Exactly. Imagine how many subs Sony/Nintendo would get as soon as they announce day and date 1st party games on service? lol
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I think Xbox is becoming very future proof, are Nintendo and Sony behind? Will it hurt them in long term?
- Thread starter jorgejjvr
- Start date
The music industry simply had no choice because of piracy. They finally accepted that it cannot be stopped. People never stopped buying CD's because digital was the new hip thing. People stopped buying albums because it was simple to download for free. By the way lots of music artists will tell you that streaming makes no money.
Video games are still selling huge numbers and the industry is not in the same position as music was. We are years and I mean long years away from a situation where people no longer want to buy games physical or digital!
can't believe 2 months into a new generation where all the next gen consoles are consistently selling out almost instantly people say shit like this like it means something.
Absolutely, but they would struggle to launch a streaming service though, at least with the same profit margins as MS, thanks to Azure.
Now it's non-stop "Sony can't hang with the big boys" daily topics. Wonder what the narrative will be when the PS6 launches.
Every report I've seen has ps5 outselling xbox. People waiting for stock and trying to get a next gen system mostly seems focused around the ps5 too.
Like I mentioned earlier, why is a company that rakes in over $2 billion each year from their own existing subscription services (that you said couldn't exist because they weren't financially strong enough) going to be in a worse position when they are making that much money to support the maintenance and growth of said services? Cloud streaming isn't going to take off for years due to how far behind the curve ISP infrastructure is in supporting such required bandwidth and by that point services will have matured to the point where they'll be ready to support such demand. Nintendo has the most work to do, but like I already said here they've proved to be able to succeed doing wildly different things from most and bounce back from any shortcomings because… they're industry titans and have some of the industry's most desirable content.
Sony is preparing, they are just not aiming for such a large swath of gamers in the short-term, because it's not possible... not even for Microsoft. The most confusing part about your take is that MS is currently now in a bind where the cost of maintaining a service like Game Pass means they have to grow an audience beyond the console like they have been already talking about and doing. None of this is going to be easy or cheap for any one company. Which is why it should be treated as an additive service in the present, rather than any one company attempt to overextend and thus be caught in a bind because their predictions haven't played out in the expected time frame. You know, the PS6 is going to roll around and Sony will still be playing with the industry "giants". All of this "only Xbox can endure" talk is tiresome given what we actually know.
Of course people don't require a subscription, but I don't agree it doesn't matter if it's better or not thatpn other subs. Just look at the TV space and you'll see that's not true. Given GP growth, I'd say most subscribers have judged the content worth more than $15/m.
alright but show me where I can buy an Xbox series X or S? This is a bad faith argument and basically the only people buying these consoles right now are hardcore gamers that will buy the new systems regardless, give it a year before determining Xbox is a "distant third" lmao
The problem with the future is it's really hard to predict. At one point the future was always cartridges...until it wasn't. The future was motion controls and everyone rushed to get in...until it wasn't. The future was online gaming and single player games were doomed...until they weren't.
While I would certainly agree if the future is subscription services Microsoft is in better shape than its competition. But we don't know that it is and right now its two main competitors have been largely dominating them without being really strong in that area.
Truth be told we don't know what the future is and predicting it is really hard. It's filled with companies and people who have said you must be doing or preparing to do this because that's where gaming is headed. And those people have been wrong just as often as right.
Nintendo and Sony aren't completely blind. They have been industry leaders for decades. Clearly they aren't seriously investing in that space to the level that Microsoft is. They will adjust as needed likely. Or create their own new thing as they so often have done. All that said if the future is indeed Netflix like subscription services Microsoft is clearly in the best position at this moment. I think if Nintendo and Sony were convinced they needed to really prepare for that they would do it more. Right now I think both are content with what the Switch and PS4/PS5 have been giving them in terms of sales/profit.
While I would certainly agree if the future is subscription services Microsoft is in better shape than its competition. But we don't know that it is and right now its two main competitors have been largely dominating them without being really strong in that area.
Truth be told we don't know what the future is and predicting it is really hard. It's filled with companies and people who have said you must be doing or preparing to do this because that's where gaming is headed. And those people have been wrong just as often as right.
Nintendo and Sony aren't completely blind. They have been industry leaders for decades. Clearly they aren't seriously investing in that space to the level that Microsoft is. They will adjust as needed likely. Or create their own new thing as they so often have done. All that said if the future is indeed Netflix like subscription services Microsoft is clearly in the best position at this moment. I think if Nintendo and Sony were convinced they needed to really prepare for that they would do it more. Right now I think both are content with what the Switch and PS4/PS5 have been giving them in terms of sales/profit.
