With all the talk about MS going 3rd party by gaming Twitter and gaming outlets, MS/Xbox needs to either draw a hard line at only COD/ABK/etc releasing on other consoles or stop releasing vague messages that let people run wild with the rumor mill.

Xbox needs exclusives and the gaming market needs exclusives. Without exclusives and without competition, we get the PS3 launch all over again and we get the XB1 launch all over again. Competition breeds quality and it is good for the industry. MS executives need to draw a clearer line in the sand.

Life long Playstation fan here,


Agreed. I hope Indiana Jones, Hell blade, and Avowed does well. They also have a Blade game I hope does well. I'm not sure why they release their games on PC, either, that messes with their console sales

It's a weird gen.


Both the platforms are vague and wishy-washy with their messaging. MS with their games and Sony with theirs. Not sure what's going on ... At least MS seems to a bit more open with what they're working on in terms of showing it/release dates, while Sony doesn't want to show anything.

This gen is kind of a joke really, PC gamers have been laughing while everyone fights over "exclusive" games that get ported to PC.

No true exclusives anymore, anything worth a damn will also be on PC at some point, too much money there to ignore

I can see some low tier first party "exclusives" making their way to the other console sooner or later

Yeah apparently the PC market is now equal to the entire console market combined? Mobile pretty much dominating with half the entire gaming industry revenue these days.

Microsoft always did PC ports (makes sense considering Windows) but Sony finally throwing in the towel and porting their games to PC says a lot.

No, they don't.
You're obviously talking about the Playstation and Sony is incredibly lucky to be receiving any Call Of Duty games at all after the stunts they pulled to stop the acquisition.

Microsoft can do what ever they want and make decisions on what platforms to release individual games. Sony can always develop alternatives to the Microsoft games but obviously they're set in their ways these days.

I think the smart thing for Microsoft to do is to hold the latest game exclusive to Xbox and then as a new one comes out the last one becomes available to Playstation. That way Playstation customers don't miss out but there is still a benefit to buying an Xbox. It's not that I want it to happen, I'm obviously against exclusives. I would love to have more people to play my favourite games with.

lol fuk your favorite games.they suck and no based gamer wants to play that chit.all of you are dumbfuks. from sony to xbox to pc 99% of you are dumb as rocks. fighting over chit that dont even matter. truth is most of these games suck. my aunt who was a VP at EA dont even play games anymore.LOL at thinking you guys are "pros". buncha slakjawed ph@ggots think you know how games are made. have another drink and toke you ph@gs

Nah, people just need to stop being idiots and riling themselves up over nothing while juggling their tinfoil hats.

Some "insider" "leaked" that MS sorta maybe wants to release Hi-Fi Rush on Switch.

And some reporter "heard" that MS sorta maybe wants to release Sea of Thieves on the PS5.

And previously some MS dude said that yeah, they want to spread GP around.

That's it. That's all that has happened, yet people keep lighting the funeral pyres of XBox saying that it's over.

I think the problem is that MS is already struggling to move units, the Series systems are pacing with the XB1 and that's not a good pace. By releasing all of your games on other platforms, there is no reason for people to buy your system, if there's no reason for people to buy your already dying system, your infrastructure will crumble.

Subsequently, if there is no one to buy an Xbox, there would definitely be no 1st person Indiana Jones game and instead we'd just get another 3rd person adventure game a la Tomb Raider or Uncharted. I like variety, I don't want to play the same game 30 times.Ummm.... okay?The problem IMO is that MS themselves aren't stamping the rumors out. Maybe they're playing the "there's no such thing as bad press" game, but their investors can't be comfortable with the constant barrage of "your system is failing and flailing" rumors. Just wish execs would come out with a firm stance instead of being so wishy washy.

modern day AAA is complete garbage, there's really nothing memorable about anything that gets put out. They simply can't make good games anymore for a variety of reasons, but the people over at MS are fukking stupid because they caused / allowed their two biggest franchises to die off. Halo and Gears. It's not really just MS either, but since I have had the Xbox consoles for decades now I'm more familiar with their releases and they're beefing up their consoles to run a bunch of trash. The XBL UI is also trash and is about as counterintuitive as it gets. I don't give a chit about teraflops - where are the good games? 404 NOT FOUND

I agree. If they want to go third party, fine, they’ll be very successful. I think their first party output has been such an improvement this gen, so it’s a shame they aren’t selling more consoles. Plus their back compat upgrades, quick resume.

If they want to try and have their cake and eat it to, I think they’ll be forced to go third party and pull out of consoles. Say they start putting a couple games on other consoles…. Itl push more people away from buying an Xbox and for other consoles. People will be expecting them to port their games. Then, to make the revenue lost from those lost console sales and the revenue that comes with it (third party sales, accessories, first party sales), they port more to other consoles.

