WildConcept6

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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.

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.

@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.

@themightyant I mean probably and next gen is either next year or 2027, so not a long wait. But HOPIUM 😭

Oh, are these native now? I remember Microsoft announcing a while back that they were adding Ubisoft games to the MS store on PC, but they were just like placeholders and you still needed to use the Ubisoft PC app to download and play the games. If Ubisoft is adding native versions of their game to the Xbox PC App/Microsoft Store though, that's huge on a few levels. It'd be a massive milestone for the Microsoft Store in securing publisher support. It also paves a way for future Ubisoft games to possibly be Xbox Play Anywhere. I'd given up on Microsoft courting the likes of Ubisoft and EA to have native PC store versions and not make you use their launcher.

Waiting for the Elite 3 to pop out. I wouldn't even care about build qualtiy. In fact I'm going to suckle on the hopium that it was down specifically to prepare for an Elite 3 launch this holiday 🤥.

@GuyinPA75 The problem isn't even Nadella, it's the whole darn system. A CEO is encouraged, and in some ways legally obligated, to cater the company to the whims of the shareholders who only care about short term gains in their investment. This makes a lot of the biggest companies more speculation focused than anything. And it works for investors. Microsoft is the second most valuable company in the world at nearly a 4 trillion USD company by stock market capitalization. That's insane. Even more so when their market cap wasn't even 2 trillion 5 years ago. And it comes at the expense of what shareholders don't care about (i.e. The working class and long term sustainability in and CERTAINLY gaming).

"defined job descriptions and a fair promotions process"
What in the blazes is wrong with the gaming industry when it comes to the employee environment? I mean granted news of "all is great" usually doesn't do rounds, but it really sounds like no man's land out there. Like this is some 1800/1900s crap that needs to get exposed in a book titled "The Jungle".

Yay? Well, I guess it could be great if they put the right love into the games. But I thought EA said a while back they were scaling back on licensed IP games and focusing more on their own franchises? I guess they just follow the money. Which I mean, fair. Everyone does.

Ton of fighting games this and next year!

I know Rare didn't layoff themselves nor did the marketing teams at Xbox, but boy does this apple taste a little rotten right now. I was waiting for Everwild too. Would've been perfect if it had launched this year.

@Fiendish-Beaver Fair enough. I can't say I have much skin the game. Every recent PS exclusive I remotely care about I've been able to play since I bought my Steam Deck, and I still can now that I own a windows handheld PC.

I'm not saying that Nintendo isn't getting ports. What I am saying is that there's nothing to suggest that Sony is prioritizing or depriotizing any one platform over the other. The only evidence is word choice and word count of a job description for the senior manager of seemingly a new team. That's like less than nothing when it comes to what specific games will come over. I don't know what's on the table, and rather I think the table is completely blank (and maybe not even put together yet). It'll be this team's job to put together the reports that get games on the table. They'll do the analytics, tell Playstation what should be ported where and why, then it'll be us to PS leadership to decide. I mean going back to the job posting, Nintendo could've disappeared for any reason, but what makes sense to me is just that Xbox & PC "could" support the full PS slate. Everything would be an option and this team would have free reign to explore those options, gather the data, and present it to the other execs. With Nintendo everything isn't an option. Its also might not be as involved a process in porting to Nintendo. Maybe Sony is already fine with porting to Nintendo and they don't need teams to research the process and potential gains and losses. Like you said, only Sony knows, but also I'm not sure they know right now.

@TrollOfWar I'll also add, for the sake of speculation, that I think the idea of "Xbox leaving the console space" is kinda a pointless notion as of now. Take a look at the recent top 10 chart from Playstation, how many of those games are still available for purchase on the Xbox One? And/or still receiving updates? Heck, Black Ops 6 is a new release that was cross gen day one. Last gen has held on for at least 12 years now. This Gen will hold on at least that long and Xbox has confirmed a new native console that should be coming in 2026 or 2027 (most likely). I think by the time those consoles lose support, we might be looking at the need of consoles as we know it in general. I don't know. The number of years between then and now is honestly scary to think about. Regardless, I don't think Sony has it in their plans to run Xbox out of the console market because it'd be like a decade until that could even see any results. And in that time Sony would have just lost money by not porting to Xbox. And that is another thing. In business you learn to count money you could have earned but didn't as a loss. The industry has clearly moved past the idea that porting an exclusive means defeat, so now for Sony it's a matter of what would they lose by porting vs what would they lose by not porting.

