Epic Apparently Wanted First-Party Exclusives From Nintendo, Microsoft And Sony On Its Digital Storefront

Lol.
A bit nauseating that companies are more into money grabs than creativity.

Yeah, I'm not sure what Epic is smoking, but I'd like a hit or three.

Epic is really up its butt.
They really think that, for making Unreal Engine and striking success with that Fortnite garbage, they must be overly praised and everything must be granted to them.
I hope they lose the Apple trial to prove how jackasses they have become in recent years

@GrailUK And that's only western companies right?

If only me auntie had bollocks, she'd be me uncle.

Ok ya they are taking a little to much CP, oh? ya that stands for crazy pill's

So would these have been exclusives to Epic and Storefront? I doubt any of them would make games they couldn't sell on their own consoles. And exclusives push people to buy the consoles - who bought a Switch saying "Doom and old Fifa are great, who on earth are Mario, Zelda and Isabelle?" Good exclusives sell consoles- BOTW and ACNH are why people buy switches. Sorry Epic... you tried

@sik187 No. And when Nintendo tries to make a buck out of aquisition, pay walls, loot bpxes etc, I'll complain about those too. But tbh, don't get too hung up on my phrasing. It sounds like you are defending corporate arrogance.

@stinky_t I think it's more negotiating for 1st party titles to be released on PC as well via their storefront. So games exclusive to console also being released on PC.

I'm not sure it can ever happen with Nintendo, unless they have no choice financially. They are a company that doesn't think about making all the money as quickly as possible, they clearly think more about how they can make their own money in their own way first and foremost. By putting their exclusive games on a pc platform it changes the control they have of their own content considerably, especially as console generations come and go. I can't see it ever happening while they sit in any kind of relative strong position.

I think it's best for everyone in the industry that Nintendo stays Nintendo for as long as possible. Without them doing what they do, there would be a worrying lack of innovation.

@Wargoose I know (i think?) Microsoft do this, but doesn't that undermine the console release? I can see why third parties would do this, but I'd imagine it's quite hard to make the big 3 comply

All of these updates make it seem that Epic has gone bat **** crazy.

@ Flashlink99
They knew all these stuff was going to be made public and that it’s going to become more obvious that they want to force their store on consoles but they use their engine as a hostage basically to avoid retaliation because it’s become too critical to game development, a giant chunk of gaming history is the ugly brown smear that is UE3 which has aged worse than milk. Epic and its leadership really have a savior complex which is ironic considering how often they’ve unleashed some of the worst trends in gaming.

I don’t know why but the idea of playing a Switch game like Mario Odyssey on PC just sounds incredibly off even if it would be on better hardware.

Nintendo should not put their games on any other systems.

Well why wouldn't they think about it? It makes perfect sense for them and their ambitions

Rolls away like tumbleweed, laughing hysterically

" Epic Games wanted Nintendo Games on their store."

God, I can only imagine Nintendos reaction. I bet it was something along the lines of El Risitas laugh.

They’ll never take Nintendo alive!!

I'm sorry, why is Epic crazy? They are courting anyone who will listen to get their games on Epic Game Store and willing to pay to do it. This is a good thing for gamers and developers!! I'm not naive, it's not totally altruistic, obviously more games means more EGS patrons and more $$$, but it also is forcing other companies like Valve and Microsoft to potentially rethink their revenue splits - Microsoft recently agreed to take 12% instead of 30% cuts on their PC game store.

And with Sony there is now precedent, since they've softened a lot on PC. Horizon is on PC, Days Gone is either out or coming, Death Stranding, though not first party, got ported. Epic has money to burn and wants to stick it to Valve wherever they can. I'm all for it.

Lastly, sure, I would love official Nintendo ports on PC!!!!! It will never happen, as long as Nintendo makes successful hardware, but I would love to have access to ALL THE GAMES on one piece of hardware. That is the dream, isn't it!?

$200 million for 4-6 PlayStation ports is insane.

@GrailUK Did you criticise the 3D All Stars collection?

@Richnj What for? I bought it day one, played it to death during the anniversary and happy I was there. Not something to moan about lol.

@GrailUK I thought you were against money grabs with zero creativity... My mistake.

