The Elder Scrolls Online – at least that’s staying on PS5 (Picture: Bethesda)
The Friday letters page tries to predict the Xbox vs. FTC court case, as one reader asks about the cost of Final Fantasy 16 exclusivity.
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Behind the curtain
So everything Phil Spencer said about deciding exclusivity for Bethesda games on a case-by-case basis was basically made up? He said that knowing it wasn’t true and assuming he’d never be caught out. I can’t wait for him to now weasel out of that if he’s ever questioned about it again (which he probably won’t be, given he only does easy interviews nowadays).
This whole business with the court case has been fascinating but also depressing, in that it shows how Microsoft and Sony both twist the truth to their advantage, never acknowledging a fault or a lie and somehow painting themselves as eternal victims who never do anything wrong themselves.
I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, but now I have to face the fact that The Elder Scrolls 6 is never going to come to the console I own. I suppose some people will switch to Xbox to play it but this whole business has left such a bad taste in my mouth the last thing I want to do is reward Xbox with my custom.
Perhaps I’ll look into getting a gaming PC and just leave Sony and Microsoft to it. Neither seem to deserve my loyalty.
Janson
Everybody’s doing it
Xbox pays for secret exclusives to keep games off the PlayStation 5, just like Sony does? I am shocked to hear that two giant corporations act like giant corporations. That’s not to say either are right to dos but the constant lying and getting found out is getting tedious.
The obvious contempt this implies for their audience, as if we’d never find and if we do blind loyalty will see them through, is pretty gross. Although Microsoft’s attempts to pretend it doesn’t like exclusives and Sony is forcing it to do them or it can’t complete… strange that we’ve never heard that point of view at any time in the last 20 years?
I also find it hilarious that Satya Nadella pretends his two favourite games are Candy Crush and Call Of Duty. I can just imagine him asking his PA what games Activision Blizzard makes so he can pretend he likes those. These people really do think we were born yesterday.
Ansel
Money is the answer
I’m finding it hard to understand why a game as large as Final Fantasy agreed to an exclusivity deal with Sony? Then, to reinforce this, I read your article on the game hitting 3 million sales in a week (less than Final Fantasy 15).
Do Sony give Square Enix a cash sum as payment? A marketing deal? Or is it shadier than that? Maybe it’s just because as an Xbox player it hurts that I can’t play it. But I just don’t understand why such a big company, and well-established franchise, needs to isolate itself onto one console. They have money, they have the marketing/fanbase, what could Sony offer? If they’d released on Xbox too – their sales would have been at least 3 million and 1!
Mr K
GC: Exclusives are paid for, plain and simple. They usually never say for how much, except it was revealed that Rise Of The Tomb Raider (also a Square Enix game) cost Microsoft $100 million to be a timed exclusive for a year… so presumably Final Fantasy 16 would’ve cost Sony much more. The only slight caveat is that Final Fantasy sells much more on PlayStation anyway, and the Xbox is irrelevant in Japan, so in that sense Square Enix aren’t losing out on as many sales as they would for a more typical release.
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Rage, rage never changes
I appreciate GC trying to ask Ubisoft why Prince Of Persia: The Last Crown has such a terrible main character but predictably we got no kind of answer. I mean surely, surely, the very first thing you would start with in any new game is a likeable character. That should be sentence on page one of the design document. ‘People didn’t like the original sequels because they went all grimdark with generic rage so don’t do that.’ And what do they do…?
I mean that was 20-ish years ago now and we’ve apparently learnt absolutely nothing. I know the game’s supposed to be good but I just cannot get over such a boneheaded decision. It’s literally the ‘You had one job!’ meme in video game form. I look forward to him finally cracking a smile or something in the final cut scene and Ubisoft claiming that’s character growth.
Pirot
Duckling hell
Well, I think I’ve just downloaded my favourite/most relaxing ‘game’ ever. Placid Plastic Duck Simulator, where random plastic ducks materialise above a pool and float about… and that’s it. You can make them quack but all there is to do is to move the camera and watch them float.
It’s very relaxing and quite funny just to watch them move about. Also naming all the ducks is quite humorous as well. With a random chill soundtrack it’s kind of nice to have on in the background, like a big old screensaver… that you can make quack.
