electrolite77

@NEStalgia

Spot on again. I think in the long term Ryan is a disaster for PlayStation. He is either totally incapable of, or unwilling to, contemplate reacting in any way to the market. All he has is a plan to put out 3/4 exclusives a year and coin it in from COD and other third party games. His only strategy is to protect that, especially as it means they can treat their customers with flippant disdain, which he does. There’s no attempt to be responsive, or to compete, or to grow. There seems to be no strategy or vision there at all. A shame, as Playstation have had much better people at the helm. Eventually, no matter how big you are, arrogance always costs.

It’s really funny to see the focus from Console players on COD, when MS’ willingness to do deals on COD should tell everyone how significant it is to them. ABKs Console games are only a small part of this deal.

Getting ABKs Console franchises is a plus as it gives them more family content which they’ve openly admitted needing. They get Crash, Spyro, Tony Hawk and if they wanted to resurrect Guitar Hero it would be ideal as part of a subscription service. The likes of Diablo and StarCraft will sit well and increase their PC market share.

The real meat however is Candy Crush, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. They are all big games of a type MS doesn’t currently offer and they would instantly gain a very significant share of the mobile market which is the big segment they’re currently non-existent in.

Given this would inevitably involve Sony giving MS a massive amount of cash I can’t see this being of any relevance beyond ‘look we’re being really inclusive’ PR

So seeing Bernie Sanders Tweeting in support of his Democratic colleague bringing this case really does make it seem like this is political. Been interesting to see commentators on Financial channels seemingly saying the FTC is likely to lose too. All very interesting to a non-American.

1) Is it likely that this is posturing that will lead to concessions the Democrats can hail as them standing their ground against big tech?

2) Is there a chance the deal could go through the Courts without any of the concessions MS was offering? I.e. COD could in fact go exclusive

3) Is it possible a massive can of worms has been opened regarding the basic concept of games being exclusive to any platform?

@Would_you_kindly

Yeah they might as well have done. Sony used ‘games being kept off our platform’ as a justification to do so.

@Would_you_kindly

They could have started complaining about not getting a guarantee of every Bungie release for 25 years with exact feature parity written in blood. Maybe in hindsight they should have done.

@Would_you_kindly

Of course they want profit. The companies making games exist to make profit.

I found a U.S. Toys R Us catalogue from 1996 and PS1 games on CD were $49.99 RRP, which translates to over $92 now. Yes the market is bigger now, and DLC has increased revenue streams, but the amount of people and time it takes to make games has increased hugely too. I dont think it’s a clear cut comparison but $70 doesn’t seem in any way outrageous to me, especially given how the price of everything is rising at the minute.

@TJ81

Aye, when SFII launched on the SNES in 1992 it was £65. That’s just over £131 in todays money. Even though modern AAA games cost many multiples more to make the price hasn’t risen with inflation. That’s part of the reason the industry shifted so enthusiastically to paid DLC and more recently, parts of it to utilising a subscription model.

Edit-perhaps a fairer comparison would be to a disc game, like PS1 Doom which cost me the equivalent of £92 in 1996.

Only just got started on Pentiment but really enjoying it so far

No surprise to see Switch cleaning up, it has a vast library of games and has had a really good year with several big releases.

Xbox has pretty much all the third party games PS has and those very smart price drops have obviously been a big success.

Sony may only have sold 18% but that will be everything they could get into the shops and at a high price vs the competition.

Excellent. Hopefully that means it will work at launch and have a 60FPS mode

@LoquaciousB

This is how I see it panning out. MS will have a very big war chest spare and a new found determination to go after Sony. Jim Ryan has been (typically it seems) a little bit short sighted in making such a fuss about COD.

FH5, Infinite. Flight Sim, 4K60 FH4, enhanced Gears 5, GPU, the massive amount of games on the system, the BC enhancements, the SSD, Quick Resume. Mine gets used every day.

Don’t know if it’s my favourite thing but the way MS has handled BC overall is excellent. FPS Boost, Auto HDR, the One X enhancements have all been very welcome.

Apart from playing games I missed out on originally it’s been great to go back and replay older games in hugely improved form. Like buying a new PC, which is what I want from every Console now.

@Agnostic

Well said. Devs are under constant time pressure to meet deadlines. Sometimes stuff gets missed/has to be sacrificed to meet constraints.

@Cherip-the-Ripper

Oh I know I’m an outlier. I’m not in any way questioning the quality of the game, it just doesn’t appeal to me, as is the case with a lot of Sonys recent exclusives TBH.

@Cherip-the-Ripper

Me. Glad it looks great and hope everyone enjoys it but I’m not a fan of the series.

Good to see. Wish we saw more stuff like this. The industry (or at least a lot of the industrys consumers) needs to grow up a bit.

Looking forward to Pentiment and Somerville

@Dezzy70

I’ve used my Switch a lot in the last year or so. From Wario Ware and Metroid they’ve been on a really good run. I’d be amazed if Xbox didn’t get some big hitters out next year. Starfield, Redfall, Forza and Hellblade 2 Id expect.

@Titntin

No problem at all. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done similar.

73 is a crazy number. Was it a typo and they meant 37?

In reality 28% is a very big number in a year where most of their big first party hitters have been delayed.

@Titntin

Spencer never said they won't raise prices. When Sony announced their price rise MS put out a statement through a spokesman saying “We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options. Our Xbox Series S suggested retail price remains at $299 (£250, €300) the Xbox Series X is $499 (£450, €500).”

Then in September Spencer said in an interview “We’re always evaluating our business going forward so I don’t think we can ever say on anything that we will never do something, but when we look at our consoles today, we think value is incredibly important.”

Not much has actually changed.

@Dezzy70

Agree on the Switch, Nintendo are doing a great job of maintaining a high quality stream of releases. They slowed down during 2020 like everyone else but last two years have been very solid.

