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PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan Says Publishers Don't Like Xbox Game Pass

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Umm new games don't come day 1 on PS+.

Becuase it's not Sonys business plan...just like the judge grilled the FTC on.

Just becuase Sony doesn't or never planned for it in their business plans doesn't make it anti competitive and not a win for consumers. Which was exactly the judges point of questioning when grilling the ftc. You can't just side with Sony becuase they didn't think of the idea first and that's why she went at them.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
I guess there's been evidence in this court case of xbox reaching out to big AAA publishers via email for day one launches and them turning them down.

Have these emails been leaked?

Or are you all implying they don't like it and just siding with big Jim here for reasons?

I mean, EA has a service with day one games...but it's exclusively their own...Ubisoft has a service with day one titles but it's exclusively their own....

There must be emails to other big publishers for games right?

I'm guessing it's this...

AAA 3rd party publishers like receiving the revenue from their new releases.

MS is offering them money, but the amount is too small to court these bigger titles to GamePass.

Then, when these titles release, they're seeing 80:20 splits in favor of PlayStation because GamePass is dulling their audience. When you have access to so many games, it's harder to justify spending $70 on a new release. These publishers feel that GamePass has shrunk the audience on XBox...therefore they don't like GamePass.

During the PS4 / XBox One gen, we saw game sales splits commensurate with the install base. We're not seeing that today.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
JimRyanFeatured.jpg

The case between Microsoft and the FTC continued on Tuesday with video deposition from PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan being a focal point. During a meeting with Fidelity investors in February 2022, Ryan said publishers just don’t like Xbox Game Pass or the idea of the subscription model.



Ryan added that the belief was “very commonly held” by publishers across the industry. He also said that he didn’t believe Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick would put the Call of Duty franchise on the service if the acquisition didn’t go through.

That said, Sony has worked to help PlayStation compete against the service with exclusive games of its own. Ryan said that PlayStation growing first-party titles is its way to keep Xbox Game Pass at bay.
Aren't EA and Ubisoft publishers. If they hate gamepass so much why are their games on there? That doesn't sound unanimous to me...just sayin.
 
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Ar¢tos

Member
I can see the point. If a 3rd party publisher get gamers used to renting their games on gamepass instead of buying them, then they become prisoners of gamepass and MS has more power to negotiate, probably to the point that the publisher decides to skip Xbox in the future.
Maybe that's what happened with Octopath Traveler and why Square now demands money upfront from MS to release games on Xbox (and why Playstation timed exclusives aren't getting Xbox releases even after the exclusivity period has ended).
 

StueyDuck

Member
I mean Jim Ryan is hardly the final say on what publishers do and don't like 🤣. Literally hyperbole

I do notice both services have either added much older titles now though or much smaller titles. We haven't seen elden ring or something huge like that hit these services.
 
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Jigsaah

Gold Member
Which Publisher? Most games on Game Pass right now are mostly indies.

EA has literally their entire EA Play library on game pass. Ubisoft has it's games on GamePass.

Kojima Productions has DEath Stranding on Gamepass

Paradox Interactive

Warner Bros.

Bandai Namco

Crystal Dynamics via Disney I suppose

Koei Tecmo

Devolver Digital

Sega

Riot Games

THQ Nordic

2k Games

Square Enix

Focus Entertainment

IO Interactive

Arc System Works

Capcom

I mean I purposely stayed away from mentioning publishers that were indie and those that are now owned by Xbox Studios, because of the point that was made. Also who gives a shit if there's indie games. Some of my favorite games are Indie developed.

Bottom Line. Jim lying through his crooked yellow ass teeth.
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
I'm guessing it's this...

AAA 3rd party publishers like receiving the revenue from their new releases.

MS is offering them money, but the amount is too small to court these bigger titles to GamePass.

Then, when these titles release, they're seeing 80:20 splits in favor of PlayStation because GamePass is dulling their audience. When you have access to so many games, it's harder to justify spending $70 on a new release. These publishers feel that GamePass has shrunk the audience on XBox...therefore they don't like GamePass.

