VRFocus- Later this month will see South West Virtual Reality (VR) Conference (SWVRC) kicking off. At the conference many speakers from different software and videogame development companies will feature including Channel 4, Pinewood, The Imaginarium, Unity 3D and Alchemy VR. Adding to the already impressive line up are videogame developers Bossa Studios and Sony.
Sony and Microsoft have responded to the CMA's revised findings with Sony citing Redfall's Harvey Smith about the cancelled PS5 version.
Sony: "If PlayStation received a degraded version of Call of Duty, it would "seriously damage our reputation. Our gamers would desert our platform in droves and network effects would exacerbate the problem. Our business would never recover."
Wow Sony just admitted that their 1st party titles are meaningless to the success of the platform, so much for exclusives matter lol.
MS will literally have the existence of the Playstation brand in the palm of their hand if Sony is being truthful.
CoD is 10% of their annual revenue and similarly so for Xbox. If gamers move elsewhere for CoD, the biggest game out there, then they will also buy other third parties elsewhere.
Zero platforms survive on exclusives and rely primarily on third party titles (even Nintendo).
Losing a huge portion of your revenue stream means you can't compete as well and your competition gains what you lose.
This isn't rocket science. Why are you acting like you've figured out some sort of gotcha moment when saying exclusives matter isn't the same as saying they determine the profitability of your company.
The problem is that CoD is too big of a game and people are acting like it isn't. It is the juggernaut in the industry. It is the Usain Bolt of video games, no one is catching up to it and it keeps running.
I am just quoting Sony if you think they are lying that's up to you to believe that.
You're miscontextualizing their quote, not quoting them. You're essentially saying that someone that says they prefer hamburgers will never eat pizza. They never said what you said, which is that exclusives are all that matter.
"Zero platforms survive on exclusives and rely primarily on third party titles (even Nintendo)."
Not true. Nintendo´s Switch TOP 20 best selling games is literally made of Nintendo´s first party games ONLY. Check your facts.
So yes, unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo relies on their first party first and foremost to survive.
Jim Ryan´s statements is just stupid and irresponsible. Playstation ain´t going nowhere with or without COD, all he´s doing is downplaying Playstation first party games and developers every time he opens his mouth by calling COD the holy grail of games.
***Why would they move if the game is still on PS5?***
Did you miss the first part of sparky77's quote? "If PlayStation received a degraded version of Call of Duty, it would "seriously damage our reputation."
I'm replying to sparky, not the title of the submission.
***Not true. Nintendo´s Switch TOP 20 best selling games is literally made of Nintendo´s first party games ONLY. Check your facts.***
Guarantee fortnite and Minecraft make more money than any of those best selling games. Being best selling doesn't mean saving the entirety of the platform. Those are also the titles that cost Nintendo the most to put out. Third parties are literally w/o any production/manufacturing costs. Just a percentage of sales, including MTX/DLC.
Obscure, Jim's not downplaying anything. He's stating that if Microsoft takes away 10 percent of their revenue that comes from cod, that extra money they make to use on creating first party games, getting exclusives from third parties, investing in indie developers, releasing innovative hardware like PS VR 2 would be lost because of Microsoft's monopolization of publishers and franchises.
You can't just quickly recover from a big portion of your money being taken away. Microsoft could easily recover because Daddy Warbucks is footing the bill of a loss leading platform. Sony's PlayStation platform makes money on its own.
But you guys want to make it seem he's saying that internal games are worthless. Which isn't the case. And Sony's teams know that. They know what it means as well to lose money to create games besides from exclusively created game revenue.
Because they don't have arguments. They want to put under the rug the impact of Cod. So they are tryng to say it's just Cod.... For me it's the Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi of videogaming. Every year means billions. No other game does this. Fact
"Guarantee fortnite and Minecraft make more money than any of those best selling games. Being best selling doesn't mean saving the entirety of the platform."
And guarantee that you won´t see Nintendo crying over the possible loss of any of those.
Nintendo always had and will continue to rely on themselves, period! They never needed some third party GaaS games to survive and never will.
@Obscure I'm pretty sure the WiiU pretty much failed because they made it difficult for third parties to put games on the console
***And guarantee that you won´t see Nintendo crying over the possible loss of any of those.***
I think you'd be surprised.
***Nintendo absolutely doesn't not primarily rely on third party titles.***
I guarantee the majority of Nintendo's profits from gaming comes from third-parties. People forget how much it costs to make your own content and how that eats into profits compared to the 30% off of other people's work.
So a lot of people have commented on Sony receiving an inferior version of the game. It seems that most people on here haven’t read or heard of the remedies/concessions MS bound itself to.
The biggest of which is an independent oversight committee that is paid for by MS and its members chosen by the government agencies. Their job will involve ensuring parity on quality and content. They will have the power to stop the game releasing on all platforms if the standards are not met.
So all the fuss over an inferior version is mute.
Well said.
To add on, obviously Sony is going to push this sentiment just as MS pushed the fact that Sony is dominant and they can not compete with them. Each company will play to the legislative powers and appear more weak and vulnerable than they are in an attempt to sway the results. For ppl to use either as a "gotcha" moment is ignorant.
While both are technically true, Sony's reliance on CoD and Xbox being less successful than PlayStation, each company is embellishing their particular ssentiment.
Obscure_Observer
"PlayStation ain't going nowhere with or without CoD"
I'm sorry but this guy depicts the worst of fanboy culture. I'm bias to a degree. I have preferences and i pull for a particular platform more than others bc i enjoy that product more. However, the inability to give any credit or at least be realistic about the opposition is weak.
Are you insinuating that PlayStation isn't or won't be successful in the future? They are dominating. PS5 projections are outlandish. They are breaking revenue records. Demand is insane. They are pushing more hardware, software, and studios than ever. Your agenda is so bluntly obvious and weak. Yeah, PlayStation is clearly struggling and has no future. Ppl who live by the "wait til next year" mentality do so bc they are failing in current day.
@zekk
"I'm pretty sure the WiiU pretty much failed because they made it difficult for third parties to put games on the console"
All the way wrong, couldn't be anymore wrong if you tried. See Wii U had Watch Dogs, NFS and even Batman: Arkham Asylum (or some other Arkham game) and at least one or two CoD games, but it sold less units than PS Vita (which had some version of CoD that was poorly received)...
Nintendo really might be fine without third parties until we consider Pokémon. Without Pokémon Nintendo might really be hurting, as far as I'm aware it actually is a third party game, Game Freak and The Pokémon Company can pull their support for Nintendo and Pokémon revenue disappears... even so Nintendo games are some of the best selling out there and more often than not these days they include MTX and/or subs to unlock things or to play at all like Splatoon does.
We’ll yeah call of duty is a very important game in the industry probably the most important one right now. So not surprising they think that it’s the truth. It moved consoles and gives them a lot of money so they obviously don’t want Microsoft in control of that.
But on topic I guess it’s good Microsoft never promised anyone that they wouldn’t make Bethesda games exclusives so they are doing nothing wrong. If that was a stipulation for buying Bethesda then okay I get it but it wasn’t.
Supposedly it was said by ms that whatever was in development for ps would still be put out. Therefore shutting down development of said game by ms was a bs move. Pretty sure that's it
@Sonic
Great suggestion! Only problem is they would need to think. So.... seems unlikely.
You also forget that all Cod players buy Playstation Plus.
That is also a huge financial hit if those players switch platform.
Finally... In some way you finally get it. Yes their monopolistic to tendencies are fatal for other companies...hence why the deal shouldn't go through...and as Christopher said....you're also misrepresenting their quote.
Sparky, i truly trying to figure out why you care so much act like Sony is the bad guy here for trying make this multiplatform publisher stay independent and making games for every one
I hope you have this strength when Sony is doing the same and i hope to see you defend the decision when buy big publishers like Capcom and Square Enix or From Software etc etc
Sony: "If PlayStation received a degraded version of Call of Duty, it would "seriously damage our reputation. Our gamers would desert our platform in droves and network effects would exacerbate the problem. Our business would never recover."
But we have no issue with giving a degraded PC version of our game or paying to ensure that the PS4 version of COD has exclusives features
As we said in the past PLaystation is the home of Call of Duty
Hey lets just take everything out of context and present it as fact, truly emulating Phil and MS!
I actually fear the damage Microsoft would moreso do to the gaming sector than Sony would, Microsoft is just throwing money around to buy themselves a monopoly, truely cancerous behavior.
And I'm had much more quality experiences with Sony than I ever have with Xbox.
Just like MS admitted they are getting dominated by Sony and have no chance to compete. Read between the lines. Each company will make themselves appear weak or vulnerable in an attempt to influence legislation. Stop with the bs. I seriously wonder if ppl are naive or just pushing their agenda.
COD is too big an IP to be handled by 1 company and COD fans will move to xbox easily.
Highly doubt that unless someone bought a PS solely to play COD otherwise PS fans,loyalist & owners will continue to support the PS platform.
Again...the lack of brain activity is incredible.
Yes! There are many who buy a console based on what other are purchasing and aren't entirely loyal to one brand. They will easily move if one of their biggest games goes to another platform. Heck I already know a few individuals purchasing Xbox over PlayStation because of starfield. They were originally going to purchase PlayStation but when I told them about starfield exclusivity...of which they had no idea...they changed their mind on which to purchase.
@crows Having a lack of brain activity is incredible. It seems you don't know what fans & loyal customers mean. Most loyal customers & fans of PS do not own a PS console solely to play COD though you may have some casuals that buy a PS console to play COD only with their casual friends that only play COD. I play COD but I only play the campaign then I'm done with it. I've bought all generations of PS consoles & it wasn't to play COD & I'm quite sure there are millions of PS owners that have the same mindset. That's a ridiculous notion to think PS fans & loyalists will drop PS if it was exclusive to XB. They would play it on PC, finally buy an XB alongside their PS or they won't bother to play COD at all.
Nintendo doesn't care. Look at the sales of Nintendo without Cod... If they wanted activision would be jumping at their door. Streaming... No words... Pc got lackluster sales. Let's see what will haopend
If the case then why is COD back on Steam instead of just Battle.net?
Or how come EA games are back on Steam too?
Surely it's cheaper and easier to install a FREE launcher compare to buying a 500$ console + subscription.
@Badz
I'm pretty sure that Steam users do own a PC.
So again my question Why did Blizzard Activision or EA decide to come back to Steam when it's free to install Battle.net or EA Origin?
Crows90, PS is still getting Call of duty. The only changes are so are Nintendo and Gamepass.
All Ms gotta say is look at Stellar Blade it was announced for Xbox in the trailer and it not all the suddenly.
Street Fighter 5 your honor the previous Street Fighter 4 was on all consoles and was best played on Xbox for Evo tournament and Sony paid Capcom a huge amount of $$$ to skip Xbox and Nintendo for a whole generation.
@343, don't be ignorant get informed. Capcom was in bad shape back then and would not have made street fighter 5 but for Sony funding the game and publishing it. Capcom since then has recovered financially and therefore sf6 has returned to being multiplatform. Doesn't matter xbox players don't buy games anyways.
How do you know stellar blades still ain't coming to xbox 6 months to a year later.
Street fighter I've read Sony played a part in helping develop that. Maybe it's not true. Eh I ain't looking it up
This lie that “Sony helped” needs to stop.
SF6 is coming to Xbox. Did Sony help with SF6. Did it help with SF4. Read between the lines they paid to keep it exclusive.
It won't. Sony never said it was timed or anything. They funded the rest of the game and took away the already announced and planned Xbox version.
There's no "what ifs" Don't even begin to make excuses. .
@343
Is it also a lie that FF16 was helped developed by Sony? This partnership ives Sony a few months of exclusivity, but the game itself would have taken that many months or more of development without Sony anyways. The first FF game to have no development troubles in who knows how long. Interesting how people can point out supposed "lies" on one side and not apply the same attention to detail or reading between the lines of another to provide criticism for.
343
It's foolish to use SF6 as an example of why Capcom didn't need Sony's help with SF5. Capcom is vastly more successful now as opposed to the inception of SF5. The resurgence of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, etc gives them the financial freedom they lacked back then. Around a time when RE was floundering, Monster Hunter was on essentially one platform, and Deep Down and Panta Rai were draining money. Look at RE6, MvC Infinite. That era of Capcom was largely a flop. They are much stronger now.
