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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Indies to continuing to be slow to appear on PS? AAA to start disappearing sooner off of Xbox One?

I predict we'll soon start seeing some AAA releases coming to PS4 but not Xbox One.  I predict this for two reason:

1) It's both easier and cheaper to upgrade to current-gen on Xbox thanks to the Series S.  Despite not being up to PS5 or Series X power, the Series S has the virtue of being cheaper and more efficient than either of those (which is desirable in its own way).  And make no mistake, it's a massive upgrade over last-gen overall.  Super-fast load times, Quick Resume, and titles typically optimized for 60 FPS (and sometimes even 120 FPS) adds up to an experience that truly feels next-gen compared to even a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One X.

2) The Xbox One didn't sell nearly as well as the PS4, therefore (as people upgrade from last-gen to current-gen) Xbox One sales will reach a "not worth it" point sooner than PS4 game sales will.

However, I conversely predict the trend we're already seeing a trend of more indie games coming to (some combination of) PC/Switch/Xbox than the PS will continue.  Unless something is done by Sony to change that, I predict that trend to accelerate.  As much as people occasionally complain about the number of "ads" on the Xbox Dashboard, these days those ads are almost always for games in some way or other.  Unlike some of the Xbox 360 dashboards, the Xbox One and Xbox Series dashboards "ads" are rarely about Doritos or Mountain Dew (and, in the rare cases they are, it's basically always a game-related promotion that somehow combines the advertiser with a game-release or game contest).

Indies have cited the many places that games are highlighted on the current Xbox Dashboard as a positive for them.  Some indie publishers have suddenly, and initially confusingly for them, seen a huge spike in one of their games, only to discover Microsoft was highlighting their game somewhere on the Dashboard without even telling them!  There are a lot of places on the Dash where Microsoft highlights games (the home screen, the main page of the Store, every game-related sub page of the Store, potentially under the social places that list what your friends are playing, and many other places besides, with different games typically highlighted on every one).

Conversely, the PS5 interface that's largely free of game ads means indie publishers get highlighted in very few places, and very infrequently (if ever).  They have complained that the only way to have success on PS is to pay Sony for an extensive co-promotion package.  So there are fewer promotion opportunities for indies on PS, and the ones that Sony offers are apparently very expensive, and the sum total of that seems to be significantly more success for indies on Xbox despite Xbox being a smaller market.  And that's before even mentioning the many opportunities for indies on Xbox via Game Pass.  The occasional PS indie showcase, or sale that includes indies, or occasional indie game that gets featured via a Sony service (PS Plus, PS Now) doesn't seem to be enough to make up for the sheer frequency and breadth of promotion of indies on the Xbox.  When you see news stories like this, it kind of says it all:

"In one of the most extreme cases of that discrepancy, one anonymous publisher says that their game sold about 20,000 copies on Xbox and about 7,000 copies on PlayStation. When they released DLC for that game, it sold about 2,000 units on Xbox compared to only 7 units sold for PlayStation platforms."

That's one anecdote, and an anonymous one at that, but as I watch the news stories I'm seeing more and more examples of indie games coming later, or not at all, to PS.  So it seems like there's fire behind this smoke.

TLDR; I predict we'll sooner start seeing AAA games stop coming out on Xbox One than PS4, but conversely we'll continue to see more indies come out later (or not at all) on PS.  And this post having both a pro-Xbox and a pro-PS slant will probably make all the fanboys unhappy.  :P



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I'm a Switch user, I am happy to see both of them suffer. If both do terribly then ideally we might get some stuff.

Though I would agree that a Xbox slowdown and Sony's Indies troubles continuing are likely.



The Democratic Nintendo fan....is that a paradox? I'm fond of one of the more conservative companies in the industry, but I vote Liberally and view myself that way 90% of the time?

twintail said:

This is a prediction based on what? Anecdotes...?

Ok, PS5 has a bunch of released/ announced exclusive indies. This indie situation hits all 3 console makers in different ways.

Ummm...  no.  It's based on some fact (eg. Xbox One lifetime sales being less than PS4; a growing number of news stories listing indie games coming later or not at all to PS; etc.), some anecdotes, and some speculation.  A healthy mix of the three.  You suggesting my post is only based on anecdotes is objectively false.

As to your point, exclusive indies is actually a very poor measure for trend-analysis as exclusive indies are often based upon financial incentives offered by the platform owner.  Third-party indies is a better measure for trend analysis, IMO.



The Xbox One and PS4 will die at the same time for AAA support. The Xbox 360 and PS3 pretty died at the same time which was 2016, the last year both systems still saw decent AAA support. I think 2023 will be the last decent year for both systems. Big AAA publishers want to maximize revenue, so if they develop for PS4 they'll do the same with Xbox One since both systems are identical in system architecture. Porting costs today are much lower compared to back then where each system was vastly different in developing games. It's this reason plus the increasing cost of game development that we're seeing a lot of games now going to Xbox or multiplat in general.



