| PotentHerbs said: Epic is not the only third party developer heaping praise on the PS5. Industry legend John Carmack, among other third party developers, have praised the SSD setup for the PS5. At this point in time, MS has bigger issues with the Xbox brand, than a lack of PR praise from a third party publisher. Also, you do realize Tencent has about a 48% stake in Epic as well? Sony getting the UE5 engine optimized for the PS5 hardware doesn't mean it will be gimped for Xbox. It just makes it easier for third party developers, who use the UE5 engine, to more easily take advantage of the PS5 architecture. |
Right. I mean, people have their preferences and that feeds rivalry POV, but think about what technical professionals actually find interesting and compelling. Xbox has always favored off the shelf approach to Sony's heavier customization, what COULD they say about Series X "uhh... yeah lots of FLOPS/Ghz"? "More of the same" just isn't compelling because that happens every day in PC world, it isn't game changer like totally overhauled I/O controller stack architecture. This isn't about gimping Xbox, leveraging unique PS5 I/O is benefit for Playstation, but Series X isn't any worse off than PC, which is competive and innovative. Clearly Epic didn't just have detached technical interest as Carmack, but they were after all coordinating development of UE with Sony to leverage these features... They felt it worthwhile to develop around in the first place, which they wouldn't have done if they didn't think it was worth the effort (which is notable difference in PS5 vs PS3 for example).
Really the main area I see this triggering more competition with MS is if MS decides to pursue PC gaming store in serious way, maybe thu other purchase/tieup. Their own effort their wasn't exactly successful, and significant 3rd party stores are limited. Steam probably has the most presence and consumer engagement, but they have weak 3rd party relation currently with their high cut of sales, which is where Epic has been doing well. MS could lower that cut if they bought Steam, but they would have to pay premium atop high current business valuation. Although they could approach as merger with spun-off Xbox business added to JV. Doing a deal with CDPR with GOG would be other route, which could be interesting, but I don't necessarily see signs of that I would bet on it happening per se. I'm not really sure if MS sees the need for any of that. They already own Azure which Sony uses, so they could be getting cut of this business anyways. Growing their dev/publishing business is reasonable route forward, and they clearly aren't fixated on Xbox console itself with that, esp. with PC but not just.
Last edited by mutantsushi - on 09 July 2020
