Sony sees PS Plus more as a way to help publishers extend the lifecycles of their games, and not as a means to transform its business model. More and more titles have been launching into Microsoft’s competitively priced Game Pass service, but indies evangelist Shuhei Yoshida reiterated that PlayStation “believes in the premium release of a title”. Instead, he compared the subscription to the theatrical launch of a movie, which eventually reaches new audiences through later delivery mechanisms.
“Our approach is we like to help publishers manage the lifecycle [of a game],” he told Games Industry.biz. “It’s like when a movie comes out in the theatre first, and then goes to pay-per-view or streaming or free television. Every time it generates new revenue or a broader audience. So, in the same kind of way, we believe in the premium release of a title, but after six months or 12 months, when the game’s sales come down, inclusion into PS Plus can help resurface these games.”
Yoshida admitted there have been exceptions, and he believes PS Plus had a significant impact on the success of Rocket League and Fall Guys. He also admitted that Stray, which launched day one into PS Plus Extra, was an “anomaly” to its approach. But he believes that PS Plus can be used to help “elevate the interest in a game” when it has new DLC available or a sequel to promote. “We are encouraging publishers to make use of these services when managing the lifecycle of their titles,” he said.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 76
I like to own my games so I'd buy them anyway but I'd probably wait till the games were pretty cheap to buy if I could just play them day one on ps plus
Ah, that’s what he meant. All’s fine then. I thought he was talking about Microtransactions in the last article.
Fair enough. I’d much rather this than games at release. I’m years behind on releases, so the idea of paying more yet not getting to these games for 12 months plus anyway is not appealing. Maybe when I retire and am all caught up with games I’ll have a different opinion. And I certainly would have as a kid. But for now I’m fine with this. I prefer it.
Well that sucks. If no 1st party day 1, I atleast hoped for some AA or indie game day 1 drops. I was hoping games like Stray was just the beginning, not the end
They believe on it, but they don't do enough, how does that make sense?
@huyi "enough" is subjective. They (and many others) may believe they're doing more than enough.
@Would_you_kindly rental service is fine and it's saved me a lot of money buying games that are not worth the retail price, I don't care about resale value, once a game is complete it's done, you don't get a loss of value when you download games form plus extra, I really like the service value so far, it's just a shame more semi recent titles are not added to the service to download, games that have been out for 6 months or so is fair, I've always had a stance that I will never pay day one prices or pre alpha games and this rental service helps with that saving money but the games available need to improve imo
I understand. Unfortunately Sony can't do what Microsoft do as they have close to twenty times the capital to Sony. Plus I don't buy into the subscription model anyway. I'm only gaming at weekends and it doesn't suit me that games change every 3 months or so. Especially with the utilities and inflation going high
So they are too cheap to offer Day1 launches on Extra lol
@naruball but that is subjective, like I said before, the value of buying day one and coughing up 70 or so for a ps5 game leaves a bad taste in your mouth when the current state of the game is in alpha, it's shambles imo
@IonMagi yeah pretty much lol Sony do what they know best 😂😂
It makes logical sense, but I would need some developers to back up this logic with numbers. I’m OK paying for the games and supporting the industry; they need to show us why paying for the games matters (outside of owning them, of course) to the developer's bottom line vs. the subscription model.
@uptownsoul cheap 1 dollar/pound steak 🥩 will do just fine
So he's basically saying there not doing day 1 releases but what you will find is the games will release 6 months to 1 year later on PS Plus.
Can't see me buying many games day 1 then...I was thinking maybe I would get god of war...but what's the point when I can just rent it day 1 complete it ...and then a year down the line it might come to then service..so it's there if I want to return to it..
Just throwing money away buying it for £60 day 1
"It’s like when a movie comes out in the theatre first, and then goes to pay-per-view or streaming or free television. Every time it generates new revenue or a broader audience"
This logic breaks down when you remember that movies leave the theatre, and streaming and blu-ray becomes the only way to experience the content, but games don't leave the digital store (not if it's able to be on a sub service anyway). Video games have no theatre equivalent.
@Akila_24 The only thing I can think of so far is Take Two/2K CEO saying that at the moment the Game Pass model doesn't make sense for big budget games. It was about a year ago.
