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Sea of Thieves on PS5 reveals Microsoft's Trojan Horse to turn millions of PS5 users into Xbox users

Imtjnotu

Member
Engagement is through the fucking roof!


nbc house GIF
 

ManaByte

Banned
Language is funny. See, unless the game is streaming off of actual Xbox hardware, I would very much hesitate to say that playing it on PS5 equates to playing it on Xbox.

You're unlocking Xbox achievements and accumulating play time on Xbox.

Just, definitively, no, it bloody well isn't. It's, from my understanding, a native PS5 application being run on PS5 hardware.

You're using PS5 hardware to play an Xbox game on Xbox services.

This almost feels like a stealth post that's trying to normalize MS's ridiculous desire to see xbox as a separate entity than the hardware itself.

I unlocked two Xbox achievements not on Xbox hardware yesterday and clocked 12 hours of playtime in an Xbox game not running on Xbox hardware.

Xbox is a box. It plays games. PS5's Sea of Thieves application does not run on said box. I will die on this hill.
Paul Bearer Dance GIF by Jason Clarke
 

King Dazzar

Member
Anything that's GaaS that needs a MS account. I don't see MCC but Infinite MP (which is a separate F2P client from the campaign) is probably coming soon.
Thats clearly not the sole focus though. Why do Pentiment and Rush if thats the only objective. They want more sales and money full stop. They're simply moving towards being an unconstrained/3rd party publisher. Metrics may well be one of the benefits from that. But it does read like you're narrowing your view to only see what you want to see.
 
The Xbox market is tapped out for games like SoT or Grounded so 66% of X amount of new sales is way better than a flat line

Its easy money much like Sony porting games to PC imo

I agree but it does devalue the hardware. Every game reveal becomes a question of when it’s coming to ps.

Also MS hardware sales are now dropping below Xbox one. Was that a consequence of day 1 on pc?
 
I don't care how MS words it. If they start porting their major titles to PS day one because of their "every box is an Xbox" lingo, it's less reason for me to buy their hardware.
So whatevs.
 
I agree but it does devalue the hardware. Every game reveal becomes a question of when it’s coming to ps.

Also MS hardware sales are now dropping below Xbox one. Was that a consequence of day 1 on pc?
If you are asking my opinion of why Xbox is failing hardware wise I think its a mix of many people having gaming PCs plus the lack of banger must have games

Xbox was forced to go multiplatform by Microsoft. It wasn't Phil's choice.
It was MLBs decision, not MS
 

King Dazzar

Member
Pentiment was made by 13 people I think Jumping Taco 54 sold more copies on PSN. Rush has a sequel in development on Xbox.
I reckon they wont limit themselves and will be wanting to move everything that they think will sell. And I predict they hope pretty much everything sells. I think we'll see Starfield later this year. And I'm also wondering if FH5 may come over sooner rather than later.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
The Sea of Thieves beta is ending early tomorrow morning on PS5, and I posted impressions on the improvements in the PS5 client here. I've put 12 hours into the beta so far and will probably play several more today, but something happened yesterday that was eye opening and revealed the real reason MS is porting these games to PlayStation, and it's not because "people don't buy games on Xbox and they'll buy them on PS5". In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if SoT (and possibly Grounded) show up on PS+ in the future as the true reason for their existence isn't sales of the game client.

When you download SoT on the PS5 it works exactly as it does on Steam. You are REQUIRED to link or create a Microsoft account. You cannot log into the game and play without one. While most people just shrugged and assumed it was for cross progression/cross play, the shocker is that when you're playing Sea of Thieves on a PS5, you're still playing it on Xbox.

Trophies are disabled in the beta (but they're still being tracked so they'll pop on release), and I unlocked two achievements while playing. While the PS5 trophies are disabled, my Xbox mobile app notification popped up showing the achievements were unlocked - while I was playing on the PS5. Those 12 hours I played in the PS5 beta were also added to my tracked playtime on Xbox for the game.

So even though you're using a PS5 to run the game and playing with a DualSense with its haptics, you're still logged into and playing the game on the Xbox services. Meaning MS is going to count every PS user in SoT as an Xbox user when reporting MAU.

Why are they doing this? Sony explained why in 2017:




Every single person playing SoT (and again possibly Grounded) on PS5 can be counted as part of Xbox's MAU metric as they are technically logged in and playing on an Xbox service despite using a PS5 as the doorway to access it. That's why these GaaS games are being ported and why CoD will forever be cross platform. As CoD uses the Activision account (which is now MS) they'll be counting CoD players as "Xbox" users in the MAU metrics going forward.

Yeah.....it is called being a third party publisher.
 
The explanation was that the activity is tied to a Microsoft account still and can be tracked as xbox engagement still. Hardware has nothing to do with it.

