Sony approach is not ANTI-Consumer, but...
Microsoft approach is pro-consumer. they want to fade-out support gradually. They deserve praise.
Microsoft approach is pro-consumer. they want to fade-out support gradually. They deserve praise.
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Sony Is Not Anti-Consumer for Making PS5 Exclusives - Push Square
- Thread starter Angie
- Start date
Nope; but thanks for reducing my arguments to that so Matt can respond to what I am not saying.
Another thing we're trying to make happen "pro-consumer" and "consumer neutral". Lol
Trying to frame moves from companies as benevolent or judge them by how benevolent or "friendly" they seem is a weird trend.
MS is offering their games on gamepass to multiple consoles and devices not out of benevolence or to be best buds with the consumer. They want to sell you something just like Sony, just like Nintendo. It's just a different strategy; it's not because one side is the good guys and the other are the villains.
Trying to frame moves from companies as benevolent or judge them by how benevolent or "friendly" they seem is a weird trend.
MS is offering their games on gamepass to multiple consoles and devices not out of benevolence or to be best buds with the consumer. They want to sell you something just like Sony, just like Nintendo. It's just a different strategy; it's not because one side is the good guys and the other are the villains.
Actually Sony has an option for PC players in PS Now, I'm sure everyone would love fully developed games on PC but it's something at least.
Before people knew MS strategy everyone was thrilled with a possible 12 tf console and how it exclusive games would look.
Since things changed then people bring this bullshit of anti consumer narrative.
exclusive games is what move this industry. Nintendo has exclusives, PC has exclusives, Playstation has exclusives. Microsoft changes their strategy don't make other companies anti consumer because of exclusive games.
Since things changed then people bring this bullshit of anti consumer narrative.
exclusive games is what move this industry. Nintendo has exclusives, PC has exclusives, Playstation has exclusives. Microsoft changes their strategy don't make other companies anti consumer because of exclusive games.
The problem is there are no real world situations where creating and releasing two versions of a game does not take additional time, money, and manpower over releasing just one version. Games being completely finished and then not released is an incredibly rare thing, and even in those cases, releasing a game still costs a ton of money and effort. If there were a situation where it would require no resources at all to create and release another version of a game, I would be more amenable to your position, but the reality is that's just not the case. It will always take money, time, and manpower, all of which a company can better allocate to things they actually want to do.
For your BotW example, to me the issue there would be the fact that BotW was explicitly promised to Wii U owners for many years. It is that promise, which influenced buying decisions and other actions on the consumers' part, that would be anti–consumer to break. If Nintendo never publicly promised to deliver BotW to Wii U owners, I don't think it would have been anti-consumer to not release that version.
No worries there, I am enjoying this conversation and do intend to reply to your own words and positions, so please let me know if I am not.
Matt i mean the latter yeah, taking action to reduce usability in order to urge the consumer to buy another;
Yeh this is basically the context where i come from, and im still struggling how one can rate egs exclusives as anti-consumer while ps exclusives are not
Yeh this is basically the context where i come from, and im still struggling how one can rate egs exclusives as anti-consumer while ps exclusives are not
Right; in my example loads of time and manpower and money has already been be applied to the older-generation version. Or at the very least the effort could easily be shared; essentially: the game is really close to being able to be released.
I explicitly stated that I'm not saying this is common or anything. While there are other cost advantages to not releasing on an older-gen, I certainly wouldn't consider those costs undue harm to the company involved. I do software development, and understand that certification, testing, support costs, etc. are different.. marketing/release/etc. In my scenario those might be plusses for the company, but not the driving force behind the decision. If the driving force is marketing / forced exclusivity, I'd find that anti-consumer.
And I think it would; I completely understand your position, my thoughts are just tweaked more towards consumers. I also believe that making those decisions in the long run benefit companies so there's that.
We basically agree on everything but when this term should be applied. I find those decisions understandable, not necessarily unethical, etc. but still anti-consumer. You find those decisions understandable, not unethical, and not anti-consumer.