@StylesT you wouldn't buy it if it was on the service day 1 & you won't buy it because it might go to the service later on ... Sounds like you were never going to buy it in the first place 🤷🏻♂️
I agree with Shuei but if they are not planning on taking Microsoft to court for predatory pricing nor try to at least compete they are gonna lose customers....
You can rationalize all you want but when Microsoft offers the exact same game at no extra coat and you are charging $70.00 for it... You are not gonna come out looking good
@Would_you_kindly No because it makes absolutely zero sense to buy it when I can rent it...I'm only going to pay what I see as value for the amount of time I will play it....so I am probably not going to pay £60 for a game I will play through once..if I felt it had alot of replayability I would be more inclined to buy it
I'm ok with owning my big games. Also, full transparency, I have been utterly disappointed by the quality of AAA games that were day 1 on GP. I don't want that for PS Plus as a service, nor am I willing to pay 15$ a month for it (once my casually stacked 3 years for dimes runs out).
@Akila_24 Probably the closest we have for numbers is what Epic paid to give away free games. https://mobile.twitter.com/simoncarless/status/1389297530341519362/photo/1
Notably we have Rime which Epic paid $45K to give away 2.4M copies, about $0.02 per copy. At a glance it looks like Subnautica was the highest paid per copy, about $0.30 each ($1.4M to give away 4.6M copies).
Judging from this, devs make basically nothing for putting their game on a subscription. What we don't know is how much new releases get paid, since these are probably all older releases, nor do we know how many sales these games were getting at the time. Some of the games on this list I think are still pretty popular, but maybe Super Meat Boy is pulling less than $50K per couple weeks at this point that it was worth it to them.
Much healthier approach if we expect the quality and budget behind games to keep up. Need the game to get sales and when it slows down introduce it to the subscription service where the developer can get funds, and further eyes on their title maybe draw some add sales and attention to future releases
There’s a big difference between base ps plus games that you keep forever in your library and rental sub for some random games that leave after a few months. The best value is clear to me.
Rocket league was one of the best example on how long you want to play a good game.
Not interested in random rental at all
@Milktastrophe thanks. That’s good information and is also horrible! It makes sense for games that are not selling, but as we saw with movies, there can be a lot lost.
Good. Don't dilute the superb and abundant 1st party game productions train to compete with a rental service.
@StylesT So as his statement stands YOU were never going to buy it to begin with.
I totally agree with the Sony dude, Shuhei. If a title is AAA, people should pay full price if they want to play it. In a year, go ahead and release it as a PS+ game to rebuild the waning online fanbase.
The only caveat is this: Many A or AA titles could really benefit from a day 1 PS+ release. The online fanbase for many A & AA games doesn’t start hot because the game doesn’t have the name, reputation, pedigree or buzz to start strong in its own. And, sometimes AAA games would benefit from that boost.
———Situations and Examples:———
—Fall Guy. No way it would’ve been as big a hit if it hadn’t been a PS+ game right off the bat.
—Worms Rumble. If it hadn’t been PS+ initially, it would’ve been D.O.A. Because it got exposure of PS+, it had some legs.
—Hood. It’s a great game for what it is, but somewhat mixed reviews, being a new ip, and online-only play really impacted its sales and initial player base. When it was brought onto PS+, it became much more popular and folks still play it today (thank goodness for cross-platform compatibility). And, when it was given away on pc on Epic Game Store, there was another huge influx of gamers giving it a try and investing their time into it.
—Conan Exiles and Sniper Elite 4. No way in heck would these two games still have loyal, sizable, dedicated fanbases if they hadn’t greatly boosted their audience by becoming PS+. But, both were likely costly games to create, so bringing them out on PS+ on day 1 wouldn’t have made it a profitable endeavor for the publishers.
—Evolve, Anthem, and Battleborn - All three were AAA titles, but they were all new ips, and initially charging AAA prices for online-only gameplay wasn’t worth the cost to the player because there are so many other online gaming options out there that are either free-to-play or already available in most gamers’ collections.
—Rollerdome. It should’ve been a day 1 PS+ game. It’s got a good reputation as it’s from OlliOlli developer Roll7, but it’s an online game and it’s a new ip. I wish it luck, but I doubt it’ll have the lasting impact of a, say, Rocket League because it ain’t PS+ on day one, and that’s a pity because it seems to be a beloved game by those who’ve purchased it.
