That’s the CFO talking. The money guys typically don’t spout PR. They know the numbers.
Sony doesn’t put their games on Xbox because they don’t have to. It would only legitimize a platform they’re beating soundly. When Xbox overtakes PlayStation in some future world (which still seems highly unlikely… PS5 outsold Xbox 120k to 20k in Japan) then maybe they’d consider that.
They have dabbled in PC now so it’s possible that’s coming for some of their games. PS Now streaming on PC is a thing I think? So it’s not like Sony isn’t dipping a toe over there. The platform dominance is the key though. Sony doesn’t want to make Xbox seem valuable. Microsoft desperately needs their games to be valuable because they haven’t had much that people care about.
Timex
2613
Dude… if you are in a company, and you are talking to the press… you’re spouting PR.
And… Microsoft doesn’t have to either, man.
So… Microsoft needs their games to be valuable, because they haven’t had exclusives that people care about… and so they need to make their games not be exclusive. Oh, and they just invested a ton of money to buy a company, for the purpose of…not having those games be exclusive.
That doesn’t make sense, man.
stusser
2614
I see no particular reason not to take them at their word. If they weren’t planning to release their games on competing platforms they simply would have said nothing at all, hand-waved away with “Each title will be evaluated separately” or similar.
I fully expect to see ES6 on Playstation a year after it comes out on Windows and Xbox.
Time will tell @Timex . I’m not going to argue with you about it. You are choosing conspiracy theory over their public statements either way. You don’t know any more than I do what they will do in three or more years with Elder Scrolls and Starfield. This is a waste of my time.
If people want to wait that long to figure out which platform to buy, that’s fine. I’ll play Bethesda games Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop in the meantime on PS5.
Timex
2616
Well, like I said, I think it’s likely that they’re just doing PR stuff to craft an image of “Hey guys, we’re cool… we totally love players on every platform!”
But I’m pretty sure MS bought that company for the purpose of building a stable of first party exclusives, since that was specifically what they were lacking.
I guess we’ll see! Who the hell knows when it’s even going to be out, so it’s not like it’s super impactful now anyway. By the time that comes out, I’ll likely have both consoles anyway.
The key bit is the ton of money. They don’t just need to recoup dev costs but also the acquisition cost. I think most smaller Bethesda stuff will end up Xbox exclusive, Elder Scrolls could go either way but I still think it’s likely Xbox only.
stusser
2618
PR is intended to help the company’s image, lying has the opposite effect.
IMO, a year delay is significant. Who’s going to sit around and wait a year to play Elder Scrolls 6? It will be one of the most highly anticipated games of the decade.
Imagine if Cyberpunk was a PS5 exclusive for a year. Not on Xbox, not on Windows. I would be sitting in front of a PS5 right now.
Timex
2619
Oh, definitely. Sony’s advantage on things like Destiny in the last gen, getting stuff months ahead of time, was significant.
It’s also worth noting that on XBox, these games will not only be available, but will essentially be free if you have a gamepass… so that’s also a thing, that makes it at least possible that they could show up on the PS5, at some late date… but I’m still somewhat skeptical.
It still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that the folks who say Microsoft’s biggest weakness was a lack of exclusives… are also saying that now that Microsoft bought the rights to a ton of game franchises, that they aren’t going to make them exclusive.
If MS were only interested in timed exclusivity they could of had that for far less than what they paid for total acquisition. Phil Spencer also said they don’t need to release on any other platform to justify the purchase financially.
That said, they have been vague in their statements so I suppose nothing is certain at this point.
Timex
2621
I think a thing that folks need to keep in mind, whenever a corporation is making statements… you don’t broadcast your corporate strategy in PR statements. PR statements are part of your corporate strategy.
Also, I always think of this when talk about MS buying companies comes up.
Yeah I agree, this stuff ain’t ever coming to the ps5. Saw this comment over on eurogamer, kinda makes sense when you consider MS non committal statements on the issue
Microsoft has NOT bought Zenimax. They have given them an offer which has been provisionally been accepted but won’t be completed until next year.
Up until that point Zenimax is an independent company and Microsoft cannot interfere with how they run their business.