Death spiral accelerates, rinse and repeat

From a business and practicality standpoint, Microsoft opting to pursue a more third party role makes sense given their more software and service oriented focus as a corporation.

Likewise, their total operating income figures show high expenses on the consumer side for both gaming and Windows, while both are in an ongoing decline.

Spoiler!


They've been the de facto monopoly on computer operating systems for ages now, but even that is seeing a slump in sales, which interestingly lines up with their Xbox hardware. Locking themselves into a closed ecosystem is only lockingoutpotential customers, which is also what we're seeing with Sony's shift in strategy. Microsoft is even more service drive, however, and Phil Spencer has also vocalized his desires to see Xbox games/services expanding to all other platforms.

All said, both MS and Sony could be a bit more transparent and less cagey about whether game X or Y is going to be a permanent exclusive, temporary, cross platform, crossplay, so on and so forth. However, I think this is actually apositiveindustry shift for consumers, while also offering a lot to the games themselves by creating the opportunity for additional sales and casting the net across a different customer base to see if it attracts more interest there.

Imagine how many games that might not have sold insanely wellcouldhave benefited from having whole other markets driving sales and word of mouth. There might even bemorewillingness for risk knowing that there was that much more cushion across a larger audience. I'd say Sony could have used the extra boost for some of their "under performers," because then we might have seen a sequel to things like Days Gone, LittleBigPlanet, Infamous, and I'm sure a few others. Microsoft still has some of their own titles that they never bothered to expand beyond the Xbone, but them sitting on veritable gold mines isn't all that new at this point.
I think a part of that is how MS learned the hard way early on by holding fast to keeping Xbox games on the console, and then only on the MS store on PC. The latter especially showed how even when you remove 99% of the barriers to entry, theystillcouldn't get enough traction on PC until they opened up to having games on Steam.

When Sony first started porting their exclusives to PC, their motive was to give PC users a "taste" in hopes of getting them to transition completely into the Playstation ecosystem. Sony didn't understand the market they were trying to appeal towards because on PC, people are used to having aludicrousgame library and backlog while also being able to play just about every third party game Sony relies on to fill out their own catalog for people who don't want another third person narrative adventure game.

Who knows what Sony's original long term plans actually were, but they're porting far more PS5 exclusives than they first let on to such an extent that the original conceit of trying to get enough people to switch over completely is a bust. They'll still get sales where they can from impatient people who own both and double dippers, but I don't think they would be planning on releasing ports of sequels if plans hadn't changed. Games aresoexpensive to make now that they, or anyone else for that matter, would be absolute fools to close off any potential customers that could greatly improve their return on investment.
It absolutely is a joke. Games take so long to develop and we're about halfway through with very little to show for it.

From the PC perspective, nothing about this gen looksthatoutstanding from a visual aspect, either.

While something like Hellblade 2 looks impressive, you then have things like Indiana Jones which looks like Wolfenstein The New Colossus with a minor bump,maybe, or The Last of Us II Remastered vs the original. I'm almost more impressed with how good thelast gen looked in hindsight given its hardware limitations, which the new Xbox and PS5 don't really have an issue with, or even games older than that.

Those or AA/A/indie games are becoming more appealing, while AAA games are playing high stakes gambling with astronomical budgets for diminishing returns. It's like the art of making a game that is first and foremostfunis becoming lost to more and more developers/publishers.

A solid art direction + solid gameplay just goes a longer way for a hell of a lot less than developers trying to play chicken with the uncanny valley for a couple of hours at $70+.Agreed, both Sony and Microsoft began spinning downwards on output, but Microsoft's complacency in particular has extended for over a decade with an entire console generation coming and going with next to nothing to show for it.

If that isn't impetus to compete by cranking up production as the once second and now first most valued company on the entireplanet, then I don't think a crappy Disney rental game for a franchise theyjustMozambique'd, a niche, arthouse Sony Cinematic Walking Simulator, and Great Value Oblivion are going to suddenly light a fire underSony'sass to continue competing. Hell, even the Activision-Blizzard acquisition hasn't amounted to anything with Sony digging through their dust-collecting IPs to at leasttryto drum up a non-laughable response to MS now owning Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, Singularity, Heretic, and atonmore titles.

The most interesting games just aren't coming from the Big Two like they used to; maybe they're money-hatting some or making some exclusivity deals like the trend of PS5 + PC games, but those are still third party titles while thecorestudios aren't outputting a fraction of what we were seeing years ago in terms of memorable gems throughout the console lifespan.