Topic: General Xbox Series X|S Thread

There's definitely that portion of the Sonytendo community that likes to gatekeep games by how premium and exclusive the price point is, like it's luxury watches, where reserving it for a higher paying audience makes it more cultured. Ironically it's usually the same people that like to rail against "gatekeeping" of ranking indies separate from major studios.

@LtSarge In fairness to Jim Ryan, even if he were a OCD CoD/GTAV addict....if he streamed.....could anybody tolerate watching such boredom long enough to subscribe?

".. this I believe is what the younger portion of the interactive entertainment demographic refers to as heads shot. I'm compelled to say something in context such as "boom" at this present time..."

Creepily, I can picture Jim watching the Ariana Grande Fortnite concert, though. That's....unsettling....

“That’s not a slam on anybody else who has a system that works for them. I can see why the disruption of Game Pass is not something that they want right now.”

https://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-everywhere-phil-spencer-wants...

@NEStalgia There certainly seems to be a sense of that type of Mentality at play - I'd say more with Sony but I am not as familiar with Nintendo over the past 5-10yrs.

I have used the terminology 'Premium' to describe the 'additional' charges console owners already pay for the privilege of playing a 'console' version, not necessarily the 'premium' spec version of a game. A simple comparison of PC vs Console shows that you pay about £10 more for a Game on Console. If you look at 'Control' - which was already £10 cheaper on PC with RT, DLSS, higher resolution. Look at the last Battlefield game- £10 less on PC and offered RT, DLSS, 120fps etc as standard (if you have the 'hardware') but still no upcharge to unlock a 'premium' version.

On top of that, if you actually want to play all aspects of a console version, you also need a Subscription of another £10 a month (or thereabouts) to access online components. We are ALREADY paying a 'Premium' for playing on console.

As far as I am aware, Ghost of Tsushima lost out to 'Hades' - an 'indie' game! as Game of the Year (in most award shows) and Day's Gone wasn't a GotY contender. Gears 5 was certainly on a Par technically with games like Last of Us, Uncharted etc - visually impressive - especially for the Hardware, solid performances and a solid performing game. Forza has one 'best' racing game for years - beating Gran Turismo so I think its ridiculous to assume that Sony's Studio's are above anyone else in the industry to justify that extra surcharge - on top of the extra charges we are 'forced' to pay for wanting to play on Console!

@BAMozzy Yeah, the $10 fee on console has been around, and a pretty fixed fee, since at least the early Steam era (even when PC games were still also physically distributed.) At the time it was mostly about the licensing fee from the console vendors being passed to the consumer directly. Then it was supposedly about physical media and used game sales vs. PC which had none. But it's been a pretty fixed $10 as long as console has been running PC's games. I can almost understand that, when primarily PC publishers started just bringing their PC games to consoles instead of making separate games for consoles I can see the temptation of "wait, so the vendor wants $10 in royalties? We're not eating that!"

But the online sub is sinister. I'm not sure who came up with that, but the blame sadly falls on Xbox for introducing that blight.

The awards shows are a weird set of Hollywood wannabe critics at the start. Most award shows gave the prize to TLoU2, because as the most cinematic game, it's naturally the best game! GoT got forgotten in TLoU2's shadow because....while also cinematic it's not Naughty Dog, and it's not as "edgy" in it's narrative, which promotes the later in the minds of said wannabe Hollywood critics (that's a whole other rant.) I'm curious once Hades is available on GP though what it's like. Nothing I've seen of it without playing it seems like anything worth all the praise it's received, and the internet, where indies are concerned, is full of hipsters that latch onto the "big thing" and rant about it being the best thing ever until the next big thing comes along. But I haven't played it because I'm not interested in buying it. I'm curious if my opinion changes after I try it.

But yeah, Sony has this rarified air about their output that, even where other games like Gears 5 can match them in terms of technology, story, etc, one thing Gears is is a video game. It may have a decent story and cutscenes and look detailed, but it never stops being a video game first and foremost, while Sony's cultivated, justifiably, a niche of movie-games that "put players inside the movie." They have a template that makes games a game second, and a movie you are in control of first. That does seem to resonate with people, especially critics these days, for better or worse. But where it gets weird is, among the fans and critics, the notion that film is somehow more cultured, more erudite than video games, and thus the more player agency is removed, and the more the game becomes a guided studio lot darkride, the higher the perceived quality and value of the title.

