Former PlayStation Exec Thinks Xbox Would Have Made COD Exclusive 10 Years Ago

MS has made similar statements, IIRC. Even Furukawa from Nintendo says something along the lines about how they compete with all forms of entertainment. Maybe there is something to that...

@GunValkyrian Bungie...

Bethesda...

lmao

Anyways I think both would make them exclusive. They're multi because of FTC regulations. They don't want to screw this up. Having the games on gamepass day 1 is enough for them.

Phil watching the recent Netflix news must not give him confidence in Gamepass lol.

@RevGaming Seeing the Netflix news, it does seem like the future of gaming will skew even more towards the Fortnite model once the cheap Game Pass tricks (e.g. 3 months for $1, Gold to GPU upgrade being $1) are gone.

I still think they will when the current advertising agreement with Sony ends

@Grumblevolcano
I know. I don't like it and I have talked about that too much in here already.

@Royalblues
Yeah they're def not buying anymore more publishers after this. Honestly 30 plus studios should be more than enough. If Phil fails it wasn't because of lack of studios/exclusives this time around.

@GunValkyrian you mean like the way Sony have bought Bungie and haven't even added them to the roster of Playstation Studios unlike Microsoft who bought Bethesda and locked everything away?

@Kopite @uptownsoul

Yeah it's funny how little self aware a lot of people are. Much less aware of companies that don't give a damn about them and get lied to. In general I mean.

Playstation/ Sony would today. Without hesitation. No one would even doubt it.

Any future Activision online multiplayer games and live service games like diablo, overwatch and call of duty will 100% still come to playstation and Nintnedo consoles due to the amount of monetisation they can make off those player bases.

Whilst single player only games will stay on xbox, hence why Bethesda games won't come to playstation as they are mostly all single player.

So I'd expect fully for Sony to do the same with future acquisitions, like bungie their multiplayer games will come to xbox, but if sony were to acquire square enix then I'd fully expect all their games to be sony exclusives

Also this guy makes no sense, he says 10 years ago Microsoft would of kept cod exclusive, but it was only a year ago Microsoft bought Bethesda and kept their games exclusive, so his statement isn't correct at all. The only reason some activisiin games are still coming to playstation is down to monetisation within their online games that Bethesda does not have

Different management team and a different Business model to the Microsoft of 10yrs ago.

MS acquired Mojang and have consistently supported the 'Minecraft' Online Community across every Platform. They will no doubt continue to support Online Communities across a wide range of games from their Studio's - TESO, F76 etc too.

It seems that both Sony and MS are looking to keep their 'established' communities happy on whatever platform they were playing on - so Destiny will remain 'multi-platform', CoD I expect as well because the Active Community is far more important than 'exclusivity'.

That's very different from 'new' IP's or new single player games which may have 'fans' but not active online communities. That's why Hellblade 2 and Outer Worlds 2 can be 'exclusive'.

MS are more interested (it seems) in getting people into their 'ecosystem' on the devices they have or prefer. I'm sure if Sony/Nintendo allow Game Pass 'Streaming' to their devices, then Game Pass would be available 'everywhere'. They don't 'need' to sell you their own brand 'Console' just to play 'their' games as you can play on PC's and Mobiles too.

That is very different to 10yrs ago when you had to buy a '360' to play Xbox exclusives and the 'same' business model that Sony are using today. Different models have different goals. MS don't 'need' exclusives to make you 'buy' their hardware, they want you in their 'ecosystem', playing on their servers, using their software etc. Single Player games maybe use their software, but you are not in their ecosystem or using their servers if released on a Playstation.

I don't necessarily want CoD or any other title to be exclusive to Xbox; however, I would 100% leverage the option to pressure Sony into ending these timed-exclusive agreements they love to sign with Japanese devs. I'd pressure on crossplay while I was at it.

@Rural-Bandit Yeah. I always meant no more publishers. They absolutely do not need another publisher. I think with Bethesda it was enough already. 23 studios as of right now right? That's more than Sony's and Sony has already justify getting their console this year imo. By the second year, PS4 only had Bloodborne as the only worthwhile exclusive imo. PS5 is doing A LOT better with Returnal, DSouls, RnC, GoW, HFW, GT7, Miles and Sackboy. I also think there's 1-2 more things for this year (TLOU remake with the new multiplayer) and maybe Firesprite's next game?

