Nintendo will do whatever they want to do. And for these past 7 generations it has worked because of their legendary mascots. Nintendo has been right about one thing every generation. They have been faithful to bring out new iterations of their beloved franchises. And because of that they have built up a massive fanbase. There are not too many franchises that have been around 20 + years. And since Nintendo has probably a dozen really famous mascots that people love, fans will buy their consoles no matter what they do with their hardware just to play their franchises.

Nintendo because of their established franchises will continue to sell even if they outright reject the subscription based model. Because they have 10+ franchises now that can move consoles. Something both Sony and Microsoft do not have.

Sony while getting ready to enter their 5th generation is no where near Nintendo was when entering their 5th generation in terms of Mascot popularity. Sony used to be known for their Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Tekken, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, etc . But most of these ended up making their way towards their competition by their second and third generation. And while Sony's 1st party games for the most part do really well, there are no major mascots like Nintendo had when entering their 5th generation. Sony has a tendency every generation to have a super popular franchise to only abandon them or have them or to have them go multiplatform the following generation.

Whatever happened to Twisted Metal, Jet Set Moto, Syphon Filter, Little Big Planet, Killzone, Jak and Daxter, etc? The only way a company will build mascot recognition is if they continue to make new titles with those mascots. Not every single Mario game was AAA, but Nintendo never outright dropped any one of their bigger franchises (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Brothers, Kirby, etc) if the sales dropped or quality dropped.

Will this hurt Sony in the long run? As subscription based services will only grow larger and larger what will be the insentive to buy the next Sony system? Without established mega mascots like Nintendo has many people might just flock to other major streaming platforms who have all the major 3rd party games that Sony has.

Xbox, about to enter their 4th generation has kind of done a Nintendo/Sony mixed style approach. They Are trying to build franchises buy existing franchises and move into what Microsoft sees as the future for video games (subscription base/buy digital). Microsoft unlike Sony has continued to push the few franchises they have (Halo, Fable, Forza, Gears of War, Age of Empires, Flight Simulator) had since first Generation even if the sales have not always been stellar. All the while buying existing franchises (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstine, Banjo, Battletoads, etc) And even taking a popular game and making it a franchise, Minecraft. This is only going to make the Gamepass into a cool feature into a Juggernat extremely fast.

What should Sony do? Will their lack of aggression towards Gamepass hurt them in the long run (PS5/PS6?). Remember Sega? They had more established franchises popularity to help push whatever direction they went in then Sony currently does and that didn't stop them from going third party. 

Could Sony in a generation or two see the same fate as Sega if the subscription model really takes off? Remember, there is more revenue to be made than just the monthly 10/15 or whatever Gamepass costs (I dont own Gamepass since I live in China). Buying games, microtransactions, crossgame gamepass transactions, etc.

Where do you see Sony by the end of Generation 5? Sega fell, Nintendo fell, but got back up quickly. If Sony fails to move systems what happens? They have no handheld mega divice, they have no long lasting mascot. All they have for the time being is A super popular platform. But that can change very quickly as we have seen with Sega, Nintendo and even Microsoft.

MS is the one that became SEGA. Releasing their games on PC then handhelds then other consoles just like SEGA in the late 90s.

"PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games on PlayStation Now can be streamed to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC. As of 2020, there are over 800 games available, with over 300 of them available for download to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5."

"Xbox Games Pass gives you access to more than 200 games to download and play on your Xbox One for one monthly fee. It will also be available on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S from 10 November 2020 - their release date"

Not much, I don't think. And honestly, people have been pushing GamePass for so long and praising it as the best deal in gaming for ages...but I never saw much value in it so I never really looked into it. However, out of curiosity I decided to google and see how many games were on GamePass vs PSNow (Similar but not identical services) and just facepalmed. Even if you just factor in the games that can be downloaded, it's still about 50% more on PSnow. I still have no interest in either one, I just find it funny that Xbox and their diehards have all been pushing GamePass as the ultimate deal in Gaming, while Sony has been doing something similar for years and nobody gave a shit. IT's only a big deal because Xbox says it's a big deal, just like all their misuses of the word 'exclusive'.

