With plans to bring their catalog of games to PlayStation platforms, there's some concern that Sony Online Entertainment is selling-out on the PC gaming crowd. DC Universe Online is already on PS3 and PS4, while PlanetSide 2 is about to enter closed beta on PS4. And then there's H1Z1 which, while launching Early Access on PC next week, is also on track for PS4.
Concerns that SOE could be shifting towards console game development actually stemmed from comments SOE president John Smeldey made in an interview with Gamasutra. He basically pointed out that monetization has typically been better on PlayStation platforms than on PC.
“The PS4 has been monetizing amazingly well — between 3 and 3.5x the monetization rate of the PC,” said Smedley noted. “Seeing that kind of difference in pay rate between the PC and the PS4 is really astounding — it shows there’s a real market there.” DC Universe on PS3 is monetizing at roughly double the rate of players on PC, he added.
It's the same thing we heard from him back in August at SOE Live.
"The theory is pretty simple," he told us at the time. "On your PC, there's 100 games you can play. On your PS4, there's five or six big ones and I think free-to-play right now is getting a great ride because of that — because in between the tent pole releases free-to-play is right there. The person goes into their PS4, they see an ad on PSN and they go 'hey, that's pretty good.'"
I love reading the comments about the Gamasutra interview I did about F2P on consoles. People think we're becoming a console first shop. NO!
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 8, 2015
consoles are a great place for F2P, but we have always been a PC first company because that's our heritage. We aren't dumbing down PC ever
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 8, 2015
Do you prefer to play SOE's games on PC or on consoles?
