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[John Wick]

I don't feel people really read lol. Everyone is saying buy this publisher and that publisher.
Sony barely has enough money to buy 1 publisher, let alone multiple ones.
The whole of Sony has a total of18 billion dollars to spend on strategic partnerships for the whole period of 3 years time. Meaning not just for PlayStation. Getting half of that for PlayStation only would already be super generous. Not to mention the fact that the money is not just for acquisitions and mergers, but also for things like timed exclusives, holding events, etc.
In reality, PlayStation will probably not be able to spend more than 1.5 billion per year. And even that is questionable.

Are you seriously stupid? Do you have any idea how this works? You don't have to buy a company outright with cash. How do you think Nvidia was going to buy Arm for 40 billion? With 40 billion cash set aside?
Sony have set aside that cash for the next 3 years. If a great opportunity comes or they need to spend big like 10 billion they can make it happen.

 

[ihavezippers]

Clean up the shit in my pants and go to sleep. Tomorrow will be better, surely it will...

 

[Hunnybun]

Lol I don't even play FPS games and I really couldn't care less about Bethesda and its jank.
But what I do care about is Sony losing out on money that they can otherwise spend on games I like. That's the point.

I don't think that's a valid concern tbh. This is likely to make Sony invest MORE in its games, not less.

 

[Techno_Inked]

Yes but it's probably reasonable to think they could revise that strategy in light of this.

They certainly CAN spend much more if they deem it necessary.

Yes, but even tripling that amount of money would take Sony 5 to 9 years to get all the publishers the other user just mentioned.

 

[Nemesisuuu]

When MS would be on hiring spree, I would send hundreds of potential sexual predators on job interviews, so that MS would implode from countless sexual incidents across the board after hiring them.

 

[MikeM]

Sony just need to merge psnow and ps+, release the games planned for 2022, make as much PS5s as possible and announce sequels/remakes for Socom, Killzone, Warhawk, MAG, Resistance... plus new and unique ones you can't find on other platforms

Warhawk would be massive. That game was huge back in the PS3 days.

Of course, the one thing that I've not seen anyone mention yet: if COD does go exclusive, then it WILL hurt that brand. That is surely inevitable. The majority of its players are on PlayStation: not all, and probably not even a majority, are going to move across.

You'd be looking at maybe a 50% reduction in the console player base.

That's obviously irrelevant to the impact on Sony's bottom line. BUT it does mean that in time it'll be that much more plausible to other games to challenge its dominance, and possibly even for Sony to put out its own competitor.

I wonder what COD revenue would be without PS in the picture. 35% reduction? 50%? If you are MS CEO, you’d want to see what that number looks like. Not putting COD on PS could be a huge hit to the game’s revenue if the players elect to not buy a Xbox.

I spoke to a few buddies on this topic and they said they just won’t be playing COD and will just play something else.

 

[Perrott]

How did you come out to a purchase price of 4.5 billion?

AT&T seeks sale for Warner gaming unit, could fetch about $4 billion, sources say (CNBC, June 2020)

• AT&T is considering selling its Warner Bros. gaming division for about $4 billion, sources say.
• Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard have all expressed interest in buying the unit, which owns titles including “Mortal Kombat” and “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite”.
• AT&T is looking at divesting assets to service its almost $200 billion in debt.

It was "about $4 billion" not 4.5 billion, my bad.

 

[rickybooby87]

My game plan as a Sony Executive to counter-attack Microsoft's latest strategy:

Option 1:

1. Establish strategic partnership/merger with Tencent (Worth about $550Billion) making you the defacto Asian gaming brand in the process
2. Consume every third-party publisher allowed by law (Take-Two, EA, Capcom, SE, Konami, Bandi Namco, Bungie, Kojima boi, etc
3. All recently consumed third-party titles will now become 1st party exclusives that will release day and date on PonyPass
4. Total acquisition of Epic Games (Tencent owns about 40% as is)
5. Revoke Microsoft's Unreal Engine development license (No UE4/UE5) - No Nanite, no Lumen, no MetaHuman.
6. Remove Fortnite from Microsoft's platform (All while using the vaguest language possible to tell that you have no intention of pulling communities away from other platforms)
7. Let existing Azure contracts expire, lean on AWS
8. Make money
9. Repeat step 8

Option 2:

Join forces with Amazon, Apple, and Meta and commence a hostile takeover of Microsoft:
First-day action items:

1. Fire Phil Spencer
2. Dissolve the Xbox brand
3. Migrate all existing users from GamePass to your newly created PonyPass
4. Victory Dance
5. Make money
6. Repeat step 5

 

[John Wick]

The same way any other corporation does, taking debt. Disney was a 20bn business when they got Fox for around 70bn. Now they are worth six times what they were when they started to work on that deal.

