Which was basically what I was getting at. Thanks for the considered response.
Well...on this point why would we look at Windows/Office, Apple with the iphone, or god forbid Ford with the F150 when we have actual historical data from Sony themselves to determine how they do when they are market leading?
In the wake of the PS1's overwhelming market dominance, Sony designed and released the PS2 in 2000 which was not conservative at all. DVD Drive, emotion engine, firewire hookup, optional hard drive and ethernet adaptor...the thing blew minds leading up to release.
In the wake of the PS2's overwhelming market dominance, Sony designed and released the PSP in 2004/5, and then the PS3 in 2006.
Neither design was conservative (especially not the PSP- Sony created an entirely new media format for that), and with the PS3 specifically sony was willing to lose a LOT of money to establish Blu-Ray and Cell as industry standards.
Even after the PS3 clearly struggled, Sony designed and released the Vita in 2011, which again was not a conservative design. They bought Gaikai in 2012 for $380M, which again- was an extremely aggressive move given that Gaikai had no plausible way to return that investment 7 years ago.
It was only after the struggles of the PS3 and complete failure of the Vita that a more conservatively designed PS4 got released- but even then Sony went all-in on first party software development, increasing their risks in the software area even as the hardware was nothing to write home about.
So with Sony's return to the top of the pile, the implication that suddenly they'll position the PS5 like Microsoft does with Windows or Ford does with the F150....simply doesn't make sense. It's directly at odds with how they're known to behave.
to be completely clear once again, I was speaking of throwing money at the consoles themselves as something MS is not going to do. I believe that losing money on network and streaming solutions like Gamepass or Xcloud is something that they will do in the short term- because the path to success by "selling boxes" is simply out of reach for them. This isn't really a hypothetical, Gamepass is definitely a loss leader right now. They're giving it away for $1 to draw people into the ecosystem. At some point it also will have to find a path to profitability, but that time isn't right now.
I think Sony's price strategy is less about microsoft and gamepass than it was anticipation of increased competition in the space from Stadia. Gamepass has been around since 2017 and made absolutely no impact on how many consoles got sold. The Ps4 is still totally crushing the Xbox by something like a 3:1 margin. It isn't moving the needle in the space Sony actually cares about. On the other hand, Sony didn't bother to drop the price of PSNow until October of 2019, a few weeks before the official launch of Stadia in November. We know now that google completely botched the launch of that in every way one possibly COULD, but leading up to the actual release it was a legitimate threat to both Sony and Microsoft's business plans.
here I think you're off base, and not by a small margin. Good we agree that Microsoft will not sell the XSX for $399 if PS5 comes in at $499. That is absolutely not happening and this was the point of my post. As for that "$299" console-
everything we've heard about this points to that console being heavily stripped down from the "Anaconda" variant of the XSX. Less Ram, slower CPU, slower GPU. They're not subsidizing it, they're using less ram and (likely) binned parts that didn't make the grade for Anaconda to drive down cost. That's not subsidized at all. It will be sold at the same margins "Anaconda" will, though obviously sell less units.
As for "making all of their games available day 1 for a $10 charge" they're doing that now. It's meant to float gamepass, not sell consoles- you don't NEED to buy the box if all you're interested in is playing the next Halo- it will run on PCs and other devices that people already own.
And finally, from a math perspective MS sold "about" 8 million units of the XBO each year the first several years on the market. The data for that was already posted. Eating an additional $100 per console for two years (let's call it two years, for argument) over 16 million units loses MS $1.6 Billion dollars.
That's billion, with a B. There is no scenario anywhere where giving first party games away, even for free, gamepass aside loses microsoft 1.6 Billion dollars. They simply don't make that many games to begin with. Even if we assume a game development budget of $100M per game, it would take 16 AAA games in 2 years given away completely free to match the number MS would hit with a $100 per unit price cut. They make about "3" such games per year right now, being generous.
Again, not happening, not in the same ballpark.
This ignores everything Sony was doing from the PS1 through the release of the PS3 that was not conservative by any definition. That's not how they run that company.