Cliff Notes – Why is there no big PS5 exclusive this Christmas?
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Limited Exclusive Releases: Sony’s only significant exclusive for the holiday season is “Ghost Of Yōtei,” which is perceived as niche and lacks broad appeal compared to previous titles.
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Early Release Timing: The game was launched in early October, leading to criticism that it does not qualify as a true Christmas release, especially when compared to the robust line-up from competitors like Nintendo and Microsoft.
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Customer Loyalty Concerns: There is growing frustration among fans regarding Sony’s apparent complacency, as the PlayStation 5 continues to sell well without a strong exclusive line-up, potentially undermining long-term customer loyalty.
Games Inbox: Why is there no big PS5 exclusive this Christmas?
Ghost Of Yōtei is Sony’s only Christmas-ish release (Sony)
The Tuesday letters page is already fed up of listening to Xbox execs and their excuses, as a reader hopes for a Resident Evil x Silent Hill crossover.
Christmas not present
I’ve been enjoying the steady flow of new reviews the last few weeks, but I see the release schedules are starting to slow up a bit now, which seems a bit early given we’re not even into November yet. I probably don’t need to be spending more money on games this year, so part of me isn’t upset, but I am very disappointed by Sony, again.
The only big exclusive they’ve had is Ghost Of Yōtei, which I would personally classify as a relatively niche game compared to some of their others and not something that’s going to appeal to everyone. It’s definitely not very cutting edge in anything other than graphics.
Even ignoring that it came out in early October, almost September, so it barely counts as a Christmas release at all. By comparison Nintendo and even Microsoft have tons of games out, both now and during the rest of the year. Say what you will about Xbox but it is definitely trying with its first party games at the moment.
Sony sees that the PlayStation 5 is selling without them and so they just can’t be bothered anymore, which really doesn’t seem the sort of attitude to inspire customer loyalty.
Lurch
Sic transit gloria mundi
Words cannot describe how gross that Donald Trump AI image is but I’m glad you pointed out the US doesn’t even exist in the Halo future, because it broke up during a civil war. When Halo’s backstory is better at predicting the future than politicians, I think we’re in trouble.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
But for what it’s worth I don’t care that Halo is come to PlayStation 5. It hasn’t been good since Halo 3 (even ODST and Reach were a disappointment) and sometimes games just loose their mojo and place in time. When you even half of what’s standard in first person shooters today then obviously you’re going to look old-fashioned in the end. You can’t stay on top forever, as I think Call Of Duty is going to learn soon.
Dolbert
Alternative controller
Just wondered if anyone knew the answer to this: why hasn’t the PlayStation 5 got cheaper Xbox style controllers? I hate the PlayStation controllers, as I have a bad left thumb and I find the position of the left analogue stick uncomfortable. I really notice it when I swap from the Xbox.
I ended up buying a third party controller but the cheapest was £170! And it doesn’t even have rumble, but it is nice to use. When I had a PlayStation 4 there was lots of options but PlayStation 5 only has the expensive Pro controllers.
I really think Sony are missing a trick. All my friends have Xboxes and they all said they would get a PlayStation 5 if it had an Xbox style controller with it, as they hate it as well. But why aren’t there other, cheaper third party options? The PlayStation 5 has been out years, so I don’t understand it.
Rob
GC: The DualSense is considered one of the key selling points of the PlayStation 5, as we saw in recent comments from the director of Astro Bot. We’re not sure what third party controllers you were looking at but there’s a bunch on Amazon that are around £40.
What are ya selling?
I’m not one for YouTube videos and all that, and Mega64 have been funny (but really funny) about three times in the last 20 years, but this one is definitely number four. I particularly enjoyed the Halo gag, The Elder Scrolls 6 joke, and the ghostly image of Phil Spencer.
Like all good comedy, it’s funny because it’s true and I’m afraid to say that this is it for Xbox. The only problem is they’re not going to go quietly and we’re going to have to put up with them for years now, pretending that the sky isn’t blue and that they aren’t third party.
