Questionable_Duck

@dskatter Adding an offline play option requires paying developers and may require months of work. It can't be done overnight. So that's too much investment in a product that will no longer make any profit for the average multi-billion dollar corporation.

@Balaam_ I like how you imply that people who prefer digital games or aren't obsessed with ownership of games they'll most likely never play again are not as smart or as refined as you.

To be clear, I like physical games, but the way you make your points are often... questionable, to say the least.

@PuppetMaster Gunslinger was never released physically, it was a digital only Xbox Live Arcade game

It has a "physical" release on Switch, but it's just a code-in-a-box. No cartridge.

@theSpectre I assume it's probably because of Hiroki Totoki that the game even got ported to Xbox. Totoki is like PlayStation's Phil Spencer or Amy Hood. He's a money guy, doesn't care about console wars. Just what'll make the most money fastest.

Wow... All of the comments here aged like milk on a hot summer's day. People are too arrogant lol, they think they know everything, when sometimes they don't.

Edgerunners is such a weird show for me. I vividly remember everything that happened in the series, I love the art style/music/tone of the show, and some of its scenes are still stuck in my head, but I didn't love it nearly as much as some other people did. In my opinion, Edgerunners was too short, and the events in the show happened so fast that it was hard for me to make a real connection with the characters. It was basically just a four-hour movie rather than a TV show. I think it needed to be two seasons long in order for the ending to really impact me.

I know some people will immediately dismiss what he says here, but Jez just said during the Xbox Two podcast that Microsoft hasn't indefinitely shelved the Forza Motorsport series, according to his sources. There is still a team at Turn 10 that's working on the latest Forza Motorsport game, and although Forza Horizon is taking priority, there is no plan to stop making Motorsport games altogether.

Make of that as you will.

I wasn't familiar with Diego at all since I have zero interest in sports, but what happened to him is terrible. Rest in peace.

Agree with the article, very weird that Sony is paying for six month timed exclusivity deals of third-party live service games when they're actively porting their own live service games to Xbox. If this was Silent Hill f or something, I would understand, but a mobile gacha game? Really?

@Reeneman Arrowhead, however, confirmed that they have no say on what platforms Helldivers 2 can go to, since Sony owns the Helldivers IP. They said last year that Phil Spencer and Sony would have to "duke it out" to bring this game to Xbox. This was entirely a Sony decision.

@Lock_Dock122 Maybe because the baseless claims that no one buys games on Xbox are, in fact, baseless. If what you were saying was actually true, then no third-party publisher would even bother porting their games to Microsoft's consoles.

If Helldivers 2 sells well on Xbox and Sony decides to port another one of its live service titles to the platform, then I think this argument will be well and truly dead. At least when it comes to AAA titles.

Let's be real, the people complaining about this on social media will not impact Sony's decision-making in the slightest. 99% of PlayStation owners will not leave PlayStation, no matter what old games Sony brings to Xbox.

Sony could bring God of War 2018 to Xbox (not that I think they will), and most PlayStation owners wouldn't budge whatsoever. Why would they switch to Xbox or PC to play a limited selection of old PlayStation games?

@naruball Yes, it's still Sony

@naruball Yes, but that was published/developed by Aniplex, so that's not part of Sony Interactive Entertainment or PlayStation.

@Frmknst Tbf they already have a bunch of good games releasing this year. 2025 is the first year in ages were Microsoft has a solid first-party lineup, even if most of it isn't exclusive

@DonkeyFantasy I don't think so, it doesn't mention anywhere that a PSN account is required. Either way, I don't mind having to sign in to a PlayStation account if that is true. I'm just glad the game is on Xbox

@UltimateOtaku91 So you're saying there's a chance that Bloodborne might come to other consoles one day?

@wildcat_kickz Exactly, even if Sony brings some of their games to Xbox, even single-player ones, PlayStation players are not gonna say "screw it, I'm going to Xbox."

Most of Microsoft's games will be on PlayStation day-one, and even if every Sony game was a timed exclusive, most people would still prefer to play games on PlayStation, since they will get access to them earlier. If you're on PlayStation and have a large digital library on the platform, it makes no sense to switch to Xbox and get access to less games, as well as wait for Sony games to come to your platform.

