Sony's multiplatform future - and its discovery effects?

[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & company founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]

Welcome back, knowledgenauts, to the lunar module that is GameDiscoverCo 5 craft. This week, we’ll be observing the PC & console game discovery stratus from far above, and making some specific observations on the weather for your very own games…

Sony’s expansion plans: where PlayStation’s going

Some of you maybe spotted a Sony ‘Game & Network Services Segment’ presentation [.PDF, streaming video] by SIE’s president Jim Ryan last week. And it’s… kinda a big deal - because it very much shows PlayStation’s corporate strategy for the next few years.

We definitely recommend you watch the whole thing - or at least skim the slides - if you’d like to get a lot of dense data on where Sony sees its market going. But here’s the high points:

What we thought was particularly notable in Sony’s presentation was how (relatively) little it’s concentrating on PlayStation Plus as a possible revenue source. It merited a single slide out of the forty-two in the presentation.

Why? Well, the company printed the below (IDC Q1 2022) estimates on console by revenue type:

Sure, we think that Sony is somewhat interested in beefing up its PlayStation Plus offering and competing on the ‘subscription’ side of things. Why wouldn’t they be?

But I think the company sees the $9 billion extra ‘digital add-on’ revenue up to CY25 as a) far higher-margin and b) far more attainable, given Sony’s IP, hardware ownership, and the quality of its internal game teams - plus the extra GaaS expertise of the incoming Bungie team.

Whether it’s that easy is another question. But the presentation definitely gave us the impression that ‘pivoting to GaaS/multi-platform with our new first-party games’ is the #1 discovery priority in Sony’s world. Whereas ‘growing Game Pass at all costs’ is definitely the #1 discovery priority in Xbox’s. Which is… interesting, right?

Sure, we think that Sony is somewhat interested in beefing up its PlayStation Plus offering and competing on the ‘subscription’ side of things. Why wouldn’t they be?

But I think the company sees the $9 billion extra ‘digital add-on’ revenue up to CY25 as a) far higher-margin and b) far more attainable, given Sony’s IP, hardware ownership, and the quality of its internal game teams - plus the extra GaaS expertise of the incoming Bungie team.

Whether it’s that easy is another question. But the presentation definitely gave us the impression that ‘pivoting to GaaS/multi-platform with our new first-party games’ is the #1 discovery priority in Sony’s world. Whereas ‘growing Game Pass at all costs’ is definitely the #1 discovery priority in Xbox’s. Which is… interesting, right?

[We’re GameDiscoverCo, an agency based around one simple issue: how do players find, buy and enjoy your premium PC or console game? We run the newsletter you’re reading, and provide consulting services for publishers, funds, and other smart game industry folks.]