Support NeoGAF

[TheTony316]

As EU gamer I can confirm that this is completely false.

360 was a juggernaut here. Was it second to the PS? Yes. But that didn't stop the platform from having a vibrant community. The collapse you're seeing today started in 2013. The difference between the EU and US when it comes to XB is that the PR and "Wait till Next Year" narratives have zero resonance here. The only thing that captures mindshare here, is great games. And Phil Spencer PR smoke simply doesn't suffice.

It was doing much better than now but i wouldn't say "juggernaut"

 

[DrFigs]

Buying out game companies isn't competition. It's monopoly. You should really take 5 minutes to learn the difference.

buddy, i spent too much time already in the activision blizzard thread.

 

[Brucey]

I do find it crazy that Microsoft only seems to focus hard on the English speaking world. Outside of a couple of outliers like Brazil and Mexico, their focus seems to be entirely on US, Canada, UK, New Zealand, and Australia. Take some of that money spent on acquisitions and focus on some other big gaming markets........

Localization is hard. It takes years of investment in each market. Just look at the development of the ps blog over the years. Many countries/languages with their own version and content. Meanwhile Larry Hyrb was cranking out some hits for very much English focused content on the Xbox side.

 

[Brucey]

Sorry but no. At best I would understand if you said that you get more for your money if you buy a studio. But Sony often make deals where they own the IP. So nothing was against Xbox doing the same. And they did. They own the Scalebound IP for example.

I disagree with that in the sense that there is nothing against making it work. Xbox was first to work with the studio that made Genshin impact for example. But they let it go at the worst possible time. Paying a studio for making a game is not the same as paying for exclusivity for a known IP. Sony probably didn't paid as much for forspoken as they did for FF16.

For the 360, I think that you are getting it wrong. Xbox was aggressive in the 360 days, and made sure that a lot of great games were on Xbox no matter what. And on top of that did a lot of marketing deals that where not really a thing back then(outside of a few games like PES maybe ?). Being first was just another good point, and something that was not when they sold the most consoles as I think that it was after Kinect.

I am curious to see if they will give us good games in the next few years or if they will sadly continue to make failures like Redfall. They have the studios now.

I think what happened was this.

In the 360 generation, 360 sales were competitive with PS3. So timed exclusives and even full exclusives were relatively cheap and possible.

In the xb1 generation, PS4 was strong out of the gate and it would have become very expensive to buy exclusivity.

In the Xbox series generation, strong PS4 generation carried through to PS5. Very significant difference in sales rate versus series s/x. I'm thinking it was literally impossible for Xbox to buy timed or full exclusives this gen because of the amount of PS5 revenue they'd have to offset for the developer/publisher. Basically no amount of offered cash would make it happen. So they had to buy the entire ecosystem to get the content they wanted.

 

[Zug]

The french like japanese stuff more than average i'd say, it's a cultural/generational thing.
Mangas and japanese games sell well here, so it's no surprise that Nintendo and Playstation dominate the market in their respective audiences.

 

[jroc74]

Well market clearly indicated that they don't want Xbox consoles. Even when Starfield launched, sales dropped (mainly due to the might of PC in Europe). So clearly in order to make Xbox viable, Microsoft should secure content and due to the market, that relies on market share to get cheaper deals, it makes sense to do more acquisitions. It also protects from potential deals made by Netflix, Apple etc.

Some people will hug sales charts, some people will hug games.

I mean....people can hug games right now with no acquisitions.

Reverse every recent acquisition ......including ones by Sony.....and nothing change, people will still hug games.

Know what I did when Sega stopped making consoles? Nothing. Because I had no idea. 1, I already moved on. 2, I could play Sonic on other consoles.

Some people hug consoles, some people hug games.

The market has indicated they don't want something, so the solution is for that company to go scorched earth instead of simply adjusting and adapting to what consumers do want like any other rational business would have to?

You have it backwards and more consolidation won't lead to cheaper deals, it never does.

