Out of all that business gibberish the good takeaway is that, you guess it, game trials (aka demo's) work, and it should be done a lot more, not just by PlayStation, but third party developers if they're business savvy enough. That we lost this for some years and it's still barely done is crazy.
All the other business gibberish is missing the forest from the trees....
PlayStation Plus subs declined:
Despite better library and catalog of games (including day and date for some titles and shorter withholding cycles of "exclusives" and other AAA third party games).
Despite "digital shift"
Despite hardware unit sales growth (meager as they're comparative speaking - hence the problem)
Despite partnerships
Despite the competition being in the gutter and in a death spiral. (Of course there are multiple competitors - hence the fallacy of super focus on Xbox being a massive blinder).
In sum despite significant allocation of business brain power, and resources, despite the opportunity cost and everything involved in order to push it down consumers throats the results are clear.
If even half of that opportunity cost were invested in moving console units, not just in natural markets where the operations are mature but in emerging markets where the operations are still rough as well as strengthening content differentiation to exhaust competitors (not watering it down vis a vis competitors) you would literally kill two birds with one stone. Of course that type of work is more hands-on, ergo more draining on your typical business suit hence strategies for maximizing profit with your existing base get more attention - cozy office room beats sweat every time. The problem, behavioral as it's, needs a proper whip at the very very top with a clear mandate and clear expectations. And when those expectations are not met, the whip comes out, and lashes hard. Bottomline, gotta move consoles. Can't escape that. If the internal goal is not reaching something like 150 million units sold this gen or some number close enough you're doing it wrong.
And btw it has backfired even worse for the competition that went all in on the sub strategy. In fact, the competition is hemorrhaging money on it - which is why they never show the numbers, obfuscate and mislead on everything about the true cost of Gamepass and the impact it has had on its overall gaming business as well as Xbox console sales (cratering as we speak). Call it "when taking a leap of faith on the extreme backfires" - thankfully for MS, they sell Windows, affording them to double down on stupid, seemingly, to no end and no bottom. If MS clearly also carries the competition with said idiocy along with them, it should be looked at as a strategy feature, not a coincidence - just the old triple EEE's at work. Embrace, extend, exterminate (extinguish).
And that's not even mentioning the other elephant in the room - online play behind a paywall. Look at that share of first tier PlayStation Plus subs....
Take the artificial paywall away and what are you left with? That hook works as long as the competition is not able to pound you on it (since MS is a co-op no biggie). The thing is, it's not just MS. Good luck with Valve, and they're coming - if you can't see the writing on the wall with the Deck... well well well, I'll leave it at that.
Anyway all that standard gibberish is so much fucking nonsense that Sony had to turn back to the old tried and true - the "keeping it simple" routine. Increase price, to increase margins per sub, in light of a declining bodycount (thus keeping revenue stable or slightly increasing it). Not only that but stop releasing PS Plus sub count numbers on financials, so as to avoid speculative trading when financials release - and of course it wasn't to stop positive speculation that increase the stock price (bonanza for the well connected - aka insider traders), but negative speculation on poor numbers that tank it. Add to that turning into a MS lite by cherry picking when to report sub info and most importantly, what to report.
The only leak and power-point strategy report that I'm waiting for that seems to be missing is the one titled: "How we get back to 150 million units sold this generation, it has been too fucking long". Absence of which is telling...
Still waiting for that strategy guide, instead of this simpleton report... "expanding" to the competition (PC)
- talk about idiocy, even more so with the current approach. Bottomline, the leader of all stupid crazy strategies that exist about breaking away from the hardware - aka Microsoft, has failed, miserably. Somehow someway, a follow the loser in lite form is gonna work cause: "Shit, moving console sales past 100m is fucking hard, and the promise land is so green over there".
The conditions are maturing and evolving, ripe for the fall. Clearly not by the hands of MS, although that is inconsequential to the fact.