During the PS4 / XBox One gen, we saw game sales splits commensurate with the install base. We're not seeing that today.
So this court case would have the emails where Microsoft has reached out to secure big ip day one and it not come to fruition. I guess we can view those emails?
 

vkbest

Member
If he's misinforming the court about how developers would make an inferior experience on PlayStation consoles, why should the court or anyone for that matter believe his hearsay about no publishers wanting Gamepass?
If MS is sending internal emails talking about kill the competence buying publishers, why should the court or anyone believe they said?

Anyway do you remember psychonauts 2? No Ps5 version released, so in PS5 is a inferior experience compared to Xbox Series X native version
 
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Roberts

Member
If only he could have avoided the whole all business, then maybe, just maybe fanboys wouldn't make long-nose jimbo memes all the time.
 

Godot25

Banned
You mean publishers like
Ubisoft
Focus Entertainment
Square Enix
Capcom
Sega

All of which did put their games day one into Game Pass?

And
EA
Ubisoft

While both of them are having subscription service with day one releases?

Sure Jim
 
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mrmustard

Banned
If only he could have avoided the whole all business, then maybe, just maybe fanboys wouldn't make long-nose jimbo memes all the time.
No, that's why they are fanboys. If Spencer or Ryan said something once it has to be valid for eternity. Plans and opinions are not allowed change or adapted.
 

Hudo

Member
No, that's why they are fanboys. If Spencer or Ryan said something once it has to be valid for eternity. Plans and opinions are not allowed change or adapted.
To be fair, both Ryan and Spencer are fucking PR disasters almost every time they speak. Both Sony and Microsoft should let trained PR people speak publicly about stuff.
 
It's probably the same with Spotify, where only Apple and Amazon are competing (?) and Netflix, where all the bigger studios try to do their own thing now- and Disney certainly won't lose. One sorta destroyed the CD market, the other DVDs & BluRays and also hurts cinema quite a bit.

It's always a race to the bottom while the forerunners might win due to destroying the old markets and being on top of the new one.

It's certainly not necessarily bad for the customer, we choose to enable these new services (or we could not) and content will adapt to keep profits up. Which may or may not mean less quality, which we might dislike afterwards. But once it is out of the box there is hardly a way back unless all such new services totally break down very shortly after their birth. Which does not even happen with the here much beloved game streaming services.

So they may not like it, now, since it will eliminate the 70€ game in the long term, but they will certainly adapt to it and squeeze gamers in another way.
 
Lol, yeah OK Jim (y)
He’d know better than others. Do you not think he spoke to publishing partners when setting up PS+ extra and premium? Do you think Activision and Take 2 have changed their minds?

They (subs) are useful for catalogue games. Day one content that has it included for ‘free’ of course feels devalued. Why do you think we have lots of people waiting for things to hit GamePass? Why do you think sales (even relative to installed base) are much lower in the Xbox ecosystem?

It’s okay for it to be great value to consumers but not to publishers outside of specific aspects.
 

Helghan

Member
He’d know better than others. Do you not think he spoke to publishing partners when setting up PS+ extra and premium? Do you think Activision and Take 2 have changed their minds?

They (subs) are useful for catalogue games. Day one content that has it included for ‘free’ of course feels devalued. Why do you think we have lots of people waiting for things to hit GamePass? Why do you think sales (even relative to installed base) are much lower in the Xbox ecosystem?

It’s okay for it to be great value to consumers but not to publishers outside of specific aspects.
Yeah they all hate it so much that they put their games on the service. Wouldn't have anything to do with Game Pass being a successful formula of Sony's competitor that he said this.
 
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dotnotbot

Member
Except Ubisoft do with their own service.

