TrollOfWar

Reminds me of Resident Evil 6's multiplayer missions in the campaign. If the rumors are true, depending on the implementation it could be pretty interesting. In best case there could be some offline alternative with bots for those who don't want to play online.

@madmaxrules

And if it is coming together, I’d not be surprised if released across PS5, PC and Xbox simultaneously. That status alone could give it some impact! And why not - is anyone realistically going to buy a PS5 solely for this game if it is an exclusive?

While I am fully in support of multiplatform game releases, the problem is that if the game is bad or just mediocre, even a release on Xbox and Nintendo wouldn't be enough to keep Fairgames "alive". It might only prolong the inevitable. I believe Concord would have met the same faith if it would have simultaneously released on Xbox as well.

@Ainu20 I would differentiate between the more enthusiastic PlayStation fanbase, which cares about console exclusive games, is often met on these forums and follow gaming news closely and the more casual, general PlayStation playerbase, which care mostly about the big AAA titles (COD, FIFA, Assassin's Creed, GTA) & live services, don't go online to discuss games and hardly follow any gaming news. Playing on PlayStation doesn't necessarily mean you are a "fan".

Many PS fans here on PushSquare often state their dislike for multiplayer live-service games. They are not the target audience for Fairgames. The more casual playerbase that mostly plays Fortnite, COD & GTA Online is the target audience.

But that's just my opinion. 😉

@PuppetMaster

wasted towards Jade Raymond BS that no PS fans ask.

The sad truth is that Sony doesn't care what PS fans are asking. They are a business and the only thing they care about is making more money and satisfying shareholders. Fairgames was never targeted at the PlayStation fanbase, that's why it's perceived so negatively.

If they'd care about the opinion of PS fans, dormant IPs (Jak & Daxter, Sly Racoon, Syphon Filter, Resistance, Gravity Rush, etc.) would receive new entries and a Bloodborne Remastered instead of a remaster for Days Gone or Until Dawn.

Rumor or not Fairgames at this point doesn't seemed to be Sony's best investment. It's based on popular trends from 5 years ago, similar games like Sega's "Hyenas" have been cancelled, Fairgames target audience is on TikTok, not on PlayStation, and it will be competing with other (objectively better) games including Sony's own extraction shooter Marathon.

Releasing and marketing Fairgames is a big risk for Sony. I personally wouldn't bet on it being a success, but I could be totally wrong and Fairgames might become the next best thing. 😄

@themightyant Well said.

I just finished reading the article and there are actually more interesting points than Shawn Layden disliking GamePass. Like how free-to-play might become the default in the future, how the young audience will only play games on devices which they already have (mobile, PC), how difficult finding the correct price of a game is. Mat Piscatella (Circana) and Piers Harding-Rolls (Ampere Analysis) have quite insightful thoughts to share. It's definitely worth reading.

@Oram77 Sorry, my bad. Only saw the message by lazurus11. That's where I picked up the discussion. My fault. 😅

Off-topic: It's a bit difficult to follow conversations here as quotes/conversations are not properly reflected in the comments.

@Oram77 Hmmm... I replied to @lazarus11 about the marketing of Clair Obscur Expedition 33, but you feel addressed. 🤔

@lazarus11

@DennisReynolds what's this big marketing push ms did for e33,you've mentioned it 3 times now

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 was first revealed during the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2024 and was featured again in the Xbox Devloper_Direct in January 2025. Both events had more than a million viewers on the Xbox YouTube channel alone and being featured in such events is not cheap.

Of course it's understandable that one might miss those events if one only cares about PlayStation or Nintendo events. 😉

@Ainu20

The big difference is that Sony does not see the subscription model as the preferred way to deliver games to customers, while Microsoft does. Both services reflect that.

I was commenting on the idea that "GamePass is the only subscription service damaging the gaming industry".