@Royalblues If Bethesda games were multiplatform, there could be no reason to get an xbox (As a second console) as it seems their acquired 2018 studios are in development troubles. I hope they justify me getting a secondary console. That's all I care about. At the end it will always be about the games/content.

I miss Jack His PS was a much brighter PS.

@Grumblevolcano @RevGaming Netflix has nothing to do with Game Pass. It's not a sign that buffet models are dying. Netflix's problem is different. They failed to innovate. For a long, long time. Even in the face of intensifying competition. They were big, not because they were good, but because they were basically the only player, and they were cheap. They were alone since the Wii360 era. They stagnated on content, the quality of content went downhill, they raised prices multiple times, making it no longer cheap. And they still could have endured that. They rode a bubble of new customers really really hard during the "pandemic economy" with too many temporary fly by night customers, and still could have been mostly ok. The real problem is after a long time of no competition, they finally got competition. Big competition. Cheaper competition that sold what they were selling for less, but in smaller bundles. Their core content market then factured, splitting up the "exclusives" to other competitors, and worse, the competitors were their suppliers, and were the more popular content (Disney+ being a huge one.)

Netflix isn't collapsing because nobody wants to buy smorgasbord subscription content. It's collapsing because now everybody wants to buy someone else's smorgasbord, and theirs now offers less than most of the others in terms of what people specifically want. "Streaming subs" aren't dying. Netflix is.

For Game Pass the situation would need to be that Sony's Sparta wasn't just renaming Now, and their games drew more subs than MS's. It would need to be that Ubi+, EA Play caught on with their exclusives and started siphoning people and fracturing Game Pass's audience, etc.

Nobody's screaming that AppleTV and Disney+ is dying. Netflix isn't suffering the end of streaming subs. They just got beaten. For GP to be beaten the same way, we need competitors we like more, or a fracturing of the content so we have to consider alternatives first. For now there's still no real competition, and the main competitor just basically announced they don't intend to compete.

Also, I can't believe PXB is covering this interview and Push isn't? Madness. Tretton was the heart of PS during the good times of PS. And the interview reminds me of what made PS great in the past, and what's wrong with it now. His takes on E3, subscriptions, etc resonates. Tretton's PlayStation is my PlayStation. He loves gaming like Phil loves gaming. That's what's missing from today's PS. The gamers are gone and the accountants are in. And it shows.

@Royalblues I'm not fooling anyone lol.

I didn't like playing Halo Infinite Multiplayer and a car sim isn't enough for me to be spending $500 + $60/120 per year LMAO. If that's good enough to get an xbox as your second console, to play only those games, good for you. It's not for me and you need to start handling better different opinions. Hell, if people do not like hard games, a PS5 as a secondary console might not be for them, yet. See how I can keep the same energy?

I'm waiting for Starfield and gameplay trailers for their upcoming games. Those are the games I care about and if that seems like a fanboyish move to make, that's your problem. I also debate/disagree with people at Pushsquare pretty often if you haven't seen my GaaS stand vs them just to name one. It's not like I haven't seen you doing the exact same thing at Pushquare. Like I said.

People lack self awareness.

Sorry if the response is not likeable but please consider how you did respond.

@Rural-Bandit I still think 23 or 30 plus studios making exclusives is enough for anyone who is a real gamer to want to buy it.

@NEStalgia I agree with the first paragraph, but why can't that happen to GP? Even worse since the pool of gamers is smaller than movie/tv show watchers? I don't like mtx being the counterweight for that lack of pool neither. I wouldn't like Sony to do it either btw.

There is competition though. It's just that it isn't a service that it's competing and honestly it doesn't have to be. Whoever makes the next fortnite "wins" for example. Would you rather have a live service game as big as Fortnite or Gamepass? I think that's Sony's new bet for this new gen.

