Will Game Pass on Switch doom the PS5?

This is too long sorry - but its a good discussion topic! No trolls, no fanboyism - but its an interesting topic we will have to wait a few years to see the result of -- is Sony in trouble with game pass going to Switch? I think NO. Just using logic, current 3rd party sales, and current streaming models. Unless MS does something crazy to change the entire idea of their service, or somehow makes you still want the Xbox 2 instead of the PS5, (that will be a nearly impossible sell except to die hard MS fans if Game Pass is so many places).. Maybe Microsoft makes some really good 1st party stuff and stops with the day 1 on Game Pass so you want to buy the console still? (But I doubt they care about the console enough to do that, they need to sell this service to be the biggest like Netflix is).

I think if Microsoft Game Pass becomes the main "Xbox Experience" that you have instead of buying an actual Xbox console - that could really end up helping Sony -- if current selection on Game Pass, or current movie streaming services are any indication - Microsoft will not have the newest 3rd party games on Game Pass. That's the deal breaker. No one's talking about WHAT GAMES WILL BE ON GAME PASS!!! Would you see the newest Witcher, Borderlands, Final Fantasy, Cyberpunk, Red Dead, GTA, Anthem, etc type games on day 1? I think no, those will still be on console. Who's the console? PS5 (or PC).

As Brad said - if i can get all of the Xbox exclusives on Game Pass and play them on stuff i already have (current Xbox, Switch, tablet) - why would I buy an Xbox? I'm going to do Sony console, Switch handheld, Xbox Stream. And they all survive that way. Perfect ecosystem.

So Microsoft is this service with its exclusive games just like Netflix does with movies and shows; leaving Sony to be the VR console with discs and physical media, (and full digital downloads too, Game Pass doesn't offer new games digitally now either unless they bundle Live with it right? But then I cant download those games to a Switch or tablet anyway can I?), and Switch as the handheld.

Go look at Game Pass right now, and you will see Crackdown 3 as a brand new game sure. But what new 3rd party games are there? Mostly indies. And that is the Netflix model to a 'T'. Yes MS may work out some deal with a specific publisher - say they drop a billion bucks and get all new THQ games day 1. (They already do that stuff now, so again, not too spooky for Sony). Well remember Netflix had the mega deal with Disney for their AAA movies, and that just ended with Wasp/Ant Man. Now Netflix brings you big indie movies like Roma, and then their own content. Still good and worth it; but you still have to go to the theater, or buy or rent or get those other AAA movies elsewhere. That's what Game Pass will be. Worth it, but not everything.

Again, they can drop a TON of money on getting exclusive 3rd party games and publisher deals (Sony can too) -- but i dont understand how Cyberpunk for example could possibly make its money back being exclusive to a streaming service unless Microsoft simply bought it outright, (like Netflix does with some movies). But then your probably talking what $300 million bucks to buy it? -- I'm not an industry guy so maybe how studios make their money is different than i realize. But if on disc/digitally they sell 5 million units at $60 a piece thats $300 mil. But on streaming if you are one of 60 games, I'm not sure how they split that revenue, (I guess half are old 360 games and Xbox owned games); but thats still a lot of money for MS to drop on exclusives. (They could do the Movie Pass thing and just drop a ton of money at a loss hoping to get enough people to sign up to make them money again, but that didn't work for Movie Pass...)

Last month the 2 best selling games were both 3rd party games RE2 and Kingdoms Hearts, on PS4. Metro was like #5 on PS4. So now you dont own an Xbox, those sales are basically guaranteed on PS4/PC if you are a pre-order person, or want to stream, or play with your buddies, or Twitch, yadda yadda. Or are in a territory with no Game pass. Those games will probably not be on Game Pass day 1. And they already are the best selling games for the month (using Sony as their main platform), why mess with that model? So the way I see it, Sony literally has to do nothing, and they will basically have all of these 3rd party exclusives which are already their bread and butter! At least as timedexclusives until a publisher lets it on streaming. And thats okay if you dont mind waiting - I guess people get excited at Saints Row 3 coming to Switch...(baffling)

So with 3rd party support, plus their VR push, plus their top notch exclusives, plus yearly online fee, plus Now. This generation logically I dont see Sony being too concerned? Unless Microsoft does something crazy to Game Pass as it stands.

