Sony obviously paid for FF7 remake to be exclusive. Then Epic paid for exclusivity to block it from Steam. If you think moneyhats don’t exist you’re not paying attention. Where is the proof? Well that’s what makes them so shitty. It’s all done behind closed doors and occasionally they come out in court documents.
Now this weeb schlock in the OP, I doubt Sony paid for. They probably just don’t expect to sell many copies in the West.
I don't really think they are saying Money Hats don't exist, merely that it simply doesn't make sense to pretend ALL of those games not coming to XB have to do with that.
Why would Sony or Nintendo NEEEEED to pay any publisher to avoid a system they are already struggling to move units on in the first place? The gamepass deals made sense for MS cause they needed to get Sega, Square and lots on board based on those games selling so low on XB in terms of the jrpgs. Thus, I just can't buy that every last title to not come to xb is part of some deal.
I agree with you 100% on stuff like FFVII remake or FFXVI.
You still must consider, why was FFXV different? Are we to believe Sony didn't try to pay for that? I honestly think they did...Square likely turned down their offer to sell it on both PS4 and XONE and I think its that performance and KH3 that had the door open to those timed deals. As in, Square wasn't open to it and turned down the deals to see how they'd do on both platforms, sold something like 21% of FFXV on XB and 18% of KH3 on XB and I think that might have been the thing that had them saying yes the second time around or something.
For other titles, I don't even think Square is even wasting the time to entertain some deal cause they likely know it wasn't going to sell much on XB and maybe they are waiting for MS to offer the deal to pay for those ports after at this point. So a logical reason exist for lots of Japanese publishers to go the PS, Nintendo, PC route.
I don't really buy a deal is needed to account for every last one though. As someone stated, some of those games didn't even have a XB version in the past.
Because they didn't feel like it ? Maybe Square-Enix accepted for FF XVI and Forspoken but part of the contract was to allow a few other games on other consoles ?
Maybe. It could also be cause Sony didn't agree with a deal. Maybe they felt like such a remake wasn't really needed as they already know the majority that will buy it will be those that are playing FFVII remake anyway. So I think Square did go to Sony, I think Sony declined.
They likely know they'll move more units anyway and with the remake deal for FFVII, most will just buy Crisis Core on PS.
They paid/are paying for Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Forspoken, KOF, Silent Hill etc... many of these are multi-platform titles. Who knows when they pay for something exclusive...
This is true.
Fate is pretty niche but it is getting traction in the West. It would be stupid not releasing all games on Xbox as well if you want to target the West.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they don't want to do such an investment and are waiting for MS to offer to pay for the port or get some Gamepass deal.
Maybe they want to see how it does on PS, Nintendo and PC before extending over to XB for some new western push.
That is what Yakuza did btw.
When they started to rebrand, remarket and make that push towards the west, it wasn't at the very start or something. They put out a remake, Zero etc before any of that started coming to XB, so I think maybe with something like Fate, a remake of an older title to get the west on board from day 1 sorta like Yakuza 1 remake and Zero did, see how that does on PC, PS and Nintendo and then push for a XB release later if those do well, like try to get a gamepass deal or for MS to pay port cost or something.
I agree with most of your points btw, simply that I don't think its stupid to skip XB right now as they still have to work on getting this IP doing well in the west PERIOD, they can worry about XB and a deal when its selling well on all platforms is on now sorta like how Yakuza did.
www.gematsu.com
