Xbox boss Phil Spencer gets why Helldivers 2 isn’t on Series X/S, but he doesn’t see who benefits from it being PlayStation exclusive
Xbox boss Phil Spencer gets why Helldivers 2 isn’t on Series X/S, but he doesn’t see who benefits from it being PlayStation exclusive
The Xbox gaming chief believes you'd have to twist yourself to justify keeping Helldivers 2 off Xbox consoles.
Exclusive? Isn't it on PC and PS?
'Console exclusivity' is a tier of exclusivity that's existed for years already.
I think it will be a few years before the rest of the business catches on, but I actually think he is right about this. If you spend 100s of Millions on a game, you need to make money on it. It’s not some cheap thing you can use as a loss leader to sell some hardware. Winning the console war is no longer as smart of business as it was in past decades.
You have to look at the other platforms as retail partners instead of competitors. Game budgets are way too big to justify exclusivity in 2024.
If you spend 100s of Millions on a game, you need to make money on it.
Well, it's on Microsoft to make Xbox compatible with Windows games. Valve did that with Steam Deck despite not even owning Windows.
Especially since everything is moving to digital. You don't need to print discs, manuals, covers, use retail space, worry about trade ins...
Having the game available for purchase* (*license) everywhere makes sense. I don't blame them for this move at all.
I think exclusives make sense for consoles since they are trying to get console users who will buy third party titles on it. And exclusives help push which console to decide on. So sometimes overall game sales for a system is more important than sales of an individual game.
That is the traditional argument. I saying that game budgets have passed the point where it is responsible to use them for marketing tools and they have to be products in their own right.
Those insomniac leaks show that Sony is feeling the squeeze and is looking to find ways to make its first party offerings cheaper (strategic layoffs). When you need to sell 10s of millions of copies for the product to be successful, platform exclusivity is going to be a tough sell in the boardroom. Especially when the hardware wars has already been fought and Sony won it by a lot.
What a wise man! Is it thanks to him that I can now easily play Starfield on my PS5 while waiting for Helldivers 2 patches?
It's not a PlayStation exclusive
He never actually said Playstation exclusive, just that it wasn't on Xbox. The title is wrong.