Wen | Zhang Shule (Columnist of People's Daily And People's Post and Telegraph, Observer of Internet and Game Industry)
Following Bloomberg's revelations, Sony is planning to launch a subscription service codenamed "Spartacus" (hereinafter referred to as Spartacus), similar to Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass subscription service (hereinafter referred to as "XGP").
Recently, industry insider Jeff Grubb revealed more details in its radio show, Sony has launched PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now subscription services, both of which will be merged into the new subscription service. Meanwhile, PlayStation Plus may be retained, but "phased out" playStation Now.
Jeff Grubb further explained that "Spartacus" is divided into three different price points: the $10 basic version, which basically has the same content as PlayStation Plus; the $13 premium version, which will provide 250-300 games, all games on playStation Now can be downloaded, but there is no streaming service; the $16 Platinum Edition, which includes all of the above two, with the addition of classic games, Streaming services and game trials.
Sony has been moving a lot lately.
On the eve of the Spring Festival (January 31), Sony announced that it intends to acquire Bungie, the developer of the Halo and Destiny series, for $3.6 billion.
After the merger, Bungie will become an independent subsidiary of Sony, operated by the board of directors led by Bungie CEO and chairman Pete Parsons and Bungie's current management team, which will continue to operate independently, maintain the ability to issue autonomously, and connect with players in any way and in any scenario they choose.
In a sense, these actions are seen as a countermeasure to Microsoft's sky-high acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
In this regard, Jia Jianliang, a reporter of The Times Weekly, had an exchange with Shule, and poor Dao thought:
Under the depth of the benchmark, it needs to be comprehensively suppressed, which is precisely the root of Sony's repeated actions.
After Microsoft's acquisition of Blizzard, Sony uncompromisingly acquired Bungie, the developer of the Halo and Destiny series of games.
But just benchmarking the model is obviously not enough, Sony needs to have a direct and rapid crushing situation in content services, forming a gap with Xbox.
Spartacus' new subscription service emerged for this purpose.
In other words, Sony's acquisition of Bungie is "icing on the cake" because of its strong game content production capabilities.
But to know that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is precisely to solve the gap in Microsoft's self-produced games, it is closer to "sending charcoal in the snow".
Therefore, in terms of subscription services, it is necessary for Sony to further widen the gap, especially based on the "exclusive" gap.
Sony's richer game library and positioning at almost the same price as Microsoft XGP can form a targeted crush.
Although all Microsoft first-party games will add XGP on the day of their launch, even if exclusive, in terms of quantity and quality, it is not an order of magnitude compared to Sony's larger first-party and exclusive games.
In fact, subscription services are becoming the new way of fighting between console platforms.
According to the financial report data of the three major international console manufacturers, Nintendo's console game revenue in 2021 was 108.656 billion yuan, an increase of 35.6% year-on-year; Sony's console game revenue in fiscal 2021 reached 166.47 billion yuan, an increase of 35.7% over the previous year; Microsoft's console game revenue in fiscal 2021 was 101.75 billion yuan, an increase of 32.8% year-on-year.
If you want to re-market on next-generation hosts (next-generation hosts), the success or failure of the subscription service is particularly important.
Subscription services are mainly aimed at iron fans, that is, a kind of cost savings and long-term stickiness (consumption) of the core fan base.
This type of business is cheaper than buying games separately, and at the same time, the playing style of free or irregular top games for a limited time can form a long-term payment and have a strong effect on user stickiness.
For game console platforms, hardcore iron powder is the most basic consumer group when each round of next-generation game consoles are launched, and it is also the most basic stock of game revenue on its platform.
The retention brought about by strong offers, coupled with the saving and richer game experience that is different from the payment of a single game, can constitute the basic consumption stability of the game console and the games it carries, and belongs to the iron ticket warehouse.
At the same time, allowing more marginal users to convert to iron fans also requires the emergence of such member privileges to stimulate.
Whether it will bring new revenue growth depends on whether this "member discount" stimulates the consumption of iron powder.
But subscription services are still only the vanguard of the next-generation hosting war, after all, it is easy to fall into a price war based on special offers.
Therefore, the subscription service is to retain customers, and a large number of them will also take the way of cold meal packages (old classic games or popularity dissipated for a limited time free).
For the game console platform, the core hegemonic strategy is the differentiated game experience and exclusive game content to attract users to super stickiness, which is the core.
Therefore, experience innovation (platform layer), quality and quantity (content) of self-developed games and exclusive games for next-generation consoles will be the key to competition.