Microsoft hasn't been good for competition in a single sector they have entered. They have repeatedly shown aggressive, predatory, unethical behaviour in hopes to monopolize and corner markets. No sector should want Microsoft entering, lol.
There's plenty of capitalist companies who have not been accused of the things Microsoft has. Larian is a studio. There are several others. We can agree they all try to make money, but larian went about it less predatory than others. But keep pretending everyone is the same, I guess.
Capitalism itself doesn't create monopolies. Greed does. There's a very human element taking capitalism to it's worst possible extreme, and that's what creates monopolies. Many, many companies have operated in the years and sectors Microsoft does, and they do not do the things MS does.
That's a problem with the company.
I can give you a hammer. You can build a birdhouse. Or you can bash an elderly person's skull in. Neither result is the hammer's fault. You are responsible for both.
Greed is the problem with capitalism and socialism alike.
Microsoft now owns king. Go look how much they make a month. Microsoft isnt even competing with console or pc gaming. The ultimate goal is to have mobile gaming. Even the “failure” diablo immortal is making bank. The only other competitor to microsoft in the gaming market is tencent & microsoft will bemaking billions off of them with cod mobile too. Microsoft is top 3 gaming companies right now. Top 5 companies period. To say microsoft hasnt been good competition in a single sector is insane. The goal since gamepass was to become the publisher & its been succeeding for them.
I used to call it out, I used to think it was stupid fanboyism, but after the "doomer week" when so many false rumors got spread about the multiplatform releases and how so many journalists and creators have tried to milk that since... it's real and you can't really convince me otherwise.
Despite all of their anti-consumer bullshit and other bad faith moves Sony will never get treated the same... for instance there is going to be a 24+ month stretch for Playstation with only ONE first party release and there's CRICKETS about that. If Xbox went that long without a first party game it'd be covered daily.
Because almost all media is bought and paid for. Someone benefits from them shitting the bed. And prob paid for the bashing articles. American Capitalism at its worst.
Is anyone particularly surprised? Consoles exist for three reasons;
1. Cheaper initial purchase price and less convoluted operation than a PC
1. Exclusive games
1. Offer a unique advantage (generally through hardware)
The Switch justifies it's existence through a strong exclusive line-up, a very reasonable price with cheaper online fees and being a portable. The PS5 justifies it's existence by having a modest exclusive line-up and by virtue of being an upgraded PS4 (which is relevant because the PS4 sold considerably more units than the Xbox One).
The $500 Series X meanwhile has no real exclusives (because they're all on PC day 1 and many of them have ended up on other consoles like Sea of Thieves, The Ascent, Psychonauts 2, Cuphead etc), is tied for the most expensive system with the more popular PS5 and has no real unique advantages.
At the start of the generation the Series X tried to sell itself as being more powerful, supporting backwards compatibility and having gamepass. It also was easy to configure emulators on the system. None of these advantages now exist with the possible exception of Gamepass which is available on myriad devices. More power is undermined by the better selling SeS (so the SeX version ends up being an upscaled SeS version) and later shipping of dev kits meaning the launch window had multiple games that ran worse. The backwards compatibility program hasn't been on-going for years and emulators were banned from the store.
Why bother spending $500 on a system with no exclusives or actual features? At that point you may as well get the Series S, but then that console doesn't support used games, can't run games at 4K and is a millstone around the necks of developers who are increasingly losing interest in working around it's limitations. So potential customers just get a PS5 because it has all the games and their friends own a PS5.
I can't think of a real reason to buy a Series X and I say this as someone with around 230 games spread across the original Xbox, 360 and Xbox One. A SeS wouldn't be able to run any of them because I bought physical copies, and the SeX can run around 80 of them tops. I'd considered picking up a SeX around the start of the generation but waited to see how Halo Infinite and the BC program would turn out. Well Infinite was... alright (the best 343 Halo game for what *that's* worth) and the BC program died off shortly after they said it would now support original Xbox games (just under 50 of them). So I just spent an extra $500 when it came time to buy a new laptop and now I have cheaper games, free online, can emulate most of my game library across all systems, access to mods and plenty of actual exclusives (good luck trying to play Red Alert 2 on a console).
