Helldivers 2 Coming To Xbox Was All Because Of PlayStation, Says Developer

Thanks PlayStation, you're the best. I might give it a go now.

Colour me sceptical. I'm sure this will have been a joint decision. The developer said ages ago that they would like to port the game, and every man and his dog knows that a Live Service game lives or dies based on the size of its community. To my mind, this smacks of a small developer doing its best to stay on side with the publisher that gave it its big break, but then I'm just a cynic...

I mean, the dev was sort of publicly campaigning for it since shortly after the game came out, and yeah Sony finally gave the green light. It reminds me exactly of the Ori on Switch situation.

That'll be the day that I say "thanks" to Sony for their sloppy seconds.

Between this, and the bits we've learned over the last few weeks regards Sony's intent to go (slowly) down the multiplatform route - I think it's very clear that the writing is certainly on the wall.

Not only that, Sony have had ample time to state otherwise, and they haven't - so we can safely assume that this is the beginning of Sony shifting down the same route as MS have.

This is good news if you ask me. Both platform holders have great games and the more either can get of each, the better it is all round. Sony will probably go much slower than MS in releasing games cross platform, but it will most certainly happen.

Of course they did otherwise it wouldn't be on Xbox as Sony own the IP hopefully we will see a couple more playstation games before the end of the year drop on Xbox!!

Fantastic game.

Would suck not being able to use all the Halo mods available on PC though

@Fiendish-Beaver I mean I feel like that's just as big of story though. The comment as is makes it sound like Arrowhead wasn't involved in the decision at ALL until after Sony made it at which point it sounds like Arrowhead was in full support. Is this true? Well, it doesn't matter does it? We'll never truly know what's going on behind the scenes, but now the public image is that Sony is 100% the one that WANTED Helldivers 2 on Xbox.

This doesn't win Sony any good graces or publicity stunts with their customers. Some hard core Sony gamers have been crashing out over Helldivers 2 on Xbox and the idea that it's only happening because "Arrowhead asked for it and Sony is pleasing their partner." was a major excuse used to downplay the situation. Now Arrowhead is publicly saying to their fans, "No, it was all Sony's decision and we just supported them after they made that decision." Arguably that's more huge even if it's a lie. Perceptions matter. And in business perception is far more powerful than truth. That either Arrowhead or Sony would push the perception (be it true or not) that Sony WANTED to publish on Xbox (as in Sony independently directly made the choice) is more powerful than the truth whatever it may be.

If Arrowhead just wanted to endear Sony then they could've said, "Yes. We're so glad that Sony fulfilled this request of ours." That would've been major butt kissing to Sony (well, standard business butt kissing) and put the brunt of the port on Arrowhead. All of a sudden this isn't a major decision Sony is making about multiplatform releases, but instead a bone Sony is throwing Xbox out of kindness toward Arrowhead. The perception would then firmly shift to being less like the "It's just four games" Xbox moment to Xbox porting Ori to Switch to please the devs. But they didn't say that and now perception is going to move a lot closer to the idea that Sony wants to put their games on Xbox. And that being the perception will affect more games coming over.

Sony fundamentally isn't that different from Microsoft on a business level. Both are publicly traded for profit companies that primarily answer to their shareholders. Sony has an obligation to provide as much return on investment (value) to their shareholders as possible. As the industry changes, it makes sense that this includes an evolving strategy and one that we're seeing across the board. More games available to more gamers helps everyone. Playstation has been trying to grow as a publisher this whole generation. That's why they put so much money into live service and bought Bungie and bought so many other studios and keep porting to PC and started licensing Out IP or choosing to launch games on Switch. And it's why they want Helldivers 2 on Xbox. And it's why Microsoft wants their games on more platforms including PS. Margins are tough and few can get away with Nintendo prices for Nintendo game budget costs.

Looking forward to those of you that couldn't previously play getting to enjoy this. Its a blast with pals and even works with random.

Oh sure, let’s all praise Sony for this one and only kind gesture after decades of locking out third parties, trying to bury the Xbox brand and crushing SEGA. Iconic ❤️

I wonder if this would have happened if Concord had not been a failure? Either way, I’m saving up my reward points and looking forward to trying it - it’s a reasonable price too. I thought about buying it on PS5 , but my friends are all on Xbox and I didn’t fancy soloing it or playing with randoms.

@Fiendish-Beaver how much more writing on the wall does everyone need about Sony wanting to bring titles to more platforms? Is it only going to make sense when the Last of Us is on the Xbox Store? I have been trying to help connect the dots for weeks now. This is more wood to the fire.

@Kaloudz Everything you just said is what i have been saying for weeks now and all i get met back with is, is a load of coping and deflection points. I will sit back and just wait for other titles to be announced and pull the i told you so card!

Some, no actually most choose to learn the hard way!

@Old_Man_Harper I think it was inevitable, but all the live service failures, not just Concord, accelerated the timeline. From the way it seemed, live service and mobile was THE strategy to deal with the shrinking margins and stalled console market. That was the big promise they made to shareholders. And internally they invested so much into live service. I think they wanted that to succeed to make more money from PS gamers and start to grow slowly on PC without making any waves. But then like all their projects just went up in smoke. So many unannounced games were canceled and like only Helldivers 2 and GT7 kinda succeeded. They just gave up on mobile and kept burning money for live service. Concord was a waste. Bungie as a whole was a waste with Marathon being a joke.

I honestly thought it was all Arrowhead, but this shows an intent from Sony to bring over at least some few games, time will tell if heavy hitters like Spider-Man or God of War end up being on Xbox but certainly I wouldn’t bet against it.

This is pretty much the “only 4 games” phase, at least Sony hasn’t gone lying on record to say it’s the only game Xbox will get…

Come on then @Kaloudz, @Millionski & @HonestHick. You all keep berating me for my views, whilst leaving you own so wishy washy that at some point within the next 100 years you just might be able to say 'I told ya' so!'.

So when exactly do you expect to see these AAA, or even AA, Sony exclusives ported to the Xbox?

Is it one game every 3 months, so 4 games a year starting in 2026?
Is it one game every 4 months, so 3 games a year starting in 2026?
Is it one game every 6 months, so 2 games a year starting in 2026?
Is it one game in the entirety of 2026, followed by just one game a year from then on?
Is it every single first-party game that Sony has ever made ported in one huge heap within the next 12 months, two year, 5 years, 10 years?

You cannot keep saying, 'Yeah, but it's gonna happen' month after month after month until you are finally proven right in the year 2063, when I'm one hundred, crippled with arthritis and unable to type that you were right after all.

And what are we talking? AAA? The Last of Us 1 & 2? Uncharted (any of them)? Horizon Zero Dawn or it's sequel? Days Gone? Spiderman 1 or 2? Ghost of |Tsushima? Ghost of Yotei? Either God of War game? Gran Tursimo 7? Any Nioh games? Bloodborne? Demon Souls? (Not sure whether the last two would be considered AAA, but roll with it)?

Or even AA? Returnal? Ratchet and Clank? Astro Bot?

Or will you be satisfied when we don't see any of the above, but see some small game that is a decade old, but is not, and has never been considered to be, a reason to buy a PlayStation?

To be crystal clear, I do not believe that any of these games will release on the Xbox.

Oh, and Rise of Ronin and Stellar Blade do not count because they are not first-party games.

Nail your colours to the mast, as I have, if you dare, as it is the only way we can have a definitive timeline and game specificity...

Sony have not said this is their doing, @HonestHick. Helldivers 2 released in February 2024. About two months later the developer was quoted as saying that they wanted to port the game everywhere possible including the Xbox. So, now that Sony has given the go ahead, does that mean only Sony had a role to play in it coming to the Xbox? Yes, they can absolutely prevent it coming over, and yes, their permission was required, but does that mean it was only them that decided to do it?

And as has been said countless times about every Live Service game, they need the biggest possible community for it to continue to survive. Even Sony know this! Porting it was the only sensible decision they could make. Allowing it to slowly die whilst all the time telling their community, 'Yes, but at least it's not on the Xbox' would have been foolhardy.

This was a sensible, rational, business decision. It is not the second coming of Christ as some seem to believe...

Thanks, Sony. Anyway, back to E33 and Blue Prince on gamepass

Sony is clearly seeing the results of xbox games on their store and seem to be very interested in getting in on that sweet multiplatform cash.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer until exclusives are a thing of the past.

@HonestHick Yeah I mean it is what it is isn't it? Sony have been tellingly quiet on the matter, and that says enough in itself. When pushed by the press, they'll likely spin out some flame-padding verbs out like MS did, but their intent is clearly on display here. They're going multiplat, and it makes total sense. The state of the market and the cost of development demands it. This isn't the early 2000s anymore...

Funnily enough, the same people that behaved all "this is the death of MS" or "why buy an Xbox now?" when MS first teased multiplat strategies are painfully quiet...

I read last night that there's some rumours going around that the next Xbox will be 20% more powerful than the PS6 (so, much like the PS5 / XSX) - so if true, Xbox clearly plans on holding the powerful machine for another gen running; which doesn't scream to me that there are signs of them bowing out of the console race any time soon. Nowhere near it...

I personally think they're doing the whole "this is an Xbox", as well as their push for streaming (not forgetting the PC/Xbox rumours) to catapult the Xbox brand far beyond one plastic box. We've known for a long time now that console players are not growing anywhere near the rate of PC / Mobile - and I think Xbox are planning for a much more widespread future.

One that isn't dictated by who sold the most console, but one that's all about who has the most users across platforms - and who sells the most software (Xbox are clearly killing it in that department right now - and the more they span out, the more reach they'll have - Xbox on PC, Xbox on Mobile, Xbox on Console and more...

@Fiendish-Beaver Well I don't berate you for your views I grab them like ingredients (like picking blackberries) so that I can bake you the tastiest humble pie.

Kidding aside, I think we will see GT (which would do so well now that FM is on its deathbed), I think we will see Uncharted, and I think we will see Ratchet. Anything past that will be determined by sales and support from fans on Xbox.

What rate will we see this happening? No idea, but it will happen. Sony can afford to be less forgiving than MS as the dominant platform holder, but if you ask me, come next gen, the Xbox ecosystem will be bigger than it is now.

They're clearly working on spanning Xbox out on as many systems as possible (not to mention Xbox / PC / Steam rumours etc...) so much so that releasing a game on Xbox might reach out to more than just the console userbase. We may even be left with a console next gen that can play Xbox PC games (albeit at lower specs) natively / streaming - we just don't know...

I personally think we will be pleasantly surprised by what Xbox pull off next gen. Word on the street already pegs it at 20% more powerful than the PS6 - if true.