Basically I think you only think the term should be used when something is unethical.
If a company is actively damaging your property after they sell it to you for no reason other than to force you to spend more money, that is anti-consumer. I don't think it's anti-consumer if the natural forces of the advancement of technology eventually make your purchase less useful.
I think at the point maybe your struggle is you don't think EGS exclusives are anti-consumer, and I honestly think you can make a reasonable argument to that effect. I wouldn't agree with that position, but I think it could be internally logically consistent.
Matt: Is EGS taking advantage of it's customers and doing undue harm to them? (or the publishers agreeing to the deals)
I really don't see how your litmus test applies.
Mine certainly does; I don't think EGS exclusives are really doing undue harm to me.. but it certainly would be better for me if those games released on Steam, and I don't think that does undue harm to the publishers involved. They are making a decision because it benefits them, it's commerce. Commerce that is anti-consumer without taking advantage of them or doing undue harm to them.
I really don't see how your litmus test applies.
Mine certainly does; I don't think EGS exclusives are really doing undue harm to me.. but it certainly would be better for me if those games released on Steam, and I don't think that does undue harm to the publishers involved. They are making a decision because it benefits them, it's commerce. Commerce that is anti-consumer without taking advantage of them or doing undue harm to them.
It's more that I think the term should only be used when it involves harm being inflicted on the consumer, and I generally don't consider not having access to a game in the way you would most want to be harm.
Makes a platform holder draw people to its console, creates a stronger ecosystem for it and it turn makes it more likely they will not only continue to fund those games but also invest more in their entire platform from games to consoles.
Not hard to understand and how the industry has worked for decades.
I dont know what to think tbh, i just feel like im failing to grasp the explanations lol. I dont know if it's possible for me to engage with the "undue harm to consumers" definition tho, i feel like that is way too general. I brought up planned obscolescence because so many ppl own smartphones and those are made to break down, with new versions out each year; to me that is decidedly anti-consumer but wouldnt "undue" imply that if it were a standardized practice, which it is, that the act isn't anti-consumer? Not to put your deinition in the spotlight or anything, just trying to understand better.
The egs vs sony thing is interesting to me, i can def see the nuances that separate the companies when both engage with exclusives but i do feel on a fundamental lvl that the consumer experience is very similar; egs makes you use a worse free launcher to play a particular game and sony makes you buy hardware to play a particular game, both being scenarios where a consumer is forced to engage with a product they may not want anything to do with in order to engage with a product they do want
Do you have an explanation for how EGS fits this? (I asked in another post so no need to reply to both)
Take 2 releasing Borderlands 3, the only game I've bought there, did not take advantage of me or do undue harm to me. It's really just not how I'd prefer to buy the game.
I still consider that anti-consumer, but you seem to also think it is...
I honestly think the EGS situation is an edge case. I don't really think companies making their games EGS exclusive is inherently anti-consumer unless those games had previously been advertised or sold as being available on other platforms, in which case the harm is in the deception. But I think you can make the argument that Epic is acting in an anti-consumer manner by explicitly paying for games to not be available on other platforms when they otherwise would have been, without having any hand in those games' creation or execution. At that point Epic is spending money specifically to make the experience worse for consumers, and then I think it could be considered an anti-consumer action.
But how does it take advantage of them or do undue harm to them?
Money-hatting games doesn't take advantage of consumers or do undo harm to them either..
edit: And they aren't doing it "Specifically to make the experience worse for consumers".. they are doing for commerce.. to promote their store.
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Burger king vs McDonald's is actually a good way of explaining this they both sell burgers, you want a different burger you have a choice. You want a 3rd person action game you can get that on any platform, you have a choice.
Sorry for bad edit my phone messed up.
Sorry for bad edit my phone messed up.
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Same reason we won't see Halo Infinite on PS4.
MS studios made the game and they don't owe it to anyone to put it on a Sony platform.
Not as familiar with EGS as much, but they're seen as having lots of money and giving devs money to exclude certain platforms they otherwise would have been on. No it's not the same as what MS is doing, because MS has been investing in devs and the Halo franchise in order to differentiate it's plaform and services.
