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[Mibu no ookami]

Sony and Jim Ryan get a lot of hate from pursuing GaaS revenue but I really think that people have no idea how much GaaS generates in revenue compared to a traditional model and traditional AAA storyline games and just how unsustainable it is to be on the outside looking in on this.

Fortnite - 6 billion dollars in 2022
PUBG - 2.5 billion revenue in 2022 (PC, Console, and Mobile)
Roblox - 2.2 billion in 2022
Genshin Impact - 2 billion annually
League of Legends - 1.8 billion in 2022
Warzone - 1.8 billion~
Apex Legends - 2 billion in 3 years
CSGO - 6.7 billion in 10 years
Rainbow Six Siege - 1.12 billion in 4 years

Sony made 27 billion in 2022 in revenue but they aren't retaining much due to the high operating cost

I've said it many times, that I have zero interest in GaaS or even online games, but I think Jim Ryan has correctly understood that Sony needs at least one or two major GaaS titles to bolster operating incomes, otherwise, it's going to fall well behind other publishers. I think they were overly ambitious with the numbers they wanted to introduce, but I also think those numbers were inflated by games like MLB The Show.

He promised 10 by March 2026

Personally, if I was Sony my GaaS push would have looked like this:

1. Dreams on PC and PS5 + VR Support
2. Gran Turismo 7 on PS5 and PC
3. MLB The Show
4. SOCOM US Navy Seals
5. Destiny 3
6. Marathon
7. Last of Us Online
8. Fairgame (just because we know it exists)
9. Concord (just because we know it exists)
10. Twisted Metal

When you consider the likely canceled Deviation game, we also know of probably two Horizon projects that might fall under that. All in all, I don't think anything is really ridiculous in nature. That being said, we know Dreams isn't one and I don't think they're including Gran Turismo.

You throw in some other things that people might actually like, like Motorstorm, Warhawk, Starhawk, MAG, Resistance, Killzone, and JetMoto/WipeOut.

Regardless, I think they have some diversity in the types of games they're looking to make, but more importantly, I don't think any of this really has much of an impact on their single-player games. I don't think ALL their studios have been "FORCED" to make GaaS games. You swap out a Destiny 3 for Deviation's game that was canceled and SOCOM for Horizon.

That doesn't begin to touch games like Firewall Ultra, Helldivers 2, and London Studios' game that probably actually round out the rest.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Out of that $27B sales and $1.9B profit, how much of that is split between hardware and software? Hardware is typically a breakeven business. Also, the financials will include all the R&D of PS6 too. Strip all that out and the remaining sales and profits are probably pretty good. The way e-stores work too is they sell a game for $70 and they keep 30%. Or an MTX for $10, they keep $3. So profit margin wise, all the cuts they get from third party is limited to 30% margin.

So a company focused on lots of hardware, R&D and 30% cuts will never have as much profit % as a successful purely software company who sell their software for huge margins right off the bat.

 

[Aces High]

Every zoomer I know primarily plays GAAS games. Some of them even exclusively.

PlayStation not adapting GAAS is insanity.

People need to shut the fuck up and leave their stupid little bubble.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

GaaS is a lottery ticket with highly skewed returns. The big winners win big. Everything else is a massive waste of capital and time. AAA single player titles that Sony produces are basically guaranteed to be profitable. They just don't sustain much outside the initial window and their profitability is capped.

Sony focused a little too much on trying to force marquee AAA single player studios to make GaaS titles, and that is a mistake. You can't force something that's not in their DNA to begin with. With the acquisition of Bungie, they should simply turn that into their GaaS publishing center of excellence, perhaps working with outside partners like Haven and Firewalk, but leaving the Naughty Dogs, Insomniacs, and Guerrilla Games alone to continue what they do best.

Rocksteady has spent nearly a decade making Suicide Squad to chase that sweet GaaS money and it will flop. They could have developed 2 AAA Batman games in that time and made considerably more money and prevented talented members from leaving.

 

[Robb]

I think most people on here are well aware that successful GAAS games generate an absolute ton of money. I am at least.

I’m uninterested in 98% of them though so who cares. I’d rather have them make games I want to play.

 

[Jibran#one]

Just like the poster above said
Gaas is a lottery ticket winners win big and loosers just disappear
The op mentioned the 5 6 biggest gaas games but didn't mentioned alot of gaas that didn't worked
Like halo infinite , although it launched with barebones content now after 5th season the game is probably the best multiplayer game of this generation but the hype died down

 

[killatopak]

gaas is a money maker but it absolutely cannibalizes their own. Coming from the mouth of Mihoyo, the creators of Genshin and Star Rail themselves.

