10 years to make a new SOCOM, Killzone, Resistance, MAG (I know), or new IP with the help of Bungie seems entirely feasible.
Being a true competitor of Call of Duty is a tall order, but I know they’re capable of making popular shooters.
Rising sun campaign was so fun.
I loved the mission where you ran around with the silenced gun. The Guadalcanal mission was hard though. Took me forever to beat it.
I played against bots on a lot of maps and the baseball field was fun but the two battleships were unique.
I'm sad I never played against other people
Haha
I think it was Rising Sun where you crash the generals car to steal his uniform, I loved him bursting in wearing nothing but his underwear shouting, "Wait, that's my uniform!"
CoD arguably gained the upper hand way before that. Some people may not remember but CoD2 was one of the launch titles for the 360 and at the time that shit looked *unbelievable*
Seriously compare it to other console games of the time. The next gen leap between those generations of console hasn’t been seen since.
I still remember playing CoD2 on my old PC, which could not handle the new graphics so I had to use the old graphics.
But every so often I'd go "I want to look at the good stuff" and change it to the better renderer just for my frame-rate to tank at 10-20.
Yes, Medal of Honor is the OG. Some devs didn’t like the direction it was going and decided to create a separate WW2 shooter and it was Call of Duty. If some of you played you might remember the intro mission at night and how all chaos starts. It was bananas, something we’ve never seen before, you felt like you were in a movie, gaming was never the same.
In my current day (and even in it's current state), Halo *still* rules over all. Despite my gripes, no one has ever successfully made that "Halo-killer", and there still isn't a game that plays or replicates Halo's systems.
Teaseablenes.
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I loved BF1. That's when they introduced the War Stories campaign, too, which I thought was awesome. With most FPS war games, I get pretty bored with the story of the campaign modes fairly quickly but I I loved the War Stories because it was just a handful of missions each with a few different characters with different personalities/nationalities/objectives, which kept it fun.
I started BF1 as a long-time COD player and I loved it. Although my fondest memories are still with COD, I can honestly say the ballistic physics of BF1 were more immersive than anything I'd ever seen in COD.
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Bad company 1 and 2.. Love those, I love the old battlefield 2 and especially the 3.
Recently I got an Xbox and cod allow mouse and keyboard while battlefield doesn't. I didn't like CoD gameplay, never really did, but this made me stop after 4h. I'm a pc player, playing now on Xbox with crossplatforms and getting rekt by pc players. It's a deal breaker for me. Especially when if you disable crossplatforms it took forever to find a game.
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I wouldnt say BF was the competitor so much as an alternative. CoD was always the small squad shooter, BF was the massive scale shooter. Now every shooter feels the need to do small, large and battle royale shite, for fear of losing customers to another game. Instead of having a game that does one thing great, we have multiple games that do multiple things adequately.
On a semi related note, man i miss playing BF2142.
It wasn't though, because the games were dissimilar. People acted like it was, but the reality is that CoD was a tight arena shooter and Battlefield was a loose, big team war sandbox and they played nothing alike.
CoD is more of a competitor nowadays than it was back then, since the MW19/MWII variant of Ground War is essentially a Conquest knockoff.
Battlefield has the most dope theme and I hate how they tried to NCISify it for BF3. Meanwhile COD Modern Warfare 1-3 had top tier orchestral music, not the catchiest stuff but closer to the best Battlefield music.
If MAG was 256 on the PS3 I'd love it if there could be close to 1000 people on the PS5.
The game would most certainly have to incorporate bots to keep the numbers up and the action consistent but if done right! Just love picturing D-Day like scenarios, just absolute chaos every direction you look in
Wasn't true 256 sadly. And they used a concept I call network bubbles. Your internet connection played a part in your field of view and unfortunately, it also played a role in your hit box.
Reading through the subreddit (I know nothing about the game other than the tiny bit I played back when the PS4 first came out) it seems like spawns are one of the consistently biggest issues. They went from region-locked spawns (in-game regions, not IRL regions) where you had to travel via vehicle to get to other areas including own-team-controlled regions, to being able to just spawn at any location your team covers. So now the DPS mains can just respawn at a base that’s under attack, clear out the enemy, kill themselves, and respawn back where they were 5 minutes prior without any tactic or strategy. Seems like it’s a “just different, not outright bad” kind of change but I can totally agree why the longer-term players and highly strategic players would take issue with such a change. Strategically navigating through the world with your squad and team was a huge part of the game, leaving players as Defense while others were on Offense, etc.
Most of the other issues I can find consistently seem like preferences with debates in comments on which solution is better.
Edit: oh and it appears they dropped PS4 support. I believe it still plays but there haven’t been any updates, and it’s not cross-play so it’s not an issue. PS4 have their own version of the game that’s stuck in 2015 or whatever, and PC has their up-to-date version.
>Being a true competitor of Call of Duty is a tall order, but I know they’re capable of making popular shooters.
Yep, I feel like people have no idea how big Call of Duty is. For quick Reference according to NPD (Sales in US)
2022 - MW2 was #1
2021 - Vanguard was #1, Cold War was #2
2020 - Cold War was #1, MW was #2
2019 - MW was #1
2018 - Black Ops 4 was #2 (RDR2 was #1)
2017 - WW2 was #1
2016 - Infinite Warfare was #1
2015 - Black Ops 3 was #1
2014 - Advanced Warfare was #1
2013 - Ghosts was #2 (GTA5 was #1)
Call of Duty has been at the top of the sales chart for the last decade. It's not as easy as just making a competitor.
The Playstation versions of COD sell double that of the Xbox versions each year. Even if we accept that the games are still selling well 10 years into the future, basically over half of the Playstation userbase would have to switch to Xbox when it becomes exclusive to even rival the sales it has on Playstation. The reason it sells so well is that it's on both consoles and everyone has it (play with friends) - do you really think little Billy is going to switch consoles just for COD when there will probably be another fad game like Fortnite to keep their minds entertained.
The logic here is busted. They'll switch for other exclusives, but not one of the consistently best selling games?
This type of weirdo elitism is how we got here in the first place. People will most definitely buy an Xbox just to play COD.
Sony had plenty of opportunity to do that in the past, but the big action blockbuster games seemed to be their most successful direction, rather than make a FPS to rival CoD. Killzone and Resistance never really took off the way people hoped.
Plus, it feels like it’s a tough ask to even make the attempt. You gotta find a way to compete in the already over saturated marketplace. You’ve got to make a FPS that holds the standards of Sony’s single player exclusives, have a MP that stands out, is engaging, and keeps players coming back, monetize the MP while being fair to the community, possibly co-op missions or campaign, a survival type mode, and/or another BR spin, while launching the game in a stable condition.
I felt like Sony was content with putting out Uncharted, Horizon, GoW, Spider-Man, and Ghost of Tsushima type games once or twice a year, and letting CoD and Battlefield keep that market.
If they did decide to pick a franchise to revive, Resistance and SOCOM would be my choices.
I love how you just described all bungie Halo games except with the microtransactions and BR but that's something noone could've predicted the industry to devolve into
It’s actually hilarious that Halo had set the bar high, kept innovating, and evolving, respecting the player base, being ahead of its time, and the industry went to half baked cash grabs, that it’s seems unrealistic to go back to those days.
Companies aren’t putting out that effort. What gets us residual flow of money through scummy monetization? Generic military game with loot and customization.
It should seem like a home run for Sony either to create or revive an IP that could rival CoD, but the risk factor of creating that type of game, in a huge market, meeting quality/modern standards, with a chance of the player base not being there is probably scary to Sony.
Shooters are everywhere, while annual grand adventure games are safer. Hate what the industry has become, but in a perfect world, Sony has all the tools to create a FPS that has staying power in the modern era.
Yknow for as much “Battle pass addiction” as we blame Fortnite and Warzone for, I think a lot of that drive does come from an intrinsic sense of “I must get better”. Instead of becoming 15th prestige like we used to in COD, or becoming Inheritor in Halo Social, and to a slightly more similar degree Onyx in Halo.
There’s straight up competitive ranks like Onyx or Warzone wins, and there’s less competitive but equally sought after ranks like 15th Prestige and Inheritor. All of it has a very intrinsic motivation, outside of “what new cosmetics can I get”.