Liam
GC: Couldn’t you just take a bath? They’re pretty relaxing.
Take your bets
So do we actually know who is likely to win in this Microsoft court case business? Both them and Sony seem to have dropped some very incriminating bloopers so I’m kind of lost on who’s coming across the best or not. My impression is that Microsoft is doing slightly worse but the thing I realised about this sort of thing is that it has less to do with the facts and more to do with how biased or engaged the jury or judge happens to be.
On a personal level I don’t really care because I don’t play many Activision Blizzard games but taking a wider view I don’t think it’s healthy for any giant company to come in and push around a much smaller one with a massive $69 billion shopping spree.
I doubt fair has anything to do with it though, so I’m not going to be surprised if the company that can afford the best lawyers (you know, the ones that can afford pens that work) wins. What does GC think?
Taylor Moon
GC: As we write this, we haven’t seen the closing arguments so it’s hard to tell. The judge doesn’t seem to have a strong grasp on gaming or the industry, so it’s probably a bit of a lottery.
Don’t forget
The Forgotlings game, which is a spin-off from the Forgotton Anne game developer Throughline Games now has a playable demo for those who back it and it has 17 days left to get funded. They are doing this to drum up more interest, as the funding is going very slowly. When you back it you get a demo on Steam. The new game adds combat to it, whereas Forgotton Anne was a puzzle platform cinematic experience without combat. The game is also coming to Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.
Also, on the subject of Kickstarter, you have a final chance to back the documentary The Rubber Keyed Wonder: The ZX Spectrum Movie by the makers of Bedrooms to Billions documentaries and the PlayStation Revolution documentaries, Which have been excellent. I am a backer on both.
Andrew J.
PS: Just pre-ordered Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective on Switch as I originally played it on DS, so decided to buy it on a Nintendo console with touchscreen and that Nintendo feel.
Defending Duty
I’ve been reading your pages since Teletext and have been gaming as long as I remember. I have a varied gaming diet, with some of the games I’ve completed in the last 18 months including What Remains Of Edith Finch, Elden Ring, Fight Night Champion, Sekiro, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Doughnut County, Dark Pictures: Little Hope, Modern Warfare 2, Sonic Frontiers, The Calisto Protocol, Metroid Prime Remastered, Resident Evil 4 remake, and most recently Zelda: Tears Of The kingdom.
I love my annual Call Of Duty release, I look forward to playing on those dark cold nights, both campaign and multilayer modes. Zombies mode is a part of the very generous annual release package I’ve never got into.
I get that Call Of Duty and first person shooters aren’t for everyone and I sit back and read the often elitist Call Of Duty bashing, insinuating that those that enjoy it are somehow less of a gamer holding everything back and let it wash over.
I read a letter this morning however suggesting that ‘Call Of Duty games aren’t even great looking’ and felt compelled to write in to state that the Call Of Duty campaigns are absolutely gorgeous to look at. You just need to look at the oil rig level in Modern Warfare 2, it’s fantastic, as was Safe House back in 2019.
If you’re into the multiplayer the games offer a ridiculous amount content for the price of entry, with cost per hour played coming down to pence not pounds, and they typically launch with campaigns fully formed and bug free.
I’m not saying Call Of Duty doesn’t have its faults but graphics are not one of them.
I feel that people often think that we are still in the Xbox 360 era of every other game being a first person shooter, when that’s not been the reality for some years now. There’s only one or two per year that are of a decent quality and even the poor ones are less frequent than ever.
I also enjoy the occasional game of FIFA.
Ranny2011
Currently playing: Warzone, XCOM 2, and Control
GC: That’s a particularly good point about the infrequency of first person shooters, particularly military ones, nowadays.
Inbox also-rans
That Canadian diss to Microsoft was hilarious. They really do think they can just make up any old nonsense and no one will dare to correct them.
Benson
Never mind AI-generated games. I want to know who buys virtual jigsaws with pretend ladies drawn on them. Sorry, no, I meant to say I never want to know the sort of person that would buy that kind of thing.
Kane756M
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The Friday letters page tries to predict the Xbox vs. FTC court case, as one reader asks about the cost of Final Fantasy 16 exclusivity.
