Future of MS Exclusives? (Win10 & Xbox One...things)

AlNom

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http://news.xbox.com/2016/02/11/quantum-break-coming-to-xbox-one-and-windows-10-on-april-5/
http://www.quantumbreak.com/windows10
For a limited time, anyone who pre-orders the digital version of “Quantum Break” for Xbox One through the Xbox Store will receive the Windows 10 version of the game for free, downloadable at the Windows Store via redemption code. The pre-order offer also applies for those who redeem a digital code purchased from participating retailers or from the Xbox One Special Edition Quantum Break Bundle by April 4th, 2016.

Every copy of Quantum Break for Xbox One will come with a full-game download for Alan Wake for Xbox 360, plus its two add-on packs, The Signal and The Writer, playable on Xbox One via Backward Compatibility. Fans who pre-order Quantum Break for Xbox One at participating retailers or through the Xbox Store will also receive a full-game download of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare for Xbox 360.

“Quantum Break” will support shared saves between the Xbox One and Windows 10 versions.
 
Well... with Halo Wars 2 (confirmed), Fable Legends (confirmed), Recore (confirmed), Sea of Thieves (confirmed), Gigantic (confirmed), Killer Instinct Season 3 (confirmed), Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (confirmed), Gears 4 (rumoured), Ori and The Blind Forest (already), Cobalt (confirmed), Scalebound (rumoured) and now Quantum Break (confirmed), either rumoured confirmed or already in the PC, I start to wonder what future is reserved for this console. Specially with DirectX 12 and low level access on PC allowing for console performance on cheap machines.
 
This is great. One could play the game in a desktop, then go the living room and play it in the XBone, then go to the bedroom and play it in a Windows 10 tablet (e.g. Surface Pro 4) streamed from the XBone.
 
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Treating them as complementary platforms instead of competing. Seems like the right thing to do.

Spread the cost of developing software, bring everything together under the MS "ecosystem" ... and possibly make it harder to justify an outright cull of Xbox hardware?
 
So this is where Shifty and I high five? :) I'm all for it. Just waiting for Pascal now and I'm all setup for quite a few years of gaming.
 
I am pretty sure this is going to be MS new strategy. MS is trying to blur the line between its hardware and anything that runs windows. Its obvious that its in their plans to use Windows to offer unique features for their XB consoles. By making console exclusives available for free for another windows device if purchased on XB it will increase the motivation to own that console which will have Windows integration.
In the future XB itself may be an upgradeable PC that runs windows but has its unique UI to compete with Steam
 
So this is where Shifty and I high five? :) I'm all for it. Just waiting for Pascal now and I'm all setup for quite a few years of gaming.
It'll be most exciting when it's one executable. This is otherwise just MS cross-publishing nad using their library to promote Win 10 and Live on PC. Although at least MS exclusives comingto PC means no stupid hardware requirements to access software. Just need Sony to do the same! :p
 
Dear God, not fat binaries. No. Noaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhh! :runaway:
 
Just understand PC does not = "PC" but = "Microsoft Windows" and you'll get it.

The recommended requirements on these new PC games are just stupid high though. It's pretty much for the 1% of PC gamers. For Quantum Break they're recommending Fury X or 980 Ti...trying to remember which but I recall another recent PC port with really high sys requirements. It's kind of stupid I dont see a reason they should be that high when they're running on modest consoles.

I dont think this has any negatory effects on XBO, the biggest is just fanboy message board fodder and gloomy posts about how Xbox doesn't have any exclusives in between gloomy posts about how Xbox doesn't have any sales. I think it has near zero effect in the real world, because IMO PC and console markets dont generally directly overlap, even for core titles. Is there guys out there who now wont buy an Xbox because Quantum Break is coming to PC? Sure, a handful. Is there lots of them? I dont believe so. It's not like the original Gears and hell even gasp, Halo, weren't on PC in the past. Or that SFV, Firewatch, lots of indie etc aren't on PC.

Also, given Remedy's history this shouldn't be a surprise. Alan Wake was on PC. They were a PC dev first.

It's good to see a healthy, still supported core PC market honestly. I am seeing a few high profile indie games that seem to go one console+PC though. That's interesting. Maybe the new trend.

The biggest negative here is now every time I see QB footage I have to wonder if it's PC or console :)

Basically I think it's positive all around except for the annoyance of "that guy" on the message board.
 
Read any of the financial commentaries and you realise that the growth for the console vendors is from their online stores, MS have consistently referenced it with regards the the XBOX division and they have recently noted the growth in Store transactions for Windows 10 - the platforms are entirely necessary for that growth. These types of deals are about further growing that by offering more tie in's and value from buying the content from one of MS's Store's rather than brick and mortar or other digital distribution platforms on the PC.
 
