Sony needs to get it out of their heads that the only avenue for growth is by putting their games on competing platforms. That's loser mentality and will lead them down the same road as MS. They need to focus on growing PS itself. That means giving people more incentive to buy their hardware. Which means focusing on exclusives (first party and third party). Nintendo and Valve do not bring their games to other platforms and they have no problem continuing to grow their businesses. The money is in the platform, not the so much the games themselves.
A PC storefront with exclusive first party games will never work either. Steam is too entrenched in PC gaming now, which for all practical purposes is now a closed platform for Valve and it's their territory (and who are also releasing actual console devices like the steam deck). If this were at all realistic then ask yourself why MS hasn't tried leveraging their own windows store, which is built into the OS and requires no extra download, for the same purpose instead of throwing everything on Steam as they currently do. With all the content they now own between Bethesda and ABK, they have FAR more leverage than Sony, with only a couple of FROM games in their portfolio, to try to force people off of Steam. MS would LOVE to have all PC gaming revenue go to them instead of Valve. But even they don't think they would be successful trying that. So what hope would Sony have?
The fact that after all of this PC porting nonsense Sony has been doing, DeS, BB, and GT7 (the games with the highest sales potential on PC) not being ported despite being many years old now tells me at least one person at that company still has a head on their shoulders and realizes the importance of not giving away your best cards to your opponents.
On the basic idea I don't disagree with you. Ideally, if they could get cloud gaming as its own sub tier again, fully figure a way for people to purchase cloud versions of games that can still entitle them to a non-cloud version later on if they so choose (at a cost discounted for the non-cloud version with the discount shrinking over time the longer they don't redeem it, unless they wait for the game to go on sale or something), then they could just use that as the low-cost entry option. Do it as a cheap box where they can control integration of the hardware & software experience. Maybe the recent update with PS Portal is a move into that direction.
However, they've let the cat out of the bag with these PC ports and realistically I'm not expecting them to change that. So alongside an aforementioned cheap cloud-based device, a PC launcher of their own wouldn't be so bad in the grand scheme of things. Whereas if they went with a Series S-like box, they'd potentially have game design features hamstrung by that weaker performance and needing to cater to it, and it'd eat too much into the production pipeline of their "real" next-gen console. Even if they develop means of enabling seamless scaling of settings & performance from a high-end to a lower-end, I don't think that'd be best served in yet another living room box. Use that for something like a portable, where portability as a convenience adds some natural value to the device.
For the PC launcher, I'm not saying it'd be exclusive to just 1P titles. The idea is that SIE would use some of their 1P titles as permanent exclusives and others as timed exclusives before going to other launchers, and others still (mainly IP that already have presence on Steam) as Day 1 multi-launcher releases. But yes, for a launcher to work they ultimately need to get 3P support as well, at least on par with what the console has. And if they don't want that to get out of balance, encourage any PC software on the launcher to get PlayStation versions as well, either with direct ports or through building some WINE-like compatibility layer into PS's OS (which IIRC is FreeBSD-based) so where any games without a native PS port can still run on the system, just maybe not fully optimized. But then it'd be up to SIE to give an incentive for optimization or better yet, an actual native port, and I guess leveraging the install base of the console (and over time if it grows, the launcher itself) would help.
FWIW I'm fully aware of the advantages MS have on PC due to all of their vested interests. That's why IF they're building a launcher (I'm not one of the ones pushing for that; others are, some are even saying the PS handheld will be a PC handheld which makes no sense to me as that'd mean it's running some version of Windows and....
why would they do that?), then if they're making a PC push best to leverage their launcher ahead of everything else. So Steam, GOG etc. will still get the games they've already gotten so far (including, yes, Elden Ring), but any IP that haven't been ported to them? Keep as many exclusive to the PS launcher as possible, although I know it'd be a case-by-case in some instances where they may eventually go to other launchers.
Ultimately though, it's not like SIE are putting any of those games on the Microsoft Store. I'm also aware that, yes, MS could try taking Xbox into a more PC-like direction and that there's an opening for them to technically play SIE 1P games that way if they enable alternative storefronts like Steam, EGS etc. (which I think will happen), but I don't think that'll be the gotcha some think, at least as long as SIE don't get any further in-depth with Steam than they already are. For example, MS would be adding Windows code & APIs for natural compatibility of those alternate storefronts (and whitelisted programs) through their own effort I feel, but for the storefronts it's ultimately still with the
permission of Valve, Epic, CDP etc. MS would just be doing the hard work for them vs. having them write Xbox-specific apps.
If SIE don't give that
permission to Microsoft, then they can't go ahead and add PS launcher compatibility to that hypothetical Xbox. Yes, hackers/modders may try, but since this would still be an Xbox with some closed platform features (mainly for security reasons, hence only running whitelisted apps), then Microsoft can still enforce things from their end, meaning firmware updates and whatnot would kill any of those types of hacks. That'd mean the only SIE games that hypothetical type of Xbox would play are those already on Steam, EGS etc. and yeah that still is kind of a "lol" on SIE's part because of how they've done their PC strategy up to this point, but it is what it is. And if they aren't gonna yank IP from launchers that already have audiences for them, then it means either Day 1 or sometime within 1-2 years (though IMO, should be much later for bigger non-GAAS titles) that "Xbox" (console/PC hybrid) can still play Horizon, Destiny, God of War and if Sony acquire Kadokawa, very likely Elden Ring 2 through it via Steam even if SIE cease specific Xbox versions of those games.
