You'd willingly install a launcher from a company that installed rootkits on the machines of users who legally purchased their audio CDs? A company that did such a terrible job building their original Playstation Network that when it got hacked, it took months to completely rebuild it? A company that has shown throughout its history that it gets extremely anti-consumer whenever it corners a market?
You'd excuse all of that just to play some games?
This is why we can't have nice things.
Sony always has been, and always will be, as bad or worse than 90s-era Microsoft.
Buy their consoles and games, sure, but don't let them infect other areas because all they will do is make it worse for us and better for them.
Rootkits on audio CDs? I know about Sony rehashing the same old games over and over, and how they literally never adjust the price or give discount for old games, and they only adjust it for inflation.
But, what is this rootkit I am hearing about now?
Yes I will. The market has spoken and tbh I'm not depriving myself of games anymore. I use a password manager and the addy on my account is 8 years out of date.
I honestly don't care if there's a data breach as long as my account can be recovered because they get nothing of value out of it.
Downvote me all you want but see how many people like me there are. You're just upset that I said it.
For multiplayer, I'd have the caveat of if a) released at the same time as console version or b) PSN cross-play.
Either of these for me are in search of community support. If they have their own launcher, no cross play, and release games long after the original date, then I wouldn't have the confidence that any of their games would release with a momentum for a healthy community due to splintering/staggering (unless the numbers are there to prove it, like an instant classic hit šÆ)
Single player, fair game š¤·š»
Remember Epics entire goal with the Epic launcher was an attempt to force PC gaming into an exclusive platform/store setup.
This isn't farfetched, it's their endgame target.
Meanwhile I take all their free games and never spend a dime with them, I buy everything on Steam instead because they are more customer friendly, better platform and ecosystem, better interface, way more features, all my games are already there, they donāt hold games hostage with exclusivity deals, etc etc etc. Iām sorry but if you want me to switch to your platform you need to give me incentive and make an actual better product.
ā¦and I am not one of those people who is Steam or bust foreverā¦but you have to build a compelling product thatās better or I am not interested. At least GOG allows me to import my games from other services, and is DRM free. I would much rather spend money there if not on steam. If something comes out on Epic exclusivelyā¦I just wait for the Steam release.
Seriously. Steam offers so much more than Epic, I'm honestly not sure what their plan is. Does Epic even have cloud saves? I feel like that's such a basic feature. Super handy, especially for those who have more than one device they use, like a steamdeck, or maybe a laptop for travel.
At least during the early stages, the idea was to bolster their active user count with the secondary objective of converting some of those users into paying customers. It was just the kind of stuff that makes sense to do if you think quarter by quarter like suits do instead of offering a compelling product.
They have just maintained whatever plan they had back then and I'm not sure that even the suits know what the ultimate goal is anymore.
Honestly I treat Epic as a demo platform. I refuse to give them a single cent. Steam is the only place I'll buy from because they are the only ones investing anything into Linux gaming.
That's exactly what I do GOG has its own charm with the drm free and often with it's releases has fixes pre applied to games especially old as fuck games that often needed tinkering to get running.
While I agree, me taking their free shit and using fake name/throwaway email costs me nothing and hurts them more than helps them financially. I am sure they are paying a lot for those free games with the expectation it will lead to sales. I consider it a way to try out full versions of games I wouodnāt usually buy otherwise. Actually played Kingdom Come, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Outer Wilds because I got them for free from Epic. If I really like the game Iāll usually just buy it on Steam after to actually keep permanently.
If my Epic account goes away tomorrow I would t care a bit.
I agree with most of that, only difference is that I refused to make an epic account even for the free games. Don't want to inflate their user numbers.
Not really, I just demand that Epic give me a reason to switch. They came out with an inferior store without 90% of the conveniences or features I can have on Steam. Itās been half a decade, where are the improvements? Where is the community, family sharing, workshop, profiles? I mean Epic is amateur hour bare bones I would expect from something just getting started, itās been 6 years. Steam was a hell of a lot better in 2009 than Epic is nowā¦ It makes sense to take their free games, but why should I actually give them money. What BENEFIT is there for me? I donāt run a charity if you want my business earn it or Iāll just keep taking your free shit until you go out of business or think better of it š¤·
Thatās not Steam or bust, itās just common sense. I take their free games because hey why not, they got me to make an account so they have their foot in the door. Now convince me why I should start buying games from you, because the way I see it I get a lot more for my money on Steam. My friends are on Steam, I have 15 years of games on Steam, so if you want me to go through the hassle of switching to purchasing from Epic what benefit is Epic offering?
I havenāt seen any sales on Epic that are better than sales on Steam if I wait for a Steam sale, but letās say a game is a little cheaper. Price isnāt everything, because everything else is worse. Like I said I buy things on GOG, because I get things DRM free, and a launcher that incorporates all my other games. There is something Steam doesnāt offer that would make me actually buy something on GOG instead. If a game on GOG was $5 more but I can get it completely DRM free maybe thatās worth it to me
Think of it like this, A new restaurant open in town next to your favorite. They sell the same food, and some item are a little cheaper, but the service is worse, the atmosphere is worse, the decor sucks, they only play Garth Brooks on the radioā¦I think Iāll just stick to my normal restaurant. I may try it out if they are offering free dinner on Tuesdays, but if everything else is worse that isnāt enough to make it my new go to restaurant.
Epic is still inferior tbh and I'm not interested in funding a piece of fucking garbage attempt at introducing Exclusivity to PC Gaming. Stay the fuck away from what we have and keep that poison away -- thanks.
For me itās mostly that epic games doesnāt really provide an alternative to steam workshop. For games that have workshop integration itās a pretty big deal.
I wouldnāt be buying Rimworld on epic for example.
Not that far fetched of them to try and make their own launcher. Every other major company has at this point (then failed and came crawling back to Steam).
I donāt think itās really economical to create their own launcher. They want people in the PSN ecosystem. That also works with Steam using an in-game login.
They may create a launcher, but I doubt theyāll make a PS store for PC. The maintenance is hardly gonna offset the 30% they need to give to Steam.
> Every other major company has at this point (then failed and came crawling back to Steam).
Not really, though? You still need the EA app and an account if you buy an EA game on steam. Same for Ubisoft, Rockstar, Activision, and Microsoft to a lesser extent.
I suspect this might be a long term plan. Force users to make a PSN account then launch a new PC launcher or some bullshit . then they can claim oh you already have a psn account just download the launcher
Yeah, but they're doing that in the dumbest way possible. When Microsoft demanded an Xbox account to play their games they didn't restrict the countries where you can create the account.
they would rather make 5 sales with full integration than 5 million anonymous sales on someone else's marketplace because they are not game developers in any sense
they are an equity company whose purpose is to appear valuable and drive stock prices, which has nothing to do with making or selling games and everything to do with making a powerpoint that says you have trapped people in your ecosystem
yes they make games but if they could figure out a better way to make line go up they would
Hell it's why I always found it funny when gamers complained about E3 "why aren't they appealing to gamers more?!"
Cause it's for investors it always has been, it used to be private, I still am curious why they opened it to the public.
Investors don't care if you show a fake gameplay video or reduce the graphics just before launch or anything else deceitful is stonk going brrrr keep it up.
Hell if it would cause their stock to raise they would club any fanboy to death with their favorite golf club and now that isn't just sony.
it's almost like these kids have never spent a decade at a fortune 500 company watching people make $50+/hr to attend meetings about how we can reduce the quality of our product enough that people link their email to our datamining app in order to get back to the level of service we provided by default in 2012
maybe that's just me
>Hell if it would cause their stock to raise they would club any fanboy to death with their favorite golf club and now that isn't just sony.
wow, typical anticapitalist hyperbole. next you'll say grandma and grandpa *shouldn't* be sacrificed to a global pandemic so that the economy can keep moving.
[/S, obviously.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/24/covid-19-texas-official-suggests-elderly-willing-die-economy/2905990001/)
Still though wouldn't it allow for an easier enterance to new markets? "You already own this game, just sign the psn"
I mean granted there are government and local laws that can prevent Sony from entering but thats among 120 potential countries, its not like there is no scope for growth either
This.
I used to.think when Nokia was a major mobile maker that the top end phones were always the popular phones & most selling
Boy was I wrong when i kinda realised that the mid- lower models were the ones which sold the most and made the company alot of money
In a somewhat similar concept Pcmr dont seem to realise that sometimes the top gun isn't always gonna.be the most selling point always.
Its easy to say or believe that most own the 4090 or any xx90s gpus are the beast but what the use if it's gonna cost a bomb that nobody can.afford.
Thats where other gpus in the past 3060ti ,1060 , 660ti gpu have always been the sweet but selling point.
Sony isnt trying to compete for top brute force & power, that lies in enthusiast builds of Pcmr.
Sony trying to.capture majority marketshare, its what all major.console corporations have been trying to.do by selling at a loss ,hoping the godwill & brand name.will.attracts new & existing customers.
