You summed it up pretty well. Consoles are basically dead at this point. Sony is hurting too.
Both companies badly mismanaged this last generation and there’s a significant sentiment that the value of the consoles wasn’t justified. Why would consumers want to buy another one?
Sony should have done the subscription model in the last generation. They would have buried Xbox.
Xbox has a chance now if they become a competitor to the steam machine, but the price will have to be much better than that system. If it isn’t free, then it will need to offer steam as a marketplace.
The only way either system could survive any other way is if they went handheld like steam deck or switch, but that might be even harder.
Feyd@programming.dev 4 days ago
The problem with the model of exclusives driving console purchases is that it only worked when people could afford multiple consoles. The combination of consoles and games being more expensive and them trying to double dip by requiring subscriptions for online play means most people are going to pick a platform instead of getting several like they used to.
cheat700000007@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The problem is the opposite. Your console has no purpose without exclusives if others have them.
You have money for 1 console. Console A has a set library. Console B has the same library plus 5 good games unavailable on A. Assuming price, quality and features are on par which they generally are: why would you choose console A?