And Tomb Raider was the same thing. Titanfall, Dead Rising 3, The Gunk, Pugb, etc. Both companies have done and continue to do this with 3rd party games. How many timed deals are on Game Pass? Stop clinging to Stellar Blade and FF like MS never did the same thing.
If anything, 3rd party deals are common. However, publisher acquisitions that cancel in development versions of games for a particular platform and banish IP from a particular platform forever are less common to the point of nearly unprecedented. Not saying either is good for fans but to act like timed exclusivity on Stellar Blade is equal to the Bethesda and ABK deals is ignorant.
And the only reason MS doesn't acquire bigger 3rd party exclusivity these days is bc Gamepass limits their ability to do so. But even last generation as the vastly inferior platform they still had major 3rd party exclusives timed or otherwise via Tomb Raider, Titanfall, Pubg, Ryse, Dead Rising, ReCore, Quantum Break, etc. Early 360 they had deals for Mass Effect, Oblivion, Bioshock, Alan Wake etc. You guys cling to Stellar Blade though. Funny.
You still missed the entire point if the argument. 3rd party has been goin on for ages it's fine it's normal. "times deals on gamepass" is something you clearly made up I don't even know what that means.
"And Tomb Raider was the same thing. Titanfall, Dead Rising 3, The Gunk, Pugb, etc. Both companies have done and continue to do this with 3rd party games. How many timed deals are on Game Pass? Stop clinging to Stellar Blade and FF like MS never did the same thing."
But how many times has a game that was announced to the world as a multiplatform game only for MS to take over and rid of said PS game?
Let me say it again. People like you have trouble reading.
Again ANNOUNCED to world as a multplat? How many times has MS done that? You have no excuses for Stellar Blade. If you make excuses then it's only ok for Sony to do it right? Since you love defending terrible buissness practices.
"Not saying either is good for fans but to act like timed exclusivity on Stellar Blade is equal to the Bethesda and ABK deals is ignorant."
Hifi, Redfall and Starfield are own by MS. No contracts or obligations were done by Sony (they almost got Starfield though) those games were never announce just to take away like Sony did with Stellar Blade. A game and studio Sony doesn't even own. Owning with no contracts or obligations vs none owning and canning the announced Xbox version. Which ones worse?
You lost this argument.
The CMA did not care if Bethesda made their games exclusive to Xbox. Also they already knew about Redfall's cancelled version. Doesn't matter what Sony says now.. the CMA doesn't care.
"Doesn't matter what Sony says now.. the CMA doesn't care."
Jim Ryan is desperate, he just called CMA irrational yesterday and now he´s trying to bring them some "sense" by mention Bethesda. What a loser.
@curtain_swoosh
"but you'd know all about losers."
Yeah, I can easily tell that bozo is gonna lose this case and will be begging at MS´s door in no time.
@Ryuk, Jim,Ryan is,right, the CMA did a complete 180 from their own stated position (supported by their own extensive research) just 2 months ago. Was their logic/research completely wrong just 2 months ago? Lol. I doubt it. Any reasonable observer would find such behavior on the part of the cma "irrational " .
Evidently MS and others made a more compelling case then Sony for the merger to be approved.
If Sony wasn't in such a dominant position in so many markets the merger may have been blocked, success can be a double edged sword.
@king, it was never Sony's job to make any case, I'm talking about the cma's own findings a few months ago. Anyone who knows a little about administration law knows that regulatory bodies are very careful when giving findings, the cma was not nuetral at all on their last report about this purchase they said definitively it would reduce competition. A complete reversal on their own findings call into question the validity of all their reasoning on this issue. I don't like conspiracies but I believe Microsoft recent purchase of a sizeable portion of the London stock exchange influenced this decision to change course.
@derek what is this about London stock exchange?
@kingnick MSs case and details of it are completely public and it was not compelling AT ALL. Infact it was deeply flawed as is the CMA's new position. Their new position, makes no sense and by the same logic they are using elder scrolls 6 should still be on PlayStation as should redfall and no titles should go to games pass fay 1 as they are causing MS tonloae out on alot if money. It assumes microsofts gsme isn't to destroy competitors revenue streams vs increase their own. They have plenty of form in such practices.
It's pretty suspicious behavior from the CMA, I can imagine some "greasing of the wheels" may have happened, but I don't have any evidence to suggest this was the case, it's just a weird turn of events anyhow.
yup, when the eyes are already blinded and ears already closed by money from MS, nothing else matters
But they should have. Bethesda alone banishes future iterations of IP like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Starfield, Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake, Redfall, and potential future iterations of Dishonored, Evil Within, or other IP from Arkane/Tango etc. That's so many impactful multiplat IP to strip from a particular fanbase. Pretty egregious. Pretty unprecedented.
Then factor Crash, Diablo, Overwatch etc. Even if CoD remains multi the potential that all of these other IP could eventually be taken from a fanbase is unconscionable.
talk about selective memory. just very recently MS were the one crying Sony dominated this dominated that, market share this and that, our games are inferior quality compared to Sony's, GP cannibalize sales bla bla bla...both are doing it to win over the regulators.
I called MS was bluffing back then and I will also call Sony is bluffing here too.
So if MS says something for the deal, then get the deal and does the contrary,there is no legal action that can be taken? Looks like that and it shouldn't.
MS must give a legal document and ensure to comply with it and if not, then they must face consequences.
It feels like the situation is that MS can promise anything but there is no way to make them comply legally after the deal and that's wrong.
money is key and MS has a lot of it. remember, they are willing to put their own 1st party games on GP day 1, so the perspective of them paying upfront for potential sales loss or fines for breaching pre-sale agreements is also very high. look at the amount of money they are spending to gobble up Bethesda and ABK and compare that to the amount of money they are making with xbox. they are not in it for short-term money maker. they just want Sony and PS out of the way by taking away what they can from PS to cripple them! then they will talk about making money long-term!
This is now the third approved article citing the same Sony response now with just a different headline. They aren't happy we get it.
Amazing what gets approved and rejected here. You are right it’s like the 3rd article.
This is a farse. We all know deep down Microsoft will finalize the acquisition, and Sony will have to adapt.
And maybe a good course of action would be a PlayTendo.
At this point I just want the deal to push through asap.
Getting tired of seeing articles about this.
It's a good path. Because the CMA says Microsoft won't take the game from Sony because of money. They just did that with two games. When sales wise beteshda games sells 3 or 4 times more on Sony machines. Microsoft doesn't care losing millions and millions they just want to take them from Sony.
It's their desperate tactic. Them don't have nothing more, so let's spent billions to try and force Sony gamers to get the games...
"Them don't have nothing more, so let's spent billions to try and force Sony gamers to get the games..."
MS doesn´t need ABK for that. There´s a lot of hypocrite PS fanboys that already have a Series console or are filing MS´s pockets on PC via Gamepass, they´re just too coward to admit it.
"There´s a lot of hypocrite PS fanboys that already have a Series console or are filing MS´s pockets on PC via Gamepass, they´re just too coward to admit it."
Yeah... the massive recent sales of xbox in comparison to PS and stagnating gamepass subs really supports this argument.
Yeah, nah, I know alot of people who don't even have Gamepass or an Xbox, it's just PC/PS/Nintendo, it's actually rare for me to come across an Xbox owner or Gamepass subscriber.
Personally I own a PS/Switch/PC and don't have Gamepass and never will sub to Gamepass. It's just wishful thinking on your part that people are doing the opposite of what the numbers say they're doing.
MS has shareholders who won't be happy to see huge losses in potential revenue should COD and other franchises with huge playerbases on other consoles become exclusive to Xbox.
"They just did that with two games."
2 games that have no contracts or obligations with Sony. So MS is free to do as they please.
Like Bungie and there next project. Yeah Jim said he'll honor Bungie's agreement to remain multiplat but Jim can easily cancel said Xbox version of their next game.
And guess what? Sony can do that. Is it a jerk move? Sure but Sony can do it because they own Bungie and all their IP.
I thought when he said it “I’m surprised this hasn’t been use in the whole court thing” and here we are
Microsoft must be p***** off with him for saying it
End of the Day, JIm looks like a crybaby not Sony. He is only making it worse for both himself and his company. His whole argument makes it appear Sony is completely innocent, yet they pay off 3rd part for exclusivity both games and content, that is a known fact.
Sony has lost this battle, move one, and keep making great exclusives. 1 Shooter is not going to bankrupt the company, it is a joke.
"His whole argument makes it appear Sony is completely innocent, yet they pay off 3rd part for exclusivity both games and content, that is a known fact."
oh look, the same false equivalence of comparing 80 billion buying out of decades old multiplatform franchises to a handful of timed exclusives deals, which MS still do as well with the likes of Stalker 2, Ark 2, Valheim etc, funny how you convenienly forget this for arguments sake.
Dang y’all milking these articles. Nothing new here.
Sorry SONY. Time to either sign the deal or just be left out.
Sony should then also cite that MS still honored all of Sony’s deals including exclusive arrangements with the studios MS bought (like deathloop and ghostwire tokyo for example and offered to let COD be a PS+ day one launch game as well as guaranteed support for 10 years. Sony had no specific deals with redfall and it was so early in development when all of this started anyway. MS is paying money… jus like Sony did with silent hill, almost all square enix games, bloodborne, final fantasy and more. Sony has is not really in a place to complain here. MS has been far more flexible with Sony than the other way around.
Sony are right. During the 360 days Xbox were the king of COD. The cell chip in the Ps3 made COD run poorly so Xbox was the place to go. Xbone/PS4 generation the scales flipped and playstation was the best for performance. Xbox and Playstation know COD has a fanbase that play nothing but COD and they have proven for 2 generations that they don't have console alliances and will go with whatever machine gives them the best performance.
Just let em have it. Microsoft platforms are DYING for exclusives. Seriously they've been eating crumbs after X360, and even that console only gave them a half-gen of good stuff.
In letters obtained by Axios, reps blast an “imbalanced Japanese video game market.”
As they should, Sony is preventing Xbox gamers playing JP games like Final Fantasy which is why they dominate in JP. And since Sony doesn't count Nintendo they have a monopoly.
Sony shouldn't have poked the bear that is MS, you can bet after the deal is done they will go scorched earth on Sony.
MS has the money and power to make Sony disappear so they best keep silent from here on if they want to remain relevant.
Sony hasnt done much like Nintendo is getting JP games as well. The only company is square that they are doing a couple of deals outta dozens of games.
They dominate the Japanese market because it is a Japanese company. And not all PS exclusive jp titles are exclusive due to exclusivity deals. Yeah FF for sure is, but there's dozens if not hundreds of jp games that are exclusive simply because they dont see the point in putting it elsewhere. Also MS has exclusivity deals too, doesnt matter where they're from. If MS was that concerned about it they would have finished Scalebound or Phantom Dust
Kinda like ms has already gone and cornered the western rpg market. From things I've read ms doesn't even try in Japan anymore. They did during the 360 and after about 4 5 jrpgs they just said nah. That's on ms
Why would Yoshi-P make a game for Xbox when Microsoft specifically said "no, we don't want your previous game, FF14n on our console."
Yeah, like making donations to some of these politicians right? You Xbox fanboys would co-sign corruption if MS does it. You claim MS has money and power, yet they refuse to invest in the Japanese market, yet their have enough money to encourage some politicians to spread lies.
Microsoft can literally work with more Japanese studios, open Studios and releases games that appeals to the Japanese market, they can also advertise their products in Japan, they don't and cry about the Japanese government or Sony getting in their way.
What the fuck are you on about? I didn't realize this gamer shit is becoming a fucking national issue.
Sony dominates Japan if we don't count Nintendo? Well no shit...not sonys fault MS is a real competitor over there.
I like how Apple does well in japan.
Shows if a foreign company actually wants to make headway in Japan, they totally can.