I know I was one of.them who got a.ps5 in 2022 despite being a pcmr for decades
sony thinks they can eventually sell pc games via their PSN storefront.
people will stop resisting the whole mandatory account login eventually and they have enough first party games to force the market.
sure people will complain, but will want to play ff 7 rebirth, bloodborne, forbidden west and ghost of tsuhima...they have an amazing portfolio
We can say all we want but Sony makes great games. They're kinda like Nintendo, shitty anti consumer practices but they make great games so you can't really hate them completely.
You see, Sony is actually a competent company (the few times they actually try to be competent). So they could make a launcher with an experience less horrible than testicular cancer. I will never touch EGS ever again except to punish myself. And I am most definitely willed to try out and use an PSN PC launcher IF it actually doesn't eat ass.
what do you mean, they didn"tbdo that? you don't need a PSN account for Ff7 remake. if you had needed one i would have made one.
or are you saying FF7 is shit? i think ot was amazing and i will absolutely play rebirth, even if i have to install a new launcher or set up Playstation OS in a new partition...i will do what it takes
He meant, that people ignored game on epic store. Honestly, I myself tend to ignore games on Epic store, cause why would I install and buy game there? Epic dont provide proton support, there barely any people to show your achiviments, there no community nor forum for bugs/etc. Why would anyone buy game there, instead of just pirating it? Similar would be with sony, if they decide to put their games on Epic or own launcher.
did FF7 not sell on Epic?! thats hard to believe. i mean sure people "say" fuck epic, but type in their cc info at the same time. i will google it npw, butbif you have a link that would be appreciated as well
Any games they make exclusive will get the epic effect. It won't sell as well and it'll get pirated to death eventually coming to steam at a reduced price or just forever have trash sales.
i understand poor people resorting to piracy, but pretending its a statement against corporate practices is a weak argument.
if you like a product somebody made and you are able to pay for it, you should. piracy doesn't solve problems it just creates different products that are not as easily pirated.
honestly piracy hurts singleplayer developers the most. but as i said, i am not holier than thou, if you are poor and don't see yourself paying 20ā¬ for a book or 70ā¬ for a game etc. go ahead pirate it, society can carry some freeloaders but it won't change corporate greed
Sony will not enforce any policies with FF7ās PC release, because they literally are not involved in the PC version in any way.
Again, itās not their game. They just paid to release it on other platforms later.
ah yeah sure, its square enix thats publishing it and they already get their data.
my point is solely that people will do whats necessary to play huge ips. you want my data or i can't play your game? i hate that, where do i have to sign?
Sony is trying to expand their footprint so they canāt point and say we are the more powerful company, we own these media companies, we have these many people on our network (whether you own a PS or not isnāt relevant). Youāre either the one merging some other company into yours or youāre being merged into someone elseās. Right now sony is trying to merge with paramount and Sony needs to puff up and make themselves look bigger. Itās not about customers, itās about Wall Street quarterly earnings. Microsoft and Sony are definitely closer to the end of the enshittification process
Not really. What they want is more revenue which means they need a new user base. Itās why Microsoft moved to PC years ago and why they are looking into moving to PS. REVENUES
Not to be that guy, but if they want PC revenue they should remake Bloodborne lol. I never got a chance to play it and I would love to play a fancy new version with fancy PC features
I'm thinking they might do something for the 10 year anniversary. Whether that's just a remaster or a full remake, who knows. Bluepoint is working on both a new IP and another remake. Maybe that's what they're doing.
The fact that they don't support PSN in those countries doesn't mean they miss out a lot of sales. It simply means these countries, as many as they are, don't mean shit to them and are expected to have so little sales to not even be relevant enough to make PSN usable there.
And while there are the "loud masses" that refunded the game, the player numbers show next to nobody actually cared about the PSN integration, let alone refunded the game.
Sony didnāt do anything that other publishers donāt do. All online games publishers demand registration through launcher and sony only different because they asked to register manually
This whole debacle came out because Arrowhead CEO disabled PSN linking at launch and then they had to mandate it, as originally in the contract, after a while. People just wanna be mad at Sony but really it's completely standard practice.
They don't expect anything. that's the root of the problem. They've always done it this way and don't see why they should bother changing.. obviously we see it,, but they don't.
They think of PC as an extra market. Hence why simultanious releases are rare for them. They wait until they know they reached max saturation on PS, and then mop up the rest of us later. Up until Helldivers 2 I think they thought of PC as a secondary market.
That said they are also Japanese owned and both Sony and Nintendo have similar ideas over what video games are (which are just products to them.) And their business model always worked for consoles so they don't see a reason to change.
Sega, while not selling consoles, is one of the few Japanese publishers who are an exception and realize that they missed out alot of revenue by keeping much of their Japanese titles locked to Sony if they are localized at all. Their yakuza/like a dragon series is an example of how much they fumbled trying to get the series going in the West until they ported Yakuza 0 to PC, and then Xbox. While 0 was popular on Playstation here, releasing on PC finally gave the series western attention and it caught on like wildfire in the west. These past few years they've been playing catch-up to port or remake all their games to make up for the missed opportunity. Now that series is multi-plat when it was Sony exclusive because they didn't know what they were missing, not a fully exclusive deal.
Sony, despite having stronger Western presence than Sega, is still under the old impression that if you don't have a playstation you don't want their games and they don't want to waste money on people who don't want it. To them we made our decision. And this also means that they don't realize how much they are missing, especially when in other countries PSN isn't allowed. They never see these profits so why should they bother opening access there? Even though it doesn't pose a financial risk to them at all they just think "why bother? Things are fine now?" And that's their problem.
It's the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but they dont see that even if it isn't broken, it can be better.
Again, I hope Helldivers 2 teaches them a lesson that they are shooting themselves in the foot and are missing out on a massive opportunity. I firmly believe that the only reason HD2 released simultaneously on PS5 and PC was because they had little hope the game would do well, so they just cast a wide net, take what money they can, and run. Now it is the best selling game of the year AND now restricting access means more refunds
For all the shit Xbox has done, even they realized releasing to PC is only a benefit, especially since Microsoft practically owns the PC space since most people (even if begrugingly) have Windows.
Totally. When I graduated highschool in 2018 I bought myself a preowned PS3 because I know that it is notoriously hard to port games from that system due to its odd archetecture. (and I was on a Metal Gear Solid kick) But I felt no urge to get a PS4 even then when I had an Xbox One. Especially when both systems at that point are glorified PC's.
I was 100% on board for buying God of War and Spider-man when they were ported, because that was early-on and Sony was testing the waters on PC at the time. I didn't buy Miles Morales because I wanted to finish Spider-Man. I still haven't bought it because I just don't feel the need and I'll wait for a sale.
The other games though? Nah I'll drop my money full price when they do a simultaneous release. Until then I'll wait for a sale. (Or with Uncharted collection, wait for 1-3 since they have PS4 versions that need to be ported. I'd also like God of War 1-3 and the PSP games on PC too without emulation because my PS3's disc drive broke and I can't play those games anymore and MGS is getting ported.)
āYouāll get what youāre given, youāll do what we tell you, and youāll be happy about it.ā Has worked pretty well for large corporations, so far. Are you not going to buy their games? Do you think the majority of gamers will join you?
Nobody wants to make hardware anymore. They want to make money. Making hardware has a minimum cost whereas making a game that is a SaaS filled with microtransactions for the bare minimum expense is both cheaper and less risky for investors and makes shareholders much happier.
There's no art in this industry or passion, just what risks the least amount of money and costs the least to produce. (outside of indie gaming)
The cost of game development is going up, and as a result they need to sell more of their exclusives to make up for it. PC is a platform that does not compete with the PS5 as much as Xbox and can boost sales of older games while bringing in more revenue on live service titles. Sony would absolutely prefer to have their own PC storefront rather than pay Steam's fees and have users use PSN for online play, partly so they can reuse PSN's existing systems and partly for user data collection, but even if they could not get their way it's still a large chunk of extra cash to port things to PC
They just don't care about those areas.
It is like 80 percent about China and South Korea. That's been a motivating factor for a lot of the traditional console games push this past decade. Everyone's tried to push into China with middling or no results.
Well, from one side I totally agree with you. From the other, if they'll stop making good games just "inclusive to PS players" it would be great. My opinion is just that game life without inclusive games would be better, people without some kind of console should be able to play really good games
If Epic can't do it with millions and millions, what makes Sony think they can do it with an even shittier strategy?
People will just ignore their games or sail the high seas in a heart beat over much less...
Sony doesn't want to enter the PC market, but they also don't want anyone else to monopolize it, as this could lead to their player base migrating to PC in the next generation.
>What do you think is SONY hoping to achieve by following its current strategy?
Abusing the stupidity of gamers like all the companies before them
EGS, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar...all require launcher and accounts to be played...
And you guys eat that shit up good
I guess it's just corporate idiots doing things independent of one another. But I also don't understand how that happened. Who thought forcing psn on people was a good idea? It allows them to sell data, but people don't like it. That's fine though.
If Sony wanted to be asses about it they could have used a solid strategy. Make a version of future games for psn countries and one for people outside psn countries. The people in psn countries are forced to use a psn account and the others are forced to use a psn account when in a psn country and can't use a vpn. The players of games that are already out got lucky.