This is great news. I've always thought this looked fun to play. Also would be a big bonus if it came straight to Game Pass too fingers crossed

I read last night that there's some rumours going around that the next Xbox will be 20% more powerful than the PS6 (so, much like the PS5 / XSX)

Sorry, @Kaloudz, but in which parallel universe was the Series X 20% more powerful than the PS5?

Word on the street already pegs it at 20% more powerful than the PS6 - if true.

I have a couple of real issues with this @Kaloudz & @HonestHick ; firstly, who on Earth has this come from? For it to be even remotely true, that person must know the specs of both the PS6 and the PCBox? I doubt even Phil Spencer knows the former (and for all we know, even the latter may not have been determined yet).

Secondly, we keep being told that we are getting this all singing, all dancing machine that is the biggest technological leap ever seen, and yet it is apparently only 20% more powerful than the PS6? Unless Sony have an absolute beast in development, then I would argue we are going to be getting a very sad little PC if it is only 20% more powerful than the PS6. 20%, to my very limited techno mind, does not seem all that impressive at all when it comes to PC gaming...

So you think that Sony will begin porting games after what, 2027, when the PCBox comes out, @Kaloudz? Or after 2028/9 when it is rumoured that the PS6 will come out?

I mean, even I will admit that things can change in 5 years time, and indeed plans might change, but the way everyone is talking about the coming of Helldivers 2, they make it seem inevitable that Sony will be releasing games at a regular cadence, with several more to come within the next 12 months.

Or am I to take it that you do indeed expect me to sit here until I am 100 before such time as I can say I was right and Sony will not be porting their big single-player games...?

@Fiendish-Beaver

Estimates suggest that this translates to a power difference of around 20%, which is similar to the difference between the PS5 and Xbox Series X, with the latter being slightly more powerful.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2025/08/06/ps6-vs-next-gen-xbox-power-difference-report/

The PlayStation 5 might be 20% less powerful than the Xbox Series X

https://metro.co.uk/2025/08/06/ps6-will-20-faster-next-gen-xbox-suggests-leaked-specs-23842736/

Not the first time I've read that the X is close to 20% more powerful than the 5. I've read it quite a number of times over the years. Happy to be corrected but these links are just off the top of my head. If that isn't the case, then that only adds more impressive weight in Xbox's favour if the gap next gen is indeed 20%. Especially if that's not the case right now for 5 / X.

@Fiendish-Beaver That's not how I've read the room. I wouldn't want to guess a time-frame as to when Sony will start dishing out games left, right, and centre. I think the sales of their first game(s) will dictate that pattern. So, it's a guess for anyone right now.

But...it will happen. Yes, a lot can change in five years time. That said, there was a time (less than three months ago) in which it would have been outlandish to suggest Sony would ever release a game on Xbox - and now here we are with HD2 and a job advert catered to multiplat strategies - including Xbox.

I'm not predicting the when, I'm predicting matter - and that's already coming to fruition. If it wasn't the case, Sony would have been padding the flames long before now.

In regards to your comment about where the 20% news came from, it's not a leaker I am familiar with which is why when I first brought it up, I said "if true" - but read the article I linked above if you want any weight to it. We wont know for a while yet.

@Millionski I'd agree with you and assume that that will be the case next gen if this does end up being true, but like you say, we wont see a difference as most devs target the same specs if there's not much of a gap. Time will tell.

So the problem with your statement that Sony will release their games on the Xbox, but not for a few years, @Kaloudz, is that we keep being told that the PCBox will have Steam, meaning that your Xbox gamers will have access to that way. It lessens the need for Sony to release the games on the Xbox.

Unless you somehow mean that Sony putting their games on Steam, which is then accessible on the PCBox somehow counts...? 😉

Thinking back, @Millionski & @Kaloudz, I think we were told that the PS5 had 12 teraflops, and the Series X had 16, which I guess is where the 20% comes in. Truth be told though, you would struggle to notice any difference when playing on either console, but I guess the 20% difference does stand up in the face of reality...

I don't think Sony will port GT7 because they will have something that Xbox does not, @Millionski, and I think that GT7 is one (technically) Live Service game that Sony will want to keep to itself, after all, they apparently cancelled the PC port too.

Also, don't cheat! Stellar Blade is not a first-party game having been developed by Shift Up, which is not a Sony owned company. Sony merely published the title, and so just as with Death Stranding 2, could come to the Xbox (even published by Sony), but is not, to my mind, the same as porting a first-party game.

For the record, I think there is a high chance we will see both SB and DS2 come to the Xbox over the next couple of years (dependant on how long the exclusivity contracts that Sony signed were)...

Sony is going more and more 3rd party, and people are just going to have to come to terms with it. I definitely wont be needing a PS6 next gen and the Senior Vice president just has an update today saying they are moving AWAY from Hardware centric business to a community and engagement business.

The console war is done and dusted, time to move on to gaming everywhere!

@HonestHick weeks!!!. I'd say you have been saying it for months 🙂.

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't think the 20% makes the world of difference but then, we don't know how or where that 20% difference will factor in when it comes to next gen. One thing is for sure, if it was the other way round (PS5 or PS6 20% more powerful) people would be much louder about it... ironically.

And no, I wholly mean native PS games on a native Xbox. We will (if Xbox PC / Steam is true, and the next Xbox can play both) see the variation of Xbox playing PS games through varying storefronts via varying means (which has also been rumoured) but we will also have PS games natively too.

Multiplatform is the way forward, the state of the market dictates this. People are just going to have to cope with that in (hopefully) a more mature fashion than they did when MS took similar steps.

@cragis0001 you might be right. Time escapes me sometimes when i have to beat a dead horse. I’d be lying if i didn’t say i can’t wait to see the outcry on YouTube. All those that said why buy a Xbox? Or I’ll just build a PC. Someone is always ready to throw away their toys when they aren’t giving them what they want and what they want is a console that they can hang a list of exclusive games over other peoples heads. That list is shrinking or going away and they can’t believe it. So much so they are saying it’s just live service games. But is it?

@HonestHick The constant deflection over at Push Square is getting more and more hilarious by the day. Any time more and more things are said by Sony proper and things start to unfold it's seen as "a taken out of context quote, it's just a job listing, xbox gamers port begging ect"

They are doing anything and everything to hold onto that "it's just four games" narrative like we don't all see what's coming in the future. The console war is gonna be coming to an end and i for one can't wait for that day.

More games will be coming to other platforms from Sony "not just live-service" and I can't wait to see how THAT website spins it for the clicks ...

@Millionski

Stellar blade is 2nd party like HD2 so it would be already a move in that direction.

Acccording to Sony PlayStation's own definition (as explained by Shuhei Yoshida) Helldivers 2 is a "first party title" as they (Sony) are the owner of the Helldivers IP: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2025/02/sony-clarifies-the-difference-between-first-party-second-party-and-so-on

Stellar Blade and technically even Marvel's Spider-Man are 2nd party titles as Sony doesn't own the IPs.

This particular game doesn't interest me, but thank you, Sony, for opening up the door of possibility. While it's still not likely, this means I may someday get to enjoy a Resistance Remastered Trilogy or the Horizon series on Xbox and that's enough for me for the moment.

@Millionski the things is the whole "it's just LS" games doesn't work because they canceled 95% of em! All they have is Marathon, Fairgame$ (if that even releases) and Helldivers 2. They didn't create a whole job listing and say all this moving away from hardware centric business just to put 3 games everywhere.

The day a single player "banger" comes to xbox is the day the internet melts.

today's quote from their VP about "moving away from the hardware-centric business".

And this is where I take issue, @Millionski. This is where I see people clutching at straws and coming to conclusions to suit their own narrative. They are filling in the gaps with their own wishes as if it were evidence.

The person speaking, Senior Vice President Sadahiko Hayakawa, was not speaking about consoles at all. Not in any respect whatsoever. Hayakawa was talking about Sony (and not specifically PlayStation) saying that the companies earnings are no longer coming from hardware, but instead the majority of their revenue is now being earned through music, film and games. Somehow, people seem to think this means that Sony will be withdrawing from the console business because he said this, when all he was doing was addressing where the majority of the money that Sony makes is now made.

I've just noticed you mentioned this as well, @J_Mo_Money so I'll tag you into my response...

The day a single player "banger" comes to xbox is the day the internet melts.

Finally! Something I can wholeheartedly agree with, @J_Mo_Money... 😂

I own both a Series X and a PS5, @Kaloudz, and despite the Series X having this 20% power advantage, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you cannot tell the difference between the two consoles. They feel and play pretty much identically. It's just the controllers that are different (and I prefer the Xbox controller).

The only way I see Sony putting a game on the Xbox is if it is on the PCBox and not playable on the previous generation. Otherwise, it will be on Steam, and that's your lot.

The next generation is going to have a long overlap with the previous generation. Indeed, I would not be shocked if games were backwards compatible for the entire generation because the Series consoles, and the PS5 are so capable that there is not much they cannot do, certainly their performance is good enough to just carry on indefinitely, meaning many people will not upgrade consoles at all. With that being the case, Sony will continue to see exclusives as an important part of their business practice, and whilst they will still port their games to PC, and as a consequence they will be playable on the PCBox, I can see Sony choosing not to release them natively on the Series consoles for that reason alone, as if people see they can only play a certain game on the next generation, they maybe more inclined to upgrade, and potentially buy a PS6 in order to play that game. If the game is only playable on the PC, the PS6, and by extension, on the PSBox, then maybe Sony will port a game to the PCBox too, but only if the work to make a PC port compatible with the PCBox is minimal. Otherwise Sony will just shrug and let the games be played on the PCBox via Steam...

@Fiendish-Beaver indeed. someday people will STRICTLY be talking about just the games, like the old school internet message boards of the late 90s early 2000s. I remember those days.

@HonestHick im sure we talked about this subject back in February. The kickback on YouTube has been hilarious. In a way it's karma. But your living up to your screen name. Your just being honest 👍

@Fiendish-Beaver

Colour me sceptical. I'm sure this will have been a joint decision. The developer said ages ago that they would like to port the game, and every man and his dog knows that a Live Service game lives or dies based on the size of its community. To my mind, this smacks of a small developer doing its best to stay on side with the publisher that gave it its big break, but then I'm just a cynic...

Yes, this is a big achievement for Arrowhead. But the point is that every developer studio would like to see the games they create on as many platforms as possible. If it were up to Sony Santa Monica or Insomniac Games whether they would want to port their games to Xbox, they would surely say yes. The difference is that Arrowhead Studio is independent and they can publicly talk about it when asked by fans online, where PlayStation owned studios are not allowed.

