Readers Feature

[Nag]

This is something I've been thinking of starting for a little while now, if it works fine if not I'll let it die a death.

 

Basically I'll be posting a readers feature from Metro (like the Hot Topic questions) weekly and we can either discuss how they're point of view is right or wrong or literally point and laugh at them while calling them monkeys for talking a load of old shite...

 

 

Xbox has lost the console war forever but so has PlayStation – Reader’s Feature

Quote

A reader argues that the most important reveal at the Xbox business update podcast had less to do with multiformat games and

 

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Xbox podcast on Thursday was a non-event and that they didn’t really saying anything major, but I don’t think that’s true. Sure, the talk about multiformat games and new hardware was as vague as it could possibly be but those are just symptoms of what is currently ailing Xbox. The real problem it’s got, as Phil Spencer and co. made clear is that Xbox simply isn’t making enough money.

 

They may not have said exactly that, but they may as well have, with all the talk of having to focus on growth, attracting larger audiences, and looking for new revenue streams. Selling their consoles and their games doesn’t make enough profit on its own, so now they need to sell them on PlayStation and Switch as well – plus push further into PC and mobile.

This alone proves that this will not be the only multiformat games and that soon enough more high-profile titles will join them. Microsoft is not going to make any money selling Pentiment to PlayStation 5 owners. It probably isn’t even going to make that much with Starfield, it has to be everything, all the time or it just won’t make a difference.

 

Since I already own all three current consoles (I don’t always but Lady Luck has been kind this gen) I don’t actually care all that much about all the multiformat drama, as interesting as it should be for an industry watcher like me.

 

I’m more interested in the idea that Microsoft no longer considers console gaming to be enough to balance the books. Sony apparently agrees too, as they started saying almost exactly the same things this week, albeit in an even more roundabout and vague fashion.

(I’ve just got done reading GC’s article on the week’s events and I generally agree with it, especially the comments about Microsoft and Sony’s inept communication lately. How anyone let the Sony president start going on about multiformat games like that, while the topic was doing Xbox so much damage, I have no idea.)

So, while I’m sure there’s many PlayStation fans celebrating the fact that Xbox has essentially dropped out of the console war – not in terms of stopping making hardware, but admitting it needs to sell games on PlayStation to pay the bills – Sony is in the exact same situation. Only instead of releasing their games on Xbox and Switch their solution seems to be live service games.

 

From that perspective, PlayStation fans are losing a lot more. Starfield or Indiana Jones being on PlayStation doesn’t spoil anything for Xbox owners, in fact it’s a benefit if it means Microsoft has more money to spend on making other games. But Sony has all but given up making the sort of games that made the PlayStation 4 such a success and not only do most fans not seem to want the live service games, but Sony hasn’t managed to release any of them yet anyway.

 

Xbox hasn’t really lost the console war because there is no console war anymore. Sony outselling the Xbox by 2:1, or more, has gained it nothing because it still has to find alternative means to make money from its games, given the ridiculous sums of money they cost to make now.

Plus, Microsoft are the ones still making lots of traditional non-live service games, not Sony. They might have trouble releasing a good one but they are trying, with lots of games in the pipeline. Instead, it’s Sony that’s acting more like they lost the generation and are having to go away and do something different. No major new games for 12 months? Great… so, why did I buy a PlayStation 5 again?

 

I’ve noticed a lot of people sticking their heads in the sand, trying to pretend none of this matters, but this week was a milestone for gaming. Not an exciting one, in terms of the reveals themselves or what they imply, but important nonetheless.

 

Nintendo is now left as the only console manufacturer that makes all its money from selling traditional games, as exclusives, on a console. But who knows whether that will still be true for the Switch 2? Maybe they’ll start talking about multiformat releases and live service games when they announce their new console. I doubt it but that is the way the industry going, whether anyone likes it or not.

 

By reader Gordo

 

They'll be fairly lengthy reads as they have to hit a word count... we'll see how it fairs.

[Sly Reflex]

This formatting is wild.

 

I sometimes read these as they normally have takes that are so far out there it's like a soapboxing for "Look at this idiot, come and read it so we can get some advertising revenue!"

[Nag]

Yeah, there's definitely some hot takes going on with them... 

 

Didn't realise the formatting had bugged out so I'll add a link...

