Helldivers 2 may be coming to Xbox

If you go off how many on this forum are playing the game on PC instead of PS5, there are very few PS5 players and it's no wonder Microsoft games are selling so well on PS5.

Yup. It will happen. It's a good thing that Sony and MS are going third party.

Riiiight.... Meanwhile the current model is crippling the industry with broken games, no parity, and safe game design.... Exclusives being a big part of the unsustainable model corporate darlings like Sony have cooked up for everyone.... This "I want my cake and eat it too" mentality has to stop with exclusive hungry gamers.... You don't get to have an industry trickling out bloated games that can't recoup expenses and keep them exclusive. Which is why we are seeing the shedding of exclusives... I don't get your"serious scrutiny" comment in a thread celebrating yet another game going multiplatform to increase the profitability of a game that deserves it. As do the developers at Arrowhead. Scrutiny implies people are questioning it, when in fact I only see excited gamers ready to pay a great developer for their hard work.

I'm not quite sure what a gaming utopia is because in my vision companies are still competing for your dollar.... Games will be just as anticipated, only they'll reach more people.... Games companies will still be competing for your time and dollar on their storefronts and encouraging you to build a digital library with them.... Gamers will have more options and the death of exclusives means developers can potentially spend big on a project and make a profit.

There is a faction of people who believe the industry will die if more people get to play games without being able to articulate why.... For twenty years I've heard people say, it kills competition and doomsday will ensue, but yet they can't offer real reasons why.... What other industries have collapsed because more people got to take part? Which industries collapsed from making more money off their products? Why would quality suffer? Variety? Why? Funding is already an established issue in your exclusive game utopia and revenue would absolutely go up....

I surmize that it's because of brand loyalty. Sony fans see the entirety of the gaming community as a threat instead of a customer. By allowing everyone to play everything it evens the install base for all publishers, developers and console manufacturers. Sony fans dont want this because by having an exclusive install base larger than the competition it means they have an advantage and thus can maintain their world view of Sony dominance, despite Sony not being able to afford to continue developing games at the going price and certainly at those costs variety and parity are thrown out the window.... All the while Sony is rapidly and factually becoming less and less profitable each and every year.

So let's boo Sony for possibly entertaining the idea of Helldivers going to Xbox... I mean it's a Sony controlled property that could net them millions more from other install bases all the while increasing their longer term profitability because it's a live service type game....yuk! Imagine if helldivers 3 came out on all platforms and Sony cashed massive checks because they let everyone pay the Devs for their hard work? How awful!!! It would be end of days.....

@TheEroica: I'm not a defender of the exclusive model in the modern context but prior to the advent of primarily digital libraries it made more sense, new gen of hardware would come around old physical library was usually stuck on the old hardware so each new gen was like hitting reset, so exclusives were a differentiator point as to why a consumer would pick a certain device for a certain hardware generation.

In the modern market the advent of digital libraries has also ossified the userbases, and that makes sense if you've built a digital library that is persistent across hardware iterations why would you abandon that library? A purchase decision these days is far more likely to come down to where your friends are and where your existing library is with some consideration to peripherals controllers etc. (assuming parity in pricing).

I get some people are caught up in the older way of looking at this market but the economic reality is you cannot afford to ignore substantial segments of the software market because they happened to pick a competitors hardware, Helldivers has done well for Sony and would do even better if it was available on Xbox, Starfield sold well for MS it would sell even better if it was on PS.

@TheEroica: You covered a ton in your reply so I'll have to break up my response a bit. And I'm sure I'm gonna miss some stuff as well.

1 - This Helldivers 2 rumor is coming from a person that can't be used as a source on other sites because of how full of shit they've historically been. So we should pump the breaks on the praise and congratulations

2 - The gaming industry isn't hurting financially. The interim PlayStation CEO quotes were later clarified to be in reference to wasteful spending by Bungie specifically. But the overall concerns about revenue and profit margins has more to do with the design flaws of capitalism more than anything. And the big 3 are starting to look at controlling costs as much as they are growing the consumer bases. Game development has become incredibly expensive as has marketing. Meaning we are seeing fewer games, fewer risks and publishers are more interested in following trends than they are making new ones. Exclusivity deals with known IP has been a way we've seen these companies fill in the gaps in their revenue streams. And it has an overall positive impact for us consumers. We've seen plenty of examples of, "This game wouldn't exist without the exclusivity deal" over the past decade plus. And we aren't just talking indie games here. We got Street Fighter and Tomb Raider games this way.