@pharos_haven rollseyes take a day off
Things aren't always black and white....if you must know I don't honestly know if I will buy it...logic would suggest I don't but that's not set in stone....so NO the statement doesn't stand
@Milktastrophe That is not the same as game Pass, if anything, its closer to the basic PS Plus experience, albeit Epic Games does not charge any subscription fees and are just trying to get players to build libraries and then feel too attached to the store to uninstall it.
If anything, the PSPlus/Gold model hurts devs more than the Game Pass model. When you offer a game for free for a month, everyone claims it, even if their interest in the game was minor. This results in the example you bring up, where the dev might get pennies per copy given away to players.
In the GamePass/Extra model, there is no point on claiming the game unless you going to play it, because it will eventually leave the service anyways (unless its first party.) This allows the service runner, be it Microsoft or Sony, to pay more per used copy to the developers than they would under the Plus/Gold models.
@Tharsman I don't think there's any other publicly released numbers so this all we've got to go by. If anything, I guess the rental subscriptions should pay devs even less because they're only temporary licenses. If you can own something forever* why pay more to rent it for less time?
Since it's available to play for longer though, I wouldn't be surprised if the reality is a lower upfront fee with additional payouts depending on how many people actually play the game. So maybe a smash hit might make more from a rental subscription over an ownership subscription, but I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority would make less with that route (but there's way more spots available on the rental sub, so again, it's probably worth it to these devs or at least the best deal they can get at the time).
*: In most cases as long as the subscription is active.
Thought experiment, I looked for some average cost per episode for some netflix shows, and calculated how much each season of the select list cost netflix to produce.
$40m House of Cards
$52m Orange is the new black
$56m Bridgeton
$64m The defenders
$70m Bloodline
$80m The Witcher
$108m Sense 8
$121m Get Down
$130m The crown
$270m Stranger Things
To clarify: these are for a single season, not every season of any of those shows.
Most recently, Amazon Prime has tossed nearly half a billion on Rings of Power.
By contrast, The Last of Us 2 reportedly cost $100 million, and its one of their most expensive games.
Point is, yes, these big budget productions going into subscription services day one can be sustainable (well, might have to see about Rings of Power) but the key is huge volume of subscribers. Although at the same time, when the subscription numbers are low, that means there are plenty of users simply buying the game. Forza Horizon 5, for example, was charting on the top 5 when it launched on Steam despite being available for "free" on Game Pass, so this stuff self-balances, so long as the games are desirable.
At the end of the day, the issue is that if you don't go day one on content, the service is not likely going to hit mass appeal, it will just be a supplementary service for hardcore fans.
I enjoy my subscription service, but not as much as I enjoy the hype around a blockbuster release, making the purchase with my hard earned dollars, and settling in to play it on day one.
@Milktastrophe "If anything, I guess the rental subscriptions should pay devs even less because they're only temporary licenses. If you can own something forever* why pay more to rent it for less time?"
I dont have numbers but Phil Spencer has noted that their contracts fluctuate from title to title, and publisher to publisher, since not everyone is comfortable with the same terms. Some get paid based on time share (how many subscribers played the game within a calendar month) while others prefer an up-front bulk sum. How big either of these numbers are likely fluctuates too, and I would imagine the number would be higher the closer the deal occurs to launch (since that's when interest is highest.)
Right now we see A Plage's Tale Requiem launching on the service day one, I would say that at least tells us that the publisher was more than happy with the performance of Plage's Tale Incense had on the service. So far, I have not seen any developer complain about the performance their games had on Game Pass. Only article I read complaining about it was someone complaining about not being able to get into the service.
I also saw lots of extrapolation when the Oddword developer complained about how much they felt they lost in the PS Plus deal on PS5 launch, but that was due to how many subscribers claimed the game, something that left them scratching their heads as to how many of those could had actually been sales. Even users without a PS5 claimed the game, basically killing any chance the game would have to even monetize itself later on its life cycle.
Hmm. It's interesting they said a time frame.
@Tharsman And when you have 20 different competing subscriptions services. That’s also in a medium that had horrible accessibility issues and if you didn’t catch the start of a show you either missed it or skipped the show entirely as TV shows cost an insane amount of money to buy.
