But with COD for instance, I really don't see them ever gate keeping that series, ever. maybe some exclusive content via gamepass or something. But that game will forever be on PlayStation.
Xbox’s Spencer Sees Progress Toward Activision Deal Approval, says he expects that console exclusives are something "we're just going to see less"
- Thread starter John Elden Ring
- Start date
- Status
But with COD for instance, I really don't see them ever gate keeping that series, ever. maybe some exclusive content via gamepass or something. But that game will forever be on PlayStation.
Yes, out of necessity though. FTC would never have approved it otherwise, so they had to say it. Besides, it wouldn't make financial sense for them to stop supporting the community that is responsible for the highest sales of that game year after year.
That doesn't mean that Phil hasn't created more exclusives this generation by acquiring 20+ studios in the last four years, including publishers like Bethesda. That's why when he lies about wanting to make games more accessible for everyone regardless of console and fewer exclusives, it's all bullshit for some fake PR and snake oil.
P
peter42O
Guest
I believe that new releases will be exclusive to Xbox eco-system as they should be. Nadella didn't spend $70B just to keep shit the same. And outside of GTA, COD is the biggest gaming IP that can actually create a paradigm shift and give Microsoft and Xbox a legitimate edge. All the previously released games will always be available for sale on PlayStation.
No one notices that just like with Bethesda, Microsoft has never said PlayStation will get COD 2025 or COD 2028. It's because they know they're not. No one ever reads the wording or anything. It's the same shit as Bethesda. Almost word for word. What's really funny is that Elder Scrolls and Fallout will be exclusive to the Xbox eco-system but yet, people believe that COD which is far bigger than both of those combined would somehow someway go on PlayStation? Like, why? How does that do anything for Microsoft and Xbox platform? All that does is benefit Sony.
If anything, people just can't handle the fact that Microsoft isn't fucking around anymore and it scares them. One thing is for sure, it's going to be a long generation for PlayStation fans. lol
This guy. I hate him
He tries to make its seem like he is doing his business to save gamers and to help the people!!!
What a joke. And people believe him.
Turns out you can lie and do anything as long as you say stuff like “we all play” ….
And people say jimbo is bad. At least jimbo is transparent and not slippery
He tries to make its seem like he is doing his business to save gamers and to help the people!!!
What a joke. And people believe him.
Turns out you can lie and do anything as long as you say stuff like “we all play” ….
And people say jimbo is bad. At least jimbo is transparent and not slippery
P
peter42O
Guest
They mean that they will be keeping all the older games on PlayStation. Like with Bethesda, they won't delist anything. Microsoft is saying what they have to. It's that simple. Not once does Microsoft ever mention NEW FUTURE RELEASES. Not a single time. Just because they say they want to keep COD on PlayStation doesn't mean that includes COD 2030 or some shit. And technically, as long as they don't delist anything which they won't, they're technically keeping COD on PlayStation.
You firmly believe that new future releases of COD will be available on PlayStation and I firmly believe that they won't be so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Yep, and I also said them able to offer Elden Ring among other games for Series S buyers to get for "free" was another smart move, tho I still question why Series S needs that type of push in August unless either the numbers are low or they feel numbers in the holiday shopping season could be suppressed by Sony and Nintendo stuff at that time.
Still though, it's association with a genre that's now mainstream. I do think Sony have something cooking with FromSoft though, maybe in collaboration with Blue Point. I'd be shocked if they didn't or haven't for a couple years by now.
I don't think this holds true for every studio. Some studios don't want their money to be beholden to a single platform holder via an upfront advance, which is what the lump sum GamePass deals are. At some point, if MS's 1P gets really rolling, and they need less reliance on 3P games in GP, then teams that have managed sweetheart upfront deals in the past can find themselves in trouble if they now have to generate money by selling directly to their customers.
Because what if those customers aren't there, especially on certain platforms, because they took GamePass money in the past all the time? What if they didn't garner enough actual fans even with the GamePass money? It means they may've built only a small audience of partially dedicated fans through the service, which could not be enough for the IP to stand on its own if in case GamePass isn't something they can rely on in the future.
The bolded hasn't really happened for most of the bigger games, though. Some of the smaller indie games? Absolutely, but there are even some which have done very badly in sales while going to GamePass Day 1. We haven't seen Halo Infinite being in GamePass lead to a substantial increase in that game's sales. We haven't seen similar for FH5, either.
