You falling for the MS PR FUD too? Damn.
Do y’all play games, or only worry about narratives and fake internet hype announcements from MS?
What does it matter how reserved Sony is compared to the bullshit advertising MS does if the end result is still PlayStation delivering games and Xbox delivering nothing?
How long will Sony keep delivering those games, if 3P publishers are responsible for those games and MS continue to target them for acquisition and potential foreclosure strategies?
I'll even use a very recent example: Baldur's Gate 3. It's been soft-delayed on PS5, timed with the announcement of Microsoft having engineers go in to help Larian get dev up to speed on Series S. I don't think that is a coincidence, and that affects PS gamers who now have to wait longer than originally promised to get the game, because surprise, Larian isn't a massive developer who can just throw optimization support around without that affecting other versions of the game.
Beyond that, this is about PlayStation's long-term. It's true that Sony have no presence (or very little presence) online within enthusiasts gaming spaces and media, particularly here in America. We're in an environment now where access to 3P content cannot be taken for granted, if you're a platform holder like Sony. Every 3P game they lose as an exclusive creates one less differentiation point between their console and Xbox. Meanwhile, Microsoft is intent on purchasing once-3P multiplatform publishers & devs to then make their games exclusive to Xbox console platforms, creating less options for PlayStation owners (and likely down the line, Nintendo owners too).
A lot of the games we've seen up to this point from Sony 1P started development, or were greenlit, under previous PlayStation management. We haven't seen much from Sony's 1P studios or from new 3P exclusives started up under Jim Ryan's watch, partly because it's too soon in most cases. But, we don't have any official proof or showing of most of those games whatsoever, and it's not like the last Showcase was instilling of a lot of confidence.
Again, what good in the mid-to-long term are timed 3P exclusives going to do if many were signed under previous leadership, and even if not, knowing you can just wait a year or whatever in most cases to then pick it up on another platform? What good is getting 3P game access going to do, when your direct competitor owns the supply, distribution, and right to terms of all of that content to leverage it against you in a long-term, methodical play to push you out of the market? What good is having top-billing traditional advertising, if you have little to no presence in the grassroots online enthusiasts space to have more direct input on the narratives and messaging that most gamers like us actually end up discussing?
These are all holes in Sony's strategy of current; it's better to highlight them in hopes the holes are filled, than pretend they don't exist. And then wait to bring them up when it's too late.
Do you think microsofts pushing optics has actually helped them with their gaming division?
If yes. How?
If no. Why would sony follow this failed strategy?
It's not so much about if it's helped with the short-term: we have fiscal results to prove that isn't the case.
But since some of these optics pushes are clearly tied to very real-world moves like buying 3P publishers and situating themselves very closely with certain 3P content providers, then yes, in due time, the optics pushes combined with those will actually help their gaming division. That's not even to mention the additional revenue their gaming division will bring in via these acquisitions.
Some of us are starting to feel like Sony might not be seeing the forest from the trees, and maybe feel the current short-term sales results of PS5 could be blinding them from a future reality where certain key 3P partners can no longer be freely communicated with or engaged in business with, or where certain key 3P content may no longer be on their platform. It's very unlikely Microsoft stop their ambitions with just ABK; they can't do hostile takeovers of non-Western companies so the next best thing is to butter their bread and get them to prefer them over other platform holders. And
then make the offer to buy.
Sony don't yet have a 1P content pipeline that can fully or near-fully remove dependency on big 3P content for revenue and profit flow. They don't have a fully robust 1P content pipeline in terms of IP that can be leveraged for evergreen transmedia expansion. They aren't like Nintendo in these aspects, at least not yet. And, I don't think pushing hard in on live-service/GaaS titles or PC ports will be the answer. We're already seeing cracks in both strategies; small cracks, but they're there. Unless Sony make some significant changes to planned allocation of funding for the non-traditional games, expand back out into AA content, bring back some legacy IP in meaningful ways and push for more thematic variety in the 1P output (alongside develop some evergreen, family-friendly/all-ages games IP that can be big transmedia properties too), they're going to run up into dead ends.
These are just my thoughts, but so far I haven't seen a lot of movement to suggest things are going to play out too much differently. If Sony have some big moves under wraps, I'll patiently wait until they reveal themselves and then I'll have some changes of opinion. But that could be a while, at this rate.