A more clear cut example of an anti-consumer practice might be predatory lootbox mechanics, and that does harm and preys upon people who are prone and can fall victim to it.
Again, it's an edge case, but the intention and execution of their action plays a part here for me. In this case I'm not expecting Epic to provide labor they don't want to. Epic is giving these companies money to remove options from consumers, options said companies would offer had Epic not intervened. It's judgeing an action Epic is actually taking, rather than judging them for not doing something I want them to do but they don't.
Actually, I think in this case I would call Epic's actions anti-consumer but not unethical or immoral, as the actual harm inflicted remains low or non-existent, but the motivations for their actions is, in fact, to actively limit consumer options that would otherwise exist.
I go to Woolworths to do my grocery shopping because there's a particular brand of tinned tomatoes that are imported from Italy that my girlfriend prefers. Coles don't have these tinned tomatoes.
This weird sense of entitlement people have over commercial products makes no sense to me.
This weird sense of entitlement people have over commercial products makes no sense to me.
This brings me back to the idea of ownership being a determining factor for anti-consumerist acts. But i dont understand how a corp's "right" to sell the fruits of their own labor really comes into the conversation. I get the characterization of sony having always done this and this being a standard practice that they are allowed to engage; it's their own shit their making. But how does that take away from the physical reality that consumers need to throw down hundreds on a console for access? Im not saying this is a super evil conspiracy thing, just trying to draw a parallel in consumer experience with being forced to use egs for access and being forced to use ps4 for access, and not understanding what a company being shady or less shady has to do with the consumer experience in these examples
Like as far as i understand it, exclusivity is exclusivity, the consumer still has to reckon with the implications of exclusivity even when they are enacted in different manners
Like as far as i understand it, exclusivity is exclusivity, the consumer still has to reckon with the implications of exclusivity even when they are enacted in different manners
I mean.. the motivation of their action is commerce, to grow a store, to make money they wouldn't be making otherwise. Their motivation is not to remove options, they are removing options for commerce reasons. Which is exactly what I was saying in this example:
riotous said:
For big publishers like Take 2 I see no gray area really.. it's anti-consumer for them to have gone EGS exclusive despite the fact this didn't really unduly harm me or take advantage of me because they easily could have launched on Steam, their business would not have unduly suffered because of that.
For EGS I actually struggle because without exclusives it's unlikely EGS would ever get off the ground, but despite the fact it might do "harm" to their business to not buy out exclusives.. I still find it anti-consumer.
It's not really about ownership, it's the simple fact that creating another version of a game takes labor, and Sony does not inherently owe anyone their labor. If Sony does not owe us anything, they can't be harming us by failing to provide said labor.They just aren't doing exactly what we want, and that's ok.
You'd think that, but the threads here in the coming months will blow that theory out of the water.
They would have access to a lot more customers if they weren't exclusive to a specific platform though...
Ah i can kind of understand what you mean then when you say egs exclusives may not be inherently anti-consumer; the anti-consumer act in this scenario would be more devs/pubs reneging on kickstarter/platform promises + the possibility created by egs with their offers, if im understanding right. Thats part of why i asked about "when does the consumer actualize". Sony is not doing wrong by their consumers with exclusivity because their consumers are exclusivity consumers, i think i kinda understand a lil better
See above. To me there is an essential difference between not taking an action (deciding not to commit the labor and resources to develop and release another version of a game) that happens to be not in line with what some consumers want, and deliberately taking an action to limit customer choice that would have existed otherwise.
If I punch someone in the face, that's assault. If I don't move to stop someone from hitting their face on a doorframe, I haven't assaulted them. That person may have a broken nose in either case, but my actions are not equivalent. In one case I have done something wrong, in the other, I just didn't do something right that wasn't my responsibility to do in the first place.
Man this anti-consumer talk about Sony, out of all companies, is laughable. The one company that for years on end has supported their consoles waaay after the release of a new console.
The last PS2 game game came out in 2014...