@uptownsoul True, though I'm not sure that content spend issue would be such an issue if they were still the monopoly they once were. Mostly, they still got beat by more nimble, newer competitors with more enticing offers, and in particular a major vendor that bought out another major vendor that decided to undercut their client and sell directly instead (Disney, among others.)

But their content is part of their problem. People sub AppleTV, and HBO+, etc for the general content, but with the "big" exclusives they offer. People sub Disney because of the lock on kids programming. Heck even the fledgling Peacock (Comcast/NBC) that's like $5/mo has somewhat compelling exclusive content, for now, though not on the blockbuster order of Apple, and is bundled with Comcast cable subs. Netflix is like $20, and, does anybody sub to Netflix for their low-budget exclusive content? Their exclusive content is just not that good to pay specifically to get it. There's no must-see content you pay for.

Netflix's problem, if we compare it to the gaming space, is that it's basically PS Now in its current form (I.E. ignoring any potential change the Plus rebrand may or may not bring.) Except unlike Now it's expensive, while Now is cheap and a good value (like Netflix once was.) And unlike Now they're actually depending on it for their only revenue stream, where for Sony, Now is just an add-on they don't seem to even think about much. Just another revenue stream (again, ignoring improvements, or not, with the Plus rebrand.) Imagine if Now was the only product Sony was selling? They'd have been in trouble the last 6 years...

Gaming doesn't have that problem. Now/Plus, obviously is just an add-on to a bigger product, and a low priority one at that. Game Pass is the flagship of the XB ecosystem, but remains one prong of a multifaceted business model (Netflix, for example, isn't selling full priced movies), and synergies with their other business in that it funds datacenter expansion that's then bundled and sold at higher profits in the enterprise sector, etc. Both MS and Sony have big compelling blockbuster content that's in high demand, and that content isn't being produced for the sole purpose of subscription growth (Sony's is on a long delay, and we'll see what the changes bring, but Miles being added is a good sign.)

Saturation does remain a problem for the semi-Ponzi scheme model of subscriptions, sell low, add content to boost subscribers to boost investment dollars, to drive more content to drive more subs, to boost more investment dollars until eventually you hit saturation and the investors wonder why the growth stopped. Absolutely right. But that's where Netflix, Spotify, etc have a problem where Xbox, PlayStation, Apple, Disney don't. The subscriber base isn't the beginning and the end of market and revenue for that latter. It's a companion product to a larger ecosystem of products.

I think what we're really seeing is the "tech unicorns" that soared to unrealistic heights on a single venture crashing, and the major conglomerates not crashing because the ventures are a single revenue stream that serves a larger internal framework beyond just "keep growing subscribers infinitely."

We're also seeing Netflix crash without looking at retail sales of DVDs/digital copies of movies. With endless inflation, costs on physical goods up 30% from 2 years ago, we're only at the beginning of watching sales on almost all discretionary spend collapse into the abyss. Netflix is a canary in a larger coal mine of consumer spending. No subscriptions are immune, but also retail sales, including gaming retail sales are also going to be highly affected by it. It hasn't hit the industry yet, but it will. Just as it'll hit all industries.

The competition is still there.

Sony pays for timed exclusivity to keep games off Xbox while also directly impacting future sales of such games due to arriving later on the platform.

Xbox is busy buying up studios and publishers to bolster their Game Pass offering, creating games exclusive to their platform and/or exclusive to their subscription service.

It's business at the end of the day.

@RevGaming I think it eventually could happen to Game Pass, but right now the market has no condition that could cause it. There's just no serious competitor to what they're doing. And by buying up so many studios, they're making it hard for a Disney+ situation to happen to them (which is the whole point!) where their vendors can't just take their ball and go home. Sony's still just playing with the idea. The Tretton interview is interesting. He was there launching the first major streaming with Now at the beginning. He was laughed at, largely. Game Pass is now doing what he kind of foresaw long in the future, sooner than he thought. Sony's still kind of playing at the fringes for now, when they were really there first.