@Richnj It's fine we all make them. 3D All Stars was a nice trip down memory lane. It is what it was (lol) But to even suggest it's the last time we all see these games is nonsense. Besides, huge difference between celebrating an anniversary with a collection of oldies and wanting to capitalise on the goodwill of another company (usually by aquiring them.) If you can't differentiate those two, then I'm afraid I don't know what else to say.

For clarity, I'm nervous about the Microsoft Switch easter eggs lol.

@GrailUK no you just sound like a snot who blames the west for all his issues it's not the first time and it will not be the last time but whatever have a great day hating the west for all your issues.

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh ... no

@sik187 Hehe, that's probably how you read it. But you too

@GrailUK "But to even suggest it's the last time we all see these games is nonsense"

That's not really the issue though, you know that, right?

"wanting to capitalise on the goodwill of another company (usually by aquiring them.)"

I must have misread the part of the story where Epic were trying to aquire Sony, or MS, or Nintendo. Again, my mistake.

"celebrating an anniversary with a collection of oldies"

Maybe, if wish it hard enough, Epic were just trying to celebrate first party titles by bringing them to their platform.

It could have been a nice trip down memory lane for anyone on the EGS. You just aren't believing hard enough.

I mean, if anything, Epic are the good guys, because they just want everyone to have access to more games, and because their plastic toys don't cry out for the toys their child owners don't have. Now that, that is some very consumer friendly business by Epic.

@Richnj Man, you are making lots of mistakes today! Anyhoo, have a great day.

@GrailUK

it isn't a money grab, they are a store, stores buy products to sell... yikes you never make any sense anywhere on this forum

I'd pay Nintendo $200 million to get Mario Kart on the Epic store, no doubt, Nintendo's loss, an easy billion dollars is there for Nintendo's older games, of course they don't want prices to drop though, so no way Nintendo will do it

@RudeAnimat0r

yeap totally, Microsoft lowered their take to 12 percent because now they're so far behind in last place, their store is making no money at all

If I was sony I'd take that deal, they already release most of their games on pc so to take an extra £200 million for those games on pc to be only available on epics store is a steal

Yeah Nintendo already had an eShop, Sony got the PS Store, and Microsoft got Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Store, I don't think they are interested in letting their library be played anywhere else but their platform. Microsoft may still be interested but I doubt Sony and Nintendo will allow such an agreement.

Nintendo games available on Epic Game Stores means there's no point in buying a Switch anymore as you could just buy a portable PC and take your library with you. If Nintendo want Switch to beat PS2 lifetime sales keeping their games exclusive on their platform is the best choice.

Makes sense. If you have made a store, you probably want items to sell. Nintendo games are a huge stretch, but I can see Sony and Microsoft making a deal. After all, Horizon Zero Dawn and Death Stranding are already on PC, and I think some Microsoft games are on Steam.

@MarsOne Indeed, 12% or 30% of nothing, is nothing. But it is a little PR win, at the cost of nothing

I'm starting to believe that Epic Games has a bit of an ego where they stand. Fortnite being brought up to popularity by the bandwagon, and Unreal Engine being massively successful among developers including Sony and Microsoft doesn't say much if they had the guts to stir up controversy with Apple.

That being said though, I'm a little more concerned with Tencent. They're making so much money from surprisingly very few games and large investments.

@MarsOne Hey, I never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the box. I always reserve the right to change my mind. But something like this benefits Epic much more than Nintendo. Yet some seem to think it's in everyone's best interest, which I find very short sighted.

@KoopaTheGamer YES

Having Nintendo games on the epic store maybe isn’t too far fetched. They already have their mobile games on apple/google app stores and there was that random case of Mario galaxy coming out for nvidea shield in China. I can’t imagine they’d ever have big releases there but I could definitely see their mobile apps coming to pc e-stores or things like Pokemon home and the Pokemon tcg pc game.

Allow me to remind you all that Epic is owned in part by Tencent, a Chinese corporation that actively works with the government over there to suppress their populace, look up "the great firewall" for one such example.

Epic is a sleazy company as it is, but their backers are up to genuinely sinister activity and that's enough for me to stay FAR away from them.

@Richnj @RudeAnimat0r It's honestly depressing to see people acting like corporations will ever act in their benefit without being forced. Corporations exist to make money. And as the video game industry has shown, video game corporations want ALL the money, every dollar that has ever existed if they can grab for it. Nintendo's an exception in that they're SLIGHTLY less greedy than the others, but they're still profit-driven at the end of the day.