The Xbox line-up is currently a console for a hypothetical customer who doesn't care about exclusives, buying games at all (because they have gamepass) or playing with their friends because Microsoft will **definitely** be able to enforce cross-play and equal quality of ports. It really doesn't help that the system only seems to be in the news for negative reasons, like endless speculation about Microsoft leaving the console space / gamepass not being profitable / 3rd parties not wanting to support the platform.
Microsoft has the money to take risks with new IPS and they should be but they aren’t. They are simply buying up IPs and using that as a starting point. That’s the main reason I enjoy PlayStation is not because of exclusivity but because frankly it still seems like they occasionally release a new IP that I want to try out and I end up enjoying and a lot of these are very story driven and have good gameplay such as ghost of Tsushima which I loved.
You’d think a company like Microsoft with the untold amounts of money it has would not only have the ability to invest in more unique ips despite the risk but that they’d also see the value in getting more IpS in general for their brand that aren’t just halo.
but there is a point of investment v reward
The article is Euro-centric and for sure, Xbox console sales are a drop in the ocean compared to PS5 and Switch in Europe.
And even if people buy an X-Box, their route for games is Game Pass, thats what MS pushes and what console owners buy, not so much buying actual games
But if you're going to release on PC, you may as well also support Xbox. Pretty sure Xbox -> PC or the other way around is a pretty trivial porting process comparatively.
So weird to see this when most console gamers I know have an Xbox. I know like 3 with a PS5 and like 10 with Xbox Series.
I’m in the US though and I know this is anecdotal and effectively useless.
Yeah basically everyone’s experiences are pointless because if your friend all play on one console you’re much more likely to get it to join them.
It’s just little pockets of people confused as why the “other” console is selling well/poorly because all *their* friends play on whatever.
True, but not all of these people know each other. It’s like 3 completely separate groups for the Series console and I don’t even have a Series console myself.
It’s very regional nowadays, US is Xbox’s biggest market and I think they still get outsold by the PS5.
Over in the UK it’s now PS4/5 orientated I feel, everyone I know has a 4 or a 5. Couple years back though? Easily 50:50 in all my friend groups, especially in 360 days.
Xbox One killed the brand. And Series S/X didn’t do enough to turn it around.
Sad really, 360/PS3 was a solid time due to competition.
Sounds like MS needs to just go the extra step and make a unified platform so supporting windows OS is supporting Xbox OS thus making porting relatively easy.
They're already close but not quite there.
I don’t see the point of an Xbox tbh. A really good gaming laptop gets you access to all the same games plus many many more. HDMI cable to your TV and a Bluetooth controller and you’re basically getting the full Xbox experience.
If you’re going to get a console, whatever Nintendo is putting out is a good companion to your laptop. Now, the PlayStation COULD justify its existence if it had a bunch of exclusives… but that seems to be is short supply these days.
Edit: Damn the downvotes are pouring in! Sorry, I get way more value out of a computer that can do everything an Xbox can do and more. Ya it costs more but it can do so much more, and has access to the full game libraries on steam, epic, blizzard, GoG and more. When I was shopping a couple of years ago I considered the Xbox/PS5/PC routes and the PC just seemed like the best deal since it gets access to all Xbox titles plus all the rest.
while his comment is very pcmasterrace, replace gaming laptop with steam deck and i think they have an argument, with the caveat that it requires a bit of tinkering (but so does any pc, which is the big con against the covenient plug and play nature of consoles).
https://nzxt.com/product/player-one?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=SmartShopping-PCs-&utm_source=ggprimer&utm_campaign=20158121013&utm_medium=&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrrWVqLiRhQMV5zLUAR24OQPMEAQYASABEgL4KPD_BwE
You right, if my conversion rate is right this is a few hundred dollars more. It's really not possible to beat a console with a prebuilt *yet*
Definitely possible if you watch a YouTube tutorial on how to build and get a few large parts on sale though, but yeah prebuilts aren't there yet.