I'm still conflicted about the "pool of gamers", and I play both sides of devils advocate in different posts on that. One one hand, we had Shaun Layden recently saying the same, that there's a finite pool. On the other hand we have others, including Spencer and Tretton (in this interview) talking about how gaming is bigger than film+music combined now. They're of course including mobile in the equation. But that's also part of the point of GP is sliding console gaming into that mobile market. Plus is doing that less-so, by actually removing streaming from all but the premium (retro fan) sub.

I, too, dislike the push toward MTX in general. I'm not sure how much of it is to compensate streaming, and how much is just more profits, following Fortnite, though. And seeing Sony position that way too is a bad omen for the industry at large. Ironically MS is in a better position to avoid it for now.

Agreed on the "freemium" competition. In some ways that's kind of the point. Full price $60/70 games are going to have a harder and harder time finding a market in a world of a Fortnite and F2P mobile raised generation of players. By and large the kids that grew up on mobile gaming and Fortnite would be unlikely to ever buy a game over $20, if that (yet would spend hundreds in a service.) The subs, in general have the potential of bridging that gap of monetized, prepaid gaming without having to rely on P2W schemes. However, the threat of mtx looms over it. OTOH, the threat of mtx looms over retail games, now, too even without subs. GT7 is a nightmare scenario.

There remains the economy problem above, too. And with long dev cycles, that will define the next 10-15 years of gaming. The economists keep saying "it's not a recession yet!" in order to try to prevent it from becoming one. Which is idiotic. 20-30% price increases across the board in 2 years in most sectors without 20-30% salary hikes to match? Consumer spending is at the edge of the diving board. Sure their "spend" will rise, because they're spending more and more for fewer things. Entertainment is going to take a very hard hit. It's just on a delay. That means retail. Subs if they're still cheap will actually get a net gain at first. If it's protracted, they'll decline, too. F2P/P2W will probably dramatically increase over the next 5-15 years in a delayed response to consumer penny pinching and value seeking. Look at how the "it's not a recession, recession" of 2008 affected PS4 and X1 (the crummy tablet CPUs) and the games of that generation in general. And this is bigger. In that sense the normal market picture is really different. It's what gaming was doing, where it was going, and the greed that was boiling over, mixed with an in-progress dramatic change of the consumer spending landscape. It'll be kinda dreary in the entertainment world for some time.

Edit: Also, some of the F2P/MTX growth is probably the unfortunate biproduct of Genshin Impact where we saw a grotesquely over-monetized game reshape the industry. A few of us talked here a while back about that probably reverberating in the industry in the future. Bottom line is there's a lot of borderline gambling addicts out there that managed to avoid casinos, but are now falling prey to video games feeding the same impulses. And now the real casinos are taking note and pushing real gambling apps via huge marketing campaigns. And sadly, the real casino gambling is a better value than a lot of these F2P games. The games are a 1-way money drain. The real gambling actually can provide returns.

@NEStalgia You and Bamozzy have the same problem. You write too much lol.

The pool is finite. Your soccer moms that play candy crush that are considered to be "gamers" won't sub to gamepass. Gaming is bigger because of revenue, not by people count. Shawn said last gen gamers spent more than in the ps3/360 era, which brings me to the point that $60 and $70 can be very successful. There's also less of them because of development cycles so they will be more than fine (if you don't make bf2042 or a d.allstars). So the same amount of gamers but spend more and less games to buy so it's great.

GT7 is not a nightmare scenario because things like bf2042 or avengers are worse. The game is still selling and they now have listened and they actually bumped the rewards even more compared to launch date. It's honestly fine now. They also sold the game for $70. That game will reach 10-15m sales if GT sport, which was worse is any indication.

@Rural-Bandit I'm going to disagree on that it's more content part. When Xbox bought Bethesda, they saved them economically, so it's the same amount of games. Now when it comes to AB, it's the same games. Not more, unless they make the studios bigger but AB pretty much did that already.

Both should buy independent studios or studios that will be closed down (Like Bethesda was going to do). That actually maintains the same flow of games or makes new ones. This buying whole publishers has changed my mind. My current thoughts are that anyone who wants Sony to buy Capcom or Xbox buying EA (EA play is already on gamepass) needs therapy because they're just happy the other console are not getting games that they USED to get. Nobody is getting extra games.

