Microsoft To Bring Four Xbox Exclusives To Other Consoles, But Won't Name Them

Hi- Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Grounded , Pentiment.

Hi Fi and Pent would be amazing additions to the Switch library, but never played SoT or Grounded so can’t comment on them.

I’m sitting here still wishing for portable Fallout 3/NV/4…..

Whole lot of nothing to be honest. Reaffirming their stance and place in the industry. Hope we see at least some of these on switch.

This was the time to announce them after alllll the bloody speculation. But no, the rumours will continue again.

I'm looking forward to Hi-Fi Rush, and too bad about Indiana Jones and Starfield, but did we really need to tease this out further? 😅

I'll gladly take Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment and Grounded on Switch. Not my cup of tea, but Sea of Thieves is also a nice game to have on Switch.

@SometimesGhost that wasn’t an announcement show, it was a “calm the f**k down internet” show.

But it does mean we are likely to get the rumoured partner direct fairly soon.

Yeah, watching the video, it felt like a huge letdown. It was basically just a word salad of "We want to follow industry trends," "We're here for the gamers," etc. There was almost nothing concrete about the future of Xbox as a platform; everything was incredibly vague.

Now, I would certainly love to see Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves come to the Switch and/or its successor. They would be right at home on the platform. But we'll just have to wait and see if that is indeed the case.

So it looks like the live service games and smaller niche titles that maybe missed a sales target coming to other platforms. Fair enough. That's where the industry is going unfortunately.

I still don't understand why they didn't attempt to quell the rumours last week. Simply stating that Xbox is here to stay and has no long-term plans to go multiplatform would have really helped to put people's minds at ease.

I don't know what any of those games are so this doesn't excite or disappoint me either way. Just glad they finally told us the rumors are half correct.

I'm so glad they made us wait a week for a boring ass podcast confirming everything instead of just putting out a tweet. 😃

I'm sure everyone who sold their Xbox this and last week are very happy about their decision! 😃

Four games is just the start, once they see the revenue from Playstation/Nintendo players they will bring more over, also he was contradicting himself throughout the podcast. Their future is multi plat and today pretty much confirmed it.

I have heard of hi-fi rush but I haven’t seen any gameplay of it. I really should do that.

Right when i saw this article, i thought, “Grounded”. Here’s hoping.

I can’t believe Nintendo delayed their direct today for this (as reported).

Hopefully it's HFR. Looks fun.

Personally I don’t own an Xbox because I don’t play First Person Shooters. I can understand why they’ve chosen to put these games out on other platforms- they fit better on the Switch and the Playstation.

In the meantime Xbox holds a monopoly on FPS.

Microsoft just gave us the Nintendo Direct for the month of February

I would like Switch carts for Hi-Fi and Petiment. And... come to think of it; we haven't gotten Ori 2 yet, have we?

@Zeebor15 we have both Ori games

This was a masterclass in controlling a narrative. Phil echoed what basically everyone with any knowledge of the game industry was saying ... that game reveals cost tons of money and involve planning from multiple partners and nothing was going to happen today, but then stops the rumors from getting out of control by saying it's just 4 games ... 2 live service, 2 small ones.

But before that could become the key take away from the podcast, we're told that "Diablo IV is coming to all 34 million game pass subscribers" ... not just a HUGE announcement that runs contrary to what Activision had said before the sale, but that number ... 34 million ... blows away industry estimates. Most optimific estimates were around 29, but the more accepted number was 25 million.

Sure, obviously the discourse HERE and places like it is still going to be games and exclusivity, but I think they've ensured the thing most insiders are going to be talking about for the next little while is Game Pass. They couldn't have asked for a better outcome.

Other then that, for the average person like me, this was a pretty boring nothing burger. Microsoft thinks people should play games on Xbox. Shocking.

Hi-Fi Rush is basically all I want from Microsoft. The game, among the first next-gen-only wave, was the one making the least sense game engine-wise. It could run on an Xbox One perfectly, yet Microsoft pulled a Nintendo and went for artistry as the means to justify XSX/S exclusivity.

Oh well, at least I'm not alone in placing all my bets on HFR.