The big surprise is that Sony, as the owner and publisher of Helldivers 2, is willing to port to Xbox, fund the port costs and publish the port themselves. This would have been unthinkable 1 year ago.

I've said it a thousand times now, @J_Mo_Money, but I really couldn't care less is Sony port their first-party games to the Xbox. First off, I own a PS5, and have played all the Sony first-party games that I want to. Secondly, if they do bring them to the Xbox, I'll likely double dip because I much prefer playing on my Xbox to playing on the PlayStation. So far this generation I have played 3 games on my PS5, and that is despite having bought my PS5 day one. On the other hand I game on my Xbox every day. It is my preferred platform. I just do not see that Sony porting Helldivers 2 is a sign that Sony intend to port their more important first-party games to the Xbox.

Today, I've asked people to nail their colours to the mast and say what games they expect to come over, and when they expect them to come, and no one has given me any definitive responses. I mean, if Sony port their first first-party game to the Xbox in the year 2035, does that count as them being right...? 😉

I agree with all that you say, @TrollOfWar, with one caveat, and that is that it is a Live Service game, and that does make a difference. The smaller the pool of players you have, the more quickly a game will die. Expose that game to a larger pool and it stands more chance of survival. Porting Helldivers 2 is a sensible and pragmatic thing to do. It was not done for the good of Xbox, but for the good of the game itself. The same is true of all Live Service games, which is why I expect to see all Sony Live Service games come to the Xbox, likely day one as the games have the best chance of succeeding that way...

@Fiendish-Beaver "Today, I've asked people to nail their colours to the mast and say what games they expect to come over, and when they expect them to come, and no one has given me any definitive responses."

I can't say anything with 100% certainty since I obviously don't have any insider sources at Sony, but I expect Sony to port at least one major singleplayer game to Xbox consoles before the end of 2026.

My guess is that Days Gone, Spider-Man 2018, or Horizon: Zero Dawn will be the first singleplayer game to make the jump.

I also expect the rumored 2D God of War Metroidvania to launch day-one on at least Nintendo Switch. Not so sure about Xbox on that one. Because maybe releasing a God of War game, even a small one, day-and-date on Xbox would be too much.

@Fiendish-Beaver I mean, porting live service games to help them succeed still shows a SIGNIFICANT change in the industry. Arguably it's bigger than porting single player. The psychology behind exclusives has always been more in making your friends play on the same platform than anything else. I don't think it's wild to say that the single player brought people into Playstation, but it was really the lack of cross-play that made them stay. Games like COD have ALWAYS been the best sellers on PS by a long mile. And the best sellers on Xbox and PC. And cross-play didn't become standard until late last gen with Sony dragging their feet. In a post cross-play world, first party live service exclusives are the only way to maintain that mentality of using gamers to convert other gamers into PS customers.

In 2001, the original Xbox thrived on multiplayer games and the only difference from today's live service are Microtransactions and longer updates. Helldivers 2 in essence is not that different from your Halo Multiplayer or Gears Multiplayer. Those games could've ALWAYS benefited from larger audiences. And yet back then they'd never be the case because that was how you sold systems.

To me an exclusive really good live service multiplayer game, has far more power than an exclusive linear narrative driven single player game. And Sony's own data lines up with this. The best selling and most played games on their platform are nearly all live service multiplayer games (just ones they don't own, which is their problem). COD becoming Xbox exclusive probably would've been the last chance at MAJOR market share stealing because gamers would want to play it with their friends, so some people would switch in masses. That's where the console wars even come from. Xbox vs Playstation was about making everyone switch to your preferred platform so that you could all play together. It was about making sure that your platform had the best multiplayer population to make sure you got the most enjoyment out of it. But it would also cause COD to lose massive amounts of money from the loss in player base and the loss in prestige (less people to play with on Xbox & PC). 10, 15, and definitely 20 years ago if Xbox owned COD they'd take that hit for the console sales. Sony would too. Today? Today it just doesn't matter. All multiplayer games are cross-platform and that's the norm so the biggest reason gamers have to convert each other to the same platform is gone. Most gamers chose their systems last generation and are just upgrading now. And it matters even less when most games, including a lot of the biggest, are either still on last gen or getting last gen releases. If exclusives still mattered as much as they did 10+ years ago, I really think Helldivers 2 and other great live service titles would be MORE important than your God of War or Horizon. Forza Horizon 5 (god I put those too close) sold three million copies on PS and topped charts as a four year old game. Clearly Playstation gamers want it MORE than their own single player exclusives, but none of them switched platforms for it, and they were never going to. Some probably didn't even know it existed until it launched on PS5. Everyone is in their walled gardens and no one really cares because most people are playing the same handful of games that support every platform known to man.

@Fiendish-Beaver
That's all to say, it's arguably a bigger deal if Sony is willing to part with their successful live service multiplayer games so soon after release. It hasn't even been 2 years since Helldivers 2. And like I said, perceptions do matter. There's the view that live service games hold less importance than single player prestigious titles, but that doesn't feel exactly right to me when we know which one most gamers enjoy more. Multiplayer games build community and have major staying power. Those are the games that built the console wars. Even on PS. You bought a PS for God of War or Final Fantasy and then you made your friends buy a Playstation to play COD or GTA V. On Xbox you just straight up bought for Halo and then you kept playing Halo or eventually Sea of Thieves or Forza Horizon. That's all gone now and the software sales have outgrown the restraints of hardware sales. Forza Horizon 5 can sell 3 million copies on PS in a few months, but it can't make 3 million Playstation users switch to Xbox. Maybe a number in the thousands or hundred thousands or heck we can be delusional and say a million. In any case Microsoft sees greater financial benefit bringing it to all platforms. This is what we're seeing from Playstation now, and I would think them porting live service titles so soon would be a bigger deal than 3+ year old single player games that are already on PC.

@Jenkinss Yeah they had said they wanted the game multiplat for ages. I think that coupled with their recent announcement that they have made enough money from HD2 to self publish their next game meant Sony will be more inclined to allow it to keep on their good side for future projects.

@Fiendish-Beaver The takeaway I get from this news is that someone in charge wants Sony, not Arrowhead, to take the credit for WANTING Helldivers on Xbox. Sony has had plenty of time to comment and bring about a different narrative. And there were other ways for Arrowhead to take the blame (from the perspective of PS gamers who don't like this) while also showing gratitude to their publisher. That's a paradigm shift compared to just 10 years ago when Playstation was fighting claw and fang against cross-play. I don't think Sony is the type of company to make these decisions based on rumors. There's no official news that Steam will be on the next Xbox or what the next Xbox will even be and if MS was sharing this information on the downlow with Sony then it'd have been leaked by now (Microsoft has more holes than that one movie named "Holes"). Plus Helldivers 2 would take longer to port than the months between now and that AMD announcement. We really should've caught on last year when they changed from Playstation PC as their port publishing arm to Playstation Publishing. These decisions haven't been made lightly or on a whim, and I certainly don't think they are happening due to a rumor with little actual official evidence to back it up.

@Millionski @Kaloudz @Fiendish-Beaver

I ain’t saying how many games or when. Thats my whole reason for starting to talk to you about it. Cause unless i read it wrong. You were making it sound like only live service games and that was my point how do you, we or anyone know that? We don’t. I am not saying i know the plan, what i am trying to say is people are grifting hard for Sony and saying oh it’s just live service games. HOW DOES ANYONE know that? I certainly don’t know that but if i look at the breadcrumbs and leaks it’s looking like they are deciding the strategy as the job listing it fairly new still. 3 months ago this would not even be a talking point as Sony was locked into the old traditional console model. Which is fine, it makes money but they want more money and they see that their is ways to do so and they are starting to come out and say we are making moves that are off our console. So in time we will know more of that but i lost count at how many people are 100% sure that it’s only live service games and right not i am tearing into that cause there is no reason to have that take on it, the same reason i can’t say what games and when they are coming. Which i haven’t done. I have guess and said it’s likely the ones that will make money, which would make sense, and Sony don’t have multiple live service games that make money. So that would logical mean some single player games. Again to be clear which ones and when? I have no clue.

@cragis0001 I appreciate that so much. Yes i am. They hate the truth. Just wait until i remind them they said what’s the point in owning a Xbox if my PS plays all its games and Sony’s? That will go over well!

@J_Mo_Money yeah i have lost a lot of respect for Push Square writers. They troll so hard and now that the shoe is on their foot. They are deflecting like crazy. The fan base is setting themselves up for a big let down thinking Sony isn’t trying to take the bag of money to please some rude kids online trolling other brands. In what world does that ever happen? In all this i think the industry is better from head to toe without exclusives, i want to see gamers have a choice in where they play and what they play it on. I want to be able to use the controller that don’t hurt my thumb and wrist. I want to be able to play with my friends regardless of platform they own. I want online games to have bigger player bases. I could care less about console wars. It’s a known fact PS worldwide is going to outsell Xbox. Sony’s games coming to Xbox won’t change that. Maybe it slightly grows PC gaming more, which is already growing at an insanely fast rate. There is no malice in what i want of this move. It’s solely for the better and timed exclusives will still exist for Sony, they aren’t bringing Spider-Man 3 day and date to Xbox anytime soon. But they might be getting closer to doing that with PC, who knows!!

@Fiendish-Beaver I can tell you with 100% certainty that you cannot tell the difference between the two consoles. They feel and play pretty much identically.

While that's true, I would bet my life that in a lot of cases, it's down to the developers choosing to keep parity - but who knows. I say the same thing about 30fps and 60fps - for the life of me I just don't see the difference no matter how hard I try.

It's like when my wife tells me to listen for the mystical "bite" in a car when she's shifting gears... (I cant drive) I don't hear it. Perhaps our minds are just numb to certain things lol.

Sony will absolutely use exclusives as a model to sell consoles, but that's not to say that they will remain exclusive for the long-run. It's just not logical anymore. Studio costs are on the rise - they always have been and they always will be - so unless we start forking out £100 per game, this multiplat strategy is one of the only avenues left.

Console userbase has reached its limit last I read, with PC and mobile users on the rise. MS is clearly tapping into both PC and Mobile and pushing for a future where (as we've seen) anything can be an Xbox. Their next gen will be big, I can bet my life on it. It'll be big, far reaching, surprising, feature rich / competitive, and support a lot of games (not forgetting it's rumoured to have more than one storefront).

