The Astrobot port begging has already begun
- Thread starter anonpuffs
- Start date
Not facts your emotions.
It isn’t definitive nor guaranteed.
How many Sony Japan games have appeared on PC?
Where are Bloodborne, Demons Souls, Last Guardian, Shadow of the Colossus for starters?
Bloodborne: they're gonna remake it and by the time they do that all PlayStation games will be day and date already
Last Guardian and Shadow of the Colossus: not worth porting
Demon's Souls: it's in the GeForce Now leak so it was planned at least at one point
But don't bother replying anymore I'm just gonna bookmark this discussion and I'll see you in 2026.
C'mon peter, you're being disingenuous here and you know it
I'm not being disingenuous at all. I simply believe that Sony spends a lot of money which they do, their games costs hundreds of millions of dollars to make, take 5+ years to get them out the door, are a tech company that always pushes more visuals which costs more money, they have huge licensing fees with Disney/Marvel among others that cost a lot of money and they simply don't make the profit that the shareholders and investors want in return.
Also, people want to believe that they're copying Microsoft yet Lego Horizon Adventures has probably been in development for at least 3 years and the deal Sony made with Lego was probably done in 2020 so if anything, Sony was going the third party route sooner rather than later and it had nothing to do with Microsoft. The only difference is that you didn't know about it because it didn't leak and Sony didn't tell anyone about it.
Sony is NOT going to pander to a small minority psychotic fan base just because that fan base feels like they're losing their toys due to others getting to play with them when in reality, it's Sony's toys. And this applies to Microsoft as well. If a $3T dollar company like Microsoft is going full on multi-platform, why wouldn't Sony do it when they're worth $100B or so? They need more money which is what it always comes down to regardless of what anyone wants to believe.
Like I have said before, it's 2024, soon to be 2025 and nothing stays the same man. All these companies want more money and the richer they are, the more money they want. I simply see it as all these companies want more money and they will do what they have to do in order to accomplish that and if it means pissing off fanboys/extremists who let's be honest 95% of them aren't going anywhere anyway despite talking a good game, then so be it.
For me personally, as I have said before, nothing that Microsoft or Sony is doing changes anything for me. As long as they both manufacture and release consoles, I will buy them and that's where I will play my games. There's truly no point in going nuts over any of this shit because first, you'll drive yourself insane and second, no one on Twitter or any forum is going to change what a hundred billion dollar and three trillion dollar company respectively wants to do.
At some point, you either accept it and move past it like I did or quit PlayStation or quit gaming, I guess. All anyone can do is control their own shit and what they want to do.
PSN connectivity was always listed on the game's Steam page. Sony just allowed the devs to put that on hold until they ironed the urgent issues out.
In any case, it's very hypocritical to bitch and moan about "being forced to connect to PSN" after the likes of Bethesda introduced forced login on old single player games like Doom with little to no outcry. Where was the outrage then?
We know where the "concerns" come from.
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You act like these are the only games they make when they also make MLB The Show (multiplat only because MLB League demanded it), Returnal, Rift Apart, Astro Bot etc.
IMO the license SIE have with X-Men and Marvel is an albatross unless Disney/Marvel ensure future MCU films & shows are legit good again, and consistently so. Otherwise I imagine there's a way for SIE to get out of that deal since it's paid in piecemeal per game during development phases.
One game doesn't prove your point. You can't form or prove a theory/hypothesis with a single case instance, anyone in any field would tell you this. The whole LEGO Horizon thing is messy and muddies the waters in SIE's multiplatform strategy in unneeded ways IMO, but it's still just one game. If that becomes the norm, and they put that type of stuff on Nintendo or other consoles more regularly, then you might be able to build up a point to make.
But right now, this ain't it.
And the high-ARPU hardcore & core enthusiasts who have been the Day 1 buyers of hardware, buy the most games, spend the most on subscriptions, spend the most on peripherals, and set the momentum leading to other core, casual & mainstream gamers to buy PS hardware, are the ones who made "Sony's toys" valuable both to them and investors in the first place.
That's something you don't seem to understand, and something Microsoft forgot with the enthusiasts in their own console ecosystem, so it's not surprising Xbox as a console is at the dead-end it's at. If you actually like Sony's games and what they do for the industry, you wouldn't want them to make the same mistakes and artificially diminish their console space with self-inflicted wounds.
There is such a thing called 'good pandering'; keeping your highest-ARPU customers in mind is an example of that.
Sony Too™
Xbox consoles have sold an atrocious 210K across Europe for the entirety of 2024 thus far. Let that sink in before you start saying things like "they aren't going anywhere"; it's pretty clear they WILL go somewhere, and usually that's PC.
We've seen it happen with Microsoft, and they needed to spend $80+ billion on 3P publishers to rejuvenate dying Xbox revenues and profits. Again, if you like SIE's games and what they do for the industry, why would you want them to fall into the trap of pursuing unrealistic "infinite growth" driven by moronic and greedy key shareholders/investors? It's one thing to acknowledge that they could end up doing such a thing, but why would you want it?
