Xbox Series X | S

[friedgold]

1 hour ago, Boozy The Clown said:

They'll all be Xbox/Game Pass/PC exclusive. With the exception of continuing online MMO's Fallout76 and ESO.

I only say that because I'm assuming a fair amount of work on a PS5 version would have to be written off if it's exclusive to MS infastructure. But equally can appreciarte the value of exclusives. Just got to start remembering to think of Bethesda as Microsoft rather than their own entity, I guess.

 

I mean, I have no dog in the fight and would rather everybody could get hold of everything they wanted to play regardless of platform

[Transient Curse]

28 minutes ago, Stanley said:

II don’t think they will, I don’t think they’re that precious about exclusives anymore. They’re playing the long game and they’ll be used to push Game Pass further and further into peoples consciousness. You could buy Elder Scrolls VI for PlayStation for £64.99 or you could have it day one at no extra cost as part of your subscription. 
 

This is why Xbox will ultimately win this generation, PlayStation has run out of steam in Japan which leaves MS on much firmer footing in other territories, and ‘Netflix for games’ will become the norm - I have mixed feelings about that too but it’s what will happen, especially when coupled with Xcloud. 

If Microsoft wanted to put those games on Gamepass, they could do it without buying the company. If they wanted to sell games to PlayStation owners, they'd make a lot by putting Halo on PlayStation.  

 

And yet, they did buy the company and they haven't put Halo on PlayStation. 

 

I think Boozy's summation is correct. 

[Boozy The Clown]

If God of War or Zelda ever appears on a competing companies platform I can see the case for Bethesda/Xbox future games going multiplat. That's never going to happen though.

[Stanley]

15 minutes ago, Wahwah* said:

If Microsoft wanted to put those games on Gamepass, they could do it without buying the company. If they wanted to sell games to PlayStation owners, they'd make a lot by putting Halo on PlayStation.  

 

And yet, they did buy the company and they haven't put Halo on PlayStation. 

 

I think Boozy's summation is correct. 

I’m fairly certain it’s up to the publisher when/if their game goes on Game Pass. If it’s that simple every game would be on there day one already.
 

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Xcloud and Game Pass made its way to other systems with Halo, Forza, the whole damn lot. It’s just a matter of time. 
 

Like I said they’re playing the long game, ultimately Xbox Game Pass will just be an app you open on whatever device you choose, but that’s probably ten years away, that’s their goal though. 

[Transient Curse]

16 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I’m fairly certain it’s up to the publisher when/if their game goes on Game Pass. If it’s that simple every game would be on there day one already.

Yes, a publisher could refuse to have their game on gamepass, you are correct as far as I'm aware. However, I stand by the idea that Bethesda / Zenimax, who have already had titles on Gamepass, would have allowed Microsoft to pay for their titles to be on gamepass earlier in the game's life for less money than Microsoft put down to buy the company.

[therearerules]

12 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I’m fairly certain it’s up to the publisher when/if their game goes on Game Pass. If it’s that simple every game would be on there day one already.
 

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Xcloud and Game Pass made its way to other systems with Halo, Forza, the whole damn lot. It’s just a matter of time. 
 

Like I said they’re playing the long game, ultimately Xbox Game Pass will just be an app you open on whatever device you choose, but that’s probably ten years away, that’s their goal though. 

 

It still costs money, but it would be significantly less than buying the company. At this point I think unless already announced, any Bethesda games that go on PS or Switch should be considered a suprise, rather than the other way around. Xbox exclusives are a massive weak spot for MS, I can't imagine they purchased Bethesda to not plug that gap.

 

As for GP being on everything, I can see game streaming being on media players, but couldn't imagine a situation where Sony allowed gamepass onto their system.

[MattyP]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

II don’t think they will, I don’t think they’re that precious about exclusives anymore. They’re playing the long game and they’ll be used to push Game Pass further and further into peoples consciousness. You could buy Elder Scrolls VI for PlayStation for £64.99 or you could have it day one at no extra cost as part of your subscription. 
 