MS never gave a fuck about Japan.
some shitty efforts from MS for further appeal to ABK deal there with obvious lobbying lmao
conveniently skipped Nintendo and PC overwhelming dominance over Sony in japan with ultra specific “high-end console market space” phrase, when in any other day they’d claim PC is one of their environments until their throat is sore
what’s funny is how these congressmen suddenly understand “high-end console market space in japan” as if they’ve been a game connosieur all their lives, I don’t even think they can even name all Xbox console right.
Before its wait for E3 now its wait for activision deal is done LMAO! xbox 3rd place for life.
Your rantings are like those of people that love the sound of their own voice. I know you're enjoying spending time in the fantasy world you've created for yourself though.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy: Those people are stopping American businesses from selling those play things in Japan, and this will not stand! We want the PlayBoxes to be fairly sold worldwide, we demand it! IF you do not start selling more good ol' American-made Nintendos in China, we're going to call for an investigation and subpoena Xi Jinping to testify before Congress!
Sony nor Nintendo is preventing anything. Playstation and Nintendo sells more consoles so developers makes games for those consoles. Why would japanese developers make games for a consoles that only sales 300 consoles per month?
Xbox gamers don't like Japanese games. They just okay halo, gears and forza. That's why Sony dominates there.
Yup, this is going to blow up in Sony's face. They should have taken the 10 year deal.
They released a few games on xbox..they don't sell man. lol You can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. The community on xbox simply don't play jrpg.
Lost Odyssey was a damn hit of a game that deserved way more sales than it got.
@ sparky Kid here’s a lesson in business, companies follow the money if your distributor isn’t promoting your product and have it in the back of the store with a broken light while the distributor competition have it at the front door with bright lights, sales signs and sale 10x the other who do you think the company will look for to sale their product, the one that barely sale it in the back or the one that sales 10x by the front door, I know it’s hard to use logic but think about it.
SPOILER ALERT 🚨
It’s the one that sale the most and the company will keep going to the one that sales the most
Lmao ah ok. How long has MS had that same power and money to make Sony "disappear"? They have been in the game business now for what like 20 yrs now, and they ALWAYS finish last. Lol Sony are a smaller company, but they are FAR better at making games. Call me when they have blockbusters like the last of us, God of war, spiderman, uncharted etc. The only way they can try to compete is to buy up publushers like abk. It's really sad.
"MS has the money and power to make Sony disappear so they best keep silent from here on if they want to remain relevant."
You just described the actions of a monopoly using threat, force and intimidation to further their means.
Congratulations, you played yourself.
Not just Japan, Sony dominated in certain countries because they care about the market outside of US. While MS is crying about Japan, Sony is pushing their investment to Korea, China, India , Thailand... "China Hero" project, Playstation studio Malaysia , just today they released a playstation story commercial in Thai.
And most importantly, the xsx supplyment to Asia is SHIT compared to PS5. The price of xsx here are much higher than PS5 because of that. By what Chinese says here, MS is treating us like monkeys, their console supply is like throwing bananas to monkeys just for fun.
MS's failure in Japan reflects his ignorance to the whole east. They have much to cry about, and it's def not because of one or two exclusives titles. Even in this case, MS pretend they care about Japan, but in real they are just using this as leverage to make Sony bend.
Go touch grass xbot fanboy, you sound just like Microsoft, butt hurt and crying like a little baby.
MS can have all the studios it wants and it won't make a single difference lol they'll all just be mismanaged and closed years later. How's Halo working out for you? Oh that's right, its dead now.
How's Rare doing? Oh right they were mismanaged into oblivion.
How's Playground Games? Ahh all top veterans quit! Hahaha LOL I'd expect CoD to be a very dead franchise soon.
Japan doesn't buy American Consoles and never has. They are not interested and besides that.
Nintendo rules the roost in Japan and I don't ever see that ending.
One reason is the handheld market. It's massive out there.
you speak of both companies as a whole in a contained market rivalry. MS ain't putting all their resources onto this. The sub division of MS dedicated to gaming is! Same goes for Sony's side. Translated into simple terms, Sony is bigger than MS in the gaming department
Here is some of the jrpgs that was exclusive to Xbox, and they all flopped badly just for that reason.
We have no idea what games has been paid for time exclusivity or life time exclusivity, what we do know however is that Square and many other Japanese companies doesn't see profit in putting games on Xbox anymore, even thou they tried over and over again.
The mindset that only Sony reach out to SE is getting childish, as it's so far from the truth.
Eternal Sonata (Bandai Namco)
Octopath Traveler (SquareEnix)
Lost Odyssey (Mistwalker)
Blue Dragon (Mistwalker)
Infinite Undiscovery (SquareEnix)
Star Ocean: The Last Hope (SquareEnix)
The Last Remnant (SquareEnix)
Crystal Defenders (Square Enix)
If by “scorched earth” you mean a couple legal treadmills and wasted dollars, sure, but you talk like MS if gonna go Taken on Sony, drop the phone and find them in their sleep, jeez, it’s legal video game BS, calm yourself
Final Fantacy has nothing to do with it. MS just does not appeal to the JP. How well did the 360 do in JP, it had final fantasy and other rpg games. Maybe, just maybe it MS
"As they should, Sony is preventing Xbox gamers playing JP games like Final Fantasy"..
And..........Oh is that it? Do you have any more examples of Japanese games Sony has blocked? And I mean where Sony have a written down deal that specifically excludes Xbox and not because of poor Xbox sales in Japan.
Another Xbox fanboy made a similar claim on Eurogamer, but funny enough they couldn't think of any more examples.
"Sony doesn't count Nintendo they have a monopoly" do you have a link to this claim?
How is that an American congressional area of concern?
How is it of the American Congress' power to affect the behavior of a Japanese corporation over another?
They need to stay out of it honestly, they don't know nothing about video games to begin with. Like the time they tried to blame video games for gun violence.
Exactly. Maybe a handful of them literally but the rest of them old ass white dudes don't know dick about gaming except its an easy scapegoat for a mass shooting. Also the first 1 that jumped on this bandwagon was a politician from Washington state itself. You know what company of the big 3 console makers is from Washington state right
No what they are doing is the right thing sony needs to be fined what they are doing that’s actually anticompetitive. They need to be regulated Japan needs to stop showing preferential treatment to Japanese companies if not the US should do the same
To pay a developer in Japan to exclude a game on Xbox definitely needs to be checked whether it sells or not is not the point. They shouldn’t be bitching about call of duty if that was the case. They brought this on themselves now need to be looked at closely and have their practices scrutinized and fined or file a lawsuit on.
@blackblades that’s because we are morally sane individuals , but it’s some ppl who are crazy asf out there that will see stuff in movies and games .. then try to reenact something’s on real life
Well, Sony open the the hornet's nest. Now they must deal with the consequences.
Many people claim Final Fantasy doesn't sell on Xbox. Basically, Sony doesn't need those Final Fantasy exclusives deals, since the Xbox market is irrelevant for japanese games. So by their logic, Sony is just throwing away money on these deals... apparently, the American Congress doesn't agree with those people.
That’s the thing.
If Sony didn’t go full-r*tard on this and make all these outlandish claims to stop what is the 4th biggest revenue income publisher for them, under them no less, these things wouldn’t have come to light.
Now, all their scum bag practices got aired out. Officials declare MS acquisition not to be anti-competitive or a monopolistic move and as a result Sony is now being questioned by all the revelations that came about these court proceedings.
Should’ve just taken the deal…
Sony opened the honest message. What are you 12. We're you even alive during the Xbox 360 Era for fuks sake.
I would say it's fair enough that Sony is getting grief for this. I've said it before, but I fully understand their interests in trying to block the deal, but when you go to court and you're doing shady stuff, you CAN'T be upset when it comes to light that you've got some trade secrets and panic when they get aired out. In this regard, Microsoft did nothing wrong and Sony goofed.
And you make an interesting point on Sony essentially throwing away money. The only benefit I can see to this strategy is essentially commissioning publishers and developers to make the one console version the best that it can be. An incentive, if you will.
As for the American Congress, well... It's pretty much a democratic senator from Microsoft's home state and some right wing House members (who, if you don't know, are quite corporate capitalists; Democrats are too, but let's just say republicans are just more honest in how terrible they are). If Microsoft opens up their wallets even more, I'm sure they'll get the support they need from legislators with a price tag. If we see McConnell and/or Manchin get in on this, you'll know what's up.
Sony started this by buying a major publisher and several IPs? Having the money to do so yet failing to develop its own in-house games years after, decades, being in the industry.
Yah they are probably fearing them buying up a smaller Japanese publisher or 2. I'd trade ABK for Capcom and square all day long.
I like how 6 people disagreed with my comment like there is any other reason. Lol
@tay8701
Same here. Also there are rumors of a certain large publisher that is in Sony’s crosshairs. At this point the rest of the multiplatform publishers are all for grab with the legal precedence that is about to be set by MS’s aquisition of Activision, so I hope Sony goes after some instead of some other corporate giant like tencent, apple, google, etc.
He still has a big portion of his personal wealth in Microsoft, which means strings are being pulled, because he'll want to protect that. Big tech needs putting in it's place, THAT'S something congress should be involved with, not helping them to amass more power. They're only doing this because of orders from above and/or for personal interests.
This topic again..
Not gonna harp on it, just want to say that the timing is suspicious and you would be foolish to believe this uncritically.
Very curious about recent lobbying efforts.
Japan don’t care about Xbox. But hey let’s blame Sony. And ignore the fact Nintendo is the one actually dominating.
“As they should, Sony is preventing Xbox gamers playing JP games like Final Fantasy which is why they dominate in JP.”
Square Enix could’ve easily said no to PS5 exclusivity but they didn’t. It’s not a one way street.
Sony should buy Rockstar and tell Microsoft they have 10 years to come up with a GTA competitor.
It would be hysterical if that were to go down. They would be in full meltdown mode. Then all of the sudden It would be bad that Sony buys up a big publisher, when they have been screaming IF MS and ABK wants to do it, they should be able to.
The legal precedence set by MS’s acquisition means the rest of the industry will go the same route, there will be a frenzy of mergers amd acquisitions. There is already rumors of Sony aiming for exactly what you mentioned. Other mega corporations will also be aiming for the rest of the publishers so they can create their own services.
Yeah, it's all a big plot so that Japan is forced to let MS buy Sega and Namco and have all 4 classic characters as their mascot. They will then replace the X in a circle with an X over pacman's face, as their logo. We will also see adds in the likes of Crash, Spyro, Sonic and Pac-Lady around an MS logo with the caption "the way it's ment to be plaid" 🤣
The government is in bed with Microsoft, has been for years. How is this not a conflict of interests? How is this not straight up nepotism?
They do this kind of thing all the time at that level, looking after their buddies. (See: Ursula Von Der Leyen (AKA Ursula Fond o' Lyin') and her hubby's links during the vaccine rollout). Why should congress waste the tax payer's time and money dwelling on what happens in a foreign market that may or may not hinder the progress of a company that happens to be American? It's outside of their jurisdiction. Which is why it's plain to see it serves the interests of the individuals in congress rather than the American citizens...
And why did Microsoft buy zenimax and Activision along with 10+ other developers ?
US congressmen can't work on bill that could be improving American lives, we still have homeless people under the bridges, many of whom served in the military but instead these congressmen areworried about japanese gaming market. This is all Microsoft and their resources talking
Ya their practices of not giving money to politicians like MS sure is suspicious.
By "somebody" you mean paid for politicians MS has in their back pocket, of course.
As stated by sony themselves, they spend 2.5 million a year lobying in the US. Quite crying.
@bleedsoe9mm
Oh god, “representational government” was not meant for lobbyists. Lol
The reason your politicians are the best money can buy is because of little case called Federal Election commission vs. Citizens United where they inadvertently openned the floodgates of corporate shills when they ruled that a corporation was a “person”. This resulted in corporations being able to “donate” money to politicians in the same way mom and pop could. As if both mom and pop and a corporation had the same financial might. That is why you got corrupt politicians like the ones MS is sicking on Sony at the moment.
LOL...this is Congressmen doing it for campaign support. It's called legal bribery.
It is all out there to see..
The Japanese cutler spends money on reliable long lasting items.
All stems from Microsoft’s faulty hardware that built distrust with said market.
You are just reading an article payed for by Microsoft’s money doing everything to get the deal done.
