In that case they should buy them. Forcing people to decide if they want big wrpgs, and forcing a potential switch.
FFXIII (1-3) and FFXV all sold more than 1 million at least on Xbox… mathematically speaking, that’s hardly poor (and in some cases, fairly close to its PS counterpart). Yes, some sold anywhere from 2 to 3 times better on PS platforms, but that’s hardly anything for most publishers to sneeze at. Just because something doesn’t sell 10 million copies, or as much as another platform, doesn’t mean it performed poorly.
I would also wager that exclusivity deals like Sony has with SE are getting more expensive, not less, due to things like the runaway success Outriders saw, almost exclusively due to GP, and the myriad of large-scale acquisitions MS has been making.
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Out of pettiness they should pay the premium for exclusivity lol.
“Sold poorly” was perhaps putting it a bit strong but by the estimates I’m seeing while Xbox did top 1 million sales on XV (the most recent mainline title to launch on Xbox) - PS4 outsold it 5 to 1 with over 5 million copies. Fair enough, that isn’t that bad but selling a fifth of the units as Playstation would suggest the problem extends further than just the difference in console sales.
The point being that as a result Sony is in a pretty strong position when it comes to timed exclusivity deals on future Final Fantasy titles, they’re paying to cover the loss of a relatively small part of the market for Square.
There isn’t really a comparable situation with CDPR titles. In fact, generally speaking it’s not so easy for Microsoft to follow Sony in any of these kinds of deals as they tend to benefit the market leader (maybe as if someone should be looking at these if they want to talk about anti-competitive actions in the market). That will likely change in time as I think Xbox is gonna close that gap - but in the meantime while Sony may have their advantages in the market we’re now seeing Xbox go a different route and utilise theirs.
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“estimates”
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On exclusivity deals: Now we don’t have all the details on how much they cost Sony or MS, but there are a few factors I’d imagine come into play. So using exclusivity on FF16 for example, to buy it away from Xbox you’d start with the lost potential sales, say that is 2 million copies. Well that would be lifetime so money over the course of say 8 years factoring in price drops. Then you have to consider the 70/30 split, so SE would only get 70% of those sales. Then you factor in the extra development costs, print runs for physical copies, costs for patches/updates, hosting any online stuff, etc… Finally you adjust that for time, so a lump sum upfront is worth more than money over time. Also Sony wouldn’t even need to pay out a lump sum, they could do a deal like giving SE a higher revenue split like 80/20.
So even if a game sells millions, some publishers will gladly take the zero risk cash option rather than gamble on the success of their own game.
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Yes, a word I used very intentionally as well as prefacing my previous post with “based on what few sales numbers we have” so people could appropriately take into account that my sources weren’t absolute 
But since multiple sources of information all points to less sales on Xbox than the average multiplatform title (even if none are as concrete as up to date sales figures) and since the person I was replying to is likely using the exact same “estimates” I am I think I’m fine with it for this conversation.
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Step 1:
Buy SEGA
Step 2:
Buy Take Two Interactive
Step 3:
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I know they aren’t really AAA games, but I really like the high quality AA games which Focus Entertainment have been publishing lately! I think we could see them transition to AAA in the future.
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They might, it’s just a matter of resources. I think it’ll get harder and harder as AAA costs increase. They’ll have to grow a lot before then, if you’re only worth 300 million you can’t exactly go and sink 100 million into a single project.
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I would love Focus Entertainment to be owned by Microsoft also you got to slide Asobo in there to .
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It sold over a million despite having 0 presence in japan market where a good percentage of sales come from and europe where xbox sells like dogshit.
Id say the north american sales split for FFXV would suggest ps4 barely outsold it 2:1 which is roughely the install base although according to wiki the ps4 sold 1.7x more than xone in NA.
You know what that means? Actually xbox version sells pretty close to what the market reads if a little skewed towards ps especially in NA.
You cant turn around and say its not worth doing xbox versions. Ports are much cheaper than last gen.
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At no point did I say anything about Square not doing an Xbox port because it wasn’t worth doing. I said that making up an overall small part of the market made it easier for Sony to buy timed exclusivity for future entries. Selling relatively well in one market doesn’t change that it still sold lower than the Xbox console market share overall and made up about 10% of the total sales for the game (going by sales estimates).
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Microsoft was heavily rumored to be looking at WB twice and passed twice because they wouldn’t own any IP’s. Also, right now, if it wasn’t for Hogwarts Legacy, they would probably be close to seeing studios get shutdown because the new CEO (always forget his name) doesn’t play around. He’s cancelled movies, shows, etc. Also, only Monolith would have an upcoming game within the next few years. Everyone else just released a game or is about to. Not worth the money in my opinion unless they can somehow snag the entirety of DC to where they would then own all the licenses.
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Yeah, MS not gone to buy Pub’s/Studio Dev’s with License IP’s. MS want to own the IP outright so that they can put it into their gaming subscription service without having it leave later on like 3rd party IP’s/License IP’s.
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I could see them doing it, but only if the studios working on licensed projects were strong without them and were priced accordingly for a studio without any major IP. Like if WB decided tomorrow they were gonna sell Travelers Tales, and they’d lose the Lego license in the process - that’s still a studio with a lot of great kid friendly games under their belt that could be refocused on any number of Microsoft IPs.
But yeah, other than that I think you’re right I don’t think Microsoft want to be dealing with licensed projects if they don’t have to - it’s just a whole extra headache with game pass to think of.
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I actually think Ubisoft is a good buy if abk doesn’t go through. Sure that have employees and management problems. But the ip they have is strong!. Assassins creed, far cry, splinter cell, rainbow six siege, prince of Persia and more.
They pump out assassins creeds almost as much as cod’s.
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plot twist: SE used FF Type-0 sales to determine franchise interest on Xbox platforms….
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I wonder if Microsoft would be interested in working with Q-Games and vice versa
They say that they have interesting prototypes in development which need funding.
They can't keep avoiding Xbox, especially since their previous partners aren't funding those projects
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I don’t see them going for Ubisoft especially in a time when they have lay offs. Adding 20,000 plus is a lot to handle. I think they could form a partnership though and contract half of Ubisoft as support devs for their studios. That way you could get a better contract for studios like 343. Also with AI probability replacing a lot of jobs in the future the chance of getting Ubisoft is just not there. Hopefully Amazon and other big corporations can invest hard like Microsoft in gaming.