PS5 Players Are Buying Fewer New Games, But Spending More Than Ever Overall

Feel like a good portion of this increase is due to game price increase and micro transaction becoming at least a couple of pounds more expensive in most games. Would be interesting to get numbers on total number of transactions between generations.

If it helps support the spiralling costs of AAA real game development then fine, but I’m so glad I didn’t grow up in a time where “gaming” was just hanging out in the same place with your mates and performing the same activity over and over again with a slightly different skin.

@Ben7982 exactly this. Games were £40 for a good while for PS4 and now they are £70 or more for special editions. So it's economies of scale - lower the price and you sell more as demand will be higher. With digital I'm surprised they don't lower the price even more as they could sell millions more without much overhead.

Also ps plus extra and premium come into this too - why buy games when you get them for free on subscription?

These numbers shows the games market is increasing hugely. So for me that actually sounds like Sony's recent changes to ps plus + making games £70 has actually lowered the profit on the game's overall, where they could have made more with an ever expanding games market.

I mean I would say that PlayStation Plus catalog is a big contributor to people buying fewer games outright. There are sooooo many good games to get stuck in. I've played thousands of games and there are still great subscription offerings I haven't gotten to yet. Hell, even EA Play and RockStar plus offer a few really good titles that can eat up hundreds of hours. Games could stop being released for the next five years and I guarantee i wouldn't run out of new things to get to...

Digital store prices for new games are filthy and it's unfortunate for those with consoles with no disc drives.

My excitement for the "next best thing" is gone, because there isn't anything that breaks any borders anymore. RDR2 is the last game I remember doing that.

When GTA IV and even PS2 games have better physics than most games today, you really wonder if those graphics and fRamERaTeS are worth a damn.
Games are factory made quickly and don't leave any mark, so I buy everything on sale

@ApostateMage
That's what happens when you give your rights away to corporations. Seriously. Who could've seen this coming?

This is a somewhat worrying trend that has only been hastened by the subscription model which further devalues premium single player game experiences.

There are also just so many great games. I didn’t get Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnorok because there was so much else I wanted to play. I want to circle back around to them, but look at the rpg space. It’s like a fire hose! I also think companies telling us what we want rather than listening is a big problem, big beautiful games that run like crap, new games in loved series that take very different approaches. That all makes me think, yeah I might get it, but I can wait. If something amazing came out I’d probably drop full price (the next GTA), but I’ve started to like games like Animal Well a lot more

As a PSVR2 user I've bought about 20 more games in the past year than any year before that

I'm a PS4 owner and these past two years i only bought 14 games; 8 digital from PSN during big sale and 6 physical copy (3 brand new, 3 secondhand).

I could buy more new games but a lot of them doesn't have physical copy on PS4 like Front Mission 1 & 2 remake, Contra: Opt Galuga, and Chrono Cross remaster or released on PS+ like Sifu, Weird West, Evil West, Trek to Yomi, or Callisto Protocol before i buy them lol.

I say PS+ could be the main reason why PS5 owners bought less new games and there's also price increase with 70 bucks that many people can't afford.

These are $ sales and not software unit sales, people buy less games day one because of the aggressive sales tactics used so frequently.

@PuppetMaster "I could buy more new games but a lot of them doesn't have physical copy on PS4 like Front Mission 1 & 2 remake,"

FM1 is available physically, at least in Europe.

I think there's more casual gamers now who just want to play live service games and spend on MTX. Either that or because of price increases practically everywhere more people are waiting for sales or buying second hand games.

Me personally I'm buying less games this gen as I now rent most of my games, £30 per month for 4 games at a time including new releases day one is saving me boatloads, but I still buy certain games that I know i will play for years like HellDivers 2 or games that I know will take 60+ hours to complete, and any games that have steep sales.

@LowDefAl Only for PS5. PS4 is still digital only.

Most know you can buy new games half price within 3-6months.

Then you have subscription models that often end up having the games ‘wanted to try but not for £40+’.

Also the recent cost of living crisis. It all adds up.

Sounding like an old fogey xD
I remember the good ole days of getting AA/AAA titles in 3 for £20 deals at GAME and Play.com.
Best one I did was Beyond Good & Evil, Spider-Man 2 and Tony Hawk Underground.
No add on MTXs, just straight up solid games.

Wow, I wonder what gaming will look like in the next 5-10 years at this rate, thank God I was born in the 90s and enjoyed all those great games.

A good time to stop buying games, if this is the way things are heading.

I think the author's misrepresenting the data here. The difference isn't $580 million to $731 million (that would be way too low for an entire consoles sales). The chart is saying that average spend per console is $580 in PS4 generation to $731 in PS5.

