Xbox's Sea Of Thieves Becomes 'Best-Selling' Pre-Order On PlayStation 5

Well we know where this will lead being successful. But it really is the only way forward for Microsoft and their master plan begins.

@OldGamer999 As the exorbitant costs of game developing keep rising, what Xbox and Sony are doing makes sense. Honestly the alternatives are a lot less appealing.

My Xbox became my Playstation.

Crossplay for those that don’t turn it off. It’s a Sony requirement that cross play is optional. Microsoft have no such rule.

@CallMeDuraSouka Sony is starting to put some games on PC but u don't see any of the games coming to xbox. MS console sales are too small for Sony to care to appease to that market, because a chunk of those xbox sales are people who own both xbox and PS5 console owners (making the market even smaller).

And with success like this, does anyone really believe that the trickle of games won't become a torrent? I've said it a few times now, but we are now entering a similar phase to what happened when Xbox games first started to go to the PC. At first, there will be a few, clearly announced games, then a few more, bigger titles. Then there will be more and more, and before we know it, it will be like it is now with the PC wherein there is no announcement, it just happens.

I firmly believe that Starfield will make the jump sometime after it has been on the Xbox for 12 months. Most likely it will be on the PlayStation in time for the the Christmas holidays. To what extent older games will make the transition, I'm not sure, but I do believe that pretty much any game that releases from here on out will make that transition to the PlayStation, and that the time between release on the Xbox, and then on the PlayStation will shorten, and shorten.

I completely understand the need for games to recoup their developmental costs, and so it stands to reason that releasing them on the PlayStation makes sense in terms of maximising potential sales. However, long-term, I don't think this will be good for the Xbox console, and ultimately this is Microsoft beginning the transition to a third-party publisher. There likely will be a generation after the current one, but after that? I have my doubts. Each game that releases on the PlayStation cedes territory to them. It is not what I want, but unfortunately, I believe it to be inevitable now...

Enjoy it 😊 it's all good

@CallMeDuraSouka
Sony may do PC sometime after PS5 game release but you won’t see them on Xbox.
And Nintendo won’t go near either.

Super excited to play this again!! Rare have slowly built this into a fantastic game all round! I played a bit on Xbox, but since my main friends group is on Playstation, I’ll be playing this at launch with them! It’s going to be excellent!

@FatGuyInLilCoat Starting? Sony has been putting their games on PC for nearly a decade now. Starting in 2015.

Hopefully this will excite Xbox and they will want to port more exclusives to Playstation. I'm sure that halo, gears or state of decay would sell very well on Playstation too.

@GrandValkyrie Make no mistake, this is a Microsoft's plan to soften PlayStation gamers into the Xbox brand to eventually see them subscribe to Gamepass.

@Player_1_Ready I'd say that's more upto Sony, than ps gamers

Starfield will be next , followed by hellblade 2

In hindsight, I think I understand now why there were all those rumours about a Gears collection happening. Much like how a physical version of Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush happened only because of a PS5 release (also Switch in the case of the former), Microsoft probably only sees value in creating a Gears collection if it's so that the games can be ported to PS5.

@Grumblevolcano …..holy cow. I never thought about this before but you may be right.

PlayStation fans are desperate to play Xbox games, they just refuse to play them on Xbox or PC

It’s gonna make the seas even better. More players when the game is at its best. Hopefully it gives them more money to keep investing in the game. The console wars will be written in the seas.

Good for Microsoft. Bad for Xbox players, it means more Xbox first party games to PS5 and sign the end of Xbox console just like Dreamcast was.

This will be the start for a time without consoles, when Microsoft and Sony will bring content to your „screen“. That was the reason for the Game Pass and is now the reason for bringing games to other consoles.

Good for MS. Glad to hear it. Hopefully the titles they port in the future are successful as well.

sailing to greener pastures , or bluer lol

@OldGamer999 nintendo would crumble if they went anywhere beyond their safe space anyway .

@LX_FENIX If they were desperate they would have gotten a Series S by now. More likely is that they have to make a choice for one console and that choice was Playstation, doesnt mean there arent Xbox exclusive games they want to play.