This is why Xbox will ultimately win this generation, PlayStation has run out of steam in Japan which leaves MS on much firmer footing in other territories, and ‘Netflix for games’ will become the norm - I have mixed feelings about that too but it’s what will happen, especially when coupled with Xcloud. 

They need platform exclusives though to drive GamePass subs. The consoles exist to provide a low barrier entry into their Xbox platform. Series S for people that just want to play games and aren't really fussed about power and 4K games etc. The Series X for people who want a bit more PC like performance - and an alternative to buying a PC to play games on. So they cover off all bases and of course xCloud gaming will fill other gaps.

 

If MS start gaining more traction Sony will have to reconsider their strategy I guess. Subs keep people playing on your platform and keep income flowing continuously. Those £65+ AAA exclusive games are great but they are one hit sales. Once the initial release is done they then get flooded onto the second hand market a month or so after. Having them on a subscription service provides further opportunities to market more add ons etc whilst continuously getting revenue in. Also pretty much kills the second market too.

 

Its an interesting time in gaming and how distribution and consumption is going to work in future.  

 

Personally happy with a Neflix style sub saves me getting disks, installing them and then moving them on when I'm done with them. I would probably "lose" more money than just paying for a month of GamePass. Just really convenient at minimal cost really. Love Sony to follow suit - happily sub to one of their services to play the next Uncharted or whatever exclusive on the PC. At the moment they get nothing from me. I'd love to buy a controller hook it up to my PC and buy Astrobot or whatever and play. I won't buy another box though to do that (even if I could get one of course!)

[Mr. Gerbik]

PlayStation fans before the Bethesda acquisition: lololol Xbox has no exclusives so who cares about Xbox

 

PlayStation fans after the Bethesda acquisition: surely having your games on as many platforms as possible is more sensible than making it all exclusive

 

Bethesda games already appeared regularly on Game Pass and stayed there for a long time. Those deals were in place and working well by the looks of it. There would be no need to buy the company outright just to put those games on game pass without any further benefits. And besides, Sony would make more money putting Uncharted on Xbox also. And yet they don't.

 

And what better advertisement for Game Pass than a free trial month or 1 quid to play Elder Scrolls 6 on your tablet or phone or whatever if you don't have an Xbox. Or on your telly if they have an app out by then, like Stadia was aiming to do. Microsoft is more interested in making money off game pass than making money off Elder Scrolls. The latter is very much in service of the former.

 

 

 

 

[Stanley]

6 minutes ago, therearerules said:

 

It still costs money, but it would be significantly less than buying the company. At this point I think unless already announced, any Bethesda games that go on PS or Switch should be considered a suprise, rather than the other way around. Xbox exclusives are a massive weak spot for MS, I can't imagine they purchased Bethesda to not plug that gap.

 

As for GP being on everything, I can see game streaming being on media players, but couldn't imagine a situation where Sony allowed gamepass onto their system.

Well it’s just speculation but I’d imagine that a meeting took place in which MS asked how much to put every Bethesda release on GP day one - and in the end those negotiations progressed to buying them outright. 
 

Obviously such an acquisition doesn’t come cheap and no doubt there are caveats towards games already in production on other systems, PlayStation specifically, to ensure their release, but I’d imagine it makes sense anyway from a business standpoint, as a publisher, to sell as many copies of your game as you can to recoup that cost. 
 

I mean there’s a precedent here, MS bought  Mojang but it didn’t prevent them releasing Minecraft Dungeons for every platform rather than keep it as an Xbox exclusive. 
 

