In your opinion, which of the two competitors would move forward first with a subscription service that mimics the current Game Pass model?
This would have to include:
a library of games that isn’t tied to the online service of the console, and that offers first-party games day one on the service
I’m afraid the premise of this thread is too obvious and people will just reply “Sony”, however I still think it’s interesting to discuss. This is supposed to be a fun thread with a fun premise, not a very serious one.
Sony already has PlayStation Now, with a limited number of first-party games, none were available on day one. Jim Ryan however has stated that they don’t see the Game Pass business model as making sense for them or being sustainable for PlayStation. It seems that even though Sony has PlayStation Now and is investing more into PlayStation Plus (by offering more 3rd party games day one, a persistent collection of games, and sporadic smaller first-party offerings like Destruction All Stars), that they heavily rely on day one sales from their exclusives in order to keep a successful first-party organization afloat and would not be so interested to move to a Game Pass business model so soon. PS6 generation? Who even knows.
Nintendo, on the other hand, is entirely unpredictable, as we all know. They do their own thing, however, much like Sony, Nintendo heavily relies on the direct revenue from the sales of their first-party exclusives, even more so, I’d say. And the prices of their games are very inelastic and very rarely drop if ever at times. Nintendo never wants to devalue its IP, which they value above absolutely anything else, and they might think putting the games on a subscription service would cause just this (not implying this is the case for Xbox at all). However, such strong IP also makes the case for a service that would be one of the most desirable offerings in the entire industry. Nintendo has also previously played with the concept of offering games through a subscription model, like with Tetris 99, although most would say this is, of course, a very timid offer.
What do you think? Is Sony the obvious answer? Or could Nintendo surprise and actually be the first one of the two?
No chance in hell that Nintendo does a subscription service especially when they don’t need to. BOTW is $60 over four years later and still sells. Nintendo never ever devalues their brand, IP’s or games themselves in order to keep all of it at it’s highest possible value.
Sony would be better off combining PS Plus with PS Now and putting the lesser/smaller games day one the service because it will put a spotlight on the game while adding value to the service at the same time. Games like Sackboy or Returnal would have been perfect for PS Plus/PS Now especially when those who want to buy the game will do so regardless.
Sony’s goal is to get their IP’s, franchises and games to the Nintendo level. Quality wise, they’re easily equal and in some ways better but they don’t have the preservation that Nintendo games have which is why Nintendo games rarely if ever go on sale and truly never devalue in price or trade in credit. Both are always high.
So overall, it would be Sony and I would love for them to put their exclusives day one on PS Plus or PS Now but I don’t see them doing that for this generation. At most, maybe their smaller niche titles would eventually go on the service day one but not their top tier major titles. And if they do, it would probably be years later like they’ve recently being doing and even then, it’s for a limited time.
Sony is too stubbornly caught in the console wars of old, and instead of preparing for this subscription future, has been tip-toeing around it. Couple this with the upfront investment required and their current business model, and I don’t see it happening anytime soon. That said, Jim lies often so who knows.
Nintendo is contently in a position now where they don’t have to. People buy old ports at full price by the millions. Only thing I see that will spur them to do this is a Wii U sized flop.
Xbox I personally believe is the one company that is able to feasibly do this on an investment, ecosystem and connection effort. And the further they invest, the harder it becomes to enter this new vertical, especially when we are talking contracts for the service with 3 million subs vs the one pushing 20 million+ and growing, and this will only become worse the longer Sony delays.
Now, I guess for the question, Sony bites first, but I see Sony and Nintendo as Peacock or Paramount+ if they continue to delay this. A nice way to get their stuff, but nothing too major in terms of support otherwise.
Sony already have a Gamepass. Amazing how people don’t realise what PS Now is. Its a sub service for games. Only difference is day 1 1st party games and more major 3rd party titles.
Nintendo will never in a million years have a sub where they put their main games on it. Theyre still charging you 60 dollars for MArio KArt Deluxe and Splatoon and people are still buying them. So no they will never do a Gamepass.
Nintendo’s Gamepass is in the form of their VC service. They just need to put in N64 games on there Asap.
I know what PS Now is and even mentioned it. However, the service still pales in comparison to Game Pass and Sony does not seem interested to move forward with putting first-party games day one on it so soon, which is the one big move you need for this kind of services, so there’s still a lot of time for Nintendo to catch-up
Also, Nintendo isn’t the one heavily money-hatting publishers to have timed exclusives, which is a very short-term strategy to have, to be honest. Sony is going backwards in this aspect and “wasting” money they could be using to invest in their own first-party or in improving their services.
Sony has a poor version of GamePass, doesn’t include any current-gen titles, no day 1 titles, stay duration is low, and no discount on purchases. This is what Sony is willing to do and nothing further with games.
Nintendo would be the only one to do so out of the two, but its doubtful.
I think it would be Sony simply because they already have a platform for it. PS Now could be amazing if they just did what Microsoft is doing, but I don’t think there’s any chance that happens in the near future.
Nintendo would gladly go back to selling Cartridges for $80-100 if they thought they could get away with it.
Maybe I’m very naive but I just can’t see Sony competing with MS in a subscription service. I know they have one but it’s not the same as MS. If you look at the biggest subscription services, it requires a massive investment short and longterm. Is Sony financially that strong where they can invest billions and billions yearly to secure content ? There’s a reason why Sony isn’t doing day and date for their 1st party games on their own service. And isn’t Sony relying a lot on the income of their gaming division ? I feel like Phil alluded to this when he said he doesn’t see Sony as their main competitor per se within this space.
Nintendo is too stubborn to move past their own hardware. I think they’d rather make a subscription service within their own ecosystem than move beyond it.
The way I see it Nintendo could partner with Microsoft to have a more robust backend in order to move to a subscription model. They would struggle very hard to do that on their own. We already know some sort of negotiation regarding network services or cloud is taking place behind the scenes with MS and Nintendo.
I think Sony will announce an updated maybe even rebranded Playstation Now which will include all 1st party titles 12 months after release. I think they would price it higher than Game Pass at $15 a month because it’s clear people are ok with paying more for Sony games so why not charge more for your sub if you think your games are better.
It’s Sony, although Nintendo could create a far more compelling service like Gamepass, well let me rephrase, Someone that understands how services work could make a far more compelling service with Nintendo’s New and Old games for Nintendo because they are obviously terrible at online and services lol. They don’t have a reason to right now. The Sony fanboys like to be snarky and say there’s no reason for PlayStation to put its games in a service when they will sell 15 million units, which is only true for a very small handful of games. Nintendo on the other hand, even Luigis Mansion which is a great game but not the biggest IP sold 10 million units. They are just killing it right now with their software. I do think Sony will have to do something, even if it’s not a 1 to 1 comparison by the time the generation ends.
PlayStation Now has PS3 streaming using cell processor based servers. When talking about a Gamepass competitor, what number is Sony trying to hit? 20 million… 50 million? If Sony gets to even Xbox’s current subscriber numbers they will need to scale up their Cell Processor manufacturing. No one should assume Sony will ever do that! Far more likely is Sony just removes PS3 games from PlayStation Now. That would put Sony in a weird spot of removing features from a growing service.
Does Nintendo or Sony have the cash reserves to support development of such a service.
Regardless of who comes out with a gamepass competitor between Sony and Nintendo , even though it will be a short term threat, Microsoft will take it as a win. It validates their model, forces more developers to stop watching from the sidelines and take the plunge on a streaming service, and most importantly, they are in a prime position to sell server side services to both the other parties.
A series X server blade streaming a PS now title for Sony is less preposterous then one may think.
