and they completely refreshed it with a more aggressive approach to respond MS, that's the thing, why they feel like they need to respond MS moves? why can't they just follow what they've been doing with PS4 and watch MS completely destroy themselfs from inside out?
Every generation they upgrade their hardware accesories and service, learning from what's out there.
They saw that Microsoft's copy of PS Now had two good ideas: to bundle the cheap sub in the expensive one and to add a download only cheaper tier and to make a cheaper interemediate tier, which is a download only version of the PS Now copy. That's all they copied from GP so far.
Everything else Sony did it before, like including some games at launch or emulated games from previous generations in game subs. But in some rare cases, not always and not with their own games. Sony never will do it because that doesn't add to their business model: that would negatively affect it.
Sony uses PS+ and PC as secondary revenue source to mostly make more money with games that no longer sell anymore on PS. An extra on top of the normal sales, which is better than nothing having an old game sitting on the PS store getting ignoring and selling basically nothing.
When Sony did their game sub overhaul, their game subs were pretty much stuck and GP had a greath gowth. With the ovehaul, Sony's games sub revenues highly inceased and still today continue growing. And now it's the MS one the one who has been stuck since around a couple years ago, it only did grow when added the Gold subbers that didn't have it from GPU.
Regarding cloud gaming, Xcloud released later adding higher streaming quality and something Sony alreaady announced in 2013 they had it in the works for the future, and in particularly in 2019 said they planned to implement it this generation: to extend it to mobile and smart tvs.
As part of their current gen PS Now refresh, also increased its quality going beyond the Xcloud one: up to 4K, 60fps, with HDR, 3D audio and Dual Sense features. PS Now expansion to mobile (announced before GP and Xcloud existed) pretty likely will wait a bit more, in a year or two once Sony had their GaaS and PC expansions pretty much fully implemented putting Sony a top GaaS and top PC publisher, a moment where I expect to swap to pushing their off-console growth efforts to mobile, starting to release their PS cloud version there, their mobile games and maybe their PSN mobile store too.
why can't they just follow what they've been doing with PS4 and watch MS completely destroy themselfs from inside out?
This is what Sony is doing.
The most recent meaningful strategy change Sony did was around 2018, when Shawn Layden was chairman of PS Studios, Shuhei Yoshida as president/head of PS Studios and John Kodera as head of SIE. They were the ones who decided and started to expand PS Studios to GaaS/MP, PC and mobile, not Jimbo or Hermen.
Jimbo and Hermen main changes have been relatively pretty minor, since what they did was pretty much to double down on things Sony already did before:
- Highly grow the manpower of all their existing teams
- Acquire many companies more, some organic growth, other to expand in new areas they want to grow like GaaS, PC or eSports
- Unify and coordinate with a global vision certain teams that previously worked independently in each region (XDEV/2nd party publishing and support, marketing, PR, CM)
- To improve and double down their efforts and performance in all areas they had: console hardware, accesories game subs, cloud gaming, number of 1st party games developed at the same time, budget for 2nd party, number of 3rd party exclusives, VR, PC, cinema/tv show adaptations, mobile
The next permanent CEO pretty likely will also have a continuist role following what Jimbo already did, releasing all the projects they had in the work and following the strategy they already had:
- To double down in all areas mentioned before
- To release the console games they have in the works, a majority being non-GaaS SP games but also including some GaaS heavy hitters
- Window for PC port release as until now: in case of GaaS day one for most cases, for the rest 2 or more years since their original PS release (original not being possible remasters or remakes).
- To release mobile games they have in the works
- To release mobile + PS Portal + smart tv PS cloud gaming clients
- Pretty likely to release PSN store for PC and mobile
- Release next gen iteration of their console (PS6), accesories, game sub, cloud gaming, VR, etc.
they're already coming at me, when we have Kenichiro Yoshida saying on video the future of playstation will be everywhere, he even specifies, PC, Mobile, Cloud and wherever there is computing power people will have a place to play, now tell me, how will they be able to maintain relevance in the console market if every person on planet earth will be able to play games like Spiderman and God Of War on their cellphones, smart tvs, computers, tables and etc? i find it HARD to believe that people will continue to spend 500 dollars on a box to play games if the games are going to be avaliable everywhere, PlayStation will be as useless as an Xbox in the next couple years
They have been saying since 2013 that they plan to bring PS games everywhere (including PC, phones, tablets or smart tvs) via PS Now.
Sony has been making computer games since the first half of the '80s, basically when computer games started to be relatively mainstream. Sony also has been making mobile games since mobile games started in the 2000s.
Most of the most popular (by usage or sales) PlayStatation games always have been always multiplatform. Exclusive games represent a small part of the game sales in PS. And PS kept dominating the console market generation after generation.
Their plan is to make more money by reaching more people who only plays in other devices and neve would play on a console, and also to allow their existing customers to play their games in more places and in different ways.
Having more money will allow them continue making high end quality games, very expensive stuff, and increase the number of games they make at the same time. Having more exposure to more people makes their brand more popular, which makes their console more popular and help them sell more consoles and games.