It's like some people are really clueless to how businesses can buy another business without having to buy them cash outright.

 

[Kokoloko85]

All these games are on PS, none of them are Xbox exclusive. Out of these MS only acquired CoD and Phil said they plan to support the communites of the Bethesda and Activision on non-MS consoles. Looking at what they did with Mojang and Zenimax, at least CoD Warzone will continue there and getting its updates and so on.


Sony doesn't only has 1st party. They have the support of a shit ton 3rd party publishers, including Microsoft.

Remember that Sony's game division makes more money than MS game division+ABK combined, and that Sony has 2X the console userbase and game subscription subs than MS, plus there over 1700M games sold for PS4.

And this is after MS spent dozens of billions trying to catch up. MS continues behind. Meanwhile Sony is having more revenue than any other console maker ever had, with a huge profit and great growth.


This is wrong, the average demographics of the Switch users are almost exactly the same than the PS, Xbox and Steam ones. The main difference is that they have slightly higher percentage of women. A majority of the Switch users also have other console or are PC users. So pretty likely they are HD console/PC players who have a Switch as secondary console to play its exclusives or use it as portable.

They are on PS for now, there is no evidence saying future Bethesda and Activision games will come to Playstation. Phi said support the communities, not bring over there games.
They didnt spent over 79 billion to let Sony have their titles Things like Minecraft and Call of Duty Warzone yes, but not brand new games. Just like the don’t allow Gears, Halo on Playstation.

They’ve pretty much said Starfield is exclusive, just like Gears, Halo and HellBlade 2 are lol. So MS isnt really a 3rd party publisher for Sony apart from Minecraft and free to play games like COD Warzone.

Revenue? Playstation just lost a 3rd party publisher who brought them there biggest shit ton of money yearly. And they will lose more If they carry on not buying anything.

Yes Playstation makes way more money than Xbox game division but does that really mean anything when Xbox uses MS money outside of the game division? MS makes waaaay more money than Sony. Xbox is using MS money not just Xbox money to acquire what they want. Proof they just bought Activision, a publisher Xbox division cannot afford but Microsoft can. They have more money than Playstation can ever earn lol.

If you think MS spent 70 billion and care or are worried about profits from Playstation then you are naive, just like you kept defending Sony not to do anything when Bethesda was bought.

You do realise MS paid 70 billion? Thats more profit than Playsation has made probably ever….
This is a technology war, MS is investing in the future, the only way they will have people playing gamepass is when they have everyones beloved IP’s. And at best maybe you can buy their games ( no evidence shown they will ) on Playstation. But Casuals will go to Xbox to get games like Call of Duty, GTA, Fifa day 1 for “free”.

Are you gonna say the same thing when MS buys EA and Fifa? Which means most of Playstation’s weekly “revenue” will be gone, Call of Duty and Fifa. What about when MS buys Take2? And then a simple small purchase of Sega and Capcom? And what if they decide no, there games are only on Xbox which is what they are doing now?

Playstation cannot survive with just 1st party games and Square titles lol. Xbox can survive doing shit all because they have MS money. If Playstation lose the likes of Fifa, GTA, Resident Evil, Persona, they are not gonna be the same company they are now.

Theres no proof MS is gonna support or allow these games on Playstation. At best they will bring it gamepass day 1 and Playstation owners will spend £70a game, which will change the fanbase and market quick.

Either way, Playstation need to secure some 3rd party IP before the likes of MS, Tencent buy them all

 

[Techno_Inked]

Are you seriously stupid? Do you have any idea how this works? You don't have to buy a company outright with cash. How do you think Nvidia was going to buy Arm for 40 billion? With 40 billion cash set aside?
Sony have set aside that cash for the next 3 years. If a great opportunity comes or they need to spend big like 10 billion they can make it happen.

