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[krypt0nian]

You know that if the parity clause worked like MS wanted, MS will score many timed exclusive games without even moneyhatting them, since small devs will have to release on XB1 first.

And the funny part is Sony doesn't have to moneyhat to get exclusives, the parity clause takes good care of that. :lol

 

[slavesnyder]

Keep up the good fight, Phil. Don't listen to all these guys here and help securing quality and only the best games for first class citizens.

Broforce not on the dudebro console?
How ironic.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

OP reads like they just got moneyhatted. Which is fine, but why toss out the "parity clause" misdirection?

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

I'm not really agreeing with him, but how does this disprove his point? Playing the devil's advocate here, I could argue that MS had no choice but to show support for some games otherwise their program won't got traction, and thus not achieving their real goal for securing big indie games for themselves.

Because I have seen quotes from ID people that have said pretty much the exact opposite.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

I'm pretty sure they had it on 360

Oh?! Was there any push back then? I can't remember if there were devs saying we wont release on xbox because of the clause

 

[plasmawave]

This. Not newsworthy unless they actually tried to get it on Xbox. This article is clickbait

Dude, there are plenty of indie devs complaining about the parity clause.
This is not a surprise.

 

[kpaadet]

OP reads like they just got moneyhatted. Which is fine, but why toss out the "parity clause" misdirection?

I'm sure Sony just drove a money truck to their office of this small indie game most have not heard about, give me a break.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

At least xbox one owners won't feel like they are getting scraps after another platform has eaten.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

OP reads like they just got moneyhatted. Which is fine, but why toss out the "parity clause" misdirection?

It is likely that Sony either offered funding, a PS+ deal, or they are paying for it to be ported (like it sounds like they have done for some games??? sega genesis style), all of which would be "deals you can't refuse". Which may include temporary exclusivity, which would stop them from ever putting it on the Xbox One forever due to the clause.

 

[JayEH]

Do you feel like first class citizens yet Xbone owners?

 

[Biker19]

MS has dug its own grave. Good.

They'll be skipping out on a lot of great indie games if they don't start shaping up.

It is so sad to see super hardcore Microsoft fans still defending this.

These. Games are games regardless.

 

[Jimmyfenix]

At least xbox one owners won't feel like they are getting scraps after another platform has eaten.

Truly first class citizens

 

[xxracerxx]

OP reads like they just got moneyhatted. Which is fine, but why toss out the "parity clause" misdirection?

Misdirection? They bring it up in the article
"But even if they want to launch on the Xbox One, they can’t due to the parity clause. “As far as I know Microsoft has a clause in their contract where they won’t accept an indie game if it launches on Xbox after Playstation.'”

 

[Jacksinthe]

You answered his query but you didnt answer mine. Doest that mean my post was combative?

My bad. I'm bouncing around today on mobile so I miss stuff from time to time.

To answer your question yes and it was nobody from MS. Gotta go through the motions first.

 

[Piggus]

I don't mean to be harsh, but if Spencer isn't trying/planning to get this policy reversed then he's an idiot. It's nothing but dumb, anti-consumer bullshit that's backfiring on them spectacularly. Especially since the Bone is so far behind in sales.

 

[serversurfer]

We're talking about small dev houses though - they can't help but "write off" large swathes of potential customers at any given time because they simply haven't got the resources to pull off a massive multiplatform release like the big pubs can. So somebody's platform of choice is always going to be waiting for their turn with the projects of this scope. Seems increasingly obvious that devs are just going to take their chances with being the "exception" to MS' parity clause and/or wait for it to die a quiet death.

Without question, but again, that works to Microsoft's advantage, and they clearly don't care about any disadvantages it may impose on the developer. If you can only support one platform at a time, then the question is which platform do you support first? Under normal circumstances, the obvious answer would be whichever platform is likely to give you the greatest returns with the least amount of effort and risk on your part. Launch parity throws that equation completely out of whack.

