• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

When the PlayStation Now was announced in 2014...

T0minator

Member
Back then I didn't expect Sony to not fully capitalize on the vision of "play anywhere" model with a subscription service. Laptops, mobile, within the TV itself, anywhere... just by streaming the games and boom you're in!

That is the eventual future. We all know deep down that games will be played by the majority streaming to their device of choice.



PS Now was presented in 2014 as the next step in gaming. Why hasn't Sony jumped on this path as much? Xbox may have seen that presentation and said "alright we're making our own service now, that's the future and we need to do it" Microsoft jump of this idea and road those bull horns all the way up till today.

Sony will now have to respond to their response, sometime soon. The foundation is there, they have to commit because their lifeblood will be those services they started so many years ago. Does anyone think Sony will push those services more in this next year than they ever have before? Potentially combining them into 1 service

Phil Spencer, years after this video, will have speeches similar bro Andrew House about "play anywhere wherever on any device you choose"
 
Last edited:
sony will shift to where the market is going and they have the data and metrics to see that well before it happens. at the moment, game streaming is still very small. its a gamble to think casuals will eat it up when we dont even know if they are interested in console style games at all and good luck geting the hardcore audience to shift to game streaming. it will only stand a chance if they can get it to work flawlessly and make it the same as playing off the hardware.
 
sony will shift to where the market is going and they have the data and metrics to see that well before it happens. at the moment, game streaming is still very small. its a gamble to think casuals will eat it up when we dont even know if they are interested in console style games at all and good luck geting the hardcore audience to shift to game streaming. it will only stand a chance if they can get it to work flawlessly and make it the same as playing off the hardware.
People care about convenience, look at the switch.

options are good. Sony needs to invest more into PS Now and not write it off.
 

bitbydeath

Member
sony will shift to where the market is going and they have the data and metrics to see that well before it happens. at the moment, game streaming is still very small. its a gamble to think casuals will eat it up when we dont even know if they are interested in console style games at all and good luck geting the hardcore audience to shift to game streaming. it will only stand a chance if they can get it to work flawlessly and make it the same as playing off the hardware.
Pretty much this, like MS with VR, Sony won’t do much with it til the market shifts.
 
its a gamble to think casuals will eat it up when we dont even know if they are interested in console style games at all

I think it has a chance if it's bundled with movies, shows, and anime. They should look into that. The games doesn't even have to be day 1. It's simply an added value. A way to trickle down the value of AAA gaming to casual gamers.

and good luck geting the hardcore audience to shift to game streaming.

I agree. Hardcore audience is not the market for game streaming. Game streaming has to create it's own market by appealing to that 2 billion casual gamers. I believe PC and consoles will continue to appeal to gamers in general and will co-exist with game streaming if it ever becomes mainstream.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
I'm not surprised. You need the infrastructure to actually pull this off. The core reason why it works for Xbox is because Microsoft owns Azure. Otherwise it likely wouldn't be cost effective.

Thats part of it for mostly the cloud stuff, but for the majority of use of the service it's MS's deep pockets to eat the cost for many years as they build a user/subscriber base.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Im curious how the playstation and azure deal is going to happen. Are sony going to be putting PS5 Motherboards in azure blades?

I cant see how that will be possible at scale, millions of PS5 chipsets in azure data centres would be really expensive.

The beauty of xsx hardware being in azure is that if its not utilised for gaming it can be used for other tasks, a similar setup would probably be required for ps5 blades to make it feasible.
 
Thats part of it for mostly the cloud stuff, but for the majority of use of the service it's MS's deep pockets to eat the cost for many years as they build a user/subscriber base.
There is no several year long cost eating involved. Gamepass is already sustainable. In big part because Microsoft owns Azure and doesn't have to pay a hefty fee to a third party to provide servers and stuff.
 
Last edited:

JimboJones

Member
Im curious how the playstation and azure deal is going to happen. Are sony going to be putting PS5 Motherboards in azure blades?

I cant see how that will be possible at scale, millions of PS5 chipsets in azure data centres would be really expensive.

The beauty of xsx hardware being in azure is that if its not utilised for gaming it can be used for other tasks, a similar setup would probably be required for ps5 blades to make it feasible.
It's probably why we are seeing them shift to pc they will most likely have to have pc versions made for their streaming services anyway.
 