Lack of game making and lack of reliability on their hardware is why they do not do well in markets with a culture that looks for the complete opposite of what Microsoft offers.
That and Microsoft’s stigma of being cruel and shady to competitors through many tactics.
They just are not liked.
Spilt blood does not get anyone any sympathy.
Looks like Sony's crying and complaining about MS to the FTC has shifted some unwanted eyes on them.
And Microsoft is burned beyond belief. That's why it's in last place, their games don't sell, their services floped and are spending 80 billions on publishers... Scary stuff
We are seeing the power of money in action. Why would US Senators be concerned over the failings of a trillion dollar company's venture in Japan? Because when you can buy Senators, you can use the government as a vehicle to look at things that tax payors probably don't care about. Instead of gun violence we have our senators trying to fight on behalf of the richest of the rich.
Am sure the MS donations checks have cleared. This does absolutely nothing and I guarantee you, tje Japanese government will pretend these politicians don't exist
"Am sure the MS donations checks have cleared"
Ah yes, it was all fair and square when the attention and focus was on MS...now it's bribes and corruption when questions are asked about Sony.
@gangsta_red
https://twitter.com/stephen...
The 1st lady that came up literally has Microsoft as one of her biggest donors
Anyway Mr. Bot, you are welcome.
1st off MS employees are her biggest contributors. 2nd it literally her job to look out for the well being of her constituents. If there is nothing untoward in Sony business nothing will come of it.
Probably for the best. These politicans arent entirely right in the head anyways. ITs funny though to see some suddenly care about these politicans judgements.
@bleedsoe9mm
You mean the same business practices that Microsoft themselves take part in, from having a history of paying for exclusive content to full and timed exclusive deals? I wouldn't be surprised if these politicians knew MS does they same things, but they look the other way then the check clears
"well being of her constituents", I didn't know her constitutes included those in Japan. Microsoft is the one who refuses to advertise Xbox games and consoles in Japan, they don't want to invest in the Japanese market, they don't want to make games that appeals to the Japanese, but here they are crying to politicians, who receive money from them and who are too stupid to do basic research and regurgitate whatever lies MS tell them. There are many Japanese gamer/content creators on Twitter who have spoken about how there is almost no marketing of Xbox from Microsoft in Japan. Tell me, how do you expect to grow in a market that you intentionally refuse to invest. I guess make a few donations to politicians and tell them Sony and the Japanese government are making things difficult for you. Right?
@bleedsoe9mm
So you are saying that for the last 20 years no senator in WA state gave a shit about Microsoft and Xbox until now? It is not like the Xbox was not getting their asses handed to them in Japan, with Europe right behind, for the last 10 years. Where were the senators then? It is pretty obvious that after the acquistion decison all of these senators complaining will go away since they will stop being paid
@redemption
Oh yeah, it's not like Sony doesn't also donate money to lobbyists for their own interests. Here's something to gurgle on...
https://www.washingtonexami...
"Sony donated nearly $750,000 to candidates and spent more than $5.5 million on lobbying in the last two years — almost all directed to Democrats, and it has a reputation of successfully using its money to buy their support."
https://www.opensecrets.org...
https://twitter.com/SenWarr...
https://twitter.com/SenSand...
Always a pleasure.
Lol How much money do you want to put on that these politicians all have donations from Microsoft.
Really sad how even when obvious people are bought, people will still back them.
You can support the deal going through, without thinking Politicians coming to defend their financial backers is just those politicians really concerned about Sony market share.
A lot. That's why the majority of gamers don't like Microsoft. And never will. It's a scummy company that always tries to get monopoly and force people into get their stuff.
And you really believe Sony donated $0 to American politicians? Sony who's market also includes Hollywood TV/movies, music and real estate in the states?
What about the politicians that supported the FTC in blocking the deal? Most, if not all of them were democrats, the main party Sony donated to.
Should we also bet that they were also paid off by Sony?
https://www.opensecrets.org...
When will you xbox fanboys stop crying and complaining about anything and everything Sony says or does?
Nope, not really. This is just desperation from Microsoft. Anybody with half a brain doesn't eat this
This is performative and nothing else. Just look at who leads it - Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and "A letter to Tai and Raimondo from six Democratic lawmakers from Washington state — where Microsoft is based — covers similar ground."
And the questions they rise here aren't at all done by Microsoft in the past either. It's a problem when Sony makes a third-party deal, not when Microsoft does it?
This is just more pressure from Microsoft to try and make Sony look bad so they can get the ABK deal done.
***The Republican letter alleges that Sony PlayStation has 98% of the “high-end console market in Japan,” signs deals designed to keep hit Japanese games from Microsoft’s Xbox, and says such moves “may violate Japan’s antitrust laws.”
"Article 8 of the 2019 U.S.-Japan Digital Trade Agreement calls for the countries to enable “non-discriminatory treatment of digital products” which would include games."***
This doesn't apply to licensing agreements. Otherwise, they're trying to tear down how licensing agreements work and would upend the whole industry for video games, streaming services, and more. It's not discriminatory to make licensing deals. It's discriminatory to overprice content on a competing platform.
By this logic, Sony can't have their own exclusives on their own platform if it comes to the U.S.
This is dumb.
Let alone, they are attempting to remove Nintendo and the PC market as a whole, both of which dwarf the PS market in japan, from the conversation entirely. In the competition for “high-end console market in Japan,” it's only Microsoft and Sony. And it's because of non-discriminatory treatment of digital products that did that? Can Microsoft point to us on the timeline of all consoles sales in Japan where they weren't beaten by Sony entirely at similar levels? Is there a metric where, suddenly, Sony started beating the big contender that was Microsoft in Japan?
"Let alone, they are attempting to remove Nintendo and the PC market as a whole" Sony did this not MS, Sony.
The only reason there has been any opposition to the ABK deal is because Sony made up this "high-end market". Now it is being used against them.
Incomparable.
1. Sony and Microsoft are direct competitors. Fact.
2. These congresspeople claim that Japan, the nation as a whole, are working to limit American video game business in their country, irrespective of the current ABK item or Sony alone.
3. Instead of comparing the nation as a whole, they then make it just about Sony.
4. In Japan, Nintendo is larger than Sony in the $2.7b console market, PC accounts for $3.8b of the market and dwarfs the last two, while mobile is at $29b.
5. Among those markets represented in Japan, Sony is the smallest of them, and yet it is Sony that is limiting growth for Microsoft in Japan and not the fact that their single competition at a specific value itself is losing in the market as a whole because of shifts to other platforms.
6. I'll leave you with this fact "The Xbox Series X/S has sold more than 100,000 units in Japan, according to the local industry bible Famitsu. This is at a much faster rate than for its predecessor the Xbox One, which took four and a half years to reach this figure."
I know you guys have had a rough couple of decades but you really need to relax, you guys are going to have an aneurysm with all your Sony hate.
Different markets in the west the comparison of Microsoft and Sony is a valid one excluding nintendo- because that's how our market behaves and how consumers view it by and large. In Japan a different market consumers behave differently and such a comparison is not valid. In Japan Nintendo is very much a competitor of Sony and actually has larger market share.
Microsoft doesn't care about the Japanese home console market. There isn't much of one left to begin with.
It's about Sony getting exclusive games developed in Japan that sell in the rest of the world.
Sony pushed a narrow definition of the market to stop the AKB merger and Ms is going to use it against them to look into exclusive deals from large Japanese publishers/potentially block acquisitions or potentially be ready to fight for future acquisitions of their own.
This could be the framework MS uses to justify the purchase of a Square/Sega/Capcom down the road.
Defining the market as high-end home gaming consoles only was extremely short sighted of Sony and MS is absolutely going to use that to frame this as a David vs Goliath story with regulators for years to come.
***It's about Sony getting exclusive games developed in Japan that sell in the rest of the world.***
Versus Microsoft getting exclusive games developed in the U.S. that sell in the rest of the world?
***Sony pushed a narrow definition of the market to stop the AKB merger and Ms is going to use it against them to look into exclusive deals from large Japanese publishers/potentially block acquisitions or potentially be ready to fight for future acquisitions of their own.***
Sure. How about we do the same with Microsoft and the West? Why do people think there's only one snake in this game? Both companies are the same. 100%. But let's act like only Sony's actions matter? Hypocrisy or just purposeful blindness. Tired of people acting like either of these companies aren't doing the same thing and acting like Sony is getting its comeuppance by letting a company centralize a massive portion of the industry and encourage even more centralization by other companies moving forward.
***Defining the market as high-end home gaming consoles only was extremely short sighted of Sony and MS is absolutely going to use that to frame this as a David vs Goliath story with regulators for years to come.***
Calling the 3rd most valuable company in the world that is worth over 10x the other company and that is spending $70b to "compete" David in this scenario is the most asinine thing I've read about this subject in a very long while.
Christopher M$ doesn't own 98% of the console market in the west like Sony does in Japan. Flip the script for a second and reverse the roles
M$ owns 98% of the console space in the US.
Pays US developers not to release games on PlayStation/Ps plus while money-hatting triple A titles.
The U.S blocks Sony from buying American devs/pubs but okays M$ to buy Japanese ones.
Japan calls out the US for not doing anything about M$ anticompetitive practices.
See where this is going?
Sony doesn't own 98% of the market in Japan. They in fact are losing to Nintendo. In fact, the games that Microsoft wants to talk about have become much more profitable in the West and Sony doesn't make games for Japan, but the West.
Sony doesn't control 98% of ANY market. You're as dumb as the congressmen. Now all of a sudden, a 2 trillion dollar company can't compete with a 20 billion dollar one. Maybe if your little plastic box wasn't managed by the folks on Sesame street, they wouldn't have to buy up publishers. Who was the genius who thought making a low income console was a good idea? Oh I know the same dummy who thought IndiePass was a great idea. MS continually shoot themselves in the foot. Xbox one launching with Kinect anyone? Anyone?
Oh also I gotta point out if we want to talk monopoly well every pc comes with xbox gaming pre installed. Look at steam players literally 98% of them have a Windows pc. Factor in those numbers. Steam and epic games don't come pre-installed. I see no adverts for them on the OS. I do however see adverts about xbox games and games pass at an OS level..... hmmm.
That’s what people need to realize that’s anti competitive no matter whether Sony or Microsoft does it or Nintendo. A big brand like final fantasy should stay multiplatform. Because it used to be it’s the same argument with Bethesda and activision that MS is taking away games that were available to PlayStation. especially if they have a history of starting multiplatform. I understand small developers who financially can’t those cases are fine. But square Enix they have the money.
Just because something is “standard” doesn’t meant it’s right and should be allowed. If we are really worried about the consumers then these “standard” practices maybe need to be changed. There are so many things In history that were “standard” that are not anymore because it wasn’t right.
Sony bought what is probably timed exclusive of ff16 and you equate it as fair that ms bought 2 publishers. 1 game as opposed to the 100s of what ms will recieve exclusive now. Wtf wheres the sense. Yall fighting bs trying to down play ms actions over Sony having 3 exclusives mostly timed
@shinoff well usually when you buy something you can do as you please with it. Sony has done it, Nintendo has as well. That’s the point of buying something. It’s yours to do as you please. It’s not like someone held a gun at these companies to sell it wasn’t a hostile takeover.
But paying for timed exclusives or games to keep off competitors platform should be an outdated practice for everyone. Especially to pay a developer to keep a game off a platform. Timed exclusives although it sucks at least eventually you will get the game so that’s not that big of a deal but the other is it’s simply spiteful.
Also it’s not just one or three games it’s been a lot of games that they have done to each other that shouldn’t be allowed.
They were never multiplatform. They always released on one console and from a certain point (I think FF7) came out on pc a year or so afterwards and then, not all of them. XBOX had FF titles and they sold dismally on that platform.
@hof wasn’t FF 13 multiplatform and didn’t the Xbox version sell over 2 million copies considering it released later then the PlayStation version and shipped on four discs That’s impressive. Most games don’t sell that much yes the majority of sales were on PlayStation but who knows if it would have sold more if it released simultaneously as the PlayStation version.