On that basis, PS throwing games at Xbox is not bad decision making on Sony's part. Quite the opposite - because consoles will no longer be competing for just having the most units sold, but biggest userbase too and the most reach.

I disagree on the "PCBox" too. I think Xbox will be able to play Xbox PC games (natively and/or stream) and perhaps have access to other storefronts too. I think Xbox is trying to unify its ecosystem and tear down barriers. That said, we can guesswork until the cows come home, but certain facts stick in the mud, and here, as @HonestHick and many other say, it's blatantly evident that Sony are going multiplat.

They've had ample time to say otherwise and have not (they may try padding the flames with well worded statements but that wont matter) and their own job board (and HD2) states otherwise. PS games are coming to Xbox - and no, not just LS games... Count on it.

Thank you, @Questionable_Duck. At least you have given a response that will either stand the test of time, or... er, not! 😂

You can count on it, @Kaloudz...? So why won't you pin your colours to the mast? When will the Sony port there first non-Live Service, AAA single-player game to the Xbox...?

I'm not sure what I have said that gave you the impression that the PCBox will not be able to play Steam games (or Epic Store / PC games) natively, @Kaloudz. If it has the Steam Store on it, it will definitely be native...

Sorry, @HonestHick, but that's a complete and utter cop out! Let's make it easy for you then? Do you think that Sony will port a first-party AAA single-player game to the Xbox within the next 3 years...?

I think that's a well written, and well reasoned comment, @WildConcept6, and I totally get where you are coming from. What I would say though, is that few people will have left their Xbox digital libraries behind in order to buy a PlayStation just to play Helldivers 2, as the game, whilst popular, is not a system seller. Thus I believe that Sony see the sense in bringing it to the Xbox where it will find an audience. The need for a fresh influx of players should not be underestimated. I think that is the single biggest factor in this port.

Indeed, I would also suggest that Sony see some positive PR in this move too. This is them throwing a bone to Microsoft, telling them they're a good boy, and then sitting back satisfied as Microsoft strip away the last of their exclusives...

@Fiendish-Beaver it’s not a cop out. I just ain’t taking guess’s and saying live service only or anything like that cause the job listing never said anything like that. It gave no hints. Thats why i am waiting to hear more. As for your question, yes i fully expect to see AAA Sony titles coming to Xbox much sooner than 3 years. What would have been the point in them hiring and causing all this noise online if they weren’t’, everyone thinks Spider-man is the first game to come to Xbox. I don’t know about that, reason why is every copy sold is money to Sony, MS and Marvel. So that don’t make Sony nearly as much profit. They ain’t giving their games to Xbox and Nintendo to be nice, they want money back. So while Spider-man would sell nicely on Xbox and the internet all thinks that’s the first one to come. I don’t know about that.

@HonestHick

i have lost a lot of respect for Push Square writers.

The writers need to write in a polarizing way to increase discussion/engagements/clicks, so I guess it's just business. Though I think a few of the writers do believe in what they write and express their brand identity more than rational thinking.

Thanks PlayStation you legends!!

On a side note if I pre-ordered this on Xbox using my debit card and the payment has not yet been taken (I know it will go 10 days before release) and I've since added a £10 gift card to my account. Will it take from the gift card balance first then the remainder from my debit card?

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not Sony. I don't have all the data on Playstation, but based on the sales charts... are the single player games system sellers? Based on how Sony chose to invest in live service games more than their single player "system sellers", does Sony think they're system sellers?

If that's what Sony wants the perception of what's happening to be then they aren't doing a very good job. Just ask their own fans 🤷🏾‍♂️. It wouldn't be that difficult of a perception to create either. They could make a public statement that only put it on Xbox to please Arrowhead or make Arrowhead publish it on Xbox through a different publisher or scrub "Xbox" from that job listing or make some cheeky comment on any social media account. Like I said, someone in charge wants Sony to have the credit of not just putting the game on Xbox, but wanting the game on Xbox. And they aren't doing anything to make that sound like it's a bad thing or done out of pity. They aren't even being haughty. They're porting their most successful game in a long while and also making public comments (and posting public jobs) about treating gaming as an ecosystem beyond PS hardware. Again, if they want this to look or even feel like they're throwing Xbox a bone and saying "good boy" then they aren't doing a good job. And otherwise I'd say personally, if we're digging THAT deep into what's going on behind the scenes (like the intentions of a business beyond "they want more money") then I'd suggest pulling back. That's getting into conspiracy territory and at least stuff we'll never truly know what's what about. Like we'd need to get into Playstation's executive board meeting and then use a mind reading device. I don't presume to know how Playstation views anything, but we do know how they are allowing themselves to be viewed.

@PartyMarty If you're at all worried you can cancel and just do the pre-order over again. Part of me wants to say that gift cards are charged immediately, not when the game releases. But the last time I used a gift card for a pre-order was a LONG time ago.

A one-off doesn’t really prove anything. Going to need to see other games like Stellar Blade to see that Sony has truly changed. Then I’ll thank them.

@WildConcept6 yeah I was thinking that and the fact that the gift card I have is only part of the games price so it would always be split. I'll probs just do the pre-order again to make sure 👍🏻

@HonestHick On Spider-Man, people bring that up because Sony doesn't own the IP. Really it's been a non-zero possibility since MLB forcibly decided to put MLB the Show on Xbox and later Nintendo Switch. To add additional perspective, Indiana Jones was only exclusive for any amount of time because Xbox went to Disney and renegotiated the licensing contract. The owner of the IP ultimately has control when it comes to licensed games. Sony owns the exclusive movie rights to Spider-Man, but that's it. Marvel (Disney) still owns the IP, and if Marvel (Disney) decides they want Spider-Man on Xbox or Nintendo Switch (the Switch 2 could handle the first game easily, probably Miles Morales too) then Playstation's only choice would be to either comply and let Marvel (Disney) publish the game on Xbox, or Playstation could choose to not make Spider-Man. That's it. The very most they could is try to leverage Spider-Man in the MCU, but considering how much money those movies make both parties and how little money Sony's own attempt at a Spider-Man cinematic universe that'd be a bluff at best. It'd be like threatening to shoot your own leg to try and stop someone from selling your game to more people.

Speaking of, if we're working under the assumption that Sony doesn't want their single player games on Xbox, then they should be VERY cautious with their Marvel games. They don't own Spider-Man or Wolverine and could at any point be told those games are going on Xbox or not being made at all. When that happens it won't matter to gamers who made the decision (Disney or Sony), because all they'll see is Playstation porting a single player exclusive, that in some ways has become a console mascot, to Xbox. Most gamers don't follow stuff this closely or are even fully aware of who knows what. And the industry is changing independently of Playstation. So many third parties have abandoned console exclusivity because it doesn't benefit them; it hardly even benefits PS anymore. The fact that now even Playstation has caved and is porting their their Helldivers 2 under their own name, just furthers the question of how long Disney, of all companies wait before demanding to make more money. Console sales don't help Disney. Disney doesn't get a 30% cut from every purchase PS users make. We go back and forth on which games are system sellers, but the entire concept is meaningless to Disney. All they care about are game sales and how financially lucrative the contract is for them. And if Square isn't willing to take console exclusive deals for the loss in sales anymore, MLB is forcing Sony to develop MLB the Show for all platforms, and now Sony themselves are putting Helldivers 2 on Xbox to maximize profit margins, then how long does DISNEY not insist on more money?

@Cakefish Stellar Blade would be more in the partner publisher bucket which is already getting quite full (MLB the Show, Death Stranding, Everybody's Golf, Lego Horizons). Heck, Stellar Blade was initially announced for Xbox and last gen consoles. That only changed after they got a publishing deal with Sony to help get the game out the door. But it'd honestly be less surprising than Helldivers 2 if Stellar Blade got an Xbox port. Helldivers is a fully owned PS IP made by an independent studio. Stellar Blade is an IP owned AND developed by an independent studio; Sony just published it. They have significantly less control over it than they do Helldivers 2.

@Fiendish-Beaver You're asking me for windows I cant give my man. I cant tell you when the games will come because that will largely depend on how well they sell on the platform. I'd hazard a guess and say we see one either before the end of this gen, or the first year of the next. I cant speak for the when, but they will come. That's almost a certainty at this point.

@Fiendish-Beaver We'll see soon enough! Lol

@HonestHick your getting the credit you deserve. You put all the dots together & told them to brace themselves. It not your problem they didn't listen.

@Kaloudz looking at when PlayStation posted a similar post for there PC push. It took 14 months for Horizon: Zero Dawn to launch on Steam.

@cragis0001 That's not too long at all. I do wonder how quick ports will be next gen for Xbox (if they do indeed make the console close to a PC architect).

@HonestHick your getting the credit you deserve. You put all the dots together & told them to brace themselves. It not your problem they didn't listen.

How can you say people didn't listen to something that has not yet happened, @cragis0001? You speak as if @HonestHick has warned us in the past about something that has now come to fruition, yet all he is doing is telling us what he thinks will happen at some unknown and unspecified point in the future. If what he says does not happen, and Sony do not release any AAA single-player games on the Xbox, would we have then been wrong for having listened...?

@Kaloudz if it's a hybrid PC. I wouldn't think long. As there is nothing stopping Sony from adding its current PC ports to the Windows store now. To take advantage of the Xbox Asus Rog Ally X. Then update them later to take advantage the next gen console.

It was a cop out, @HonestHick, because you were not specifying how long you thought it would be before Sony brought a AAA single-player game to the Xbox, which then meant you could turn round in 20 years time when Sony finally did so, and say, 'See, told you!'. Doing it that was meant that you could never be wrong, or at least not until Sony ceased business in the gaming industry without having released a game on the Xbox.

It's like me saying that one day mankind will create time-travel. Now prove me wrong? Obviously you cannot do that because that 'one day' might come in a 1000 years time, but until that point I am not wrong, and if mankind dies out without having invented time travel in 10,000 years time, well none of us will be around to say, 'See, you were wrong!'.

That is why I was asking you to nail your colours to the mast when it comes to a timeline. Which game it is was just a matter of curiosity, though now you have committed to within 3 years , and AAA, which is less wishy-washy than before.

I am curious now when you think it will be, though, because you said 'much sooner'. So do you think 2026 or 2027, bearing in mind that 2028 is in 3 years time...?

Stellar Blade won't prove anything either, @Cakefish. The game was not made by Sony. They merely bought exclusivity and publishing rights. If it was published by Sony on the Xbox, it would be no different to how MLB: The Show is dealt with on the Xbox...

