Apparently some lawsuits have started on Sony’s potential price-fixing of all games on their platform since they’re now the only retailer. Before anyone gets excited, these are probably going nowhere, but it’s neat that something is happening. The idea seems similar to the Epic vs Apple/Google lawsuits.
All resistance is futile, unless (the vast majority of) people will not buy it at all. But they, as usual, will do that anyway, no matter what.
Most people seem to not see the longterm implications of things or just don’t understand or care.
There are an estimated 3,600,000,000 active video game players worldwide…
Why does it never occur to anyone in these threads that YOU might just be an insignificant but vocal minority?
Or they completely understand and are ok with it.
Which surely will be the minority. I don’t care either as I don’t like consoles. But I like customer rights.
Nah most people understand how digital stuff works compared to physical, since every other media format has already gone through this transition. People know that songs and movies get removed from streaming services and digital stores. People know how it works on steam and mobiles, which have been digital only for years.
Obviously. But steam already killed the used game-market many moons ago. And physical games. I boycotted them for years when they launched, knowing how it would end. And here we are. Physical PC games totally eradicated. Gifting away games I’m done with to poorer people who like to game too? Gone. Buying a semi interesting game for half price used? Nope. All gone. And if you buy a physical box, you get a key and a disc with an outdated installer at best.
Remember doom shareware?
But even I caved in and spend 100k on steam games I will never own. At least they offer a great deal of service around it. As long as gaben lives…
Movies and series I exclusively pirate. Music bandcamp, as I can still own the shit I buy.
OK cool, so you see how it’s probably actually the majority that understands the physical/digital trade-off, and they’re ok with it.
The console market has ceded market share to PC over the past few decades specifically because a growing portion of the market sees that it’s cheaper over time. Everyone knows about Steam sales being better than the equivalent on consoles, whether they know it’s because of increased market competition or not. More and more people have shown that they’re doing the math on subscriptions to play online and realizing that it’s not a good deal. When you cut out the physical market and its own methods of keeping purchase prices down, more people still will do the math and decide not to engage.
The actual data does not support your conclusion.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/11/gaming-games-consels-xbox-play-station-fun/
Even in that chart it does. In 2003 (Steam rolls out for the first time), the blue PC portion of the chart is clearly smaller than the green console portion. In 2020, at the end of that graph, PC is bigger than all consoles combined. That’s not shared equally, and there are outliers aplenty, like League of Legends probably making a disproportionate amount of money compared to the rest of PC for several years, but we’ve seen traditional console publishers like Ubisoft and Capcom show that PC is now more often than not the lead platform. In 2011, there had to be a petition to bring Dark Souls to PC when it wasn’t even considered before, and then about 10 years later, Elden Ring on PC outsold both PlayStation versions combined.
It’s very clear that PC and Console have remained relatively flat and comparable, while Mobile eats BOTH their lunch. PC has not experienced the runaway capture your intentionally vague wording implies it has…
From 2006 to 2026:
I can’t help what you infer from what I said, but I didn’t say runaway. I said it’s been ceding ground over decades, which it has. For another thing that’s not captured in that broad graph, something like half of all playtime on consoles is only a few of the biggest live service games, which does skew things like dollars earned for those platforms while not reflecting the situation for the likes of companies that are putting out new video games every couple of years. No surprise that subscriptions haven’t affected playing Fortnite on PS5, because free to play games don’t require that subscription fee like Elden Ring does.
Again…
From 2006 to 2026:
PC isn’t “cannibalizing” shit… They are both losing to Mobile.
You can’t just ignore data that doesn’t agree with your argument…
You put “cannibalize” in quotes as though I said it. I did not. Please don’t invent an argument that I didn’t make.
That statement is untrue; both have lost market share to mobile.
Fair points… Guess we will see when the new PS/Xbox hit the market. I hope you’re right…