Questionable_Duck

@GuyinPA75 You think the game was cancelled because of Game Pass, when it almost certainly would have been a multi-platform title?

@AverageGamer Microsoft was willing to invest in long-term business strategies in the early 2000s. The original Xbox made zero profit, and yet, Microsoft invested in it because they knew, if they could build a reputation with gamers, they could have great success in the long run. And they were right. The Xbox 360 was a massive hit, and it wouldn't have existed if Microsoft didn't invest in the original Xbox.

The Microsoft of today, however, the one run by Satya Nadella, would never do anything like the original Xbox. Satya and the Microsoft shareholders clearly only care about one thing: how to make as much money as fast as possible. They don't like long-term business strategies, hence why they immediately pivoted and went full third-party after the ABK deal instead of letting things play out as initially intended.

If Game Pass was this big money pit for Microsoft, I don't think Satya would let it remain intact for eight years. Game Pass hasn't been growing fast enough, however, which is why Microsoft has sort of deprioritized it in favor of multiplatform initiatives. I still think it's profitable, though, since they're still letting Game Pass exist. If Game Pass was really the cause of all these devastating layoffs and studio closures, then Microsoft would have no qualms in axing the service and walking back its day-one release promises. As Project Latitude has showed us, they don't really care about building trust with consumers or caring about what they think.

@Fiendish-Beaver Well, that could be part of the reason (specifically when it comes to CoD), but I'm pretty sure the primary reason to acquire ABK was because of King. Microsoft wanted to make a major leap into the mobile gaming market, and acquiring Candy Crush was their best bet. Phil Spencer even said so himself. Putting ABK games on Game Pass was more like the bonus thing on the side.

Now, I know Phil's statements often age poorly in hindsight, but I don't see why he would lie about the primary reason as to why they would buy ABK.

@Fiendish-Beaver "I really fail to understand how people can honestly believe that Game Pass is sustainable when the evidence that it is not is so plain for everyone to see (and apparently ignore)..."

I could say the same to you, because, if you noticed, Microsoft only started porting games to PlayStation after they spent $70 billion dollars on ABK, not after they introduced Game Pass. Surely, the more logical conclusion would be to think they went multiplatform because of that acquisition, and not due to Game Pass's supposed unsustainability?

@Ooccoo_Jr So let me get this straight... You're using Pure Xbox headlines to determine how many Xbox gamers care about Game Pass, and whether they buy games or not?

Not every single game on Xbox is on Game Pass. Game Pass only covers a tiny fraction of the Xbox library, and most games never come to the service. It's absurd to think that Xbox gamers don't buy games at all, and only play stuff on Game Pass. If that were really true, then no publisher would bother to bring their games to the platform. Heck, that's why we're now seeing Sony bring their games to Xbox, starting with Helldivers 2, because they know Xbox gamers do buy games.

Yes, the games being cancelled is absolutely a failure of management, but didn't you just imply that these studio closures/game cancellations were because of Game Pass?

@Ooccoo_Jr As I said in another thread, you really think Game Pass is the sole purpose of the cancellations, studio closures, and redundancies, but not the more obvious reasons, like the fact that Microsoft just spent $70 billion on ABK and is planning to spend $80 billion on generative AI? Or the fact that The Initiative, Zenimax Online, and Rare spent 7+ years on video games that're nowhere close to being finished?

I can assure you most of these people would have been laid off even if Game Pass didn't exist. This is why we are seeing mass layoffs across the entire industry the last few years.

Microsoft overhired during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the big tech boom, but now that the tech industry is no longer growing, they are laying off thousands of people.

@abe_hikura Agreed. Game Pass may not be beneficial for all games, but it's laughable to claim that it is somehow responsible for these mass layoffs and studio closures, and not - as you pointed out - Microsoft's incessant AI obsessions or developers taking forever to put out a game (Perfect Dark, Everwild, etc.).

@Ooccoo_Jr "This is why Xbox is closing studios" Last I checked, most of the games Xbox has released lately are all on PlayStation and/or Nintendo consoles, and you think Game Pass and Xbox players are to blame for these studios being closed? Maybe PlayStation players should have bought the games more.

I am willing to bet you a million dollars that Microsoft would have still laid off thousands of employees and shut down studios if Game Pass existed or not.

The reason Microsoft is laying so many people off is because of $80 billion AI investments and $70 billion gaming acquisitions. The reason Microsoft cancelled Everwild, Perfect Dark, and the Zenimax MMO is because they took 7+ years to make and were nowhere close to being finished. None of this has to do with Game Pass. You'd think if Game Pass was the root of all the industry's problems, then no company other than Microsoft would be laying off hundreds of employees and shutting down studios.