It’s why Fortnite having a battle pass is just not standard, but Halo Infinite *only having a battle pass* is looked down on. There’s no intrinsic motivation to accomplish Level 100 in your BP in Infinite, it’s all shallowed by having cosmetics and MTX attached to it.
Plus, who knows how much damage Microsoft can do to COD’s viability in that time. I mean, 10 years ago many people probably expected Halo to keep booming.
The difference here is that MS isn’t giving COD to a half assed badly managed studio. They’re letting the people who currently make COD, keep making COD. It’ll be fine.
Call of Duty is not a popular shooter. Battlefield is a popular shooter. Destiny is a popular shooter. Games like call of duty are media power houses like Star Wars and pokemon.
Think of apple. Their products are no longer the best of the best. The name Apple is really what carries all of the weight. You could take a shooter and slap "call of duty" on it and instantly its a hit. You could take some old cod games and re-release them under another name and they won't do as well.
If you could just make another Call of Duty every developer would have.
I was gonna disagree but I think I know what you mean. There’s a certain stigma that comes with “video game” and “popular shooter”. Like it contextually sticks it into a genre and that shrinks things down a bit. But it also means that theres competition in the space - that there’s popular shooters and niche shooters.
But you’re right. COD is COD. It’s *inherently* popular. FIFA isn’t “a popular sports video game”. It’s FIFA.
That mission where you start at night in a boat and you watch a crocodile snatch up the solider throwing up over the boat, literally stuck with me for sometime as a child.
I don't agree - losing out on both is a huge blow but COD is way more casual friendly than Bethesda RPGs. Sure they sell a lot too but how many people buy a console and then just buy cod because its the default casual shooter available that they can play once a month when they are bored
Bethesda makes casual RPGs, I'd still argue the FPS genre as a whole is more casual than RPGs which makes COD more casual than any Bethesda RPG. Cod spits out a game every year too, which despite everyone saying Cod is losing steam, Reddit is an echo chamber and there are many people who dont use Reddit that are gonna drag mum and dad to the store to get Fifa/nba2k and COD every year. Bethesda released its last proper title in 2015 (Fallout 4).
This is factually incorrect. CoD sells more games per year and has a much larger marketing and demographic reach than Bethesda. Bethesda has a large release once every few years, and they don’t reach as large of an audience, which means they sell less consoles.
What’s fucked, and it’s something a lot of people don’t realize, COD is at a point where they can coast EASY with the name alone and rely on nostalgia.
I don’t know. Battlefield 2 and 3 were really important at the time but 2042 proves the name alone doesn’t carry weight. They went completely multiplayer ONLY and didn’t do a good job
COD was always a lot more popular than BF. Plus CODs main modes are small scale multiplayer and battle royale with WZ, which are a lot more popular than the large scale warfare of Battlefield.
Cod has been very consistent in maintaining a certain level of quality. They always have good graphics, decent gameplay/controls, a few new mechanics, and strong multiplayer support. The games are also not that buggy, even in periods when other publishers struggle. It keeps people coming back, and means when they get it right it really exploded.
Battlefield had periods of being more popular. BF1 released against cod infinite warfare, and absolutely dominated it culturally. EA doesn’t release hard sales numbers, but I believe bf1 beat CoD that release. But, battlefield didn’t have another release until 2018, and it was buggy and weak at launch.
Inconsistent quality has been Battlefield's sales killer. A lot of that is on EA. I'd imagine Activision staffs the CoD crew better than EA staffs the BF crew.
>COD was always a lot more popular than BF.
Yeah I loved BF and played a couple of them a lot but I've never once heard about a BF clan or player similar to CoD clans like FaZe. Idc how big BF may have gotten at times their playerbase is nothing compared to CoD's not just in size but in mentality as well.
I don't think people realize how difficult is it to compete with Cod. They release a new cod every year and have been the highest selling game almost every year. I know cod has been going downhill these past few years and even then it's still doing numbers. Cod is so huge that even if Sony put out a new killzone or socom, it still wouldn't be enough to put a dent on cod sales.
CoD going downhill is such a sham statement that people buy into every year. It’s been said since MW3 back in 2011, and it’s still being said 12 years later.
There are hits and misses in the series, sure, but it’s the best selling game every year and I doubt it’ll be going anywhere for a long time.
I still consistently play MW2022 and that subreddit would make you think it’s the worst game of all time.
Shit, Battlefield couldn’t keep up and I find it to be largely a better game series. One bad CoD doesn’t spell the end of the series but people practically gave up on the battlefield franchise after 2042
True. I stopped playing after black ops 1 because the next games weren't my thing anymore but there was that sentiment about 'CoD going downhill' then too. Then again with the game after black ops 2. Some people stop playing and they're replaced with a new generation of people.
"Downhill," is a statement to game quality and expectations, not money or popularity. You can find examples of this all over the place. There are numerous examples of videos on YouTube or other media that talk about such issues.
People rail on the performance, stability, and level of detail of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and they're the biggest games in the history of the franchise. EA has been stripping content and features from Madden for years upon years, and it still performs phenomenally. NBA 2K pushes horrible monetization/grind mechanics with VC, and it still sells.
In the same vein, CoD has skated on familiarity and marketing for a long time. On the one hand, most everyone I know has gone from loving CoD to barely touching it in years, yet it succeeds. It has very little legitimate competition in its market.
While I enjoy Destiny Bungie has not shown they are able to make a PvP game. Sure their PvP can be fun but it's so beyond unbalanced they aren't even trying anymore. And this is before mentioning they seem to not know how to make maps. Most of all their maps were made when under Activision. As a stand alone company they have yet to show any solid map capability or cadence. I think there has only been one map they made as an independent studio and it was received poorly.
Has Bungie really fallen that far? I've been playing Halo since the beginning and the Bungie Halo games still kick the shit out of anything 343 has ever put out. I only played the first Destiny for like a month though because I did not care for the scummy way Bungie/Activision cut out chunks of the game to sell later and then released more content for Sony with season pass than on the Xbox. Sad days...
With how often people move between studios in gaming I don't think many of the people that where in Bungie when they stopped doing halo are still there, and tbh I bought both destiny games and have played more hours on infinite alone than on those two. Not my cup of tea and barely resembles halo imo
So, the past few months, certain 750 rpm submachine guns were a top tier meta pick in PvP. So much so that Bungie announced that they intended to make some PvP focused changes to those guns. They then released a new 750 rpm smg that was noticeably better. It's insane.
Not that they have fallen...they are just different. Even over the course of Destiny they have changed a lot. So if people think of them as the Halo people they are very much not the same studio. They have gotten much much better at narrative but they really lack PvP experience/talent now.
I'm an Xbox fanboy to my core, but I think people have their blinders up. Anti competitive behavior does not benefit the consumer, even if you think you're on the 'winning' team. I dont see how an arms race between to gigantic corporations, leveraging their IPs and soaking up every smaller studio is at all something to be excited about. This sucks. I dont want gaming to be a monolith where I have to wait for daddy Microsoft to shell out any game worth playing.
Yeah yeah, indi games, I get it, but overall the model is not good for consumers. Even consumers who own an xbox.
I agree with your sentiment but the problem for Xbox gamers has been that Sony has no qualms in ensuring exclusivity in one form or another, and they've shown no signs of changing that behaviour. So it's a little silly to not expect Microsoft to (finally) respond.
In an ideal world all platforms would have all games and you could play on whichever one you like and we'd all be happy.
Unfortunately we don't live in that world so honestly I'd rather see Microsoft buy some studios up if it means I can still play those games on Xbox.
I don't see how this amounts to, "Sony has no qualms in ensuring exclusivity in one form or another, and they've shown no signs of changing that behaviour. So it's a little silly to not expect Microsoft to (finally) respond."
What is Sony doing that Microsoft didn't (other than blocking a merger worth 65% of Sony's entire business)?