Last edited:

tusharngf

Member
Scaling is important along with infra.. since AWS is costly they made deal with MS which is the second best firm to provide computing solution.
 

Agent X

Member
PS Now is a great service, but It's disappointing that Sony has ignored certain features that could enable the service to evolve to a higher level. They need to do the following, all of which their major competitors have done:

  • Bring PS Now to mobile devices and smart TV devices.
  • Enable simplified access through a Web browser (e.g. Chrome), which would in turn open availability to Mac, Linux, and Chromebook.
  • Add games utilizing their most powerful hardware (PS5) to the service.

Sony has done a fine job of talking up some of these new features over the last three years. Now, it's time for them to start delivering.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
There is no several year long cost eating involved. Gamepass is already sustainable. In big part because Microsoft owns Azure and doesn't have to pay a hefty fee to a third party to provide servers and stuff.

What? MS built that backbone at great cost not because they just love pouring money into infrastructure, but because they identified a business opportunity for providing such services. Its not "free". If they are using capacity to service GamePass , its capacity they can't provide to other clients and enterprise users.

GamePass synergizes well with MS other cloud interests and endeavours, but they still have to build, staff and maintain the infrastructure. The money for that has to come from somewhere, be it an external partner or an internal business division.

If Xbox were to wink out of existence tomorrow they'd just apply those Azure resources to other things, so its a solid investment. Sony on the other hand were they to build their own really have no use beyond Playstation, they aren't in the cloud services business.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Because Sony dont need to, Microsoft needs it.

Sony stomping Microsoft in digital and physical sales and having higher user base as well.

Microsoft HAVE to go for gamepass/cloud gaming route to compete with Sony.

Its a no brainer.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
There is no several year long cost eating involved. Gamepass is already sustainable. In big part because Microsoft owns Azure and doesn't have to pay a hefty fee to a third party to provide servers and stuff.

WOw, didn't know you were this uneducated. I'm talking costs for having games like MLB, Red dead 2, DCM 5 on their service? That shit costs money, to make emulation for 360/Xbox they have a team of people who literally work on that, that costs money.

Regardless of them using their own Azure, which is usually put into Capital and written off, it still costs them in one way or another. You need the space which costs money to maintain said server stacks. I work in this industry you know this right?
Making large game deals like purchasing a publisher for 7.5 Billion is also money spent, all those studios they bought in 2018 and opened costs shit tons of money to acquire talent, space, setup.
That all is part of investment to gamepass.
Sony invested in Gaiki and bought them on the cheap. They didn't make anything close to 7.5 Billion dollar purchase to have a giant library of studios because financially they at the time could not after being in the red most of the PS3 era.

Putting games on the Windows store costs money because they have to actually make a version for the store, developing the app takes software engineers and if they are the same windows engineers that takes money its a investment.
My entire point was them ramping up meaning buying exclusive content from third party's, doing a deal with EA which is not cheap, buying Bethesda was all gamepass investment.
They have that kind of money to burn. If it ever went tits up, It's a drop in the bucket and they would carry on like business as usual. Sony on the other hand could not sustain something of that investment not working.

That was my point.

Sometimes dude take you Xbox Gamepass blinders off for a minute.
 
Last edited:

Drew1440

Member
I'm surprised cable operators haven't offered PSNow or Stadia through their pay TV platforms. Seems it would be useful if you could stream games using your Sky Q or Tivo box.
 

Matt_Fox

Member
Sony have a bit of an ace up their sleeve when streaming does become mainstream,

They make televisions so the PlayStation app would be embedded and they can cross sell. All the player will need is a joypad.
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
That is the eventual future. We all know deep down that games will be played by the majority streaming to their device of choice.

This has been said for how many years now?

Local processing (CPU, GPU, SoCs) is still progressing faster than large-scale networking equipment is getting their latencies down. At the same time the western politicians and ISPs aren't helping with all the fight they're doing against net neutrality.

It's not that we don't have the technology to bring internet latency down and bandwidth up to a point where cloud gaming is acceptable in place X or Y.
It's just that we might still be decades away from installing all the infrastructures needed to make it happen to a population that is large enough to be considered a critical mass. And of course the massive investment that needs to happen for that to take place.

