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Thoughts on Xbox dropping exclusivity and PS5s recent series of good exclusives

Just curious if any other Xbox players are feeling the pain and how Playstation players see it from there side.

I'm personally pretty frustrated. I've sat through half a decade of Xbox conferences saying they bought this or that studio and that the amazing exclusives are on the way, with nothing ever coming out. And now they seem to be transitioning to a no exclusives plan. I don't disagree in principle with no exclusives but I can only afford to drop $500 on a system pretty rarely. As a huge Final Fantasy fan not having access to 16 or 7 Rebirth is frustrating, and Helldivers 2 seems like a great time. Hearing that the system I bought is moving to a you can play our games anywhere system makes it hard for me to think of a reason not to switch to Playstation. Anyone else considering switching boats?

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  • I'm fortunate enough to own both systems (Xbox is mine, PS5 is my partner's) and with that said I'm delighted by this recent trend.

    I'd prefer a firmer commitment to it, because I wouldn't feel entirely comfortable with only buying the one console for now, but it's a good step forward. That said it's probably an admittance that Microsoft and to a lesser extent Sony agree that at some point the idea of having a dedicated box under your TV for games is going the way of the Dodo.

    If I was in a position where I could only afford the one system, I'd be much happier if it was in-house games that remained exclusive. I know I'm not playing the new Sony Spider-Man game if I own a Xbox, and I know I'm not getting HALO if I play on a PS5. Where it gets tricky Is when 3rd party titles get exclusivised (I'm making this a word), or even time..... exclusivised. You can't really predict that, and it just seems incredibly anti-consumer.

    • This thread could really be called "Im jealous of all my friends playing Helldivers 2". It's just frustrating in the age of crossplay where I usually forget what systems my buddies are on to be locked out of a major game.

  • As a reminder, Microsoft had to go through all kinds of hurdles to acquire Activision Blizzard, due to "monopoly" concerns or whatever it's called.

    Microsoft is surely going to continue buying up studios. And when those studios make games, why limit it to Xbox? They own the game and studio, it's literally all profit after that.

    The console itself isn't even a revenue stream iirc. Wasn't there a report that said they barely made any money off them, and it was just a way to get people into the Xbox ecosystem

    Tldr: buying studios up and the games they make, gives them more money if they don't make it exclusive

  • I've been on the Sony side of things my entire life. I have the disc version of the PS5. I however also have a gaming PC and play a select few titles there.

    What concerns me is the lack of physical media that we are headed towards. The entire Software as a Service model drives me crazy because at anytime licenses can change and you'll lose access to things. I've read about it happening with things recently on PS where people that bought and owned movies from the PS Store suddenly the license expired and Sony didn't renew so they just went in and removed those from people's library. Then there's the whole issue some people have with their PS+ games not working suddenly despite having a current subscription and the game in their library.

    I've seen it happening with Streaming Services as well and I understand that all of them are just paying for limited term licenses of the content. But at the end of the day I can go to my physical game/movie library and pop the disc in and they can't take that away from me.

    I think if some sort of consumer protections were in place to stop those kinds of issues. I could get on board with not owning the disc. I saw the winds of change coming when Google made Stadia. I also knew that Google wouldn't be in it for the long term as I've watched them start and stop services for close to two decades now. So I didn't buy into it.

    I will say though I have some friends that have XBox Games Pass and I can understand the appeal. You buy a controller and any PC with a decent internet connection can play a massive library of games. So that is definitely the future of gaming whether I like it or not.

    As for the exclusives I for one welcome a day when everything is cross play and we all can game together in one happy ecosystem. Except that m&k will always be superior to a controller and I don't know how they could level that playing field.