But because of Sony’s anticompetitive practices we won’t know. that’s like killzone and resistance sales. So are those franchises failures? 2 millions is nothing to scoff at most games are lucky to get sales like that. If square released a final fantasy game at the same time worldwide who knows how well it might sale but because Sony always blocks the release in Japan to be released at the same time we will never know.
How so?
What has come out about Nintendo? Literally all the claims against Sony are in court documents and can be read by the public.
I haven’t seen anything on Nintendo.
Nintendo is an outsider in this because ActiBliz is not as important to Nintendo as they are to Sony. but they can't just omit Nintendo when talking about the video game market as a whole, especially Japan. sure Sony is outselling MS heavily over there but it's for pennies compared to what Nintendo is making out of that market. and since when has xbox ever was a success over there? if the market discrepancy in Japan is gonna be questioned, are they gonna investigate the other markets as well? last time I checked, the xbox is being heavily outsold by PS everywhere all around the world! the difference in Japan alone can't make up that >10mil deficit the Series consoles are behind the PS5.
they can't accept the reality that the xbox is not that desirable outside the US and now is blaming Sony for their own incompetence!
Wait so Nintendo isn't included to skew the sales towards Playstation. But when Microsoft needs to include them for 10 year COD they do count? Awfully convenient to count and then not count them right?
"Sony defined the high-performance console category when it suited them, now that it doesn't suit it's like... no no no you can't use our own bs against us". lmao
How are Sony "unfairly" hurting Microsoft Japan?
Sony doesn't tell Microsoft to not advertise in Japan, Microsoft does that themselves.
Sony doesn't tell Microsoft to not make games that cater to the Japanese audience, Microsoft does that themselves.
And I love how they act like Mobile, PC, and Nintendo don't exist in Japan.
We already know Sen. Maria Cantwell gets campaign money from Microsoft, so I wonder just how many others of these 11 lawmakers have Microsoft on their donor list.
All I'm going to say is since money talks and a trillion dollar company can do whatever it wants, that opens the flood gates for others to buy up portions of the industry. And when Sony and Nintendo start doing it, they shouldn't have any complaint.
Hopefully they force Sony to cancel all 3rd party deal with devs and publishers so they can be free to release their games on Xbox. I want FFXVI on gamepass day one in June while PS gamers can pay full price for it.
Sony should never of tried to fight MS on the home turf in the USA by trying to block the activision deal. Sony is like the fools knight who spent his life savings on the best looking suit of armor he could find to fight a sleeping dragon only to wake the sleeping dragon and now are themselves cornered by the superior opponent.
It's Sony's fault that the xbox isn't selling well in Japan by making games exclusive to PS there and outside Japan too.
Hopefully these members of congress force Japan to undo the law that forbids an American company from buying a Japanese one.
MS should be allowed to buy up the likes of Capcom, Sega and Square Enix to they can release all their games to all gamers everywhere.
Those games are available everywhere already . I don’t hear MS fans crying about MS paying for Valheim, Stalker2 , Scorn , The Medium etc etc.
@jznrpg The difference is that Sony picks quality games to be their exclusives while Microsoft selects below average / average level games for their customers. That's what pisses them off, but it sure as hell aint Sony's fault that they have a good eye for and taste in games while Phil praises shit like Crackdown 3 and Craig Infinite.
*** I want FFXVI on gamepass day one in June while PS gamers can pay full price for it.***
I'm pro Microsoft spending money to benefit Microsoft, anti Sony spending money to benefit Sony.
***It's Sony's fault that the xbox isn't selling well in Japan by making games exclusive to PS there and outside Japan too.***
Like last year's best-selling Japanese game, Elden Ring. And Resident Evil. And Monster Hunter. And Tales. And Dragon Quest. And Yakuza. And Tekken. And Kingdom Hearts. And Sonic. And Persona.
Just like how Nintendo doesn't count in the scheme of things to skew sales towards Playstation by not counting Nintendo. But when they need back up to show how they will expand the market for consumers that 10 year deal with Nintendo does count. Awfully convenient.
Would be like if Japan suddenly that obscure Japanese shows don't represent even 5 percent of content viewed in the U.S. where 95 of the content is dominated by American content. It's obviously unfair and Americans are preventing 'fair' competition right? Yeah equally stupid as arguing a American product that for decades doesn't sell well so blame the Japanese.
These comments man, you Xbox fanboys truly make me sick.
At least some of you are finally admitting you what playstation gone for good, that's the only reason you what Microsoft to buy all these studios.
Most of you won't even be playing half of the games they'll release.
They are like the Borg collective, brainwashed by Phil, turned in to gamepass drones.
Battlestar23
"I want ff16 on gamepass day one"
First you sound like an entitled little baby. Wtf
Second ff16 you know squares biggest ip was never ever ever ever going to gamepass day one. Screw your head back on right.
Third. I want starfield, new fallout, wastelands, stalker 2, on ps. I'm even to willing to buy at full price and not demand it on ps plus day one because that's logical. Ms at this moment has broke most of the Xbox gamers imo. They don't buy games and expect everything handed to them on a platter. Good luck in life Lil guy
That’s the stupidest thing ever. Xbox has no appeal in Japan because they dont make games that appeal to the Japanese market . They barely make games that appeal to the American or world market . They have to buy them they don’t make them . On top of that Nintendo dominates the Japanese market . PS has a good presence but nowhere near Nintendo
"They barely make games that appeal to the American or world market."
Has to be one of thew stupidest takes I've read on N4G in a long time.
Elected officials in the Japanese government look out for Japanese companies and are far more protectionist, consider the the history of keiretsu in Japan. Sony was a keiretsu but they're far less diverse in terms of business units these days and have less influence then they once had with government.
South Korea decided to copy Japan's keiretsu with their chaebols that were also allowed to get away with anti-competitive practices. Contrast that with the Chinese where every company shamelessly rips off other companies and unless a particular company gains favour with the CCP nothing is done to police IP infringement.
In the west we have the same anti-competitive conglomerates like Microsoft.
Most big businesses regardless of their origins are anti-competitive because it works since most fines are so small they aren't even a slap on the wrist.
LMAO! booohoo no one is buying our ekk bok in Japan its unfair give us final fantasy XDXDXDXD
Aaah government intervention, democrat or Republican is always bad. Getting their hands in every little thing.
Asia has always been protected, but they want free access to Western markets.
Lol the Japanese government are pissing themselves laughing at Congress right now.
They're been laughing for decades now because the west was dumb enough to drop protections for many of their industries and let entire industries die while Japan openly protected and in some cases actively propped up Japanese industries and businesses that would have otherwise failed or died even sooner due to competition from China and other countries.
Eleven?
How do they feel about Xbox’s promises to deliver games?
First of all, these companies have enough money and power to compete against one another for any market in the world, including Japan. If PlayStation enjoys some extra advantages in Japan over MS, then the US government needs to provide that proof. Politicians who probably don’t know alot about the gaming business (FTC, cough) shouldn’t be pressuring other governments without verifiable proof, anything else is just rhetoric.
I don't think the governments should be getting involved in trying to force games to be available on all platforms with the same content and features etc but blatant anti-competitive practices should be looked at.
I agree with going after anti competitive practices. Which all countries on friendly trading terms have a right to voice. But they need to provide actual instances of violations per the agreements in place. If they have that proof then fine, but if they don’t then it’s just grandstanding.
How many of them are on MS's payroll? Seriously just stop. Xbots do not buy jrpgs. Point in case FF7 crisis core remake launched on all 3 platforms and sold absolutely horrid on Xbox. Why should square or any other Japanese company spend time, money and resources if you all aren't going to buy it. If you want to play FF16, stop crying and buy a ps5. Also if MS wants to actually sell consoles in Japan, how about making a game that caters to them. Oh wait they have tried that before when blue dragon and lost odyssey were made exclusively for xbox and they both bombed.
Go! Go! American gaming! Sony has been on a ban lately. They hate anime with big boobs. Screw you Sony!
This is getting ridiculous. Now even politicians from America are getting involved. Very one-sided, money talks really. Ok, let them have activision, after the acquisition I will stop playing COD.
If you are intelligent and have just a little bit of knowledge about how the world actually works, you know that Sony does business in a very xenophobic way!
Congress is just defending American interests and hegemony.
After Cambridge Analytica Meta should have been banned and yet Congress is crusading against Tiktok.
If Sony is unfairly hurting Xbox in Japan, then Nintendo must be gang-banging Xbox
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA Sony and Jim Ryan wanted the smoke so here we are. I need to get more popcorn
Guess it worked. "Japan Fair Trade Commission has cleared Microsoft Activision Blizzard Deal"
Well I mean, when you're accusing another company, an American one at that of unfair competition. Then it comes to light you're doing things like charging companies to release games on Xbox, or putting in contract clauses you can't release games on Xbox game pass, and trying to force companies like Epic who enable cross play to keep online currency they purchase only available on their platform if bought on a playstation when still taking their cut of the revenue.
I love my PS5 and I love the games Sony make, but if you think there's a good and a bad guy in this argument then you need to get a better grasp of reality, these are both companies who aren't adverse to putting dirty business practices in place. Morality isn't something these guys believe in clearly.
I find it odd that ps only owners were speaking a different tune when it came to MS purchasing ABK but now they are saying something different when it's been known for years the poor practices of Sony towards competition.
Yeah's it's hypocrisy mate if you're against this shit, then you're against it. Don't excuse one company and then say it's okay for someone else, can't be a one way street.
What are you all, modern day feminists?
Couldn't agree more. I guess all these people complaining run multi-billion pound/dollar corporations so they know best as to what is fair and what's not.
this is the dumbest thing ever.
Nintendo dominates the japanese market, not sony.
akso, why are they worried about japans market? arent they americans? this has nothing to do with the Deal at all.
akso, MS underperforming in Japan is MS's issue and fault, no one elses lol.
America understands Japanese gamers in Japan just as much as Japan understands Americans shooting Americans in public.
Neither know shit and should keep out of the others business.
Im not picking a side on this because im a "GAMER" who games on all Consoles and PC. With that being said, who didnt see this coming. The Government of The United States was holding this argument in their back pocket for years, and they were waiting for the right time to put pressure on the Japanese Government. Just like they did in the late 1980s when Honda Motor Co Ltd, had American Automobile manufacturers looking terrible. You see how that ended up. America made them a offer they couldnt refuse.
Im not saying the same thing is going to happen here, but there is a solid chance something might happen.
Probably have as good reasoning as they did similar to the TikTok questions… MS paying lobbyists shows some of the biggest issues US has
Who’s to blame for Xbox getting molly whopped world wide for years then, bet it was the nargles.
An MS backed government is crying about games in Japan...nice. They should go after Nintendo too. Congress is full of jesters, dirtbags and idiots.
This is nothing more then Microsoft paying to get the Activision deal approved. Scary stuff. Microsoft is really a rotten company. Anything it touches becomes trash.
I'm still laughing at when XBOX fans were screaming from the hilltops that they had a 12tflop machine and Sony's was 10.2 lol. Yet Sony's machine bests it all the time. Framerate, throughput i/o controller, sound.
I don't give a toss about COD. btw.
About practices. When the 360 came out, MS were slagging off the PS3 for a year before it even came out, it was comical. They had films mention the 360 and halo, but the propaganda was unreal.
Yet the 360 had 13million RROD consoles.
and the PS3 still outsold the 360 while having free online. lol.
In other words
Microsoft: we suck in gaming and we need government help to punish those who have been doing a great job.
Xbox is a cancer to the gaming industry.
Everybody knows that American consoles don't do well in Japan just ask Atari. Japanese will always flock to Nintendo, Sega when they built consoles, NEC again when they made consoles, and now Sony.
People who think Sony is preventing Microsoft to succeed in Japan have no clue what they’re talking about. Are you also saying that Sony is also preventing the Xbox to succeed in Europe, Asia, South America, etc… as well? If you listen to this woman, you’re as delusional as her.
If this is the case, I guess Apple iPhone was preventing the Microsoft Lumia from succeeding in the United States as well, by her logic.
Microsoft is paying these governmental officials to help give Sony bad rep and to attack them.
Keep trying, it’s comical.