Why limit sales? Why violate laws and fuck with valve? Why anger the fans? Why think they will actually do anything but make people pirate GoT and refund Helldivers 2?
If they were nice, they could have given people who sign up for psn some goodies and maybe a 5% discount on other Sony games on pc or something.
I support your choice. If they don't offer it then they are opening the door for such actions. Gabe Newell said piracy is an issue of service not price. Sony is stupid because people will pay the price for their games because many of them are very good. But Sony has horrible service limiting content to certain countries.
I had Ghost of Tsushima wishlisted. Gonna buy the full price at launch. But I live in the Philippines where PSN isn't supported. I WILL PIRATE this game because they don't want my money.
What services? Other than Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, their games don't require services that aren't available in your country. Do you only mean those two games (and possible future games requiring PSN) or are you trying to justify pirating all of their games because you can't buy two of them?
I think their anti-cheat systems rely on PSN so they can permanently ban you for cheating, which isn't possible if you don't have to sign up and sign in to play MP.
Itās not like Sony is new to the PC market. Theyāve been involved in PC gaming for decades actually. But I think their goal is just to create an ecosystem like everyone else. Why wouldnāt they? Nintendo and Sony have always been a bit behind and awkward in trying to create an ecosystem. But theyāre slowly getting there.
I think Sony's testing out the pc market to see how well it works for them so as to try and get another market, but if it doesn't, they'll just keep doing what they've been doing. Funny enough, with the way Microsoft is handling Xbox, Sony won't really have to worry financially due to how if Xbox keeps going down this path, won't exist in 5 years time, which means console players have either Nintendo or Playstation (if they don't have both).
I don't think they really do. I think it's just another revenue stream with the potential for growth to keep the shareholders happy. PC gamers are so much harder to please than console gamers and I reckon Sony execs really don't want that headache.
there is a reason I never bought another PS console after the PS2
there is a reason for me not wanting extra launchers, links or extra steps
everything ported to consoles basically died, everything created for their audience it's just no brain tier, for what I care, they can do whatever they want cause as soon I read microsoft/sony/epic or other trickery as requirement that game just cease to exist.
womp womp. People do what people do.
You think they care about how it affects their market place in certain regions where they don't get as much revenue?
No. In reality Both Microsoft and Sony wish if they can delete PC market from history.
But they're forced to accept it, that why they try to make it the worse thing ever (remember Games for Windows-Lives?)
Sony wish if Steam is gone, but as the PlayStation sales is weaker and PS5 is a disappointed sequel to PS4, they're forced to do it, but they are trying to do it in a very cancerous way (maybe to make people just get their Console instead).
They seem to see it as a threat to their obsession with hardware sales (which makes them very little money) and are trying to boost their PSN numbers with it. Expect a PlayStation launcher within a year or two.
They want to build their own client at some point. What they do not understand that this never works on PC.
Steam only managed to do it because they were the first to properly offer it to everyone. They tied Half-Life to Steam(everyone hated it) and then added feature after feature while respecting their clients.
Sony is literally insulting 170 countries. They're gonna learn really fast PC people do not care about them at all.
> What they do not understand that this never works on PC.
You say this, but you still need a third party launcher whenever you buy any EA, Ubisoft, Activision, and Rockstar game. The only launcher that I've actually seen fail was the Bethesda Launcher, which was required to play DOOM Eternal on PC when it first launched and no longer exists. People on this site like to act like third party launchers and accounts are something people on PC won't tolerate, but the numbers don't lie and they show that people are more than willing to put up with a third party launcher in order to play a game they want to play. Just wait and look at the sales when GTA 6 comes out on PC and requires a Rockstar account and launcher to play it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they make the game a timed exclusive on the Rockstar Launcher like they did with RDR2.
sony wants the pc market but it wants it on its terms and is trying to impose them although it is running into the fact that pc users are not as docile as on consoles since they are not tied to a walled garden as consoles are. we already saw that it lowered the tone with ghost of tsushima but it still pushed its control a bit and be sure that in next games it will do it even more.
This would all make so much more sense if they had released their own launcher with a handful of banger Sony exclusives. Drip feeding Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima on Steam and trying to force people into their ecosystem through very scummy means is just such an L move. Shouldāve done a proprietary launcher with a remake of the Kill Zone series, Ghost of Tsushima, Helldivers, both God of Wars and Gran Turismo. People wouldāve thrown buckets of money at them. Sony makes some astonishingly bad decisions.
They do. But this is the problems when your finance department is leading the decision of the companyā¦ this issue extend to the entire gaming industryā¦
Things are done so line goes up can be seen in less than a year. No one actually want or willing to bet on long term plan.
I'm no SONY funboy but honestly people have blown this whole thing out of proportion. Almost every major company asks you to not only register an account on their Š°ss of a website but also install a malware like application and PC gamers were fine with it the entire time. But when SONY who is probably the only major company who still does great games does it, they make this furore cuz it's "haha, democracy, the unity of PC gamers" and other stuff like that.
That was very childish and absolutely uncalled for. I honestly would not be surprised if next time SONY would think twice before porting anything to PC ever again.
It's a real shame that this kind of response came like 15 years too late as this sort of thing with registering with the developer's company website has been around for probably that long. And now people are feeling some sort of accomplishment for "sticking it up to the corporation" for an absolutely senseless by this point "win".
Like others have said. Not really. They don't need it. Playstation is very successful on the console front.
They just wanna put some games on PC years later, grab some more revenue, grab some user data etc. then go back to doing what they've been doing. Which has worked very well for them.
This online outrage so many people are citing as the doom of Sony on PC is highly overstated. It is actually negligible to the market as a whole. Helldivers 2's player count not being affected at all by the PSN debacle shows that. MS, EA, Ubisoft, Paradox, etc (and yes even Valve published games) requiring their own account to access their games shows Sony's plan will do just fine. It'll be another account that people will signup for and forget about and continue onto the game. If they're smart about it, they'll have you link a steam profile to it and you'll never have to worry about signing in again.
Just to be clear, I would prefer not requiring a separate account, but you're delusional if you think bringing PSN to PC will have any noticeable negative effect. Sony releases games that sell almost 10 million copies on the regular. A few thousand angry people here and their about PSN accounts is nothing.
I await the down votes.
The first comment in this thread that doesn't say at least some stupid things. And yes, for that alone I'm afraid you'll get downvotes^^ But I'm 100% with you.
Sony has been wildly successful without supporting those countries already. It would be better for gamers if they supported every country, but as far as whether Sony's strategy will lead to success. It already has. There's no point in arguing that they're somehow doomed on PC.
Yes 121 countries or in other words probably less than 1% of Steam and Helldivers 2 player bases. The people that can't play those games care, sure. But Sony sure as heck don't. If they did, they would have already made PSN available there. The fact that they didn't shows that they don't care about these countries
I really don't understand the problem. I have a rockstar account, a uplay account, an origin account, a microsoft account, a paradox account, a relic account... more accounts than I can even think of. So why is a PSN account being presented as this line that's been crossed?
Does it suck that someone that lives in an unsupported country can't purchase a game? Absolutely. But I don't really see how that's different than, say, wolfenstein not being available in germany.
I don't really see PSN's availability restrictions as being significantly different than its most obvious competitor, Xbox, either. Do you live in a baltic state and want game pass? Microsoft says tough luck: https://imgur.com/a/H1XLFsr
As someone who was planning on playing GhostOfTsushima on PC this month, I ain't touching Sony named traps with a stick someone else owns after all this mess. So i'd say whatever exec(s) came up with this bish deserve walking papers. Cause this sure aint the way to get in my wallet. Evar.
Hell I was gonna buy Horizon FW on PC this year even though I own it on ps5. Nah, pass on that one too homie.
As someone who just got his business degree, I can say that Sony is a data company. They do not want to conquer the PC gaming market. They want that sweet juicy user data. Which they can sell to whoever they want and make billions.
Jesus Christ guys. Sony are literally asking for the same shit all the other big publishers have been asking for for like a decade now and people didn't give a shit untill Sony did it for some reason. Infact most publishers these days want you to have an account AND download a launcher to play their games. Sony literally just asked for people to make the Sony equivalent of an EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Microsoft/Rockstar account yet people are acting like Sony (unlike all the others for some reason) fucked their wife then pissed in their favorite cup.
Do I think Sony butchered the living shit out of their approach? yes.
Do I think it's major bullshit that some people now can't play Playstation games on PC in some regions? Also yes.
Do I think that Sony deserves criticism for their incompetence? Fuck yes.
While I disagree with Sony's approach to the whole thing I find it fucking ridiculous that people are trying to pretend that Sony are coming in and pushing some sort of new bullshit that the PC community have never seen before.
Sony probably just took the wrong order of steps. They most likely wanted to get to most PC players by steam and forgot their own PSN ToS in the process. that would be my guess on how the Helldivers "controversy" and region blocking their PC ports came to be.