Apple/Netflix making a serious entry in the console space isn't something to be seen as a negative either by the way. In fact if people are going to say they want "more competition" then potential new entrants should be welcomed, provided they are going to bring something fresh and interesting to the table.

To me it just sounds like you need Microsoft to succeed in this space at all cost for some strange reason, even if it's at the expense of everyone else (both on the consumer and market participant side of the equation). Considering their output and how the overall market has generally responded to their products that is something I really don't understand.

Thank you.

 

[Drell]

The french like japanese stuff more than average i'd say, it's a cultural/generational thing.
Mangas and japanese games sell well here, so it's no surprise that Nintendo and Playstation dominate the market in their respective audiences.

But are Nintendo and Sony games that much "Japanese" to be fair?

Mario has a "cute" aesthetic but nothing really japanese. Take Spyro or Crash and it's the same kind of "cute" things. Zelda is some kind of dark fantasy vibes but for teens, but again, nothing really "manga" or "anime". Xenoblade or Fire Emblem would be what you'd be looking for but these series aren't even really mainstream, when you think about Nintendo.

And it's even more wrong about Sony. If you remove FF7 Remake and FFXVI, there's no more "Japanese" games on Playstation. It's all about The Last of Us, God of War and Spiderman.

Edit: The truth is that people, here, buy Playstation to play CoD and Fifa.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

But are Nintendo and Sony games that much "Japanese" to be fair?

Mario has a "cute" aesthetic but nothing really japanese. Take Spyro or Crash and it's the same kind of "cute" things. Zelda is some kind of dark fantasy vibes but for teens, but again, nothing really "manga" or "anime". Xenoblade or Fire Emblem would be what you'd be looking for but these series aren't even really mainstream, when you think about Nintendo.

And it's even more wrong about Sony. If you remove FF7 Remake and FFXVI, there's no more "Japanese" games on Playstation. It's all about The Last of Us, God of War and Spiderman.

Edit: The truth is that people, here, buy Playstation to play CoD and Fifa.

All the really Japanese 3rd party games are typically released on PS4/PS5 and Switch, but you are right that Sony's first party is now entirely Western developers because their Japan Studio was never able to turn a profit and was shut down

 

[Three]

The sales ratio in EU used to be 2:1 or 3:1. If that ratio in most of Europa is veering towards 9:1. we're getting to a point where MS should seriously ask itself if its time to step out of the hardware business all together, because these sales are Sega Dreamcast or Wii U bad. MS doesn't need dedicated Xbox hardware to stream games or sell gamepass subscriptions. They've spent enormous amounts of money on Bethesda and Activision, so it would make sense to become an agnostic third party publisher and cloud gaming provider.

MS has already asked itself that and decided that gamepass is their new platform (Phils own leaked words) people just have a hard time coming to terms with that. That the xbox console is not that important to them now. MS' xbox hardware business is going to move more and more towards a cloud connected controller as their moneymaker.

 

[Phase]

All we need now is for Xbox to release some single player bangers while Sony goes GAAS and it'll even back out eventually.

 

[THE DUCK]

As many have have said, since ms really has 2 platforms (pc and console), you have to add them together to get the rear number of customers.

 

[Beechos]

Yikes good luck ms I can see why they're trying to overtake sony via streaming/services at this point there is no way they can win just console vs console no matter what type of exclusives they have or get. Only a all time historic fuckup by sony will allow ms to get back in.

 

[semiconscious]

phil: 'voulez-vous game pass avec moi ce soir?'...
france: 'non!'...

 

[T-0800]

America is strange. Half naked college girls in Miami beach dancing to a European DJ but go 200 miles inland and they believe Jesus was a dinosaur.
We all love the good America.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

buddy, i spent too much time already in the activision blizzard thread.

So you should already know the difference then...

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Perception is also playing an important part: Japan is seen as sweet and soft when America as strong and violent. The Activision Blizzard deal is not going to help changing this perception at all, and it could be fatal here and destroy the last breath for the XBOX in UE. This move is seen as violent, arrogant and agressive (remember the 10000 layoff before the deal? People know that happened, people know how MS is a sh*tty brand with no ethic). It is the worst image an American brand can send to the rest of the world... "we will get you, no matter what" Something you don't want to mess with when doing your hobby.

