No that’s just business. Just like the exclusives from Bethesda or indeed ABK in the future are just business.
Sony still have the model of a closed box and needing people to play there. They won’t for ever. But for now they do.
Microsoft have opened up their platform. And are working on a different model.
But it’s not a zero sum gain. Xbox is doing well. They have exclusives. They have the best value gaming offering by far that stands up on its own and has for a couple of years.
Sony are doing well too.
If your mentality is Xbox need to do tit for tat with Sony because that’s how they view business then you will be disappointed. If you genuinely think the Xbox offer, gamepass and all that goes with it isn’t enough then you act accordingly. But almost all of this stuff seems to come not from a ‘I’m not happy with the value’ place and more from a ‘I want to be able to crow about Sony being in trouble’ place.
It’s piddly stuff in the overall scheme of the gaming business now. Even for consumers. I get people being upset when a title they like skips their favorite console even temporarily. There have never been more alternatives though. There will be more games on this Xbox per year than any before it. More diversity than we had the last generation.
Real question to everyone in here: If you had a choice and could only choose one, would you rather Microsoft went all-in on making those games that would’ve launched on other systems console exclusive, or would you rather have Microsoft go all-in on making Game Pass a must-have service for the masses?
Because with regulatory over-sights, if every acquisition has to be exclusive, Microsoft will be more limited in what they can go after. There will also be challenges attracting and retaining top developers in some markets if those developers don’t see their art played by friends and family back home. The “only on Xbox” status is a hindrance to both 1st party growth and attracting talent in some markets.
I believe by taking a Minecraft approach with more big gaming companies, Microsoft can make Game Pass the horse that drives consoles rather than the relationship being the other way around. The advantage of that is it also will drive the service beyond the console and continue this snowball of consistency of high quality, diverse content.
It’s so hard to shift people out or a mindset of direct competition.
Sony get exclusives because their model relies on drawing people into buying a PS5. Xbox have exclusives to bring people into the broader ecosystem and specifically to feed gamepass. It’s why everything on Xbox launches on PC too.
And Xbox needs gamepass content so obviously they will do deals to buy things where they can add to gamepass but it doesn’t make sense to or isn’t possible to also lock out of others ecosystems. It’s a mixed approach. Their aim is not to hurt Sony or reduce PS5 sales but to drive more people into gamepass. And they know the best way is to be able to leverage other dedicated gaming platforms in the future alongside mobile expansion.
ABK offers them a wealth of studios and IP that will be leveraged to make games you can only play within the MS ecosystem in time. But it’s clear that such a large deal and the scrutiny it brings also means they won’t be able to fully cut off from other platforms. And in reality there isn’t a huge advantage to doing so. It doesn’t really help MS to lose player numbers on call of duty titles. They will change the release schedule for it and obviously will need games to have longer legs. So cutting off half the player base doesn’t help them. And I think people still live in a world where they think xbox is trying to kill Sony and Nintendo when it’s the opposite. They want them alive and healthy for reasons that are pretty obvious.
I find it frustrating that people can’t just decide whether they are happy with the value proposition xbox offers rather than feeling that value is solely dependent on Sony and what they do. Xbox provides an enormous amount of content at a value unmatched in the industry. But no doubt someone might say they prefer Sonys exclusives model and paying for one or two individual games only a year. But that’s consumer choice. You don’t need Sony to fail or whatever to validate preferring the other route.
I find the idea that if Sony get timed exclusives that xbox has to do something in response to hit back ridiculous. Why would you need that? If you feel you haven’t got enough games then say so. But I mean xbox is drowning in games and studios and exclusives. So to me it seems to only motivation behind all this is online crowing and console wars. If people are unhappy with xbox offering then vote with their wallet. But I think it’s clear that after the biggest year of revenue in their history that xbox and their direction is hugely successful. More successful than they’ve ever been. The model is proven and it works for Microsoft. A position xbox has never enjoyed previously. If Sony want to aggressively grab deals then that’s their choice. It doesn’t diminish the offering Microsoft have. Nor the bottom line of results which are clear.
But surely this is a false equivalence? Game A != game B. If someone really wants to play the FF remake on Xbox they can’t without buying another platform. They don’t just pick another Xbox RPG and go jobs a good 'un. Would be the same for Tomb Raider, what equivalent Xbox IP do people who want to continue playing TR games go to if theoretically Sony slurped up SE?
