Round and round we go.
There is no evidence that PC Day 1 caused a decline in Xbox ownership. In fact Xbox was strong out of the gate this generation despite starting PC Day 1 the previous gen.
All evidence suggests that GamePass Day 1 (particularly on PC) would have had a stronger impact and the lack of system sellers.
Xbox marketing has gone out of its way to say, you don't need an xbox.
It's not as if any of their PC games have been hits. If anything Sony has had MORE success on PC while maintaining their sales numbers. Evidence that Sony has more bangers.
I've never said Day 1 PC was the singular or the biggest cause for Xbox's decline in console sales. However, pretending it's had no impact is hilarious. It obviously has had an impact, otherwise it would not be a reason constantly cited by many as to why they didn't bother to buy a new Xbox console.
There's no reason why PC Game Pass would have a bigger impact on Xbox console sales considering games that sold poorly on Steam like HiFi Rush, also failed to meet player engagement metrics in Game Pass which would include PC Game Pass. That's a major reason (among MS just being greedy for profits and short-sighted) why Tango Gameworks was shut down. PC Game Pass is available on more devices than Xbox Game Pass yet can't get player metrics good enough to save underperforming games like HiFi and Starfield.
So if anything, no I don't think PC Game Pass is a bigger factor there. OTOH, games like Forza Horizon 5 did very well on Steam (yes this game was a 'hit' on Steam and Sea of Thieves has done pretty well on PC as well, better than on Xbox clearly); a good portion of those would've been Xbox sales (alongside a Series S or X) if it weren't for Day 1. Which maybe would've also led those would-be purchasers to buy additional games on Xbox Store via their console vs. Steam, meaning more revenue and profits for Microsoft.
We understand it well enough. Believe me. If Sony's strengths rely on a handful of games and without them the castle crumbles then they should review their value proposition because it's not a robust enough. Tastes change and you damn well know that one flop sends a studio down the drain.
One flop would only send a studio down the drain if that studio is bad with their spending because of budget bloat, and didn't take calculated risks in how they developed their game relative the costs and market potential. The lower the budget, the less need for additional platforms to make back the investment with profits on top.
Also I have not said that Sony ONLY relies on exclusives to provide value to their platform; just like Valve, who have multiple exclusives of their own on Steam (Counterstrike 2, DOTA 2, that upcoming shooter of theirs, Half-Life: Alyx etc.), exclusives provide additional, and I'd say a key driver incentive, towards the value proposition of the entire platform.
Yes a platform still needs a good stable of 3P support and yes the platform still needs great UI, QOL features and services...but acting like exclusives can be removed from the total package and it'd change nothing for the worst, is asinine. We already
SEE how that is a detriment with the deterioration of the Xbox console brand. We
KNOW the benefit of exclusives through other platform holders; not just SIE, but others like Nintendo or even Valve. Or if you want to look outside of gaming, just turn to HBO Max, Disney+, Netflix, and so on and so forth.
Even
your preferred platform understands the value exclusivity in content brings when it's complemented by the other things I mentioned. That should tell you something.
What happens in the scenario where Sony has a bad run with their first party games? Will people stop buying their consoles? After all, according to this site exclusive games are the only thing that matters.
Nope. Just means less people will buy their consoles. How much less, depends on how bad the 1P output gets, and when. I don't know why you blatantly ignore nuance on this subject of consoles and exclusivity.
Sony's best selling console barely had major first party games.
Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are the only games that sold anywhere close to big sony first party games today.
This is an extremely disingenuous take. You're assuming that A: games on PS2 (let alone PS1) had budgets anywhere near the AAA games or even higher-end AA games of today and B: assuming that a game which didn't move 15-20+ million copies wasn't considered "major" when almost all of the big games during PS2 era regularly sold less than 10 million copies.
It's a similar mistake as people who look back on a retro system with an awesome library and ask "why did this fail?", but don't consider what the week-to-week release reality for that system was when it was commercially relevant, don't consider what competing systems were offering at the exact same time, and don't consider the fact that a lot of games maybe weren't even released in certain territories due to regional restrictions.
In the context of what those games did to bolster the PS2's profile and complement in sales bigger-selling titles, stuff like Ico, Dark Cloud 2, Parappa 2, Rogue Galaxy, God of War etc.
absolutely mattered and collectively helped make a positive difference in the PS2's value proposition within the market. Dismissing them simply because they didn't sell 10 or 15 million copies is very reductive IMHO.
False correlation. Day and date release for games on Xbox and windows isn’t what hurt Microsoft. It was gamepass
You're wrong. Day 1 PC DID hurt Xbox consoles in the long run. It just wasn't the only contributing factor.
Game Pass is a big component to the problem too, of course. But people need to stop pretending Day 1 PC wasn't a contributor. It was 100% was.