I still don't see it as playing on an Xbox. I mean I understand how it affects their numbers but it doesn't eliminate the fact that people are still playing it on PS5. In other words it's just another multiplatform title.
 

ManaByte

Banned
Doesn't matter, they are still playing a game made by WWS. If they were forced or not, that's irrelevant.

The Show doesn't log into PSN on the other consoles though. So people playing The Show on Xbox or Switch aren't counted in PSN MAU.
 

ManaByte

Banned
I still don't see it as playing on an Xbox. I mean I understand how it affects their numbers but it doesn't eliminate the fact that people are still playing it on PS5. In other words it's just another multiplatform title.

You're ignoring the fact that it unlocks achievements on Xbox and logs playtime on Xbox.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
The Show doesn't log into PSN on the other consoles though. So people playing The Show on Xbox or Switch aren't counted in PSN MAU.

Sony doesn't publish MLB on Switch or Xbox. MLB Advanced Media does. This isn't the gotcha you think it is.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
It makes sense that every version would use the same backend infrastructure for the game instead of running different services for each platform. That's not uncommon for third party publishers.

I don't know why anyone would even care that they're getting achievements on the Microsoft account they create to play the game or that their playtime for the game is being tracked across platforms.
 

ManaByte

Banned
How do you know what internal metrics they use, to count on other platforms? Seriously curious.

MLB Advanced Media publishes The Show on Xbox and Switch. It doesn't use a PSN account. Unless Sony has access to your Nintendo and Microsoft account then they don't know what you're playing.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
You're unlocking Xbox achievements and accumulating play time on Xbox.



You're using PS5 hardware to play an Xbox game on Xbox services.



I unlocked two Xbox achievements not on Xbox hardware yesterday and clocked 12 hours of playtime in an Xbox game not running on Xbox hardware.


Paul Bearer Dance GIF by Jason Clarke
Ok, so Xbox is a third party. Is Ubisoft also competing with Sony by having its own service?
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
So playing those Sony published games on PC are actually Playstation players. 4d chess, trojan horse moves right there, turning PC users into Playstation users. Am I doing it right ManaByte?
And I gave up my MAU to Sony for a Miles Morales skin like a sucker.
I don't think either company care about massaging MAU figures, I do think that getting someone signed up for an account may have significance down the road.
 
You're ignoring the fact that it unlocks achievements on Xbox and logs playtime on Xbox.

Well your still playing it on PS5. That's something your struggling to accept.

Let me make it simple for you.

PS5=/= Series X or S.

It definitely isn't the same as playing it on Xbox. If Microsoft wanted that they wouldn't have brought it over.
 
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King Dazzar

Member
You're ignoring the fact that it unlocks achievements on Xbox and logs playtime on Xbox.
Does it matter though how Xbox are doing their cross platform metrics? Ubisoft have cross platform saves for Far Cry 6 for example. And everything syncs up between Xbox and PS5. This just reads as Xbox the publisher behaving like a 3rd party publisher. Xbox want to record player engagement metrics etc. Well, so does every other publisher.
 
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demigod

Member
The Sea of Thieves beta is ending early tomorrow morning on PS5, and I posted impressions on the improvements in the PS5 client here. I've put 12 hours into the beta so far and will probably play several more today, but something happened yesterday that was eye opening and revealed the real reason MS is porting these games to PlayStation, and it's not because "people don't buy games on Xbox and they'll buy them on PS5". In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if SoT (and possibly Grounded) show up on PS+ in the future as the true reason for their existence isn't sales of the game client.

When you download SoT on the PS5 it works exactly as it does on Steam. You are REQUIRED to link or create a Microsoft account. You cannot log into the game and play without one. While most people just shrugged and assumed it was for cross progression/cross play, the shocker is that when you're playing Sea of Thieves on a PS5, you're still playing it on Xbox.

Trophies are disabled in the beta (but they're still being tracked so they'll pop on release), and I unlocked two achievements while playing. While the PS5 trophies are disabled, my Xbox mobile app notification popped up showing the achievements were unlocked - while I was playing on the PS5. Those 12 hours I played in the PS5 beta were also added to my tracked playtime on Xbox for the game.

So even though you're using a PS5 to run the game and playing with a DualSense with its haptics, you're still logged into and playing the game on the Xbox services. Meaning MS is going to count every PS user in SoT as an Xbox user when reporting MAU.

Why are they doing this? Sony explained why in 2017:




Every single person playing SoT (and again possibly Grounded) on PS5 can be counted as part of Xbox's MAU metric as they are technically logged in and playing on an Xbox service despite using a PS5 as the doorway to access it. That's why these GaaS games are being ported and why CoD will forever be cross platform. As CoD uses the Activision account (which is now MS) they'll be counting CoD players as "Xbox" users in the MAU metrics going forward.
OP must’ve felt real giddy inside when he wrote this piece.
 
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