The "dream" of a single platform where all games are available is impossible due to simple human greed. As we've seen with the Epic vs. Apple lawsuit and how media gets put on and taken off of streaming services constantly, if a corporation doesn't have 100% control of the platform and/or income they WILL inevitably think they can get more money elsewhere.

It’s almost as if every single corporation mentioned in these papers are massive moneygrubbing nightmares.

@Zebetite I mean I stated that Epic is not being altruistic in their actions, they obviously have very clear financial motivations, but that doesn't mean what they're doing isn't potentially beneficial to players and devs.

I'm not sure how Nintendo is slightly less greedy? This is a company that refuses to drop prices on their own products and routinely crushes fan projects to protect their IP - both make perfect business sense. I'd also assume Nintendo takes the customary 30% off of all eShop sales as well, which has quietly not come up among all this.

I think Nintendo often has superior PR and fans will follow them off the cliff, but they aren't particularly different or generous either.

@Old-Red That was perfectly well said. Kudos

Any other company would have to pry anything "exclusive" from Nintendo is from their cold, dead hands. And rightfully so!

@RudeAnimat0r @Zebetite

I'm am genuinely out of patience with people who Stan companies.

I love lots of things, like xbox, PS, Switch, Halo, Resistance, Metroid, Disney movies, Marvel movies, and over the years I've spent a lot of money in these things. But people really need to detach their love of a property or product from the business that provides it.

I think there'd be an issue for many if they had to admit to themselves that they aren't giving their money away to a corporation that "deserves" it.

I don't see any of the Big 3 hosting anything on Epic's storefront unless they're desperate.

I guess I appreciate the ambition but I can't fathom how any of them would ever entertain such an idea. Microsoft might have, if they hadn't already created means to experience Xbox games on PC.

LMFAO, yeah, good luck.

@Tyranexx Horizon Zero Dawn and the games of Quantic Dreams (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroid: Become Human) are already in the epic store and Days Gone will release in it on 18 May, so one of the big 3 already did it.
I don't see Nintendo games coming to any pc platform anytime soon, but Sony certainly is considering it and already released some games.
https://www.gematsu.com/2021/04/sony-group-corporation-invests-another-200-million-in-epic-games
https://www.gematsu.com/2020/08/sony-interactive-entertainment-to-continue-to-invest-in-or-acquire-companies-explore-expanding-first-party-titles-to-pc

Epic is showing their ***** side here.
Console exclusives are exactly that for a reason. They help drive sales of the console they are on - or in MS case help sell gamepass.

Most of the console games comnig to PC are late ports anyway, after the bulk of the console sales are done so no harm to Sony/MS bottom line.

The most Epic can hope for is late ports.
Nintendo is off the table, even Epic are not that ***** to realise this. Nintendo game sell and keep selling. The bulk of the sales are not "done" after a year or whatever like PS or Xbox games. Nintendo know this and that's why they stay exclusive.

A crap ton of Nintendo made games sold over 1m last year, that didn't even release last year (ie released earlier).

The conclusions here are

for Playstation - It's a wait and see thing. I think it might happen for late ports.
For Xbox - nope. Because gamepass and because MS are doing the same thing through their studio acquisitions.
For Nintendo - hard nope. Late PC ports of Nintendo made games make zero sense when Nintendo games still sell years after release.

@the8thark Most of Microsoft's PC ports are on Steam nowadays in addition to the Microsoft Store, I do think there may be a point where Steam gets Game Pass though.

@Grumblevolcano
Very true. That's not the epic game store though.
I agree with you that eventually gamepass will come to Steam.

@stinky_t I sincerely doubt that Nintendo will put their games on any PC platforms. Microsoft has close ties to Valve so not a chance

Sony is opening up to 1st party games on PC so it could happen eventually

@Entrr_username agreed even emulating an old mario game on my pc just feels... strange. Unauthentic is the best way i can describe it.