@TrollOfWar To make my stance clear
1) I don't think Sony is directly making these moves to calculate Xbox's demise or prolong it's life; I think that Sony is looking at the data, seeing the console market's overall stunted growth, and seeing the numbers they don't think PS as a business will disappear overnight from doing more multiplatform games.

2) At the risk of rendering this entire discussion moot (risk because it's fun to muse), I don't think anyone can accurately even guess what games will be coming over right now. Because I'm fairly certain Sony has no idea. Going back to the job description, it's not a single position. I mean it is a single position, but it makes it clear that this major new leadership role will be a leading a team. What's also made clear is that this job is about financials, data analytics, and making reports about how to achieve success across platforms through basically every stage of the product lifecycle. It's a job about marketing strategies and data anyalstics. And it's a job that is very telling in that it doesn't currently exist (or isn't currently filled) at SIE/Playstation/whatever. I think that Sony will hire for this job, build up this team, and listen very intently to the reports they make. Questions like, "How much could we lose in console sales/user aquistion by porting XYZ game vs how much could we gain in software sales by expanding to XYZ platform?" are going to be the focus of this group. And I don't think that anything is off limits or a no brainer. Data doesn't care for the vocal minority that's very loud about console exclusives, and what we know as outsiders looking in heavily suggests that exclusives aren't selling consoles anymore. Xbox is ramping up multiplatform plans because the data shows that they're making more money from it and unlike the extremists online say, Xbox consoles aren't suffering. Microsoft reports higher player engagement and user spending on Xbox consoles consistently. And they aren't the Twitter users getting high over comparing sales; over 30 mil is a solid number for the console market. Xbox isn't failing or dying, it's very stable. But they want Xbox to be growing, and consoles have slowed in growth a lot. So instead they've taken a different strategy and they keep doing it because it works. I expect Sony is looking to build up this data: what is worth porting to what platform and how can maximum profit be earned on that platform.

@Fiendish-Beaver @TrollOfWar
Oh, this is getting fun. The job listing keeps coming up, so I decided to go to the actual source... which I did after several redirects and links. I don't think one can quantify percentage levels of importance for each platform, because there's nothing to suggest that at all on the actual job positing. For one the job positing is for the senior director of a team that said senior director would need to direct and develop. What's interesting is that is talks about each and every major platform equally UNTIL it comes to the team leadership section in which the role calls for the senior director to specifically find a Senior Manager for Platform Sales on Xbox & PC (no mention of nintendo) and a Manager for platform planning and performance on Xbox & PC (no mention of Nintendo). In addition to not mentioning Nintendo here they don't differentiate between the different storefronts as platforms like the job positing had before. Previous language referred to each storefront as a platform without referring to PC at all or said "PC and Console platforms" with everything in parenthesis. But all of a sudden Nintendo disappears for only "Xbox & PC" /"PC & Xbox" and I'm not saying this to get into the straws over the issue. But as we're speculating about the role not covering platforms equally, the job description mentions them all equally except Nintendo. Xbox and PC are stated an equal number of times. Considering the lack of actual information we have to go off of, I'd say the thing that sparked this all is worth keeping track of.

@cragis0001 Anyone remember that really old news circulation of Xbox and PlayStation teaming up to take on Amazon and Google in streaming? That was like at the start of the generation... maybe we're just in the delayed time line.

In an ideal world I'd like to see an Xbox console design lab, but I'm not sure how big of a market there is for limited edition or designed consoles. I'm willing to dip for an extra controller I personally designed or that got a cool limited edition, but far less so for a console. Especially if it's JUST a design and they aren't doing mid gen upgrades. Like last gen I bought the God of War edition PS5 Pro and Proejct Scorpio Xbox One X because I was upgrading anyway.

