I do expect PS5 to have at least PS4 BC. I would outright drop the brand without it at this point, and consider it essential. It's pretty guaranteed to be there, tho. It's just something Sony needs to do at this point, and I'm sure they're aware of this. As for Gamepass, I believe Sony is already preparing to turn PS NOW into an equivalent of that service, as rumours suggest it will offer full game downloads.
I also really don't know that exclusives will even matter that much between systems anymore. Speaking to next-gen specifically, I think we're in a different era now with these systems, and I think for many, simply staying in the PS ecosystem could be more appealing than playing exclusives. That's why BC is so important, since it locks people in. People can carry forward all their purchases, all their save games, everything to the next system with improvements, and that coupled with PS's brand power and nostalgia is simply going to make it more appealing than Xbox, no matter what they do next-gen.
I'm not really biased towards one company or another, but I do think this gen was perhaps the most important to win ever, and Sony absolutely demolished MS here. I really do honestly think that all they need to do is release PS5 at $399 with specs roughly in the same ballpark as Scarlett, and with full BC for PS4 games, and they win, regardless of exclusives or other features, Imo. They have the brand power and momentum, and all they have to do is lock in that massive user base they have now.
I have been in gaming long enough and been in business for so long to know that there is nothing that is guaranteed when it comes to the exchange of goods and services for money.
Every business has to change, to adapt to the ever changing demands of the marketplace. I am a huge fan of businesses reaping the rewards of both their hard work and their mistakes; it is something that makes them more malleable to what consumer needs. The Playstation 3 error coupled with Sony losing their market share, this generation with Microsoft losing its market share, the Star Wars Battlefront controversy that made EA beat a hasty retreat. I am for all of these things because they bring the high and mighty down to a level where they are forced to do things the right way.
If there was no backlash, Microsoft would not change, they would not be buying more studios and there would not be that commitment and talk is that they never want to have a weaker console at launch again.
I am gaming predominantly on the Playstation 4 right now because that is where most of my friends are gaming at right now. It is not the biggest consideration that I make when it comes to gaming, and I am not tied down to any one platform if it does not meet the standards for what I am looking for. I am not averse to moving across platforms with relative ease and it is something that every good business should be looking at as opposed to blind loyalty (and it does exist) from its clientèle.
If we are going to have Sony having a game service similar to game pass then I am over the moon for what that means for gaming going forward and that it hopefully means an end to the remasters they have invested so much in this generation. I am also not a fan of the reasoning that exclusives will not matter as much as the ecosystem. Exclusives are what make you stand out; God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us II, Uncharted 4, Ghost of Tsushima are all compelling reasons to own a Playstation 4 console.
Halo, Gears of War, Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon are all compelling reasons to own the Xbox One.
There will always be a legacy attached to what is done in prior generations and that is something that will always get you a foundation to build on. Going forward, content will not be king, but the volume of quality content. There is the underestimating of what quality content can do. Gears of War for Microsoft last generation, Uncharted, Killzone, The Last of Us (Sony), Red Dead Redemption were all new intellectual property that captured the imagination and this generation Sony has that with Horizon Zero Dawn.
Have a gaze at what Nintendo is doing with their first party.......the hardware is great for what it allows users to do, but they are also killing it in the first party front. I pay for Netflix, rarely use it but I am not ditching it for Hulu, Amazon Prime or any other streaming service because of the sheer amount of content, quality content they have.
Sony will get numbers, they always do. So what does Microsoft have to do? Have great hardware, improve on their vastly better services, nail their big name franchises (Halo, Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon, Gears of War and possibly Fable if this is indeed what Playground are working on) and bring some world class new experiences. If they do this they will have a good amount of people waiting to get game pass, and a few on the fence buying their console.
