Sony Tries to Downplay Competition By Making Their Subscription Service Seem Less Successful

We can now see that Microsoft is moving closer to finalising the Activision deal every day. Sony, on the other side, is making a last-ditch effort to stop the deal from being finalised.

Some very interesting statements in Sony’s response… https://t.co/dRFZymHRyb pic.twitter.com/Pd8Er5BCyB

— Everborn Saga (@EverbornSaga) November 23, 2022

They managed to get the word out about certain information that some fans would find particularly interesting. The news this time around, is about the Xbox Game Pass. There have been reports that Xbox Game Pass has missed its projected targets over and over again. One piece of evidence for this is that the bonuses of some Microsoft executives are tied to the service reaching certain goals. Xbox Game Pass, however seems to be steadily expanding, despite the fact that certain goals may have been missed.

A Twitter user pointed out that PlayStation is trying to make its subscription service seem less successful than Xbox’s, which has 29 million members after increasing its target from 25 million.

Game Pass leads PlayStation Plus significantly,” Sony says. “Microsoft already has a substantial lead in multi-game subscription services. Game Pass has 29 million subscribers to Xbox Game Pass Console and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and is expected to grow substantially in the future. The multi-game subscription tiers of PlayStation Plus considerably lag with fewer than [redacted] the number of subscribers.”

It’s possible that PC Game Pass isn’t included in this number, however in a market where Steam dominates so thoroughly, it may not matter as much. In any case, it shows that Xbox Game Pass is steadily, if slowly, gaining users even though it doesn’t have a lot of interesting first-party content. This could (and probably will) change dramatically in the next few years, when ZeniMax, Bethesda, and Microsoft’s other acquisitions start putting new games like Starfield directly into the service.

Sony has all the tools necessary to compete with Xbox Game Pass, and in doing so, give customers a better value. By not adding its own games and scaring third-party developers who dare work with Xbox Game Pass, Sony has instead deliberately attempted to reduce competition in this sector.