Though for Microsoft's business maybe limited consoles would be more beneficial than I think? At a time when they're raising costs due to "market conditions", limited editions would let them do so shamelessly while also keeping overall production controlled. It might cost them less during the current economy.

@Jenkinss I guess the real answer is, "it's up to the publisher." It's not really a question of Xbox supporting all games because they legally can't, and regardless they need permission first.

@Fiendish-Beaver I mean, if I were Sony following that logic then I'd 100% AVOID porting the licensed games. Those give a lot more life and longevity. People are still turning on their Xbox One consoles and giving more money to Fortnite, which Xbox gets 30% of. People are still buying GTA V to play online with friends. I mean if the logic is to kill Xbox faster, why port anything?

Interesting to say the least. I'd be most curious not in what Sony chooses to port, but the reasoning they give to shareholders after (and I'd be even more interested in the reasoning shared behind closed doors). What I'm seeing online just sounds... umm, yeah I don't get it. The predominant comment I see is that because the next Xbox will have steam, PS games will be there anyway... so Sony is choosing to port now so that they can give Xbox money and not just waiting for steam so that they can contribute to reasons for gamers to not use the Microsoft Store (which would be a really fast way to kill the console). That doesn't make much logical sense to me. I'll also be honest and say that Sony wanting Xbox dead and porting at all (especially live service and NEW games) doesn't either.

Like I said a few back, I think we all know that Sony is adopting a more multiplatform strategy and that will include Xbox to some capacity. The question is to what capacity & for what reason. The former time will answer and the latter will just infinitely get speculations.

@cragis0001 I can believe Microsoft negotiating for GT or hoping for it. What I find more tin foil hatty is the self sabatoging the studio specifically for that. Especially as at the time Microsoft was just doing cuts overall. The two just seem like separate events to me. I can believe that Microsoft doesn't care as much for Motorsport and chose to downsize turn 10 because they weren't making that much money. I can also believe that Xbox would welcome GT7 or any of the franchise. I'm not sure Xbox specifically targeted Turn 10 hoping that Sony would hear that on the grapevine and then choose to port GT because of that. If GT does come over, I don't think it'd be because Microsoft downzised turn 10. I also don't think Microsoft would downsize turn 10 thinking that GT might come over. I think Microsoft just downzised turn 10 for their own reasons and if GT comes over that will also happen for it's own reasons. Those reasons might be adjacently related (less competition from Motorsport), but I don't think they'd be directly made because of each other.

@Master_Cthulhu70 They "can" purchase the streaming rights from Ubisoft and I think as part of the deal they negotiated a pipeline to do that. It's just also an additional cost they'd have to take on. We've seen some games adding to streaming, but I don't think they want to do the whole slate for that reason. It could also be something else logistically. I just find the concession hilarious though. It just felt like Microsoft and the CMA were tired and just wanted an excuse to get this over with after the FTC failed.

@Jenkinss No service currently does. Probably the best comparison is Nvidia GFN and they're at around 2,000 and they've been doing this since 2017 (2020 post beta). Today they do monthly drops in the tens; in July there were 20 new games available to stream if you owned them on a connected service. It takes a lot of doing with licensing and talking to all the publishers. The technical aspect is probably the least difficult once the infrastructure is there.

@RadioHedgeFund For the next console they've already confirmed native backwards compatibility. Next, next maybe or probably more likely the planned OEMs. They clearly want gaming on a windows PC to feel like a more connected Xbox ecosystem experience. Like with the ROG Xbox Ally coming. There's been a lot of recent Xbox App updates to bring more of the Xbox experience to that one Xbox App on PC (streaming your own games through the app and the play history in your library that captures console play history as well as pc and cloud)

I wonder if the goal is to build up the library ahead of a "full" XCloud release this winter? I mean it feels like that. The beta tag has to come off soon and all that's left are those technical upgrades really. It'll almost definitely be a standalone service in 2026. And I'm here for that. I recently bought FF16 during the sale and the fact that the game is Xbox Play Anywhere & on XCloud is dope. I'd be a very happy customer if every game (or even just 25% of all new releases) on Xbox had this capability.

