And you skipped the "timed CONSOLE exclusives" because?

Are you aware that the whole MS event was moneyhatted then right? Any problems on that?

Only the first reveal and we already have 3 console timed exclusives:

Project Athia
Deathloop
Ghostwire Tokyo

PS4 in its entire lifetime never got a single Bethesda timed console exclusive and the only timed console exclusive it got from SE was FF7R.

I expect many more to follow, especially from Japanese devs:

FF7R2
SFVI
Silent Hill
Persona 6
Project RE fantasy
FROM Software exclusive
Team Ninja exclusive like Nioh (already confirmed)
Perhaps another Capcom exclusive

Developers go exclusive for the right incentive,without knowing this incentive we can only guess what they should be doing to make the most profit/positive short or long term effect on company.
So it is slighty faulthy to go thinking you know better than an insider.

Neir Automata was timed console exclusive for a while.

I may be wrong but in the indies case I feel that Sony looked at the indies and thought they are good games that can be readied by launch and they add variety as well as game numbers or for the cynical padding plus they have enough PS5 shine to showcase the benefit for indies so lets get them onboard by out laying  the benefits a launch game gains like being showcased on the Sony PS5 Show and other pre release events another obvious benefit is your game is on an initially  content poor platform with content starved gamers who will be more likely to try different games.

So I can see that unfolding with  Sony helping get them launch ready and lowering the fees for early launch games rather than throwing money at them.

Indies going exclusive for like 6 months and being show on conference is an excelent trade-off to them and should be made by all 3 platform holders.

Looks like Sony is bringing out the warchest:

Project Babylon
Project Athia
Avengers (Spiderman)

Team Ninja game

Silent Hill (rumoured)
FF16 (rumoured)
Deathloop
Ghostwire Tokyo
GTA6 (rumoured)

And we haven't even gone through Gamescom or TGS. This is perhaps the most I've seen a platform holder do since MS with early 360. I was wondering when they were going to be aggressive considering the how much money they made with the PS4.

Here's a crazy theory... like I suggested before, Gamepass will actually make the xbox a less attractive platform to release their games to.

On another note, I can totally see the value the SE if they make FF16 exclusive (console) to the PS5. I mean did FF15 even sell up to 1.5M units on the XB1?

I feel that with how MS is positioning the Xbox, what s likely going to happen now would just be that publishers would only focus on a PS5 and PC version of their game. Why build for PS5, XSX and PC when owning the game on the XSX automatically means you also get it on the PC. And any company that makes you buy for XSX and PC separately suddenly starts looking anti-consumer.

Its the other way around.

Xbox hardware and software sales have cratered this generation, while PS4 has reached near record breaking heights. I would not be surprised if PS4 had up to 70% of third party software sales. If you look at JP third party, games like FF and KH had leans of 80+% in the West, meaning combined with PS's dominance in Asia the global share could be as much as 90:10.

Xbox can no longer compete with Playstation on the traditional hardware and software race and so MS went with Gamepass. They will be trying their best to get third party games on GP at launch or close to launch.

Now, low XB software sales means it is easy for companies to go exclusive with Sony but also side with Gamepass as Gamepass is still only relevant in the XB ecosystem (they would only be loosing out on XB sw sales which were low to begin with).

that is awesome!