For me, it seems important to consider the context of the competing strategies. MS sees a future where the platform is not hardware,but an ecosystem. xCloud is their secret weapon in that imho as it opens the option up for them to offer next gen games to almost anyone. If they lock ppl into that, they can win the ‘console war’ for the future by updating their cloud blades with better specs. At some point down the road, customers need not bother buying new local hardware.
In that context, their long game gamble might well pay off in the coming generation. In the meantime, they want to get as many locked in as humanly possible as soon as possible, so they throw their war chest at accomplishing that.
For Sony, they still wanna fight the traditional console war battle as do their fans. So they will play the game from that pov. I think it is anti-consumer many times, but gaming is still kinda stuck thinking in terms of console wars and not what is best for consumers. For Sony’s fanbase, they cheer on this behavior because it’s red meat for them. One more thing to add to their list wars while Xbox/PC gamers talk up GamePass and cross save kinda stuff.
They are winning using a traditional strategy of planned obsolescence, high production value single player exclusives and moneyhats. It’s working for now, but they aren’t working on services like backwards compatibility, online infrastructure, streaming, subscriptions, multiplayer classics enough. This will eventually bite them if they don’t change (not in these years, in the future) because Microsoft is adapting to a new market, Sony are still trying to maximize profits in the current situation.
Not exactly true, althrough this might be better if it was true as the truth is more confusing. You can use a PS4 DualShock 4 on PS4 games on the PS5, if the PS5 version supports it. If you need to read that few times I do not blame you, it is as confusing as it sounds.
The current difference in messaging I find the most jarring. Microsoft have been slowly drip feeding details and keeping a pretty constant flow of information coming since when, E3 last year? I still feel I know very little about the PS5, like their stance on backwards compatibility being vague at best. Both sides seem to also be doing what they can to not mention launch titles as well. I know this kinda sorta doesn’t apply to series x as most of the games work everywhere but it would be nice to have an idea of what will be ready to go. Not that there still isn’t time for Sony to put out all the details and blow everyone away, it just feels like they are keeping things a little too close to their chest at this point.
I agree, but my worry is whether Xbox can keep enough people in their ecosystem in the meantime. Every day I’m hearing people on my friends list, full on Xbox guys, saying they can’t buy a series X because Sony is just providing too much content to ignore. I can’t see many of these people buying two consoles. Ok it’s purely anecdotal but I worry that Xbox needs to do more to convert Xbox one owners to series X - otherwise risk is people are drifting out of ecosystem entirely.
If you don’t like what a company is doing, don’t buy into their platform or services.
That’s why I don’t use Sony at all. On the other hand I really like to see two very different strategies play out and compete in the open market. And this time around Microsoft is not dropping all balls.
So it should be interesting.
Sony is so stuck in the past, part of why I won’t buy their console. This gen they will be weaker, will moneyhat petty things, do not seem to have a coherent BC strategy and will probably charge for next gen upgrades or make users jump through hoops for them. Sony still treats gamers like we should think it is a privlage that Sony takes the time out of their day to sell us things and we should be grateful
All for a half dozen 3rd person cinematic walking sims per gen, no thanks
Also this “winning” and “losing” crap needs to exit from gamers vocabulary. Gaming is not a Zero sum industry. You don;t have to be market leader to provide users with great games and services and great hardware. If anything we see time and time again being attached to the console market leader is actually worse for a gamer cause that company gets lazy and starts doing tons of anti consumer crap.
I’d rather Xbox stay in 2nd or 3rd place and cater to me as a gamer and give me great value then be market leader so I can parade around game forums trolling like a lot of market leader fans do.
I mean for myself I don’t really get it. But I sort of see it for them. They want to play the best games and right now…many consider some Sony exclusive IPs to be likely to produce the best games. They aren’t my taste, at all. But what people seem to want is a game that showcases their new system and Xbox hasn’t shown that. These guys want a new console of one sort or another and I sort of agree with them that in terms of hardware Xbox hasn’t shown off their advantage well enough. If they were to show some multiplats running better on their system I think that would give people pause for thought. But currently the great games lineup is there but it’s a wait, so much of a wait there weren’t even in engine demos for most games.
So I certainly objectively can see why people might be swayed away from Xbox. The services and value are fantastic but people make these decisions based on excitement, I don’t think either have gotten people excited but IF you like Sony’s games then I guess it looks like they might be slightly ahead for the first year…,Xbox have become very good at speaking to a certain type of gamer like me. Someone who wants to play a lot of online co-op and Mp games who enjoys sea of thieves and actively likes GAAS style loot games. They’ve built communities. But I’m worried a lot of these people aren’t the ones to buy in at launch. The people that do perhaps want something else and I’m not convinced Xbox has shown that for them…
The gaming press is sadly one of the biggest problems. Most are PS gamers by default, so Sony doing these deals does not affect them personally. whereas if MS did it. Like we saw with something like Rise of the tomb Raider which in a not so funny twist of fate is from the same company responsible for The Avengers, the press was in kill mode as soon as it was announced.Wanting to know every detail of the deal.
This time I’ve seen a few neutral games press people ask who benefits from stuff like this? so maybe more of the PS centric games writers and personalitys can start to ask the same questions to Sony high ups. Are any of them active on Twitter as much as say Phil Spencer?
To then hear rumours that Sony had been digging deep to secure both third party game exclusive content and exclusivity on certain games is their overall strategy laid bare.
Supposedly its cheaper for Sony to get these deals than it is for MS? Seems like anything they charge should be a drop in the bucket for Microsoft. But on the other hand, maybe the money is better spent continuing to bolster their first party efforts. I find it hard to believe MS won’t have at least a couple of third party exclusive deals. Though to me it feels like Sony really wants to prevent another “Xbox 360” from happening.
If you go back to 2013 when these guys bought into Xbox one they came from 360 so that was a bit of it…they looked at launch game Ryse and liked it…they still wanted Halo…and Titanfall.
Since then we’ve not had so many games like Ryse on Xbox…Halo 5 was hit or miss for many and infinite was presented very traditional Halo in open world not shiny shiny…Xbox aren’t doing the sorts of deals that made Titanfall and exclusive…and these people are looking at games like Spider-Man and HZD etc on PlayStation and being swayed by the general tone and I guess their friends talking about these games.
I feel like Sony is using PS+ money to fund exclusivety. It’s a vicious circle for MS, the more Sony buy the more PS+ money they get. For MS it’s important to distrupt this cycle through whatever means they can.
If MS has money to spare for game deals, it should be Game Pass games. None of this “buy my version so you get an extra map that we cut out from other versions (without even bothering to erase the actual data from disc)”.