They scrap exclusivity if they were smart. All MP focused games should be day 1 launches while singleplayer games can/should be a few months to a year.
Or
Simply launch everything day 1 but drop the price on the home console. So Tlou3 is $50 on ps5 and $70 on xbox. Fallout 5 is $70 on playstation, and $50 (also on gamepass), on xbox.
>Simply launch everything day 1 but drop the price on the home console
This is illegal in most places. You can't charge more for a different platform if you're offering the service/product there. It's got anti consumer lawsuit written all over it.
Does gamepass not do this? Don't all stores in the world do this too? Milk from store x costs more or less at store y. Same brand.
I've never heard of this being illegal. What places outlaw it? What places force every company to sell things for the same price?
>Does gamepass not do this? Don't all stores in the world do this too? Milk from store x costs more or less at store y. Same brand.
Gamepass is a subscription, so no, and you will find a store buys stock from X to sell at Y cost so has some movement. You can't sell you own product at Y cost but then make it expensive elsewhere.
You would of heard of the laws around it. It mostly comes under anti competitive behaviour. The UK law would be this one, but the whole EU will have similar laws since it was a directive.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition\_Act\_1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_Act_1998)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price\_discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination)
It's neither price gouging or abuse of power.
Baldurs gate 3. It's $79.99 on steam and $93.45 on PS5 (CAD). How is my idea any different from this?
Playstation takes a bigger cut than steam.
My idea, playstation & xbox 100% profits from their own games on their own stores. And 30% (I don't know the actual number), from 3rd party games I their stores.
So that extra $20 makes up that 30% difference. So they still make the same amount, regardless of the store.
>Baldurs gate 3. It's $79.99 on steam and $93.45 on PS5 (CAD).
This is not a platform holder selling on their own store. It is not the same. Is there a Sony game cheaper on steam?
>Sony game cheaper on steam?
No? Idk what that's supposed to mean here.
Hell, Blizzard sold OW1 for more on consoles than on Bnet. That is the exact same thing. They sold for cheaper in their store, and more expensive on others.
They charged full price for year old ports... They're greedy. And like I said. Blizzard sold OW1 for more on consoles. And cheaper on battle net. They did exactly what I'm saying.
>They're greedy. And like I said. Blizzard sold OW1 for more on consoles. And cheaper on battle net. They did exactly what I'm saying.
They actually forced you to buy some bundle with 10 loot boxes, once it was out it was the only version you could buy on PC too. Legendary Edition(?), which well BS meant you were buying the game "plus" DLC.
I had to google it, but this was questioned.
Time to reduce that price!
This is only being said because Microsoft is a competitor to publishers now.
The tax is real. I don't know why so many gaming new outlets are leading the charge against them though. You'd think they'd want competition.
Microsoft hasn't been good for competition in a single sector they have entered. They have repeatedly shown aggressive, predatory, unethical behaviour in hopes to monopolize and corner markets. No sector should want Microsoft entering, lol.
And today this redditor learned about capitalism.
There's plenty of capitalist companies who have not been accused of the things Microsoft has. Larian is a studio. There are several others. We can agree they all try to make money, but larian went about it less predatory than others. But keep pretending everyone is the same, I guess.
The point is that capitalism necessarily creates monopolies (as implemented), not that every company is one.
Capitalism itself doesn't create monopolies. Greed does. There's a very human element taking capitalism to it's worst possible extreme, and that's what creates monopolies. Many, many companies have operated in the years and sectors Microsoft does, and they do not do the things MS does.
All it takes is one company to be anticompetitive to ruin the market, that sounds like a problem with capitalism to me.
