By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony Discussion - Who is Sony's main threat/competitor today?

 

Who is Sony's main threat/competitor today?

Microsoft 17 19.10%
 
Nintendo 30 33.71%
 
A new Player (Google, Nvi... 6 6.74%
 
Sony 36 40.45%
 
Total:89
DonFerrari on 12 March 2019
potato_hamster said:
KBG29 said:
Sony's main threat, as always, is Sony itself. They have the tools to maintain and expand Playstation, but will they be able to come together as a unified force, or will they continue to in fight.

All Sony has to due to continue leading is offer value and freedom. They need to deliver multiple solutions to access Playstation Software and Services Locally and Over the Cloud. I have said it before, and I will say it again. Sony needs to deliver a unified experience across its VR, TVs, Consoles, Tablets, Handheld, and Phones.

If Sony can offer consumers the ability to boot up the PlayStation OS, Access the PlayStation Store and PSN, and enjoy their entire Library from every Sony device, then Sony maintains their dominance in gaming.

If Sony restricts its user base to a single device, then the entire rest of the electronics industry is a massive threat. Microsoft are well on the way to offering Local and Native playback of Xbox Games across Windows PC, Laptops, Tablets Etc., and Xbox Console, elsewhere they will have xCloud. Google is strongly rumored to have native playback available via a Set Top Box/Console, supplemented by Stream for other devices. There are also rumors of Amazon and Apple both delivering a Gaming Platform in the near future.

AAA games are not going to be limited to console going forward, they won't be limited to Handheld, PC, or even Smartphone. Next gen will be about being able to game where you want, at the level of detail you want to pay for.

If Sony doesn't double down on PlayStation, and broaden its horizons, PS5 will be the Vita of the console market. As always, the ball is in their court.

Sony isn't going to do anything you suggested for obvious reasons that you pretend are irrelevant, and the PS5 will still not be the vita of the console market.

Apple technically has a "gaming platform" right now. Here. Watch some random play Angry Birds on the apple TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIIORzt33xU

There's no reason to suspect their boxes will be anything more than Ouya 2.0. Like great, my wife will be able to play bejeweled blitz and pokemon go from the comfort of her own home -  so what? The console gaming market is small potatoes for Apple and Google, and the barriers to enter and compete and fucking massive compared to pretty much anything else. You can't even convince apple or google to spend 1/10th the cost of a AAA gaming budget to make a smartphone game as it is since there is about a 0% chance you're going to convince your average cellphone/tablet user to spend $60 on a game for their phone, and they're not gonna care less about being able to play that game on TVs or car stereos, much less be willing to pay extra for it. What makes you think Apple/Google are going to do that for a device that will at best sell a small fraction of what smartphone and tablet sales amount to? They just don't care, and will continue to not care. Like I said, it's small potatoes and it's an established industry. There's no reason to Apple or Google to pick up that torch and fight Sony and Nintendo over video games.

Sony's going to do what Sony does best. Make solid gaming hardware, and give people reasons to buy that over the other options. That certainly doesn't involve putting putting an OS as bloated as the Playstation OS on fucking TVs and smartphones. Sony already had their own offerings and moved away from them for every obvious reasons that you still want to pretend are irrelevant.

Sony could work more for the OS on their TVs support app for PSNow or let's say stream play from a PS system on a different room (like remote play). And could also allow app to work on their console to have store for Android and iOS games.

They could also improve their phones to run better games and even get back to Playstation Phone (don't think it would be good), can make a new HH that have easy scalability to run same game bought on PS5.

But nothing like what KBG29 hopes with unified PS OS.

zorg1000 said:
potato_hamster said:

You have some strange friends if you think your average joe cares what operating system their TV runs.

Ya I own multiple smart TVs and I've never put 2 seconds of thought into what OS my TV runs until reading this conversation. Most people look at a combination of price, screen size & resolution when getting a TV. People dont care about OS, all they care about is if it has the popular apps like Netflix, Hulu, etc.

I just know the OS of my TV because of the marketplace icon and that when I reset it shows it is android. Besides that I saw the OS when I was looking at compatible app to do specific things on my TV. But yes haven't heard anyone but KBG29 friends caring any for the TV OS.

Baddman said:
nintendo ms google apple any big tech company can be a threat thinking otherwise would lead me to think people are just fanboying for their preferred brands

Or just looking at historic.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Around the Network
potato_hamster on 12 March 2019
KBG29 said:
potato_hamster said:

You have some strange friends if you think your average joe cares what operating system their TV runs.