This. The Truth is most people will be content with their current system for a while until software stops. Personally, I don't really care at all about the next gen systems as my One X can play everything coming out for the next few years. I am just waiting to see a game where the jump to Series X will be substantially better, and I am hoping (but doubtful) that Halo Infinite will be that.
PS Now exists, but it's very much a stagnant service rather than a growth-based service.
It's like "Pay, here are some games. We'll throw in a new one every so often."
That's not how Game Pass works.
Its like people forget that sony has and has had PS Now. Which is exactly what gamepass is with the only difference being the availability of games on day one.
When that time comes when a service like that becomes the norm, where you can either stream your games or just download them to a box if you want all for a monthly fee. For sony, that would be as easy as flipping a switch.
I still don't believe that that is a sustainable business model for games though, but that's another matter. But it's evident in MS attempt to start stealth hiking service prices. Which is something I warned would happen since early last year.
Personally, I don't think I fear anything more than the amount of power services like gamepass/PSnow (if the norm) puts in the hands of the platform holders and takes away from the gamers. But as always, gamers rush into these things with their eyes wide shut, hand over fist praising these companies or taking their freedoms away. This shit started with MS charging for online play, everyone praised them for it because "it was a good service"... ah well.
When that time comes when a service like that becomes the norm, where you can either stream your games or just download them to a box if you want all for a monthly fee. For sony, that would be as easy as flipping a switch.
I still don't believe that that is a sustainable business model for games though, but that's another matter. But it's evident in MS attempt to start stealth hiking service prices. Which is something I warned would happen since early last year.
Personally, I don't think I fear anything more than the amount of power services like gamepass/PSnow (if the norm) puts in the hands of the platform holders and takes away from the gamers. But as always, gamers rush into these things with their eyes wide shut, hand over fist praising these companies or taking their freedoms away. This shit started with MS charging for online play, everyone praised them for it because "it was a good service"... ah well.
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But the way gamepass works doesn't make sense for Sony at this time, psnow is also significantly cheaper.
Thats not relevant in the grand scheme of things. Th important thing is that PS Now is a service like gamepass. The only difference is that it only has older games.
Its easier to say, well,all sony has to do is start putting games on day one on PSNow vs say, they have to build an entire service from scratch. As it stands PSnow is already what Gamepass and Xcloud are supposed to be. Minus the day one releases.
Sure but Sony putting their new games on there like Microsoft doesn't really make sense for them at the moment. Psnows main problem is not the content, it's the exposure that Sony gives it, for me that's the main difference between the services.
It exists, the framework is there. They've spoken about how important it is fairly recently in a presentation iirc and they're migrating to Azure soon I believe. They aren't starting from scratch, it hasn't been abandoned. Whenever they feel like Microsoft is catching up they just flip a switch and put their first party titles on there day 1 and people will flock to PS Now because Sony has one of the strongest slate of IP's in gaming.
I understand your point. I use PS Now quite a bit because I missed out on the PS4. However, what I'm trying to say is that as a new system owner, the service seems to drift into the background. Even though I subscribe to it, it doesn't seem to scream "must-subscribe" for many users. Maybe Sony just needs to change how it's marketed, I don't know.
But I can tell you as someone who has exclusively played on PC for 7 years, Game Pass is all I've heard about. Perhaps I would be better served if I knew how many PS Now subscriptions Sony actually has.
Urgh, I just hate hate the thought of a subscription only future.
I love having my library of games that I can play whenever I want to as long as I have the hardware required.
A lot of the games I buy are games I think I'd like to try some day when I see a good deal on them, not games I'm going to play right now.
In a sub future you kinda have to play some of the games right away because who knows how long they'll be around. That is just not how I enjoy this hobby. I play all kinds of games all the time, old ones and new ones.
Licensed games have it even worse. Imagine if you HAD to play Transformers Devastation during the two years it was for sale? As long as you bought it either physical or digital you can still play as things are now but if everything was sub based the game would be completely gone now forever and with no way to play it at all.
Imagine if there was no way to play Goldeneye any more or the original Starcraft.
A horrible horrible future the way I see it.
I love having my library of games that I can play whenever I want to as long as I have the hardware required.
A lot of the games I buy are games I think I'd like to try some day when I see a good deal on them, not games I'm going to play right now.
In a sub future you kinda have to play some of the games right away because who knows how long they'll be around. That is just not how I enjoy this hobby. I play all kinds of games all the time, old ones and new ones.
Licensed games have it even worse. Imagine if you HAD to play Transformers Devastation during the two years it was for sale? As long as you bought it either physical or digital you can still play as things are now but if everything was sub based the game would be completely gone now forever and with no way to play it at all.
Imagine if there was no way to play Goldeneye any more or the original Starcraft.
A horrible horrible future the way I see it.
