Sony Needs To Watch The PS5 Narrative Taking Shape - Forbes Contributor

[Yurinka]

It is once again leading the sales race against Xbox for the second generation in a row

4 generations in a row. Xbox had 4 generations and not 2, and Sony won the race in all of them.

And yet all through this generation, there seems to be a narrative continuously taking shaping regarding PS5 and Sony’s attempt to squeeze consumers for extra cash. The word “greedy” has been thrown around a whole lot since the system launched, for a few different reasons, and we have another one this week.

It is, of course, somewhat redundant to call a megacorporation “greedy” when its purpose is to generate revenue. Sony is in practice probably no more or less greedy than hundreds of other companies attempting to extract as much profit from customers as possible. And yet once you get branded with something in the video game space, it tends to stick. Xbox got hit with the idea that the Xbox One was “underpowered” and that lasted essentially the entire generation. The Wii U was a “gimmick” and it was the worst hardware generation in modern Nintendo history.

Now, the “greed” narrative keeps getting brought up with Sony, and it feels like it’s sticking, warranted or not. But here are the main arguments, some of which are even annoying PS fans themselves, making this not an exclusively “console wars” debate.

Only the most passionate players and fanboys have this talk. The majority of players simply buy the games they like.

Sony just announced they are raising PS5 prices by about 10% in a whole lot of regions outside the US due to inflation and currency complications. Immediately, both Nintendo and Xbox, facing the same market conditions, have announced they will not raise prices on their own hardware.

Oculus, PC GPUs, many phones and many other electronics products rised their prices in the past months or will do it in the next ones. In the case of MS they are already used to have their gaming division at a loss, and being US based the currency exchange with a strong dollar benefits them.

Nintendo is Japanese so like with Sony it hurts them, but they sell their consoles with a big profit margin so this will only reduce their profit margin. In addition to this pretty likely in a year or -more likely- two they will release a more powerful Switch 2 so they can wait to apply the price increase there.

• Sony has been the primary driving force behind trying to get the industry to accept an increase from $60 to $70 as the standard price for most new video games.

For game pricing, there is the eternal debate that game prices have been locked at $60 for ages now, well past what inflation (even before this recent hyper-inflation spell) should have caused them to rise to already, and Sony’s move is logical. The counter-counter-argument there is that games have way, way more revenue streams than they used to from DLC to microtransactions, and the industry is bigger and more profitable than ever.

Because they were the only ones releasing next gen only games day one. AAA 3rd party companies also did it in not only on PS but everywhere. MS didn't do it because they still have to release their first true next gen only AAA game, and they stopped focusing their business on selling games and focused instead on renting them.

If we compare the current game prices with all the previous generation since the NES adapting them with inflation, games from all these generations were priced above $100. Now games are priced from $0 to $70. Not only that, the budget to make these AAA games rised from a handful hundred thousand dollars in the 8 or 16 bits to some hundreds of millions of dollars. And prices or sales didn't increase proportionally to these budget increase.

So companies had to find extra revenue sources like DLC, IAP, season passes, publishing their games on more platforms and even bring them to movies or mobile games. But isn't enough, so they had to increase the price and I bet they'll increase them even more.

This counter argument is bullshit because the industry is bigger than ever but the industry isn't only the prices of the AAA games (these numbers also include hardware sales, subscriptions, F2P and non-AAA games). The AAA games produce more revenue than ever but aren't more profitable than ever. The opposite, even the successful ones (with a handful top selling exceptions) they kept being less profitable because of rising costs of everything while sales and revenue didn't grow proportionally. The AAA are riskier than ever in every generation, a AAA flop today means hundreds of millions of dollars thrown to the garbage bin and only a few companies can afford that a couple of times in a row.

AAA publishers need to raise their prices to at least $100 or to highly reduce the size of the AAA games.

• Then there are just the non-stop comparisons to Microsoft, which has offered all its games on Xbox Game Pass “for free” right at launch as part of that service, while Sony has said that idea is financially untenable for them and their large scale AAA games, which remain sold separately for that new $70 price. And while Sony has started to release more games on PC, unlike Microsoft, they are attempting to sell the same game twice on different platforms, years later, rather than giving players a PC copy gratis at launch.

MS doesn't care about losing many Billions of USD with their gaming division in their crusade to become the Netflix or Spotify of the videogames, something that if it would become the norm would kill most companies of the gaming industry.

Sony and the other big game publishers instead want to have a profitable business as normal companies, so they keep focusing in the traditional business model of selling games.