I believe in the end all subscription services impact the gaming industry including GamePass, PS+, Ubisoft+, EA Play, even Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass and Netflix Mobile Games. And if the gaming industry is perceivably getting worse, GamePass ain't the major reason.

Yes, Sony (and Nintendo) have a different gaming strategy. The majority of their games are heavily promoted single-player games (The Last of Us, God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, Horizo). Many Microsoft developed games are designed to be played over a long period of time (Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon, MS Flight Simulator, Halo Infinite). Also Microsoft spends less money to promote their games. So of course for Sony, with the games they've been creating in the past 10-15 years, the GamePass day-1 model doesn't make sense.

The elephant in the room is of course Call of Duty. It's a series which definitely is doing better when it's being sold, but I guess it was a strategic investment for Microsoft to put it on GamePass to increase subscriber numbers.

Nintendo doesn't really belong in this discussion as they only provide a retro subscription service, mostly for games that aren't easily playable on modern systems, if at all.

I wouldn't ignore Nintendo in this discussion. Their subscription might not be on the same level as GamePass and PS+ yet. But now that they have a subscription infrastructure, they can change their strategy whenever they choose. Also it's Nintendo's decision to put their older games on a subscription service. They could have chosen to sell those games like they did on the Wii/U and 3DS via the eShop.

@Oram77

Sony literally said Game pass would be unsustainable for them to do

I guess the difference is that Sony spends a ton of money on marketing to sell their high-budget single player games, which of course were planned to be sold and aren't feasible to be day 1 on subscription services. Microsoft spends much less on marketing their games and most of their games are made to be played over a long period so in case of a subscription service, people would need to stay subscribed over long periods. So what works for Microsoft doesn't necessarily need to work for Sony and vice versa.

@Rich33

GP may be good for some consumers right now, but in the long term the model is bad for the industry, and will be bad for gamers. The only thing that has served to limit its damage so far is XBox's poor hardware sales performance in comparison to Sony and Nintendo this generation.

Sony and Nintendo also have their own subscription service. Isn't that bad as well for the industry? You already hear people say, they'll wait for certain games to be on PS Plus or how they were planning to buy somethings but didn't as games became available on PS Plus. Nintendo could resell their old "virtual console" games like they did after the Wii, but instead opted to put games on their NSO subscription model? Wouldn't it be wiser for Nintendo to re-release their old games on modern platform? Their services are truly damaging the gaming industry. And let's not forget Ubisoft+, it's not only bad for the game industry, it's bad for Ubisoft. /s 😄

@UltimateOtaku91

... also less games that we actually own as these games are only rented. The less money these devs actually make from game sales will effect their budgets for their next game which could result in a lesser quality game or rushed development.

It used to be okay to rent games during the PS1 to PS3/4 periods (or to resell games 2nd hand). Why is it now bad to rent games?

And why are players to blame if the gaming market is oversaturated with games which aren't compelling enough for many of them to own?

@UltimateOtaku91

Gaming has been going downhill very fast since subscription services have took off.

But is gaming going downhill very fast because or despite of subscription services? And did it already start with Xbox Live & PSN or only now with GamePass & PS+ Extra?

While Shawn Layden has a questionable choice of words, I agree to a certain extent that subscription services like GamePass and PS+ can impact the design of games which are developed to be on a subscription.

But many developers are already "wage slaves” and that's unrelated to GamePass. How often have we read stories about crunch periods and minimum wages for QAs at Rockstar, Activision, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft. That was before GamePass existed. Big corporations with the goal to maximize profits are the problem, not GamePass.

Also one thing that is never mentioned is how these big corporations tried to get rid of second-hand game sales and game rentals, as they deemed them bad for the industry, by having 1-time redeemable online passes for their games during the PS3/X360 period. GamePass and PS+ offer a replacement for the lack of rental services.

A bit of a shame, but a reasonable decisions in this case if the budget is limited and the multiplayer mode is more of a bonus.

