Support NeoGAF

[SlimySnake]

Why? No, seriously. Does any time Xbox get a timed exclusive third party game get counted as a Jim Ryan failure? or any time a third party game launches on GP day 1, do we say Jim Ryan fucked up

Of course. If tomorrow GTA6 is announced as an exclusive everyone here would be asking for Jimbo's head. Besides, This isnt any old timed exclusive. this is fucking final fantasy. The 3rd Final Fantasy exclusive in a row.

Square continuing their business arrangements with Sony for the last 2, 3 generations isn't Phil Spencer's doing lol.

Wrong. FF13 (PS360), FF15 (PS4X1) and all the lightning FF13 sequels were on Xbox thanks to Peter Moore and Don Matrick. This is on Phil. he paid Square for fucking Tomb Raider instead of keeping FF multiplat.

 

[Luigi Mario]

Square has been shafting Xbox since the 360 era. Let's not pretend XSS is the reason they chose Sony LMAO.

Square Enix released multiple exclusives for the Xbox 360. They arguably got the better games during that gen when comparing it to their output on PS3.

 

[adamsapple]

Of course. If tomorrow GTA6 is announced as an exclusive everyone here would be asking for Jimbo's head. Besides, This isnt any old timed exclusive. this is fucking final fantasy. The 3rd Final Fantasy exclusive in a row.


Wrong. FF13 (PS360), FF15 (PS4X1) and all the lightning FF13 sequels were on Xbox thanks to Peter Moore and Don Matrick. This is on Phil. he paid Square for fucking Tomb Raider instead of keeping FF an exclusive.

FF has never been, and likely will never have, an Xbox exclusive entry.

 

[SlimySnake]

FF has never been, and likely will never have, an Xbox exclusive entry.

I meant to say instead of letting FF go exclusive.

 

[Killer8]

It's funny because it re-contextualizes MS's bitching a few months ago about how Sony pays to keep games off Xbox. Yeah, they paid alright - because MS were too cheap to offer a better deal. The narrative was that big bad Sony were swooping in and using their nepotistic Japanese connections to keep the games off the baka gaijin American console, when the reality is that it's the Japanese third parties who are whoring themselves out to the highest bidder. MS are just being salty that they got outbid in the marketplace, which is also equally bizarre considering the size of the war chest they put into Activision Blizzard. They could've had Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy 16, etc etc no problem if they wanted to.

 

[Captain Toad]

..or how about put them on both systems and make 30%-40% more profit from the sales.

They have the data. If there was actually more profit to be made that way, they'd do it.

 

[Pedro Motta]

Money, Support studios, Tech for games and cinematics developed for decades, target audience, market share, being japanese.

We learned here that money is not the only factor..

 

[PropellerEar]

Square has been shafting Xbox since the 360 era. Let's not pretend XSS is the reason they chose Sony LMAO.

Xbox paid Square $100M+ for Tomb Raider(2013) exclusivity...


Maybe time for you to understand Xbox always manages to shaft Xbox.

 

[Hugare]

MS: "Here's 50mln for FF XVI's exclusivity"
Square: "Hmm, don't know"

Sony: "I'm japanese"
Square: "Say no more"

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Square Enix released multiple exclusives for the Xbox 360. They arguably got the better games during that gen when comparing it to their output on PS3.

It also helped that 360 was easier to develop for at the time and Japanese teams were trying to expand to a western audience. Xbox was also in a place where it was throwing everything at the wall to gain marketshare.

 

[Captain Toad]

MS: "Here's 50mln for FF XVI's exclusivity"
Square: "Hmm, don't know"

Sony: "I'm japanese"
Square: "Say no more"

Hugare: I have no idea what I'm talking about
Hugare: durrrrrr

 

[Riky]

Microsoft funded a couple of big JRPG games back in the 360 days, it didn't move the needle in Japan overall, just gave them temporary number one spots for a week.
They are better off concentrating on their own first party games and funding new IPs with third parties like Contraband.
As the exclusive catalogue grows on Gamepass it makes it harder and harder for gamers to pass up.

 

[FrankWza]

I swear Redfall is the most Infamous game on NeoGAF. The mindshare is incredible for a below 60 metacritic game.

Fixed

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Microsoft funded a couple of big JRPG games back in the 360 days, it didn't move the needle in Japan overall, just gave them temporary number one spots for a week.
They are better off concentrating on their own first party games and funding new IPs with third parties like Contraband.
As the exclusive catalogue grows on Gamepass it makes it harder and harder for gamers to pass up.

lack of consistency

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

Remember when Microsoft tried to moneyhat a shit-ton of Japanese studios between 2008-2010?

