2019 is coming to a close, and there’s a wave of new consoles on the horizon. Along with the looming future of game streaming, 2020 is looking good for gaming. We’ve already outlined the state of the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and the Nintendo Switch, so we decided to add a video to the mix.
You can watch Stephen and I talk about the present and future of consoles in the video above, and read an excerpt here.
Paul: PlayStation had some nice updates for their services in 2019. Finally users got a chance to change their PSN names, so some of y’all out there who made your names in high school, you’re hopefully OK now. [Also] remote play for iOS devices and non-Sony Android devices.
Stephen: And they announced that right as Stadia was coming out. I think that Sony, in particular, was worried that Google Stadia was coming with all of their money and was going to knock everybody out. So right before Stadia launches they announce, “Oh by the way, remote play,” which is that thing where you can still access your PS4 over the internet and play games on another device. You could do that for years, but by the way, now you can do it on Android tablets, which is how you can also play Stadia. They also dropped the price on PlayStation Now, which I don’t think is as good as Xbox Game Pass because you don’t get new [on release day]. But you can get Bloodborne—
Paul: You can get God of War!
Stephen: You can also get top PlayStation 2 games and top PlayStation 3 games all for ten bucks a month. A few years ago it was this rental model and it was terrible. Then they dropped it to 20 dollars a month. But this year they dropped it to ten dollars a month, which is a good deal!
Paul: Absolutely. There’s no way to not feel that this was not impacted by the success that Game Pass is having right now. In my opinion, it’s the best deal you can get right now in terms of a monthly subscription. But we also have things like Rocket League and Call of Duty getting crossplay.
Stephen: And that’s Microsoft dragging them into the crossplay and cross console world. And that happens. When you’re the market leader, you can get complacent. It’s the people in second place or third place who do the more innovative things and catch people’s eyes. And good on Sony to react to that and say, “We don’t have to do this, but we’re going to do it because people like it.” It’s a way to stay relevant and not lose their lead.
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