| Ryuu96 said: All the events of the past year have just made me even more convinced that Microsoft is better positioning themselves for the future, I think in fact that maybe even for once Microsoft isn't moving too early, their console market is already tiny. Everything Microsoft has been saying for the past few years is coming to pass and I don't think it's a matter of budget restrictions why most of their AAAs aren't massive budgets as well. There's two problems here, the lack of growth for console hardware and the exploding budgets in AAA. There's going to be anger from single console only users, but the old ways are failing, they're not showing growth and growth is required for investors to invest. Things are bad right now, the models are outdated and they need changing, it's going to come down to change or die, things aren't going to miraculously improve for consoles in the future, if anything, they'll decline even further as newer generations care less and less about consoles and are more about mobile/ease of access, consoles will be seen as outdated by kids playing Fortnite or whatever on their mobile devices. I'm betting in the next 5-10 years that Sony goes fully day one on PC as well, I don't get why they haven't already, I don't agree that there's a significant amount of PC users with PCs capable of playing Sony's big AAA blockbusters, having already spent about $1k on them, who will buy a PS5 because they can't wait for a Sony title to come to PC. The dam has been broken, PC users already know now that it isn't a matter of if a Sony title comes to PC, it's a matter of when and they've shown themselves more than capable of waiting. We're talking about a userbase who largely can't even be bothered to spend 5 minutes to download another launcher and happily wait for EGS exclusivity to expire, Lol. Now Sony might not put stuff on Xbox consoles because Xbox consoles will be too small of a number but if roles were reversed I think they'd eventually do exactly what Microsoft is doing. If even Sony as the market leader of the high-end console market is struggling, showing stagnate growth, weak profit margins, exploding production costs and resulting in them having to change business approach, can sure as shit bet that the console with half the sales has to make even more drastic steps. A lot of people don't like change but change is coming, adapt or die. |
IMO, because Up to this point, they were hoping they could salvage the current status quo with here traditional way of doing things.
And PS5 was sold out everywhere for years giving the wrong signal that the market was expanding and possibly responding positively to Covid.
That's why in 2022 we heard rumors that PlayStation was aiming to sell 30m units in FY 2023.
That's also why last summer PS5 was discounted by $100 in an unusual period, while PS5 just became readily available. Even if there was not an unhealthy amount of PS5 sitting on shelves, just the fact it wasn't selling out anymore spelled disaster for a company that needed to expand the market far beyond the last gen.
That's why IMO, Sony fought tooth and nail the ABK acquisition, not because they feared that MS would make it so it be impossible for them to compete like they were portraying things but because they counted in part on Xbox's demise to grow their consumer base again this gen. Like I said in the past the ABK transaction going through is not directly what prompted Jim to take his leave but it put the final nail in the coffin that was Jim Ryan's strategy up to this point and not only this strategy failed but now the only lingering result places Playstation in having to do catchup to play by the new rules that are unfolding.
