Is the INSOMNIAC leak real?
Magic 8 ball says: All signs point that way.
The terms used, pure corporate-speak, and the numbers cited lend it legitimacy.
However, Sony's problems have nothing to do with XBOX or the fanboys "consoe war". They are self inflicted from hanging on to a dated business model.
Point to consider: the console business has three components, hardware, software, and services.
Sony has the lead in *installed* hardware but that lead is only useful to the extent it drives software and service income. The term I remember from the 360 era is "attach rate", at which time it was reported the PS3 during its first two years had an attach rate of less than two and never matched the 360 despite eventually matching the total number of consoles sold. (The primary reasons given were the launch price of the original, gold plated design, and the embedded BluRay drive at a time there were no cheap BluRay players in Japan so the bulk of early PS3 sales were as video players rather than consoles.)
When INSOMNIAC talks of their "Pillars" being outdated they are referring to a lot of things that have nothing to do with competing with XBOX consoles and everything to do with the economics of semiconductors, the cost and limited revenue generation lifespan of the single player/single narrative games they have devoted themselves to (Remember the leaks from inhouse developers griping about being limited to supporting INSOMNIAC and the other big studios?) and, finally, their hardware uber alles strategy that kept them from doing PC ports until recently and still delays the ports for a year or more. They are stunting their exclusives' revenue potential to support their hardware sales. That is definitely dated.
When the INSOMNIAC leak angsts about $1.5B at risk they are worried that their most favored channel status for COD is worth that much dach year because, as exposed in the FTC court case, half of playstation owners only play COD. Biggest undereported revelation because if it is still true, it means the Playstation total game sales potential is about half of what would be expected from the size of their installed base.
COD isn't leaving Playstation but their "most favored channel" status is.
Counting on $1.5B a year from COD is also a dated strategy. That number is going down.
Finally, the high end semiconductor business is changing. It used to be that component prices could be reliably counted to drop year after year. That is no longer true. There is too much competition for the existing high end and midrange chip production. And with the AI explosion getting started it will only get worse. Note the price hikes on Playstation hardware.
Every time I hear the "leaks" and rumors of a PS5 pro with outrageous specs I tend to wonder, what price might it carry if it were real? And what volume will it move? "Better" console hardware isn't going to solve their software or services problem because it won't drive the attach rate high enough to justify the software costs. (That, BTW, is why XBOX SS exists and PS4 is still around.) I am skeptical hardware will solve Sony's near term issues.
They are too far behind the curve and addressing the problems with one of their pillars will hurt the other two. They need day and date to beef up services and PC software sales because AAA games are expensive and getting more so but day and date will reduce console attach rate.
Their hope out of the corner they painted themselves in was investingn in GAAS but that ship has apparently sailed. They are handcuffed to consoles and windowed exclusives. That limits their growth. Today they're still second in revenue...until march. Longer term, one of the three pillars will have to give.
It'll be interesting to see which way they go. (XBOX and NINTENDO figured out their priorities years ago.)
One thing Mr Spencer is right about: SONY is not XBOX's (long term) competition.
From the XBOX point of view, Playstation is a solved problem.
The next bump in the road is APPLE ARCADE.
That war is just ramping up for, say, '25.
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