Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft… What company do you think is going to be in a better position by 2028?
- Thread starter LordOcidax
- Start date
yurinka
Member
I think Sony will be the market leader both total gaming revenue and active console userbase. By 2028 their first party games will have highly expanded mostly thanks to GaaS, multiplatform -mostly PC- and movie/tv adaptations (which will result a big growth in non-Japan Asia), and will be starting to grow in mobile.
I think Microsoft will be the largest game publisher in console and almost in PC and mobile and regarding total gaming revenue will be a close third after Sony and Tencent. I think will move to being full multiplatform and leave Xbox console hardware to 3rd party manufacturers, that would run with a consolized Windows with older Xbox consoles emulation.
Regarding Nintendo, I think Switch 2 will have its sales more focused in its year 1 and 2 than Wii, record ones on launch window, but dropping faster after year 2 than usual resulting in lower total sales at the end of its total lifecycles than Switch 1. I think PS5 and PS6, plus Sony's portable and PC handhelds in general will eat a portion of the Switch 1 market share.
I think Microsoft will be the largest game publisher in console and almost in PC and mobile and regarding total gaming revenue will be a close third after Sony and Tencent. I think will move to being full multiplatform and leave Xbox console hardware to 3rd party manufacturers, that would run with a consolized Windows with older Xbox consoles emulation.
Regarding Nintendo, I think Switch 2 will have its sales more focused in its year 1 and 2 than Wii, record ones on launch window, but dropping faster after year 2 than usual resulting in lower total sales at the end of its total lifecycles than Switch 1. I think PS5 and PS6, plus Sony's portable and PC handhelds in general will eat a portion of the Switch 1 market share.
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saintjules
Member
How are these threads allowed?
Itchy Tickles
Member
I have no horse in the race, but I kinda get the feeling it's not going to be 1 company being better than the rest, but 1 company who didn't fall as hard as the other 2.
There aren't many positives these days, and it seems to be getting worse / more negative (and yes, PC has been getting real bad in terms of hardware costs and hardware being unstable etc)
There aren't many positives these days, and it seems to be getting worse / more negative (and yes, PC has been getting real bad in terms of hardware costs and hardware being unstable etc)
KungFucius
King Snowflake
This is silly. You are asking about the company and Microsoft is gigantic. Their gaming is largely inconsequential to the overall health of MS.
Humdinger
Gold Member
"Dominance" in what sense? Console sales? Revenue? Number of games published? Reputation of those games or platforms?
If you mean dominance in the traditional console market, that will be Sony.
If you mean dominance in the handheld or hybrid market, that will be Nintendo.
If you mean dominance in terms of first-party game revenue, that will be Microsoft.
If you mean dominance in terms of number of games published, that will be Microsoft.
If you mean dominance in terms of reputation or "mind-share," that will be a mix of Sony and Nintendo.
That's my sense of it, anyhow.
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
Speak for yourself. I never believed Starfield was gonna do shit for Xbox. It's more like people deluded themselves into thinking Starfield was gonna save Xbox. No single game has ever saved a console before. It takes a mix of steady stream of good games, good prices, and smart business decisions and some luck to have a successful console gen.
MS had trouble in all those aspects going into this gen and Starfield was never going to save Xbox no matter how successful it was. Phil knew this too which is why he said it in his famous interview about how Starfield scoring a 10/10 on Metacritic wouldn't change anything.
On topic: Probably Sony. They brought in more revenue than MS and Nintendo combined last year and things are unlikely to change going forward. The biggest and most played games are third party games and in that aspect Sony's platform dominates. Switch 2 will never be the primary place to play third party games and Xbox is essentially dead so that pretty much leaves Sony. If anything Sony's position in the market will be even stronger in 3 years as they will have way over 100 million PS5s sold and with MS out of the picture they will be the defacto console brand for third party games.
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I voted Nintendo but I have a strong suspicion that game streaming will be 50% of players somewhere between 2030-2035 and we will have the exact same threads that we do now about physical dying but about local console/PC gaming. This is when Microsoft will surpass Nintendo and Sony and be in competition with Nvidia.