 

https://metro.co.uk/2024/02/17/xbox-lost-console-war-forever-playstation-readers-feature-20297501/amp/

 

If I do this again maybe I'll just paste the headline/link.👍

[HandsomeDead]

To fix the formatting after you paste there should be a little message at the bottom to paste as plain text.

 

MS has a problem with their big AAA games not competing very well and Sony has a problem with putting all of their eggs in the AAA basket and having nothing else and creating a very sparse catalogue.

It's thanks to their "special relationship" with Square-enix they'll even have a big game this year.

 

I think we've talked about it a lot but maybe in this console war framing but it just all leads to things being really precarious.

 

They might always try to get that live service audience but the ones that are successful like Fortnite and Genshin Impact got big in a grass roots sort of way.  I don't think a single one of them was a purposely made to be a massive money maker.  I'm not saying they're coming from nothing, they had a decent backing but so many the really tried to scoop at the space failed.  I dunno if they see it as worth it to just keep trying and that one is bound to be the one that becomes the next big thing.

 

Doesn't sound very wise to me but I'm not in charge, what do I know 💅

[DANGERMAN]

it seems like they're conflating a bunch of separate points to me. Microsoft owning a load of publishers/studios, Microsoft potentially eventually going fully 3rd party, and Sony's current lineup. I don't think Sony making smaller games was what made the PS4 a success, I think Last of Us on PS3 setting the tone for that narrative style probably set up PS4 more (and then Microsoft fucking up), I feel like quirky Sony hasn't existed since then. 

 

I do agree Sony could do with putting out some smaller things just to have more things out. There's an Astrobot game coming, so that sort of thing, maybe they feel like they don't need it because 3rd party games can cover that niche, but I always think leaning on a small selection of games is a massive risk. Ubisoft are finding that out now

 

Sony (or people that only own PS5) are going to miss some of the games Microsoft now own, but if some of them do end up PS5 then obviously that's less of an issue. It's also this next batch that are the ones people might be interested in. I think people can live without Grounded and Sea of Thieves, Starfield didn't seem to hit like people expected at the start of the generation. Indianna Jones I think people are actually going to be envious of that one

 

For me, I'm on PC, so if I wanted to play these games I can. I even have Game Pass through my phone contract, so I can play all of it, but I dunno. I'm not really sure I quite get their point, which might be me just not getting it, but it feels like Sony and Nintendo have the console war (such as it is) sewn up, which is why Microsoft are trying new things. Sony might be about to face some consequences, but it's not entirely their fault, they tried stopping the merger, it's just capitalism being what it is, motivated by greed to the point of self harm

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ll start by saying that whole concept of the “Console Wars” is completely pathetic, and absolute bollocks. There are no “winners” or “ losers” in any of this. Each system has its strengths and weaknesses. The only reason I don’t have an Xbox, is because I can’t afford to run 3 systems at once.

[Sly Reflex]

To paste as plain text you can also hold Shift+Ctrl+V, if you're on a PC.

[Maryokutai]

53 minutes ago, AndyKurosaki said:

There are no “winners” or “ losers” in any of this.

 

So it is a war, then?

 

What I take from all of this is that those well-documented AAA games of today are simply unsustainable to be limited to one platform, no matter how successful that platform it is. Maybe with Nintendo-levels of attach rates it would work, but if 'only' ten million people buy your fancy Horizon game, it seems like that's not enough anymore to warrant further investment, hence why Sony is looking at PC and why Microsoft is trying to offset it by going semi-multiplat (because their exclusive ecosystem is even smaller than Sony's). I suspect for that reason that there's also no timeline in which MS would ever have made Call of Duty exclusive, because they can't really give up those 25 something million sales that series pulls off yearly on Playstation.

 

What I find a bit funny is that, purely by chance, Nintendo completely managed to avoid the problem by lagging behind an entire generation since 2006. They have been building Xbox360 games for the last seven years and absolutely thriving as a result. The only odd thing is that nobody seems to learn from their successes. When Sarah Bond mentioned the 'biggest technological leap' for the next Xbox generation in that recent business podcast, my immediate reaction was: who's going to make these games and who's going to pay for them?

[Nag]

1 hour ago, Sly Reflex said:

To paste as plain text you can also hold Shift+Ctrl+V, if you're on a PC.