Maybe MS does start paying a ton, and landing these AAA 3rd party games day 1 for Game Pass - (Madden, CoD, BioMutant, etc...). Will it be possible to stay at $10 a month? Doubtful. And we haven't even seen direct competition yet, (Google, Amazon, Sony). It could look like Epic and Steam. Those exclusives will be even harder to land once you basically have what movies have, (Hulu ,Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Disney, CBS, DC, etc).

I think Sony can then just say "hey we literally have it ALL on disc".

Not to mention people may want discs this generation because of poor internet (Game Pass games are downloadable on Xbox to circumvent this; but then its not streaming anymore, can Switch or your phone play a downloaded Xbox game!?).

Maybe MS can open some sort of digital store connected to Game Pass where they say "hey we have these 60 bundled games for the monthly fee, but if you want specific games like BioMutant you can buy that separate and unlock it digitally". Kind off like Amazon does. I can stream their Prime stuff (mostly garbage) but they always have those new movies to rent tantalizing me just below, that I click on not realizing they aren't included, (stupid Amazon)...... But I hate that with amazon and feel that deep down they dont pick up as many good movies as they could/should because they still want to sell me that shit, Netflix doesn't do that. Truthfully having new games for sale on Game Pass really completely ruins the spirit of Game Pass...

And lastly, Sony's games seem to stay up on Now (?) as a library; but Game Pass games cycle and go away like Sega Channel did. Ive got a huge CD collection I always thought I could dump when i got Spotify, but recently Ive been noticing that they have lots of missing albums by bands I love, or just entire artists not on the service. So like CDs, there are games I want to keep to know I have them whenever. Especially co-op, multiplayer, and party games. You could get an Xbox to do that, but will you?

People rag on Jeff about liking physical media, but especially if PS5 is backwards compatible, i have so many systems i have still hooked up just for this, (my PS3 plays PS1,PS2,and PS3 games - My Wii U plays Wii - Gamecube plays Gameboy Advance - Xbox plays 360...). With a disc I can go on ebay for $3 and get Fallout 3 now; on Game Pass that game might be on there, might not be.

So yeah - i think Sony is fine. I never want to see anyone fail. They make most of their sales on 3rd party games right now. At least for the PS5 generation I dont see that changing. The future? yeah they need to go streaming and digital and phones, and chips in your head... That will only continue as far as I can tell.

But for now, revenue wise - Xbox Live $$ will plummet if you just have Game Pass - Sony will have PS+ $$ and a ton of 3rd party games that already sell super well on their system. I think they will do okay for PS5.

What do you think?

Nope but it's a interesting Microsoft strategy to see Nintendo not as a rival but more as a partner in crime. I still think paying for online play is just disgusting think about it if Steam would ask you a monthly fee in order to play games online, the internet would literately explode and Gabe Newell would be Skinned alive with his own Knife Collection.

@soulcake: I agree, I'm not sure how Microsoft ever pulled paying for online off. When Sony came on board to copy them at least they all started offering "free" games so they all do that now. But yeah, paying for online is nuts (especially Nintendo's garbage even if it is cheaper).

That being said - just for online they are charging $40-60 a year. If game pass is only $120 a year, that kind of where I dont think this will hurt Sony as much as some are prophesying. Its not that big a of a cash flow change for Microsoft, especially if they have no revenue from their own games coming in. (although with only 41 million units sold this gen as opposed to 82 million last gen, i assume Live subscriptions/revenue are way down now).

And now we see Sony and Microsoft partnering up in a "tech relationship" in the news - Sony must realizes that they will need better streaming (they already rent servers from Amazon or something), but it doesn't seem to be that competitive, and they dont seem concerned about it enough to go spend billions building infrastructure themselves. I think PS5 will be fine in a "streaming future" :)

And worse comes to worse, Nintendo will just go to cell phones.

