Mr Puggsly said:
Well several games that were on PS4 have been ported to X1 late.
I'm starting to question if the parity clause is even enforced.
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In all honesty, it's probably as simple as calling Microsoft and talking to the guy in charge of the program. They want the clause to be there in order to pressure small developers but they don't want it to keep games off Xbox. In other words, at this point, it's probably just an extra layer of red tape and a big, fat bluff.
People have to remember that Microsoft didn't want to allow self-publishing. They wanted all the control that they had with the 360 but all the inital pressure and bad press sank that ship very quickly. Last gen, their policy was that they would not publish games that had been on other platforms, forcing those developers to find an outside publisher. While that was a bad deal for many small developers--and the sole reason why games like Machinarium skipped the 360--Xbox Live was in the cat-bird seat at the time. They could force most developers to cave.
The parity clause, from my point of view, was thier attempt to keep some of the control despite having to allow self-publishing. I think they wanted to sneak it by the media. It's kind of like when an airline advertises free in-flight movies, then charges you $5 to rent earphones.
Obviously, they failed in that, mostly because they were no longer in a position to dictate terms without opposition.
