Pristine_Condition
Member
Considering those same publishers gladly let certain versions of games this gen run better or worse than others, and especially back in the ps2/xbox1 days where you had stuff where the ps2 version would do 480p and the Xbox version would have a better framerate at 720p, I find the idea that MS could pay publishers to actively tone down their own products utterly outlandish.
Exactly. And it Microsoft made such a demand, and word got out, Microsoft might find themselves in another bout of legal trouble in certain countries for anticompetitive practice, with their accomplices also feeling the heat. After all, the basis for such laws that regulate against practices such as price-fixing, ect. is to protect the public against practices that "effectively dismantle the free market to the detriment of the consumer."
To convince a publisher to do such a thing would require such a massive amount of money that it would be really, really hard to hide the payment required on the balance sheet of the publisher.
Also, such a thing, if found out, would be an instant PR disaster for a publisher that would hope to sell games on the PS4. Really the publisher would be better off taking money from Microsoft to just produce exclusives.
That's why I can't see this conspiracy theory ever coming to pass. It requires too many moving parts to fall into place, too much agreement across the board by publishers/devs, too much secrecy, and way too much money.
Microsoft would be better off using that cash for just lowering the price of the console, advertising the hell out of their versions of games, and moneyhatting exclusives. We know that this tactic works. The other tactic is pure fantasy at this point.
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Seriously, junior, go to hell.
If we had some sort of cute kitty pic to accompany this quote, I could see this becoming a thing...