Not to mention live video encoding/decoding. Even a 60Mbps HEVC video will obviously pale in comparison to an uncompressed 20Gbps HDMI 2.0 feed. Especially on a 4K 55"+ TV.
 

Agent X

Member
I'm surprised cable operators haven't offered PSNow or Stadia through their pay TV platforms. Seems it would be useful if you could stream games using your Sky Q or Tivo box.
Good point. For what it's worth, I remember seeing ads from Verizon last year, which offered a year of PS Now as a perk for signing up to their service.
Ps5 games on pc and other devices? PS fanboys won't take that well.
If Sony were to make that announcement, I believe most of their fans would be just fine with it. Those who don't readily accept it would eventually find a way to justify it. In the end, it doesn't matter, because it would ultimately benefit both the users of the PlayStation ecosystem and the ecosystem itself.
 
Im curious how the playstation and azure deal is going to happen. Are sony going to be putting PS5 Motherboards in azure blades?

I cant see how that will be possible at scale, millions of PS5 chipsets in azure data centres would be really expensive.

The beauty of xsx hardware being in azure is that if its not utilised for gaming it can be used for other tasks, a similar setup would probably be required for ps5 blades to make it feasible.
Azure deal was about stabilizing core services (PS +, PS Store ect) there wont be an SX style server side integration. Takes very specific silicon to do this.
 
That is the eventual future. We all know deep down that games will be played by the majority streaming to their device of choice.
I don't know that. I believe streaming will ALWAYS be an inferior way to play games than playing games off of local hardware. Streaming is a good alternative when that's not possible or as a utility such as starting a game while the game is downloading, game demos, etc.
 

nush

Gold Member
Seems it would be useful if you could stream games using your Sky Q or Tivo box.

Those devices are receivers not transceivers, other than a licensing handshake they are not going to be able to transmit controller data. You could use them to watch a Youtube let's play stream but not play the game yourself.
 
WOw, didn't know you were this uneducated. I'm talking costs for having games like MLB, Red dead 2, DCM 5 on their service? That shit costs money, to make emulation for 360/Xbox they have a team of people who literally work on that, that costs money.

Regardless of them using their own Azure, which is usually put into Capital and written off, it still costs them in one way or another. You need the space which costs money to maintain said server stacks. I work in this industry you know this right?
Making large game deals like purchasing a publisher for 7.5 Billion is also money spent, all those studios they bought in 2018 and opened costs shit tons of money to acquire talent, space, setup.
That all is part of investment to gamepass.
Sony invested in Gaiki and bought them on the cheap. They didn't make anything close to 7.5 Billion dollar purchase to have a giant library of studios because financially they at the time could not after being in the red most of the PS3 era.

Putting games on the Windows store costs money because they have to actually make a version for the store, developing the app takes software engineers and if they are the same windows engineers that takes money its a investment.
My entire point was them ramping up meaning buying exclusive content from third party's, doing a deal with EA which is not cheap, buying Bethesda was all gamepass investment.
They have that kind of money to burn. If it ever went tits up, It's a drop in the bucket and they would carry on like business as usual. Sony on the other hand could not sustain something of that investment not working.

That was my point.

Sometimes dude take you Xbox Gamepass blinders off for a minute.
Just a hint, when you buy a publisher worth 7.5 billion dollars, you have a publisher worth 7.5 billion dollars. It's not like the money is gone.

With regards to all the running costs you mentioned, those are covered by Gamepass fees and other Xbox revenue. That's what sustainable means after all.
 
What? MS built that backbone at great cost not because they just love pouring money into infrastructure, but because they identified a business opportunity for providing such services. Its not "free". If they are using capacity to service GamePass , its capacity they can't provide to other clients and enterprise users.
I never claimed it was free. It's just substantially more cost effective than getting the services from a third party.
 