But the more these issues come up, the more Sony keeps making pricing and policy moves that seem designed to pad their pockets and the direct expense of their customers. When your product is in this much demand, you can do things like raise prices and still hit all your targets, but I do see a growing frustration among even Sony fans that things like this keep happening, and only exclusively within the PlayStation ecosystem, with Microsoft and Nintendo not taking similar action, whether that’s on console or game pricing. Sony’s goodwill may have a hard cap at some point here, and they should keep an eye on that.

Nah, passionate gamers and fanboys may complain in forums or social media, but the market doesn't have any issue with the $70 pricing, these games and their console keep and will keep topping the charts which means price is ok for most players even if like with anything else they'd prefer to have it for a cheap.

But nowadays if you wait a few months -in many cases even at launch- it's easy to find these games discounted, and games also receive price cuts faster than ever, and many of them get also included relatively soon in subscriptions or bundles. So they ended being played for a very lower pricing even if released at $70.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Let's wait for Ragnarok. If the game is 90+ ain't gonna matter.

 

[Sircaw]

Let's wait for Ragnarok. If the game is 90+ ain't gonna matter.

95%+ you dirty sausage

 

[Pamello)]

Good article. I understand why Sony raised the price of the PS5 but combined with everything else they've done, they're coming across more like they were during the PS3 generation as opposed to the PS4 generation. $70 games, $10 upgrades, PS5 price increase and who knows what else they will do.

After getting me to switch from Microsoft with Xbox 360 to Sony with PS4 by simply not doing the same as what Microsoft did in 2013, this time around, it's thus far Microsoft not doing what Sony has been doing which is one of the several reasons why im happy I switched from Sony to Microsoft this generation. I still own PS5 but two years in, im not even anywhere close to giving Sony the amount of money I gave them last generation in the same time frame and the gap will only get bigger as the generation progresses.

Sony can only get away with so much until even their hardcore fan base wakes up says, screw this shit.

I never understood comments like this.
Have you ever been in the Ps3/Xbox 360 era?

It is literally heaven and earth with what is happening now.

You generally realize that Ps3 came out a year later than its direct competitor. It cost $100 more than the direct competitor.
And it didn’t even have a special starting line, unlike a competitor.
Disgusting architecture to learn that made versions look worse, or come out later.

These are completely different scenarios.
I saw a couple of your comments on the site dedicated to the xbox (Where for some reason they constantly discuss only Plyastation, but oh well )
You seem to like Sony games. These are expensive, polished, with good staging, great graphics and animation.

What do you want from them? So that they put these projects in their subscription on the first day, like Microsoft does?
Sorry, they haven't so many resources and they are not worth $3 trillion.

And even in this case. Show me an Xbox game of a level of performance at least close to the quality of Sony projects, except for Forza Horizon (Absolutely run-in series, with a bunch of tools that make development much cheaper)
Let Phil Spencer start putting his big promises and poignant headlines on the market. So far, I'm seeing mostly words, and indie-filled subscriptions, with occasional good B-projects.
Sorry, especially this year, it's just a fact

Jim Ryan has spoken several times in interviews about their strategy with their studios.
They sell the game, it pays off and makes a profit. Then they give more for next game.
But, unfortunately for Sony and for all of us who love their games, this is not a Nintendo that can afford to sell its titles for 5 years, without significant discounts.
Nintendo is literally the oldest gaming company that has taught people from infancy to Mario, Zelda, and so on.
Many of these people are in their 30s or even 40s.

Sony doesn't have that much time to develop their franchises to this extent.

Unfortunately for the consumer, they came up with a slightly different way to earn more from their titles in order to invest much more in their new projects. This is a price increase to $70. These are late PC ports to make more money and show other people what games Sony makes. They need to make services to earn even more, so they will release them on Ps5 + PC, right away, because microtransactions work there. And they will invest all this money they earn in flagship franchises, or those franchises that have the opportunity to become flagship


Shawn Layden talked about this (Who is very fond of the author of this post on IconEra and he really does not like that Sony releases their games on PC. This is actually the only reason why he posted this, here )
Shawn talked about how the cost of games is steadily rising. Every generation. By the end of that, just one blockbuster will cost around $200 million to produce. Do you understand what money is?
These are gigantic sums. They need to earn more and more to satisfy the desires of their leading studios.
They came up with several solutions.
Like it or hate it, it's working now and you'll get your Spider-man 2 looking amazing and no one else in the industry will make you a single game for that kind of money.
The same will happen with Ghost of Tsushima 2. With Wolverine. With the new project of Barlog, Druckmann and so on.
You have to pay for everything, always

Phil Spencer is a great guy, and clearly more of a gamer than Jim Ryan.
But, the advantage of Phil Spencer is that Nadella's daddy is behind him, who can give him 70 billion, and even 100, probably)

And even with such resources, Phil still cannot show us the level of Sony games

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

95%+ you dirty sausage

Yep. It should be able to achieve that if not, is going to be disappointing.