@Fiendish-Beaver many of us said this was happening. Not just due to Xbox. But due to the nature of capitalism. Once the expansion begins & the money flows. The genie is out of the bottle. Then it rarely closes. Once one revenue stream is exhausted. It's the constant look for the next.
Plus Sony has been hinting for a while that something had to give. They put all there eggs in live service & failed. So they adapted by expanding to what made money & that was porting to other platforms.

If Sony were to port any of their AAA single-player games at all, @Kaloudz, it will not be until at least two years after they release the PS6 because exclusives still draw people into their ecosystem. It may not be the only factor, or indeed the biggest factor, but it is still one of the reasons to enter an ecosystem, and so Sony will want as many reasons for people to choose the PS6 over the PCBox as possible. If Sony begin to port their exclusives to their beggist rival, then they dilute one of the reasons to buy their console. As it is, the PS6 will need to rival an Xbox that has access to Steam, which has a library of games that utterly dwarfs that seen on the PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox combined. Therefore, they need as much ammunition as possible to combat this, and exclusives is one thing that will help them...

@WildConcept6 yeah that all makes sense to me. If i were Disney i would want the game on as many platforms as possible. I don’t care for the marvel games. So not sure i would buy it. I beat the first Spider-man and it was fine, but a little boring towards the end. So likely i am not buying them but Disney should maximize their earning potential. Time will tell.

But the game is a Live Service game, @cragis0001. It is a game that lives or dies based on the number of people that are playing it. Exposing it to the Xbox was the sensible and rational decision. They did it for the good of the game, not for the benefit of Xbox. There is a huge difference between a game such as Helldivers 2, and one of Sony's AAA single-player games, and as yet we have not one iota of an indication that Sony intend to port one of their single-player games. People are just trying to wish this into existence, which is not how this works...

@cragis0001 thank you, i did the same with Steam coming to Xbox and i got a little push back. The thing is this is all public information, it’s not that hard to think for yourself and see what they are telling you and yet most gamers jump on the trend comments online and believe it’s the way the companies think and act. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. Then i come along with the receipts and hold people to what they said for months or even years and they freak out on me. Thats my role around here HAHA

So are you saying within 2 years, or 3, @Kaloudz? Bearing in mind that rumours are still circulating that the PCBox will be out next year (although 2027 seems more likely now)...

I will say that I did not think that Microsoft would put Steam on the next Xbox, @HonestHick, but only because it is going to lead to a very sudden, and totally foreseeable, suicide for Xbox in the console business, and is massively going to impact Microsoft's earnings. I mean, who will buy their games on the Xbox Store, whilst paying £10 or £20 extra for the privilege? Microsoft will go from earning 30% off all third-party games sold on the Store to earning absolutely nothing as people buy their games on Steam instead. That will kill off the next Xbox in no time, and only early adopters will get to have the new PCBox, because Microsoft will quickly stop making them. I cannot see the sense in it at all, but then I've given up trying to make sense of what Microsoft are doing these days...

@cragis0001 @Fiendish-Beaver where people are wrong for not listening to me is not following the money. To MANY gamers come on here and speak babble about money. Never to realize it’s not that i am a fly on the wall in these meetings. It’s just common sense. Sony’s profit margin is low. Investors have asked them to be at 10%, they aren’t close to that at the moment. Or the last i read into it. So these ports would help. I have also defended MS choice in moving away from a one closed box ecosystem and have said that Sony would be faced by shareholders and their own internal leaders to raise profits. Did i guess this would take shape so soon? No, i thought we would start to see this in the PS6 life after they grew that install base. Not now before the launch of PS6, giving players maybe a reason to leave the platform, even tho a very small number of gamers will do that. Not listening to me about money has lead more people into the i told you so comment than not. This ain’t a brag or flex. I am an accountant. I see what companies will do for a few hundred thousand. Not to mention millions. Always follow the dollar, especially in todays gaming and you will be closer to right than wrong nearly everytime.

@Fiendish-Beaver i will buy my games on the Xbox store over Steam. Many causals will as well cause likely it is the default store and they don’t care about steam. MS will likely match the steam sales to remain competitive. However we do not know all the workings and potential profit sharing of that deal behind the scenes. Phil and Gabe have a very close and long friendship. I am sure there has been a lot of talks within them to make this happen. Until we learn more on the matter i don’t want to overstate what that looks like. But again i have said this for years now on here, the end game isn’t console. It’s cloud streaming for the causals and PC’s for those that still want hardware. We aren’t there yet. But just like all other mediums in the entertainment market, we will see streaming be the mainstream solution as tech carries that closer and closer to a console level performance. PC is growing like crazy and will continue to for quite a while. Time will tell how all that plays out.

@Fiendish-Beaver there’s no cop out and it’s not about me being right, it’s about following what Sony is saying. I am not telling you they are moving away from the closed ecosystem, they are telling you that, you just hear it in the terms you want.

As for when, i think it comes down to what teams are going to be doing the work. What disrupts their business model the least. Which to me would be smart to start with older games. Maybe a 2018 God of War? That is just sitting around often on sale for 10 dollars, why not port that to Xbox for $50. I don’t know what they are going to price them at. Uncharted would be a nice fit for the Xbox gamer. Then there’s little big planet and Astro bot on Nintendo that would make some sense. Again how long do these ports take and who do they have doing them? Thats what I’d like to learn more about. Again this all goes back to raising their profit margins, so the real question is when have shareholders and investors put a hard date on seeing those numbers rise? I would guess in less than 3 years. It’s taken MS some time to get games to PS5 and they still haven’t put anything on Switch 2 yet but they will and MS has way more devs than Sony. Again this isn’t about being right or wrong for me as much as it’s just pointing out that people care so much about exclusives that they are defending this job post as live service only when NO ONE KNOWS THAT. Could that be true and i am wrong? Of course. But i am not drawing the line in the sand on only live service to help myself feel better that exclusive are dying a slow death and companies and devs want all their games in more places to play.

@Fiendish-Beaver It's guesswork. It could be two years away, it could be five years away, but the timing doesn't matter as much as the fact. We wouldn't have been entertaining this conversation at the beginning of the gen; it was unheard of. All I'm saying with certainty is that it's going to happen. Not in 10 years time, not in 20 years time, but within the next few years.

It wont be live service only.

@cragis0001 Exactly. Further, if the next Xbox can play Xbox PC games as well as console games, it would add weight to the suggestion that there will be multiple storefronts next gen. It all just adds up to one hell of an exciting prospect.

@Fiendish-Beaver yes Helldiver's 2 is a live service game. But its also PlayStations biggest selling game that they ever released at launch. So it's a big deal for PlayStation. So to bring it's biggest selling title to Xbox first to test the water. Is also a risk. As if it fails to shift units. How long do they support the port. So you'd expect lower risk titles first. But if successful then everything else after that is a bonus for Sony. They did it before with Horizon which was there biggest selling new IP. As it was PCs first PlayStation port. Square Enix just did the same lately also. They brought there money maker first with Final Fantasy 14. Then said they were happy with how it did & now get we regular releases yearly.
Plus you'd think that Lego Horizon Adventures on the Nintendo Switch would have put this argument to bed when Guerrilla games was heavily involved.

Why would Lego Horizon put the issue to bed, @cragis0001? Why? Again, it is a licenced game, meaning the it was not necessarily Sony's choice to release it there. It may have been contractually obliged to do so by Warner Brothers, or it may have been a joint decision, or it may have been Sony's, we don't know the ins and outs of the decision. However, the fact that it is a licenced game does not make it a clear cut indication that Sony made the choice to port it there, and that's before we get into the lukewarm reception the game received, and its weak sales on the PlayStation, which may have necessitated it being released elsewhere...

So now we're saying its definitely happening, @Kaloudz, it's floodgates are open, we'll definitely see a Sony made AAA first-party game within the next... 5 years...! That's just not the way people are speaking about it in these forums; you'd be forgiven for thinking that we'll see AAA banger after AAA banger from Sony from here on out. Within 5 years is hardly full-steam ahead, is it...?

@Kaloudz Xbox is heading to be a digital only platform. That's been obvious for years. So rival store fronts is a must. To comply with worldwide anti trust regulations. Just need to look at how new laws have forced Apple & Google to open up to competition in the smartphone market.

Please show me where Sony have told us that they are moving away from a closed ecosystem and towards one where they share games with the Xbox, @HonestHick. That article would make me readjust my view.

I have said a number of times now, but I couldn't give a flying duck what Sony do with the exclusives. I have a PS5 and I have played all of their exclusives that I am interested in, and if Sony do bring them over to the Xbox, I will happily double dip and play them on my preferred platform. I really couldn't care less. What is giving me some cause for frustration is seeing people running away with the idea that Sony have opened the floodgates and Xbox will be getting everything, which you'd be forgiven for thinking when reading some of the comments on here, and which is why I was trying to pin people down as to when they expect these games to arrive, with one saying we'll see the first one within the next 5 years. Yes! Consider those floodgates flung wide, wide open!

Lastly, you say yourself, when speaking about the job listing, that no one knows what games it will be ported, but again, people are saying time and time again that we will be getting AAA first-party single-player games based on this job listing alone, and yet, as you say, we do not know that.

People are setting themselves up for massive disappointment if they listen to people who have no idea themselves and run with what they are saying as if it is fact. We simply do not know that, which is what I have been saying all along...

@Fiendish-Beaver Microsoft wasn't forced to put Horizon on rival consoles when they made Lego dlc. Even Nintendo wasn't forced to put Lego City: Undercover game on other platforms when it released on WiiU. But Sony does 😆😆😆.
From what Guerilla Games said at the time. It sounds like it was a joint decision. So Sony was very much involved in the decision. That's why I said it's release should put this argument to bed. As it goes where it believes the most money is. Even if it puts other platforms priority over its own.

In all honesty, @HonestHick, I struggle to see Gabe giving Spencer a leg up because Spencer won't be there forever, and what reason does Valve have to help out a competitor? Plus, don't forget they are bringing out their own console that will directly rival the PCBox.

When people see what Steam has to offer when compared to the Xbox Store, they will simply use the PCBox as a means to play Steam and forget all about the Xbox Store. Plus let's not forget that you can buy gift cards from the likes of CDKeys that make purchases even cheaper on Steam than they are on the Xbox.

What I will say is that I think Microsoft are banking on people like you wanting to keep their library of games in one place, but I do not think they understand the desire to pay as little as possible for a game, and that is far more likely to be the case of Steam than it is on the Xbox, and every times that Microsoft attempt to match Steam prices, they are making still less than they would if they had a closed system. Lastly, one people start to buy games more cheaply on Steam, they will slowly (or quickly) just switch to buying all their games there. After all, third-party games are nearly always cheaper upon release on Steam than they are on the Xbox. People will soon begin to vote with their wallets, and once you have started to build that Steam library you may as well just continue to do so.