I guess you’ve sort of answered that with
But again it’s not that simple. Many people will be OK and could just go out and buy a gaming PC or PS5 tomorrow but many others could not so yea I can sell my Xbox and physical bits, but, then I’m losing a vast library of software. Until the console eco systems fully catch up with their push to digital by allowing people to resell digi games many will be priced out of “vote with your wallet” option.
It’s over simplistic to say if you want exclusives you are a console warrior. We know exclusives drive engagement with a platform, we know that a lower install base (or IB + subscriber numbers I guess in this day and age) for Xbox facilitates Sony’s timed exclusive deals.
If 1st party exclusives can contribute to levelling out the IB numbers and make it harder for Sony to do those deals reducing their number then why should Xbox customers not want that? The desire to reduce the number of timed 3rd party exclusives you don’t get has no negative effect on PlayStation customers.
Odd thing to say as a deal done to keep a 3rd party game off the Xbox platform does diminish their offering how could it not?
People love big names. It just happens that a lot of big names are either established Sony first party games like God of War or third party big names that have marketing deals with Sony and are moneyhatted. It is still mindblowing how Sony has marketing deals for COD, GTA and FIFA simultaneously
Microsoft first party output for now is just not mindblowing for now. And it will take time until we reach there. Starfield is a one. TES6 will be another. Next Quake will be another. All of it are the big names that are commonly aknowledged by all the platforms and not just Xbox.
Well, I mean the promise of drowing is for 2023-2024 though. So far first party delivers only in the second half of the year and even then we have stuff like Halo with roadmap comparable to failed BF2024 (which is crazy). We sure only in Starfield and everything else is the assumption (no idea about possible delay of Redfall for example). It doesn’t help either that Microsoft doesn’t advertise much. With all the studios they have, you would think that the amount of games would be crazy yet we - for example - haven’t seen anything about Avowed and despite a lot of rumors regarding other games we heard nothing and even third party deals got delayed like Stalker.
Microsoft in general is very unlucky with all of that stuff that is related to consumers. Ironically, they are always lucky with anything related to business activities where they use their business approach to the deals - pushing various distrubition models, service side. When it comes to consumer stuff - they are too enterprisey’. I mean COVID stuff is very beneficial for their Azure initiatives, but almost obliterated first party output and plans. Acquisition from their business perceptive are good, but for community that are not stakeholders - it will bear the fruits only in 2025 at least and so on.
And in general everything is for a really long long game. I mean it will take years before Bethesda advertizing machine will teach Xbox marketing team something. Only recently Xbox marketing team started to work independently from Windows division (I lost a lot of respect to Windows division due to all those rumors if they are true) . There are problems with localization and it is understandable that people feel wary of all of it - Sony got a headstart in a lot of regions with localizations and commercials while Xbox is nowhere near in sight. Not to mention all that wild west with various launchers, separate marketing teams for various game divisions and so on.
I am still wondering what was different in Xbox 360 where we had some crazy stuff like Xbox 360 boats during PS3 launch event and so on
So I guess we will play FF7R this year and Part 2 will be announced for all systems huh? also no more moneyhats from Sony right? /s
Even if the “console war” is over for MS it’s too damn early to say the same thing about Sony. Personally I am not seeing Sony stopping the moneyhats (I will gladly eat crow on this), if anything IF the Series consoles turn out a success sales wise (which is a sure thing at this point) and take some chunky pieces from Sony’s cake I am pretty sure that Sony will continue even harder on the moneyhat strategy and try again to cripple certain genres on Xbox.
Hopefully I am too pessimistic and you are right about that but I wouldn’t make definitive statements this early about the end of the “war” at least from Sony’s side.
Your arguments here are somewhat contradictory. It’s annoying that people can’t play all the games they want to on their platform of choice…yet your suggestion for that is to further fragment the games available on platforms…not sure how that works to be honest.
Taking games off PS5 won’t mean Sony doesn’t do the same so you just further fragment the industry and leave people with their favourite games spread across hardware.
That isn’t what Xbox wants to do. Their push is a service independent of hardware. And has been for years. So it’s counterintuitive to be thinking in those terms.
It’s also worth pointing out that many of the games Sony has exclusivity on are games with hardly any historical player base on the Xbox platform. When you look at sales splits the Xbox contribution in many of those titles is tiny. So it’s arguably not even an exclusivity deal in the traditional sense it’s just businesses prioritising where they see their markets.