It is Microsoft who cannot penetrate the Japanese market since Xbox 360 when Microsoft bought exclusives from Japanese developers left and right. Now, they are blaming their failure on Sony.
This is pathetic.
Have to smile a bit, Sony just sh*t the bed on the AB Deal. The deal is going through, Sony looks like the little boy who cried wolf, and their poor legal maneuvers completely backfired. Now it looks like they will actually get some heat in Japan. I think this will do little to move that market to xbox, but it will be fun to watch the drama continue.
Say all the hate you want about MS, but they handled this legal process like a champ and came out looking better for it, offering gaming to more platforms than if Sony just shut their mouth. See, competition can be a good thing!
The US Gov supporting the US corporation again while crapping on a non-US corporation because they are too competitive. This is standard US behaviour to compete by banning and sanctioning other country's companies.
Bossa Studios dev argues the console had "turned out to be an albatross around the next of production."
Microsoft’s entry-level console Xbox Series S is limiting the potential of new-gen games, a developer at indie studio Bossa Studios has argued.
VFX artist Ian Maclure made the claim on Twitter in response to a comment from veteran games journalist Jeff Gerstmann, who said he thinks the whole ‘Series S is holding back next-gen games’ argument doesn’t hold up.
“Most of these games also come to PC and already have to cover a wide variety of configs,” Gerstmann pointed out.
Maclure, who worked on last year’s Xbox Series X/S and PC game I Am Fish at Bossa, which also develops and publishes the Surgeon Simulator series, responded: “It might sound broken, but the reason you are hearing it a lot right now is because MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped.
You want to know what's anti-consumer? Crippling a generation of games because the only way your hardware can chart is if it's below $300.
How is it anti consumer offering people a cheaper entry point? That’s actually a pro consumer strategy.
What you seem to be trying to infer is it’s anti hardcore, for those willing to spend the big bucks and want all the bell and whistles. Their’s a difference.
The anti consumer part is forcing devs to support the S when they clearly don't want to. In doing so, reducing the quality of the game.
I don't think you understand what anti-consumer means dude. For a start the developer isn't the consumer.
@Crimson
And who do you think buys the product that the developers make? A product of reduced quality to allow for Phil's demands.
I'm guessing you never lived through the PS2 era then from the perspective of literally any other platform.
@Crimson
You'll have to remind me of the PS2 X which was gimped to allow for the weaker PS2 S, I can't recall that.
It's not a cheaper entry point though. So you're telling me then it's not antu consumer however just 100$ more gets you all the bells and whistles with the PS4 digital?
They artifically created an "entry point" that is more affordable but doesn't actually give you a next gen experience. It's basically a remake of the Xbox one x. It's disgustingly deceptive.
Games are already struggling on the series s. It's not a 1440p machine.
My point (as it is apparently not immediately clear) is that many multiplatform games were indisputably held back on every other platform by the fact they had to release and run on a PS2 (the PS2 had a mere 4MB of video ram). And yet I would seriously struggle to call this "anti-consumer" to all the other consumers of different, more powerful platforms.
I'm trying to make you apply your logic to a different case to perhaps isolate your blinding bias. Obviously the developer motivation and market situation is different. But we're supposedly talking about consumers here aren't we?
Get outta here, you know very well he’s referring to the power difference between the PS2/GC/Xbox @generic-user-name
Everything that Sony does is clearly perfect though smh
You guys are aware that there is no such thing as anticonsumer, right? It's nothing but a buzz word created to provoke unrest between companies and consumers. There are those who can afford products and those who can't. It's simple as that.
Thing is how cheap do you go? There's no end to it.
It's a luxury item and I couldn't afford many of my consoles in the past as a young kid, I had to save or get super lucky as Christmas. If I wanted a new game or console I had to trade the other one in.
If saving up to get a new console means that when I finally get it I'm (along with others who have one) a full on NEXT GEN experience where developers are taking advantage of it then so be it.
Just because I couldn't afford past consoles didn't mean I wanted other games to suffer so developers could cater to me and the old console. I mean what would then be the point of me saving up money if I could just stay on my PS2 or something.
The difference with the ps2 you guys seem to be missing is that sony didnt have 2 models of ps2s on the market. Where as ms does. So the ps2 argument doesnt hold up at all.
It is anti consumer knowing that piece of hardware will become redundant within a timeframe that a consumer reasonably expects it to offer what it was advertising it does. Consoles are not PCs and cellphones. You can’t escape the generational model despite what bullshit Microsoft spouts. People always said that this would happen when the Series S was announced and its why Sony stuck to same specs with their PS5 models.
They why have a more expensive console, only for it to be held back because MS enforces parity? The Series S is a great budget system, but there is no need for the Series X to be held back. Anti-hardcore is something you made up to validate your point. It is holding back devs and limiting what they would like to implement, fact! Let me get this right, you're saying MS enforces an "anti--hardcore" policy because they're against their own superior system with the Series X outperforming the Series S. Wow, such genius.
@CrimsonIdol
PS2 had most of the best looking games that gen. Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Gran Turismo and Tourist Trophy, even games like Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 broke new ground in real time animation and graphics.
The irrefutable game that defined the entire generation is one you never heard of, Haven: Call of The King the space opera epic that had you jumping from one planet to the next in a tightly honed linear action adventure. It wasn't the best game nor the best looking but considering the underlying tech and the fact that it was still lightyears better looking than games like GTA: San Andreas and still ran at 60FPS. Imagine Squadron 42 as if it took place in a more fantasy sci-fi world made for PS2 and they got everything right. That was Haven and yet it wasn't made for Xbox or the GameCube.
No crippling a whole generation is releasing games on the ps4 and low end pc 😩😩 like you guys got to make it make sense.
Any devs saying other wise is hack and please don’t bring up I’d studio lonely dev, who also said the series s is a fantastic system but he would like a little more muscle but it still a nice system that ran Doom enteral at 120fps at 1440p and that was two years ago.
The Gotham dev who didn’t even work on the game hate Xbox series s going by his twitter history, which is the main reason he deleted his page.
Watch the Witcher 3 devs somehow get the Xbox series s version at 1080p or 1440p 60fps but Gotham Knights with less things on screen and effects struggle with 30fps on all consoles.
Please show me Sony forcing Capcom to make RE4 for PS4. You can't.
Every XSX title will be held back as long as Phil continues this anti dev/anti consumer practice.
Sony is not forcing anyone to release games on PS4 . MS is forcing devs to make a Series S version even though it’s basically an Xbox One X .
@jznrpg the series s can do things the one x cannot .. the Series S has the same CPU as the Series X just slightly down clocked. So I don’t see how the series s is really holding the generation back.
@wiz
It's not holding the generation back, but it's creating more unnecessary work for developers by having to optimize for a third device that already struggles with cross-gen content.
It's like you doing your job and completing a month's worth of work so you can go on vacation, only for your employer to tell you well John only did two weeks of worth, so we're canceling your vacation and splitting his remaining work between you and John so your vacation request is denied.
Not to mention the Series S GPU and VRAM are noticeably worse than the One X which is another factor into why developers are complaining. They have to make their games on a pretty straightforward spec with the PS5 and even the Series X. But then they have to optimize a version for a GPU that's at its best is 1/3 the performance of the Series X, with dramatically less CUs, lower clocks, and a dramatically smaller and inferior VRAM solution, only to sell your game on the Xbox platform that has a smaller install base, and a user base that is slowly being programmed to "Wait for GamePass".
Developers aren't really benefitting from this, MS is.
Personally I think the Series S was a good idea, however, the execution was awful again due to the GPU and VRAM. It should have been $349 with better cooling for safer clocks, RX 6600m for TRUE 1440p targets, and 12GB GDDR6 based on the Series X slower pool of RAM. But MS wanted $299 Day 1 without taking a loss like the Series X.
The thing about low end PC's is that phrase is dependant on the date is being said a low end pc today probably has a 2070 card but 3 years back that would have been a higher end card and a high end pc.
So in 3 years time a 3070 may be a low end card which easily trumps the xss and devs will still have to design for that SKU while they can easily abandon a PC gpu or a last gen system you can't do that if you are making a game for current gen and it doesn't run on xss but works on xsx you need to abandon the entire game for the Xbox platform
So I guess every company is anti consumer most companies provide cheaper products for those limited with money. Lol. The things people say here.
The thing holding back consoles is developers themselves still making games for last gen. Plus I really doubt and indie developer has the money to really make a AAA game so he is just trying to get attention. It would be nice to get a completely next gen only game but as long as there are 100’s of million of f last gen consoles they will keep making those games I really don’t think it’s about forcing anyone more so of reaching the most consumers and making the most money
The judges' scores are in:
9
10
8
LifeXline putting in a good performance in the mental gymnastics event.
No. Gaming is not the phone industry. In gaming each generation brings new capabilities. The series s does not bring new capabilities. It's the same and in some instances worse than Xbox one x.
@generic lmao who would have thought I had loser fans on n4g. Kids Who don’t like hearing the truth…..
You do realize that Xbox one X is more powerful than Series S, but they could not bring that down to $300.
@Stan... no, its not. The only advantage the One X has is 2gb more memory pool. Every other performant aspect of the Series S is better. cpu, gpu, memory speed and bandwidth, ssd... its only blemish is the 10gb memory pool compared to the One X 12gb memory pool.
One developer actually said, when speaking about xbox series S, that the generation was "being hamstrung by this potato". He later apologised, of course, but they feel strongly about it.
There's no point everyone getting up in arms that they haven't yet dropped last gen consoles, when Series S exists. Microsoft's policy states games MUST release on it.
We've discussed the specs before, but the fact is in some ways Series S is actually a step back from last gen's XB one X. This is why devs aren't happy.
Not in some ways... in only one way. memory capacity. it doesnt matter the S has the more efficient and faster memory. There just isnt enough of it. 10gb of faster memory is no match for 12gb of slighly slower memory. Its the pool size that makes the difference.
Series S has the better cpu, gpu, memory speed, hard drive, overall capabilities... but that memory pool is just not bigger than the One X. And it is that reason alone that the One X would be considered better. If they had just stuck with 12gb it then would have been a perfect replacement but as it is it is just a good replacement.
Having an additional cheaper option to play games isn't Anti-Consumer. Having an additional cheaper option at $300 would be Pro-Consumer. Forcing games to come out on a cheaper console also is still not Anti-Consumer. The biggest game this studio made is "I am Fish"... What a resume! Maybe they need better developers? Series S has more games at 120fps than the PS5. Is the new God Of War hamstrung because it will also come out on the PS4?
"Is the new God Of War hamstrung because it will also come out on the PS4?"
Absolutely. As was HFW, ever wonder why the flying mounts were so slow in that game?
Come off it. Sony has its Series S equivalent: The PS4.
Or are you going to argue that the Series S is holding back Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West & God of War Ragnarok?
Clown.
Actually despite what you might say horizion plays just fine and is one of the best games out on next gen.
At some point PS4 will get no new games. Xbox Series S is part of this gen PS4 isn't.
LOL really?
It's anti-consumer for a company to release a product that ppl are happy to buy due to price/performance ratio and what it offers to consumers?
Wow let me guess Switch is anti consumer, selling the PS4 up to recently was anti-consumer because of the PS5,
Your basic TV at Walmart must be anti-consumer because tv shows don't bother to make things for my 8K tv
Quest 2 must be anti-consumer since it's a cheap VR headset built around an Android chip.
"Releasing a cheaper $300 entry level SKU is anti-consumer"
Welp, there's one I didn't have on my bingo card for today.
It's a stupid statement now and will be even more stupid once we enter the recession stages of the current financial crisis.
They did it with 360 gen to when theybstuck with dvd. You cant be switching discs for open world games.
The Xbox came out before HD DVD and Blu-ray were on the market.
The 360 came out Nov 2005. HD DVD first player came out in March 2006 in Japan and Blu-ray was June.
"The anti consumer part is forcing devs to support the S when they clearly don't want to. In doing so, reducing the quality of the game."
If that was true, Playstation 5 exclusive games should be miles ahead of anything Microsoft has in stores now. And that´s not the case at all.
Forza is miles ahead of Gran Turismo and the same can be said about Hellblade vs God of War
Too much talk too little to show
"Too much talk too little to show"
Sums up your comments pretty well. How much have we seen of Hellblade so far?
