Sacred Symbols, Episode 232 | Should We Have Connected? (Video)

You should write in when we come back. =D

Colin Moriarty

Thank you.

Colin Moriarty

@Dustin, I've written in before once mentioning this but Returnal has had mouse and keyboard support on PS5 since launch. There was even a debug/dev mode accessible via keyboard that was patched out that let people access some cheats. Excited for the PC launch!

Travis Stockton

4:15:15 Man Colin I really just wanted to say that I love the way you phrased this. About Microsoft reshaping the economy. Forcing everyone else to adopt a strategy in which they must also willingly go into the red, which is something nobody can survive without the surplus MS has on hand. This made me think even more critically about how the Activision acquisition may be legally unsound. I wonder if there are lawyers out there listening to how you structure these points of yours.

Cun

LOL.

Colin Moriarty

Just wanted to make sure I’m not the only one who can’t stand the term “Saw with my own eyes” as opposed to seeing them with someone else’s?! Great ep fellas

Captain Kidd

In the reverse, if the deal goes through and Sony doesn't sign, it's possible the offer is rescinded.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you for your support. <3

Colin Moriarty

The game looks rad!

Colin Moriarty

If the microsoft-activision deal does not go through, what could Sony or the government do to stop the two companies from signing a 10 year exclusive deal that was lucrative enough to get off of the Sony platform? Or is this out of the realm of possiblity?

ben in the can

Just became a Patron so I could post this to see if I'm crazy or not... I find the whole death by a thousand cuts argument to be extremely disingenuous. To me, that is what Free Market Competition is supposed to be. Most businesses don't lose because of a single event, but a series of small decisions they make along the way, by themselves and their competitors. In the case of Sony, they went out of their way to cultivate strong relationships with developers that they then acquired after YEARS. They invested in developing IP and expanding them to what they are today. Sony has exclusives and an identity in their offering because they invested internally in making it happen. Microsoft, meanwhile, has no strong identity games-wise to differentiate itself from Sony. They didn't invest in internally developing IP to make themselves distinct. They dropped the ball with IP they did have, such as Halo. They hemorrhage money with GamePass to entice people to their platform because they have nothing else to really offer. It makes the Activision deal seem more like a Hail Mary move to beat Sony by just buying a developer that did all the work they refused to do. And the 10 year deal they offered Sony? Microsoft could afford to wait 10 years before they leverage the full weight of the developer they just purchased.

It's death by a thousand cuts, they add up in the amount of damage they've done. Fighting games and JRPGs are basically dead on the XBox platform with the exclusivity of Street Fighter 5 and the uncertainty of if the next installment of Final Fantasy or other JRPG will actually appear on the console. If timed exclusives were not a big deal do you think Sony would be paying for them?

Clayton Tilley

You’re comparing timed exclusives of franchises that have sold hundreds of thousands into the very low millions on Xbox to COD and Bethesda games that sold tens of millions on PlayStation. The impact matters, regulators recognize this.

RoughSlpr

Bro are you blind or completely ignorant? Street Fighter 5, Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, Octopath Traveler, Knights of the Old Republic? Im sure I could go on if I decided to dig. All games that were on Xbox that Sony has taken away. No public outcry from guys like Colin who flipped shit when Xbox did it with Tomb Raider but called it a great deal when Sony did it with Street Fighter. Sony fans are so used to everything going thier way that the moment the competition starts fighting back you're all crying. It's been happening to me for over decade, get used to it pal. Do what I did and buy the other console if you really want to play it.

bix hutch

Do you not see a difference in what Sony is doing compared to Xbox taking IP away(Elder Scrolls, Fallout) and holding complete control over COD. These are franchises that have existed on PlayStation for 20 years. Sony has done nothing of the sort or near the scale of what Xbox has done and attempting to do with AKB.

RoughSlpr

I didn't say that so nobody asked you to. What you're saying is that Xbox has to play the same way Sony does even though they have been on the losing end of that for a decade. What you mean by Sony has done it "the right way" is that Sony has done it the way that worked for them. Trust me it hasn't really felt right to me being a primarily Xbox gamer. I've been forced to by a PS for it's 3rd party exclusives. You have zero intrest in having this conversation with someone who will point out how wrong you are on multiple points. Also COD isn't leaving Playstation so why even compare it to Final Fantasy which has actually been taken from Xbox? Sony was built on 3rd party games and I could prove that with ease as the PS1 is my favorite console of all time and I know it very well.

bix hutch

Man crazy, when I saw that Crime Boss trailer I fully thought Madsen's character's name WAS Travis Barker straight up. That's how close it looks. Couldn't agree more, super weird choice.