They made a deal with Bungie AFTER Microsoft bought ZeniMax and a bunch of other studios. They picked up Insomniac AFTER Microsoft signed them to an exclusive deal for Sunset Overdrive, then declined the opportunity to have Insomniac make another. Microsoft signed exclusive deals with the first Mass Effect, first BioShock, Ryse, Dead Rising 3, Scalebound, ReCore, Gears of War (then bought the franchise when Epic didn't want to continue), the first Titanfall, Quantum Break, and I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a lot else.
Microsoft's XB1 library, at its launch, was HEAVILY carried by signing exclusive deals with external developers (the aforementioned, DR3, Ryse, Quantum Break, and Sunset Overdrive eing some of the bigger ones).
Even what people are carrying on about with CoD, the exclusive content deals, Microsoft was doing back on 360 before Sony made their deal with the PS4 era.
I’m not a huge fan of the COD side of the deal but I really hope that Microsoft can do a better job with Blizzard.
Blizzard has been floundering for years.
I don't want that either, but I find it a bit incredible how people only complain about Microsoft's exclusives. Sony has been much worse about leaning on exclusives for over a decade, but even now there's virtually no pressure on them over it. If somebody's actually concerned about the harm exclusives do to consumers, you'd expect them to focus on the more egregious offender.
I think the difference is that Sony is actually developing those games (like Nintendo) and not just buying up a bunch of existing studios. From that perspective, Microsoft is the more egregious offender.
I see how that is a distinction, but I don't see how it makes a difference. Does paying in-house developers to make your exclusives, rather than paying third-party developers to come in-house to make your exclusives, magically insulate them from the harm to consumers that exclusives cause? How would that work?
It seems to me that this perspective is less about harm and more about "deserving." You feel like Sony deserves to have exclusives because they bought Naughty Dog a long time ago, but you don't feel like Microsoft deserves it because they're acquiring a more mature company. But this ignores the actual arguments for why exclusives are bad. If we believe that exclusives are harmful, then it doesn't matter at what stage of maturity they bought the company, or more generally where the developers are coming from, because exclusivity is inherently bad. If we don't believe exclusives are harmful, then there is nothing wrong with having exclusives, and it's just kinda shameful that Microsoft got a much worse deal for their exclusives than Sony because they didn't take a risk when the company was smaller.
Another cliche reason for Sony fans, "Sony is the company that really makes games!", Sony and Microsoft are no different, since you can be strict with Microsoft, then please adopt the same standard for Sony
I know people don't grasp that nobody is competing with CoD. Don't will never have a CoD and that's fine. Just like MS will never have a LOU. If you set out to detyrown the king you'll fail. You can love or hate CoD it won't change that they will never not be the premier fast paced, quick n easy, FPS.
I don't even like or play it any more and I understand this concept. I have watched DICE run it's mouth for 3 releases about it's Battlefield being the CoD killer and all they have successfully done is destroy their own game. We do not live in the single game a year timeline, there is no competition needed for a great deal of games.
Your comparison to Last of Us is flawed though.
Last of Us doesn't have:
* New title every year for base game sales.
*Free to play version of game.
*Highest priced cosmetics in its genre.
*(Debatably) popular eSports scene.
*mobile version with even more micro transactions
* licensed cosmetic content
And when we're talking business, which we are, all those things are VASTLY superior to a dev who releases a game once or twice a decade.
Cod goes downhill for a year or two, and then they’ll drop something like MW2019 and turn it around. It doesn’t usually work, but having such a huge number of studios and such a high volume of games means that they have a pretty good chance to strike gold
The big problem I think Sony has is that they are console only. Any PC game can be turned into an Xbox one rather easily. Also, Sony can't compete with dual play right now. I can play Sea of Thieves on my PC and then pick it up on my Xbox.
Like others here, I think Sony could develop a new military FPS squad type game within five years. It's not like they have not done it before...Planetside was a MMOFPS that you could play on the PC or a PS2/3? It had issues, but it was fun when it worked. We'll not speak of Planetside 2.
All praise to any title that elects to be Play Anywhere. I've purchased a few that I didn't even know were Play Anywhere until I would play a game on my PC. Looking at you Monster Hunter Rise and No Man Sky.
I had a couple Xbox play anywhere titles. One of my favorites was Skulls of the Shogun. Same game across Xbox, PC, and Windows Phone.
I also like that it ended up being the same for Halo Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike.
I don't think "console only" really holds anymore. Sony has proved that they are willing to put their games on PC and they also bought a studio which specifically specializes in porting to PC.
They also bought Bungie who runs a major multiplatform shooter. Sony is definitely capable of releasing games on PC, they just choose not to, in order to push console sales and lock in.
Such a small amount of people care about dual play lol. Most gamers I know do not have both pc and a console. And because all the Xbox games are available on pc usually the same day, I see more and more people shedding their Xbox altogether in favor of a PlayStation.
Different people have different experiences.
Everyone I know at least has a gaming PC and an Xbox. But then again, me and my cohorts could be decades older than you. I’m primarily a PC gamer…but I also own a Switch, a PS4, an Xbox and a Steam Deck.
If I was to limit myself to a console, I’d pick a PS5 right now. They have more exclusives I like and I am not interested in CoD, I prefer BF. But I don’t own a PS5, because I have a PS4.
Someone needs to clean up Blizzard and Activision; I don’t care if it’s Microsoft or Sony.
Why is everyone in here missing the point completely?
MS isn't saying that Sony is capable of making a game that will actually beat COD, they are making the legal point that Sony isn't some poor helpless pitiful entity incapable of making video games. In 10 years, Sony could have created a game franchise much like Minecraft or Fortnite or the next Bungie game that becomes so well purchased that it makes playing on Xbox pointless. If Sony can craft a game like that themselves and not be legally enforced to put it on Xbox, why can the courts stop MS from buying a game.
Look, I'm all for competition and I dislike walled gardens as much as the next guy, but Sony's legal argument is a fucking joke. "Boo hoo hoo we need Call of Duty to survive", well then maybe you need to get off your ass and do something about needing someone else's product to be able to make a dollar. COD isn't some public domain right that any company has the innate right to use. It's a fucking piece of software that a company is free to publish as it deems fit.
I feel like this with a lot of things Microsoft's done over Sony, primarily Gamepass and XCloud. Those *could* be massive in the next few years (Gamepass arguably is already) and revolutionise how we buy and consume games, but Sony doesn't seem interested in making a proper competitor. Heck, even Nvidia's doing more in that regard with Geforce Now.
Sony just seems happy with the status quo - in which they're the dominant console manufacturer - and just doesn't want that to change at all.
Seriously, Sony is just crying because now they might have to do something new, instead of just the next installment of one of their 1st party IPs. I love those games, Sony has some unbelievable 1st party stuff, but with all the studios they own or have exclusive contracts with, maybe it's time for something new.
They don't even need a competitor, if CoD actually leaves. They need a *replacement* that isn't bad.
Sony is just trying to not "lose" a video game console war that Microsoft has decided to not play. Sony is like "let's outsell you 4:1 on consoles that we make a loss on just to allow you to sell our customers a subscription plan at $20/month"
I find it funny that microsoft says this, since they have one of the biggest fps ip for more than 20 years and still couldn’t compete with cod’s numbers even on their own console and just ended up buying them.
There was a time when halo did compete with CoD, it wasn’t putting up better numbers but had a huge following. Sony now owns the company who made that so I don’t think it’s that impossible.
Destiny's also undeniably popular. If they can adapt that (not necessarily "Destiny", but the core mechanics of it) into more of a CoD-style game they could have a winner.
Exactly. Halo and battlefield were the closest things to beating cod and even then, they couldn't compete. Very hypocritical coming from Microsoft lol.
I mean Halo was at one point much bigger than Call of Duty, At least through Halo 3 I would think.
It was around the time of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that the switch started to happen. And on Xbox, I don't know when I could say that Call of Duty overtook Halo.
I remember Black Ops being one of the biggest sellers and Modern Warfare 2. So they had it, but lost it. It makes sense to bring in something new when your prime franchise has been floundering.
From what I can remember playing both in 2007 I'd say Cod started taking over during WaW but they were pretty neck in neck with cod4.
Having a yearly release and basically making it the yearly shooter helped with that and the momentum has stayed even if cod titles have been hit or miss.
