Data Shows Sony Made Good Money on Steam, Then May Have Realized PC Gamers Don’t Need a PlayStation
a day ago by sanitation to c/pcmasterrace
It’s more than that even, MS and Sony switched to an x86 platform for the consoles specifically to make it easier to develop cross-platform. Valve was very vocal about how hard The Orange Box was to port to the PS3 and that they wouldn’t develop for that platform again. This wasn’t a trend, it was a conscious choice and I genuinely don’t know what the goal was if not this. I was convinced that Xbox was going to become a Steam clone until recently anyway and I think the jury is still out on if MS will ever make another console themselves.
If the goal is to make it more exclusive then they should switch back to Power PC processors at least and offer other reasons to use a console over a PC.
What?
Top 10 selling games of 2025 according to Alina/VG Insights:
| # | Game | Total (M) | PC (M) | Console (M) | PC % | Split source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Battlefield 6 | 20.0 | 11.4 | 8.6 | 57% | Alinea (Steam 56.7 / PS5 23.7 / Xbox 19.6) |
| 2 | R.E.P.O. | 20.0 | 20.0 | 0.0 | 100% | PC/Steam exclusive |
| 3 | PEAK | 16.0 | 16.0 | 0.0 | 100% | PC/Steam exclusive |
| 4 | Mario Kart World | 14.0 | 0.0 | 14.0 | 0% | Nintendo official (Switch 2) |
| 5 | Pokémon Legends: Z-A | 12.3 | 0.0 | 12.3 | 0% | Nintendo official (Switch/2) |
| 6 | EA Sports FC 26 | 12.0 | 1.0 | 11.0 | ~8% | Alinea (92%+ console) |
| 7 | ARC Raiders | 11.0 | 6.4 | 4.6 | 58% | Alinea (7M of 12M on Steam) |
| 8 | Monster Hunter Wilds | 11.0 | 6.4 | 4.6 | ~58% | Capcom / Alinea |
| 9 | Schedule I | 9.0 | 9.0 | 0.0 | 100% | PC/Steam exclusive |
| 10 | NBA 2K26 | 8.0 | 0.6 | 7.4 | ~8% | Take-Two / VG Insights |
| TOTAL | 133.3 | 70.8 | 62.5 | ~53% |
Pc pulled ahead because of its exclusives last year but it wasn’t a blowout. And if you take pc and console exclusives out of the mix, console was at 58% with PC at 42%
All this shows is people who game casually still buy consoles. Almost every game thats available on both platforms beats it out on PC. Plus this only includes Steam sales. Look at what beat PC, Pokemon a Nintendo exclusive and fucken sports games bro.
Do you want a thriving emulation scene?
Because that's how you get a thriving emulation scene.
I had heard that the hypervisor layer of protection for the PS5 was opened up recently, which in the history of PlayStation systems has generally been one of the biggest steps cracking the system for running unsigned code (and thus getting pirated gamss working). But I am not sure if that translates into anything useful for emulation.
Fwiw Linux can be run at full speed with hardware acceleration on PS5 now (specifically Ubuntu and Fedora, and I think you need to use a USB-Ethernet adapter to get internet, but still). Apparently it makes a great Steam Machine
Emulators are pretty much inevitable, especially if there's a decent game library.
I bought most of the PS games because they're my favorites but I've been a PC gamer for like 15 years now and would not and absolutely will not switch to a console, for many reasons but largely because it's just a dick move to get people into their ecosystem.
And I'll say I got into because a friend donated their old system to me. None of my consoles ever lasted as long as that old machine. I had to replace the PSU at one point. And when I got a new system I swapped it in there as well. Try recycling your PS4 PSU into a PS5.
If they had a PS store for PC I would have bought from there as well and skipped Steam (provided it wasn't complete as like most other launchers).
At the same time I know many people who bought a PS in lieu or in addition to their PC just for exclusives so I'm sure it's a winning strategy for them.
