With Microsoft’s Bomb Acquisition of Activision Blizzard announced this morning, on top of its other big purchase In recent years, the Xbox family has gone beyond stacking. With its rival’s first-party lineup growing and then narrowing its selection of major third-party partners, Sony is arguably facing at least one challenge. However, instead of going head to head with Xbox by acquiring studios to keep up, it’s more important right now for Sony to develop a competitor to Microsoft’s biggest interest in this generation: Xbox Game Pass.
In theory, Microsoft has the option of removing franchises like Warcraft, Diablo, and Call of Duty that are exclusive to Xbox consoles. Instead, practically every existing game from those behemoths is available for use in Game Pass, as evidenced by Bethesda’s uptake in 2020. PC, console, cloud streaming through browsers and mobile devices; all of which can deliver a classic Modern Warfare campaign or Overwatch matches. It’s easy to compare how many studios and IPs are currently using Xbox versus Sony, but Microsoft’s real and significant advantage is the ease of casual consumer access to their games. .
Fortunately, Sony already has a lot of tools available to implement the service like Game Pass and if the troubles surrounding the industry are to be believed, it can happen sooner rather than later. Of course, games should be the core product, and PlayStation Now is a nearly decade-long way to make those games available to a wide audience. Through this subscription, you can already stream the game to PlayStation and PC. Unknown to many, a lot of PS Now games are downloadable, although only PS2 and PS4 titles work this way. Ideally, this will change.
Sony has a following catalog of classic games that might convince people to sign up for the full-access PlayStation subscription service. An essential part of keeping Game Pass competitors afloat is finding lingering backward compatibility issues that keep Sony from offering PS1 and PS3 games on current hardware. Once that is possible, the sky is the limit for what compelling products to put into service. The Nostalgia is a powerful weapon and allows anyone to play all generations of God of War, Twisted Metal, Warhawk, and if licensed, Final Fantasy with a single subscription will be extremely attractive.
Next will be an expansion of the PlayStation Plus Collection to include the library of PlayStation Now games and bundle them into the PlayStation Plus rack. Self-pay to play online is no longer acceptable and that feature will be included in a super service for a fee and an expansive digital library of games that can be streamed or download. A logical simplification of the various pieces that Sony already has available.
And we haven’t even talked about Sony’s secret sauce for this innovative PlayStation Plus. Remember, Sony is not just a game company. Movies sony, TV shows and music will be the x-factor, giving the show’s breadth of content to attract potential subscribers. Watch the latest Spider-Man movie as it will count towards your game extra cost. Funimation and Crunchyroll, two popular anime companies, have come under the umbrella of Sony and can easily be used to flexibly customize the unique entertainment available with memberships. It’s not just about the game anymore and Sony should have foresight when it comes to using everything available to make a difference.
All sections are there to compete without spending billions to buy another game publisher: Potential killer catalog, game streaming, movies, anime, music. A few technical hurdles and a great licensing partnership could be a few of the obstacles that stand in the way of having a competitor in a functional and distinctive Game Pass. Sony is not out of the game because it may not have Call of Duty for a few more years, but it needs to adjust the services it offers before it gets left in the dust.
