Sony’s Protective Stance on Crossplay

[CriticalGaming]

think this is going to bite them in the ass, and Sony is going to have a lot of catching up to do, when one of their competitors finally start to do something, this generation.

Considering how much of a headstart sony has, if somehow Xbox not only catches up but also passes them, then i will gladly jump ship.

But that is a big fucking IF.

Sony has released many several exclusives thus far and microsoft has done.....what? Gamepass? Oh they also released The Medium. I forgot about that.

 

[BrawlMan]

Considering how much of a headstart sony has, if somehow Xbox not only catches up but also passes them, then i will gladly jump ship.

But that is a big fucking IF.

Sony has released many several exclusives thus far and microsoft has done.....what? Gamepass? Oh they also released The Medium. I forgot about that.

I have no plans on jumping ship any time soon, but I will call all of the shady and heinous actions Sony has been pulling the last couple of years.

 

[Gergar12]

As someone who hates playing against PC players on War Thunder, damn it Sony. What is your problem?!?! Not everyone can get a PS5, and PS4s are not easy to come by either. At this point, I am sick of exclusives, and I am sick of exclusive console environments. I never like how you can't play Zelda on PS or can't play this single-player game on Xbox, or have a halo title on Switch. I with Emulators were a thing with PC, but the fucking copyright trolls would just sue them. Also, PCs are hella expensive.

 

[Piscian]

Every time they make decisions like this, I almost instinctively think that another PSN hacking will be around the corner.

This stands out most to me, Modern Vintage Gamer, who does a lot emulation development, had a video where he talks about the primary incentive for hackers being closed systems. Microsoft took a really interesting approach by letting users pay $20 to be able boot alternative OS and do whatever they want with the series s/x. Between that, crossplay, buy once Xbox/pc, backwards compatibility and the gamepass catalog they've pretty much done everything in their power to mitigate hacking and piracy. I'm not sure if that was the intent in your post, but yeah shitty practices do lead to hacking and piracy.

 

[laggyteabag]

Considering how much of a headstart sony has, if somehow Xbox not only catches up but also passes them, then i will gladly jump ship.

But that is a big fucking IF.

Sony has released many several exclusives thus far and microsoft has done.....what? Gamepass? Oh they also released The Medium. I forgot about that.

This isn't going to be like the Xbox One.

When Microsoft launched the Xbox One, they had about 5 first party studios.

Now they have bought their way to having almost 25.

Sony has about 15.

Microsoft are going to be releasing a boatload of games over the next year or so, and by the end of the generation, the Xbox is probably going to have the biggest library of exclusive games.

Whether or not any of those games are going to be good obviously remains to be seen, and this very well may end up being a Quality > Quantity situation, but this is Microsoft's biggest and best chance to become relevant again.

The only thing that I am surprised by, is how out of 25 studios, not one had anything ready for the console's launch. I know that Halo was the plan, and that obviously didn't work out well, but still, surprising.

 

[sXeth]

This isn't going to be like the Xbox One.

When Microsoft launched the Xbox One, they had about 5 first party studios.

Now they have bought their way to having almost 25.

Sony has about 15.

Microsoft are going to be releasing a boatload of games over the next year or so, and by the end of the generation, the Xbox is probably going to have the biggest library of exclusive games.

Whether or not any of those games are going to be good obviously remains to be seen, and this very well may end up being a Quality > Quantity situation, but this is Microsoft's biggest and best chance to become relevant again.

The only thing that I am surprised by, is how out of 25 studios, not one had anything ready for the console's launch. I know that Halo was the plan, and that obviously didn't work out well, but still, surprising.

Second verse same as the first.

Oh, not the Xbox One... original Xbox (and I think 160?) Microsoft went on a big tear, buying up studios and so forth. And they got..... Halo, out of it. Maybe Fable if you count that.


And they're following prettymuch the same pattern. Stacking up a bunch of slightly indie-ish but well-repped developers. But do the yhave any plans for them. And they got Bethesda instead of Molyneux this time, which is ironic cause Todd Howards about the same mold as Molyneux.


And do any of those studios even begin to approach the level of system selling flagships. Even Bethesdas pretty lackluster for that, since TES6 isn't going to be for literal years and their next big title is.... Starfield. A new IP that literally no one in any gaming community or social circle I'm in has ever uttered so much as a word about.

