Buying companies to make them exclusive is anti-consumer. Starting first party studios to facilitate unique games being made on your platform is not anti-consumer. If anything, it should create competition for high quality exclusives by investing in unique game designers. When Microsoft just buys Rare, Mojang, Activision, Blizzard, King, Bethesda, Arkane, Alpha Dog, etc, it’s not to create competition.
I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. I’ve never had a PC that has worked for 7 years without replacing significant parts. I’ve only had 5 PlayStations total since I was 5. I’ve had at least twenty computers during the same time frame.
There’s investment made by Sony for games on their hardware. If the hardware were bad, developers wouldn’t use it.
I work for a start up, and I loved getting the opportunity to build a tech platform while not having to build up the business from the ground up. I can’t do human resources, marketing, sales, yaddah yaddah. I don’t have any way of just getting my product into retail. Two years in, and we’re about to land a $125M contact. It’s green energy, so I feel like I’m saving the world.
If Sony doesn’t invest in their own studios, the consumer just doesn’t get the game those studios make. Without PlayStation, gaming would look significant worse over the last 30 years. Most of my favorite games are Sony exclusives.
I’m not trying to be confrontational. I want to hear your honest takes. Let me put it to you this way:
If I make an app for Apple, do I have to make it for Android?
What if I’m not an Android developer?
What if I won’t make money if I make it for Android because my reach is already saturated?
What if I know that my app will be heavily pirated as soon as I make it available for Android and there’s nothing I can do about it?
To me, the only reason Sony is doing it with their back catalog is to try to generate new users for their upcoming sequels. The game is at the end of its earning lifespan if they don’t port it, so why not use it to market the upcoming titles?
I think you aren’t realizing what you implying. Companies that just fund studios for publishing rights are companies like EA, Activision, Take Two, Ubisoft, and Tencent. Every one of these publishers has very aggressive microtransaction platforms. Plus, they all publish predominantly multiplayer games. If the only way for me to get single player games is to buy a console, so be it.
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