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:
www.dualshockers.com
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.
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:
Sony Talks Shift From Hardware to Monthly Active Users; Plans to Explore Microtransactions
Sony Executives talk about the shift of the business model from hardware units to monthly active users, and the possible exploration of microtransactions.
www.dualshockers.com
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.
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