Here we go, then. It's been roughly a year since Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard for a huge $69 billion. In terms of major industry news, it doesn't get much bigger than that, and the result is a story that's lasted a full 12 months. The saga isn't likely to end any time soon, either; the Federal Trade Commission filed a legal complaint about the proposed deal, blocking it from going through and forcing a court hearing later this year. Fast forward to now, and Microsoft's preparations include making sure Sony attends.
The company has subpoenaed Sony — essentially a legal order to attend court — meaning the platform holder will need to prepare to provide its own data during the hearing. This was issued on 17th January, and Sony has requested an extension until 27th January in order to prepare its response.
Microsoft has until 7th April to build its defence and gather information to support the deal. Part of that defence seemingly revolves around Sony and its production capabilities, although the extent of what the company has to disclose is still in negotiations.
The hearing at the FTC is scheduled to take place on 2nd August, where Microsoft will, in a nutshell, need to convince the government body that the deal will not be harmful to the industry and its competitors. Sony has been publicly against the acquisition for fairly obvious reasons, so it'll be reluctant to issue too many details for fear of supporting Microsoft's case.
It's all going to heat up as we reach the summer, but this whole thing is far from over.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 105
If this goes to court in the US and is televised, my god, i'm going to be grabbing some popcorn, sitting down, and watching the fireworks.
@GuttyYZ
Imagine asmongold commentating on it haha
This just needs to end now ***** sick of hearing about it.
@GuttyYZ Personally I find it super frustrating watching the commissions act all high and mighty while fundamentally not understanding technology and missing the blatantly obvious. I'll be screaming at the TV. It's like explaining a mobile phone to your Grandpa.
E.g. Just go back and watch vids of FTC or congress "grilling" Zuckerberg, Pichai, etc. Example
Frankly it's embarrassing that they are the ones making rulings, and running countries, when they usually can't understand the fundamental issues... Yet someone has to do it.
This might force them to do a showcase of in development titles, before their made to reveal the upcoming slate, anticlimatically, in court by Microsoft.
So Microsoft need to convince the government body that the deal will not be harmful to the industry and its competitors.
Good luck with that bit, this deal harms sony in a major way with the amount of titles they will lose such as diablo, crash, spyro, potentially in the future call of duty games and overwatch 3. Even if call of duty does stay on playstation for the next 10 years Microsoft could make it a stripped down version to make sure people get the xbox version instead, such as making zombies an xbox exclusive mode or having all dlc xbox exclusive etc
It makes complete sense why Sony would be against this and I don't blame them and anyone who thinks Sony are in the wrong for trying to block the deal are obviously either fanboys or don't know how business's work.
"Microsoft has until 7th April to build its defence and gather information to support the deal. Part of that defence seemingly revolves around Sony and its production capabilities [...]"
I'm no law expert, but Microsoft has like 20+ studios, Sony has less than that and Ninty has even less than Sony. Yet, quality wise both Sony and Nintendo have the capabilites of pushing more heavy hitting titles than Microsoft because their management is good, almost half of their studios are small support teams and basically none of their big studios are idling.
I know this might sound like a good case for MS lawyers, but for me this just spells "either 20 incompetent studios or just bad management overall"
I wonder, if the deal doesn’t go through, will Microsoft use the $69 billion they save to hire back the 10,000 people they just let go?
I’m not gonna hold breath or anything.
I don’t trust that the FTC or the courts know what the hell they are talking about in these cases.
Unless they look at all this in the context of the nascent game subscription market they will come to the wrong decision (which is why MS keep talking about irrelevancies such as console market share).
Should be sone juicy details revealed, albeit redacted. Like in the Apple v Epic case.
Im bored of this now. I know its a big deal for both sides but man its just getting boring now.
Can't wait for the skeletons that drop out of Sony's closet from this. They wanted this fight, and they'll get it.
Spicy! It could be fun to see some juicy information we’ve never heard before from these hearings. A lot more shady business goes on behind the scenes that we never hear about (from every company) and this may be a chance to see it.
@thefourfoldroot1 100% right, classic misdirection. This is really all about cornering the nascent subscription market with Game Pass and giving it a huge head start before the competition has even really got in their blocks. This sort of practice is exactly what commissions like the FTC are meant to prevent against to stop giant companies cornering new markets before anyone else is even in the game.
Can't blame MS, they are doing the same as any large business would in their position, and they are playing a blinder. I've been more concerned how Sony has taken the bait and seemingly been barking up the wrong tree. Fully expect FTC, and most commissions, to be hoodwinked by the clever sleight of hand here unless this precise point is hammered home.