Players usually stick to one or two not multiple gaas games unlike traditional ones.

Jim Ryan going all in on gaas is just shooting blindly hoping one of them hits the target. Chances are slim but that is the exact reason he set out to release loads of them.

I just hope once he get a successful one, he reinvests them back in traditional gaming.

 

[Sakura]

Sony and Jim Ryan get a lot of hate from pursuing GaaS revenue but I really think that people have no idea how much GaaS generates in revenue compared to a traditional model and traditional AAA storyline games and just how unsustainable it is to be on the outside looking in on this.

Fortnite - 6 billion dollars in 2022
PUBG - 2.5 billion revenue in 2022 (PC, Console, and Mobile)
Roblox - 2.2 billion in 2022
Genshin Impact - 2 billion annually
League of Legends - 1.8 billion in 2022
Warzone - 1.8 billion~
Apex Legends - 2 billion in 3 years
CSGO - 6.7 billion in 10 years
Rainbow Six Siege - 1.12 billion in 4 years

There are also many more games as a service that don't make it. Titles like Fortnite and Genshin are the exception.
It's far more risky than traditional games. The market is more competitive. They demand a lot of a players time (and money) versus traditional games.
Is your Genshin clone going to get Genshin players to quit that, and play yours instead? Probably not, but it needs to in order to pull those kinds of numbers.

If Sony has a studio that is willing/capable of doing a GaaS, then sure, give it a go. Who knows, maybe it will be the next big thing.
I think most people took issue with the amount of focus Sony seemed to be putting into GaaS, not the fact that they were going to attempt it at all.

 

[Danjin44]

To me GaaS is about making money rather than making player's experience better, so I have zero interest supporting that type of games.

 

[EDMIX]

To me Single Player games is about making money rather than making player's experience better, so I have zero interest support that type of games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

GAAS is a lottery ticket...but also Marathon is going to be huge.

GAAS is saturated...but it grows every year with no end in sight.

GAAS is the future, plain and simple.

 

[Danjin44]

EDMIX

 

[StreetsofBeige]

As for the OP's list of successful GAAS games, Roblox is unprofitable. I dont think that company has ever made money. but they got stock IPO money to keep them around for years.

As for the other successful big name GAAS, all are either legacy PC games or multiplat. Sony doing PS exclusive GAAS will not come close to any of those games. Even with PC day one access, they still wont unless it's a tried and true Bungie multiplat game like Destiny 3.

The Sony gamer base doesn't seem to give a shit about most attempts by Sony making MP games, and the PC crowd doesnt seem begging for a GAAS game originating from a walled console ecosystem.

If Sony really wants a successful GAAS game, make it day one multiplat on as many platforms as possible. Sounds impossible, but Sony doesn't seem to mind having MLB The Show on Switch and Xbox. So it can be done. Just a matter of how walled garden they want their GAAS to be.

Successful GAAS games eat up a lot of time and money from dedicated gamers. A rock solid multiplat game will eat up Nintendo and Xbox gamers time, Sony makes 70% cuts on sales and in turn weakens the rest of their ecosystem as people focus on Sony GAAS. It's like GTA and COD being 200 gb downloads with all the DLC and modes. Any gamer loving these games just ate up 200 gb (per game) of their SSD meaning it crowds out lots of other games as gamers wont even bother downloading more games if they are hitting the max.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

GaaS is a lottery ticket with highly skewed returns. The big winners win big. Everything else is a massive waste of capital and time. AAA single player titles that Sony produces are basically guaranteed to be profitable. They just don't sustain much outside the initial window and their profitability is capped.

Sony focused a little too much on trying to force marquee AAA single player studios to make GaaS titles, and that is a mistake. You can't force something that's not in their DNA to begin with. With the acquisition of Bungie, they should simply turn that into their GaaS publishing center of excellence, perhaps working with outside partners like Haven and Firewalk, but leaving the Naughty Dogs, Insomniacs, and Guerrilla Games alone to continue what they do best.

Rocksteady has spent nearly a decade making Suicide Squad to chase that sweet GaaS money and it will flop. They could have developed 2 AAA Batman games in that time and made considerably more money and prevented talented members from leaving.

