As a complement to today's massive set of Xbox announcements, we've been treated to a few comments from Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty, who has spoken a little more about plans for exclusives on the Xbox platform.
As highlighted by IGN, Booty tried to calm fears about big multi-platform games going exclusive on Xbox, explaining that in terms of "big community" games, the last thing Microsoft wants to do is actually take away from them:
"If we acquire a game that comes with a big community across a number of platforms, the last thing we want to do is take something away. If anything, we feel that it's our job to be caretakers, to be shepherds, to continue to build and nurture that community, not to cut it up into pieces and try to take some of it away."
When Booty says "big community", we're assuming he means the likes of Call of Duty that have established huge fanbases over the years, but it's hard to tell whether he means multiplayer-specific titles or single-player games as well.
Xbox's GM for Programming and Events Tina Summerford also did chip in during the discussion, explaining that there are definitely plans for exclusives — so we assume these will be new IP, or perhaps games that don't carry such large, connected communities.
What do you make of Booty's comments? Let us know down in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 36
Of course he means games like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo etc etc. The same as Sony is doing with Destiny games. It makes to much sense from a business perspective to keep the big multiplayer games on all platforms since those are big cashcows
PS palyers are going to run with this and call absolutely everything "big community" now and then go about saying how XBox lied, and I can see how that would go.
What is really at the end of the day "big community" anyways? Online games? Only mega-sellers like CoD? Would they fork future CoD games between MP and Campaign as separate things keeping campaigns exclusive to xbox?
I'm sure many would easily argue Elder Scrolls is "big community", yet we all expect Elder Scrolls 6 to be XBox exclusive. I dare bet that although Diablo 4 will likely hit PS, any future entries like a Diablo 5 will be PC/Xbox exclusive.
Let’s face it, they don’t need to be exclusive to being gamers over to game pass, if they’re free (included in sub) as opposed to £70 per game, that would be enough I think and the ones who don’t switch Microsoft will still be making money off. Smart business
Frankly this is straight faced lies. Elder Scrolls has a huge community, so does Fallout New Vegas, Hellblade, Outer Worlds and many more. Will these appear on PlayStation, Nintendo and other platforms?
Do or don't Microsoft but don't peddle this bulls**t.
@Tharsman It's not just PS players. I have my Xbox and it doesn't affect me but this is utter BS from them.
What they mean is: "if we can continue to monetise a game or series on other platforms, we will continue to do so." And that's fine, it's sensible business. But don't BS us. Call a spade a spade, say it as it is, can't stand this two-faced PR. Giving with the mouth while taking away with the hands.
@themightyant I usually agree with you mate but you can’t blame Xbox for not saying “we want to steal all these games off Playstation because screw those guys” just like Sony isn’t going to say the same about Final Fantasy or whatever. If someone from the company (be it Xbox or Playstation or whatever) is speaking to the press it’s always to spin things in a positive light. I think the issue here is that they are getting a lot of questions thrown their way due to the huge acquisitions. Otherwise they might not talk about it at all.
Elder scrolls has a bigger community on playstation and so does fallout most likely, so where are they on playstation consoles.
Basically he means the online games they can make millions off playstation users via micro transactions
But of course they don't want to say that so they word it in a way that makes them try look good
They are thinking Live Service games when they say this. Please all read between the lines.
Minecraft and COD are great examples of franchises that are worth doing multiplat, while nearly everything else holds worth as an exclusive.
@UltimateOtaku91 I don’t have a source but i’m not sure how true that is regarding Elder Scrolls. If anything PC probably has the biggest community by far. But Elder Scrolls has actually had quite a rough time on PS consoles (well PS3). Not sure how that translates to sales but for once I feel like maybe Xbox actually had the bigger community (not that it matters - just saying).
And yea this is clearly regarding online games which I believe they will mostly keep multiplat. So maybe their wording could have been a little less vague than “big communities” but dayum everyone jumps down their throat at everything.
Clearly by "big community" they are referring to games with large online player communities. Just remember, Sony are the biggest offender for paying money just to keep third party games off Xbox.
@K1LLEGAL But they don't have to say that. They had already said it as it is. i.e. 'it will be on a game by game basis, but most games are going to be exclusive to platforms with Game Pass'. They didn't need to say anything else, we all knew where we stood.