Surely this is what Sony have been hoping for all along so they would be ready by now? Or is this just a delaying tactic as they know it will go through so they are dragging it out as long as possible?
Hopefully regulators are taking into account Microsoft clearly has the money and the will to keep buying publishers and stops it now. They already took Bethesda off the board two years ago. Right now, they are showing their willingness to buy a publisher every two years all in service of weakening their competitors.
The focus of this acquisition shouldn't be on Sony as the victim, but rather putting a stop to huge corporations like MS gobbling up big publishers like Activision Blizzard.
Of course, this is something FTC should have done earlier on with other big media buyouts, but hey...you gotta start somewhere.
Harmful to the industry?? And yet no one bats an eye when it comes to Sony having timed exclusives - which btw, I really don't understand why they still exist 😐
@ironcrow86
And nobody batted an eye when MS or Nintendo had timed exclusives. It’s the sheer scope of this (buying a publisher of the same size as Sony themselves - 8billion USD for AB compared to the same for the entirety of Sony, not just their gaming division) that rightfully leads to the investigation over buying dominance in the subscription market to gain an EFFECTIVE monopoly.
@themightyant You’ve got it exactly right. MS don’t want Activision to create more exclusives. They want Activision to undercut the market with Gamepass, so that their service is the service of choice, while limiting the appeal of purchasing software that is available elsewhere. Personally, I’m hoping Xbox loses at this point. I was a big supporter of the deal early on, but reading the legal documents and seeing what they present as their feeling of their own current product, I just, I can’t get behind them. And, as more things are coming to light about Xbox’s plans (or lack thereof), the layoffs, continuous criticism of management, I say the FTC needs to deny this one and Activision needs to remain independent. Xbox talks a big game about positivity and inclusion, but their actions certainly don’t show it.
No more COD on Playstation, I can live with that easily.
ironcrow86 wrote:
Plenty of people complain about timed exclusives, on ALL platforms, most don't like them. But that is a different issue, don't misdirect from the issue at hand which is MS buying ABK.
There is an order of magnitude difference between the occasional timed exclusive and buying whole publishers to secure their content to try and push subscription services as the only reasonable way to consume games.
@GuttyYZ ‘If doesn’t sell you must acquit’ 😂
Jim Ryan’s response to COD being free via Gamepass & full price on other platforms.
@themightyant
Absolutely right. And by “subscription services” you mean “their subscription service” of course.
@ironcrow86 Comparing second or third party exclusive game deals with buying an entire publisher. Wow. This is about so much more than just games going or not going to platform xyz and it shocks me every time people do not realize this.
@somnambulance It's a complex one as to the many consumers Game Pass is great in the short term for many (i'm a long time subscriber fwiw). What gamer wouldn't want better value? Right?
But this is also the sort of undercutting that commissions like this were specifically set up to prevent. Effectively protecting consumers from ourselves. To prevent a larger, richer, company coming in and undercutting the competition on price - which is attractive to consumers - in order to corner the market today, only to push up prices tomorrow. See Uber, Netflix, Amazon etc. Ultimately it almost always stifles competition in the long run and is meant to be protected against.
The best gamers can hope for is Microsoft stay about where they are and keep offering Game Pass as it's lower rates without controlling the multi-game subscription market. If they completely dominate that market there is only one direction prices are going UP, and one direction the quality of the service will go DOWN.
its boring from both parties.
its been nice that Sony have been quiet on it recently.
both have looked like c****.
If this goes on any longer, there will be memes going on about this. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Xbox 7.5 billion BethesdaZeni all new games including existing game sequels of games already on PlayStation will all be exclusive to Xbox. Overall includes hundreds of games
Xbox almost 70 billion ActiBlizzKing again includes hundreds of games all of which could end up in time exclusive to only Xbox including one of the biggest ever money makers known to gaming
Meanwhile PlayStations recent acquisition Bungie is over 3 billion which has one game and is all remaining 3rd party not exclusive
Just a reminder of these facts, can get lost amongst the many conversations
MS has already shown it's intentions, buy as may Devs as possible and make all their games MS exclusive, they are ruining the games industry because of greed, I HATE exclusives, I don't care which camp does it, their existence only hurts gaming, but all the higher ups seem to care about is money, it's sofaking stupid.