When you look at the charts it’s obvious…price of the game that’s why. People literally can’t afford games anymore.

@thefourfoldroot1 This is literally what the arcades were lol

People supporting those LIVE-SERVICE games, more than single player titles.....that's already having a negative impact on how we game in spending more and owing less.

When there are fewer games released, fewer games will be bought.

This gen has felt like one long gaming drought so far. No wonder people are turning to live service games. There are hardly any first party games to play.

Maybe there's less games that interest people these days?

@Blofse that was my first thought. I think Sony are actually missing out on making a whole lot more money from pure game sales.

A game has to be something I know I'll be committed to if it's a digital version at 60/70. So a series I like, or a genre I really like with good reviews. But I know I'd spend much more on games I'm not quite as sure about if they were 40/50. I'd maybe triple my game purchases and live with any regrets if I don't stick with those games.

And as an added perk to increase sales: launch hype is wayyyy more likely to make me buy a game than a later sale. So a £40/50 game in a sale is still less attractive than an actual launch title, and these games i'm less bothered about get relegated to the wishlist for much longer, even during sales, if there's no hype behind getting them at that moment.

@thefourfoldroot1 @Shad361 So much this, we left the arcade because it was a rip off. I've been saying for years that with mobile they discovered they could put the arcade in your pocket. Heck now actual casinos have actual gambling in your pocket.

@somnambulance You have to look at the mobile industry to understand what drives live service games, and why it's SO horrendous for normal gamers. Statistically in mobile, less than 10% of players actually spend anything at all. 90% plays f2p for free and therefore barely plays as they wait for cooldowns. Or play several games for their daily allowed free limit, etc. less than 10% spend. And less than half of that spending portion make up the "whales" that make up the finances of the entire game. Where 90% of players spend nothing, we'll round and say 5% spend something, and then there's that 3-4% of basically ultra wealthy players that will pay, literally, thousands of dollars into a single game. So then it becomes about scale. Rebirth at 3m sales would die on a whale income of a few thousand players tops. But a game like Genshin with hundreds of millions of players? Get a million multi-millionaires that don't mind dropping $8,000-9,000 on your game to get anything they want instantly and lord over other players? You're rolling in cash. That's the root of the live service model. Worse, the operators of the service know who their customers are and will modify the game in real-time to benefit their most generous whales. Effectively the whole game service exists and reshapes to stroke the egos of the richest most high spending players. It's a casino VIP room with a thumbstick and everyone may sit at the table and watch the big boys play.

There's interesting and horrifying dev diaries of mobile devs that really dig into it more. It's part of why datamining is so useful. Stories about how they use the mined data from a high spend player's phone to figure out their IRL identity, then find out what their interests are. One of the most insightful dev diaries (anonymous dev and game, mobile) was how they used the data to figure out that their highest spend player was this guy in Dubai or somewhere, and then searched his IRL social media to discover his favorite sports team that he was fanatical about. Then they introduced skin packs for that sports team into the game SPECIFICALLY knowing he'd buy it all, and he did. Then they would adjust the difficulty of the game on the fly when he was struggling to keep him ahead so he'd keep spending. The entire game changed just to placate one player that was a high source of revenue, and they'd just watch him play in real time. Everyone else played the game as basically casting extras for the guy's concierge game service. A lot of mobile like that, and "live service" games descend from the mobile model. Not quite as egregious I'm sure, but more similar than is comfortable.

@maybemaybemaybe LOL I can relate to this... It feels like one last go-around of the old school thinking of new games as exciting. And affordable enough to be impulse buys.

@Blofse "These numbers shows the games market is increasing hugely. "

No they don't. It shows raw revenue is up. It also shows a trend combined with the other data that total consoles sales are slightly down, total game sales are down, revenue is up on account of a price increase in subscription services, price increases in games and dlc, and (not shown in the graph) increased digital adoption yielding higher revenue on per-game sales than through retailers. Service growth is very slow, but revenue is up from the price hike. The main "growth" area it shows is an inverse growth. Add-on content (read mtx, skins, battle passes, currencies, not so much full game DLC packs) is the only driver, that's increased revenues appreciably despite decreases elsewhere. It also ignores that PS's market share over XB has widened so these numbers include software/services share of the gaming industry that used to be part of Xbox. Combined it means a total shrinkage of actual gaming, but an overall increase in same-user spend in the evergreen platform "hangout" games.

For "core" gamers it's bad news. It means more assurance that most of the focus of the industry is going to be chasing the big platform bandwagon, and the console's focus is going to be centered on being the plastic box to play those big service games on. It also means more price increases as milking more cash from the captive limited market is their only stream of growth in the absence of real market growth.