@Fiendish-Beaver Basically former PS CEO Shawn Layden also explained it recently in an interview. If your games cost 200million dollars to make, you have to look if you can sell it to a larger market (total addressable market as suites call it). Sony has no need to bring their own exclusives to Xbox because their own market on PS5 + PC is large enough.
With Microsoft, their own market is small (half the size of PS) and even plus PC it is still a small market (or rather, the market isn't that small, their games are just not that successful on it). So they have to add ca.60 million PS5s to that market as a way to increase their chances.
Problem is if they don't do this, either they have to make far cheaper games, which they cannot cause making high-level AAA games costs what it costs, or they have to go to multiple platforms. At this point it is just a case of "inevitable".
I guess had Microsoft launched S/X with a rich library of exclusives out of the gate + much better marketing this could have been avoided. But we will never know for sure.

@somnambulance I also always went for a coffee break or something when it was the SoT section in Xbox showcases. I absolutely never saw its appeal.

I’m shocked by this, quite impressive for an older Xbox title, I’m surprised the demand is there for it to this extent.

Agree with Xbox’s multi-platform strategy or not, they’re going to make way more money. I’ve said this before but PlayStation fans shouldn’t be laughing at Xbox just yet, because once Sony see what money can be made, they’ll follow.

Really good game, especially since the update to allow a PvE mode. This takes the stress out of a relaxing time on the seas

I see a lot of doom-mongering on here, about the success of an Xbox game on a rival platform, being the death-knell for Xbox consoles. This isn’t necessarily so. Can’t we just enjoy the headline that a good Xbox game is probably going to do well on PlayStation?

The devs deserve it to, and I hope we do indeed see many more people on the seas, in years to come.

Maybe those who tried 'Skull and Bones' want to play a real game with some polish? It's hard to see what's driving this desire for me, as I didnt get it when I tried it a few years back - maybe it's in a much better place now?
I've seen a lot of people on Push suggesting they will all buy it so it MS publishes more titles on the platform, but I wouldn't expect it to reach these numbers.

I was kinda hoping these titles wouldn't shift much and open the door to more, simply because I value my games machines having some uniqueness and would prefer to see Xbox hardware around for a long long time. It's like going abroad on hols and the first things you see when you get there are Star Bucks and McD. I value the difference and would prefer Xbox to keep its own identity.

I guess those who support MS corp and are keen to see the suits get more millions and the shareholders extract profits at the cost of Dev's jobs will be happy - this is clearly going to put more money in the pockets of those who certainly don't need it.

At the least the devs get a bigger audience, and that's never a bad thing...

As a Xbox gamer who does not subscribe to gamepass it makes no sense for me to continue to buy Xbox consoles.

@OldGamer999 Nintendo is gonna Nintendo, they are far too stubborn/protective of their brand(wii u disaster made that obvious- don't think it ever went on sale). I think Sony will further embrace PC quicker. It's a bizarre time in gaming for sure

@FatGuyInLilCoat
MLB the Show is a Sony title that is not only on Xbox but on gamepass

@sixrings
Unless you want the better console (stats wise), better online service and better controller

@GotRedOnMe73
Minecraft is a Microsoft game and succeeded on the other two systems. Also Ori and the Blind Forest went to the Switch did well and nothing more came out of

@ZuneTattooGuy better controller ? Not a chance, the dual sense is better in every way

@Shushibda
Except button layout, comfort and battery life

@ZuneTattooGuy those games where before microsofts changed multiplatform plans

@ZuneTattooGuy I think having access to all the games but Nintendo is more important than what controller.

@Shushibda
MIcrosoft could have pulled their releases on other platforms, but they didn't.

@sixrings
Then get a PC and an Xbox controller. Sony doesn't hold onto their exclusives for very long

This is great. Rare deserve success (hopefully it will be similar for Obsidian and Tango Gameworks) regardless of platforms, especially after the years of Kinect only output when people were making fun of them.
Now show us something from Everwild, please😁.
Predictably, we see posts from people who (almost) never had a positive thing to say about Xbox, suddenly pretending to care for it's direction😅....

