2. PS5 is about to come out, if PSNow is going to be streaming its games too, i suspect that the hardware has been getting updated (remember the infamous Sony/Ms signed protocol for collaboration? It had something in regard to 'research and development of game streaming technology'... hmmm)
Sony is going to sell on pure international sales and the momentum from the last generation. It will be a much closer race this time between Sony and Xbox for installed base but when you branch out from first party and hardware Xbox will slaughter in areas Sony isn't in e.g. Gamepass, xCloud, PC, mobile,
Sony isn't only a distant market leader on selling consoles and games.
Sony is also a distant market leader on both game subscription services (PS Plus + PS Now) and in game streaming service (PS Now). In amount of total subscribers, active users, revenue, experience, amount of games included in their streaming service (over 700) and so on.
Sony already made game streaming to PC and mobile both from your console (Remote Play) and their servers (PS Now) way before Microsoft.
PS4 has been breaking gaming history records on all fronts and is on track to continue breaking more. Same goes with PS5, looking at the amount of consoles they are manufacturing for this fiscal year, numbers in social media, preorders selling out in a few minutes and their amount of first year AAA exclusives vs the competition.
We also know Remote Play and PS Now will experience a big improvent in the next gen just looking at the wifi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 support on PS5, its decompression hardware (up to 22GB/s from SSD) and their next gen plans for remote play mentioned to investors (basically to improves on all fronts like improving its servers -with help from MS- and codec -better resolution, bitrate, framerate- technology, game catalog and pricing, puttting a PS Now player in more devices and bring it to more countries, etc).
For what we know until now, during the first year MS will only have as big AAA exclusive released on next gen for Xbox, its Game Pass, and its xCloud Halo Infinite. This is is including EA Play (they include games 1 year after release, so later this year they'll add Jedi Fallen Order and next year the sports games released this year, like FIFA21) and Zenimax (their first two next gen games are PS5 timed console exclusives). So during their first year of their console they will have smaller games (indies), multiplatform or cross gen games. And for their game subscription and streaming services, only previous gen games in the AAA front.
Remember the only non crossgen, non multiplatform new launch game for their console is an indie game of a hawk. And also that for the first 2 years of Series X all their MS published games will be cross gen and that many big MS games removed the XBO logo from their trailers and pages (so hinting a late November 2022 release or beyond). And that Series S is 66% less powerful, has 6GB less of RAM and the half of its SSD.
So at least until late 2022 or 2023 we won't see in action all the MS studios releasing big exclusive next gen stuff with Halo as exception. They acquired a lot of studios in the recent years but they need time to do their games. Meanwhile Sony will have released on its first year Demon's Souls, Miles Morales, Sackboy, Ratchet & Clank, Returnal, Horizon 2, God of War 2 and pretty likely Gran Turismo 7, and who knows when will be released but have timed exclusives with FFXVI and FFVIIR episode 2 plus marketing deals CoD, Harry Potter, etc.
Not sure if MS will significantly close the gap with Sony in both consoles sold, games sold, game subscription services and cloud gaming services, but I know it won't be soon.