Normally, you'd launch your game to 67% of your audience, and if it doesn't fail miserably, you'd go back and release a port to the remaining 33%. However, Microsoft don't allow you to support their platform if you've already supported another, while Sony do. So now your choice is to release to the smaller audience first, or be locked away from them forever. That's a much tougher choice, by design.

So again, as long as users continue to buy XBox, that justifies the continuation of the policy. Every single console they sell makes it that much harder for devs to say, "Screw you and your shitty policies. We don't need you anyway." Microsoft is banking on the idea that at some point they'll have enough users to make it all but impossible for developers to say such things, at which point they'll have no choice but to bring their game exclusively to XBox.

yeah at the start of the gen the x1 had sdk issues, however it does run vanilla dx11 and soon dx12. so if developing on PC it would be a very simple port to the x1.

i dont know why an indie dev would choose to develop on ps4 first when this is the case.

By all accounts, Sony's tools are actually quite nice, and designed specifically to ease porting from PC.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Misdirection? They bring it up in the article
"But even if they want to launch on the Xbox One, they can’t due to the parity clause. “As far as I know Microsoft has a clause in their contract where they won’t accept an indie game if it launches on Xbox after Playstation.'”

Which, of course, reads like they neither looked into the matter further nor reached out to Microsoft in an attempt to explore their options.

"I think it's this way so oh well..." is fundamentally different from, "We reached out and had no other option..."

My take-away is that they were inherently disinclined to look further into XBO options because of their understanding of the XBO parity policy and didn't bother to look into it any further. Then Sony made them a moneyhat to wear that made them care even less about a potential XBO option than they already did (which was already very little care).

All that is fine. But let's not break out the bullshit and pretend they requested an exception or otherwise reached out to MS and got their hand bitten.

 

[J-Rzez]

I can't believe this parity clause is still a thing. This is just a remnant of the pre-X1 launch where MS expected to dominate Sony, but instead got their ass handed to them. They need to get rid of this ASAP as they're in no position to make such demands.

 

[David___]

All that is fine. But let's not break out the bullshit and pretend they requested an exception or otherwise reached out to MS and got their hand bitten.

They shouldn't need to request to get an exception.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

They shouldn't need to beg to get an exception.

because there isn't a large professional chasm between requesting something and groveling for it.

hyperbole: take it somewhere else.

 

[xxracerxx]

Which, of course, reads like they neither looked into the matter further nor reached out to Microsoft in an attempt to explore their options.

"I think it's this way so oh well..." is fundamentally different from, "We reached out and had no other option..."

My take-away is that they were inherently disinclined to look further into XBO options because of their understanding of the XBO parity policy and didn't bother to look into it any further. Then Sony made them a moneyhat to wear that made them care even less about a potential XBO option than they already did (which was already very little care).

All that is fine. But let's not break out the bullshit and pretend they requested an exception or otherwise reached out to MS and got their hand bitten.

The bold part is all that really matters. It's the overall perception of the clause not the exceptions to the rules.

 

[hawk2025]

Which, of course, reads like they neither looked into the matter further nor reached out to Microsoft in an attempt to explore their options.

"I think it's this way so oh well..." is fundamentally different from, "We reached out and had no other option..."

My take-away is that they were inherently disinclined to look further into XBO options because of their understanding of the XBO parity policy and didn't bother to look into it any further. Then Sony made them a moneyhat to wear that made them care even less about a potential XBO option than they already did (which was already very little care).

All that is fine. But let's not break out the bullshit and pretend they requested an exception or otherwise reached out to MS and got their hand bitten.

That's the whole damn point.

The policy is so awful that it's even making devs assume they shouldn't bother, rather than go hat in hand (to keep the awful "hat" analogy going) asking for an exception.

The bargaining power has shifted. No dev should have to bother to wade through Microsoft's bullshit to get an exception to a nonsense rule. If there was ever a warning sign that this policy is harmful even *beyond* the people that actually try to get games released, this is it.

