These are a lot of words that don’t mean anything. Again you are looking through the lens of a very very narrow perspective of an outsider looking in and a console gamer comparing completely differing situations. You have no idea what Sony would have had to do in order to buy Bethesda. What agreements are already in place - and what deal would need to be done. I mean this isn’t a hostile buy out. It was negotiated and about ‘shared visions’. That means things were agreed in advance. Not MS rocking up and saying ‘our way or the highway’ and I’d say without that perhaps there is no deal at all to speak of.
They will be delivering exclusives that is already confirmed. I don’t really have any idea what about that you can’t understand. But you don’t upset your second publishing arm after a day by ripping up agreements or in progress work unless there is very good reason. And given the talks for this deal went on for reportedly a year then these things have been very carefully considered and modelled. My argument is not that exclusives aren’t a good thing or that these games shouldn’t be exclusive. Merely that the considerations are far far broader than presented here. More nuanced and more complex. And like I’ve said if they had said Bethesda won’t be making exclusive games your post would make a lot more sense. But they’ve said the opposite. And we’ve had insiders explain that ripping up existing deals and work is a bad move in the long run. Ultimately do you want to sour a relationship in the long run for the sake of a few games now? Of course not and nobody who has any clue about business would suggest otherwise.
I’ve always assumed that timed exclusives are an effective and (for Sony) a cheap way of “adding value” to their ecosystem. Firstly they are in a stronger position regarding devices sold (at least 2:1) so to “cover” lost sales on Xbox with the publisher is cheaper given the install base is smaller.
Secondly, I feel the vast majority of gamers lack patience, and chances would be high that some would buy into the ecosystem just to get certain games years before, or at least buy in with the expectation that more timed exclusives were likely to happen so its a safe bet.
To the second part its one of the things that “distresses” me so much about the hobby, Professional and enthusiast press (and gamers) are obsessed with new or unreleased games, look at the time we spend discussing Starfields potential, rather than games we can play right now, or look back on a year or so later. Similarly once Starfield comes out it will drop from the press and general conversation in favour of the new “hotness”. I think timed exclusivity works, otherwise simply would not be done, no professional gives a hoot about console wars.
Yeah like a vaudeville villain, over and over moustache twirling.
There’s just three things things for me about all this…
I don’t remember the exact interview anymore, since Phil Spencer gave several after the Bethesda news, but possibly all these three things were in that same interview. It’s not the exact quote but close :
After being asked about Ori, Ori 2 to switch he said it’s not sustainable to keep doing this, I assume he means the same for Playstation.
He said that constantly getting questions like "Hey Phil, is this and that game coming to other platforms was tiresome.
Xbox would be open to the idea of putting their games on other platforms, but they would require these platform holders to have a Xbox ecosystem on there. Ask Sony and Nintendo about it he said.
So the first thing, he’s said that before and then Ori 2 still came out. I can still see some Bethesda ports coming to Switch, which is fine but why say at all it’s not sustainable?
The second thing, I can understand well that such questions all the time get old but he’s now leaving the door open for many of those questions. I bet interviewers will constantly dog on about that.
Lastly, this made a lot of sense when he said that. So after the contracts are honored it should be moving to that. Personally I assumed he meant all of their games, including the online ones by Bethesda but, ok. So unless games long in the making for PS5 are still planned for next year or even 2023 (I would cancel them at that point, sorry) 2022 should be the E3 of mostly Xbox games, with according to insiders the exception of online games.
I know its still a sensitive subject for many, but I think its a very poor look for the forum that we would allow glaring generalisations of Japanese as “ruthless, vicious and take no prisoners” and Americans as “nonchalant” to go unchallenged.
That is not just false but just looks so incredibly racist towards the Japanese intentional or not.
These are just games, and I feel the nationality of a company should not be used as fuel to generalise cold emotionless global business decisions as being positive or negative.
You realize this post is against what you are defending, right?
He is “proving” how it’s best for Ms that after the multiplatform obligations of Bethesda are met that it makes a lick of a sense to support playstation and making the games exclusive is the best wasy of maximizing the revenue.
This post is simply amazing, this guy just made this really easy now. I have nothing more to add in this thread in regards of exclusivity, this dude said everything.