Saint's Row, I don't know if that's the best example, because that's the pure definition of a "mid" game being saved financially by GamePass money from Microsoft. It's a lifeline made out of money, basically, if it were to go into the service. Same if it ended up on Sony's service. That may build goodwill between the platform holder, Embracer and the game developer for future deals and whatnot, but it creates a further perception problem for the service among critics of it being a breeding ground for middling content.
Which on the one hand can be argued against if you want to go by MetaCritics purely, because IIRC most GamePass games are a 78 MC or higher. But it's also fair to say that a lot of those games are regardless not appealing to the mainstream or have a very specific niche, I don't know if those types of niches serve a subscription service the same way they would an actual console, however, and you still need the big AAA games there Day 1 to help carry them which GamePass hasn't had much of since late last year and one of those in particular (Halo) you can arguably say is effectively dead for the short-term.
Going back to Lies of P, I think it'd of been an even bigger play if MS paid more on the top to test putting the game into GamePass exclusively for a month or so, then do digital/physical Xbox releases when it also comes out for PS consoles. They've already tested the inverse with Forza Horizon 5, but testing it the opposite way would be a good test for what the service could do on its own merits.
Just how many people are willing to sub if the game is exclusive for a month or two? BTW I've also thought that Sony could do something similar, if they want to bring back smaller indie/AA games based on legacy IP; put them in PS+ either exclusively or with digital copies purchasable at launch, then a month or so later do digital release and/or physical release for games where they deem that worthwhile. Could even just skip right to collector's physical copies if they wanted.
Well, other companies have in fact purchased publishers (Sony with Psygnosis), and dev studios (again Sony's done it, Nintendo's done it as well, I think Sega purchased a few before leaving as a platform holder).
The difference is none of them did so many of those type of moves either at the scale of Zenimax/ABK, or in as short a time frame as Microsoft have done them. I mean think about it; in the past 3 1/2 years they've purchased, what, eight individual developers (Ninja Theory, Obsidian, inXile, Compulsion, Playground Games, Double Fine and maybe a couple others?), purchased Zenimax who came with a ton of their own studios (iD Software, Bethesda, Tango, the Arkane studios, etc.), and now ABK with a ton of their own studios (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Volition Games, Toys for Bob, King, etc.).
They've gone from just five internal studios to 30+ in just 3.5 years, more or less. That's rapid growth and I'd argue them growing in teams too quickly, it's that rate of expansion we've never seen companies like Sony, Nintendo etc. do and part of that is because their 1P was never in such a comparatively poor state where they needed such massive rapid growth in order to feel like they could compete effectively.
Don't know why it's so difficult for him to just say this, then. CEOs in the past would have no problem stating the obvious. I know it's for looking good in regulator's eyes, but then why not just say what's going to stay multiplat and what's going to go exclusive, and continuously state that as the obvious?
Agreed.
But MS have already come out and said they're going to keep COD multiplat including on PlayStation. Hell, they even teased about bringing COD to the Switch. They also said that IP already established on other platforms will continue to stay that way, which would include COD, Crash, Spyro, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk etc.
Of course the nature of what that actually means is up for debate, but MS knows gamers are reading these statements during proceedings and the vast majority of gamers are going to assume that means new games in those IP, not legacy entries already made available. They're also on record as saying they don't think COD could be financially viable if it were not available on other platforms like PlayStation. Again, whether they meant standalone COD or Warzone-like COD is always up for debate, but it's MS who are out here putting up these mixed messages :/
MS basically ran before they walked. If they felt the need to buy studios in 2018 to strengthen their 1P output, and in 2020 with Zenimax for the same reasons, and again in 2022 with ABK for yet again the same thing, something back in 2018 should've told them to maybe ensure those teams and the 5 already under their wing were up to a point where they could deliver that really high-quality content at a regular cadence.
At that point, pushing GamePass would've paid off in dividends. But they have instead been heavily pushing the service when the content in terms of 1P content to truly drive its growth, is still mostly lacking. The only thing they really have served strongly in that regard from 2020 to going into 2023 will be racers and RTS.
A game like Evil Dead doesn't necessarily need cross-play. And, you're still going to have lots of players who opt out of playing with people on certain platforms if the option is there.
Nah, PS3 was a pretty harsh gen for Sony when talking financials. It's the reason they were at least somewhat considering exiting from consoles, at least that's what apparently was a rumor at the time. This was probably around 2009/2010 I'd guess. I'm not even sure if they ever turned a profit overall because PS3 R&D as well as losses on production costed them all their PS1 & PS2 profits. That's bad no matter what way you look at it.