Gamepass is trying to be what Netflix was when it was the only service out there. That can’t last and gamepass is being subsidized and will not last as is. The subscription costs will boom and we won’t benefit for long considering games never had any of the issues TV or music faces that subscriptions solved.
Since I also have an Xbox, this subscription doesn't make sense for me. With Gamepass I can play games on pc, on my phone, or in a web browser on day 1.
If the games are not going to launch in the service but once they get to that discount phase, I would much rather just buy them at the discount price. You can buy 5-6 $20 games for the same price as a year sub and the games are yours forever.
Sony could absolutely afford to do the same thing as xbox and pay publishers to put games in there day 1. They just choose to pay publishers to keep games like final fantasy off xbox instead.
That's kind of the difference between the two platforms. Sony wants the plastic box to be as appealing as possible and maintain an ecosystem in one spot. Microsoft wants the service to be as appealing as possible and sell it wherever they can, not just to people with an xbox. Neither strategy is really wrong just a different approach that seems to be working well for both companies.
It's kind of scary to imagine a world for Sony if Xbox was only interested in paying for exclusivity and that's where all their money was going.
This is the way everyone sees it. However the reality is Microsoft is the worst company in the world and they see what Spotify did to the music industry and want to be that for gaming. So they'll tank insane amounts of money now if it means they'll be the leader in subscription based gaming in the future. Somehow they think 200 million people will subscribe to their service and it will never happen, they're at what 30 million with both PC and Xbox combined and that's when they're giving away the service for free essentially. There isn't that many hardcore gamers and casuals could care less about subscribing when they buy a handful of games a year. In the end Microsoft will never see the numbers they want and either games will be drastically changed to cater to subscription style monetization or prices will be increased. It may take time, but it will undoubtedly happen.
Removed - flaming/arguing; user is banned
@Yupyupyup what's the exclusivity window for Xbox? 6 months sometimes 3? Let's face it xbox could afford to make games like Elden Ring exclusive if they wanted but they instead choose games like Scorn and "the Gunk" for only a few months. Timed Exclusivity is not a major focus for xbox like it is for Sony.
Sony also had Kena, deathloop, ghostwire Tokyo, stray, sifu, solar ash, forspoken, knights of the old republic, final fantasy 7 and 16, etc.
@Somebody Lol you're right, permanent exclusivity is their major focus instead. And no they couldn't. They had to pay $100 million for one year of a Tomb Raider game, Elden Ring would have cost them a billion. I love how Xbox fans are always moving the goal posts. Either way they do it just as much as Sony if not more so and they do even worse practices like buying out 3rd party publishers. Please don't make yourself look foolish and try to argue they're the good guys here.
@Yupyupyup I'm totally fine with you thinking I am foolish for saying that gamepass is a sweet deal because it is. I think Sony could do more to compete with it but they are choosing a different route.
@Somebody
So why didnt they get Elden ring for day 1 on gamepass?
Could it be that AAA games earns more money by selling than on gamepass.
Since if not FromSoftware should beg Microsoft to put it on gamepass right?
No what Microsoft fans fail to see is they promise you day 1 release and it has soon been a year since last release.
So that means you have almost paid 200$ for zero day 1 release on Xbox games.
Yet people complain about 70$ games.
@Sakai
I rather have bigger budgets for these games.
@Neverwild barring any more delays, there will be 44 day 1 releases on gamepass in 2022......
(Would have been 49 with the already announced delays) since they are delayed not canceled that is just 5 more for next year or beyond.
@Somebody
So what AAA xbox game has you got day 1 this year?
What other day 1 AAA games has been released day 1 on gamepass?
@Somebody could you list these games? I keep hearing about how great game pass is, but I've never really known what's on it worth playing. Basically I'm not a Halo or Forza person, which is why I decided to get a second PS5 instead of an Xbox, but I will have my eye out in future for when the service becomes something suited to me and the type of games I like.
I've still got a lot of PlayStation and third party AAA titles to play, but at some point I will have exhausted the Extra Catalogue of titles I'm interested in, and big game releases are few and far between, and I'm hoping at some point in the future there is actually something on Xbox to make me try it out.