I would prefer if Bandai, Square and Capcom would merge so nobody can buy them.

Sony can stay in the 20s. There isn't that many that makes sense under them. Insomniac is making 3 games and are the current GOAT at the moment so studio count is not everything.

@Rural-Bandit ***** I forget they just bought Candy Crush. That's how much I care about that game lmao.

I really don't want to keep talking about services. I just want to see the games (both are very silent).

@RevGaming Spend was up because of loot boxes/mtx/cosmetics more than raw $>50 sales though. The average console owners still buys on average 2-3 retail games a year. Which is less than or the same as a GPU sub (GPU sub, $180, 3 games, $180, 2 games ($120....) . (I.E. there's $0 net spend decrease into the ecosystem for the average customer whether buying GP or retail, and for many there's a net increase.) The whales buying 15+ like us are a very small part of the market, and offset all the people that buy 0-1 games a year. But that mtx spend just goes through the roof, because most people, especially kids, don't know they've spent $1500 on a single game in a year when they spent it $1.99 at a time. Heck, I ran a paypal spend summary and looked at my Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony payees and nearly had a heart attack when I looked at the 3 year-spend! There's a zero too many there, combined..... And I'm not half as oblivious to what I spend than most mtx players.

GT7 vs BF/Avengers..... I think that's like saying "malaria isn't a nightmare situation because decapitation is worse" A $70 game with mtx that bad that was "scaled back" after massive backlash from the company with the reputation for no mtx doesn't bode well for the future of the industry. I thought Halo $20 cat ears were bad until GT7 launched.

@uptownsoul The one thing most modern big business fails at is "budget". There's always immense push in infinite growth, driven by investors, and infinite growth is unsustainable and unrealistic. Sense would say each company should define a target subscriber base for a particular budget, and spend accordingly on content to sate that budgetary expectation. Saturation would not be a problem under that design since each company would have set spending for maintaining set revenue. It's the infinite growth expectation that drives unsustainable spending which demands unachievable infinite growth to meet it. That's an area conservative Nintendo shines and virtually everyone else fails. Though they're getting into the "infinite revenue extraction per customer" territory these days.

Netflix...they're a little different, though. Like most tech unicorns, their "revenues" were never connected to sales in any way, it was just investors throwing money at them infinitely in hopes someday they'd become a monopoly. Those bubbles are guaranteed to burst. MS and Sony OTOH don't have artificially inflated stocks based on pipe dreams. Sony's is connected to sales and assets, and MS's is...well, they actually more or less achieved monopoly status in 3 or more key industries...

That's one mistake people make with these comparisons. Netflix couldn't afford to infinitely pump money into content to boost subscribers. They were going to saturate, and their cash flow came from investment, not sales, that hinged on an unattainable goal. MS and Sony (and AppleTV and Disney) otoh, use the subs as just one revenue stream and customer engagement channel among many. It fits into a larger whole, and a negative balance on the streaming may effect a positive balance elsewhere in the ecosystem. In that regard, the whole streaming idea works only for conglomerates, and can't exist as a unicorn startup. (Netflix should never have been even close to as big as they were in terms of market value. It's digital Tulip Mania.)

@RevGaming " if Bandai, Square and Capcom would merge"

OMG think of the length of the subtitle names!!
Fate of Apocalypse: Second Journey: Into the Stasis: Hyperloaded: Stratus Third: Ellipsoid Roleplay: Onimashinmaidesu スパアヅヴェンシャー HX: Pre 3: II: Recollection (Special Megadrop Elixer Edition)

@RevGaming
FTC is not driving games being multi-platform or not.

The amount that MS is paying for Activision-Blizzard is driving them to keep it multi-platform. You can't pay that much and return your investment without keeping the games multi-platform.

@Rural-Bandit
MS answers to shareholders and they don't like to wait more years then necessary for return on their investments.

As for the FTC and courts they don't look at this from a gamer's perspective. Tencent is that largest gaming company in the world. Any takeover is measured in the ability for their to be competition in the market. MS has a long way to go before they are bigger then Tencent even after Activision-Blizzard. Also, Tencent is a chinese company. They are not going to hold back an american company to compete over a chinese company.