Who wants to deal with a brand that could give all your personal informations to the US gouvernement, including spying on you with Kinect? Wrong or not, privacy is also something you don't want to mess with here. And there is also that astronomical deal with the French gvt to equip school's pc that shoked a lot of people, instead of getting linux. And the list goes on and on against MS.

Oh and there is the way MS treated UE with the launch of XBOX ONE... like we were the last of the latest economic zone. It changed the perception of the brand, even for its fans. "you don't care about UE, okey, f*ck you!" And that was it. XBOX is dead here, and it's 100% on MS fault, mostly...

Blaming French for being French without an acknowledge that 100% American creation called Q is mind blowing to me and demonstrates how the violent and arrogant perception for America is legist. Remember how Q and its fans target, and still do, Bill Gates... It's quite fascinating to see how self called patriotes did destroy with Q everything that America built in the rest of the world, including MS. Because Apple, on the opposite, is quite loved and, like it or not, an Apple console will destroy XBOX in UE. And just a little more thing: Q in French also means ass!

But it's one way to see things. The other is sh*ty games, sh*tty hadwares, sh*tty prices, sh*tty sells, and voilà!

 

[Famipan]

It’s obviously because Team Asobi head is a French guy. I can imagine French media interviewed the man behind the included Nintendo-like game Astrobots Playroom on PS5

 

[tommib]

 

[Woopah]

But are Nintendo and Sony games that much "Japanese" to be fair?

Mario has a "cute" aesthetic but nothing really japanese. Take Spyro or Crash and it's the same kind of "cute" things. Zelda is some kind of dark fantasy vibes but for teens, but again, nothing really "manga" or "anime". Xenoblade or Fire Emblem would be what you'd be looking for but these series aren't even really mainstream, when you think about Nintendo.

And it's even more wrong about Sony. If you remove FF7 Remake and FFXVI, there's no more "Japanese" games on Playstation. It's all about The Last of Us, God of War and Spiderman.

Edit: The truth is that people, here, buy Playstation to play CoD and Fifa.

It's less that they like an anime art style, and more like that what's popular in Japan tends to be more popular in France than other European countries (France is probably one of the few countries in the West where the 3DS outsold the PS3).

This can also be seen by the number of Nintendo published ganes in the top 20 of different countries in 2022 (bearing in mind that most publishers share digital but Nintendo doesn't)

France - 10
UK - 6
Germany - 6

In terms of overall PC + console software, France is probably the market where Nintendo has the highest share (outside Asia), since they are the top publisher there by far.

Likewise when the 2023 data comes out, I think we'll see that France was the best European market for FF16.

 

[Zheph]

Just to adds up a bit France is the second market worldwide for anime/mangas but I am not sure what's the correlation with how bad the Xbox brand is in Europe or WW in general

 

[Ronin_7]

Just to adds up a bit France is the second market worldwide for anime/mangas but I am not sure what's the correlation with how bad the Xbox brand is in Europe or WW in general

Xbox in Europe is pretty much irrelevant, I heard it's even worse in Asia from a friend living there.

I think Xbox only relevant markets are US, UK and Mexico.

 

[Toots]

One cannot blame us for having a refined palate.

 

[FunkMiller]

Why would anyone buy a console that has zero exclusives on it?

Honestly, I’m baffled by anyone who wonders why Xbox is doing so poorly these days.

 

[Thirty7ven]

MS should fully commit to Xbox’s advantage being GP while releasing their games on Switch 2/PlayStation. What would they lose at this point? Seems to me like they would only increase their revenue.

 

[GymWolf]

Curious to know how italy fares...

 

[onQ123]

The thing that people don't understand is how limiting this means for exclusive games.

You basically aren't going to sell in Europe or Asia.

Their eroded player base in North America isn't enough to sustain high budget games.

Basically why they had to buy up publishers because at this point 3rd parties would be jumping ship feeling like it's no point in making the Xbox version of games

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Why would anyone buy a console that has zero exclusives on it?