Even tiny mods can be significant to user experience. I hate the trend of games always having sharpening filters on. I started playing Expedition 33 this weekend and discovered it has a super strong sharpening filter with no option to turn it off, so I went and got a mod before I did a single thing.
So Sony isn’t looking at Steam as a failure. It is seeing it as a warning sign. PC players bought PlayStation games but they didn’t transition to PlayStation’s ecosystem where the real money is to be made for Sony. If the best of Sony’s catalogue keeps arriving on Steam, waiting becomes the strategy.
That's what I thought. They want people to enter to the PS5 ecosystem. But in this economy?! That's less than likely.
For me, it's not the economy it is time. The sheer amount of amazing games on PC means I won't get a PS5 or a PS6 in the future. Not getting 1 or 2 games I want to play is not going to be noticeable in the long run.
Tell you what: If you make a really amazing game that totally justifies buying a Playstation, I'll be sure to run it on an emulator in a few years maybe after I catch up on my absolutely massive backlog of amazing PC games that I already own.
They’d probably sell more PlayStations if they didn’t increase the cost.
Had a PS5 and sold it for a pc. Sony messed up this generation so hard
It's weird to me that next year the PS5 will be as old as the PS4 was when the PS5 came out, but it still doesn't feel like this gen ever really got going.
That was me. I was waiting for the sick games and they never came. I didn't touch my PS5 for over a year when I eventually called it and sold it.
I only bought a console during the crypto period, when I could not upgrade my very old GPU. And I bought a Nintendo because was the only one which will offer something different.
After upgrading and the Nintendo's Switch2 shit I'm back 100% to PC.
PC gamers don't move to consoles unless their PC is useless.
Even dumber now that the RAMpocalypse has raised PS5 prices to an absurd degree. If you're going to be spending that much money, why do it on 6+ year old hardware?
Hope that Wolverine and Intergalactic sell as good as Saros did...
Thing that irks me most about this shit is the hardware is basically irrelevant these days. Its just a PC in a custom case with a custom operating system at the end of the day. Except the switch, aren't they all running x64 hardware?
I've got a ps5.
I bought a new guitar controller to play the rythm games I have on ps3 because I needed to know if I had gotten that bad since my peak or if the guitar controller I had was aging like shit because I could still understand what was coming at me on that note highway but my accuracy seemed way lower than it should have been.
Turns out it was the controller. But also the system if I try to play RB2, it drops frames like crazy in heavy crowd moments.
So then I bought RB4 for the PS4, figuring the PS5 should handle it easily. And it does... But for some reason it keeps losing the connection with the controller. All I have to do is unplug the USB dongle and plug it back in (nothing else works because the guitar lights indicate that it is connected with the dongle, it's just the ps5 isn't communicating with the dongle for some reason). This doesn't happen on my PC or even the PS3, though I kinda wish it did happen on the PC because then I might actually be able to debug it. Though I suspect it might be just doing it because it's 3rd party and didn't make Sony any money so why would they care if I can use it?
PS5 supports Bluetooth, but not my Bluetooth headset. Nope, gotta buy an official sony one because fuck you, give us money if you want to use a device with your console. Though I haven't tried to use it again recently so maybe they've changed it, but I'm not holding my breath and I'm also not likely getting their next console.
Well, what if Sony made the PS6 a Linux PC?
They can have their own embedded storefront and proprietary stuff, but that would still be cool.
Aren't all PlayStation's Linux PCs?
Right, forgot about that.
Good luck affording to be able to build or even upgraded a PC in this economy.
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@lemmy.world
A community for PC Master Race.
Rules:
- No bigotry: Including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
- Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
- No NSFW content.
- No Ads / Spamming.
- Be thoughtful and helpful: especially when new beginners have questions.
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That is precisely what happened. Honestly what did they think was going to happen? Trends in technology has always had this in store for consoles. Nowadays they're kept alive artificially like this, with exclusives or whatever. They serve no purpose anymore, the console wars are over and the PC won.
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