GigaBowser
Banned
nintendos eternel anirmal harv eternel ips
Gameplay Gods Bless
Member
Steam.Out of the big 3… With a new Gen probably coming by 2028. What company do you think is going to be in a better position in terms of dominance and influence in the video game industry? You can also add the order of the positions in a comment.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
From a business perspective Microsoft's strategy will win out in the longterm.
ZoukGalaxy
Member
None
Troll answer, my bad
Troll answer, my bad
reinking
Gold Member
I get that this is an enthusiast board but some of you need to get out of the mindset that it has to be PC if it is not console. I know people right now that would rather play games on their phone than a PC. They are older and work all day on PC so they do not view it as an escape. I can also provide other anecdotal evidence for the younger crowd. My granddaughter has every current generation console. Yet, she spends most of her gaming time on her phone or tablet playing games with friends. The mobile game market is already the biggest market for video games. It makes sense that more people will go in that direction than spending $750 (lol) on a "PS5" equivalent (lol) PC. Will this be in three years? No. But if the market crashes, I expect mobile to benefit the most.
newtypepilot
Member
obviously MS because they would've exited the gaming sector by then.
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Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
"Better position" and does it mean the whole company? Too vague.
MS will still be the biggest company and probably the biggest 3rd party publisher. So is that the best position?
MS will still be the biggest company and probably the biggest 3rd party publisher. So is that the best position?
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PurePlatinum
Member
It depends on what your definition of "Microsoft" is. If it's Xbox as a console platform then no way, but Microsoft Gaming as the largest publisher of video games in the world? That's certainly a healthy business. They are slowly transitioning as to not destroy the little remaining goodwill they have left, but the nature of their presence in the industry is changing.
Nintendo is the most fiscally sound of the three. They are not bankrupting themselves with development costs of making 30-hour long open-world games with photorealistic graphics like Sony. This was the generation that Sony's strategy really caught up with them and proved to be sort of unfeasible long term.
Nintendo will continue to charge a premium price for games that cost less to develop than the other guys. It's easily the soundest business model of the three.
Nintendo is the most fiscally sound of the three. They are not bankrupting themselves with development costs of making 30-hour long open-world games with photorealistic graphics like Sony. This was the generation that Sony's strategy really caught up with them and proved to be sort of unfeasible long term.
Nintendo will continue to charge a premium price for games that cost less to develop than the other guys. It's easily the soundest business model of the three.
PlayStaytion
Member
If they are fighting for digital content then obviously we are fighting for ownership. The best to worst from left to right,
PC/Valve, Xbox, PS, Nintendo.
PC/Valve, Xbox, PS, Nintendo.
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BlackTron
Member
I think the question was "which will be in a better position than the others" not "better position than they are in now compared to themselves"
In a funny way this is a classic MS change the goalpost move, not saying it's intentional lol
BlackTron
Member
The left to right seems reversed no? Valve, which exclusively sells digital DRM licenses, is better than Nintendo, which sells its games with all data on physical cart?
Unless you are just exclusively talking about digital policies, in which case I feel bad summing up PC as a slash with Valve, we need to put GOG first on the list.
You say we are fighting for ownership, if that were the case GOG would likely be more popular. Convenience takes precedence, if people were REALLY worried about ownership, they never would have sold out to digital licenses that they don't own in the first place. Inversely, if digital games create any hassles -from taking up space, lending to friends, portability from Internet, whatever -it might be more convenient to buy a physical Switch game and people still do it.
ZehDon
Member
Sony's latter half of the PS5 gen is looking pretty lacklustre. There's really nothing on the horizon to be interested in.
Microsoft are a dark horse; Fable, Perfect Dark, Gears of War: E-Day, Elder Scrolls 6. There's a chance for them to re-capture some of their long-lost magic - but they've dropped enough balls for me to not ever get excited.
