Questionable_Duck

@AdamNovice It isn't really taken out of context. The quote here is specifically referring to gaming. It says so right there: "In the gaming business."

Just because the overall quote was talking about Sony as a whole, it doesn't mean that specific part of the quote I posted wasn't referring to PlayStation or gaming.

@tho_mi Jason Schreier has confirmed that OD is still in development at Xbox

@Kaloudz By the way, did you see that Sony said that they're moving away from a hardware focused business model to a platform one, like Microsoft is?

“In the gaming business, we are moving away from a hardware centric business model more to a platform business that expands the community and increases engagement.” - Sadahiko Hayakawa

https://x.com/Genki_JPN/status/1953483758667170146

@Sindayl Strange Scaffold really ignores PlayStation a lot with their games, for some reason. They tend to prioritize Xbox and Nintendo, in most cases.

Two of their other games, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and An Airport for Aliens Currently Run By Dogs, were released on Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, but not PlayStation. El Paso, Elsewhere, meanwhile, was released on Xbox a year before PS5.

Strange Scaffold and Chucklefish are two of the only developers I can think of that tend to release on everything except PlayStation consoles.

Kinda crazy that Starfield will be exclusive to Xbox for nearly three years, at that point it makes sense to bring it to PlayStation

I know a lot of people think Kojima's games are pretentious and overrated, but I just appreciate that they bring unique stuff to the table. Love it or hate it, you can't deny that there aren't a lot of things out there like a Kojima game.

@Trmn8r Eh... still not as bad a name as Square Enix's Various Daylife.

Maybe it's just me, but I preferred Microsoft Store or Windows a lot better. That's what they used to call the Xbox PC games anyway.

This is great, but it's pretty lame that the first two games are on literally everything except Xbox. Capcom should just drop them into Game Pass before the release of the third game, to get Xbox players caught up with the series.

@Jenkinss That's what I was thinking. Maybe Microsoft negotiated a deal with Sony so that they get, like, an 88% cut out of all PlayStation games sold on Xbox. That would give Sony an incentive to publish directly on the Xbox store instead of making Xbox gamers use Steam or something.

In Microsoft's eyes, while this may be an unfortunate concession, it's better to get 12% from Sony games than to get 0%.

I say, 12%, by the way, because that's how much of a cut Microsoft takes from games sold on the Xbox PC app, I believe.

@TrollOfWar The Until Dawn remake would have sold more on Xbox than on PS5. I don't think anyone bought that game on PS5, considering there wasn't even an upgrade path from the previous PS4 version.

@Fiendish-Beaver Fair enough, but my point still stands.

@Millionski Exactly, I think it's naive to think it will stop here.

@Fiendish-Beaver Fair, but notice how they don't even have a specific role for Nintendo ports yet. They do, however, have roles for both Xbox and PC.

"Senior Manager, Platform Sales – Xbox & PC

Manager, Platform Planning & Performance – PC & Xbox"

They wouldn't be hiring a new team of well-paid executives if they only had plans to continue doing what they're already doing. The job listing clearly shows Sony's strategy has changed significantly.

@Fiendish-Beaver You would have said a month ago that there is no chance in hell Sony would ever willingly publish a game on Xbox, live service or otherwise. And yet, here we are with Helldivers 2. Now the goalpost has moved to "it's just live service games."

We have went through this song and dance at least twice already. First, with Sony porting their games to PC, and second, with Microsoft bringing their games to PS/Xbox.

When it comes to multiplatform stuff, corporations are never going to put hard red lines on what they will port over or not. When they see the success they have from their live service/smaller singleplayer games on Xbox and Nintendo, they will make the move to port some older tentpole singleplayer games to other platforms as well.

I've said this before in other comments, but it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

@Banjo- Bro, even the people on Icon-Era, the notorious PlayStation fanboy forum, are not buying the "it's just live service and smaller games" stuff.