 

[Goodacre0081]

I don't mean to be harsh, but if Spencer isn't trying/planning to get this policy reversed then he's an idiot. It's nothing but dumb, anti-consumer bullshit that's backfiring on them spectacularly. Especially since the Bone is so far behind in sales.

maybe he's the one who implemented it. going back on it now might diminish his position in the division.

 

[Chobel]

Which, of course, reads like they neither looked into the matter further nor reached out to Microsoft in an attempt to explore their options.

"I think it's this way so oh well..." is fundamentally different from, "We reached out and had no other option..."

My take-away is that they were inherently disinclined to look further into XBO options because of their understanding of the XBO parity policy and didn't bother to look into it any further. Then Sony made them a moneyhat that made them care even less about a potential XBO option than they already did (which was already very little care).

All that is fine. But let's not break out the bullshit and pretend they requested an exception or otherwise reached out to MS and got their hand bitten.

Yeah, it's totally their fault, they should have begged their lord MS for that exception. /s

 

[Maxrunner]

Put it on wiiu im sure nintendo wont mind.

 

[SerTapTap]

Did they have this clause back in the OG Xbox days? I honestly started hearing about this clause with this new gen of consoles!

360's policies were worse, depending on how you look at it. There was XBLIG which was a free for all (but very low exposure for the most part), and there were "real" XBLA titles. You REQUIRED a publisher to be on XBLA, that means either you need a retail publisher to pick you up, or you publish with Microsoft who required hard exclusivity for the most part. This is why lots of indie games ended up skipping PS3. A lot, like Jonathan Blow, Phil Fish and Edmund McMillen felt burned and have been happy to deal with Sony instead this time

It is likely that Sony either offered funding, a PS+ deal, or they are paying for it to be ported (like it sounds like they have done for some games??? sega genesis style), all of which would be "deals you can't refuse". Which may include temporary exclusivity, which would stop them from ever putting it on the Xbox One forever due to the clause.

Sony doesn't require permanent exclusivity in any of their stuff (except of course if they own the IP). Even pub fund stuff can come out on PC. What happened here is Sony made a deal with them so they're going to hit PS first, and Xbox's policies mean, by default, they can't publish on Xbox One without a special exception. I thought this was clear from the OP But apparently not. We've known the details of this for a long time.

Also I think it's telling the dev quoted...kinda doesn't care they're missing Xbox One. It's just assumed they're SOL, why bother. That's the mindset the parity clause is fostering. Can't do Xbox First? Eh why bother, they don't do that or whatever, not worth the mental effort. Indies are small shops and often can't or won't bother to fuss with crap like this.

 

[graywolf323]

maybe he's the one who implemented it. going back on it now might diminish his position in the division.

he was in charge of games before so it's possible

 

[serversurfer]

Oh?! Was there any push back then? I can't remember if there were devs saying we won't release on xbox because of the clause

Microsoft were in a much stronger position last generation — thanks in no small part to their year-long head start — so developers really didn't have much choice but to quietly acquiesce.

Microsoft are still hopeful they can achieve such a position of strength in the current generation. If there is hope for the XBox, then by definition, there is hope for forced parity.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

Sony doesn't require permanent exclusivity in any of their stuff (except of course if they own the IP). Even pub fund stuff can come out on PC. What happened here is Sony made a deal with them so they're going to hit PS first, and Xbox's policies mean, by default, they can't publish on Xbox One without a special exception. I thought this was clear from the OP But apparently not. We've known the details of this for a long time.

I know, that is why I said "temporary exclusivity".

 

[PhatSaqs]

Which, of course, reads like they neither looked into the matter further nor reached out to Microsoft in an attempt to explore their options.

"I think it's this way so oh well..." is fundamentally different from, "We reached out and had no other option..."

My take-away is that they were inherently disinclined to look further into XBO options because of their understanding of the XBO parity policy and didn't bother to look into it any further. Then Sony made them a moneyhat to wear that made them care even less about a potential XBO option than they already did (which was already very little care).

All that is fine. But let's not break out the bullshit and pretend they requested an exception or otherwise reached out to MS and got their hand bitten.