Nope, but apparently, you are blind. If you read what I said earlier you'd see that I said it's possible but not with their current investment strategy.

I don't think that's a valid concern tbh. This is likely to make Sony invest MORE in its games, not less.

The money needs to come from somewhere and the money they spend needs to be made back in profit. Going on a buying spree would also make everything more complicated and give Sony a tougher time to uphold their premium quality. Not that I don't want Sony to get aggressive, it would be great if Sony showed some balls and gets aggressive. Just doubt they'd do so. Massive acquisitions in a short period of time aren't much of Sony's style.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Again, I get the enthusiasm for Japanese games, but why do Japanese game fans way over estimate their popularity to a western audience. Do you seriously think games like Disgaea and Yakuza will sway over the mainstream gamers that may switch over to Xbox, and will it replace the money lost from cod sales and mtx?

No but it will keep the asian market happy and hardcore gamers. Yakuza, JRPG’s, Football Manager, Total war will bring in more money than Final Fantasy will.
And I wasnt comparing them to Western games, I was suggesting Sega will be a better purchase than Square. My opinion anyway

 

[Hunnybun]

Warhawk would be massive. That game was huge back in the PS3 days.

I wonder what COD revenue would be without PS in the picture. 35% reduction? 50%? If you are MS CEO, you’d want to see what that number looks like. Not putting COD on PS could be a huge hit to the game’s revenue if the players elect to not buy a Xbox.

I spoke to a few buddies on this topic and they said they just won’t be playing COD and will just play something else.

I'd imagine they'd be looking at something like a 40% reduction in console players. I mean, it's going to be BIG, whatever.

I know it's an ironic time to be bigging it up, but something like Battlefield will go all in at trying to eat up those players. And that's just the most obvious alternative.

 

[Hunnybun]

Nope, but apparently, you are blind. If you read what I said earlier you'd see that I said it's possible but not with their current investment strategy.

The money needs to come from somewhere and the money they spend needs to be made back in profit. Going on a buying spree would also make everything more complicated and give Sony a tougher time to uphold their premium quality. Not that I don't want Sony to get aggressive, it would be great if Sony showed some balls and gets aggressive. Just doubt they'd do so. Massive acquisitions in a short period of time aren't much of Sony's style.

But they generally profit from the games they sell. It's a pretty low risk investment to expand output. Worst case scenario you're looking at small losses.

As for where else the cash comes from: a squeeze on their vast profit margins, that's where. Ultimately that's always the effect of aggressive competition in business. The companies just make less money.

 

[Kokoloko85]

We'd probably end up going bankrup but what the hell, I'd double down on asian devs.
Competing in the western development front is going to be really hard now that MS owns Activision, Blizzard and Bethesda. The only comparable companies are EA, Ubisoft and Take Two and I don't know if we can afford any of them, not to mention any of them could just go to Microsoft and ask if they are willing to give more money

We have a better shot with Japanese devs as we are a japanese company and their primary audience is on our platform already. Looking into Kadokawa, Capcom, Sega, Square, etc. Maybe also look into smaller devs that we can then grow from the inside, or hell open new studios and instead of getting entire studios try to snatch top talent.
Use these new studios to diversify your exclusive lineup: Add JRPG's, Horror games, shooters, fighters, platformers, etc

Then I'd go invest in Korea, open or buy some studios and have them do their trademark multiplayer games with cool visuals and fun gameplay, but adjust the grind and progression to western sensibilities, we like some grind but we don't need games to feel like a second and third job.

In the west have our top studio continue doing what they are known for, and have every/most new investments focused on multiplayer projects.

Exactly. They’ve practically lost the western developing studios with 2 purchases by Xbox. While Playstation concentrated on buying pc porting studios MS changed the whole industry with 2 buys

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Sega would bring in Yakuza, Persona, SMT, Disgaea, Total War, Football Manager and plenty of classic IP’s like Sonic, Panzer, Virtua Fighter, Streets of Rage, Jet Set Radio.

Sega is probably what they need the most, JRPG’s, Yakuza, PC games, Fighters and classic IPs

They have loads of classic IPs already that they can revive. I don't think they need any more of those. Outside of Persona and Sonic they're all either niche or PC-centric.

