The two rival companies start to work together on multiple projects

Sony Corporation and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership that will focus on „new innovations to enhance customer experiences in their direct-to-consumer entertainment platforms and AI solutions.” They will „explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services,” not to mention „the use of current Microsoft Azure datacenter-based solutions for Sony’s game and content-streaming services.” Their goal is simple: „deliver more enhanced entertainment experiences for their worldwide customers,” and to provide better development platforms for the content creators.

We already said yesterday that Sony is Americanizing itself – here’s prime proof of that: a collaboration with Microsoft! It’s still surprising news, because if Sony and Microsoft work together (and with it, Sony is using Microsoft’s services, while they have Sony’s Blu-ray technology for their consoles…), it might be dangerous for Google, as they plan to launch Google Stadia by the end of this year in a few countries. They won’t have their job that easy with a joint Sony-Microsoft partnership. (We wonder how much of a role could xCloud play in it? Not to mention the PlayStation Now…) Let’s not forget about the Apple Arcade either, which could also become a major player in streaming services! They probably pulled it out to respond to Google’s Stadia service…

Sony might be using a simple yet understandable approach here – the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This could be the basis behind the two companies’ joint work. Still, it could give a big push for streaming, and take more wind out of the ship of physical releases, which have slowly been losing ground to digital game purchases in the past years…

Source: Gematsu