@Shushibda
Please name me the next big five exclusive Playstation games? And name me even one exclusive upcoming PSVR2 game

@Sol4ris I could have guessed who the main commenters on this article would be before I even opened it. PureXbox is the home of concern trolling. The Alien guy is always here like clockwork, along with several others (we used to have the train guy, the shadow guy, the snakev5 guy and several others that are still here religiously)

It is exhausting to read as a multiplatform gamer who enjoys all the consoles and is one of the reasons why I have decided to use PureXbox less and less

@Shushibda
I'm not getting upset, but you honestly have no Playstation upcoming exclusives you can name. Sony themselves said they have no big titles coming out in the entirety of 2024.

I'm actually surprised by this. I've tried it and it wasn't my cup of tea.

@ZuneTattooGuy

For 2024:
Rise of the Ronin
Stellar Blade
Concord

@Sakai

Definitely concur, as predictable as the Saharan weather and miles off transparent...

@ZuneTattooGuy the reason people buy consoles is because of its ease of use and its affordability. Your solution is to use a more complicated more expensive platform.

Why can't we all just get along? ANd what's up w the Ponys coming to troll an XBOX website? Nothing better to do?

@ZuneTattooGuy that’s fine but the fact is I haven’t had a PlayStation since PS1. There’s plenty of PlayStation games I can play and catch up on. Another reason to buy PlayStation 6 instead of Xbox series whatever.

@Fenbops I think if Sony were to purposefully go multiplatform (i.e. it not being a forced deal like MLB/Bungie but rather Sony choosing to), they'd pick Nintendo platforms before Xbox because of the concept of buying games.

Microsoft have conditioned Xbox players into just waiting for Game Pass release, so I figure if an Xbox deal were to happen it would be something like Microsoft giving Sony $1 billion to put TLoU on Game Pass.

I don't get it, honestly, I never understood what people actually like about this game. I've tried it a few times and desperately wanted to like it but just couldn't. Couldn't really even figure out what to do most of the time. Seems like a game of "do random stuff, because". Then again, isn't that the appeal of GTAO? Which I also don't get.

The one thing that I take away from it though is that it seems like the platform reversal really is a thing. I thought so early on in the gen and this kind of confirms it. PS is now the home for the GaaS online casuals, and XB, with GP being well suited for it, is now ideal for single player gamers minus those few exclusives. Between SoT doing so great on PS, most of PS's play hours statistically coming from the GaaS games and being the default choice of casuals, and Sony itself pouring all their development into GaaS (albeit, cancelling a ton, but also speaking ill of the costs of single player), while MS has all the WRPGs now, it's a weird switch of markets.

Unfortunately for gamers, the casuals playing GaaS games make most of the money for the industry, though. And also unfortunately for gamers, if the casuals have become so banal that empty time-waster games like SoT and GTAO is what they crave it feels like games have gone back to being toys for children.

What will be interesting to see is pricing. If they publish on PS and hold price at list price forever with a few 10% off sales, Nintendo-style, it makes getting into the XB ecosystem appealing where it's much cheaper. If they start running great sales, they really cement that nobody should buy an XB.

@Grumblevolcano the narrative of "xbox players don't buy games" has always been a false one. Does GP impact sales when a game is on GP? Of course. Are there still significant sales of games that are on GP? Yes. Do games that are not on GP sell solid numbers? Yes. Does it look like Sony's numbers? No, but there's also a lot less consoles. Xbox players buy plenty of games relative to install base. What Xbox players don't do is buy plenty of physical games vs PS and Nintendo. I don't think MS is sitting there lamenting the revenue off the storefront.

@ZuneTattooGuy
"I'm not getting upset, but you honestly have no Playstation upcoming exclusives you can name."