@Haruki_NLI How did Sony go from "no, we will never port Everybody's Golf, Freedom Wars, Lego Horizon, and Patapon on Xbox" to porting their fastest-selling game ever to Xbox in just a few months?

Microsoft is doing such a bad job at selling Xbox consoles, that I think Sony has concluded it won't be detrimental to them to port their games to the platform.

If you still intend to stick with Xbox at this point in time, despite Xbox exclusives being a thing of the past, you probably are not gonna switch to PlayStation anytime soon.

So Sony probably thinks, why bother forcing them to get a PlayStation when we can just port the game to Xbox a year later instead? That way, Sony can still make money on the Xbox holdouts.

@ButterySmooth30FPS Hmm, maybe...

@Oram77 Tbf the sales figures for FF16 on Xbox were determined by looking at the number of reviews the game had on the Xbox store, which wasn't a very reliable metric to judge by.

It was the 11th best selling game on Xbox in the US Store at launch, which while not amazing, I think is decent for a 2 year old port of a controversial FF game.

@ButterySmooth30FPS Why do they have to appease Arrowhead, though? It's not like Sony is publishing their next game. Since when did Sony ever appease a company they were working with?

You think, if Insomniac asked nicely, they would let Spider-Man come to Xbox? Of course not.

I think this argument will be well and truly finished when Sony ports another game to Xbox in the near future. Probably Marvel Tokon.

@get2sammyb This is easily the most bizarre generation in the history of gaming. If I went back in time and told you in 2020 all the things that would happen to Xbox and PlayStation this gen, no one would believe it.

@Oram77 I think this firmly puts the "no one buys games on Xbox" allegations to bed. Now, no one can really claim that Xbox isn't a big enough market to port games to, when even Sony itself can't ignore it.

@MrPeanutbutterz What does that have to do with anything? You reckon Sony hasn't already made their money back from Demon's Souls, or that there are still people at Bluepoint that are working on the game?

See, the difference between Demon's Souls and energy, food, real estate, etc. is that only one of these products has already made a profit, and no one is working on said product anymore. The food manufacturer is still manufacturing new food; they haven't made a profit on the new stock they just manufactured. The energy distributor is still distributing new electricity; they haven't made a profit on the new energy they just distributed. The real estate seller hasn't sold their real estate yet; they haven't made a profit on it at all.

Honestly, comparing old digital games to stuff that is still consistently being manufactured is almost a form of whataboutism. You insist that what Sony is doing is normal and not unique to them, but that just isn't true. As I said before, most companies (aside from Sony and Rockstar, the latter of whom just raised the price of RDR2 in the UK) do not raise the price of their old video games because old video games are not affected by inflation.

If I saw Nintendo raising the price of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to $80 in Brazil or Bandai Namco raising the price of Tekken 7 to $70 in the UK, then I'd agree with you. But that isn't happening.

@MrPeanutbutterz Are you really comparing old digital video games to food, electricity, housing, fuel, etc.?

Those are physical products, and in the case of food and fuel, they often get restocked. When you go to a supermarket, you are not going to pay current market price for a 5-year-old box of cheese, since they don't even offer 5-year-old boxes of cheese in the first place.

Sony deciding to raise the price of a 5-year-old digital copy of Demon's Souls is equivalent to that 5-year-old box of cheese. In the video game world, almost no company ever raises the price of old games. That applies to new games only. This would be like if you paid $80 for an Xbox 360 game, or something.

Unlike the housing, fuel, food, and electricity providers, Sony has already made all of their money back from Demon's Souls. They objectively have no good excuse to raise the price of an old game, since MS and Nintendo don't even do that. No offense, but it's baffling that you're trying to defend Sony's decisions.

@MrPeanutbutterz It very much is unique to Sony. Most companies do not raise the price of their old games on a regular basis, due to market fluctuations. Those price increases normally apply only to new games, not old ones.

There is no valid excuse to raise the price of a 5-year-old game like Demon's Souls remake in Brazil.