Gaming is an industry where a shit load of companies follow the trend. FPS.... RTS.... WWII... zombies.... F2P.... BR mode..... etc.... And the past maybe 5+ years when console gamers amped up on mtx and GAAS (and people thought back in the day when a map pack released every 6 months was a huge money grab), the trend is GAAS as a whole. It's an extension of digital game purchases because console gamers got shown what PC gamers have had for much longer - digital purchases, backlogs, gamers spending at the click of a button buying shit and never playing it.

In other kinds of industries, there's trends. But it might be colours or scents. but most products are kind of the same year in and year out. Every company has their mix of low/high selling products and low/high profit products. There's a balance needed to keep the lights on while still making customers happy and make profit. As the company grows, everything kind of grows in tandem. The stodgy popular stuff grows, but also the unique special highly profitable stuff. I have never worked at a corporation where the company focused on niche super profitable risky stuff, while keeping the rest of their tried and true stuff status quo. Thats because most of that crazy new stuff either fails or isn't big enough to make a difference. You need growth of the lower profit/high sales to fund the new stuff.

Sony's bread and butter games are AAA SP games. Ya, there's GT and baseball and that Grand Order Fate game which all have GAAS aspects to it, but for the most part the biggest budgets and promo are their popular SP IPs and whichever new ones they make here and there.

What Sony wants to do is focus more on GAAS (which everyone knows can be holy grail money if its successful) and doing sequels to popular IPs instead of doing more new splashy SP IPs. All their key studios focus on one franchise now except Insomniac who does superhero and R&C. It seems like they are happy with that strategy. Focus on the key 5-6 SP IPs in rotation. Dont risk more on SP. Focus the rest of the budget on GAAS.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Let's look at the idea that GaaS is a lottery or that it is saturated.

Runescape came out in 2001
Eve Online came out in 2003
World of Warcraft came out in 2004
Roblox came out in 2006
League of Legends came out in 2009
Final Fantasy 14 came out in 2010
Minecraft came out in 2011
CSGO came out in 2012
DOTA 2 came out in 2013
GTA Online came out in 2013
Warframe came out in 2013
Black Desert came out in 2014
Rocket League came out in 2015
Overwatch came out in 2016
Pokemon Go came out in 2016
Fortnite came out in 2017
PUBG came out in 2017
Destiny 2 came out in 2017
Sea of Thieves came out in 2018
Apex Legends came out in 2019
Red Dead Online came out in 2019
Genshin Impact came out in 2020
Warzone came out in 2020
Valorant came out in 2020
Diablo 4 came out in 2023
Honkai Star Rail came out in 2023

This looks like a pretty consistent stream of new live service games. Major fundamentals for winning said lottery are putting out something of decent quality, marketing it, and ensuring widespread availability.

As for Roblox, the company isn't profitable because the business is run by fools who spend the money on ridiculous things.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

GaaS is a lottery ticket with highly skewed returns. The big winners win big. Everything else is a massive waste of capital and time. AAA single player titles that Sony produces are basically guaranteed to be profitable. They just don't sustain much outside the initial window and their profitability is capped.

Sony focused a little too much on trying to force marquee AAA single player studios to make GaaS titles, and that is a mistake. You can't force something that's not in their DNA to begin with. With the acquisition of Bungie, they should simply turn that into their GaaS publishing center of excellence, perhaps working with outside partners like Haven and Firewalk, but leaving the Naughty Dogs, Insomniacs, and Guerrilla Games alone to continue what they do best.

Rocksteady has spent nearly a decade making Suicide Squad to chase that sweet GaaS money and it will flop. They could have developed 2 AAA Batman games in that time and made considerably more money and prevented talented members from leaving.

Suicide Squad was never a good idea in the first place. Same thing with a single-player game: Gollum. There was never really a market for either game.

If they had made a quality live service game out of say, Gotham Knights, that might have been different.

You say Sony forced, yet you're not in the room. You don't know who or how decisions have been made.

Epic made some FPS and Gears of War... when was Live Service their DNA before Fortnite? Same with Bungie before Destiny.

Naughty Dog was limited to making platform games and the occasional kart racing game until Uncharted. Same with Insomniac until Resistance. Sucker Punch went entirely outside of their wheelhouse with Ghost of Tsushima but took what they were good at from both Sly Cooper and inFamous. Guerilla was making FPS until they made a 3rd person action adventure game that sold more than all the Killzone games combined...

 

[DaleinCalgary]

thats revenue, not profit. I say the same in MS threads and I'll say it here. Means nothing

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Let's look at the idea that GaaS is a lottery or that it is saturated.

