Days after Sony's Helldivers 2 PSN debacle, Ghosts of Tsushima's PC release gets delisted from Steam in over 170 countries

[Windows Central]

A week after Sony's Helldivers 2 PSN fiasco, the upcoming PC port of Ghosts of Tsushima is no longer for sale on Steam in non-PSN countries.

Days after Sony's Helldivers 2 PSN debacle, Ghosts of Tsushima's PC release gets delisted from Steam in over 170 countries : Read more

 

[fdruid]

My first reaction was thinking Sony are shooting themselves in the foot in their search of their investor-pleasing through artificially raising PSN user nunbers (they seem to like those lies).

But now I see they really don't care, it doesn't change their numbers even if the people in those 170 countries couldn't play their games at all. Raising the PSN numbers is more important to them.

What they are underestimating (never forgetting though, because business is calculated risk) is the loss of good will they're creating. People are pissed off, press is rightfully spinning this as negative, etc. And you don't just regain trust from an ambient negative opinion. Look at EA. Heck, look at Microsoft.

This is a move that shows Sony is desperate in showing expansion and growth. It will be interesting to see what they manage to do in the following years. It looks rough from here.

 

[dazt6h]

Yes they're doubling down on the **** move they did with Helldivers, the game is still not available for sale still in the 170 countries, I think they even added 3 more to the sell ban, even when the game in it's entirety no longer requires PSN.

The fact that they're doing the same with Ghost of Tsushima, a game that's mostly single player and doesn't require PSN unless you join the multiplayer is a big screw you to the customers. Although this could still be a Steam decision since they're technically selling an incomplete game to everyone outside the PSN bubble.

All these big corporations are fighting themselves recently on who is the biggest piece of sh*t.

I really wanted to own Ghost of Tsushima, since I've never owned a PlayStation, but now I'll have to sail the high seas.

But hey, the industry is in a "lack of growth", we must close studios with successful releases and block the selling of our games to more than half the globe for the sake of customer data. Ignore the record sales being broken every year including this one, lol.

 

[fjtorres5591]

Sony doesn't really understand the PC gaming world.
All they know is the walled garden of Playstation where the gamers submit or...submit.
PC gamers who won't submit just go elsewhere.
There's no shortage of good new games to play, anyway.
A glut, in fact.

Also note the date they're dropping TSUSHIMA.
It was already facing an uphill battle and another catfight won't help.

 

[fjtorres5591]

Yes they're doubling down on the **** move they did with Helldivers, the game is still not available for sale still in the 170 countries, I think they even added 3 more to the sell ban, even when the game in it's entirety no longer requires PSN.

The fact that they're doing the same with Ghost of Tsushima, a game that's mostly single player and doesn't require PSN unless you join the multiplayer is a big screw you to the customers. Although this could still be a Steam decision since they're technically selling an incomplete game to everyone outside the PSN bubble.

All these big corporations are fighting themselves recently on who is the biggest piece of sh*t.

I really wanted to own Ghost of Tsushima, since I've never owned a PlayStation, but now I'll have to sail the high seas.

But hey, the industry is in a "lack of growth", we must close studios with successful releases and block the selling of our games to more than half the globe for the sake of customer data. Ignore the record sales being broken every year including this one, lol.

That dig at MS: are you absolutely sure the studios they closed had suc$$e$ful games? Or merely well reviewed by critics and fans of that specific niche?

Without going too far, remember what happened to DISHONORED 2. Good game the gamers ignored. Price dropped 50% in two months. The DLC got reworked into a standalone half price game. Then staff left and REDFALL happened.

Only MS really knows what hapened there but it is too easy to cast aspersions blindly without looking at the actual profit and loss data.

Even Sony isn't totally clueless.

Remember that, unlike MS with profitable datacenters all over the world for AZURE they can use for PC games, Sony's datacenters are cost centers, not profit centers. Supporting extra countries costs them money. And since their business is P(l)aystation first, controlling access is critical to maintaining their walled garden.

Regardless of the publisher, MS, SONY, EA, UBISOFT, they need to make a profit to stay in business. Something the snarky games media forgets, probably on purpose since snarky headlines make for good click bait.

 

[fdruid]

Only MS really knows what hapened there but it is too easy to cast aspersions blindly without looking at the actual profit and loss data.

This. I've been saying this to everyone who has a knee jerk, overemotional reaction to the recent closures. Only MS knows the real numbers and the real reasons, and as much as woke journos would rather spin another story of big bad corporations crushin creative dreams of the little people, the truth will be something different.
As far as we know, this could have been like severing a gangrenous limb so the patient can survive.

Those studios weren't doing well at all. We don't know how much money and time they put into those titles.

And last but not less important: everyone loved to point Redfall's failure and throw the game under the bus. The game wasn't that bad but people are trigger happy with their negativity and write off people's years of work to the trash like an afterthought. Well this is the result. You can't be both contributing to the destruction of a mid game by reproducing an ambient negative talk (like happened with some many games that deserved better, like Evolve!) and then lamenting about the closure of its studio.