It’s about balance, it makes no sense to start making Halo for PlayStation now when they can, as pointed out, use their exclusives to help drive sales of Xbox, but as Game Pass gathers momentum, and they can deliver it via streaming rather than porting it, it makes sound business sense too. Surely the whole point of Xcloud and Gamepass, is to cause as little friction as possible between the customer and the game? 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Just now, Stanley said:

I mean there’s a precedent here, MS bought  Mojang but it didn’t prevent them releasing Minecraft Dungeons for every platform rather than keep it as an Xbox exclusive. 
 

It’s about balance, it makes no sense to start making Halo for PlayStation now when they can, as pointed out, use their exclusives to help drive sales of Xbox, but as Game Pass gathers momentum, and they can deliver it via streaming rather than porting it, it makes sound business sense too. Surely the whole point of Xcloud and Gamepass, is to cause as little friction as possible between the customer and the game? 

Minecraft is very much its own thing, something that transcends the traditional gaming audience. Nothing in the Bethesda lineup is remotely like that, not even ES. It's not comparable.

 

And your last point just supports the idea that they're not putting it on PlayStation: why would they if anyone with a PlayStation but no Xbox, even anyone without any console at all, can play it through Game Pass and Xcloud? The only way you're playing it on PlayStation is if Sony allows Xcloud on their console, which I doubt will happen. I stake Pete Brant's remaining bollock on it.

[Yiggy]

I tend to agree with the traditional 'only on gamepass' exclusivity path as being the most likely. 

 

By the time Elder Scrolls appears, Gamepass will be available as a dongle, on smart TV's and on PC / Mac as well. Which will allow pretty much anybody to play it even if they only have a PS5 or a Switch. It will remove the 'Xbox Exclusives are bad for gamers' argument, or at least dilute it. Importantly it will also mean more subs from a wider audience. 

 

I get that cross platform would mean more money straight in but MS want to dominate the gaming space and that would be the logical way to do it. 

 

I bet we still don't find out anything in the March briefing apart from vagueness about 'Xbox first' again. 

 

 

 

 

[therearerules]

"The only way to play Elder Scrolls VI is on XBox" is worth much more money than whatever cut of sales they'd get on Playstation.

[Yiggy]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Minecraft is very much its own thing, something that transcends the traditional gaming audience. Nothing in the Bethesda lineup is remotely like that, not even ES. It's not comparable.

 

Yeah. They would have looked at Minecraft, the most popular game in the world, and seen that only 10% (Total guess) of those regular users play it on Xbox. Also, the majority of those users are children whose parents are not going to be happy if they have to get another sub or another console. It would have been business suicide to make it exclusive. 

 

Most of the Bethesda titles people talk about are adult titles and most of the customers have the ability to buy an Xbox or play on a number of other devices. 

[Harsin]

Why aren't Disney releaing WandaVision on Netflix, they're leaving money on the table!?!?

[Uncle Mike]

This idea that they've spent all that money on Bethesda and are doing so not to then make the titles exclusive seems bonkers to me. It may well be that there's enough development done on titles in progress that they take the view that they'd rather recoup it than throw it away, but even that seems unlikely. They're MS now, not an independent studio. They're making games for Game Pass.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Ayone with any kind of screen will be able to play it. Playstation owners who also have a television or phone or computer will be able to play it on Game Pass without Microsoft actually making a native PS5 version.

[Stanley]

20 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Minecraft is very much its own thing, something that transcends the traditional gaming audience. Nothing in the Bethesda lineup is remotely like that, not even ES. It's not comparable.

 

And your last point just supports the idea that they're not putting it on PlayStation: why would they if anyone with a PlayStation but no Xbox, even anyone without any console at all, can play it through Game Pass and Xcloud? The only way you're playing it on PlayStation is if Sony allows Xcloud on their console, which I doubt will happen. I stake Pete Brant's remaining bollock on it.

It’s a weird one, at the moment they are hard negotiating just getting it on iOS 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Just now, Stanley said:

It’s a weird one, at the moment they are hard negotiating just getting it on iOS 

That's been solved, they're going to do it like Stadia: through a browser and webpage.