2.2 million as of April last year. Isn't a lot but I think the important thing is that the infastructure is there, it should be relatively easy to scale up to more users + add more games whenever they feel the time is right.
This is my fear. Games rotate in and out of Gamepass and PS Now already. If we get to a subscription only future that so many want, what happens to those games that are rotated out?
I play Kotor 1 and 2 every single year. I regularly also play the MGS games. Would I be able to do that in a subscription only future?
With music, movies and books to a lesser extent, even if they're rotated out of the service you can still find them. You can still get CDs / Blurays , you can rent movies you want to see, you have them appear on cable, etc. With a subscription only future, old games would pretty much be gone forever when they're rotated out if that's the only medium they're released in.
Now these companies are much smarter than me so hopefully they could figure out a way to work this. But I'd rather just have my physical media and or owned digital library.
Game Pass is definitely working out well for Microsoft in terms of being popular and offering a great value for customers, but will it "leave Nintendo and Sony behind?" It seems unlikely ... they need to play catch up in terms of market share first, before we can talk about them pulling ahead.
That's true. And I think for the most part it's by design. Sony simply isn't marketing or pushing PS Now as hard as MS is doing with gamepass. But can you blame them? PSNow as it is right now is a cursory service at best. There isn't anything to push. But trust me, the second sony starts having games on it on day one like is the case with gamepass, all that changes.
At that point, it's in sony's best interest to get as many people onto the service a possible. Right now, that obviously isn't a priority for them. I'll just say something I said sometime last year about a similar type of discussion. If in the last 6-7 years MS had games that on their own could sell 5-10M copies, there wouldn't be the need or a service like gamepass today in its current form. It would at best be something more like PSNow.
Gamepass wasn't born from MS trying to push some sort of mystical envelope, it was born from them trying to hedge their bets. And there is nothing wrong with that, people just need to accept that sony needs to endure the same or similar failings that MSid, for sony to see a model like gamepass as something to get into. NO ONE would prioritize a service like gamepass if they can comfortably sell 10s of millions of their first-party games at half to full price directly to customers.
Yep when you look at the profit that Sony make now it make no sense for them to do that now.
Nintendo even less since there games keep there price for years .
Nintendo mostly been good with BC when it can as long as they no big change and games keep its value much better
I don't think it's a particularly controversial opinion. Switch will lead in sales all year and there is more demand for the ps5 than the xbox.
Reading this topic it would seem like Sony and Nintendo are falling behind Microsoft when the opposite is still happening.
Sony clearly has the structure in place to have a gamepass competitor. If they aren't doing it is because they don't see it profitable. Specifically when their games sell millions. Why would you have them in a subscription service that you charge 10€ a month when you can sell a single game by 60/80€?
Sony clearly has the structure in place to have a gamepass competitor. If they aren't doing it is because they don't see it profitable. Specifically when their games sell millions. Why would you have them in a subscription service that you charge 10€ a month when you can sell a single game by 60/80€?
This is exactly my stance as well.
I think that the status quo where games become ridiculously cheap after a year or so, we pay for them once and then own them indefinitely is ridiculously sweet and consumer-friendly. As long as you don't need to play most games day one, video games are very inexpensive. I'd rather just wait until the games I want are on sale for $5 or $10 and buy them. I then have the game permanently to play at my leisure and don't ever have to worry about recurring costs or the game leaving my library.
How people can look at what's happened to TV/movies, where content is fragmented to an almost comical degree among a large and ever expanding list of subscription services, and want games to become like that is beyond me.
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You can still buy a Blu ray, and buy your movies and collection of shows individually. It's just not convenient. But the choice is there.
I'm sure we'll still get the choice of a local option. But yes, I do want a subscription lol. If I don't see anything I like this month, I can cancel, then resub later. I got this month Ubisoft +, playing it on stadia, luna, and locally downloaded on my pc, I plan to beat Valhalla in 1 month, and it only cost me $14.99, I'll cancel after the fact. Maybe resub later for immortals or something else
I don't see anything wrong with it, and it's super convenient. As for gamepass and xcloud, there's been so many deals, that I've never paid for it full price, literally never, and I have it stacked up till 2023 lol
Ultimate convinience being I can play a game on my pc, my xbox, via streaming on my phone or streaming on another TV, all seamlessly. All my gaming comes with me. No restrictions. And if I do see something I absolutely want to buy, the option will still be there.
Choices, options, convinience, and value, are all good things
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Except the biggest criticism of Stadia is about its business model, people don't want to pay full price for games they could only access via streaming. MS has outgunned Google by offering a similar service as a supplementary offer.