The last PS3 game?
How the hell anyone can accuse Sony of being anti-consumer, out of all companies, is just fucking insane to me.
So are those people anti-progress? Anti-technology?
There's a reason games aren't still made for the Atari 2600!
Are we going to act like this isn't PS4's 7th year? It's time to move on, people.
Heck, developers are equally excited to move on, they want to create things they haven't been able to before! Just look at the reports about Lockhart... No one seemed on board, no one!
If your argument is that people might've just bought a PS4, and they don't want to be left behind... Well, they have an entire generation's worth of content (that's now infinitely cheaper) to look forward to.
And Sony always goes out with a bang, just look at their releases this year!
FF7:R, TLOU2, GoT, RE3, Cyberpunk 2077 are all coming out this year - No one is being left behind.
What would've been anti-consumer, is Sony deciding to cancel this year's exclusives because of the PS5, but they don't. They easily could, but they don't - It's the right approach. And it wouldn't be wise to ignore that huge install base this year.
The PS4 gets it's last hoorah and a proper send-off, and we move on. We let developers who feel restrained, move on.
We need to progress, otherwise generations are meaningless. Progress is meaningless.
If anyone, it's Sony that ought to be the one to cling to this generation, but they don't.
They understand the importance of a new generation, and they understand that console's have a lifecycle.
Besides, a new geneation is what generates excitement about the future and it's why most of us keep ourselves invested in this medium.
Otherwise we'd stick to our old consoles. If you like/prefer Microsoft's approach? Fine. I don't personally agree with it, but if there are people who want it, so be it.
Just don't say that Sony is anti-consumer, because that's horseshit.
The last PS2 game game came out in 2014...
The last PS3 game?
How the hell anyone can accuse Sony of being anti-consumer, out of all companies, is just fucking insane to me.
So are those people anti-progress? Anti-technology?
There's a reason games aren't still made for the Atari 2600!
Are we going to act like this isn't PS4's 7th year? It's time to move on, people.
Heck, developers are equally excited to move on, they want to create things they haven't been able to before! Just look at the reports about Lockhart... No one seemed on board, no one!
If your argument is that people might've just bought a PS4, and they don't want to be left behind... Well, they have an entire generation's worth of content (that's now infinitely cheaper) to look forward to.
And Sony always goes out with a bang, just look at their releases this year!
FF7:R, TLOU2, GoT, RE3, Cyberpunk 2077 are all coming out this year - No one is being left behind.
What would've been anti-consumer, is Sony deciding to cancel this year's exclusives because of the PS5, but they don't. They easily could, but they don't - It's the right approach. And it wouldn't be wise to ignore that huge install base this year.
The PS4 gets it's last hoorah and a proper send-off, and we move on. We let developers who feel restrained, move on.
We need to progress, otherwise generations are meaningless. Progress is meaningless.
If anyone, it's Sony that ought to be the one to cling to this generation, but they don't.
They understand the importance of a new generation, and they understand that console's have a lifecycle.
Besides, a new geneation is what generates excitement about the future and it's why most of us keep ourselves invested in this medium.
Otherwise we'd stick to our old consoles. If you like/prefer Microsoft's approach? Fine. I don't personally agree with it, but if there are people who want it, so be it.
Just don't say that Sony is anti-consumer, because that's horseshit.
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And that fits both of my examples just not exactly, so I'm not sure what your point is. In my exclusive for next-gen game example the primary motivator for the decision was not the cost of releasing it on the last-gen system but the marketing / exclusivity benefit of not doing so.
Does it stop being anti-consumer if they also save a little bit of money?
Motherfuckers just calling anything they don't like "anti-consumer" to sound more objective again?
Yep, which is why I support console manufacturers doing what they do, it makes sense, and I want those unique games that their block buster sellers allow. Dreams look amazing, they spent all gen developing it, and I hope they are ok if it doesn't sell too well.
It's funny because Sony could have held back games like Death Stranding, Ghosts of Tsushima, and Last of Us 2 as PS5 launch titles, but they didn't. Crazy to see people talk about how anti-consumer they are when they are releasing high profile titles even in the last year of PS4's life cycle.