Smart move would be to maintain the price of the Consoles and let the inflation eat what would normally be price cuts as the generation goes on. Keep Series X lower than the competition and Series S as tremendous entry level value.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of buying games outright goes up and they close the loopholes for cheap Game Pass. I do think along with that they'd be better ditching GWG. Making Online Play would be a phenomenal pitch in straitened times and line up a lot of future GP subscibers.

Oh great! Really interested in this.

@Kaloudz

“frodo's journey from shire to mt doom”
😀😀

Great news. Hope they get mouse support.

@Kaloudz

Yeah they’ll be the main 3. The US has been clamping down on tech takeovers and the EU doesn’t historically have a very friendly attitude to Microsoft so could be tight. I think others countries are investigating though, and those verdicts could have an influence on the big 3.

I was a student in 1999, me making the effort to write out and post a letter was an amazing effort. I think that was a full day 😉

@Kaloudz

I’m also glad it’s not just me! It’s the second time I’ve written to the CMA, the first being in 1999 about Sky TVs proposed takeover of Manchester United. Though then I had to make the effort to write it out and send the letter by post. They’re very unpredictable TBH. Back then it was the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and nobody expected them to say no to Rupert Murdoch.

I didn’t expect them to have bullet points that were basically ‘we can’t allow MS to do this because it would damage Sony.’ Who knows? I think if other territories have sided with MS it would be difficult to go the other way but they’re a law unto themselves.

@Kaloudz

I thought that. I have all the current systems as I usually do and actually made the effort to reply to the CMAs request for submissions. As far as I’m concerned this deal is in the consumers interest as it brings us closer to the dream scenario of Sony, MS and Nintendo having 33.333% of the market each.

@Snake_V5

I get the feeling the upgraded PS Plus is a bit of a rush job on Sonys part because they needed a response to GP. They’ve done well with Extra which I’ve subscribed to and is decent value. But their treatment of their Retro content is terrible. I’ve had every Sony system (yes even the Vita) and would be all in on paying extra for Premium if they were treating their retro content with the care MS do. But sadly they aren’t even trying.

Fantastic news and the App seems spot on. I use Apple Music because it allows the uploading of my own stuff (mainly live bootlegs) so this is very welcome.

I think we’ll get Starfield, Redfall, Forza, Ghostwire Tokyo, Stalker 2, Ark 2 and maybe Hellblade 2 in 2023

This sounds serious, hope everything works out ok for her. She’s had a helluva career.

Ryan’s assumption that Playstation was untouchable and he had a free hand to milk their consumers harder is under threat and he doesn’t like it

@Tasuki

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s a clever plan to hook people in with Shredders Revenge who’ll then buy a copy of Cowabunga Collection.

If that is the plan it has worked on me.

Why did I think this was on Game Pass?

Good for them. Especially with the U.K. heading into a recession. Sony raising the price of the system is really bad optics that will hurt them once their hardcore/scalpers stop buying the PS5. Better to protect the long term brand image than chase a few quid now.

He’s right of course. Unless we’re talking about Nintendo. But he’s right, and it’s A Good Thing.

Looks a very shabby job all round

@NEStalgia

IMO PS4 generally was a pretty uninspiring Console-the hardware itself I mean. I loved the design of OG PS2. The OG Xbox and OG PS3 just felt powerful, whereas One S and X are gorgeous bits of hardware. PS4, meh. No eye catching design. Not a big leap from PS3, controller wasn’t great. Bit noisy. Obviously it deserved its success because of a phenomenal library of games but the hardware was very dull. And don’t get me started on PS4 Pro, I had one of the noisy ones.

PS5 is ugly and big but still somehow feels premium. Between the feel of the Controller, the clarity of the display, the really nice boot up sequence, it all works to create that impression.

That’s actually a decent result considering the disastrous start and launch. They had to work really hard to get that though, being very generous with price cuts (certainly in the U.K. anyway), getting One S out to replace the clunky original and then doing such a great job with One X and Gamepass.

I expect a slightly smaller gap this generation but with significant growth of Gamepass, Cloud and Xbox PC gaming.

“Game Pass is hurting right now”

Is it? Seems to me to have loads of games coming to it, and plenty I want to play.

“Well, we've noticed quite a bit of negativity out there recently regarding Game Pass”

That doesn’t mean a thing. Gamers as a group are constantly moaning.

“ the service's perceived downswing falls right in line with the rest of the games industry at large”

Well there you go. Unless you’re on the Switch it’s been a quiet year overall. Even allowing for that it’s had some really good additions and currently so many good games it would take me years to play through everything I wanted even if they never added anything else.

Just sounds like a poor quality port. Series S is a fine machine.

It doesn’t currently make sense to make COD exclusive. Having it on Game Pass will cause some of the COD market to bleed across to MS. If MS have the sense to ditch GWG and make Online free, that would speed the process.

But for now and the foreseeable future, pocketing all that cash from £70 Playstation purchases is the only way forward.

@Titntin

Erm, that’s fine. I never suggested anyone should do otherwise. I can afford to buy whatever games I want but I choose to chase the reward points. If others choose not to 🤷‍♂️

@BartoxTharglod

Yeah totally fair enough. Doesn’t seem worth it. I don’t understand why there are such regional differences come to think of it.

@BartoxTharglod

There are loads of ways to earn points. Daily Sets on the website, Game Pass Quests, the Rewards app on Xbox, daily searches on phone/PC/Edge, playing Game Pass games (both Console and PC) plus Jewel on the Xbox phone app.

That’s in the U.K. anyway, not sure about different territories.

PS Plus Extra is decent value. Premium is a joke with Sony treating their back catalogue with casual disdain. GP still better at this point.