revenue to Steam to an audience that tends to pay lower ASPs).
Because, In simple terms, they aren't going to undercut their primary pitch to placate an audience that isn't receptive to it. That'd be stupid.
I do hope so. The great pushback by the PC audience in this case is partially welcome because of what it means hehe
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Sorry to spell this out, but PC get served because its a massive market, not because PC gamers are considered to be especially valuable. And one of the advantages of dealing with a massive market is you can fuck off a section of it, and still shift enough units to make it a viable money-maker.
Yes and no, it all depends on how you approach this market and the effect you have on your primary one. All games day and date in PC, no PSN requirement on PC, and no PC Store owned by Sony that is in any way successful? That is a lot of revenue pulverised.
This is similar thinking to the “oh, we only need to sell to 0.01% of the market and we will be super rich” plan Nintendo followed on iOS… did not quite work out that well outside of Pokémon GO.
They flip-flopped on Helldivers mandatory req because the messaging got fucked up. They won't make the same mistake again.
No, they simply gave up mandating PSN requirements on any of their games and are trying to give people optional incentives to link the accounts. So, they are further away from where they started.
… and this is just having a free PSN account too. This is far removed from actually monetising this. What is the credible plan for PC Service revenue?