Runescape came out in 2001
Eve Online came out in 2003
World of Warcraft came out in 2004
Roblox came out in 2006
League of Legends came out in 2009
Final Fantasy 14 came out in 2010
Minecraft came out in 2011
CSGO came out in 2012
DOTA 2 came out in 2013
GTA Online came out in 2013
Warframe came out in 2013
Black Desert came out in 2014
Rocket League came out in 2015
Overwatch came out in 2016
Pokemon Go came out in 2016
Fortnite came out in 2017
PUBG came out in 2017
Destiny 2 came out in 2017
Sea of Thieves came out in 2018
Apex Legends came out in 2019
Red Dead Online came out in 2019
Genshin Impact came out in 2020
Warzone came out in 2020
Valorant came out in 2020
Diablo 4 came out in 2023
Honkai Star Rail came out in 2023

This looks like a pretty consistent stream of new live service games. Major fundamentals for winning said lottery are putting out something of decent quality, marketing it, and ensuring widespread availability.

As for Roblox, the company isn't profitable because the business is run by fools who spend the money on ridiculous things.

Sounds like a lottery to me. 26 games in 22 years.

You can tell it's a lottery because with the 10 or so GAAS games Sony has in development ready to be unleashed in the next handful of years, one of the Sony execs last year even said in an article something like "all it takes is one to be successful to cover the rest". I forget whch exec it was.

That's like a gambler at the track betting on 10 horses and as long as one of the longshots comes in, the profit covers the other 9 losers.

Only with the potential gigantic profits a highly successful GAAS game would anyone in any company roll the dice on needing 1 winner among 10 products.

 

[Robb]

Major fundamentals for winning said lottery

How would you come that conclusion without listing all the GAAS games made over that time as well?

Not saying you’re wrong because I don’t know the statistic. But I’d think you’d have to know the total number of GAAS games made and calculate the success rate from there.

I’m sure there are like a million GAAS games made for phones every single year that we don’t even hear about because they die off instantly, for example.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

thats revenue, not profit. I say the same in MS threads and I'll say it here. Means nothing

I love how you ignore the part of the graph that shows operating income...

 

[Mibu no ookami]

How would you come that conclusion without listing all the GAAS games made over that time as well?

Not saying you’re wrong because I don’t know the statistic. But I’d think you’d have to know the total number of GAAS games made and calculate the success rate from there.

I’m sure there are like a million GAAS games made for phones every single year that we don’t even hear about because they die off instantly, for example.

My point is it isn't significantly different from the AAA market. Most games aren't blockbuster hits.

To look at this right you would want to look at the live service games with big budgets that fail in a given time frame.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

My point is it isn't significantly different from the AAA market. Most games aren't blockbuster hits.

To look at this right you would want to look at the live service games with big budgets that fail in a given time frame.

It’s significantly more skewed than the AAA market.

 

[Aces High]

Hot take:

GAAS games need to be better games because they only make money if people keep playing.

Single-player games don't need to be good games as long as they get high enough metacritic score. Sony's not gonna refund your purchase if you don't like it.

GAAS games are darwinistic. Your game sucks means you're toast.

Single-player games are not. That's why we have all these typical AAA problems with content bloat, high input lag, political characters, etc. These things exist because marketing has become more important for single player games than actual gameplay.

Did I like TLOU 2? No. It's bloated, depressing and political.

Did I like GOW Ragnarok? No. It plays like shit with ridiculously high input lag. The game sacrifices gameplay for visuals.

Did I like Horizon Forbidden West? No. I uninstalled it after 30 minutes because it was boring and the main character is obnoxious.

Are Sony single-player games getting better? I enjoy Insomniac games a lot. But for everything else: I don't think so.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Yeah lots of hot (bad) takes above

 

[Sakura]

Let's look at the idea that GaaS is a lottery or that it is saturated.

Runescape came out in 2001
Eve Online came out in 2003
World of Warcraft came out in 2004
Roblox came out in 2006
League of Legends came out in 2009
Final Fantasy 14 came out in 2010
Minecraft came out in 2011
CSGO came out in 2012
DOTA 2 came out in 2013
GTA Online came out in 2013
Warframe came out in 2013
Black Desert came out in 2014
Rocket League came out in 2015
Overwatch came out in 2016
Pokemon Go came out in 2016
Fortnite came out in 2017
PUBG came out in 2017
Destiny 2 came out in 2017
Sea of Thieves came out in 2018
Apex Legends came out in 2019
Red Dead Online came out in 2019
Genshin Impact came out in 2020
Warzone came out in 2020
Valorant came out in 2020
Diablo 4 came out in 2023
Honkai Star Rail came out in 2023

This looks like a pretty consistent stream of new live service games. Major fundamentals for winning said lottery are putting out something of decent quality, marketing it, and ensuring widespread availability.