Monster Hunter alone would be better than all of those. It's the closest thing they could probably get to a Pokemon game. It can be their own bi/tri-annual franchise

 

[iHaunter]

But they are catching up. That's the point.

Never said they weren't. You can make a point talking about something no one was talking about. lol

I still think they are behind in terms of quality SP games.

 

[iHaunter]

??
And what happens when Sony cant make the profit it use from games like Call of Duty, GTA, Fortnite, Fifa? Heck even Persona, Yakuza, Resident Evil, Street Figher, Tekken etc.

You think Sony can survive without these games and off their 1st party games only?

MS doesnt really need to catch up the anything as they are far richer than Sony. They just need to buy what Sony has been making profit off and they will own all the IP’s that were popular on Playstation. People will then buy an Xbox or gamepass as thats the only place to play the games they love. Very simple, if Sony doesnt buy some of these IP’s they are gonna lose

Still a blip. They make more from Genshin and Fornite than any of those combined. They're partnered with Epic so Fornite is staying. Genish is not owned by Microsoft. Not sure the point you're making.

 

[Techno_Inked]

But they generally profit from the games they sell. It's a pretty low risk investment to expand output. Worst case scenario you're looking at small losses.

As for where else the cash comes from: a squeeze on their vast profit margins, that's where. Ultimately that's always the effect of aggressive competition in business. The companies just make less money.

The amount of money needed to purchase those publishers is worth about 1/4th of Sony's total valuation. That's a huge multi-year gamble. Money spent on those acquisitions can't be used to spend elsewhere. I feel there are safer bets that Sony can take that would yield them good if not better results than acquiring Take-Two, Ubisoft, Capcom and Kadokawa Corp.

 

[SSfox]

IF there are 2 consoles, one with Tekken, MGS, and FF. The other with Uncharted, Horizon and Spiderman, i will pick the first for sure without any doubt, despite i like the second batch, but the first means much more to me and i love those much more. The only Sony franchise that matches my favorites games ever are GT and GOW, and when i say GOW, i mean all GOW since PS2 era, because i have to precise it seems, lot of people talk about GOW like only GOW 2018 exists and matter, and they all legendary (of course some are better than others, my top 3 are gow1, gow 2, and gow PS4, but the other are also awesome)

I want to stay loyale to Playstation and Sony, but before that Sony and Playstation must stay loyale to themselves to begin with.

 

[ByWatterson]

Never said they weren't. You can make a point talking about something no one was talking about. lol

I still think they are behind in terms of quality SP games.

Oh, 100%. But those simply aren't the revenue stream that multiplayer games and platform licensing fees are.

Sony HAS to win the hardware war. They have no choice. Microsoft doesn't particularly need to if they have a plan to be in front of more eyeballs via a platform that encourages continued long-term engagement. Shawn Layden talked a while ago about how gaming was stagnating in a way, selling about the same number of consoles generation after generation, to about the same group of 200 million people. I kinda brushed it off then, but thought about it more, and I think he's right. Jim Ryan has actually made similar comments regarding gaming's cultural penetration.

Microsoft's long-term play is not to compete in that relatively small space, but to dramatically expand gaming's footprint in order to compete with other entertainment megacorps like Amazon and Netflix. Gamepass is a path to doing that.

As much as I LOVE Sony's vision for gaming and their first-party output, their strategy is not going to do what Gamepass can.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Rather than a kneejerk huge buyout I would rather think that Sony's best path is to double down on what they're doing, and create more new IPs unique (at least until the next installment, then the n-1 can go to PC) to PlayStation. Their cash to do this is so much more limited than what Microsoft is self apparently bookmarking to spend. They won't win a buyout war, but they remain the platform I'd rather have even if you took all Activision games off of PS5.

They do need a Gamepass equivalent though.

 

[BabyfaceRe]

Honestly, the game plan for Sony now is to go the Nintendo route and separate yourself from the console war/1-to-1 competition. For the longest time it was the 3 big boys battling it out for market share. Nintendo basically decided to take a step back from head to head compeition and carve out its own niche in the market. They've been doing that basically since the time of the Wii and it has worked extremely well for them, doubling down on the Switch which has been a smash success, fueled by innovation and strong unique first party offerings.

