Sony Has Begun Accelerating Their Contributions To Open-Source / Linux

[mdedetrich]

Exclusives are profitable if you're the strongest player in the market, because it draws people to your platform. As soon as someone else becomes the most popular player, you lose out and it makes sense to work on cross-platform compatibility.

Sony had a few years of being the king of console gaming, but now the Nintendo Switch has that title. So now Playstation (and Xbox) are working on cross-platform play, and Nintendo has no interest in it.

Edit: an ethical company would work on cross-platform play all of the time, no matter how popular they are, because that's best for consumers. But Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo care about profits, not people.

This is actually not entirely true. There are very real technical reasons to make exclusives, its much easier to design an optimal game when you only have to target a single platform. There are countless interviews of Playstation exclusive game devs and the major reason why they focus only on Playstation is that they know precisely what everyone is running and hence they can take the system to its limits when designing a game.

Think of it this way, if you design a game for PS5 today you know that every single person playing your game has an SSD that is capable of 6-10 gigabytes a second so you can design your game around that (i.e. such a game would literally not need any loading screens, it can be completely seamless because it can load in textures from the SSD so quickly). Likewise you would not need filler portions in the level when you are going into a new area (i.e. standing in an elevator) because these filler portions was actually masking a game having to load in textures for the next level behind the scenes and the reason this was done is because people were using standard hard drives.

If you targeted PC, now you have to suddenly deal with a huge proportion of the population who either isn't running a SSD or a real slow one. This means that you have to design your game around the lowest common denominator which effects the design of the game.

[timofonic]

This is actually not entirely true. There are very real technical reasons to make exclusives, its much easier to design an optimal game when you only have to target a single platform. There are countless interviews of Playstation exclusive game devs and the major reason why they focus only on Playstation is that they know precisely what everyone is running and hence they can take the system to its limits when designing a game.

Think of it this way, if you design a game for PS5 today you know that every single person playing your game has an SSD that is capable of 6-10 gigabytes a second so you can design your game around that (i.e. such a game would literally not need any loading screens, it can be completely seamless because it can load in textures from the SSD so quickly). Likewise you would not need filler portions in the level when you are going into a new area (i.e. standing in an elevator) because these filler portions was actually masking a game having to load in textures for the next level behind the scenes and the reason this was done is because people were using standard hard drives.

If you targeted PC, now you have to suddenly deal with a huge proportion of the population who either isn't running a SSD or a real slow one. This means that you have to design your game around the lowest common denominator which effects the design of the game.

I think most games in the near future will require certain good SSDs as minimum requirement.

Except Switch with mobile-like hardware, Xbox and Playstation use custom PC hardware. Newer generations will be faster than them in all ways, DirectX12 and Vulkan provide more low level hardware access too.

Hardware is getting standardized just because economy of scale, that's good for users.

And exclusive games are slowly fading too, except on Nintendo games.

And we have Wine/Proton!

[Michael_S]

I don't really get it. If you sell your games on all platforms then who cares what platform is the strongest? You are making money everywhere.

It's one thing if they let's say are making money on selling hardware, so "platform" gives them profit by attracting more gamers. But they aren't profiting on that (they even under-price their consoles as far as I know), they are profiting on selling games. And if they sell games in more stores (and on more platforms), it means more people will buy them = more profits.

Think in terms of store lock-in. If I'm a PC gamer, I can buy games from Blizzard/Activision, GOG, Steam, Epic, Microsoft Store, and directly from the game creator. So this month I spend money in the Activision store, next month I spend money in the GOG store, two months from now I spend money on Steam.

If the game I really want is on a Playstation, I get a Playstation. The Playstation does not, as you noted, bring in much profit or any profit for Sony. But this month I buy from the Playstation store, next month I buy from the Playstation store, two months from now I buy from the Playstation store, and so forth.

I'm making up numbers here, but imagine this scenario. Sony has sold something like 15 million copies of the Spider-man PS4 game that came out in 2018. If the game was cross-platform, maybe they would have sold 30 million or even 50 million copies. That's huge. But they kept the game a Playstation exclusive, and you can bet that some of the 15 million copies sold were to people that got the Playstation just to play that game. If the game was cross platform, they would have never bought a Playstation. So some of those people got a Playstation Plus subscription ($60/year) that they wouldn't otherwise get, and some bought or rented movies on the Playstation Store that they would not have otherwise done, and some bought Overwatch or Call of Duty: Electric Bugaloo or Yet Another God of War on Playstation. So Sony executives figured, right or wrong, that the profits from pulling people into their platform outweighed the profits from cross-platform sales.

[Sonadow]

Playstation exclusives for the win.

All the games I play on my PS3, PS4 and PS5 are never released on any other platform and I like it that way.

If the "open source community" is even a fraction as capable as what they tout themselves to be, they should have no problem creating a console using nothing but a complete FOSS software stack on Linux and Mesa that is capable of outperforming what Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft has to offer.

Instead all they do is go around demanding for consoles to be open sourced so that they can get leech free code from businesses who have poured in millions into developing their own performant software stacks on game consoles.

[Linuxxx]

Playstation exclusives for the win.

All the games I play on my PS3, PS4 and PS5 are never released on any other platform and I like it that way.

If the "open source community" is even a fraction as capable as what they tout themselves to be, they should have no problem creating a console using nothing but a complete FOSS software stack on Linux and Mesa that is capable of outperforming what Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft has to offer.