Instead they want to have it both ways and try and spin it to play the 'shepherd' and 'caretakers' of these franchises like some benevolent overseer. It's straight up BS. They ARE taking many games with HUGE communities away from gamers on other platforms. There's just no two ways about that. I accept they have to shine things in a positive light, but it doesn't change that very simple fact. Can't stand two-faced PS nonsense like this.
Look they gave you a blueprint based on how they handled Minecraft vs Starfield. Minecraft is still multiplat and Starfield isn’t. Just look at a game and see what box it fit in to know if it’s going to be MP or not.!
@themightyant I guess it comes down to the “big communities” remark and how you read that then. For me it was clear it was in reference to online/e-sports type games. And reading it like that means there is no lie (as of yet). I actually do believe they will keep these online games multiplat, because of the monetisation.
@K1LLEGAL i meant out of playstation and xbox, as no doubt pc had the bigger player base for games like elder scrolls especially as it started as a PC game. But on console especially last gen there were more playstation players than xbox for elder scrolls and fallout so technically they are a big community in which Bethesda should still support going forward
What is an exclusive anyway? Pretty much every xbox published game is available for purchase on PC. With Game Pass Cloud gaming I don't need an Xbox to play their games.
By the end of PS5's life I expect Sony releases to be day 1 or very near day 1 PC releases. They will also be focused on expanding their own cloud gaming to make it accessible to as many people outside the hardware space as possible
Microsoft is more focused on increasing subscriptions and software sales rather than convincing you not to buy a playstation.
Matt booty: Money. Money money, money. Money, money, money and money. But also money. Cause money.
@themightyant my point is they used a therm that menans nothing on its own. Again: what is “big community”? What is big enough? Anyone can come up with an arbitrary line that makes CoD community larger than the Elder Scrolls community, making the statement accurate, but also kinda pointless.
@UltimateOtaku91 Why on earth should MS about the PS community at all? Sony didn't care about the absolutely huge MCU community when they released Spiderman and Miles Morales on PS only, and made Spiderman in The Avengers exclusive as well.
At the end of the day there is only one thing we can surely take from this message: no new IP will go to PlayStation. And any game that is small enough to not make it into the top 10 charts every single month is also likely not going to see PlayStation releases again.
Only games I can think of that are at that level are Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, CoD and Minecraft.
Next Crash game, if there is one, will likely be Xbox/Pc exclusive.
@tharsman I think “big community” is purposely meant to be vague so when they do make a game exclusive well it wasn’t big enough lol
@Tlotoxl Sony did just announce that both spiderman games are coming to PC. They clearly care about increasing software sales where possible as they buy studios with the sole purpose of making PC ports of their games.
@Tharsman Agree it's a pointless statement. It doesn't clarify anything, actually muddies the waters and is more vague about exclusives than it was before.
@K1LLEGAL if they meant online and e-sports why didn't they say that? It really shouldn't be this hard for trained PR reps to communicate clearly. While I can see that it could be interpreted that way, it's clearly not the only interpretation. Considering the practice, care and attention that goes into each PR statement this is pretty woeful... or quite deliberately inflammatory.
I agree on the monetisation part of online games that makes good business sense, as I said in post #5.
Anyway off to finish early today and play some Mass Effect for Xbox Game Club, you taking part this month?
@Tlotoxl I didn't say xbox have to care about the PlayStation community, but this guy is saying they do
@themightyant right now I think they still have to be vague. It was no different with the Bethesda acquisition, and that was a privately held company. AB is a publicly traded company that brings more scrutiny during the acquisition. There are regulations in place that prevent them from bossing around or pushing the direction of the company until the deal is closed, and even making clear public statements can slow down the approval process.
We wont get a clear answer about anything until after the deal closes. We didn't get the famous "is about delivering great exclusives games for you that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists" quote until after the Bethesda deal closed. Until then, all they can do is be vague.
The problem now is that this is vague, but does not feel vague, so it leaves us all confused and trying to hunt some hidden meaning.
Anyways, if after the acquisition they come and say Diablo 4 will be an XBox/PC exclusive, don't come back to the "whatever happened to big community games" statement because it was not meant to mean anything.
Random thought: can you imagine what big of a trolling tactic it would be if XBox started only offering cloud versions of future CoD entries to PlayStation, akin to Guardians of The Galaxy on the switch?
@Tharsman Overwatch fits the bill as well. IDK about Diablo. That could go either way. Especially depending on the Auction House model...