 

[laggyteabag]

Second verse same as the first.

Oh, not the Xbox One... original Xbox (and I think 160?) Microsoft went on a big tear, buying up studios and so forth. And they got..... Halo, out of it. Maybe Fable if you count that.

And they're following prettymuch the same pattern. Stacking up a bunch of slightly indie-ish but well-repped developers. But do the yhave any plans for them. And they got Bethesda instead of Molyneux this time, which is ironic cause Todd Howards about the same mold as Molyneux.

And do any of those studios even begin to approach the level of system selling flagships. Even Bethesdas pretty lackluster for that, since TES6 isn't going to be for literal years and their next big title is.... Starfield. A new IP that literally no one in any gaming community or social circle I'm in has ever uttered so much as a word about.

You make a fair point.

The Xbox brand has spent too long, relying too heavily on Halo, Gears, and Forza, and this tactic has seen little success since about... what, 2010?

But, even though a lot of the new studios are AA at best, this at least shows that Microsoft is at least trying to rectify what went so badly wrong with the Xbox One. Even if I disagree with their tactic of just buying out existing talent, instead of creating their own.

At the very least, I am curious to see what these studios produce, and how this generation eventually unfolds - but I do personally believe that it will be a lot more competitive than people think.

 

[CriticalGaming]

You make a fair point.

The Xbox brand has spent too long, relying too heavily on Halo, Gears, and Forza, and this tactic has seen little success since about... what, 2010?

But, even though a lot of the new studios are AA at best, this at least shows that Microsoft is at least trying to rectify what went so badly wrong with the Xbox One. Even if I disagree with their tactic of just buying out existing talent, instead of creating their own.

At the very least, I am curious to see what these studios produce, and how this generation eventually unfolds - but I do personally believe that it will be a lot more competitive than people think.

I would also point out that Sony gets a lot of third party exclusives. Like Final Fantasy from Square, Persona from Atlus, Nioh from Team Ninja, etc, etc.

So they might own fewer studios but other publishers are also just putting exclusive out for them as well.

Microsoft owns Bethesda sure, but the last decent game out of them was 10 years ago so what hope do we really have of ES6 or Starfield being any good? At least at launch. Most Bethesda games require player mods to fix and that is a much harder ask on a console.

Hell if Microsoft owns so many studios then where the fuck are the games? Where are even the ANNOUNCEMENT of games? Outside of Fable and Halo (which already is on dangerous development territory) what else is coming? And when!?

It isnt even like i want to bag on Microsoft or even that i want them to fail. The console market is better when there is competition, and i want there to be genuine reasons to consider getting an Xbox. But Microsoft just doesnt seem to be able to get anything off the ground.

People talk about how cocky Sony is getting by not allowing cross play on everything under the sun. But Microsoft is still riding the wave of when they were on top with the 360. Except they havent realized that their wave is gone and they are face down in the sand.

 

[BrawlMan]

I would also point out that Sony gets a lot of third party exclusives. Like Final Fantasy from Square, Persona from Atlus, Nioh from Team Ninja, etc, etc.

So they might own fewer studios but other publishers are also just putting exclusive out for them as well.

Microsoft owns Bethesda sure, but the last decent game out of them was 10 years ago so what hope do we really have of ES6 or Starfield being any good? At least at launch. Most Bethesda games require player mods to fix and that is a much harder ask on a console.

Hell if Microsoft owns so many studios then where the fuck are the games? Where are even the ANNOUNCEMENT of games? Outside of Fable and Halo (which already is on dangerous development territory) what else is coming? And when!?

It isnt even like i want to bag on Microsoft or even that i want them to fail. The console market is better when there is competition, and i want there to be genuine reasons to consider getting an Xbox. But Microsoft just doesnt seem to be able to get anything off the ground.

People talk about how cocky Sony is getting by not allowing cross play on everything under the sun. But Microsoft is still riding the wave of when they were on top with the 360. Except they havent realized that their wave is gone and they are face down in the sand.

Exactly why not planning on getting an Xbox series X anytime soon. Backwards compatibility all the way to OG Xbox and Game pass is the only thing that it has got going for it.

Also, an arrogant Sony is bad. An arrogant Microsoft is bad. And arrogant Nintendo is bad and arrogant anything be it publisher, developer, or console maker is bad.

