āProficient Sergeantā āPlumber without a wrenchā āNolan Northā āGabeā
Lol, love it.
Well Iām glad Xbox and Nintendo are doing right by indies it seems. Indie games are great, the Wild at Heart is one of my favorite games this year so far and Iām really excited for Deaths Door on the 20th. Tbh Iāve been more excited about indie stuff over the last few years than 3rd parties because I feel like 3rd parties have almost only went for the safe bets for awhile now.
Whatās good or bad is relative. Microsoft has prioritized promoting Indies much to the disappointment of many core gamers. Pretty soon I believe weāll see a pay-off. They will only increase in importance during the content wars as Day 1 games on subscriptions are highlighted as a differentiator. Itās easy to get sloppy and take things for granted with success and growth. Hopefully they remain proactive in ensuring that doesnāt happen once their 1st party turns the corner.
Yoshida is over-seeing Indie initiative at Sony which should lead to good things for them. I believe weāre seeing a backlash resulting from a few years of neglect to this segment and itāll take some time for them to fix.
One reason i will always be thankful for gamepass is that it completely changed the calculus and gave a reason for microsoft to refocus on Indies after they had kinda dropped the ball post XBLA/summer of arcade era for a while. Remembering a wild time in 2013-15 where one of the many things xbox was getting a beating over compared to playstation was that playstation loved and supported indies. Itās amazing how much things can change in just a gen, and how important leadership/position changes can be. Adam Boyes felt like one of the major pushes of indie stuff at ps and his departure has been felt these years, things likely will improve with yoshida last year taking a more active role on indie support. in turn we saw Damon Baker , previously in charge of indie partnerships at nintendo, join microsoft in 2019. Thatās not to say one person makes all the difference but it shows microsofts push towards better indie support, and that weāve seen paying off. hopefully the donāt let off the gas any time soon.
Yeah from an Xbox perspective I would take this as a reminder to keep doing good things & making the platform a welcoming place for devs.
Especially with Game Pass. It needs content. Theyāre doing a great job bringing loads of games to the service & they need to keep going. Keep making it the place where devs want to release their games & the rewards will continue to be obvious for everyone involved.
I hope that this negative attention shakes things up at Sony. Indie devs need all the help and partnerships they can get.
Sony as a platform holder is garbage straight up, and that is coming from a PS5 owner. But this among countless other things is why they get very little of my overall gaming investment compared to Xbox.
Same. I own a PS5 and Series X. All multi platform games will be bought on Xbox. I am a gamer that doesnāt want to miss out on Sony first party games but it is worth stating that over the course of this generation I will probably only buy like a dozen games for PS5 but contrast that with Xbox where I will buy over 100 or 200 games this generation.
I donāt want to turn this into āSony hate generalā but I definitely agree, to the point where I just donāt buy playstation stuff anymore. What drove me away from them was their censorship policies on Japanese games (and treating Japan like a red headed step child lately), and ever since then the stuff theyāve been doing like this indie controversy, the crossplay controversy, false advertising of next gen exclusives, pushing $70 games ($90 here in Canada, $103 after tax. F that!!!) only furthers me from going back. I canāt say I care for their āblockbusterā games, so all I can say is, I hope Sony humbles up by PS6 and fixes their image.
This is exactly what I talk about when I say Xbox is really trying to kill with kindness and this sort of shit is going to work well for them. Indies are a HUGE part of gaming whether people like it or not just look at the top huge games recently that were a massive hit like Among Us, they were mostly indie games. You treat devs good and they will treat you good in return, not only that but these companies should be helping as many indie studios as they can because it just helps gaming in general.
Will be interesting shift to have indie games launching on xbox rather than sony first and xbox later or never. Anyways, sucks to see Sony creating obstacles and I hope Microsoft continues to be supportive of the indie scene with ID @ Xbox
I think this is a clue about how Sony reacts if it completely dominates the game industry. I just donāt understand why fanboyās wish MS would get out of the game business? The games industry would be just horrible with Sony as the leading light.
This is one of those double edged sword things where Sony is seen as the place for āAAA, cinematic, metacritic darling, GOTY etcā¦ā games. Well now youāve fostered a userbase that goes āewww indiesā and only cares for big budget games. Iād hope MS keeps this in mind while chasing big flashy games. Donāt forget the little guy.
News like this only makes me more confident that Sony was/is a large reason Japanese games have taken such a decline from their heyday when they dominated console gaming.
By comparison I think Xbox and Nintendo look like such great places for indies, although I donāt know the specific policies. ID@Xbox is a great program, and Game Pass is a dream for indies, offering financial stability and an instant fan base and reach. Switch is a beast for indies and they sell gangbusters there given the more limited supply of AAA blockbusters. And Nintendo highlights indies a lot in their Directs, more so than the other two (again because of a limited AAA offer).
From what I remember Sonyās new found love of indie games back then was very much driven by a big lack of first party content post launch. they had nothing else to lean into so played the indie card. This is backed up by the way they changed their approach to indie devs once they had smoothed out their first party pipeline. Even recently when they themselves say that they have no focus on indie dev unless itās for PSVR i.e. when itās in their own interest.
This is what happen when the gaming community defends Sony all the time instead of holding them accountable for their flaws.
Sony think they can do whatever they want and treat devs and customers as crappy as they want and people will still buy their crap due to brand loyalty.
Unfortunately we have seen Sony is mostly correct, they have bread the media and their fanbase to literally defend them at every turn no matter how bad and anti consumer their polices are simply because they are āSonyā
At some point I hope the media and gamers hold Sony accountable for their crap and force them to be a better company but Iām not holding my breath on that one
IGN with their own article and separately talking with some devs too - Why Indie Publishers Are Fed Up With PlayStation - IGN
Would you look at that, some journalism from IGN for once lol. I will read it properly later but just skimming and the bit about support ebbing and flowing depending on the success of the platform is pretty much what I feel the issue is.
Sony simply lost interest and put their efforts into bigger titles, but hopefully they are going to rectify the situation and realise that you need to cultivate a string indie scene as well to be successful in the long term.
The more they drag Sony in the mud the better, arrogant Sony is back yet still super strong and MS is building goodwill all around; itās a good look for MS if they stay on track.