Pretty small list. I'll have to pick up Persona 3 on sale (so glad there was that GPU perk for the expansion pass). Anthem I already own (I proudly pre-ordered it way back when it released and had a lot of fun; I just wish EA liked it as much as I did). And farming sim is moot with the new one added.

@cragis0001 That's some major tin foiling hatting. If it were true would Microsoft then be liable to get sued? I mean probably not but I'd hate knowing my job was taken just so that the people on top could entice a port from a rival company. I think it's just how badly the latest Forza Motorsport underperformed and Microsoft seeing Forza Horizon has the bigger title. I mean it's a bit like Atlus and SMT vs Persona. The spin off got bigger than the main title and thus it got more support. Playground is also supposedly working on Forza Horizon 6 and Fable, so maybe Microsoft is just moving resources toward those projects. Thus they downsize Turn 10 and turn them into more of a support studio for Playground. The current Motorsport was always meant to be a long term live service anyway, so it could also be that there's not "that" much for Turn 10 to do. I don't Imagine Microsoft is in any rush to launch a new Motorsport.

@Fiendish-Beaver Speaking of long comments they do give way to misconceptions don't they? Okay, I understand what you think will come over now. Though, I'd still be surprised to see Sony do live service games day and date or even that close. I'd have assume they'd lose less exclusivity prestige and new console demand with old ports. Then again it's been a very surprising five years in gaming to say the least.

@DaveTheRave That wasn't really relevant to my comment is what I mean. I responded to the article with additional reasoning why I don't think any of this matters (Sony's ports) and then Sony's anime empire. The only think that remotely tied your reply to my comment is the idea of Xbox fans being worried... but that's literally just the title of this article. I'm just not sure why you responded to me. I'm even more surprised with you confirming that "it" doesn't respond to anything I said but just the topic of this article 😂. You're responding to the article itself and not me.

@Fiendish-Beaver So we do have same thoughts sometimes 😏.

@Trmn8r Yeah but Darksidees Genesis was a prequel (like prequel prequel). After DS1 with War, we had gotten a solo game with everyone else (Death and Fury) that focused on what they were doing adjacent to DS1 and how that'd build up to a final conclusion. Throughout all the games we were given massive hints about Strife's goings ons that to me really hyped up the prospect of a game that'd do the same for Strife (focus on what he was doing alone adjacent to the events of DS1). I even remember when after the first teaser for Darksiders 4 (many moons ago) how all the forums and gaming sites were theory crafting about Strife's action gameplay and what his plot would be from all the clues in the other games and everything. I remember them mouth watering over rumors that Strife would play like DANTE from Devil May Cry. It's just unfortunate that they'd not do for Strife what they did for every other horse(wo)man.

@Fiendish-Beaver I did see your comment. Namely all the "No"s. What I didn't see is what you thought would come over. I'm still barely seeing that. It's a bit of a courtesy, but when someone asks a question please put the answer at the start 😭. Don't bury it into multiple different paragraphs... I already know what you don't think will come and why you don't think it will come. You've made that clearly in every comment here. What I didn't know is what you thought instead would come, because all I saw was vague "live service" and, as I had stated, I don't even know what live service games Sony has right now. The goal of my comment was to have more of a discussion and less of an argument. Like I said, I think everyone agrees here that Playstation is porting more games over. The only discrepancy is in "what" and I'd rather be positive and talk about what we think is porting over than what we think is not.