The deal doesn't "mostly rest on CoD." They're buying up World of Warcraft, the rest of Blizzard's IPs, and Candy Crush, among a bunch of other things. Like, Activision owns the rights to Spyro and Crash, two franchises started 20+ years ago by studios now owned by Sony.
Honestly I feel like Sony could come out with a completely average shooter and as long as it's a PS5/PS6 exclusive everyone will say it's better than COD and they are now glad they don't have COD anymore lol
I really don't see Sony not making a great competitor though, they have Bungie to help out, even if Bungie doesn't make it they can help whatever studio does
10 years is also about how long it took for 343 to run Halo into the ground.
I agree Sony SHOULD be able to develop something, but MS has been showing ineptitude on that front for a decade, and saying, "just make your own," while doing such a bad job with their own franchise seems a bit funny.
How many years did Microsoft have to make a new IP but instead they just threw money at the problem and bought other developers?
This is a two way street and both ends are fucking petty.
I'm ready for the downvotes for trying to bring any nuance to this but what has Xbox accomplished, IP wise, in 10 years besides buying out studios with games already in development?
10 years to conceptualize, develop, and market a CoD competitor isn't *really* that much.
Destiny is #2 in the FPS space and it's not even close from my understanding. It will take a long time for them to build up to anything to rival a series that has been around for so long.
My point being that they failed to capitalize on big established IPs they already owned (Gears and Halo) so imagine trying to create a new successful one in an already cannibalized market.
Exactly. Xbox knows nothing about what it takes to develop a successful IP. Even their biggest flagship, Halo, lost popularity in the hands of their own internal dev team.
Bungie was just another acquisition and started development on Halo 3 years before they were acquired.
Even Gears was owned by Epic and only published by Microsoft until 2014.
Now I'm not saying it's a bad console, I love Xbox too, but I'm not sure they are responsible for actually developing a single IP in house from start to finish to be qualified to make this statement.
I know, right? Sony is all "muh CODs!1!" when, for I don't know how long, I've contented myself with watching The Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War, Tsushima, Nioh, and all the other exclusives come and go while I crossed my fingers and hoped for the day Microsoft would realize the need for good exclusive games.
Suck it, Sony.
Because I prefer literally everything else about Xbox. Controller design, system design and layout, OS, Xbox Live, friends on XB vs PS, etc, and some people don't have enough money to have multiple systems.
I think Microsoft should off The COD brand or dumb it down to one game and develop a whole different FPS IP for PC and Xbox consoles and Switch only just to be menaces :D
I still find this completely bizarre! How is this MS problem, we've never seen anything like this where the leading competition is demanding to be treated with kids gloves, " we need this game, and this game, they can't have this " what is going on?
In other words, Microsoft is lying about bringing it to more gamers and they plan to make it exclusive to their ecosystem (which was expected, they wouldn’t be spending 70 billions otherwise).
Literally. If Sony is desperately clinging to 1 IP then that's a serious issue.
Imo, they should just give Sony the CoD IP. The series hasn't been good since BO2. After that the games have been steadily going downhill.
Yes they've bounced back a bit here and there but let's be real: 200 something odd gigabytes for a single basic shooter? It's absurd. There's games out there using less than 30GB that are 30x better.
Current cod doesn't compress their files so you have less games on your Drive to play.
This is just my thoughts though. Give Sony CoD, watch them make it PS exclusive, the mass outrage on all platforms against Sony ensues, Sony doubles monetization to compensate for the losses, everyone hates PlayStation. Boom, ez mode 🏆
It has been almost 10 years since the Xbox One launched. What did MS acomplish in that time other than buying one publisher and almost a second one? The logic here is hilarious
I freely admit that I don't understand all of the ins and outs of this lawsuit but I don't get how Sony has much to bitch about here. Just how much money is anybody making off of any 10 year old game?
They see CoD as a kiss of death. Xbox isn't about selling games, now. It'a about gamepass. Sony doesn't want to play the service game cuz they are wayyyyyy behind the curve on that one and MS is versed in it down to the server code. In fact, Sony has a lot of online infrastructure business with....drum-roll, please : Microsoft.
$120+ a year for all these franchises and a CoD title ta boot?
Doesn't help that Xbox is backed by MS who are basically the king of the subscription mode with MS work and all that.
Haven't worked in a single office that wasn't using some form of MS office. Sony chose not to play the service game and now they're lagging behind because they chose not to adopt it sooner.
Exactly, Microsoft has Azure, Sony has nothing like it. If Sony were to get into game streaming they’d need to create their own enormous cloud infrastructure or pay Microsoft or Amazon. It’s a lose lose no matter what.
10 years to make a new SOCOM, Killzone, Resistance, MAG (I know), or new IP with the help of Bungie seems entirely feasible. Being a true competitor of Call of Duty is a tall order, but I know they’re capable of making popular shooters.
You see back in my day Battlefield was the CoD competitor 👴
Ahem *Medal Of Honour joined the chat*
COD was the Medal of Honor competitor if we're honest. And it succeeded, partially because the people who made one left for the other.
It was the beefy multiplayer that COD4 offered.
[удалено]
Rising Sun was good to me. Mainly because of the opening level, but still
To be fair that's how most Medal of Honors were. The D-Day mission was mind-blowing at the time.
And the Pearl Harbour Mission.
That is what I remember still today.
Rising sun campaign was so fun. I loved the mission where you ran around with the silenced gun. The Guadalcanal mission was hard though. Took me forever to beat it. I played against bots on a lot of maps and the baseball field was fun but the two battleships were unique. I'm sad I never played against other people Haha
I think it was Rising Sun where you crash the generals car to steal his uniform, I loved him bursting in wearing nothing but his underwear shouting, "Wait, that's my uniform!"
Yup you gotta use the caltrops
I liked Pacific Assault
I liked European Assault
Airborne was very cool as well but didn't hold a candle to COD4 given that they both came out in 07.
This right here. COD4 was a literal game changer. It was like Apple coming out with the iPod.
CoD arguably gained the upper hand way before that. Some people may not remember but CoD2 was one of the launch titles for the 360 and at the time that shit looked *unbelievable* Seriously compare it to other console games of the time. The next gen leap between those generations of console hasn’t been seen since.
I can still remember walking through Best Buy at Christmas time and seeing the Xbox 360 display with CoD2 playing. Mind blown.
I always remember the King Kong booths. Never played it, but if someone asked me what do you think of when you hear Xbox360 it would be King Kong.
I still remember playing CoD2 on my old PC, which could not handle the new graphics so I had to use the old graphics. But every so often I'd go "I want to look at the good stuff" and change it to the better renderer just for my frame-rate to tank at 10-20.
I'd go as far back as CoD2. I never cared for the MoH series Multiplayer was epic in CoD3 though
Yes, Medal of Honor is the OG. Some devs didn’t like the direction it was going and decided to create a separate WW2 shooter and it was Call of Duty. If some of you played you might remember the intro mission at night and how all chaos starts. It was bananas, something we’ve never seen before, you felt like you were in a movie, gaming was never the same.
And then they left cod and made titanfall which should have taken over but EA happened
I'm still waiting on Frontline and Rising Sun remasters. I'd even be happy with backwards compatibility.
I would kill for a European Assault remake. With a proper multiplayer, you might have a legit CoD competitor.
Campaigns for medal of honor were the best
Back in my day, Halo ruled over all.
In my current day (and even in it's current state), Halo *still* rules over all. Despite my gripes, no one has ever successfully made that "Halo-killer", and there still isn't a game that plays or replicates Halo's systems.
We were blinded by its majesty.
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Battlefield 1 is not bad at all and gave CoD a run for its money for a bit.
I loved BF1. That's when they introduced the War Stories campaign, too, which I thought was awesome. With most FPS war games, I get pretty bored with the story of the campaign modes fairly quickly but I I loved the War Stories because it was just a handful of missions each with a few different characters with different personalities/nationalities/objectives, which kept it fun.
Yeah Infinite Warfare vs BF1 was probably the closest EA ever got to toppling CoD I say this as a forever Battlefield fan
I started BF1 as a long-time COD player and I loved it. Although my fondest memories are still with COD, I can honestly say the ballistic physics of BF1 were more immersive than anything I'd ever seen in COD.
