@Yurinka do you have proof? Sony/SIE explicitly signed timed exclusivity deals for games like Guilty Gear Strive, Under Night, Kill la Kill? Or are you assuming those were exclusives due to Sony/SIE instead of the choice of the 3P developer or publisher (i.e no specific involvement from Sony/SIE)?
I have proof for the previous gen SF deal (there were public quotes in interviews), the RE series deal ((I have the leaked document), or the X-Men series and characters deal (I don't have the image now, but was one of the Wolverine powerpoints form the Insomniac leak).
Regarding the many exclusives -mostly fighting games- they had with companies like ARC System Works or SNK I don't have proof that they were exclusive because of a deal with Sony, it's just an assumption. The most similar thing is a quote from Jim Ryan saying he had signed more 3rd party exclusives for the PS5 generation than for any previous generation and that they were making a special effort with Japanese devs/publishers.
I think it's quite suspicious that other publishers/developers released basically all their fighting games on Xbox but not SNK and ARC. Specially in the case of SNK, since in their case seems to be a change with the change of the generation: they had many exclusives in the PS4 gen games but this generation so far their 2 releases also have been released on Xbox (plus the late port of Samurai Shodown 2019). As if they had a generation long deal with Sony for the PS4 generation but this new generation, now with Saudi money, prefered to go full multiplatform instead.
Also WRT EVO; Sony/SIE only co-own it, i.e they own 50% of it. Another company retains ownership of the other 50%, but I don't see the point in mentioning Sony/SIE owning Evo in relation to exclusive fighting games on PS4/PS5 unless to insinuate that Sony/SIE somehow purchased exclusivity on those games to justify buying 50% of Evo, or that them buying 50% of Evo pushed them to buy exclusivity on those games. Neither of which are true, BTW.
We don't know if SIE owns 50%, 100%, 99% or 1% of the joint venture E-Sports Evolution, LLC that SIE and RTS created for EVO because they didn't share it.
Their partner for the EVO acquisiton, RTS, is an eSports events organizator and content creator talent management agency, so their role is to organize the event and give it visibility via their streamers. Sony uses EVO to market their consoles, subscription, games, gaming monitors and gaming accesories to the fighting games genre fans.
Why to buy EVO and why to sign all the fighting game exclusives? Easy, because the genre is one of the most popular ones in their console and like GaaS it grew a ton in the PS3 and PS4 generations. In the
press release of the EVO acquisition they mentioned: "Fighting games are hugely popular on PlayStation consoles, with gamers logging more than 1.1 billion gameplay hours in 2020 alone".
We have to remember that basically all the main fighting game series are selling better than ever, now are GaaS and perform well enough to be highlighted as a special interest group in the leaked Insomniac documents we saw where they analyzed the performance of GaaS titles.
Bringing up games like RE Village isn't necessary, because I was just asking about Sony/SIE moneyhatting re-releases of old/legacy games (as re-releases and compilations).
That example is necesary to see that 3rd party companies sign exclusivity deals of different types, and more specifically Capcom with Sony. So wouldn't be something rare or new to sign another deal for other titles.
In this particular case, we have access to the document to see the details of these deals. As in this case, the deal covering more stuff of the RE series and not only RE Village (as I remember mentioned VR versions, so affecting the RE4 remake). I can upload it somewhere if you want to see it.
It isn't limited to re-releases/remasters/collections, or fighting games, but it's the most similar case we have of a leaked contract and in this case between Capcom and Sony. We also have the quotes regarding the SFV focused deal (which also covered more games) and the Wolverine/X-Men deal of Sony with Marvel (briefly mentioned in a leaked Insomniac powerpoint).
Now you've also mentioned the Ace Attorney games & MH Stories games skipping Xbox. The reason you say they should have Xbox versions is because it's a minuscule cost (supposedly) and "free money". The truth is, the costs aren't insignificant enough to be "practically zero" in practice, and resources for optimization are finite. Capcom have B2P sales of prior games on platforms like Xbox over the last several years, and likely decided the B2P sales were not worth the costs for porting and optimization (or getting certification for the game to release on Xbox platforms).
So I don't know if you're also insinuating if Sony/SIE are involved in "blocking" those games on Xbox but that makes no sense to think, considering those same games are on other platforms where for that particular game's audience, said other platforms compete much more strongly against PlayStation with than Xbox. Yes Sony/SIE would have no problem allowing the games on those systems, while having a problem of them being on a much weaker (direct) competitor?
Yes, maybe Capcom decided itself to don't release it on Xbox due to low sales without receiving money from Sony, and without being affected by the SIE+Marvel deal regarding X-Men.
But as I mentioned before Capcom also released for Xbox (in 2024) Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy and Ace Attorney Investigations Collection. Two collections of emulated games of a series that sell less than Marvel Vs Capcom.
If the reason would be the low sales on Xbox, why would they release these Ace Attorney titles on Xbox and not the Marvel one?