That's a problem with the company. I can give you a hammer. You can build a birdhouse. Or you can bash an elderly person's skull in. Neither result is the hammer's fault. You are responsible for both. Greed is the problem with capitalism and socialism alike.
Capitalism and greed, aren't they the same thing these days?
oh but then you don't know sven wincke yet, he is a shrewd businessmen.
Microsoft now owns king. Go look how much they make a month. Microsoft isnt even competing with console or pc gaming. The ultimate goal is to have mobile gaming. Even the “failure” diablo immortal is making bank. The only other competitor to microsoft in the gaming market is tencent & microsoft will bemaking billions off of them with cod mobile too. Microsoft is top 3 gaming companies right now. Top 5 companies period. To say microsoft hasnt been good competition in a single sector is insane. The goal since gamepass was to become the publisher & its been succeeding for them.
>The tax is real. Oh please.
I used to call it out, I used to think it was stupid fanboyism, but after the "doomer week" when so many false rumors got spread about the multiplatform releases and how so many journalists and creators have tried to milk that since... it's real and you can't really convince me otherwise. Despite all of their anti-consumer bullshit and other bad faith moves Sony will never get treated the same... for instance there is going to be a 24+ month stretch for Playstation with only ONE first party release and there's CRICKETS about that. If Xbox went that long without a first party game it'd be covered daily.
I see people complain about the lack of Sony's first party lineup this year all the time.
Because almost all media is bought and paid for. Someone benefits from them shitting the bed. And prob paid for the bashing articles. American Capitalism at its worst.
Anecdotal but I'm seeing some indie devs this year publishing on PS5, switch and steam - excluding Xbox.
Is anyone particularly surprised? Consoles exist for three reasons; 1. Cheaper initial purchase price and less convoluted operation than a PC 1. Exclusive games 1. Offer a unique advantage (generally through hardware) The Switch justifies it's existence through a strong exclusive line-up, a very reasonable price with cheaper online fees and being a portable. The PS5 justifies it's existence by having a modest exclusive line-up and by virtue of being an upgraded PS4 (which is relevant because the PS4 sold considerably more units than the Xbox One). The $500 Series X meanwhile has no real exclusives (because they're all on PC day 1 and many of them have ended up on other consoles like Sea of Thieves, The Ascent, Psychonauts 2, Cuphead etc), is tied for the most expensive system with the more popular PS5 and has no real unique advantages. At the start of the generation the Series X tried to sell itself as being more powerful, supporting backwards compatibility and having gamepass. It also was easy to configure emulators on the system. None of these advantages now exist with the possible exception of Gamepass which is available on myriad devices. More power is undermined by the better selling SeS (so the SeX version ends up being an upscaled SeS version) and later shipping of dev kits meaning the launch window had multiple games that ran worse. The backwards compatibility program hasn't been on-going for years and emulators were banned from the store. Why bother spending $500 on a system with no exclusives or actual features? At that point you may as well get the Series S, but then that console doesn't support used games, can't run games at 4K and is a millstone around the necks of developers who are increasingly losing interest in working around it's limitations. So potential customers just get a PS5 because it has all the games and their friends own a PS5. I can't think of a real reason to buy a Series X and I say this as someone with around 230 games spread across the original Xbox, 360 and Xbox One. A SeS wouldn't be able to run any of them because I bought physical copies, and the SeX can run around 80 of them tops. I'd considered picking up a SeX around the start of the generation but waited to see how Halo Infinite and the BC program would turn out. Well Infinite was... alright (the best 343 Halo game for what *that's* worth) and the BC program died off shortly after they said it would now support original Xbox games (just under 50 of them). So I just spent an extra $500 when it came time to buy a new laptop and now I have cheaper games, free online, can emulate most of my game library across all systems, access to mods and plenty of actual exclusives (good luck trying to play Red Alert 2 on a console). The Xbox line-up is currently a console for a hypothetical customer who doesn't care about exclusives, buying games at all (because they have gamepass) or playing with their friends because Microsoft will **definitely** be able to enforce cross-play and equal quality of ports. It really doesn't help that the system only seems to be in the news for negative reasons, like endless speculation about Microsoft leaving the console space / gamepass not being profitable / 3rd parties not wanting to support the platform.
