PS5 vs. Switch vs. XBOXSX - THUNDERDOME Version 2.0

[FanIn80]

What does "PS5 releases on PC day and date" mean?

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

What does "PS5 releases on PC day and date" mean?

It’s in reference to game produced by Sony(God of War, Horizon, Spider-Man, etc) that are exclusive to PlayStation coming out on PC. They used to never come to PC, recently they’ve been putting out PC ports anywhere from 6-18 months after the exclusive PlayStation release. “Day and date” means releasing on PlayStation and PC on the same day - Helldivers 2 is the first to do this.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Helldivers 2 is a surprise hit, but Sony has been pretty up front about a desire to bet on live service games. There are still 8-10 games in Sony's live service pipeline with Marathon and Concorde coming up to bat.

the cancellation of LoU: Factions put a bit hole in 2024 for Sony... Helldivers might be able to help the financials. Personally, I would make Helldivers full mutilplat. If Sony wants a 'true' Fortenight, it needs to be everywhere.

As for Sony going day and date, I think that only happens with their live service offerings.

As long as Sony is in the hardware business, they need to keep their first party exclusives on Playstation for at least a year or two.

the bigger question is the cost of game development. They need to ramp down the scale of AAA games to reduce development cost in spin up release schedules. 1 game from Naughty Dog during the entirety of PS5 is a non starter...same with Santa Monica and Guerilla.

Personally, I loved the LoU2, but it didn't need to be 25 hours...they could have lopped off 5 hours and had a tighter game which could have reduced development time and cost.

Game markets have flatlined a little bit and AAA game development and cost is at a major crossroad IMO

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

Helldivers 2 is a surprise hit, but Sony has been pretty up front about a desire to bet on live service games. There are still 8-10 games in Sony's live service pipeline with Marathon and Concorde coming up to bat.

the cancellation of LoU: Factions put a bit hole in 2024 for Sony... Helldivers might be able to help the financials. Personally, I would make Helldivers full mutilplat. If Sony wants a 'true' Fortenight, it needs to be everywhere.

As for Sony going day and date, I think that only happens with their live service offerings.

As long as Sony is in the hardware business, they need to keep their first party exclusives on Playstation for at least a year or two.

the bigger question is the cost of game development. They need to ramp down the scale of AAA games to reduce development cost in spin up release schedules. 1 game from Naughty Dog during the entirety of PS5 is a non starter...same with Santa Monica and Guerilla.

Personally, I loved the LoU2, but it didn't need to be 25 hours...they could have lopped off 5 hours and had a tighter game which could have reduced development time and cost.

Game markets have flatlined a little bit and AAA game development and cost is at a major crossroad IMO

Except the new COO needs to deliver higher profit margins and specifically stated that they need to find more ways to get their games in more hands by exploring more platforms. Hell Divers 2 is just going to make it easier for him to convince shareholders that PC day and date will put more money in their pockets all while still far outselling consoles.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Since1984

Except the new COO needs to deliver higher profit margins and specifically stated that they need to find more ways to get their games in more hands by exploring more platforms. Hell Divers 2 is just going to make it easier for him to convince shareholders that PC day and date will put more money in their pockets all while still far outselling consoles.

What's the motivation for people to buy a PS5 Pro or a PS 5 Handheld and then a PS 6 if they go day and date on PC? There's a lot of people who have computers, but buy playstation consoles for the exclusives.

That's the self canabilization of their own market that will hurt their hardware sales

Live services will go day and date for sure. First party triple A games will always be Sony Console exclusives - that window might shrink to a year, but I don't think triple A games will go date and date unless they were franchises that were previously multiplat like a Destiny...

In the end, we'll just have to wait and see what they do in the next few years.

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

What's the motivation for people to buy a PS5 Pro or a PS 5 Handheld and then a PS 6 if they go day and date on PC? There's a lot of people who have computers, but buy playstation consoles for the exclusives.

That's the self canabilization of their own market that will hurt their hardware sales

Live services will go day and date for sure. First party triple A games will always be Sony Console exclusives - that window might shrink to a year, but I don't think triple A games will go date and date unless they were franchises that were previously multiplat like a Destiny...