3 - Console exclusives push hardware sales. Exclusive software allows the Big 3 to sell hardware at a loss and to make the money back through software sales. This makes the consoles more affordable for consumers. Giving up 30% to the competition AND selling less hardware (which pulls folks from the storefront ecosystem) will have a negative effect on the bottom line for a company like PlayStation and Nintendo who sell multiples of more consoles than Xbox. Why do the successful companies have to rework their business models just because Xbox can't release compelling software and break past their usual consumer base? Xbox is the only company with the cash to do what they're doing. But even Phil said there needs to be drastic changes in market performance soon or a course correction will be necessary. I don't understand why folks continue to ignore Phil's words in those leaked FTC emails.

4- This concept of getting content out to more consumers = more profit isn't based on reality. The more places the content goes, the more pieces of the pie are lost. Meaning there's less money to turn around and reinvest. And then there's the subscription service nightmare comes in. The music and movie industries should give you the answers you're looking for regarding the subscription service models are concerned. The money in both industries have dried up completely. Snoop Dogg made a measly $45,000 from a billion streams. A BILLION... He'd make that selling 4,500 copies of his album... And these days that's not even a given with how far music sales have dropped. So he (and whoever owns his masters) sold fewer albums just to make pennies through streaming contracts. Huh?! Then the movie industry. Actors are being forced to fund their own movies because studios can't take the risk. Folks have the option to still buy movies and music, but they aren't. And it's destroying those industries. Giving content to more people while bringing in FAR less money per transaction, and having to split that money to dozens of other developers/publishers has yet to work. So now we get FAR less music, fewer movies and shows, but more people have access to it at a lower cost kind of... Yay??? The streaming companies are already looking to put this streaming model genie back in the bottle and go back to the cable TV model. We've nearly gone full circle with these models, so it's probably time to stop acting like the model is "the future."

TLDR: 1st party console exclusives are where the majority of the software innovation comes from. Innovation that determines the success or failure of the hardware. Hardware that's sold at a loss to consumers in the name of software sales. Take away the need for innovative first party software that determines the success or failure of an entire generation or beyond, and we'll be left with an ocean full of mediocre games that nobody is making any money off of. Or the company with the most cash will just buy everything up and control the industry however they see fit. That's what you're pushing for here basically. Doesn't sound too great to me as a gamer and consumer...

I totally agree in all of that.... If we were still experiencing true generations of physical products I'd continue saying, "make great exclusives to show a difference between you and the competition" but in a digital world with digital libraries and no real hardware innovations to speak of in 3 generations I find myself asking why we're pretending exclusive games carry the same weight? Give gamers all the games they want and Duke it out over services like Gamepass or library sustainability or a handheld add on or whatever.... Saying Exclusive games are the thing that sells your console when Sony and Microsoft havnt made a system selling game in almost two generations (maybe bloodborne?) seems like insanity.

you mean the "innovation" where every AAA 1st party these days is a 3rd-person story-driven game (with stealth elements), a Sci-Fi first-person shooter (with stealth elements), or an Action RPG (with stealth elements)?.. the "innovation" that equates to nothing but sequels, remakes, and remasters?..

true risks in innovation aren't being taken because these game companies literally can't afford to take risks.. any given studio is one major flop away from being downsized or completely shutdown..

by contrast, major 3rd parties can take some risks because their games have the most reach by virtue of being multiplatform.. indies can take some risks by virtue of being smaller scale.. but AAA 1st party "exclusives" literally have the least room to take risks because they are being restrained to a smaller install base while also being more expensive to make..

the absurd idea that locking software behind a specific plastic paywall somehow magically equates to "innovation" renders whatever nonsense contained in that wall-o-text immediately invalid.. meanwhile, in the real world, expanding games to other platforms is the simplest way to get increased return-on-investment.. investment that can *gasp* be used to take risks..

per usual, everything you say seems to be motivated by an effort to fanboy over console sales.. a concept that literaly becomes less and less important as digital ecosystems continue to expand beyond singular devices..