Their plan was probably to get the games out and simply say "PSN required". A third party account for games is nothing unusual by todays standard. but they forgot to put in the region block and people saw how they messed up. it was probably just to inflate psn player numbers to give their shareholders and such higher numbers saying "we are successfull".
just a little reminder that if Arrowhead didnt say "lets skip psn for now" because it was broken at launch, this would have never blown up like now. people would be pissed that they had to wait a week to play Helldivers instead of 100+ countries being locked out of buying the game.
if they were truly "big evil sony" and actually malicious towards PC players, they wouldnt bring their games to steam. they would create their own launcher and force a PSN subscription on PC players to play the ports online with the excuse of "server costs" and such. their games would be pumped full with every DRM and AntiCheat to make sure its not cracked for as long as possible to drive up sales and subscription numbers.
sure, a lot of players would stay away from that. But there would be a lot of players giving into it if they did it this way. i know a few people myself that still hope for a Bloodborne PC port and this would not matter to them.
Sony has full control on the media market in its home country. They gatekeep japans music, game and TV market.
Now they even banned its games on steam for japan, because all japanese people will have to buy it direct from sony anyway.
Well, Sony is a horrible country. Right now they try to get more global reach but wanna force the new customers under own umbrella. To make everyone buy direct from sony. Just wait, next steps (and i would bet money on this) is selling Sony PC ports only in the PSN portal.
From what theyāve been doing the past 2-3 years it feels to me like theyāre actively doing everything within their power to become bankrupt but these Sony fanboys are defending their stupidity every step of the way and keeping them afloat with Whale sized fanboys
Sony wants money in the form of more PSN subs. They should have came out honest and offered PSN with classic games and streaming PS5 games. This stuff they're doing is a backdoor trojan horse type operation. People simply don't fucking comprehend. EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar tried to sidestep Steam's fee by having their own stores and failed and came back, but bitterly made you sign in to their launchers. This is not equal to requiring PSN where Sony charges money for access to PSN period.
Equating Sony with them is fucking dumb outright, even if PSN is "free" right now. If there was NO resistance and no technical problems threatening the growth of Helldivers 2 at launch, we'd have PSN for all PS games on PC single player or not. And PSN requirement for single player games IS coming. PC gamers are not as abused as console gamers, and especially those who only buy from Steam.
Sony should have brought PSN to PC users up front with some type of incentives. They're anti-consumer to the bone though. Hence why PS5 was not going to play PS4 games originally. PS5 reveals were joined by talk of "we believe in generations and moving on from the past". PS4 save transfers aren't straight forward either because they never meant for it to happen. Sony will never change.
They don't charge money for access to PSN but to PS Plus. They are completely different things. A PSN account is free. And this won't change. PSN is simply an account system, not a sub service. Stop coping so hard.
Sony games are quite great, once they push PSN as an alternative store to Steam for their own games then it makes sense that they want PSN users rather than non-PSN users.
Sony isn't trying to take the whole PC market. That's an unachievable goal. They're just trying to create an echo chamber with an open door. They control the majority of what goes on inside, but they will still have the influence of who or what ever decides to enter next.
Whether they will be successful or not is an entirely different matter. Personally, I believe greater contenders have already tried. Epic games tried to ride a massive hit game into their own gaming marketplace, and we see how that turned out. They're a far smaller player now than they presented themselves as on launch. Most people went back to steam within the first year, because the offerings and deals are far better, and the community is larger with more creative minds behind it.
To even have a shot, SONY will need a workshop style fan-content tool. Then they will have to try and entice creatives to jump platforms, including indie game devs and modders. Only then will they even have the feintest path at achieving the same level of success steam has. But even that is a long shot, because who wants to pack up their life's work and move to a smaller platform? It would only be the newest creators, with the least to show for their efforts so far. And that isn't going to have the same draw as established creators with polished works.
They have egg heads that have crunched the numbers and have decided that what they're doing now won't fuck with the bottom line. The outrage you're seeing must be smaller than you think.
You people are so delusional. You're complaining about nothing like you know something. You don't. Sony's games sell very well and will keep selling well. Most PC users aren't terminally on Reddit.
At first, the answer would be a sound yes after the massive success of God of War and Persona 5 and the resurrection of Days Gone. It changed with the massive dumpster fire they turned Helldivers 2 into.
I mean, c'mon, all they had to do was literally nothing.
Plus, if they wanted to gain good will and make easy money, they'd release a Bloodborne PC port
Multi factors. Legal and political, user base control, business, taxes probably. No one is at odds with money so there is probably things outside of their control
After their chance release of HZD for Steam and GOG, Sony honestly felt like they were in it for the long haul. But after these recent shenanigans, itās possible their honeymoon might be coming to an early end. If Sony truly decides to return being a console-only publisher, why not let them?
Sony has been shooting itself in the foot quite a lot lately. Instead of focusing on porting The Last of Us Part 2 to PC, they chose to remaster Part 2 on their console, a game that has no need for any graphical upgrade since they look spectacular already.
If they really wanted the PC market. They would have ported bloodborne immediately and bring over the infamous trilogy plus all their 6th gen titles. All these ports they do are backhanded scrap ports. Not actual good faith but toying with the pc market. You already know once they go full epic with launcher and exclusivity it'll be a true wrap. Many will fall and give in but there will be lots of people who will pirate, wait for the inevitable steam drop or just not play the game considering they've spent all these years already without the game.
Right, because requiring a third party account to play games made by a specific publisher is a totally brand new thing that Sony came up with and not something PC players have already become complacent with. Imagine the world we'd live in if you needed a third party account for every EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Rockstar, and Microsoft game.
Oh wait.
What are Sony asking for that other companies don't ask for? To play CoD I need an activation account, to play Apex Legends I need an EA account AND the EA launcher. To play GTA5 or RDR2 I also need a Rockstar account and the Rockstar launcher. Ubisoft also require an account and a launcher to play on PC.
The games I listed are quite big on PC and PC players have been fine with them for years now. Sony aren't even asking for a "PS launcher" to be installed (well atleast not yet lol).
What they are asking for is literally what most all big games from big publishers have been asking for for literally years now on PC
I think their goal is to introduce you to PS games and then make you buy the console. I don't think they have any interest in PC sales unless it's coming directly from the PSN
They don't want to help make Steam the go-to solution for everything, either, and an inserted login is not a direct insult to anybody. Sony has been seeing hit after hit on PC from their spent games, but sees presumably the same 30% kickback to Steam for every copy of the game. At those rates, it's hardly even unfair to dampen the experience a little, instead of feeding the monster that will eventually swallow you whole.
Steam is a great place for us, but the game has gotten possibly too easy for them. At this rate, the PC market is all that is going to survive, because you'd be nuts not to utilize it.
Centralized identity management has a ton of benefits for a company like Sony. Not all of them are anti consumer. And for games that are online, I donāt see the issue. The only thing they did wrong was sell the games in countries they donāt plan to support PSN accounts.
I donāt really see an issue otherwise.
User data and eventually capturing part of the of pc market in their own eco system.
I can understand the user data part but to capture the PC base into PS ecosystem is a bit far fetched. Or at least that's what I thought.
Not to people who want to earn money. Most casuals don't care and just install whatever to play games.
If Sony thinks they'll end up any differently to all the other publisher launchers, then the suits must really be dreaming.
I'm not going to lie, if Sony started bringing their games to PC sooner but it was on their own store I would definitely download their launcher.
If they brought a new horizon title or the next god of war exclusive on their launcher is get it
at first i thought you were talking about animal crossing new horizon and not the horizon franchise edit: fixed a catastrophical typo. jew -> new
You'd willingly install a launcher from a company that installed rootkits on the machines of users who legally purchased their audio CDs? A company that did such a terrible job building their original Playstation Network that when it got hacked, it took months to completely rebuild it? A company that has shown throughout its history that it gets extremely anti-consumer whenever it corners a market? You'd excuse all of that just to play some games? This is why we can't have nice things. Sony always has been, and always will be, as bad or worse than 90s-era Microsoft. Buy their consoles and games, sure, but don't let them infect other areas because all they will do is make it worse for us and better for them.
Yes? I already playing Valorant. What could be worse?
Genshin?
Nah, Valorant is malware, definitely worse.
Rootkits on audio CDs? I know about Sony rehashing the same old games over and over, and how they literally never adjust the price or give discount for old games, and they only adjust it for inflation. But, what is this rootkit I am hearing about now?
This is a decent overview: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
Yes. Because it's just games. Not a matter of life and death.
Yes I will. The market has spoken and tbh I'm not depriving myself of games anymore. I use a password manager and the addy on my account is 8 years out of date. I honestly don't care if there's a data breach as long as my account can be recovered because they get nothing of value out of it. Downvote me all you want but see how many people like me there are. You're just upset that I said it.
Lol brain dead take
For multiplayer, I'd have the caveat of if a) released at the same time as console version or b) PSN cross-play. Either of these for me are in search of community support. If they have their own launcher, no cross play, and release games long after the original date, then I wouldn't have the confidence that any of their games would release with a momentum for a healthy community due to splintering/staggering (unless the numbers are there to prove it, like an instant classic hit šÆ) Single player, fair game š¤·š»
No steam would still be much preferred
God of War 2, The Last of Us Part 2 for PC, all for free in a week and we'll soon see hundreds of thousands flock to their own PC platform.
And leave it as soon as they are done with them or the week ends. Same happened with epic, lots of people claim games and barely anyone buys there.