Every console generation as the previous-gen gets long in the tooth and newer consoles adoption rate gets higher bigger games to favor new hardware and smaller games linger on a little longer with niche audiences.

Last edited by Leynos - on 14 November 2021

Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

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twintail said:
scrapking said:

Ummm...  no.  It's based on some fact (eg. Xbox One lifetime sales being less than PS4; a growing number of news stories listing indie games coming later or not at all to PS; etc.), some anecdotes, and some speculation.  A healthy mix of the three.  You suggesting my post is only based on anecdotes is objectively false.

As to your point, exclusive indies is actually a very poor measure for trend-analysis as exclusive indies are often based upon financial incentives offered by the platform owner.  Third-party indies is a better measure for trend analysis, IMO.

You're suggesting a growing number of news stories suggesting less indie support for PS. But based on what?

Where is all this evidence that suggests such a trend is noticeable? 

I have been commenting on many of these articles as I've been seeing them.  I may count back, and/or may track it in the future, if there's significant consternation about my claim.

You said "this prediction", but didn't identify you were referring to only half of my post.  One half of my prediction is based on strictly objective fact (PS4 sales much higher than Xbox One sales).  The other half is based on some news stories of indie games coming out later or not at all on PS (objective fact that there have been some such news stories lately), and on the fact that some years back indie devs were heralding PS but lately they've been more critical of Sony.

From that point, it's merely my prediction that these will become trends.  I know that, and I'm honest about that.  Your response was as if you were trying to expose me or something?  But it's a prediction, which means I know I'm going out on a limb and suggesting something that's not true yet will become true.  So peace, my friend.  :)



Sogreblute said:

The Xbox One and PS4 will die at the same time for AAA support. The Xbox 360 and PS3 pretty died at the same time which was 2016, the last year both systems still saw decent AAA support. I think 2023 will be the last decent year for both systems. Big AAA publishers want to maximize revenue, so if they develop for PS4 they'll do the same with Xbox One since both systems are identical in system architecture. Porting costs today are much lower compared to back then where each system was vastly different in developing games. It's this reason plus the increasing cost of game development that we're seeing a lot of games now going to Xbox or multiplat in general.

The 360 and PS3 dying out around the same time doesn't disprove my prediction, as they sold nearly as many units as each other and the unit sales disparity between Xbox One and PS4 is one of the main reasons I think it'll be different this time around.

How do you mean identical in system architecture?  They're not identical in system architecture.  Their CPUs are admittedly both Jaguar-based and very similar, but their GPUs are a little more different from each other than that, and their memory architectures and software development environments are quite a bit different.  The efforts to optimize games on each are going to be different too.  You make it sound like it's almost a recompile between the two, and I don't think that's true.  Different enough that if PS4 sales are holding up better, and Xbox One sales holding up worse, that I predict a break-point where the porting and optimizing work on Xbox One won't be worth it despite that work on PS4 still being worth it.  Consider that the Xbox One being weaker than the PS4 overall, making the work to optimize it on Xbox One harder than on PS4 when back-porting to last-gen, and is an additional complication that further weakens the business case for an Xbox One version.  Consider further that Microsoft has deployed the tech to stream current-gen games to Xbox One system, and in theory a developer could sell you a code to give you streaming access to the game (not for everything on xCloud, just their game), as a potential wildcard too (as there's no talk of that happening, but it's technically possible).

But hey, mine is a prediction, and my prediction may well not come true!  :)

Last edited by scrapking - on 15 November 2021

Leynos said:

Every console generation as the previous-gen gets long in the tooth and newer consoles adoption rate gets higher bigger games to favor new hardware and smaller games linger on a little longer with niche audiences.

For sure.  And with the PS360 generation, the PS3 and 360 were so close in sales that they died out at relatively similar times.  I'm predicting a very different dynamic this time around, because Xbox is offering an unusually inexpensive upgrade path for Xbox fans (Series S) and because the Xbox One didn't do nearly as well as the PS4.  You could add in the PS4 being a little more powerful than the Xbox One and having a more flexible memory management environment, both things that should make scaling games down to it easier, as a third reason.  So I predict late in this gen we'll see more than a few AAA third-party releases come out on PS4 but not Xbox One.

Your reply states a fact, but doesn't suggest you either agree or disagree with my assertion, and I'd be curious as to your thoughts.  :)

Oh, and I'm a huge DC fan and I love your profile pic!  :D

Last edited by scrapking - on 15 November 2021

Well, I think PS4 will continue to get support for many years simply because Japanese developers will continue to release games on it. Same obviously won't be true for Xbox One and I definitely think 3rd party games will stop coming to it far more quickly than PS4.

Edit: In regards to AAA specifically, I agree as well. 



I would consider picking up a Series S if it wasn't locked to only digital games. That's a pretty big deal if you ask me...