I have said that MS strategy of cheaper and most powerful could leave a big opening for Sony to come in the middle and give the most conscious choice with the best balance of cost and benefits. With Series S serving to anchor PS5 (now discless, because when I started saying this like 6 months ago there was no rumour of discless PS5) and make it even more attractive.

No. Not at all. Gamepass is just what sony does with PS+ on steroids. Giving ou free games every month, and if you download them its yours forever as long as you have an active subscription.

Gamepass just builds up that library vs sony taking them off every month they add new games. But like with PS+, you still have to have an active subscription to access whatever you got via gamepass.

This is not about better services or anything like that, its simply about depth of software and a delivery method or service as this case may be. That's why this is easily adaptable. All sony literally has to do to match games pass, is have a library of games that are instantly available to you once you sign up for PS+, say all the games they have released on the service over the last like 4 years, and then release their first-party games on the service on day one so as long as you have the service you don't have to go out and buy the games. As I said, easily adaptable.

But sony will not do this because they don't need to do this. MS on the other hand does. And as I said before (feels like I am always repeating myself), if MS just came off a gen where they had at least one first-party game every year selling like 10M units (at least after a year n market), they wouldn't be doing it either.

I think MS is doing better than last time, but still not a big mic drop. People disliked their Halo showing, it got pushed back and now has 0 first party at launch. Now the Xbox series S got leaked and didn't do that much noise.

Sony will win atleast the launch for sure, but i'm curious to see the price of the PS5 and what they will show further. Feels like there isn't much hype for the launch on both parts (at least to me) and it's launching in 3 months.

I believe you are oversimplifying.  The difficulty is not only in the technology.  Microsoft is making all of their first party games available to gamepass on day 1.  That means this is a new business model.  It's a new business model that very well may crash and burn.  Or it may prove to be very successful.  But if it does end up successful then that will give Microsoft a hell of a head start against Sony.  The first year of a console's life is it's most important.  A strong start during the first year means Microsoft will probably be strong for the whole generation.  Or a really weak start probably means they are going to have a rough time all generation.

Exactly. Thats the same point I am making.

If this was what MS was going to do all along, they should have put the XSS at the forefront of all their marketing. Been pushing the narrative that upscaled 1440p to 4K is ideal for next-gen and that you get into next-gen at a lower price of $299. They should have been silent on anything teraflop related as they have been with the XSS. And still pushed their SSD talk.

Then around this time, after the PS5 has been revealed, boom. Make an announcement for your 12TF premium console. And market it as such, a premium console. 

But now, what they have done is push power to the forefront of every next-gen gamers' head. They have sold that narrative. Only to turn around and also have the weakest console of all the next-gen offerings. Which literally is like them saying, "yeah, you know that power thing we have been saying? well, its no real that important".

And just like that, the PS5 which basically has just the one spec (outside that one has a disc drive and the other doesn't), just suddenly starts looking better than it really is.

And as always, as is always the case, the real price battle wil always be fought amongst the most budget-friendly hardware. In this case, that is the $299 XSS vs the $399 PS5D. (well, unless of course the PS5D is going to b $449, but I really am leaving towards PS5D being $399 and the PS5 being $449.), and if that is the case, I expect MS o try and match the $449 PS5 price with the XSX, I think that is what this whole price chess thing they have been doing has always been about. 

No oversimplification here bro.

This thing is simple. What is game pass?

Its a subscription service that has a library of games that you can "download" to your console. 

That's it. Period. Done. 

How does sony emulate such a service?

Expand the already existing PS now, which also allows game downloads mind you (easy way) or just start a new service, hell call it PS Nation, and add games released on PS+ over the last 4 years (that's 96 games) and then go onto add all your first-party releases to the service and every upcoming release on day one and as many third party new releases as you can secure. 

Things like these aren't that hard at all. And when sony starts isn't what matters, what matters is what games will be on the service and as far as that is concerned, Sony has by far the better software library. But as I keep saying, sony WILL NOT DO this, because they don't need to do it. But if they see that somehow its doing wonders for MS, then it something they can easily adapt.

Personally, I think you are attaching to much significance to gamepass. It's a great idea, but I just feel that for games, its an unsustainable business model. 

I remember, as well as those who thought a 1080p next gen console was crazy and was never going to happen, because it would be so stupid. Well it's not so crazy now, but we're still yet to determine how smart or stupid this decision was.

A $399 PS5 DE would cast a partial shadow over the XBSS, but if MS is smart, they will make it darn clear that the XBSX would be a waste unless you're gaming on a 4k screen. If they can push that messaging, clearly and loud, it will hurt PS5 DE sales, because why pay $100 more for that extra performance if you don't need 4k capabilities? The casuals won't take the games argument into account like the hardcore will, and XBSS would benefit from it's $100 advantage. Depending on the XBSX price, the XBSS may also be the preferred sale because it's costing MS less and is probably less of a sub, if not breaking even compared to cost and losses of XBSX.

Perhaps a stupid question, but has it been 100% confirmed by SNY that PS5 and PS5 DE are identical in every way, other than the optical drive? It's been explained what's in the PS5, and I've gone through a few articles quickly here, but none of them clearly state that both the PS5 and PS5 DE are exactly the same specs, minus the optical drive. Now based on their form factor and what's been talked about, I would assume they're the same, but do we really know?

If there's a $100 gap between PS5 DE and XBSS, I'd guess XB should be able to put themselves back in 360 sales territory, if they can bring the games. This was about the only choice they had anyway. If they tried to go toe to toe with PS5 and compete as directly as possible, very little would have changed from this gen.

The next move would be to eventually slim down the XBSX and make it all digital, while introducing a new top tier model (with an optical drive again). Get the all digital crowd to not only upgrade, but remain all digital.

XBSS $299.
GamePass $9.99.
You've got a next-gen console with instant access to just about every new game. Xbox could very well surprise us all.

Exactly, what MS needs to do with XBSS is basically make as clear a distinction between it and the XBSX as possible. Bt they are already failing at this, their official tweet IIRC on the XBSS still ven mentions 1440p upscaling to 4K. This means even there they are still pushing that whole power is relevant argument.

But if they did what you said, then it would be a case of, well I don't have a 4KTV or need one so I will just get an XBSS instead of spending an extra $100 for 4K that I do not need. But if they did that, then they are also making their XBSX seem even less relevant. I mean,if a $299 box can play the exact same games ad everything is the same outside resolution, why do i need to spend $200 for 4K? When I can spend $100 more for 4Kon the PS5?

And yes, its been officially confirmed that the only difference between the two is the disc drive.

Eric: The idea here is, there’s a second [PS5] that represents the growth of the digital business over the years…. And a lot of consumers have shifted the way they interact with our products. Part of my job, and my team’s, is to talk to consumers all the time, understand what they like and what they want. And there’s a segment of consumers that just want to go digital.

So this is the answer to that need. It’s a discless version [of PS5]. It’s important to note that, it’s essentially the same product. You’re not talking about any change to features, or any change to power. It’s the same product, with slight cosmetic differences, and no disc drive. So it’s all digital.

I think it is a near certainty that XB will sell better next gen than this gen. But, unless Sony screws up, or MS decides they want to win no matter the cost, it seems pretty unlikely that XB can outsell PS5.

MS has pockets so deep that they can easily outsell PS5 if they decide that's important to them. They could give the consoles away if they wanted to. They're not going to do that, of course. But, if they decide that they need an XB is 200 million houses for some reason, they certainly can make it happen by dropping the price to something insanely low .