I think the problem is people treat everything as one big equal. Sony does a timed exclusive so Microsoft must hit back. But it fits Sonys plan but doesn’t help Microsoft so much given the higher costs of excluding other platforms added on top of the gamepass cost. It also doesn’t help their push for gamepass to exclude always other gamers from enjoying the games. For example let’s say Blizzard release a new MP game. It becomes really big and it’s on gamepass. And builds a huge long term following. You’ve more chance of building gamepass as a service If more people play the game and love it and over time migrate into gamepass than you have by limiting the game and effectively forcing someone over before they’ve even played it if they want to try. Different strategies and all.
I believe Sony will stop their moneyhats. ATVI changed the landscape too much. And I still believe that COD mainline will be exclusive. Their statements are too convoluted to be a direct commitment.
This argument is useless simply because it can be applied to anything - by the same logic COD is Playstation franchise because it has bigger userbase on Playstation. Or even Fortnite and GTA. If the games of certain genre or type are not released long enough on one platform, the community will move to the platform that has those games and the userbase on other platform will become even smaller. It has always been true. Final Fantasy was Nintendo franchise till FF7 and since then in the consumer mind FF has been Playstation franchise and not Nintendo franchise. But in the 90s it was not Playstation franchise.
Sorry but this just reads as list wars and telling me games don’t count because reasons.
Halo Infinite and FH5 are two of the absolute massive games about they are both at about 20M players for crying out loud.
I suspect that your measure for a game that counts comes down to social media style list wars but no sensible conversation can come from that.
Xbox just had their best year ever. I’d try and remember that before dreaming of a return to an era long gone. Again your comments on marketing seem to be focussed on point scoring and console wars than anything that fits the current Microsoft business plan. Microsoft are doing what they are doing and generating record revenues. The point is the consumer is responding. If Sony want to keep buying up exclusivity then that is their choice and their business model. But I mean Xbox has so many studios and already are pumping out so many games to feed their ecosystem and gamepass I can’t imagine anyone being unhappy unless they dwell in the nonsense of social media console wars.
That doesn’t work though. Cod was bigger on Xbox in the past than PS and if you look at a sensible analysis of popularity you see it similarly high on the Xbox and PS lists.
If you take actual data we saw Destiny 2 has fairly close player counts on Xbox and PS. In line with the respective hardware sales.
But we’ve seen splits for FF where Xbox is like under 20% of the sales. I’m not sure you can compare.
It’s not about fairness. If only a tiny proportion play the games then the cost of making it exclusive is much lower. Perhaps almost nothing.
Not at all, you have either misinterpreted what I said or are deliberately conflating 1st and 3rd party output to back up your (in my view) mistaken idea of peoples motivations. Certainly I’m not talking about “people” I’m talking about the existing Xbox customer base.
And I explained at least one way that this would make things better for Xbox customers. I get the impression you are a big fan of a new mythical landscape where all parties release all IP on all platforms and your admirably altruistic take that MS going first will lead to all others adopting the same approach. Doesn’t mean either that it will happen or that it’s the only valid world view.
That is one element of their strategy, not sure why you think to be successful the only way for them to go is to focus solely on future customers while ignoring the needs of their current customer base without whose support through the X1 generation the series consoles or game pass may not even exist.
Makes no sense, many of those examples have been subject to exclusive deals so long the numbers are meaningless. Just look at the success of the Yakuza games on game pass for a counter example. So are you saying exclusivity is OK here because reasons?
Don’t get what you’re saying, why would someone already playing a game on another platform suddenly think I want to pay for this again and migrate to game pass?
Playstation had a generational headstart with Final Fantasy so of course it is harder to build the community on Xbox, but I am not sure if it is a valid argument because by that logic if some franchise did not come to Xbox before, it should not come to Xbox in the future because all the sales will be on Playstation anyway. There was a big post about that somewhere, but basically stable releases of important franchises allow to build the player base. From FF7 to FF13, Playstation got all final fantasy games - so of course the community who plays those games will be on Playstation.
But all new franchises, released simultaneously on the platforms have the split of sales comparable to PS/Xbox split (sometimes games like Fortnite even show that people spend on Xbox more despite smaller market share). Yeah, some exotic games did not sell much on Xbox but that’s pretty understable if the community for such games was cultivated for years on other platforms. Still it doesn’t mean that the games should skip Xbox - because Xbox won’t be able to build the community of players who plays these games and we return to the same argument that “the games don’t sell on Xbox anyway”
Yes but it’s business. Cost of a sale stuff. You can argue vehemently about potential. But a publisher can make the decision that trying to gain traction on Xbox isn’t worth their time. That’s their choice. They can decide that the joint marketing they have with Sony works for them.