Okay so you think: GT7, Lego Horizon, and every future live service game day one or within a year? Okay. Wow. GT7 I can see especially if they just saw the success of Forza Horizon and see an opportunity with Motorsport on the wayside. Lego horizons is already everywhere but Xbox, so that I can easily see. Every future live service within a year or even day one though? To me that sounds more insane than a last gen single player game coming. If this is true Sony's timeline is interesting. We have a clear picture of Microsoft doing PC Xbox games last gen and then it took them until 2023 to start a multiplatform console strategy this gen. Sony's strategy would then be a little more erratic. Like lord, imagine if Xbox last gen just started PC ports for everything "case by case" and PS ports for live service within a year of release. That's a little baffling to me. That in five years we can get here with PS (live service games coming so soon to all platforms).

@Elbow I feel like the fact that Xbox will be "fine" if they go third party is important here and probably reveals more than we're letting it. The question is would Sony be fine if they go third party? Probably not right? At least not as is. Here's the thing, just like Microsoft, Sony is a publically traded stock company. Current numbers don't actually matter. What matters for them is growth. And in the console market we are seeing growth in consumer spending, but 1) none in new user aquistion and 2) a lot of that consumer spending is on third party games. And that sounds fine until you realize Sony spends a lot on exclusive first and third party content and partner publish a ton of games too, and their users time and money isn't really going toward those games. We've seen Sony's exclusive profit margins and they are really bad. Playstation in general is seeing a lot of revenue, but not as much and even then their profit isn't bad, but the way capitalism and stock companies are set up, it's the growth that matters. Playstation and Xbox have to constantly show MORE profit and the entire market stalling in terms of new users puts a big dent in that.

I see a lot of talk about how Xbox has built itself up with more studios and publishers, but not as much about how Playstation has tried to do the same. Playstation WANTS more successful live service games that make a killing in Microtransactions and player engagement, but all those plans blew up in their faces. Playstation bought Bungie specifically for their live service expertise and probably partially hoping that Destiny could be their Minecraft purchase or something. Instead they spent a LOT of money for Bungie to then implode. If you're a shareholder how does the current situation really sound? Shareholders aren't console warriors. They don't care that Playstation is out selling Xbox. They care that Playstation is making ooggles and ooggles MORE money for them.

I'm personally more concerned for the future of Playstation. Consoles aren't going away anytime soon, but they also don't seem to be permanent. They aren't attracting the brand new gamers (namely younger generations) and eventually we'll age out of them. To your point about circles, the casual audience doesn't care much for exclusives or even consoles at all. It's all fortnite, the other forever live service games, and mobile. Xbox is set for the future no matter what they do. Playstation is still finding that. And this doesn't mean they'll have to port every single exclusive, but they just in general don't seem to have a strong idea or plan yet for longevity (well they had one, and it didn't work, so now I imagine they're trying to strategize a new one).

@Fiendish-Beaver My genuine question to you is, what live service games does Sony have to port? I have NOT kept up with this this gen. This is the first time I didn't buy a PS console at all. I know the news that Sony invested a lot in live service and most were canceled either in development or post launch. All I know that exists now is Helldivers 2 and GT7 with fairgames coming. There's also the Marvel fighter from Guilty Gears devs but AFAIK that's more of a second party game like Death Stranding. Bungie and Marathon are more akin to Xbox's "multiplatform" ABK and Bethesda games. Marathon was always going to be multiplatform on Bungies terms. Playstation wouldn't be hiring a new role to maximize multiplatform profits for just that game. Not would they be introducing Playstation Publishing to Xbox through Helldivers 2. So in my head we're left with GT7 and Fairgames with the latter not being out yet. GT7 I can easily see, but what is Sony going to do Fairgames day one? That sounds impossible to me. Though then again this soon for Helldivers 2 also sounds impossible.

Anyway to reask the question, what specific games do you predict WILL come then. No more arguing over minuta. We all agree that more first party games from Sony are coming soon, and I'd say from these comments that we also all agree that the biggest no-brainer is live service. So what do you actually think is coming. Consider it enlightening someone who has like an inkling of an idea of what Sony's actually done on their platform this generation: what can I look forward to?

