[ad_1]
“Hey, plumber, mustache man … Your worst nightmare has arrived!” This was one of the catchiest phrases in the history of advertising and one of the most iconic for video games.
The prayer’s open reference to Nintendo’s main mascot, Mario, was intended to intimidate the Japanese console maker, which was undoubtedly leading the game console industry on its own before Sony released the original PlayStation on 3 May. December 1994.
Labeling himself “Mario’s worst nightmare” was the lead in Sony’s longest-running series Crash Bandicoot, named after an extinct Australian marsupial.
Crash Bandicoot, a kind of action-adventure platform, was a huge success. Its mechanics, humor, story, and art style quickly made it so popular with PlayStation owners that it was literally impossible to stumble across a PS console without the Crash Bandicoot disc inside. Crash Bandicoot was now Sony’s “Mario”. Since the PS lacked a good mascot before, the game’s developers, Naughty Dog, happily complied with it.
Even though Crash was helping drive sales for the PlayStation console, selling well and getting sequel after sequel, there was one little problem: its exclusivity.
The fact that it was only playable on PlayStation was one of the main factors behind the jump in sales for the console, but it also made it out of reach for millions of gamers, who couldn’t or didn’t want to buy a PlayStation.
The game series remained exclusive until 2001. With the release of Crash Bandicoot: A Huge Adventure on Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance, Sony’s now-ex-pet was no longer Mario’s nightmare, but a co-worker, with both characters helping to drive together. Nintendo console sales.
Players have also observed the same “timed exclusivity” with the popular Spyro the Dragon series. Originally a stalwart exclusive with its protagonist as another Sony PlayStation mascot, the game was ported to many other platforms over the years.
Today, the Crash and Spyro game series are playable on Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Switch, which means they are no longer exclusive to PlayStation.
Perhaps the “original sin” that started the so-called “console wars”, which in essence is completely stupid, was Sony’s insistence for years that Crash and Spyro should only be played on PlayStation, and Microsoft’s strategy to keep the beloved Halo series. as an Xbox exclusive. Especially the eighth generation of consoles, which dominated the PlayStation 4, saw the resurgence of this exclusivity.
It wouldn’t be so far fetched to say that Sony managed to outperform Microsoft in console sales during the eighth generation mainly thanks to its exclusive games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, Spider-Man, The Last of Us: Remastered and The Last of Us 2 the Uncharted series, Ghost of Tsushima and God of War.
But they are still exclusive to PS. Correct? Not quite.
What strategy
Sony followed a somewhat risky but very successful strategy with its PS4 sales: launching exclusive, expensive and highly polished triple-A titles that can only be found on PlayStation. Make them so good that anyone mildly interested in buying a PlayStation 4 solidifies their decision, or better yet, sell the console to someone who has never thought of buying one.
PS4 sales were boosted by its gigantic library of critically acclaimed exclusives. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Xbox was taking a different approach; I was selling a subscription that grants access to dozens of less polished but still good titles. This sales model did not fit well with Sony or its ambition to bring masterpieces to the end consumer. However, the Japanese company was later inspired by Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass with its “PlayStation Plus Collection”, which allows you to play PS4 masterpieces on PS5 with better frame rates and quality and is included in the monthly payment of the game. subscription to PlayStation Plus.
But, to see the reality, the era of the PS4 really ended with the launch of its successor, and Sony’s main concern is not to sell the PS4 anymore. With numerous blockbuster titles originally released for PS4 and its focus moving away from console sales, Sony thought about bringing these games to PC so that people could get a taste of what they were missing. Bringing exclusives from PS to PC would inevitably help boost PS5 sales thanks to this new experience, and maybe even goad potential buyers to buy a PS console after all. And that’s exactly what Sony is doing right now.
Horizon Zero Dawn, originally a PS4 exclusive, was previously released for PC. Seeing the success of its sales on Steam, Sony is now also bringing Days Gone to the PC, according to Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan.
It’s only a matter of time until Sony brings other exclusives to PC and even other consoles in the near future. The company’s strategy seems to be working well: launching exclusive PS exclusives to boost sales of one console, updating quality to suit modern times, and once the console starts to get old and outdated, taking these exclusives to others. platforms to boost the popularity of PlayStation and breathe new life into games.
Perhaps, that’s also Sony’s “Big Plan”. While I’m pretty sure cloud gaming will dominate the future, at least in story-driven single-player games, Sony’s current moves seem to be in the right direction, at least in the short term. However, the company still needs to prepare for the future and for the PlayStation brand by enhancing its weak cloud gaming capabilities. But at the moment, this “exclusive” strategy seems to be working perfectly.
