Streaming group issues disappointing forecasts for third-quarter customer growth.
arstechnica.com
In US and Canada, they were losing subs....
In your response you conflate live services and subscriptions, they are two very different things and I believe that F2P and subscription games are more of a competition for things like Gamepass than the traditional model.
There are countless games, including Genshin Impact, Warframe, Destiny, Fortnite, Apex and recently COD Warzone that have ZERO barriers to play VS PSPlus / Gamepass that are charging a monthly fee to a few hundred random games that you may or may not have played or even have interest in.
People will always want to play a highly produced exclusive game that offers something new / different or even just something of incredible quality and they will be willing to pay for that if it excites them.
People said cinema was dead but Spider-man No Way Home really illustrated..... people will pay for a premium experience if the content excites them.
I also think Jim Ryan directly contradicts you in his last interview with Dring, he said putting the games in a subscription would hurt the quality and that alone shows that subs is just a small side-hustle for PlayStation. I would say for Nintendo...they are clearly focused on the traditional model. Both PS and Nintendo customers buy a lot of physical software still..... so I don't see subs being in any position to threaten the traditional model there.
I think this was Jims best move, he clearly understands that exclusives and the bar of quality matter very much to the PS customers. Every exclusive launch is a celebration for us and we value the experience and choices of buying physical or digital or special or collectors etc...
The games can always go to a subscription after a few years and I don't see why people that don't even play on PlayStation or have very limited interest in PS are so upset about Sony taking a different approach to Gamepass. Let them be their own thing, let them cater to their audience...