Honestly? Sony bought Gaikai for a reason back then, almost 10 years ago. I don't know how or why they suddenly dropped the ball and stopped investing more on PS Now. I mean...they are still doing stuff, like Full HD streaming, etc...but they are just too slow to evolve this service. And i know the pandemic changed and slowed a lot of things down...but this is being talked about since before that, like this article from The Verge from 2019: "PlayStation Now had the keys to the cloud gaming kingdom, but Sony barely stuck a toe in the door"

One of the things that's not allowing PS Now to expand is a simple one i believe: They don't have the infrastructure for streaming games WW in more countries, so they barely increased the number of countries able to have this service. I'm sure the Azure talk was because of that. Imagine having the world streaming old PS3 games...that wouldn't go well and that hardware is obsolete. The PS3s they have doing the job won't be working forever as well.

I also feel like Sony is hitting an impass with their subscription services right now and something will have to change. PS Plus is clearly peaking and i honestly can't imagine it increasing a lot more (probably hitting a record number after this Christmas but not by much), while PSNow is only available in less than 20 countries.

I still think they are working on something bigger. I know many patents don't mean much, but they have a lot of backwards compatibility ones, trophies working for older games / platforms, etc...i'm sure at least these things are discussed behind closed doors. I'm sure the future is promising. How long until we get something from all this? Who knows... covid + chip shortage is probably changing a lot of stuff for all of these companies.

Still it is sad how Sony seems to be dropping the ball on something they were ahead, for sure. They've been so lowkey since the PS5 released when compared to MS.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Just a hint, when you buy a publisher worth 7.5 billion dollars, you have a publisher worth 7.5 billion dollars. It's not like the money is gone.

With regards to all the running costs you mentioned, those are covered by Gamepass fees and other Xbox revenue. That's what sustainable means after all.

Jesus we are talking about like 2018-2017 when they launched gamepass? As in they didn't in 2017-2018-2019 have 20+ Million subscribers. So even back then your in this build up phase just like any other streaming service. Your eating costs for the first couple years. Maybe now they are breaking even and it is like Phil says sustainable. It definitely was not a year or so ago.

And we are talking about money spent on a division specifically a service. Microsoft has tons of cash, and assets it can spend and lose without making any kind of significant impact on the bottom line. Thats what is everyone's point that you keep tip toeing around.

Sony does not have the capital, nor the cash to make that kind of investment and lose that amount of money over the course of years. They did that during PS3 era and it almost bankrupt the entire company not just Playstation division. Microsoft could sell or shut down xbox tomorrow and it would be business as usual since AZURE can be repurposed throughout the company. Sony can not take a loss like that was everyone's point.
Amount of spending Microsoft has done in the past 3-4 years is insane, and it's to an amount that no one in the gaming industry can match because of their capital not being even a fraction of what Microsoft's is.


Keep on spinning it any way you want, MS had to spend money to be right now where they are, they lost shit tons of money knowing it they would lose money in the short term.

 
Last edited:

Agent X

Member
Still it is sad how Sony seems to be dropping the ball on something they were ahead, for sure. They've been so lowkey since the PS5 released when compared to MS.

You made several good points. Although Sony might not be in a position to expand their worldwide reach, they can still improve other aspects of the service, such as the ones I mentioned earlier. They can also start adding PS5 games for download, even if they're not ready for streaming yet.

There are so many little things they can do to improve PS Now. They don't have to do everything all at once, but they should work on at least some of these smaller issues to demonstrate that they're interested in making progress.
 
Jesus we are talking about like 2018-2017 when they launched gamepass? As in they didn't in 2017-2018-2019 have 20+ Million subscribers. So even back then your in this build up phase just like any other streaming service. Your eating costs for the first couple years. Maybe now they are breaking even and it is like Phil says sustainable. It definitely was not a year or so ago.

And we are talking about money spent on a division specifically a service. Microsoft has tons of cash, and assets it can spend and lose without making any kind of significant impact on the bottom line. Thats what is everyone's point that you keep tip toeing around.

Sony does not have the capital, nor the cash to make that kind of investment and lose that amount of money over the course of years. They did that during PS3 era and it almost bankrupt the entire company not just Playstation division. Microsoft could sell or shut down xbox tomorrow and it would be business as usual since AZURE can be repurposed throughout the company. Sony can not take a loss like that was everyone's point.
Amount of spending Microsoft has done in the past 3-4 years is insane, and it's to an amount that no one in the gaming industry can match because of their capital not being even a fraction of what Microsoft's is.