@UltimateOtaku91 To be fair, TES And Fallout have their biggest community (by far) on Windows, which is firmly Xbox ecosystem now.
Personally having played TES since the DOS Daggerfall, and Fallout since we first learned not to trust water chips on '95, and having played the PS "ports" in these franchises, I honestly can't believe there's such an uprorar about them in PS circles. The games are very, very clearly "PC exclusives" with iffy console ports, and really, really bad PlayStation ports. It's like people clinging to the SNES port of Doom....like....I'm not sure those PS releases were ever a well thought out idea to begin with... Anyone who loves them can have my $50 PS3 copies for free + shipping.
@themightyant Wait, since when does Outer Worlds have a "big community" on any platform? It's a niche game for those of us old enough to remember that the games called Fallout, are in fact not Fallout games.
Seriously though, I don't think it's a "straight faced lie" I think it's "carefully worded truth via vagueness" - I.E. I think it's strongly meant to mean "live service monetized games" and I think they're saying what they intend pretty directly. I just think the choice of words is too deliberately vague to be a coincidence. If they directly said "live service monetized games" instead of "big community" all the forked tongue conspiracy could have been avoided. Technically single player games don't have a "community" to speak of. Forums of customers have a community but games aren't communities. So at face value "big community" explicitly says GaaS online multiplayer games. I could do without the awkward vagueness though.
On a flip side I'm not sure "exclusives" are going to stay truly divided between both platforms forever regardless. Especially if Apple or someone jumps in the ring, I think you'll see ranks close behind PS+XB together very quickly as the bestest of bestest buddies, Phil & Jim BFFs4Lief
@NEStalgia
Keep in mind I'm asking what else is at Call of Duty scale. Last numbers I saw, Call of Duty has about 20 million players a month. Overwatch had 5 million. Thats a big gap there.
Minecraft has 112 million players every month.
Edit: cant find any recent information about Diablo 3 player numbers so they likely have not been proud in the numbers for a long time.
@themightyant wish I had the time! Mass Effect is one of my most replayed games ever but still to play the legacy edition! Hopefully soon
Big Community of Active Online games is how I understand this. Call of Duty, Minecraft, Overwatch etc all have Massive Online gaming communities and MS want to 'keep' those and even 'unite' them through Cross-play instead of splitting them up based on platform choice.
That's why I can see Elder Scrolls Online continuing on EVERY platform but doesn't mean ES6 will be multi-platform. Elder Scrolls 6 has NO community yet (its not out) and its not 'online' to keep friends being able to play together...
@Tharsman True, but I don't think they intend "biggest communities out of all gaming", I think they just mean "big communities" as in "the value of the property is spread out and lies in its universality." CoD is the biggest, but Overwatch's value lies in it's ubiquity and still has a huge part of it's audience spread between Switch and PS. I don't think that's a series that would be worthwhile for them if it went to being an Xb exclusive.
I still see MS as an interesting inverse of PS right now. PS is doubling down on shifting to service/online because they see the big money in their store is from vcurrency and mtx. MS seems to be treating the gaas/online as almost a second business as a publisher from their subscription core which seems to be all about single player and where their exclusivity is pegged. SoT aside, but that's kind of baked in from a different era. Overwatch as a GP exclusive doesn't help the XB brand or the Overwatch brand much. Diablo....that might. That's not such a "big online" game, even if it's mostly played online in pairs or small groups.
Same, again, for Sony with Destiny/Bungie remaining multiplat - the brand isn't helped by leaving Xbox, and PS isn't helped by having it exclusively and making the game smaller.
The more players the better in service games.
Non-service games though strengthen a platform as an exclusive, and the game and game's brand isn't hurt by lacking the multitude of players on other platforms. That's really the key difference.
@NEStalgia if they ever release Halo MP on PlayStation then I’ll think Xbox is actually thinking any multiplayer game if significant size needs to be multiplat. For now, I assume “big community” is drawing a line at certain size, at minimum around 20 million players a month. Will ovetwatch qualify with 5 million? Who knows.
That’s meaningless though because Overwatch is already out and they will not cancel any game that ia already out there, and Overwatch 2 is kinda the same game with the same servers.