Cun

I don’t know who you’re asking for a shoutout, LOL.

Colin Moriarty

Zero interest in engaging with the notion that Final Fantasy XVI and Call of Duty are the same, or Microsoft buying Ninja Theory is the same as Sony buying Housemarque. I’m sure someone will take you up on those bad arguments, but not here. <3

Colin Moriarty

Oh boy is Colin wrong all over the place on the Activision talk. Holy shit! First of all Xbox would be bringing it to more platforms than ever! They would put it on the xbox cloud which would put it on mobil and tablet as well. Mobile has never had a mainline COD. Second Sony just came off the game awards where they showed no less then 3 or 4 3rd party games they are paying to keep off of Xbox. Sonys first 2 years of exclusives on PS5 had no less then 3 IPs that were 3rd party games that they PURCHASED. Demon Souls, Rachet and Clank and Returnal. Stop with this bull shit that Sony plays "the right way" it's simply untrue and they apparently have a lot more enemies in the gaming space then the supposed bad guy Microsoft who has a great relationship with Nintendo, Steam and all the major publishers. Sony purchased every single developer they have except maybe 3 or 4. So what your saying is Xbox purchased them too fast? What a dumb argument. Everybody told Microsoft to compete and they go purchase studios to compete and now they say it's too fast? Also saying Sony purchased studios they had relationships with and Xbox didn't is again totally wrong. Go look up the studios they purchased and almost all of them have made exclusives for Xbox except Ninja Theory and Inexile. Todd Howard himself largely credited Xbox for bringing Bethesda to console. Fat fucken holes all over Colins points man. Chris is the only one making sense since he actually uses the Xbox ecosystem. It is by far the most consumer friendly of the three major console manufacturers.

bix hutch

I think the person at the end of the trailer and the thumbnail image is Amelie. It looks like her head and probably why they cut the shot. Troy might have taken over her body? But I think it's a miss direct that isn't necessarily Troy. If I'm right, I would like a shout out. 😅

Dennis Johnson

The PlayStation 3 era was completely carried by its own games. PlayStation 4 has more 10 million+ first and second party sellers on it than the first three consoles combined. Horizon: Forbidden West will have sold in six months what a PSone Gran Turismo game would have sold in its lifetime. There are zero games on PSone or PS2 that sold anywhere near how many copies Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4, both The Last of Us games, God of War 2018, Spider-Man, etc. pushed. These types of games are the realization of an investment into their identity, and why a kernel of people came or stayed when many other people were abandoning ship. Your argument is that people want agnostic gaming. That's true. But if that's all they wanted, Xbox wouldn't have gotten its shit kicked in last generation. You know what the best-selling Xbox One game was? We don't have any idea, because Microsoft hasn't talked numbers since the Xbox 360 generation. But you can garner maybe 10-12 million for Halo 5. God of War: Ragnarok will surpass that before the end of the year. There's the data.

Colin Moriarty

Colin, the data doesn't support your argument that "Sony grows by shrinking Xbox" that "Sony is so big because they make blockbuster games". 80% of the Sony player base don't play GoW or Uncharted or any of the first party games. 100m players and they sell max 20m copies of anything. Sony might have done that to get 100m player base in the PS1 and PS2, since then they've been riding brand recognition and the fact that players these days play where thier friends play. Whilst the first party blockbusters matter to you and me, to most PlayStation players, they're just noise. They want CoD and Fortnight. If you disagree, show the data.

Greg Dawson

He's talking about functionally third party exclusives. The last ones I remember Microsoft having were Titanfall and, to a lesser extend, the Crystal TR sequel.

Colin Moriarty

Thanks. =)

Colin Moriarty

What a wonderful episode! There was a moment where I thought you guys wouldn’t cover the Game Awards, and then you drop a PHENOMENAL recap. ❤️ However, I don’t understand Chris’s argument about the Microsoft/Sony suit. Has Sony ever taken a game away from Xbox or PC only to lock it on their platform? Chris mentions he doesn’t agree that “Microsoft has a history of keeping content from other platforms.” I don’t want to speak out of turn here, but is Chris talking about exclusivity here or actively dodging the fundamental position of stealing IP away from other platforms?

gnawtyFOX

hey colin! idk if you already were told this, but you were right about space marine 2 being announced previously. sometime last year i want to say. cheers!

gothichellokitty

Dude, you're lucky I watched the show at all.

Colin Moriarty

I showed my doctor that this podcast wasted time talking about dreck like Blue Protocol and Company of Heroes 3, and didn't talk about interesting gems like Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, Viewfinder, and After Us, and I got an Oxy prescription for my pain #ALWAYSwatchthepreshow

NickBLeaveIt