Also as part of the due diligence process Zenimax would give Microsoft access to confidential information, such as contract negotiations on exclusivity deals, that would be heavily NDA’d. In that instance Microsoft can’t even allude to those deals existence or non-existence.
Microsoft is also not going to want to say anything that’ll affect stock prices too much. If their statement leads to a rise in stock value then that $7.5bn offer becomes undervalued and the acquisition cost goes up. If those statements lead to the opposite and the stock prices plummet the deal can be scrapped and Microsoft sued.
TL:DR Microsoft cannot discuss it’s post-acquisition plans in detail until Zenimax is officially part of Microsoft.
stusser
2623
Ahh. That is a very good point, thanks.
None of the above changes my points. @138 was talking about this Christmas and making a decision now. That decision is clear right now. PlayStation 5 has actual exclusive games. He has a PS4 library. There is no clear guidance yet on the Zenimax purchase and its effects on those games. The next Dishonored-type game ships in May 2020 on PS5 and you can pre-order it right now for $53.99.
Timex
2625
Hey, a buddy here at work was saying that his PS5 keeps defaulting to downloading the PS4 version of games, instead of the PS5 version… is there a reason for that? Is there something he can flip to make it not do that? Because there’s really no reason why anyone would want to download the PS4 version of a game to the PS5, is there?
We went through this upthread. For actual PS5 exclusives - not on other Playstation consoles, Xbox, or PC - there is Astro’s Playroom. Demon’s Souls is a remake, which is exclusive - except you can play the original on PS3. So one free game and a half game.
At least a few games that have PS4 and PS5 versions require you to do some kind of save game export from the PS4 version to carry over your progress on PS5 (No Man’s Sky currently, as well as the Spider-Man remaster and Control in the future I believe), so there are at least a couple specific times you might need to access the older version.
It can also be easy to miss which one you’re about to launch or how to switch them if you have both installed (as I did briefly with No Man’s Sky for the save exporting).
But downloading the PS4 version by default? I haven’t seen that. Is it possible it’s related to how he’s downloading, via the console or the web version of the store or the PlayStation app?
Timex
2628
I think he said that he was just buying it on the store, on his actual PS5… and it would, by default, download the PS4 version. Which seemed super weird.
Like, it happened for him with COD (which is probably the worst possible case, since it’s stupid gigantic).
Here, I just looked it up, and saw something referencing this:
Highlight a cross-gen game in the Library tab and you’ll almost always see the PS4 version, and not the PS5 version, at first glance–although this fact is not made clear at all. You have to hit the button with the three dots that appears when you select a game in order to pull up a menu where you can choose between and download each version. But it’s not at all obvious that this is where you need to go to look for that information, and you can’t tell which version you have selected until you open that menu. A lot of times, if you just hit “Download” on a game, you’ll learn only later that you installed the wrong version–and then you have to delete it and start the correct download all over again.
I have no actual experience with this, only what my buddy said, but I was wondering if anyone knew some way to have it default to the PS5 game first.
Cold War seems to have a problem generated by having Warzone/Modern Warfare installed. I have encountered what your friend is encountering.
I think it’s something that’s happening due to the launcher for the games in the PS4 version. If your friend takes note, when you’re in the screen where you choose Warzone/Cold War/Modern Warfare Multiplayer, the Cold War side had a “BUY” or something like that on it until today even if you had the PS5 version installed. Something with playing the older games then tripped up the PS5 to think you wanted to play PS4 Cold War.
Fortunately, until this is fixed (and it might be today…) you can highlight the Cold War icon on the ribbon and then go down to the three dots … to choose the PS5 version and it will flip back to running PS5 Cold War with no extra installs/downloads. I think unless he wants to play Modern Warfare multiplayer, starting both Cold War and Warzone from the PS5 Cold War icon will avoid any issues but I haven’t tried that yet because I want to use my PS4 controller for Warzone to take advantage of the Back Button Attachment.
So @138, it seems if the next Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are going to be high on your priority list then an Xbox is the safe bet to make.
LeeAbe
2631
How did you do on Walmart @jpinard? I managed to get one. I really did not need to spend the money. :-)
Either people didn’t know about the stock at Walmart, or it’s getting easier. It only failed once. It was a pretty normal shopping experience for a change.
