Well, MS - at least in optics - is trying to position itself as the guard of Sony and Nintendo against other big tech giants
I find it kinda funny that it is always Xbox who forces people to buy the console. People who bought Xbox in the first place are not forced to anything, just like buying Playstation is not the obligation and a choice. Yet, all the time I hear across various communities how Xbox forces somebody to buy it.
Why do you twist what he actually said? He said that people wanting to play particular games that used to be multiplatform had the option to buy which ever console they like. That could be either Playstation or Xbox. Now to play specific games they have to buy an Xbox.
If you want to play a game franchise that you already enjoy, but it moves off the platform you have to another platform you don't have, what else is that to be called? The strategy of such content is to 'force' people andnthat's why that strategy is chosen as a business move. It's like BT Internet buying the rights to all the Premiership football matches - the idea is to force people who would otherwise watch those games on free terrestrial channels onto the subscription service. The alternative is making content people choose to buy into, rather than acquiring something they already have/want and moving it behind a paywall, such as Netflix making Stranger Thigns to entice people to subscribe to access they content they'd otherwise miss.
For a game that's been announced and gamers are expecting to come to their console, only for it to be snatched away, yes. We see that same, consistent behaviour among gamers with Epic buying up a game and pissing of Steam users who are being forced to install EGS to access that game. Gamers don't like content they were expecting being paywalled to a platform, and who can blame them? And it's universal, although of course if you happen to have the platform that is getting the content, you are less likely to complain as you aren't directly affected. Life is unfair, but we rarely complain when it's unfair in our favour!
That doesn't make the criticisms of the affected any less valid though.The problem is not with the practice, but with the way it is framed and you mentioned it yourself that it is Xbox who always forces people. Not Sony with SF5, not Sony with FF7R, not Sony with Spider-man, not Sony with FF16 and Forspoken (that supposed to come in 2 years, but who knows), hell even Kena is probably not coming too. And Sony even went after Starfield and if not for purchase we could get a situation where Deathloop or Ghostwire would not come to Xbox. We can even assume that Sony might make KOTOR exclusive too, because you never know with Sony.
If we get the amount of titles Sony moneyhatted (or made some deals behind the scenes that we can presume) it will be more than just a publisher over the generation. I only applaud Sony for doing smart tactical moves like with Street Fighter that obliterated fighting genre on Xbox (they got all the fighting games without paying for them. Beautiful). Or constantly paying Square Enix to a point where people claim that buying Square Enix is fine because they make the games for Sony anyway. Sony is very good at conditioning people where if they pay the studio long enough not to release the games on Xbox and then in public perception it becomes a Sony studio anyway so can be bought organically.
As if it is not the same right now. Since 2016 Xbox did not have a single FF game (though FF devs work slow) and also Forspoken was moneyhatted too and FF16 is gonna be moneyhatted too. I like approach that MS uses - at least it is a honest way and Game Pass value grows. Sony community gets only 70$ games and 10$ upgrades. And also cloud saves behind the paywall.
Yeah, they have been trembling over the posibility of losing the games for years...Especially in PS2 and PS4 era. In PS3 era I am not sure if there were games that did not come to Playstation either. In PS1 era it also did not lose games (or any). And to be precise it was more Sony taking off the games from other platforms at that time. I would say that only this gen, Playstation community get to experience what other platforms have been experienced for years. Will be a refreshing experience.
Probably another paid upgrade in the works.
Except they did. I'm pretty sure at the time people complained about Sony taking the SF franchise away from other platforms, and I'm pretty sure the arguments were the same that people didn't want to be forced into getting a console to play a franchise. Very quick Google:
Which is unfair! But then you have the case where you can still get these on PC. If Sony bought the studios and excluded them from PC also, that'd be even worse, no? The explanations are the same though. If a company creates new IP to make their console unqiue, people are okay with that. If they secure content from other platforms, they aren't that happy. If they buy wholesale studios/publishers that were multiplatform to force existing fans into buying their console, that's the worst.
That really isn't true. Where were you during the PS360 era? 360 got loads of exclusives. I repeat, with some facts you ignored last time and will ignore again, the Sony community did not rage against Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Gears of War, Fable, etc. How does that fit into your theory?
I don't remember media doing crusades on Sony over that like they did with Tomb Raider and Microsoft. Showing a topic on reddit is not a proof of anything. It is like saying that nobody plays COD because people hate it on the forums.
Not. Buying a publisher is a honest way to say the game is not coming to the platform (though MS is pretty generous in that regard. Sony would have never given that much leeway regarding the game releases), while Sony gets more with less (without buying a publisher they literally lock one game after another and then whole genres evaporate) - pay small 100m and then extend and then extend the deal and people won't care if the game is not coming to other platform anymore and even claim that the whole series is the platform exclusive. Publisher acquisition at least allows to sort the internal issue while Sony with their COD deals could not influence ATVI on stopping annual COD games.
I am not sure what are you trying to prove here considering that MS releases their exclusive game on PC day one. I believe you meant something like "see! Sony was generous enough not to moneyhat the game from coming on PC! They are good!"
With EGS the main argument is that the store is bad. If the store was good - with communities, basket etc. - nobody would complain. Or at least not that much.
Wait, so you comparing FF and SF moneyhats with Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon and co.? Oof. You literally said in the same post If a company creates new IP to make their console unqiue, people are okay with that so I am not sure why you are bringing these IPs...
Except there is. There are so many articles about "why the game should be coming to Playstation" or "why it cannot skip the platform". But good thing is that with Xbox growing in popularity, the media noise will die out and they will start asking real questions like "why cloud saves on Playstation are behind the paywall" and "when Playstation will finally have a good refund policy"
All the complaints I've seen are about Epic using their Fortnite revenues to buy a competitive advantage. The fact the store isn't great only makes it worse, but the overall discussion I've seen is continuing the standards for gamers - they don't like companies muscling their way to success by taking games out of the game pool for other platforms.
No. I'm saying there have been plenty of times MS has secured titles without Sony fanbots/gamers complaining they are missing out on games. You state Sony fans feel entitled to everything. I present evidence that they don't. They are just fine with other platforms having exclusives. Sony fans are no different to other gamers. There is a spectrum:
No, if EGS store was a decent store nobody would bat an eye. Not the first time there is a separate launcher on PC. The problem is that EGS store is bad and rather than improving it, Epic is throwing around money to temproray lock third party exclusive games. They did not even have a basket for a long time, which is hilarious!
Of course they would not complain as it is IP they are not interested in. In fact a lot of Playstation folks would be happy in Xbox sit in some corner with their own games without touching any third party games that could potentially come to Xbox. Just like with Nintendo.
Rational arguments are the unbiased arguments. However discussions about exclusivity are inheretenly biased because most of the people prefer one or another platform. I have never seen a single person who would say that time exclusivity is better than acquisition while not having Playstation. Like each and every person who prefers Sony's moneyhats owns Playstation.
