The 5.5 million sales are after Switch release. 

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/12/dragon_quest_xi_worldwide_shipments_and_downloads_surpass_5_5_million

I'm aware of that.

Yeah I read that.. both are on in it. Apparently Microsoft was talking to third parties as well for exclusive content. As you said word is Sony just offered more and Microsoft wasn't willing to pay. Its just business. Playstation is a large part of Sony's business, so I'm sure they're willing to go invest more into it as far as thrid party stuff is concerned. Its been a staple to their success.

Microsoft started it early on the generation with SE, with timed Tomb Raider. And Sony wasn't having none of that this time. Its rather lame, but it works.

yeah... it's for the other guy

DQ12 as in time exclusive. Square Enix and Sony are incredibly close at the moment. FF7R, Project Athia, Babylons Fall, Avengers, FF16 and I'm sure much more.

Early in the gen SE and Sony had deals on DQ. DQH 1+2 was exclusive, DQB was exclusive, and DQ11 had a PS4 exclusive SKU. Ultimately, DQ is a small franchise for Sony to moneyhat (5-6 million) and I think they will convince SE to make it PS5 timed exclusive by doing the overseas marketing a la MHW and FF7R.

Remember, MHW still sold 3.5-4 million in Japan, and the producer himself said that they had retained their Japanese audience despite going PS exclusive.

Or maybe Sony would think its not worth the effort and go after a property with more global appeal like Nier. Just speculation.

U don't understand how to DQ works. Hori wants a stationary version of Dragon Quest. then launch, at the same time, a B version of DQ on the market leader ( 3ds) and the AA PS4 version. The B version pay the bill. It's exceptional, the rule is DQ go to Japanese market leader. 

With Switch now the market leader on JAPANESE MARKET sony needs to MONEYHAT too much money and Square Enix knows that. take Switch of the equation is hurt the sales badly. All DQ released on PS4, port to SWITCH. ALL the Games. 

Before the recent twitter posts, I said this earlier in this thread. Maybe now people will take it seriously.

What you are all seeing is the gamepass effect.

The real battle between sony and MS now is a case of, what's more valuable to the consumer? getting it early or getting it cheap.

No third party publisher is going to like what Gamepass represents. And releasing their games on the XSX when its userbase are all subscribed to gamepass and are trained to just wait for games to come to the service would impact sales of their games on the XSX. So it makes sense to strike an exclusivity deal with sony, get as much money as possible at full price for their game, then after a year or so, release it on the XSX and gamepass. This isn't like waiting for a game to drop in price on the PS5, where you can get it at $60 on launch day, or $40 3 months later, or $30 a year later (in all cases the publisher still makes money). This is more that a majority of the Xbox user base would just wait till that game becomes part of the service they pay only $10/month for.

I mean, its what I would do because it makes the most financial sense. If I make a game, and release it on XSX, then 12-18months later add it to game pass, when I make the sequel of that game its sales on XSX would be reduced, because the XSX gamers would know that if they just wait 12-18 months, they get it for nothing. And that is the real issue of gamepass.

These "deals" sony are getting now, and how easy it would be to get them, is simply because sony champions the business model that all publishers prefer. MS on the other hand is championing a model that ultimately only would suit them. These people aren't stupid. At some point, MS won't even be able to pay publishers for exclusive stuff, they would instead be paying just to have the game be on their platform at all.

MH used to be like that till Sony signed the check and MHW blew everything in the franchise while still keeping the JP audience. Leader of JP market is irrelevant.

Sony signing checks for GTA, COD, FF7R, FF16 etc. DQ is peanuts compared to those games.

Exactly...

The basic concept of gamepass is to be more like a Netflix of gaming type thing. You pay a monthly fee, you have access to whatever games are on the game pass library. You can download those games either on your console or PC and play them, as long as you have an active gamepass subscription. Then with Xcloud, you don't even have a console or PC powerful enough, you can instead stream those games to any supporting device.

Looking at it just like that, gamepass sounds brilliant. But it isn't....

If I am paying $10 a month for all the games I can play, I will not even be looking at when the games are released and only when it's coming to my service. And the same can likely be said about anyone paying for such a service.

This men's that if for eg. COD is released, and I know I can pretty much play it "for free" 8 months from now, I will not go and spend $60 for it today. I'll just wait. And publishers know this too. The more MS makes their own first-party stuff appear day one on gamepass, and the more day one deals MS secures, the worse every third party would look for not having their games on gamepass on day one. And the more incentive Xbox gamers ave to just wait till the games inevitably show up on gamepass.

So for publishers, the best natural solution; is to just release the game exclusively for the PS5 and sell all they can there. and maybe even on PC (steam/epic store). Then 8-18 months later, release it the Xbox and Gamepass. And even that 8-18 months is tentative. It would likely be more like 18-24 months later.

I am almost certain that we are going to see a lot of big third party Timed exclusives coming to the PS5, but this isn't that sony went and spent a fortune securing these deals, its more that MS has given sony a very easy argument to make for it.

Depends on the situation really. Some 3rd party companies from Japan wont go to Xbox because it will cost them to much money with little to no return. So it is in fact a good thing for them.