Another thread on why games should remain exclusive.
So I decided to come at this topic from a different angle after watching a video Dreamcastguy released how Sony hasn't really released anything the entire generation yet are receiving massive profits.
The different angle that I'm going to come from is that in the past year, Playstation has made over almost three billion in profit, that's 3000 million. In 2024, God of War Ragnarok released on PC, that's it, God of War Ragnarok, so even if that game sold one million copies, not even including development costs, but they'd have seen a return of $42 million.
Now let that sink in, they lose exclusive of their own game, giving no reason for someone to play the game on a Playstation they can just play it on PC if they wish, all for a profit that is nothing compared to what they made in that entire year from their own software, third party software, DLC, hardware/accessory sales, and subscriptions.
There are people in their corporate office saying well, PC gamers won't buy a Playstation, Xbox owners won't buy a Playstation. Well why is that, why would they not buy a Playstation? Because they know they can wait and just get it on PC. But for people who really do want to play the games, even though Sony's modern first party output is pretty shit, if people want to play God of Bore or Ghost of Tshitshima, they'd likely buy a Playstation if they wanted to that badly. And the more games that released that were exclusive, the higher incentive it would be to buy another console that you might initially be unwilling to buy. If there's a console I want to play atleast 20 games on, that's the point that I will likely purchase it and start collecting it.
So let's say that God of War Ragnarok was only on PS5 and not everyone who bought it on PC bought it a Playstation to play it, but let's say, enough games came out and atleast half of those people bought it so let's just say 500,000 people bought a Playstation to play it instead of the one million who bought it on PC. Sony is now getting 100% of the profit, no development costs to port it over and all of the other potentially funding that they could receive, but let's just not even consider anything else, let's just consider the dollar amount of God of Bore Ragnarok only. $30 million. So even if they didn't make another cent on those players, the game would have profited $30 million because they are making the full 100% profit instead of 70%. The game would remain exclusive, it'd give more incentive to later on pick up the PS5. It'd also make all the possible funds from every other venue that I listed.
This is certainly not worse for the company because in the long run it makes the company more profit, it makes the brand of the company more valuable. People say it's okay for Nintendo because they're on their own island, but how is it okay for Nintendo but not others. It's better for each business.
Now, how is this good for gamers? We're having to spend more money now? Xbox is dead, yes currently all their games are releasing on Playstation but that's just their past catalogue, how long is that actually going to happen before the well dries up?
If Xbox actually kept everything exclusive back on the Xbox One, never releasing any of it on PC, I think they'd have still seen a market of 80 million players, I think the Series X would be doing better because again, you wouldn't just be able to buy PC and play all of these games. Then when Microsoft had the userbase and bought Activision Blizzard, they likely would have kept the majority of these games exclusive, they wouldn't have released the ones even those that had fanbases over to other consoles, because they'd actually have the userbase that they wouldn't need the Playstation users. This would make Sony actually take their thumb out of their ass and do some shit, actually get competitive and release some fucking games rather than sit on their ass the entire generation.
As it is now, Sony doesn't have to do shit to make a profit and currently it's going their way. Currently it's working for them but it all comes down because no competition when everything is available everywhere, why buy an Xbox. But again, Sony's doing the same shit, even though it's for them now, how long before people buy a PC instead of a PS6? The casuals will still prop Playstation up, but anyone that realizes you can get more out of a PC is going to buy a PC. When they know they can just wait and get everything on Playstation and then another 10x the games that will always release on PC first, when they know they aren't trapped by Playstation's walled garden bs online subscription and will pay far less than a digital only Playstation owner, they'll go to PC. PC selling getting 40-50% of all sales is quickly going to drop when it loses the userbase just as Xbox did.
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Now, it could be seen as a positive to people who play PC, because once everything goes to PC, once Playstation is dead, once Xbox is dead, maybe Nintendo is still doing their thing, yeah, physical games are dying and at that point there is going to be no reason to have multiple consoles because what's the point in a console if you're getting something a PC can't offer. Now again, that'd be reason for exclusivity, but if physical dies I don't give a fu--. I don't give a fu-- if all console manufacturers implode at that point and PC becomes the only space you can game. Because at that point yes, it is better for the player when no one is dictating anything from the gamer.
But I'm a physical collector and most people here are physical collectors, and the only thing we can really hope for is that the Playstation 6 has an internal disc drive at launch(an add on disc drive for the PS6 means that physical is dead, barely anyone is going to make a game for an add on, just look at PSVR2's physical line up.)
Competition between hardware manufacturers will mean that everyone is paying more, including the console manufacturers, but if we have no physical disc drive fuck 'em. All their businesses can go under for all I care. I don't care about any of the console manufacturers, I care about physical media, and if I have to fight for the console manufacturers to keep that dream alive I will.
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Originally Posted by JSoup