Comparing Gamepass to PSNow is like comparing Steam to Stadia.

Care to explain why? I did add the caveat that most of the titles are streaming only but 300 of those games are available to be downloaded to the hard drive and thus aren't streaming. 

This looks like a console wars thread of the week :)

Couldn’t agree more with Nintendo and Sony assessment. Nintendo has legendary IPs that have been nurtured through the decades. Sony has quality games but abandon IPs after a certain point.

But for Game Pass, MS has to play their cards perfectly to make it a no-brainer feature on console and PC. They got the studios now (23) and like you said they got history too (Halo, Gears, Forza, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, Flight SIM) on top of new IPs.

Game Pass can grow to a significant threat if:
1: How much they will push Xbox All Access, which comes with Game Pass Ultimate. Looks to be the case with GameStop partnership, and I’m sure that’s not their only way. 
2: They make it painfully obvious that subbing to GP is better then buying full price. Like you gonna buy Elder Scrolls 6 at $70 or sub to GP for $10 a month and have 200+ other games to play? Make the masses see this and it’s game over.

For the moment Sony gave Xbox free reign in the PC space for GP adoption (releasing a game here and there like Horizon hardly is them competing) as well as GP mobile streaming. PS Now seemingly has no ambitions to grow as Sony prefers people buy their exclusives full price, as well as they use Azure, paying MS more the bigger the service gets.

Game Pass will allow Xbox to thrive and be successful, even if they don’t sell more consoles. But will definitely have more market potential then Xbox One which only saw the beginnings of the grand plan too late into the gen to make a difference. Next gen they got the right console, IPs, and online infrastructure to pull it off.

Does PSNow add games to the library on their retail release so people can check them out? The average PSNow game is 500 years old.

I believe that's the reason why. I tried PS Now and the streaming works fine if you are connected via ethernet but blows via wifi and ethernet wise it can fail sometimes too. Whereas Gamepass you install on your system just as any other game. It does make a huge difference. Plus lets be honest, Ps Now feels like Sony just threw something together in 5 minutes just to say they had something better than GP. MS does care about Game Pass and it's making it its signature gaming service.

I also didn't see that many PS4 games on PS Now and most titles are super old whereas GP has an influx of new releases. That is a big deal.

If quantity was the name of the game PS Now wouldn’t be at 2 million after 6 years compared to GP at 15 million after 3 years. “Best deal in gaming for ages”, well it was on January 2018 when MS announced all 1st party games would be day 1 on GP is when the service became on another level. 

But it took a while to catch on. Sea of Thieves launched March 2018 but had a slow burn as we all know. I’d say the first big push for GP was Forza Horizon 4 being day 1. 90+ meta game, one of the best open world racers in gaming. But even then it’s a genre that not every core gamer likes. Holiday 2019 is when GP hype really took off when games like Gears 5 Ultimate Edition and Outer Worlds were day 1. The idea that your yearly sub almost broke even with 2 games alone was mind blowing at the time. In a age of paying full price for Deluxe this and Special Edition that, getting the Ultimate version of Gears 5 felt like we were stealing money from MS. 

So I wouldn’t say “for ages”, more like 1-2 years depending on who you talk to. And this is when their exclusive releases were few and far between. Imagine when their 23 studios actually start pumping out games.....2021 to a degree but 2022 and on will make things very clear why GP is superior. Until Sony does this PS Now will keep sitting where it’s at, an afterthought. 

You genuinely don’t seem to understand why we praise GP, there you go. The principle of saving money to play more NEW games. This will be abundantly in practice once the newly acquired studios finish their games. 

2020 games on GamePass so far (I'm sure, I even forgot a few):

most of them "green" MetaScore games (75+ score)

Which 2020 games are on PSNow?