 

Fuck off with your pc bullshit... I'm doing this on mobile...🥰

[DANGERMAN]

1 hour ago, Maryokutai said:

. When Sarah Bond mentioned the 'biggest technological leap' for the next Xbox generation in that recent business podcast,

Maybe the basis for a question in the other thread, but I found her saying that really odd. We're never getting a leap like the 16 bit to 32 bit generation again. We're not even getting the N64 to Dreamcast. Maybe we'll be getting full path traced games, but as you said, who is making them? 

[Nag]

I think the only way Microsoft have any chance at all of out selling Sony is to go the 360 route... and release a new console a year or so earlier than a new PlayStation. Going head to head has proven twice now that Sony will always come out on top of that race and I'd put money on them winning the sales race if PS3/360 had released closer together too.

 

With  Microsoft being down a territory with Japan (where they can't gain traction in sales at all) and seemingly the majority of Europe in Sony's pocket Xbox really has no choice but to try and change up the established console rules...

 

I'm glad they've bought up the fact they're working on new hardware and look forward to seeing what that is but I do believe that it probably will be the last physical console Microsoft releases.

[Nigel Tufnell]

Anyone going into a shop over here in Norway would already have good cause to think that Xbox was leaving the market, the shelves are full of Switch, PS4 & PS5 games to choose from whilst the Xbox has less than 10 titles available, i invested in a Seires X with the intent of buying physical but there has been very little available, even 3rd party titles.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah I wonder if the MS stuff is just seeing the general direction Sony might also be forced to go in, reading an article like this seems kinda wild given how much PR you hear about how great things are going for Sony. The industry is fucked up

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/19/sony-gaming-margin-questioned-after-ps5-sales-cut-sparks-stock-plunge.html

[Nag]

PlayStation will not survive the future without video game exclusives – Reader’s Feature

 

 

Quote

A reader is upset at the thought of video game exclusives becoming a thing of the past and worries it could mean the end of PlayStation.

 

For months now we’ve been hearing about job layoffs across the games industry and trying to work out why Sony is being so uncommunicative, but I have to admit I didn’t pay it much attention at first. Not that I want to seem heartless about the job cuts but, obviously, there’s nothing I can do about it. Then the rumours of Microsoft going multiformat started and, shockingly, Sony started to say the same sort of things as well. Change is clearly upon us and I can’t see that any of it is good.

Admittedly, not having to buy two different consoles, for a different set of exclusives, is a good thing but I feel that is going to be small comfort once we realise the full ramifications of what all this means. I’ve seen some people (mostly Xbox fans) cheering the idea of the end of exclusives entirely, but they seem to have forgotten why it is that they exist in the first place.

 

Exclusives are a way to promote a console, to show off everything it can do and create a game so good people will buy a new machine to play it on. If Sony and Microsoft don’t have exclusives then there is nothing to distinguish the consoles, which are functionally almost identical, and at that point there becomes no point in making them anymore.

 

As ludicrous as it was to spend that much, Sony would not have spent $300 million making Spider-Man 2 if it wasn’t a way to also sell and promote the PlayStation 5, which it clearly did very well. The licence wouldn’t even have been offered to them in the same way, since Marvel was specifically approaching them with the idea of doing an exclusive.

 

Spider-Man games had been multiformat for years before that and while successful were never really blockbusters. It’s likely that, with less money being spent on them, that any multiformat Spider-Man game Sony made would’ve just been a minor hit like they used to be.

 

Or consider Halo. Nowadays it’s a fairly unremarkable shooter franchise that relies on nostalgia for most of its success, something that PlayStation owners don’t have. Most Xbox and PlayStation exclusives either wouldn’t have had the same amount of money and time spent on them if they were multiformat or they don’t have the same appeal outside of the original audience.

 

The time and money spent on exclusives is because they’re designed to be killer apps, they have a specific purpose and are prestige products. Even if people aren’t interested in them they make the console seem better and more desirable, as they win awards and are used as reasons for why one console is better than the other. Not many people ever bought The Last Guardian or Bloodborne but their reception is still a great help to the PlayStation’s reputation.