As for Roblox, the company isn't profitable because the business is run by fools who spend the money on ridiculous things.

I think this list is rather disingenuous. You and I both know that when Sony is talking about GaaS they aren't talking about titles like WoW or Minecraft. Most of those games also don't make any where close to the money Sony is chasing after here (if they did, they would've been in your OP).
And of course saturation is a thing. Just look at your list. You included WoW, for example. How many games tried chasing that subscription based MMO model and failed? Most of those games are the only game, or one of just a few, in their genres.
The list ignores all the failed GaaS attempts over the years. Especially recent years. Anthem? Halo Infinite? Redfall (lol)? Gundam Evolution? There are so many more.

My point is it isn't significantly different from the AAA market. Most games aren't blockbuster hits.

To look at this right you would want to look at the live service games with big budgets that fail in a given time frame.

The difference is in how the games make their money. Most GaaS these days (as far as I am aware) are free to play. They make money by getting people to pay for gacha, season passes, etc.
Traditional games make money up front.
If your big GaaS doesn't take off, then you lose a LOT of money. Whereas even a game like Forspoken can make most of it's money back, so the risk isn't as high.

 

[Heisenberg007]

This data says it all.

Count how many games are GaaS on this list.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I think this list is rather disingenuous. You and I both know that when Sony is talking about GaaS they aren't talking about titles like WoW or Minecraft. Most of those games also don't make any where close to the money Sony is chasing after here (if they did, they would've been in your OP).
And of course saturation is a thing. Just look at your list. You included WoW, for example. How many games tried chasing that subscription based MMO model and failed? Most of those games are the only game, or one of just a few, in their genres.
The list ignores all the failed GaaS attempts over the years. Especially recent years. Anthem? Halo Infinite? Redfall (lol)? Gundam Evolution? There are so many more.


The difference is in how the games make their money. Most GaaS these days (as far as I am aware) are free to play. They make money by getting people to pay for gacha, season passes, etc.
Traditional games make money up front.
If your big GaaS doesn't take off, then you lose a LOT of money. Whereas even a game like Forspoken can make most of it's money back, so the risk isn't as high.

Yeah, you have no idea the titles they're talking about, because they're talking about a roadmap that goes to 2026.

We already know they're talking about a Horizon MMORPG, so pretty sure that would be in line with WoW.

As for these games not generating money.... please pick out the game that you feel like didn't generate revenue on that list.

Not every game on Sony's roadmap needs to make 2 billion dollars a year.

What do the games on YOUR list have in common? With the exception of Halo which got boosted by fanboys, fansites, and industry bias, they all reviewed poorly.

Yeah, keep telling yourself Forspoken made its money back.

 

[Robb]

To look at this right you would want to look at the live service games with big budgets that fail in a given time frame.

True. Easier said than done though I’d imagine since they fall into obscurity if they fail to gain popularity or aren’t major franchises. It’s very easy to list/recall the successes since they stick around.

Do you recall APB: All Points Bulletin? I didn’t until I googled. How about Battlefield Heroes? Would be fun/interesting to see a somewhat exhaustive list though.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sony's track record with MP and GAAS is lousy. Look at all the sports, shooters, PS All Star fighting game, destruction all stars all the games made my media molecule etc... Lots of attempts, all failed. even their marquee shooter franchise Killzone hasnt had a game in 10 years.

Going by the rumour Factions 2 is already cancelled, there's one of their 10 GAAS games gone and it didn't even release. All that time and money down the drain.

Sony's best bet is keep making new SP IPs, Bungie handles GAAS with their games, and just keep on humming with third party making the rest.

To be successful in an industry (such as gaming), you dont have to corner the market in every aspect of it.

Like every company. Stick to what youre good at. Dont focus everything on risky stuff where their track record is bad.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

True. Easier said than done though I’d imagine since they fall into obscurity if they fail to gain popularity or aren’t major franchises. It’s very easy to list/recall the successes since they stick around.