Keep on spinning it any way you want, MS had to spend money to be right now where they are, they lost shit tons of money knowing it they would lose money in the short term.


MSs strategy is similar to Netflix in someways. Losing money for a long time, using content made by others to attract people to their subscription service during the first few years, then starting to produce their own content to keep people invested in your service after that, which is the stage they are now at.

I still think Sony has an advantage they should be taking, honestly. Imagine them allowing their own old material to be played on PS Now. They have 25 years of history. Imagine PSOne, 2 and 3 games...not only available by using streaming, but also allowing downloads for said games. And if it's a country where they can't have the streaming function activated, at least allow people to have PSNow to download whatever they want using it.

The problem is, PS Now's entire concept is about streaming content...so this is probably their issue with it.

Also...how is it possible that it's been a year and PS Now is still lacking a single PS5 game in there? What's the deal with that?

It's all a bit messy for me at this point, really. But that's my biggest issue with current Sony: there isn't a clear message about anything they are doing. I only bought the PS5 because in the end, they aren't failing at what i like about them: games. I trust their studios and i know they usually deliver.

edit:
Agent X Agent X your latest post basically added stuff i wrote here, really. glad i'm not alone in this
 
Last edited:

Kssio_Aug

Member
sony will shift to where the market is going and they have the data and metrics to see that well before it happens. at the moment, game streaming is still very small.
Nah... I think Sony just can't invest this much yet on PS Now, so they're focusing on a more traditional market, which they're leading for quite a long time. But if they could, I doubt they wouldn't try to fight for a slice in this streaming market.

I don't think that streaming will ever be able to replace the traditional way of playing games. But it's not a market to ignore either... the reception of Xcloud seems to be pretty great. I believe the market for this is huge!
 
Nah... I think Sony just can't invest this much yet on PS Now, so they're focusing on a more traditional market, which they're leading for quite a long time. But if they could, I doubt they wouldn't try to fight for a slice in this streaming market.

I don't think that streaming will ever be able to replace the traditional way of playing games. But it's not a market to ignore either... the reception of Xcloud seems to be pretty great. I believe the market for this is huge!
I agree with you. But let's be honest. What do you think Sony prefers? Having 4M copies of a big game selling in its first 3 days at full price (TLOU2 did at least 260M in sales in 4 days) or having 8M people playing said game on a subscription service they subscribed months ago already, where they also have been playing most of their games for the last few months/years? I bet the first option is where they'd make the most money. TLOU2 was probably paid with pre-orders and the first few days on sale most likely. That's simply huge and while they have games doing those metrics, why even try to make PS Now their big thing? Wanna bet similar things will happen next year with Horizon, God of War, etc?

Sony has no urgency in adapting to the streaming market because their data doesn't show them they have to. Not when people buy their games at full price like they do. Nintendo is similar.

All 3 of them are doing what their market says it's working the best for them. Nintendo has a hybrid console to join their biggest audience (portable) with home consoles. MS had the money and infrastructure to go all-in on streaming games, subscription-based services, etc. Sony isn't any different.

The exciting thing for gaming right now, is how these 3 brands know what they want, are good at them and are succeeding. In a way they all win, and so do we.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
I agree with you. But let's be honest. What do you think Sony prefers? Having 4M copies of a big game selling in its first 3 days at full price (TLOU2 did at least 260M in sales in 4 days) or having 8M people playing said game on a subscription service they subscribed months ago already, where they also have been playing most of their games for the last few months/years? I bet the first option is where they'd make the most money. TLOU2 was probably paid with pre-orders and the first few days on sale most likely. That's simply huge and while they have games doing those metrics, why even try to make PS Now their big thing? Wanna bet similar things will happen next year with Horizon, God of War, etc?

Sony has no urgency in adapting to the streaming market because their data doesn't show them they have to. Not when people buy their games at full price like they do. Nintendo is similar.

All 3 of them are doing what their market says it's working the best for them. Nintendo has a hybrid console to join their biggest audience (portable) with home consoles. MS had the money and infrastructure to go all-in on streaming games, subscription-based services, etc. Sony isn't any different.

