Playstation 5: Thread 03

[doodledude]

Agreed. Of note with Tony Hawk's, the upgrade was free if you had the digital version. So it was effectively a tax on used disc sales.

I don't know whether it still works but at launch if you bought the PS5 'upgrade' for the disc it gave you the full PS5 digital version meaning you don't need your PS4 disc, so you could sell it on if your wanted

[wakka]

That doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid. It’s the full PS5 version, but I need the disc inserted for the game to run. That sounds like it might’ve been a bug.

[Lebowski]

Although I think it is good for the consumer to get stuff for free, this stuff is not free to produce.
I think some of these improvements, although not free to produce, should be seen as "patches" but some other parts, I haveno real problem with it being marketed as an "upgrade" with cost attached.

Sony (and Nintendo) are in a difficult position with XBOX competition as MS are willing to lose (and have lost a lot of money) on the XB project - iirc only the 360 era was (particularly) profitable for them. It is really hard to compete with a loss leader. It prompts comparison which does not look great.

Its not free but its minimal when they have the PC versions running at these levels. Why offer a free next gen upgrade path though? It feels like they do this because, 1 it gives them good publicity and 2 the money is not in the upgrade path but in new games sales.

A game like Metro Exodus could potentially see a really nice bump in physical and digital sales when we have such a limited choice of next gen titles at present.

[bcass]

MS are willing to lose (and have lost a lot of money) on the XB project - iirc only the 360 era was (particularly) profitable for them. It is really hard to compete with a loss leader. It prompts comparison which does not look great.

Microsoft's Xbox division makes profit, despite them subsidising the cost of the consoles:

https://www.news18.com/news/tech/microsoft-sells-xbox-consoles-for-a-loss-but-the-xbox-gaming-business-makes-money-3715331.html

In fact, the Xbox division made as much money as Nintendo in 2019-2020:

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/microsofts-xbox-division-brought-in-roughly-the-same-amount-of-profit-as-nintendo-in-2019-20/

Microsoft as a whole are also the second most profitable company on the planet.

[Neon Ignition]

I'd almost be willing to hedge bets that Xbox isn't actually profitable and that the real vast majority of its supposed money making is heavy lifting done by Minecraft via multiplatforms

[wakka]

I don't know - I just googled it, and Game Pass has apparently got 23 million subscribers. If you discount the folks who exploited the £1 deal to maximum effect or are making sufficient Bing searches to use it for free - which we could generously call 50% - that leaves about 11 million.

That's about £110 million a month or £1.3 odd billion per year. You can't tell me that they spend £1.3 billion per year on getting content into that service. A decent wedge of that has got to be profit. And since Xbox seems to clear about ~$2 billion profit, it would seem Game Pass makes for a fair chunk of it, at least.

That makes sense to me at least - or is someone going to tell me I'm way off base, here?! Probably!

EDIT: Thinking about it, they do spend mega bucks getting content into the service, considering they bought Bethesda. But then, that's probably internally justified as a way of selling more Xboxes and broadening the potential market for GP subs in the first place. So, I guess it depends on how you slice it.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Like I've said before, there is no way either MS or Sony make a profit from just the console sales. But there has to be money in it, or they wouldn't do it. All the subscriptions and game sales will no doubt give them a good wedge.

[Neon Ignition]

I imagine R&D and hardware losses cut deep into it and I also massively don't believe the 23m users figure either, more so as a concurrent figure. I feel its used like classing there being 40m Xbox One console users because that's what it sold when active users will be much lower. There's an immense gulf in interest in their annoucements etc which suggests the needle hasn't really moved in the transition between machines bur it'll take longer to confirm it.

Like past discussio s though, MS has been eating losses on Xbox for two decades and is clearly doubling down so intending ot to get where it needs to eventually. If MS were anywhere near the earnings of Nintendo and Sony though I don't doubt we'd see both show more than total dismissive glances from them

[dataDave]

I'm still not paying for my Game Pass. It's great. Well, it would be if I was using it.

[nonny]

We don't know precisely how much profit (if any) game pass is making Xbox but we do know they've given almost all of its first party titles next gen upgrades for free... Most at launch or soon after.

This might not be just an upgrade but I can't help but think a little bit of goodwill would go a long way here for Sony.

[nonny]

I imagine R&D and hardware losses cut deep into it and I also massively don't believe the 23m users figure either, more so as a concurrent figure. I feel its used like classing there being 40m Xbox One console users because that's what it sold when active users will be much lower. There's an immense gulf in interest in their annoucements etc which suggests the needle hasn't really moved in the transition between machines bur it'll take longer to confirm it.

Like past discussio s though, MS has been eating losses on Xbox for two decades and is clearly doubling down so intending ot to get where it needs to eventually. If MS were anywhere near the earnings of Nintendo and Sony though I don't doubt we'd see both show more than total dismissive glances from them

Yeah exactly, also Microsoft as a whole was worth a trillion in 2019, they're now valued over 2 trillion... Crazy. They can afford to invest heavily and take losses if required and it seems with game pass that is definitely the strategy.

The funny thing is I think the pandemic has rapidly increased the planned userbase more than they had planned. They've got to be nearing or past 30m subscribers at this stage and with the second half of the year bringing day one exclusives I can only see that increasing at pace.

If you want to look at a direct comparison I guess you could look at Sea of Thieves. That just got the Jack Sparrow DLC which I hear is a laugh and pretty substantial but they've made that free. The fact that Sony has gotten so much negative press of myriad of little things I can't help but feel throwing loyal owners a free upgrade would be a smart move...

[fishbowlhead]

We don't know precisely how much profit (if any) game pass is making Xbox but we do know they've given almost all of its first party titles next gen upgrades for free... Most at launch or soon after.

This might not be just an upgrade but I can't help but think a little bit of goodwill would go a long way here for Sony.

Ghost of Tsushima literally had free upgrades all the way up to this point. Even an entire coop mode added for free. Then a 60fps mode for PS5 owners.

So can we stop it with the entitlement? I get it if you don’t want to pay for the PS5 version, but lets all quit acting like were hard done by.

[nonny]

Ghost of Tsushima literally had free upgrades all the way up to this point. Even an entire coop mode added for free. Then a 60fps mode for PS5 owners.

So can we stop it with the entitlement? I get it if you don’t want to pay for the PS5 version, but lets all quit acting like were hard done by.

Are you buying it then? I get they added the multiplayer co-op and unlocked the frame rate but do you not think the asking price here is a little rich and locking everything else behind that paywall a bit cheeky as well?

As I said before, I don't mind them charging for it... But it seems like they jump straight to "what's the most we can charge for it?" instead of maybe meeting consumers halfway.

[Family Fry]

Ghost of Tsushima literally had free upgrades all the way up to this point. Even an entire coop mode added for free. Then a 60fps mode for PS5 owners.

So can we stop it with the entitlement? I get it if you don’t want to pay for the PS5 version, but lets all quit acting like were hard done by.

Hold on a sec, ALL previous content for Ghost was free.
Well then, what’s stopping Sony from giving the new update to PS5 users for free?
It’s also worth saying that everyone has become entitled due to all of the free content Sony has been giving on Ghost of Tsushima, including a 4 player Co-op mode, for FREE, it’s become kind of expected now from Sony to update their games so of course people are going to be annoyed a PS5 upgrade has suddenly become paid for, especially when other developers/companies aren’t charging.
A Plague Tale is literally getting a separate PS5 version tomorrow, which can be upgraded free of charge from the PS4 version.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Like I said, I'm amazed we even got free upgrades for games to begin with.