Banjo64
cumsessed
Correct, they both push each other to do more consumer friendly deeds. For example, Game Pass probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Sony introducing PS Plus and the instant game collection in the PS3 era.
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Phil Spencer admits defeat in console space, and doesn't think great games would help Xbox's market share.
- Thread starter FunkMiller
- Start date
TheMan
Member
He’s not wrong, but I have to wonder why he even bothered to give this interview- he was fucked either way. He could have given us the typical BS spin and he would have been accused of lying or just wasting our time with words that mean nothing. Or, he could tell the truth and say the quiet part out loud, thus creating controversy and making Xbox look kinda bad.
He went with the truth but at least we got a 39 page thread out of it, and that’s kind of rarity these days on GAF
He went with the truth but at least we got a 39 page thread out of it, and that’s kind of rarity these days on GAF
JackMcGunns
Member
Funny because that's the stance people are taking here. Phil hasn't produced any good games!!
So he's a producer of games now?
Del_X
Member
I think he's actually 100% correct. People do have a ton of their digital library in the PlayStation ecosystem and for most normies the switching cost (since they won't buy both) is too great.
Xbox had the most influential games of that generation (Halo). Had a solid cadence of great releases. Was so distant behind the PS2 it was laughable.
The only way Xbox gets momentum back in the console space is to release a year ahead of Sony, and accept coming in $100 more to keep the console comparable from a performance perspective and giving them room to cut later on.
Xbox had the most influential games of that generation (Halo). Had a solid cadence of great releases. Was so distant behind the PS2 it was laughable.
The only way Xbox gets momentum back in the console space is to release a year ahead of Sony, and accept coming in $100 more to keep the console comparable from a performance perspective and giving them room to cut later on.
Thirty7ven
Banned
The interview had been scheduled before the CMA and Redfall. It was supposed to be a victory lap. If he canceled it after the fact he would look like a pussy.
You can see how this wasn’t what he had intended. Him throwing shade at PlayStation funding third party exclusives was some shit considering he wanted to come into the interview with his chest pumped about ABK. Considering MS just went on a media tour for the regulators trying to box the debate around competing with PlayStation, he wouldn’t be able to back down now. He had to eat shit and he looked like it.
No sympathy.
PS - Xbox fans are Xbox fans because of the console, most of them became fans with the 360. All the bs about console not mattering came to light as soon as Phil said what he said. They went ape shit online, surprise surprise.
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Captain Toad
Banned
I'm not sure how it was way more popular, but sold less.
Fredrik
Member
If that’s all there is, why not just use the big wallet to actually make COD and Diablo exclusive, or Candy Crush or whatever, without CMA or FTC etc doing anything about it like Sony does with their 3rd party exclusives? ABK and MS is clearly bed buddies now so what’s the deal? Why cry? The money is already planned to be used. How many years could MS get for $70 billion?
Thirty7ven
Banned
Because the problem there is what if they make COD exclusive and because it’s only on Xbox the franchise takes a big hit? You might damage it forever. So Activision has to want to make that deal for starters.
Not the same scale but Rise of the Tomb Raider being Xbox One exclusive did a lot of damage to the franchise.
Fredrik
Member
The COD IP would no doubt take a bigger hit if MS bought ABK. Lower sales numbers, more negativity, less players, possibly less MTX sold.
But sure, exclusivity always hurt IPs, makes warrior trolls crawl out of their holes to find any negativity and blow it out of proportion. But $70 billion is a lot of money.
Thirty7ven
Banned
Well I wasn’t considering 70B bit because MS wouldn’t allow it.
Fredrik
Member
Probably not but they could pay whatever Activision Blizzard think is needed to cover for all the potential losses. Just do it like Sony does with FF, the IP is more or less seen as a Sony IP now and no billion dollars payed there.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Won't happen. Too much money with no ROI.
Thirty7ven
Banned
SE takes Sony’s money because they need it.