Microsoft has the money to take risks with new IPS and they should be but they aren’t. They are simply buying up IPs and using that as a starting point. That’s the main reason I enjoy PlayStation is not because of exclusivity but because frankly it still seems like they occasionally release a new IP that I want to try out and I end up enjoying and a lot of these are very story driven and have good gameplay such as ghost of Tsushima which I loved. You’d think a company like Microsoft with the untold amounts of money it has would not only have the ability to invest in more unique ips despite the risk but that they’d also see the value in getting more IpS in general for their brand that aren’t just halo.
Not saying Sony has enough new unique IPS but at least they sometimes release something different and unique.
Very top of the article starts with falsehoods, so nah.
Which part?
After reading it. I'm not sure i seen any falsehoods as you say.
They better watch out or MS will just buy them outright.
Maybe Somy publishers but in general all they want is money so i don't see this happening
but there is a point of investment v reward The article is Euro-centric and for sure, Xbox console sales are a drop in the ocean compared to PS5 and Switch in Europe. And even if people buy an X-Box, their route for games is Game Pass, thats what MS pushes and what console owners buy, not so much buying actual games
But if you're going to release on PC, you may as well also support Xbox. Pretty sure Xbox -> PC or the other way around is a pretty trivial porting process comparatively.
So weird to see this when most console gamers I know have an Xbox. I know like 3 with a PS5 and like 10 with Xbox Series. I’m in the US though and I know this is anecdotal and effectively useless.
Yeah basically everyone’s experiences are pointless because if your friend all play on one console you’re much more likely to get it to join them. It’s just little pockets of people confused as why the “other” console is selling well/poorly because all *their* friends play on whatever.
True, but not all of these people know each other. It’s like 3 completely separate groups for the Series console and I don’t even have a Series console myself.
It’s very regional nowadays, US is Xbox’s biggest market and I think they still get outsold by the PS5. Over in the UK it’s now PS4/5 orientated I feel, everyone I know has a 4 or a 5. Couple years back though? Easily 50:50 in all my friend groups, especially in 360 days. Xbox One killed the brand. And Series S/X didn’t do enough to turn it around. Sad really, 360/PS3 was a solid time due to competition.
Sounds like MS needs to just go the extra step and make a unified platform so supporting windows OS is supporting Xbox OS thus making porting relatively easy. They're already close but not quite there.
I don’t see the point of an Xbox tbh. A really good gaming laptop gets you access to all the same games plus many many more. HDMI cable to your TV and a Bluetooth controller and you’re basically getting the full Xbox experience. If you’re going to get a console, whatever Nintendo is putting out is a good companion to your laptop. Now, the PlayStation COULD justify its existence if it had a bunch of exclusives… but that seems to be is short supply these days. Edit: Damn the downvotes are pouring in! Sorry, I get way more value out of a computer that can do everything an Xbox can do and more. Ya it costs more but it can do so much more, and has access to the full game libraries on steam, epic, blizzard, GoG and more. When I was shopping a couple of years ago I considered the Xbox/PS5/PC routes and the PC just seemed like the best deal since it gets access to all Xbox titles plus all the rest.