@UltimateOtaku91 Not the same thing at all, actually. As is stated in the article, Sony increased the price of both first- and third-party titles on the Brazilian PS Store, including old games. Microsoft and Nintendo almost never raise the price of old first-party games in markets where currency fluctuates.

Like, you can still get Halo 5 for dirt cheap in some regions, the price of the game has never been raised.

@dskatter I understand that subscription services makes determining the success of a game more difficult, but it's worth noting that just because a company uses the term players instead of sales, it doesn't mean that the game didn't sell or something.

Like, a few weeks ago, Saber Interactive revealed that Space Marine 2 had around 7 million players or something, but an employee at the company noted that those players all came from sales.

Either way, back to AC Shadows, I think it's safe to assume that most of those players are from people who purchased the game, not from Ubisoft+ subscribers. Ubisoft+ simply isn't popular enough to significantly skew player count numbers. If AC Shadows was on Game Pass, though, half of the players could very well have been from GP subscribers instead of sales.

@SeaDaVie God of War Ragnarok was also technically on more platforms at launch compared to God of War (2018), since it was the first-ever cross-gen God of War game.

@dskatter The majority of people who played AC Shadows owned/indefinitely rented it, though? The only difference is that AC Shadows was on Ubisoft+, but the overwhelming majority of people do not use Ubisoft+; not to mention, it isn't available on PlayStation, the platform that AC Shadows sold best on.

This will only be significant if the next Xbox has access to PC games, while also being fully backwards compatible with the Xbox Series X/S. If the next Xbox is literally just a PC, like the ROG Xbox Ally, and it can't play Xbox games (which Microsoft has already confirmed it will), then I doubt Sony would even care that their games are playable on an Xbox-branded device.

I wouldn't say that this would be a threat to PlayStation, per se, but the only thing that could significantly change Sony's business model is an Xbox console that can natively play both Xbox console games and PC games. If that does happen, then Sony would almost never be able to sign third-party exclusivity deals ever again.

And by, third-party exclusivity deals, I mean stuff like Silent Hill 2 Remake or Honkai: Star Rail: PlayStation exclusive games that are available on PC day-one and aren't published by Sony. Of course, third-party exclusives like Stellar Blade would still exist, so long as they're Sony-published. Aside from that, though, third-party publishers are not releasing their AAA games exclusively on PS5 (without a simultaneous PC release) anymore.

@Alps_Stranger There's plenty of games that change drastically midway through development and turn out great. Take Infamous, for example. Sucker Punch originally envisioned Infamous as a cartoony Animal Crossing simulation game, but then they changed their minds midway through development. A similar thing seemingly happened with Resident Evil 9.

The "changing midway through development" thing typically only results in bad games if the original version of the game was already finished and the devs were trying to salvage its scraps. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like the multiplayer open world version of RE9 was close to being completed.

@SeaDaVie You're right about the setting prices stuff mentioned in the lawsuit, my bad.

Even still, it is not exactly the same. I have pointed out pretty clearly in my previous comment that the impact it has on consumers is completely different. You refuse to acknowledge this, for some reason.

You want to get Sekiro on PlayStation right now? Tough luck, you're gonna have to pay $60 to play the game without waiting for a sale.

You want to get Sekiro on Xbox right now? Good news, you can get the game from CDKeys for a fraction of the price that it currently costs on the Xbox Storefront. Sekiro's digital Xbox version is £12.99 on CDKeys, but it's £59.99 on the official Xbox storefront.

And I have no idea why you're bringing up code-in-a-box releases? Why would a gamer who's looking to buy a digital code from a third-party retailer care about the fact that they're not getting the game physically?

@VeldinX I definitely agree that Nintendo is, by far, the worst when it comes to digital game prices. At least Sony and Microsoft heavily reduce the prices of their AAA blockbusters after a few years. Nintendo, on the other hand, never does that. Not unless the game they release is garbage.

@SeaDaVie Again, price setting isn't important because that's not at all relevant to the lawsuit. Like, read the Eurogamer article that's linked at the end of this Push Square post. Nowhere does it say that Stichting Massaschade & Consument is suing Sony because they're setting prices of third-party games.