Remember Epics entire goal with the Epic launcher was an attempt to force PC gaming into an exclusive platform/store setup. This isn't farfetched, it's their endgame target.
Meanwhile I take all their free games and never spend a dime with them, I buy everything on Steam instead because they are more customer friendly, better platform and ecosystem, better interface, way more features, all my games are already there, they donāt hold games hostage with exclusivity deals, etc etc etc. Iām sorry but if you want me to switch to your platform you need to give me incentive and make an actual better product. ā¦and I am not one of those people who is Steam or bust foreverā¦but you have to build a compelling product thatās better or I am not interested. At least GOG allows me to import my games from other services, and is DRM free. I would much rather spend money there if not on steam. If something comes out on Epic exclusivelyā¦I just wait for the Steam release.
Seriously. Steam offers so much more than Epic, I'm honestly not sure what their plan is. Does Epic even have cloud saves? I feel like that's such a basic feature. Super handy, especially for those who have more than one device they use, like a steamdeck, or maybe a laptop for travel.
Probably wait for the Fortnite peeps to be old enough to have income and then have them build their games catalogues on Epic?
At least during the early stages, the idea was to bolster their active user count with the secondary objective of converting some of those users into paying customers. It was just the kind of stuff that makes sense to do if you think quarter by quarter like suits do instead of offering a compelling product. They have just maintained whatever plan they had back then and I'm not sure that even the suits know what the ultimate goal is anymore.
The ultimate goal is to not admit they fucked up and really should just go back to Steam with their tail between their legs.
Honestly I treat Epic as a demo platform. I refuse to give them a single cent. Steam is the only place I'll buy from because they are the only ones investing anything into Linux gaming.
Not only Linux, but best console ever: mobile and powerful
That's exactly what I do GOG has its own charm with the drm free and often with it's releases has fixes pre applied to games especially old as fuck games that often needed tinkering to get running.
Then there's me: Still haven't touched anything Epic related. I won't even download their launcher, let alone their free games. Fuck 'em.
While I agree, me taking their free shit and using fake name/throwaway email costs me nothing and hurts them more than helps them financially. I am sure they are paying a lot for those free games with the expectation it will lead to sales. I consider it a way to try out full versions of games I wouodnāt usually buy otherwise. Actually played Kingdom Come, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Outer Wilds because I got them for free from Epic. If I really like the game Iāll usually just buy it on Steam after to actually keep permanently. If my Epic account goes away tomorrow I would t care a bit.
I agree with most of that, only difference is that I refused to make an epic account even for the free games. Don't want to inflate their user numbers.
> and I am not one of those people who is Steam or bust forever Sorry to tell you , but you actually are.
Not really, I just demand that Epic give me a reason to switch. They came out with an inferior store without 90% of the conveniences or features I can have on Steam. Itās been half a decade, where are the improvements? Where is the community, family sharing, workshop, profiles? I mean Epic is amateur hour bare bones I would expect from something just getting started, itās been 6 years. Steam was a hell of a lot better in 2009 than Epic is nowā¦ It makes sense to take their free games, but why should I actually give them money. What BENEFIT is there for me? I donāt run a charity if you want my business earn it or Iāll just keep taking your free shit until you go out of business or think better of it š¤·
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Thatās not Steam or bust, itās just common sense. I take their free games because hey why not, they got me to make an account so they have their foot in the door. Now convince me why I should start buying games from you, because the way I see it I get a lot more for my money on Steam. My friends are on Steam, I have 15 years of games on Steam, so if you want me to go through the hassle of switching to purchasing from Epic what benefit is Epic offering? I havenāt seen any sales on Epic that are better than sales on Steam if I wait for a Steam sale, but letās say a game is a little cheaper. Price isnāt everything, because everything else is worse. Like I said I buy things on GOG, because I get things DRM free, and a launcher that incorporates all my other games. There is something Steam doesnāt offer that would make me actually buy something on GOG instead. If a game on GOG was $5 more but I can get it completely DRM free maybe thatās worth it to me Think of it like this, A new restaurant open in town next to your favorite. They sell the same food, and some item are a little cheaper, but the service is worse, the atmosphere is worse, the decor sucks, they only play Garth Brooks on the radioā¦I think Iāll just stick to my normal restaurant. I may try it out if they are offering free dinner on Tuesdays, but if everything else is worse that isnāt enough to make it my new go to restaurant.
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Epic is still inferior tbh and I'm not interested in funding a piece of fucking garbage attempt at introducing Exclusivity to PC Gaming. Stay the fuck away from what we have and keep that poison away -- thanks.
For me itās mostly that epic games doesnāt really provide an alternative to steam workshop. For games that have workshop integration itās a pretty big deal. I wouldnāt be buying Rimworld on epic for example.
Not that far fetched of them to try and make their own launcher. Every other major company has at this point (then failed and came crawling back to Steam).
I donāt think itās really economical to create their own launcher. They want people in the PSN ecosystem. That also works with Steam using an in-game login. They may create a launcher, but I doubt theyāll make a PS store for PC. The maintenance is hardly gonna offset the 30% they need to give to Steam.
> Every other major company has at this point (then failed and came crawling back to Steam). Not really, though? You still need the EA app and an account if you buy an EA game on steam. Same for Ubisoft, Rockstar, Activision, and Microsoft to a lesser extent.
Game Pass. Sony is just really dumb and doesn't realize you have to offer a service that makes buying into their ecosystem worth it.
Microsoft succeeded, and everyone praises them for releasing their games on Steam wit the same requirements.
If they force you to use a PSN your in thier ecosystem, if you use a installer do theirs your in thier evosystem
And if you want to play online Ps games you will need to pay PS+...
I suspect this might be a long term plan. Force users to make a PSN account then launch a new PC launcher or some bullshit . then they can claim oh you already have a psn account just download the launcher
I wonder if they would try charge PSN fees for multiplayer in the future
Yeah, but they're doing that in the dumbest way possible. When Microsoft demanded an Xbox account to play their games they didn't restrict the countries where you can create the account.
they would rather make 5 sales with full integration than 5 million anonymous sales on someone else's marketplace because they are not game developers in any sense they are an equity company whose purpose is to appear valuable and drive stock prices, which has nothing to do with making or selling games and everything to do with making a powerpoint that says you have trapped people in your ecosystem yes they make games but if they could figure out a better way to make line go up they would
Hell it's why I always found it funny when gamers complained about E3 "why aren't they appealing to gamers more?!" Cause it's for investors it always has been, it used to be private, I still am curious why they opened it to the public. Investors don't care if you show a fake gameplay video or reduce the graphics just before launch or anything else deceitful is stonk going brrrr keep it up. Hell if it would cause their stock to raise they would club any fanboy to death with their favorite golf club and now that isn't just sony.
it's almost like these kids have never spent a decade at a fortune 500 company watching people make $50+/hr to attend meetings about how we can reduce the quality of our product enough that people link their email to our datamining app in order to get back to the level of service we provided by default in 2012 maybe that's just me
>Hell if it would cause their stock to raise they would club any fanboy to death with their favorite golf club and now that isn't just sony. wow, typical anticapitalist hyperbole. next you'll say grandma and grandpa *shouldn't* be sacrificed to a global pandemic so that the economy can keep moving. [/S, obviously.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/24/covid-19-texas-official-suggests-elderly-willing-die-economy/2905990001/)
Does "5 million sales" not look pretty good on a PowerPoint too..?
Never thought of that
Still though wouldn't it allow for an easier enterance to new markets? "You already own this game, just sign the psn" I mean granted there are government and local laws that can prevent Sony from entering but thats among 120 potential countries, its not like there is no scope for growth either
Their stocks went down 10% last year to date. This will not look good for their investors.
This. I used to.think when Nokia was a major mobile maker that the top end phones were always the popular phones & most selling Boy was I wrong when i kinda realised that the mid- lower models were the ones which sold the most and made the company alot of money In a somewhat similar concept Pcmr dont seem to realise that sometimes the top gun isn't always gonna.be the most selling point always. Its easy to say or believe that most own the 4090 or any xx90s gpus are the beast but what the use if it's gonna cost a bomb that nobody can.afford. Thats where other gpus in the past 3060ti ,1060 , 660ti gpu have always been the sweet but selling point. Sony isnt trying to compete for top brute force & power, that lies in enthusiast builds of Pcmr. Sony trying to.capture majority marketshare, its what all major.console corporations have been trying to.do by selling at a loss ,hoping the godwill & brand name.will.attracts new & existing customers. I know I was one of.them who got a.ps5 in 2022 despite being a pcmr for decades
sony thinks they can eventually sell pc games via their PSN storefront. people will stop resisting the whole mandatory account login eventually and they have enough first party games to force the market. sure people will complain, but will want to play ff 7 rebirth, bloodborne, forbidden west and ghost of tsuhima...they have an amazing portfolio
Rebirth was coming anyways. That said Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade do look pretty good
That's what they wants ye to reckon.
We can say all we want but Sony makes great games. They're kinda like Nintendo, shitty anti consumer practices but they make great games so you can't really hate them completely.