TL;DR:

it's quite telling that you claim "console exclusives are where the majority of the software innovation comes from" yet you also claim that PlayStation console exclusives are all "boring movie games".. 🙄

exactly..

especially when revenue from games like Call of Duty and Fortnite dwarf the sales of any "exclusive" and are the real drivers of these storefronts at this point..

brand power is what's been selling traditional console hardware this generation; not exclusives.. the perception of being locked into a digital ecosystem (i.e. PS4 owners opting to buy PS5s, then those PS5 owners opting for a PS6, etc, etc) is why PlayStation will remain at the top of that market for the foreseeable future regardless of what their 1st party is doing..

this is evidenced by their 1st party currently doing nothing, yet PS5 sales are still strong.. it's a puzzle that Xbox had to find a differing strategy for and now PlayStation is shifting in that same direction as the industry continues to change..

@TheEroica: Your sound logic will fall on circular arguments and false narratives

@last_lap said:

@hardwenzen said:

If it comes to the Xbox, Halo Infinite numbers will drop sub 1k on steam. If i were Phil, i wouldn't do that, it destroys the image of their flagship IP.

here we go, the flip flopped at it again. It makes perfect sense, the tiny amount of Infinite players will move to helldivers2, and nobody will be playing Infinite.

@hardwenzen: It still makes no sense. How does people playing Helldivers 2 on XBOX effect Halo's STEAM numbers?

I didn't think this one out, so gimme a sec. I will pretend that i was referring to the Xbox numbers, actually.

@hardwenzen: Give yourself a triple uppercut, you earned.

PlayStation just can’t stop copying their competitors.

The game is on the 24th place in Australia. How pathetic.

???

Helldivers 2 and FF7 launched in February, charted 1st and 4th, and PS5 won the month in sales. When Nintendo launches a big game it charts 1st and their hardware finishes the month in 1st. Xbox does neither of those things, and yall don’t see the correlation. I don’t get it… The data is all right there in front of your faces…

@hardwenzen: Tell someone who cares lol.

Why don't you care about me?

That's one month.. A month that Playstation was going to win anyway.. Helldivers 2 is hardly what anyone would describe as a "system seller" and is also available on PC.. FF7 Remake 2 isn't 1st party and is said to be a sales disappointment and that can likely be tied to the fact it was limited to one platform.. Nintendo is essentially in a different market in terms of handheld.. That entire paragraph is you being disingenuous because you also know that Xbox games have topped sales charts (namely Starfield) and yet you've bent yourself into a pretzel to try and prove it didn't move the needle for Xbox consoles..

But sure, despite all that, i'll bite.. I'll try and have an adult conversation with you:

Playstation has already stated that they aren't going to release any major 1st party exclusives until sometime in 2025.. Yet Xbox has at least 3 major exclusives releasing this year.. Do you honestly believe Xbox Series X|S is going to outsell the PS5 due to any of those titles?..

If you're being honest, you know the answer is "no".. The console war is over and has been for over a generation.. PS5s are going to "win" in sales regardless of what they release and regardlesa of what Xbox releases..

Hence, the entire point we are making.. Helldivers 2 went Day One on PC and PS5s still won in sales.. Sony openly says they aren't releasing anything else this year and PS5s still win in sales..

Gamers primarily buy this current generation of hardware for 3rd party games.. Multiplats.. Live service games.. That's a plain and simple fact.. If more 1st party games go multiplat to PC and beyond, consumers will win and these companies will still get paid..

The data is all right there in front of your face..

Console gamers on this board (and others/social media) dismiss PC gaming as being too much of a bother. Those gamers will go to the console that has those games. We’ve seen multiple games go to PC and not see a big impact on console/console software sales. PC and consoles remain 2 separate segments of the gaming market. We see games like Helldivers 2 and PalWorld EXPLODE on PC while games like Ratchet and Clank 2 and TLOU2 don’t sell significant numbers. HellDivers 2 on PC day one made sense because of the type of game it is and the microtransaction model it has. It’s a lower budget, b-tier game with a higher earnings ceiling.

Yes, for the most part 3rd party games are the highest selling titles. But every year, these first party exclusives also make the list. When/if consumers need to make a choice on which console to buy, the differentiators like exclusive libraries end up being the selling point. PlayStation still isn’t launching all their titles day one on PC. Just like Xbox is waiting a year+ before putting their games on PlayStation. They are hoping to push more hardware in these windows where the software is *exclusive. And more consumers on their hardware means they keep more of the software splits. That control over the splits and storefronts is the number 1 priority right now. Especially when the software releases for the foreseeable future are so thin as you stated.

