It's interesting that Sony, once the die-hard acolyte of platform exclusivity, is cleaning up with its PC cross-platform strategy. It's doing the same in content streaming, licensing to other platforms rather than build its own service. A reminder that owning the vertical is not always as good as being a strong upstream player in a supply chain. Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to buy it all at a great cost to it and gaming's future viability.
I think it's fascinating to see how each company is approaching the cross platform challenge in different ways. It'll be interesting to see which approach develops best in the years to come, especially with Roblox and Fortnite offering cross platform experiences by default
I'll say this: Microsoft's culture has become very anti-crossplay. It looks like it embraces the concept at face value. But I've had so many incidents where PC games on Gamepass will not crossplay with games on Steam or Epic, and the reason is inevitably Microsoft's doing. Microsoft is anti-crossplay unless it can control the entire value chain.
It's interesting that Sony, once the die-hard acolyte of platform exclusivity, is cleaning up with its PC cross-platform strategy. It's doing the same in content streaming, licensing to other platforms rather than build its own service. A reminder that owning the vertical is not always as good as being a strong upstream player in a supply chain. Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to buy it all at a great cost to it and gaming's future viability.
I think it's fascinating to see how each company is approaching the cross platform challenge in different ways. It'll be interesting to see which approach develops best in the years to come, especially with Roblox and Fortnite offering cross platform experiences by default
I'll say this: Microsoft's culture has become very anti-crossplay. It looks like it embraces the concept at face value. But I've had so many incidents where PC games on Gamepass will not crossplay with games on Steam or Epic, and the reason is inevitably Microsoft's doing. Microsoft is anti-crossplay unless it can control the entire value chain.