Do you recall APB: All Points Bulletin? I didn’t until I googled. How about Battlefield Heroes? Would be fun/interesting to see a somewhat exhaustive list though.

Never even heard of the publisher for APB.

Battlefield Heroes has a metacritic of 69 and a user score of 60.

Sony has a lot of advantages for GaaS. They can leverage the popularity of the PlayStation brand and the PlayStation store. Hell, they can preinstall the game on every PS5 if they want to.

 

[kruis]

gaas is a money maker but it absolutely cannibalizes their own. Coming from the mouth of Mihoyo, the creators of Genshin and Star Rail themselves.
Players usually stick to one or two not multiple gaas games unlike traditional ones.
Jim Ryan going all in on gaas is just shooting blindly hoping one of them hits the target. Chances are slim but that is the exact reason he set out to release loads of them.

I just hope once he get a successful one, he reinvests them back in traditional gaming.

How many gamblers do you know who stop after one time winning big?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Sony's track record with MP and GAAS is lousy. Look at all the sports, shooters, PS All Star fighting game, destruction all stars all the games made my media molecule etc... Lots of attempts, all failed. even their marquee shooter franchise Killzone hasnt had a game in 10 years.

Going by the rumour Factions 2 is already cancelled, there's one of their 10 GAAS games gone and it didn't even release. All that time and money down the drain.

Sony's best bet is keep making new SP IPs, Bungie handles GAAS with their games, and just keep on humming with third party making the rest.

To be successful in an industry (such as gaming), you dont have to corner the market in every aspect of it.

Like every company. Stick to what youre good at. Dont focus everything on risky stuff where their track record is bad.

SOCOM was one of the most popular console shooters when it was released.
Resistance was actually initially more successful than CoD on PS3.
Killzone 2 was pretty successful.
MLB The Show is the most successful baseball franchise of all time.
Hot Shots Golf is one of the most successful golf franchises of all time.

I think you look at Sony's attempts in the MP space and largely look at it without context. Xbox Live placed Xbox ahead of PlayStation when it came to online multiplayer on PS2 and PS3 and on PS3 Sony found success with games like God of War 3, Uncharted, and Last of Us, so Sony doubled down on those types of games on PS4. There's little to suggest that their MP games which were largely just as successful as most of the rest of their games couldn't find just as much success as their premier SP games now.

It's just a shift in priorities.

 

[Loxus]

Think about this for a moment.
Let's say both TLOU and Horizon multi-player release in 2024 and manage to be a hit.

PS6 releases in 2028
Revenue annually for these two games for 4 years.
TLOU ~$3 billion × 4 = ~$12 billion.
Horizon ~$1 billion × 4 = ~$4 billion.

A triple A game from Sony takes ~$300 million to make.

Sony could triple their AAA single output from the revenue of those two multi-player games alone and not skimp on the PS6 specs and features.

This is why Sony is pushing gaas.
The more releases, the higher the chances for many gaas hits.

Sony is in it for the long run and single games are taking longer to make, thus slows down future investments.

 

[Robb]

Never even heard of the publisher for APB.

Battlefield Heroes has a metacritic of 69 and a user score of 60.

Sony has a lot of advantages for GaaS. They can leverage the popularity of the PlayStation brand and the PlayStation store. Hell, they can preinstall the game on every PS5 if they want to.

Yeah, I’m not really arguing the quality of either game. Just that it’s difficult to assess the “lottery” argument. Neither of these games were particularly successful financially. Both closed down and were never heard of again.

I’m sure there’s plenty of games like them that never make it to these kind of comparison lists, while the success stories always make it. I wouldn’t be surprised if comparisons become very skewed for that reason.

For every major GAAS game there’s likely to be multiple failed copycats.

 

[Sakura]

Yeah, you have no idea the titles they're talking about, because they're talking about a roadmap that goes to 2026.

We already know they're talking about a Horizon MMORPG, so pretty sure that would be in line with WoW.

As for these games not generating money.... please pick out the game that you feel like didn't generate revenue on that list.

Not every game on Sony's roadmap needs to make 2 billion dollars a year.

What do the games on YOUR list have in common? With the exception of Halo which got boosted by fanboys, fansites, and industry bias, they all reviewed poorly.

Yeah, keep telling yourself Forspoken made its money back.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said any of those games didn't generate revenue. I also never said Forspoken made its money back.