@FatalBubbles I was exaggerating there tbh, it probably doesn't cost millions of dollars, but it most likely costs at least a million to do a pc port

@Agamembar $80 games will do more damage to the industry than Game Pass ever will

If Game Pass was unsustainable, Microsoft would have axed it years ago. There's no way you could seriously expect the Microsoft of today - a company who immediately cuts support for stuff that doesn't make profit immediately - to burn endless cash on a unprofitable subscription service for 8 years.

Game Pass is profitable, and it is sustainable. The problem is, it isn't growing at a fast-enough rate that Microsoft would like it to. Hence the price increases.

I also do kind of find it funny how Colantonio seems to pin the entire industry's issues on Game Pass, in spite of the fact that a subscription service that's exclusive to the smallest platform in the industry is not gonna have that big of an impact on the viability of games.

@themightyant The Switch 2 is better than the Series S in some respects, but there are some games on the Series S that probably wouldn't be able to run well on the Switch 2, like FF16 or GTA 6.

I also think Death Stranding 2 could be ported to the Series S, but not the Switch 2.

@Kienda Yep, Fire Emblem and Pokemon are as much of a first-party title as Helldivers 2 is. Nintendo doesn't own the companies who make the Fire Emblem and Pokemon games, yet no one considers them as third-party exclusives. Helldivers 2 is no different, since Sony owns the rights to Helldivers.

@AverageGamer I think Phil Spencer said a few years ago that Microsoft was developing their own Xbox exclusive Japanese games. He may have been referring to Hi-Fi Rush and OD.

@betterthings You're right, I do think it's probably easier to port games to Xbox when they're already available on PC, but it doesn't change that Sony invested money into this and got one of their own first-party studios, Nixxes, some Xbox dev kits to make an Xbox port.

Many game studios have not said that it doesn't make sense to port games to Xbox without a Game Pass deal, only a few. I could probably count on one hand how many studios actually said that.

A handful of game studios have said that Game Pass has been great for their games, as well, so there's that to keep in mind.

Either way, the proof is in the pudding. You don't need dev statements to determine if it's worth porting games to Xbox or not, you just need to look at their actions. The large majority of devs have continued porting their games to Xbox, without any day-one Game Pass deals whatsoever. If this was a sentiment held by most of the industry, then there would be very few non-Game Pass games on Xbox.

You're also right about Sony targeting the whales on Xbox with Helldivers 2. Good live service games tend to do pretty well on Xbox, and most GAAS titles make most of their profit from MTX. In Helldivers 2's case, though, I imagine raw sales have also played a big role in the game's overall revenue streams.

@NishimuraX Helldivers 2 a third-party title? I saw PlayStation fans saying just a few days ago that it was a first-party game! Crazy how opinions change so quickly.

Helldivers 2 is not a third-party title, it's a first-party one (technically, second-party, but no one uses that term.) Sony may not own Arrowhead, but they own the Helldivers IP and have full control on what platforms Helldivers 2 releases on.

Need I remind you that Arrowhead themselves said that it isn't up to them to port Helldivers 2 to Xbox, but rather Sony?

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2024/10/helldivers-2-dev-says-xbox-version-isnt-up-to-us-but-it-could-happen

This is literally no different than any other Sony first-party game coming to Xbox, because Sony willingly made the decision to bring it to the platform. No MLB-type contracts, no IP ownership changes, no excuses.

Perhaps it is, you, my friend, that is living in the make-believe world since, as I said before, Sony doesn't agree with you.

@johnedwin The Lego Horizon game was just bad, it didn't sell well on any platform I think, not even PlayStation. Helldivers 2 is at least a good game, so it does have a better chance at being successful. I bet Helldivers 2 would do really well on Switch 2

@TheGameThrifter Anecdotal evidence is not reliable evidence. If there wasn't a large contigent of people buying games on the platform, then most publishers wouldn't port most of their games to Xbox. In fact, since the introduction of Game Pass, third-party support on Xbox has improved, not declined.

Sales of games will always be better on PlayStation because they are the dominant platform. Just because only 10% of a game's sales are on Xbox doesn't mean the Xbox port isn't profitable.

I agree that there are a bunch of developers who still aren't supporting Xbox to this day, like Falcom, NIS, Aksys Games, etc., but these companies have never supported Xbox, not even during the 360 era. So at least we can say that Game Pass isn't responsible for their games skipping the platform. Most likely it's because there aren't enough Japanese Xbox gamers.