I will always go where the value to me is, and so I've always been on PlayStation and never felt I've missed out on much. But at some point two options would be nice.
Why is the focus just on “AAA” games? Because to me the value of GamePass is being exposed to all kinds of games. Just in the past 30 days we’ve gotten the following Day One releases (at the very least new to Xbox):
Midnight Fight Express
TinyKin
Immortality
Metal: Hellsinger
Deathloop
Ni No Kuni Remastered
Hardspace: Shipbreaker
Danganronpa V3
You Suck at Parking
Train Sim World 3
Dreamlight Valley
Beacon Pines
And that’s not even an inclusive list. It may not be a good fit for everyone, but it is for me. @Somebody I’m actually surprised there weren’t more then 44 Day One releases.
I also think Sony is doing a great job with PS Extra. It may not have “new” games but it’s also a good value for what it offers.
Both subs are good for gamers IMO!
@Neverwild shredders, rainbow 6 extraction, crusader kings 3, mlb the show 22, sniper elite 5, a plague tale, total war Warhammer are all arguable "AAA"
@Somebody Don’t forget Deathloop. Most definitely AAA. Just because it was already on PS5 doesn’t mean it isn’t a new AAA release for Xbox.
@awp69 now that i look, that list was from August so it probably got a few more since the Tokyo game show announcements.
@Ravix some of my favorites are the bethesda backlog like elders scrolls and the doom/wolfenstein reboots. The mass effect trilogy, hitman trilogy, and guardians of the galaxy are some more good ones.
I would suggest trying it when they do a sale (maybe around black friday) where you get a month for $1.
It's not a bad strategy to get one of these subscriptions for 1 or 2 months at a time and binge a few games for before canceling for awhile. That's where the Xbox day 1 is sweet, if you're interested in Starfield you can pay $10 and play it as much as possible for 1 month instead of $60
@Ravix hey there.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/games
Here’s a full list of all games available on the service. Updated as of this week, directly from Xbox.
@uptownsoul Quality is there least strongest point
@ThatMusicFan I think that is happening though, people are jumping ship to Xbox. Look at even in Japan, more people there are buying Xbox more than ever.
@Jaz007 Game Pass isn't being subsidised, Microsoft are a trillion dollar company because of Game Pass.
+1 to GamePass
@CapGod why would you want bigger budgets for AA or indies? Doesn't make sence. They are not AAA games
I agree that games should have a run at first as premium titles. But not for 80€. These high prices are ridiculous for a digital game with zero cost to reproduce and licence. So if Call of Duty is free on gamepass on Xbox and 80€ on PS we all know what business model will prevail
Cool for them. They have certainly right to say it and do it. It's their business after all.
And market will decide in future if they like subscription with Call of Duty/Starfield/Forza/Indiana Jones/Fable/Gears or they like paying 80€ for every game more.
I support this approach. However, I also hope that it will be sustainable for them and they don't have to eventually bend the knee and go a similar route as Microsoft which would degrade quality in the long run. They are trying to choke them with their "bang for buck" value proposition which is not a concept I'm a fan of when it comes to things I'm passionate about. I'd rather pay top dollar for the best experiences possible. I still don't see that on the MS side (which is very subjective of course).
I like this approach, which makes more commercial sense. I'm not currently subbed to Extra. What I fear most would be getting part way through a game and then it rotating out of the subscription. If Extra subscribers then got a decent discount on games they had played while they were in the rotation I'd probably sub.
@uptownsoul Nope, wasn’t me
@11001100110zero @Somebody
Sorry, I meant all of the day one releases coming soon etc. I've looked myself now, and it's still only Starfield that stands out, which just isn't worth buying a new console for. Lies of P being available is cool too, but I imagine that will be on PlayStation Plus Extra at some point. The day one draw just doesn't appeal to me, if I play games on day one it's only games I really really want, and I buy them to own them anyway :/
As for other games to play, PS Plus Extra still seems to have masses of quality games that aren't restricted by being day one, plenty of time to play them, and a great game is a great game whenever you play it. I'm currently playing Guardians of the Galaxy in my current rotation of games thorough Extra, for example, and I've played/am playing Ghost of Tsushima, BugSnax, Stray, Mafia 3, Spider-Man
And I've still got Death Stranding, Uncharted Lost Legacy, Miles Morales, and some nice indie games lined up for the future.
