Sony Interactive Entertainment 2022

Abstract

This Case Study aims to provide an overall understanding of the impending importance of "exclusive content" in the video game industry as it seeks to change the gaming industry dynamics. The present gaming landscape has six powerful platforms: Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, Epic game store, steam, and mobile APP stores. These video game industry leaders continuously engage in strategic ploys to attract new consumers and retain existing ones, with one goal: gaining the consumer's engagement. In their battle for the user's engagement span, companies, regardless of price, have begun to invest heavily in creating original content and studio acquisitions. Their platforms contain a similarly comprehensive catalog of games, with exclusive content being their differentiating factor. Console makers like Nintendo, Sega, and Sony have created exclusive games to drive hardware sales. Sony, like Microsoft, would create development studios, enter licensing agreements, and develop partnerships to create games that could only be found on their respective system. Thus, forcing consumers to buy into a platform to play their exclusive games. Sony Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony that handles everything related to the PlayStation, will be used as the leading actor in this case study to understand the impact of exclusivity in the gaming industry's future. The primary intent is to provide a preliminary historical context of exclusivity and how the effects of emerging technology will shift video game dynamics towards a decentralized landscape. The case will use PlayStation and its rivalry with the Xbox to examine the past and present gaming landscape to create an understanding of the future gaming ecosystem. Moreover, this case wants to exemplify how current technologies have directly impacted the gaming industry as they have forced exclusive content to be the leading industry driver.

Detailed information