Link: https://www.eurogamer.net/sony-sued-in-netherlands-over-sony-tax-and-its-perceived-monopoly-on-digital-sales

As the Eurogamer article points out, Stichting Massaschade & Consument said that "Sony is the sole provider of digital content on the world’s most popular gaming console." The problem that Stichting has with Sony is that "PlayStation players are entirely dependent on Sony and its prices due to its closed ecosystem."

This problem doesn't exist on a platform like Xbox. While all digital Xbox game sales do technically go through Microsoft, as you said, Xbox players are not entirely dependent on Microsoft and its prices due to its closed ecosystem. As I pointed out in my previous comment, Xbox players can get reduced prices on digital Xbox games through third-party retailers, without having to rely on sales on the Xbox storefront.

Take Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice GOTY Edition, for instance. In the UK, Sekiro currently costs £59.99 on Xbox. However, on CDKeys, you can get a digital Xbox code of the game right now for £12.99. This is not possible on PlayStation, because Sony doesn't allow third-party retailers to resell digital PlayStation games.

The money you save on PSN gift card discounts is negligible compared to the money you save by getting digital games from third-party retailers outright. You are never going to get a $50 PlayStation gift card for $25, for example.

@TruestoryYep I kinda of agree, actually. I'm not a big fan of RDR2 because I thought the gameplay was too slow. But I still respect it for what it is, because it's one of the most immersive games out there. Not my thing, though.

@SeaDaVie It doesn't at all matter whether Sony sets prices of games or not. That's not the point of the lawsuit.

The problem is that Sony does not allow people to buy digital PS games from anywhere else other than their own storefront. They used to allow people to buy codes for PS games, but they got rid of the feature.

And, by the way, yes, the two situations are fundamentally different because you can sometimes get digital Xbox games at a cheaper price from third-party sellers than you can on the official Xbox storefront. The fact that Sony prevents third-party sellers from reselling digital PS games means players only have access to the sales on the PS Storefront and that's it.

@CallMeDuraSouka It is not at all nonsense. Sony has a monopoly on digital PS games, unlike Xbox, Steam, and (maybe?) Nintendo

@Areus They have no reason to sue Microsoft because A. Xbox isn't popular at all in the Netherlands and B. Microsoft allows people to buy digital Xbox games from third-party storefronts.

Just like Steam games, you can buy Xbox games as gifts and sell the digital codes on other storefronts like eBay, Eneba, GreenManGaming, etc. Therefore, Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on digital Xbox game distribution.

Sony used to allow people to buy game codes, but they got rid of the feature and now, if you want to get a digital PlayStation game, you have no choice but to buy it on the PS Storefront. Meaning the only discounts you have access to are the ones Sony allows.

Contrary to what everyone is saying here, this lawsuit makes perfect sense.

@wildcat_kickz Some people literally like to express their apathy for Grand Theft Auto and Rockstar games just to be different.

Like, you don't have to like any of their stuff, but you gotta at least acknowledge that what they do is impressive.

@LogicStrikesAgain The PSVR2 is still getting games (mostly indie titles), but I think it's sold less than a million units worldwide. Sony hasn't done a great job of marketing it.

Death Stranding 2 is gonna be number one on this list pretty soon for a lot of people

This is just meant to be a limited edition variant of a console, sorta like the Hello Kitty Game Boy

Activision released a free-to-play hidden object game called Downton Abbey: Mysteries of the Manor back in 2015. No one remembers it, and I think it may have been delisted, but it's a curious little oddity from Activision's past.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/activision-made-a-downton-abbey-game-and-you-can-p/1100-6430697/

@nessisonett A shame that one of the best soap operas ever, Downton Abbey, never got a video game adaptati- Oh wait, it actually did! And it's a mobile game from Activision, no less.

@3Above Yup, that probably was the case. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm still really excited for this game. Although the lack of 60 FPS is a shame, 30 FPS is at least a bit more tolerable with a title like this, which has turn-based combat and anime-style graphics.

This game looks great, but man, it's kinda crazy they weren't able to get this game running at 60 FPS on a PS5 Pro after 7-8 years in development.

@lazymike PS Plus is required on PS5 for this game, but of course, it's not required on PC.