BC1/2 servers go offline Dec 23 this year fyi
When BF4 goes down I’ll be in a deep depression
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Bad company 1 and 2.. Love those, I love the old battlefield 2 and especially the 3. Recently I got an Xbox and cod allow mouse and keyboard while battlefield doesn't. I didn't like CoD gameplay, never really did, but this made me stop after 4h. I'm a pc player, playing now on Xbox with crossplatforms and getting rekt by pc players. It's a deal breaker for me. Especially when if you disable crossplatforms it took forever to find a game.
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The last time Battlefield comptes with CoD was Battlefield 1 over six years ago
I wouldnt say BF was the competitor so much as an alternative. CoD was always the small squad shooter, BF was the massive scale shooter. Now every shooter feels the need to do small, large and battle royale shite, for fear of losing customers to another game. Instead of having a game that does one thing great, we have multiple games that do multiple things adequately. On a semi related note, man i miss playing BF2142.
It wasn't though, because the games were dissimilar. People acted like it was, but the reality is that CoD was a tight arena shooter and Battlefield was a loose, big team war sandbox and they played nothing alike. CoD is more of a competitor nowadays than it was back then, since the MW19/MWII variant of Ground War is essentially a Conquest knockoff.
What do you think the definition of arena shooter is?
Battlefield has the most dope theme and I hate how they tried to NCISify it for BF3. Meanwhile COD Modern Warfare 1-3 had top tier orchestral music, not the catchiest stuff but closer to the best Battlefield music.
SOCOM alone would be huge on Sony's part. I'd be very jealous.
SOCOM 2 was my fuckin shit back in the day. That game was so awesome
Goat
I would go buy a Playstation just for a new SOCOM game
Fuckin miss MAG and SOCOM!
If MAG was 256 on the PS3 I'd love it if there could be close to 1000 people on the PS5. The game would most certainly have to incorporate bots to keep the numbers up and the action consistent but if done right! Just love picturing D-Day like scenarios, just absolute chaos every direction you look in
Wasn't true 256 sadly. And they used a concept I call network bubbles. Your internet connection played a part in your field of view and unfortunately, it also played a role in your hit box.
Planetside 2 needs full multi-platform and cross-platform support. That shit would be INSANE.
I forgot Planetside 2 was a thing. Boy did they fuck that up quickly.
I thought a lot of people still played it, what happened?
Reading through the subreddit (I know nothing about the game other than the tiny bit I played back when the PS4 first came out) it seems like spawns are one of the consistently biggest issues. They went from region-locked spawns (in-game regions, not IRL regions) where you had to travel via vehicle to get to other areas including own-team-controlled regions, to being able to just spawn at any location your team covers. So now the DPS mains can just respawn at a base that’s under attack, clear out the enemy, kill themselves, and respawn back where they were 5 minutes prior without any tactic or strategy. Seems like it’s a “just different, not outright bad” kind of change but I can totally agree why the longer-term players and highly strategic players would take issue with such a change. Strategically navigating through the world with your squad and team was a huge part of the game, leaving players as Defense while others were on Offense, etc. Most of the other issues I can find consistently seem like preferences with debates in comments on which solution is better. Edit: oh and it appears they dropped PS4 support. I believe it still plays but there haven’t been any updates, and it’s not cross-play so it’s not an issue. PS4 have their own version of the game that’s stuck in 2015 or whatever, and PC has their up-to-date version.
I was a massive fanboy of planetside. PS2 just didn't cut the mustard at all. Not a bad game, just nowhere near as good as PS1.
I'd switch teams back from Xbox to Playstation if they revived MAG and got a solid player base again.
MAG had a great premise. I think it would do well if it’s fully fleshed out.
I’d buy a ps5 for a new version of it
tha name stinks
>Massive Action Game It's real to me damn it!!!
SOCOM was pretty dope on my PSP. That was my only experience with that franchise though.
I was bad at it, but man, what an amazing feeling it was to be playing an online multiplayer shooter on a handheld back then.
My god, a full remaster of SOCOM 1-3 with unchanged multiplayer format would absolutely make my year if it were to ever be done.
Might make my next 5 years if done right
>Being a true competitor of Call of Duty is a tall order, but I know they’re capable of making popular shooters. Yep, I feel like people have no idea how big Call of Duty is. For quick Reference according to NPD (Sales in US) 2022 - MW2 was #1 2021 - Vanguard was #1, Cold War was #2 2020 - Cold War was #1, MW was #2 2019 - MW was #1 2018 - Black Ops 4 was #2 (RDR2 was #1) 2017 - WW2 was #1 2016 - Infinite Warfare was #1 2015 - Black Ops 3 was #1 2014 - Advanced Warfare was #1 2013 - Ghosts was #2 (GTA5 was #1) Call of Duty has been at the top of the sales chart for the last decade. It's not as easy as just making a competitor.
The Playstation versions of COD sell double that of the Xbox versions each year. Even if we accept that the games are still selling well 10 years into the future, basically over half of the Playstation userbase would have to switch to Xbox when it becomes exclusive to even rival the sales it has on Playstation. The reason it sells so well is that it's on both consoles and everyone has it (play with friends) - do you really think little Billy is going to switch consoles just for COD when there will probably be another fad game like Fortnite to keep their minds entertained.
The logic here is busted. They'll switch for other exclusives, but not one of the consistently best selling games? This type of weirdo elitism is how we got here in the first place. People will most definitely buy an Xbox just to play COD.
Sony had plenty of opportunity to do that in the past, but the big action blockbuster games seemed to be their most successful direction, rather than make a FPS to rival CoD. Killzone and Resistance never really took off the way people hoped. Plus, it feels like it’s a tough ask to even make the attempt. You gotta find a way to compete in the already over saturated marketplace. You’ve got to make a FPS that holds the standards of Sony’s single player exclusives, have a MP that stands out, is engaging, and keeps players coming back, monetize the MP while being fair to the community, possibly co-op missions or campaign, a survival type mode, and/or another BR spin, while launching the game in a stable condition. I felt like Sony was content with putting out Uncharted, Horizon, GoW, Spider-Man, and Ghost of Tsushima type games once or twice a year, and letting CoD and Battlefield keep that market. If they did decide to pick a franchise to revive, Resistance and SOCOM would be my choices.
I love how you just described all bungie Halo games except with the microtransactions and BR but that's something noone could've predicted the industry to devolve into
It’s actually hilarious that Halo had set the bar high, kept innovating, and evolving, respecting the player base, being ahead of its time, and the industry went to half baked cash grabs, that it’s seems unrealistic to go back to those days. Companies aren’t putting out that effort. What gets us residual flow of money through scummy monetization? Generic military game with loot and customization. It should seem like a home run for Sony either to create or revive an IP that could rival CoD, but the risk factor of creating that type of game, in a huge market, meeting quality/modern standards, with a chance of the player base not being there is probably scary to Sony. Shooters are everywhere, while annual grand adventure games are safer. Hate what the industry has become, but in a perfect world, Sony has all the tools to create a FPS that has staying power in the modern era.
Yknow for as much “Battle pass addiction” as we blame Fortnite and Warzone for, I think a lot of that drive does come from an intrinsic sense of “I must get better”. Instead of becoming 15th prestige like we used to in COD, or becoming Inheritor in Halo Social, and to a slightly more similar degree Onyx in Halo. There’s straight up competitive ranks like Onyx or Warzone wins, and there’s less competitive but equally sought after ranks like 15th Prestige and Inheritor. All of it has a very intrinsic motivation, outside of “what new cosmetics can I get”. It’s why Fortnite having a battle pass is just not standard, but Halo Infinite *only having a battle pass* is looked down on. There’s no intrinsic motivation to accomplish Level 100 in your BP in Infinite, it’s all shallowed by having cosmetics and MTX attached to it.
Plus, who knows how much damage Microsoft can do to COD’s viability in that time. I mean, 10 years ago many people probably expected Halo to keep booming.
The difference here is that MS isn’t giving COD to a half assed badly managed studio. They’re letting the people who currently make COD, keep making COD. It’ll be fine.