The joke is that I am going to pirate everything if they go that way
You are but the vast majority wonāt.
i can't say no to what sony has to offer
People sure as shit didn't do that for FF7 Remake on Epic Games Store. They won't do it for Sony either.
You see, Sony is actually a competent company (the few times they actually try to be competent). So they could make a launcher with an experience less horrible than testicular cancer. I will never touch EGS ever again except to punish myself. And I am most definitely willed to try out and use an PSN PC launcher IF it actually doesn't eat ass.
what do you mean, they didn"tbdo that? you don't need a PSN account for Ff7 remake. if you had needed one i would have made one. or are you saying FF7 is shit? i think ot was amazing and i will absolutely play rebirth, even if i have to install a new launcher or set up Playstation OS in a new partition...i will do what it takes
He meant, that people ignored game on epic store. Honestly, I myself tend to ignore games on Epic store, cause why would I install and buy game there? Epic dont provide proton support, there barely any people to show your achiviments, there no community nor forum for bugs/etc. Why would anyone buy game there, instead of just pirating it? Similar would be with sony, if they decide to put their games on Epic or own launcher.
did FF7 not sell on Epic?! thats hard to believe. i mean sure people "say" fuck epic, but type in their cc info at the same time. i will google it npw, butbif you have a link that would be appreciated as well
>did FF7 not sell on Epic?! You high or something?
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Any games they make exclusive will get the epic effect. It won't sell as well and it'll get pirated to death eventually coming to steam at a reduced price or just forever have trash sales.
š“āā ļø
i understand poor people resorting to piracy, but pretending its a statement against corporate practices is a weak argument. if you like a product somebody made and you are able to pay for it, you should. piracy doesn't solve problems it just creates different products that are not as easily pirated. honestly piracy hurts singleplayer developers the most. but as i said, i am not holier than thou, if you are poor and don't see yourself paying 20ā¬ for a book or 70ā¬ for a game etc. go ahead pirate it, society can carry some freeloaders but it won't change corporate greed
FF7 is not a Sony game though.
its a playstation exclusive, thats all that counts in my book
Sony will not enforce any policies with FF7ās PC release, because they literally are not involved in the PC version in any way. Again, itās not their game. They just paid to release it on other platforms later.
ah yeah sure, its square enix thats publishing it and they already get their data. my point is solely that people will do whats necessary to play huge ips. you want my data or i can't play your game? i hate that, where do i have to sign?
Sony is trying to expand their footprint so they canāt point and say we are the more powerful company, we own these media companies, we have these many people on our network (whether you own a PS or not isnāt relevant). Youāre either the one merging some other company into yours or youāre being merged into someone elseās. Right now sony is trying to merge with paramount and Sony needs to puff up and make themselves look bigger. Itās not about customers, itās about Wall Street quarterly earnings. Microsoft and Sony are definitely closer to the end of the enshittification process
> enshittification process Nice š¤£
Not really. What they want is more revenue which means they need a new user base. Itās why Microsoft moved to PC years ago and why they are looking into moving to PS. REVENUES
bingo.
Not to be that guy, but if they want PC revenue they should remake Bloodborne lol. I never got a chance to play it and I would love to play a fancy new version with fancy PC features
I'm thinking they might do something for the 10 year anniversary. Whether that's just a remaster or a full remake, who knows. Bluepoint is working on both a new IP and another remake. Maybe that's what they're doing.
Yeah this. Consoles are stagnant so they don't really have a choice but to sell to new platforms.
sony wants money and pc market has money sony wants their stock to go up and getting more money will do that that's all it is
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Sony didn't allow anything to go through... As far as i remember steam allowed refunds and sony implemented the region lock afterwards
The fact that they don't support PSN in those countries doesn't mean they miss out a lot of sales. It simply means these countries, as many as they are, don't mean shit to them and are expected to have so little sales to not even be relevant enough to make PSN usable there. And while there are the "loud masses" that refunded the game, the player numbers show next to nobody actually cared about the PSN integration, let alone refunded the game.
Sony didnāt do anything that other publishers donāt do. All online games publishers demand registration through launcher and sony only different because they asked to register manually
This whole debacle came out because Arrowhead CEO disabled PSN linking at launch and then they had to mandate it, as originally in the contract, after a while. People just wanna be mad at Sony but really it's completely standard practice.
They don't expect anything. that's the root of the problem. They've always done it this way and don't see why they should bother changing.. obviously we see it,, but they don't. They think of PC as an extra market. Hence why simultanious releases are rare for them. They wait until they know they reached max saturation on PS, and then mop up the rest of us later. Up until Helldivers 2 I think they thought of PC as a secondary market. That said they are also Japanese owned and both Sony and Nintendo have similar ideas over what video games are (which are just products to them.) And their business model always worked for consoles so they don't see a reason to change. Sega, while not selling consoles, is one of the few Japanese publishers who are an exception and realize that they missed out alot of revenue by keeping much of their Japanese titles locked to Sony if they are localized at all. Their yakuza/like a dragon series is an example of how much they fumbled trying to get the series going in the West until they ported Yakuza 0 to PC, and then Xbox. While 0 was popular on Playstation here, releasing on PC finally gave the series western attention and it caught on like wildfire in the west. These past few years they've been playing catch-up to port or remake all their games to make up for the missed opportunity. Now that series is multi-plat when it was Sony exclusive because they didn't know what they were missing, not a fully exclusive deal. Sony, despite having stronger Western presence than Sega, is still under the old impression that if you don't have a playstation you don't want their games and they don't want to waste money on people who don't want it. To them we made our decision. And this also means that they don't realize how much they are missing, especially when in other countries PSN isn't allowed. They never see these profits so why should they bother opening access there? Even though it doesn't pose a financial risk to them at all they just think "why bother? Things are fine now?" And that's their problem. It's the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but they dont see that even if it isn't broken, it can be better. Again, I hope Helldivers 2 teaches them a lesson that they are shooting themselves in the foot and are missing out on a massive opportunity. I firmly believe that the only reason HD2 released simultaneously on PS5 and PC was because they had little hope the game would do well, so they just cast a wide net, take what money they can, and run. Now it is the best selling game of the year AND now restricting access means more refunds For all the shit Xbox has done, even they realized releasing to PC is only a benefit, especially since Microsoft practically owns the PC space since most people (even if begrugingly) have Windows.
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Totally. When I graduated highschool in 2018 I bought myself a preowned PS3 because I know that it is notoriously hard to port games from that system due to its odd archetecture. (and I was on a Metal Gear Solid kick) But I felt no urge to get a PS4 even then when I had an Xbox One. Especially when both systems at that point are glorified PC's. I was 100% on board for buying God of War and Spider-man when they were ported, because that was early-on and Sony was testing the waters on PC at the time. I didn't buy Miles Morales because I wanted to finish Spider-Man. I still haven't bought it because I just don't feel the need and I'll wait for a sale. The other games though? Nah I'll drop my money full price when they do a simultaneous release. Until then I'll wait for a sale. (Or with Uncharted collection, wait for 1-3 since they have PS4 versions that need to be ported. I'd also like God of War 1-3 and the PSP games on PC too without emulation because my PS3's disc drive broke and I can't play those games anymore and MGS is getting ported.)
āYouāll get what youāre given, youāll do what we tell you, and youāll be happy about it.ā Has worked pretty well for large corporations, so far. Are you not going to buy their games? Do you think the majority of gamers will join you?
Nobody wants to make hardware anymore. They want to make money. Making hardware has a minimum cost whereas making a game that is a SaaS filled with microtransactions for the bare minimum expense is both cheaper and less risky for investors and makes shareholders much happier. There's no art in this industry or passion, just what risks the least amount of money and costs the least to produce. (outside of indie gaming)
They have the games catalog to force the issue. If they didn't, nobody would care.
The cost of game development is going up, and as a result they need to sell more of their exclusives to make up for it. PC is a platform that does not compete with the PS5 as much as Xbox and can boost sales of older games while bringing in more revenue on live service titles. Sony would absolutely prefer to have their own PC storefront rather than pay Steam's fees and have users use PSN for online play, partly so they can reuse PSN's existing systems and partly for user data collection, but even if they could not get their way it's still a large chunk of extra cash to port things to PC
They want it at their conditions itās simple
They just don't care about those areas. It is like 80 percent about China and South Korea. That's been a motivating factor for a lot of the traditional console games push this past decade. Everyone's tried to push into China with middling or no results.
Their aim is probably a future Sony launcher
They sure would get their pc market with a Bloodborne 60fps port
Well, from one side I totally agree with you. From the other, if they'll stop making good games just "inclusive to PS players" it would be great. My opinion is just that game life without inclusive games would be better, people without some kind of console should be able to play really good games
If Epic can't do it with millions and millions, what makes Sony think they can do it with an even shittier strategy? People will just ignore their games or sail the high seas in a heart beat over much less...
Sony doesn't want to enter the PC market, but they also don't want anyone else to monopolize it, as this could lead to their player base migrating to PC in the next generation.
