Adding First-Party Games to PS Plus Negatively Impacts Sales, Sony Data Confirms

In a leaked Sony Interactive Entertainment presentation, the company declares that including first-party games on PS Plus has had a “big” effect on “traditional sales.” As an example, the company mentioned that Horizon Forbidden West‘s sales “flat-lined” immediately after being added to PS Plus.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

That's smart Sony knows what's up with that.

[Reaper22_]

They are just stating the obvious. Of course a game is not gonna sell as much when gamers can get it for a fraction of the cost because of subscription service. On the other hand, a subscription service can extend the life of a game by making it available to gamers who want to play it but not necessarily willing to pay full price.

What works for Microsoft doesn't necessarily have to work for Sony and vice-versa. I'm glad we have some variety. Personally, I don't want 2 consoles who are doing the exact same thing.

[Crows90]

Price cuts do the same thing your describing. Subscriptions aren't bringing anything new to the table.

[Crows90]

It's not that smart. In fact...it's not smart at all. A dumbass could figure that out. If you give a game for free or for peanuts...why would anyone pay a lot for it instead?

It's like if you had the whopper menu at 7.99 and then the whopper menu at 1.99
Same damn whopper! What item you think most will choose?

The only ones that will choose 7.99 option are those oblivious to the 1.99 option.

[Hedstrom]

Yea! And to make more money if you are selling the 1.99 whooper you will have to lower the quality and make the ingredients as cheap as possible and take away the sallad and cheese. But you could pay extra to get that.

[proudly_X]

Clank was profitable after all

[DarkZane]

Would have been a lot worst if it was on PS Plus day one.

[FIELDMARSHALL_P]

How much does Sony or Xbox pay the devolpers to put the games on the services? Do they take that into account for profit, I don't know just asking. If we pay for online giving out some games is cool either platform. The companies must think it helps in some sort of capacity for accepting the deal I would think.

[purple101]

Oh dam
I even commented on someone who said it wasn’t.

Load of hallabaloo on the site indeed

[REDGUM]

To add to you're point, this is what I don't understand about the MS subscription service. If you're getting all the day one released games for next to nothing by using thier service how on earth are the developers supposed to make enough money back to create their next game/s?
Myself, and I might be of the few, but I prefer to purchase a game from a store or digital store at the recommended price, or wait for a discount if not completely sold on what I've seen of a game so far and get what I paid for than pay monthly, yearly etc subscription & get everything while the games themselves become less in all aspects due to less funds/resources. (Not sure if I've explained that properly or not)
If every company goes down the subscription based path in the future I see gaming overall dying to some degree for the non diehards I mean. Putting up older games etc that are inc in the service fees I agree with but not day one releases. Again, just an opinion.

[Hedstrom]

@REDGUM
You lower the quality of the games to make the process of making them as cheap as possible. You make them like f2p games with season passes and microtransactions. And over time you will make subscription more and more expensive.

[BlackCountryBob]

Also really interesting to see through to one of the sites they link to (Resetera) that the 2 cross gen titles in Miles Morales and Ghosts of Tsushima sold over 40% each of their first year in year 2, almost double what even the best performing games like GOW 2018 and Spider-Man did. Kinda seeing the cold hard numbers makes it really clear why they did cross gen games and remastered some of the later PS4 games to PS5 Directors Cuts.

[Glemt]

"“In year 1, Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West were very comparable,” the presentation reads. “HFW was included into PS Plus at the start of Year 2. HFW saw an enormous influx of PS Plus players, but at the cost of flat-lining the game activations from retail sales.”"

So, the data shows there were fewer traditional sales, but it doesn't show us anything about how many people joined PS+? It does say there was an influx of HFW players, but it doesn't state how many of these players owned PS+ to begin with.

To conclude that it negatively sales is correct, but it doesn't mean less money is made. We cannot draw that conclusion until we know how many more people joined PS+ because of HFW.

[mkis007]

Well each ps plus account is only good for what? $15 per month max if they go monthly? There are a lot of reasons why even if a million new signups happened loosing out on the $60 gamesales is a worse.

[Glemt]

I think that's a good assumption, but that's what I was referring to. It's an assumption. If someone comes with hard data, we need the complete picture. The way it sits now we might draw the right conclusions, but we've proven nothing.

[Crows90]

If sales flat lines and subscriptions don't equal the same as said purchasable game then no matter how you spin it...less money is made on that game per player

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

MS's bet is that although it lowers traditional sales, it makes the services more appealing and millions of new people will subscribe if they see that good games are added to the service. And in the end, the subscription profit (not revenue) will outpace that of the traditional sales.

However even after 6 years they still haven't reached that point lmao

[Shane Kim]

Sadly it's just Netflix of gaming. They saturate the service with garbage just to keep releases on a regular basis and to keep players hooked to the service. It won't be sustainable in the long run.

[Reaper22_]

There are some really good games on gamepass. That's the problem with you guys who only think one way. I'm playing Remnant 2, Dead space remake, Tomb Raider, Forza, Far cry 5, Gears Judgement, Mass Effect 3 and MLB The Show. Now please tell me which one of those are garbage?
You sound like a hater or is it you are jealous at the success of Mictosoft with gamepass.