In the end, we'll just have to wait and see what they do in the next few years.

The main reason this is feasible is consoles are able to deliver performance that PC's for the same price cannot. The main player base has always been non PC, players that can't justify spending double the price on a PC.

Even if you end up losing some console sales, you make up so much in opening those games up to a larger audience. It would be interesting to see the numbers for sales for PS5 vs PC on HellDivers 2.

All I can see is that at the minimum, around 405k copies were sold on steam based on peak concurrent player count. So actual sales is somewhere much higher than that. Even if half the players that bought it on PC had PS5's. Sony gains at least 200k additional sales on a game.

That's a ton of money the studio and Sony would never see if not released on PC day and date.

Like you said, we will have to wait and see. My bet is on Sony releasing day and date to PC sooner rather than later.

[OutOfTheCube]

I think moving to day and date will kill a console, eventually. Microsoft started much earlier and can’t give away an Xbox anymore, Sony missed their projections last year. Nintendo is the only one selling as many consoles as they want to with a 7 year old platform because of… exclusives.

The money gained from PC sales is small potatoes compared to getting someone in to your ecosystem and buying everything from your online store, accessories, subscriptions, etc.

[chemgear]

Switch 2 delayed to March 2025?

Noooooooo!

[photon]

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Switch 2 delayed to March 2025?

Noooooooo!

8 years between consoles...yeesh.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

8 years between consoles...yeesh.

When you're not on the cutting edge of technology to start with, and use exclusives and games to sell consoles instead of console features, then you seem to be able to have longer console lifecycles.

As somebody who has a Switch I feel like this release is probably 1 year to 18 months late...but I also had mine since launch day so it's been a longer lifecycle for me than most.

Feels like with their console sales, and software attach remaining so strong throughout 2022 there was no real pressure.

[chemgear]

Whelp, need more competition.

https://kotaku.com/publishers-not-su...gdc-1851367132

Some Publishers Reportedly Not Sure Why They Should Keep Supporting Xbox

It seems some big and small publishers aren’t sure if they should keep porting games to Xbox consoles

Reportedly, some third-party video game publishers aren’t sure why they should keep making and supporting games for Xbox consoles due to poor sales in Europe.

“You can follow our monthly coverage in the games market and you can see that Xbox sales are falling, and it’s been falling throughout last year and it’s falling even harder this year.”

Dring further said that one major company—who reportedly released a “big game” last year—said: “I don’t know why we bothered supporting it.”

“We mentioned on the previous podcast that we’d heard retailers in Europe are considering or had already been cutting back their Xbox stock on their shelves—hardware, games, that kind of thing—and now you’ve got publishers, third-party publishers going, ‘we’re putting in a lot of effort trying to create a Series S version and an X version of a game when, to be honest with you, for us the market is PC and PS5’,” said Dring.

According to Dring, from what he heard at GDC 2024, Xbox is “in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer.”

https://twitter.com/user/status/1769991716952531360

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Whelp, need more competition.

https://kotaku.com/publishers-not-su...gdc-1851367132

Some Publishers Reportedly Not Sure Why They Should Keep Supporting Xbox

It seems some big and small publishers aren’t sure if they should keep porting games to Xbox consoles

Reportedly, some third-party video game publishers aren’t sure why they should keep making and supporting games for Xbox consoles due to poor sales in Europe.

“You can follow our monthly coverage in the games market and you can see that Xbox sales are falling, and it’s been falling throughout last year and it’s falling even harder this year.”

Dring further said that one major company—who reportedly released a “big game” last year—said: “I don’t know why we bothered supporting it.”

“We mentioned on the previous podcast that we’d heard retailers in Europe are considering or had already been cutting back their Xbox stock on their shelves—hardware, games, that kind of thing—and now you’ve got publishers, third-party publishers going, ‘we’re putting in a lot of effort trying to create a Series S version and an X version of a game when, to be honest with you, for us the market is PC and PS5’,” said Dring.

