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Nuvendil on 25 August 2015
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binary solo said:
Nuvendil said:

Yeah, but the problem is they aren't number 1 anymore, not even close.  And the worse it gets, the more expensive and elusive third party deals and marketing rights will get.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if Fallout 4 is the last Bethesda Game Studios game to have an MS marketing agreement if this continues and that would be a huge blow now that CoD's deal is also gone. 

Their dire first exclusives situation is of their own making though.  They let their exclusives lineup and emphasis decay throughout the second half of Gen 7 while Sony and Nintendo shored theirs up (difference being Sony didn't take amnesia pills like Nintendo and completely forget how to market and build hype :P ).  And now MS is paying the price.  They're trying to get back in it and diversify, but that takes time and time is what they don't have too much of.  And it doesn't help that Sony is doing the same thing with games like Horizon, Deep Down, and Bloodborne.   

I don't see why MS can't still get marketing exclusivity rights, especially for games with high USA/UK appeal. They'll just need to pay more for those rights. What they will never get is a multi-plat to go exclusive like RoTR. No publisher in their right mind is going to diss the PS4 user base with an existing IP. MS will have to purchase exclusive new IP, but even then publishers will want to be able to put the IP onto PC as part of the cost of missing out on seeling to that PS4 user base.

Meanwhile, aside from FPS, Sony wouldn't have too much difficulty in getting console exclusivity for some existing IP if they really wanted to, or full exclusivity for new IP. I hope they don't do the former, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did that for one or two more existing IP in the future.  Would be kinda karmically funny if Sony snagged console exclusivity for the next Tomb Raider game. There's a danger Sony could do that if RoTR doesn't meet sales expectations on Xb one.  


Sure MS can just burn even more money on the Xbone to get those marketing deals but eventually it gets to the level of futility that the greater MS corporation will see no point.  And I think Sony stealing away CoD marketing exclusivity and the competitive scene (and creating a pseudo Madden bundle to boot) show that Sony is looking to push Xbox to that point.