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| Sephiran said: I wonder why Sony and Microsoft don't realize that Steam is a competitor |
Steam is to Playstation and Microsoft what Netflix is to cable TV, and streaming services are to digital stores like iTunes
Consoles were something that made sense when technology advanced fast enough to justify regular hardware purchases, and the hardware needed to be friendly enough for people with low digital literacy to plug and play (for an affordable price)
You dont need to think much to see realize how most of those points are slowly ceasing to exist. Soon there will only reason to purchase a console instead of using Steam: Habit and familiarity (either with the technology or with the games)
You cannot really compete against someone whose business model, on its core, is simply much more efficient. When consoles compete directly against Steam where their standing grounding is similar (read: Developing markets) consoles always lose
What prevents consoles form collapsing is the fact human beings past young adult years hate to change how they do things. Consoles are generation after generation unable to create new markets, they are currently in the red ocean that's why no console can grown past 160 million range (and if we are tlaking about active playbase, they dont even get to 120 million range), while Steam user count will be well past 200 million somewhere in future
Right now Sony seems focused in keeping the userbase they already cultivated for as long they are willing to keep buying Playstation. They know they cannot capture Steam users, releasing their games on Steam is simply to farm extra money from an userbase who will never buy a Playstation in first place
