During Take-Two's latest earnings call yesterday, chairman and chief executive officer Strauss Zelnick was asked about how the company feels about subscription models from a business perspective.
Sony kicks off PS Plus' 15th anniversary by chatting with Game File about the past, present and future of its gaming subscription service: Talking price, catalogue tweaks and where the PS3 games are.
Glad, I’m about to downgrade when they raise the price. For me, I don’t really access much or care about the games they have in the library and if I do, it’d be cheaper to just buy them over time rather than stick to some expensive subscription model.
When you're new to the service you've got an avalanche of games to play. After you catch up, I agree, it's not worth it beyond the Essential tier for me.
That being said, the Essential tier is the best deal in console gaming imo, based on the monthly games you get to keep.
Yeah same will be downgrading $214 aud is insane and we don't even get the streaming capabilities in Australia which they said would make the top level subscription cheaper.
If i was to just buy the games I actually play that come to the service id be far better off.
Ill keep the essential tier to retain the games ive collected since the ps3 and for mp but I'm not convinced of the premium tiers value any more
Extra is probably the best value for money right now, Premium doesn't have anything special enough to justify paying the additional imo.
*unless you have a Portal & you catch Premium on discount during Days of Play or Black Friday.
Yea, I really do wish they'd up their effort on Premium titles, but allowing a large catalog of titles that can stream to your Portal without even having to use your PS5 is pretty awesome. We travel about 2 hours to stay with my inlaws from time to time, so it's been pretty killer to only need to take my Portal for that!
Nice choice. I agree!
Jeanne D'Arc was my favorite PS+ catalog title from last year & I Platinumed it!
cloud streaming to the portal, without using the ps5, is the selling point of premium to me.
The legendary composer celebrates forty years of game composing with a new collection.
Mass Damage & Consumer Foundation in the Netherlands has filed a class action against Sony for inflating PlayStation Store prices.
My personal opinion:
Manufacturers and publishers have indeed inflated the industry.
From $700 million development costs for games like Call of Duty, to digital (store) prices for games and DLCs, online multiplayer fees on consoles (why can you play Helldivers 2 online for free on PC but not consoles?) or still preventing sell/lend digitally purchased games.
Sometime in the future, this bubble will collapse.
They should know better, but they just can't help themselves and suck even the last penny out of our wallets.
Because Sony knows people will be forced to pay those prices for single player and multiplayer games, not everyone prefers PC gaming. Sony also has a monopoly on PlayStation digital games. In 2019, they stopped allowing retailers and game key sellers to sell PlayStation digital games, making them available only through the official PlayStation Store
They should be suing the individual publishers increasing the prices to $80 instead of suing the store. There are plenty of publishers still selling game for like $50 with much success (like E33). But this proves that the publishers are the ones setting the prices.... so again nothing changes because they aren't even going after the main offender. How is suing Sony going to make Microsoft not charge $80 for the next COD? Sony being the number one store in the market doesn't mean that publisher have to charge us an arm and a leg. Again the industry is laughing at us because consumers never get real representation. Just these fake platitudes that are meaningless.
"How is suing Sony going to make Microsoft not charge $80 for the next COD"
Because Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly, I can purchase Call of Duty at a huge discount from CDKeys or other gaming retailers. The only way to purchase digital PlayStation games is through the PlayStation Store.
Weird, I swore GoW, Stellar Blade, Horizon Zero Dawn, TLoU, etc. were on the steam store....uh.....
@djI3485
I'm talking about PlayStation games that you can only purchase on PlayStation. I can purchase Steam and Epic games from 3rd party retailers and key stores.
"Sony to stop selling full-game download codes at retailers"
https://www.videogamer.com/...
About time. There is zero fair reason why digitally distributed products that you cannot recoup any value when you want to dispose of them, should be priced higher than that of physical copies that entail all of the costs and the benefits of owning.
Of course you’d say that considering GTA5 sold 150 million copies and RDR2 sold 38 million copies. Not every game has that luxury though.
Luckily Microsoft have 23 studios that can put their games on Game Pass and make deals on top of that for some big 3rd party games such as Back 4 Blood day one.
That all makes sense to me. I think getting AAA games for day 1 release from 3rd party publishers will continue to be a tough sell unless MS ponies up a lot of cash up front, which they are certainly able to do if they choose to. 1st party titles make much more sense, thus MS buying up a bunch of developers to increase their 1st party selection. I think MS already understands this, as it seems to reflect their model, which seems to be successful, at least to this point. Most of the 3rd party titles that are available are from indies, AA titles, or older "catalogue" titles from AAA pubs, trying to squeeze the last bit of revenue out of a game.
As far as I can see, that model is working for MS at this point, time will tell if it is successful in the long run. I think it is totally possible, and maybe even beneficial to all if their are a variety of gaming models available, rather than 3 companies trying to beat each other up seeing who can do the same thing the best.
Take Two doesn't have to worry about the console business, Sony also. That's why they're so negative about the Game Pass (less profit). Microsoft is trying to save the Xbox as a brand and they have to make such decisions, mainly because the last generation was so bad.
I think this makes perfect sense and aligns with how I see it. Indies that think they might get overshadowed by other titles might make more and do better on gamepass. It’s a gamble for them or anyone to get on gamepass, but Dave’s garage band 2 might place its bets on gamepass instead of count on individual sales. If Dave’s garage band turns into a mega hit they’d be kicking themselves in the butt because they could have made a lot more with individual sales. Grand theft auto has no reason to gamble. They will give your subscription a few months after it’s been out years.
Even games not as big as grand theft, like Ori would be better off sold individually, but I’m sure Microsoft made it lucrative.
To court these big companies with AAA titles Microsoft has to lay down some big cash and who knows how many guarantees. Yes Microsoft as a whole has money, but in business everything is divisions. They all are responsible for the contribution ($) to the whole. You guys that seem to think “aww Microsoft has money, it’s fine” are sorely mistaken. Even your grocery store has a Produce department for example. It’s sales go to the whole, but if it’s struggling with profitability it lowers total store profitability. That extra $1,000 the Deli made from its sale doesn’t go to the bottom line, it makes up produces deficit. If produce was profitable then delis money would have been money in the bank.
Microsoft as a company, sure it’s fine. All this money spending by Microsoft game division with elusive returns all seems like one hell of a gamble to me.
It’s either going to pay off somehow down the road, or some cuts and positions will be posted.
As a PS5 owner I have to say gamepass makes Xbox appealing now that Microsoft actually has console exclusives coming. But other than Halo this year and Starfield next year, I won't be tempted to pick one up before holiday 2022 at the earliest.