How was I wrong? Sony PSNow is nothing compared to MS's offering. Blockbuster tried a mail in rental service too.
PS Now has a way bigger catalog for both download and stream, streams on console and the PC streaming works better (maybe because xCloud is still on beta). This week PS Now should start supporting 1080p and already had 60fps support.
Other than getting day one games, the $1 deal, PS Now still not available on mobile, including EA Play, 360 gen downloads on console and downloads on PC (which are important cool things), all the other things are better on PS Now.
Isn't Xbox offering the rental service now?
Like Microsoft, Sony also has 2 game rental services.
Combined they have more subscribers and generate more money than the MS ones, and very likely unlike the MS service they are profitable because even if MS signed several hundreds of games less, they include more and bigger day one games there, which is way, way more expensive. And because the % of subscribers paying a full subscription must be way higher on Sony side.
Sony used to have multiplayer in all games... and have tons of focused multiplayer only titles.
That changed in the middle of PS4.
That was really a bad take from them.
No, it was a good decision. Now their games sell more, get better reviews and win more awards. They focus their resources where they shine, so their games are better and they are more productive and profitable.
Regarding MP they made strategic partnerships with the top MP devs (Fortnite, CoD, GTA, FIFA, Destiny, Rocket League, Fall Guys...) to make sure PS secures their marketing, make sure their PS version doesn't suck and in some of them they get some kind of exclusive stuff even if it's a minor thing.
And well, Sony miks 30% of every game/DLC/IAP sale they make. We saw almost half of Fornite revenue is made on PS, which means this 30% is a ton of money with no work required from Sony 1st party teams.
So as of now Sony is making a ton of money from MP games (pretty likely more than ever), and Sony is making more money than ever from their 1st party games. So they don't need to make MP games or to include MP games on their games.
If they do it, it may be a good plus but before doing it they must make sure that to include MP on their games doesn't mean the single player games will be half assed because they have to include a MP nobody asked for and nobody is going to play 3 months after release, and they also must make sure that if they make MP only games they are good enough to make sure enough people buys and plays them during a long enough period, or at least that the game doesn't suffers if only a tiny amount of passionate fans keep playing it.
Whether or not Sony was going to continue to be competitive wasn't the question at all. The question is how will they continue to be competitive. Should they change their business strategy and make massive moves or continue doing what they are doing? Somehow, suggesting that what they are doing is working and continuing their course is "next-level corporate speaking"? Yeah, I don't get that at all.
For sure Sony will continue to be competitive. They are the clear market leader in all metrics: selling consoles, selling games, amount of exclusives, amount of awards these exclusive earn, sales of these exclusives, selling game subscriptions, selling VR on console and more importantly: making money both for the overall division and from every one of these areas. They are even breaking gaming history records in many of these areas.
And they plan to increase the amount exclusives they have, to basically double the 1st party development staff this year, to make huge investments on 2nd party and are working to get even more support from Japanese 3rd party companies even if basically of them had some exclusive on PS4.
Microsoft is behind them in all the areas. Microsoft is the one who should improve their business strategy to catch up Sony, not the opposite. This is why they spent over $10B purchasing studios, publish all their games on PC day one and even almost give away all their games day one trying to get some attention. They seem to be improving, but still are way behind Sony, who is in a growing trend.