A reader worries that Sony has become too complacent with the early success of the PS5 and details several ways it’s losing ground to Xbox.
This month’s State of Play was the point at which I realised that Sony had lost the plot and no matter how well the PlayStation 5 is selling at the moment it’s ultimately doomed to failure.
I’ve actually felt this way for a while, so while I might be being a bit melodramatic about the State of Play, I feel it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
The underlying reason is simply that Microsoft has much more money that Sony and while I don’t think they’re using it particularly sensibly (stop signing up so many mediocre American developers!) that’s being equalled out by the bad decisions Sony is making.
- Japan. Sony giving up on Japan is stupid for several reasons, not least the fact that having no foothold in Japan, in terms of audience or developers, is one of Microsoft’s major weaknesses. And now Sony is just throwing that away for absolutely no reason. Even though sales of Xbox Series X/S are already well up on Xbox One, proving that Japan is perfectly open to Xbox as a brand.
- Streaming. This one is even dumber because Sony had the lead on streaming when they bought Gaikai back in 2012, and set-up PlayStation Now, well before Microsoft had anything similar. But PlayStation Now has been neglected ever since and Microsoft is now streets ahead in terms of both its streaming service and the server farms to power it – so far ahead that Sony itself has had to make an agreement to use their hardware. Although even that hasn’t resulted in any new services yet.
- Games. Sony has done really well in the first year of the PlayStation 5, in terms of the number of quality first party games it’s released. But this Christmas it has none and Microsoft has Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite. Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 are out next spring but to be honest both Microsoft’s games are bigger than them and Sony’s real trump card, God Of War, doesn’t have a date at all. There’s no hint of any other games for next year either (Spider-Man 2 is 2023) which is really worrying for a company that usually announces them years in advance.
- Game Pass. On the face of it Game Pass seems like an easy thing to copy from Microsoft. It’s not a technical advantage, like streaming, it’s simply an issue of money. Sony can’t afford to give all their first party games away, and even if that did prove cost effective they definitely can’t afford to keep buying up third party games the way Microsoft is, so there’s no way a PlayStation Pass could ever be as good.
- Money. The problem with most of these issues is that Sony is a much smaller company than Microsoft and simply cannot afford to compete on the same scale. The only way that’s going to change is if they team up with, or get bought by, someone else. But Sony are only small in comparison to Microsoft so they’re an expensive purchase considering nothing else they do makes much money and I can’t see any kind of team-up happening.
- Arrogance. Even more than money this is the fundamental flaw with Sony and it’s one they’ve always suffered from, and were made to suffer for with the PlayStation 3. The problem now is that the PlayStation 5 is doing so well that Sony isn’t doing anything to counter Microsoft and despite many of the responses they could make, many of them listed above, they’re just sitting around doing nothing. And very soon it’s going to be too late for anything.
Of course, the one counter to all this is that Sony has a secret plan and is one day going to announce a super value Game Pass equivalent that works with streaming and includes tons of exclusive Japanese made games. But let’s face it, that’s not going to happen.
What will happen is that Sony will accept all the above as true far too late, make a hurried attempt to reverse course and realise that they’ve wasted their advantage and, especially as consoles become obsolete, there’s no way for them to ever beat Xbox.
I don’t want it to happen, but I just don’t see any other outcome, not with the way Sony is behaving now and, frankly, has been for years.
By reader Trantor
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk and follow us on Twitter.
MORE : Latest PS5 State of Play livestream… was a big bag of nothing
MORE : Darkplates 2.0 maker trolls Sony with new plans to make PS5 ‘less ugly’
MORE : PS5 chip shortages are so bad that Sony is planning to make them itself
Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.