The_Liquid_Laser said:
I agree. For a system to be successful what it really needs is 1) big name releases and 2) a large diverse library of games. Most people focus on #1 and neglect how important #2 is. Wikipedia lists PS4 at 3368 games total and obviously it performed really well. Switch currently 4328 games and, launch aligned, is selling significantly better. Obviously, both systems have their share of big name releases too. Those two things, and price, are really all that matters for a successful system. A lot of people seem to think a system needs specific big name titles, but this is not true at all. CoD and GTA do not automatically make a system successful by themselves. It probably sounds crazy, but in the 20th century GTA and CoD were called Mario and Zelda. You needed these titles to have the most successful console was the perception at the time. However, the N64 had Mario and 2 Zeldas, and it got beaten by a system with the previously niche franchise of Final Fantasy. What gets considered a "big game" can change from one generation to the next. Mario Kart 8 can sell 8.46m on Wii U or 43.35m (and counting) on the Switch. These "big games" do not exist in a vacuum, and one that releases on a platform without a big, diverse library should not be expected to perform nearly as well as it did in the past. So, obviously PS5 will have a bigger library than the N64, but I wouldn't expect it to have a library nearly as large or diverse as the PS4. Microsoft is buying up a lot of studios and Nintendo is taking over Japan. Additionally, the big sellers on Playstation are third party games, so a person could easily play them on XBox or PC. One weakness of relying on third party games is that they are not guaranteed to stay loyal to a certain platform, and gamers don't have to stay loyal to Playstation to keep playing GTA, FIFA, Madden, Assassin's Creed, etc.... That basically means that in a few years Sony will have to rely very heavily on its first party games, and I don't think they are quite as strong in that area as Nintendo. |
A big weakness Sony faces on that front that Nintendo does not is budgeting. Nintendo budgets it’s first party titles with the assumption that they will be getting very little income from supplemental 3rd party sales and MTX. Sony uses money generated from the third party to subsidize the first party games, which is how it is able to afford cinematic experiences that are massive in scope.
Sony’s first party is not built to be self sustaining like Nintendo’s. An exodus of third party players off PlayStation would do much more long term harm to SONY, where as nintendo gets along just fine without those players