@AstroTheGamosian what were you expecting them to say out of interest that is more concrete?
4 games going multiplat(they mentioned partners announcing some of them snd the other consoles, so at least one is coming to switch)
Quelled rumours of Starfield/Indy going multi plat
Diablo dated for gamepass
New hardware coming this year
New games announced in June

That’s a lot of info for an adhoc event, but I do agree it did have a lot of management speak around it and the salient points could have been distilled into a tweet or press release.
But I think that might have been because they had to agree with Nintendo the messaging as they are the partner announcing at least one of them.

when phil speaks you know he is not telling the whole truth he gives off snake oil salesman vibes

if these 4 games sell well it will tell xbox that they can make a lot of money by porting bigger games to these platforms it will only be a win win for them..

Pretty much confirmed Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment and Sea of Thieves are 3 of the 4 games, and I hope all of them will be released on Switch.
The four though I have no idea XD. Probably Grounded, but hopefully Psychonauts 2 or Rare Replay.

@JokerCK

Probably.

The two possible variables I think of is that Palword is the second "small game not meant to be a system seller". It fits the narrative of "we just want to bring in players", and we know MS invested a lot in it after it's huge launch.

The other possibility is that there is no just or loving god, and the second "live service game" is Redfall and not Grounded. Redfall has a pretty much 100% complete PS5 version that simply didn't release, as per discovery from the FCC trail. And think about it ... they only have to sell 3 copies on PlayStation with cross play to increase the chance of someone finding a group on Xbox by an infinite amount!

Sea of Thieves on switch would be amazing

@HeadPirate I also thought of Palworld and Redfall. But Nintendo would never allow Palworld. Grounded is of better quality and more likely to sell than Redfall.

That’s not very exciting….

@elpardo1984 Well, for one, confirmation as to what the four games are, as well as some details as to what their new hardware is going to be like.

For example, the footage they used of people playing on mobile screens, are they also moving into the portable sphere with a handheld of their own? Or will the mobile aspect end up being for smartphones (i.e., iPhone and Android), Switch, and Steam Deck?

I understand that, for legal reasons, they probably couldn't say much, but as a consumer and an Xbox fan for the last 12 years, I want to be educated as to their plans for the coming years ahead, so I can make an informed choice whether or not to support them well into the future. So I didn't feel like I got enough to go on.

@JokerCK

Disagree on the 1st point. Nintendo is 100% okay with Palword. If they had a problem with the game, they would have sued already. They sued a Palword content creator! Perhaps even more importantly, Microsoft absolutely met with them before backing the game. Microsoft would never risk the ire of a partner they have been courting for a decade to support a fad game.

There is no grey area in business. If Palword doesn't violate their IP, which it clearly doesn't given they are not going after it, and Microsoft's legal team and likely a meeting with Nintendo didn't turn MS away from backing it, then it's just another pie they would love to get a price of.

Agree on the second point. A Redfall port is an awful idea and would barely run on Switch. I mean ... it barely runs on Xbox. But companies often make really bad decisions. Like, for example, releasing Redfall.

Those saying Palworld need to remember it's not an Xbox made game, and they currently have a timed exclusivity deal for it and will most likely come to playstation anyway. These four games Phil mentioned are games from xbox owned studios.

@JokerCK
Yeah I don't know why they didn't just specify those 4 games during the podcast. The cat is already out of the bag, may as well name some names and get it over with.

I really don't know why people are letdown about the nothing announcement. Companies will continue to march to their own beat regardless of what the player base says. If that does not satisfy your NEED for info, then continue to read leaks and clickbait articles.

@HeadPirate Where are you getting these "industry estimates" of 25 million?

That number was announced over 2 years ago when Microsoft announced their intent to acquire ABK back in January 2022.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/18/22406059/xbox-game-pass-subscribers-25-million-microsoft-activision

If it was still 25 million now, that would mean they had no growth in subscriptions for 2 years, which would be disastrous. Anyone that was estimating that has no idea what they're talking about.

I just want Hi-Fi and Killer Instinct 13

@IceClimbers

I didn't say 25. I said 25 to 29. The 25 estimate you are linking would have been an optimistic estimate 2 years ago, and the people that thought 25 then are going to be closer to the optimistic 29 now. 2 years ago the pessimistic outlook was closer to 18 million, and the people who thought that likely thought something closer to 25 before this podcast.

I was extremely clear that the optimistic and pessimistic outlooks were different, and it was a range. Also they are estimates. Look hard enough, you'll find some groups that actually thought the number was around 35 million who will be disappointed by this result. You will also find people who think Game Pass is already experiencing NEGATIVE growth. That's actually pretty common.

