I used this for the Xbros but even more now for the PS guys, this week gone from one extreme to the other.
I’m thinking None of us fully understand the nature of the changes coming in the industry. I look at all the layoffs…. Devs complaining about the cost of making games, the working environment they endure…. Embraced going on that spending spree only to have to roll things back drastically…. Companies like square selling millions and saying…. “ we are not making enough money” it’s so easy for people to scoff at them and say they already make millions but they know their books and their operating costs and some things on the horizon clearly have them spooked.
Of course none of us see it because we can’t see past our brands and games and ideologies about what we thing gaming should look like. The only people who call the shots are the ones writing the cheques and have the resources.
I think Sony are a far more secretive company these days as far as PlayStation but those leaked memes a while back really highlighted their concerns and why they are so quite these days. They are spooked about where things are going too. They won yesterdays game. The traditional model. But that model is dying. That model don’t make the money they need even if it still makes them money right now. They are coasting off good will, reputation and btw and power…. Clearly not the same company from the PS1 and PS2 days. They don’t know where things are going apart from the importance of the user account and player retention and spending Vs merely consoles sold. But they can count on the old business model for Atleast another gen… and then what? When store fronts are more platform agnostic and it’s all about playing those games on any device that has those store fronts….. well… that changes everything and that’s kind where we are at….. this is why we see companies like epic fighting apple to put their own store fronts on those devices bypassing the device manufacturers store altogether. To any company that has a walled garden economy ( apple, Google, and yes even the likes of Playstation) that is a worrying thought because they lose money by the game not needing to be on their store front but still usable on their device. Of course MS are no strangers to this because windows already hosts every type of store front from iTunes to steam. But maybe this is why Sony and Nintendo don’t want gamepass on their platforms. Let’s say it game to those platforms with all its features intact…. Full library of games like what is on Xbox, EA play included, Ubisoft+ if you pay the extra. That’s a lot of revenue Sony would lose on their own console to MS, store front in their own system. Who knows maybe one day MS brute force the issue like epic did with apple. Gamers will love it, Sony will absolutely hate it. I think that’s the other danger of MS ditching consoles to the other two. They may force gamepass onto their platforms fully intact even with overlapping games I some cases. There’s the danger of gamepass being the better sub service on PSN or Nintendo than their own services. And maybe deep down that’s part of MS plan. To make Sony and Nintendo the hardware providers and MS owning ever more studios and publishers having the upper hand to do so by way of owning so many big 3P IP.