I need Xbox to offer way more that actually draws me to make it worth the purchase. And day one releases don't typically stay on the service, do they? So by the time they add enough that I'd want, it'd be gone again? I'd be more likely to buy an Xbox in the future to actually buy any exclusive games they have released that I might want, but again, Starfield is not enough.
Despite rave reviews, it seems PlayStation's approach suits me a lot more. Buy games you want. Catalogue for when there is no big releases currently. No pressure to play a game on day one that you'd not really want to play on day one, otherwise.
@Ravix I get that. 2023 seems like it’ll be a good year for them. Fingers crossed lol. It hasn’t been great for 1st party. Most of the game stay on there for nearly a year, a few even renew for second term and continue on. I still buy games. My favorite thing is finding a game I wouldn’t have noticed, or tried. Any game on the service also gets an automatic 20% discount, literally the day it’s added. So for me it’s true, I do actually buy more games. It’s growing my backlog for this upcoming winter too, so that’ll keep me busy.
I agree again, besides the main three franchises, there hasn’t been much 1st party to draw me in.
I’m going to snag a PS5 soonish, and want to try the new Plus out. Funny enough my favorite thing about OG PSNow was getting to rent the games. You could rent them for different time periods, as short as four hours. My Vita collection just collects dust, sits in a box, and doesn’t do anything for me. So collecting and owning isn’t really for me.
I’d definitely keep your eye out on that website at least, worth scrolling through here and there. Peace.
@Richnj I think you are being a bit too literal there. It’s an analogy and it’s not bad way to explain their stance on the service.
If you care at all about games, and not just a fan boy for Xbox or PS or Nintendo, you should be worried about impact it will have. Sony and other publishers could not finance GT7, GOW, HZD, Spider-man, GTA to only give them away for to publisher like MS - who probably take most of the cut of Gamepass service anyway - for a fraction of what they would get selling at retail.
I personally like Sony’s model. I won’t subscribe to anything other than plus but I think it will do less damage overall.
@Snake_V5 That’s the other way around. MS is so wish they throw money at Xbox to make it more successful because it did so badly last gen.
They are definitely throwing money at Gamepass to get people in the door before they charge more or something. Companies frequently take a loss to get something off the ground. MS’s insane riches are very independent of Xbox and gamepass right now.
What works for a trillion dollar company may not work for a billion dollar one. Microsoft can afford the heavy upfront investment. They also don't pay for overheard of the servers as they use their own Azure servers where as Sony has to pay Microsoft to run PS Plus off same servers. They have a solid infrastructure advantage when it comes to establishing a streaming/sub service. I'm a huge fan of Game Pass and have bought tons of games off their since you get them discounted long as they're in the service. Let's me try then buy discounted. Honestly the way Microsoft has set it up with basic Game Pass being same cost as Gold and covering online play too makes zero sense to own a Xbox and not sub to Game Pass. Sony may in fact not be able or willing to take the same potential loss upfront. Time will tell how Sony evolves in the future as the industry moves more towards selling ecosystems and away from selling boxes.
@bighal if you believe that subbing to a service like this damages the industry, and that people who care about games wouldn't sub to one. Why are you subbed to PS Plus?
If first-party games stay in rotation permanently on PS+, the platform is going to be extremely attractive to invest into late in the generation. Same with Microsoft, assuming they actually start publishing games I care about.
@Sakai yup... me too! I just signed up for the Extra because I thought it would be something regular... I will probably cancel the service after their statement.
Well that's fine, but money where your mouth is mate. Where's TLOU 2, Rift Apart, and even Forbidden West? Without those this "6-12 months" is fairly meaningless.
Interesting that the Cinema approach is cited as a shining example of best practice . Cinemas are currently absolutely obliterated, the largest cinema chain in the world is about to go bankrupt. Whilst the netflix, subscription model is generally thriving. In theory I agree with Sonys principle but in the face of what Xbox is doing with GP and the already strained finances of people I can't see it working out for them long term.
I like the premium service that pays more. Premium should provide better content and services, but does Sony do that? At this point they need to think more.
@uptownsoul If that steak is good however bye bye Mcdonald's.
This doesn't bother me, will happily continue to buy games normally.
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