Gamepass is 'play your games and our library anywhere for a monthly fee', Stadia is 'buy games at full price to play only on our platform'. MS has outgunned Google here because it's much closer to the subscription platforms consumers are more used to like Netflix/Apple Music. For example: Netflix wouldn't be nearly as successful if you had to buy the individual content you wanted to watch even if it allowed you access on any internet connected device.
Stadia and XCloud are the same idea, but not the same execution.
Also the OP (and I agree with this), isn't saying streaming is going to be a big thing now, it's clearly MS aiming at the future. Hence the title of the thread being about MS becoming future proof. There's clearly still issues of the appalling data caps and poor fibre availability to deal with in the worlds largest market.
In my market (UK) I'm able to trial some of this with 5G/fibre uncapped connections, its not my preferred way of playing because as an enthusiast like the rest of Era I prefer the immediacy of local hardware. But I can definitely see how it can take off.
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Game Pass is a business model that Sony could probably adopt and implement overnight if the numbers made sense for them. They have all the infrastructure, IPs, and content pipeline they'd need to make it work; the only thing that doesn't work for them, right now, are the figures.
For me, it's more convenient to just buy games on sale than to juggle a bunch of different services or hope that the games I want to play come to a sub, and then feel pressured to play them for the limited amount of time that they are there (if they ever come).
But I see where you're coming from. There's a lot of people like me and a lot of people like you. As you said, choice is a good thing. It's not subs existing that I object to, but a future where games are exclusive to subscription services.
I do think it'll be interesting when/if streaming actually gets a notable exclusive. Sony/MS are both just diping their toe in and seem much more interested in pushing streaming from your console to your phone, than an actual streaming platform, which as it's own problem (if they play exclusively on a phone they probably have noreal interest in console games). A big exclusive will be when we really see how many people actually are interested in streaming platforms for their games, so far Now and Stadia the interest seems low and decreasing, but it's definitely in part due to business model (though Now's is pretty good, it just has low streaming quality, with downloads being PS exclusive).
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Nintendo's sales revenue through their first party titles far eclipsed what is realistic for a gamepass like service currently. There's no chance they go for it when they have, what, near 180m units sold just from their top ten best sellers. All of which will be at near full price. Just to make up those you'd need to have 15m constant subscribers since the switches launch (at the $180 gamepass price), and that's ignoring all the games below that top ten mark, which includes about another 30 1m+ sellers, most of which are from or published by Nintendo.
I can envision a Nintendo Gamepass with their old catalog, but their new games... nah.
Please share us the sales data you have to back this up.
Xbox Series S/X seems to be a lot more popular than Xbox One was at launch, so something has changed.
Yeah, I agree but they'd be foolish not to at least consider that option for the back catalog titles. Sure we have NSO, but they need to add more platforms other than NES and SNES and be way more active with adding new titles to be competitive. If they added support to GB/GBC/GBA, N64 and GameCube titles the service would start to look pretty tempting already. I'm not expecting many current games (with the exception of a random Tetris99 and Mario35-type title every now and then) in the beginning though. Maybe some indies and older 3rd party games and some smaller Nintendo published eshop games like Boxboy and Stretchers, but that's about it.
Yeah, almost certain the focus would be on old legacy titles if/when they do it.
The person you replied to didn't say Xbox isn't doing well, or that they aren't popular, they're saying Xbox's policies haven't put a dent in Sony sales. And considering the PS5 is Sony's fastest selling new console, in the middle of a pandemic, proves them right for the time being.
I'd argue that more than 'future proof' they are just doing their own thing.
Back in like 2010, being future proof meant dumping 'all the money' into mobile gaming, and it turned out that the way normal gaming works is fine for most people.
Also, as a preservationist, I kinda laugh at the 'future proof' part, since it all relies on MS's servers, which are inherently not future proof.
Back in like 2010, being future proof meant dumping 'all the money' into mobile gaming, and it turned out that the way normal gaming works is fine for most people.
Also, as a preservationist, I kinda laugh at the 'future proof' part, since it all relies on MS's servers, which are inherently not future proof.
Nintendo are the Gods of the slow drip, I think a GP service would against everything they stand for, they had digital titles with limited release time lol
What happens when you are the netflix of the videogames?
after a while HBO joins the scene.
After that Prime video steals part of your content.
What are you doing netflix now to survive? creating their exclusive content.
The problem is always the same you need first party games rely on thirds dont work because in some point will offer their proposal.
Sony and Nintendo are fine xbox brand not so sure
after a while HBO joins the scene.
After that Prime video steals part of your content.
What are you doing netflix now to survive? creating their exclusive content.
The problem is always the same you need first party games rely on thirds dont work because in some point will offer their proposal.
Sony and Nintendo are fine xbox brand not so sure
It's been less than three months since both consoles launched. Both consoles are constantly selling out.
How can you make this claim in the current situation without absolutely anything to back it up?