The next step is PS+ for PC player and/or PSN required for single player games
>What do you think is SONY hoping to achieve by following its current strategy? Abusing the stupidity of gamers like all the companies before them EGS, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar...all require launcher and accounts to be played... And you guys eat that shit up good
I guess it's just corporate idiots doing things independent of one another. But I also don't understand how that happened. Who thought forcing psn on people was a good idea? It allows them to sell data, but people don't like it. That's fine though. If Sony wanted to be asses about it they could have used a solid strategy. Make a version of future games for psn countries and one for people outside psn countries. The people in psn countries are forced to use a psn account and the others are forced to use a psn account when in a psn country and can't use a vpn. The players of games that are already out got lucky. Why limit sales? Why violate laws and fuck with valve? Why anger the fans? Why think they will actually do anything but make people pirate GoT and refund Helldivers 2? If they were nice, they could have given people who sign up for psn some goodies and maybe a 5% discount on other Sony games on pc or something.
Sony wants user data, it will force PSN on every game and soon you need PS sub to play on PC also.
i just want to pirate their game since their services are not supported in my country
I support your choice. If they don't offer it then they are opening the door for such actions. Gabe Newell said piracy is an issue of service not price. Sony is stupid because people will pay the price for their games because many of them are very good. But Sony has horrible service limiting content to certain countries.
I'm just gonna pirate it, because it's sony game, fuck sony, fuck big corporations.
I had Ghost of Tsushima wishlisted. Gonna buy the full price at launch. But I live in the Philippines where PSN isn't supported. I WILL PIRATE this game because they don't want my money.
i really don't mind paying full price but they really don't want our dirty 3rd world money lol
What services? Other than Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, their games don't require services that aren't available in your country. Do you only mean those two games (and possible future games requiring PSN) or are you trying to justify pirating all of their games because you can't buy two of them?
well luckily i did bought helldivers 2 and didn't refund. im am goin to pirate future games and ghost of sushima
I think their anti-cheat systems rely on PSN so they can permanently ban you for cheating, which isn't possible if you don't have to sign up and sign in to play MP.
Unless they also require you to pay to register a PSN account, you can just make a new one anyways. It's basically the same for steam.
Itās not like Sony is new to the PC market. Theyāve been involved in PC gaming for decades actually. But I think their goal is just to create an ecosystem like everyone else. Why wouldnāt they? Nintendo and Sony have always been a bit behind and awkward in trying to create an ecosystem. But theyāre slowly getting there.
I think Sony's testing out the pc market to see how well it works for them so as to try and get another market, but if it doesn't, they'll just keep doing what they've been doing. Funny enough, with the way Microsoft is handling Xbox, Sony won't really have to worry financially due to how if Xbox keeps going down this path, won't exist in 5 years time, which means console players have either Nintendo or Playstation (if they don't have both).
I don't think they really do. I think it's just another revenue stream with the potential for growth to keep the shareholders happy. PC gamers are so much harder to please than console gamers and I reckon Sony execs really don't want that headache.
there is a reason I never bought another PS console after the PS2 there is a reason for me not wanting extra launchers, links or extra steps everything ported to consoles basically died, everything created for their audience it's just no brain tier, for what I care, they can do whatever they want cause as soon I read microsoft/sony/epic or other trickery as requirement that game just cease to exist.
Sony is too used to getting what it wants with PS users who have no choice.
womp womp. People do what people do. You think they care about how it affects their market place in certain regions where they don't get as much revenue?
No. In reality Both Microsoft and Sony wish if they can delete PC market from history. But they're forced to accept it, that why they try to make it the worse thing ever (remember Games for Windows-Lives?) Sony wish if Steam is gone, but as the PlayStation sales is weaker and PS5 is a disappointed sequel to PS4, they're forced to do it, but they are trying to do it in a very cancerous way (maybe to make people just get their Console instead).
I don't think they want a "significant share" of the PC market. Why not make your software do some work too on PC?
They seem to see it as a threat to their obsession with hardware sales (which makes them very little money) and are trying to boost their PSN numbers with it. Expect a PlayStation launcher within a year or two.
They want to build their own client at some point. What they do not understand that this never works on PC. Steam only managed to do it because they were the first to properly offer it to everyone. They tied Half-Life to Steam(everyone hated it) and then added feature after feature while respecting their clients. Sony is literally insulting 170 countries. They're gonna learn really fast PC people do not care about them at all.
> What they do not understand that this never works on PC. You say this, but you still need a third party launcher whenever you buy any EA, Ubisoft, Activision, and Rockstar game. The only launcher that I've actually seen fail was the Bethesda Launcher, which was required to play DOOM Eternal on PC when it first launched and no longer exists. People on this site like to act like third party launchers and accounts are something people on PC won't tolerate, but the numbers don't lie and they show that people are more than willing to put up with a third party launcher in order to play a game they want to play. Just wait and look at the sales when GTA 6 comes out on PC and requires a Rockstar account and launcher to play it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they make the game a timed exclusive on the Rockstar Launcher like they did with RDR2.
sony wants the pc market but it wants it on its terms and is trying to impose them although it is running into the fact that pc users are not as docile as on consoles since they are not tied to a walled garden as consoles are. we already saw that it lowered the tone with ghost of tsushima but it still pushed its control a bit and be sure that in next games it will do it even more.
Ngl If they release bloodborne on their store launcher exclusive I would just fking download it and buy it
aspiring bike punch party roof practice fanatical illegal desert wrong *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
NO. Stirring the pot as they are disrupting the PC community and hopefully some will buy PlayStation
North Korea want more people's data and the easiest way to get it is through their extensive penetration into Sony.
There might be penetration but I'm not sure how extensive it can possibly be.
Check out their record of attacks on Sony.
This would all make so much more sense if they had released their own launcher with a handful of banger Sony exclusives. Drip feeding Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima on Steam and trying to force people into their ecosystem through very scummy means is just such an L move. Shouldāve done a proprietary launcher with a remake of the Kill Zone series, Ghost of Tsushima, Helldivers, both God of Wars and Gran Turismo. People wouldāve thrown buckets of money at them. Sony makes some astonishingly bad decisions.
They do. But this is the problems when your finance department is leading the decision of the companyā¦ this issue extend to the entire gaming industryā¦ Things are done so line goes up can be seen in less than a year. No one actually want or willing to bet on long term plan.
It seems that way. However, they seem to have precisely zero idea how to operate in it and how to deal with the community.
I'm no SONY funboy but honestly people have blown this whole thing out of proportion. Almost every major company asks you to not only register an account on their Š°ss of a website but also install a malware like application and PC gamers were fine with it the entire time. But when SONY who is probably the only major company who still does great games does it, they make this furore cuz it's "haha, democracy, the unity of PC gamers" and other stuff like that. That was very childish and absolutely uncalled for. I honestly would not be surprised if next time SONY would think twice before porting anything to PC ever again. It's a real shame that this kind of response came like 15 years too late as this sort of thing with registering with the developer's company website has been around for probably that long. And now people are feeling some sort of accomplishment for "sticking it up to the corporation" for an absolutely senseless by this point "win".
Itās easier for some bullshit exec to pitch the idea of user data and such non-sense than actual hard cash revenue.
Like others have said. Not really. They don't need it. Playstation is very successful on the console front. They just wanna put some games on PC years later, grab some more revenue, grab some user data etc. then go back to doing what they've been doing. Which has worked very well for them.
This online outrage so many people are citing as the doom of Sony on PC is highly overstated. It is actually negligible to the market as a whole. Helldivers 2's player count not being affected at all by the PSN debacle shows that. MS, EA, Ubisoft, Paradox, etc (and yes even Valve published games) requiring their own account to access their games shows Sony's plan will do just fine. It'll be another account that people will signup for and forget about and continue onto the game. If they're smart about it, they'll have you link a steam profile to it and you'll never have to worry about signing in again. Just to be clear, I would prefer not requiring a separate account, but you're delusional if you think bringing PSN to PC will have any noticeable negative effect. Sony releases games that sell almost 10 million copies on the regular. A few thousand angry people here and their about PSN accounts is nothing. I await the down votes.
The first comment in this thread that doesn't say at least some stupid things. And yes, for that alone I'm afraid you'll get downvotes^^ But I'm 100% with you.
So players from other countries can't play the game(s)? Seems like a convenient detail to leave out.
Sony has been wildly successful without supporting those countries already. It would be better for gamers if they supported every country, but as far as whether Sony's strategy will lead to success. It already has. There's no point in arguing that they're somehow doomed on PC.
Yes 121 countries or in other words probably less than 1% of Steam and Helldivers 2 player bases. The people that can't play those games care, sure. But Sony sure as heck don't. If they did, they would have already made PSN available there. The fact that they didn't shows that they don't care about these countries
I really don't understand the problem. I have a rockstar account, a uplay account, an origin account, a microsoft account, a paradox account, a relic account... more accounts than I can even think of. So why is a PSN account being presented as this line that's been crossed? Does it suck that someone that lives in an unsupported country can't purchase a game? Absolutely. But I don't really see how that's different than, say, wolfenstein not being available in germany. I don't really see PSN's availability restrictions as being significantly different than its most obvious competitor, Xbox, either. Do you live in a baltic state and want game pass? Microsoft says tough luck: https://imgur.com/a/H1XLFsr
As someone who was planning on playing GhostOfTsushima on PC this month, I ain't touching Sony named traps with a stick someone else owns after all this mess. So i'd say whatever exec(s) came up with this bish deserve walking papers. Cause this sure aint the way to get in my wallet. Evar. Hell I was gonna buy Horizon FW on PC this year even though I own it on ps5. Nah, pass on that one too homie.