@themightyant You're right, but the thing is, the days of exclusives convincing people to switch platforms en masse is over. It doesn't matter if Sony starts porting some of their old tentpole singleplayer games to Xbox. The overwhelming majority of PlayStation gamers will remain on PlayStation.

The only thing that would threaten the PlayStation platform is if Sony started releasing mainline God of War, The Last of Us, etc. games on Xbox day-and-date. Then they would be giving people no reason to buy a PlayStation. But that's not gonna happen.

Older singleplayer titles, on the other hand, make a lot of sense. Sony has won the console war, and no matter how many old games they port to other platforms, people are not gonna leave PlayStation to get an Xbox.

@Balaam_ Who debunked this? Shinobi? That was just his opinion, he doesn't actually know anything about what Sony has in store for Xbox, just like he didn't know Helldivers 2 was going multiplat.

Are you really gonna take Shinobi's word over Sony's? If they meant just live service and smaller games, they would have specified as such in the job listing.

NateTheHate and Shinobi, the two insiders who told people that they're getting carried about with this job listing, don't actually know anything about what Sony plans to bring to other consoles.

PlayStation may not be actively developing a God of War Xbox port, sure, but there is zero chance that Sony is going to just stop at small titles and live service games with its multiplatform initiative. They will see the money they make from these Xbox/Nintendo ports, and then make the move to bring some tentpole singleplayer titles as well, in the future. Not day-and-date, of course, but eventually.

If you asked Nate and Shinobi if Sony would ever bring Helldivers 2 and Lego Horizon to Switch/Xbox a year or so ago, they would have laughed in your face and told you no.

@somnambulance I think it's surprising because it seems like CoD Black Ops 7 will be $70 this year as well, since Microsoft said its holiday games will not be $80. Microsoft could easily get away with an $80 price tag for a COD game, so it's interesting that they are postponing that price hike to next year.

@Gabrie It is terrible that, like, most Koei Tecmo games don't support Smart Delivery and force you to buy both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions separately (or you can buy the bundle). I'm looking at you, Atelier Yumia.

@awp69 Well, at least Thunderful never announced an Xbox version of Viewfinder before releasing it for PS5. So there's that to keep in mind.

That said, Moon Studios did lose a publisher for No Rest for the Wicked...

@IOI It's most likely the bad blood towards Microsoft part, because Microsoft refused to publish one of their games due to the toxic workplace culture accusations from some employees.

There were rumors a few months ago that MachineGames was working on a CS:GO style multiplayer game, so it's possible that one of the projects they're working on is that. Which, I'm sure will upset many, myself included.

@Lanmanna Well, it is, if you're buying a digital game that's about to be delisted, like in the case of John Wick Hex. Better to buy digitally for $2 rather than spend $100 afterward for a physical copy that's no longer in print.

Good job screwing over the one fanbase that made your company become successful. If it wasn't for Xbox players, Ori and the Blind Forest would've flopped and Moon Studios wouldn't be a renowned studio.

I never liked Thomas Mahler anyways, the dude always seemed to be a bit of a jerk who uses culture warring to gain internet points (not to mention the reports about him being a terrible person to work with), but this further cements my disdain for him.

"That said, imagine what MS/their array of devs could do with a game if they were NOT held back by having to scale down for the S as well."

We don't need to image, we can just look at the games that Sony has made for PS5, none of which were "held back" by the Series S. And, from a technical standpoint, these games pretty much look exactly the same as Series X games.

@dskatter Didn't Larian say that optimizing for the Series S helped improve BG3 as a whole?

https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-xbox-series-s-memory-optimization-better-performance-improvements/

Besides, that and Wukong are literally the only two games in the last five years that have actually been impacted by the Series S. You would be hard pressed to find literally any other examples of games being delayed or downgraded on Xbox because of the Series S.