[Crows90]

@reaper

Far cry 5 and mass effect 3...also gears judgment was horrible

[DEEHULK88]

Netflix is the ONLY streaming service that is making a profit right now. In fact others are back to licensing their content to Netflix because that's a great revenue stream for them.

[Crows90]

Except that works for MS because most of their games barely break 1 million in sales ... They know this and try to throw shade and brag about how great subscriptions are because they were already not making much money at all.

[Reaper22_]

Nah, that's not true. Their games do sell. Games are getting more expensive to make and sometimes selling millions still don't make up for losses. Services like gamepass can be good for developers and the publishers. Games do sell on gamepass.

[Crows90]

@reaper

Nope. It is true. Just look at estimated sales for lots of their games across the board. Except for major titles like GTA most games barely sell on Xbox. At least back when physical was the majority...now with mostly digital maybe it has changed but their audience hasn't gotten bigger.

A few outliers but the majority barely sold.

[DEEHULK88]

If they didn't put their games on PC and Gamepass day 1 their games would be on the charts like the 360 days, but they don't want to do that and that's okay.

[EvertonFC]

Well duh/S

[Doomeduk]

Young Children will be unwrapping PS5 in a couple of hours signing up to playstation because they can finally play ratchet and clank and that's the kicker what has Xbox got this Xmas to wow in the little people ?

[EvertonFC]

I feel for kids who wake up and open a series S 😪🥺

[Crows90]

Dude you're not kidding. It sucks big time and unless the parents just hand over the credit card these kids will barely be able to enjoy games...after 3 months or so it'll be over and the parents will realize the money dump that the series s is.

Parents will be so confused that they can't just go to a GameStop and get their kid a game.

[ocelot07]

I mean I think most people having been saying this for gamepass was a thing. Releasing full price games on a subscription that you can get for less than £5 a month is just madness.

[EvertonFC]

We would all get the sack from our jobs if we made such a stupid decision as GP, I don't get how these Phil Spencer types earn so much with such bad moves and keep there jobs.

[ocelot07]

Agreed I don't like Jim Ryan on a professional level. He also made some really silly decisions.

But at least he had the common sense. Why put Spider Man 2 or god of war on PS+ day one when people would just pay £10 for a month to play them. Or the people who already pay £99 for a year. When they can do what they have been doing for 25+ years? Sell each game to customers?

[jznrpg]

This is more than obvious

[DivineHand125]

While the data here suggest that Horizon Forbidden West sales stalled when it was added to PS Plus, what I want to know is what impact the game had on the number of subscribers on the service.

Adding the game to a subscription service does not cut off all revenue from said game. Instead, revenue is then shifted to another form that needs to be quantified.

[Profchaos]

Ofcourse it does. Imagine paying for Netflix but being like hey you know what my connection really needs red notice on DVD.

To break it down you need online or the average player at least wants it to play most games these days that comes with monthly games so if a game is included why buy it. Extra and premium are not that much more so it's a easy sell for most players now why would anyone but something when it's included in your sub I have no idea

Also while on the subject I refuse to buy games that are day and date on gamepass on ps5 as the publisher has already made it clear the games not intended to be a release they are confident in so I think these services cause a stark drop in sales industry wide

[DeadlyFire]

Anything you make free equals less chance of higher sales, but if you gain popularity the next game could sell even better so there is also that. It's a trade off of sorts. Depends on the game itself.

[Pyrofire95]

Duh?
Of course you'll sell fewer units if it's on a subscription platform, that's just how it works. Them being on the subscription potentially drives up subscriber count in turn.

[rakentaja]

Um...didn't PS users say they like to own their games? It shouldn't have affected sales...

[anast]

Of course it does.

[Seafort]

When was Horizon Forbidden West added to PS Plus? Was it at launch or a few months after when sales for a single player game would flatline anyway due to market saturation with everyone having already bought the game?

Subscription services are a good thing for people on a low budget who can't afford the premium price Sony charges for their games.

It allows more people to play these games who wouldn't have been able to previously. Not everyone can afford $60-70 games every single month.

[jznrpg]

These subs are going to increase in price over time no doubt. When will it be too much? Of course you pay what you can afford but expecting cheap games is entitlement and going to ruin gaming’s quality

[S2Killinit]

Please don’t do first party day ones. Case by case choosing of day one as Sony are already doing is the best strategy, maintaining quality of first party releases.

[LostPotato]

I see this site still hates anything XBOX/MS. If I listened to most of theses rants I wouldn't play anything. As a gamer Gamepass is worth the money. That's all that matters to me. MS at least cares about the PC market more then Sony.

[jznrpg]

MS doesn’t care about the PC market they care about money. Xbox software sales were dropping off a cliff midway through 360 and continued all through XB1 and they had to do something to make more money. PC and mobile is their only hope to make more money. If they were doing as well as Sony and Nintendo they wouldn’t be dropping everything on PC and gamepass woupdmt exist in its current form. It was a mandatory move because of their declining console sales and software sales not because they care about PC at all.