Infinite Undiscovery; Blue Dragon; Lost Odyssey; The Last Remnant; Star Ocean: The Last Hope; Tales of Vesperia.

That didn't turn out too great for them back then lolz

I loved Infinite Undiscovery, Lost Odyssey, and Star Ocean 4 and I liked Blue Dragon.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Fixed

 

[DenchDeckard]

Sony paid more.gif

 

[SCB3]

Not surprised seeing as how 15 was poorly received at the time, I liked it but it was very polarising

 

[FrankWza]

 

[Sleepwalker]

It's kind of a bad precedent to set, though. Suddenly all these publishers would start expecting checks from MS just for their games to be released on the console at all.

And why would this begin to happen? Hmm I wonder.

 

[StealthGoblin]

I imagine he's most upset about the deals to make the games exclusively not on Xbox or the ones that stop games from coming to Game Pass. I would be upset as well if that stuff was going on and my only option outside of building new teams (this is not exactly easy as Sony would do it too) was to acquire developers and publishers and suddenly the publisher I tried to acquire was considered anti-competitive to acquire. It's a tough situation to be in, and Sony is taking advantage of it in shrewd ways (I don't blame them at all. Jim Ryan is ruthless.).

He shouldn’t be getting upset by bog standard industry practices that they themselves take part in. He can’t have his cake and eat it.

On your point about building new teams - Sony seed plenty of studios and grow them. From the top of my head, these studios were either fully or heavily financed by Sony before acquisition:

Guerilla Games
Insomniac Games
Media Molecule
Naughty Dog
Sucker Punch
BluePoint
HouseMarque
Firewalk
Haven

Microsoft’s problem is that they don’t appear to want to put the time in and money in. They want quick results and that just isn’t how it happens, so now they are artificially speeding up the process and in doing so are overstretching and disrupting their own models.

They have conditioned their userbase into wanting everything at launch on Gamepass. Sony have not for PS+. That in itself grants Sony leverage.

 

[StealthGoblin]

MS: "Here's 50mln for FF XVI's exclusivity"
Square: "Hmm, don't know"

Sony: "I'm japanese"
Square: "Say no more"

$50 million to lose all the sales they’d make on PlayStation? Awful deal. The rate the gen is going Microsoft are doing to have to pay a lot of money to keep games off PlayStation as that is where the publishers money will be predominantly made.

It’s a lot cheaper for Sony to buy off the Xbox sales.

 

[near]

I loved Infinite Undiscovery, Lost Odyssey, and Star Ocean 4 and I liked Blue Dragon.

I liked some of those efforts too! But they weren't collectively commercial successes, they also did not help much with establishing the Xbox brand in Japan which was really the goal if I remember correctly. Microsoft literally fucked off Japan and Japanese exclusives from that point onwards lolz.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

I am speaking from consumer side. Blocking access of the game from one platform is not good in the eye of the consumer.
And I cant say MS is good either, as they bought bethesda too, which blocks the access of those games to PS.

These exclusives arent good for us consumers.

You get the gist of this right?

`Sony made a better offer`....

What is the real takeaway there if we are being generally unbiased?

The answer to that is, BOTH companies made offers. If Sony, decides to be `pro-consumer` as I guess you would put it, and say, `Nope, not interested in any offer, you guys do what you want` the game ends up being exclusive to Xbox for such and such amount of time instead.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

He shouldn’t be getting upset by bog standard industry practices that they themselves take part in. He can’t have his cake and eat it.

On your point about building new teams - Sony seed plenty of studios and grow them. From the top of my head, these studios were either fully or heavily financed by Sony before acquisition:

Guerilla Games
Insomniac Games
Media Molecule
Naughty Dog
Sucker Punch
BluePoint
HouseMarque
Firewalk
Haven

Microsoft’s problem is that they don’t appear to want to put the time in and money in. They want quick results and that just isn’t how it happens, so now they are artificially speeding up the process and in doing so are overstretching and disrupting their own models.

They have conditioned their userbase into wanting everything at launch on Gamepass. Sony have not for PS+. That in itself grants Sony leverage.

Of course they want to move fast. They have a service to fill with games. They aren't in a position to fund studios that aren't their own at this point. That's a different time and market. As far as conditioning is concerned... you act as if that's a bad thing. They want subs, not sales, and the more popular that gets, the harder it is for Sony to sell $70 games. It's a double edged sword at times (this exact case with Final Fantasy) but it is a viable business model. We'll see how it all works out, I guess.