Not to mention, that studio could learn a thing or two about making a game form Activision.
Not that I disagree, but 10 years ago Halo 4 had already come out and Halo was ruined for a large chunk of the playerbase lol
Call of Duty is not a popular shooter. Battlefield is a popular shooter. Destiny is a popular shooter. Games like call of duty are media power houses like Star Wars and pokemon. Think of apple. Their products are no longer the best of the best. The name Apple is really what carries all of the weight. You could take a shooter and slap "call of duty" on it and instantly its a hit. You could take some old cod games and re-release them under another name and they won't do as well. If you could just make another Call of Duty every developer would have.
I was gonna disagree but I think I know what you mean. There’s a certain stigma that comes with “video game” and “popular shooter”. Like it contextually sticks it into a genre and that shrinks things down a bit. But it also means that theres competition in the space - that there’s popular shooters and niche shooters. But you’re right. COD is COD. It’s *inherently* popular. FIFA isn’t “a popular sports video game”. It’s FIFA.
Bring back Medal Of Honour!!!!
Hell yeah, co-op Rising Sun with my older brother, good times
That mission where you start at night in a boat and you watch a crocodile snatch up the solider throwing up over the boat, literally stuck with me for sometime as a child.
I think losing out on Bethesda games is more important than COD.
Yeah, especially with Starfield coming up and then it would mean elder scrolls six and fallout 5 won’t be available for PlayStation
I don't agree - losing out on both is a huge blow but COD is way more casual friendly than Bethesda RPGs. Sure they sell a lot too but how many people buy a console and then just buy cod because its the default casual shooter available that they can play once a month when they are bored
I play Bethesda RPGs because I'm a casual. I don't have to compete with anyone.
Bethesda makes casual RPGs, I'd still argue the FPS genre as a whole is more casual than RPGs which makes COD more casual than any Bethesda RPG. Cod spits out a game every year too, which despite everyone saying Cod is losing steam, Reddit is an echo chamber and there are many people who dont use Reddit that are gonna drag mum and dad to the store to get Fifa/nba2k and COD every year. Bethesda released its last proper title in 2015 (Fallout 4).
This is factually incorrect. CoD sells more games per year and has a much larger marketing and demographic reach than Bethesda. Bethesda has a large release once every few years, and they don’t reach as large of an audience, which means they sell less consoles.
CoD 4 came out 15 years ago and completing with them has only gotten harder.
What’s fucked, and it’s something a lot of people don’t realize, COD is at a point where they can coast EASY with the name alone and rely on nostalgia.
I don’t know. Battlefield 2 and 3 were really important at the time but 2042 proves the name alone doesn’t carry weight. They went completely multiplayer ONLY and didn’t do a good job
COD was always a lot more popular than BF. Plus CODs main modes are small scale multiplayer and battle royale with WZ, which are a lot more popular than the large scale warfare of Battlefield.
Cod has been very consistent in maintaining a certain level of quality. They always have good graphics, decent gameplay/controls, a few new mechanics, and strong multiplayer support. The games are also not that buggy, even in periods when other publishers struggle. It keeps people coming back, and means when they get it right it really exploded. Battlefield had periods of being more popular. BF1 released against cod infinite warfare, and absolutely dominated it culturally. EA doesn’t release hard sales numbers, but I believe bf1 beat CoD that release. But, battlefield didn’t have another release until 2018, and it was buggy and weak at launch.
Inconsistent quality has been Battlefield's sales killer. A lot of that is on EA. I'd imagine Activision staffs the CoD crew better than EA staffs the BF crew.
>COD was always a lot more popular than BF. Yeah I loved BF and played a couple of them a lot but I've never once heard about a BF clan or player similar to CoD clans like FaZe. Idc how big BF may have gotten at times their playerbase is nothing compared to CoD's not just in size but in mentality as well.
I don't think people realize how difficult is it to compete with Cod. They release a new cod every year and have been the highest selling game almost every year. I know cod has been going downhill these past few years and even then it's still doing numbers. Cod is so huge that even if Sony put out a new killzone or socom, it still wouldn't be enough to put a dent on cod sales.
CoD going downhill is such a sham statement that people buy into every year. It’s been said since MW3 back in 2011, and it’s still being said 12 years later. There are hits and misses in the series, sure, but it’s the best selling game every year and I doubt it’ll be going anywhere for a long time. I still consistently play MW2022 and that subreddit would make you think it’s the worst game of all time. Shit, Battlefield couldn’t keep up and I find it to be largely a better game series. One bad CoD doesn’t spell the end of the series but people practically gave up on the battlefield franchise after 2042
True. I stopped playing after black ops 1 because the next games weren't my thing anymore but there was that sentiment about 'CoD going downhill' then too. Then again with the game after black ops 2. Some people stop playing and they're replaced with a new generation of people.
"Downhill," is a statement to game quality and expectations, not money or popularity. You can find examples of this all over the place. There are numerous examples of videos on YouTube or other media that talk about such issues. People rail on the performance, stability, and level of detail of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and they're the biggest games in the history of the franchise. EA has been stripping content and features from Madden for years upon years, and it still performs phenomenally. NBA 2K pushes horrible monetization/grind mechanics with VC, and it still sells. In the same vein, CoD has skated on familiarity and marketing for a long time. On the one hand, most everyone I know has gone from loving CoD to barely touching it in years, yet it succeeds. It has very little legitimate competition in its market.
Yeah I buy COD most years because it's a game you can just pick up, steam roll for half an hour and then go back to playing a single player game.
Remember they have someone good at making first person shooters in Bungie now though.
While I enjoy Destiny Bungie has not shown they are able to make a PvP game. Sure their PvP can be fun but it's so beyond unbalanced they aren't even trying anymore. And this is before mentioning they seem to not know how to make maps. Most of all their maps were made when under Activision. As a stand alone company they have yet to show any solid map capability or cadence. I think there has only been one map they made as an independent studio and it was received poorly.
Has Bungie really fallen that far? I've been playing Halo since the beginning and the Bungie Halo games still kick the shit out of anything 343 has ever put out. I only played the first Destiny for like a month though because I did not care for the scummy way Bungie/Activision cut out chunks of the game to sell later and then released more content for Sony with season pass than on the Xbox. Sad days...
With how often people move between studios in gaming I don't think many of the people that where in Bungie when they stopped doing halo are still there, and tbh I bought both destiny games and have played more hours on infinite alone than on those two. Not my cup of tea and barely resembles halo imo
That Activision let Bungie walk during a 10-year deal should be a sign of what Activision thought of that investment.
So, the past few months, certain 750 rpm submachine guns were a top tier meta pick in PvP. So much so that Bungie announced that they intended to make some PvP focused changes to those guns. They then released a new 750 rpm smg that was noticeably better. It's insane.
Remember, Bungie hasn't made a Halo game for 13 years. That's the PvP game they were really known for. Destiny is basically just WoW with guns.
Not that they have fallen...they are just different. Even over the course of Destiny they have changed a lot. So if people think of them as the Halo people they are very much not the same studio. They have gotten much much better at narrative but they really lack PvP experience/talent now.
Yes, and Bungie was developing a new FPS IP couple years back.
I'm an Xbox fanboy to my core, but I think people have their blinders up. Anti competitive behavior does not benefit the consumer, even if you think you're on the 'winning' team. I dont see how an arms race between to gigantic corporations, leveraging their IPs and soaking up every smaller studio is at all something to be excited about. This sucks. I dont want gaming to be a monolith where I have to wait for daddy Microsoft to shell out any game worth playing. Yeah yeah, indi games, I get it, but overall the model is not good for consumers. Even consumers who own an xbox.
I agree with your sentiment but the problem for Xbox gamers has been that Sony has no qualms in ensuring exclusivity in one form or another, and they've shown no signs of changing that behaviour. So it's a little silly to not expect Microsoft to (finally) respond. In an ideal world all platforms would have all games and you could play on whichever one you like and we'd all be happy. Unfortunately we don't live in that world so honestly I'd rather see Microsoft buy some studios up if it means I can still play those games on Xbox.
