with the wind behind themSony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan and PlayStation Studios President Hermen Hulst recently presented the state of the PlayStation 5 ecosystem to investors and hinted at what’s to come in the near future. Among other things, the company promised new IPs, more live service games, and Big push behind cloud gaming.
While Sony’s big game show will provide specific details about new game announcements, release dates, and potential hardware updates, Investor offer It was a broader look at the current state of the PlayStation business and where it’s headed next. We got a pretty granular breakdown of some interesting sales data as well as cryptic teasers of upcoming initiatives, such as Sony Mobile cloud gaming, Q Lite, is rumored. Here are some of the most important points learned from the company’s last business meeting.
PS VR2 is already the first virtual reality headset
Sony’s new virtual reality headset is a Convenient but expensive package It requires users to already own a PS5, but initial sales figures show it’s already trailing the first PS VR headset. The PS VR2 sold 600,000 units in the first six weeks, while the PS VR1 sold approximately 550,000 units. It remains to be seen if this momentum will build the platform into something more than an expensive accessory for its fans.
Analysts Previously called for price cuts to boost sales, and it’s not clear if the big new games will arrive without a larger install base, especially as companies like Meta lay off VR developers amid the sales.
Sony plans to invest a ton in new franchises
Since the launch of the PS5, fans have been waiting to see what new IPs will grow out of the latest generation of consoles. Until now, it was mostly sequels to series that already existed or started on PS4 eg God of WarAnd Horizon Zero DawnAnd Spider Man. But Sony revealed that new franchises are being planned. PlayStation Studios’ investment in new IP will reach 50 percent in 2025, compared to just 20 percent in 2019. However, production lags mean we may not end up seeing the results of that spending until much later in the PS5’s lifecycle.
Direct service games will be more than half of that spending
Sony’s single first-party games have been setting the standards for story-driven blockbusters for years now, from The last of us to Ghost of Tsushima. The company now clearly wants to do the same for live-service multiplayer games as well, and will benefit from its recent acquisition of Destiny 2 Maker Bungie to make it happen.
The breakdown of total content spend this year will be 55 percent on live service business models versus 45 percent on “traditional” models. The difference will be even more pronounced by 2025, when live service spending will apparently reach 60 percent of all production costs. It is likely that some of these games will still focus on the traditional single player and will only include cosmetic shops, such as Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Others will certainly be more focused on multiplayer affairs Destiny 2.
PS5 owners spend a ton on microtransactions
Prestige exclusives may help sell consoles, but that’s not what makes the most money once players are locked in. Sony revealed that PS5 players spend over $100 more than PS4 players at a similar point in the console cycle. However, this extra money does not come from more games sold. It comes from additional content spending, In the sense of paid DLC and microtransactions.
Full game sales are actually down 10 percent on PS5, while add-on content grew by 210 percent. Although Sony takes a 30 percent commission on all in-game purchases in FortniteAnd Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IIAnd Apex Legends On the platform, it is possible for you to earn more if these purchases are made within first-party exclusives.
Spider Man Selling great on PC The Last of Us Part One slower start
2018 Spider Man It did not arrive on the computer Until last year. In the eight months since it appeared on PC, the game has sold an additional 1.5 million copies on the platform. The Last of Us Part One, meanwhile, has sold 368,000 copies since arriving on Steam in March. That’s not bad considering it’s a remaster of a decade-old game that many people have already played on PS3, PS4, and PS5. But it’s not exactly God of War Figures sold nearly a million copies in its first two and a half months on PC.
It is not clear how much The Last of Us Part One‘s Rough performance and poor optimization at launch It hurt its initial momentum, compared to the overall increase in sales of the game across all platforms following the success of the HBO adaptation. It appears that the port was partly a learning exercise for Naughty Dog, and it’s likely that Sony’s eyes are bringing the rest of its games to PC.
Not only will half of all game releases be on PS5 by 2025
In the past, Sony seemed afraid to cannibalize console sales by releasing its games on PC. Now it’s clear the company is willing to do just the opposite, passing on its exclusives and investing in potential mobile spin-offs. The company plans for 50 percent of its releases in 2025 to be either PC or mobile games.
Many gamers pay for more expensive PlayStation Plus subscriptions
When Sony unveiled its overhauled PS Plus software, creating three separate tiers and folding its PlayStation Now streaming service into the most expensive, It looked unnecessarily complicated. The top tier, Premium, also doesn’t seem worth the extra price in exchange for the slim selection of PlayStation Classics and cloud gaming features that are still in the works.
However, it turned out that a lot of people were up for the upgrade. Sony says 14.1 million subscribers joined the top tiers in the first 10 months, which now represents 30 percent of all PS Plus users. Premium actually accounts for the majority of those with 17 percent of total subscribers, while the middle tier, Extra, has just 13 percent.
The first PlayStation mobile game will arrive as early as 2023
Sony has stated that it is “currently partnering with well-known teams in the gaming space,” and “bringing some of our most iconic IPs to mobile,” with the first batch due in fiscal 2023. The company acquired Savage Game Studios in Last August, Bungie got its long-rumored work on a mobile version of Destiny 2. According to Sony’s drawings, the mobile game market is already there Bigger than console and PC games combinedand it only expects this gap to widen in the coming years.
Sony doubles down on cloud gaming
In the most mysterious part of the show, CEO Jim Ryan The company said it has “Some pretty interesting and bold plans to accelerate our initiatives in the cloud space.” He didn’t say what those things were, but he did make the comment in the context of mobile gaming and portability. It certainly raises eyebrows since Sony was recently rumored to be working on a Mobile cloud gaming codenamed Q Lite This will be a remote play accessory for the PS5.
PS Plus also doesn’t currently support cloud gaming on smartphones, which requires you to use a PS4, PS5, or PC. We know that Sony is developing a number of patents to reduce latency while streaming games, And the edge Previously mentioned The company is hiring for a number of roles to build the infrastructure for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming has been at the center of the regulatory battle over Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and it appears that whatever the outcome of this proposed merger, Sony wants to regain some of the video game streaming market share previously ceded to Game Pass and xCloud.
#learned #Sonys #big #Playstation #plans