But the other reasons why I don't see that being too big a deal for SIE long-term, is because I think there's zero chance they do alternative storefronts without finding a way to make money off of that. It's the whole reason why I think the next Xbox(es) are going to be console/PC hybrid devices: it's really about the business model in it. No chance in hell Valve or Epic agree to a revenue sharing model, and they wouldn't want PC Game Pass on their storefronts either, so either MS sells much higher-priced hardware that "bakes in" the lost revenue on 1P & 3P game sales from the Xbox Store due to upfront access to storefronts like Steam, or they offer somewhat higher-priced hardware that's soft-subsidized with a Game Pass contract where access to those storefronts comes through some Game Pass subscription tier. Most likely, they'll offer both.
And since in both cases they're going to want to have lucrative profit margins on the hardware upfront (more so with the non-subsidized model but still), they'll know that places their production volume at a certain level. They won't be producing those systems to compete at volume with PlayStation or Nintendo, but they'd probably try aiming for a 3-5 million-per-year market with them (assuming one's the rumored handheld, and the other's a console-like box with modularity). They'll likely have to partner with OEMs either making a Surface-like reference model or doing something like what SEGA did with JVC, Hitachi etc. during the Saturn (or 3DO with Panasonic and Sanyo as other examples), which that Discord leak from back in January said and I think is going to happen. Just hopefully MS don't half-ass it but we never know with them.
So yeah, at this point I think SIE & PC is here to stay, for better or worst. But, I think they can make it work as long as they don't go gung-ho with bringing all their stuff to launchers like Steam, but also don't pull back launcher support for IP that are already on other storefronts and have big audiences there. In terms of the big AAA non-GAAS IP, I think the main one (from an internal studio) they'll use to do Day 1 between their own launcher and other launchers, is likely Horizon 3. And potentially, Spiderman 3. If they acquire Kadokawa, I'm expecting the same with Elden Ring 2.
After that, would be the games that probably work best with a staggered launcher strategy, but might go Day 1 between a PS launcher and the console. That might be stuff like a Days Gone 2, for example. After that, would be games that maybe didn't work so well on other platforms and have a 50/50 chance of being heavily delayed for non-PS launchers or just ending up exclusive to their own launcher. You know, the Rift Aparts, Until Dawns, Returnals of their lineup. And from there they could have games that in terms of launchers are just full-on exclusive to their own, for example because those games are heavily associated with PlayStation to begin with. That's where I think you'd get some From Software exclusives like a King's Field, Echo Night, Eternal Ring, Evergrace, Demon's Souls or Bloodborne for example, or games like GT7, or SIE bringing back classics like Jet Moto and Parappa. I don't see a reason to have those on any other launcher than a PlayStation one.
Now how consoles play into that could get tricky...well, not with Xbox. There's a real chance that outside of GAAS titles, SIE bring nothing directly to Xbox. Again, Microsoft can kinda have a way around that if they PC-ify Xbox but it'd be limited to whatever SIE games end up on Steam. Nintendo is where it actually gets really tricky, because I never thought they'd release something like LEGO Horizon on Switch (let alone Day 1) until they did it. I think with Nintendo, SIE would primarily stick with whatever GAAS are already there (e.g MLB The Show), maybe some other LEGO crossover, some of the smaller AA games (that in terms of PC, could mostly be exclusive to the PS launcher), and improved remasters of old-old (pre-PS4) games with QOL features and such.
With those types of remasters, maybe SIE would include them in a subscription tier for their launcher on PC and since those tiers should match what PS+ has (outside of online play, which should be free, which could complicate things with that on the console), then that type of library should be available to console owners with a subscription as well at the same tier. There won't be any PS+ on Nintendo, so those customers can pay for individual remasters or small collections of them. Meanwhile for the PS console, those users should be able to download native versions of those retro games they can play even if their sub lapses, but I don't see a reason to offer the same to a PS launcher subscriber on PC (who doesn't have a console) unless they pay a small fee to download the game natively to their system first.
Ideally I'd like if SIE could get a good cycle going where when, say, they released a game for the Switch or port a game to a PC launcher that isn't theirs, that there's a new game of equivalent (in stature) or higher coming exclusively for their console (or their console & PS launcher, depending on the game, which might end up being the majority of them). Preferably with internal 1P titles or games co-developed with 3P partners in 2P deals, since I see straight-up 3P exclusives being less and less a thing that happens, especially in the AAA side of things.
So yeah, I'm not
completely against a multiplatform strategy for SIE, since whether some want it or not that's a direction they're going in. But I do think they could have a tight, well-oiled approach and one improved a lot over what they've been doing so far, that doesn't really jeopardize console sales or growth all that much either. And that still doesn't prevent them from having cheaper entry-level hardware access points in their ecosystem (cloud streaming device, portable with various tech for automating scaling & performance from higher-end target to its spec). Regardless, they really do need to prioritize maintaining as much coupled integration within their domain in that ecosystem as possible when it comes to the hardware, OS, API, middleware, software & services stacks.
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Mibu no ookami
who would you consider to be the biggest loser of this transaction, if it does end up happening?
Astray
nial
with a huge caveat there being that Sony's desire to get back into the handheld space might really upend some things in Sony Group. It's one thing to create a Switch game when Sony doesn't have a handheld, but to keep making Switch 2 games when there is a Sony handheld on the market might be suspect. It's also totally possible that Sony starts making more generic IP based games in Japan and explores this manga/anime pipeline to movies/games. When Totoki spoke of IP generation, I think this is an element of what he may have been referring to, but Sony Pictures and Sony Music Japan have always looked to improve their bottom line kind of at the expense of SIE. 