360's profits that gen are overstated FWIW, they still had to account for RROD for example. But they definitely made huge gains in the US and UK markets and we saw the benefits of that even during XBO gen where you'd think PS4 would've curbstomped XBO in NA that gen, but it was a lot closer than it had any right to be. UK was a different story; XBO got obliterated in that market and that should've happened in NA but for whatever reason it didn't. And FWIW, MS did get quite a few AAA exclusives that gen in spite of rising dev costs, like the entire Mass Effect trilogy at one point, plus the original Gears of War games, Oblivion (they could've always ported it to PS3 later), etc.
Ironically I think it's the Japanese 3P devs who basically leveraged 360 as a way to secure money for the PS3 version of their games which usually felt like the "real" versions, and were the ones that always performed better in Japan. Think there's even one example where this was explicitly seen to be the case, might've been with Ni No Kuni.
I think where one can debate where Sony takes it over 360 for that gen is the ending 1P exclusives, 3P exclusives (most of them from Japanese teams), the PS3 OS, EyeToy & PS Move (for motion controls; Sony's approach ended up more geared for core games while Kinect was dominated by casual/mass-market stuff quickly), and hardware innovations with the Cell architecture (Cell was better than the CPUs in PS4 and XBO in some ways), fully-featured media integration (in quite a few ways still better than PS4 and even PS5 today), Blu-Ray, etc.
Plus in the end Sony won the hearts & minds of the hardcore/core gamers while Microsoft squandered almost every advantage they had with 360 the following gen (tho they did have a better launch lineup in general with XBO than Sony had with PS4).
lol this does not refer to older/existing games. It is for new games.They mean that they will be keeping all the older games on PlayStation. Like with Bethesda, they won't delist anything. Microsoft is saying what they have to. It's that simple. Not once does Microsoft ever mention NEW FUTURE RELEASES. Not a single time. Just because they say they want to keep COD on PlayStation doesn't mean that includes COD 2030 or some shit. And technically, as long as they don't delist anything which they won't, they're technically keeping COD on PlayStation.
You firmly believe that new future releases of COD will be available on PlayStation and I firmly believe that they won't be so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
If you believe this is for existing games, what do you think "existing agreements" mean here? What type of existing agreements those older games like Advanced Warfare or Vanguard or Black Ops would have? And what would "beyond" those agreements for older games even mean?
Edit: And there is also this more recent quote, taken from court documents:
Honestly, they could not be more specific and clear about this.
Last edited:
They bought it to make money. These businesses already do make money under the current sales model.
The equation is simple, is there More to be made by not selling on the Sony platform, arguably the largest customer base, in the hopes of moving that user base to your own platform and not losing out.
Of course there are also hybrid approaches with timed exclusivity for example, or day one on gamepass while retaining status quo elsewhere. Or free skins only on Xbox etc.
It’s not just down to one of two possible outcomes. MS could have pulled Minecraft from Sony after that investment, why not? They did the numbers and a bigger audience must have been more profitable.
They're behind Nintendo and Sony. That's third place. It isn't rocket science.
In the early years of PS3 it was a financial disater due to insane R&D costs, but they kept reducing them and in its second half turned them into profit. They never considered exiting from consoles. It was the MS stakeholders the one who asked MS to leave gaming or at least consoles becase after so many years the gaming division kept losing billions.
Sony always had Japan and Europe on their side. PS3 started too late compared to 360 specially in Europe, but launch aligned PS3 was always ahead of 360 specially thanks to Europe.
Many of these games started as exclusive (later got ported) because PS3 didn't exist when released. Former exclusives from both sides went multi due to rising costs.
They are behind in console sales and thus marketshare ... and they are back in the last spotThey're ahead in revenue and thus marketshare
Console sales don't equal market share, revenue does. And no, they're still ahead of Nintendo.They are behind in console sales and thus marketshare ... and they are back in the last spot
Yes it does. Otherwise the queue times become unbearable. These are the games cross play benefits out of necessity. Another one is Hunt Showdown or Hood: Outlaws and Legends. Evolve, Battleborn, etc.
Anyone who thinks MS is embracing cross play out of pity for their smaller user base doesn’t know what they are talking about. The games cross play actually benefits have small player bases everywhere.
- Status