Video Games Tutorials and News - Xbox Attacks Sony's Game Pass & Exclusive Criticisms
Okay, so this is part two of a article I started yesterday. Today we're going to be talking about how Microsoft believes, or seems to believe, that Sony is being a little bit hypocritical about exclusives, and then they're going to basically eviscerate the idea of Game Pass. Sony is a competitor when Sony has their own service and they even talk about several things Sony has done and how it seems like Sony is, at the end of the day, fearful of the service.
We're going to dive in right now. If I start in the middle of a sentence, sort of, it's because we just finished the section from yesterday and we're going into section two. The full article is available now for members. Let's dive right in. Hit that bell so you don't miss any of the articles on this channel.
Let's get into it. Considering the existence of strong upstream competition, rival game distribution channels, including console stores and subscription services, have access to a wide range of titles in addition to Activation Blizzard games, including exclusive content not available to Microsoft, consumers,or For example on may 16 2022 sony announced that the top titles that would be made available in the new playstation plus in addition to several exclusive titles popular sony games like ghost of tsushima death stranding and demon souls Sony announced that the catalog would include Ubisoft plus classics, a curated selection of popular games, including the best-selling Sassafree.
In Valhalla the Division, and Foreigner, which will be released together with PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Plus premium membership tiers. So basically, what they're saying is that you're competing, you have content that we don't have, and you're utilizing it to leverage your brand, and that's fine.
We should be able to do the same again. They won't they've said they won't two times in this document, but that shouldn't be. That argument doesn't really fall apart for the PlayStation. When they try to make it because they are doing it, and Xbox actually goes a step further, and I found this a little bit interesting, they actually admit that they are a little bit weak when it comes to their standing against Playstation.
So what they're saying here is that Sony would remain the market leader if this deal went through. Sony's fails to mention, when it insinuates game pass could achieve unattainable leadership in subscription services, which, incidentally, suffer from rivalry from the traditional, buy to play model, is its own leadership position in digital distribution of console games.
Sony is, in fact, the largest digital distributor of console games, so they're pointing this out here smartly. They're saying, "Okay, look at Game Pass could do quite well, but Sony, aren't you the largest digital distributor for console games?" Why are you against it then? They say in Brazil that considering both the broader distribution segment and the narrowest type of hypothetical segment of multi-game subscription services for consoles, as shown in the tables below so they say sony accounts for 50 to 60 percent of the digital distribution of console games.
Microsoft only counts for 30 to 40 percent, so they're saying, hey, you beat us in this section, so yeah, we want to come compete. We're still going to let you do your call of duty or whatever, but the idea that our doing this is somehow going to hurt you. It's just that it just doesn't hold up when you start actually looking at the numbers.
Here are the numbers, and they even go further. They talk about subscription services. Sony accounts for subscription services for multiple console games. Sony accounts for fifty to sixty percent of the market share, closer to forty-fifty percent. Microsoft only counts for thirty to forty percent, or thirty to forty percent over here.
It's a little bit closer to the market share percentage of 20. It says that passing along savings to a consumer should be celebrated, and man am I ever with them on that one. Let's find, let's find that word, celebrated.
Xbox game pass should be praised
Such subjective criticisms of the game's business model This also reveals Sony's real concern, the fear that a business model innovation that gives access to high quality content and lower immediate cost to consumers is something that should be praised rather than criticized. This threatens their standing leadership in the article game industry with Microsoft is moving away, and this is okay.
So Microsoft actually points out that they're moving away from the console strategy and broadening their options. We're going to let people play on Samsung televisions on whatever device that they want. They can play via the cloud, and that is where we're going to go. That threatens your standing leadership and we sense fear, something that I talked about in those other articles, so why did I think that was so important?
Because people smell blood in the water, and in this case, it seems like Microsoft lawyers smelled a little bit of blood in the water because they were able to call that out very succinctly. They continue on to page nine. I'm talking about this. I told you this would be a long article. I told you to buckle up.
Sony agrees the games remain the same
Ubisoft stated that game subscription services are just a different way to access content which remains available through other channels. For example, buy to pay like Playstation does. Newman said that subscription game services compete directly with individual sales of titles, and riot noted that game subscription services are part of a broader market for digital game distribution.
Even though Sony agreed that the games are substantially the same regardless of whether the consumer makes a single payment or accesses the titles through a subscription service, largely they're saying that it's still the same game regardless of how you access it, so they're setting up that hey, this is just another way to access content.
Sony You can keep doing your thing. We're going to do ours. Yet again, Xbox calls out their fear of Game Pass. This starts on page 11.
Sony's fear of game pass success called out
Sony's isolated position can probably be explained by the fact that Microsoft's subscription gaming offering Xbox Game Pass Game Pass has been launched as Microsoft's competitive response to and this is really interesting; they say it's launched as their failure as Xbox's failure in the console wars and the need to offer players additional value compared to the buy to play model.
