I think the overall inference is Sony can have exclusives because they make good ones, have a larger base and well it’s what they do. So much so that there wouldn’t be a discussion about this if Sony bought Bethesda instead.
That’s the part I find a bit objectionable.
This is my takeaway as well. I like this lady based on what I’ve heard on the Kinda Funny Xcast (no other knowledge of her or the channel) and I really appreciate her points about accessibility and being mindful of less wealthy gamers. I don’t think she intended it as such but it does come off like a bit of a weird double-standard where the response to Sony having exclusives is “but these games are better for being exclusive, so it’s okay that you can only play them on a PlayStation”.
Spider-Man is a great game and I had a ton of fun with it. I don’t think there’s anything inherent to the experience that couldn’t be replicated on different hardware. From where I’m standing, if Sony had acquired Zenimax then it’s pretty much “sorry, spend $400+ on a PS5”. With the way things shook out, it’s “sorry, spend $300+ on an Xbox OR buy it on PC OR spend $10 for a month of Game Pass to try it on your PC OR spend $15 for a month of GPU to try it on a variety of devices.” That seems more accessible to me.
Many people in the gaming business have biased towards Sony, many unconscious bias. It’s a huge double standard and there has been for a long time. Just look at how long Xbox was being dragged through the mud over the crossgen games, Sony played on it then announced the same thing and people didn’t even get upset.
I have also noticed when someone brings up this bias, people just say they’re Xbox fanboys or there isn’t any bias. There are a lot of highly popular figures that skew heavily towards Sony which is ok but they need to not have double standards and at least try to hide their bias a bit.
Also noticed there is always a * next to good Xbox news;
‘Xbox gets a big win with X game* but is it truly enough’
You barely get Xbox news without a but,if,why,how.
If Sony aquried Rockstar games and made GTA 6 exclusive to their platform I would think almost every media outlet would call it a win and a crushing defeat for Xbox. Xbox announces the same deal media outlets would say something like “Does Xbox deserve GTA 6 exclusive?” which just sucks.
The only thing Microsoft can do is start to pump out great AAA titles that everyone wants and only then will the narrative slowly and I mean slowly will change.
This is what I mean when I say unconscious bias haha I don’t think some of these people mean it but it just happens which is totally fine. She is cool by me for sure, I don’t think she is bad at all compared to some… mr blow into yo controller boy.
I don’t think she even realizes how she came off in the video. I think she TRIED to catch it by admitting that if Sony did this, there wouldn’t even be a discussion, but then she went on about “poor Sony-only gamers” being locked out without even mentioning something like Xbox All-Access. Which means her concern isn’t about Sony-only gamers being locked out. Her concern is Xbox getting exclusives over Sony. She explciity states how important exclusives are to an ecosystem’s success and then says she doesn’t think it’s right for Xbox, not Sony to have these exclusives.
She started off with the general statement of “I think all exclusives are bad”. Then went on for two minutes praising Sony for exclusives then returned to how it should be different for MS and how this is different. It’s different because of the sheer volume of exclusives MS just bought.
Again, I don’t think she even realizes that her gaming view is pro-Sony. Like you said, Sony is allowed to do whatever they want. Have all the exclusives they want. Lock out all the gamers they want. Xbox simply isn’t allowed to do that.
You make a good point that gets overlooked, especially with game prices increasing and especially in Europe. The fact every Bethesda game, apart from MMOs maybe, will now be in Game Pass means the barrier of entry is actually far lower for the consumers and henceforth more accessible. Also this means that more gamers will try out all the games they offer.
If you were to get rid of the “Sony makes good exclusives” and replace it with “Exclusives can be better because XYZ” then everything falls into place IMO.
I think its one part bias and (hate to say it) one part persecution complex unfortunately.
This is what I’m seeing as well. Based on her enthusiasm in discussing the Xbox on the Xcast, I think it’s very unfair to paint her as an apologist or a hypocrite, we should be better than that. I think that the main thrust of her argument is nuanced and that’s where people are getting lost in the weeds. From my understanding her position is:
This is all well and good, and I agree with it. It’s just a bit of a mixed message because it’s predicated on “because something is high quality, it’s ok that it’s made exclusive” and that kind of flies in the face of her greater stance. To wit, I think that Sony made some great games this gen, but I was lucky enough to have a PS4 to enjoy them. It doesn’t help people who can only afford one console to know that there are great games on a different platform, and it invites resentment. This resentment builds up when timed exclusivity/moneyhats occur, because it feels like (to be dramatic) food is taken away from your meager supplies to fatten up someone with a fully-stocked larder.