@RudeAnimat0r
While Nintendo's history with copyright has been kind of bad (though a lot of the "fan project crushing is generally more a Game Freak thing than Nintendo, since it's more frequently Pokemon fan games that get hit, with some Smash stuff here and there,) it's actually more of a creative control thing than a money thing, as videos and fan projects are actually beneficial towards sales generally as it is free advertising for companies. While I'm not entirely defending Nintendo, I do think it is fair for someone and/or for a company to want to maintain control over characters and settings they have created, as fan works do have the potential to change people's expectations and the image for a character or series (not always in a bad way of course.) That being said, while I do think Nintendo is justified in wanting to maintain creative control over their ips, I do think Nintendo is quite paranoid about it (though they seem to have significantly mellowed out nowadays, especially when it comes to YouTube.)
As for not changing game prices, you act like they're the only company who does this. Sure Nintendo has a weird lack of sales (definitely an odd thing since there are many benefits to a company when they hold a good sale (emphasis on good since Nintendo sales suck generally,)) but it's not like they never reduce the base price of the game (though I have to wonder why we have no Switch Nintendo selects type things yet.) Overall though, dropping the base price on a game isn't as common as you seem to be suggesting, as that usually only happens, if at all, under one of two conditions; 1. Sales were bad and the company just wants to make something, or 2. The game is sufficiently old enough that people rarely buy it anymore unless the game goes on sale.
In general, I'd say Nintendo has more of an Ego problem than a greed problem 🤔

@Andy_Witmyer just don't drive smoking that stuff!!

Didn't epic use their game store to steal people's data then sent it to China or something

I don’t really understand why people are getting so mad at Epic and name calling them for this? In a business where they were the “new guys” competing with the huge Steam platform and later Gamepass as well it would make perfect sense they would want big hits exclusive on their platform. It’s what Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft do as well. This never meant fully exclusive they would always appear on Nintendo’s platform too. But as a gamer I would love playing my Switch games ported at 144 fps on my pc. And I like that Sony has been porting their games to the PC as well, also on Epic’s platform.

You can also see that they never really considered Nintendo a option anyway.

@Old-Red In other words.. Thank All Gaming Gods that Breath of the Wild was a masterpiece

@Richnj No... Nintendo is fierce on going after pirating when they can so if they allow PC versions on Epic the cat will be out of the bag and near impossible to police anything anymore. Nintendo is best being Nintendo for better or worse.

@ChakraStomps What Nintendo games aren't pirate-able?

@Homerman76 I'll agree on the ego problem, but disagree on the pricing one. Quick example: Mario Odyssey still has an MSRP of $60 and was a launch game. God of War on PS4, which came out a year later and sold pretty well too, has an MSRP of $20. I think admittedly it's difficult to compare one company to another, but Nintendo is stingy as hell because Mario Kart 8 sold another 10 million copies last year.

@GrailUK So Epic is suing Apple by claiming Apple has a monopoly, while Epic is trying to get a monopoly unto itself by getting every single game on it's storefront.

The irony and hypocrisy is astounding.

@tkdboy1889 Their arrogance is something else.

@MajorTom When I made that comment, I was thinking of internal development specifically. Not so much publishing. I knew about Horizon Zero Dawn making the jump - though I didn't realize it was published by Sony despite being on PS4 - but not the rest of those.

In the case of Nintendo at least, they generally like keeping their cards close. So nope, I don't expect them to send games to other storefronts or platforms anytime soon outside of collaborative nods, like Samus supposedly being slated to appear (if the plan wasn't already scrapped) in Fortnite.

@Richnj You typed this. It's almost childishly optimistic (Steam totally didn't go the same route and devolved into a mess of a store) and what prompted my initial comment, so I'm rather confused about where people "stanning" companies comes from as this almost sounds like a bit of projection on your part. No corporation, in any market, is EVER the "good guys".

"I mean, if anything, Epic are the good guys, because they just want everyone to have access to more games, and because their plastic toys don't cry out for the toys their child owners don't have. Now that, that is some very consumer friendly business by Epic."

@RudeAnimat0r The emphasis in my statement is slightly. Very slightly. They've yet to introduce disgusting microtransaction schemes into their flagship games, and what games they have that do rely on such schemes are ones Nintendo can handwave as being the work of other companies (the mobile games, everything Pokemon). That said, all it'll take is a change in management for Nintendo to jump down that slippery slope, so yeah, SLIGHTLY better.

@Zebetite it was satire.

