Microsoft Games Are Going Third Party (Hi-Fi Rush/Pentiment/Sea of Thieves/Grounded release dates confirmed)

[PalaceOfLove706]

14 minutes ago, majob said:

No I'm referring to Sega's temporary exit from all markets outside of Japan with the Saturn from 96 to 2000. That was essentially the height of 90s releases on both the ps1 and N64 platforms. It's true that with the current landscape it would be far harder to break into the market thanks to digital libraries but I feel Valve has already taken that first tentative step with the Steam Deck so who knows. But I feel Microsoft's presence has been for more harm than good and their exit would only benefit us. Doom and Gloom over Sony being alone, which isn't technically true as is with Nintendo, is a little over blown. As it stands we're all just speculating anyway until Microsoft establishes the facts of the situation regardless.

Such lovely things like popularizing paid online, games as a service, proprietary hardware, and that's just off the top of my head. Oh wait they made achievements, well that just makes things soooooooo much better

You would probably still be buying proprietary memory from Sony and Nintendo had Microsoft not made the hard drive common. Microsoft didn’t popularize paid online. The other companies realized you can’t support online without a subscription. People subscribed to Xbox Live because it was the superior online product. Let’s also not forget Microsoft owns Azure which is the backbone for a huge chunk of the industry. Sony made a deal to utilize it. You’re saying that isn’t a contribution? I could go on. 

[sepheroithisgod]

10 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

You would probably still be buying proprietary memory from Sony and Nintendo had Microsoft not made the hard drive common.

Actually, the PS2 did the HDD first. It was added as an add-on later in the console's life. One of the main reasons behind it was that FFXI required the HDD add-on to work on the PS2 which demonstrated that games going forward would need an HDD, so I really wouldn't credit Xbox with this. They simply made their first system at a time when HDD was obviously the future.

[jay_horror]

More games being reported looks like Gears

 

Edited February 5 by jay_horror

[PalaceOfLove706]

3 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

Actually, the PS2 did the HDD first. It was added as an add-on later in the console's life. One of the main reasons behind it was that FFXI required the HDD add-on to work on the PS2 which demonstrated that games going forward would need an HDD, so I really wouldn't credit Xbox with this. They simply made their first system at a time when HDD was obviously the future.

That’s what I’m saying though. A proprietary accessory. The external HDD was no different than a memory card. I got an original Xbox near the beginning and at no point did I even need to manage my HDD storage. I highly doubt Sony and Nintendo would have cut off that revenue stream had Microsoft not been more consumer friendly with their console. 

[majob]

18 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

You would probably still be buying proprietary memory from Sony and Nintendo had Microsoft not made the hard drive common. Microsoft didn’t popularize paid online. The other companies realized you can’t support online without a subscription. People subscribed to Xbox Live because it was the superior online product. Let’s also not forget Microsoft owns Azure which is the backbone for a huge chunk of the industry. Sony made a deal to utilize it. You’re saying that isn’t a contribution? I could go on. 

Microsoft didn't popularize paid online? Excuse me, am I reading this correctly? Yes, MS did popularize paid online, Sony originally had PSN for free and Nintendo offered their online services for free originally as well. Seeing the money made off Xbox Live subscriptions is what the other two transition to the paid model. Microsoft was not the first to utilize hard drives in consoles, Sony did it before them, Microsoft simply made it a standard for all of their consoles first. Microsoft also released proprietary hardrives 360 onward whereas Sony allowed you to use any third party laptop drive. Sony's Azure deal fell through last I heard, and again, azure goes to games as a serivce.

[sepheroithisgod]

1 minute ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

That’s what I’m saying though. A proprietary accessory. The external HDD was no different than a memory card. I got an original Xbox near the beginning and at no point did I even need to manage my HDD storage. I highly doubt Sony and Nintendo would have cut off that revenue stream had Microsoft not been more consumer friendly with their console. 

I disagree.

 

The reason a game like FFXI needed the HDD add-on was because it required getting patched game data. The HDD would be required for gaming going forward with online play. Regardless of whether the Xbox came out or not, future systems that connected online, which the PS2 was dabbling in, would need an HDD going forward.

 

I do see what you are saying, but I think HDD was an inevitability, not the result of Xbox.

[PalaceOfLove706]

10 minutes ago, majob said:

Microsoft didn't popularize paid online? Excuse me, am I reading this correctly? Yes, MS did popularize paid online, Sony originally had PSN for free and Nintendo offered their online services for free originally as well. Seeing the money made off Xbox Live subscriptions is what the other two transition to the paid model. Microsoft was not the first to utilize hard drives in consoles, Sony did it before them, Microsoft simply made it a standard for all of their consoles first. Microsoft also released proprietary hardrives 360 onward whereas Sony allowed you to use any third party laptop drive. Sony's Azure deal fell through last I heard, and again, azure goes to games as a serivce.

