RolStoppable said:
Yes, we have enough numbers to come to that conclusion. Rocket League was free on PS+ in July 2015. Approximately 5m free downloads. At the time of the below announcement, Rocket League still had one week of being free left, but said 5m figure also includes purchases of the game on Steam and the PS4. Sony didn't provide regular updates for the number of PS+ subscribers in the early years of the PS4, but making an estimate for the number of subscribers in July 2015 isn't too hard. Definitely above 10m subscribers. Rocket League gained immense traction, but more than half of all subscribers who could have gotten it for free still didn't bother to download it. Hardly surprising when online multiplayer is the main and commonly sole reason for people to subscribe to PS+. PS+ is a service that launched in 2010, but had only 1m subscribers by the time the PS4 launched. It was only when online multiplayer was put behind the paywall that the service gained traction. Now you could speculate that less popular games than Rocket League achieve the same or better download rates, but that's neither reasonable nor realistic. The selection of free PS+ titles hasn't been exactly stellar in the last few years either.
Is that your obligatory "Microsoft will make a hard exit from the console market" prediction? Anyway, your line of reasoning that it is important to close out a generation with a bang doesn't have merit. What counts is how the new generation starts and that's what decided PS4 vs. Xbox One vs. Wii U. After all, the PS2 finished strong and that didn't help the PS3. The Xbox One wasn't done in by late 360 support, it struggled because of the Xbox One. Poor late life support doesn't hurt a new console. The latest example of that is Switch which followed the Wii U and its last year had Paper Mario: Color Splash and Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Of course I remember that most of the awful lifetime sales for Switch predictions were in part based on the belief that gamers are done with Nintendo because of the Wii U. But the predecessor is virtually irrelevant for purchase decisions of a next generation console, because people evaluate what they intend to buy, not some kind of related product that isn't in consideration to begin with. |
Has been and will continue to be my prediction. Of the Big 3, they are the ones most likely to do it. Even more so, now, with the parent company gearing up for a streaming future.
Actually, the PS2 finishing strong did help the PS3. Without a strong PS2, there would be no brand loyalty in any region. Sony would always do better in Japan, but EU would have been up for grabs. It helped Sony and the PS brand to survive something no one ever has. A system that saw weaker multiplats for the first couple of years, didn't get a real system seller until Uncharted released a year after launch, and, more importantly, was $200 more expensive than the competition for 3 years. And it still outsold the 360 in the end, and came only 15M units shy of the Wii. Sony continued their tradition of legacy support and gamers took notice. Even if you don't want to admit that fact, there's one you have to admit. Lack of good support, which started about halfway through the gen, sure as Hell isn't going to help the Scarlett's position with gamers.
As for Switch, it isn't just a successor to the Wii U, but also the 3DS, which has sold over 75M units, so far. It's interesting how people remember and forget this fact, depending on their argument. And the predictions I remember seeing concerning low sales were based on it being $299, which makes sense considering the 3DS sold poorly for $249 just 6 years earlier. The hybrid nature and big power increase over the 3DS, as well as good support, won gamers over.