[Uncle Mike]

42 minutes ago, MattyP said:

Having them on a subscription service provides further opportunities to market more add ons etc whilst continuously getting revenue in.

 

This was just one bit of a longer post, but I wanted to pull it out. I don't think I want that future of gaming, but it's not obviously what Game Pass is doing in any case, is it? It seems, from the outside looking in at least, as though games are just being made more or less the same as they were? Everyone was "genuine concerns" about Game Pass incentivising everyone to build service games, but it seems like "traditional" games are just as viable.

[Stanley]

22 minutes ago, therearerules said:

"The only way to play Elder Scrolls VI is on [s]XBox[/s] Game Pass" is worth much more money than whatever cut of sales they'd get on Playstation.

[Stanley]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

That's been solved, they're going to do it like Stadia: through a browser and webpage.

I’m sure the app will arrive eventually. 

[JPL]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

PlayStation has run out of steam in Japan

What do you mean by this?

[Stanley]

20 minutes ago, Harsin said:

Why aren't Disney releaing WandaVision on Netflix, they're leaving money on the table!?!?

The difference being Netflix and Disney+ aren’t exclusive to any one hardware format, they are both subscription services - I don’t think you could pay for Wanda separately even if you wanted to. 

[Stanley]

Just now, JPL said:

What do you mean by this?

PlayStation isn’t doing well in Japan. 

[JPL]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

PlayStation isn’t doing well in Japan. 

Any idea why? Is it because they can't get hold of them? The ridiculous size of the thing? Something else?

[Stanley]

Just now, JPL said:

Any idea why? Is it because they can't get hold of them? The ridiculous size of the thing? Something else?

It was losing market share well before PS5, Switch dominates there now, seems the Japanese just aren’t interested in big old black (or white) boxes anymore. 

[Yiggy]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Ayone with any kind of screen will be able to play it. Playstation owners who also have a television or phone or computer will be able to play it on Game Pass without Microsoft actually making a native PS5 version.

 

It probably doesn't need pointing out but this wont magically placate all PS5 owners. A proportion of (very loud) supporters will still complain that they can't play it on the console they play all their other games on. For many, your console choice is a lifestyle and one that you will die for. Making it easy to play on TV's without a console will help but it will need to be coupled with a really good marketing push to keep those people on side. 

[mdn2]

Just now, JPL said:

Any idea why? Is it because they can't get hold of them? The ridiculous size of the thing? Something else?

There's a massive shortage of consoles, which is obviously causing issues because there is pent up demand for them, but PS5 software sales have been abysmal, which indicates people are buying consoles either as an improved PS4 or the consoles are being bought and shipped overseas. But PlayStation has been on the decline for the last decade there or so (PS2 sold about 21 million units, PS3 about 10 million and PS4 about 9 million). There's interest, but it's true when they say Japan is Nintendo land. The Switch is at 18 million units sold and counting there.

[Stanley]

4 minutes ago, Yiggy said:

 

It probably doesn't need pointing out but this wont magically placate all PS5 owners. A proportion of (very loud) supporters will still complain that they can't play it on the console they play all their other games on. For many, your console choice is a lifestyle and one that you will die for. Making it easy to play on TV's without a console will help but it will need to be coupled with a really good marketing push to keep those people on side. 

Isn’t it ultimately the aim of both of these companies to just have their apps on TVs, phones, tablets etc? In the same way movies can be bought and played on pretty much everything, this is the way games are headed too - we’re currently experiencing that crossover generation. It does away with the need for shipping consoles, games etc. and removes any barrier to entry, all you’ll need is a pad and a smart device. 

[therearerules]

I'm not sure people who have made the lifestyle choice of a sony console are onside to begin with though!

 

I just bought a sony console for the exclusives, I signed up to D+ for the exclusives. The difference is, even if this is playable on every set-top box and media player, I can't see gamepass on a Playstation.