"The console suddenly isn’t just a cheap entry point into next-gen and the Xbox ecosystem: it’s an avenue for PlayStation (and potentially Nintendo Switch) fans to ensure they can still play Bethesda’s upcoming games without making another sizable investment. As a consequence, they’ll also be exposed to countless Xbox games that they may have ignored, and the incredible value proposition that is Xbox Game Pass.
That should worry Sony – not because they’re likely to lose out on the sale of a PS5, but because the prospect of paying $70 / £70 for a game when compared to $10 / £8 a month is a hard one to justify."
Yep. I think it’s THE boldest move from Xbox last year. Price point is key here more than features. And the S still offers pretty good performances at 1080p with BC and all that good stuff.
For 300 bucks, it could be that foot on the door inside PS players’ houses, for those who are not avid fans or enthusiasts but who have invested so much in the Playstation platform that they don’t want to lose that. So add Game pass and it’s a pretty tempting offer at that price.
I could see it become the default multiplayer/indie machine waiting for Horizon and God of War.
Edit : Also, SSD are absurdly expensive right now so you might ask yourself why not buy another console at this point.
I wonder how All Access changes things. If stock is available, XSX for $35/mo with GPU included is pretty damn spicy. The PS5 owner then gets the best of all worlds; best multiplats on XSX, GPU, best BC, both platforms’ exclusives. Plus nobody cares about online for Sony 1P games anyhow, so GPU should have them covered for online sub too.
But this FUD type of journalism is what i hate the most. Why is there a need to add ‘threat’ in the title? PS5 will have a competition and that what the title should be.
This article will upset fan boys and only fuel console wars.
So will any thoughtful analysis on evaluating the disruptive moves MS has been making. Anything other than blind, ignorant praise for PS5 will rile up tons of fanboys online. Journalists shouldn’t hold back just because of them.
I think it makes sense since MS is all in on being disruptive across the board. In that sense it isn’t a competing paradigm, it’s a new paradigm. Those always threaten the way old paradigms work. I think the context makes sense for the term in this case. Though I may giving the author too much credit depending on how he was thinking about things.
What would be interesting to know is when exactly Sony learned about the S ? They had to be aware of it long before everyone else. It’s pretty obvious they planned the Digital Edition in secret to counter it or at least mitigate its impact. 400$ DE is pretty agressive pricing and they are probably losing a lot of money, that’s why it’s not widely available.
It’s kind of a risky strategy for Xbox, as we see, the S is seen as disruptive and is under a lot of scrutiny right now. We’ll see in a year or two if that is paying off for MS. It will depends a lot on the games and availability world wide, not really resolution or features I think, but we’ll see.
Godfall
Returnal
NIOH collection
Rachet
Demon Souls
All star destruction(rightly got pulled and put on ps plus)
Horizon 2 almost certainly 70
God of War R almost certainly 70
Final FANTASY 7R integrade-70
Meanwhile Ms
Gears tactics - 60 and gamepass
Halo infinite 60 and gamepass
Starfield almost certainly 60 and gamepass
You can name most 1st party games and say they’ll be on gamepass and 60 or less. At least for the foreseeable future.
The only 70 dollar series x games are by some 3rd parties. Again Capcom aren’t charging 70 for RE8.
So its Sony that’s pushing 70 and trying to force 3rd parties to do it too.
Its so funny to me how people still don’t get this. The Series consoles are both purely entry points into the Xbox ecosystem and of course, gamepass. So it makes sense to have the cheapest possible entry point that maintains the same feature set of the more expensive one.
The Series S is a genius design and I think it will sell a lot once stock is available and the games are flowing and gamepass is flooded with releases people want to play. Already we’re there more or less minus the stock.
I expect MS will release an even cheaper console - possibly streaming only or some small amount of local compute but then streaming to bring even more people into the ecosystem.