This is how I view it.
As a potential PS5 consumer, I greatly appreciate that they are developing games that take full advantage of my new purchase and all its' bells and whistles. IMO, it makes the purchase feel much more worth it, instead of them trying to also accommodate the previous platform and take advantage of their 100M+ users "cuz easy money." These new exclusives will have to fight for every sale and in turn have more weight to carry. The alternative is paying $499 (or whatever the MSRP ends up being) and only having access to games I could've played on my old system for no extra cost. In -that- case, I would argue even releasing the PS5 would be pointless because you're asking me to spend extra money with no tangible benefit.
It's also not as though PS4 was even remotely unsupported through it's 7 year life cycle - you could even argue that their support has only gotten stronger as time went on and their final year seems like one of their strongest in history. At some point you have to move forward (or not). The issue is people seem to want to not buy anything new but have everything provided to them at no extra cost and that's not how life works. That doesn't make things anti-consumer simply because you don't want to consume. The options are there whether you choose to exercise them or not.
i mean when "my plastic box anad giant company that doesnt care about me" and "your box and company" are at odds, and websites like this use that type of language... then yep. thats what they do.
Depends on which consumer perspective you're looking at it from. It's not pro-consumer for the early adopters who would be buying a Series X at launch, for a premium price at that.
Instead, it's really only pro-consumer for those who won't be purchasing the new system at launch, are still using older hardware, and thus will continue to get support for a bit longer.
In essence new consumers stand to get less value proposition, since their new system will have games that were potentially held back by a much weaker lowest common denominator for an arbitrary period of time, in order that past consumers (who haven't spent money on the new hardware) can continue to get more value for their existing previous gen purchase instead.
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When the end of humanity finally comesMan this anti-consumer talk about Sony, out of all companies, is laughable. The one company that for years on end has supported their consoles waaay after the release of a new console.
The last PS2 game game came out in 2014...
The last PS3 game?
How the hell anyone can accuse Sony of being anti-consumer, out of all companies, is just fucking insane to me.
So are those people anti-progress? Anti-technology?
There's a reason games aren't still made for the Atari 2600!
Are we going to act like this isn't PS4's 7th year? It's time to move on, people.
Heck, developers are equally excited to move on, they want to create things they haven't been able to before! Just look at the reports about Lockhart... No one seemed on board, no one!
If your argument is that people might've just bought a PS4, and they don't want to be left behind... Well, they have an entire generation's worth of content (that's now infinitely cheaper) to look forward to.
And Sony always goes out with a bang, just look at their releases this year!
FF7:R, TLOU2, GoT, RE3, Cyberpunk 2077 are all coming out this year - No one is being left behind.
What would've been anti-consumer, is Sony deciding to cancel this year's exclusives because of the PS5, but they don't. They easily could, but they don't - It's the right approach. And it wouldn't be wise to ignore that huge install base this year.
The PS4 gets it's last hoorah and a proper send-off, and we move on. We let developers who feel restrained, move on.
We need to progress, otherwise generations are meaningless. Progress is meaningless.
If anyone, it's Sony that ought to be the one to cling to this generation, but they don't.
They understand the importance of a new generation, and they understand that console's have a lifecycle.
Besides, a new geneation is what generates excitement about the future and it's why most of us keep ourselves invested in this medium.
Otherwise we'd stick to our old consoles. If you like/prefer Microsoft's approach? Fine. I don't personally agree with it, but if people who want it, so be it.
Just don't say that Sony is anti-consumer, because that's horseshit.
there will be only roaches and FIFA around
But it doesn't really matter, because it's still performing an action vs. not performing an action.
This is of course ignoring the fact that what you call forced exclusivity has a HUGE monetary value to it. If only releasing one version of a game causes a user base to transition quicker or increase their investment in a new platform, that has a serious impact for a platform holder.
There is no real world situation where the monetary impact is meaningless or insubstantial.
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