Also, as far as I know, unlike other publishers (Epic, Blizzard, Microsoft, Capcom, PSN) Konami doesn't have a user data platform with unique IDs, so cross-play would have been a huge problem.

Great to see more people being able to play the game. Kudos to GSC Game World for developing and releasing a game in a warzone.

@pyrrhic_victory

What should've happened to begin with, considering how well the first game sold on PS4 and likely contributed to Ninja Theory being acquired. But still, better late than never.

I guess the reason why it took this long, might be because Sony probably didn't want to provide PS5 developer kits to Microsoft owned studios just like it happened with Minecraft. I guess the situation changed.

Not a big surprise given that the PS5 and Xbox Series X hardware are nearly identical and Unreal Engine 5 is built for multi-platform.

Probably porting games from PS5 to Xbox Series X is just as simple.

Is it not concerning that old games like GTA5, Minecraft and Forza Horizon 5 are selling more than Death Stranding 2 which just released 1 month ago? 🤔

@mvhess I wouldn't downplay the 1.2 million sold units of Death Stranding on Xbox. Kojima Productions announced 19 million players (not total sales) just as they released the Xbox version last November. In March this year they announced 20 million players. It's fair to assume that the majority of that player increase came via sold units on Xbox, as over the 5 years since release the game was available on nearly every platform and subscription, including PS Plus Extra, free Epic Games Store giveaway, PC GamePass, Steam, Apple App Store and Amazon Luna. 1.2 m units at $20, minus 30% platform fees and $ 1 million porting costs, you get around $ 15 millions in pure profit.

Death Stranding sold around 5 million units in it's first 2 years on PS4 and PC combined. 1 million unit on Xbox 5 years later is actually quite impressive.

@mvhess

Nobody is making money off Xbox game sales since they don't sell games. How many times does it have to be said?

I don't understand why people keep saying that games don't sell on Xbox. For example, according to estimates Elden Ring has sold 7.4 million copies on Xbox (compared to 13.2 m on PlayStation). Death Stranding Director's Cut sold somewhere between 500k and 1.2 m despite releasing 5 years later on Xbox.

All publishers would stop releasing games on Xbox, if they weren't able to sell any. In reality more publishers are releasing games on Xbox, including PlayStation and Atlus.

Yes, the Xbox console has less than half of the user base of PlayStation and games on GamePass (especially indie games) will sell much less, but usually popular games sell well on Xbox. 😉

@Spedfrom

Meanwhile they'll keep the heavy single player hits exclusive, because that's their PlayStation premium crop that fans want

I wonder what will happen if PlayStation releases their "heavy single player hits", which were once exclusive to their console, on other platforms like Nintendo and Xbox? Will it anger the PlayStation fans? Where would they go? The Xbox console isn't really relevant, as most people choose a PlayStation over Xbox. PC or Nintendo, Sony doesn't see them as competitors to PlayStation.

PlayStation fans are already so invested in the PlayStation platform, if Sony releases their big single-player games on Nintendo and Xbox, they would have no other choice but to accept it. It's already working for Sony in case of PC releases, no risk of losing their user base. 😄

Executives say all kinds of funny things to keep shareholders satisfied.

Sooner or later we will see what that quote meant, what we all know though is that Sony is changing their business strategy and are adapting to market conditions.

Anthem

And Toaplan Arcade Collection 3 on Evercade.

@rjejr In case of yearly sports games sold at $70, most of them are live service games, especially if they have time-limited events where you get a certain bonus for participating. The practice of yearly games in general is questionable, as it's basically a live service where the yearly updates are sold at full price and your progress is reset to null.

@ZeroSum By definition a live service game is a game where a development team is actively working on adding content and updates after the release.

While additional monetization is the most common goal of the majority of live service games, it doesn't apply to all, especially if the base product is released at full price.