People wouldn’t have paid for Xbox Live had it not been the superior product. It just came out that Palword is costing almost $500k/month to run. That’s one game. How much do you think it costs a console maker to run their services? Paid online was an inevitability and Microsoft knew that at the beginning. 

[Doodlebawp]

12 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

People wouldn’t have paid for Xbox Live had it not been the superior product. It just came out that Palword is costing almost $500k/month to run. That’s one game. How much do you think it costs a console maker to run their services? Paid online was an inevitability and Microsoft knew that at the beginning. 

And yet there's Valve doing everything Xbox and Sony do and more for free on Steam.  Microsoft wanted to generate more revenue and this was a cheap and easy way for them to do it. 

[PalaceOfLove706]

2 minutes ago, Doodlebawp said:

And yet there's Valve doing everything Xbox and Sony do and more for free on Steam.  Microsoft wanted to generate more revenue and this was a cheap and easy way for them to do it. 

Kind of funny Valve was founded by former Microsoft employees. What do you mean Valve does everything Xbox and Sony do and more?

[MidnightDragon]

2 hours ago, wackt1 said:

So is it possible we get Halo on Playstation, or are they holding on to that still?

From what I’ve read, it’s more games from ABK and Bethesda and games from their own studios, like Halo, would stay on XBox. But time will tell. 

[DeepEyes7]

I really doubt this, still there is not a single game there that I'm interested in... 

[majob]

15 minutes ago, MidnightDragon said:

From what I’ve read, it’s more games from ABK and Bethesda and games from their own studios, like Halo, would stay on XBox. But time will tell. 

Considering there's potential plans for Gears of War to hit Playstation and that's only second to Halo in lifetime sales, it might be safe to say that all xbox exclusives are on the table.

[TrophyChief]

Phil rumored to talk on CNBC this afternoon. We shall see how things shake out. 

Edited February 5 by TrophyChief

[Mellenthin]

9 minutes ago, DeepEyes7 said:

I really doubt this, still there is not a single game there that I'm interested in... 

 

I'm in the same boat as you are. There might be one or two timed exclusives, but that's about it.

 

Anyhow, MS really must be desperate if all of this is true. One thing is for certain, though; it will definitely be an interesting year.

[Boni_Neto]

Funny thing is, at least from my pov, there aren't many xbox exclusives that are interesting, so I'm not sure if this move would actually help Microsoft. However, I'm on the lookout in case they decide to share their exclusive Kojima project. We'll see.

Edited February 5 by Boni_Neto

[MidnightDragon]

19 minutes ago, majob said:

Considering there's potential plans for Gears of War to hit Playstation and that's only second to Halo in lifetime sales, it might be safe to say that all xbox exclusives are on the table.

Yea, but even if they do, doubt it’ll be from the get go. 

[Doodlebawp]

33 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

Kind of funny Valve was founded by former Microsoft employees. What do you mean Valve does everything Xbox and Sony do and more?

More features outside of being a place to launch a video game. Centralized marketplace and trading hubs, community hubs, community events, customizable themes, systems for discovering new games, mod hubs etc.

 

I know some of these features currently exist in some form or have in the past on Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Some of them aren't all that great either. But the point is that Valve provides this for free and doesn't force you to pay a subscription fee to play another company's game online.

[ZitMeatloaf]

40 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

Kind of funny Valve was founded by former Microsoft employees. What do you mean Valve does everything Xbox and Sony do and more?

I would imagine they meant things like:

- Reliable online connectivity (much more reliable than PSN)

- Significantly fleshed out communities including forums for each game

- Written fan reviews for each game beyond a 1-5 system

- Far more customizable avatars and profile pages

- All without any fees to play online.

[PalaceOfLove706]

12 minutes ago, Doodlebawp said:

More features outside of being a place to launch a video game. Centralized marketplace and trading hubs, community hubs, community events, customizable themes, systems for discovering new games, mod hubs etc.

 

I know some of these features currently exist in some form or have in the past on Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Some of them aren't all that great either. But the point is that Valve provides this for free and doesn't force you to pay a subscription fee to play another company's game online.