According to Dring, from what he heard at GDC 2024, Xbox is “in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer.”

https://twitter.com/user/status/1769991716952531360

It has definitely been a rough generation for XBOX in the hardware sales department. I know once I upgraded my PC I have played less on either console.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the next consoles, if rumors are even close to what XBOX has in store it could be a very intriguing choice for gamers. Sounds more and more like the next XBOX will be a console/PC hybrid with a real possibility of having third party(Epic/Steam) game stores on it along with a handheld that would play these games natively in the same vein of the SteamDeck.

But as of right now, the only thing XBOX has going for it is GamePass and the fact that they aren't releasing remakes on remakes.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Whelp, need more competition.

https://kotaku.com/publishers-not-su...gdc-1851367132

Some Publishers Reportedly Not Sure Why They Should Keep Supporting Xbox

It seems some big and small publishers aren’t sure if they should keep porting games to Xbox consoles

Reportedly, some third-party video game publishers aren’t sure why they should keep making and supporting games for Xbox consoles due to poor sales in Europe.

“You can follow our monthly coverage in the games market and you can see that Xbox sales are falling, and it’s been falling throughout last year and it’s falling even harder this year.”

Dring further said that one major company—who reportedly released a “big game” last year—said: “I don’t know why we bothered supporting it.”

“We mentioned on the previous podcast that we’d heard retailers in Europe are considering or had already been cutting back their Xbox stock on their shelves—hardware, games, that kind of thing—and now you’ve got publishers, third-party publishers going, ‘we’re putting in a lot of effort trying to create a Series S version and an X version of a game when, to be honest with you, for us the market is PC and PS5’,” said Dring.

According to Dring, from what he heard at GDC 2024, Xbox is “in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer.”

Yeah, I can't imagine it's been enjoyable for developers to scale back next-gen titles just so they can work on both Xbox versions.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah, I can't imagine it's been enjoyable for developers to scale back next-gen titles just so they can work on both Xbox versions.

They probably should get used to it. The handheld, lower power console is here to stay. The next generation could include Switch 2, Steam Deck 2, and a potential Xbox handheld console. If you want your games to hit the biggest audience, you're going to need your game to scale really well.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

They probably should get used to it. The handheld, lower power console is here to stay. The next generation could include Switch 2, Steam Deck 2, and a potential Xbox handheld console. If you want your games to hit the biggest audience, you're going to need your game to scale really well.

Good point. I hadn't really thought of that.

[Raekwon]

Maybe console should all go the way of Handheld PCs with enough power to play games at lower quality but with the option or included eGPU to connect to when playing at home.

I just picked up a Legion Go and an eGPU case and moved my 3080 into it and got rid of my desktop, I have a USB-C dock for peripherals. This is something that could be built by MS or Sony into a nice compact package and have the best of both worlds along with having an option to upgrade graphics without the need of a whole new system.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

Maybe console should all go the way of Handheld PCs with enough power to play games at lower quality but with the option or included eGPU to connect to when playing at home.

I just picked up a Legion Go and an eGPU case and moved my 3080 into it and got rid of my desktop, I have a USB-C dock for peripherals. This is something that could be built by MS or Sony into a nice compact package and have the best of both worlds along with having an option to upgrade graphics without the need of a whole new system.

Yeah, the only problem with that is the limited storage on the Legion Go. Unless streaming games gets a lot better, it's not really feasible if you want to have more than one or two AAA games available to play at any time.

[SuperMatt18]

The problem with developing on XBox is that's it's become a gamepass machine so there is no reason to buy other games on the system.

I can't recall the last time I bought a game for the XBox...more than enough in the Gamepass catalog to wait and if it's multiplaform I'll wait for a sale, wait for it on Gamepass, or will buy it on PlayStation since I generally still like the PS5 more

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

The problem with developing on XBox is that's it's become a gamepass machine so there is no reason to buy other games on the system.

I can't recall the last time I bought a game for the XBox...more than enough in the Gamepass catalog to wait and if it's multiplaform I'll wait for a sale, wait for it on Gamepass, or will buy it on PlayStation since I generally still like the PS5 more

Yeah, Microsoft had to admit in the court filings that Game Pass was killing purchases. It's not surprising of course.

I haven't purchased anything on Xbox in years either. Nevermind the lack of exclusives but it just doesn't even feel good when you think about a potential purchase and remember that there is a game pass.

"You'll own nothing and be happy."