@Tharsman I don't rule out that we'd ever see Halo MP on PS, but for the time being there's a key difference. Halo has never been on PS, so there's no player community to shrink by it not being on PS. Overwatch and the like is, and would become a worse game by shedding players. That's the key. Take Overwatch's 5 million players, how many are on PS/Switch and just delete them. That game goes from medium importance online game, to circling the drain in a flash - it loses its value. Services thrive because they're already thriving. People play where everyone else plays. Heck I remember being knee deep in Splatoon 1 when Overwatch 1 came out. Everyone just jumped ship and Splatoon became a ghost town overnight. The game got worse. Obviously it didn't drop players due to dropping platforms, just a player shift to a new game, but the negative effect of dropping players in a popular service is just catastrophic, which is why they're looking at it like this. And that was before Overwatch was on Nintendo. And pretty much everyone was playing it on PS4. Some on PC. I don't recall hearing anyone playing it on X1. Those were the dark days with the VCR 1 and Splatoon on WiiU.
I'd be utterly stunned if Overwatch went exclusive. XB doesn't really gain anything by having Overwatch become exclusive, it's a well known game but not too huge a brand draw for console purchases, not a game that lends well to streaming, and Overwatch loses a lot of value. A service game that only had 5 million players to begin with dropping to 1.5-3 million players and circling irrelevance isn't worth owning. Especially since they already have other big service games competing with themselves, 2 of them exclusive. I just can't think of any scenario they'd drop PS for that title. Lots of loss and almost no gain.
Diablo...we don't know those numbers. But I don't see Diablo as an IP that diminishes with less active players. It's, ultimately, a solo story based ARPG-looter that can be played coop with multiple players. I don't think the engaged player base affects it's viability, and it would be a strong brand to associate with XB, even if Diablo isn't what it once was in terms of importance back in 2000. IDK if it even has a big PS audience. Or console audience in general. I mean I know it sold ok, but I have a completely unscientific or data-backed perception that it's still mostly a PC-driven series. (Or phones. I mean do people not have phones? )
@NEStalgia There is no point on talking about Overwatch. OverWatch 2 is going to run the same servers and cross-play with OverWatch 1, or so they claimed when it was first revealed. This means OW2 will very likely release on all planned platforms because there is no point on not doing so, even if Xbox felt they were up to canceling PS release for some weird reason.
I also doubt current Xbox will encourage the creation of an overwatch 3 anytime soon. Their current ideal for service games is to maintain them for at least a decade. At the current speed, by then PlayStation might just be a PC launcher (hyperbole joke at the expense of some fatalists out there.)
My only argument is, 5 million is not that huge of a number, and the only "big community" line we can assume from the statement is the size of the community in the topic: 20 million players per month.
@Tharsman Ahh, yeah, I think that definitely clears up Overwatch, for sure. (And probably lends a good deal of "lots of words that mean nothing" to the earlier Call of Booty (sorry, it's just too obvious )
The long term maintenance on services really makes the most sense. Overwatch 2 being "backward compatible" essentially with WO1 kind of signifies why numbered sequels to a service game makes little sense. That's an expansion pack, not a sequel. Similarly Splatoon 3 seems silly so soon after 1, and supposedly started as DLC. So....it's Splatoon 2 with more stuff, re-sold as a new game. Yeah, the long-term service makes a lot more sense, MMO-style.
LOL at PS being a PC launcher. Well, we know it won't be a streaming service because they're not even streaming the new gen games at all..., so local box fans can feel safe for a good long while at least, even if it's just a Vaio with a PS logo sticker on it
Love the corporate speak. Then when a new Call of Duty or Diablo, or whatever comes out Microsoft says "Well its a brand new game, it has no community, therefor it is now Xbox exclusive!"
@themightyant your argument makes no sense. Xbox is positioning their stance on their future ownership of Activision games. Elder scrolls is not owned by either Sony or Microsoft, so it's up to the game maker, FromSoftware, to decide which platforms to support.
@sir_dude talking of arguments making no sense… Elder Scrolls is owned by Bethesda, who ARE owned by Microsoft, what has FromSoftware got to do with it? They made Elden Ring, I think you are confused. Simple fact is Microsoft’s buying spree HAS taken games away from players in other communities completely opposite to what they have said.
While I don’t like it - as gaming should be open to as many people as possible - It’s also just business and that is fine. But they can’t have it both ways and pretend to be the nice guy who allows their games across platforms when they don’t in 90% of cases.
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