It's all relative in the end, isn't it? Microsoft, as a company, is rarely composed or coherent or innovative, because they never need to be to maintain their status and success, and I am not a fan, but relative to whatever Sony's strategies are for the PlayStation console, MS absolutely looks more coherent. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the PS5 and the Xbox Series behind when it comes to cumulative sales at this point of the generation compared to where the PS4 and the Xbox were? 8-10 million consoles behind? PS should be picking up the customers Xbox lost but it isn't and it won't if Sony's strategy doesn't change. 

And the reason I keep saying that we're all saying the same thing is because I agree that in the short term Sony is making more money and PS might look ok on paper, where did I dispute that? I literally mentioned short term greed that's clearly giving the impression that things are fine the way they are, but this is going to change if their long-term strategy continues to be the same. The change is going to be slow one because it takes time for customers to adapt new behaviours, all Sony is doing is accelerating the development of those behaviours. You can commit suicide by drinking alcohol excessively, smoking and overeating and it will be a slow one, but it's still suicide. 

I personally care about the success of PlayStation, and that's because I completely ditched Microsoft products. I'm currently an Apple sheep, if PlayStation starts to become a skippable platform for third-party publishers because it's selling less and less hardware, that will mean I'm going to be in a position in which buying Microsoft products is no longer optional for me if the Switch doesn't get all those games despite its massive success.

Keep in mind, my opinion is based on whatever Sony is currently doing. If they change that in the future, obviously my conclusions will be different. A PlayStation customer now is more important than 10 potential customers in the future, given how attached people become to their digital library on their chosen platform, Sony is only making the battle harder for themselves. 

Zoom out of console sales.... Isn't it clear now that Microsoft is doing better in the gaming sector and has a more coherent long-term strategy? Microsoft is not losing when more gamers engage with their devices and Windows operating systems than ever before. What does Sony have to gain from making PC even more popular among the gamers? help Microsoft sell more ads in their start menu?

If you admit that Xbox strategies led to the death of their console business, shouldn't Sony be not adapting any of those strategies or doing anything that is remotely similar? I really don't want to be a smug asshole, but we are all roughly saying the same thing.

I don't think we necessarily disagree, the situation in which the Xbox can be unplanned, I am willing to concede here, but does it really matter? 

This is the story of Windows all over again. Microsoft get to make subpar products, tune down any ambitious or unique projects, only innovate in how to squeeze more money out of their user bases, constantly sending out new copycat hardware to the market and not support them long enough because they didn't succeed immediately, and still end up being ahead. Even worse when it comes to the gaming sector, because at least Microsoft was present when the chance to make operating systems for computers was there and were among the first. But when it comes to gaming, Microsoft has been laughably incompetent for decades but here we are. Unfair as it is this is the world we live in, their strategy is working and will continue to work. 

There are enough threads dunking on Xbox and Microsoft at the minute, and there will be a lot more. I'm not interested in that, because Microsoft is just being Microsoft. What's new? What Sony is doing, however, completely baffles me. 

Sony is the publisher releasing the best games for a while now. While I will Larian, Atlus and Fromsoftware the best games, they don't have the same output of Sony (since Sony have many studos) 

I agree on most of your points. Sony is treading a dangerous path and their glowing financial reports are quite misleading. I actually think their path is so risky, that it's possible that by the time they adjust, it will be too late. No one's going to believe their "exclusives" are truly exclusive unless they commit for a whole generation. I'm pretty sure "no games" will prove more than a meme and damage the brand. Hell, the damage may already be irreversible (we wouldn't know without comparing their current results to how they fared in a different timeline where they never supported PC and other platforms).

Microsoft was all over the place this generation. They chose to brute force their way into relevance via major acquisitions instead of fixing their shit internally. But it looks that they're transforming to a 3rd party publisher mainly, which is good for non-Xbox gamers, so I'm not mad at them. It is sad however that relying on Mojang, Zenimax, and ABK will lead to more layoffs, studio closures, and dead IP's.

MS doesn't seem interested in challenging Sony or Nintendo. They're pretty much partners... for now at least.

They should but not because Microsoft is doing it. They should because consoles will eventually be a dead business

When the average age of gamers is 36 and 30% of the user base is over 50, it's clear that you can't stay in the business long-term (And by long-term, I mean really long-term, +20 years down the line)

One undeniable thing about older people is that they spend less money especially on new things. The console business, by design, relies on people staying engaged with new content. But what incentive is there to buy a new console when everyone already has massive backlogs? You could buy a PS4 today and easily have games to play for the next 10 years or at least until the console breaks

Console sales are driven mostly by marketing and FOMO (or in the case of Switch 2, purposeful exclusivity of games clearly made for Switch 1)

You can already see how many proto-boomers are on this board people saying they’re tired of gaming, that new games no longer feel exciting, that they keep replaying the same old titles. They complain about how the new generation sucks and retreat into retro gaming because they no longer believe modern games can satisfy their preferences

This is the console death through and through. It won't crash in one generation, but current bussines model employed by Sony presumes infinite growth. Microsoft handled then one more generation of growth (I'm talking about PS6 generation), even if by virtue of their own incompetence, but I don't think Sony model is sustainable once the pool of Microsoft gamers is exhausted. Console makers tried to break into developing markets, but it's not working. China is heavily into PC gaming, even Japan is abandoning console gaming to play on PCs

I boxed up my Pro to make room for the Switch 2 and I don’t see myself bringing the Pro out any time soon. The only game I was playing on it was Rivals and I just moved over to Xbox.

There’s been a lot of talk on various platforms about this being the worst Sony gen ever. There’s only defense I ever see is people bringing up revenue. As a gamer I don’t give a fuck about revenue. IMHO Sony has put out exactly one great game this gen and it was Returnal, like four years ago. I don’t care that they make tons of money off PS+ and royalties from third party sales and MTX. I care about games, and it’s easily the worst gen PlayStation has ever had in that regard imho.

I don’t think they were wrong in trying to grab a piece of the live service pie, they’ve already got GaaS titles like GT7 and MLB and Helldivers. It’s the complete lack of alternative titles or a coexisting strategy that really destroyed this gen for them. It’s very similar to Xbox at the end of the 360 gen, focusing entirely on casual Kinect slop at the expense of regular games.

Make more Astro Bots (smaller creative and less expansive games), make more linear games if they're more cinematic, make graphical tools easy with AI tools so good looking doesn't take a long time

Losing one's console business is a pretty big deal.

If Sony's direction was really as disastrous as you claim, we would see its sales tanking, but that isn't happening.

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