| BasilZero said: Damn - didnt even bother releasing the FF Pixel collection which wouldnt cost them much to begin with since its on everywhere else. |
Wouldn't cost much, sure. But wouldn't sell very well either. All these games has been played before by the majority who wants them or can be played somewhere else without having to pay for them. (+ Remaster quality is quite questionable from what I saw, which makes the originals probably a better versions). Won't be surprised if they don't sell very well on PS/Switch consoles.
| shikamaru317 said: |
I think you are bringing a good point here about FF ports not doing very well. Because looking back, this was the last time when Square Enix committed to release their games on Xbox in such a big manner. It was announced at some X0 event if I remember correctly as a huge deal. And I think FF XIV port was announced there as well. I guess Square was disappointed by the outcome and came to conclusion that there is not enough audience on Xbox to justify further investments. The lack of the mentioned FF XIV port is probably also the reason of it. As for Type-0 HD ad 15 situation. First of all, these games were in production before everybody knew how badly Microsoft will fuck up with Xbox One. Square like anyone else at the time probably expected strong competition between Xbox One and PS4 in the same way as 360 did vs PS3. So, obviously they fully committed to support Xbox One, because their games did quite well on 360. Second, I've said this before here, and will repeat myself once again, I'm not so sure that the big game like FF15 selling under 2m is a good result for Square. Their expectation was 10 or even 15m lifetime for both PS4 and Xbox One versions and if I'm not wrong, they failed to hit that target. As for other publishers, Microsoft started to rebuild partnerships with Sega, Bandai Namco, etc. only in the second half of the generation, so it's hard to compare them with Square. Basically, right now these publishers are at the same point where Square was at the beginning of last gen, and they will definitely evaluate their partnership with Xbox at some point. If you think that 20-30k players for FF games on TA is not good enough, then what about the same 30K for Persona 5. P3, P4 will definitely do even worse.
| Ryuu96 said: |
I mentioned a few posts earlier about paying for ports as an option, but in the same post I also said, that I don't think this will work. Because it won't grow an audience. Yes, it will help to reach software parity with other consoles short term, but the moment Microsoft stops paying for these ports, the publishers will stop supporting them again. But the problem is that GamePass cheques are not really much different. It gives publishers who are not willing to take risks with Xbox ports and idea that Microsoft has a tool to mitigate risks and their concerns. So, I think that right now, it's easier for publishers who are not sure about needing to do an Xbox port, to just skip the platform if they don't receive the GamePass check when it was before. Once again, Square Enix comes to mind. Microsoft offered them a check for FF7-12. It didn't do very well for them. Now, they abandoned the platform because they wait for another GamePass check.
Another thing is about companies taking advantage of GamePass. To be honest, maybe I'm wrong and forgetting something, but with an exception of Yakuza, I can't really think about any Japanese game that really managed to grow a dedicated audience on Xbox. Yakuza for sure is substantial and it's clear that it doesn't even need GamePass anymore, for SEGA to justify bringing future titles to the platform. It will sell enough day one at full price.
As for funding first-party JRPGs - totally agree, completely worthless at this moment and won't do anything but hurt the publisher and potential game which will get thrown straight into oblivion no matter how good it will be. The bigger part of the game's target audience won't be able to play it.
To conclude all this, I doubt there will be any progress regarding this in the near future, because as I've said, Microsoft needs to either make some bold, revolutionary move or wait for Sony to make a huge mistake. Basically, the situation with Japanese games on Xbox can only improve with a noticeable part of these titles core audience moving over to Xbox, and it hasn't obviously happened this gen. I don't believe that even with all the GamePass deals, Microsoft can get THEIR loyal Xbox audience interested in these types of games, so without substantial audience growth, it will never gonna work.
| Machiavellian said: If you kind of think about it as a indie dev, if you are going to put your game on console and you did not get a GP deal or any deal at all from MS, then the order or devices would be Nintendo and Sony and Xbox last because of marketshare. While it might seem like MS should just be throwing around money to everybody, I am sure they are select at this point and seek the biggest bang for their bucks. That will not always match up with every user expectations. |
You are literally backing up my point. Marketshare is the main reason behind these decisions, not some conspiracy or hate bias.