Sony will start to slowly move toward this path, carving out a niche for themselves that they can dominate. They have no choice. They LITERALLY CANNOT compete directly with MS anymore. Wether thats JRPGS, Marvel/liscensed IP, PSVR or 1st party cinematic games remains to be seen. Long term they are no longer competing with MS, regardless of your fanboyism, this is absolute fact. Sony has nowhere near the resources to create a competitor to gamepass and they don't have the cash to take a hit on pricing, 70 per game compared to gamepass is absolutely crushing.

Sony has 18bn to spend? They just lost 20bn of value in one day due to this announcement. MS have spent 4 times that on a whim and they could easily spend twice that and not feel it.

They be playing the same game, but they are no longer in the same league or on the same field. I sincerely hope they continue making 10/10 games (MS still severely lacking on that front) but there hopes of staying the industry leaders have been completely halted. The only question is how long it takes to see it play out, 5-10 years maybe?

 

[soulbait]

Before I can grade your paper sir, I will need a works cited page.

 

[iHaunter]

Oh, 100%. But those simply aren't the revenue stream that multiplayer games and platform licensing fees are.

Sony HAS to win the hardware war. They have no choice. Microsoft doesn't particularly need to if they have a plan to be in front of more eyeballs via a platform that encourages continued long-term engagement. Shawn Layden talked a while ago about how gaming was stagnating in a way, selling about the same number of consoles generation after generation, to about the same group of 200 million people. I kinda brushed it off then, but thought about it more, and I think he's right. Jim Ryan has actually made similar comments regarding gaming's cultural penetration.

Microsoft's long-term play is not to compete in that relatively small space, but to dramatically expand gaming's footprint in order to compete with other entertainment megacorps like Amazon and Netflix. Gamepass is a path to doing that.

As much as I LOVE Sony's vision for gaming and their first-party output, their strategy is not going to do what Gamepass can.

The strategy from Phil makes sense. They'll never catch up on SP titles. XB1 HEAVILY lost the console war, 1/3 of XB1 sales compared to PS4. The transition from Hardware focus to Software from Phil was a smart idea and makes sense. Microsoft is mostly a Software company anyway. Most of their revenue is subscription services, so why not leverage that? Once supple meets demand, I expect PS5 to continue Skyrocketing. Since a lot of XSX games are on PC, less incentive to own one. Gaming PCs/Laptops are so common nowadays anyway.

I don't want a Sony GamePass.

 

[Hunnybun]

The amount of money needed to purchase those publishers is worth about 1/4th of Sony's total valuation. That's a huge multi-year gamble. Money spent on those acquisitions can't be used to spend elsewhere. I feel there are safer bets that Sony can take that would yield them good if not better results than acquiring Take-Two, Ubisoft, Capcom and Kadokawa Corp.

I'm not talking about acquisitions.

You said less money from COD means less to make games with. That's the point and I've already explained why I think it's wrong.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Merging Plus and Now, their Spartacus will double the subs Gamepass has at launch. And this is not counting what the improvements will help grow Spartacus. Sony doesn't need to do anything special to compete with Gamepass, they already are dominating it.

And subscriptions are only a small part of Sony's revenue, they make a lot of money from other sources, as it's selling games (1st+3rd party) for their console. Because remember: Sony console installbase is 2X the Xbox one.

Yeah again, these are future problems not present problems. Sony is going to be making bigger profits than MS for the the foreseeable future. But just like Netflix caught a lot of extremely successful companies with their pants down, I do think GamePass has the potential to be equally disruptive in the long run.

We won't start seeing the real impact of the MS acquisitions on all these companies they bought until now until the 2nd half of the generation. But we have to remember that the last Zenimax big hits were in 2011 and 2015, and that Activision focused all their teams on CoD that underperformed this year and Blizzard has many issues with their current teams and projects.

I think Starfield is gonna be the real test. If this game turns out to have been worth the nuclear scale bidding war that led to the Zenimax acquisition, that will definitely be the first big salvo. It's gonna be a while until Obsidian or Double Fine or some of these other studios start paying of through for sure. Let alone Activision-Blizzard which is really a fixer upper if ever there was one.

