Sony Plans To Explore Microtransactions, Talks About Shifting From Hardware To Users And Services

https://www.dualshockers.com/sony-microtransactions-ps4/

During the Sony Corporation’s quarterly financial conference call for investors and analysts, the company’s executives have talked more about the plans for the PlayStation business.

First of all Finance and Corporate Development Executive Atsuko Murakami talked about PlayStation Plus. She mentioned that the company would like to make the service more attractive for existing members to keep user retention rate high. While it’s not easy to retain users for a long time, Sony has been implementing measure to achieve that goal.

Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida mentioned that more than half of the sales for the Game and Network Services sales in the current fiscal year will be coming from the network.

There are mitigating factors to the effect of the console cycle on revenue: the business model used to be a business-to-business royalty-based model, but now it has shifted to direct sales to consumers. Hardware sales are still important, but the number of monthly active users is getting more relevant, alongside PlayStation Plus subscribers and how much time they spend on Sony’s services and consoles.

Therefore, according to Yoshida-san, the axis is shifting from hardware to user base.

On top of that, after the purchase of a game, users can purchase items or content within the game itself, and the proportion of those sales is increasing.

Yoshida-san also talked about former Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Andrew House leaving PlayStation and John Kodera stepping in his place. Since Kodera-san is the one who built up the network business, his appointment will lead to further expansion of that segment. Under his direction, Sony can strengthenthe direction and improve the recurring revenue business

Thoughts?

You don't like microtransactions. But you can't do anything to stop us.

Ho-ho.

They don't need to explore. ND has been doing it for years. Once again MS leads the way (online paywall, first party MTX and DLC), gamers show they're OK with it, and Sony follow suit and finally, Nintendo!

Only a matter of time...

I guess this is the price we pay for using digital...and buying loot boxes...

Sony going full $ony. Well, eventually at least.

@davillain-:

online paywall --> started with Phantasy Star online with the Dreamcast.

Expansion packs were a thing on PC (MMO) & DLC was a thing with the Dreamcast as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content

all the big video games companies are doing it:

https://charlieintel.com/2017/10/17/patent-reveals-activision-uses-matchmaking-encourage-players-buy-microtransactions/

Aalso expect it on RDR2. Nothing to do with microsoft here.

@no_bo_dy_83: Never got into Online with the Dreamcast at the time, so I wouldn't know if Sega started the paywall to begin with. Nobody I know never discuss about it, so this is new to me.

Sad but true lol

FAKE NEWS

Sony always have and always will deliver by the gamers for the gamers mantra.

Fingers crossed you can buy DLC QTEs.

A blue swap for Kratos.

Only 9.99 or get the season pass for 30.99 and get gold weapon skins.

??? Curse you EA and Activision!!!

In other words, they are going start caring more about how many dollars they can pump out of each users versus how many users/consoles there are.

Microtransactions? Fire John Kodera.

Sony didn't invent this......they're following MS.

I'll take a hammer to my PS4 before I ever buy a game with microtransactions.

yet again MS influence the industry in a bad way, first paid online now this bullshit. I don't want an always online future(inb4 herp derp blablabla..... don't kid yourself, its the beginning of always online future with all this service and microtransaction talk). If it happens, then good bye gaming hobby

The someone else started it defense is extremely weak.

Sony is their own company.

If you do not call Sony on their crap they will end up like Microsoft, and then we will all be lems.

This isn't exactly news worthy. They've been exploring microtransactions for years now.

Okay? I didn't say they invented it. I said they're going down that path, is all.

Not exactly surprising, everything from video games, TV, magazines, IT infrastructure is moving to a service based model.

There may be a PS5, but there won't be a PS6. It will pretty much all be recurring revenue, cloud based gaming as a service.

The only question is, who will come out on top? Who will be the Netflix of video games?

Lol.

Here we go the new CEO is pretty mush the psn guy.

Software as a Service i.e. SaaS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service

Sony makes bad decisions and M$ takes the blaim.

@LJS9502_basic: do you think sony wishes they were M$?

Lol, yeah... MS is to blame for everything bad in the industry apparently.

These forums are getting toxic.

Shouldn't the blame fall squarely on the idiots that buy this crap?

Ubisoft is almost as bad as those companies too. They have been doing the microtransaction thing a lot lately.

Sony probably got that idea from them. I heard that someone spent thousands of US dollars in microtransactions on 1 game.

The same guy that made psn mandatory to pay to play online? That guy is an asshole.

They did break skype so not surprised. Thpugh cell phones are to blame for microtransactions

Well you guys put Sony atop this gen, so now you will pay for it lol.

Remember Sony's motto this gen "this is for the payers"

Gotta love the cows blaming MS for this lol.

Sony is for the Players so i'm sure it will turn out fine

MS is the hero we need... but don't deserve.

Yes and no. Over time corporations will become better at selling bad things to consumers. Through marketing improvements, market research, and finding and pushing against the borders of the law. Meanwhile consumers never get better over time at withstanding these things. We don't get taught at school how to save our money. Or how to train our minds to resist advertising. So you could say the corporations are becoming experts at this and consumers are going to stay noobs, it's not a fair fight and is slowly escalating.

At some point in time the idea of consumers holding any control over their actions becomes laughable, as corporations find out how your brain works and what buttons to push. I feel like, in gaming, we are getting to that point.

Sounds horrible. Thankfully, I'm not a fan of Sony and don't plan to own any of their existing/future consoles.

"Even if hundreds of millions of people speak out against microtransactions, we can still find that one guy who's willing to spend 10.000$ on some in game shit"

Face it

Btw I didn't mean to say that things are hopeless. I do think it's going to be increasingly important to make noise about bad practices as things escalate. And I applaud any gamer who made noise when they were firmly against something.

@no_bo_dy_83 said:

@davillain-:

online paywall --> started with Phantasy Star online with the Dreamcast.

Expansion packs were a thing on PC (MMO) & DLC was a thing with the Dreamcast as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content

all the big video games companies are doing it:

https://charlieintel.com/2017/10/17/patent-reveals-activision-uses-matchmaking-encourage-players-buy-microtransactions/

Aalso expect it on RDR2. Nothing to do with microsoft here.

PSO paywall? I never had to pay anything on the DC, certainly not for PSO... DLC was never much of a thing with the DC either, or at least I never came across it. Having a 33kbps modem didn't help I guess...

?to MTs.

We sold a load of hardware, how can we make more money out it.

But we are about the gamers not our shareholders.

go Sony

A lot of people would like to blame for MS starting this paywall from the start but however, I personally blame the gamers who actually crave into this mess int he first place, not MS. Really, it's our fault as gamers we are into this mess. No console gamer should ever have to pay behind the paywall and look at Nintendo, they are now joining in the online sub later this year.

I did on all three of those. I would agree with you that the enemy is growing stronger, but I refuse to accept this. And that is what "I" will do. I'm not above influence, but I try.

It would help if consumers knew what they were up against. Good on you for trying to enlighten people. Here's what helped to wake me up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G05_icgcrOs

I'll leave this here.

Imaging if this was about MS we would be at 10 pages by now, but because it's about Sony it barely makes 2 pages lol.

@i_p_daily: Imagine if the thread title wasn't just a sensationalistic interpretation of mundane realities we have all grown accustomed to over the course of the past decade?