Sony copying Microsoft would go down as the dumbest gaming decision of all time. This is just not gonna happen anytime time soon. I give Sony's management shit all the time but they aren't that stupid.

My interpretation to this is that "new hardware" sales are of little significance to Sony compared to the combined active playerbase. They just won't care whether you're playing on PS4, 5, or 6 as long as you remain engaged in their platform, which makes perfect sense. I was expecting PS6 to significantly decrease in annual sales compared to PS5, and I think Sony shares that expectation.

The Playstation platform remains hardware/console based. I'm sure Sony would love to transition their existing playerbase to a Steam-like storefront on PC and somehow retain them, but they just can't do that. The last thing you wanna do as a major platform holder is to remove more entry barriers to Steam.

Playstation owners to Sony : We are moving away from your hardware since you've made zero incentive to invest in it.

Playstation almost losing its identity of what it used to be. Xbox lost it. Only Nintendo is still the same

Normally I'd agree that Sony can't possibly be that stupid, but they happened to copy Microsoft's rush to the GaaS well, including a similar overall lackluster result.

What I see in Sony's business decisions for PS is that Sony believes that Microsoft has the right ideas at the core, but has not executed them well, coupled with the belief that Sony themselves can pull it all off. For example, Microsoft moved to day and date releases for all of their games on Xbox, PC and Game Pass whereas Sony will take a more careful approach by still releasing first on PS. But even then, this will make PS consoles a lot less attractive over time which Sony doesn't quite seem to understand. As for the PS6's hardware price, we'll likely see Sony go high just like we've already seen it with the PS5 Pro.

Microsoft made a variety of decisions that made Xbox less appealing over time and then used the results they got as a justification to further scale back their intent to sell consoles, kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sony's approach will make it a more drawn out decline in hardware sales as opposed to Microsoft's abrupt one, but ever since Shawn Layden left, Sony's decisions have been questionable at best. For Microsoft we could at least say that they are struggling with profitability, so they have to do something different; but Sony has been at their best in history at the time when they made boneheaded choices, so it's baffling that they were even considering to follow in Microsoft's footsteps in one way or another.

^ this is why context and the actual quote matters.

What is said in the real quote is very different than what the OP said.

This is about them focusing less on hardware and more on communities with engagement.
Ei. platforms for music and videos and anime. 

This doesn't even sound like its related to PlayStation lol.

Not sure why the 8+ year old console getting a price increase for obvious reasons is more news worthy than this though? This is straight from Sony while the price increase is likely due to tariffs and it's only in two regions along with not even being Nintendo's main platform anymore.

As I said in other threads about this, I think people are catastrophising a bit if they think this means PS is about to go off the rails.

Sony will probably be more cautious in their multiplatform approach than Microsoft, they're not dumb enough to just dump their biggest games on PC/Xbox/Switch 2 day and date, at least not in the short term.

What we'll probably see is older, smaller, and live service games make their way across first, probably with a timed exclusivity period on PS5.

Playstation will be fine, they're still the go-to brand for AAA console gaming, so I think fears about this being their doom are jumping the gun.

I kind of understand why they're trying to expand, and time will tell whether their GaaS initiative was worth it. But they need to hit the brakes and take this much slower. Their misleading financial results are making them too comfortable, that they think they can push further towards expanding without any consequences on their core model.

I think the PS6 will be reasonably priced by 2027/2028 standards. Rumours suggest the GPU will only be around 3 times more powerful than the base PS5's (not taking into account machine learning and RT improvement) which is a small leap. Remember... the $300 Series S was more powerful than the $500 Xbox One X. PS5 Pro vs PS6 could go similarly, but even at a hypothetical $500 alongside a handheld version, I expect it to sell much worse than the PS5. Sony doesn't seem so interested in getting people excited about new hardware anymore. They seem happy with their "124~ million active users" and hope to retain them without the need for true exclusivity or exciting hardware. They're playing with fire...

A handheld PS6 (weaker than PS5) implies an even longer cross-generational period than the current one. I don't know if the PS6 will get a single generational exclusive from Sony. Most if not all first party titles on PS6 could be crossgen with either PS5 or PS7, and all of them will be ported to at least PC.

Still, I don't see Sony going day 1 PC with all their major titles. They can't possibly be that naive.

I'm not even surprised this quote has been taken out of context lol.

Sony is facing a shrinking console gaming market just like MS and Nintendo.

The market for console gaming will still be there but efforts need to be made to get the younger generations off their phones and off ftp gaas games into more traditional games or those will slowly vanish.

Just go 3rd party, publish on more platforms isn't a long term solution. The pie is still shrinking even though you make your games available to more of the pie. And it's a fact GAAS is dominating "free-to-play titles generated 85% of all game revenue".

So no wonder Sony wants to chase that to prop up their revenue. Nintendo has the handheld market swooped up (will be interesting to see where Switch 2 lands after Switch 1, Switch 1 is already smaller than Nintendo console+handheld audience was before), MS is propping up revenue with acquisitions (also combined revenue is smaller than before the acquisitions) and gamepass + games on PC.


https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-cfo-says-its-live-service-shift-is-not-entirely-going-smoothly-but-pledges-to-carry-on-and-learn-from-mistakes/

Tao had earlier noted during Sony’s results presentation that live service games accounted for around 40% of first-party software revenue for the past quarter, and cited this again in her reply.

“For Q1 the live service ratio was about 40%, for the full year it’s a little less, probably between 20-30%,” she said. “So in terms of the transformation, it’s not entirely going smoothly, but from a longer-term perspective, if you look at the changes over five years you see that there’s definitely been a change.

That seems to be the transformation they're talking about for gaming. Not ditching the console, but trying to follow the younger generations with ftp / gaas games, aka community based engagement business. Play hours that translate into buying MTX... And yeah for those multiplatform is key to reach more player hours and thus more MTX sales.


Our beloved story driven RPGs, action adventures etc will still be made, but don't expect any leap next generation. With the user bases shrinking for those kind of games, budgets will also shrink and thus won't be able to keep up with tech advancements. Removing the 'need' to buy expensive new hardware, which will lead to an even longer cross gen period next gen with PS5 staying on the market. 

Maybe AI can help reduce the costs enough to keep chasing the graphical/fidelity edge, but otherwise PS6 will the higher fps machine with just a few rare juggernaut releases that make full use of the system.