FTC: Xbox-exclusive Starfield is “powerful evidence” against Activision deal
asteroidrainfall@kbin.social to Gaming@kbin.social – 59 points – 
arstechnica.com
"Microsoft's actions following... acquisition of ZeniMax speak louder than... words."
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On the one hand, Sony is doing the same with plenty of their own games - Spider-man, Horizon, God of War, etc. This is standard in the industry at this point. On the other hand, Sony isn't gobbling up every studio it can get its hands on, let alone one as big as Activision Blizzard.
It's an interesting situation MS has gotten themselves in.
Not that Sony is worthy of any defending on our parts, but they have a recent track record of releasing their console exclusives to the PC a short while after. Of those two big conglomerates, Sony seems to be the more dedicated of the two to preserving multiplatform releases.
I mean, on that front, MS has been releasing pretty much every "exclusive* on PC for some time. Starfield itself is coming to PC. I think it's kinda weird that we label PCs under the "MS Console" umbrella and shame them for it, but Sony gets praised for it.
I suppose the argument is that MS still makes money on Windows sales, whereas Sony only makes money on the game itself, for PC ports of games.
Sony isn’t just a gaming company though. They sell all kinds of home electronics and cameras. They also have their entire film and music divisions, not to mention their banking any insurance subsidiaries. Nintendo is the only platform holder that is just a gaming company.
It's because Microsoft makes the dominant OS
The PC release is usually around two years after the PlayStation release, I believe, so it's quite a while. Microsoft also releases all their games on PC on day one, and has done for several years at this point, so I'm not sure I'd agree that Sony is more dedicated to preserving multiplatform than Microsoft.
Also the pc ports are quite shit and feel like they are "compliance releases"
Microsoft also owns Windows, so it’s debatable whether a game for PC and Xbox can truly be considered multiplatform.
Starfield is currently available for pre-order on Steam with a release date of Sep 6. It's coming to PC as well, without requiring an Xbox storefront or Game Pass, which does make it by all definitions multiplatform. I think the specific complaint at hand here is that it's not coming to PS5, which seems kind of odd to me. Like, it's cool if it also comes to Playstation, but we know Starfield isn't coming to the Switch, for example. So why is it such a huge deal that it doesn't come to PS5? Developers can't be expected to support every platform on every game. I was mad as hell when Persona 5 wasn't on switch (they eventually released Royal on switch but this was several years later), why wasn't that a problem with the FTC? Should I be mad that Skyrim wasn't ported to my 3DS?
Personally I'm not really a fan of Call Of Duty so I wouldn't be bothered if it did just fall off the face of the earth, but I understand people are concerned about Microsoft pulling a bait and switch and making the next COD Xbox only in order to drive console sales. So why, then, is this article talking about Starfield? Also if they were going to pull that they wouldn't be bringing it to PC either because that just ruins your whole captive audience plan, and most or all of their recent AAA stuff that I know of have been multiplatform console/PC releases.
I just don't get it, I guess, is my point. Someone please explain to me what is going on here?
Morrowind only released on Xbox + PC, Oblivion released on PS3 a year late and was a shitty port, Fallout 3 was a mess.
Bethesda treating PlayStation as an afterthought predates their Microsoft acquisition by nearly two decades.
Coloured by my experience as a PS4/PS5 owner, it's frustrating because no-one ever expected Starfield to run on Switch... But a PS5 is very similar to an Xbox and would run it without an issue.
A lot of people only have room/budget for one "main" device. Sony's reputation for exclusive story rich games made that an easy choice.
The fact that Bethesda games were available on PlayStation and Xbox in the past makes it feels more like something being taken from us rather than something that was never available to begin with. Even though Starfield is a new IP.
I'll power through it on my Steam Deck if it runs because I want to play it, but I'm going to remain bitter for some time.
The jist of it would be that, while gaming exclusives have kinda just done their own thing for a while now, MS has invited the scrutiny of government agencies with such a big acquisition. That's why they are getting the brunt of criticism ATM.
It'll be interesting to see if that scrutiny spreads to the other big devs as well during all this.
I have gamepass for pc with lots of Xbox exclusive games... I have 5 Sony exclusives...
They are gobbling up developers. Many are lowly and don't have many credits to their names. Sony may be a hardware company that doesn't fully understand software or services, but if they lost two generations in a row, you can bet your ass they'd drop billions of dollars to acquire Activision, or Take-Two or EA
Sony does not have anywhere enough capital to acquire large publishers
I hear what you're saying. And I don't have the financials quick at hand. But I guess what I really mean is that they'd be fighting tooth and nail, gouging eyes... Essentially that neither of them are above the dirty tricks campaign and it benefits no one in the long term.
Ya if Sony bought EA, for example, I'd be just as pissed. Or even Take-Two, which it was rumored they were looking at before, I think.
I’ve been a Sony fan for years, so my perspective is probably biased, but the way I see it, Sony innovates to get an edge while Microsoft just buys everything out.
What has Sony done that's been innovative honestly though?
They have good exclusives, and the controller is objectively better. But they're way behind in online integration for beyond game use. The play station competitor to game pass is objectively bad.
Their studios aren't really doing anything with graphics or physics that is not being done comparably or better by others. Tears of the kingdom physics on a fucking switch is miles beyond anything MS or PS can do on their massively better hardware.
Sony lives and dies on brand loyalty and exclusives. And that controller.
Exactly, Sony had a great start to the PS4, they gained a lot of goodwill because they started that generation on fairly equal footing with Xbox, and MS made a lot of blunders before the consoles even went on sale. At the time, the PS4 was a better deal, and Sony was much more customer-oriented. I was mainly a 360 user, and had a PS3 but it was rarely turned on, but I went all in on PS4.
I reckon however about mid-way through the last gen Sony had enough market share to care a bit more about profits than their customers. Mainly the issues around cross-play and cross-save, some say their stance on back-compat wasn't great, but I'm not sure I agree because it's likely largely a technical issue.
When the mid-gen refresh started coming around, I seriously considered switching to Xbox, but PSVR helped me stay in the Sony eco-system, but I did end up going all in on Xbox for this current gen, and am happy I have done, sure I miss out on some Sony exclusives, but I certainly appreciate the user-experience more on Xbox, with things like quick-resume and smart-delivery making Xbox feel truly next-gen
I didn't realize ps didn't have quick resume, that is just such an integral part of my gaming experience in not sure I could give it up
I don't think that really has any bearing on the conversation of exclusives, tbh. A work being "good" or "bad" shouldn't have any influence on if we consider exclusives acceptable.