"but is it really that hard for developers to unlock the framerate?"
I guess it's not.
But it has become a profitable business if you do so.
So no one would pay for only the framerate patched to being unlocked. So studios need to offer more than that.
But this would take more time, polishing and would cost more money. So they shy away, but won't unlock the framerate, either.
That&#...
Understandably formulated common thread, spot on.
I actually think about re-subscribing to PS Plus again after I had cancelled when the price hike happened.
Sony has been spending enormous sums of money developing and funding great games. They have given us nothing but Game of the Year material ever since.
Now, with MS buying up huge publishers, there probably are, as you mentioned, royalties worth hundreds of millions going to decrease...
Yes. I can imagine it's a pretty tough competition out there. Not just in quantity, but also creatively.
But I always loved reading news like "xxx sold 100k copies, earning the studio profits" recently.
Whenever I think about it: what incredibly dull acquisitions MS had made with Zenimax and AB.
Except for the buyout sum, there was nothing impressive, visionary or special about it. Nothing unique.
They were, plain and simple, only designed to weaken Playstation and Nintendo. And to offer the taken IPs then back to them for money with a contract or maybe a Game Pass agreement.
I really want the Xbox brand to stay around, I really do, be...
"They still see XB as a pet project"
According to how Xbox is doing since the end of 360 era - you're absolutely right.
But looking at numbers:
Considering MS has spent close to $85bn for studio acquisitions alone, spends $1 to $1.9bn annually for Third Parties in Gamepass, $2.5bn for ID@Xbox since 2017 ... that's a pretty neat pet project.
And here you still exclude any costs for R&D for the con...
The Playstation brand has never been broader.
The PS5 had multiple revisions, now the Slim product line with an attachable disc drive, easily upradeable SSD space, you have a Pro controller, different colors and side plates, monitors, headsets, ear buds, steering wheels, camera and the PSVR2. Everything branded with Playstation.
If you compare that alone with PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4, Sony's put in some big efforts in recent years just widening the bran...
So ... what's the actual point really?
TloU2 was in 2020. Such a huge and perfectly polished game, in every single aspect.
They've had turbulences at the studio, officially dropped Factions 2 now, all besides working on new things, the TV Show and remakes.
Everything reminding us again Naughty Dog are no Gods.
But still normal people with typical good and bad dynamics when people work together. And keep in min...
.
Before the consoles got releases, I would have NEVER thought Xbox Series sales would, at ANY point in time, fall behind the Xbox One's.
They had a decent marketing strategy, developed a more powerful console than PS5 (at least in terms of raw TF), had already bought multiple studios and exited the One generation with the hard lesson learned, that software sells hardware.
I won't draw any conclusions for the next 10 years, because MS, as of today, ...
Yep.
It's likely they will achieve that in December again.
Personally, I estimate global PS5 hardware sales in December could be up to 4.1m - 4.4m.
At least for now, none of the multi billion acquisitions drew people to the Xbox.
But rather away from it, appearantly, with Xbox Series sales being even worse year on year.
Awesome performance of the PS5! 1.7m, the biggest Europe sales month ever, fourth highest all-time. 245k for Xbox ... ouch!
Keep in mind the sales data "only" covers up to the 26th November 2023, so there are actually 5 very big days of sales of November left over and will be accounted to December sales.
Looks like December hardware sales can possibly be even bigger for PS5.
They are estimates.
Don't confuse "unreliable" with the term "estimates", because that's what estimates are.
Nonetheless, the quality you put behind estimates is what matters.
Therefore VGC use any official numbers they can gather, and there are some of it. Wether it's GfK, Famitsu or Circana and of course financial reports of Nintendo, Microsoft (at least those Microsoft is selecting to publish) and Sony...
@Obscure
"One thing I know for sure, Blade is definitely not coming to Playtation."
I'm a PS guy, I have no reason not to admit that I envy Xbox Series getting not only Blade (likely exclusively!), but also OD.
It's the first time Kojima doesn't publish on PS, right? At least over the last 25 years. Uh, I felt that, especially because I like Udo Kier alot.
Great exclusives sell hardware/subscriptions.
So, only an award equals fun?
I really can't comprehend how you can come up with such an awfully shallow opinion (piece). I mean ...
Imagine you develop a game.
With all the highs and lows. Then, after that fun but also exhaustive procedure, you release it.
It's met with praise critically, maybe even with good sales. How great must that make you feel already?
And then, on top of that, your game, out of the hundreds of games that's bee...
7.5bn Zenimax
69bn AB
?$ acquisitions for Studios before AB & Zen
2.5bn ID@Xbox (since 2017)
1b-1.9bn annually for Third Parties@Gamepass
?$ R&D, manufacturing/marketing XboxSeries consoles
?$ for First Party Game Development
29bn possible tax debt to IRS
minimum 3:1 hardware ratio to PS since X1
Really, I actually want competition out there.
But people really think Xbox for MS i...
Is it just me or ... I mean, what are people talking about profitability? Where do you get that from?
Does "We have a service that is financially viable, meaning it makes money, in Game Pass," mean nothing more and nothing less than it's ... just bringing in money?
It's like saying "I sell this. This brings in money."
Spencer contiued saying "OVER a billion dollars a year supporting THIRD party games com...
Personally, and that's just me, I don't even really get the difference between Gamepass and PS Plus also, because many people, even at Microsoft, said it's not about hardware sales anymore.
Maybe it's because I am buying physical copies anyway.
Everytime I scroll through the free games catalogue in the PSN, personally, and again that's just me, I am getting exhausted.
I've got 150+ games saved to my library since...
"Side note, if it's on pc it's not exclusive."
If you didn't ever own a gaming PC nor plan to get one either, and if you ever only played on a console, then a game that's being released exclusively for any console, fits the base line of "I can't get it on any other console".
In the independent area and market of home consoles, which has actually always existed independently of the PC, a game is console-exclusive, ev...