PlayStation is fumbling all over the place. And as you said before, their push for story driven, narrative heavy games isn’t for everyone. I hate it. But those games sell tens of millions of copies. Those cinematic story driven games are PlayStations “innovation.” It’s clearly been their push since the early PS3 days and the market is responding in a way that tells them to make more. That’s not for you or I, but there’s clearly a market for it.

lol :P

This is a step in the right direction. Good stuff.

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice: Westerns are my favourite, any good recommendations? =D

lol :P

This should be Phil punching Hiroki Totoki

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice: Westerns are my favourite, any good recommendations? =D

lol :P

This should be Phil punching Hiroki Totoki

The Man Who Shot Hiroki Totoki, has a nice ring to it. lol

If you didn't know it's from the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. One of my old favs westerns. :P

you still seem to think that 1 or 2 exclusives a year is the driving force for console sales these days.. it's not.. If that was the case, Xbox should outsell Playstation this year.. It won't..

the PS5 hasn't had the type of "system sellers" the PS4 had when compared to Xbox Series X|S this generation yet the PS5 is still outselling it every single month by 2:1 margins.. that's not because of Helldivers 2..

that's because of digital libraries and digital ecosystems.. PS4 owners are simply buying the PS5 because it's the natural purchase for someone already invested in the ecosystem.. it's really not more complicated than that..

the same can be said for Xbox but to a lesser extent due to the lower adoption of the Xbox One.. thusly, Xbox has been more aggressive in trying to get their digital library on PC and other devices..

all that said, these ecosystems don't have to be tied to a single box and 1st party "exclusives" simply don't carry the weight they used to.. 1st party content can be spread to PC and beyond without negatively affecting the bottomline.. as a matter of fact, it's the opposite.. it's a benefit to all parties involved, hense why you see PlayStation moving in that direction..

This narrative was just Phil trying to blame something else on the Xbox standing in the industry. But it doesn't make sense in the real world. Nintendo, the highest selling hardware on the market right now, has no backwards compatibility. There's no forward carrying ecosystem. In fact, they sold tens of millions of copies of games they sold on the Wii U... You need a Nintendo Online subscription to play games that were previously sold on the Virtual Console. Completely dismantling this ecosystem narrative. Games sell systems. You can Phil Spencer can try to run from that fact all you want. The market is the proof.

Phil and Antwan nailed it. From your link:

"I see commentary, that if you just build great games everything would turn around. It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of the sudden you’re going to see console shares shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generationwhen everybody built their digital library of games."

@kvallyx: Nintendo rebounded from the WiiU with the Switch. Unique hardware and compelling games can erase past missteps. Nintendo shits all over your false narrative...

It's the sort of game that would do well on Xbox it's the multiplayer box.

Again, Nintendo left direct competition in the home console market and essentially created/cornered a market centered around mobile gaming..

This fact isn't even up for debate..

Translation: Nintendo dismantles your narrative so you have to reclassify their business. Xbox is putting games on the console ffs...

Again, you keep trying to shoehorn Nintendo into the conversation when it suits you but you go all "b bu but" when it's mentioned that Microsoft is still generating more gaming revenue than Nintendo..

So, again, according to YOUR revenue wars logic, Xbox > Nintendo so who cares? 🤷🏽‍♂️. Nintendo is 3rd..

In terms of Playstation and Xbox, just ask yourself a simple question: will Xbox outsell Playstation in consoles this year?

I mean, if "Games sell systems", then Xbox should outsell Playstation this year correct?.. Hellblade II, Avowed, Indiana Jones.. These are all highly anticipated games from top studios.. By comparison, Playstation isn't releasing anything.. Literally nothing major from 1st party for the entire year; already confirmed..

Yet we both know that Xbox won't outsell Playstation this year and likely won't beat them in a single month.. Why? Because exclusives don't sell consoles like they used to.. What sells consoles is where you've already invested your time and money in digital purchases.. And in a 2:1 ratio, that's in favor of the PS4 owners simply "upgrading" to a PS5 instead of checking to see what exclusive is coming out on Xbox..

You're the one that's creating a false narrative in order to continue clinging to outdated console war logic..

I don't have a narrative. I made none of the claims I quoted. So the only false comment here is your comment about me.

Xbox is generating more gaming revenue than Nintendo.. Keep counting plastic boxes all you want but the bottom line remains:

Xbox is is bigger in gaming than Nintendo..