Gotta to grow those MAUs :D

Yeah, this is not PC thing but more Windows 10 store push. I have really bad experiences with games for windows live (because I'm big GTA fan and 4 + expansions would probably require illegal tinkering to get 'em fixed. Heck I only both physical and steam copies but GFWL issues are still there). I'd like to support my fellow finns at Remedy but I don't think I'll buy QB anytime soon (unless they of course release version without Windows 10 store sometime in the future).
 
The recommended requirements on these new PC games are just stupid high though. It's pretty much for the 1% of PC gamers. For Quantum Break they're recommending Fury X or 980 Ti...trying to remember which but I recall another recent PC port with really high sys requirements. It's kind of stupid I dont see a reason they should be that high when they're running on modest consoles.
It's a pretty meaningless set of info really. It basically just tells you what HW they have tested the game on. It's even more useless when they don't mention the corresponding settings and ~ framerate.
 
So this is where Shifty and I high five? :) I'm all for it. Just waiting for Pascal now and I'm all setup for quite a few years of gaming.
In the end Shifty and others were right. I've always been a huge advocate of console exclusives, but ever since I started to study computer science and from my initial days as a PC gamer (yup, I got into consoles thanks to my first console, the original Xbox), there is something in me that drifts me away from consoles a bit, despite being a passionate console gamer for a long time.
 
It'll be most exciting when it's one executable. This is otherwise just MS cross-publishing nad using their library to promote Win 10 and Live on PC. Although at least MS exclusives comingto PC means no stupid hardware requirements to access software. Just need Sony to do the same! :p
In the end I think this was an old Bill Gates dream to convert the original Xbox into a Windows device and they say he was so upset when they presented the original Xbox with a different interface, some kind of different environment.
 
Not sure I how I feel about the amalgamation of Microsoft's console & PC platform, but from looks of it I guess I better get used to it eh? At least you're getting a ton of value with the backward compatible games & PC crossbuy. Had MS been leading this gen I don't think we would have ever seen that happen.

Tommy McClain
 
I am pretty sure this is going to be MS new strategy. MS is trying to blur the line between its hardware and anything that runs windows. Its obvious that its in their plans to use Windows to offer unique features for their XB consoles. By making console exclusives available for free for another windows device if purchased on XB it will increase the motivation to own that console which will have Windows integration.
In the future XB itself may be an upgradeable PC that runs windows but has its unique UI to compete with Steam

Holy Moses, it's almost like we've had this discussion before!

Oh, and Spencer says that Cross-Platform-Buy is going to be a "console feature" going forward.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3032...ndows-10-xbox-one-game-crossbuys-a-habit.html

That's in response to whether or not 3rd party games will be crossbuy or just MS exclusives.

So, there's that.

The days of market watching and sales threads losing whatever little relevance they had left are quickly upon us.

So, there's that, too.
 
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Read any of the financial commentaries and you realise that the growth for the console vendors is from their online stores, MS have consistently referenced it with regards the the XBOX division and they have recently noted the growth in Store transactions for Windows 10 - the platforms are entirely necessary for that growth. These types of deals are about further growing that by offering more tie in's and value from buying the content from one of MS's Store's rather than brick and mortar or other digital distribution platforms on the PC.

So it's a Windows Store exclusive?

Oh..
 
So it's a Windows Store exclusive?

Oh..

As much as I like Steam, this doesn't bother me as much as having it tied to Origin, Uplay, or similar would. If I have to have my games tied to more than one distribution platform having the secondary one be integrated with the platform and services I am already using softens the blow quite a bit. In other words, since I am already logging into my PC with my MS account and the store is integrated into Windows 10, having games tied to that account doesn't really irk me.

Anyway, this is another move that makes me think the decision makers at XBox and MGS actually seem to "get it" in a way that the previous regime did not. Hopefully we see a lot more of this.
 
Pretty cool , I wanted the game but with the rift hitting $60 bucks is a bit of a tough sell for me. Now I can get it for both the pc and xbox one for $60.

So that's great for me.

Its also great if they do this for all games since I have a lot of friends who know nothing about pcs and don't want to invest in them and will rather buy a game on an xbox one. Now for the same price I can get the game on both the one and pc. So I don't have to choose between high end graphics and playing with friends.

It would be great to see Sony do the same but they have a vested interest in making the ps4 sell so I doubt they will ever do something like this.


This should also just make it easier for MS to launch another console. They can simply use the pc version on future consoles and turn up the settings.
 
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