This is probably a reason why you can't understand what's being conveyed here. What you're so quickly willing to support is going to lead to less or even no consoles being made by them, because there won't be a large enough addressable market in terms of revenues & profits to justify those consoles being made. At least, not at the volume and pricing they are currently provided at.
At that point you are just better off with a PC, but there is also going to be a precipitous drop in output & quality from platform holders going 3P, and arguably less visibility for the industry & market to sustain itself and grow among potential customers.
It's one thing to acknowledge what could end up happening and being content with that existence. It's another thing to play defeatist, roll over, and accept it like a lap dog.
Oh yeah now it's not even PC begging, but Switch port begging, go fuck yourself Mr Dring how about that?
Also fuck Sony as well for opening that door
Also fuck Sony as well for opening that door
Vicious PC and Nintendo terrorists should never get their hands on this gem.
huh
I'm sorry I don't really understand how a paragraph about the expensiveness of having video games as a hobby combined with a comment about the multiplatform friendly design of game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine has to do with racist people
I never said those were the only games that Sony makes but I am expecting all of them to eventually be on PC and by PlayStation 6, day one on PC. They're not going to slow down or eliminate it especially if they end up having their own store front which I personally wouldn't do but it looks like, that's the direction they're going in. As for MLB The Show, people need to stop acting like Sony was forced at gun point or didn't approve it all in order to retain the MLB rights. Sony renewed the contract and yes, while MLB wanted the game to be multi-platform which let's be honest, it's a sports game and should be multi-platform because seriously, who gives two shits about a sports game being exclusive or not, Sony could have declined the contract and said no thanks but they didn't, they accepted it just like they accepted Bungie being multi-platform when they acquired them and just like they accepted Lego Horizon Adventures releasing day one on PC and Switch when they signed the contract.
As for the Disney/Marvel contract, according to that Insomniac hack/leak which I do believe is 100% real, if Sony breaks the deal, they would have to payout a shit ton of money to Disney/Marvel which at that point, you're better off just riding out the contract.
The problem is that it isn't one game. It's every year with MLB because Sony agreed to it, all of Bungie's games because again, they agreed to it and the Lego Horizon game uses Sony's IP along with Lego and thus, a deal was made in which Sony agreed to the terms of the deal. Lego would obviously want the game everywhere and while Xbox is excluded, it being day one on PC and especially Switch is very telling in regards to what Sony's direction could end up being because a decade ago, I seriously doubt that Sony agrees to any of this whatsoever but now, they're far more open to it all and at times, don't even require retaining ownership of the IP.
Also, you say that it's just one game but how do you think it starts? It starts with one game, then becomes two games, then four and so on.
I understand what you're saying but let's be realistic, the people you're talking about rarely show up to buy all of Sony's games. Returnal and Ratchet flopped. Where were Sony's fans? Nowhere to be found. Unless it's a top tier major AAA IP, Sony's fans are minimal at best because they don't put their money where their mouths are. Also, what it was in 1995 isn't the same as today. Majority of those who grew up with consoles are basically the dying breed, the dinosaurs that will eventually be extinct. Nowadays, the majority of those who play games either play mobile or on a PC. They don't care about consoles because for them, it's not worth the cost and isn't what they grew up on.
I look at a gaming brand/platform similar to being a sports fan. I follow, watch and support my NFL team when they win, when they lose and when they do things I don't like. This to me is a real fan because you don't give up on your team just because they're doing things you don't like or approve of. A real fan of something doesn't bandwagon or only stay when everything is going their way, they stay from start to finish, beginning to end. In other words, you take the bad with the good and you roll with the punches.
Xbox as a console brand has been dying since Xbox One in 2013 but the thing is that it doesn't matter because it's not about ONLY the console. It's about the platform and eco-system and if Microsoft can grow it on PC, on mobile, on streaming and yes, even on PlayStation, the brand will get bigger as a whole. It just won't be the way those fans that you're talking about would prefer and if they want to leave, then in all honesty, it's their loss because Microsoft will just find new users to replace the old users.
When I look at Xbox and PlayStation...im sorry but if the biggest issue that fans have is them being/becoming multi-platform as opposed to looking at all the great games both have released thus far this generation and have coming, then I just see that as being very short sighted because the main reason why anyone buys a gaming console should be because of the games you're going to get on that platform. While most will always point towards exclusivity, outside of Nintendo, it's not the exclusivity that matters, it's the third party games that truly matter because those are the games that dominate month in and month out.
When you look at both Microsoft and Sony, if either were to lose third party support, they both die instantly. Only Nintendo can literally survive without third party support and have proven it multiple times in their history. Are the exclusives great to have and all that? Yes but is it worth leaving the platform and eco-system that you prefer to play your games at if they're NOT exclusive? Me personally, the answer is no because I would be losing so much more that benefits me in various ways.