The exciting thing for gaming right now, is how these 3 brands know what they want, are good at them and are succeeding. In a way they all win, and so do we.
I agree with you. I don't think that Sony needs it, and it's probably not even wise for them to do it right now, it's probably too risky. I believe streaming services for games will be very strong in the near future, but Sony has the lead on the traditional market and it has been working just fine for them, so they should keep it this way.

Since they probably can't compete on this streaming market yet, they're also doing the right choice by releasing their games on PC, as this probably makes their games more profitable and also works as a plan B in case the traditional console market shrinks in the future.

I definitely believe that Sony is doing what's best for them, such as MS and Nintendo, each with a different strategy that seems to match their current reality.
 
Last edited:

Agent X

Member
I still think Sony has an advantage they should be taking, honestly. Imagine them allowing their own old material to be played on PS Now. They have 25 years of history. Imagine PSOne, 2 and 3 games...not only available by using streaming, but also allowing downloads for said games. And if it's a country where they can't have the streaming function activated, at least allow people to have PSNow to download whatever they want using it.

That's true. They have an immense back catalog of games to draw from. Sadly, this has been poorly utilized.

If you refer to the video in the OP, about 3:16, Andrew House specifically states that PS Now will play games from the original PlayStation, PS2, and PS3. They've done a great job with PS3 games since the beginning, but they've only added about 20 PS2 games around 2018 to 2019 (none in the last two years), and have yet to touch the original PlayStation library.

I'm sure Mr. House had the best intentions in that speech. Unfortunately, he's no longer with Sony, and therefore can't call the shots. I'm just wondering whether the current management has a similar vision anymore.
 
Sony will now have to respond to their response, sometime soon. The foundation is there, they have to commit because their lifeblood will be those services they started so many years ago. Does anyone think Sony will push those services more in this next year than they ever have before? Potentially combining them into 1 service
This is horrible, I will have to find some other hobby.
If you refer to the video in the OP, about 3:16, Andrew House specifically states that PS Now will play games from the original PlayStation, PS2, and PS3. They've done a great job with PS3 games since the beginning, but they've only added about 20 PS2 games around 2018 to 2019 (none in the last two years), and have yet to touch the original PlayStation library.
Yup, I recall that... Even MS does a better job with keeping some of its previous consoles' libraries alive.
 
Nah... I think Sony just can't invest this much yet on PS Now, so they're focusing on a more traditional market, which they're leading for quite a long time. But if they could, I doubt they wouldn't try to fight for a slice in this streaming market.

I don't think that streaming will ever be able to replace the traditional way of playing games. But it's not a market to ignore either... the reception of Xcloud seems to be pretty great. I believe the market for this is huge!

thats not true. sony can invest in streaming if they wanted. i mean they even got ps now on to tv's before and were the first ones to really give it a push but not enough people wanted it. i know it was years ago but not much has changed in 2021. nobody wants to stream console style games. if there was anything in it, sony like any company would be diving in head first.

also you said the market for it is huge but where is the evidence for this? we only have evidence for the opposite as we know cloud gaming is small and niche. i dont see it magically growing anytime soon. its alwasy people making assumptions about the future that dont even end up as true. just 5 years ago people were saying the likes of google will enter the space and be dangerous! isnt that laughable in hindsight? still people make the same assumptions now. the traditional way is always dying and we will be playing in a new way. we have been hearing this since 2010.
 
I agree with you. But let's be honest. What do you think Sony prefers? Having 4M copies of a big game selling in its first 3 days at full price (TLOU2 did at least 260M in sales in 4 days) or having 8M people playing said game on a subscription service they subscribed months ago already, where they also have been playing most of their games for the last few months/years? I bet the first option is where they'd make the most money. TLOU2 was probably paid with pre-orders and the first few days on sale most likely. That's simply huge and while they have games doing those metrics, why even try to make PS Now their big thing? Wanna bet similar things will happen next year with Horizon, God of War, etc?

Sony has no urgency in adapting to the streaming market because their data doesn't show them they have to. Not when people buy their games at full price like they do. Nintendo is similar.

All 3 of them are doing what their market says it's working the best for them. Nintendo has a hybrid console to join their biggest audience (portable) with home consoles. MS had the money and infrastructure to go all-in on streaming games, subscription-based services, etc. Sony isn't any different.