Fredrik
Member
They would get more money if a game like FF16 was on all platforms day 1 like Elden Ring and Hogwarts etc, and the IP wouldn’t be constantly used as a punching bag on social because a lot of that comes from people just not wanting to play the game on PS5.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Sethbacca
Member
But hasn't that whole thing been disproven by the statistics of people that actually use backward compatible games? Most people don't want to play their library, they want new games. The whole "They already have a digital library" feels like a red herring to me. Granted I can't find any newer studies but I can't imagine the landscape has significantly changed. https://www.vg247.com/new-study-finds-that-gamers-dont-really-use-backwards-compatibility
Caio
Member
That was an amazing Generation, with PS3, 360 and Wii. Sony's console has managed to regain ground with the release of the PS3 Slim, after having had a somewhat difficult start. Wii had 4 phenomenal years and then declined and give way to PS3 at the end of the generation. But it should be considered that 360 literally conquered America and even beat Nintendo Wii in units sold in NA, 47M VS 45.5M. Indeed, the XBox 360 had become the most popular console in NA, while PS3 had almost reached Wii in units sold in Europe. In the End Wii won in the Global, but really had a deep decline after 2009 : respectively, Wii, PS3 and 360 sold in the Global 21,2M, 13M and 10,16M in 2009, while 17,3M, 13,9M and 13,25M in 2010, and 11,5M, 14,7M and 13,8M in 2011, and 5M, 12,15M and 10,67 in 2012. Hard to say which one was more popular : 360 was in NA, PS3 was beasting in the end in Europe, and Wii a Monster in 2007-2009, starting to go down in 2010.
Crayon
Member
Nintendo came back from a disaster console with a clean slate library. Miss me with the "that's different". They fixed the execution of the wii u concept and started slamming out big releases and now look. Blaming the ecosystem entrenchment issue is weird anyway because it's really backwards compatibility, which works with disks. You'd think ms would be stronger there with the 360 bc effort that has been sung from the rooftops for years now.
....
As far as ms getting normal 3p exclusive rights for cod, a few years of that would damage cod for a long time. It's good that bethesda games are so strong on steam because those are going to take a fat hit in popularity with their reach being chopped in half and alternatives will get a boost on ps.
....
As far as ms getting normal 3p exclusive rights for cod, a few years of that would damage cod for a long time. It's good that bethesda games are so strong on steam because those are going to take a fat hit in popularity with their reach being chopped in half and alternatives will get a boost on ps.
Draxon Gamer
Banned
I think people are looking at this out of context because of people like playing favorites.
He's saying that even a legendary game release can't turn around the current issues that are preventing Xbox from being able to outsell Sony. We already knew this based on their problems about stock and a declining retail presence since some developers would rather go all-in on gamepass than print discs.
Starfield could be an 11/10, it could be a 20/10 game, and it still wouldn't change the needle because there's not enough consoles out there for a 20/10 game to sell enough to catch up. Sony had 6 months of shipment improvements and now has a ton of consoles out there to buy. The only thing Microsoft has with similar progress is the S, but because the S is very different than the more powerful X unit, there's many people who won't touch it. If Starfield could sell 10 million S and X each, and its a legendary 30/10 game, there would still need to be 10m of both consoles out there to buy. i don't even think there's 2m out there to buy right now for X.
People are looking at his speech as if he's saying that there's nothing he can do and that Xbox is going to coast from here on, but what he's really saying is that there currently isn't a path to catch up in consoles sold and he's 100% right, at least for now. He even included Activision in that deal because even if the deal went through and there's even higher demand, that won't move more consoles for Phil to out console Jim, if the consoles aren't there.
Whether or not Phil will push to change that or not is the only real question. As of now i am not seeing any changes.
He's saying that even a legendary game release can't turn around the current issues that are preventing Xbox from being able to outsell Sony. We already knew this based on their problems about stock and a declining retail presence since some developers would rather go all-in on gamepass than print discs.