I dont think there were ever any plans to go X1. The response basically says "well even if we wanted to, i hear theres a clause...".

 

[SerTapTap]

I know, that is why I said "temporary exclusivity".

Wasn't referring to you, but we're on page 10 and people are still acting like Sony's at fault here, which is insane. I think the title change makes the Sony deal seem far more malicious than it is. It's clearly a case of the Xbox policy, it's right there in the quote.

 

[Hockeymac18]

I know the parity clause sucks, but I think this example is a bad one. Doesn't sound like they had plans for the XB1 even without parity clause.

 

[Eusis]

Gamingbolt has the story:



Sounds like this was more on the developer than Devolver, but it still seems significant to me that some Devolver games will be skipping Xbox One, they're one of the biggest indie publishers. Broforce is also pretty popular and already on Steam, it seems there's a real risk of "everywhere but Xbox" being a common release target if the Parity clause continues.

I think it also ends up being a massive weakness on Microsoft's part, it seems stupidly easy to get partial exclusives just by throwing them a bit of money or creating some other incentive to hit them first, then Microsoft finishes the rest themselves by refusing to ever list the game. Well, maybe this forces Sony to bargain higher, but anyone who felt it was too much of a problem would be even more inclined to not bother with the right deal.

 

[EvB]

I know the parity clause sucks, but I think this example is a bad one. Doesn't sound like they had plans for the XB1 even without parity clause.

Yeah, it sounds like they don't even have a Dev kit at this point in time. They were given an offer they couldn't refuse, sounds like they had been money hatted before they'd even looked at the bone.

 

[Biker19]

I dislike the parity clause as much as the next guy, but it really doesn't seem to be the culprit here.

Really? A lot of indie devs are skipping out on XB1 as a whole because of it, if not already.

 

[Gen X]

The indie parity clause never made sense to begin with, but makes even less sense considering Microsoft has made exceptions to it (i.e. Outlast). If you make exceptions to the rule, and will likely do so again in the future, why even have the rule in the first place?

Didn't they do similar at the start of last gen with their 50mb XBLA limit but they made an exception before scrapping it completely?

Man, 50mb limit. What a dumb idea that was. lamo!

 

[thebloo]

Oh?! Was there any push back then? I can't remember if there were devs saying we wont release on xbox because of the clause

Well, the gaming part of the internet was much smaller then, so these kind of threads and articles would not exist(or not be as visible). Also, Sony didn't really seem to care at that point.

So no, there wasn't much push back since MS was the only one really doing something for the indies at that point. It's a different situation now, especially since X1 is not in the lead anywhere.

 

[krypt0nian]

Yeah, it sounds like they don't even have a Dev kit at this point in time. They were given an offer they couldn't refuse, sounds like they had been money hatted before they'd even looked at the bone.

Again, Sony doesn't have to moneyhat. Simply by releasing the game, they get the auto-exclusive due to parity clause.

 

[Neuromancer]

Didn't they do similar at the start of last gen with their 50mb XBLA limit but they made an exception before scrapping it completely?

Man, 50mb limit. What a dumb idea that was. lamo!

To be fair MS didn't expect XBLA games to take off the way they did. They started off as little arcade games, and eventually became retail quality games in any genre you could imagine. Not only that but Xbox 360s had units without hard drives and those tiny memory cards.

 

[Hockeymac18]

Really? A lot of indie devs are skipping out on XB1 as a whole because of it, if not already.

I don't think people are disregarding the parity clause as being a big issue that needs to be changed/removed, but I don't think this exact example (which is what this thread is about) is the main cause.

There are many other better examples of devs skipping XB1 due to the parity clause.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Just fucking get rid of it Microsoft. For fucks sake.

Not that I really like that game. Got it free on Steam, I found it boring. But that's not the point. The parity clause is fucking dumb.

 

[EvB]

Again, Sony doesn't have to moneyhat. Simply by releasing the game, they get the auto-exclusive due to parity clause.