Ubisoft+ is more expensive than GPU and offers much less games. Also Sony's games have typically much higher budget than Assassins Creed 34 and Far Cry 13. It's easy to see why from some publishers perspective, including Sony, this isn't a viable way to sell their AAA games. Unless you want to water down the quality of course.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
EA has literally their entire EA Play library on game pass. Ubisoft has it's games on GamePass.

Kojima Productions has DEath Stranding on Gamepass

Paradox Interactive

Warner Bros.

Bandai Namco

Crystal Dynamics via Disney I suppose

Koei Tecmo

Devolver Digital

Sega

Riot Games

THQ Nordic

2k Games

Square Enix

Focus Entertainment

IO Interactive

Arc System Works

Capcom

I mean I purposely stayed away from mentioning publishers that were indie and those that are now owned by Xbox Studios, because of the point that was made. Also who gives a shit if there's indie games. Some of my favorite games are Indie developed.

Bottom Line. Jim lying through his crooked yellow ass teeth.

I think it's obvious he was talking about games releasing day one on the service.

You don't see many developers running to put their games on the service day one unless they're being paid up front.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
you said publisher, ea do the same.

Do they have any consoles...no.

EA has literally their entire EA Play library on game pass. Ubisoft has it's games on GamePass.

Kojima Productions has DEath Stranding on Gamepass

Paradox Interactive

Warner Bros.

Bandai Namco

Crystal Dynamics via Disney I suppose

Koei Tecmo

Devolver Digital

Sega

Riot Games

THQ Nordic

2k Games

Square Enix

Focus Entertainment

IO Interactive

Arc System Works

Capcom

I mean I purposely stayed away from mentioning publishers that were indie and those that are now owned by Xbox Studios, because of the point that was made. Also who gives a shit if there's indie games. Some of my favorite games are Indie developed.

Bottom Line. Jim lying through his crooked yellow ass teeth.

It isn't about publisher have some games on GP, it's about having them DAY ONE. Most big publishers do not release any of their major games day one on Gamepass.
 
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nikolino840

Member
I think people are being very obtuse here. Jim Ryan is obviously talking about day 1 games. We have seen that Take 2 don’t agree with it. FIFA and Madden are not Day 1 Game Pass, Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t.

Yes that same ceo that say that ms+abk is not a problem and the cloud market is not a diffrent market
 

NEbeast

Member
A. Publishers don't like Game Pass
B. Sony creates PS+ Premium and Extra to compete with Game Pass
C. Therefore Sony doesn't like Publishers
The mental gymnastics is astounding. I'm not going to tell you why the services are different because you know already. I can't believe people are trying to spin his, it's pretty fucking obvious that gamepass day 1 releases devalue gaming.
If it didn't then why are third party games selling a fraction on xbox. It wouldn't have anything to do with all the xbox players on here, plus other forums, saying they don't buy games anymore and wait to see if they come on gamepass. The sentiment towards buying games changed almost instantly after MS announced gamepass.
 
Yeah they all hate it so much that they put their games on the service. Wouldn't have anything to do with Game Pass being a successful formula of Sony's competitor that he said this.
Sony’s sub has been on the market 1/5 of the time of Xbox GamePass and already has ~ 50% of the subscribers with minimal investment compared to Xbox. Sony has achieved that on one ecosystem, not two. On top of that, their users spend more on full priced games games and micro transactions.
The day ones games Microsoft pays through the nose for. A publisher would be happy with that. They like the money, not the service.

Kotick, Ryan and Strauss Zelnick would know better than any of us. Tell me what AAA releases from those publishers launched day and date into GamePass? Why do you think there haven’t been any?

GamePass and PlayStation Plus make absolute sense for catalogue games. The publishers get a lump sum for older titles that aren’t taking in full priced MSRP anymore and give a little marketing boost.

The services are fantastic for consumers. Excellent value.

But - they do devalue new releases if launched into the service. That’s why Sony, Activision and Take 2 don’t do it.

If I’m a publisher, unless Microsoft pay me a lot of money to offset the money lost through day one sales on Xbox and PlayStation (from multi device users) then I’m not going to go day and date on Gamepass.