Unless you really care about your achievement score, then there really is not reason not to switch to Steam because they even have their own achievement system.

I think allowing Steam on to their platform will be a decision that Microsoft quickly come to regret...

I didn't say they were forced, @cragis0001. I said they may have been contractually obliged to do so, which, by the way, is precisely the same as may have been the case for any Lego game ever. Just because we do not hear about the contracts, does not mean they do, or do not, have such clauses...

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not sure why you're so keen to have a time-frame bud. No one can predict that accurately because it will depend on the sales of titles that come beforehand. It will be dictated by what games make sense, and whether there's a gap for it in the market on other storefronts.

@cragis0001 That's very true - and I'm all the way in for it. I think it'd be a wonderful addition myself. It opens up more ports, more avenues, and more possibilities.

@HonestHick It kinda reminds me of the days when people laughed at David Bowie when he called the Internet the biggest disruptor of information in a generation. When people laughed that Netflix would ever take off in a world dominated with cinemas & video stores. Now it's the thought that the trusted formula of games consoles is slowly being replaced.

@HonestHick that's it. Having a knowledge of how businesses work helps have an insight into there mindset. I asked a colleague who is self employed about anti trust regulation during the ABK merger & again recently with talk of Steam on Xbox.

I'm keen to have people state when they think the games are going to arrive because when you see people say Sony will be bringing their AAA single-player games over, they make it sound like it is imminent, @Kaloudz. I want to know what people consider to be imminent.

Personally, I think imminent is within the next 12 months, yet I'm being told 3 to 5 years maybe longer.

I mean, if your Doctor told you were going to die imminently, you be scared witless, but if he then told you that imminent meant 3 to 5 years, possibly longer, you bite his hand off!

My point is that people are talking in terms of it all having started now, and we'll have our hands on our games soon, yet when you try and pin them down about what soon is, they go all wishy-washy and just resort to. 'well, it will happen at some point!', which to my mind is way too vague...

@Fiendish-Beaver i agree with you. Anyone thinking it’s only live service or the floodgates are going to open is just setting themselves up to be disappointed. Hence my stance on it. We don’t know and the ones saying only live service has taken a hard stance on that. Which i get it, yes live service games tend to need players. So it makes sense. Guess what else needs players? $300 million dollar one and done single player games. They tend to forget that. Ask Square if they were happy to barely sell 3 million copies of FF rebirth. They are now going full 3rd party again and not doing exclusives and that ain’t a live service game. So in a nutshell that’s my take on it until we learn more. I have a PS5 as well so of course it don’t matter to me. But like yourself i may double dip a few just to have some on Xbox as well.

I understand you excitement for Steam, etc., @Kaloudz, but why, if that is the case, have you not already gone the PC route? And if it is a question of not wanting to pay so much money to enter PC gaming, what is your upper limit when it comes to paying for the PCBox...?

@Kaloudz that's the whole point of these laws. It's to benefit the consumer. It's also makes Microsoft fight for your cash so they will no longer get to be complacent at least when it comes to selling games on its next gen hardware. If the rumours are true that it's a hybrid PC.

@Fiendish-Beaver when it comes to Steam, as i said i would like to see and know more. But MS is very open about what store you want to collect from will be on Xbox and play anywhere is the goal. How that looks, i am excited to see and learn more.

As for Sony, they have said they are moving to gain more MAU’s. That’s the way MS said it in the beginning too. Then the job posting, before that leadership talking about being in more places than just their console. The reports are there if you want to read them. But again the breadcrumb trail is out now. Sony is looking to be in more places and i think it will serve them well.

I understand what you are saying regarding Rebirth, @HonestHick, but the game would have earned around £200 million in sales, and then there was whatever Sony gave them in addition, and SE are always known to set ridiculously high targets.

The difference though, is that when it comes to a Sony first-party exclusive is that Sony are using the games (and the likes of Rebirth) to attract people into their ecosystem. When it comes to Square Enix, they are not gaining anything by being locked into an enclosed ecosystem because they would without doubt sell more if they were multiplatform. Bringing people into Sony's ecosystem is not something SE are concerned about, so there really is not link between the aims of Sony and of SE because their aims are different, as for Sony it is more than just about the money the game itself makes...

@Fiendish-Beaver but why would Sony contractually sign a deal with one of its most successful new IPs to a kids toy company that they know would sell better on a rivals platform over its own?.
It's obvious to expand it to a new audience to make more money. That's why I'm surprised people are still sceptical of Sony's intent going forward.
It's like Sony intentionally made the deal to make a game that they thought would help make them a successful 3rd party publisher on the Nintendo Switch.

Play Anywhere is very niche, @HonestHick. Plus if you are interested in handhelds, no matter which one you get, Steam is on it (well, except for Nintendo!), so you can still have that portability for your library, but also buy you games more cheaply via Steam, so whilst I understand what you are thinking about Play Anywhere, the truth is that Steam are doing it too, and indeed, have more games linked to it...

Yet you just said it yourself, @cragis0001, Lego Horizons was always likely to sell best on the Nintendo, so it makes sense for Sony to put it there too, regardless of whether they were contractually obliged to do so.

You cannot fault a company for chasing the most possible sales, but Xbox, with it's inferior install-base makes it the last place you look to port your games if you are going to do it one platform at a time. And it is precisely why Microsoft are porting their first-party games to the PlayStation; they are doing so because they are not making enough money, via sales, on either the Xbox or the PC Storefronts mostly due to Game Pass. However, people are extrapolating from what they have seen Microsoft do, that Sony will do the same, and yet they are in two very different positions:

Microsoft have sold approximately 40% as many Series consoles as Sony have PS5s (meaning that the PlayStation user-base is much larger than that found on the Xbox).

Microsoft have had break-neck about turn in the way they approach things ever since Nadella took a close interest in Xbox following the ABK acquisition.

Xbox puts their first-party games on Game Pass, meaning they sell far fewer copies of their games than Sony do who do not put their games on their service day one. Added to which that a sizeable number of Xbox console sales will be to people who primarily game on a PlayStation, and who have bought an Xbox in order to access Game Pass (and in the process give Microsoft even less money than they otherwise would have done).

PS5 sales continue to grow. Xbox sales continue to fall.

Basically, the starting positions, and aims, for Sony and Microsoft are very different, meaning that they do not have to follow the same path...

@Fiendish-Beaver i don;t have any issues with steam. But i don’t have my collection there and i am not sure if i will ever truly game only on PC. Maybe… i have told myself a ton of times it’s the place to be. But I LOVE consoles and always have. Play anywhere is marketing for sure. But i do like that via Steam and Xbox those games can be played in more places. As to where on Sony it’s only good on their devices. Nothing wrong with that just less convenient. I am excited to learn more about next gen. I will make my decisions on that info when it’s out in the open. 😀

***** you very much PlayStation.

@cragis0001 Yeah I've read that too, and I'm all for it. The possibilities will be sky high if they have really gone that route and given their work as of late, I wouldn't be surprised.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not into PC gaming at all - in the sense that I'd have to mess about with settings and drivers etc... Now if the next Xbox has gone the route I think it has (having the ability to play Xbox PC games) I wont need to - I'd have the best of both worlds - especially if they have multiple storefront support.

Sadly I cant remedy how your mind works when it comes to trying to pull random dates out of random people. You're turning the discussion from "Sony will release on Xbox and other platforms" (which is huge news in and of itself) to "let's see when people think it will happen" which is just impossible to predict because it will be determined based on how well things sell to begin with.

The reason I am asking about when people think this will happen is because if you read what you and others are saying, @Kaloudz, and had no idea of what was happening, you would be completely forgiven in thinking that Sony were going to start releasing the AAA single-player games starting very soon. If not this year, then certainly within the next 12 months.

My view, that this is not about to happen, if being dismissed out of hand by pretty much everyone engaging in this conversation. Now, I'm not trying to say that Sony will never ever, ever do this, but I am saying that they are not moving in that direction just yet. I cannot see Sony doing this until two years into their next generation at the earliest, which as we are lead to believe that the PS6 won't appear until 2028/29, means that they won't do this until 2031/32 at the earliest (if they ever do). That is my assessment of the current events.

So, as everyone seems to assured that Sony are on that path, and it is only a matter of time, I am interested to see when they expect this to happen, as I struggle to believe that people such as yourself, who are so animated by what is happening, believe that the door has been opened, and that Sony will release their first first-party single-player game on the Xbox in 6 or 7 years time. How can you possibly be excited about something that is so far off if you actually believe that? Hence, because I don't believe that is what you are thinking, I am trying to establish what it is you think, but none of you seem willing to give me a definitive answer, and I don't understand why. I'm not expecting you to name the actual date, just the year when you think that first game will land, that's all.

My other question to you directly, is what is the most you will pay for the PCBox? That really interests me because at some point reality will step in, and we will know what we will be expected to pay, so I'm curious how much you would pay personally...?

I have no interest in Play Anywhere, or a handheld of any description, @HonestHick. To be honest, because I have a gaming PC already, I'm not fussed about having access to Steam on the next Xbox either. That said, I am interested to see how Microsoft go about the inclusion of Steam, whether it will be access to the full Steam library, or handled in much the same way as Steam verify games for their Steam Deck, meaning games will be given an Xbox verified label so that we know whether a particular game is playable on the PCBox.

I'm also interested to see how Microsoft deal with people choosing to buy their games more cheaply on the Steam Store, rather than on the Xbox Store, and whether their faith that people would rather have their games in their Xbox Library holds true (I don't think it will, and think that people will vote with their wallets, buying their games where they are cheapest). And then I am deeply curious to know how much longer Microsoft can expect to stay in the console business once the realisation sets in that the inclusion of Steam means their revenue from third-party sales plumets.

The only other thing that I want to know as soon as possible, is whether this PCBox is actually going to be built by Microsoft. I have the sneaking suspicion that it won't be, which then begs the question, has Microsoft left the console business if they are not the ones that are making their next generation of Xboxes...?