 

In the one format future we seem to be headed for (I’m ignoring Nintendo in all of this, for obvious reasons) consoles will be no more different than a washing machine or TV. Sure, some of them have slightly different features but they’re all basically the same and you probably don’t even know what yours is called or who made it.

 

The rumours about Microsoft is that it’s planning to let other companies make Xbox hardware, which will really hammer in the nail on the console coffin. Some may celebrate the end of console wars but if you accept that competition is good then for games then that has to mean exclusives.

 

Once exclusives fade away so will the importance of which console you need, a double whammy that will basically destroy Sony. What happens to Microsoft I couldn’t say, given their money, but it’s going to be a Pyrrhic victory for them if they then proclaim themselves the final winner of the console wars.

 

Forgotten about this... hope the formatting is better this time?

[HandsomeDead]

I dunno, just sounds like a lot of fretting to me.

 

Will Xbox and PlayStation be as they are now in 5 years? probably not, but that doesn't mean death.  Always treating a change with the most catastrophising.  They've found themselves going down a road that isn't sustainable with exclusives, so the choice is to adapt or turn around and they aren't gonna do the latter.  I'd like it if they reduced budgets and made more games but they set a precedent and their audience has certain expectations now.

 

I don't know if it's gonna end up being good, but I can't see staying the course being good either so I am leaning towards thinking it'll be better to change towards making their games available in more places.

[AndyKurosaki]

I don’t think it’s near death, but exclusives are important. If a console has enough exclusives, that’s when I’ll certainly consider owning it. Or I used to, until running a console became quite expensive. 
 

It is a shame that Sony has already said “no new exclusives this year”. Nobody could honestly say they were expecting new Spider-Man/God Of War games anytime soon. Spidey 2 might get some story DLC, but have they announced anything about that at all? I don’t reckon they have…

 

I’m honestly bored of the “hardcore” Sony fans demanding Bloodborne get remade. I hated it. In comparison to Dark Souls 2, it felt utterly unfair, and a chore to play. It’s pretty clear by this point that Sony don’t give a shit. But in a way, I wish they’d remake it, if only to shut the fans up. 
 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Dark Souls 2 is a cool game. That said with Bloodborne I think most people just want a resolution and framerate patch, or pc port.

 

Anyway I've changed my view on this, seeing that margins are apparently narrowing with these big exclusives. Seems they really should just go ahead and embrace platform agnosticism. Let hardware features be the differentiating factor instead, dualsense on ps5, uh whatever xbox has

[Nag]

I've never been a fan of exclusives... but I'm well aware a single gaming platform probably wouldn't work for various different reasons.

 

I'd also agree with @HandsomeDead that this is an absolutely worst case scenario (most of these opinions probably will be) and that, so it seems, PlayStation as a brand is probably too big to fail now... there'd have to be some form of seismic shift for that name to dissappear. I think the bigger problem for Sony now seems that most of their games seem to be following a very similar pattern and there's not enough diversity in their first party offerings.

[DANGERMAN]

I actually agree with the reader, I like that there's exclusives because I like the consoles to feel different. I think the last generation hasn't had that so much, possibly because Microsoft haven't had as much of a voice, and Nintendo have brought over a bunch of games from their previous generation (that's not a dig), the consoles have less character this time 

 

I also agree with the argument that games won't have the investment in them if they aren't exclusive. That's not entirely a bad thing, the budgets are clearly too high now, needlessly so, but they won't have the loss leader element. 

 

It's shit to miss out, so I hope it's console and PC going forward, but I'm not against having a reason to own a console 

[HandsomeDead]

I dunno, I just think you can build identity from the kinds of games a publisher publishes.  I don't know if it has to be tied to some hardware.

It's already kind of the case with those in the know but maybe they could do some work to give identity to those games to a broader audience.

 

That ties to what I was meant to say before as well in that I don't like the idea of console exclusives needed to breed competition and in the same way I don't believe it has to be the case.  I think games are bouncing off each other in the third party space too, they're often in competition with each other.

 

I just think it's very arbitrary now.  The Mega Drive and SNES offered very different gaming experiences.  The PlayStation, Saturn and N64 offered very different gaming experiences but it hasn't been like that since then really.  There's been a bit of a different flavour in the PS2, Xbox and GameCube era but they've been merging a lot from that point.  I don't think the last few gens have offered different experiences just access to certain games.