GT7 is still getting constant updates with new cars and tracks 3 years after it's launch. Stardew Valley launched in 2016, its most recent update was in December 2024 and with all the updates over the years it sold 41 million copies. In both cases the developers decided to support the games with new content updates rather than work on a new project. In both cases the updates keep the players engaged over a long period and the games "alive".

Of course the concept of a live service is easier to apply to online multiplayer games, where cosmetic items have a bigger social impact (you can show off your skins, cars, liveries, weapons, hats, football players, etc.) and the developers can steadily add new ones over several months.

@ZeroSum @rjejr

but are MLB the Show and Gran Turismo really considered to be live service games?

"Live service games" are games which receive steady updates from an active development team after thei initial release over a certain long period of time, in order to increase player engagement and sales of the game, micro-transactions, DLCs, season passes, cosmetics, etc. Many live service games often launch with a "roadmap" of future updates.

There's a famous graph from Ubisoft depicting how live services work: https://gdkeys.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/image-1400x789.png

Some fairly popular single-player live service games are Assassin's Creed, Dead Cells, Dying Light 2, Minecraft, Stardew Valley to a certain extent.

Here's the definition from Wikipedia:

In the video game industry, a live service game represents providing video games or game content on a continuing revenue model, similar to software as a service. Live service games are ways to monetize video games either after their initial sale, or to support a free-to-play model.

@11001100110zero Microsoft probably wouldn't offer any sales data, especially of other 3rd party publishers (EA, Capcom, Take Two, Ubisoft) who wouldn't want them to share. But Sony doesn't need Microsoft to provide any data. They already have several games on Xbox which give a good inisght. Plus they can buy the data from analytics companies like Circana, Alinea Analytics, GameAnalytics, Helika, ByteBrew or GRID.

@cragis0001 Additionally to Destiny 2 & MLB The Show, Sony has probably access to the sales numbers of Death Stranding Director's Cut (as it's running on the Sony proprietary Decima Engine and it probably has some analytics backend services) and the preorder number of Marathon.

Not really surprising Sony was the one to decide, given Helldivers 2 is a 1st party PlayStation game. Probably more will follow.

One of my most anticipated games for this year. Loved Ruiner as well.

@Enuo

Didn't Xbox fans spend the last decade swearing to the heavens that they don't want, like or care about Playstation games?

It's no different than the "PlayStation fans who spend the last decade swearing to the heavens that they don't want, like or care" about Xbox games. Yet Xbox published games are currently the best selling titles on the PlayStation store.

Every platform or community has their obnoxious, loud, enthusiastic fans who say such things, just to feel better about their favorite brand. Doesn't mean that everyone on PlayStation or Xbox feels that way. 😉

Days Gone is also a curious case, it was the 2nd big PlayStation game to release on Steam (after Horizon Zero Dawn) and it sold fairly well on PC. Porting it to other platforms should also be easier than other PlayStation games, as it's running on the Unreal Engine 4.

@naruball

My entire point was based on remarks that people have made on push square over the years. They claim that they're leaving ps for many reasons, the most important for them being that they can't justify spending 500+ USD for a console whose exclusives are no longer exclusive.

So, to return to your initial point. No, you can't use potential sales of ps games on xbx consoles as the only criterion when deciding an overall company strategy.

True, only the potential sales on Xbox is not enough to define PlayStation's multiplatform strategy. The number of sold consoles relative to previous generations, where PlayStation wasn't releasing games on PC and console prices were decreasing, though is a pretty strong criterion when shaping their business strategy.

Some unsatisfied vocal people on PushSquare claiming to leave PlayStation will have no impact on Sony PlayStation's business strategy. 😘

@naruball

that's not how you analyze data. There are so many factors that you don't take into account, including the lack of competition from xbx compared to previous generations. Also, the fact that ps5 was constantly out of stock (like Wii back in the day) and thus became the hot item that everyone wanted but couldn't get (too many comedy shows and people on social media made jokes about it). There are several other reasons, but these are just some of the many.

I'm happy to be corrected if I am wrong with my analysis.

