This isn't a bashing on Sony, but rather a compliment.
I too had fallen for some of the “Sony wants to cater to the gamer more” theories. After E3 last year, it seems that they had really managed to show Microsoft that the gaming community was not interested in DRM or Digital Only ownership (or Kinect in the box it seems). The gaming community rejoiced that Sony had saved them from the evils that Microsoft had intended.
I myself was more in the middle. I liked some aspects of it and also hated others. But, I did recognize that it was more of an obvious direction of the future than anything else. If you have any investment in the Apple ecosystem, Microsoft’s plan was a big step up from that.
As we all know, a little over a year later, we sit here today and the consumers have spoken with their wallets. The PS4 is clearly their system of choice and Microsoft has 180’d themselves to the point that their eyes can’t stop spinning in their head.
This is where when we have finally learned that we have all been duped.
When Sony turned down the EA Access package, I could have just assumed that they simply didn’t like the cost model EA had proposed or some other business reason. But when Sony announced that they had decided for all of us that it was a bad deal and that they did it to protect us, I knew something was wrong. One thing to remember is that gamers don’t have to pay for the EA program to play EA games, it is an option of theirs if they want it.
Sony allows Netflix and other such services, why not a gaming related one on a gaming system?
The reason is too obvious of course. They didn’t want publisher DRM, because they wanted their own Sony DRM instead. They want complete control of the pie. Sony wants to decide who gets paid and how much. Based on the future of PS Now, they will control the whole pie. If a publisher doesn’t want to go through Sony’s store and pay what Sony wants, then go to retail and pay what they want and all of the costs of distribution. Had Sony accepted the EA program, they would have gotten only a small fraction of the $2.50 per month that EA was collecting. Also, they would have had EA selling their digital product direct to the consumer and further reducing their cut/control. Sony also knew that soon enough, almost all of the publishers of any size would have their own “store within a store”. All control over the bigger publishers would be lost. Microsoft wanted the same thing, but they were dumb enough to tell us up front.
I am very proud of the fact that Sony has pulled of one of the most amazing marketing tricks. They managed to convince almost all of the gamers and most of the media that they were not implementing DRM because they wanted to protect the gamers. They rode that wave to a huge lead in introducing a new console. Meanwhile, they are working real hard to ensure that now that they have a market advantage in console sales, they will have complete control of the inevitable digital future.
Don’t blame Sony, they just copied Apples business model. Apple said all of the same things 10 years ago when they were convincing us to go all digital with our music. I just can’t believe we all fell for it AGAIN!
Source = ME
It is near the end of the end....