@Shad361
Fair, but arcades were a bit before my time really. I missed that period as I wasn’t allowed in as a kid and I was born in 83.

Most casual gamers don't buy new games often they play the same few live service titles, cod, FIFA, Fortnite etc etc and those games rake in the money in micro transactions

Sony also admitted ps4 "remains an important part of our business" this quote is now 4 years from the infamous "we believe in generations" quote.

I used to buy new games all the time but now I will wait for a sale. I have also converted to PC gaming as it is so much cheaper also and keep my PS5 to play the games I have purchased already but no longer buy any for it as when it becomes obsolete, breaks or whatever, I won't replace it.

@PuppetMaster Weird West did have a have a physical release though.

Price increase, laughable discounts, lack of new games, poor service etc.

@somnambulance I think the problem we traditional gamers face is Sony realizing that their single player games aren't really what builds their platform, these big service titles are, and that there's no real point putting too much into those single player games except a few as a showcase. Meanwhile MS which bought a ton of studios realized it's much better used just selling it absolutely everywhere possible. In both cases the platforms are sort of gutting their reason to be on a platform. If it's pretty much just a budget gaming PC for cheap on one end and a ridiculously overpriced mobile gaming box for your TV on the other, it leaves the platform itself in a precarious place. IDK what happens to consoles, it's not that I don't think PS6 and Series Y will happen, but I just see the consoles kind of leaning into their own irrelevance. PS wanting to sell more PS peripherals outside PS says something, I think. Though I really don't know who they plan to sell them do, but I can see a day when Playstation is a PC&Mobile launcher/storefront and line of accessories and gear like Razer and Epic Store merging.

@Pistolega FF Rebirth is a full game. 80+ hours, full character arcs, full narrative arcs. Its like saying Empire Strikes Back isnt a full movie because its the 2nd of a trilogy. Just doesnt make sense

@somnambulance I think that's it, especially to the younger audience a PS is basically and eGPU for their phone to play their favorite games on. I don't think they're really thinking about platform ecosystems so much. Nor "exclusives" which don't seem to be the kinds of games that market likes.

I laugh at "A Ubisoft Original" on their games, but in a way they have the right idea. I think to that audience they see it more as Netflix/Amazon/Apple TV where maybe marketing exclusives like those services makes sense. But I think that's the struggle console itself has. I don't think the # consoles sold actually means much for their real install base anymore, because the majority of those consoles sold are as eGPUS for Fortnite players, not really install bases that will buy Rebirth or GoT. And realizing that too late is probably what messed up their budgeting. They have roughly the same number units sold as PS4, but the PS4 units sold were a real software buying instlall base more than people buying a Fortnite box, and while those players spend on Fortnite, etc, and it makes big money, it's not recovering game dev budgets.

I think another issue for consoles now, starting with Steam Deck and into the new PC consoles is, yes, they're expensive for now, but given the choice between walled garden consoles or general purpose computing devices on open platforms, without really giving up much. Consoles used to have a niche of specialty hardware at affordable prices, but now general purpose is approaching their price points in a specialty hardware package. Between that and phones getting more powerful, it makes "buy our designated game box for your TV and only buy from our store, plus we'll give you an exclusive or two a year if you do" an awkward market position.

Totally agree about the reflection of the whole economy though.

@Flaming_Kaiser Yeah i know and I'm sorry if my comment isn't easy to understand.

I mean, at the time i want to buy a copy of Weird West, coincidentally the game was announced for PS+ Essentials. But i guess i will get the physical copy because i really enjoyed it. The same for Sifu and Evil West.

@PuppetMaster I hate the expensive site like LRG but i do like it when they make it a option to get that physical copy. But come to think about it Weird West was available in the normal stores.

"PS5 Players Are Buying Fewer New Games, But Spending More Than Ever Overall"

No, because they're spending more that's why they're buying fewer new games, in addition to the cost of living crisis making just getting by more expensive.

This is compounded by the overly long crossgen period making new games less likely to be PS5 exclusive and there being fewer good new games in general. This generation more than any other is plagued by bland sequels, poor reboots and lazy ports of previous gen games.

Its all very 🥱

Also, live service games also are a disgusting tumour that needs to be lanced because it's conditioning a whole generation of younger gamers who didn't come up with single player experiences that worked on day one without patches to think that's what gaming is. And if they're fooled, then that is what it will become, making it a fiendish long-term plan to turn not just online into a monthly subscription but the games themselves too.

Everything is a monthly subscription now, ever notice that? I think streaming services like Netflix are partially to blame for conditioning people to think about entertainment in the same way they think about paying their bills. That sucks.