 

[laggyteabag]

Hell if Microsoft owns so many studios then where the fuck are the games? Where are even the ANNOUNCEMENT of games? Outside of Fable and Halo (which already is on dangerous development territory) what else is coming? And when!?

I mean, E3 is just around the corner.

June 13th, 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 6PM BST

Obviously this doesn't excuse the anaemic launch of the Series X, and the overall lack of information up until this point, but if answers are coming, they'll come then.

Microsoft owns Bethesda sure, but the last decent game out of them was 10 years ago so what hope do we really have of ES6 or Starfield being any good? At least at launch. Most Bethesda games require player mods to fix and that is a much harder ask on a console.

I do find it funny how Bethesda have been lauded as the masters of the RPG genre for years and years, and tons of people are excited about just about anything that Todd Howard vaguely glances at, but then as soon as Microsoft bought them, suddenly "Bethesda sucks!" ,"TES6 is too far away to make a difference!", "Nobody knows anything about Starfield, so who cares!"

Im not going to assume how you feel about them - personally I've always seen Bethesda as being a bit shit - but I just find it funny how the sentiment changes, when people can no longer play their games.

Personally, when the Bethesda acquisition was announced, I was more interested in pretty much every other dev under the same umbrella. Arkane, iD, Machine Games, etc.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

This stands out most to me, Modern Vintage Gamer, who does a lot emulation development, had a video where he talks about the primary incentive for hackers being closed systems. Microsoft took a really interesting approach by letting users pay $20 to be able boot alternative OS and do whatever they want with the series s/x. Between that, crossplay, buy once Xbox/pc, backwards compatibility and the gamepass catalog they've pretty much done everything in their power to mitigate hacking and piracy. I'm not sure if that was the intent in your post, but yeah shitty practices do lead to hacking and piracy.

Yup exactly, and who has more experience with hackers than Microsoft. It’s like the business version of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I do wonder though, if hackers make a point of leaving someone like say, Nintendo alone. They are arguably the most protective and closed ecosystem in the industry but we never hear of anyone messing with them. Maybe it’s because they are in more of a kid-centric market segment or they’re just respected differently for wanting to stay isolated.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I mean, E3 is just around the corner.

June 13th, 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 6PM BST

Obviously this doesn't excuse the anaemic launch of the Series X, and the overall lack of information up until this point, but if answers are coming, they'll come then.

I do find it funny how Bethesda have been lauded as the masters of the RPG genre for years and years, and tons of people are excited about just about anything that Todd Howard vaguely glances at, but then as soon as Microsoft bought them, suddenly "Bethesda sucks!" ,"TES6 is too far away to make a difference!", "Nobody knows anything about Starfield, so who cares!"

Im not going to assume how you feel about them - personally I've always seen Bethesda as being a bit shit - but I just find it funny how the sentiment changes, when people can no longer play their games.

Personally, when the Bethesda acquisition was announced, I was more interested in pretty much every other dev under the same umbrella. Arkane, iD, Machine Games, etc.

Bethesda has been lambasted by people for a while now. Since Fallout 4 was not all that great. For a while Bethesda was getting away with terribly made games because the writing would carry the game.

Fallout 4 was the point where the writing began to suck and then people realized how poorly put together the game actually was.

But Bethesda games have always been buggy messes it didnt start with Fallout 4. Skyrim used to create saves so big it would eventually brick consoles for example. Then Fallout 76 was obviously completely fucked. And while you could argue it was a secondary team, they didnt advertise it as such and it has become clear the engine is incapable of handling new hardware.

Basically Bethesda is reliant on its other studios like you said. ID, Arkane and the like.

I find it funny you mention things like "oh but e3 is coming." But i would like to point out that both Nintendo and Sony have directs and State of Plays throughout the year with game updates and new previews almost every time. How come Microsoft doesnt do that? Are they stockpiling all their shit for E3 so that when they finally take the state theyll have so much to explode all over our faces it will make us look like a Japanese Bukaki film?

Or.....maybe they dont have shit and are scrambling to make ANYTHING ready enough just to show it at E3?

 

[Piscian]

Yup exactly, and who has more experience with hackers than Microsoft. It’s like the business version of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I do wonder though, if hackers make a point of leaving someone like say, Nintendo alone. They are arguably the most protective and closed ecosystem in the industry but we never hear of anyone messing with them. Maybe it’s because they are in more of a kid-centric market segment or they’re just respected differently for wanting to stay isolated.