Sony and Microsoft host their online services though. Valve isn’t hosting PC game infrastructure. I think people would boycott Valve if they decided to add a subscription to Steam. You don’t see Valve coming in to help with games like Palworld like Microsoft has despite Palworld probably making Valve hundreds of millions of dollars. Microsoft has a stake to ensure online services perform their best. 

[Rozalia1]

1 hour ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

People wouldn’t have paid for Xbox Live had it not been the superior product. It just came out that Palword is costing almost $500k/month to run. That’s one game. How much do you think it costs a console maker to run their services? Paid online was an inevitability and Microsoft knew that at the beginning. 

 

 

It is true that Spencer took the failing Xbox brand and turned it around (as his fans say) 360 degrees into even bigger failure. However, a lesser leader than Jim might have been fooled/scared enough to do as Microsoft wished. Remember all the stuff we heard regarding subscriptions. PlayStation was going to have no choice but to put their games day 1 on PS+, or Game Pass was going to eradicate them. PlayStation tested stuff out over time and created a catalogue service which boosted their profits and unlike Game Pass doesn't cannibalise their game sales. Day 1 on PC? Again, they've checked stuff out and third party stuff goes on there 6 months to a year later, while 1st party often goes on there 2 years later if at all.

 

Even with all of this failure at Xbox, Microsoft likely would have been pleased to at least have crippled PlayStation, because Microsoft has essentially unlimited cash while Sony does not, so it'd have been a win.

 

4 hours ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

Well Microsoft the company has been crushing it. They made $22 billion in profit last quarter. I’m sure their gaming division will continue to post good numbers now they are getting ABK money. 

 

Continue to post good numbers? What good numbers? Outside possibly a year or two during the 360 generation (which RROD swiftly would have wiped out) they have never had a good year. Now that they have ABK they might finally be in the positive yes, but that is if ABK's games are multiplatform, as making them exclusive will cripple ABK. The money men at Microsoft realise that this exclusive business is only crippling all the studios they've bought, hence this change we are seeing.

 

3 hours ago, majob said:

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Sony jacked up their cut simply because it's Microsoft and the hoopla they made them go through for Activision and the COD deal. Irony at it's best.

 

It is thought that such a thing has essentially already happened in regards to CoD. Both Sony and Microsoft were taking a smaller cut from CoD. Sony as a result of the marketing deal. Microsoft as ABK essentially forced the matter on them. With that bit of business being over with and PlayStation unlikely to do a new marketing deal, the rate it is thought will have reverted to the standard one.

 

1 hour ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

People wouldn’t have paid for Xbox Live had it not been the superior product. It just came out that Palword is costing almost $500k/month to run. That’s one game. How much do you think it costs a console maker to run their services? Paid online was an inevitability and Microsoft knew that at the beginning. 

 

If we're talking simply online performance there was no real difference between the two. Xbox Live had a better layout to it and a few extra features as far as I recall, but nothing that would justify payment. The idea of it being better because it was a paid product was certainly promoted heavily, and Xbox fans naturally 'evangelised' it, something which is always a goal for Microsoft. It is why you'll in the past have seen Xbox gamers always throwing in that Game Pass was 'the best deal in gaming', as Microsoft be it directly or through their astroturfing told them that and they came to believe it.

 

4 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

Sony and Microsoft host their online services though. Valve isn’t hosting PC game infrastructure. I think people would boycott Valve if they decided to add a subscription to Steam. You don’t see Valve coming in to help with games like Palworld like Microsoft has despite Palworld probably making Valve hundreds of millions of dollars. Microsoft has a stake to ensure online services perform their best. 

 

Online during the PS3/360 period was in the large majority of cases peer to peer which is far cheaper than public servers. This is why you'll see some games today shut off their online a few years in while you're still able to go online for many PS3 games.

[majob]

For anyone who wants a quick laugh

[MidnightDragon]

It was posted the rumor that Phil is going to be on CNBC today is false. So the speculating and waiting continues.

[D-E-U-S-X]

Xbox has the reverse Midas touch!

[DEI2EK]

3 minutes ago, MidnightDragon said:

It was posted the rumor that Phil is going to be on CNBC today is false. So the speculating and waiting continues.

Feels like he’s hiding right now

Hes always been the one front and center about how we’re all a family and blah blah blah and now he’s nowhere to be found

[MidnightDragon]

1 minute ago, DEI2EK said:

Feels like he’s hiding right now

Hes always been the one front and center about how we’re all a family and blah blah blah and now he’s nowhere to be found

He's not stupid. He knows this isn't going to be popular with the XBox fanbase, even if the PlayStation base is loving it. That's probably why he's having someone else to do the announcement...to be the sacrificial lamb, so to speak.