I think i said it in another thread, but i believe Microsoft's end goal will be to become the software solution for ALL consoles. I can see game pass coming to Ps5 as Microsoft either bows out or focuses less on the hardware market. I believe they will start to focus on software infrastructures such as game streaming, System OS, Online, and Server based services for consoles. Microsoft also has a monopoly on the OS of PC's, which would allow Sony, Nintendo etc to easily gain access to that market with first party titles if they want. I think this will be a power move for console gaming in general as with services like google (and their massive resources) i don't see nintendo or sony being able to compete (in the long run) IF googles gaming platform takes off. Console gaming could become more like PC gaming, where hardware isn't as big a factor as Software (for example a game will run on Nvidia, AMD, and Intel gpus). Microsoft will transition into software like they did with Windows in the Console space. IMO anyway

Agreed, i think Microsoft bought all of those studios for a reason - on one hand is that if Google Stadia and all that streaming hullabaloo fizzle out - you need exclusives in "the console war", and they need them badly.
But if as you say, streaming takes off, they have the server farms for the infrastructure to compete, they can step back from hardware and just get their money renting out bandwidth, (I'm sure there's a better word), to stream for other platform holders, and they can pump out some of their own games on these services -- i think they'd be happy there too.
You have to remember that MS can fall back onto other things - as gaming is a very small fraction of their company, where as the games division is really the only profitable thing the entire Sony corp has going for it.

If you look at their hardware sales, compared to Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft has never really sold that many consoles, (at their peak their best selling console by far was 360 which was basically dead even in sales with PS3 which was Sony's worst selling by far). Id think Windows has always been the better $$ platform for them.

So like Epic's model: here use our Engine for $$, and we have this store front for extra $$, and we are just pulling in cash when one of our own games like Fornite hits big - they dont need a console of their own.

The only issue with Game Pass itself coming to other consoles - not so much Switch since Switch cant run real "next gen games" anyway, and factually Nintendos game sales (their top 20) are always their own first party games - there isnt a lot of direct competition, and nintendo would get a cut streamign these next gen games their system cant play itself.
But thats very different with Sony and PS4/PS5 will be making A LOT of money selling the consumers those 3rd party games; there are a lot of 3rd party games in Sony's top 20 selling games. If those same games are on Game Pass why would you buy them physically on Sony's console? They dont make money off selling a console, they make money off of the % they get for software sold.
That's not to say there arent service competitors on the PS4 right now - you can do Spotify, or buy a movie on Amazon still instead of the PS Store. So who knows.

Either way MS will either have to give Sony a huge cut for the sales if GP appears on their platform, or Sony just wont allow it. Id tend to think it wont happen though, because besides physical 3rd party sales dropping off (which is where the $ comes from), Sony has PSNow, they arent going to put Sony games on Gamepsss for Microsoft; do they want direct competition with PSNow from GamePass? They could try to stack PSNow with tons of PS exclusives I guess that Game Pass cant get to make it more attractive?
But getting their OWN streaming service going is kind of the point of them partnering with MS in the first place, to rent Microsoft's server farms to be able to stream their own stuff better. Would you see PSNow on an Xbox then possibly?

Its an interesting time to see these weird partnerships flourish, and new contenders rising from the shadows!! :)

I think the main thing with game pass with Sony would be access to Microsoft developed games. Like you said it could definitely be a Sony centric type of game pass where they get the major cut with Microsoft supplying the infrastructure and servers. I think the competition will no longer be console vs console, but console vs streaming. If people can stream most 3rd party games with little to no lag(depending on future technology) then consoles will only have a set of exclusives to go for, and then it doesn't just become sony vs microsoft, it's sony vs microsoft vs a smart phone vs a basic laptop with good internet connections to google servers. Best bet would be a partnership to add both of their exclusives, and with Microsoft (in my opinion) slowly getting out of the hardware space it becomes a pretty good partnership with their software, servers, games and Sony's exclusives.

And it's definitely the most interesting time in gaming IMO.