Honestly, I’m baffled by anyone who wonders why Xbox is doing so poorly these days.

Exclusives are overrated. Most games played on these consoles are multiplayer stuff and F2P games. Exclusives are just an extra tbh.

 

[Woopah]

Exclusives are overrated. Most games played on these consoles are multiplayer stuff and F2P games. Exclusives are just an extra tbh.

Of the top 20 best selling PC +console games in France in 2022, 12 were exclusive.

They are important.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Of the top 20 best selling PC +console games in France in 2022, 12 were exclusive.

They are important.

How many of they were for the Switch? Probably most of those 12.

Playstation doesn't work like that. Their most important games aren't the exclusive games.
Even on PS4 the best selling PS4 games weren't exclusives. They were all COD, GTA, RDR and stuff like that.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Xbox in Europe is pretty much irrelevant, I heard it's even worse in Asia from a friend living there.

I think Xbox only relevant markets are US, UK and Mexico.

In general, Anglophone nations. US and UK are the two markets where Xbox really exists. Small English speaking markets like Canada, Australia, News Zealand also have some Xbox. I don't think anyone cares about Xbox in Mexico or any other nations where English is not there primary language.

I don't think anyone really has seen an actual Xbox in most of Europe and Asia and have probably barely heard of it. Some nations openly dislike Xbox, in Japan they call it the "kuso-box" LOL

 

[Woopah]

How many of they were for the Switch? Probably most of those 12.

Playstation doesn't work like that. Their most important games aren't the exclusive games.
Even on PS4 the best selling PS4 games weren't exclusives. They were all COD, GTA, RDR and stuff like that.

9 were for Switch and 3 were for PlayStation, and I would say they had a meaningful impact of the sales of those 2 platforms.

 

[Brucey]

Exclusives are overrated. Most games played on these consoles are multiplayer stuff and F2P games. Exclusives are just an extra tbh.

If that was the case the very cheap entry price of Xbox series S should have run away in console sales leaving PS5 in its dust.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If that was the case the very cheap entry price of Xbox series S should have run away in console sales leaving PS5 in its dust.

The Series S is not very cheap at all. It's priced the same as or higher than the Switch in a lot of places, including the US. There's no way the Series S can compete with the Switch at the same price.

 

[Shakka43]

So we have moved from Spain to UK to now France? lol

Does the story change in any case?

 

[Sanepar]

The sales ratio in EU used to be 2:1 or 3:1. If that ratio in most of Europa is veering towards 9:1. we're getting to a point where MS should seriously ask itself if its time to step out of the hardware business all together, because these sales are Sega Dreamcast or Wii U bad. MS doesn't need dedicated Xbox hardware to stream games or sell gamepass subscriptions. They've spent enormous amounts of money on Bethesda and Activision, so it would make sense to become an agnostic third party publisher and cloud gaming provider.

This will never happen, they will keep buying studios and publishers so they lock enough content to enforce customers on their platforms, that is pretty obvious and that's why Bethesda big games are not coming to PS anymore. Their goal is to take Sony out of business, their internal emails already showed us how they think.

Since PS is in a chaos situation right now they maybe succeed because of PS missmanagement.

 

[Astray]

The way Epic have been pushing their store (instead of actually improving their store, client and pricing for consumers) has also been rejected by consumers.

I actually disagree with this.

Epic has improved a lot about its store, it also has vastly better regional pricing where I live too. And them being in there has forced Valve to seriously up its game in the last few years.

 

[Brucey]

The Series S is not very cheap at all. It's priced the same as or higher than the Switch in a lot of places, including the US. There's no way the Series S can compete with the Switch at the same price.