Spencer and friends were hard to cope with when things were just normal (for Xbox) but now that it’s panic stations, they’re going to be unbearable. We’ve already seen it this month with all the nonsense about exclusives being ‘antiquated’. It’s funny how everything they’re not good at turns out to be wrong, eh?
Arnie
20 years late
Yakuza is a franchise that’s existed for 20 years now. The first title was released on PlayStation 2 and it was the beginning of a legendary series. I’ve mostly stayed away from the series and I’ll say that it’s a choice I’ve come to regret. With the IP performing as well as it ever has, I’ve finally begun building my collection of Yakuza titles and begun exploring the franchise as a whole. As many know, there was recently a Sega Yakuza sale on Steam.
I’ve had the fortune of buying my first title, that being Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Truth be told, I’m unsure why I’ve never truly played through any of the games or even mustered up any interest. I just never had it as a child or even a teenager. With the series going from strength to strength and remasters and remakes, releasing left and right I’m looking forward to purchasing and playing through the entire franchise, including the spin-offs.
It is essentially the best thing Sega has going right now. I’m truly excited to begin this odyssey. But I truly hope Yakuza 0 won’t be delisted, due to the director’s cut releasing on PC and PlayStation 5 soon. Fingers crossed.
Shahzaib Sadiq
Fear the new blood
I’m really excited by how good this year’s crop of horror games has been, as highlighted by your article – which I feel could’ve easily been three or four times the length if it included every obscure indie game out there. It’s interesting that despite horror games not being cheaper to make than ordinary ones, unlike movies, indie developers still chose to make them, despite how they limit the audience.
I take this to mean that they’re doing it primarily out of love for the concept, which I really appreciate. Everyone loves Resident Evil, it seems to me, so it’s always a big influence but we’ve had a lot of variety this year, from Silent Hill f’s very serious approach to the Lovecraft x EarthBound horrors of Look Outside, which I’m looking forward to GC’s review of.
Now that Resident Evil and Silent Hill are both in good health (could there ever be a crossover?!) my next big hope is that we get a brand new franchises become a hit. It’s great seeing all the oldies come back, and I’m looking forward to Alien Isolation 2 as much as anyone, but we’ve got to have new blood as well as old. And I mean in terms of big budget games, not just indie.
But I’ll take what I can get and at the moment that’s better than ever, with the added bonus that the games are good and they’re selling!
Limpit
50 shades of grey
What a weird name RedSec is for the Battlefield battle royale. Although I suppose it’s about as tryhard as you’d probably expect. If it’s free I’ll give it a go, but don’t all these games make their money on cosmetics? So who’s going to pay £20 a time for a slightly different colour of grey for their outfit?
Fans demanding that there not be any ‘silly’ cosmetics is all well and good, but I don’t know what’s going to happen when EA realise they’re not making any money and that, actually, Beavis and Butt-Head were good for business. I know I’d rather the game stay free and I just put up with the odd weird looking costume.
Roeger
We meant to step on that rake
The spin and copium on display to present Xbox’s third party direction as some sort of grown-up decision is a bit eye rolling.
Sarah Bond’s comments about exclusives being antiquated and Matt Booty’s that TikTok is gaming’s main rival are not the reasons Xbox went third party.
Losing the digital generation with a terrible Xbox One pitch, then incorrectly betting big on Game Pass for this gen, forcing the decision to spend 80 billion or so dollars to have a controlling presence in the industry is why Xbox had to go third party.
If they were selling 150 million Xboxes and Game Pass was at 90 million subs they wouldn’t be fighting TikTok by releasing Halo on PlayStation.
Still, it’s not the most irritated I’ve been by one of the big three this gen. That would be hearing Sony had Bluepoint Games roped into their manically ambitious live service plans.
Simundo
Inbox also-rans
I’m sick of hearing about Battlefield 6 already but if it means a greenlit for Star Wars: Battlefront 3 then I love Battlefield, please EA, sell more of them!
Tekki
If you have to redesign large parts of your game to do a remake, because nobody would want to play it today based on how it actually was, doesn’t that kind of tell you that it probably doesn’t deserve a remake? Just reboot the whole series.
Mildew
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