It’s their choice isn’t it. They might lose out. But that’s on them. They obviously can change their mind if it suits them.
But it’s a business decision made for their own reasons. I’m sure there are games that Xbox wanted to get exclusivity for but didn’t because they opportunity cost was too high.
But that’s the thing - people argue that Microsoft should make the games exclusives and it will (or should) be a business decision too if they want to push Xbox platform. Exclusives sell.
But they have a lot of stuff that isn’t going to be on PlayStation. There are specific reasons why it may well not suit them to have COD as an exclusive. Primarily because it probably hurts the chance of closing, it is a franchise that relies on player count and finally it is one that probably needs a bit of reinvention in the current market.
Like Sony haven’t made Bungie output exclusive. There are the same reasons there.
There has to be obviously a suite of things you need Xbox or gamepass to play. Nobody would suggest otherwise. But there already is a huge amount of that and more and more studios coming onboard able to deliver that. There will also be things that for business reasons are best not in that bracket.
And there is also the point that gamepass is the vehicle not hardware. Gamepass will go to more and more places. You’ve heard Nadella and Spencer say this time and time again. The goal is to have as many people playing as is possible. And they mean playing through Xbox services and subs. So I think there are two conversations here.
Of course Xbox wants and has exclusive stuff to entice people into gamepass. It has more studios to do this than anyone else. That’s why they are buying studios. But it’s silly to pretend every single situation is the same as every other. Some things for business reasons will simply not be exclusive. Just the same for Sony. And what people need to stop doing is parroting console wars and lists as a counter to those reasons. Sony get times exclusives is not a good argument as to why it probably makes sense to not restrict some Activision titles. It’s absolutely just online back and forth. Because Sony have an aggressive approach to content is not a reason to risk the largest ever acquisition in video games or to rip up a strategy that’s been in place for years. Sony are aggressive because they know Microsoft are taking huge chunks out of the industry. But both know they need each other.
The fact that ultimately people can’t seem to move away from it all being about a war to sell a plastic box. Microsoft aren’t in that game anymore. If there is a war for that Sony have won. They’ve done it. Hurrah. But Microsoft have a very clear plan here. It’s a plan that suits their business. Again if as a gamer you aren’t up for the hardware agnostic Netflix of games then you’ve had quite a few years to see that is exactly where MS are going. It’s not been subtle.
With Bungie - aside we cannot be sure for anything with Sony - it was so specific case that it is hard to say. But with ATVI we still should not be sure because their whole response was about “keeping them available in the future” but nothing about. Anyway until 2024 we won’t know a thing.
Regarding discussions about hardware and Game Pass we have too many of them so I don’t really want to engage into this wall of texts myself
I cannot wrap my head around regarding the fact that people seem to be missing the fact that Netflix does not release anything on Disney+ and people don’t understand that Sony Playstation console is Disney+/Netflix/Prime service essentially. So releasing Xbox games on Playstation console is akin releasing them on Disney+ if you are Netflix.
Film and TV platforms:
Disney+.
HBO Max.
Amazon Prime Video.
Peacock.
Paramount+.
Music platforms:
Spotify.
Tidal.
Amazon Music.
YouTube.
Apple Music.
Gaming platforms:
Game Pass Ultimate.
PS Now.
Google Stadia.
Nvidia GeForce Now.
Amazon Luna.
The gaming industry generates more revenue than the music and film industry combined, this is what MS/Xbox is interested in. These acquisitions aren’t about helping sell more plastic boxes they are to offer the most comprehensive streaming platform available and gain subscribers.
Imagine being able to say you are the exclusive streaming home of Halo, Doom, Gears, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Diablo, Call of Duty, Warcraft etc etc etc. That’s the ultimate goal here, not selling an extra 5 or 10 million boxes, they are playing the long game - 10, 15, 20 years from now MS want Xbox to be the defacto streaming platform and want the kind of numbers the film and music services above generate - hundreds of millions of subscribers. The deals they are making right now are all designed to help get them there.
But gaming is bigger right now than just services - it generates revenue from accessories, consoles, people buying into your ecosystem, 30% cuts and so on.
Though, I won’t argue anymore. Microsoft tend to move faster than the market (and we saw that with Xbox One) so I don’t want to see another case of that. I still stick to my position that there won’t be COD mainline on Playstation in the future.
What you said is true… right now. I think right now gamers choose a console based on exclusive games they want to play. As these services get more and more content, they will choose a console based on what service is best. These moves are longer term plays.