Not sure what you mean, they hacked the shit out of the switch and 3ds. The leader of team executer was arrested after Nintendo sent authorities after him. There's a big legal battle going on. If you mean network hacking. Yeah idk. Their network security was briefly circumvented. For a time you could download digital Switch games if you had the right tools, but they patched it out. Maybe they don't have enough users or just have better network security than Sony these days.

 

[laggyteabag]

I find it funny you mention things like "oh but e3 is coming." But i would like to point out that both Nintendo and Sony have directs and State of Plays throughout the year with game updates and new previews almost every time. How come Microsoft doesnt do that? Are they stockpiling all their shit for E3 so that when they finally take the state theyll have so much to explode all over our faces it will make us look like a Japanese Bukaki film?

Or.....maybe they dont have shit and are scrambling to make ANYTHING ready enough just to show it at E3?

Well, for most companies, it seems to be one, or the other.

One big, 90 minute show once a year, or lots of smaller direct-style showcases throughout the year. I don't think either is the "right way" to do it.

I know it is a bit of a controversial opinion, but I've always loved E3. These direct-style, pre-cut, flashy videos are nice and all, but nothing beats the on-stage cringe of an E3 presentation.

That said, I do ask "why not both?". I would love a huge announcement show like E3, and then lots of direct-style deep-dives into the individual games.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Not sure what you mean, they hacked the shit out of the switch and 3ds. The leader of team executer was arrested after Nintendo sent authorities after him. There's a big legal battle going on. If you mean network hacking. Yeah idk. Their network security was briefly circumvented. For a time you could download digital Switch games if you had the right tools, but they patched it out. Maybe they don't have enough users or just have better network security than Sony these days.

Well that’s news to me. I guess I’d have to retract my former statement.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I know it is a bit of a controversial opinion, but I've always loved E3. These direct-style, pre-cut, flashy videos are nice and all, but nothing beats the on-stage cringe of an E3 presentation.

I also miss E3 on principal.

Not the corporate jacking off it had become, but E3 to me used to be like a Video Game trade show where companies from all over would get together to show the world what they were working on and what's coming. Then as publishers got bigger and bigger, it just became more and more of a mess and it lost the gaming passion it used to have.

Now I do enjoy the periodic "directs" more because it makes the industry feel more active to have many of smaller shows throughout the year. Even if the output would technically be the same. Sometimes just the optics of many shows feels better than one big show.

To be fair, Microsoft did a "direct" in....like November or whatever when they announced Fable and The Medium and....oh...Halo Infinite.

 

[Piscian]

Well that’s news to me. I guess I’d have to retract my former statement.

Yeah couple things happened

1. The launch version of the Nintendo Switch had a very simple physical key mechanism that allowed RMA workers to boot into the development/diagnostics mode. Hackers discovered this exploit and successfully proved you could boot into unsigned code on the switch. You can actually install linux if you wanted. Team executer, the OG modchip guys did and are still taking the official Nintendo Switch OS and creating an alternative version you can boot and run pirated games or unsigned apps like retoarch. Nintendo removed the exploit in the second switch hw revision and NIntendo Lite but this was cracked immediately both times, so they went to the feds(not sure which country) and The lead at Team executer was arrested last October. I cant find any current info.

2. After the exploit was found it was also discovered Nintendos eshop isnt using two-factor+ authentication so you could essentially trick the store into thinking you own a game and download it. Nintendo fixed that exploit.

3. They hacked into the Nintendo development Database and found a treasure trove of source code for pretty much every nintendo first party game ever and a bunch of neat things that never got published. I'm not sure if Nintendo ever spoke out about it, but a bunch OG developers came out and talked about the games that got leaked and neat history behind them now that theyre out in the open. This ancient stuff from like the SNES days. The benefit is a lot of this stuff is being finished by home developers and put out on the indie scene so thats neat.

All that said none of this really harms users. Not like the Sony hacks which took down the network or stole user data. As nice as it is to laugh at Sony that was pretty uncool for subscribers.

 

[sXeth]

I mean, E3 is just around the corner.

June 13th, 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 6PM BST

Obviously this doesn't excuse the anaemic launch of the Series X, and the overall lack of information up until this point, but if answers are coming, they'll come then.