 

[Swift_Star]

True, there are no-more than a handful of talking points at a certain time, they are obviously decided upon and pushed in a coordinated fashion.


General comment:

I have no problem with Sony increasing PS5 price if that was the only increase or change they made....

My real issue is how Sony / PlayStation looks overall... the game price increases, the games going to PC, the upgrade fees and this is the latest thing...

No communication, no interaction, no fan service, no live shows, no understanding or acknowledgement of the fanbase or feedback.

Ever since Jim took over it's like they are almost purposely trying to piss off the fanbase by making massively unpopular moves consecutively and then they release some crappy positive news after, thinking we have the memory of a goldfish.

Last quarter software sales were way down... games like F1 2022 are 80 euro in europe on PSN and 60 euro on Steam, it is exactly the same game.
I would have bought at launch for 60-70 but now I am leaving it for a deep sale.

Everything has an effect... I really think Jim will hurt the brand if he keeps pushing bullheadedly forward with his oldschool business methods.


What would I do?

I would keep hardware the same price: 500 for physical and 400 for digital. Because taking a small loss upfront is fine when you can make it back on software.

I would keep increase in game prices but give a 10 euro discount for all new game purchases for any PSPlus extra / premium subscribers.

I would also cancel all PC ports except for GAAS / live service games.

They look fine, are selling like hotcakes and are outselling Xbox. I know you’re hoping for them to fail but it’s not happening.

 

[Yurinka]

The only narrative that Sony needs is to continue their current strategy of:

• To keep delivering more exclusive great games than their competition every year or generation
• To keep increasing the amount of games they make at the same time
• To keep increasing the amount of types of games they cover without decreasing the amount of traditional games
• To keep having a good balance (~50%-50%) between sequels and new IPs
• To keep improving and expanding their platforms (PS5 OS, PSN store, PS+, emulation, their cloud gaming, PSVR2)
• To keep increasing their active console userbase
• To keep bringing their IPs to other markets (PC ports of a few of their old games, mobile games, movies, tv shows) but done in a way that help grow instead of hurting their main business: their console
• To continue reinvesting their profit into growing their internal teams, buying new studios and securing 2nd and 3rd party exclusives

By doing that they will continue being the console maker that:

• Makes more money
• Has the bigger console active base
• Sells more games for its console (and particularly 3rd party to continue securing the best 3rd party support)
• Has the biggest and most successful game sub
• Has more presence in other mediums like movies and tv shows

 

[Bryank75]

They look fine, are selling like hotcakes and are outselling Xbox. I know you’re hoping for them to fail but it’s not happening.

Fail in what way?

I dont think I ever said that I wanted that... but I dont want GAAS to become their main thing for instance.

I dont want their single player games to become 100 euro just because they can either.

Maybe don't listen to the Bryan-haters in the Bryan-hater discord group!

 

[Rivet]

Nobody will care about the price hike outside of the 12 people still writing on forums. Whoever has the best exclusives wins, and that's Sony by a landslide. They could price it $600 and it would still outsell Xbox comfortably.

Like I said day one, video games are not directed by "value", that's why Game Pass isn't very successful until now and Series consoles sold only 13 million vs 21 million PS5... Video games are cheap. You're limited by time, not by money. You have no reason not to play the 5 best games released every year. They're more often than not on Sony side, so they have nothing to worry.

Only way it could change is if Xbox started to make more and better exclusives (including technically better). The chances of that happening are slim to none, simply because Sony has a lot of the best devs in the world now, it's too late to attack them on that side. It could have worked in 2006 when Sony was struggling, MS is 15 years late. Now you'd need to convince people Xbox has better games than Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War... And even if it became true (hint : it won't and that won't be close at all), it would take a lot more years to make people switch.

TLDR : Outside of us, nobody cares about all that. They want the best console, with the best games. Sony has nothing to worry.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Quality of games matters way more than any greed narrative IMO.

The system is still a great value.

And their subs are cheaper too, value of course debatable.