@Kaloudz Speaking of Nintendo, man these companies WISH they were Nintendo because they could stave things off by going full Nintendo and charging AAA ($60 to $80) prices for AA game budgets (really what seems like less than a AA budget sometimes) and having a similar pricing strategy for hardware. Except, we gamers choose not to give Playstation and especially Xbox the same consumer treatment as Nintendo. The Outer Worlds 2 got COOKED at $80 to the point that Microsoft isn't even doing an $80 COD. I'm not speaking about quality and we all know which is the bigger household name, but you cannot convince me that Mario Kart World costs more to make than the Outer Worlds 2. You can't convince me that Pokémon costs anywhere NEAR as much as other AAA games (this or last gen) to warrant a $60 price tag. Oh and they still get away with selling the same game TWICE and locking exclusive content behind each version. In that same vein imagine if Xbox could release a budget Series S at $500 and premium Series X at $800 and they both still sell out like hotcakes. And no, it's not because of exclusives. Because exclusives didn't magically make the WiiU sell even 15 million in it's five year lifetime. Nor did it help the 3DS. And even Sony couldn't adopt that strategy (the PS3 showed that). It's the brand loyalty we as gamers and consumers have chosen to give Nintendo over recent years especially. Nintendo is dominating in the nostalgia boom era. That said something else Nintendo is doing that all should is becoming a multimedia empire. Their franchises do so well in television, card games, mobile games, theme parks, and movies. Pokémon is like THE most valuable IP in the world because of this. I'm actually surprised Sony didn't achieve this status first considering what they are. Microsoft really needs to get on the ball with all the iconic IP they own now.

Not really a rumor. We KNOW Sony is "planning" to bring more games over. The obscurities of that plan is what's causing some people to crashout and others to become that one Always Sunny mailroom meme. I do find the situation hilarious, because this is where it's always been going this generation: "It's just PC ports." ; "It's just third party exclusives." ; "It's just licensed first party exclusives Sony has no choice over." ; "It's just second party games/partner exclusives." ; "It's just live service first party exclusives."

That's not even mentioning their comments about "believing in generations" and the Switch support. This is where the console market and gaming industry was always heading. Exclusives aren't a sustainable business practice between the rising costs and the additional barriers to entry they add. Really it's kinda baffling how fragmented console gaming has been since it's inception, especially when comparing it to other gaming platforms. There have been barriers not just between companies, but between consoles within the same ecosystem. And it's all led to the medium that was supposed to be a gateway into gaming becoming one of the least desired choices of new gamers. Today the biggest games aren't just on every console, they're on practically every computer device (tablets & smartphones, PC, consoles, and the cloud), and they are available with cross progression and cross play. They're also still supported on last gen consoles, which are now 12 years old. New gamers are choosing PCs or mobile devices and are projected to choose cloud; consoles aren't attracting new gamers and that's directly impacted both the importance and viability of console exclusives.

The only real option Microsoft and Sony have are to adopt some type of multiplatform strategy of expansion to find new customers. Anyway, more multiplatform games are coming from everyone. Eventually even Nintendo will do them (maybe in 10 years, but eventually). Frankly it's rather sad that some people are pushing against this. I don't there any other space aside from console gaming where people aggressively BEG for the entire space to be more fragmented with walled off exclusive content that you have the privelege of buying. The console wars was really psychological warfare against consumers, and the companies won: they successfully managed to weaponize gamers against one another and do so in a way where people bully each other for not playing on the same platform (as in not just Xbox or PS, but the same console generation). There's some beautiful irony in the fact that these companies biggest roadblock to more money, is the console warriors they cultivated through a toxic marketing culture.

Already have Helldivers 2 pre-ordered: I'm not too big on PVP, but I love PVE.

Honestly a lot later than I was expecting. I thought they'd announce an expansion for this fall and a PS5 release. That said 2 to 3 years console exclusivity would be a great timeline for every first party exclusive (at least the big ones like Starfield); like it'd give console warriors their bone and give Xbox their sales boost. Maybe part of the experiment is seeing the optimal time frame? Regardless of how long they take, they do all seem to be getting PS5 ports in the spring (for the most part).