Starfield could be an 11/10, it could be a 20/10 game, and it still wouldn't change the needle because there's not enough consoles out there for a 20/10 game to sell enough to catch up. Sony had 6 months of shipment improvements and now has a ton of consoles out there to buy. The only thing Microsoft has with similar progress is the S, but because the S is very different than the more powerful X unit, there's many people who won't touch it. If Starfield could sell 10 million S and X each, and its a legendary 30/10 game, there would still need to be 10m of both consoles out there to buy. i don't even think there's 2m out there to buy right now for X.
People are looking at his speech as if he's saying that there's nothing he can do and that Xbox is going to coast from here on, but what he's really saying is that there currently isn't a path to catch up in consoles sold and he's 100% right, at least for now. He even included Activision in that deal because even if the deal went through and there's even higher demand, that won't move more consoles for Phil to out console Jim, if the consoles aren't there.
Whether or not Phil will push to change that or not is the only real question. As of now i am not seeing any changes.
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Captain Toad
Banned
No, it's easy. It's numbers. Wii sold the most. PS3 sold the second most. Xbox 360, while close to PS3, sold the least.
ShadowkillXNA
Member
There's a big world out there, beyond the end of your nose.
Mind blowing, I know, but it is there.
Thirty7ven
Banned
You’re wrong. They get a bigger budget, access to more technical resources, a bigger marketing push, and their main audience gets even more excited.
Comparing it to Hogwarts doesn’t make sense. Elden Ring had a lot of hype before people even saw it, as From has built a good audience across platforms. But it doesn’t have the same level of production values, and it doesn’t need to because of the type of game it is.
It’s important to make a distinction here also about how making an exclusive as soon as you start developing the game isn’t the same as grabbing a timed exclusive for a game that was already well into production like a deathloop or a rise of the Tomb Raider.
You wouldn’t get Final Fantasy XVI as it exists if it were multiplatform. And if SE thought they would deliver the exact same game and make more money by launching it on Xbox they wouldn’t have taken the deal.
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Thirty7ven
Banned
They want new games but now they can’t sell their old games or trade them in. So they have their digital library, and then like Phil said we have entered the age of games that just keep going from on generation to the next like Fortnite. Then you have your friends list that stays on one system.
This isn’t just Phil saying, many people have made these observations before. Some people just don’t want to accept it, but reality keeps proving them otherwise.
Nintendo was a two system company, stationary console and handheld. Now they are a one system company. Switch is primarily an handheld, and Nintendo has always had incredible success with handhelds.
Nintendo’s example doesn’t work.
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Crayon
Member
It's gray on the edge there, but switch is destroying 3ds and wii u combined.
Thirty7ven
Banned
It’s a great product. A closed fist hits harder and it has the same number of fingers.
Crayon
Member
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
What do you think ff xvi is going to sell on ps5? It's even neglecting PC. I think it would have done great numbers on PC and xbox. Obviously not to the level of ps5 but still millions.
I'm interested to see how it performs critically and sales wise. Going to be an interesting one. There seems to be a lot of excitement around it.
Azurro
Banned
You have to admit, the 360 selling almost as much as PS3 (and the PS3 only caught up at the end of the generation) was a huge result after the original Xbox.
Phil Spencer is wrong, I think a great stream of games, a shared culture of excellence and cultivating the studios it already owns would gain them marketshare, after all, that's what Sony did during the PS3 era. However, that would be in a medium to long term and MS wants results now, which is pretty much impossible as they haven't earned it.
Anyway, it's not a surprise, they abandoned the Xbox as a console concept years ago and now it's merely a launchpad for services such as GamePass. If MS could put GamePass on PS and Nintendo, I'm not even sure they'd bother to launch a successor to the Xbox Series X/S.
Yeah GamePass was absolutely the White Flag.
Katatonic
Member
You heard that Square, you must spend millions extra to put your games on systems where they don't sell just so you can avoid getting review bombed by people who werent gonna buy your game but like to play the meta game of console wars.. Do the math!