Of course, but in this situation it's not the case. It's clearly stated that Sony came forward and as a result they haven't even looked at Xbox.

 

[Gen X]

To be fair MS didn't expect XBLA games to take off the way they did. They started off as little arcade games, and eventually became retail quality games in any genre you could imagine. Not only that but Xbox 360s had units without hard drives and those tiny memory cards.

That was their fault releasing those arcade units and separating the userbase, that forced the limit.

 

[David___]

Of course, but in this situation it's not the case. It's clearly stated that Sony came forward and as a result they haven't even looked at Xbox.

Pub fund/ TPP. Both options are good deals that helps the dev without it being directly being related to money. Both options(I know for sure pub fund does) allow for future ports to other platforms. So yes, parity clause is to blame for them not even looking into dev'ing for xbox.

 

[Neuromancer]

That was their fault releasing those arcade units and separating the userbase, that forced the limit.

True but I bet they sold a lot of systems without it because of the price.

 

[Nafai1123]

Of course, but in this situation it's not the case. It's clearly stated that Sony came forward and as a result they haven't even looked at Xbox.

I find it hilarious that a "deal they couldn't refuse" must = "Sony gave us a bunch of money" when in reality it's much more likely "Sony helped us to port the game" or "Sony is giving us a big marketing push." You know, things they've actually shown to do with other indie developers...

It's not like the PS4 is hurting for indies, or console exclusive indies for that matter. Why would they pick this one developer out of thousands to strike a deal with that they haven't done with others?

Regardless of why it's releasing on PS4 first, the fact remains that the reason it wont come out in the future on XB1 is the parity clause.

 

[serversurfer]

Wasn't referring to you, but we're on page 10 and people are still acting like Sony's at fault here, which is insane. I think the title change makes the Sony deal seem far more malicious than it is. It's clearly a case of the Xbox policy, it's right there in the quote.

We don't know exactly what Gamingbolt asked Greenwood, but it almost sounds like Sony's offer is the reason the game is coming to consoles at all. "Reach out to an entirely new audience with no risk to us whatsoever? Well, why the fuck not!?" Do FLG have any real history of console support? Apart from something they made as part of some Ouya dev competition, I'm not really seeing anything but PC support from them.

The parity thing seemed to be them saying, "Apparently MS don't care about games like ours anyway." Yes, that implies they've made no real effort to reach out to MS, but it also seems to imply that MS have made no real effort to reach out to FLG.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

360's policies were worse, depending on how you look at it. There was XBLIG which was a free for all (but very low exposure for the most part), and there were "real" XBLA titles. You REQUIRED a publisher to be on XBLA, that means either you need a retail publisher to pick you up, or you publish with Microsoft who required hard exclusivity for the most part. This is why lots of indie games ended up skipping PS3.

Microsoft were in a much stronger position last generation — thanks in no small part to their year-long head start — so developers really didn't have much choice but to quietly acquiesce.

Thanks for the info guys, So all that stuff about phill spencer not wanting XBO owners to feel like second class citizens was just fluff! The real reason was to maintain dominance over the competition!

 

[Miles Quaritch]

True but I bet they sold a lot of systems without it because of the price.

Not to mention keeping patch sizes small...

 

[EBreda]

I find it hilarious that a "deal they couldn't refuse" must = "Sony gave us a bunch of money" when in reality it's much more likely "Sony helped us to port the game" or "Sony is giving us a big marketing push." You know, things they've actually shown to do with other indie developers...

It's not like the PS4 is hurting for indies, or console exclusive indies for that matter. Why would they pick this one developer out of thousands to strike a deal with that they haven't done with others?

Regardless of why it's releasing on PS4 first, the fact remains that the reason it wont come out in the future on XB1 is the parity clause.

Well, since it's all speculation at this point, I'll go with "Sony gave us a bunch of money". Much more likely. Who needs help to port to PS4, since it's really deve friendly nowadays? MArketeing push = money in any case.

Yeah, I'd say money. Paraity clause can be thrown away like we've seen so far for lots of examples.