140°

PlayStation confident in PS Plus strategy as it readies PS5 game streaming

Head of subscriptions Nick Maguire tells us the service has been a hit, highlighting stats such as 'a billion hours of gameplay since that catalogue launched'. He also says that users of the service are, on average, spending seven times as much time on PS Plus than they did with PlayStation Now in the year prior to launch.

Maguire highlights some standout titles in the service, including Dead By Daylight, The Legend of Dragoon, Rainbow Six: Siege and, of course, the indie game Stray, which launched day and date in the service in July.

"Stray has brought in the highest number of players that have accessed that title over the first 12 months," Maguire says. "And Ghost of Tsushima has brought in the highest number of hours of gameplay. People have really stuck around and really invested in that game. That goes to the strength of our PS Studios titles, which have seen great engagement and lots of excitement.

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gamesindustry.biz
Tacoboto317d ago

One thing I wish for from either Xbox or PlayStation on their services would be to let me play a disc game without needing the disc in after I install it.

Idk how the logistics could work to prevent soft-piracy like disc sharing and playing at the same time (I.e. if there's an ID for the disc their servers can track and you have to be online), but I think of how nice a feature that would be every now and then.

Horizon for example - it's been a year and my disc is put away in storage. Burning Shores came out and HFW being on PS+ now meant I just bought the DLC on my phone, and played it a few minutes later, no need to disc swap out with Hogwarts Legacy.

It would be a very For-the-Players move and, imo, would encourage both physical purchases and maintaining a concurrent subscription. A disc for the collection with the ease of digital.

crazyCoconuts317d ago

I'm guessing mass production of discs would be quite a bit more complicated if they had to alter some part of the data to embed a unique id on each one. Also, then to prevent piracy the console would have to make an online call to a central server to verify the code hasn't been "redeemed" every time you play, so now you have an always online requirement. I'm sure they'd rather us disc users just give up and buy digital in the end...

Tacoboto317d ago

Yeah, thinking about the logistics makes it messy once you go more than one layer deep.

It's unfortunate that games are both the most expensive digital entertainment medium and the least interoperable/shareable.

You can burn a CD and forever save and copy those MP3s.
Buying a DVD since 2007 or so, you get the Digital Copy code for free! That was fractured at first - Platform A, Platform B, "iTunes", but now it's been centralized to this Movies Unlimited platform that can be linked to any major movie download store and some movies receive free enhancements - Apple TV grants me 4K Dolby Vision access to my 2008 The Dark Knight. Last year's The Batman came with a Download Code + 4K Blu Ray + Regular Blu Ray. Before 4K Blu Rays, we'd get the DVD version alongside the regular Blu Ray.

The closest thing we've had to a concept like Movies Unlimited is Xbox Play Anywhere (especially combined with Smart Delivery), but that's restricted to just one ecosystem and only for your digital purchases... and requires using the Xbox PC app.

Slipping in a nice download code with the disc (since we don't even get manuals anymore) would've made the bump to $70 very welcome I think. That's kind of what happened with movies - as Blu Rays came out, prices increased, but value actually did too because every purchase was almost like two copies.

andy85317d ago

It'd mean you could never sell a disc I assume though and that isn't the way

Tacoboto317d ago

In my thinking...

The disc user can do whatever offline with it. The PSN (or whatever service) account "linked" to it would have the disc-less access revoked if the disc is ever detected online on another account without the need to alert or notify the current user. It's less of the disc being "tied" to your account (making reselling unimpacted), but rather - PSN would grant you a digital license until it becomes known you're a sharer.

With it as a perk of the service, they can apply any restrictions they'd like - insert the disc again after a month, unable to play discless offline, Max Limit of N "Expanded Access" titles at a time.

darthv72317d ago

Technically... you can do that. If you install a disc game, and that game is also on game pass (and you happen to be a GP member) you can then play the game without the disc. I believe Sony has recently done the same thing. It used to be on PS that disc games were seen as different than digital ones of the same title. I believe it was a very recent update that they dropped the separate installs and now just see the data as the same. They just verify your license and it lets you play the games without disc if they were also made available in PS+

I know on XB, the game data is seen as the same regardless of disc or digital. I remember going to play Quantum Break and it showed the GP logo on it on my screen so I clicked and sure enough it started playing. I had installed it from disc like a couple weeks before joining GPU. Its been rather cool when i can install a game from GP and that game is later removed, i can pop in my disc and continue playing and vice versa.

Tacoboto317d ago

You're right about the first paragraph - it was only recently changed by Sony. All I had to do for my disc Horizon install to get it playable was to go to the PS Store listing and tap Add to Library. Want to say that was a February or March random thing in addition to the ever-stabling of the PS5 firmware lol.

One game I know of on GP that doesn't treat save data equally is The Outer Worlds. It is the rare game that was GP Day One, without Xbox Play Anywhere support and therefore has no shared data between PC and Xbox. Only one I've come across like that, points for irony of the developer being MS owned now.

crazyCoconuts317d ago

""I was personally surprised that Premium has ended up being a bigger share of the base than Extra. We all thought that Extra would be where the majority of people went to first, but actually Premium has been more popular and bigger," he reveals.
I didn't expect that...

GhostScholar317d ago

The only two problems I have are

1. They should be putting more ps1 and ps2 games in the service
2. There’s no incentive to have premium really. Essential is just as good for less money.

gold_drake317d ago (Edited 317d ago )

After playing wildarms and most of the ps1 games, i whole heartily disagree

but people should be subbing (or not) what they can afford.

shinoff2183316d ago

I played some of legend or dragoon and some wild arms and was perfectly fine. I agree more ps1 and ps2 games are needed. There thousands.