@NishimuraX That's exactly why Sony decided to invest millions of dollars into an Xbox port, because they know for a fact no one buys games on Xbox. Clearly they disagree with you.

Sony has direct information about the sales and performance of titles like MLB The Show and Destiny 2 on Xbox. If these games had done terribly on the platform, I imagine Sony wouldn't bother porting Helldivers 2 to Xbox.

I wonder if people will keep up this charade about no one buying games on Xbox when Sony, in fact, ports another game to Xbox consoles.

@NishimuraX The Series S port of Street Fighter 6 is notoriously terrible. Capcom basically used the PS4 version for the Series S.

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't know, man. There were plenty of people who were saying similar things to what you said when Sony ported Horizon: Zero Dawn to PC. I distinctly recall that there were several ppl claiming it wasn't a sign that Sony's strategy was shifting, and many people refused to believe the rumors that God of War was coming to PC next.

Never say never, I say. Helldivers 2 coming to Xbox shows that pretty much anything is possible at this point.

@IOI Tbf, the same could be said for half the franchises Nintendo and Sony own, as well

@SeaDaVie Maybe they could give the game to Crystal Dynamics and let them finish it, they were working on most of the game anyways

@Kaloudz Agreed, we need as many Xbox players buying this game as possible to encourage Sony to port more of its back catalog to Xbox, even if it's only the live service games

@TheGameThrifter Not really, if that were the case no publisher would bother to bring their games to Xbox without a Game Pass deal. But clearly, since the overwhelming majority of games on Xbox do not come to Game Pass, there is much incentive to continue supporting the platform.

And a multiplayer co-op shooter like Helldivers 2 is pretty much the perfect game for an Xbox audience

@Balaam_ Helldivers 2 doesn't have a dwindling player count, though? In fact, according to SteamDB, the game has more concurrent players on Steam right now (50,000+, to be exact) than it did in July 2024 (40,000+). That is not at all the sign of a dying game, and this isn't even including PlayStation players.

You claiming that Sony willingly publishing a game on Xbox for the first time in the company's history is somehow NOT a "shift in strategy" is about as believable as Phil Spencer saying "our exclusive strategy has not changed" after porting four games to PlayStation/Nintendo.

I trust you will have a very reasonable reaction if Sony ever decides to port a single-player game to Xbox. Just because they're not bringing God of War to Xbox right away doesn't mean it's not a shift in strategy, it very much is.

It's unlikely they would cancel it, just due to the fact that it's a Kojima game.

Microsoft execs are so obsessed with AI that they can't stop using AI in even the most basic situations

That Shawn Layden article at the bottom makes me wonder what he would have to say about Sony putting Helldivers 2 on Xbox.

I distinctly recall Layden saying that Sony has no incentive to port games to Xbox. Turns out he was wrong lol.

@Medic_alert I think it's clear that Forza Motorsport will be Xbox's Gran Turismo 7. In that, in spite of the multiplatform pivots of both Xbox and PlayStation, these games will conspicuously remain exclusive to their respective consoles forever and will never get ported.

Gran Turismo 7 should be on PC by now, but it seems like the port has been cancelled for unknown reasons.

Likewise, Forza Motorsport should be on PlayStation by now, but since the game wasn't that well-received and it probably won't sell that well on PlayStation, Microsoft probably isn't going to invest in a PS5 port for the game.

@WildConcept6 it's because Microsoft was going hard on exclusivity at the time and they wanted to ensure that the Xbox Series X was the best place to play Psychonauts 2. Hence why they didn't make a PS5 version. They did the same thing with Hellblade 1, up until recently.

The only reason Microsoft released the game on PS4 is because a PlayStation 4 version of the game was partially crowdfunded. It would kind of be a jerk move to cancel a port of a game that people paid money for, so they didn't do that. Otherwise, Psychonauts 2 would have been Xbox exclusive.

@Tasuki Fortunately, Helldivers 1 is completely unrelated to Helldivers 2 story-wise, so you won't be missing out on anything when it comes to the series' plot. It's also a pretty different game, too. Helldivers 1 is more of an indie game.

@Fiendish-Beaver I see, sorry for not fully understanding your point. In that sense, I do agree with you. I don't think we will see God of War, Intergalactic, or The Last of Us hit Xbox soon.

@Fiendish-Beaver I may have said this in a previous comment, so sorry if I'm repeating myself, but Arrowhead already confirmed that their next game will not be published by Sony. So unless Sony signs a timed exclusivity deal for it, which I doubt, there isn't really much of a reason for Sony to concede to Arrowhead.