@Fiendish-Beaver yeah if i had a pc i wouldn’t much care about handhelds really either. As or steam being cheaper, thats really sort of a myth. New games for the most part are the same price on steam. They have big sales sure, but so does Xbox and PS. Where that came out is when console games would launch a year or two or even 3 years later on steam and the games were cheaper. I go on steam on my computer all the time to just look never buy and the whole notion that games are cheaper there 90% of time just isn’t true. It’s just another thing gamer grab ahold of cause they heard enough people say it online. As for the console MS is making a first party box, they’ve been working on it and AMD already announced its chip deal. It will be using UNDA which will allow for PC and console code to match, making it easier for devs and PS6 will use RDNA which is what we have now in both machines. Tho rumor has it Asus and other OEMS can make a Xbox pc/console as long as the specs are the same as the 1st party Xbox or higher, can’t be lower. Those OEM boxes will use the new Xbox Os. Which i am dying to see and know more about. So yeah that is already confirmed MS is making a console/PC. As for the OEMS and which ones. So far it’s rumored to be Asus in 2026 and the 1st party Xbox in 2027. I would like to see a powerful one made by Razer. That could be really high end and cool. I think Razer would do a good job of blending PC and Console together using high end design and specs. Wouldn’t be cheap would be my guess. Still a lot to uncover about next gen but it’s exciting as we are getting closer to it by the month. 😀

@Fiendish-Beaver i watched a video on YouTube explaining really well about what the future of Xbox and PS look like. I really liked it it was well done. The take aways that it said that i have been saying for a while now is the console wars are over it’s now the platform wars. Having the biggest MAU’s, keeping players in your games and spending money. Fortnite has really pushed this on the market. They make a billion dollars a quarter. To take that player base which is huge and get them to come play other games has proven to be hard. Then there COD and Minecraft and Roblox. Sony just released their statement saying 40% of their earnings were from live service games and they admit it’s gotten off to a rough start with concord and Marathon but they are well under way on solving that issue and working hard on a new set of live service ideas. Single player games will still be a thing for them but as we are seeing, it’s likely to remain just 1 a year. Maybe 2 if they do a deal with second party. Think Death Stranding. So i like this move for them. I am excited to play some of their games on a Xbox controller. If i am really needing to play some of their single player titles on day one, well i have a PS5 and will do that there. But i do think the future is not so much about how many consoles you are selling but how many players are buying and staying inside your games. Expanding that to all players. Making it easy to get into and play with others on different platforms. Exciting times. But for sure Sony has said it themselves, it’s about the platform now not the console as much and we know Xbox is now a platform not just a console like generations past. It’s going to take gamers time to understand these moves and get on board. They are still kicking and screaming online and threatening to go to PC, which i laugh cause MS wants them to do that. Yes please do sell your PS and get a PC, did we mention we have PC game pass? Haha

And that is the point, @HonestHick. That is what I am saying; expect to see each of Sony's Live Service games because that is a golden goose. It's a cash cow. The bigger the audience that you expose a Live Service game too, the bigger the revenue that comes in. 100% of the revenue on your own platform, is one thing, but add to that 70% from other platforms, including Xbox, and you are quite literally laughing all the way to the bank. It is why I think Sony are done with trying to keep a Live Service game on just the PlayStation, and the PC, because in doing so you are missing out on millions of potential paying customers. It is why Sony greenlit so many titles, albeit there are only a few of them left now (two that I can name, but I pretty sure there are others in production right now).

Live Service I totally expect Sony to give us, and I expect them to give it to us day one from here on out because you risk losing the hype surrounding a title by keeping it off a platform for 12 months or more. I mean, Helldivers may do okay on the Xbox, but it would have done a heck of a lot better had it released at the same time as the PlayStation and PC versions, but Sony had the single-player mentality of 'must keep it off Xbox' when they released that game, and now have a better understanding of how Live Service lives or dies...

Sorry to burst your bubble, @HonestHick. I used Steam for about 10 years, and I can categorically tell you that it is not a myth that games are cheaper there, even upon first release. An Xbox title will cost the same on the PlayStation, Xbox and Steam, as will a PlayStation title on the PlayStation and Steam. However, third-party games are more often than not cheaper by around £10.

I had a quick look at the biggest future releases and found this, as an example available for pre-order:

Octopath Traveller 0 - £50 on the Xbox - £40 on Steam
Borderlands 4 - £70 on the Xbox - £60 on Steam
Dying Light: The Beast - £60 on the Xbox - £50 on Steam

It's not true of every release but probably 50%. Add to that that you can get gift cards on places like CDKeys.com, which take a little more off for a Steam card than they do for the Xbox gift card, meaning you can save a little bit more on your purchase.

And then of course, there are way, way more games to be found on Steam than on the Xbox Store, and when it comes to the sales, Steam knocks more money off than is knocked off in an Xbox sale.

As for Microsoft making the next console, I'll wait and see when it comes to that. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Microsoft enter into deals with companies such as AMD to buy their chips more cheaply so that a third-party company can keep down the costs of making a machine, as Microsoft have far greater buying power than pretty much anyone out there, and it is in the interests of Microsoft to keep the cost of the PCBox as low as possible because left to a third-party company, with more limited buying power, the price of the PCBox could become completely unpalatable. Do I think Microsoft will make it themselves? I'm probably 60/40 that they will, but I think it is far from a dead cert...

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm going to side-step the whole debate about when Sony will bring them over because we know that it will happen - which is big enough news in itself, and I cant offer any specifics on the "when" lol, because I'm not Mystic Meg.

How much I will I pay? Well I don't think we will get the same option next gen that we got this gen (two consoles - one budget and one not). I think we will get two versions of the same machine - one with a disk drive and one without - same specs.

How much I'm willing to pay will probably sit between the 400-550 range.

So you won't be upgrading then, @Kaloudz...! 😉

I think you are wrong on both counts regarding the console itself; I think it will be one option only, which is to say digital only. Secondly, I think we are easily looking at £800+. It simply isn't possible to get the 'feature rich' PCBox you are talking about at £550 or less, and even if Microsoft are willing to swallow some of the costs (which I don't think they will in the future because I don't think Nadella will agree to it), I really cannot see Microsoft being willing to swallow £200+ to keep it at £550.

Sidestepping the issue regarding when Sony will bring the games over is probably in your interest too, as I really cannot see them doing it this generation, and probably not until two years or so after the release of the PS6, if they do it at all...

Would you do me a favour, please, @TrollOfWar? I'm trying to work out how you do the highlighting as you did at comment 70, but for the life of me, I cannot work it out. Would you mind telling me, please...?

@Fiendish-Beaver Of course, it's a pleasure. I'm using the so called "BB Code" (Bulletin Board Code). There are special tags placed in square-brackets [ ] which can be used for different things. You can find more details here: https://www.bbcode.org/reference.php

So here the common examples which I use, just replace "< >" with "[ ]":

Quote
<quote>Someone might have said something</quote>
Looks like this:

Someone might have said something

Named Quote
<quote=TrollOfWar>I am being falsely quoted, I never said this.</quote>
Looks like this:

Bold/Strong
The point I am trying to make is <b> important</b>
Looks like this:
The point I am trying to make is important

Link-Text
Do not <url=https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ>click here!</url>
Looks like this:
Do not click here!

Spoiler
Spoiler Alert: <spoiler>big revelation</spoiler>
Looks like this:
Spoiler Alert: All 3 endings in Mass Effect 3 don't matter, you're basically just choosing a color.

Image
<img>https://i.imgur.com/ZT9bqbh.jpeg</img>
Looks like this:

Hope this helps. 😘

@Fiendish-Beaver for sure we will see live service games on Xbox from Sony, I’ve been saying that for over a year now. That’s just a no brainer. I do think we will see some single player titles as well. In my opinion a good one to start with would be Returnal. Sure it might only sell 400-500k on Xbox, but at say $60, that would be some nice money for Sony and that team. Not like that game coming to Xbox is going to hurt anything. But yeah if Sony ever get’s another live service game really doing well. They have to be on all platforms. It would be nice to see them revisit Killzone and bring that to Xbox. It could do well there as well. Time will tell. I am interested in learning more about it.

@Fiendish-Beaver yeah i am look at Steam right now on my Mac and sure enough a lot of these newer games are priced lower. Like you shown. Which makes sense as PC has more storefronts to compete with. When i last priced check games on Steam it was older games i would want to own if i built a PC, so Red Dead, Diablo etc and the prices were the same as Xbox and i was like what’s all the excitement for. Steam is really really good. If i had a PC i am sure i would use it some. Will be very interesting to see how it exist on the next Xbox/PC box. Heck maybe i should get all my games there in case i do decide to switch to PC and just use Steam. Still not sure about Steam making a console, seems rumors have started to show they aren’t going forward but of course the Steam Deck 2. Which Gabe has said he wants a big level of boost performance before they would consider Steam Deck 2. I wonder how long a wait that is?

@Kaloudz I hope it improves pricing of games to be fair. As Steam is dirt cheap with great offers. So Microsoft will have to respond to compete if Steam becomes a reality.

@Fiendish-Beaver You could be right, it could very well be two years into next gen before we see anything - especially if the job listing is hiring for work yet to begin (on ports) but the question is no longer a case of if, but when. Sony's intent is clear right now - which is big news. Questioning when something will come over is irrelevant because we know that their plan is to multiplat to some degree.

As for the cost of next gen, I think we're looking at a price factor of £550. Perhaps at an absolute push, £600.

@Kaloudz it will be interesting to see how Microsoft implement it. If they can also pull it off. As Microsoft tend to have grand ideas then fall at the final hurdle. If you know the later part the Universal Windows Platform life cycle. Then you will know what I'm talking about.

@cragis0001 Mate the pricing of games is a must. I totally agree. I also hope it gives us some better returns options for games that are digital. Nothing worse than playing a broken game on Xbox that you cant return simply because you loaded it up. And yes you're absolutely right. MS have excellent vision, but sometimes they fall short on delivery (even just in the console space we can see how much this is true - Mixer, Kinect, etc...) They have to nail it, like you said.

@cragis0001

As Microsoft tend to have grand ideas then fall at the final hurdle.

That's why I am currently optimistically skeptical about the current situation. The promise of an open Xbox platform, with Steam/Epic/GOG Store integrations and the end of console exclusives sounds very intriguing. But as we often saw with Microsoft, they either mess up the message, or the implementation, or shift their strategy midway. 😄

Wow, @TrollOfWar! Man that was super helpful. I don't think anyone has ever gone to such effort to help me out and explain things on these forums, and I've been a member here for over 10 years. Mate, I am so grateful to you. I spent almost an hour trying to work this out last night before I ended up asking you.

I think my problem stems from using [ ] rather than < > because I tried 'quote' the way I usually do it, but it doesn't work. Now I'll be like a pro on these forums.

Thank you. Sincerely... 😊👍

Funny thing is, @HonestHick, of all the games I considered that Sony might bring over, and why, Returnal was the first game that came to mind because it is a one off game, not part of a current, or potentially current, franchise, and it is not a system seller.

