Official PlayStation 4 Thread

[Diff-chan]

I really wonder how many people just bought PS+ and stopped buying games. This goes for PS3 and Vita too. I don't think that is sustainable.

[Yoshi]

Razors and razor blades doesn't work if no one pays much for the blades

That's not the model anymore. Sony is making a profit on every PS4, unlike their previous consoles. They are also making SaaS money from PS+, and that has exploded with the release of the PS4. In no way do consoles resemble razors anymore. We may never know, but I'd be really curious as to how much Sony pays publishers to get their games on PS+.

edit: In fact, games these days more closely resemble movies without the theater layer. Although platforms are not universal like DVD or BluRay, development is as close as it's ever been. It's very easy to develop on PC and then squish onto PS4 and X1. PS+ is basically Netflix. Retail games are the previously mentioned discs, and the digital versions are Amazon Instant Video/iTunes/etc. The one key difference is that the hardware makers also have the services.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Not much would be my guess.
Like those steam sales, it's about a quick cash infusion but mostly about garnering interest in the next project, i imagine.
At this point, anyone who had interest in batman arkham city has bought it by now. But by throwing it out there for free* some people may try it, like it, and get in line for the next one.

[Joust Williams]

I doubt Sony is making any reasonable amount of money on PS4 console hardware, honestly. Not saying they are losing money, but I'm with Diff, 60 a year for PS+ and buying a game a year isn't going to cut it.

Now, how much money do they get from DLC purchases that get purchased when someone has a PS+ game, I don't know.

[Yoshi]

It doesn't matter. Even if they break even, that is a huge paradigm shift from previous generations.

edit: Instead of taking ~5 years to break even, their profitability will just continue to grow this generation as component prices drop and manufacturing becomes more efficient.

[Joust Williams]

Not if they aren't making money off of games it isn't.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

But they arent losing it anymore. That alone could be huge. Money that used to have to subsidize the hardware can now be used to create profit elsewhere.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Anecdotal of course, but ps4 is doing fine in my neck of the woods.
I currently have 3(!) used titles on the wall
Xbone, i have just about every title used.
Every week i am reordering new ps4 stock. Not so much with xbone.

[Frogacuda]

We all knew the transition to this new gen would be slower for the same reason the last generation stuck around so long. So we have a lot of cross-gen stuff for now and not that much really exploiting the new hardware, but it's also safe to assume this hardware's going to be around for a very long time.

Unlike the transition from PS2 to PS3, I don't expect development budgets to go up dramatically this gen. In some ways they might even go down thanks to the hardware being easier to work with and the middleware being better and cheaper than ever.

[Diff-chan]

The problem for Sony specifically is that they are doing terribly. They really need to start earning a profit fast. They can't sell buildings anymore. The best way to earn a profit as a console maker is still to move games.