If we make the cut to include every Sony game that sold better than the average Xbox exclusive then well it would accept all those "minor" titles, right?

Your suggestion has to take into account the vast marketshare disparity, which ultimately has odds stacked against Xbox considerably. Also that Xbox measures “players” and not sold due to Game Pass. Too many variables to do what you offer.

Do what you like, I’m just listing near universal top tier games. Best of the best, and a clear pattern emerges. Can’t argue that. Doesn’t really address my core message though. 

You are on VGC time enough to know that the difference on the number of consoles sold don't directly translate to number of SW sold. If you want simple examples look at Mario Kart on WiiU and multiply the HW base to the same size of Wii or Switch userbase and you'll see it wouldn't sell that much, or you can look at BotW that had over 100% attach ratio for several months on Switch, but did that sustain over time? Nope. But sure if you want to blame all on userbase aren't Xbox games also on PC so they should have even more than PS4 userbase right? Or if you want to consider just console, where is the Xbox titles that are doing 10M on Xbox to compare to the 20M on PS4?

You do know why MS hides consoles sold and SW sold and only talk about MAU and number of players that tried a game on GP, don't you?

GTS is still among the best PS titles and have MP. UC4 have it (and is near 20M sold). GoT have it. So you are just wrong on multiple levels.

No thanks, I'd rather not have some draconian format that every video game must abide by. Hey games used to cost $90, I guess they all should now.

Actually it does. PS3 exclusives sold poorly relative to Xbox. PS4 exclusives sold great relative to Xbox. The reason I don’t see GTS listed among the all time greats is it’s 70s range metascore. Not my fault people don’t list it. Either way you sidetracking, take it up with people who make these lists.  

Of the games I listed only Uncharted and GoT kinda having one is still a quarter of the games I listed. Bloodborne, Infamous, GoW, Spiderman, Horizon, LOU2 (for now). I wouldn’t dispute this, it’s there. You better off owning it/being proud of it (if that’s what you into). 

Edit: Then you have Spiderman MM, Demon Souls, Ratchet, Returnal, Horizon FW, GoW Ragnarok. Only game with multiplayer is GT7, and you bet your ass it will have DLC. 

Maybe it's part of their strategy to increase Game Pass subscriptions.

If they did a new 10 hour single player campaign, with all new assets, story, locations, etc., every year for free, then that would be fine. Something like that would make the MTX make sense. 

It's not sidetracking anything. It logically follows that since multiplayer costs next to nothing to make, taking a HZD2 multiplayer mode, and adding MTX is a rip off. Multiplayer modes take 10% of the effort to make as single player modes. Making multiplayer is just a matter of recycling the assets that were already done in single player. Continual support of a multiplayer mode costs pennies compared to the main development of the game.

@boldedNo it doesn't. That post launch work costs next to nothing. That's what the MS defenders in this thread don't get. The idea that continual support of an online multiplayer mode costs serious money to make is as laughable as the idea that maintaining Xbox Live or PS Network costs serious money to make. The fact of the matter is that XBL/PSN don't cost much of anything, and should be free. Everybody knows that. But 15 years ago when XBL, and PSN were relatively new nobody really questioned that monthly online fee. Why? Because people didn't know enough about online networks to know that it costs next to nothing. Now, here in 2020, people simply don't understand that making new skins, new maps, and new weapons for an online multiplayer game don't cost much to do.

Monster Hunter World has free updates, because it costs next to nothing to do. Animal Crossing has free updates because it costs next to nothing to do. GoT has free updates because it costs next to nothing to do.

Cosmetic stuff is completely free in games like Spider-Man, GoT, Odyssey, BotW, etc. Charging money for cosmetic stuff, in a game you already bought, is a rip off.

You are right that Gamepass largely nullifies the upfront costs. The problem is that in order to get the full experience you need to spend much more than the average $60 game price, in MTX.

TIL a making a company give away things that cost next to nothing to make for free is draconian. Giving that extra content away for free often drives sales of the game. Animal Crossing will likely sell 40+ million units, because of all the free updates it gives out. GoT will probably hit 20 million units sold thanks to it's free updates. There's nothing draconian about it. These guys are getting paid. I promise.

Here's an example of how much of a rip-off MTX are in GoW5.

Let's take the delivery driver mac skin.



Is this an all new 3D model for multiplayer? Or is this just a character model from the single player mode that was repurposed as a skin. I haven't played Gears 5, so I don't know. If it's a 3D model from the single player, then the cost to turn this into a skin was likely next to nothing. I'm going to give the devs the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is an all new 3D model made for multiplayer.

How long does it take to make a character model like this, complete with texture maps, bumpmaps, rigging, and animation? About 100 hours. But I'm feeling generous so let's bump that up to 200 hours. No, let's make it 300 hours.

Now let's assume that your average 3D artist over at the Coalition makes 80K a year. Let's also ignore that they are salaried employees, and often forced to work insane amounts of overtime for free. At 80K a year, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, it costs them $38 per hour to have a 3D artist create this asset. Multiply that by the generously assumed 300 hours that it takes to make such a character model, and we have a cost of $11,400 to make this character. In reality it likely isn't anywhere near that cost. But again, I'm assuming that these character models take 3 times longer to make than I know. Now imagine that Gears 5 has an active playerbase of 1,000,000 players. If just 5% of the active playerbase spends $10 on this skin (yes, they really are asking $10 for a simple skin. It's LOL prices, except Gears 5 is not F2P), then they've made $500,000 off of a 3D artists $11,400 worth of work. That's a profit margin of 4,300%.

This idea that devs continual support of a game means they have the right to charge insane amounts for things as simple as a skin, is just downright laughable. In reality making a new 3D model entirely from scratch costs $3,800 or less. Taking an already finished 3D model, and giving it a new texture, in order to sell it as a skin costs something like $1000 to $1,900. And that's what most skins are. They are just retextures of an already existing character model.

You dont know that map packs cost “next to nothing” to make, youre just throwing out assumptions based on your own ideas of cost. No, just because some games have some specific content structure doesn’t mean all games should, that’s silly. Like I said, it’s no different than expecting all games to cost $90-100 just because games used to cost that much. There have always been games that offered free post launch content and there always will be. Nintendo do for example can be more open to free updates because their games sell at full MSRP for years. MicroSony and third party publishers don’t have this luxury.At the end of the day you’re essentially bitching because businesses operate like businesses.

Yes, we all know it doesn’t cost them a fortune to make a skin and we all know they make money off of them. That’s what businesses do. But again it comes back to whether the monetization is done in a balanced manner or not. If it is, then there’s no issue. If it isn’t, gamers can take care of themselves as we have done throughout this gen.

MS better be careful, raising game prices is unacceptable. Unless the game is free, MTX should be a thing. AAA games at $60 with MTX is okay as long as they aren't P2W, charging $70 with MTX is laughably disgusting. Publishers are breaking profit records with that garbage and now they expect to also raise game prices? I guess it makes MS's Game Pass service more appealing which would be an interesting strategy.