Who is Sony's main threat/competitor today?

[KBG29]

potato_hamster said:

KBG29 said:
Sony's main threat, as always, is Sony itself. They have the tools to maintain and expand Playstation, but will they be able to come together as a unified force, or will they continue to in fight.

All Sony has to due to continue leading is offer value and freedom. They need to deliver multiple solutions to access Playstation Software and Services Locally and Over the Cloud. I have said it before, and I will say it again. Sony needs to deliver a unified experience across its VR, TVs, Consoles, Tablets, Handheld, and Phones.

If Sony can offer consumers the ability to boot up the PlayStation OS, Access the PlayStation Store and PSN, and enjoy their entire Library from every Sony device, then Sony maintains their dominance in gaming.

If Sony restricts its user base to a single device, then the entire rest of the electronics industry is a massive threat. Microsoft are well on the way to offering Local and Native playback of Xbox Games across Windows PC, Laptops, Tablets Etc., and Xbox Console, elsewhere they will have xCloud. Google is strongly rumored to have native playback available via a Set Top Box/Console, supplemented by Stream for other devices. There are also rumors of Amazon and Apple both delivering a Gaming Platform in the near future.

AAA games are not going to be limited to console going forward, they won't be limited to Handheld, PC, or even Smartphone. Next gen will be about being able to game where you want, at the level of detail you want to pay for.

If Sony doesn't double down on PlayStation, and broaden its horizons, PS5 will be the Vita of the console market. As always, the ball is in their court.

Sony isn't going to do anything you suggested for obvious reasons that you pretend are irrelevant, and the PS5 will still not be the vita of the console market.

Apple technically has a "gaming platform" right now. Here. Watch some random play Angry Birds on the apple TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIIORzt33xU

There's no reason to suspect their boxes will be anything more than Ouya 2.0. Like great, my wife will be able to play bejeweled blitz and pokemon go from the comfort of her own home -  so what? The console gaming market is small potatoes for Apple and Google, and the barriers to enter and compete and fucking massive compared to pretty much anything else. You can't even convince apple or google to spend 1/10th the cost of a AAA gaming budget to make a smartphone game as it is since there is about a 0% chance you're going to convince your average cellphone/tablet user to spend $60 on a game for their phone, and they're not gonna care less about being able to play that game on TVs or car stereos, much less be willing to pay extra for it. What makes you think Apple/Google are going to do that for a device that will at best sell a small fraction of what smartphone and tablet sales amount to? They just don't care, and will continue to not care. Like I said, it's small potatoes and it's an established industry. There's no reason to Apple or Google to pick up that torch and fight Sony and Nintendo over video games.

Sony's going to do what Sony does best. Make solid gaming hardware, and give people reasons to buy that over the other options. That certainly doesn't involve putting putting an OS as bloated as the Playstation OS on fucking TVs and smartphones. Sony already had their own offerings and moved away from them for every obvious reasons that you still want to pretend are irrelevant.

I don't think either one of us is ever going to budge on our opinions on this matter. All I can say is Google is absolutely coming for the gaming market, and Android has basically wiped out Bravia and Xperia, and cost Sony more losses than anything else in the history of the company. Sony failed to keep up with the industry in the mobile space with PlayStation and it is the worst decision the company has ever made. As I see it, if they fail to keep up with the rest of the industry in the home space, people will leave just as fast.

If they fail with the PlayStation ecosystem, they have no where to turn. People are not going to buy a Console from them that runs Android or Windows. I do not believe for a second that a single PS5 console will compete against PC, TV, Set Top Box, Tablet, Smartphone, and Handheld offerings from the rest of the market, when people can get Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto, Fifa, NBA 2K, and everything else 3rd party and Microsoft on every other device. PlayStation will by far offer the worst value for 3rd party titles, while requiring a Proprietary device that exists outside of everything else in peoples connected lives. I do not believe Sony can dominate the market on exclusives alone, and if things go the way they are looking right now, that is all they will have.