So you are saying that the lack of Xbox competition resulted in people moving to PlayStation or PC (on PC they can play both XB and PS games)? Did PlayStation have less or more console exclusive games (1st and 3rd party) compared to the previous generation and how strong was the appeal of those games?

Are you implying that PS5 sales numbers would be higher without the stock issues? Or did it even out with the associated hype after the stock issues were resolved.

The price of the PS4 dropped from $ 399 to $ 299 three years after it's launch and the PS4 Pro launched at the same price as the original PS4 price. The PS5 in it's 5 years didn't have any permanent price drops in the US, had price hikes in many other regions and the PS5 Pro launched at $ 699. Does the PS5 lack of price reductions have an impact on the adoption rate of the console? How is the inflation impacting the sales numbers?

I guess in the end with all factors considered the PS5 is selling well compared to the PS4. 😉

@graymamba

well I wouldn’t personally say no to $15.5 million but I might if I was Sony.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare

$15m is fine (and of course it would be a simple option) - but then again its a pretty small profit if you risk undermining the "platforms" value.

$15 million profit (for a relatively low investment) might not do much, even though my estimates of 500K sold units are on the low side, but multiply that by let's say 7 games and you already have the budget of a AAA project (or new private jets for the executives 😄).

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare In my opinion Sony already did the experiment on PC and they realized that releasing their games on PC didn't really harm/cannibalise their console sales.

And now where apparently Xbox stopped competing with PlayStation, it will be the same situation. People are entrenched on their favorite platforms, hardly anyone will switch just because of some games becoming available for everyone. If Sony starts releasing their games on Xbox, I assume they will follow a similar strategy as on PC and mostly release games which are 2+ years old.

@OldGamer999 It's probably already profitable if Starfield sells 1 million units, it doesn't necessarily need to sell as much as Forza Horizon 5. And if Bethesda plans a sequel (sometime in the next 20 years) they will also have fans on PlayStation.

Nice if more people can play Starfield. There are many Bethesda RPG fans also on PlayStation who will enjoy it.

@graymamba Let's assume Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered gets an Xbox port and let's assume the port costs around $ 2 millions (probably less as there is a Windows PC port) and sold at $ 50. If it would sell 500K units at $50, minus 30% platform holder fee). That's $ 17.5 millions (revenue) minus $ 2 million porting costs, resulting in $ 15.5 millions (profit pre tax). Would you ignore $ 15.5 millions?

@graymamba I would be surprised if the sales numbers on Switch and PlayStation were not higher than on Xbox. After all, PlayStation has 2.3x more and Switch has 5x more consoles sold. Of course with a bigger install base the sales numbers of games will be higher.

But the question for publishers is: Will they make a profit if they port their games to Xbox? As it's relatively easy to port from PC to Xbox, the sales numbers on Xbox don't have to be enormous, just profitable. In some cases even a few 100K units sold on Xbox are enough to turn a profit.

@naruball The sales numbers of the PS5 are fairly in line with the sales numbers of the PS4, despite Sony releasing their PlayStation games on PC for over 5 years now. So the numbers show that only a minority is leaving the PlayStation platform.

I assume the dissatisfaction of PlayStation players has less to do with the number of "exclusive" games and more with many recent games being safe-bet sequels which take 5+ years to develop, a bunch of remakes/remasters and PlayStation chasing the live-service trend with Helldivers 2 being the only notable good game, while games and hardware prices are increasing.

@StrickenBiged

the example of Final Fantasy 16 shows that even relatively recent, well reviewed games do not sell on that platform; Game Pass has trained that audience (generally) not to buy games, but to wait for them to come to the subscription.

How often did Final Fantasy 16 sell on Xbox? Is the sales estimate based on the number of review in the Xbox store by Alinea Analytics?

What about other examples like Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3? Apparently Death Stranding Director's Cut did quite well on Xbox despite releasing 5 years later than on PlayStation.