I'm a little disappointed in Darksiders 4. I was hoping for a Strife solo game and THEN picking up with War's (DS1's) ending With Darksiders 5 to finish the series. Hard to tell just from that, but it'd be odd if the game is a Strife solo when the teaser is the line War had at the end of DS1 when they were all coming.

@BAMozzy yeah, I agree with everything stated. My original comment is just that I don't think we'd see the effects in gaming revenue specifically at the earnings report following release. They'll definitely talk about it and MUA users, but it's probably also not something we'd be able to easily judge how successful it is as outsiders. That and I'm curious how exactly Microsoft would classify it and the new age of gaming OEMs it's sure to kick off. Yeah it's ultimately the same either way, but it's interesting to think about.

@Fiendish-Beaver This is pretty normal. Maybe necessary legally speaking too? Microsoft shares their predictions for the next quarter at the end of every earnings call and with that they share predictions for every aspect tog the company. AFAIK every publically traded company does. All that was said was "Hey, we'll have a weaker Q1 this year than we did last year in XYZ business markets." I imagine a lot of consumer related businesses are making similar comments. Microsoft has made these exact comments tons of times. Shareholders are just owed this information as investors. There are ups and downs. And Microsoft isn't immune to global economic conditions.

@BAMozzy Okay, and what bucket would you put that in if you were Microsoft? Xbox gaming due to the license even though they wouldn't count the hardware itself? Windows OEM because it is still a windows 11 OEM PC? Something else entirely because it's as you say a licensed product? For that matter what bucket did the recent Xbox meta headset go into? Or do all the "made for Xbox" sticker accessories go into? I'd be surprised if they count as hardware in the same way Microsoft counts the hardware they make. That's all I'm saying about it: it'll be pretty difficult for us as outsiders to track and I think the software here is more important than the hardware. How it's viewed is a separate discussion and one that's rather moot as we can see how people are viewing it and how that's affecting perception of Xbox consoles (which is honestly an Xbox and Microsoft marketing discussion).

I have nothing intelligent to say, I just need to be sure everyone saw this and I need to make them linger on it for as long as I did: "Told the Dark Urge, everyone's favourite amnesiac, to stop talking about people 'back home' (you don't know where that is yet, bestie) and spoiling the game by mentioning their 'father', among other silly notions, in their overhead dialogues."

"We're going back to where it all began."
The taco??

Xbox PC & Xbox Cloud were literally perfect. There's no need to make them any more complicated than that too. Remember KISS: Keep it Short & Simple (& stupid honestly).

Xbox on PC is also a pretty weak name. If they want to succeed on PC, then they can't afford to sound like a second rate service that's just a side gig for Xbox. Xbox's native PC experiences should just be referred to as "Xbox PC" and be done with it. Just like their cloud game experiences should be called "Xbox Cloud", "XCloud", or at most "Xbox Cloud Gaming". And the best is the first most simple and to the point branding.

Good to see that Square isn't immediately disregarding their promise this time around. More multiplatform games for all!

Wait is the first Monster Hunter Stories on Xbox a surprise announcement from a Nintendo show?? Lovely times these are. It's gotten to the point where all the console shows will have a ton of multiplatform games and that's great for the industry especially after we lost e3.

@Millionski To be fair if you're Xbox and Activision Blizzard comes knocking with an offer for a total buyout, well you gotta at least ask daddy Microsoft. And if daddy Microsoft says yes, well that's all she wrote.

But yeah the answer is the sheer size. With Zenimax you could say they really just bought studios. I mean it was a parent company to the publisher that is BGS, but really Xbox just bought those studios. I mean yeah BGS is a publisher in its own right, but what I'm getting it is that it's just not remotely the size of Activision Blizzard. In fact Activision had "basically" gobbled up 2 Zenimax's (an exaggeration but not really) before the Microsoft acquisition. It's a lot harder for Xbox to integrate them. And there's just a larger volume of everything that needs to be considered. As a consumer, this definitely means nothing though. Which in other industries that'd matter less, but here in gaming we followed the court cases extensively and we were promised why it was a good thing. Meanwhile, reality is a little different.