Sony forcing you to have a PlayStation Network account for all their recent PC releases hasn't been well liked, and they of course have no plans to back down on it.
During the latest Sony Group Corporation investors call in their Q&A session at about 45:40, a question came up about what lessons they will take away from Concord (which Sony shut down and then closed the game studio).
Hiroki Totoki (President, COO and CFO) replied with an English translation from a live interpreter, so the translation is a bit loose and rough, but this is what was said:
Regarding that matter we have learned a lot. The way to face the issues regarding PC for instance, the PlayStation accounts that we have offered, by offering them for instance, sometimes that tends to invite push-back. But for the live service games, so in order to maintain order of the gaming, so that anybody can enjoy the game safely, we need to create environment conducive to that, of course enjoying the game freely.
Having some restrictions, may not call it rule, but to ask the users and gamers to follow the manner, and those balances are very important and we have to continue to seek the best way to achieve this.
Clearly the PSN requirement isn't going anywhere, and will be in all their future games, even though it's unpopular and locks out a whole lot of regions from buying their games. Sony want that extra control over their games, especially when they're now releasing outside of their own PlayStation console.
In some ways, it makes sense for their online live-service games, and you do have to remember the context of the question was for Concord that was supposed to be live-service.
However, it really makes very little sense for their single-player games where it's also now forced like Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Until Dawn, God of War Ragnarök and more to come. Forcing online accounts for single-player games is never going to go down well but it's here to stay for Sony's PC releases.
Quoting: mZSq7Fq3qsI will then sail the seas for those titles... I am not gonna buy any game that requires 3rd party shittery.Tut tut tut, that is a terrible thing to do.
But in my case, my initial reaction is: "If at least it enabled cross-saves between Playstation and PC, it might make the pill easier to swallow?"
Quoting: DavidePorterBridgesI don’t appreciate being mandatory for everyone of course. But as long as they give you the option of not buying their games. I don’t see the issue.
Cheers.
One of the issues that are heavily discussed here is that PSN is not available in 121 countries around the world (including even some european countries like Lithuania, Estonia, North Macedonia, Monaco and so on). They have access to Steam, but not PSN. And now Sony blocks Steam sales for them also.
So for many people it's not "the option of not buying their games", it's simply no option to buy those games.
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