Yeah those games reviewed poorly. But that is kind of my point? Even if a AAA game ends up reviewing poorly it can still reliably sell some number of copies at launch. Sure it won't meet the company's sales expectations, and might not break even, but it's lower risk.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

SOCOM was one of the most popular console shooters when it was released.
Resistance was actually initially more successful than CoD on PS3.
Killzone 2 was pretty successful.
MLB The Show is the most successful baseball franchise of all time.
Hot Shots Golf is one of the most successful golf franchises of all time.

I think you look at Sony's attempts in the MP space and largely look at it without context. Xbox Live placed Xbox ahead of PlayStation when it came to online multiplayer on PS2 and PS3 and on PS3 Sony found success with games like God of War 3, Uncharted, and Last of Us, so Sony doubled down on those types of games on PS4. There's little to suggest that their MP games which were largely just as successful as most of the rest of their games couldn't find just as much success as their premier SP games now.

It's just a shift in priorities.

The last few Socoms were terrible. So bad, the studio shut down along with that other doozy shooter MAG. Resistance was never made again and Sony partnered with Activision for COD marketing since 2014 because everyone knew Resistance isn't going to grow the platform. KZ SF MP was so bad, nobody was even playing the MP shortly after. The game supposedly sold a huge 2M copies within the launch window and people were posting pics that only 1000 people were online two months after release. It was dead. MLB the Show sells about 1M copies per year thats it. Maybe more now since it's on Switch/Xbox. Hot Shots Golf series is not a game that will be a platform seller.

Lets face it. Sony systems are not driven by first party MP/GAAS games. Thats why they bailed on making them. If they were driven by GAAS, Sony would still be churning out tons of MP/GAAS games. For Sony gamers, there's no point supporting first party GAAS when they got a reputation of cutting service fast. Even their latest MM game Dreams is dead. They already cut the cord on updates just 3 years later.

I dont think too many PS gamers are craving for first party GAAS shooters, more media molecule community creation games, F2P grindy games etc... But the profits are too tempting to avoid.

They make $2 billion profit per year from their gaming division. One of their giant AAA SP games takes a couple hundred million to make over 5 years. In 5 years, Sony can make $10 billion profit alone. They can make tons of new SP IPs just like what they did in the past. But now they are content focusing on sequels and offshoot games for the same 5-6 key IPs.

 

[silent head]

 

[StealthGoblin]

They've got more GAAS games in development than the 10 Jim mentioned, but then again they be also got more SP games on the go than people know about.

I think his approach is right, but I think anyone with any sense would have known the path would be rocky and have failures as well as successes.

I fully expect Sony to purchase a publisher or large developer that follows their biggest purchases intentions (Bungie - expertise is areas outside of Sony's core competencies). For that it would be a publisher or developer that covers traditional console gaming, has GAAS/Mobile expertise or success and is present in the PC space.

There would obviously be some divestiture or slimming of that entity post acquisition, but I think Sony will be smart and will keep games multiplat, only cutting out rival subscriptions. For example SE make a good amount of money off of Nintendo platforms. Why cut yourself off at the knees if your aim is expansion and profit?

And I'd definitely move Fate/Grand Order out of Sony Music and put it into PlayStation Mobile oversight. It's an odd placement currently.

Mobile games are currently in development at Bungie (multiple titles), Savage Game Studios (two titles) and Valkyrie Entertainment (at least one title). I think HouseMarque would be a good fit for some smaller mobile games (alongside their new AAA titles) as well.

xDev are surely also working on mobile titles.

 

[Neff]

For every GaaS success story there are a dozen very, very expensive flops.

Sony only has a finite amount of money to invest in software development and their pivot to GaaS is inevitably going to eat into the funding of the single-player games we traditionally enjoy.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Happy for you Gaas bags, it ain't for me though.

 

[RJMacready73]

I sincerely hope Sony nails at least 1 or 2 successful GAAS games, I've personally no interest in them but the additional potentially huge revenue streams they can bring in would enable Sony to keep doing what they do best, offer huge innovative SP experience's that you simply don't get anywhere else..

Also why Dreams isn't on PC with a shared ecosystem, PS5+VR support along with revenue sharing is beyond me, this seems like an incredible oversight for an amazing piece of software that offers everyone the ability to make and share games

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Every zoomer I know primarily plays GAAS games. Some of them even exclusively.

PlayStation not adapting GAAS is insanity.

People need to shut the fuck up and leave their stupid little bubble.

90% of gamers on gaming forums seem to be stuck in nostalgia.