@Royalblues I won't look for your particular comments but you do like to "stir the pot" too. That's where I point out the self awareness thing. The reply wasn't about GaaS specifically. I just wrote two negative things about Sony on Pushsquare if you haven't noticed. I never said you are a fanboy. I'm just defending myself as not being one. You jump too soon on people's motives. I'm not here to bash. I just like to talk about gaming. You won't see me on Nintendo life because idgad about their games (most of them). I outgrew nintendo gaming wise.

All I said is that Xbox hasn't released enough games to warrant me looking (very hard because of the scalping) for an xbox. I personally feel like a console's biggest selling point are the games. Services do not excite me at all. Nada. But yes, I want multiplayer games too. Even if it's from Sony. In general it's a low quality "genre" at this moment for me. Sony also charges for ps plus but no major mp games from them. I always say Pushsquare guys need to get some friends because their labels on mp are horrible.

and it's fine. Have been told much worse things.

@NeoRatt I don't believe it. Phil said Bethesda games were going to be wherever gamepass is. AB is different because of regulations. They want to play nice. Shareholders can be pleased seeing how xbox is selling as much as ps5 during these last weeks and could keep going with ab attractiveness. They need to sell consoles to sell gamepass, where most of their subs are I bet.

@NEStalgia
That title is fire. Cop day 1.

You did not say GT7 is as a bad as malaria hahahaha.
Nah, but I really enjoyed gt7 even though I'm not into racers. I don't think an unfair grind makes a game a nightmare, but it sure ruins the longevity of it. I think Halo Infinite is a worse scenario. My brother is a mega fan of Halo (it's how I tried Halo Infinite multiplayer) and he doesn't have it downloaded. He went back to Halo 3... a 360 game. I don't feel like going back to GT5 in my case. But yes. The future doesn't look bright for the other GaaS but since they did listened and acted quickly, I'm hopeful.

@Rural-Bandit I still have to see this slow down for cod. I will believe it when I see it. Phil and Jim lie all the time.

They tweeted today it's still coming in 2022, but GOOOOOD not seeing anything makes me anxious.

@Rural-Bandit Phil speaks what he wants before finding out the rest of the company wants something different, then backtracks. Jim, I'm convinced just blurts out whatever enters his mind at any given moment, fact checking be darned. My favorite is when he basically said they're not interested in pioneering with vr and will wait for someone else to make it happen, then a day or two later their hardware division announced psvr2 😂

Not Jim specifically but GoW 2021 it's hilarious even more now that we have "nothing to show" on late April 2022 😆

I'll wait for GT7 on Plus+.... Especially with the mtx it'll end up there, and I'm not dropping $70 for Clash of Cars. . That thing is a mess.

So it's Halo but that's more down to 7 years being about 3 years to short a development time and half the game still isn't released... The cat ears just add insult. It first we all thought they skipped half the game to focus on saleable iap. Then we find out there not even doing that... They just aren't finished yet...

Sony has the current pattern of pushing to see what they can get away with and then "listening to their valued customers feedback"when it blows up. Basically the Matrick strategy.

I miss Tretton

@Rural-Bandit Hopefully cod isn't an oonga boonga game anymore.

I have to laugh at all the comment stating Phil must be worried about Game Pass because if Netflix haha.. Erm no.. and considering Sony will also be introducing adverts in its games and has a subscription model to try and compete with Game Pass, he'll be even less worried.
Netflix are missing out in about 12 billion a year due to people sharing their subscriptions. You can't do that with Game Pass, plus Netflix are thinking of introducing adverts on a cheaper tariff which is sensible. The only reason they've lost subscribers is because of the people staying at home for 2 years aren't anymore.
It's a desperate move for people to try and discredit Microsoft by comparing Game Pass to Netflix.

As for exclusivity, I really hope Microsoft do make COD Xbox exclusive, but they won't, Sony would though without blinking and everyone would be praising them as brave revolutionists for doing so, such is the stupid hypocrisy by media and Sony fans.