If you want to argue with a straight face that Sony adopting Android OS onto their phones instead of whatever OS they were running before that that was getting completely and utterly shredded by Android and iOS actually hurt Sony's phone sales rather than sticking with whatever they had or putting on their own new, OS and trying to go toe-to-toe with google and apple in the cell phone, well.... you're entitled to think that, I guess, but that's about as polite as I can be.

Ohh, and Sony never "killed off the Vita to focus on Xperia". The Vita was still born. They just accepted its death and moved on.

Ohh you think you're going to be able to play Madden 20 or GTA 6 on a tablet or directly off a smart TV and get an experience that's close enough? That's cute. You think that streaming is going to be good enough to compete with dedicated hardware directly? That's cute too. You think that people are going to spend $60 to play Madden on their iPad? That's just plain adorable. None of those devices are going to offer the same or even a "good enough" experience to a PS5 or Xbox Two. You're going to be in for a rude awakening when in 5-6 years time these two consoles have a combined 120+ million in sales and people are still using the phones and tablets to play Angry Birds or whatever generic free mobile game is popular then. You must be REALLY confused how Nintendo has sold 30+ million Switches in less than 2 years. Shouldn't Apple and Google be eating Nintendo's dinner at the "portable gaming space" by your metrics?

Do you know the average Joe?

I very rarely meet anyone regardless of if they are a child, middle age, or elderly that does not know what device or OS they are using to get content to their TV. Name an OS that can be used either on a TV, Set Top Box, Streaming Stick, Console, or PC, and I can tell you numerous people that are die hards for it. Obviously not everyone cares, but you would be surprised who does, and even more surprised how important it is to them.

Laugh all you want about what kind of experience you think are coming to these devices, just remember progress is real, and a lot changes over time.

Where you get the idea I think people are going to pay $60 to play a game exclusively on their tablet I haven't a clue. It is not even remotely what I am claiming, or what companies are even talking about. The idea is that people pay $60 per game, or $10 -$20 a month for a library of games, and they will have access to that game on every device they own. That is where Sony is going to get hit hard if they don't stay competitive. If $60 on a game in the PlayStation Ecosystem gets you the rights to play a game on exclusively PS5, while $60 on Microsoft, Google, or Apple, gets you the rights to play the game on your PC, TV, Set Top Box, Console, Tablet, Phone, and Handheld, then Sony is going to be an obvious rip off. As far as we know right now, that is exactly the direction Microsoft and Google are going, and unless Sony has something up their sleeve, PlayStation games will be PS5 only.

I don't know why I would be surprised with the Switch's sales, they are selling a device that replaces both their Home and Mobile offerings. Nintendo has almost exclusively sold devices on 3rd party content for 20+ years. I would be more shocked if a Nintendo handheld/Console Hybrid with the entire Nintendo library was a failure. Thinking that the Switch would be a failure would completely contradict my theory that an Xbox or PlayStation Phone would be a viable device within the Windows and PlayStation Ecosystems.

At the end of the day, I hope you are right. I hope that PlayStation succeeds, and doesn't get wiped away by complacency. PlayStation has been the Home of 99% of my digital experiences since I was 9 years old. Things just don't look all that rosy right now.

Maybe it's because you live inear Seattle, which you know, was Silicon Valley before Silicon Valley was a thing, and is still a giant tech hub.  I bet the average person's tech literacy there is signifcantly higher than most anywhere else in the country or probably the world.

Do I know the average joe? I like to think I do. Most of my friends, families, peers, etc are not tech enthusiasts. They barely know what an HDMI cord is. Most of my kid's friend's moms (and you're talking about university graduate late 20's/early 30's women) refer to all game consoles as "Nintendos". They couldn't give less of a shit what operating system of their tv is because most of them don't even realize that the menus that allow them to watch netflix using their TV remote control is "an operating system". I don't know anyone who has a solar panel installed on their room. I don't know anyone that owns an electric car. Your average joe is very tech illiterate. If you don't believe me, just go to an apple store and listen in to someone giving a tutorial on how to do basic functions on their shiny new iPhone. They offer those classes because a significant portion of the population doesn't know how these things works, and can't figure them out on their own.

While you're at it. Why don't you look into what the average american internet connection is. I think the results will absolutely shock you. Have you learned nothing from the Xbox One launch? The average american's internet situation isn't actually improved that much in the last five years.