@dskatter Blaming the Series S, as if it is responsible for the Series X not being fully utilized is so bizarre to me, when Sony hasn't released a single game (aside from maybe Death Stranding 2) that has taken full advantage of the PS5 or the PS5 Pro. Clearly you are not seeing games with drastically better graphics on PS5, and the Series S certainly isn't to blame for PS5 exclusives being unable to take advantage of the console.

@Kaloudz I mean, Spec Ops the Line was like $30 on Xbox before it got delisted, so this isn't that surprising. That was an even more egregious example of a situation like this.

@Kaloudz Here's a link that sums up the six things that VOID Interactive censored in Ready or Not:

https://www.thegamer.com/aready-or-not-details-censored-scenes-minors/

Basically, they got rid of some nudity, a few small details involving minors, and post-mortem dismemberment. You can still dismember people while they're still alive, but you can't dismember dead bodies anymore.

All this stuff honestly isn't that big of a deal IMO. There is a comment in the article I posted that says "It's not about specifics, it's a matter of principle, any amount of censorship is too much," but honestly, I disagree. So long as it doesn't significantly impact the quality of the game, I do not care about censorship that much. I am not the type of person who will boycott a game just because the devs decided to cover up some cleavage on a fictional female character or something lol. I have much more important things to worry about in real life than minor censorship issues.

The only thing I'm firmly against is major censorship, censorship that actually changes the tone of a game and makes its gameplay/plot objectively worse. That, I would have a problem with. Ready or Not is not one of those cases.

Censoring the game on PC for the console release is unfortunate, but it really isn't as bad as people are making it out to be. The game is still pretty much the same, it's not like VOID Interactive got rid of entire chunks of the game to meet censorship standards or something.

I know this is a controversial take, but the ads on the Xbox home screen don't bother me. Sure, I would like the option to get rid of them, but they don't really negatively impact my experience that much, unlike YouTube ads and Spotify ads.

My problem with the Xbox UI is not the ads, my problem is with the lack of innovation and interesting UI designs. It is so disappointing that Microsoft didn't make a new UI for the Series X/S and just used the Xbox One one all over again. The Xbox UI is utilitarian; it's functional and gets the job done, but it isn't that pleasant or amazing to look at. I would like something with a little more pizazz, like this fan-made UI.

@Medic_alert But the next Xbox also won't just be a Windows PC, like the ROG Xbox Ally is, because Microsoft has already confirmed it will be fully backwards compatible with the Series X/S. So it should be able to run games that aren't available on PC.

@Kraven I don't know why you would ever want Microsoft to abandon consoles because that would be devastating for the video game industry, for Xbox players, and consumers in general.

Microsoft is not the only one going third-party, fortunately. Sony is, as well, and we will see many more PlayStation-published games on Nintendo and Xbox consoles in the future. Not as much as Microsoft, but still a sizable amount.

@Medic_alert It's not coming to PS day-one, it'll be an Xbox exclusive at launch. Presumably because Keeper started life as a permanent Xbox exclusive and Double Fine doesn't have the resources to develop a PS5 port simultaneously for a game that won't sell particularly well anyways. They'll probably port it to PS5 and Switch 2 in 2026.

@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah, these are literally just two PS5 ports and that's pretty much it.

@somnambulance I personally liked Mirror's Edge Catalyst a lot, just as much as the first one.

@DaveTheRave You say that as if a million copies sold of Helldivers 2 is a bad thing. That's millions of dollars of revenue that Sony would miss out on other wise, not including microtransaction revenue.

If Sony ports another game to Xbox after Helldivers 2, then it will be clear that HD2 on Xbox was a success, and that Xbox players very much do buy games.

@Artois2 And yet that's why Xbox is the only console with every singleplayer mainline FF game on it. Because Square Enix keeps porting games to a platform where FF games "hardly sell anything." They must be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, not because they actually make any profits on Xbox ports.

@TheSimulator Agreed, the censorship isn't even that bad, it's not like they're completely removing sections of the game or something. If that was the case, then I'd be upset.