So while I understand this point and can even agree with it in principle, the reality is that it doesn't truly matter because the vast majority of those playing games on consoles (or wherever) don't give two shits about any of this bullshit, aren't on twitter or forums and just want to play their games where they want, when they want and with who they want. The rest is just noise.
Microsoft isn't going anywhere gaming wise and that includes PC, consoles, mobile and cloud. They don't want to be in ONE place, they want to be in EVERY place. We already know that they're working on their next generation hardware which considering the fact that it's Nadella, Hood and Stuart running Xbox since the ABK deal went through, Phil/Matt/Sarah wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't already in research and development and most important of all, green lit for a retail release.
I know a lot of people think that Steam or Epic will be on the next Xbox but I don't. I just don't believe that it will be easy to accomplish this at all. Microsoft doesn't need to sell 100m consoles in order to be massively successful. If anything, they need to do their own thing ala Nintendo but not to the same extent and breakaway from launching head to head against Sony because that is a losing battle.
Microsoft knows in advance what their console(s) will sell in a time frame and if next gen lasts let's say 6 years and they sell 30m consoles but are everywhere and making so much revenue including the 30% cut from every third party sale which I know people like to clown about but realistically, third parties make a shit ton on Xbox. Ubisoft alone does their best sales on Xbox as reported by them two years ago. And the digital rate is higher on Xbox than PlayStation which is what every publisher wants including both Microsoft and Sony.
Microsoft's games don't sell mainly due to the simple fact that they're not looked at like a few of Sony's games and majority of Nintendo's. They just aren't and they weren't even during the Xbox 360 days. I looked it all up years ago, outside of Halo 3, I don't remember seeing a single Microsoft game sell more than 10M units. And this is a decade before Game Pass even existed. Microsoft is already the biggest gaming publisher due to acquiring ABK which was the end game. Become the biggest gaming publisher because while many won't like their direction, if there's one gaming company that's guaranteed to never go anywhere, it's Microsoft simply because they're going to be bigger gaming wise than everyone else and probably majority combined.
Microsoft spending $100B on acquisitions since June 2018 was to grow Xbox, have studios, more games but also, it was always going to be needed if your main focus is a subscription service because you must have games and content on a consistent basis which as of now, they haven't accomplished yet. Post ABK, it's not about that anymore for Microsoft. Present day, it's about growing Microsoft Gaming (or whatever it's called) to be everywhere because you want to get more users into your eco-system and they don't care how it's done as long as it gets done because you're still going to be spending money on their games and content one way or the other which is what Microsoft wants.
As for Sony, Shawn Layden said it, their way isn't sustainable either. Sony needs to grow and im sorry but I accepted this even before this generation began, consoles for Sony will be around 100M+ give or take, Mirosoft will be around 60m give or take and the consoles aren't going to grow. People believe that a Pro will grow it but it won't because the vast majority of those who buy it already own a base PS5 and that's not growth at all. Growth is adding new consumers/customers to the eco-system and you do that by expanding outward which is done via their IP's. As big as a Spider Man 3 will be when the time comes, it will be at least twice as big if not more so if it launches on PC day one because you're talking about a 200m user install base that's for the most part, untapped by Sony and excluding the money aspect, that's potential growth that you can't ignore because if you do, someone else will get them.
When PlayStation 5 sells around 120m at best including the Pro, people will act like that's growth when in reality, it's stagnation and simple retention of what you already had the prior generation with PS4 and it would have taken an extra year to gain that 120m but due to Covid, you can say it evens out with PS4 but growth? Nope, not at all.
Sony like Microsoft wants to grow beyond the console box which in all honesty, isn't worth anywhere near as much as the IP's that Sony has because the IP's as long as Sony retains them is worth far more than any PlayStation console will ever be due to the fact that the consoles (every single one of them from every company) have an expiration date. The IP's don't. Sony is on PC, they have the Portal which is basically streaming. They own one or two mobile studios if I remember correctly. They're trying to grow and expand outward because trying to do that inward simply isn't going to get the job done.
As for the question you asked me - why would I want it?
It's actually very simple and straight forward. I want to get more studios, more games and more content from Sony. I know a good amount just like with Microsoft and third party companies won't be for me but the more you have, the higher the percentage will be of me getting more of what I want. I don't expect every game to be for me personally as that's just not going to happen regardless of what company it is and im fine with that simply because I know that they will have a lot of games and content that is for me. Granted, there's obviously no guarantee that Sony acquires more studios and whatnot but for the sake of this conversation, let's just say that they do and go from there.
