Business of Esports TV: PS Games for PC

(Livestream #133)

In this segment, we discuss Sony announcing more PlayStation games to debut on PC systems.

The Business Of Esports brings you news, debates, and all the information you need to know about the gaming sector, the world’s fastest-growing market. With Paul “The Profit” Dawalibi leading the charge, and a variety of special guests, BoE TV is the only place to find insider information on the esports industry!

Check out the full livestream here:

Paul Dawalibi 1:18:13
But this is about PlayStation okay PlayStation in the news. And the headline here is PlayStation seemingly teases more games for PC and and the headlines sort of innocuous right like you can’t you can’t read much from that. But really what the article talks about is that PlayStation is planning or continuing to essentially bring many more of their first party releases to PC essentially non no longer exclusive just to PlayStation consoles. And, and they’re talking about you know, ones like days gone and Horizon Zero Done. And, you know, these guns coming supposedly to steam. And so, Playstation seems to be putting more of their content more of their games on pc. Do you guys read anything into this article? Is it? You know, we’ve had so many conversations around exclusives, how important they are to console cycles. Why do you think PlayStation would want to be bringing more of their first party titles to PC? Does anyone have a theory on that?

Lindsay Poss 1:20:31
Just off the cuff, I would think it would be to build and maintain the user base when these games also came out two or three years ago, so there’s not a lot of they’re not inextricably linked to the PS five console cycle. And putting them on steam is definitely a way to get. And I suppose more interest in the game sets.

Paul Dawalibi 1:20:56
Supposedly, the

Lindsay Poss 1:20:56
bringing, it’s a way to build goodwill with gamers, that’s for sure.

Paul Dawalibi 1:21:00
Supposedly, they’re bringing 41 games guys to PC or to steam. And right now there’s 24. So there’s a lot that they’re planning on bringing to steam clearly going forward.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:13
I mean, I think they saw great success with with fortnight, right? And maybe they want to replicate that in some way. I doubt they’re, they’re orchestrating the same types of deals and payouts that they did with Epic with steam and other other PC gaming providers. But to Lindsay’s point, right, they want to build goodwill with these users. And this is the future of gaming, right? It’s not exclusive. It’s putting your titles in as many hands as possible for as cheap as possible, if not free. And and you know, microtransactions, or other long term plays to monetize are, are better than a high paywall and exclusive title that also requires you to buy an outdated console or not an outdated console. But you know what I mean?

Paul Dawalibi 1:21:56
Yeah. Do you think there’s a future where then, exclusives don’t exist?

Unknown Speaker 1:22:03
You know, that’s, as of right now, that’s hard to see. But I think there’s a future where PlayStation has their own PC store. And maybe the exclusives live there. But it’s it’s still a PlayStation, you know, you can play on PC, but you’re buying it directly from the PlayStation Store, I would see that as the next the next move in that direction. But I would hope so well, it’s hard, right? If you look at music as a direct parallel, you still have exclusives per label, but you can listen to almost everything on one of the various streaming providers. Right. So I see them kind of following similar issues as the streaming as what streaming did for music, I would see steam and in iOS store, I suppose epic, comparable to title and Spotify, etc.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:51
Yet, like the one thing I want to pay attention to is specially with moving a PC is, of course, Ramsay mentioned the fear of pointing, which is legit. And, you know, we heard, I think earlier or late in 2019, about Sony’s azurerm, right, they’re working with Microsoft to further develop their cloud computing services and be able to deliver those experiences to people wirelessly. And so what that says to me is that they’re decentralizing their games. And that in the future, I think they will also return to the handheld market that is, you know, more based around cloud gaming to utilize this server that they’re building out with Microsoft. That’s where I think it’s heading and to the point of no exclusives, I think Jimmy’s B’s exactly, exactly right, Mike, the PC is going to be the playground for both of these things. And if you want to go have a console experience, you’ll have to take that PlayStation title playing on your PS five, what have you, but you still have the option to play it on your PC. And the same thing will apply with Xbox is what I’m imagining.

Paul Dawalibi 1:23:54
I mean, Lindsey, how much do you think PlayStation here is doing this just because they’re worried about game pass?

Lindsay Poss 1:24:00
It’s a very real possibility. Game passes pretty quickly snapping up a lot of the subscription service market and they’re doing a great job with it. So obviously,

Paul Dawalibi 1:24:11
Playstation has to comply, do they feel like this slows down like, do you think someone says, you know, maybe I won’t subscribe to game pass? Because like, I’m trying to think what the thinking is. Maybe I don’t subscribe to game pass, because now I don’t need to buy a PlayStation. To play Horizon Zero Dawn.

Lindsay Poss 1:24:31
I think it would be more so now I don’t need to switch over to Xbox to still x or to get access to more games. I’m not. I mean, I’m not 100% sure about that.

Paul Dawalibi 1:24:41
I don’t know how many people have both

Lindsay Poss 1:24:42
PlayStation and PC. I don’t know if they’re just trying to get their games to survive better on PC. So then they have the exclusive to markets to play them on long term. But certainly like they have to come up with something creative to compete with getting bounce, short of creating their own version of game pass and that this is a good place to start. more access to your games.

Paul Dawalibi 1:25:03
The other thing in here that I found interesting is no PlayStation clearly has no problem paying steams distribution like cost, right? The the Jimmy v you brought up a good point like at some point maybe there’s a PlayStation Store that’s on PC, right that’s that its own its own storefront, its own launcher. But the fact that they’re choosing to go with steam seems to tell me and mate probably are willing to pay steams distribution tax seems to tell me that they really probably care most about distribution here, right? They want the largest audience to see these games. And so that could be the tactic to fend off game pass, right? I don’t know. It’s an interesting one.