@wildcat_kickz Yep, I can understand why the PlayStation China Hero Project games are timed exclusives, since Sony helps get those indie/AA games funded.

But for AAA blockbuster games like FF16, FF7 Rebirth, and Silent Hill 2 Remake? It makes little sense for publishers to agree to those deals.

@Kilamanjaro After I check out the sequels, I'll definitely share my thoughts on this site whenever I get the chance!

@FraserG That's exactly what an AI would say...! Lol

@Fiendish-Beaver I agree with pretty much everything you said. I won't lie, I was kind of in favor of the ABK deal, but only because I thought Microsoft would have stuck to its guns about being a competitor to PlayStation. If Microsoft didn't completely pivot away from its original business plan and wasn't so obsessed with AI, I think the deal could have been good for consumers to an extent. I will say, though, I never really cared about ABK games and would have much preferred at the time if Microsoft bought a smaller Japanese publisher instead, to boost Xbox's visibility in that region.

At the end of the day, the ABK deal pretty much killed Xbox as we know it. It turned Xbox into Activision, and not the other way around. We're getting Halo, Gears, and Forza on PlayStation, before a single 360-era CoD game on Game Pass. That's wild.

On a positive note, though, maybe Helldivers 2 wouldn't be coming to Xbox if the ABK deal never happened. If Microsoft was still firm on its exclusivity, then maybe Sony would have never brought the game to Xbox.

@IOI You're right about most stuff here, but I don't see many publishers taking a step back from Game Pass. If anything, it's maybe been the opposite.

@Balaam_ Jim Ryan certainly wasn't advocating against the deal for the industry's benefit, though. He was doing it to protect Sony's interests. If he knew what would actually happen as a result of the deal (Microsoft going third-party), I think he would have been perfectly fine with Microsoft acquiring ABK

@Balaam_ Maybe you're thinking of Replaced. It has a similar name to Routine, and it looked awesome. It, too, was delayed indefinitely, though, but I don't think it's been cancelled.

@Cherrywood Name me at least three developers/franchises that stopped supporting or being released on Xbox after the introduction of Game Pass.

Most of the games that skip Xbox these days, like the ones from Falcom, NIS America, Gust, etc. were never released on Xbox at all. I can't think of many developers that stopped supporting Xbox once Game Pass was released. Instead, the opposite has happened. Atlus, RGG Studio, Level-5, Gust, MiHoYo, Bandai Namco (with franchises like Digimon Story), Hamster Corporation, Natsume, etc. are now supporting Xbox more than they ever did in the past.

Xbox is still the platform that gets the least amount of games, but it's far better now than it was compared to the Xbox One gen.

@SeaDaVie Now, as for the part you mentioned about Game Pass leading to lost sales of games that aren't on the service, I don't think there is any credible evidence out there to support that claim. And if it does impact non-Game Pass game sales, the effect must not be significant enough to deter third-party developers from porting their games to Xbox.

I've said this a lot in previous comments, but if Game Pass really did condition Xbox users to not buy games whatsoever and wait for everything to come to Game Pass, then there likely wouldn't be a lot of non-Game Pass games on Xbox. Third-party support would have deteriorated since the introduction of Game Pass in 2017, but instead, the opposite has happened.

Now, I see how your point can be applicable to some situations, like Atlus games on Xbox. Since Atlus started supporting Xbox in 2022, almost every game from the company (except Unicorn Overlord and SMT V: Vengance) has appeared on Game Pass at some point. Sometimes day-one, sometimes months later. Some Xbox gamers may be deterred from buying Atlus games because they expect most of them to come to Game Pass. In that sense, I can see where your argument holds merit.

The thing is, though, most third-party developers/publishers don't support Game Pass as frequently and as consistently as Atlus/SEGA does. Why would an Xbox gamer, for example, be conditioned to not buy Sonic games, when there have almost never been Sonic games on Game Pass?