No one’s forcing a dev to make a game for Xbox. Target ps5/pc if you want no limitations, just understand your maximum audience is a fraction (large fraction) of the whole and adjust accordingly.
There might be more to it, maybe they want to retain processing parity with a handheld dockable future console. Running an x86 soc at 4tflops in dock mode is doable, especially with a clip-in dock that has an aluminum to aluminum cooler.
If true, it says a lot that some devs are willing to lose money to avoid having to develop for the S and dealing with its memory constraints.
I've always felt that MS should have just made a Series X Digital Edition like the PS5. All of the stock would have sold out either way.
Yep, even if they were still going to do all digital and a smaller SSD, the CPU, GPU, and RAM should have been the same.
Correct. Of all of these things you listed the biggest hurdle to current gen development is the memory.
Their goal was to beat Sony in price AND specs. That's why they didn't go the Sony route of disc and digital X. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
and yet still getting outsold regardless. and now they know they can't compete with 3rd party games available on both consoles, they want to buy all the 3rd parties they can tot ake away games from PS. shameful
Exactly. But MS marketing is even more deceptive as they tout the series s as a next gen machine. It's a easier point of entry into a false narrative. Therefore...deceptive.
And how so?
Does it use the same core processor?
Does it use a similar chipset?
@Pete the exact same , that’s where I’m confused at to where ppl can say the series s is really holding back this generation. It runs the same games as the Series X just in a lower resolution.
@wiz7191
There is also the difference in RAM as well. (More and higher speed on the X). If there really wasn't that big of a difference between specs then MS wouldnt have to force developers to support the series S. It is not as easy as PC where a user can turn down graphics capabilites and settings to make a game run on older/inferior hardware. There is no option for that on consoles so those developers have to essentially spend more time developing an inferior version of their product
It appears they gimped the S so that it can appear cheaper and sell. However, all i see available at stores are the Series S while the X and both PS5 versions are consistently sold out
https://www.destructoid.com...
@pete@whiz
Not just resolution but also frame rate and graphical settings. Well yeah but guess what...the Xbox one x could also play the same games so that argument is meaningless. To that same point right now many titles are cross gen and on Xbox pretty much all are that so downs it make it not a next gen machine? What's the difference? Yes exactly...the difference is the power of the machines and the series s is more close to the Xbox one x than the Xbox series X...therefore it's a last gen machine that is going to struggle like the one x to play next gen games.
Its just another bad decision by MS obe after the other. Yet people dogged on Sony over some small sh*t decision.
How? When every single game is being made for last gen as well?
Either way it doesn’t matter to me. Just make the game playable on Cloud (que the downvotes) and I will be able to enjoy on any console.
And if they do that it screws over people with potato internet if they made future games cloud only for the series s. Good idea for an entry level next gen system but they shot themselves in the foot for making it weak incomparison
How did they shoot themselves in the foot? I was a Sony Nintendo guy before the Series S and Gamepass. They made a new customer.
Personally I don't see how this person would know what the rest of the industry thinks. They made I Am Fish and Surgeon Simulator. If they had trouble getting those games to run on Series S that speaks volumes about the technical ability of Bossa Studios.
Devs are not focused on money typically that's the publisher who will also determine the scope of the games target ie we want this game on everything including mobiles they tell the dev team who design it around the lowest common denominator.
So devs will happily not work on a painful console if they can avoid it just like if your job was to was cars but someone decided to go home and do it themselves no skin off your back you still get paid it's the bosses that lose out
Normaly i would agree, but in times of low Chips production séries S is a genius move! I mean, that mother board is f$@$# small, they can likely produce almost 2SeS for each SeX. Consumers want next gen consoles, and If you can't find Sex or PS5, SeS is on shelves ready for you.
It's a bad move from MS that due to current chip production problems turned in a genius move!
The series S is not a proper next-gen console, that's what devs are trying to say. It's holding back this generation.
When you look at when the PS4/Xbox One launched, for 1-2 years while we got a true generational leap in games people complained about PC performance, called devs lazy, etc. So the PC argument doesn't hold a lot of water. You need a great baseline to step from one generation to the next. The series S has ruined that baseline for this generation.
I don't think they can change course this generation. Imagine the backlash from existing owners
How can they change it? They can't just discontinue to series s and lift the mandatory requirements for developers.
I think the series s is there best seller out of the s and x. That would effect so many people just 2 years into the systems life.
They won't. They're stuck on this path with the promises they made for this generation.
Yeah, I'm a prolific developer, that's why I spend so much time on N4G complaining about cross-gen games.
Do these devs know how to make games that scale or do they only target one speed of cpu and gpu? 99% of devs make their games capable of playing on a wide variety of hardware. Intel, AMD and Nvidia are standards now. I guess even that is too much.
Hell I remember the days of Motorola, Cyrix, S3, 3dfx, PowerVR, Matrox... it was an even wider field of compatibility that has been simplified today.
“Most of these games also come to PC and already have to cover a wide variety of configs,”
Just a matter of time lol
now they also have new kid on the block, if Intel managed to gain foothold dev have to learn to optimize the intel GPU too.
The diference is huge. 3 time gpu, bandwidth, amount of ram, speed. Everything. It's easier for them to make the ps4 Xbox one then the series s, because they got much more experience with the older consoles...
Not cool. There are too many people who bought the S as a budget priced next-gen machine with the idea that they can get the same games as X, especially with Game Pass. As they mentioned, in the PC world, games are built to accommodate a widely varying degree of power/performance requirements. Not only that, but some games get a Switch release, whose power can’t match the S.
At the end of the day, we'll have to hope developers don't skip Series X due to Microsoft's 'Series S Too' policy.
Certainly for smaller devs, this is a good case for what we've seen a lot of in the past. Namely this approach:
'PS5 (and maybe PC) first. Xbox? Maybe at some point in the future, if we made enough on the game and have the time and bothereds'.
Actually I think that's what already has started to happen.
I doubt Sony paid all those companies that make games for Sony/PC just to keep it off Xbox.
I think some developers already are skipping Xbox or "postponing" to take care of the Issue (Series S) down the road.
Can't believe we're still getting takes like this after seeing that UE5 matrix demo run on a series S. The system is fine. Y'all are complaining about series s gimping this gen when all the big games are still coming out on systems that barely have a fraction of its power.
I've been arguing this on Youtube for years and the usual crowd come for me with the same ridiculous talking points from Dealer. They're not taking full advantage of the Xbox, there's no mesh shaders, FSR, sampler feedback, VRS, RT, memory multiplier this, and that. Well if developer use the same techniques on the XSX then the gap is just the same. If they don't use the techniques on XSX then they're not taking advantage of XSX so the XBSS does in fact hold back the XSX. VSR has been in use for years in software and hardware, reduces picture quality. SFS being a memory multiplier will be bandwidth limited to the read speeds of the drive which I think is only 3.5 GBPS. That's barely more than the PS2, but small 256 kb textures should be aplenty. Mesh Shader are basically advance form of hidden surface removal combined with displacement mapping. Could be a game changer but it's been out for 4 plus years. Either it's not as great as they hope, or it's difficult to implement. FSR is not great, it has artifacts even on FSR 2.0. FSR 2.0 is better, but I wouldn't trade 4K for FSR 1/2 if I can help it. RT has it's own issues but the main problem is speed either dropping the resolution too slow, or cutting the FPS in half.
It’s literally 1000x faster than a ps2 GB/s vs MB/s… I’m not a fan of the series S but you don’t make up fake specs
PS 2 main ram memory bandwidth was 3.2 GBPS. GPU Ram was 48 GBPS but only 4MBs. XBSX read speeds from the NVME drive is 3.6 GBPS. Using the NVME as ram the best you can get is 3.6 GBPS which just outpace the PS2 main ram speed of 3.2 GBPS. Again, so there's no confusion, this is for the XBS consoles using it's NVME drive as ram. This is only really good for moving low res textures by today's standard, or storing animation data.
Here is an easy solution: Make your game exclusively for PS5 and PC. Just don't bother with Xbox in this case, with their install base being the lowest, it's actually the platform you can ignore.
Sounds like SquareEnix, Konami, Kojima and many other developers already.
It will be more, as long as Series S is around.
I'm curious how much of an issue this really is, considering there are options to down scale games on PC to run at many different configs.
Look at Nintendo they got things like BOTW running on their console at great performance.
I've not played many games by Bossa Studios, but if they are an indie developer, (not saying all are like this), but not many indie teams optimise their games well. Look at things like Ark when it released.
Now looking at the reviews on Gotham knights and it's subpar frame rates, there is no wonder why they are complaining over the Series S, that their subpar optimised game isn't holding up. If the Xbox Series S is holding back the frame rate for Xbox, why is the Ps5 also 30fps?
It all comes down to time, money, resources (TMR), and return on investment. You can't sell Physical copies on it, you have to spend TMR to get the Series S version running well, and your return on investment is probably bare minimum or maybe even a loss if it's not a GamePass game since it can only be bought digitally.
Developers complaining should just make the game for the series S and have the series X version be the enhanced version. Because there is no way Microsoft will allow Series S refusal.
You can't say something will play all the games then to change that and make them buy a new machine.
That's a class action lawsuit ready to happen.
Why not? They said the X1X would have support for high fidelity VR before walking that back after it launched.
I never heard of that...but i did hear of AR integration that got demoed at a conference but got canceled. But i don't know if the system itself was marketed as a future AR or VR machine for people to be able to complain that they were duped. It was a maybe there will be support. I might be looking at it too charitably.
But the series S is marketed as being able to play all series X games. Their only way out of it now is to release a new Series console that will have games that don't play on Series S. Precedent being the New 3DS that had Xenoblade Chronicles only playable on that system and not on old 3DS.
Meanwhile, on PlayStation, every game runs just as great on the $400 PS5 digital as the $500 PS5 with the disk drive. This is a simpler solution for gamers and developers.
I knew series S was going to cause trouble for them. Think about it, they not only have last gen to worry about but also “current gen” series S thats really a different console.
Been saying it since launch. My Xbox One X gets better specs out of games so the series S felt pointless, especially for a “next-gen” system
Yep, but you have certain sites acting like XBSS is great. Glorious 900P, 1080P, and every bluemoon 1440P gaming in 2022 feels it abit like 2015 (XB1S could do 1440P, see Doom64). I'll pick the XB1X version over the XBSS any day of the week. I guess if you have a 22 monitor with 1366X768 resolution you might be happy as with it.
My sentiments exactly. 1080p with dynamic resolution does not beat OneX in any way in my book. Can’t see how anyone concludes it’s a better console, much less makes for a good “current-gen” console.
As I said since the beginning. Microsoft's strategy is to hold back gaming and force others to their terms.
Devs are forced to make games compatible to the last gen powered series s console.
The developer of I am fish and I am bread are talking about dropping the series s requirement?? Lol
I know right the reviews are saying this game look and play worse then Arkham Knight a game that came out 7years ago😂😂
That still release their games on the base xbox one and ps4. The comments in this thread are hilariously indicative of the anti- M$ narrative around here. Any chance they get.
He was also pointing out that other devs were having issues. Look at the bigger picture.
Ha! Imagine how low their sales would be if they only released the SX.
This combined with all the other stuff coming out in that Activision buyout situation is making Microsoft look very bad.
Worse, when Series X Pro (PS5 Pro) inevitably come out, guess what? They’ll be hobbled by Series S too.
1) Dev of Warner Brother goes on a rampage about how Serie S is holding the generation down yet can't provide a 60 frames version of Gotham knight for a game originally planned for old-gen hardware. So yeah it's the fault of series S (go figure)
2) Lots of dev: Serie S is holding us down but hey let's make a PC/Xbox1/Ps4 version of our game.
3) I could point out that 90% of indie devs also publish their game for the Switch.
They got a gen of experience with last gen consoles. This is one is new and completely diferent from the real next gaming consoles. It takes much more time and resources to put the game running there and to reach good performance.
I dont think your 90 percent of indies is correct. No doubt its high but indies who make ps and or ms games exclusively would put that number lower.