Most of that is based on Phil missing his bonus for Game Pass growth 3 years in a row, one of the few actual publicly available and verifiable facts we had about Game Pass before today.

@Zuljaras not sure how but I’d totally forgotten about Fable 1-3…. Seriously having Fable and Fallout would be amazing on switch, and more over, would print money for Phil and company…. Like an OBSCENE amount.

That Hi-Fi Rush certainly had some good buzz going around, so I'd probably give 'er a go if it came to the Switch.

@AstroTheGamosian maybe it’s just a case of expectation. A business update was never going to have blockbuster announcements, particularly as their hand was forced by leaks and a bit of internet hysteria.
It did what it needed to and calmed the rumour mill and pointed to exciting things coming up.

@HeadPirate Just because they don't have grounds to sue, doesn't mean Nintendo are 'okay' with Palworld. There's quite a lot of ground between those two differentials, after all.

Yes, Xbox went ahead with the exclusivity deal despite their good relations with Nintendo but this could say more about their current desperation for successful games as much as anything else.

None of us can honestly claim we know what Nintendo or the Pokémon company actually thinks about this deal, as much as we all love to speculate. For all we know, they could still be discussing and building the case with their lawyers as we 'speak'. Perhaps unlikely, given the timespan but by all means possible.

If nothing happens, it's only because they don't have an open-and-shut case, as Nintendo never lets a good opportunity for legal fisticuffs pass them by when it comes to their precious IP. History has shown that, time and time again.

@JokerCK Oh okay, Just thinking out loud. I'm going back to being mad they chopped Toys for Bob in half and everyone just got mad at Embracer instead.

@HeadPirate That 25 million number from 2 years ago is an officially reported number from Microsoft, not an estimate by industry analysts.

So again, anyone that was predicting 18 million back then as a "pessimistic outlook", and 25 million now prior to the 34 million announcement in the podcast has no idea what they're talking about.

@elpardo1984 Personally, I was wondering if they were going to exit the console market and transition to a third-party publishing house, like Sega. By their own admission, they lost the Console War between them and Sony. And they've only sold between 20 million and 30 million units (some reports putting them closer to 20 million, others closer to 30 million), which is relatively pitiful.

I am glad to hear that they plan to stay in the console market for the foreseeable future, but they need to have some sort of game plan to really compete with the PlayStation beyond just having more exclusives. Maybe they need to adopt Nintendo's way of thinking and embrace more quirky styles of gameplay and innovation instead of chasing continuously-evolving updates to graphics and power like Sony is.

Plus, trying to keep prices low like Nintendo does would allow them to be more accessible to the average consumer. Taken together, more exclusives, quirky gameplay, and relatively affordable prices could help them compete better.

Furthermore, I do like the idea of cross-play and cross-saves, which are becoming an industry standard. As someone who tries to have all the consoles (Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and mobile) it would be nice to have my save data carry over from one system to another.

For example, the game I play the most of lately is Genshin Impact. I love that I can play the game on my PC or PlayStation, and then pick up where I left off on my iPhone 15 Pro if I am on the go. I would love to see more games like that.

So yeah, there were some good ideas that they touched upon, but I think I just wanted some more concrete details overall.

@Jalex_64

I completely get where you're coming from. From where we're setting, it can look like that.

But that's just not how business works. Or how the law works most of the time.

In a criminal case, you need a solid argument before you go to court and you need to convince a grand jury. In a civil case you can literally ask for an injection with ZERO evidence and tell the judge you're "pretty sure" something will come up in discovery (1). You're right, I can't know for sure. I can't know for sure the sun will raise tomorrow. But I'm really confident based on how stuff works.

The standard of IP infraction is if the average person would be confused. Every second Nintendo waits before taking action makes the argument weaker, because if it took Nintendo four months to come up with argument as to infringement, how the heck can you argue the average person is going to look at the game and immediately think it's a Game Freak product? There is also no reason to do this. Ask for discovery, then you can make your decision to sue or not WHILE you have access to 100% of the internal decisions about the game. If you don't find anything, you lose nothing. Why wait?

And if there is no legal issue, no actual violation of IP or Nintendo's code of conduct, they can't keep it off their platform. Period.