I think this is a strategic shift in the sense that you will see all of Sony's successful live service games come to Xbox eventually. And maybe the Bandai Namco-published Sony games will come to Xbox someday, too.

But I don't expect Sony to release all of their games on Xbox day-one or something like that. And, I'm not expecting to wake up one day to see God of War on my Xbox.

@Ricky-Spanish You're right, the Microsoft employees still lost their jobs, so that definitely still sucks. But from a Xbox player standpoint, we may have lost Perfect Dark and Everwild, but at least we're getting Helldivers 2 on Xbox.

And yes, I prefer being called a duck, thank you very much lol.

@IOI I agree with you in a sense, since I don't expect Sony to start porting God of War to Xbox next year or something.

However, I still think this is a strategic shift from Sony since going forward, I expect all of Sony's live service games to come to Xbox eventually, unless they flop on PlayStation.

But yeah, this is definitely great news. Thank you for being respectful, sorry if I was being too confrontational.

@IOI Also, this is nothing like MLB: The Show because Sony doesn't own the MLB IP and they were forced into putting it on other consoles.

Helldivers 2, on the other hand, is entirely a Sony decision. Sony owns the Helldivers 2 IP and they have complete say over what platforms they can port it to.

@Fiendish-Beaver Arrowhead actually confirmed a few weeks ago that Sony is not involved with their next game at all

@IOI If I told you yesterday that Helldivers 2 would come to Xbox, you would call me insane.

The people who claim that this isn't indicative of a strategic shift from Sony are also probably the people who claimed that Xbox was gonna stop at "just four games."

It's worth noting that, last year, Sony rebranded its PlayStation publishing brand on PC to "PlayStation PC" to "PlayStation Publishing LLC." Interestingly, this is the exact same brand name used for Helldivers 2 and Lego Horizon on Xbox.

Sony is clearly going to port some of their games to more platforms, and Helldivers 2 definitely will not be the last game Sony will publish on Xbox.

After what was a disastrous day for Xbox, Sony literally swooped in to save the day for Xbox fans lol

@dskatter Right lol!

@Balaam_ Bro, if I told you literally yesterday that Helldivers 2 would come to Xbox, you would call me delusional.

I trust you won't act the same way when more Sony first-party games come to Xbox?

Sony putting other titles on Xbox is a matter of when, not if. If you seriously think that multiplatform ISN'T the way that the industry is headed, then I assume you believed Phil Spencer when he said "it's just four games."

@IOI Yes, but you should very much expect to see other live service Sony games like Marvel Tokon on Xbox eventually.

@WildConcept6 The only publisher that isn't pursuing a multiplatform strategy is Nintendo and that's it.

@RagnarLothbrok It's so strange because Sony refuses to let even Everybody's Golf, Lego Horizon, or Patapon come to Xbox, even though they're multiplatform. Also the Ape Escape mode in MGS Delta is not on Xbox.

And yet in spite of that, they do this.

@Ribbitsneed So weird that Sony is bringing Helldivers 2 to Xbox but refuses to let Patapon or Everybody's Golf come to the platform

@dskatter Fortunately, this aged poorly

@NishimuraX I've definitely never said that. I think the claim that the Series S holds games back is nonsense. Only two games in the last five years have ever been delayed because of the Series S. Granted, they're notable games, but still.

It's perfectly fine if you prefer playing games on a beefy PC, though. If I wasn't broke and had a bunch of money to spend, I would probably buy a $1000 gaming PC, too. But right now, I'm perfectly fine sticking with the budget options, like the Series S. There's no way I'd be able to get a gaming rig for $250, which is what I got my Series S for.

@NishimuraX $1300 for a PC is still way more than a $300 Xbox Series S lol. I don't care about power, I'd rather take the competent but more affordable option.

@BacklogBrad Actually, Sony isn't giving up on live service games despite the apparent failure of Concord, The Last of Us Online, Fairgames, and Marathon. They're still doubling down on it, with Marvel Tokon and other games in the wings. They also just made two new studios that are working on live service games.

And while I agree in the sense that companies should pivot from a business plan if it's not working, the problem is Microsoft has failed spectacularly at employing the traditional console business plan properly. In the last decade, Microsoft has released a bunch of good games, but not a single blockbuster AAA system-selling Xbox exclusive. Unlike Sony and Nintendo, they've also done a terrible job at marketing their consoles across Europe and Asia, and to a lesser extent the entire world. They also haven't done a good job at explaining what Game Pass is to consumers.

You can't claim that a business plan doesn't work if you don't try it properly.