Did you realize Microsoft already had their games ported to PS5 for a long time?

[ethomaz]

MS is trying to become a 3rd-party publisher and for me it is no surprise because I called it in 2018 saying it was the only way to have a chance to Gamepass works.

But what surprised me is that they were already cooking the launch of these games on PS5 (and Switch) for a year or more.

Ports takes time.
It is not a matter of weeks or few months… you need a lot of time to port a game from a platform to another.

But when MS finally said they are going multiplatform… a week after we already got 4 games launching in a windows of a month from now.

These games were already being ported at least from middle of last year.

It is crazy that this multiplatform move was probably take a year or more ago.

What do you thing? I’m just making up stories or do you agree with me?

You don’t take a decision and next week you have 4 games already releasing.

 

[DForce]

A controlled leak for sure. They wanted to see the online response and then center their "podcast" around it.

Instead of talking about how Microsoft failed in many areas this generated, they now want to praise them for getting rid of "exclusives."

As time goes on, you're going to see Phil talk about Sony exclusives (which started with Helldivers 2) and how it doesn't benefit gamers.

 

[Nimrota]

Agree. And this also undermines the "Phil is being forced to do it and he leaked info to reverse course" cope. Began ages ago, rumours only recently escaped, podcast was done to keep people calm. The pace of releasing all 4 ports in the first 1/3 of the year also indicates it's not just four titles. Also worth noting it leads credence to leakers who claim they're internal workers and knew ports were coming as, if the process did start last year, they would know.

 

[Yurinka]

When they bought Zenimax they already said in a SEC filing that they intended to do the same with Bethesda than with Minecraft. And the Xbox CFO said their plans for Bethesda were "first or better or best" in Xbox/GP.

I kept saying back then that MS plans were full multiplatform or timed exclusivities including for Starfield, even when it was announced for Xbox only. I kept saying that pretty likely Redfall and Starfield were going to be timed console exclusives.

With the exception of these two, all MS console games and DLCs from the studios they bought kept being released on PS. They did use the excuse that they had to release them because of stuff signed for Sony, which I assume was only the case for the timed exclusives Sony had signed for Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo.

I'm not sure if the CoD from 2023 was the last one for Sony or if there was another one, but that one pretty likely had a clause like the one that Resident Evil Village had, preventing all RE games and VR versions to be released in the past gen to be included in rival game subs for at least around a year and a half after release. So if CoD has this, they'll take a while to be included in GP.

But there's a ton of old Activision Blizzard games they could have included in GP, and still didn't add nothing. Why? Pretty likely because they don't want to waste money. They'll include first Diaablo IV because they did put 9000+ people to work on it, so after it sold whatever it could they'll try to put it there to see if people gets in and buys some addons for it.

I expect that all future Activision Blizzard games will be multiplatform day one. Phil said he thinks in 5-10 years console exclusive games will be something rare, meaning he expects to make their games full multi in the future, and pretty likely to port to rival consoles all their previous games that have potential to sell something in PS or Nintendo.

MS spent almost $100B on acquisitions on teams that made most of their money in rival consoles, and they have many thousands of employees so the cost for running them is very high, so it would be too retarded to avoid getting that revenue and to lock them on the dying Xbox.

So yes, the only thing that makes sense for them is to release all their games in all the consoles, even if a few of them remain with timed console exclusive for a year in Xbox. Same goes with game subs, they may continue putting them day one on GP, but some time later they will also put them everywhere to get all the revenue they can.

This would make them the biggest publisher in console in units and dollars, one of the top ones in PC and thanks to Mineraft, CoD and King they'd be also one of the top ones in mobile.

 

[Kokoloko]

When they bought Zenimax they already said in a SEC filing that they intended to do the same with Bethesda than with Minecraft. And the Xbox CFO said their plans for Bethesda were "first or better or best" in Xbox/GP.

This.

I think they waited to see how Redfall and especially Starfield would do. And of course games like Halo Infinite
They were expecting Starfield to be the next Skyrim and sell huge amounts of consoles and millions of Gamepass subs, and for them to stay over.

Like usual, gamers know better than corportate heads most the time and we knew it wouldnt work

 

[arvfab]

Of course they have. Porting requires time. The Dualsense support for HiFi on PC already was a big hint.

 

[Yobo]

Interesting they probably always had this trump card they could have played for the ABK deal and regulators

 

[ethomaz]

Seems like suspicious was right…



Man Microsoft was planning to release games on PS5 for years

 

[Batzy]

I think they started 3 months after Strafield launch. Game was hyped to death and failed so they started since then.