Edit

1 - I just remembered that this actually has happened to Nintendo before. In Nintendo vs Tengen, they had nothing except a strong option that what Tengen was doing was "bad", and internally they doubted they had a case. But they asked for discovery, and as part of the discovery process they found that Tengen had blatantly broke the law and stole from Nintendo, promoting them to counter sue.

I read this morning that PS5 has no new games till 2025 and the console is reaching the end of its career... and now this, lots of talk for not much in the end. Seems like they're making lots of talks about little games as well. Not my kind of games in any ways, don't feel like I'm missing out. Curious about Hi-Fi Rush since everybody is so positive about it and I love rythm games, so let's see about that.
I'm just so glad there are so many cool games on the Switch!

I've seen the podcast and all their takeaways about the business and the industry. This actually seems like an expansion to the iniciative that began with Minecraft, and was then followed by games like Ori and Cuphead, don't expect too much AAA exclusives, except the ones from Bethesda and Activision that should come (hopefully). They won't be pulling a "Sega" anytime soon.

Microsoft's new strategy is actually very similar to what many media companies (especially WBD) are now doing in terms of their streaming strategy: bring profitability to their businesses and the whole industry. Even Sony has been doing their work with their device streaming and PC efforts. In fact, Nintendo is the only one of them that has yet to do that (or maybe their need to do it in the first place).
What I don't understand is why the need to change things now, if the "exclusive" strategy worked well (money-wise) for decades.

Now Microsoft says they're working on the "biggest technical leap" for their next-generation Xbox... as if we needed more reminders about you-know.

"Our developers can build the specs of the hardware"
Those words alone are the main excuse for the next-gen Switch to be powerful at the primordial least. It's important for devs and their visions to not have limits.
By the way, I thought there was going to be a Nintendo surprise for this week, but where we are right now probably explains some things.

Creators, players, growing.
Growing, players, creators.
Players, growing, creators.

Pretty much that podcast throughout. Reminded me of the 'TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV' debacle from the Xbone launch.

@IceClimbers

The key things your maybe misreading by just doing a google search to try and prove someone "wrong" is that Milestones are not subscription numbers. They are easily manipulated, because you're just saying that at some point we had this number, and you're not sharing your expected retention.

When MS says they hit a 25 million millstone, investment firms and insiders don't start thinking Game Pass has 25 million users. They still go by their own estimates, that are based on their own research and more accurately capture what a 3 month rolling average is going to look like factoring in retention.

You can run a marketing blitz and release a killer game, sign up 10 million people, say you hit 25 million, and then have 12 million people leave the next day. When this happens, MS's statement that they hit a 25 million millstone and an investors statement that MS has only 13 million subscribers are both correct at the same time.

I own a fair bit of MS stock, so I get dozens of news letters from these investor groups and insiders, some telling me how the numbers actually way bigger and I should invest more or buy their shares, and some saying they are way smaller and I should sell them my shares or invest in their hedge funds.

I am giving you actuate information based on that experience. For about a year, almost all of them have been saying Game Pass is likely experiencing zero or negative growth. So this is going to be a bit of a shock and get people's attention, given there was no marketing push recently and their hasn't been a major release.

If you prefer the information you get from a google search, all power to you man! I'm just some dude on the internet. But if you would like to learn more about this topic from someone who is actually pretty well informed, feel free to ask away. I got PLENTY of time at my desk today. But maybe just ask questions without the Strawman? I would appreciate that, and it would make the conversation better.

...and the fact they fell back on backwards compatibility... embarrassing. Their backwards compatibility commitment epitomises Xbox - we'll hype it as the second coming, but in reality the number of games will be limited, and no, you're not getting to play PGR on anything newer than a 360.

Was really hoping for the Battletoads reboot and/or Killer Instinct Anniversary Edition to come over personally, but the four titles that have been rumored are good too

Loads of people are disappointed about the reveals (or lack of them) but let’s be realistic here. They told us a lot.

What they told us:

1. Xbox consoles are here to stay
So many were saying Xbox was about to die. That all Xbox exclusives were being ported etc. it was all false. A lot of rumours said Xbox wasn’t making new consoles but we found out they are bringing out new consoles this generation AND next gen. Another myth that was busted.

2. We know the four games
Pentiment, Hi Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded. Okay, they didn’t say it but it’s pretty obvious. I’d eat my hat if it wasn’t them.