 

[Captain Toad]

I loved Infinite Undiscovery, Lost Odyssey, and Star Ocean 4 and I liked Blue Dragon.

The publishers don't care if you loved them (I loved Lost Odyssey, too).

They care if they sold well or not. They didn't.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Of course they want to move fast. They have a service to fill with games. They aren't in a position to fund studios that aren't their own at this point. That's a different time and market. As far as conditioning is concerned... you act as if that's a bad thing. They want subs, not sales, and the more popular that gets, the harder it is for Sony to sell $70 games. It's a double edged sword at times (this exact case with Final Fantasy) but it is a viable business model. We'll see how it all works out, I guess.

Then Phil shouldn’t be fucking whinging about Sony doing the deals. That was my point.

Their choices and decisions have increasingly lead to this scenario and it won’t be the last time.

So they just need to suck it up. Take the rough with the smooth.

It was always insane in my opinion to build a sub service without the content ready to go. That’s putting the cart before the horse.

 

[Riky]

This was all covered in court documents recently.

 

[systemr123]

jimbo mentioned the importance of the japanese market in a recent interview so not surprising at all.

What is the strategy on Japanese territory? As Ryan explained: “It consists of releasing games that are highly compatible with the Japanese market. Elden Ring, Resident Evil 4, Monster Hunter Rise, Wild Hearts, and so on have already been released on PS5. These games are born in Japan and released in Japan.”
For the near future, the businessman highlights “Final Fantasy XVI” and “Street Fighter 6”. Both titles will generally be “big and important launches,” but the Japanese have a particular fondness for them.

I hate Jim Ryan talking sense. He's not leaving any chance to Xbox to win the war. /s

Love me some Jim. He might not play vampire survivors for 200+ hours, but he knows how to run and improve a business!

 

[Fbh]

A FF16 deal wouldn't really make that much sense for MS or Square.
The Xbox audience has shown again and again that they just don't really care that much about japanese games and JRPG's. FFXIII sold almost twice as much on Ps3 and that basically released at the height of Xbox popularity, when they were neck to neck with PS3 and after Microsoft had invested heavily in bringing over fans with exclusives like Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia and Lost Odyssey. Then we got for example UK data showing that 80% of copies of FFXV were sold on Ps4.

For MS it would be mean spending a ton of money to secure a timed exclusivity of a game their audience isn't that interested in.
For Square it would mean pissing off a large part of their audience to release a game exclusively on a platform where they have historically sold the least

 

[The Shepard]

It woulda made no business sense to go Xbox exclusive when most the final fantasy fans are on Playstation.

 

[Topher]

How does Microsoft get outbid?

 

[intheinbetween]

So, SE went shopping for a buyer, they didn’t consider FF XVI as a multiplatform title, ooook

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Microsoft funded a couple of big JRPG games back in the 360 days, it didn't move the needle in Japan overall, just gave them temporary number one spots for a week.
They are better off concentrating on their own first party games and funding new IPs with third parties like Contraband.
As the exclusive catalogue grows on Gamepass it makes it harder and harder for gamers to pass up.

You know what I never understand about this kinda thinking... the boded part...

When people talk about the exclusive catalog growing on gamepass, is it that they fail to remember that at the same time, the exclusive library is also growing on PS+?

So, SE went shopping for a buyer, they didn’t consider FF XVI as a multiplatform title, ooook

What if I told you that times a deal just means the game is going to be multiplatform?

 

[Hugare]

Hugare: I have no idea what I'm talking about
Hugare: durrrrrr

Yeah dude, MS being american never affected their sales in Japan

And I'm the one being naive

You can bet your ass that if Nintendo had a console with similar specs to the Series S/X, Square would be selling waay more stuff in that console

MS could spend 100M on the exclusivity, Square knows that FF XVI wouldnt sell shit on a MS console in Japan, no matter how much money they throw at it

Square would preffer to give FF exclusivity for free for Nintendo/Sony instead of selling it for 150M to MS

 

[nial]

Yeah dude, MS being american never affected their sales in Japan

Can you explain Apple's popularity in Japan, then?

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Then Phil shouldn’t be fucking whinging about Sony doing the deals. That was my point.

Their choices and decisions have increasingly lead to this scenario and it won’t be the last time.

So they just need to suck it up. Take the rough with the smooth.

It was always insane in my opinion to build a sub service without the content ready to go. That’s putting the cart before the horse.

I'm sure he's mostly whining about the "exclusively not on Xbox" deals and marketing deals barring games from Game Pass. I would get upset if my competitor was doing that while at the same time complaining about "monopolistic" practices such as acquiring a publisher.

