Will Sony Copy Microsoft and Make Playstation a 3rd Party Publisher?

[RolStoppable]

DroidKnight said:

Tapping into the large 34 million Series user base and the new, growing Switch 2 base will generate billions of new dollars for Sony. I don't see them being very selective in which titles to make multi-plat once that gate is opened.

Sony may be selling a lot of hardware (5:1 over currently over its competitor), but if they're still subsidizing their consoles, that 1 Xbox sale may be making an equivalent profit of multiple PS5 consoles combined. So with no profit being made in Sony hardware sales, it doesn't matter how many units they sale, it is the size of the player base that you are able to reach.

The size of the new Xbox player base now consists of the PC player base, mobile player base, Nintendo, and Playstation. Even though Xbox will continue to make consoles, they no longer have to convince players to migrate over to buying an Xbox.

With everything now being an Xbox, Xbox has successfully created the largest player base ever for their games, without ever having to worry again about how much hardware it is moving. It does make sense for Playstation to chase the Xbox strategy, but I don't think they were prepared to do so, so soon.

That's like saying everything is an EA box, Square-Enix box, Capcom box etc. Sounds ridiculous because it is.

As for the topic, Sony is definitely making decisions that follow in Microsoft's footsteps, although at a slower and more careful rate. It doesn't make sense though. For Microsoft it did because they suck as a console manufacturer and can't sell an adequate amount of hardware at an adequate price to make it all profitable. But Sony was and is in a position where they can clear the 100 million threshold for hardware sales which is a huge base for a closed ecosystem. Even when the hardware itself is rarely sold at a profit at any point in the lifecycle and even when the first party output has a dry spell, the large installed base generates sufficient profits with third party royalties from game sales and microtransactions as well as Sony's own subscription tiers. It's right there in the financial reports, after all.

The move towards third party publishing is a very risky one for Sony because it threatens their console business and therefore the profits it generates from it. The gains from third party publishing may very well be offset by shrinking console sales and a diminished ecosystem, so Sony's management is acting shortsighted. But they already did when they issued their GaaS strategy, so it's not shocking that they would make another mistake. They are once again chasing a higher risk, higher reward scheme while giving up on a winning formula that has lower theoretical profits but is much safer to accomplish and sustain.