3. Xbox will still have exclusives
Most of Xboxes first party games will still be exclusive to Xbox consoles. They aren’t abandoning their core. There will be many more exclusives in the years to come for Xbox consoles. I don’t know why people thought this wouldn’t be the case.

4. Xbox Game Pass is growing in strength
A lot of the anti-Xbox comments on here were saying how “Game Pass is unsustainable” and that Xbox was having to sell on PS/Switch to cover costs. Well they crushed that myth today. All Xbox first party titles are coming to Xbox. And that includes new releases from Activision-Blizzard. Also existing titles are coming starting with Diablo 4 in March. That’s great news for Game Pass users.

5. The gaming community needs to chill
I think the emotional incontinence on display in the last few weeks, the wild speculation and the amount of wrong predictions, and even some entitled reactions tonight (not on here but other sites) shows a lack of professionalism from gaming media and a lack of maturity from the gaming community. I love you guys, but holy moly!

@HeadPirate As I stated above, if Nintendo do nothing, it's only because they don't have an open-and-shut case. It does not mean they're 'okay' with the game. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The likelihood of legal action may be relatively small now but online games like Palworld are constantly evolving, which still keeps open the possibility of legal action in the future, particularly if Pocket Pair Inc. pushes things too far.

For example, a piece of fan-made merch' sporting one of the Pal designs was reportedly hit with a DMCA from Nintendo for breaching copyright just yesterday. This only demonstrates that the situation can change very rapidly depending on how Pocket Pair Inc. builds on the foundations of Palworld going forward.

But whatever the companies intentions, they'd be well advised to tread as carefully as ever if they wish to continue reaping the profits from Palworld. This won't be easy as they attempt to continue giving players what they want by evolving what is now a very successful IP in its own right.

See you on the Sea of Thieves, Pirates. It is an awesome and unique game. Updates have made this game 10x better than launch. Don't look at reviews to decide if you will play.

@Jalex_64

I totally respect your option here, but this completely ignores the main point of my last post.

If they have no case, or they don't have a open and shut case, they can go to a judge and ask for something called "discovery". They don't need any evidence. They could do this tomorrow by filling out a form. It doesn't mean they are commuting to any action. It cost them nothing, other then the lawyer fees they are already paying.

This would put a legal onus on Pocket Pair to send Nintendo 100% of all documents about the game, it's development, it's pre-production, it's marketing, all internal communications and everything else. This is legal obligation, all companies must retain these documents and have them ready in case of a discovery request. It is not a long and drawn out process.

So there might be a world where Nintendo is sitting around and waiting to see if they can form a better case. But there is no world where they are doing that without the absolutely free wealth of potential evidence they would get from discovery.

The key point here isn't that they haven't sued. It's that they haven't asked for discovery. I even pointed out how Nintendo has requested discovery before in a case where their own lawyers said they had no standing to sue, but they discovered a standing as a result of discovery. There is NO REASON to wait before requesting discovery, and discovery can never hurt you or your case.

And while, yes, if Pocket Pair makes an infringing product tomorrow, Nintendo will sue them tomorrow ... it's also true that if EA makes an infringing product tomorrow, they will sue EA tomorrow. That's not a "changing situation". The only relevant point is that nether of them have an offending product TODAY.

They can't legally keep a product off their platform because it MIGHT break the law at some later point. They can kick it off their platform when it breaks the law.

all this alarmist, just for Microsoft to reiterate, they would release games to Playstation/Nintendo consoles, a thing they doing since Minecraft for Nintendo consoles, a wasted my time in a bunch of nothingburger, this could have been done on a PR

@HeadPirate "The only relevant point is that nether of them have an offending product TODAY.

They can't legally keep a product off their platform because it MIGHT break the law at some later point. They can kick it off their platform when it breaks the law."

The only relevant point? This was the entire point of my last post. Glad to see we finally agree on something.

@Kienda

Great summary.

I think it's important to add to 5 that, as Phil pointed out, Microsoft is already one of the largest publisher on Switch, and a very large publisher on PlayStation. There is also no such thing as an 1st party Xbox Console Exclusive, because all Xbox games come to PC.

Image if game reporting wasn't so sensualized and the headlines where "One of the largest publisher on Switch rumored to be publishing a PC game on Switch".

