psycho_punch

@liveswired Sure, but you did not create your XBL account because a PlayStation game told you, you should right?

It's rather simple I think: you won't see a McDonald's store set up signage pointing you the nearest Burger King. Sony's rationale won't make sense when you're unwilling to understand it.

@SomeBitTripFan Of course. These platform holders build walled gardens with that very thing in mind. It'd be nice for us to tear those down once and for all, but I bet a new equally anti-consumer corporate device will replace it.

@ThanosReXXX

True, Ubisoft and EA don't have any hardware, but strip that away and it's the same, so the hostility towards this really is a bit too much.

You are presenting something hypothetical and equating it to something in reality. The fact is that those are third party publishers whose infrastructures do not compete with Sony's. It's not even the hardware that's the point of interest here but the online gaming platform (XBL VS PSN).

Sony would have done the same if they owned Mojang or Minecraft, so it's definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Again, hypothetical. Also, no one is calling whomever whatever; no one is claiming anyone is anything in this case. Now since while we're delving into the hypotheticals here, if MS became a third party publisher, and XBL stops being direct competitor to Sony's PSN, then Sony would probably have not much issue cross-playing through that. They don't seem to mind users signing up for Square-Enix accounts to play FFXIV on PS4.

@ThanosReXXX How they're doing it is of primary concern for Sony, who have as much accountability to their stakeholders, as they have to their consumers. Having to sign up for Ubisoft, EA, etc. is not parallel comparison since they do not directly compete with Sony's PlayStation Network; those are third party publishers who happen to have their own network infrastructure to support playing games on Sony's console.

Just because you aren't shelling out for anything doesn't mean you aren't contributing to someone's business. Like I said, signing up to Xbox Live works almost the same way as any other "free" service on the Internet, like Google's, Facebook's, Twitter's, etc.

@rjejr Yeah, a lot of people don't seem to understand how companies can make money out of just simple head count. This is pretty much how YouTube celebrities earn so much money with just mere view statistics. This is also how Facebook became a multi-billion business even without asking people for money when they sign up.

@ThanosReXXX From the sound of it, it's you haven't read the story about how Mojang is implementing cross-play in Minecraft.

@CrazedCavalier market share is majorly about statistics. Signing up more people into Xbox Live means more numbers for Microsoft to use however they like.

This isn't about pushing any other narrative aside from the fact that that's how Mojang is implementing cross-buy, and that's what the immediate implications are, including Sony who have refused to join the partnership. On the flip side, there are also people who are pushing the "Sony is bad guy" narrative when there seems to be some rational to their business decisions in light of the new updates.

@CrazedCavalier If you're Sony with 60M+ user base, it hurts you by encouraging your users to sign up for accounts on Xbox Live, a directly competing online platform, which only benefits Microsoft as it improves their market share.

@speedracer216 Of course. Everything any of these platform holders ever does is mostly business decision. Sony rejecting cross-play, and Nintendo deciding to join in (regardless of the Xbox Live requirement) are respectively what they think are best for their bottom line.

Here's the thing though. There's a recent update to this story where Mojang said that the way they're implementing cross-platform play in Minecraft is by having every single user sign in to Xbox Live. This includes everyone even the Switch players. So aside from NN account, users will also need to sign up for Xbox Live.

https://www.vg247.com/2017/06/15/minecrafts-new-cross-play-feature-needs-you-to-log-in-with-xbox-live-on-all-participating-platforms-says-mojang/

@BinaryFragger personally, I think Sony's cross-play, cross-save (and cross-buy) model between the Vita and its home console brethren is more ideal setup for people who like to switch between portable and couch play. It covers all the bases. It kept home consoles as powerful as they could be, and the handheld still pretty much portable. I'm really sad that it didn't click. Even the remote play concept, on paper, is really good: use the power of the home console while you play on the go.

@Raptor78 well, third party is third party. The comparison with the semantics of the term "exclusive" does not really weigh much into that conversation. I kind of get what you mean, but the reality is Miyamoto has already appeared as a presenter on Apple stage as third party. You said they're fighters, and for a long time they had successfully avoided putting any of their IPs on mobile, but then we've already seen how they've succumb to the pressures of the current business demands.

@Raptor78 with Super Mario Run being on the iOS (and Android later this year), aren't Nintendo already a third party developer?

["...we continue to believe that the innovation of the second screen was a worthwhile concept. The games that we've launched on the Wii U are hugely compelling: Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Smash Bros., Bayonetta 2, the Super Mario game, The Legend of Zelda. Arguably, if you line up all of the single platform games for Wii U and the other two platforms, we have by far the most unique games that are highly rated by consumers and highly rated by the media. So those things worked."]

Was he trying to drop game titles to prove his point that "the innovation of the second screen was a worthwhile concept"? Most of those titles he mentioned, aside from MM, didn't even rely too much on the touch screen. Games like Bayonetta 2 could have been on any platform and it would have still been highly rated by games media.

@Gamer83 This is true. Many people are infatuated at the idea of every single game ever coming only to the PC (i.e. Windows) as some sort of a "system to rule them all" (as if that worked well in JRR Tolkien's books) without taking into mind that it is a proprietary platform controlled by one of the major console players. I still think the industry need to keep competing at the platform level to remain healthy. I'd prefer having Sony, and/or Nintendo release their own game centric OS's that can work on general purpose machines instead, if ever the industry comes to that point.

On topic: personally, I'd rather see Sony and Nintendo work on any project together, but we all know PS1 happened.

I have fond memories of this game.

I'm kind of disappointed since I misunderstood this to be a news about the game's release on VC.

If she's 13 and she dresses up like that, I'd like to know what kind of character she is, and the world/environment she was brought up in. I can't imagine a 13 year old to have that kind of body already.

I'm aware that she's fictional, and that the creators are free to make her whatever they want her to be. However, as an audience, an outsider, I will attempt to relate to her based on what I know (in real life), combined with what the in-game universe conditions me to think.

Japanese players can really be a pain in the ass a lot of times, and I mean that in a good way. Many of them are just really good at playing the game, and I've gotten enraged by that many times. It's a natural reaction in a game that's very competitive, I guess. It's not the lag that's really their advantage. However, I really wouldn't want them on their own servers because, for one, they make up majority of the players. I rarely have difficulties joining any type of match because, at any point in time, there are Japanese players playing the game. I live near Japan, though.

You know what I want Nintendo do instead? Add Japanese keyboard to North American Wii U.