ChasterMies317d ago

"Stray has brought in the highest number of players that have accessed that title over the first 12 months,“

What a great game. Quality over quantity.

90°

The Epic Games Store Has Two More Freebies this Week

It's time to add two more games to your library for free from the Epic Games Store.

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terminalgamer.com
110°

Outriders Dev's Next Game Has Been Canceled After Publishing Agreement With Take-Two Fell Through

Outriders developer People Can Fly's next game has been canceled after its publishing agreement with Take-Two Interactive fell through.

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twistedvoxel.com
Tacoboto1d 19h ago

"the capital group of PCF Group S.A."

If you're getting funding from a group that needs two different ways of Acronyming itself, things will not go the way you want them to.

banger881d 13h ago

If it was more online-only crap then good riddance.

jjb198123h ago

Outriders was crap. They slapped that game together and threw in a loot system to get players' attention. This game was absolutely jank and the always online nonsense made it stutter like crazy. People Can't Optimize.

thorstein22h ago

I liked Outriders but I could see where the artistic vision was compromised. The way the industry is now, it wouldn't surprise me that upper management would scrap something that didn't pull in money via gaas, mts, or other means.

290°

Microsoft’s Surface and Xbox hardware revenues take a big hit in Q3

Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.

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theverge.com
darthv721d 16h ago

Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.

solideagle1d 3h ago

you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)

Sonic18811d 1h ago

I thought darthv72 and Obscure_Observer already work for Microsoft 🤔

dveio1d ago

MS: "Xbox services and content without AB up 1%, with AB up 62%. Hardware down 31%. In total a loss of 350 mill."

darthv72: "Seems about right."

MS: "Excuse m ..."

darthv72: "I don't hardly play on my consoles directly."

MS:

Lightning7719h ago

What he said was facts. How he plays games is no concern of you. Don't get too mad about it.

Cacabunga1d 3h ago

I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..

If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.

darthv7213h ago

to you it may seem like the minority... but your bubble is shrinking because more and more are following suit. convenience is a hell of a drug and its also why physical sales only amount to 30% of overall game sales. times are changing, you either get with them or you get left behind.

neutralgamer19928h ago

Darth

30% physical sales: yet Phil and xbox division are in a rush go give up on that 30%. they don't have any right to give up any piece of the pie since the control such a little of the pie to begin with

also, the market is clearly speaking that the model Xbox is pushing isn't working right now the keyword being right now. you are right about freedom to play anywhere so i hope they put their games on steam

shinoff21831d 2h ago

But that's been ms for years. When things aren't going their way they try to change the way things are said. For instance console sales are down, they stop telling how many sold instead telling us how many hours spent in halo or headshots. So it makes sense console sales down just say people are playing on more devices then previous. What they won't say is how many xbox players jumped ship to ps5.

Cacabunga1d 1h ago

Hardware sales are so bad that Sony and Nintendo are blowing the sales off the water with their hardware.

If Xbox are losers, others aren’t..
Xbox already tried everything with Xbox live then subscriptions went down so much that they had to find something else. Their fans subscribed then reached saturation rather quickly.

Hardware and exclusive games is where it’s at! Keep gamers excited, announce decent software and people will support you

itsmebryan21h ago

@shin
Well keep it simple Sony 's operating income is down 26% and Microsoft's is up 32%. No MS spin there, just facts. 😉
Cheers

S2Killinit13h ago

MS is after diminishing consoles as a medium. They want to destroy this market because they couldnt win. MS’s vision is to dissolve console gaming.

romulus2320h ago

Odd that a company that touts you dont need the hardware to play is already touting another console in the works.

darthv7219h ago

They are not reliant on the HW but still want to maintain a presence (no matter how small) is a good thing. It shows commitment to the craft. It reminds me of SNK and how they made games for their own hardware (Neo Geo) while also making them for others because they knew there was a market to do so. They knew they would sell more to others but also sell to their own niche fan base.

TheEroica13h ago(Edited 13h ago)

Perfectly reasonable post down voted by insecure corporation friendly folk.... But not gamers. Real gamer want accessibility and ease of acquisition for all.... Company shills are the only ones still telling us that hardware locking people from games is good for us.

Chevalier8h ago

@Darth

You should stop parroting metrics like an idiot without context.

"Xbox content and services revenue grew 62% in Q3 from a year earlier, “driven by 61 points of net impact” from the purchase of the third-party video game giant, Microsoft said."

61 of the 62% was from their merger so net increase is ONLY 1%

https://www.mesaonline.org/...

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 8h ago
purple1011d 5h ago

Xbox hardware revenue tanks to lowest point of Xbox Series generation

Profchaos1d 5h ago

I'm not surprised surface is struggling they aren't relevant anymore

DOMination-19h ago

In the last two years they've started exiting the consumer market altogether. All of the newest Surface products are business models only. They can't seem to work out what they want to do with it.

XBManiac1d 4h ago

Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.

SimpleDad1d 4h ago (Edited 1d 4h ago )

"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."

That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.

purple1011d 4h ago

Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"

Microsoft: "why's that"

Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'

Profchaos1d 3h ago (Edited 1d 3h ago )

Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk

It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD

Kornholic1d 2h ago

So basically PS and PC gamers' money is keeping Xbox on life support.

MrDead19h ago

The only growth MS will get out of the console industry is if it supports it's rivals platforms. Xbox is a pointless machine now. I can see them on a big push for live next, and they won't give up on trying to buy Steam.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 19h ago
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