@Jalex_64

So your point was that Nintendo is 100% okay with Palworld today? But might not be okay with them tomorrow? The same way they are 100% okay with EA today, but might not be okay with EA tomorrow if they released an offending product?

Then yes, we do agree.

Although that's literally not what you said. Don't get me wrong, it's great you changed your opinion, but you might want to edit your post for clarity.

@HeadPirate No, I really do not need to change my post because the point was made very clearly. I stated the chance of legal action by Nintendo was very small based on what we know today but this could change if the developer/publisher pushed things too far with future updates that Nintendo is not yet aware of. How is that not clear to you?

Hope people remind Microsoft of Rare Replay still not being ported over.

@Dm9982 Not gonna lie, I was waiting for Fallout 3 / NW and Oblivion since they seemed like slam dunks. Guessing that's just not gonna happen.

@russell-marlow

Rare Replay is 9 years old, so it's embarrassing to beg for it at this point.

Meanwhile you can get a Xbox One for 100$, or Series S for 300$ if you wanna play Starfield, Indiana Jones, Hellblade 2, Stalker 2, FS 2024 etc. too.

@Henchdog Oblivion I’m not sure, but I still think FO3 has a decent chance of being ported, as well as NV, and maybe FO4. I think I recall seeing that this year is the anniversary for FO3, and there was originally internal documents pointing towards a FO3 Remake/Remaster potentially. Think that was discovered during the FTC trial regarding internal documents from MS on what they thought/heard/knew/expected Bethesda to be announcing prior to their acquisition. Most of what was on that list came to pass, but the FO3 thing has not.

Given that info, with a potential for FO3 remaster this year, it’s entirely possible that they port it (or the original) to Switch. At least that’s my hopes.

I toyed with the idea of getting an Asus Ally or Legion Go for portable gaming of games like FO3/NV, but honestly I don’t wanna deal with the hassle of pc gaming anymore. as a parent I rarely have time to game, so I require being able to just drop the game in and start playing. By the time I fiddled with settings, drivers, etc I wouldn’t have time to actually play. So it’s basically going to come down to if they port it to Switch, or the potential Xbox Handheld that might happen. Either way I’d be happy.

Microsoft confirmed that no major games will be ported to other consoles.
Sea of Thieves, HI-FI Rush, Pentiment and Grounded is the 4 games being ported.

HI-FI Rush is a low budget game and were never intended to be Xbox only.

@Toastmaster it’s embarrassing to keep asking for a game that clearly belongs on a Nintendo console, simply because it’s 9 years old? Embarrassing to who, exactly? 😆

Rare replay collection

I think GROUNDED and SEA OF THIEVES will be the live service / multiplayer games. Hi-Fi Rush for the third game. As for the fourth.... I'm just really hoping for Rare Replay.

@Zeebor15
Blind Forest and Will of the Wisps are both on Switch.

@Magrane Imagine not being able to afford a 100$ Xbox console in 9 years.
I bought Xbox One as soon as Rare Replay were announced at E3 2015...

I have Rare Replay physical on my shelve here and got it signed by 5 Rare employees august 2023 and other Rare developers back in 2019.

If you could afford to save 11$ every year, you could almost afford it already. Rare Replay adds another 5$ as it were a bargain bin release last 8 years. The full price on release were only 30$.

Microsoft owned Rare for 23 years, while Nintendo only owned them for a few years.
Rare is 40 years old, and existed longer before Nintendo owned them than they did under Nintendo...
Rare Replay will never get a port, so get over it.

Next week, on to a Direct which will also state a number of new games coming to the console but won't elaborate on their names. Monkey paw takes no prisoners, fans.😜

I will buy all 4 of these games on Switch (assuming the port performance is good).

Just had a quick read of the reviews of 3 of those games on your sister xbox site through the links. I hadn't heard of Pertinent or Grounded before. Yeah, I'm down tbh with you.

@Toastmaster that’s great you got that signed Rare Replay box, kudos to you.

The point you’re making remains moot though. It’s not about the price or affordability but simply that the titles, which ORIGINATED on the NES almost 40 years ago, BELONG on a Nintendo console. At least that’s how the retro games’ fans feel when a Nintendo console, portable no less, is excluded from something so visually and nostalgically obvious.

It has NOTHING to do with who owned what and how long. What matters is where they came from.