Instead all they do is go around demanding for consoles to be open sourced so that they can get leech free code from businesses who have poured in millions into developing their own performant software stacks on game consoles.

WOW! You sir, are a really bitter ... [please fill in an insult or curse word to your liking!]

First, I got some bad news for you son ... no, only son:
Your precious Sony just bought Nixxes!
Doesn't ring a bell? Yeah, thought so!
Well, they are a company specializing in PC ports; now, why on earth would Sony be interested in that?
Turns out, they are really interested in the growing PC gaming market, where even decade old games can still sell (GOG - bought the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles there, which your Gollum-precious PlayStation ain't ever getting).

And unlike you, with the Steam Deck coming soon, I will be able to enjoy your once-exclusive "Horizon - Zero Dawn" wherever I feel like; I bet Sony likes to refer to it internally as the PSP3!

Linux actually revolutionizing the handheld gaming space - who would have thought?
[Thanks again, VALVe!]

Anyway, cry some more, while I will enjoy the original 'Uncharted' trilogy on my Linux setup with the help of the truly amazing RPCS3 emulator!

And don't forget about the progress the Linux-exclusive PS4 translator (akin to WINE) is making, too!

[Sonadow]

WOW! You sir, are a really bitter ... [please fill in an insult or curse word to your liking!]

First, I got some bad news for you son ... no, only son:
Your precious Sony just bought Nixxes!
Doesn't ring a bell? Yeah, thought so!
Well, they are a company specializing in PC ports; now, why on earth would Sony be interested in that?
Turns out, they are really interested in the growing PC gaming market, where even decade old games can still sell (GOG - bought the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles there, which your Gollum-precious PlayStation ain't ever getting).

And unlike you, with the Steam Deck coming soon, I will be able to enjoy your once-exclusive "Horizon - Zero Dawn" wherever I feel like; I bet Sony likes to refer to it internally as the PSP3!

Linux actually revolutionizing the handheld gaming space - who would have thought?
[Thanks again, VALVe!]

Anyway, cry some more, while I will enjoy the original 'Uncharted' trilogy on my Linux setup with the help of the truly amazing RPCS3 emulator!

And don't forget about the progress the Linux-exclusive PS4 translator (akin to WINE) is making, too!

You can have those trashy American games published by garbage American studios. Heck, I will be glad to see Sony remove these games from their PS lineup. All American games (and all Western games in general) have to offer is their concept of manliness by having testosterone-filled men waving large guns and shooting at everything in front of him.

The untranslated Japanese games from Japanese game studios which I play exclusively on the PS and the Vita will forever remain console exclusive, and that's what matters to me. Oh, you don't understand Japanese? Oh boo hoo.

[Linuxxx]

You can have those trashy American trash games published by garbage American studios. Heck, I will be glad to see Sony remove these games from their PS lineup.

The untranslated Japanese games from Japanese game studios which I play exclusively on the PS and the Vita will forever remain console exclusive, and that's what matters to me. Oh, you don't understand Japanese? Oh boo hoo.

Firstly, at least get your facts right:
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are anything but American and I'm definitely no American myself either! (Not that I have anything against Americans per se, unlike you...)

Secondly, you may enjoy your region-locked Japanese games all you want, while I can do the same with fan-translated versions on my PlayStation emulators with better graphics & higher fidelity, just so you can get that much more angry at us Linux users!
(I'm loving your logic, by the way...)

[Sonadow]

Secondly, you may enjoy your region-locked Japanese games all you want, while I can do the same with fan-translated versions on my PlayStation emulators with better graphics & higher fidelity, just so you can get that much more angry at us Linux users!
(I'm loving your logic, by the way...)

Sure, you just outed yourself as someone who doesn't pay for games and prefer to steal them in the form of 'fan-translated' versions. I'm sure Sony really loves consumers like you who really just love using FOSS as an excuse for piracy.

And for what it's worth, the PSP-era and PS2-era games I play on the original consoles still do not have fan translations, let alone PS3-era games. Hah!

Nothing beats actually knowing the language and playing a game on a console the way it's meant to be played.

[Linuxxx]

Sure, you just outed yourself as someone who doesn't pay for games and prefer to steal them in the form of 'fan-translated' versions. I'm sure Sony really loves consumers like you who really just love using FOSS as an excuse for piracy.

And for what it's worth, the PSP-era and PS2-era games I play on the original consoles still do not have fan translations, let alone PS3-era games. Hah!

Nothing beats actually knowing the language and playing a game on a console the way it's meant to be played.

If I don't even get the chance to pay for the games I want, then of course I ain't going to do it! On the other hand, I always pay for the games I like and support this way!

Also, what types of Japanese games do you like? The ones that are a grindfest and/or depict underage-girls a certain way?

Now, nothing against the Japanese salarymen that obviously seem to enjoy this type of content - though you are not actually Japanese, are you?

Hmm, let me try to read your mind and guess:
Portuguese, right?

Again, nothing against Portugal, mind you; just a guess...

[FellowPenguin]

Playstation exclusives for the win.

All the games I play on my PS3, PS4 and PS5 are never released on any other platform and I like it that way.

If the "open source community" is even a fraction as capable as what they tout themselves to be, they should have no problem creating a console using nothing but a complete FOSS software stack on Linux and Mesa that is capable of outperforming what Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft has to offer.

Instead all they do is go around demanding for consoles to be open sourced so that they can get leech free code from businesses who have poured in millions into developing their own performant software stacks on game consoles.

PS exclusives exist because Sony pays game publishers to not release their games on other platforms.