Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video

Sony also used to mock digital only approaches. ▶ this video Now at a time when memory and storage prices are at an all time high - they pull a move that directly hurts the customer.

It was Adam Orth (aka 'Sweet Billy') but clearly others shared similar views. Sony capitalized on the larger always online controversy with a low budget ad poking fun at the concept[1], which was great marketing. [1] ▶ this video

Sony released this tutorial years ago in response to Microsoft making it harder to share Xbox games with your friends: ▶ this video That's lived in my head since.

You're probably right; its hard to say when speaking in retrospect and on hypotheticals. Ultimately I tend to feel that the success of Xbox 360 is predominately attributable to the early failures of the PlayStation 3. PS3 was WAY too expensive, inflation-adjusted one of the most expensive consoles ever made outpacing everything on the market today, and had almost no great launch titles. When you consider that X360 had CoD2 as an exclusive launch title in 2005, the story kinda writes itself; people may have bought the console on these points + the promise of Halo 3 in the future, but it likely would have done well without it. Its also important to recognize: The PS3 did outsell the Xbox 360 by the end [1]. Its definitely the closest margins of any of their competing generations; generally Playstation does much better, not just a little better. But this is not the sense that I have growing up in that generation; I have the sense that the 360 dominated. Reality is a bit different. Sadly; whatever gains Microsoft won during the X360 generation, Mattrick immediately threw away with X1 [2]. Their early DRM policies set Sony up to drop what is arguably the most effective piece of video game advertising ever made [3], the forced Kinect bundle communicated to customers that Microsoft's vision for the future is more important to them than the games themselves, and Sony got their pricing and launch lineup (Infamous?) under control. [1] link [2] link [3] ▶ this video

Sony has been pretty explicit about it ▶ this video They are also encouraging developers to remove online passes link

They said this about their used game policy: ▶ this video (for those who can't watch it, it sounds like they gave the green light for all kinds of used games and sharing)

Well it certainly seems like they learned from the PS3 launch. They also appear to have found a fairly snarky marketing team too ▶ this video