The only trophy they get from me is that this gen Sony did everything right in terms of perception.
Many people are amazingly happy with everything Sony does while many things MS does results in "nobody cares", "shitty move" and so on.
And this is not just speaking of the launch of the consoles.
It is about the introduction of BC where people argue they didn't care about it ever but don't argue while this would perhaps be different when you can still play games online and that digital releases also a new variable.
Then the outrage that MS bought TR - they didn't even buy it completely, it is only a timed exclusive. Arguing this has been done before for TR (thus making it not appear on *any* other console) or for other games (timed exclusivity) nobody cares about anymore.
Sony just do it right - SF5? "We help making the game". Sure, they do. But they are also paying for making it exclusive to the console. But they do it in a smart way, the perception is that they are still "the good guys".
Add to this that they have a large community behind them which just like Sony. Which is totally ok and somehow deserved as Sony delivers with games, always. But even they are just a company with money in mind, they just do better PR this gen.
Paying for online, though? Yes, the service is expensive, and money has to come back. Sony had to do this, they want to get money off it, not paying extra money. Especially bandwidth cost for them are a lot higher this gen because of way bigger downloads, a trend that people decide to buy more games digital and huge patches. Such a service can't be free for them.
But again, we can see a different perception here:
People here said that they bought PS+ before so they just went on paying (and this just shows that this is a dedicated forum - the rise in PS+ subscriptions can't be justified by the free games, like at all).
So Sony did good because they introduced PS+ last gen and added online gaming to that service.
But "shitty" MS made you pay for online before (which also resulted in a way better online service) and they "only" copied the free games that Sony offered.
Difference: perception.