The exciting thing for gaming right now, is how these 3 brands know what they want, are good at them and are succeeding. In a way they all win, and so do we.
Agreed. I actually am enjoying this console gen because all 3 are actually a little different for once, and all have their own strengths. Last gen, there really was no need for 3 consoles. But this gen they're making a case for it.
 
Last edited:
There is no several year long cost eating involved. Gamepass is already sustainable. In big part because Microsoft owns Azure and doesn't have to pay a hefty fee to a third party to provide servers and stuff.
You use the word "sustainable" like it means anything. It's sustainable to Microsoft because they can sustain it and because they are betting on it and can bear the weight and the investment. Microsoft can sustain pretty much anything they want to sustain, it doesn't mean anything when it comes to a trillion dollar company.
 
You use the word "sustainable" like it means anything. It's sustainable to Microsoft because they can sustain it and because they are betting on it and can bear the weight and the investment. Microsoft can sustain pretty much anything they want to sustain, it doesn't mean anything when it comes to a trillion dollar company.
That's a weak cope my friend. Gamepass isn't losing money, sorry.

Donald Trump GIF by GIPHY News
 

Unknown?

Member
I'm surprised cable operators haven't offered PSNow or Stadia through their pay TV platforms. Seems it would be useful if you could stream games using your Sky Q or Tivo box.
Sorry, Sega still has marketing stronghold on that front with Sega Channel.

As far as infrastructure goes, why do they need crappy centralized servers? Use block chain and be decentralized, large centralization on the internet is archaic and not the future.
 
You use the word "sustainable" like it means anything. It's sustainable to Microsoft because they can sustain it and because they are betting on it and can bear the weight and the investment. Microsoft can sustain pretty much anything they want to sustain, it doesn't mean anything when it comes to a trillion dollar company.
But he said it was "very, very" sustainable. If you look up the word very in the dictionary, it means "to a high degree."

This means that Spencer is describing that sustainability as more easily sustainable than your average project by two degrees. Or if you prefer it in equation form it looks like this:

to a high degree + to a high degree = gamepass sustainability.
 

yurinka

Member
PS Now was presented in 2014 as the next step in gaming. Why hasn't Sony jumped on this path as much? Xbox may have seen that presentation and said "alright we're making our own service now, that's the future and we need to do it" Microsoft jump of this idea and road those bull horns all the way up till today.

Sony will now have to respond to their response, sometime soon. The foundation is there, they have to commit because their lifeblood will be those services they started so many years ago. Does anyone think Sony will push those services more in this next year than they ever have before? Potentially combining them into 1 service
PS Now during some time was available on Vita, Bravia, Samsung TVs, Blurays players and other devices but they dropped their support there I assume because almost nobody was using it there. Maybe it was too early, back then subscriptions weren't that popular, the internet connection at their main countrys weren't as good and their streaming tech wasn't as good.

According to different related patents and relatively recent statements (a year or two ago) to their investors they are now working upgrading it to bring it to smartphones, tablets and smart tvs, who now start to have way better related tech like wifi 6, bluetooth 5, 5G and so on, in addition to improving the streaming tech itself, to include PS5 games there, improve the catalog and pricing, supporting more countries and it isn't clear but seems they were reviewing its business model like considering to include an Stadia like option to buy games (I assume separatedly from the PS Now sub) for streaming.

I think they are tweaking and improving this business before scaling it up hard to a way bigger, more global mainstream market. Maybe they think still isn't the time and prefer to wait until the related tech in smartphones, tablets, tvs and their streaming stuff itself still isn't reorady to scale, or that they need to rework a bit more their strategy and business model regarding catalog, pricing, etc. before scaling up.

Regarding MS, Sony generates way more revenue, has more subs and pretty likely are more profitable with their game subscriptions strategy (which also includes PS Plus), they are pretty distanced so I think aren't very worried about MS, whose Gamepass numbers didn't increase from January to June and we don't know how it performed from July to October because they didn't provide the numbers. In fact, if we specifically about how many people uses XCloud we have no idea because we never knew even the people who uses Gamepass Ultimate.