With PS+ I’d get to take in the front loaded physical and digital sales and then later down the line get a lump sum for a game that isn’t selling well at full price any more. Even better if I have some DLC coming out soon.
 
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bender

What time is it?
The mental gymnastics is astounding. I'm not going to tell you why the services are different because you know already. I can't believe people are trying to spin his, it's pretty fucking obvious that gamepass day 1 releases devalue gaming.
If it didn't then why are third party games selling a fraction on xbox. It wouldn't have anything to do with all the xbox players on here, plus other forums, saying they don't buy games anymore and wait to see if they come on gamepass. The sentiment towards buying games changed almost instantly after MS announced gamepass.

And here I thought C. was the deadpan giveaway. I guess I need to me even more obvious for some.
 

jm89

Member
Yes that same ceo that say that ms+abk is not a problem
He said that in jan 2022, before the contract negotiations showed it would be a problem. He even confirmed that in the deposition yesterday.
and the cloud market is not a diffrent market

Where did he say cloud market wasn't different?
 
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Three

Member
Except Ubisoft do with their own service.
This is different to releasing on gamepass. He didn't say publishers don't like subscription services he said publishers don't like xbox gamepass. Ubisoft on Ubisoft+ get $13 per month for ubisoft games only. This is a little different to MS revenue sharing with multiple publishers or doing upfront payments for their content.
 

Three

Member
He said that in jan 2022, before the contract negotiations showed it would be a problem. He even confirmed that in the deposition yesterday.


Where did he say cloud market wasn't different?
I think he's referring to the response he gave that cloud is a service feature.
 

jm89

Member
I think he's referring to the response he gave that cloud is a service feature.
Isn't that just how sonys cloud gaming service is offered? Regulators have known this since the beginning.

I don't see how sony offering cloud steaming in a certain way right now doesn't make it a market.
 
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And yet they still put the games on there?
All depends on the cheque they get for doing so. Something like GTA6 on GP would cost insane money. (some EGS freebies did cost quite much) Some indie game that barely got views on its youtube reveal trailer costs probably pennies.

Sony also tested the waters with Stray and Tchia, two games that probably would have sold decently anyway but got some extra attention for being day one releases (especially Tchia wasn't that huge before, i think), and probably were compensated accordingly. While still might have lost compared to what they would have done otherwise, or in the wake of the "free" for subscribers positive reception they got sales they never would have got otherwiese, which can't be truly ever known.

So overall any PR bitchfight is disingenious. This sounds true enough - supported by the reality of things- but it's just a PR jab on painting MS as the unloved platform- implying that the publishers love'em- while closed doors Sony works on new deals with MS for their catalogue, for sales and also Plus.
Publishers also don't love Extra and Sony's 30%. EA and Ubi certainly would prefer a sub on their own services.
 

Three

Member
Isn't that just how sonys cloud gaming service is offered? Regulators have known this since the beginning.

I don't see how sony offering cloud steaming in a certain way right now doesn't make it a market.
They are hanging on to MS' talking points that cloud is just a feature of the console market that they're apparently struggling in, completely ignoring the fact that there are small players out there where cloud is the entire product/service.
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
I don't even understand how this is even controversial. If I'm selling something, of course I would want to charge people $60 or $70 compared to whatever change you get from people playing on a sub.

People are probably more invested in a game they paid money for then a game they can try with no investment at all, meaning for the people who paid for a game upfront, they are more likely to be engaged with that game then a sub customer.

Seems like fairly common sense to me.
 
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I disagree, don't have any clue why it would devalue a release. Definitely not in case of Sony and Microsoft when they put it on their own service.
People see subscription games as having less value. If you can get 100+ games for a yearly fee, why would you pay $70 for one game?

It’s the same for how Netflix has devalued film etc.

Are you buying more or fewer games as a subscriber?

For AAA games to continue to be made from non-first party publishers they need their $70 up front.
 
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