@graymamba

However, keep in mind most Xbox consumers don’t buy games such as the PlayStation consumer

@Bkzgr8ezt

If there was the potential for massive sales I’d get it but with the buying habits of the general Xbox populous being what they are post-Gamepass, I really don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze at the expense of the brand but that’s just me 🤷‍♂️

If that is truly the case and games aren't selling on Xbox, then why do more publishers, including PlayStation, decide to release their games on Xbox? Logically speaking, wouldn't we read about big publishers, like EA, Ubisoft, Sega, Capcom, abandoning the Xbox platform? Instead we have Square Enix and Sega/Atlus commiting to supporting the platform and releasing their games on Xbox which were previously PlayStation exclusive.

@DonkeyFantasy Serious question: As Sony PlayStation 1st party games are already releasing on PC (time-exclusive or not), why are you waiting to fully switch to PC? How does "PlayStation games releasing on Xbox" influence your decision about switching to PC? Either way you are getting PlayStation games on PC. 😄

@naruball Will it really decrease the sales of PS consoles? How do we know that? Where would those people go to and why would they leave PlayStation? Were they dissatisfied with PlayStation in the first place and only those few exclusive games kept them on the PlayStation platform? Would Sony benefit from those who would rebuy their games on Xbox? 🤷🏼

If PlayStation games like Marvel's Spider-Man, The Last of Us, God of War, Uncharted, Horizon, Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima, Returnal, etc. sell 1/3 of the numbers on the Xbox console, than what the Xbox games (Foza Horizon, Gears of War) sell on PlayStation consoles, then porting their games from PC to Xbox is most likely profitable.

In the end, the more people can play those awesome PlayStation games the better.

@LogicStrikesAgain Unfortunately the fanboys (on both sides) are often the loudest vocal minorities, thinking that their views and opinions represent an entire player base and they don't tolerate opposing opinions. They make gaming communities more intimidating.

@Oprahs_cellulite

I think most gamers are over looking the fact that Sony and Microsoft aren't interested in releasing Triple A Games anymore they aren't very profitable. Microsoft and Sony are looking at the Netflix subscription model and have been for quite sometime.
Which means more crappy games on a subscription service, just like Netflix.
This is why your getting excusive ports on both consoles the question is who will win the base platform for the subscription.

Interesting point, but I don't think I fully agree with the statement. I would say "Sony and Microsoft aren't interested in funding console exclusive triple-A single player games" if it's too risky. For the moment they both fund and publish triple-A single player games, you don't need to look far into the past to find examples on both ends (Indiana Jones, Doom The Dark Ages, Death Stranding 2, Stellar Blade). But they would prefer to invest money/resources in triple-A live-service online games which might result in bigger profits. I guess the difference is that Microsoft now owns many smaller double-A studios (Obsidian, Compulsion, Doyble Fine, etc.) who can create smaller games in a shorter time, while Sony only has 2 or so and is additionally relying on third-party studios.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare @Vaako007

not that I support console wars, but I do like brand identity

Not sure why people are ashamed to support it. All brands are in competition with each other for profit corporations

"Brand identity" and "fanboyism" are irrational and only lead to pointless arguments. "Brand identity" is basically the cause of the "console wars".

"You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your past choices to protect your sense of self.
The Internet changed the way people argue.

Usually, these arguments are between men, because men will defend their ego no matter how slight the insult. These are also usually about geeky things that cost lots of money, because these battles take place on the Internet where tech-savvy people get rowdy, and the more expensive a purchase, the greater the loyalty to it.

Once a person is branded, they will defend their brand by finding flaws in the alternative choice and pointing out benefits in their own.There are a number of cognitive biases which converge to create this behavior."

You can read more about it here: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/

I wonder how many of those Bethesda games might not have released on Xbox due to some timed-exclusivity deal, if Microsoft hadn't bought them. 😁

Good thing everyone gets to play these games.