 

[Katajx]

Console sales are more sensitive to pricing than people are suggesting. That’s a not insignificant part of Nintendo’s success with the Wii and the Switch.

Base PS4 and Xone outsold the Pro and One X. I can see the Series S selling more or being really close with the Series X as well.

 

[Swift_Star]

Fail in what way?

I dont think I ever said that I wanted that... but I dont want GAAS to become their main thing for instance.

I dont want their single player games to become 100 euro just because they can either.

Maybe don't listen to the Bryan-haters in the Bryan-hater discord group!

I misquoted you, sorry. I wanted to quote Bernd.

 

[peter42O]

I never understood comments like this.
Have you ever been in the Ps3/Xbox 360 era?

It is literally heaven and earth with what is happening now.

You generally realize that Ps3 came out a year later than its direct competitor. It cost $100 more than the direct competitor.
And it didn’t even have a special starting line, unlike a competitor.
Disgusting architecture to learn that made versions look worse, or come out later.

Yeah, I was in the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 era.

PlayStation 3 released a year later and was $200 more. Xbox 360 had the core $300 package and the $400 20GB package. PlayStation 3 had the 20GB package for $500 and the 60GB package for $600. Sony was the market leader coming off PS2 and they simply lost at that time what they built and as a company became greedy.

These are completely different scenarios.
I saw a couple of your comments on the site dedicated to the xbox (Where for some reason they constantly discuss only Plyastation, but oh well )
You seem to like Sony games. These are expensive, polished, with good staging, great graphics and animation.

What do you want from them? So that they put these projects in their subscription on the first day, like Microsoft does?
Sorry, they haven't so many resources and they are not worth $3 trillion.

I assume you mean XboxEra? I assume you're "Mello" there right? In fairness, this site is supposed to be focused on PlayStation and yet, just as much time if not more so is spent talking about Microsoft on Xbox. Both fanbases do the exact same shit as the other but like to act as if they're better or don't do what the other side is doing. It's hilarious to be honest.

I like Sony and love a lot of their first party games (not all of them but a good amount) and I agree with the expensive, good staging, great graphics and animation assessment. Polish in all honesty, they've taken a step back for me simply because I had some minor issues with Miles Morales and Rift Apart but a shit ton of issues with HFW where as with the PS4 generation, out of 20 completed Sony published games, only Days Gone gave me technical issues, mostly the frame rate. If I have issues with God of War Ragnarok like I did with HFW then I see them as releasing their games 3-6 months earlier than they should in my opinion. I'm not used to having any major issues with Sony published games so if I have issues with GOWR then in my mind, it's going to be an occurring thing. At least for me anyway.

Well, yeah. Why wouldn't any consumer/gamer be able to play Sony's games for a $15 monthly rental? I'm sorry but anyone who says no to this is an extremist in my eyes because they care more about the company's profits and revenue then they do themselves which is something I have never done nor would ever do. Ubisoft for example is my favorite publisher and developer by far yet Ubisoft+ is coming to Xbox and PlayStation as a separate subscription service. I bash Ubisoft when it's deserved. If a game in my eyes isn't up to par that I played, I say so. Once Ubisoft+ is available on Xbox, all their future games become a $15 monthly rental for me and this IS my favorite company but im not going to give them extra money when I don't have to.

Sony is a billion dollar company and they could easily put their games on PS+ day one if they wanted to. They just don't want to and as long as their fan base is happy to pay for them, it will stay that way unless Game Pass takes off which by next generation, it would have already done so.

You should know how I am based on Xbox Era. I want what's best for me, not what's best for a billion or trillion dollar company. Companies want you to pay more and get less. I want to pay less and get more. lmao.

And even in this case. Show me an Xbox game of a level of performance at least close to the quality of Sony projects, except for Forza Horizon (Absolutely run-in series, with a bunch of tools that make development much cheaper)
Let Phil Spencer start putting his big promises and poignant headlines on the market. So far, I'm seeing mostly words, and indie-filled subscriptions, with occasional good B-projects.
Sorry, especially this year, it's just a fact

In general, I agree with this but to an extent. I do believe that The Coalition is up there with Sony's best and a few other studios like Playground and Ninja Theory will have great visually impressive games. Other than these studios and excluding ABK since the acquisition hasn't been legally finalized yet, none of them really do Sony level type games in terms of visuals, animations and whatnot. But at the same time, they never really have outside of Gears of War and Halo 4. None of their games have been to the level of Sony's in this regard and while I would a few of their other studios to do this, im not expecting them to do so because it's not what they do.