It was at $200 or less in the US at various times in the last 12 months. Half the price of a digital ps5. MS trying to get selling price back up by increasing value with 1TB storage now but prob too little, too late. Maybe Europe didn't get those very low prices.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

Making a deal is reliance on a lot of factors including a good will. For example studio might be acquired by somebody else (Double Helix, Insomniac), or you might have burned bridges with it (Remedy), or it might be busy with their own game (Iron Galaxy) and thus cannot work on some former IP. You can't control for example if the game will go to Game Pass or not, it might not stay in Game Pass permanently due to acquisition by somebody, burned bridges, contracts getting expired etc. Third party is something you cannot control and Xbox learnt that in Xbox One era. Sony also has partially learnt it recently with Bethesda and ABK acquisitions.


Xbox cannot become Nintendo because it does not have 40+ years legacy. Mario as IP exists for 42 years at this point. Generations grew up on this IP. Zelda is also quite old IP. Pokemon is also around 30 years. And unlike other platform holders, Nintendo is continuously releasing those games and thus it keeps IP refreshed.


Well they trying to do that via PC. The thing is that if they could not win during Xbox 360 era, it is impossible to win. And with PC and mobile gaming surpassing console gaming, it makes sense that they pivot towards that more and more. PC gaming is huge in Europe. And PC market does not rely on third parties much (though they are trying with their store).


I don't think it will change the dynamics that much. It did not change much in PS4 era, it won't change much now. PC is bigger than before and people who want Xbox will buy it with or without Pro version. That's all to it. I don't expect Xbox to win. Even if they acquire all the publishers around the world - PS will still sell more due to big third party games like EA Sports, Fortnite, COD (not third party, but not exclusive either).

Buying a studio because he may be occupied or you burned bridges with them and still want their output is not healthy to me. But I see your point. Just that buying a studio if it make sense and buying all studios you want to work with as a rule is not the same thing if you see what I mean by that.

The Xbox/Nintendo comment was more in regard to their relations with third party. Nintendo care more about their output than the third party ones. They do(or at least did ) not give them the same SDK that they give to their studios. Sony and Xbox, in comparison, want to help them a lot more, like not putting games in the holiday season to let them eat. I was saying that following your post, it would be like Xbox is the same, but they can buy,and so IMHO force their way to relevance, and I would dislike that for obvious reasons.

This is where I disagree. They could have "won" if they had continued to have a good offer like they did in the 360 days. Continue to heavily invest in third parties, make great games and make more studios instead of closing the few they had. How crazy is it that most of Xbox games this gen where from Bethesda? As for your last part, I think that this is a short term thinking. Nintendo got in a worse position in certain ways in the Gamecube era, and bounced back fast. Xbox failure is not a necessity, but their own fault. The fact that there seems to be no solution now does not mean that it was ineluctable. The money put on Gamepass could have been put elsewere. And a better strategy could have made them more relevant today. But this is just my opinion.

I think what happened was this.

In the 360 generation, 360 sales were competitive with PS3. So timed exclusives and even full exclusives were relatively cheap and possible.

In the xb1 generation, PS4 was strong out of the gate and it would have become very expensive to buy exclusivity.

In the Xbox series generation, strong PS4 generation carried through to PS5. Very significant difference in sales rate versus series s/x. I'm thinking it was literally impossible for Xbox to buy timed or full exclusives this gen because of the amount of PS5 revenue they'd have to offset for the developer/publisher. Basically no amount of offered cash would make it happen. So they had to buy the entire ecosystem to get the content they wanted.

I understand that. But this is IMHO only true for studios that have the money no matter what for the game that they want to make. Xbox can, and do, make deals to games like High on life. I find it normal that for established IP, the market leader, who got there by having a better offer for a certain number of reasons in the last decade basically(PS4+PS5) to be advantaged. But new IP is another way to make games, and it does not need that much money. I do not think that Kena or Sifu needed millions to be made. And they did the job. Xbox should do more deals like that IMHO. Helping newcomers with tech and money and getting a great game in exchange. But it means taking some risks too.

 

[Rayderism]

It seems like MS's ultimate plan is to drop the XBOX console completely and just become a multi-platform software provider. With all the devs they've bought up, that would be the best way for them to profit.

 

[Mr Moose]

It’s obviously because Team Asobo head is a French guy. I can imagine French media interviewed the man behind the included Nintendo-like game Astrobots Playroom on PS5

Only if they confused them with Team ASOBI.