GaaS is the future of multiplayer gaming and rightfully so.
With internet, the gaming landscape changed and people need to get with the times.

Edit: bolded to be more specific.

 

[StealthGoblin]

I sincerely hope Sony nails at least 1 or 2 successful GAAS games, I've personally no interest in them but the additional potentially huge revenue streams they can bring in would enable Sony to keep doing what they do best, offer huge innovative SP experience's that you simply don't get anywhere else..

Also why Dreams isn't on PC with a shared ecosystem, PS5+VR support along with revenue sharing is beyond me, this seems like an incredible oversight for an amazing piece of software that offers everyone the ability to make and share games

I'm the same. The only thing I've seen GAAS wise that I'm at least somewhat curious about is Marathon, but I know I won't touch almost all those GAAS titles. I'm more likely to interact with that element on Mobile.

 

[Fabieter]

Making gaas games will undoubtedly damage their sp games output. Making popular gaas games a bug success needs alot of resources and the resources aint infinite. I also get it financially but it will also damage their game reputation I think.

 

[ergem]

Sony has a very successful GaaS game -Fate Gran Order. Total revenue of more than $7 billion starting 2015.

If they can make a game similar to Genshin Impact with that brand, I think they have a winning formula.

 

[Spyxos]

I don't play multiplayer as much as I used to. I don't hate Gaas games, but I would much rather have new Sony first party story driven games. For my taste, they're concentrating too much on that right now.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Sony has a very successful GaaS game -Fate Gran Order. Total revenue of more than $7 billion starting 2015.

If they can make a game similar to Genshin Impact with that brand, I think they have a winning formula.

Yeah - but that needs to come under the control of SIE and their mobile division. Having it under Sony Music is odd.

 

[ergem]

Yeah - but that needs to come under the control of SIE and their mobile division. Having it under Sony Music is odd.

Perhaps SIE and Sony Music can collaborate in a 50:50 venture on a Genshin Impact style GaaS version of the game.

 

[MagnesD3]

Sony and Jim Ryan get a lot of hate from pursuing GaaS revenue but I really think that people have no idea how much GaaS generates in revenue compared to a traditional model and traditional AAA storyline games and just how unsustainable it is to be on the outside looking in on this.

Fortnite - 6 billion dollars in 2022
PUBG - 2.5 billion revenue in 2022 (PC, Console, and Mobile)
Roblox - 2.2 billion in 2022
Genshin Impact - 2 billion annually
League of Legends - 1.8 billion in 2022
Warzone - 1.8 billion~
Apex Legends - 2 billion in 3 years
CSGO - 6.7 billion in 10 years
Rainbow Six Siege - 1.12 billion in 4 years

Sony made 27 billion in 2022 in revenue but they aren't retaining much due to the high operating cost

I've said it many times, that I have zero interest in GaaS or even online games, but I think Jim Ryan has correctly understood that Sony needs at least one or two major GaaS titles to bolster operating incomes, otherwise, it's going to fall well behind other publishers. I think they were overly ambitious with the numbers they wanted to introduce, but I also think those numbers were inflated by games like MLB The Show.

He promised 10 by March 2026

Personally, if I was Sony my GaaS push would have looked like this:

1. Dreams on PC and PS5 + VR Support
2. Gran Turismo 7 on PS5 and PC
3. MLB The Show
4. SOCOM US Navy Seals
5. Destiny 3
6. Marathon
7. Last of Us Online
8. Fairgame (just because we know it exists)
9. Concord (just because we know it exists)
10. Twisted Metal

When you consider the likely canceled Deviation game, we also know of probably two Horizon projects that might fall under that. All in all, I don't think anything is really ridiculous in nature. That being said, we know Dreams isn't one and I don't think they're including Gran Turismo.

You throw in some other things that people might actually like, like Motorstorm, Warhawk, Starhawk, MAG, Resistance, Killzone, and JetMoto/WipeOut.

Regardless, I think they have some diversity in the types of games they're looking to make, but more importantly, I don't think any of this really has much of an impact on their single-player games. I don't think ALL their studios have been "FORCED" to make GaaS games. You swap out a Destiny 3 for Deviation's game that was canceled and SOCOM for Horizon.

That doesn't begin to touch games like Firewall Ultra, Helldivers 2, and London Studios' game that probably actually round out the rest.

Its called artistic integrity bro, no one gives a shit how much money people make off of it, were here to play good games not here so the idiot masses with thier low selfcontrol can empty thier wallet unto the Sony brand.