In the end, I agree with her greater point, and I applaud her for shining a light on the kind of thing we tend to ignore (less fortunate people, and folks with disabilities). But I do think that she might unwittingly be biased as she has access to all platforms. These discussions, when made in good faith, are enlightening and I really enjoy them. Sadly, we can get bogged down by resentment and the shit-slinging that console warriors initiate.
I think you’re right, and it’s something that we need to come to terms with! Because of Microsoft’s OWN FAILURES, this gen was very one-sided. Sony dominated in market share and in mind-share, and the change in management in the upper levels of management are finally starting to turn the Xbox ship around.
Because of this, I’m sure that most games journalists and personalities (who are human like us, and incapable of being perfectly neutral) gravitated more towards the PlayStation. This led to the window shifting more and more in Sony’s direction, and I’m sure that someone smarter than me can draw a correlation between clicks and headlines and a general negativity towards the Xbox.
To people who are more invested in the Xbox ecosystem, this starts to feel terribly unfair, as their identity is associated with a product that’s being treated as a joke/punching bag. Resentment builds, emotions get high, we write people off because everything starts to feel like a slight. In the end, I think that the best thing to do if you are an enthusiast and you feel like you’re not being represented properly is to provide that representation yourself (while being mindful of the bubble effect a too-insular community can foster). So basically, I like this site, good job crew!
This 100%.
MS should keep the bigger games within their own ecosystem, they already deliver to Xbox console, PC and mobile platforms. That’s a hell of a lot more than any other competitor. They don’t need to put their titles on other consoles.
‘Case by case’ basis makes sense for some game like live service titles (Elder Scrolls Online).
Exclusives will further strengthen the Xbox platform and frankly it’s about time, they haven’t paid 7.5B just to deliver said titles to Sony’s platform.
For the first time in over a decade Xbox is once again in a superior position and I suspect this is only the beginning of an amazing generation.
i would say, closed ecosystems are bad for users and for content creators. It drives prices up without competition. It reduces control from users, when their games no longer are backwards compatible and they have to fork over another 80€ to play them again. And its bad for content creators when their old game run like shit and are not up to date.
In short, everyone should release their games also on PC!
Yes, I agree. Ideologically, I agree with Alannah’s point about exclusives being barriers but it is an unfortunate necessity of the business. I sympathize with the PS-only players who are big fans of the acquired IPs, but (and I’m reluctant to deploy this word), the complaints that I’ve seen do smack a bit of entitlement. I don’t like to play the whataboutism game but it is telling that there would be no question about the fate of these IPs if the shoe were on the other foot.
Exclusives are barriers to entry. This is true in this circumstance as well. However, the barrier is lower than it would be if Zenimax had been acquired by Sony or Amazon or Tencent because of pledged PC support and streaming. This isn’t to say that Microsoft are providing these alternate entry points out of pure charity and goodness of their hearts. They’re a massive goshdarn megacorp and they’re doing this to make money, no question about it. It just so happens that this vector lines up with “consumer friendliness,” and that’s enough for me.
Real quick and dirty anecdote: My partner is a fan of DON’TNOD games, and was very disappointed when Tell Me Why was announced to be an Xbox exclusive. In content and presentation, it’s everything they ever wanted. We were all PlayStation at the time, so we just shrugged and resigned ourselves. Oh well, that’s life. I got an Xbox One X earlier this year with 3 years of cheap GPU after finally hearing enough to convince me, and we happily played through Tell Me Why at no additional cost. We had a great time, and they came up to me later and asked how their queer gamer friends could play it too. I explained that streaming was a possibility through phones or tablets, and that they could even use their Dualshock 4s. Lower barrier than buying a console straight-up. Tell Me Why was interesting and emotional and fun but I wouldn’t consider it a system seller, and it’s definitely the type of game you could get through in one month.
I think she doesn’t explain her points well. About accessibility, she said it is good for persons with disabilities and people that have less money with gamepass being so cheap. Of course, it is. It is the whole point of gamepass ! But she didn’t mention that gamepass must have good games in it first. So how to get good games ? You could make parternships, but like Netflix, you’ve got to get your own stuff permanently, to get people hooked. That is the most important point to make about gamepass : content is key.
And an other thing she didn’t say at all and is so obvious is that she prefers franchises that are created on their respectives platforms and not bought out. That is a really good point to make. Sony and its studios are good at this : creating big franchises like Uncharted, The last of us, God of War, even Crash Bandicoot, that are deeply associated with Playstation and resonate for decades in gamers minds. Xbox has its own too with Halo, Gears, Forza, but if we are honest about it, are a bit stagnant, even if they still have a big audience. They also fail to make new ones stick this whole generation.