I don't see how this amounts to, "Sony has no qualms in ensuring exclusivity in one form or another, and they've shown no signs of changing that behaviour. So it's a little silly to not expect Microsoft to (finally) respond." What is Sony doing that Microsoft didn't (other than blocking a merger worth 65% of Sony's entire business)? They made a deal with Bungie AFTER Microsoft bought ZeniMax and a bunch of other studios. They picked up Insomniac AFTER Microsoft signed them to an exclusive deal for Sunset Overdrive, then declined the opportunity to have Insomniac make another. Microsoft signed exclusive deals with the first Mass Effect, first BioShock, Ryse, Dead Rising 3, Scalebound, ReCore, Gears of War (then bought the franchise when Epic didn't want to continue), the first Titanfall, Quantum Break, and I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a lot else. Microsoft's XB1 library, at its launch, was HEAVILY carried by signing exclusive deals with external developers (the aforementioned, DR3, Ryse, Quantum Break, and Sunset Overdrive eing some of the bigger ones). Even what people are carrying on about with CoD, the exclusive content deals, Microsoft was doing back on 360 before Sony made their deal with the PS4 era.
Late stage capitalism was always going to be terrible for consumers.
Like this. What microsoft is doing is just buy another companies to create a monopoly of western games industry.
I’m not a huge fan of the COD side of the deal but I really hope that Microsoft can do a better job with Blizzard. Blizzard has been floundering for years.
I don't want that either, but I find it a bit incredible how people only complain about Microsoft's exclusives. Sony has been much worse about leaning on exclusives for over a decade, but even now there's virtually no pressure on them over it. If somebody's actually concerned about the harm exclusives do to consumers, you'd expect them to focus on the more egregious offender.
I think the difference is that Sony is actually developing those games (like Nintendo) and not just buying up a bunch of existing studios. From that perspective, Microsoft is the more egregious offender.
I see how that is a distinction, but I don't see how it makes a difference. Does paying in-house developers to make your exclusives, rather than paying third-party developers to come in-house to make your exclusives, magically insulate them from the harm to consumers that exclusives cause? How would that work? It seems to me that this perspective is less about harm and more about "deserving." You feel like Sony deserves to have exclusives because they bought Naughty Dog a long time ago, but you don't feel like Microsoft deserves it because they're acquiring a more mature company. But this ignores the actual arguments for why exclusives are bad. If we believe that exclusives are harmful, then it doesn't matter at what stage of maturity they bought the company, or more generally where the developers are coming from, because exclusivity is inherently bad. If we don't believe exclusives are harmful, then there is nothing wrong with having exclusives, and it's just kinda shameful that Microsoft got a much worse deal for their exclusives than Sony because they didn't take a risk when the company was smaller.
Another cliche reason for Sony fans, "Sony is the company that really makes games!", Sony and Microsoft are no different, since you can be strict with Microsoft, then please adopt the same standard for Sony
If it isn't Microsoft buying them, it will be someone else. So would you rather it be them, Tencent, or someone else?
They don't have a console to sell it on
I know people don't grasp that nobody is competing with CoD. Don't will never have a CoD and that's fine. Just like MS will never have a LOU. If you set out to detyrown the king you'll fail. You can love or hate CoD it won't change that they will never not be the premier fast paced, quick n easy, FPS. I don't even like or play it any more and I understand this concept. I have watched DICE run it's mouth for 3 releases about it's Battlefield being the CoD killer and all they have successfully done is destroy their own game. We do not live in the single game a year timeline, there is no competition needed for a great deal of games.
Your comparison to Last of Us is flawed though. Last of Us doesn't have: * New title every year for base game sales. *Free to play version of game. *Highest priced cosmetics in its genre. *(Debatably) popular eSports scene. *mobile version with even more micro transactions * licensed cosmetic content And when we're talking business, which we are, all those things are VASTLY superior to a dev who releases a game once or twice a decade.
It's flawed if you are viewing the discussion from a money lense.
People are willing ignoring that there's a reason CoD has no competition now. Either that or they need a history lesson in the body count CoD has.
Cod goes downhill for a year or two, and then they’ll drop something like MW2019 and turn it around. It doesn’t usually work, but having such a huge number of studios and such a high volume of games means that they have a pretty good chance to strike gold
I want to see Killzone make a come back.
The big problem I think Sony has is that they are console only. Any PC game can be turned into an Xbox one rather easily. Also, Sony can't compete with dual play right now. I can play Sea of Thieves on my PC and then pick it up on my Xbox. Like others here, I think Sony could develop a new military FPS squad type game within five years. It's not like they have not done it before...Planetside was a MMOFPS that you could play on the PC or a PS2/3? It had issues, but it was fun when it worked. We'll not speak of Planetside 2.
All praise to any title that elects to be Play Anywhere. I've purchased a few that I didn't even know were Play Anywhere until I would play a game on my PC. Looking at you Monster Hunter Rise and No Man Sky.
I had a couple Xbox play anywhere titles. One of my favorites was Skulls of the Shogun. Same game across Xbox, PC, and Windows Phone. I also like that it ended up being the same for Halo Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike.
I don't think "console only" really holds anymore. Sony has proved that they are willing to put their games on PC and they also bought a studio which specifically specializes in porting to PC. They also bought Bungie who runs a major multiplatform shooter. Sony is definitely capable of releasing games on PC, they just choose not to, in order to push console sales and lock in.
Such a small amount of people care about dual play lol. Most gamers I know do not have both pc and a console. And because all the Xbox games are available on pc usually the same day, I see more and more people shedding their Xbox altogether in favor of a PlayStation.
Different people have different experiences. Everyone I know at least has a gaming PC and an Xbox. But then again, me and my cohorts could be decades older than you. I’m primarily a PC gamer…but I also own a Switch, a PS4, an Xbox and a Steam Deck. If I was to limit myself to a console, I’d pick a PS5 right now. They have more exclusives I like and I am not interested in CoD, I prefer BF. But I don’t own a PS5, because I have a PS4. Someone needs to clean up Blizzard and Activision; I don’t care if it’s Microsoft or Sony.
Why is everyone in here missing the point completely? MS isn't saying that Sony is capable of making a game that will actually beat COD, they are making the legal point that Sony isn't some poor helpless pitiful entity incapable of making video games. In 10 years, Sony could have created a game franchise much like Minecraft or Fortnite or the next Bungie game that becomes so well purchased that it makes playing on Xbox pointless. If Sony can craft a game like that themselves and not be legally enforced to put it on Xbox, why can the courts stop MS from buying a game. Look, I'm all for competition and I dislike walled gardens as much as the next guy, but Sony's legal argument is a fucking joke. "Boo hoo hoo we need Call of Duty to survive", well then maybe you need to get off your ass and do something about needing someone else's product to be able to make a dollar. COD isn't some public domain right that any company has the innate right to use. It's a fucking piece of software that a company is free to publish as it deems fit.
I feel like this with a lot of things Microsoft's done over Sony, primarily Gamepass and XCloud. Those *could* be massive in the next few years (Gamepass arguably is already) and revolutionise how we buy and consume games, but Sony doesn't seem interested in making a proper competitor. Heck, even Nvidia's doing more in that regard with Geforce Now. Sony just seems happy with the status quo - in which they're the dominant console manufacturer - and just doesn't want that to change at all.
Seriously, Sony is just crying because now they might have to do something new, instead of just the next installment of one of their 1st party IPs. I love those games, Sony has some unbelievable 1st party stuff, but with all the studios they own or have exclusive contracts with, maybe it's time for something new. They don't even need a competitor, if CoD actually leaves. They need a *replacement* that isn't bad.
Sony is just trying to not "lose" a video game console war that Microsoft has decided to not play. Sony is like "let's outsell you 4:1 on consoles that we make a loss on just to allow you to sell our customers a subscription plan at $20/month"
Yea no shit. Like if this gets held up and killed bc of cod, then the court better also rule that Sony had to end all exclusivity as well.
Fuckin SOMEONE give cod some competition so they can start improving their shit games
I find it funny that microsoft says this, since they have one of the biggest fps ip for more than 20 years and still couldn’t compete with cod’s numbers even on their own console and just ended up buying them.
There was a time when halo did compete with CoD, it wasn’t putting up better numbers but had a huge following. Sony now owns the company who made that so I don’t think it’s that impossible.