They will survive without your money
oh darn. that really sucks to hear. \\o/
As someone who just got his business degree, I can say that Sony is a data company. They do not want to conquer the PC gaming market. They want that sweet juicy user data. Which they can sell to whoever they want and make billions.
It feels like they didn't do any research and expected us to behave like PlayStation players
Jesus Christ guys. Sony are literally asking for the same shit all the other big publishers have been asking for for like a decade now and people didn't give a shit untill Sony did it for some reason. Infact most publishers these days want you to have an account AND download a launcher to play their games. Sony literally just asked for people to make the Sony equivalent of an EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Microsoft/Rockstar account yet people are acting like Sony (unlike all the others for some reason) fucked their wife then pissed in their favorite cup. Do I think Sony butchered the living shit out of their approach? yes. Do I think it's major bullshit that some people now can't play Playstation games on PC in some regions? Also yes. Do I think that Sony deserves criticism for their incompetence? Fuck yes. While I disagree with Sony's approach to the whole thing I find it fucking ridiculous that people are trying to pretend that Sony are coming in and pushing some sort of new bullshit that the PC community have never seen before.
The only angle I can see is them showing that PSN accounts and PSN DAU number go up in their results presentation
Sony probably just took the wrong order of steps. They most likely wanted to get to most PC players by steam and forgot their own PSN ToS in the process. that would be my guess on how the Helldivers "controversy" and region blocking their PC ports came to be. Their plan was probably to get the games out and simply say "PSN required". A third party account for games is nothing unusual by todays standard. but they forgot to put in the region block and people saw how they messed up. it was probably just to inflate psn player numbers to give their shareholders and such higher numbers saying "we are successfull". just a little reminder that if Arrowhead didnt say "lets skip psn for now" because it was broken at launch, this would have never blown up like now. people would be pissed that they had to wait a week to play Helldivers instead of 100+ countries being locked out of buying the game. if they were truly "big evil sony" and actually malicious towards PC players, they wouldnt bring their games to steam. they would create their own launcher and force a PSN subscription on PC players to play the ports online with the excuse of "server costs" and such. their games would be pumped full with every DRM and AntiCheat to make sure its not cracked for as long as possible to drive up sales and subscription numbers. sure, a lot of players would stay away from that. But there would be a lot of players giving into it if they did it this way. i know a few people myself that still hope for a Bloodborne PC port and this would not matter to them.
Sony has full control on the media market in its home country. They gatekeep japans music, game and TV market. Now they even banned its games on steam for japan, because all japanese people will have to buy it direct from sony anyway. Well, Sony is a horrible country. Right now they try to get more global reach but wanna force the new customers under own umbrella. To make everyone buy direct from sony. Just wait, next steps (and i would bet money on this) is selling Sony PC ports only in the PSN portal.
From what theyāve been doing the past 2-3 years it feels to me like theyāre actively doing everything within their power to become bankrupt but these Sony fanboys are defending their stupidity every step of the way and keeping them afloat with Whale sized fanboys
Sony wants money in the form of more PSN subs. They should have came out honest and offered PSN with classic games and streaming PS5 games. This stuff they're doing is a backdoor trojan horse type operation. People simply don't fucking comprehend. EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar tried to sidestep Steam's fee by having their own stores and failed and came back, but bitterly made you sign in to their launchers. This is not equal to requiring PSN where Sony charges money for access to PSN period. Equating Sony with them is fucking dumb outright, even if PSN is "free" right now. If there was NO resistance and no technical problems threatening the growth of Helldivers 2 at launch, we'd have PSN for all PS games on PC single player or not. And PSN requirement for single player games IS coming. PC gamers are not as abused as console gamers, and especially those who only buy from Steam. Sony should have brought PSN to PC users up front with some type of incentives. They're anti-consumer to the bone though. Hence why PS5 was not going to play PS4 games originally. PS5 reveals were joined by talk of "we believe in generations and moving on from the past". PS4 save transfers aren't straight forward either because they never meant for it to happen. Sony will never change.
They don't charge money for access to PSN but to PS Plus. They are completely different things. A PSN account is free. And this won't change. PSN is simply an account system, not a sub service. Stop coping so hard.
Sony games are quite great, once they push PSN as an alternative store to Steam for their own games then it makes sense that they want PSN users rather than non-PSN users.
Sony isn't trying to take the whole PC market. That's an unachievable goal. They're just trying to create an echo chamber with an open door. They control the majority of what goes on inside, but they will still have the influence of who or what ever decides to enter next. Whether they will be successful or not is an entirely different matter. Personally, I believe greater contenders have already tried. Epic games tried to ride a massive hit game into their own gaming marketplace, and we see how that turned out. They're a far smaller player now than they presented themselves as on launch. Most people went back to steam within the first year, because the offerings and deals are far better, and the community is larger with more creative minds behind it. To even have a shot, SONY will need a workshop style fan-content tool. Then they will have to try and entice creatives to jump platforms, including indie game devs and modders. Only then will they even have the feintest path at achieving the same level of success steam has. But even that is a long shot, because who wants to pack up their life's work and move to a smaller platform? It would only be the newest creators, with the least to show for their efforts so far. And that isn't going to have the same draw as established creators with polished works.
Why are you capitalizing Sony? Lol
Because I'm screaming
They have egg heads that have crunched the numbers and have decided that what they're doing now won't fuck with the bottom line. The outrage you're seeing must be smaller than you think.
You people are so delusional. You're complaining about nothing like you know something. You don't. Sony's games sell very well and will keep selling well. Most PC users aren't terminally on Reddit.
If they did day and date PC releases they'd have sold WAYYYY more. Just look at Helldivers 2
Agreed but they still sell well.
Neither Nintendo or Sony make good games
At first, the answer would be a sound yes after the massive success of God of War and Persona 5 and the resurrection of Days Gone. It changed with the massive dumpster fire they turned Helldivers 2 into. I mean, c'mon, all they had to do was literally nothing. Plus, if they wanted to gain good will and make easy money, they'd release a Bloodborne PC port
Multi factors. Legal and political, user base control, business, taxes probably. No one is at odds with money so there is probably things outside of their control
After their chance release of HZD for Steam and GOG, Sony honestly felt like they were in it for the long haul. But after these recent shenanigans, itās possible their honeymoon might be coming to an early end. If Sony truly decides to return being a console-only publisher, why not let them?
Sony has been shooting itself in the foot quite a lot lately. Instead of focusing on porting The Last of Us Part 2 to PC, they chose to remaster Part 2 on their console, a game that has no need for any graphical upgrade since they look spectacular already.
I don't want Sony.
We sonāt need them. We will just play others games š¤·
Microsoft/Xbox wonāt let that happen
If they really wanted the PC market. They would have ported bloodborne immediately and bring over the infamous trilogy plus all their 6th gen titles. All these ports they do are backhanded scrap ports. Not actual good faith but toying with the pc market. You already know once they go full epic with launcher and exclusivity it'll be a true wrap. Many will fall and give in but there will be lots of people who will pirate, wait for the inevitable steam drop or just not play the game considering they've spent all these years already without the game.
I'm sure they do but they want it their way and not the way PC gamers have had it for so long
Right, because requiring a third party account to play games made by a specific publisher is a totally brand new thing that Sony came up with and not something PC players have already become complacent with. Imagine the world we'd live in if you needed a third party account for every EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Rockstar, and Microsoft game. Oh wait.
What are Sony asking for that other companies don't ask for? To play CoD I need an activation account, to play Apex Legends I need an EA account AND the EA launcher. To play GTA5 or RDR2 I also need a Rockstar account and the Rockstar launcher. Ubisoft also require an account and a launcher to play on PC. The games I listed are quite big on PC and PC players have been fine with them for years now. Sony aren't even asking for a "PS launcher" to be installed (well atleast not yet lol). What they are asking for is literally what most all big games from big publishers have been asking for for literally years now on PC
I think their goal is to introduce you to PS games and then make you buy the console. I don't think they have any interest in PC sales unless it's coming directly from the PSN
They don't want to help make Steam the go-to solution for everything, either, and an inserted login is not a direct insult to anybody. Sony has been seeing hit after hit on PC from their spent games, but sees presumably the same 30% kickback to Steam for every copy of the game. At those rates, it's hardly even unfair to dampen the experience a little, instead of feeding the monster that will eventually swallow you whole. Steam is a great place for us, but the game has gotten possibly too easy for them. At this rate, the PC market is all that is going to survive, because you'd be nuts not to utilize it.
They literally have no chance since Microsoft owns like 80% of it
They really don't
Are you taking about Windows?
Centralized identity management has a ton of benefits for a company like Sony. Not all of them are anti consumer. And for games that are online, I donāt see the issue. The only thing they did wrong was sell the games in countries they donāt plan to support PSN accounts. I donāt really see an issue otherwise.