I don't think God of War because it is a system seller, and they are currently making another one (and maybe remastering / remaking older ones), and of course they are currently making a television series, which will draw people to the PlayStation.

Not The Last of Us because whilst they are not currently making another game, they may do so at some point, and it is a system seller with a successful television series linked to it that brings attention to the platform where it releases first.

Not Uncharted because I think they will return to the franchise fairly soon, plus their is a sequel to the first film being made at the moment, and that means if you are a fan of the film, and want to play the games, then for much of the franchise, you can only do that on the PlayStation.

I don't think they'll port the Horizon games because it is an active franchise that also has films and television involved, which will draw attention to the PlayStation. They are system sellers too.

I also don't see the Ghost games coming over for much the same reason. They are part of an active franchise of system sellers, the likes of which you cannot experience of the Xbox. There is a film of the first game in production, which brings attention to the PlayStation. Sony would not want similar attention to fall on the Xbox.

I don't think they would release Bloodborne or Demon Souls on the Xbox (though out of the two, if they did it would be DS), mostly because, certainly in the case of Bloodborne, the fanbase would go into meltdown. The games are super popular on the PlayStation, and both are reasons to buy a PlayStation. I just don't see Sony wanting to port these games to the Xbox.

So, I don't just say, 'they won't port their games' without giving it any thought, and I, like everyone else, have no idea really what Sony will do, and so could just as easily be completely wrong. I just feel that peoples excitement is currently misplaced.

However, yes, if Sony are going to bring a single-player game over, I feel it would be Returnal, though I personally, I would describe it as AAA, not AAA. I did very much enjoy it though, and think it would do well on the Xbox...

@Fiendish-Beaver No problem. So the correct way is to use the [ ] brackets. I had to use < > (which is wrong) to provide sample code, as the tags "pre" and "code" still applied the formating when trying to use [ ].

Thank you, @TrollOfWar. I was so chuffed with what you had written, that I clearly glossed over that part! 😂

@Fiendish-Beaver I only used the word forced. As that's the term that gets thrown about when it's generally mentioned that Sony has put games like MLB the Show & Lego Horizon Adventures on other formats.

@Kaloudz Having more competition would help in every aspect of the next gen Xbox. Better pricing for games in the Xbox store. Cheaper access to be online. Games Pass would still get decent games as it have increased competition etc. I'm sure there would be more benefits but I'm not long woken. Not enough coffee yet lol. As for a better returns policy. I would recommend you put a complaint into your local government consumer regulator. As if we all did it rather than just moan on the Internet. They'd be investigated. It's not perfect system!!! But Microsoft tends to jump quicker than the others.

@TrollOfWar I agree 100% I've been stung a few times believing in there grand visions. Just for it to be either scrapped or severely reduced in scale to the point the boat has sailed long before the product releases.
I think what they are doing with the Xbox PC app in preparation for the Xbox Asus Rog Ally is a hint of how the software is going to work with integration. Microsoft is also working hard to get games on the Windows Store also. But it will be interesting if Steam, GoG & others turn up in the Windows Store. As the Epic launcher is already in the store.
But or me it needs to be native. As if it's a case that Steam software is emulated or cloud based mostly in nature. It's a no for me.

@cragis0001 More games in Game Pass would be an interesting shout. Especially if they are indeed opening themselves to more storefronts next gen, and if the next Xbox really does play these games across multiple storefronts - streaming or natively - it's an interesting prospect to think about what might hit Game Pass through those other storefronts.

Haha, not had a hit of caffeine myself yet. I know the feeling. As for complaining to the gov, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I hear Steam has like a few hours worth of buffer - like, you can play the game and return it if you've only played an X amount of time. Something like that would be great.

If I remember correctly, @Kaloudz, from when I used to use Steam, you have a two hour period of play in which to try a game out, and return it if you are not happy...

@Fiendish-Beaver you keep talking about contractual obligations? I still don't see why Sony would allow a similar situation to MLB with one of its own IP. Sony was vocal that it was MLB that called for it to be a multiplatform title. It makes no sense that Sony would allow Lego to hold Horizon hostage. If anything I'd say it gives Sony more leverage.
As for Xbox. Your looking at it in 2D. Yes it may be the smallest as a console provider with 30 million customers. But as a platform provider where the console is but a small part of the strategy. Then Xbox is already beating PlayStation. As Sony is aware of its potential growth from it's own investor call. As the expansion to any online/Bluetooth device has begun with smart TVs, Amazon Firesticks. Games Pass is readily available via cloud. There are hundreds of games that can be purchased via the Xbox store that can be streamed today. With a full roll out is meant to be later this year. So Xbox is possibly the cheapest place to play GTA6 next year. As you may not need a console to play it. Just the game via the Xbox store plus a controller to play on the device of their choice. That's why Sony is porting games to Xbox. As that alone could shift millions more copies.

@Kaloudz if it's a hybrid PC. I bet PlayStation will port it's app so you can stream Playstation+. You'll have Nvidia GeForce Now plus others. So like Store fronts I'd suspect that Microsoft would have to step up.
Each regulator will have contact info on their website. I need at least 2 caffeine hits before I wake from homosapien to human 😆
As for refunds. I see it being the next big area of regulator scrutiny. As I'm sure Sony is in trouble in a few countries for it's no return policy.

I only said it could be a contractual obligation, @cragis0001, and it does need to be remembered that all contracts are different, and come with different stipulations and obligations. Your work contract, which covers your pay, the hours you work, your meal breaks, holidays, and overtime, etc., will have been different that mine, yet we will both have had variations on tis in our contracts. The point being that Lego could have insisted upon it being put on the PC, Nintendo and PlayStation, or it may simply have been that Sony decided that is what they wanted to do. I have no idea. However, just because MLB insisted on being released on the Xbox, it doesn't mean the same for Lego, nor does it mean it could not have been. We simply do not know.

Also, as I said, the game is licenced, meaning that Sony have to pay for the privilege of having the game, so porting it to as many platforms as possible makes total sense because they have to pay for the licence regardless. Whether it is a percentage of all sales, or a set fee regardless of sales, I have no idea, but whatever the deal they signed, Sony take less profit from a licenced game, and in the case of Horizon, it really doesn't help that the game was received poorly...

@cragis0001 That's one thing I'm very curious about. Will we see an age where PS Plus or Game Pass are on multiple platforms? If so, it then becomes a race to see who sells the most subscriptions, surely? I'd be surprised if we don't see regulator intervention again within the next ten years.

@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah that would be more ideal for me. That, or being able to return a clearly game breaking bug (as was my case with Mafia).

@Kaloudz I can see PlayStation porting PlayStation+ everywhere. Specially now that it's looking at being a platform. So expect an Xbox style push to cloud, mobile, smart TV, Fire sticks & next gen Xbox etc. I'm surprised there hasn't been regulator scrutiny. As something basic as a refund should be a must in this modern age.

@cragis0001 Yeah that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. In question of regulation, I do wonder if streaming services / game apps (such as GP / PS Plus) will ever come under scrutiny either. Especially if one day we see them crossing platforms. I'd imagine to MS, having Game Pass on PS would be pretty huge.

@Fiendish-Beaver I could imagine Sony is very protective of the Horizon IP due to its value. As the Tencent lawsuit proves. But to be fair letting Tencent make a Horizon title for the Asian market would be a gold mine for both companies. More so than the Lego deal. But I'm sure the reason for not allowing it is the background details that we never get told about.
But my point still stands from earlier though. As the evidence points to that Lego has never pushed for a multiplatform release when it does deals with console holders. As Forza Horizon had stand alone Lego dlc which never released outside Xbox & PC. Then you have the Nintendo WiiU which sold miserably. But it didn't force a multiplatform release of Lego City Undercover. So to me I'd suspect it was all Sony. As the absence of an Xbox port is another indicator that Sony has full control of where it released.

@Kaloudz If Sony published the PlayStation app as a progressive web app (PWA). Then we could play PlayStation Plus content on the current Xbox series via the edge browser. I will check to see if it's already possible.

@cragis0001 Curious, is that true the other way round? GP on PS browser? Or is that ironically blocked?...

@Kaloudz PlayStation got rid of the web browser a while ago. But it looks like it's just the standard PlayStation website through Edge on Xbox. I can't see Sony allowing Games Pass even via cloud.

@cragis0001 No me either, but I do think next gen will be one that either moves a lot of the barriers, or removes some. I could be wrong but given all the changes in the industry we've seen as of late, I do think next gen will be very different to what came before.

@Kaloudz next gen could be great. As it could be the first time where if you pick either an Xbox or PlayStation. You may not need to worry of buying the other to not miss out on a wide variety of games. But the downside each console could cost the same as both ATM.

@cragis0001 I agree. I think they're either looking at (or have found) a better way to make money moving to next gen, or at least have an idea of how to achieve financial success without being tethered to rules and boundaries that have been set in stone since the 90s.

@Kaloudz I'm looking forward to seeing how nicely Microsoft & Sony act towards each other in the future. Now that both are 3rd party partners to each others eco system.

@HonestHick couldn;t agree more. Once I get that xbox ally x to go along with my series x I'll have MORE than enough games to play for a lifetime.

@cragis0001 Same. One question will be; will the toxicity between the fanbases ever die down? Lol.

@J_Mo_Money agreed, the older i get the more i buy less games but play the same few games for way more time and buy skins and maps etc etc. i have over 1000 hours into Diablo 4 and easily do more than that with Gears of War and Red Dead Redemption. But when i do want to try new games. There is a ton on Xbox and PC. Plus i do have a PS5 and Switch 2. Tho i only play a few 1st party games on each. I will say tho, i took a chance on Donkey Kong Bananza and it is INSANELY FUN. I am loving it and it was worth the $70. Good luck on getting the handheld. Happy to see you support it and having fun. Thats what maters in the end. 😀

@Kaloudz I'm sure they'll find something to fight about. Considering it's the platform wars now lol.

@HonestHick Indeed. Having xbox play anywhere and all those other storefronts on there (which admittedly the Steam Deck didn't have, loved that thing but it being a little underpowered and no native game pass ect hurt it) I cant wait to have all that flexibility

@J_Mo_Money i know what you mean. Call me crazy, but i just never had any interest in buying a Steam Deck. I know Steam as a storefront is great and i have respect for it. But their hardware and controllers do nothing for me. But i am excited to see what MS and Sony do with their handhelds. Plus i am enjoying my Switch 2. Donkey Kong Bananza is just a master class of fun.