 

[Gediminas]

Seems like suspicious was right…



Man Microsoft was planning to release games on PS5 for years

Not planning. Did it. Real investments and relationships.
Just shows how tightly they ship their PR through shills and how they constantly lie and makes fud.

 

[Gediminas]

I think they started 3 months after Strafield launch. Game was hyped to death and failed so they started since then.

It is for sure started way earlier, can be at least a year.

 

[Shadow2027]

It is for sure started way earlier, can be at least a year.

Definitely started earlier, but lack of moment and continue console depreciation probably started kicking new and bigger game ports into motion with the first wave being smaller or live service games to be explained as “experiments”

 

[flaccidsnake]

Ports don't necessarily take much time

 

[Thirty7ven]

Xbox has been planning this since middle of 23 because of slow hw and GP sales and they waited until the holidays and Starfield launch to see what would happen. We know what happened.

These content creators and fanboys who think they are looking at decisions in real time are idiots.

The only thing we are seeing is messaging, the decisions have been made. People who continue to ignore PS outselling Xbox 3-1 WW on an yearly monthly basis will once again act surprised in the near future when more games are announced and quickly released.

 

[Gediminas]

Ports don't necessarily take much time

It takes long time plus millions of dollars.

 

[Jim Ryan]

MS is trying to become a 3rd-party publisher and for me it is no surprise because I called it in 2018 saying it was the only way to have a chance to Gamepass works.

But what surprised me is that they were already cooking the launch of these games on PS5 (and Switch) for a year or more.

Ports takes time.
It is not a matter of weeks or few months… you need a lot of time to port a game from a platform to another.

But when MS finally said they are going multiplatform… a week after we already got 4 games launching in a windows of a month from now.

These games were already being ported at least from middle of last year.

It is crazy that this multiplatform move was probably take a year or more ago.

What do you thing? I’m just making up stories or do you agree with me?

You don’t take a decision and next week you have 4 games already releasing.

Hade?

 

[Yurinka]

I think they started 3 months after Strafield launch. Game was hyped to death and failed so they started since then.

Microsoft publicly said many times since 2017 that they wanted to reach billions of players putting their games everywhere, and written in legal binding documents for the SEC, FTC and courts, that they wanted to bring the Bethesda and ABK games to more platforms instead of to less.

During many years they having moving their focus mainly to PC and subscriptions, but also to other consoles and mobile with stuff like Minecraft.

Other than timed console exclusivities for some cases, they always planned to keep Zenimax and ABK multi. Yes, a few games may be exclusives: but timed console exclusives. After expanding to PC they also planned to expand to mobile (main reason of ABK acquisition in terms of business/finantials), smart tvs and other consoles.

The only change they may have decided in the last couple of years or so is to go multi also with the non-Minecraft Xbox Game Studios titles now, maybe they previously decided to make it in the next generation in their long term plan.

Most of the money of the companies they have in their game division is made outside the Xbox console, so they will focus on these other platforms and in the long term may kill their console -or at least their console exclusivities- because for their case is a better business to be full multiplatform.

Plus at some point they'll stop adding their own games to GP day one, at least some, and will start also remove and rotate older ones. Because they have aprox. $100B investment on acquisitions they have to recoup, which is impossible locking these games on their console and giving their games away. Money in gaming is made selling AAA games and mainly digital addons for GaaS, so they'll also slowly move their focus there. In fact, most of their main IPs already are GaaS.

Their specific case is very different than the Nintendo or Sony ones, whose console business is very successful, solid, sustainable and profitable.

 

[ethomaz]

Ports don't necessarily take much time

Depend of the game… some take a year or more.
Depend of workforce… a smaller team will take more time than a big one.

Sea of Thieves seems to take a year.

 

[ethomaz]

Xbox has been planning this since middle of 23 because of slow hw and GP sales and they waited until the holidays and Starfield launch to see what would happen. We know what happened.

These content creators and fanboys who think they are looking at decisions in real time are idiots.

The only thing we are seeing is messaging, the decisions have been made. People who continue to ignore PS outselling Xbox 3-1 WW on an yearly monthly basis will once again act surprised in the near future when more games are announced and quickly released.

With the new info I guess…

The decision/plan was taken before 2023… probably 2022 but ai won’t be surprise if it was something already in talk internally in 2021 or before.
The execution (porting games) started in early 2023.

People believing the decisions was being taken now with the leaks are really being fooled by Uncle Phil

 

[Batzy]

Ports don't necessarily take much time

Unless you are the dev that for 20 years made just for xbox.