Don’t worry dude, we are over it now, especially as we head to cloud gaming and the obvious piece-mealing. But that doesn’t mean the games popping up separately will never happen 🙄

@Magrane Rare were a multiplatform developer in 1980's and first half of 1990's, and their games didn't belong to Nintendo. In fact Acclaim, Gametek, Mindscape and lots of others published these games and Nintendo weren't involved in them.

Even major games like Battletoads were also released on Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Gear, Amiga and Amiga CD32.
I own it on CD32 console and Xbox One. It never belonged to Nintendo.

Nintendo stole Monolith from Sony, and you could say the Xenoblade series belong to Sony consoles.
Sony stole Final Fantasy and Metal Gear from Nintendo, but some of them ended up multiplatform.

Anyway. 1980's and 1990's Rare games is only emulated anyway, and shouldn't be ran on Nintendo's outdated buggy emulators.

They should be ran with the proper accurate free emulators instead and you can do that on even 100$ PC Handhelds.

Nintendo isn't allowed to use any proper NES, SNES and N64 emulator as they are freeware and is not legal to be used commercially.

@Toastmaster Thank you for your time in the reply.

So, I do understand the relationship Rare had as a developer of games to Nintendo and other publishers in the NES era. In fact I loved their games published by Milton Bradley (Captain Skyhawk and Marble Madness are two that come to mind).

That being said, I think you misunderstood still what the Nintendo Rare Replay fans have been communicating here. The sense of ownership doesn’t mean one of accountability or liability, but of one of nostalgia. The people clamoring for this release are simply asking it on a Nintendo console due to that connection. That’s where that sense of “belonging” comes from. Put the games, which were released on a Nintendo console the first time, back on a Nintendo console. There is something about that “at home” feeling those games would be if that was the case. The first Battletoads may have been a multi platform release, but it was on the NES years prior to those ports and frankly the console source of their popularity.

I’m the guy who would say games developed by Monolith, and that originally appeared on the PlayStation, should have a re release there. Final Fantasy 7 + and Metal Gear Solid games can nostalgically claim Sony as their homes.

Now, you’re implying the emulator itself is buggy, wouldn’t be able to handle it, etc. What we have seen so far on NSO or Arcade Archives is contrary to this, so to me that’s just a matter of opinion. Let the developers come back and claim it simply can’t be done perfectly…….but they won’t 🙂.

@Magrane Your welcome. Marble Madness were developed by Atari and Rare were not involved. I thought it were Melbourne House in Australia who made it, but it's Atari...
These old Rare games can be played even on Android phones with a controller and don't need a Switch at all.

There is like 10.000 games from the past you can say belong to this and that system, but games always changed systems.
Funny thing is that Microsoft owns Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Doom, Guitar Hero, Warcraft and 100's of other old franchises now.

This is why people shouldn't stick with one system.
If you own all, or most systems you don't need to care where games is released.

PC Gaming Handhelds is the best place for portable gaming nowadays as you can play Xbox Series X and PS5 games on them natively on top of over 200.000 PC Games etc.

Nintendo is known to have made less accurate emulators than the free ones on PC.
Mario 64 for example had some serious bugs on release on Switch and also ran at the weird 900p/60 resolution, when Switch could easily have ran it at 1080p/60. It's clear that the N64 emulator by Nintendo weren't optimized.
There is some bottlenecks in the Nintendo made emulator.
They could have stole code from free emulators, but people would have figured right away so Nintendo were smart not to do it as it's illegal to earn money on free emulators. Nintendo would have lost a potential lawsuit.

Arcade Archives is great, but that arcade emulator were made by someone else. Also. Virtua Racing runs at 1080p/60 FPS on it on Switch.

Capcom Arcade Stadium do have some accuracy issues vs Arcade emulators on PC.
Did you know that Nintendo were caught downloading ROMS for NSO from sites Nintendo tried to shut down in the past?
What should they have done without ROM sites. lol

I remember the emulation scene almost died in year 2005 as the best people stopped making emulators back then, and it were silent for years besides MAME. Then it started to grow bigger and became bigger than ever in recent years. As good as all systems ever is worked on now, like over 20 years ago.

@Toastmaster Late response, but I'm not spending $100 for a paper weight that won't last for a long while. You're really goofy thinking that would be a good long-term investment. At least if it was on Steam, I could keep it forever and be able to play it anywhere, even on my Steam Deck.