I will use the following roadmap of Microsoft's 20 announced games to showcase my point -
Ara: History Untold
Avowed *
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 *
Clockwork Revolution *
Contraband *
Doom: The Dark Ages *
Everwild
Fable *
Flight Simulator 2024
Gears of War: E-Day *
Indiana Jones *
Marvel's Blade *
Overdose
Perfect Dark *
Project Mara
South of Midnight *
State of Decay 3 *
The Outer Worlds 2 *
The Elder Scrolls VI *
Towerborne *
Out of those 20 games, 15 of them (games marked with an asterik) I will be playing day one via Game Pass. Now take that roadmap and swap out those 20 games from Microsoft with 20 games from Sony. A few live service games, a few single player games, etc. Balance it out and get to where you have what I have - 15 out of 20 games that YOU want to play from Sony.
Are you honestly telling me that you would sacrifice that in exchange for the old school way of exclusivity? Would YOU really pass on that just to see Sony stay with their old school ways?
I personally don't care at all anymore what Microsoft does or doesn't do in regards to exclusivity and whatnot. Shit is done. What I do care about is Microsoft developing and releasing more games that I want to play and if others can play them at the same time on PC, PlayStation, Nintendo, etc., so fucking be it as I will gladly and happily take that trade because look at what im gaining. I know majority here will bash most of that list and whatever, I could care less but why would I want to sacrifice all those games and future wise, even more games just because they're no longer exclusive?
As a gamer that wants to play games and while I have been an Xbox and PlayStation fan since the beginning, I have never been more hyped for Xbox simply due to their roadmap of games which for this generation alone will by far surpass every game Microsoft gave me in the last three generations combined and that's after going back and playing through all the old Halo games for the first time ever. I just counted every Microsoft published game from Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One that I played and completed. The total is 18 games. 6 games on average for each generation.
I have already completed 7 games from Microsoft this generation. Add in COD BO 6 and Indiana Jones for the rest of 2024 and in four years, I have already gotten half of what I had in the previous 19 years combined. For 2025, im expecting to get Avowed, Fable, Towerborne, South of Midnight and Doom: The Dark Ages. That's increases the total to 14 games in what would be five years. And this doesn't include any unannounced games such as COD 2025.
Obviously, I can only speak for myself but in no way, shape or form am I giving all those games up just so I can brag about having a few exclusive games a year that may or may not even be of any interest to me.
While I have zero interest in PC gaming now, never say never. If I have to make changes and adapt in order to play the games that I want to play, I will do so because at the end of teh day, I want to play the games and im not going to place limitations or restrictions on myself which would prevent me for some odd reason or another from playing the games that I want to play.
Microsoft is going to release their next generation console in Fall 2026. I'm expecting it to be a pretty good leap tech wise and be all digital. I'm day one especially if Gears of War: E-Day and Perfect Dark are launch titles or release within a few months of the console launching. I do believe that they will do pretty well as long as they have their games ready because they won't be going head to head with Sony and even with the Pro, their tech will be behind. Granted, they could jump out in front in 2028 but even if they do, im not expecting it to be massive difference because third party publishers will want the consoles to be pretty much very similar across the board.
In general, gamers and consumers love new tech and hardware. Barring any major issues like a red ring of death scenario, I don't actually see their next console doing worse than Xbox Series because first, they finally have the studios and most importantly of all, the games. Now you could argue that some perhaps even all of them would be on PlayStation 5/Pro day one or a few months later and while some may say, I will just play it on PS5, the new tech and hardware may push the games to a higher level which in all honesty, it should because the tech is simply superior to what was released in 2020, and then decide that they want to play the games on better hardware.
Now, if people look at it that way and then see Game Pass, well, if someone is interested in let's say 5 games and those 5 games are $70 each on PlayStation 5 (even though I do believe games will increase to $80 next generation), that's already $350 which could be put towards the console and the reason why a lot of people will go this route is because you DON'T have to buy their games. You can use that money to buy the hardware and then play them via Game Pass which would still be far cheaper than buying the games that you want to buy.
Along side that will be the Xbox Portable. I do believe that Microsoft is working on an Xbox handheld. I would go all out with that if I was Microsoft. Bigger, bulkier, more power consumption but spec wise, pretty much identical to Xbox next gen console. You can play the games on that Portable via digital OR streaming. It doesn't have to be Native 4K, 120FPS/Ray Tracing, etc. 1440p/60FPS/HDR with an OLED screen for a good price would definitely sell in my opinion especially in regions like Japan, China, etc. where console gaming is basically non-existent.
I believe that the portable would (and should) simply replace the console in those certain regions where mobile/portables/handhelds are king.
Third party publishers aren't going anywhere because they all still make a lot of money on Xbox. Even if it's 3rd behind PC and PlayStation, it's still a lot of money and more money when compared to if it doesn't exist. Not to mention the fact that people bash Microsoft because they lose out on certain games but realistically, unless it's massive major third party game like a fucking GTA or some shit which isn't going to happen whatsoever, there's no reason for Microsoft to quit console gaming.
Console gaming for Microsoft would be just one option and one way to get into their platform and eco-system as opposed to being the "ONLY" way.
So instead of accepting what Microsoft now is which isn't going to change, I should stop supporting them, buying and playing games on Xbox just because it comes across as me being defeated? LOL.