Also if the series s is causing them issues with developing for it. If its that close to last gen then why tf not release for last gen especially with the install base. Bigger picture my guy
The studios want to drop the S.
The publisher is like: we need this also on PS4 and Switch.
😐
This is being talk for some time. No matter what some say here. The series s is not next Gen. It's being called the potato gpu... It got problems running games at 1080p at 60, the lack of ram and bandwidth it's also a huge problem. The series s is holding back next gaming. There no spin here. There are more news about this, but they won't be approved. In past weeks more and more studio are talking about this. The series s is a gen behind the series x.
But Microsoft was desperate to increase sales and made something that isn't even more powerful then the upgrade one x...
Please explain how the series S is not a next-gen console.
Because last I check it's built with the same fundamental architecture component as the Serie X and uses the same OS, language, coding, etc., etc., etc.
It's like saying the iPhone 14 is not a new iPhone because Apple released also an iPhone 14 Pro.
Also saying it's not next-gen because it can't always do 1080P/60 is exactly saying that PS5/Series X isn't next-gen cause they can't always run a 4k/60 fps.
Built with what? Dude go see the specs between the series s, x and one x. Not that hard. The diference is huge. The console cost 250 right now. There aren't miracles... It slow and underpowered.
Again you can't even put together the words next Gen with 1080p/60 frames and the s can't even do that with many, many games. Again 1080p in 2022 almost 2023. I don't even know if you can still get a 1080p tv...
The biggest plus of the s is the price. Just that and you better don't want to play many games, because it only got 364 of space... My phone got more... The moment you buy the expansion ssd it cost more then the mighty X. The only next Gen machine of Microsoft.
Any gamer that wants to buy a Microsoft machine must go the X. Because that console is really a beast and you will get the best version and only next Gen version.
petey they were never advertised as doing 4k every single game where as 1080 is a given
i don't really get this at all. its def more work to have to optimize for another platform but to me and most of my developer friends, whats holding games back is ps4 and xbox one. the new consoles all have very similar architecture based on things like RDNA 2 etc. The game engines are scalable and dynamc. they have to be to also support PC. You aren't re-building the entire ps5 and series X game to run on Series S - you are just scaling the parameters - just like PC does. PC games have to account for a wide range of capabilities and the new consoles basically share a very similar architecture.
Gen 8 consoles however are different comparatively. They run on basically gloriffied mobile CPUs and the GPU APIs are far more limited both in APIs available and capability of existing APIs. So when a studio makes a multi-gen game, they basically have to make it for last gen and then use the extra horse power of the new consoles to do things like kick up framerates and or resolutions or maybe some shadows or something - but a lot of the new features/systems/abilities of the new consoles are simply going to waste and the machines aren't being used to their full potential to push graphics and performance. This is simply brute forcing on the new systems rather than using them the way they were designed to be used - with more power but also more efficiency that isn't possible on last gen.
The series S does not fall into these problems of last gen consoles. it has all the same APIs, architecture and bus performance etc as the Series X. The difference is the GPU just can't output the number of pixels that ps5 and X can - but its still the same AMD gpu. It just has less CUs to save on cost. So you fix that by lowering the resoultion, reducing draw distance, lowering shadow quality or even the framerate so that the GPU doesn't have to draw as many pixels at a given rate. Its no different than developing for say ps4 and ps4 pro. its not like developing for series X and then trying to get it to run on an xbox one.
This ultimately comes down to that studio just not having the manpower to optimize for so many platforms... my advice to them: Ditch gen 8 support and focus on ps5, Series S|X. Problem largely solved. If you're a studio that can't optimize for 3 platforms, then you aren't ready to be a major player, and platforms shouldn't have to bend to your shortcomings.
Well said. i see the 9th gen as:
Series S - Low (4tf / 10gb)
PS5 - Medium (10tf / 16gb)
Series X - High (12tf / 16gb)
You don't understand? The series s is an half step console that get a free pass because it's cheap. It not, again not much more powerful the the upgrades of last gen... It doesn't have similarities with x, beside the cpu. Is many times much slower and got much less bandwidth and ram then true next Gen consoles. No game shines on that console and gamers want studios waste time tryng to reach some kind of parity with much stronger consoles.
Teraflops don't show how good a console is, but how can you make next Gen games for something that can't handle last gen games that already run at under 1080p? Well they can drop to 560p like the matrix demo and then what about the backslash of being trash...
z2g
WHat games have you been involved with, because other devs of known games have said otherwise and no not just the i am fish guy. Other devs have said this also.
They may stop production but they will still have to make current gen games for it because that is what the consumers was promised.
I'd say that is very unlikely. They seem to be selling a lot of them, and the economy is only going to get worse - having a $300 console (that I can see them dropping to 200-250) will be a huge plus during a recession.
This is getting old. I have a Series X and a PS5 so I am covered, but, damn, why would MS do that(rhetorical). Not happening. Make the best games each harware allows like PC games, or don't.
It would be one thing if the ps5 and XsX launched after the XsS, so the disparity was the fault of the differing launch times.
But M$ chose to launch two consoles at the same time with vastly different hardware, with the PROMISE (who doesn’t love a good Xbox promise from the last 10 years?) that devs will get tools designed to make dual development seamless between the two Xboxes.
I guess it isn’t as seamless as turning a game down to 30 fps, 1080p, and no RT…. It’s like, making games is complicated or something….
I’m just happy that the ps5 stables of exclusives won’t be affected, but it is a shame for Doom III to inevitably be held back.
remember when they announced it and said it wouldnt hold devs back or something like that?
well ...
Sure, there are plenty of devs who don't know what they're doing.
Meanwhile, the devs who do know what they're doing are easily supporting PS4, PS4Pro, Xbox One, Xbox One X, PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and a couple of hundred/thousand PC CPU + GPU combinations :)
I traded my S in for an X due to the limited resolution on most AAA games. Personally for me 900p/1080p just doesn't look good displayed on a good 4k hdr 65 inch tv.
My brother in law has both and keeps the X on the 65 and the S on the 32 where it belongs.
Meanwhile Sony is churning out cross-gen bangers like Horizon FW and the upcoming God of War. Sure they would be even better if they were PS5 only but the fact is these games are too notch above the rest being cross-gen right now.
I kind of like the Series S. But I do see it as being pain for developers.
To the ones bringing up the PS2. Maybe sit down and think about what your saying before you type.
Now if Sony had a PS2 and a PS2 that was less powerful and forced developers to make sure games run on the less powerful PS2 or don't release on any of the PS2 systems at all. Then you would have a point.
Crying about the PS2 because it was weaker than the OG Xbox and GameCube that's a completely different case. The developers chose to develop for the PS2 and release on PS2. Because it was the market leader. It's what all gamers had. If they want to release on the PS2 because it was two weak they could of skipped it and there was nothing Sony could do about it.
Yep. Which was even the case with several big games like f. Ex. Splinter Cell and Dead or Alive.
I don't quite understand this, granted the device is less powerful, but the CPU, storage and the ram is pretty much exactly the same as the bigger brother. It has 4 teraflops of performance to the X's 12. If everything else was less powerful then fine, but it's not.
Third of the the graphical performance can be offset by resolution drops as Devs have shown. Struggling? Drop it to 1080p or less, people getting these consoles know what they're buying and are happier with a lesser experience.
This Dev sounds lazy, drop the res, literally what PC players do with a lesser GPU, it's not rocket science.
Well... it'd be easy to give an only cloud version for Xbox Series S + installable version for Series X and new models. I like that solution. Every Xbox Series buyer would be able to play new releases. Some, only in streaming, and others... with streaming+local opcions because they paid more for their hardware.
you mean .... another stadia?
we're not there yet to have an streaming only console. thats just not happening.
On Xbox, I only play cloud games. It is a really fast start and... works mostly (well, Scorn is unplayable, as well as other dark games). BTW, when they upgrade and improve PC and other platforms with Game Pass, I suppose I'll never switch on Xbox again.
I for one am happy the Series S exist. I have children who game and that $299 machine is perfect for them , I guess ppl tend to forget it’s ppl out there who aren’t hardcore gamers. It’s not like back in the 2000’s when gaming wasn’t as big the demographic is much bigger. It’s hypocritical to even speak out anything being held back , when all three machines are holding back PC players.
Neither of these devs answered Jeff Gerstmanns point about PC's. Isn't the average PC GPU used in gaming really old and weak?
120 million PS4 maybe encourage devs to work on specific versions of their games for PS4.
(Roughly) over 13 million Series S also seems to justify developers to include the Series S spec for game development.
I'm sure there are "many developers" are saying " drop the mandatory (mobile games, PS4, low end PC, Nintendo Switch, etc) compatibility". If developer can only develop their game on the (supposedly) must powerfully system, there will only be a handful games be developed.
xbox gamers never saw it coming, same with the memory cards, same with activision, same with halo, same with starfield
Why is this a big deal? IGN interviewed the RE4 Remake Producer and he said they made the game for next gen consoles then worked it back for ps4/series s. WB could have done a "Next Gen Patch" for GK but chose not to is how it looks to me.
I knew that from day one .. everyone knew that. Microsoft did that to cripple new-generation development
If Microsoft’s policy continues that games need to made for the S, I hope devs skip Xbox altogether and send them a message.
I don't usually defend the Xbox series S but not even one developer on this article can reference a time when they had to avoid using a next gen feature or make compromises to accommodate the Xbox Series S. Some developers like Rocksteady are blaming the series S for their failings even though RTX 3090s are having trouble playing Gotham Knights at 4k 60 fps.
Until they can give clear examples on how the series S is holding back next gen games, it will not be taken seriously by Microsoft or other stakeholders.
meh... devs are lazy ass these days and don't want to do optimization at all actually.
With DLSS coming they will be even worse
p.s. So it's not even stable 30 fps at ps5 and xbox series x. sure it's series S fault, yeah...
It's like developing exclusively for the rtx 3090 and forgetting all other PC configuration... Soooo stupid reasoning
Note each of the the tweets that went after Series S and called it a potato later deleted their tweets and one left twitter all together. lol
Yeah he's not wrong multi plats need to run on the lowest common denominator which is the xss as you exclude the switch from that equation pretty quickly.
So yes we're likely going to end up with some disparity by the end of the gen the arguement of low PC specs are still way worse than the xss is true now but it won't be in 3 years which could see a 3070 being a minimum required card as we normally see as the gen goes on.
So keep them! And let them all run like cyberpunk ass and when there’s enough evidence many games run like ass on it, the only one who can take the blame will be microsoft. Devs shouldn’t be forced to put out something they don’t want.
And this is why I Booed at the existence of series S but Xbox fanboys cried no foul.
Limiting the potential of THIRD PARTY CROSS PLATFORM GAMES & FIRST PARTY MICROSOFT EXCLUSIVE, the PS5 exclusives are what I buy my PS for, I have a PC for the rest PC.
anti-consumer is the naming convention of all the xbox consoles 🤮 series x and series s…are they series-ous? har har har
I have run the numbers from the steam servey, 58% of all most used hardware has graphical power similar and better to the series s and 17% has equivelant power to the series s. Ontop of that 23% has power equal or more to the ps5 and that is within a period of 2 years with the gpu price inflation.
Every Gpu that is replaced with a new gen gpu right now, has more graphical power (in tflops) to the ps5's ~10.8 (I think) tflop.
In terms of ram, the average machine has 16gb or ram with 8gb and 4gb being the minority AND about 6 to 8gbs of vram.
Ontop of all that, only a small precentage of monitors are operating at resolutions above 2k and the BIG majority of all pc monitors, currently, running at 1080p which makes things even worst, as there more headroom to push high fidelity graphics at that resolution with that much power.
In conclusion, it's already obsolete, and that is with the HUGE price inflation that deterred the majority of users from upgrading. In 2 years time the big majority of users, both in the console ecosystem aswell as pc, will be using gpus at the range of 10-16tflops.
Typical Microsoft.
Remember when they forced-fed Kinects to boost the user base? 🙄
As a Series S owner (my first Xbox console ever), it does feel underpowered compared to my PS5.
Maybe make more taxing games streaming only?
Not everyone has the money to just throw down for a series x. Series s consoles may be inconvenient for game developers but they generate game sales.