There's not much information yet but the way i'm loooking at it Series X owners would be getting a real screw job if Gamepass is available on Playstation. Unless I'd also be able to play all of PS's AAA exclusives in return...wtf would I have an Xbox? How is that fair?
My gaming days a probably coming to end in the coming months anyway so I'm not too bothered by it but that'd be bullshit if PS owners can play Halo but I can't play God of War, Spiderman, Last of Us, etc...
Gamepass is not showing up on Playstation, especially if it offers more than just Xbox first party. The only way it shows up is in a nuked form similar to EA Play and whatever Ubisoft's thing is. Otherwise it messes way too much with Sony's 30% cut on 3rd party sales and its own subscription service. Only way this happens is if regulators (the EU especially) deem console's a essential input like phones (unlikely) and force Sony and Nintendo to put 3rd party store fronts on their consoles. But, the day that happens, console gaming as we know it is likely dead because the prices will go notably up to account for not getting that revenue.
Phil Spencer admitted in 2022 or 2023 that Xbox lost the console war. Xbox 360 was better than PS3, but losing the XBONE/PS4 generation, where games started turning digital, means Xbox will never be able to catch up again.
It's still a slap in the face to anyone who remained loyal to Xbox during this generation. You waited how long for exclusives, and now you're going to throw them on PS5? I can understand it, but you have to be ready to fully throw the white flag in this console race. Game Pass is going to be the only reason to own an Xbox if this rumour is fully true.
And for the gaming consumers, this sucks. No competition sucks, especially with a pretty anti-consumer company like Sony. You could argue the Switch, which is true, but the console and games are so much different.
I think MS expected to lose this generation. What they didn't expect was to be trending towards Wii-U type sales numbers in year 3. Microsoft's own CFO's guidance expects less than 2m Series consoles to be sold in the first half of 2024. It's trending worse than X-Box One in total sales over the same time frame. I think they expected to beat the X-Box One this generation and maybe put a small dent into Sony's dominance. MS needed people to be buying Series Consoles at a respectable rate, because that is where most of their Gamepass subscriber growth is coming from., as cloud isn't progressing at the rate they expected (they are closing Azure in June), and it hasn't caught on to the level they would like on PC. When they pumped like 90b into acquisitions they need to start showing serious growth, even if X-Box is a minor player in Microsofts portfolio compared to Services like windows and office, Cloud and the AI boom that is fueling their current 3 trillion dollar valuation.
Something changed since October. My guess is Starfield didn't give them a sizable boost on either front, and a disastrous holiday season. Series X as down to $350 USD some places and wasn't moving units.
PS3 actually outsold 360, but by a relatively minor margin. X-Box messed up focusing on Kinect, TV, and just letting their first party studios that weren't dedicated to Gears, Forza or Halo die at the end of the 7th gen. 360 started off better than PS3, but Sony closed that generation quite strong with a ton of momentum entering the 8th gen (last truly big exclusive was The Last of Us, the 3 Uncharted games that gen, Infamous, etc.)
While I don't like the lack of competiton. PC is still a massive threat to take dollars away, so is Nintendo switch. Switch 2 may offer pretty high-end performance (not PS5/Series X level), but with NVIDIA DLSS it should be able to play quite a few next gen games, and get significantly more 3rd party support (if MS is releasing on it) than the Switch ever did.
gizmodo.com