As someone playing Helldivers 2 and FF rebirth atm, and loving both, I feel I do need to correct you.
There's also Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade in the next two months.
This is not to mention all the PS4 titles which do not see an Xbox release. There plenty of titles exclusive to that platform, no point trying to pretend otherwise.
There are also some great exclusives coming to Xbox and I eagerly await them, particularly Avowed which I'm very hopeful for. Until anything is announced for other machines I regard all Xbox's coming releases as exclusive releases.
Both machines have exclusives- which is the beauty of being multi platform, you get to play it all.

@Grumblevolcano I think we’ll see both Xbox and PlayStation ‘exclusives’ on the Switch 2.

@ZuneTattooGuy

Stellar Blade
Rise of the Ronin
Concord

Before these:

Final Fantasy VII: REBIRTH
Granblue Fantasy: ReLink
Helldivers 2

Had a blast with my PS5 this year.

FFV rebirth is a timed exclusive and it's coming to PC, Helldivers and Granblue are already on PC.

The other two are small AA games that won't have a big audience

@rhyno_888 Meanwhile in the real world Microsoft just last month announced..
"Xbox president Sarah Bond has said the next-generation Xbox will mark the biggest jump in hardware capability we've ever seen from one console generation to the next"

@Titntin There are no First Party AAA exclusives coming to PlayStation this year only 3rd party. Meaning there will of been only been One First Party AAA exclusive released by Sony in over 2 years before the next one is released which will be after April 2025.
Maybe it's time to say "PS5 has no Games".

@Sifi
If you really only care about playing first party titles you must have had a very barren first few years of Series X.
An exclusive game is just that - it can be first or third party and I couldn't care less about the opening logo - if its a decent game I just wanna play it. There's several such titles on both PS5 and Switch, but not so much on Xbox. I think that's a shame and I hope Xbox keeps its exclusives, but it's a truth, no matter how much you are in denial.

@Sifi

Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, and Concord are all 1st party, AAA games coming this year to PS5.

All of those games are Sony-published which equals 1st party.

@jFug

Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, and Concord are all 1st party, AAA games coming this year to PS5.

All of those games are Sony-published which equals 1st party.

First party refers to developers that are owned by the company responsible for the console.

Rise of Ronin and Stellar Blade are not first party games, they are second party games. Second Party refers to individual companies taking exclusive contracts from platform holders

I am really looking forward to Ronin for what its worth and Team Ninja are arguably my favourite developer

@Sifi
They ran out of ways to make escort mission the game

@jFug
Team Ninja is not a 1st party Sony Studio. Sony can publish games of third party studios

@Sakai I mean, second party is technically a made-up term, but I see what you’re saying.

@ZuneTattooGuy nowhere did I say Team Ninja was owned by Sony. What I’m saying is there are only 1st party and 3rd party published games. Second party is a term made up by gamers and none of the three major platform holders would refer to a game as “second party” just because an external studio developed it.

Games like Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, and Detroit l: Become Human we’re/are considered 1st party PS games because they were published by Sony even though they were made by external development teams.

@jFug I mean technically all 3 party terms are made up, but nobody thinks games like Ronin, Stellar Blade, Detroit or Heavy Rain are first party, because they were not developed by a first party, that much is obvious.

Just like nobody thinks Ori or STALKER 2 is a first party title, because it was developed by a 3rd party.

They are exclusives (or they were at one point) but that does not make them first party games.

@EvenStephen7 @Grumblevolcano as a HUGE Gears of war fan i think you are mostly right about that collection. I would only add that the trilogy isn’t on PC. So creating the collection would do a few things, one it get’s younger players into the gears series and that greatly helps the upcoming show. Two i do think at minimum this collection would come to PC and Xbox, but I could see MS brining it to the PS5 as well to even further enhance momentum for the show and then announce Gears 6 as a Xbox and PC exclusive. The amount of Gears of War collection sales on PC alone will be massive but if you dip into the PS player base, that could be the largest gears community of all time. Great point and i had to comment cause if you couldn’t tell by my large reply i am a massive Gears fan and i have been thinking about this approach for months now. I think we get the answer one way or the other come June.

You literally couldn’t ask for a better example of how the general gaming population has very little in common with fanboys online. Most Sony fanboys I saw said nobody would buy the game including themselves. Fanboyism is like a disease in online forums, but thankfully that still equals to a tiny tiny tiny percentage of overall gamers.