I don't own Microsoft. I don't run the company. What exactly am I being defeated of? Come on man.
To be perfectly honest, Microsoft lost. It's over. Done. Finished. Whatever you want to call it. I'm NOT going to sacrifice all of the games that they have that I want to play as well as sacrifice Game Pass, Ubisoft+, 6 refunds a year, free cloud saves, backwards compatibility, ability to use my favorite controller of all time in Xbox One and several other positives that Sony doesn't give me at all. Subtract Sony's exclusives and they literally have nothing of any value or importance or relevance to me at all. There's NOTHING there that benefits me as a gamer and as a consumer.
If anything, I realize that people are so desperate to be part of the "winning team or winning side" that without it, they obviously have nothing. And this applies to both fan bases. Remember teh comparison I used earlier to being a sports fan. Win or lose, doing things that I like or dislike sin't going to stop or prevent me from being a fan of my team because at that point, if you stop being a fan for whatever reason, then in reality, you were never a fan to begin with.
And we're basing this on....what, exactly? Slides from a ransomware hack that could be outdated? What leads you to expect SIE will do Day 1 for all games on PC by the time PS6 launches, and somehow avoid a collapse like what happened with Xbox Series when Microsoft did the same thing at the start of this gen?
Do you think having a PS PC launcher and limiting the Day 1 there will help avoid that? How does SIE make a PS PC launcher worth the monetary investment to gin up 3P support? Else they go back to Steam and pull this off, which results in all the same problems for PlayStation that it did for Xbox.
See, some of you aren't thinking this stuff far enough. It's why you have hopium on some of these ideas.
They accepted the terms because they still wanted to make an official MLB game. And whether they wanted to make it multiplatform or not internally, at the end of the day, just as you said, it's "just" a sports game. Sports games like MLB aren't really part of the fabric of defining the PlayStation gaming experience; core enthusiasts of the brand aren't buying systems mainly driven by wanting to play MLB games.
And you know this....how, exactly? Again, you're either misreading or exaggerating points just to fit a bias you already want to push narrative-wise, that's why this stuff gets called out constantly. We don't know how up-to-date those slides are, we haven't read the fine print in the contracts between SIE and Marvel; considering Marvel are dependent on Sony Pictures for access to Spiderman, I'm also pretty confident SIE have power in leverage here to do a cost-effective break-up of the contract so should things require it.
The only reason they'd consider it is if Disney/Marvel aren't pulling their weight with the MCU, driving value of the whole brand down. Which would in fact make them even more dependent on SIE since the games could be lifelines to help prop up mindshare & value of those IP in the meantime. I'll put it this way: SIE doesn't need X-Men as much as Disney/Marvel need Insomniac for X-Men.
You're blatantly ignoring that the Bungie plans were drafted before all the BS began happening with Bungie, and were on the basis of Bungie remaining independent. If they get absorbed into SIE, those plans could very easily change in terms of multiplatform targets. They could easily drop Xbox altogether, or swap Xbox with Nintendo.
And, again, we're dealing with GAAS titles in this case, which predicate their existence on the idea that most will likely be multiplatform anyway, so we aren't breaking new ground here by pretending that's some big shift in SIE's strategy. Wanna know what else is GAAS? MLB The Show.
Actual blatant lies now you're spewing. Returnal was a new IP and released when the PS5 install base was only maybe 10-12 million. It performed quite well for a brand new IP from what to many PS fans was an unknown studio to them.
Meanwhile, Rift Apart sold nearly 4 million copies before even getting its PC port, and was quite profitable well before said port. You're being very disingenuous in selecting when to use slides (when they benefit your narrative) vs omitting data when it doesn't suit your narrative. It just shows you can't make a substantive argument that works on its own merits.
It seems the recent Concord drama has led you to conflate a fantasy as a reality. I would say, come back down to Earth and let's look at some real data.
You have a POV where if a game isn't selling 10 million copies Day 1 or doing Spiderman/Horizon/TLOU numbers, it's a failure, but you only seem to be doing this for SIE's games, meaning there's a clear intent here and it isn't a good one. Again, PS5 owners supported Rift Apart, they bought Returnal, they bought Kena, they bought FF XVI, they're still buying Rebirth, they bought Stellar Blade, they're buying Black Myth Wukong and I could go on and on and on.
Hmm....popular releases on Steam, Switch, and PlayStation say otherwise. Oh, but if they aren't doing BMW/Elden Ring/Hogwarts numbers they're failures, right? Budgets and scope be damned
This reads like a Phil Spencer "it's not OUR fault, it's the market's!" quote.
See, you've fallen for Microsoft's marketing jargon. The console has been the CENTERPIECE and is the ANCHOR for Xbox as a gaming brand, full stop, because it came into existence as a console. The public at large, no matter what, when they think of Xbox they will first think of the console, and for Microsoft that console is practically on its death bed.
