So I find it kind of annoying the number of articles in the past 6 months that drone over how Gamepass is a game changer and Sony needs a response to it. Its just funny because Gamepass was MS's reply to Sony's already established PS NOW service. Just like Cross Play functionality, and Mid Gen Upgraded Hardware the media seems to rally behind Microsoft for doing what Sony had initially established. Take a look.....

Playstation Now

-service has over 750 games ready to stream

-Available on PS4, PC, Soon to return to Phones

-Mostly Stream, but just added ability to download select games directly

GamePass

-250 games available

-Available on XB1, PC, with Strong rumors of Switch 

-Currently is only download

Say what you will about which is the better service; PSNOW being stream only leaves it at the whim of internet speeds and other bandwidth issues. Gamepass has stable downloads to play on XB1 but this raises the question, how will this service work for next gen and their plan to touch other devices? STREAMING is the only answer to that, as you cannot play native games coded for other consoles. So PSNow is actually ahead of the curve for what is supposed to be MS's master plan with the service. Yet PSNOW also sports more than double the games available than Gamepass and makes a shit ton more money then anyone seems to be giving it credit for....

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2018/11/playstation_now_is_the_biggest_gaming_subscription_service

https://www.superdataresearch.com/gaming-subscription/

PSNow earned around $143 Million out of the total $273 Million made in Game Subscriptions in 2018

With this information, why pray tell does the Media keep pretending MS is leading this charge on Subscription/Stream gaming?

Is it because of the information of their Server Farms? Because all of that sounds good on paper but completely untested. I am not a tech expert, but as long as only half of the US has internet and US internet consistency remains dodgy I don't see even MS's High tech stream capability shirking the same issues PSNow has.

It feels like MS are paying for a huge marketing push for gamepass so the sudden influx of articles are no coincidence. I'd say MS are paying for many of them.

But as you rightly pointed out ps now is the leader and it's the Netflix of gaming.

I tried PSNOW on PC sometime last year and it was alright. I prefer gamepass thos cause of the day one launches which afiak psnow does not have.

Sony doesn't want to put their top content/top games on PSNow, it's a side service that they treat as a small potatoes part of their business.

MS is going all in with Gamer Pass and xCloud, that's the major difference.

Up until recently wasn't PSNow like just old PS3 titles? Sony doesn't want that to be the future of gaming because they do well as is, Microsoft has no such incentive to keep the status quo intact.

Probably because Game Pass has certain games the same day they release, that's about the only major difference I can think of.

I corrected it.

PS now is basically the beta for next gen. You will see it's true form next year. 

I don't see Sony winning this battle. It's going to be one of the real big contenders like MS, Google, Amazon, or Apple. Sony is small potatoes, they should have pushed PSNow harder in the past but they're too attached to the traditional game console model and they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

PSNow has been available for almost 5 years now in North America ... how do they not even have a smartphone app for it? How did they not have PS4 content available on it until very recently? They were not taking that very seriously. 

MS hasn't had the same success with physical hardware so they don't give a crap if that part of the industry goes up in flames. 

I mean that would be an awesome bullet point....if they were games the caliber of what Sony and Nintendo produce. So far GamePass has seen what? Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, Crackdown 3 Day and Date. Games that didn't perform well review or perception wise. Sea of Thieves from what I understand could make a comeback tho.

Did it get Forza? Will it get Gear of War 5? Will it get Halo Infinite?  I question how far they will take the "1st Party Games Day One" rule. Doing so could really cripple some well performing title's sales at retail.

It reminds me of when Sony first started doing Free games with Plus subscription. It was all fun and games until when the PS4 came out they saw a drop in lesser AA title sales because everyone was like "Oh, it will end up on Plus for free so I won't buy it". I think Sony facetiously didn't put many games as Plus titles (Like Knack for the longest) just to break that mindset.

Looks like day 1 for all major releases is Microsoft's standard.

MS doesn't give a fuck, that's what makes it so difficult for Sony to counter ... XBox sales are OK but they're nothing that special. But for Sony it's a massive problem if they're forced into making a streaming service that has day 1 content of new releases. 

How do you sell $60 copies of Spider-Man or God of War then? Why does anyone even need a PS5 then when you can just load up an app on your smart TV or even tablet/phone and play there? 

The situation puts Sony in a real bind, I'm sure they would prefer the gaming business to stay as status quo as it has been. MS is in this to beat Amazon and Google, they don't care if Sony's model has to burn down in the process.