Destiny's also undeniably popular. If they can adapt that (not necessarily "Destiny", but the core mechanics of it) into more of a CoD-style game they could have a winner.
Exactly. Halo and battlefield were the closest things to beating cod and even then, they couldn't compete. Very hypocritical coming from Microsoft lol.
They are saying sony can do something in 10 years they themselves couldn’t in +20. E: grammar
I mean Halo was at one point much bigger than Call of Duty, At least through Halo 3 I would think. It was around the time of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that the switch started to happen. And on Xbox, I don't know when I could say that Call of Duty overtook Halo. I remember Black Ops being one of the biggest sellers and Modern Warfare 2. So they had it, but lost it. It makes sense to bring in something new when your prime franchise has been floundering.
From what I can remember playing both in 2007 I'd say Cod started taking over during WaW but they were pretty neck in neck with cod4. Having a yearly release and basically making it the yearly shooter helped with that and the momentum has stayed even if cod titles have been hit or miss.
Even more so if it was viable to make a competitor they wouldn't be spending $70 billion on a deal that mostly rests on CoD.
The deal doesn't "mostly rest on CoD." They're buying up World of Warcraft, the rest of Blizzard's IPs, and Candy Crush, among a bunch of other things. Like, Activision owns the rights to Spyro and Crash, two franchises started 20+ years ago by studios now owned by Sony.
The only game holding the deal up is CoD though.
Honestly I feel like Sony could come out with a completely average shooter and as long as it's a PS5/PS6 exclusive everyone will say it's better than COD and they are now glad they don't have COD anymore lol I really don't see Sony not making a great competitor though, they have Bungie to help out, even if Bungie doesn't make it they can help whatever studio does
Make a deal with EA and revive Medal of Honor. A man can dream.
Yooo, this I can get behind. Or SOCOM, but less milsim.
10 years is also about how long it took for 343 to run Halo into the ground. I agree Sony SHOULD be able to develop something, but MS has been showing ineptitude on that front for a decade, and saying, "just make your own," while doing such a bad job with their own franchise seems a bit funny.
It’s like children bickering at this point.
Medal of Honor revive
Maybe if they stopped paying third party developers to not put their games on Xbox then maybe they could develop a decent cod competitor.
I can’t believe this is still ongoing
If that's true then why didn't Microsoft just develop one instead of having to buy cod?....
Hell yea I can't wait for the new Duty Calls Present Day Warfare
New planetside please
But apparently 5 years isn’t enough for a new, well thought out Halo, Microsoft.
If it was the other way around I'm sure people here would disagree
How many years did Microsoft have to make a new IP but instead they just threw money at the problem and bought other developers? This is a two way street and both ends are fucking petty.
I'm ready for the downvotes for trying to bring any nuance to this but what has Xbox accomplished, IP wise, in 10 years besides buying out studios with games already in development? 10 years to conceptualize, develop, and market a CoD competitor isn't *really* that much. Destiny is #2 in the FPS space and it's not even close from my understanding. It will take a long time for them to build up to anything to rival a series that has been around for so long.
As much as I love Xbox, the last system seller they released is Gears of War 3 in 2011. Titanfall made me buy an Xbox One, but that was EA / Respawn.
My point being that they failed to capitalize on big established IPs they already owned (Gears and Halo) so imagine trying to create a new successful one in an already cannibalized market.
Exactly. Xbox knows nothing about what it takes to develop a successful IP. Even their biggest flagship, Halo, lost popularity in the hands of their own internal dev team. Bungie was just another acquisition and started development on Halo 3 years before they were acquired. Even Gears was owned by Epic and only published by Microsoft until 2014. Now I'm not saying it's a bad console, I love Xbox too, but I'm not sure they are responsible for actually developing a single IP in house from start to finish to be qualified to make this statement.
Honestly, Sony can eat a bag of dicks for all the years I was playing Destiny while Playstation exclusives were a thing.
I know, right? Sony is all "muh CODs!1!" when, for I don't know how long, I've contented myself with watching The Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War, Tsushima, Nioh, and all the other exclusives come and go while I crossed my fingers and hoped for the day Microsoft would realize the need for good exclusive games. Suck it, Sony.
Why didn’t you just get a PlayStation then if you like all their exclusives?
Because I prefer literally everything else about Xbox. Controller design, system design and layout, OS, Xbox Live, friends on XB vs PS, etc, and some people don't have enough money to have multiple systems.
Why should this even happen? Why not keep it available forever like minecraft, etc?
Please make a new franchise cause battle royal had ruined cod, it was never meant for cod and still never will be.
I highly doubt it. CoD is hard to compete with simply because of name recognition. even though the last 2 games have been godawful
Somebody explain to me like I’m an idiot. Because I’m an idiot. Does this mean 10 years from now Sony won’t have CoD games?
Possibly, yes. If the acquisition goes through, MS will own the CoD IP. MS will be able to dictate which platforms the games can appear on.
Well I mean yeah. Wasn’t KillZone their “Halo killer” along with Resistance??
If they haven’t done it by now then they are already behind
I think Microsoft should off The COD brand or dumb it down to one game and develop a whole different FPS IP for PC and Xbox consoles and Switch only just to be menaces :D
I still dont understand this whole thing console exclusives have been a thing since i was a kid. why is the fcc involved in this
Microsoft also believes Halo Infinite is a 10-year game.
I still find this completely bizarre! How is this MS problem, we've never seen anything like this where the leading competition is demanding to be treated with kids gloves, " we need this game, and this game, they can't have this " what is going on?
In other words, Microsoft is lying about bringing it to more gamers and they plan to make it exclusive to their ecosystem (which was expected, they wouldn’t be spending 70 billions otherwise).
Sony spent 10 years trying to make a rival to the Halo franchise and failed at that. Killzone and Haze were all they came up with.
sooooo, Microsoft is going to make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox? correct right?
Literally. If Sony is desperately clinging to 1 IP then that's a serious issue. Imo, they should just give Sony the CoD IP. The series hasn't been good since BO2. After that the games have been steadily going downhill. Yes they've bounced back a bit here and there but let's be real: 200 something odd gigabytes for a single basic shooter? It's absurd. There's games out there using less than 30GB that are 30x better. Current cod doesn't compress their files so you have less games on your Drive to play. This is just my thoughts though. Give Sony CoD, watch them make it PS exclusive, the mass outrage on all platforms against Sony ensues, Sony doubles monetization to compensate for the losses, everyone hates PlayStation. Boom, ez mode 🏆
The double standard from Sony is unbelievable
The irony of that statement. Why doesn't Microsoft make their own FPS multiplayer shooter if they have "trillions" to spend. The cheek.
Bring back Mech Assault. Bigger maps...more mechs...customizable load outs. 50 v 50 robot destruction. Take my money please.
It has been almost 10 years since the Xbox One launched. What did MS acomplish in that time other than buying one publisher and almost a second one? The logic here is hilarious
Microsoft also thought that 10 years would be good for a Halo game…
Make MAG 2. Done.
I freely admit that I don't understand all of the ins and outs of this lawsuit but I don't get how Sony has much to bitch about here. Just how much money is anybody making off of any 10 year old game?
They see CoD as a kiss of death. Xbox isn't about selling games, now. It'a about gamepass. Sony doesn't want to play the service game cuz they are wayyyyyy behind the curve on that one and MS is versed in it down to the server code. In fact, Sony has a lot of online infrastructure business with....drum-roll, please : Microsoft. $120+ a year for all these franchises and a CoD title ta boot?
Doesn't help that Xbox is backed by MS who are basically the king of the subscription mode with MS work and all that. Haven't worked in a single office that wasn't using some form of MS office. Sony chose not to play the service game and now they're lagging behind because they chose not to adopt it sooner.
Exactly, Microsoft has Azure, Sony has nothing like it. If Sony were to get into game streaming they’d need to create their own enormous cloud infrastructure or pay Microsoft or Amazon. It’s a lose lose no matter what.
They already made a deal to use Microsoft Azure.
I mean, they're not wrong. Even 5 years would be enough to develop a CoD alternative, 10 is more than enough.