That's true. They have an immense back catalog of games to draw from. Sadly, this has been poorly utilized.

If you refer to the video in the OP, about 3:16, Andrew House specifically states that PS Now will play games from the original PlayStation, PS2, and PS3. They've done a great job with PS3 games since the beginning, but they've only added about 20 PS2 games around 2018 to 2019 (none in the last two years), and have yet to touch the original PlayStation library.

I'm sure Mr. House had the best intentions in that speech. Unfortunately, he's no longer with Sony, and therefore can't call the shots. I'm just wondering whether the current management has a similar vision anymore.
He was talking about their long term vision, stuff that they were going to implement over time. If you also include remasters, remakes and collections there are many PS1 an PS2 games. But again, I assume that like supporting phones or tvs he was talking as something for the future that they were going to roll out step by step as they keep evolving it.

I agree with you. I don't think that Sony needs it, and it's probably not even wise for them to do it right now, it's probably too risky. I believe streaming services for games will be very strong in the near future, but Sony has the lead on the traditional market and it has been working just fine for them, so they should keep it this way.

Since they probably can't compete on this streaming market yet, they're also doing the right choice by releasing their games on PC, as this probably makes their games more profitable and also works as a plan B in case the traditional console market shrinks in the future.

I definitely believe that Sony is doing what's best for them, such as MS and Nintendo, each with a different strategy that seems to match their current reality.
I think streaming may start to be important in 5-10 years from now or later. Many countries and even cities and towns in the main countries still have shitty internet connections, routers plus phones, tablets, computers or tvs with crappy wifi.

We only know that PS Now has around 3 million subscribers and have no idea of how many users has XCloud, Stadia, Luna and so on, so it's fair to assume game streaming as of now is too small so it doesn't make sense for Sony to destroy the super successful business they have focused on mostly selling games for their console.

With their current strategy they are making more money than any console maker ever did, so doesn't make sense at all to kill their main revenue source (to sell games) to replace it for something that may or may not work somewhere in the future.

There is no several year long cost eating involved. Gamepass is already sustainable. In big part because Microsoft owns Azure and doesn't have to pay a hefty fee to a third party to provide servers and stuff.
Notice the difference between the 'sustainable' and 'profitable' definitions.

Also...how is it possible that it's been a year and PS Now is still lacking a single PS5 game in there? What's the deal with that?
Their main revenue and profit source is to sell games and add-ons for their console, game subscriptions is a tiny market that only generates a small portion of their money. So it would be stupid for them to lose their main revenue source for basically nothing. They prefer to include in subscriptions mostly games that already completed their sales cycle instead.

Jesus we are talking about like 2018-2017 when they launched gamepass? As in they didn't in 2017-2018-2019 have 20+ Million subscribers.
As of July they had around 18M, basically the same they had in January. In September they stopped sharing numbers, even if I think Halo and Forza will help it to grow again. But this is Gamepass subs, not Gamepass Ultimate subs and even less Xcloud users.

Sony does not have the capital, nor the cash to make that kind of investment and lose that amount of money over the course of years.
Sony has the money, but they have a different strategy that is more successful and profitable. They generate a shit ton of revenue, have a great growth, are profitable and clear market leaders in most fronts they cover, so have no reason to change their strategy for an unsuccessful/less successful one. They prefer instead to continue being profitable, growing and generating more revenue and software sales than any other console maker ever did.
 
Last edited:

Agent X

Member
He was talking about their long term vision, stuff that they were going to implement over time. If you also include remasters, remakes and collections there are many PS1 an PS2 games. But again, I assume that like supporting phones or tvs he was talking as something for the future that they were going to roll out step by step as they keep evolving it.

I agree, and that was essentially the point I was making. After he and other senior staff members left Sony, the people who took over the mantle apparently didn't see things the same way. You can see this in the fact that they've stopped adding any new PS2 games and even PS3 games since more than two years ago. The people in charge now seem to have different priorities. Unfortunately, even some of their shared priorities (such as expansion to mobile and smart TV platforms) seem to be getting brushed aside.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
Sony should call this service NATO game streaming since it's only available in a handful of countries. Cheap fucks don't want to invest in more servers to expand their service...
 
Top Bottom