You can't have a brand in peak health if a vital organ is dead. Sure, Microsoft Gaming can still have a lot of success on their new path of multiplatform and being on PC, mobile & streaming (BTW none of these are new for Microsoft), but they will always be held back to some degree due to the death of their traditional console. Your perspective on this off-kilter and makes little sense, because you for starters can't have a league of only 3-4 teams. Secondly, the only way Microsoft has been "finding" new customers is by purchasing other publishers and claiming their customers as Xbox's.
So, what you think of them as "finding new customers" isn't actually what you think it is. It's Microsoft "replacing old users" via an unsustainable means of market acquisition. Your nonchalant attitude just seems to show you are on some level perfectly fine with them buying up big portions of the market, destabilizing it, then laying off tons of staff and doing closures while magically expecting software output remains the same level as ever.
But in reality, the level of output post-acquisitions the size of ABK, always reduces because the goal of such big M&As isn't to pump out content to the market. The point is for the buyer to shore up valued IP assets and then maximize profits, which means doing "more with less". As in, less volume of content while maximizing returns on each thing you DO put out. We've seen it happen already with Disney, dunno why people thought it'd be any different with Microsoft.
Again just sounds like you're taking talking points from other people in the industry and regurgitating them. I'll tell you, my issue isn't about the multiplatform approach in itself, but the method in which it's conducted. There is a right and wrong way to do everything. Microsoft eventually took the wrong way to pushing PC as it's come at the direct expense of their console, and if it weren't for them buying Zenimax and ABK, their entire gaming operation would either be hemorrheging money or have been shut down by now. Those acquisitions & the pandemic's effect on global economies gave Xbox an artificial boost and a reason for Microsoft to stay in gaming.
SIE's multiplatform approach has been them pushing non-GAAS ports to PC in higher frequency & shorter windows, while leveraging PC to push for a GAAS plan that by its nature would mean less frequency of game releases for console owners. Meanwhile, coincidentally, the PC ports have coincided with 1P games having more bugs at launch than usual, and games taking longer as 1P studios either rejig their pipelines to expediate PC workflows (Naughty Dog), or start some form of development on the PC version while the console game is still being worked on (Wolverine).
And in BOTH case with MS and Sony, disarray has come forth from their core enthusiast customer bases. Microsoft just screwed up much bigger and in faster time, bleeding out a massive chunk of their core enthusiast base to other platforms which then slowed down adoption from mainstream and casual gamers. Again, the artificial boost from the pandemic (lockdowns, recession, supply issues of PS5 & PS4) plus them buying Zenimax & ABK were MS's equivalent of reviving a dying gaming brand. Those two things are the ONLY reasons Microsoft is still honed in on gaming.
Microsoft are already "losing" a lot of 3P support when it comes to getting revenue cuts from 3P sales....because B2P sales on Xbox have been drying up. And again, you are ignoring what purchasing Zenimax & ABK have done for boosting Microsoft's gaming financials; the reason they are looking to become 3P is because they aren't getting much from 3P on Xbox, and feel they have the acquired assets to survive as their own publisher without the revenue cuts from 3P sales (which have been depleting). That you fail to see this is somewhat surprising.
As for SIE, they've already said in the past they seek to rely less on 3P for profits, and you seem to dismiss they have several IP that can regularly do 10-20+ million an entry on their own, like Gran Turismo, Horizon, Spiderman, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, TLOU etc. But, as a platform holder, they still have an obligation to provide value proposition to their console and make it stand out in the market. You do that with exclusives. It's what Microsoft forgot, and eventually paid the price for (irrelevance of Xbox consoles). It's what any sane person would want SIE to remember and practice, to avoid anything near similar to that fate.
Little did he know that ABK has accellerated the death of the xbox console.
Plans can change. Also you're still trying to throw in everything else here when the thread of my point has been specifically focused on the console. Try as you want to say otherwise, Microsoft Gaming at its heart is still seen as a console brand, a traditional console and the business model therein. Ironically, you seem to think the next Xbox might be a continuation of the 360, XBO, and Series, but that actually would hurt Microsoft's goals as you seem to believe them to be, rather than help them.
So the only way they get to "be everywhere" with their critical software and services, is by ending Xbox hardware altogether, at least in terms of a traditional console. So the next iteration of Xbox hardware will either have a more PC-orientated business model and design approach, or this "grand vision" of them being everywhere was just BS to string along, and thus they'll continue having haphazard results with confused messaging and risk creating customer alienation.
Then I guess you don't expect next-gen Xbox hardware to release. Otherwise they can't justify Xbox gaming devices as-is, given the dismal performance of Xbox in almost all the global markets the past two years.
So now they need to be an inferior copy of Nintendo instead of an inferior copy of PlayStation? The inferiority complex would still be there, the only thing changing is the outfit.
And herein you prove you don't know what you're talking about. WHAT "so much revenue" from 30% cuts? You mean the 30% cut from games by Capcom, who literally have to be paid up front to bother porting their smaller and mid-sized games to Xbox in the first case so as to not lose money? You mean the ever-growing number of 3P devs and pubs who are either skipping Xbox or waiting 'till much later to bring their games there because the costs aren't worth it for them? Those 30% cuts?