2022 is a clusterfuck for their first party studios and whatnot but we know this already. I can complain about it and trust me, I have but it's not going to change anything for this year. Like Microsoft, im simply riding it out. Also, with both Starfield and Redfall being 2023 and me having 6 games between September and December, their delays actually worked out better for me personally because I can go one game at a time with minimal to no backlog. After all, I can't play more than one game at a time. Not only that but I have 5 multi-platform games to play for the rest of 2022.

So yeah, it sucks but it is what it is. Since im more hyped for Redfall, if the delay makes that game even better then im all for the delay. Starfield isn't a game im hyped for as im not a Bethesda Game Studios guy but because of Game Pass, I will play it and give it a fair chance. This is probably the biggest difference for me. With certain studios/games, I wouldn't buy them period because they're not truly my type of game but because of Game Pass and being able to play Starfield, Avowed and others for a $10 monthly rental where as if I had to buy them, they would be skipped, this is a huge positive for me because I get to play and try these games out for minimal cost and if they hit, awesome but if they miss, no biggie because my $60+ investment isn't there.

I will say that im extremely hyped and looking forward to A Plague Tale Requiem which is an AA title but looks like an AAA title. Innocence was great and im expecting Requiem to be better across the board. Anyone who sees this game and a few others like Stalker 2 as Game Pass fodder or filler, im sorry but I could never take those people seriously because I know they're full of shit and only bashing the game because of it being on Game Pass as if PlayStation Plus has no fodder or filler games which it obviously does. They both do. They're both basically the same game wise. It's just one company's direction is based around and thus, I will get a decent amount of third party games on it day one where as the other is simply staying with their previous and current business model.

Jim Ryan has spoken several times in interviews about their strategy with their studios.
They sell the game, it pays off and makes a profit. Then they give more for next game.
But, unfortunately for Sony and for all of us who love their games, this is not a Nintendo that can afford to sell its titles for 5 years, without significant discounts.
Nintendo is literally the oldest gaming company that has taught people from infancy to Mario, Zelda, and so on.
Many of these people are in their 30s or even 40s.

Sony doesn't have that much time to develop their franchises to this extent.

Unfortunately for the consumer, they came up with a slightly different way to earn more from their titles in order to invest much more in their new projects. This is a price increase to $70. These are late PC ports to make more money and show other people what games Sony makes. They need to make services to earn even more, so they will release them on Ps5 + PC, right away, because microtransactions work there. And they will invest all this money they earn in flagship franchises, or those franchises that have the opportunity to become flagship

Agree with the Nintendo assessment. In this regard, no one is at Nintendo's level nor will anyone ever be. Only Nintendo can sell their games 5 years later for $60.

Sony doesn't have the time but it's also because their franchises outside of God of War and Gran Turismo normally get replaced with a new franchise IP where as Nintendo adds new IP's but they never get rid of their old popular ones.

The $70 price tag doesn't bother me since I was expecting $80 across the board for this generation. My bigger issue if you want to call it that is the timing of the $70 price tag. In a global pandemic and recession for a lot of countries, I simply see the $70 price tag as being tone deaf and just not getting it in this regard. Sony is becoming like they were during the PS3 era where instead of eating the costs while they would still make profits by the way, they're passing it off to the consumer. And 90%+ of consumers are not on twitter or forums and don't give two shits. They all do what they believe is best for themselves and Sony wanting to charge more in my mind was a bad decision based on what's going on in the world in 2020 and up to now.

Of course, im not a collector so a $70 disc based purchase like God of War Ragnarok will end up being a $35 purchase after I trade in the game once I complete it. But those who are all digital or mostly digital obviously have to pay full price and if it's someone who's trying the game/franchise for the first time and doesn't like it, they basically ended up wasting $70.

The PC thing, I believe that their exclusives will be day one before this current generation ends which will make them more money in the short and long term.