 

[saintjules]

timestamp

 

[JCK75]

Sony has a ton of exclusive goodness to keep it's fanbase, they can absolutely make deals with MS to get the games on their platform, it may be as simple as giving MS what they want with Cross platform bans and such.

 

[lastmessiah]

Honestly, the game plan for Sony now is to go the Nintendo route and separate yourself from the console war/1-to-1 competition. For the longest time it was the 3 big boys battling it out for market share. Nintendo basically decided to take a step back from head to head compeition and carve out its own niche in the market. They've been doing that basically since the time of the Wii and it has worked extremely well for them, doubling down on the Switch which has been a smash success, fueled by innovation and strong unique first party offerings.

Sony should have done that a long time ago. It's too late now. They abandoned the Japanese market. Nintendo literally stomps on Sony.

 

[Kerotan]

It would take Sony 15-25 years to be able to have the capital to buy all the ones you just listed if they decide to keep their investment strategy as is.

Didn't they make 12BN last year? Won't they be making 15BN+ in the years to come?

 

[Black_Stride]

AT&T seeks sale for Warner gaming unit, could fetch about $4 billion, sources say (CNBC, June 2020)

It was "about $4 billion" not 4.5 billion, my bad.

Ahh the usual "sources".

 

[Techno_Inked]

I'm not talking about acquisitions.

You said less money from COD means less to make games with. That's the point and I've already explained why I think it's wrong.

Oh soz, I confused it with the other comment. But yes, in this case, I definitely agree. Sony needs to make necessary investments to keep its strong position.

Didn't they make 12BN last year? Won't they be making 15BN+ in the years to come?

I do not know how much Sony or PlayStation made last year. Are you referring to Sony or PlayStation?
Either way, I think it's a huge risk to use all of your profits for just M&As.

 

[CeeJay]

Release a load of vapourware CGI trailers for games that will never see the light of day and keep stringing everyone along for a few years while aggressively selling as many PS5s as possible of the back of the promise. Hijack trucks and container ports to secure as many chips as possible and send a camera crew along to make a kickass documentary about it. Use the documentary as part of a marketing push for their brand new subscription service incorporating movies, games and TV shows. Use the time they gained from the vapourware trailers to invest smartly in their own studios to expand them to the point they can develop multiple titles and double their own output, monitor the response to the vapourware trailers and get the new teams working on full games for the trailers that got the most views. Towards the end of the gen the new teams will be up to speed and release a shitload of games that will make everyone forget how sparse things have been most of the gen and gain the goodwill ready for a flying start to the next gen after this one.

Seriously though they cannot fight Microsoft head on so they have to be smart and find their own niche in a similar way but different to what Nintendo have done.

 

[aclar00]

nothing really they can do other than start making their own ips, like sega did when ea did not want to release games for the dreamcast.

Biggest hurdle to that is size/growth. While they dont need to buy additional publishers or studios, its much quicker and would churn out more exclusive games than a more organic growth of internal studios.

Essentially, if Sony can say release 4 exclusives per year and MSFT 10 due to their old internal studios and now Betheseda and Activision studios....it would be a game of catch up. Arguably, while Sony games may score better, it wouldnt be enough to keep gamers away from Xbox ecosystem.

 

[ksdixon]

nothing really they can do other than start making their own ips, like sega did when ea did not want to release games for the dreamcast.

Well they alredy make MLB The Show and got forced to make it multiplatform. Why not just expand to a Sony Sports label for sports games.

 

[kevm3]

I'd look to buy Square and Capcom. Having Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, although not as huge as they once were, would be huge. I'd also potentially nab Kojima Productions.

 

[CeeJay]

Well they alredy make MLB The Show and got forced to make it multiplatform. Why not just expand to a Sony Sports label for sports games.

Baseball is a sport that EA aren't interested in so they were good to go with creating that. EA will fight aggressively to be the only developer with a decent Football, American Football, Basketball and Ice Hockey game though. If i remember rightly they did a deal with Microsoft to stop pursuing sports and there must be good reason why no one else wants to get into developing them (except eFootball). I'm sure they wouldn't want to risk losing the EA sports titles from Playstation as well as COD.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Only greenlight projects that have the potential to sell 20+ million units (big IP) or games that can maintain relevance for 5+ years (GAAS).