Just like VR, people aren't going to want to put the time and effort into dicking around with technology if it doesn't offer an experience that is worth the effort. If someone just owns a tablet and not a gaming PC or a console is not going to shell out $60 for Madden. Period. Full stop. It's patently ridiculous to think that. No one is gonna want to shell out $60 for madden to play it on an 8" tablet with touch screen controls, especially if it's streamed The only reason game pass is getting the latest and greatest games from MS is because they're no longer selling in meaningful numbers on their own. Sony's dominance in the console space has forced MS to devalue their game brands into a $20 a month subscription, which I might add, I bet you'd be surprised how many xbox one owners have no idea what Game Pass is.  I assure you they'd much rather be doing what Sony is doing and getting the sales Sony is getting.

Nintendo has exclusively sold devices on third party content? I take it you mean first party content? And please, lighten up on the "hybrid" talk. It's a portable console that came with a dock in the box. It's not exactly revolutionary. But hey, Sony has ate Nintendo's lunch in the home console space that even they have given up on trying to compete. Also, what are you talking about with Nintendo and MS teaming up? Nintendo is allowing some Xbox live integration to facilitate cross console network play. Everything else is just a rumour.

It does seem strange to me that you think it's sensible that Nintendo is making a portable device that competes for pocket space with cell phones that isn't getting its lunch eaten by Apple and Google, but Sony, dominating a home console, with a first party lineup that's arguably stronger and more popular than it's ever been before is a fucking finger snap from an Apple and Google exec from being decimated in the home console space, even though neither have even come close to attempting a home console offering... because Sony's Smartphones and TVs don't run a Sony Playstation-based operating system. There's a disconnect in your logic there.

Things are just fine in Sony Playstation land. They're just not doing what you want them them to do, and you've convinced yourself that the sky is falling on them as a result.



flashfire926 on 12 March 2019

In North America/UK/Australia, Microsoft is their biggest competition.
In Japan, Nintendo is their competition.

In the rest of the world, their only competition is themselves.



Bet with Intrinsic:

The Switch will outsell 3DS (based on VGchartz numbers), according to me, while Intrinsic thinks the opposite will hold true. One month avatar control for the loser's avatar.

Cerebralbore101 on 12 March 2019

People seem to think that streaming games to mobile devices are a serious threat to Sony. Here's a couple of things they don't realize.

1. Just to stream PS3 games at 720p you need 8 Mbps just to get a decent image. 

2. The average US consumer's internet speed is only 18 Mbps. 

3. The majority of people living in the USA don't have 18 Mbps. The average is increased by a minority that have much better internet than that. 

4. 1080p is 2.5 times larger than 720p. 

5. I'm not a tech junkie, but I'm willing to bet that it takes 2.5 as much internet speed to go from 720 streaming to 1080 streaming. 

6. ISPs are slowly moving towards charging customers by the gigabyte, or putting caps on data, in the USA.



derpysquirtle64 on 12 March 2019

Sony themselves is probably the right answer. It is gonna be hard for them to lose such dominance in the next-gen unless they screw up somehow. The mindshare is with playstation brand nowadays. Nintendo can and possibly will win over Sony in Japan, and Xbox can overtake them in US next gen but other than that, Sony should do pretty much the same if they continue to do what they've been doing this entire gen.



 

Around the Network
Kanemaru on 14 March 2019

If Sony continue their stupid policy about censorship, Microsoft & Nintendo will litteraly bury them on the next gen.



Agente42 on 14 March 2019
It's so funny when they tell the story of the Sony video game people have forgotten the portable scene. Sony lost twice from Nintendo in portable scene. And once on the stationary scene. The Sony gaming division never had the net profit scale that Nintento had in the era of the Wii / DS. Microsoft is rich, powerful, but it is a paper tiger in the video game market. Microsoft has never won the generation. Never. Apple tried it once and got its ass kicked in the video game market. Google is a big question mark. The real threat is Nintendo. Because Nintendo now has only one system, the same way as Sony. Nintendo has never lost in the portable market, now it will use that factor as a trojan horse for its hybrid.

asqarkabab on 03 April 2019

They themselves are their own competitor and threat
Remember arrogant Sony in the Ps3 times



REQUIESCAT IN PACE

I Hate REMASTERS

I Hate PLAYSTATION PLUS

hunter_alien on 03 April 2019
BraLoD said:
Themselves.
Sony is the only one able to screw Sony.

I came in to say this, found out I was late to the party

OT: regardless of what happens, IMO Sony differentiated itself well enough, that they won't have a real competitor in the near future. IMO next gen, they will easily ship another 100 million + systems, regardless of what the competition brings to the table. Their internal studios are so reliable, and franchises so strong, that people will buy into their offering. 



Vote the Mayor for Mayor!