What threat does Gamepass pose for Sony in the long run?

[Runa216]

sales2099 said:

Runa216 said:

So where's that logic when I talk about Backwards compatibility, and say that PS4's library is bigger than the three libraries of the Xbox, 360, and One coming forward? One catalog vs three, and it won. Just accept that Sony wins some places, Microsoft wins others, and clearly the areas where PS excels are the places that gamers care about, as Sony has consistently done well and has done outstandingly this gen. That's not even an opinion, that's observable truth, and what I've been saying since the beginning. 

My point is, in relation to the thread at hand, is that Sony isn't worried about GamePass. They have nothing to fear. It's a good service that doesn't seem to impact their business model at all. They have an equivalent in PSNow and people don't care as much about it, so they focus their resources elsewhere - like on exclusives and actually giving us new hardware that isn't just the same as the old hardware. What Microsoft did this gen didn't work for them. It may have been profitable, but it's not as good as what Sony's doing. The 48 million vs 113 millon consoles sold should speak volumes to that fact. And again, to repeat, Microsoft wins in some areas and Sony wins in others, and the fact that PS4 sold so much more than Xbox both in hardware and software shows that the areas that Sony won are clearly of higher value to customers. That's business. 

Having more shovelware from being the market leader in 1 gen doesn’t make you the BC king if you only have one gen to show for it. 

But we agree that Sony isn’t worried about Game Pass, which is exactly how MS likes it. Sony doing the same thing gen after gen. Make a console, make exclusives, sell consoles. Which has more then worked out but the market is changing and expanding fast. Even Nintendo adapted and appeals to the handheld crowd in addition to home console crowd.

Streaming and subscription models are gonna be more and more prominent, and Sony will likely be fine, but stuck in the console only “walled garden”. Where as Game Pass will have cornered the PC and mobile markets in their complacency.

Shovelware? Dude, I checked. PS4 has 99 exclusives compared to Xbox One's 24. a 4:1 ratio. And none of those are shovelware. I only included titles that have 75 or higher on metacritic, and have at least 20 reviews to show this. You can't just claim 'shovelware' because you don't like to admit that PS4's library is provably better than Xbox's. 

Also, people have been saying Streaming is going to take over since 2012 when Sony bought Gaikai. it's been tinkering around the edges of the industry for nearly a decade now and it's still not the driving force in gaming that it is in TV/Movies, likely because of the interactive nature of the medium. You can't just repeat the same 'it's gonna be big' all the time and hope it's true. The way things went this entire generation tells a different tale. GamePass and Streaming and Subscription models are nice additives to a console's game library, but they're not a key driving force. If it was...

then the Xbox...

Would have Sold...

a whole lot more...

Than it did...

This 'Gamepass is gonna change the world' narrative is fantasy. IT's a good deal, we all agree to that, but it's not grabbing the industry like your narrative would suggest. And honestly, I'm personally glad it's not guiding the industry. I'd probably give up on gaming if I had to pay a monthly fee just to play games. It's fine as an option, but it's not the driving force in the industry, hasn't been for as long as it's been known about, and doesn't seem to be shaking things up much. I just...why do you keep pushing the same narrative and the same ideals and the same false claims all the time. If the things you keep saying about Xbox are true, then things would be different. You're talking theories, potential, and possibility, but we have something like 8 years of experience and data that counters your claims. 

Honestly, I'd like to be wrong, in a manner of speaking. I'd like for Nintendo to do their Nintendo thing and do well with the Switch, for Sony to do well with its mass market, worldwide appeal and high quality story-based exclusives, and Microsoft to excel at online services and multiplayer games. At least that would give each company value again like the PSWii60 era. right now, Xbox is going after the same crowd that Sony already has won and haven't brought anywhere near the quality or quantity to compete so they're just hoping to throw money at the problem and strong-arm their way into people's homes by buying companies that has yet to pay off. 

Everyone has this idea that Microsoft is doing better now because they didn't try to pull a DRM scam on gamers leading into Gen 9, so a lot of people like you are praising them for learning their lesson and thinking about the consumer but they're coming off 3-5 years of the most anemic release schedule they've ever seen. Gamepass isn't helping to bandage over the complete lack of reasons to get the console. It's nice that many of their exclusives are going to be on gamepass day one, that's a good idea...but when they only get 1-3 exclusives a year worth getting excited about, well it's not worth it and it's not helping. 

Hell, they can't even launch a console with a Halo game anymore. I just don't think they're doing anything to scare Sony. As I said, Playstation has Now which is comparable in functionality but not as popular because it's got lower quality games and isn't marketed as well, their backwards compatibility is more robust, their exclusives are hilariously outclassing Xbox's exclusives in terms of reviews and sales, and Microsoft has all these neat ideas that just aren't working out. Sony at their worst outsold Microsoft at their best. I am quite confident Gamepass is not a threat to Sony. It hasn't been in the past, and unless Microsoft really amps up the production of first party exclusives, it will always just be that thing on Xbox that all Xbox users have but PS users don't need.