Several of their third party exclusive games are releasing alongside PC if not within 3 months. Deathloop, Tokyo Ghostwire, FFX16 all had PC release dates either at launch or only a few months after launch. So it's already happening.
I dont think Sony is run by idiots but you are giving these suits too much credit. They chase money and short term profits over everything. They only care about short term profits because it helps their bonuses. The Sony of old is now gone. All those guys who came up with PS1 (Shawn Layden, Shu, Jack Tretton, Andrew House and Kaz) are all gone. Whats left is Jim and a bunch of other newer execs who clearly dont understand why exclusives are what made Sony so successful. It was GTA3, MGS2, FFX in the PS2 era and first party games like Uncharted, GoW and TLOU in the PS3 and PS4 era. We all knew this which is why we shit on Microsoft all the time. Because MS clearly doesnt understand why exclusives are so important.
You can look at Xbox One's lifetime sales and see how they took a nose dive after they announced everything will come to PC. Even the best most powerful mid gen console's launch didnt stop the complete crash of their sales. PC gaming on the other hand became bigger and more popular than ever.
You are right, there are plenty of reason why people buy consoles but its bad business to give people fewer reasons to own consoles. And thats what both Sony and MS are doing. I dont know about you but I did not buy an xsx because my rtx 2080 will basically play everything at xsx settings. MS lost a sale there. I know many Sony fans here said the same thing. Nioh 2 just got a DLSS 2.0 patch and you are literally getting 50 more frames per second with the same IQ. Why would I buy Horizon on consoles now? Especially in the future once im able to secure a 3080 and run everything at not just double but quadruple the framerate? Because of ease of access or because my family owns a PS5?
People like me and you are the whales. We spend more than the casuals and we are gonna go to PC. Andrew House knew this and him making the Pro was primarily driven by his fear that people like us would go to PC mid gen. Jim knows this too and couldnt care less.
Some good points in there, but I think you're reaching on some of the issues/potential issues which haven't arisen yet.
I don't think Jim Ryan of all people doesn't recognise the value of exclusives. He wouldn't be sanctioning all sorts of money-hats if it wasn't beneficial to the platform. All of these deals cost a pretty penny, the core idea being to make your platform more appealing for that particular title. Many timed exclusives do launch alongside PC sure, but at the end of day, it would cost Sony more money to lock another platform out of release. They just don't perceive PC platform to be a major threat, whereby it's worth shelling out money to have another platform miss release on a 3rd party game. And for good reason too, revenue stream from PC is nowhere as lucrative (at least on software front) compared to consoles. For first party, it is quite different, they hold all the cards, they don't have to spend extra to make their own software an appealing buy on their platform. They can just wait for sales to die down on the console hardware, before they port it to PC to get little more revenue out of that particular title. Like a second wind.
I know MS started with day and date release soon after first port showed up, but the situation is quite different, their software weren't selling at all. And, the beginnings of subscription based service also played a big role whereby the bigger reach you have is better. Think for yourself, MS had access to PC playerbase all along, from the time they launched Xbox, yet they never released any of their exclusive software on it. All money-hats were locked for Xbox only players too. Why do you think that is? It's simply because there isn't as much revenue in PC gaming on software side, as its on consoles. Landscape has changed tremendously since then for PC, but AAA software still don't sell that well. You have few aberrations like CyberPunk but for vast vast majority, the revenue split is miniscule.
Overall, I understand some of the future implications of it. There is a danger to PlayStation business where such practices could eventually eat into their revenue and ultimately backfire. But, for that to happen PC gaming would have to grow at a pace where it eventually catch up to consoles when it comes to sheer engagement and revenue. I don't know how realistic that is. The original point which I made about why masses buy consoles over PC will always remain true. The hardcore which post on this forum and the other don't even matter, because ultimately we'd add more money than an average joe to their revenue stream. That is why they are moving further on this strategy, because your average joe doesn't care if next TLOU is also playable on PC few months after it hits the console. They'll just buy a box which allows them cheapest entry to that front, and it'll never be PC gaming simply because the hardware will be always more expensive.