Also "being everywhere" doesn't guarantee huge growth. Game Pass is already "everywhere" aside Sony and Nintendo consoles, and despite being readily available for billions of devices, hasn't even cracked (sans XBL Gold refitted as GP Core) 30 million subscribers...
...out of billions of available devices. We're talking margin-of-error penetration here for Game Pass
You mean like ABK with COD, who were just acquired by Microsoft? Or Bethesda with TES, who were acquired by Microsoft? Or EA with games like Madden & College Football?
...Can you see the pattern I'm establishing here. Only a small handful of the bigger 3P publishers see decent sales on Xbox, and even then, Xbox always accounts for less of the ratio than PlayStation, Steam, or in some cases even Nintendo.
You're gonna need to provide proof of this and hope the context of that proof isn't something like a VERY specific title or old legacy games. Because it's rather hard to believe AssCreed sold more on Xbox than PlayStation, and we already know some Ubisoft games have skipped Xbox altogether since they're Nintendo exclusives.
In other words... IDon'tBelieveYou.gif
Another lie. We already have digital sales data for markets like the UK from GFK (UK market habits pattern similar to the US), and even here PlayStation digital is SIGNIFICANTLY higher for total game sales than Xbox. We're talking something like Xbox accounting for 18% of digital game sales of 2022 vs. PlayStation accounting for almost 37%.
See, you've yet again fallen for Phil Spencer marketing jargon. Yes, more of Xbox's software sales (however many or little they are) are skewed digitally vs. PlayStation, but that is not the same thing as saying Xbox contributes more to digital sales altogether vs. PlayStation, even if markets as a whole have been trending towards digital. That just goes to show you how low B2P sales for many games (especially indie and Japanese/Asian titles) have become on Xbox now, versus the heights of the 360 era.
Most of SIE's games in the PS3 era also didn't cross 10 million, so what's your point?
Again, you are exhibiting something of a recency bias, but WRT sales. Just because some games back in the 7th gen didn't do 10+ million doesn't mean they weren't considered massive sellers in their time, because the threshold for having a "major hit" was lower. And it was lower because budgets as a whole were much lower back then, versus today. Meaning, publishers didn't need an excess in units sold to have good profit margins.
You're not going to sit here and tell me that Gears of War wasn't a massive hit in its day, or the same for Uncharted 2. No, you're not going to get away with that here, because we're not going to let modern AAA game budgets, shareholder inflation, "infinite growth" greed and such dictate what were considered realistic standards back in 2007 or 2008 for the gaming industry.
How are they the "biggest publisher", exactly? Quantify that. Is it in the number of IP they own, because I can think of a few who are comparable. Is it in terms of market cap, because "Microsoft" isn't just a games publisher so it's not right to use the valuation from other parts of the company as if that's the worth of their gaming division.
Is it in total gaming revenue? Again, not every publisher makes their own gaming hardware and peripherals, which typically aren't things specifically tied to "publishing games software", so what would the Xbox revenue look like with hardware, peripherals, services, and 3P cuts removed? Is it in terms of having any single biggest-selling IP? I'd say Take-Two still have everyone beat there when you look at GTA.
Is it in terms of critical acclaim or sphere of influence in game trends & design? Because I think on this front, even with ABK, Microsoft Gaming are nowhere near the top.
So quantify how Microsoft are "the biggest gaming publisher due to acquiring ABK", when I can name a number of ways that is still up for debate.
Until you can actually answer the questions I just presented above, this statement from you is frivolous, baseless, and reads like hopium from a corporate cheerleader or overly unknowing investor.
Heck, already we're seeing that ABK under MS is generating less revenue than when they were independent! So Microsoft's move to bolster Xbox revenue was a lateral gain in the market that came at the expense of ABK's peak revenue and profits potential.
Almost literally everything you just said here is a marketing point from Phil Spencer in the past; none of it reads like an opinion you came up with on your own. But that's part-and-parcel with many people who are or were part of the Xbox diehard fandom until very recently.
Do you know what else requires games & content on a consistent basis? Gaming hardware. Yet somehow we're supposed to believe that Microsoft will provide that in subscription, when they stopped doing so with their gaming consoles? As always, the proof is in the pudding.
It's also telling you think the acquisitions were for subscriptions when MS themselves have stated that it was really for content publishing. Even Phil Spencer's said he doesn't see Game Pass being more than 10-15% of their gaming revenue, so tell me do you agree with him or is Phil Spencer suddenly a source to omit in terms of data because it what he said doesn't suit the subscription narrative?
1: Shawn Layden is just one person from SIE, and the time he made that statement there was context to it you have conveniently ignored so you can go "Sony Too™"
2: If you think the current Xbox consoles are going to hit 60 million in a typical generation timescale, when they are struggling to reach even 28 million by the end of this year at their current pace (and could even miss that target), then you are being very delusional.
