What is the point of System Wars?

With the exception of Horizon: Forbidden West, which aint coming before holiday 2021 at the earliest, if Cows are expecting wall to wall bangers in the PS5's first 2 years, you are setting yourself up for dissapointment.

Im defining a "headline game" as the next mainline installment developed by the primary team of Sony's flagship AAA studios. The "A-team" in other words. The "real" games you are all buying the system for. The next mainline NaughtyDog project. God of War: Ragnarok, the "proper" Spider Man 2. etc.

Not a side project, a half game, Season Pass DLC "Standalone" game, or rushed 1st year launch titles.

All of Sony's studios are currently accounted for. All have either just wrapped big projects, or have only recently started big projects which will not be due for a long, LONG time. Also, most of them we know or can easily intuit what they are doing.

For now, You'll get the PS5's equivalent of Killzone ShadowFall, Infamous: Second Son, and The Order:1886, I.E. "undercard" games that arbitrarily on paper couldnt run on the previous console, but are still "mid" ass games that will be permanently relegated to the dust bin of history after one year.

Xbox will get these "mid" games too, but they also have alot of studios that are not currently accounted for, or are due for big projects that have been in the pipes for a while.

I agree, both of those things are funny. The circumstances of both those quotes, not my statements, to be clear. Both are hilarious.

Choice is fully up to the developer. Cross-Gen policy is not set in stone, and there are no set rules for first party.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-firstparty-studios-can-make-series-x-exclusiv/1100-6479862/

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer spoke with German outlet GameStar and revealed that Microsoft's plans for cross-generation titles on both Xbox Series X and Xbox One aren't quite set in stone. While Spencer previously said that he doesn't expect to see next-gen exclusives for the next couple of years, he clarified that it's completely up to Microsoft's first-party studios whether they target both consoles or not.

"We've added a lot of studios to the Xbox Game Studios organization over the last few years and providing them the financial stability, the creative freedom to go build the games that they want to go build," Spencer stated. "Our game creators want to build great games that can reach a large audience of players."

However, Spencer says that the vision for each of their first-party titles starts with the player rather than a system--so the platforms that each individual title hits will be dependent on the developer's vision.

"If a creator comes to us ... and says, 'No, I really want to focus on next generation' with their games, we're completely open to that," Spencer admits. "We're very supportive of that. If a creator comes to us and says, 'I have this vision for reaching these customers across different platforms and different generations.' We're completely supportive of that. It is really about our creators having choice and allowing them to build the games that they want to build to reach the audience that they're looking for and not things that we're mandating to our creators in terms of what they have to go build."

Spencer also confirmed that there are no set rules for developers when it comes to cross-generation support and that he wants "creators creating the games that they want to go build." Players will be able to see these games in action July 23 during the Xbox Games Showcase.

Even though with the PS5, nothing they showed outside of Ratchet looked like it couldnt run on a PS4, and you're definately going to get arbitrarily gated off games on PS5 (like putting Spiderman DLC behind a $499 paywall, etc), its all about optics.

I've said from the beginning of all this, the main "sin" from MS here is in the optics and the phrasing. Its like they cant stop saying monumentally stupid sounding shit from a PR optics standpoint, setting themselves up for roasting and giving ammo to bad faith actors. I agree with the messaging of Sony on principle, but the PRACTICE is actually going to be closer to Microsoft.

Weren't Cows all about indie games at the start of this gen?

If rumors of a $199 Lockhart are true, I dont think the consumer currently in the market for a One X, or an S All-Digital edition have anything to worry about.

Keep in mind that device will be more powerful (on paper in every way) than the PS4 Pro. The current MSRP of the PS4 Pro is $399, and $199 is the current MSRP of the PS4 Slim. Put that in perspective.

If you dont think a casual audience (ie. the kind of people currently buying PS4 slims or Xbox SAD editions right now) as well as people who switched to playstation this gen and will STILL choose the PS5, but may also be lapsed Halo fans who just want the cheapest box that plays Halo, wont buy this thing in droves at that price.........

There is also the fact that this thing is supposed to be tiny. There may be a "novelty" effect similar to the Wii, just based on its form factor and the size of the thing, compared to the power it packs.

There cannot possibly be people redacted enough to think the PS5 is going to launch at $299.

Sony would have to incur a $150 loss, (meaning,$1.5 billion dollar loss on its initial shipment of 10 million) despite not only NOT having as many means to do this as MS, they also have no impetus to do this because they are already the market leader. The consoles are already selling like crazy (as cows are quick to remind us) and they have the super-duper social media engagement numbers, breaking records on instagram engagements with a logo (and other such nonsense) etc.

Typically, when you're the market leader, you dont then engage in some crazy loss-leader strategy. That is typically when you increase your margins. You only do a loss leader strategy to increase marketshare/mindshare, and drive brand engagement. You dont do that when you are at the height of your momentum and already awash in those things. Not to mention, a business model that depends on hardware profits more than Microsofts. To put this in perspective, Sony earned $5.34 billion in operating profits for the fiscal year ending march 2020. Remember, this would cost Sony $1.5 billion on its first 10 million units. And Playstation is one of the only profitable divisions at Sony.

In effect, Cows expect Sony to burn billions of dollars they cannot afford to forfeit, in a game of price chicken they not only will absolutely lose (Phil has been given a mandate from Satya to match them), but dont even need to do, for no reason other than system wars, despite having no impetus to do so.

Cows, if you are floating this as a remote possibility, please dont ever give accounting advice to the second wealthiest company on the face of the earth again.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/yearly-xbox-live-gold-subscription-is-no-longer-available-on-xbox-com.249052/

It looks like Microsoft removed the Xbox Live Gold yearly sub option from their site, could it be that they're gearing up to do something with the service at the showcase?

1 month and 3 months subs still exist, and you can still buy yearly cards... but with next-gen looming, I do have to wonder if they're not gearing up to convert everybody with active subs to game pass, and putting emphasis on that service instead. Perhaps online MP will become free?

I dont think they're making XBL free. Possibly merging Gamepass and XBL?

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If the specs were reversed, OP wouldn't have made this thread.

/thread.

And we now know why Tim Sweeney was shilling the PS5's ssd so hard.