 

[GHG]

I actually disagree with this.

Epic has improved a lot about its store, it also has vastly better regional pricing where I live too. And them being in there has forced Valve to seriously up its game in the last few years.

You're in the minority.

For most people pricing is the same, and in the case of the region where I currently live it's worse. The promise of them taking less of a cut and that "saving" being passed through to consumers is demonstrably false.

In terms of features in general it's still one of the the worst clients available on PC (both EA and Ubisoft's launchers are more feature rich) and lags behind steam by a huge margin.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

I actually disagree with this.

Epic has improved a lot about its store, it also has vastly better regional pricing where I live too. And them being in there has forced Valve to seriously up its game in the last few years.

Really? What drastic change has happened to Steam, and what has improved a lot about the Epic store since Metro: Exodus released?

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

The Xbox/Nintendo comment was more in regard to their relations with third party. Nintendo care more about their output than the third party ones. They do(or at least did ) not give them the same SDK that they give to their studios. Sony and Xbox, in comparison, want to help them a lot more, like not putting games in the holiday season to let them eat. I was saying that following your post, it would be like Xbox is the same, but they can buy,and so IMHO force their way to relevance, and I would dislike that for obvious reasons.

Nintendo does not care about third party much because their own IPs sell like crazy and they are cheap to produce. How much do you think Animal Crossing cost in comparison to big games like God of War? Nintendo produces a lot of games that does not cost much. And they sell a lot. Nintendo pivoted heavily to first party in their home consoles (at that time) probably after Game Cube. Then they pivoted to hybrid and reigned supreme there for years.

This is where I disagree. They could have "won" if they had continued to have a good offer like they did in the 360 days.

They could have won in USA again, but winning in Europe is not possible. By the time Xbox 360 launched, you basically had two generations of PS consoles dominating Europe - PS1 and PS2. At that time Sega was already in decline and Sony won over Nintendo even at that time. And even Xbox 360 was a product that succeeded only because PS fumbled - otherwise it had no chance at all. And PS4 was not a failure.

Nintendo got in a worse position in certain ways in the Gamecube era, and bounced back fast.

They literally left the hardcore home console market with Wii and their had a great position in handheld gaming. Until Switch Pro (allegedly) they did not rely on any big hitters from T2, EA, ABK etc. to sell their consoles. Post GC, Nintendo was basically in a different market. It was proto-mobile market in a sense - mass consumer non-hardcore market.

The money put on Gamepass could have been put elsewere

Where? During Xbox 360 they had to pay in order to get content on the platform, post PS4 it was impossible as the prices to get exclusive games were extremely high. Hell, publishers like ABK started to threaten Microsoft with COD for example. Microsoft decided to pursue acquisitions and Game Pass because they are realized that acquisitions allow to acquire IPs and Game Pass has a potential to become a different independent ecosystem-platform. Because in home console, it was impossible to compete anymore. If Nintendo is unable to win the marketshare from PS, what Xbox can do?

Xbox can, and do, make deals to games like High on life.

These games don't sell console.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Well, here in Eastern Europe Xbox brand is a mere shadow of 360 (which was popular due to easy piracy anyway).

Never thought it is the same bloodbath in Wester Europe too.

My take is that no amount of deals and spent billions could fix MS hardware problem and sooner they've become the huge 3rd party -- the better. It's distant second this fall even in the US/UK despite Starfield. And even with ABK, I doubt many would trade their entire digital libraries for 'free CoD via paid sub'. With huge rise of digital, PS4/XO gen was the most crucial to win and most crushing to lose. MS lost it badly. Fnd at this point I don't think that any platform-holder could move a needle outside their established userbases much. Hence why Sony is so eager to port (albeit with dely) games to PC/Mac and MS to offer hardware-independent cloud offerings.

 

[Three]

You're in the minority.

For most people pricing is the same, and in the case of the region where I currently live it's worse. The promise of them taking less of a cut and that "saving" being passed through to consumers is demonstrably false.