Shawn Layden talked about this (Who is very fond of the author of this post on IconEra and he really does not like that Sony releases their games on PC. This is actually the only reason why he posted this, here )
Shawn talked about how the cost of games is steadily rising. Every generation. By the end of that, just one blockbuster will cost around $200 million to produce. Do you understand what money is?
These are gigantic sums. They need to earn more and more to satisfy the desires of their leading studios.
They came up with several solutions.
Like it or hate it, it's working now and you'll get your Spider-man 2 looking amazing and no one else in the industry will make you a single game for that kind of money.
The same will happen with Ghost of Tsushima 2. With Wolverine. With the new project of Barlog, Druckmann and so on.
You have to pay for everything, always

Phil Spencer is a great guy, and clearly more of a gamer than Jim Ryan.
But, the advantage of Phil Spencer is that Nadella's daddy is behind him, who can give him 70 billion, and even 100, probably)

And even with such resources, Phil still cannot show us the level of Sony games

I'm in favor of Sony releasing their exclusives on PC and day one to be honest because since they want to cry about money or that games are too expensive to make, then why wouldn't they want to put their games on PC day one in order to make more money? It's 2022. Not 2002 or even 2012. Shit isn't the same. No console regardless of the manufacturer behind will ever be worth more to that respective company than the IP's that they have. Expanding their IP's beyond their walled garden of a PS5 to PC via EGS and Steam and eventually cloud and whatnot will do them a far greater service than not doing any of this because it's how you expand the IP to make it bigger and much more profitable.

I'm expecting Spider Man 2, Wolverine and others to be amazing. I don't have any doubt about this.

As much as I would love to see more Sony level games from Microsoft, the difference is that I know it's not happening at least not for the most part. You'll have The Coalition, Ninja Theory and Playground as those who give you visual showcases but other than them, it's not what any of those studios do so as much as I or others want this, im not expecting it to happen because I already now what to expect from Microsoft in this regard and to be honest, this has basically been their direction forever. If you subtract The Coalition with Gears and Playground with Forza Horizon, what other games has Microsoft released that are on par with Sony's when it comes to visuals, animations, etc.? There isn't any. Ryse would probably be the closest example and that was 9 years ago and isn't a Microsoft IP nor was it from a Microsoft owned studio.

I can't speak for anyone else but for me, I just want more and better games this generation from Microsoft than I had last generation with Xbox One and I will be happy. This generation with Xbox is what last generation with PlayStation was for me. With PS3, if I subtract Naughty Dog, I had literally only 1 exclusive which was Dead Nation from Housemarque. PS4 is what put Sony at the level they're currently at for me personally. I see Xbox One as Microsoft's PS3 and Series X/S as what PS4 was or in this case, should end up being for me.

Thus far, quantity wise, Microsoft has come up very short where as with PS4, I had already played and completed 4 Sony published games in the first two years but they were all 7/10 or lower. Sony didn't give me anything until 2016 and more so, 2017. This is why I don't go nuts. I gave Sony an entire generation with PS4 to win me over with their games and they did. I'm giving Microsoft the same time frame. And no, I don't care about what either did in their previous generations because that's the past. That's all dead and buried and does nothing for me now.

Quality wise, Microsoft has already done better for me this generation than they did with Xbox One or with what Sony did with PlayStation 4 in the same two year time period so I can't complain. I have over 10 Microsoft first party games that im looking forward to playing this generation and in all honesty, as much as I love a lot of Sony's games, I prefer Microsoft to be the alternative instead of just copying what they're doing. I know I will have Gears 6 and Hellblade 2. Probably 1 or 2 others that will be as close to a Sony game that they will get and that's perfectly fine with me because I don't want every game that Microsoft does to all be the same. Even if it's a game that's not for me and I have no interest in, still prefer the variety because after a while, as much as I love Sony's games, I don't get surprised by them anymore because I know what to expect from their studios. Any single player game will simply be a third person story driven game which is great and all but im more excited for Microsoft's first party studios because with them, I don't know what to expect in regards to what genre will the game be, first or third person, maybe isometric, who knows?

Obviously, it all comes down to each individual's own personal preference.

 

[ksdixon]

That "for free" line has always bothered me. Games are not free on any subscription service - you are paying for them via your sub fee or they are included with Plus and Gold. But certainly talking about giving away games for "free" does make for a good bit of obfuscation. As for the rest of the article, I too wonder at the long-term ramifications of some of Sony's current decisions. Then again, big company wants to make money and charges accordingly is hardly some sort of novelty either.

It's ubiquitous with being free, because people got 3 years for £1. They still haven't closed the loophole, it's a wink and a nod for engagement numbers and ecosystem lock-in.

MS will probably drop the boot at some point and raise the price, close that loop and supplant it with that new Family Plan, but by then you've got at least one generation of kids who grew up with at least 360, with some form of XB/GP console/app paying a subscription fee, flipping the kids from Netflix Peppa Pig tv show, over to GamePass Peppa Pig game. They don't neccesarrilly care about quality of games.