Like with many things, the fandom makes me cringe more than what the company does. Yeah, Sony's disastrously out of touch with all but it's hardcore fandom and the clueless portion of the mass market. But I see, business-wise, what they're doing with the $70 increase. Fans argue "inflation" which is a silly argument. All products don't get to jump in price "because inflation". Least of which entertainment products that are both under intense competition, and suffering from people having less disposable income due to said inflation (or stagflation.) True luxury/designer goods (goods aimed at the more well to do) can do that, but then that comes back to Sony trying to move their games up-market, products made for the financial upper tiers instead of the masses, their traditional market. Surely that market has grown, and its discretionary spending is off the charts as the economy bifurcates, but that still indicates Sony trying to move into being a "luxury brand" instead of a mass market product.

And that's where we get to that weird part of the market that sees it as premium to gatekeep, The high price must mean it's a superior product, exclusives for those with more resources and finer taste. The excessive sticker price is part of the appeal to said ego. The same reason Mercedes doesn't offer a budget model.

And I think Sony's playing that part of the market intentionally. But....that's not their whole game. They infamously drop their game prices on deep sales. They've backed off it slightly, but not fully. They know their sales model is the boxoffice model (Ryan even directly mentions it often), they mostly only care about "opening week" sales, and after that it doesn't matter much (exactly like film), they get that premium market on day one demonstrating their fine culture and taste.....and then it rapidly depreciates to mass market prices. TLoU2 is hilarious, they dropped it, permanently, to, what, $45 a year later? Game of the year, indeed! They couldn't give it away at that point. They're so heavily dependent on opening week sales they struggle to sell at all after they get the faithful to purchase. Which is also why they can't consider a Game Pass like solution. Their entire economy revolves around intense blasts of sales at excessive prices, where any attempt at offering more value will devastate their planning and financials. It's also an achilles heel as competitors are promoting value, and they feel like the RIAA when it was digging in and trying to prevent MP3s from overtaking full price record sales.

Oh...wait...they WERE the main component of the RIAA that did that.....

Nintendo isn't so different in that they've cultivated the image of superiority in different ways, but they hold their prices permanently with almost no exception. If Sony's aiming to be the Mercedes of video games, Nintendo wants to be Apple, and they're succeeding in building a similar user-cult. An innovative, disruptive, but somewhat noncompetitive console that launches at $300 in 2017 is $300 $350 in 2021. A game that launches in 2017 at $60 is $60 ($55 on occasional sales) in 2021. And more fun, a game that launched at $50 in 2011 is.......$60 in 2021. And it's celebrated that such amazing and timeless quality makes it worth those prices compared to all those other games. Sure they're great games, and they are timeless. But the idea of technology products or even any media product holding launch value, or worse, appreciating over time, is one that works only in their bubble.

It's been said in many a Metroid Dread conversation where the idea of a 2.5D sidescroller selling for $60 is laughable, that MS should have charged $60 for the Ori games. Maybe they could have gotten away with it. They're fantastic games. But....that goes back to premium pricing being celebrated as a feature, and viewing the quality of a product through it's price tag (or through celebrating the board room success of the vendor.) We may have moved on to a new era of hyper-capitalism where donning the colors and cheering on your favorite publicly traded corporation to victory has replaced team sports.

I'm well aware of why that extra £10 price hike exists on Console. 3rd Party Publishers are 'paying' Console holders to release games on 'their' closed platform so they wouldn't get the 'same' money back and of course we know that MS were 'responsible' for the 'Online' subscription too.

But to me, that first point makes Sony look even more 'Greedy' with their $70 price point. They are not 'paying' to release games on their own system or losing some profit to a 'retailer' on their Digital store. They can sell a AAA game at the 'SAME' price as a 3rd Party Published AAA game and Sony will get much more money back than the 3rd Party per game sale - MUCH more of you buy Digitally. Yes Sony perhaps has a much smaller target audience as that 3rd Party Publisher also has potential sales on 'other' platforms but of course, Sony will benefit from those games too on their platform.

So not only are they getting a sizeable chunk of Cash from 3rd Party games, they also have the Maximum profit (its not being split between Publisher, Platform Holder and, in the case of Digital sales, Retailer too). To me, Sony 'could' release a AAA game, costing the 'same' to develop as any other AAA game for 'less' money than 3rd Party publishers and still get more 'profit' per game sale. I am NOT suggesting they should - but saying they 'could' - I'd be OK with charging the 'same' but Charging more to me is pure Greed.

