They are n.1 because they have a huge legacy in videogames and MS fucked it up with the Xbox one. The previous generation was over before Sony released a single important title. Anyway this isn’t even the discussion, you specifically wrote that MS games aren’t polished when they have been extremely polished in the last 3 years.
Anyway don’t expect Bethesda games to be the critical darlings they were , wait and see how the attitude towards them will change.
Also, keep in mind, when MS hits it’s stride there will be no way that Sony keeps up with MS’s first party output. So they REALLY can’t “respond” in any meaningful way.
Yeah, I remember somebody saying that the future Bethesda’s games will be the most scrutinized the first party games ever
It also stands to reason that Microsoft retains right of refusal with Bungie.
Last I checked they still hold a minor stake in Bungie too.
I think Sony will pursue licenses. Spiderman was incredibly successful so I think they’ll get others. Men In Black would be great, Iron Man with Platinum as well
Sony will buy the already obvious studios Bluepoint and Housemarque.
Grow proven studios and double down on timed and full exclusivity third-party games. Tho, I can see that the third-party exclusivity is going to get really expensive with time, as MS gains ground and marketshare.
They’ll surely expand into PC territory to gain more money and fund their grand AAA games.
Yep and I think the bigger problem is even if Sony creates a sub service MS is years ahead. MS is getting the cloud component ready and it will take years for Sony to get that ready.
Sony would need PS5s in the cloud but are already facing a shortage of consoles to sell to consumers. Also, producing all the consoles for the cloud won’t be cheap. That is a huge cost that won’t produce immediate income back for a while. Tough to make big acquisitions and do that at the same time.
At the same time MS designed the XSX chip to be able to run 4 Xbox One S game sessions simultaneously. Meaning MS can scale their cloud infrastructure much more rapidly and cheaply then Sony can… The PS5 has a PS4 mode but can only run 1 game at a time which is fine for consumers but not nearly as efficient in the cloud.
I am sure there is other tech as well but the point is MS designed the XSX for the cloud as much as for the home. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see MS using this GPU power in the cloud from XSX for other ventures as well besides gaming like Machine Learning. It would fit with their IaaS model in Azure.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-iaas/
After looking around I found this quote from Phil:
The thing that’s interesting for us as we roll forward is we’re actually designing our next gen silicon in such a way that it works great for playing games in the cloud and also works very well for machine-learning and other non-entertainment workloads. So as a company like Microsoft, we can dual-purpose the silicon that we’re putting in. We have a consumer user for that silicon and we’ll have enterprise use for those blades as well.
I don’t think Sony will ever be able to replicate or compete with that. MS is making money off xCloud in multiple ways. Xbox and Azure are linked now and xCloud will be a huge part of Azure. MS will pump as much money into Xbox as they need to make sure they win with xCloud and Gamepass because that also helps them win with Azure.
These cloud ecosystems are the true next-gen consoles after XSX/PS5. MS is going to have a headstart of years on Sony. We saw during the 360/PS3 gen how a 1 year headstart changed the game. I just think MS set themselves up masterfully for the future from a losing position. I think eventually Xbox will have more mindshare than Playstation.
Also, I dont expect Sony to advertise a gamepass competitor this year or even next year because they wouldn’t have given away Horizon:ZD or PlayStation Plus Collection Games with PS5 which has a bunch of their exclusives. It took away a bunch of the back catalog they could have added to a subscription service from them. I think them giving these games away for free is their way of competing with gamepass.
In all actualities, Sony really only has 5, maybe 6 AAA studios, and maybe only one of those studios releases a game every year. Its not like you are getting 3 games dropping every year from their top studios. Polyphony releases a GT game every 4 to 5 years, and Turn 10 matches them with Forza. GGs again releases a game every 4 to five years, and both Gears and Halo are better than Killzone, and HZD wasn’t any game of the year material. Naughty Dog releases top of the food chain games, which are higher quality than Xbox studios have been releasing, agree there. SSM brings out a GOW game every 4 to 5 years, and while they are well made games, they only have the one IP. Insomniac are pretty much their most active studio and are putting out some good games, but nothing like game of the year, and certainly nothing levels above what Xbox studios are doing. And then Sucker Punch puts a good game out once every 4 or 5 years.
Outside of that Sony studios aren’t that impressive. I can honestly say that Xbox has better racing games, better shooters, better WRPGs, and really only lack those 3rd person adventure games like TLOU, UC and GOW. And maybe, maybe one of those games drops a year.
The best they can do is buy out 3rd party deals (as they have being doing so abundantly so far), I doubt they can buy on the scale of Zenimax. Perhaps individual studios.
Its hard to predict how they will react as they are already doing so well, but it looks to me like MS are changing the game entirely with Game Pass.
Unless they have a proper hypervisor team, this is difficult. And no one comes close to the Windows hypervisor team, generally too, even beyond gaming.
The current PS5 has hardware level support for PS4 base/pro architecture.
Surprisingly, their best bet might be hypervisors running on the cloud on a PC server blade somewhere.
Given this Evo deal, the Windows Two podcast was discussing a theory that they might have already tied up the Street Fighter 6 timed exclusivity.
Would love to see MS’s reaction, if this happens. The “I took it personally - Michael Jordan” meme is still active. 
A game pass competitor is a start, but difficult. Lowering prices of 1st party games that offer no replay value is another. They don’t have enough cash to outbid xbox. Perhaps make themselves available to be purchased by a huge tech firm who could match xbox in spending. Xbox is is going to keep buying up studios and if it makes sense, publishers too.
I don’t see Sony even trying to counter an acquisition on the scale of Zenimax. By all accounts, they can’t actually afford to spend that kind of money.
Looking at the broader picture, I’m not sure what they can do to respond to MS finally opening the chequebook full stop. They have great first-party studios like Naughty Dog, Santa Monica & Insomniac who they can rely on. Guerrilla & Sucker Punch are stepping up to compete with the big boys as well. All I can see Sony doing is continuing to support those studios, while buying others if & when it’s possible.
In a world where Game Pass exists, I think that the old strategy of buying timed exclusives will become more of a risk. PS Now doesn’t compete in any meaningful way but it could if they put in the effort. That “Instant Game Collection” thing just reeks of desperation to me. Like they knew they had to do something & went “What do we do?! Oh hell… Just give a bunch of games away for free!”
This generation is going to be very interesting. Xbox has a big chance to really put the pressure on, once the games start rolling out & Game Pass becomes even more attractive.
man, some people are so alarmist about this shit lol, how Sony’s future is all doom and gloom cuz Xbox isn’t getting trashed by them for the first time in a good while? Chill lol
No one is saying Sony is doomed. What these positive moves by xbox could well do is bring people across from Sony to Xbox. Say Sony sell 120million PS4s and Xbox sells 60million Xbox Ones. If this next gen Sony sells 90million PS5s and MS sells 80 million Xboxs, then Sony’s buisness will go backwards. They will make less money than now. That is highly unwanted, and Sony will take steps to try and stop that happening. What Sony will do or not do is what this thread is about.
Disco elysium is out for ps5 this week. Another timed exclusive for Sony. 3 months I think for this one. Bit pointless.
I guess this is thr route they’re going down. Can’t afford acquisitions so timed exclusives seem to be the key.
And then the game will probably appear in Game Pass.
Hmm, I’m not sure if it’s a timed exclusive in that “Sony paid them to withhold the game from another platform” or “They only had enough resources to finish one version in time so they went for the one with the bigger userbase”. Doesn’t make a difference to the Xbox-only player in the end 
PS5 has a bigger userbase than Game Pass?
Disco Elysium is releasing on PS4 as well as PS5, Wisenheimer 