Nintendo ha no not a chance
Microsoft sorry got our own plans pass.
Sony like only now allowing few older ps4 games on pc (kinda after they are more or less tapped out on Ps sales) but possibly most likely but not a strong chance.
So very wishful thinking.
People probably don't want console games coming to pc to be restricted to a certain store in general.

DON'T GIVE IN, NINTENDO! YOUR BETTER THAN THIS! DON'T DO IT!

Epic's issue isn't that Apple has a monopoly, it is that they don't have a monopoly. They are framing everything as fighting for the little guy, and some have drank the kool-aid, but the fact is that they want to capture 50+% of the PC market. What do you think will happen when Epic does that?

The issue isn't one side or the other, they all stink. Corporations stink, they exist to extract wealth from people anyway they can (legally and not so legally). The issue is that the only entity that really can reign them in (in the US) has been bought and paid for by those corporations they are supposed to be regulating.

The problem with Apple and Epic is a simple case of jealousy.

Epic are jealous that Apple has what they dont.

Epic out here trying to grab a monopoly for themselves in the PC gaming sphere while moaning and complaining about a monopoly that Apple has for mobile gaming.

Funny.

More reasons for me to dislike Epic!

I have a switch and buy games for it and I still want Nintendo games on PC without emulation. Doesn't mean I want them on epic tho. Please Nintendo, put your games on steam or gog so I can play your games unhindered by underpowered hardware!

Epic wants a monopoly but they come off as arrogant wanting to pull stunts to boost popularity of their service by taking stuff from other developers without a shred of integrity.
I’ve already felt irritated at their awful business practices and greedy micro transactions. This isn’t helping.

@tkdboy1889 I was thinking the same thing it's ridiculous

apple vs epic? can't they both lose? those are terrible companies.

The fact people in this comment section dont know why this case is important makes me once again question why I even interact.

If epic loses the precedents apple as a company are trying to set will set freedom of expression in games back 20 years.

If youre not supporting epic in this case, but you support game devs, youre a hypocrite.

I personally think it would be cool to have a game with Nintendo's design skills on a device as powerful as a PC, but it won't happen. We can only dream.

@Sejha I highly doubt epic actually cares about developers. It seems they want the benefits of being on a platform with a high userbase like apple without having to pay any kind of fees whatsoever. They'd do the same with nintendo so they can put the EGS on switch and be able to bypass Nintendo's 30% fee.

@ArcticSin You misunderstand. Its not about epic caring about developers. ***** epic. Its about the fact that Apple's ecosystem and standpoint (see their commentary about Itch.IO.) are anathema for all indie devs and harmful to all devs.

I mean Sony makes sense... They historically have a rocky relationship with Valve and MS... Yeah they'd rather chew their foot off than sell their games on the Windows Store. And why not expand to PC gaming? Get some extra sales!

As for Nintendo... Epic was dreaming if they thought Nintendo would give them first party software. Unlike Sony or MS where it is mostly 3rd party software that supports their consoles, Nintendo's lifeline is their first party portfolio.

Epic can go do the anatomically impossible if they think they'll get Nintendo to just let them publish their games on PC.

Sony I can see happening, but Epic would need to make their storefront and launcher on-par with Steam before I'd actually spend money to buy a game. As it stands Epic Launcher is weak when it comes to a friend's list and chat service, let alone the ability to gift people other games. These issues alone prevent me from buying the PC version of Kingdom Hearts for my sister, and would keep me from buying ANY game that becomes exclusive to the service. Another thing is that Steam serves as a launcher for ALL the games on my computer, even if I didn't buy it from Steam. Epic Launcher cannot do that

@Razer they're also doing it to Valve over Steam

@stinky_t seeing that Microsoft is 1 of the big 3 & has no problem putting 1st party titles on PC, and Sony has put a few on PC (horizon, recently), it's not that far fetched. The only 1 that's unlikely would be Nintendo.

I have only free games on the Epic store...and i never played them.

Nintendo games on other platforms ? You dreaming a very wild dream.
Xbox games on Epic ? They work hard for the Game Pass, would be VERY hard.
Sony games (why? Sony HAVE games ?!?!), probably yes. Because this is the last console for Sony, probably end like Sega in a couple of years.

@twztid13 yeah, I only really found out about Sony through comments here lol. I suppose that comes down to the fact that Nintendo won't because Nintendo. Which isn't that the excuse for everything?