In a scenario reminiscent of the bygone era of heated console competition, PlayStation UK announced a deal on the Yakuza franchise, offering several games from the series at a discounted price. Customers could acquire Yakuza 0 through to Yakuza 6 for less than £25. The catch was that each game had to be bought separately, including those within the remastered bundles.
Before the ink could dry on PlayStation's tweet, Xbox UK cleverly responded, highlighting that every single Yakuza game is already included in the Game Pass subscription on their platform. The playful jab pointed out that subscribers could play all seven games, plus titles like Yakuza: Like a Dragon Gaiden and The Man Who Erased His Name, as part of the existing Game Pass catalog.
This banter underscored the convenience and added value of Game Pass, a service that, apart from a vast game library, also offers the Xbox and PC online subscription at a modest addition, contrasting with the proposition from PlayStation's side.
The interaction conjured nostalgia for the historic "console wars" that saw more direct and aggressive marketing tactics. Back in the day, the rivalry was tangible, with incidents such as PlayStation's iconic moment of undercutting the competition by $100 without any grandiose speech, to the point of it being dubbed the "price heard around the world." Equally memorable was when Xbox faced backlash for suggesting players would incur fees to share their games, a policy PlayStation mocked by reassuring players of their full ownership rights of physical games bought for Sony's console, a significant advantage they hailed during E3 2013.
Today, though the outright conflict between console giants has mellowed, with each company maintaining a more cordial public face, these occasional light-hearted exchanges remind us of the still competitive spirit. The engaging repartee is a contemporary take on the old rivalry, where mutual respect and a splash of humor soften the edge of competition. Moreover, these interactions highlight a consumer consideration in owning games permanently versus the temporary access model employed by services like Game Pass.