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.
It's time to add two more games to your library for free from the Epic Games Store.
Outriders developer People Can Fly's next game has been canceled after its publishing agreement with Take-Two Interactive fell through.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"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.
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.
""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...
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.
"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.