They’re funding the game, they’re publishing the game, they’re manufacturing and distributing the game. And my guess is that they do own the Ronin/Blade IP’s because they’re funding the games which is different than just paying Square Enix for example to get exclusivity for Final Fantasy.
Microsoft doesn’t own Asobo Studio or the staff yet Flight Simulator is a first party game. Is the IP ownership the only thing that makes a game first party? Because it’s not.
How many games did Microsoft fund, publish, distribute and manufacture last generation for Xbox One yet don’t own the IP, the studio or the staff? Several but they’re still first party games. The studios aren’t but the games are.
Games like Rise of Ronin are definitely first party games, them not counting should not even be a discussion point. The only discussion to be had is when people start counting games like FF7 Rebirth, which I don’t think anyone here is attempting to do.
Any other publisher would have articles written en masse about the situation… we know this to be fact because we literally saw IGN and other totally-unbiased outlets write over a dozen articles about Xbox’s “first party problem” during 2022…. A year in which Xbox STILL released more content than Sony did last year. Amazing how we didn’t see a single article about Sony’s woes last year *or this year ffs. But yeah, I love seeing all the maniacal gaslighters try and convince us and everyone else that our media are neutral arbiters… when they have neither devs or consumers in their interest clearly.
What do you mean? Clearly higher resolution eyebrows on Ellie is worth buying (and playing - wtf?) the game again. It’s been like over three years, man. Three years!
Team Ninja owns the Rise of the Ronin IP. Can you name one Microsoft or Nintendo first party game where they don’t own the IP, the studio, the staff, the exclusive rights, the exclusive worldwide publishing rights, etc…
I’m sure Koei approached many publishers for their game, including Sony who obviously made the best deal as they factored in exclusivity.
Considering they still own the IP (not Sony) it’s clear they approached publishers and not the other way around.
As you pointed out Stellar Blade was clearly brought as an exclusive despite originally being multiplatform.
Koei own the IP.
Yes Microsoft owning Microsoft Flight Simulator is quite a significant difference.
In addition to them developing/publishing the series since 1982.
Also the game was co-developed between Asobo, Blackshark and Microsoft (with Asobo doing the bulk). MS also offered up their QA, Accessibility, Tech & Azure teams throughout development.
I don’t really think it’s list wars. It’s interesting when there is so many different definitions of what is third, first and even second party. Everyone seems to have their own definitions.
Personally, im going based on what Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have said for numerous years. They count those games as first party so why would I go against them when they’re funding, releasing, etc. the games?
I think easiest is to just say if the game is published by a platform holder it is first party, which I believe is the standard definition. I understand there is some ambiguity in a game like Nioh which was published by Koei Tecmo in Japan and published by Sony elsewhere. But at that point you just realize focusing too much on classifying things is a useless endeavor lol.
They say different things. Sony would call Mario and Rabbids First party, Nintendo didn’t. Sony has called games like Stalker 2 First party, Xbox hasn’t.
So… In 2024, Sony has a huge problem with their in-house studios. But if we stop talking about in-house studios, and look at “first party games” instead, we can reframe the concept of “first party games” in such a way that the huge problem with in-house studios seems to go away…