This is great news for Xbox overall

@jFug

“ Games like Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, and Detroit l: Become Human we’re/are considered 1st party PS games because they were published by Sony even though they were made by external development teams.”

Nobody considers those games first party, at least nobody that understands the definition of first party. You can say the sky is green, that doesn’t make it so. None of those games are Sony 1st party games.

@Phantasystar77 don't forget the pixel remasters 😭

Great news for xbox. Preorders on PS5 for a 6 year old xbox one game are outpacing a ps5 exclusive, a ps5 first party game, and a highly anticipated capcom game.

I wonder how pentiment sold. I doubt that one did very well on either switch or ps5 but wouldn't really expect that kind of game to go bonkers.

@Phantasystar77 I mean. everything you just listed is something i've played and can live without. I bought a day 1 ps5 so i could play those and yet i feel like i could've saved $500.

SE games just aren't what they used to be. They're just doing the standard fair that I could literally do anywhere. Won't be buying a system for their games anymore, will just pick it up if its on what I currently have at the time.

Gaming really just....doesn't do creative things anymore. Its just the same open world everywhere I go with little thought to the things I AM doing. Its nice that devs like vanillaware aren't really afraid to test things out.

Definitely nice to have a large group of studios to keep an eye on but SE is being taken off that list after Rebirth.

Anyway, seeing that it just makes it odd to think. You all like and want xbox games but you're not willing to try the xbox to get said games...? Why does weird thinking like this only apply to xbox.

@Nalverus
Of the big three Microsoft has the pockets to let their developers experiment and try new things. Sony can't afford to have too many of their 1st party offerings stray from the path because a couple big bombs could hurt them financially very badly.

@ZuneTattooGuy that really doesn't matter to me as a consumer. If they don't offer anything I want or if I do gets something and dislike it then i'm not gonna even look at it. Considering I used to buy their stuff means they lost sales because I now find their offerings generic as its all they do back to back now.

also....the guy above me, @kedireturns
The dualsense battery is bad, it lasts like 5-6 hours. nobody thinks its good...an if it goes, the controller is unusable like every other controller with a built in battery that can't just casually be removed.
The controller size is only comfortable for people with large hands.
PS is the ONLY platform to ever use "symmetrical" sticks. Just them. They are the outlier. Very confused at the human being thing, what the heck sense does that make. Can you hold it or not? yes? no? lol.
Haptic triggers are overrated. Can't say I like my trigger becoming a rock cause i got on a segway.
The rumbles kinda annoying. Can't say i like the feeling of something like glass smacking my hand. it feels weird.

Oh. an the amount of games that you literally need a PS5 for, that you can't play on any other console or PC, is less than 10. Thats not really raising the bar by any stretch. Saying it "has all these games" is worthless to a consumer because they may only care about 1 or 2 or potentially even none of them.

All of it is preference anyway. No reason to try an act like something is factually superior, everything - yes EVERYTHING - has its ups an downs. The dualsense is "okay". its not groundbreaking.

@kedireturns
12 hours for a rechargeable controller without a user replaceable battery is still terrible. The Xbox Controllers give you the choice of 40 hrs per 2-AAs or a User Replaceable Rechargeable battery pack which also get about 30 hours. They even allow third party rechargeable batteries.

Also the Playstation Pro Controller has way worse battery life than the original PS5 controllers. I don't mind symmetry but having my thumbs so close to each other and having to reach backwards instead of down or up for my buttons and d-pad is not comfortable to me and many others. That's why many don't mimic the playstation controller layout.

To stay on topic though - I think Sea of Thieves is a far superior game to Skull and Bones and will find a big audience on the PS5. With proper cross play and well maintained servers it can make the PVP very fun with a nice boost of life to the game.

@ZuneTattooGuy probably. it'll be as hit an miss with them as it has been with everyone else lol

@Shushibda Sony has nothing to do with PlayStation gamers subscribing to GamePass and use it practically on any other device.