 

[MikeM]

I am speaking from consumer side. Blocking access of the game from one platform is not good in the eye of the consumer.
And I cant say MS is good either, as they bought bethesda too, which blocks the access of those games to PS.

These exclusives arent good for us consumers.

Speak for yourself man.

Perhaps MS should do a better job at providing support on dev work on not only one, but two boxes. It seems clear Sony is doing something right and MS is doing something very wrong on enticing development on their consoles.

 

[Riky]

You know what I never understand about this kinda thinking... the boded part...

When people talk about the exclusive catalog growing on gamepass, is it that they fail to remember that at the same time, the exclusive library is also growing on PS+?

A lot of gamers have more than one machine by the end of a gen, as time goes on the catalogue growing will attract gamers and they don't need an Xbox to access the content.

 

[Hugare]

Can you explain Apple's popularity in Japan, then?

Is there a japanese cellphone company that can compete head to head with Apple in Japan?

Is there any japanese cellphone company, actually?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Because it never expired

Microsoft: Sony Has "Xbox Exclusion" Agreements With Third-Parties, Includes FF7 Remake

A new document via the UK's CMA has Microsoft stating that Sony has entered what it calls "Xbox Exclusion" deals with certain game companies.

mp1st.com

Still posting this retarded shit, I see. This mentions nothing of timetables, nor do they know WTF a first party game is.

This was all covered in court documents recently.

Read the article this thread is about. From the article:

"More recently, however, Square Enix has been even more dismissive of Xbox than ever, with most-wanted JRPG Final Fantasy 7 Remake still absent from the platform despite an expired exclusivity agreement, and Final Fantasy 14 still nowhere to be found despite pledges by Xbox lead Phil Spencer at a previous event."

 

[FrankWza]

How does Microsoft get outbid?

I think when phil has to get approval the higher ups look at it as a waste. They'd rather own IPs even without the teams or peripheral support PlayStation offers to produce the games. This is how they're always outmaneuvered by smaller companies.
They don't see the value in picking their spots with timed exclusivity even if it means a few will not be mega sellers or great games like Forspoken. Meanwhile, you can still have a redfall after you buy the publisher but they hide it's disappointment behind players "reached"

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Can you explain Apple's popularity in Japan, then?

Well making games as software is quite different than what Apple does. I really don't see how you compare the two. The video games industry is a creative industry and the cultural gap between western and eastern markets really makes itself present.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

The FF14 blurb is false.

Square essentially begged Microsoft since the 360 era to have the game on Xbox. When they had a better realtionship with the brand and this is well documented.

Microsoft wouldn't allow the game to release on Xbox due to cross-play I recall and then it got to a point the company said screw it then.

I believe this is a big reason why the relationship soured, as well as the fact the majority of the audience is on PS, Nintendo and PC for JRPGs.

 

[MasterCornholio]

How does Microsoft get outbid?

Easy

Nutella cut Xboxs budget.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Is there a japanese cellphone company that can compete head to head with Apple in Japan?

Is there any japanese cellphone company, actually?

Yes. Sony.

And that's not even the only one, there are quite a few actually.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Yeah dude, MS being american never affected their sales in Japan

And I'm the one being naive

You can bet your ass that if Nintendo had a console with similar specs to the Series S/X, Square would be selling waay more stuff in that console

MS could spend 100M on the exclusivity, Square knows that FF XVI wouldnt sell shit on a MS console in Japan, no matter how much money they throw at it

Square would preffer to give FF exclusivity for free for Nintendo/Sony instead of selling it for 150M to MS

Yeah Square would be selling all their games on the Nintendo Series S, not because they're japanese but because the install base would be very high most likely, in Japan at the very least.

Exclusivity for free is the same thing as "the projected sales won't cover a profit margin where we will be comfortable spending money and time porting to that platform" which is most likely the case. Just because a platform exist doesn't mean it has an inherent right to games.

Xbox could be haitian for all a business cares, if people bought the games they would release them.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Isn't there a PC version? If so that makes their claim a bit embarrassing.

Several months later and they get money for it as it is a different release people have to buy.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Is there a japanese cellphone company that can compete head to head with Apple in Japan?

Is there any japanese cellphone company, actually?

You don’t know what you’re talking about. If you go to Tokyo you will see how western culture is a huge consumable. From cars to fashion.

They protect their language, but that doesn’t mean they don’t buy a lot of western products.

So Xbox’s problem isn’t the console, it’s the games.

 

[PropellerEar]

Is there a japanese cellphone company that can compete head to head with Apple in Japan?

Is there any japanese cellphone company, actually?

Sony?