Next Generation business and marketing - how to play the console war of 2019. *spawn

MrFox

Deludedly Fantastic
Legend
Sony gave you exactly what you wanted to hear, but none of the details that actually matter.
Depends who you are talking to, there are different groups listening so it's not an easy PR move to tell enough but not too much.

They gave xbox fans, microsoft employees, or ex-employees, or investors, nothing they wanted to know. Some part of the public is practically hard wired to judge next gen by the TF number, because of the marketing being done by MS. It's seen as the most important thing to win. So they need to start that narrative as soon as possible and be sure they have it. Sony didn't give them shit. They cannot start claiming they have the most powerful console without Sony giving them the specs. Even if the rumors are pointing in that direction.

What about me? The sony fanboy extraordinaire? They told me what matters until the official announcement: it's backwards compatible with my ps4 games. It will support my physical media. It will support my PSVR headset (I bought Ace Combat 7 yesterday partly because of that news, and the current sale). And they gave us facts to convince us it will be more than just another ps4 pro pro plus. That the next gen will matter in part because of the ssd (clear presentation showing why it's a game changer) and ray tracing (mostly name dropping to prevent the competition to control the narrative, because RT is in fact across the board next gen). They also confirmed they are going with the latest technology from AMD, versus the fear of another jaguar situation.

They didn't give MS the teraflops, or memory amount, or clocks. Those will only matter once the device is fully unveiled to compare and hype and compare the price. In terms of public perception, MS now have to answer about the SSD, and they haven't yet. They cannot plan their PR strategy yet until they know what definite advantage they have, and which subpar feature they have to throw under a rug. (i.e. what is the number one reason to buy the console? Is it the TF? Is it the cloud? Is it you are the controller? Is it the games? Is it the services? Secret sauce?)

So Sony only dominates the news until MS answers. There will be a lot of back and forth in the news, it's how the game is played.
 
For some that reason is simply "Continue playing your current games and new similiar-style games at better performance". It's the same reason Sony gave for PS5 and what you listed less concisely.
 
After 5 years?
What made you think this now compared to all the previous years?

The lead into next gen? Which they could've done next year I guess.
I think they probably wanted to avoid this path for profits in the past, or perhaps EA was asking for too much, etc. Whatever the case is, as next gen approaches they probably looked into service parity, and made an acceptable deal for both parties.
 
There would have to be changes to how they charge access to the platform. They can't just give everything for free, bypass the store, and take $5 per month on the side. A percentage of that $5 must go to sony to improve and maintain the platform and the infrastructure.

It took this long for negociations until both parties are happy.

And allowing free-to-play without an online sub is probably not hapening next gen.
 
And allowing free-to-play without an online sub is probably not hapening next gen.
hmm totally forgot about this.
Yea I suppose something will need to change. Either they force MS to follow them, or Sony changes to MS' style. Considering MS doesn't seem to GAF, I think yea would be interesting to see Sony change it's stance on this. A lot of consoles sold, but it's F2P titles and no pay back on PS+. Yea you are probably right to watch this space for changes.
 
Having looked at the current vault for PS4 they are launching with, I think Sony was absolutely right. 5 years ago it would have been laughably paltry.
The purchasers should decide if the if the vault or EA Access is worth it. I'm not sure why a customer would need Sony to determine that for them.

It's saved me quite a bit to use it on and off to test EA games before release. Minor amount paid to avoid buying titles I know I won't like.
 
The purchasers should decide if the if the vault or EA Access is worth it. I'm not sure why a customer would need Sony to determine that for them.

It's Sony's platform. If they saw it as a bad value that diminished the perception of their brand, that's totally their prerogative.
 
This thread was suposed to be about the sequence of PR moves from both companies, unveiling information about next gen specs and features.

Sony provided a list of features to start the hype. MS is next to talk.
 
The purchasers should decide if the if the vault or EA Access is worth it. I'm not sure why a customer would need Sony to determine that for them.

Something like this is going to require changes to the way PSN and PS4 game licensing works, why would Sony take that on if they don't think it's a runner? Wasted time and effort = wasting money.

Sony have become really good at not losing money, they've had too. :yep2:
 
Something like this is going to require changes to the way PSN and PS4 game licensing works, why would Sony take that on if they don't think it's a runner? Wasted time and effort = wasting money.

Sony have become really good at not losing money, they've had too. :yep2:
Agreed. A great deal of many logical reasons why Sony needed to pass on EA Access. The only reason I wasn’t going to accept is that they were trying to protect their customers from bad value. These guys were okay with life of black tiger. This was entirely about protecting or maximizing profits. I have no doubts this was part of the reason it took so long to get it.
 
trying to protect their customers from bad value.
That's the only reason they gave though.

I can appreciate that they may have had technical reasons why it was hard to implement quickly, but I'm more inclined to believe it was for business reasons why they didn't feel the need for it to be resolved quicker.
 
It's certainly a negociation about revenue split on a subsidized console and network infrastructure. But I see it as more complicated than just that.

They have to decide if spending/losing money on this is a big enough pecieved gain from the consumer base point of view, which in turn provides indirect profits from having more users. If internal market research showed no interest the way it was presented, the effort, changes of terms, and loss of profits, are not worth it.

MS didn't negociate it the same way, since their goal is GaaS, they are moving towards PC and xbox having identical games and services, and might have a deal with EA about infrastructure and gamepass plans. Sony doesn't have that indirect profit nor goal.

Reading about it, it looks like EA accepted sony's terms: no sharing of accounts across platforms (would be a loophole), and therefore no transfer of microtransaction purchases (would be another loophole).
 
Reading about it, it looks like EA accepted sony's terms: no sharing of accounts across platforms (would be a loophole), and therefore no transfer of microtransaction purchases (would be another loophole).

I don't know that those are Sony specific requirements. There is no account sharing between Origin Access and EA Access on PC/Xbox either.
 
I don't know that those are Sony specific requirements. There is no account sharing between Origin Access and EA Access on PC/Xbox either.
Ah, I thought it was the same. Games available on each are not the same either.
 
Correct. There are actually a bunch of non-EA games on Origin Access' Vault. I'm not sure that's true on Xbox.
 
Back
Top