Hmmm, interesting. So unless Sony snagged a few more timed deals it should not have to be long before we see Xbox and PC only titles. Starfield is the perfect one to begin with that. But as Brad Sams yet, we don’t know what has been agreed to between BGS and Xbox. Maybe one of the conditions was to have it stay multiplatform. But I can’t imagine that being a condition for the majority of future games, why would devs want more work? Especially from at home, which is harder. Because keeping PS and/or Switch included will make it harder work.
Not to mention it would be weird as hell to see this continuing from a first party Xbox studio.
And this is before we get to issue of PR, respecting developers wishes etc. For example, if Wolfenstein 3 is ready to go on both platforms and Machine don’t want to literally throw away 3-4 years of work and release multiplat (or timed exclusive) is Phil going to say no?
I’ll say it again before somebody says it to me, I hope they can agree it should be fully exclusive. But Phil has to upkeep these relationships now.
Ultimately Phil has the final word and this is why I see the concern about multiplat or timed exclusive releases dissipating as we go further into the gen and on to next gen.
Aside Xbox One failing, Playstation moved a lot of people from Xbox 360 to PS4 and even then it never released Order 1886 on Xbox because “some of them won’t go to Playstation anyway”.
I don’t understand why you think that MS is so desperately needs cash so it will release the game on Playstation, when Playstation - whose Playstation profit the whole last generation is less than MS quarter profit - never did that.
Superb stuff. Have to admit that I didn’t fully understood it all, but that’s because I am not well known with how these things work at all. This post reminds me a little of that Reddit post last year that explained why he absolutely fully believed Bethesda games to be fully exclusive but yours is way more in depth, appreciate it!
As for what “insiders” have been saying that they believe it will be solely online games that stay multiplatform…maybe. But I don’t think it’s impossible to see Xbox eventually making the move to keep those in the ecosystem as well. After all SoT is doing just fine. You’d think that a game like TESO 2(whatever it will be) is a huge draw to Game Pass for many. What’s your stance on that?
They play on Playstation and don’t know what does that mean not getting the content Hard to think about exclusivity when you are getting everything. What do you mean by exclusive? I can play everything!
Because full exclusive is more expensive. Simple as that. Add to that that the games doesn’t skip Playstation anyway and Sony does not even need to do anything.
They also purchased Gears of War license from Gearbox right? They could have earn some cash from Playstation to recoup the costs or something!
Because it is very expensive? Not to mention we still don’t know FFR release day on Xbox lol. Guess, I wonder who doesn’t want to earn some profits from Xbox…
I honestly just want to see Starfield being exclusive if it is actually releasing this year.
People would end up buying an Xbox just for that, and that implies a larger marketshare for Xbox where Sony isn’t able to buy much timed exclusivity without huge investment. Thus, more games on Xbox (it also means more large games for GamePass).
Very similar to my experiences in healthcare, filling an ICU or NICU with devices is a not inconsiderable amount of money, but it pales in comparison with the more lucrative service contracts which go with said devices over their lifespan. Thats not to say that (like that poster notes) one cannot just do a “one and done sale” but typically those higher up will insist on trying for the recurring money rather than a once off. Though again I suspect like with gaming one would not “cock a snook” even if it was a sale without service contracts, after all one can always up-sell later once the customer is aware of how much they would save versus callout fees etc (designed to make service contracts more appealing of course).
Just to barge in Staffy, since I do have some interest in such things (rambly Cerys above) I have assumed when people talk thing like MMO’s and the like it is because the vast majority of those game are also profitable via recurrent spending or subs like TESO, so more people playing add more to that steady cash flow versus single payment. Traditionally to my mind those games also benefit from a healthy population at all times of the day, and the larger the population the more chance of up-selling people to buying a TESO sub when they see the “value” of subbing themselves cosmetics and the like. SoT is doing fine, but if there was an already live PS version or one near completion it certainly wouldn’t hurt to increase that recurring spending.
The reason why Sony is after time exclusivity - with extended deadlines though lol - because it is very cheap thing to do as there are games that never come to Xbox, without Sony even trying. It is very effective way to spend money.
Yeah like a vaudeville villain, over and over moustache twirling. 
Hard to think about exclusivity when you are getting everything. What do you mean by exclusive? I can play everything!