In fact if Microsoft did last gen with their multiplatform strategy, what they did this gen around the start and up to this point, XBO would have probably tapped out at 35 million before Microsoft closed operations and shuttered the gaming division.
My god, if there's ever proof you're still in the Phil Spencer Cult of Personality, this part of your post is it. Again, I will use Xbox parallels that have actually happened, to counter your PlayStation fantasies of what likely will not (or at least should not) happen:
-Did Microsoft grow their customer base by acquiring Zenimax & ABK, or did they simply artificially increase the revenue of Xbox & customer pool through lateral transfer of pre-existing Zenimax/ABK customers and claiming them as their own?
-Did the Halo Paramount show result in a growth of customers and IP awareness for Halo Infinite? Why has having a Halo Day 1 on Xbox & PC (Steam) somehow resulted in a lower-selling, lower money-generating installment than prior Halos that were at least timed exclusive to Xbox consoles?
-Why was the 130+ million Steam audience not enough for games like Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, Pentiment, Indiana Jones etc.? Why does Microsoft need to bring those to PlayStation & Nintendo platforms now too? Is it perhaps because platform size != actual realized sales?
-What percentage of Steam or even Windows Store customers for games like Halo Infinite, Starfield, Forza Horizon 5 etc. do you think were multi-platform customers who either chose to buy on PC instead of Xbox (despite buying both), or would have bought an Xbox for them if no PC release? These are called "lateral sales", and I bet that percentage is not-insignificant.
Now you're also hawking the superfluous and unrealistic "infinite growth" talking points moronic and potentially disingenuous investors hawk around. Who are you to say that isn't growth, if the revenue & profits (what really matter to companies) does in fact grow?
You're talking like one of those investors now, but I thought you were supposed to be talking about this as a gamer. Now you care about SIE's growth? What happened?
Sony Too™
I guess we better go tell SIE that then because they've already registered rights up to the PlayStation 9
Hmm...interesting.
So, you say them expanding inward won't do anything, but didn't Microsoft expand inward in part to also expand outward? You know where I'm going with this.
Almost all of Microsoft's "outward expansion" is off the backs of buying Zenimax and ABK. So since you seem to invested in SIE also expanding outward, tell me...would you support them acquiring the 3P publishers necessary to help justify and accelerate that type of outward expansion?
Or are you just talking BS and want them to play by different, more constrained rules, despite believing they have the exact same market goals as Microsoft?
There's something very important here you're ignoring: many of those 20 games you just listed...are only Microsoft's because they ACQUIRED TWO MAJOR 3P PUBLISHERS!! Take that away and you're left with less of the big names for certain, and some of the medium-sized ones.
I also doubt games like Everwild even see the light of day, or titles like Fable would be coming back, as MS'd want to double-down on secure IP and wouldn't probably comfort Playground taking a risk on Fable without having the security blanket of TES to fall back on.
Here's the thing: I can have both. SIE can both expand their lineup of 1P offerings, AND pursue exclusivity with them, because you have forgotten something very vital: platform holders have both the luxury and responsibility of driving engagement to their platform, therefore having a varied lineup of software exclusives justifies doing so.
It has always been that way, just look at SEGA for example. When they were a platform holder, they had a bigger variety of game output than when they went 3P. Already at Microsoft, we are seeing them cull back on some of their variety: Tango is gone, Arkane Austin is gone, they cancelled a Crash Bandicoot and Blizzard's new IP (one of them, anyway) was cancelled too. There is no guarantee games like Contraband and Everwild ever get released, either.
When you're transitioning to or become fully 3P, you can't take as many risks as a platform holder when it comes to having a huge body of varied software releases. Even the biggest 3P like Take-Two only really focus on maybe 2-4 IP altogether, leaving all others to chance. And even a company as big as Microsoft, eventually want to make profits, so they will take the most conservative routes to do that especially after spending $80+ billion on big publishers.
Of course SIE want to make profits as well and I doubt we ever truly get the complete zaniness from them we saw in say the PS3 era, but I also know them acquiring big 3P publishers wouldn't result in that either and in fact would probably result in a further reduced variety of 1P offerings, in order to maximize profit margins. But if games like Astro Bot are any indication, perhaps SIE are finding a balance in providing much-needed variety with internal 1P content and getting a better ratio of AAA and AA titles is a key part towards that.
And for such, they already have many of the internal 1P studios, teams, and 3P relationships needed to make such happen. Enough of that content developed as exclusives for their own hardware (some permanent, most permanent for the generation, many timed for some years, some Day 1 PC, some ported to other consoles, some Day 1 on other consoles....noticed the keywords used here and where) increase the value proposition of that hardware, and can create a virtuous cycle.
Most of what you're "gaining" are games you were already going to get if Microsoft didn't acquire the 3P who made those games, though. How do you not see or acknowledge this part of the conversation?