Sony buys Insomniac Games

Atmos

I don’t hate any company, you are dead wrong.

I hate exclusives and ina perfect world all games would appear on all platforms. I’m sure as consumers we’d all agree.

But it’s true in the world of gaming when consoles became a thing we had Mario for Nintendo, Sonic for Sega, Halo for Xbox and Resident Evil for Sony as example.

But when it comes to PC MS pulled all their games like Halo to Xbox which was bad because I’m a PC gamer and never owned an XBox console. I never got to play Halo again. That was very bad.

Then VR came and not only do we now have exclusives on console but we have exclusives on PC. This has never happened before. Even with Origin I was never excluded from PC gaming before due to the hardware I owned. Facebook created this situation single handedly. Even Valve partnered with MS to create an app to allow WMR headsets to use SteamVR. Facebook didn’t create an app to allow WMR on the Oculus Store. They were more concerned with spending huge amounts of cash buying Devs large and small and tying them to exclusivity agreements so they don’t appear on other stores and so they can flood the market with cheap headsets and crab the PCVR market for themselves. That plan failed and now Facebooks attention has swung away from PCVR to stand alones.

Why did Facebook allow Sony to swoop in and buy one of their biggest partners? Because Facebook realise PCVR is a lost cause now Valve have gone all in on Index.

So in conclusion exclusives are bad for consumer choice, but for individual platforms they are good. PCVR should not divide hardware to stores.

We should not be forced to apply a third party hack to get your hardware to work with a game just because it was sold on a different store.

I’ll buy from any store, Steam, Origin, Epic, Oculus but they should all support my chosen hardware.

End of.

aoaaron

Why is Sony ok then? You always miss the points of people’s questions. You need to buy a PS4 to play their exclusives.

Valve went all in on steam machines, the steam link boxes and the steam controllers too btw.

aoaaron

Btw I also hate the fact oculus’s storefront is closed to other headsets.

Presuming Ed

You don't know why 'Facebook allowed Sony to swoop in' . You don't know if they were aware, you don't know if they cared, you don't know if they did or did not do anything about it.

Another assumption presented as fact.

Do you think that PCVR is a lost cause now for any manufacturer that is not Valve?

I think the Index package is bound to be an excellent one, but it's not within the price window I'd be prepared to pay as someone who uses VR relatively rarely and on a fairly standard spec PC.

I would, perhaps, be willing to buy the Quest or the Rift S, or maybe any successor.

I think there may be others like me, so what makes you think that PCVR is a lost cause to any manufacturer except Valve?

Especially when, on the last Steam survey results that you posted, over half of Steam survey respondents in the September survey had an Oculus PCVR headset?

Another assumption presented as fact.

Atmos

Didn’t I just explain why?

Where as PC is an open platform which anyone can develop for, Consoles are different they’re closed eco systems designed by the ground up by the manufacturer with their own money, to use their own operating system, with their own controllers and their own store. It’s all self contained and paid for from a singular entity. PC hardware is open to any manufacturer, Windows is open to any one to developer for and Steam is open for any game developer to sell on. It’s an system for open development and co-operation and open competition all things being equal.

Facebook on the other hand want to throw that all away by releasing their own closed eco system on an open platform trying to close off the hardware, the store and bribing Devs games into exclusivity deals that might of otherwise just released on both stores.

I said this years ago on the other forum, Oculus should of released their own VR only console and followed Sony and Microsoft with a walled Eco system instead of taking PC and trying to make it their own in the face of established stores and the established order of PC gaming. Why didn’t they? Because under Palmer Lucky was a PC enthusiast unlike Zuckerberg with a Facebook ad machine who’s only priority is social media.

By all means buy Oculus it’s a free world and Quest is great but only Valve have the backs of PC gamers at heart because Steam is PC gaming and Valves core business.

I for one will be glad once Valve get their game out not just because it will be a great game but because it with restore the confidence and respect gamers have lost in Valve over the years. We’ve already got the lead headset, we’ve got the lead controllers, we’ve got the lead tracking solution, now all we need is the lead game and Valves journey to the top will be complete.

MikeKay1976

Hang on...... I get that you do not like the vive not being given native access to the oculus store. I wonder... IF in the future oculus embraced openVR and allowed other headsets to officially buy software from the oculus store, what stick would you use to bash oculus with? or would you no longer hate them as you do now if that happened?  Right now we still dont know why vive does not work on oculus. All we know is that Palmer Luckey stated oculus reached out to get direct hardware support of the vive - NOT using a wrapper - and they were not allowed.

but, Sony have been doing exclusive games, as well as exclusive content for multiplatform games for the longest of times, so has microsoft.

So, buying a PS5 as a statement against facebook is kind of strange!.  Also, why would Sony allow PS5 titles to be accessable by the PC?

AFAIK the ONLY company who has expressed any interest what so ever in sharing platform titles between PC and Playstation is Facebook. Valve could make all sorts of deals to release their exclusives but 1) they havent so that is pure fantasy right now and 2) we still dont know what their new titles are

the last title they made was a pretty poor card game AFAIK and before that, what was it?  DOTA2? Left 4 Dead?

Atmos

We’ve seen two MAJOR shifts in 2019. First we’ve seen Oculus stop Rift production and switch to Quest. Then Lenovo got to morph its WMR headset into the RiftS. Then we got to see Valve take the crown for the best all round PCVR package.

So Oculus shifts away from PCVR to Quest - fact.
Lenovo switches from WMR to Oculus - fact.
Valve releases the best PCVR package - fact.
Sony buy Oculuses biggest exclusive partner - fact.

I don’t have to make this up it’s all their in black and white.

If you want to pretend CV2 is round the corner and Oculus are about to take the crown back then I guess we all have to wait and see. But if that was a Facebook priority then they would of bought Insomniac games for themselves and made all their future VR games exclusive to the Oculus Store.

People need not question me but question Oculus.

huxley

Business evolves, we only see the bits they want us to see. Please move on.

Atmos

Are you sure Mike? I think Valve released Half Life 2 and Portal on the Sony Store.

Nivek TT

Insomniac Games had already produced some fantastic Playstation exclusives for Sony (Spyro, Ratchet & Clank and Spider-man) and already shared a building with Naughty Dog. I reckon Sony buying Insomniac Games had fk all to do with VR, Sony just wanted their traditional game developing wizardry all to themselves.