I know that's MY opinion and others may have a different view, but that stopped me even trying Returnal or R&C. It will stop me buying Horizon:FW or GoW:R - at launch anyway - and push me back to the Used market. What defines a 'Premium' game? Critical acclaim - then Hades, Ori, Cuphead etc - ALL critically acclaimed award winning games are 'Premium' too. Rockstar would have something to say about Naughty Dog as the 'best' Developer Studio - RDR2 is a on another level to Last of Us 2 in numerous areas and GTAv is a monumental selling game - both with bigger Budgets than any Sony Exclusive...

I get what they are trying to do, but its 'artificial' - like a Limited Edition Custom colour controller costing 'More' - just because its 'limited'. In this case, Limited to their Platform - where as MS are looking at trying to make their games as accessible and available as possible. Chances are though, that when Sony do bring their 'Exclusives' to PC (Like they have with H:ZD and DG, why they purchased Nixxes) that those games WILL have a 'Premium' experience on PC IF you have the Hardware and at a 'lower' price too...

We all know, if you have the Money to spend on Hardware in the PC market, you get the Premium gaming experience. Higher Visual settings, higher frame rates, next-gen features (RT, VRR, VRS, DLSS, Sampler Feedback, Direct Storage etc etc etc) at a 'cheaper' game cost. The only reason the PS5 IS the 'best' place to play Sony Exclusives like R&C, is because its currently the ONLY place. Flight Simulator is perhaps the most technologically advanced game running on Console right now, but as good as that is, you could play it on PC to get high frame rates and 'more' game too...

@BAMozzy One thing I will almost completely disagree with is your definition of a premium game. It's not critical acclaim, or at least not fully. It should be just as much the budget/scope of a game as whether it's great or not. Just because an indie game with a small budget ends up being a great game doesn't mean it's a premium game that could be $60 or $70.

@KilloWertz If you read, I never once said Critical Acclaim should define a 'Premium' game - I asked if that's what constitutes Sony's justification for charging more for their AAA games over others. It surely can't come down to budget/scope because Sony's Exclusives are NOT in the same league as CoD, RDR or GTA on budget or scope. In fact, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Mass Effect: Andromeda had about the same 'budget' and Andromeda, despite its few 'technical' flaws is also 'much' bigger in scale - set across multiple different worlds with choices having 'impact' on the story and a much deeper RPG mechanic.

I know Indie games certainly don't have the 'budget' but often have scope/scale way beyond some AAA games. No Mans Sky scope/scale is far beyond ANY AAA game.

Anyway, the Point is Sony are charging £10 more for their PS5 versions -as if they are somehow 'superior' to any other AAA game - so is that because of Critical acclaim? Is that because Sony games over the past few years have contested, if not Won Game of the Year awards? New hardware/engines is supposed to make the process of developing games quicker and easier too - don't have to run RT passes over Geometry to work out where to bake in Shadows, don't have to make lower and lower quality versions of Assets etc. If other publishers who are building AAA games with similar (and greater) budgets/scale/scope etc are selling their games for £10 less with money going to the Platform holder out of their Profits on the PS5 (with Haptic Feedback, 3D Audio etc), what makes Sony's Exclusive worthy of that extra 'Premium' on PS5?

The reason I mentioned Critical Acclaim was purely because games like CoD rarely win Game of the Year anymore, yet in terms of budget, scope etc, easily surpass anything from Sony. Therefore the only difference is that in terms of 'Critical Acclaim', A number of Sony's Exclusives are right up there. Uncharted 1-4, Last of Us 1&2, Horizon, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima etc have all won many awards inc Game of the Year. In fact, Sony have won it 3yrs in a row with Death Stranding, God of War, Last of Us 2 (I know Hades won a number of GotY awards but LoU2 won many more awards overall) and even a number of the 'runners up' like Spider-Man, Horizon and Ghost of Tsushima won numerous Awards. Most years in recent memory, Sony has had the 'most' nominated games so are they using that to somehow 'justify' the extra 'Premium' on PS5?

It cannot be for reasons of Budget/scope/Scale as it perhaps should be because there are other Publishers who are building games with similar, if not larger budgets, scope, scale etc and not charging an extra 'premium' to play on PS5..

@FraserG FYI most Xbox services are down or partially down, not sure if you do PSAs on that still, but there it is.

It definitely feels now that Infinite's release date will be announced next week at Gamescom (either the Xbox stream or Opening Night Live).

Does anyone get the feeling Psychonauts 2 has been given pretty much no promotion by Microsoft in the lead up to launch. Sure there was some at E3 but that's been about it and it launches in 2 days.

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1433436445449068547