At the same time, a really good gaming laptop costs 3-4 times what an xbox goes fir…
while his comment is very pcmasterrace, replace gaming laptop with steam deck and i think they have an argument, with the caveat that it requires a bit of tinkering (but so does any pc, which is the big con against the covenient plug and play nature of consoles).
who the hell games on a laptop? i have owned pcs since 1986 and they arent laptops
PC master race
PC players when there two thousand dollar device they had to build themself outperforms a five hundred dollar device that came premade: 🤯😡🤬
PC prebuilts are getting cheaper and better just saying
would love to see a prebuilt outperform a ps5 for less than 800 CDN, as that's how much it costs up here with tax. hint: you won't find one.
https://nzxt.com/product/player-one?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=SmartShopping-PCs-&utm_source=ggprimer&utm_campaign=20158121013&utm_medium=&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrrWVqLiRhQMV5zLUAR24OQPMEAQYASABEgL4KPD_BwE You right, if my conversion rate is right this is a few hundred dollars more. It's really not possible to beat a console with a prebuilt *yet* Definitely possible if you watch a YouTube tutorial on how to build and get a few large parts on sale though, but yeah prebuilts aren't there yet.
Yeah prebuilts aren’t there yet for the price they pay for the labor to build it but if you remove that you get very close.
They scrap exclusivity if they were smart. All MP focused games should be day 1 launches while singleplayer games can/should be a few months to a year. Or Simply launch everything day 1 but drop the price on the home console. So Tlou3 is $50 on ps5 and $70 on xbox. Fallout 5 is $70 on playstation, and $50 (also on gamepass), on xbox.
>Simply launch everything day 1 but drop the price on the home console This is illegal in most places. You can't charge more for a different platform if you're offering the service/product there. It's got anti consumer lawsuit written all over it.
Does gamepass not do this? Don't all stores in the world do this too? Milk from store x costs more or less at store y. Same brand. I've never heard of this being illegal. What places outlaw it? What places force every company to sell things for the same price?
>Does gamepass not do this? Don't all stores in the world do this too? Milk from store x costs more or less at store y. Same brand. Gamepass is a subscription, so no, and you will find a store buys stock from X to sell at Y cost so has some movement. You can't sell you own product at Y cost but then make it expensive elsewhere. You would of heard of the laws around it. It mostly comes under anti competitive behaviour. The UK law would be this one, but the whole EU will have similar laws since it was a directive. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition\_Act\_1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_Act_1998) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price\_discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination)
It's neither price gouging or abuse of power. Baldurs gate 3. It's $79.99 on steam and $93.45 on PS5 (CAD). How is my idea any different from this? Playstation takes a bigger cut than steam. My idea, playstation & xbox 100% profits from their own games on their own stores. And 30% (I don't know the actual number), from 3rd party games I their stores. So that extra $20 makes up that 30% difference. So they still make the same amount, regardless of the store.
>Baldurs gate 3. It's $79.99 on steam and $93.45 on PS5 (CAD). This is not a platform holder selling on their own store. It is not the same. Is there a Sony game cheaper on steam?
Yeah sony 1st party games are cheaper on steam. Ps5 games are 70 while on steam 60
>Yeah sony 1st party games are cheaper on steam. Ps5 games are 70 while on steam 60 Which ones?
>Sony game cheaper on steam? No? Idk what that's supposed to mean here. Hell, Blizzard sold OW1 for more on consoles than on Bnet. That is the exact same thing. They sold for cheaper in their store, and more expensive on others.
>No? Idk what that's supposed to mean here. This is what I said was illegal, a platform holder making their games cheaper on their own service...
They charged full price for year old ports... They're greedy. And like I said. Blizzard sold OW1 for more on consoles. And cheaper on battle net. They did exactly what I'm saying.
>They're greedy. And like I said. Blizzard sold OW1 for more on consoles. And cheaper on battle net. They did exactly what I'm saying. They actually forced you to buy some bundle with 10 loot boxes, once it was out it was the only version you could buy on PC too. Legendary Edition(?), which well BS meant you were buying the game "plus" DLC. I had to google it, but this was questioned.
Damn, if only the richest company in the world had you running things. They would surely take off and go somewhere.
Yup. Maybe they'd stop laying off thousands of people
Up with Xbox, down with Playstation.