I am not saying the Playstation cloud service is bad, as it stands, I still think playing in the cloud is so far behind playing locally that I don't want to, but xCloud in my experience runs better and faster on all devices. And I don't know if Playstation streaming supports third-party offerings either when it comes to mobile controllers.
we are talking about the situation that comes when Call of Duty and Elder Scrolls hit. Xbox has the capability to offer 3 times the number of AAA exclusives yearly in a few years.
We'll see if it's the case, the reality right now is that Sony delivers way more 1st party games than MS. Just compare what they released until now this generation, or what they released this year. And Sony is making their studios bigger and acquiring more studios to release more games than now.
Meanwhile MS bought a gazillion studios, but we're still waiting to see the results. I'm confident that MS will be able to acquire ABK and that maybe next year they'll start to have consistently at least a big 1st party game per quarter or two. But until now I acknowledge MS is working on it but they are still not delivering.
Seems that at least 2 or 3 CoD (not counting Warzone 2, its F2P) will still have the Sony deal, meaning that during more than a year after release won't be on GP. So pretty likely we'll have to wait for at least 3 or 4 year to see a new CoD releasing day one on GP. We'll also have to see if they also release it on PS these 3 years or not because it will seriously affect its performance on GP.
We'll also have to see the impact of Elder Scrolls. To see if it is multiplatform or not. To see if it's successful like Skyrim or if instead is more like Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76. To see if it has a good launch of if it's another broken launch with many issues.
We'll also have to see if these supposed CoD and ESVI impacts happen this generation or in the next one, because in 2027 pretty likely they'll release the PS6.
We'll also have to see the states of the CoD and ESVI brands are once they become exclusive, if they become exclusive, and how do they perform without PlayStation, and what competition do they have when released. Because I think pretty likely many people who played them simply will play other games on PlayStation.
They'll have open world RPGs from Sony, Square, Rockstar or Ubisoft and shooters than in addition to the usual suspects, exclusives new IPs from people like Bungie (multiple), Deviation or Firewalk or even other multi and exclusive shooters and open world RPGs that will released before CoD or ES -maybe, maybe not- become exclusive.
That's the point here, that there is a horizon coming, where Game Pass is significantly bigger than it currently is, to the point where Playstation can't maintain the dominant position they currently have in terms of premier first-party offerings.
Numbers say that Sony has like twice the active userbase and game subs, that cloud gaming is a very small part of the gaming market, that Sony numbers in many areas keep getting bigger year after year they keep improving their numbers and breaking numbers.
There seems to big demand there, so once they solve manufacturing issues their consoles could sell a lot and skyrocket these numbers and records.
Gamepass -and even less xCloud- had no impact on Sony's success, and market numbers also tell us that CoD sales or revenue on PS are are a tiny percentage of the total ones, and also smaller than the multi-year growth that Sony has. Meaning that even if they lose CoD and all their customers (which won't be the case even if it goes exclusive, many will continue on PS) that growth will compensate it.
GP was stuck in their growth until they got a bump in subs for Halo and Forza, and then MS stopped also providing the subs numbers, which in any case we didn't know what portion of them did use xCloud or were paying subs and still are far from the Sony ones.
No market data leads to think Sony is getting affected by MS, GP and even less xCloud or that may get affected by them, so only fan wishes remain to think it's the case.
Now, Sony has the option to start offering day one at any point, but once the pendulum swings, they need to have all of this in place. Also, do consider just how much Xbox has grown in the last few years, there is a trend here.
Sony won't take it because they have a more successful and profitable strategy that makes more sense for them: to sell their games only on their console and over a year or two once they stop selling to put some of them (not all) in their game sub or release a PC port. Plus also to market these IPs to a wider audience by making movies, tv shows or mobile games of them.
And to reinvest part of this profit to grow their teams and make even more games, to continue increasing their market lead in consoles while also growing in other areas like VR, PC, mobile, movies etc. while also expanding their 1st party offerings expanding on new areas where they did a little presence before like MP, GaaS or new genres and game types like shooters etc.