I know that fact destroys your entire argument but it is what it is..

Emotional damage is strong in this thread..lmao

Are they? Where will the sales of these title end up on year end Circana charts? That's the problem with the narrative. Phil (and you) have this faulty perception of what big system sellers are. Hellblade II?!?! Avowed? The Indiana Jones IP isn't what it used to be. Most folks under 40 have no attachment to Indiana Jones... The recent movies flopped. What indication do we have that this game will be successful?

And we've been over why Xbox makes more revenue than Nintendo. 3rd party software sales and a subscription service. Aka revenue that Xbox doesn't get to keep. Nintendo sells more hardware and sells FAR more first party software. Will COD change this? It definitely would without Game Pass.

I just want to interject this, and I'm done.

I'm fairly certain most all will agree; the Wii U had some of the finest 1st party Nintendo games library ever and yet it's a failed Nintendo console.

Why if excellent 1st party exclusives are the key to success did it fail? ;o

Hint, they went mobile because had they made a conventional Home Console, Wii U2 with the same Switch library it would have failed as well. lol :P

Poor marketing and confusion caused by a TERRIBLE name. "We already have a Wii." Folks brought this same topic up with the Xbox One and then Xbox Series X/S after the Xbox One X/S. Nintendo was able to rebound by mostly selling the same games with a better product and marketing strategy. Xbox won't entertain any of that discussion and just blames digital libraries or whatever else lame excuse they are gonna come up with next.

so now, "games don't sell consoles".. 🙄 Hellblade II, Avowed, and Indiana Jones are still console exclusives for Xbox versus a big fat goose egg from PlayStation.. and if "Games sells systems", that would mean Xbox should have the advantage this year but they won't.. and they won't because mass market casual gamers aren't buying hardware based upon what new game may or may not release a few months from now.. these days they are buying new hardware to continue with the investments they've already made on previous hardware.. ie, the entire concept of digiital libraries, subscriptions, MTX, and DLC..

and again with the "b bu but".. as you've pointed out before, this isn't about counting plastic boxes and it isn't even about MAU.. according to YOU, it's about where customers are spending their money.. and in that regard, Xbox is beating Nintendo.. period.. so it doesn't matter what Nintendo is doing because whatever it is, it's not a better strategy than what Xbox is doing..

@Antwan3K: Exceptional games sell systems. B-tier games compliment the heavy hitters. Again, you and Phil seem to struggle with this...

what "exceptional" 1st party games will be released exclusively for the PS5 this year?..

and so now we've gone from "games sell systems" to "well, who cares about Indiana Jones?" 🙄

as predicted, this is all you do:

Eh, not buying it. Pun intended. lol :P

Anyway, IMHO of course, no amount of name changing would have made a new conventional home console after Wii U be successful. They were chased from the console biz and did what they had to, combine their handheld and console biz into one.

pretty much.. Nintendo couldn't compete anymore in the traditional home console space, left direct competition, and forged a relatively new market of hybrid handhelds..

good on them.. 👍

but clearly "games sell systems" didn't work for the GameCube, didn't work for the Wii U, and wouldn't have worked for a new traditional console from Nintendo afterwards.. the industry was changing and they had to pivot..

yep.. and that's why, long-term, Game Pass is so important..

PC Game Pass gives a diehard Steam user a reason to atleast try the Xbox ecosystem.. even if it's just to demo games.. but that person is still subscribing to the service and seeing what Xbox has to offer..

Console Game Pass, coupled with a low-cost Series S, offers the same concept.. if a PS5 owner wants to play Indiana Jones, they can pick up a Series S on Black Friday and give Game Pass a try.. then they may stick around for other upcoming games..

Xbox has lost the console war but they hope to use Game Pass as a trojan horse to gamers from other ecosystems.. again, Call of Duty should hopefully be thier marketing focus later this year in that effort..

imo, live service games like Sea of Thieves and Grounded (plus smaller A-AA games like HiFi Rush and Pentiment) are being used to showcase what you can get on Game Pass versus paying full price on other platforms..

in other words, as this generation ends and the next begins:

Yes. Well, not by PS fans. But by Xbox fans.

@kvallyx:

C'mon, say on Icon that you are cheering for Helldivers 2 to be an Xbox. You are "neutral" there, aren't you? You know very well what i've talked about in previous post.

I'd be angry with Sony if they put their first party IP on the Xbox Series X/S.