In terms of features in general it's still one of the the worst clients available on PC (both EA and Ubisoft's launchers are more feature rich) and lags behind steam by a huge margin.

It's true the saving isn't passed to consumers and it's true that some would prefer a steam release but the barrier to play the game on a different launcher is very small and Epic uses that lowered cut to attract the dev to that store first, helping the developer more even if the retail price is the same. The developer can then decide to lower the price of their game or not. What Epic is doing isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Woopah]

Nintendo does not care about third party much because their own IPs sell like crazy and they are cheap to produce. How much do you think Animal Crossing cost in comparison to big games like God of War? Nintendo produces a lot of games that does not cost much. And they sell a lot. Nintendo pivoted heavily to first party in their home consoles (at that time) probably after Game Cube. Then they pivoted to hybrid and reigned supreme there for years.


They could have won in USA again, but winning in Europe is not possible. By the time Xbox 360 launched, you basically had two generations of PS consoles dominating Europe - PS1 and PS2. At that time Sega was already in decline and Sony won over Nintendo even at that time. And even Xbox 360 was a product that succeeded only because PS fumbled - otherwise it had no chance at all. And PS4 was not a failure.


They literally left the hardcore home console market with Wii and their had a great position in handheld gaming. Until Switch Pro (allegedly) they did not rely on any big hitters from T2, EA, ABK etc. to sell their consoles. Post GC, Nintendo was basically in a different market. It was proto-mobile market in a sense - mass consumer non-hardcore market.


Where? During Xbox 360 they had to pay in order to get content on the platform, post PS4 it was impossible as the prices to get exclusive games were extremely high. Hell, publishers like ABK started to threaten Microsoft with COD for example. Microsoft decided to pursue acquisitions and Game Pass because they are realized that acquisitions allow to acquire IPs and Game Pass has a potential to become a different independent ecosystem-platform. Because in home console, it was impossible to compete anymore. If Nintendo is unable to win the marketshare from PS, what Xbox can do?


These games don't sell console.

Nintendo's audience is just as mass market as PlayStation's audience.

How are you defining "non-hardcore" here?

 

[SimTourist]

I bet that MS is scared to death that 3rd party developers will start to skip Xbox altogether, between a 10% marketshare and a playerbase that is conditioned not to buy games and wait for gamepass, at some point devs won't care about the miniscule sales on Xbox compared to development resources required, especially with the headache of dealing with Series S hardware. Nintendo can survive without 3rd party, Xbox would die a slow death.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Nintendo's audience is just as mass market as PlayStation's audience.

The different is that Nintendo's exclusive games appeal to mass audience, while Playstation's exclusives - not each of them. There are people who buy Playstation due to Playstation branding and play nothing by COD, Fortnite and other third party games for years. On Nintendo people play and buy Nintendo exclusive games. While they both represent mass consumer market they are not exactly the same. And that's without people spending money on mobile gaming. Nintendo has a pretty unique niche here.

 

[Woopah]

The different is that Nintendo's exclusive games appeal to mass audience, while Playstation's exclusives - not each of them. There are people who buy Playstation due to Playstation branding and play nothing by COD, Fortnite and other third party games for years. On Nintendo people play and buy Nintendo exclusive games. While they both represent mass consumer market they are not exactly the same. And that's without people spending money on mobile gaming. Nintendo has a pretty unique niche here.

They have seperate content, but FIFA and Spiderman are just as mass market as Mario and Zelda.

Basically Nintendo and Sony are competing for the same console mass market, just using some different products to do it ( though some products they share like FIFA, Minecraft and Fortnite).

The mobile market is seperate from the console market.

 

[GHG]

It's true the saving isn't passed to consumers and it's true that some would prefer a steam release but the barrier to play the game on a different launcher is very small and Epic uses that lowered cut to attract the dev to that store first, helping the developer more even if the retail price is the same. The developer can then decide to lower the price of their game or not. What Epic is doing isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Yeh I'm not saying the cut reduction is a bad thing, it's just that it's not resulted in what they claimed it would (lower prices for consumers) so as a result it's not something that PC gamers are going to care about.