Nintendo are going into the Switch 2 with a weak as fuck line up, but I can't imagine it'll take long before their delivering the goods. With just enough grunt in the hardware to actually ship relatively modern games, Switch 2 looks like it might do some good business. Or it might be another Wii U if consumers aren't interested in paying USD$90 for games an entire generation behind.
Nintendo > Microsoft > Sony
Microsoft are a dark horse; Fable, Perfect Dark, Gears of War: E-Day, Elder Scrolls 6. There's a chance for them to re-capture some of their long-lost magic - but they've dropped enough balls for me to not ever get excited.
Nintendo are going into the Switch 2 with a weak as fuck line up, but I can't imagine it'll take long before their delivering the goods. With just enough grunt in the hardware to actually ship relatively modern games, Switch 2 looks like it might do some good business. Or it might be another Wii U if consumers aren't interested in paying USD$90 for games an entire generation behind.
Nintendo > Microsoft > Sony
awwr999999
Member
Unless PlayStation moves back to proprietary esoteric HW (not x86 AMD/AMD) and figures out a way to keep game ISOs off of the internet.
As things are now, in the short term, MS will end up with most of PS's x86 games as ports.
In the long term 100% of x86 PS games and 100% of Nintendo's games will be available for free on PC via emulation.
40 years from now PC's big problem will be sorting through all of the 'free' Nintendo and PlayStation games.
From Microsoft's POV that's a definitive win.
Madserb2023
Member
Nintendo will do well as its in its own space. I don't see how PC doesn't take over if consoles become $800.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
Agreed.
But also, MS's position in the videogame market is akin to Netflix making the switch from shipping DVDs directly to customers to transitioning to a digital central hub, as it was competing with RedBox. In this case Sony is RedBox, an established leader with brick and mortar kiosks.
MS applied the sams strategy but for console games. In 10 years it won't matter if you're playing on Xbox, or if there even is Xbox hardware, because you're likely already locked in the Xbox ecosystem with gamepass. And if you're not, then MS owns some of the greatest IP on the planet and you're still paying to play their games whether on PS or Nintendo or PC.
Microsoft has outmaneuvered Sony and Nintendo, hands down, and it's not even close. For them, it was never about the games or gamers, really, the goal has always been market share.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
mayham2199
Member
People don't buy consoles cause they are unique. Unless by Unique you mean that you just plug it into your TV and turn on the controller and start playing games. Then they are still unique in that way.
awwr999999
Member
The true console user flow you're describing died with the PS2 - every console's adopted the PC user flow where you have to navigate to a game via a home screen.
Installing games is still easier on consoles but it involves storage management and updates just like with PC games.
mayham2199
Member
Joining a party chat is still much easier on console, joining someone's game is still much easier on console. My friend can literally invite me to a game that he's playing and it will boot up the game and let me in. It even does this while I'm in the middle of playing a game. Console is just much more casual friendly.
awwr999999
Member
PlayStation and Steam are privately owned and capable of making moves that Microsoft as a massive publicly traded company flat out can't make.
MS owns a bunch of big M rated games in a video game universe where M rated is the hard ceiling on AAA games.
American brick and mortar shops won't touch AO games or EXPLICIT audio CDs. In a post-brick and mortar era PSN and Steam can do whatever they want.
Steam moved their ceiling to AO rated games and when PlayStation makes the inevitable move to AO it will shift the market beyond a point where MS can operate.
Something as simple as a single AO rated Rockstar game shipping on PS and Steam will fundamentally reposition AO as the new industry standard.
Americans currently view "M for Mature" games as the industry standard but "AO Adults Only" will quickly downgrade that making CoD and other MS owned games feel irrelevant.
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awwr999999
Member
When GTA becomes an AO game anything violent with an M rating is going to seem "less good" by virtue of not being AO.
CoD's T rated Trilogy games didn't sell in a world where GTA3 is M rated.
Rockstar's been avoiding AO for decades and leaning into it will reshape gaming.
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cartman414
Member
AO will always be niche.
LordOcidax
Member
I was searching this gif for months, thanks.