I do find it funny how Bethesda have been lauded as the masters of the RPG genre for years and years, and tons of people are excited about just about anything that Todd Howard vaguely glances at, but then as soon as Microsoft bought them, suddenly "Bethesda sucks!" ,"TES6 is too far away to make a difference!", "Nobody knows anything about Starfield, so who cares!"

Im not going to assume how you feel about them - personally I've always seen Bethesda as being a bit shit - but I just find it funny how the sentiment changes, when people can no longer play their games.

Personally, when the Bethesda acquisition was announced, I was more interested in pretty much every other dev under the same umbrella. Arkane, iD, Machine Games, etc.

I've never really been on the Bethesda train. Morrowind was ambitious but janky and rough edged all over. Oblivion was probably the peak but also kind of generic in its setting/writing and still rough around the edges. Skyrim got polished, but only by sanding off all the interesting bits compeltely, and was full of promised features that never showed up, Both Bethesda fallouts were just a slog. 76 was a mess that showed just how inept they were, trying to bubblegum 2 out dated engines together and dabble in a different genre without even basic concepts of that genres workings.

Then as publishers go...
New Vegas was shoved out the half finished. first new Wolfenstein had potential but also a lot of weird choices, the second was 1/3rd of game and Youngblood was just a trainwreck. The Dishonoreds were solid, but then PRey was just dull and Deathloop is just the Prey DLC/standalone thing done over again as a full game. Even Doom Eternal was a weirdly unfocused and awakward sidestep from the success of 2016.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Then as publishers go...
New Vegas was shoved out the half finished. first new Wolfenstein had potential but also a lot of weird choices, the second was 1/3rd of game and Youngblood was just a trainwreck. The Dishonoreds were solid, but then PRey was just dull and Deathloop is just the Prey DLC/standalone thing done over again as a full game. Even Doom Eternal was a weirdly unfocused and awakward sidestep from the success of 2016.

It's funny to me that the most popular Fallout and the one people praise the most, is the one NOT made by Bethesda. Not only was it not made by Bethesda, but another team and that team was rushed as fuck.

Though I'd say the Doom and Doom Eternal were fairly consistent with each other. However Rage as a series is just a waste of time. Prey...was okay, at best it was a polarizing title.

Basically the whole Bethesda purchase was not exactly a win, because while they shit out a diamond every once in a while, they miss far more often.

 

[sXeth]

It's funny to me that the most popular Fallout and the one people praise the most, is the one NOT made by Bethesda. Not only was it not made by Bethesda, but another team and that team was rushed as fuck.

Though I'd say the Doom and Doom Eternal were fairly consistent with each other. However Rage as a series is just a waste of time. Prey...was okay, at best it was a polarizing title.

Basically the whole Bethesda purchase was not exactly a win, because while they shit out a diamond every once in a while, they miss far more often.

Ah ha, I didn't eveen remember Rage.


I mean, I'd say the best Fallout was 2. I wasn't a big fan of New Vegas either, even setting aside its rushed state. "Here's some stuff. it kind of sounds cool, but there's no narrative hook or real story progression whatsoever" would be my best summary. Like th Beth open worlds aren't exactly great at progressing narratives, but New Vegas just never really did anything until the finale, when they prettymuch Bioware'd it into a good/neutral/evil choice (or you could do the 4th option to tell them all to sod off). At no poijnt prior to that does any story or even the world around you seem to be going on whatsoever.


Eternal is... polarizing to say the least. Attempting to inject a grand space-fantasy storyline into Doom (complete with oodles of cutscenes, and one whole level thats basically slow walking while exposition dumps). A big argument that the new "tactical" gameplay (which boils down to memorizing which of 12 guns (24 wiht secondary fires) applies to which enemy) bogs everything down. Even more convoluted upgrade systems. Like you can see the attempt to expand on the experience.... but it all goes pretty antithetical to the core experience of visceral fast shooting. That and the ludicrous amounts of platforming, which is never going to be received well in an FPS ever (outside of those that were built ground up with those elements like Mirrors Edge or Dying Light (which inversely tend to have awful gunplay).


Slap on the total abandonment of the user-created map tool as well. Which added a ton of extras to the game, and was also the only way to do "classic" Doom Multiplayer instead of the weird nonsense built-in multiplayer.