And it’ll only get worse because now the few remaining independent studios will be sought after by Sony and I can see Microsoft making another (much smaller) purchase like a SEGA or IO Interactive.Man, sure wish there was any discernable use of anti-trust in the world.
Insane.
And it’ll only get worse because now the few remaining independent studios will be sought after by Sony and I can see Microsoft making another (much smaller) purchase like a SEGA or IO Interactive.
Would Universal ever trade Marvel?What are you guys' thoughts on if CoD will become a Xbox exclusive? On one hand, CoD has a huge player base and in 2021, it Vanguard and Black Ops Cold War were 2 of the top 3 biggest selling games on the service so you'd think they'd be crazy to give that up.
...On the other, Playstation has a huge player base and 2 of their top 3 selling games were CoD games Pulling those from store and making them exclusive means that the purchase price for many to play COD is going from $60 to $300-$500 if you are a Playstation player but HAVE to play COD. Of course, there is cloud gaming, so you could play with Gamepass on PC or on other devices (the chromecast-like "dongle" that they are rumored to start selling this year). The dongle won't get you 4K gaming or anything, but it'll be a cheap way into the Xbox ecosystem.
Personally, I see Xbox keeping COD and most titles exclusive to Gamepass, but there is something that could still allow these on Playstation. Phil Spencer could go to Jim Ryan or whoever it is over at Playstation and basically say, "You guys can have Call of Duty, Elder Scrolls, Starfield, Crash, even Halo. But you guys are going to have to pay us a fair value for all of that content and you can only have it if you are willing to put Xbox Gamepass front and center on your store and we would also get whatever your new subscription game service is and do the same"
I'm not talking about trading. I'm talking about sharing so they can make money where the high demand is. @AlexanderMBush has a good roadmap above for what's possible.Would Universal ever trade Marvel?
Also who cares? The point is decisions that change an entire industry are in the hands of a select few individuals, and that ultimately redounds upon the health of the industry over the long-term.
This has turned from a console war to a content war and Xbox may be selling less consoles, but is winning the content war for this generation at this point since they are buying it all, which will lead to Xbox being a unstoppable powerhouse if this continues.
Sony is doing their Sparticus project, yes, but if they weren't planning to before, now they 100% need to go all out on this and make sure all of their games are included with this service if they want it to be an attractive option.Sony is actively developing a Playstation version of Game Pass, and NIntendo has something on a smaller scale already. Microsoft's actions with Game Pass and XCloud, have fundamentally changed how media can be consumed; and in turn, how media can be profited.
Sony is doing their Sparticus project, yes, but if they weren't planning to before, now they 100% need to go all out on this and make sure all of their games are included with this service if they want it to be an attractive option.
Yup, third party content is actually a big part of Gamepass still even with all the stuff they own. Gamepass Ultimate includes EA Play and they have started a relationship with Ubisoft now for the release of Rainbow Six Extraction which is debuting Day 1 on GamePass January 20th.I think no matter what, Sparticus was going to happen. But I do think it would've been smaller scale.
Now though? I'm gonna be shocked if Sony isn't automatically as of the past few hours, trying to get major third party groups like CAPCOM, Square, and SEGA ((With the more ease of accessibility from JP groups)) into a licensing partnership to allow their titles on Sparticus. I also think we're gonna see a lot of the PSNow cards go out of sale in other regions ahead (as they are already being pulled from UK).
Even if it's broken, Sony needs an answer now to Game Pass. Especially with Activision/Blizzard in Microsoft's corner.
Yup, third party content is actually a big part of Gamepass still even with all the stuff they own. Gamepass Ultimate includes EA Play and they have started a relationship with Ubisoft now for the release of Rainbow Six Extraction which is debuting Day 1 on GamePass January 20th.
Sony definitely needs some third party deals. I think EA Play would be an easy one for them to strike with and if they can get the Ubisoft library, that would give them a lot more than Gamepass has as far as Ubisoft content.
Was thinking about this a bit, I was thinking there's a chance COD is in both Group A & Group B being both exclusive AND multi-platform at the same time. Here's what I mean. They could finally split up the multiplayer part of the game and the campaign. I could see a world where the Campaign is exclusive, but the multiplayer is multi-platform. Phil Spencer has championed cross platform play, so there's reason to think he himself wouldn't like the idea about making COD multiplayer exclusive.
- Call of Duty = The bread/butter of Activision/Blizzard outside of WoW/Warcraft/King. It's a Minecraft level IP in how evergreen it is. I think they'll scale it back to being an off-year title like the Forza Horizon franchise, but I do not see Treyarch/Infinity Ward being let go. I also think Warzone will be a promiment home for Xcloud and XBOX Game Pass. Especially as mobile outlets get expanded over the next few years.