Captain Toad
Banned
No doubt. It was the better console for the first several years. Because of the games.
I'm just saying it's strange it gets credit for winning that generation all the time, but technically it was third place. It was very close for second with PS3 though.
FrankWza
Member
Since the time frame around launch I've seen xbox fans be truly excited about 5 things-
-Gamepass
-The zeni purchase.
-The world's most powerful console pre-launch statement.
-MLB the show hitting gamepass.
-The Activision purchase.
You can make the argument that 4/5 blew up and/or failed to deliver so far.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
Libraries are worth nothing if you can wait for sale and get your fav games for cheap.
Besides, some still have physical discs they can sell.
And no reason one can’t have both platforms
digoutyoursoul
Member
There is also cross play .
Plague Doctor
Member
Look. I am going to say this one more time. Everyone needs to chill out and cut Phil some slack. He inheritted a mess from Mattrick and needs a decade or two to fix things. Xbox needs Activision to compete and if he doesn't get it, who could actually make good games in house from their own studios!? Name one major platform company that does that. I dare you to name two major platform companies.
It's a fact that most great CEO need atleast 16 years to turn a company around. Maybe an even 20 years.
2029 will be Xbox's year. Haters.
It's a fact that most great CEO need atleast 16 years to turn a company around. Maybe an even 20 years.
2029 will be Xbox's year. Haters.
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ChorizoPicozo
Member
this reads like the plague.
killatopak
Member
It's a difference of perception. To the western countries, it probably felt like it was more popular. However, in Asia that's far from the case. I felt it personally when they introduced the Tier system during XBO's launch.
Thirty7ven
Banned
Really hard to predict that, who knows?
But looking at splits for FFXV where I can find them:
https://www.psu.com/news/final-fantasy-15-ps4-sales-stomp-all-over-the-xbox-one-version/
4-1 (PS4 vs Xbox One) first week in the UK.
https://www.gematsu.com/2016/12/media-create-sales-112816-12416
690k vs 4K first week in Japan.
So I can’t see how Xbox was doing much for the sales and that’s part of the reason why FFXVI is exclusive.
Captain Toad
Banned
I can feel my team played better, but if the scoreboard says the other team scored more points, my team didn't win.
ZehDon
Gold Member
Well said. The small percentage of sales that SE are losing by making Final Fantasy a PlayStation exclusive is clearly offset by the extra sales they'll generate by being pushed by Sony in a big way. Microsoft hasn't had the kind of install base that can maintain a massive third-party AAA title in this way since the 360. They tried and failed to do it with Tomb Raider on the Xbone, and almost managed to turn a big AAA franchise into a small AAA franchise in the process.
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oldergamer
Member
That's bs reasons imo. Where's the outrage that Sony are making multiplats exclusive? As usual the same rules don't apply.
More consoles doesn't mean it's going toe sell significantly more being exclusive
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Crayon
Member
You forgot to mention how nice he is.
Oppoi
Member
Really don't matter what you resond with these days, hey! Why not respond with something fun!
Mr.Phoenix
Member
Just to be clear, so you are saying the reason that XBS consoles are not selling as well as PS5 is because MS is having supply issues?
I'm pretty sure if SE saw themselves making more money from FF on xbox rather than whatever benefits they get with their deal they would have obviously released on xbox.
ZehDon
Gold Member
Considering the sheer length of Sony's involvement with Final Fantasy (PS1 days) I personally don't consider this the same as Microsoft stepping in buying up Tomb Raider exclusivity. I didn't scream about Bethesda going Microsoft first party for much the same reason - Microsoft and Bethesda have been best friends since the OG Xbox and have an extensive relationship that makes that purchase make sense. If Sony outright puchased Square Enix, I'd be fine with it for those reasons, too.
Not in isolation, but the first party treatment combined with the massive install base combined with the long relationship most likely does.
Captain Toad
Banned
That's likely not true.
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