Days Gone, Bloodborne, Ratchet and Clank type games go extinct at Sony.

 

[kyoji]

Merge PS Now and PS+ for one tier. $15. Put all first party titles on it Day 1.

Make a PC storefront and copy PlayAnywhere for first party titles.

This would be the dumbest shit ever, and also shrink there market when they dont have to, they dont have to comepete with sub services just provide content for there own market and reasons to buy into playstation, which they have.

 

[NickFire]

All Sony needs to do (beyond continuing its course) is build a fast paced FPS with modern human weapons and top notch game play. They have plenty of talent to get this done. Now they have the motivation, so get to work, and be ready to either launch outright or in early access / beta before any COD contracts expire.

 

[Ogbert]

Carry on making excellent games. Make the most of dual sense and adaptive triggers. Press ahead with VR2. Win back Japan - try and get Monster Hunter as a PS5 exclusive. Reconsider the pricing strategy.

Also, and I think this is important - be much more willing than MS to make the next gen leap and build everything around the PS5. Gamepass tethers games to the Series S. Sony do not need to have that ball and chain.

 

[Sosokrates]

I would aquire remedy, playdead, thatgamecompany,ioi interactive and kojima productions do several timed exclusive deals with EA, Rockstar and buy ip from konami.

 

[FStubbs]

It took 12 months early release for Europe to dump PlayStation and move to the 360. And MS had only been in the game for 5 years.

Casuals don’t have any loyalty to Sony. They’ll go wherever the tide takes them.

Outside of Britain did this actually happen?

 

[Dr Bass]

Nintendo also caters, mostly, to an entirely different audience. Yes, lots of adults own Switches, but their core audience is still kids. Sony, I think, is stuck between one competitor willing to go all out to dominate the market they currently do, and another competitor that has the alternate audience pretty sewn up.

You think the platform with the most users, biggest revenue, and highest profit is the "alternate audience"?

But they are catching up. That's the point.

Based on what metric? Media stories? Money spent? We need numbers that show revenue/profit and console sales are catching up to make such a statement. I guess Microsoft will have to start providing those numbers again for us to know that though.

 

[Filthy Casual]

Purchase Square Enix
Purchase CDPR
Purchase Kojima Productions
Build a couple new studios from the ground up
Expand all current studios

Aim to make Naughty Dog & SSM super studios with 800+ devs

Acquire some kind of stake in Take-Two if possible, just to prevent MS taking them.

Stay winning.

Sony should totally hire me I'd have MS kissing my boots in no time.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Sony's current strategy of selectively purchasing individual studios with which they have strong synergy has been working very well, and they should continue it. Kojipro and Fromsoft are both obvious candidates. The return on investment for an individual studio is much higher than buying an entire publisher with all its corporate bureaucracy and dead franchises. Buying Konami's IPs would also be a strong play.

That said, some of the Japanese publishers might be good investments, particularly Capcom which is overall better-run than most of the others and has a large library of marketable franchises. CD Projekt would also be a very strong purchase.

Aside from acquisitions, Sony needs to diversify the output of its first-party studios. Cinematic story-driven third-person action games are all well and good, but Sony has the market cornered on that niche. It should create flagship RPG franchises to fill the gap left by Microsoft's purchase of Bethesda/Obsidian and the collapse in quality of Final Fantasy and Bioware.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Still a blip. They make more from Genshin and Fornite than any of those combined. They're partnered with Epic so Fornite is staying. Genish is not owned by Microsoft. Not sure the point you're making.

The point Im making, the more games go exclusive to Xbox the less people will have a reason to buy a playstation And playstation will make less and less money.
They cant rely on Fortnite and Genshin and allow everything else to go

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

Just because MS bought Activision, why is the knee jerk reaction all of a sudden that Sony has to go out and buy someone?

Cock waving?

The answer is in the post below yours..

 

[iHaunter]

The point Im making, the more games go exclusive to Xbox the less people will have a reason to buy a playstation And playstation will make less and less money.
They cant rely on Fortnite and Genshin and allow everything else to go

Yeah but both games were multi-plat last gen right? Sony still outsold 3 to 1. I think what's more accurate is instead of JUST buying PS5s people will probably own both.