So yeah, MS had to buy content. Good fucking franchises that bring attention towards their ecosystem and gamepass. They didn’t create these franchises, but they had to do that to grow. It is what it is, but it means these big franchises like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, will suffer no compromises. These games will have the biggest budgets they never had, you can bet on it. They deserve it.
So could we see that as a positive now ? Exclusives is good sometimes, it is just that people have tasted the good stuff on Playstation and this stuff is now exclusive. But what about trying it out on the other platform ?
Yeah, don’t agree about this notion that they aren’t going to be aggressive with the exclusives.
You don’t buy a whole company for 7m5 bi for the sole advantage of having their games day one on gamepass. If it was all they wanted they would have made another EA play like deal.
Ms is trying to get users to gamepass. The key to drive users is exclusive content. Phil said so years ago before the expansion, he is just following down that path.
And after the insane growth they are having just by having a good stream of high quality games releasing well pacedly from each other is the reason they are investing in more.
The Playstation user base is huge but it will be irrelevant to the success of these games when by the time they hit we’ll be looking for a good 25-30mi users on gamepass alone that will certainly push insane numbers of players metrics, and then a whole ecosystem around pc, Xbox and Xcloud so people seeing others playing these games purchase or subscribe too.
They lose all that ripple effect if they don’t make the games exclusive, and that’s why it’s even insane to think they aren’t.
The next stage of this “debate” will be that it’s “okay”/justified/ethical for these games to be Xbox exclusives if they have a higher budget now, or if they use better technology, or whatever. Because again, it’s acceptable for PlayStation to have exclusives just to make PlayStation more attractive and no other reason, but for Xbox there has to be some other justification.
And I put debate in quotes because none of this discussion will change the facts. The games either won’t be exclusives or they will, and people can approve of it or not, but they ultimately just have to deal with it.
MS should just do everything exclusives imo and call a day you know, except gaas games. They bought it for 7.5 billions, they are in a huge fight against Amazon and Google for content, they have gamepass and they want to grow it.
People needs to understand that, it is MS first party now and it is a natural decision to go Xbox ecosystem exclusive. Furthermore, MS has Xbox console, PC and Android (and working on IOS), Bethesda games will do just fine without PS.
There is no such a thing of poor Sony players, if they want to play Xbox games they need to get into the ecosystem somehow, be the console, PC or xcloud. Ms is giving them a lot of options that doesnt include buying a console. Isn’t this way things work the other way around? If xbox peeps wants to play Sony first party won’t they need to buy a Playstation? Ppl just need to stop. I like Alana, but that thing of poor Sony player doesn’t exist in the real world, and I think it is weird she admitted that wouldn’t even be discussing this if Sony had bought Bethesda. Just stop it!
Yes, and let’s keep in mind that there’s no exclusion necessary between the PlayStation userbase and Game Pass subscribers. In fact, I imagine that’s the entire thrust of the subscription strategy.
Incredibly unlikely to sell more boxes, so position the S as a companion console. Then provide an undeniable value in high-profile high-quality exclusives to make it gain more importance and hey look at that, my third-party library is better supported on this ecosystem anyway (stellar BC and improvements, game pass discounts, smart delivery, forward-compatible accessories and I’m sure I’m forgetting more). It’s a short trip from there to “it makes more sense to buy my third-party games on the Xbox” and now they’re getting more digital purchases from an ostensibly PlayStation-first gamer.
I have to applaud the higher-ups who orchestrated this. Whatever missteps you think might have happened in terms of marketing and communication, you have to admit that this is an absolute bombshell to drop right after the news that games are about to cost more money.
This is so on point. At the end of the day, these forces are absolutely titanic and we can’t even see the field they’re playing on. I remember Phil Spencer’s quote about the competition being more Amazon and Google than Sony being absolutely ridiculed. We have blinders on because we can’t see the entire picture. We’re too close as consumers and enthusiasts, so we can only think short-term. Amazon could snatch up Rockstar tomorrow and there’s nothing anybody could do about it.
Edit: This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t complain when a megacorp does something shitty. Complaining loudly and refusing to buy things is pretty much our only move as consumers and we shouldn’t be afraid to exercise it. I meant more that our perspective is very limited.
Totally agree. The whole Series strategy and how it all works in tandem with Gamepass and all access was a masterfully crafted plan.
Too bad for covid and the effects it had on marketing, because on their regular schedule it would have been a heck of an year for them.
Totally, they’re offering a Trojan horse and I’m very curious to see the effect it’ll have. It’s entirely possible that it’ll just be a flop but with the current climate, I think the all-access plan must be extremely tempting to many. I’d be tempted myself if I hadn’t planned ahead for this.