@HEVIHITR
Nothing wrong with exclusives. They ensure owners get the best out of the systems they have bought. Sure, this is from the perspective of someone who doesn’t play online multiplayer and hasn’t got time to even play all the games on one system, but for those of us in that position (and there are many), exclusives are only good.
Now, a company buying a previously multiplat franchise and making it exclusive is pretty low, but I don’t even particularly care about that.
Everyone seems to be missing the point of why this acquisition is bad for gamers, given the huge advantage it would hand MS in the nascent subscription space, plus the green light it would give them to continue buying content.
This story is like that old energizer commercial.it just keeps going and going.🤔.haha.word up son
@Impossibilium even more interesting to me is that Google just laid off 12,000 employers. So between MS and Google thats 22,000 people out of jobs and if Apple, samsung and others do this, it could really be ugly for tech workers.
@IMustardMitt but the playstation brand most likely can’t . It’s a COD machine for many many people .
i hope it happens too just so $ony can venture out and finally produce some multiplayer games again 😏
@IMustardMitt Sony can’t 🤣
@SplooshDmg wow i forgot about amazon. Thanks for reminding me, yes 40K in jobs lost. It seems all tech is reducing work force. I’m sure it will bounce back, but that takes time. Feel bad for those out of work.
@stvevan this is the best take I’ve seen thus far.
Both have indeed looked like c****.
Under a subpoena, they don’t get to pick the details they reveal, they have to give all information requested. The discovery phase of this is going to be so tasty!
Put simply for the layman… imagine Sony buying Rockstar and making GTA exclusive to PlayStation.. this kind of stuff cannot happen!
Im on xbox and couldnt actually care less about activision stuff call of duty will be multi platform.
A waste of $69 billion if you ask me could have been better spent elsewhere
diablo 4 is on PlayStation call of duty will be on PlayStation whats the point in buying them
@Toypop exactly you could make 345 games at $200 million each make them all exclusive that would be a better way to spend $69 billion. no court cases no one could object if you chuck enough resources i find it it hard to believe they couldn't make something to rival COD and diablo.
@Perturbator
This is unlikely to ever happen. You need to first understand what you are asking for. There wont be a law like this made for any specific industry, it would be a nation-wide law that applies to all corporations.
The way modern capitalist economies work, you create a company, likely take it into public trading, and make it grow as much as possible before you find further significant growth is no longer likely, at that point you try to find a buyer that finds value on growing their own market coverage.
The only way this can occur, past certain size, is by allowing even larger corporations the ability to buy you out.
Right now, Activision shareholders feel they reached the point where they want to sell, before they find themselves in a position similar to Ubisoft's (where potential buyers laugh at your face when you approach them.) The only ones with pockets large enough to acquire them are mega-corporations like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Tencent and Amazon... unless Saudi Aramco decides to diversify away from petroleum and natural gas into gaming...
So, no, it's unlikely you will ever stop large companies from being acquirable by even larger ones, and even less likely to see a law that specifically targets Microsoft simply because they happen to already have a presence in gaming.
Based on US laws, the only way to stop this is if they find actual competition issues, and that is rarely doable if, within the relevant market, we are not talking about the biggest or the second biggest companies (MS is conveniently third place here, its going to be hard to legally stop this acquisition in the US.)
@Toypop
“ Who here considers themselves a gamer but hasn’t owned a Switch/PC and played BotW or Odyssey? Really?
Who won’t buy/didn’t buy an Xbox to play Gears, Forza and upcoming Bethesda games? Really?”
Me. Those games don’t interest me. I play mainly JRPGs, indie games, and VR.
But you are missing the point completely of course.
It benefits nobody to let one company buy exclusives for a subscription service and so run an effective monopoly. It also benefits nobody to have all these publishers consolidated under one company.
Yet people still can’t understand why Microsoft is aka microshaft.
@UltimateOtaku91
Even Sony themselves have made it clear they only care about CoD. I would myself argue that was a mistake, and they should had always included everything else in their complaints, but they only ever complained about the one game, giving MS the very easy path to just say that that one IP would remain on all competitor's platforms the same exact way they have kept Mine Craft IP on all competing platforms.
They already promised parity, but hey, if XBox survived in the past when Zombies mode was exclusive for a year on PlayStation, I don't think that reasoning would hold up in court.
At the end of the day, yes, it makes sense for Sony to be against the acquisition, but that making sense has nothing to do with what is legal.
No matter how it goes I hope this airs some of the industry's dirty laundry, especially where Sony's awkward bribery tactics come into play. Doesn't matter how much of a Sony fan one is, Sony operates sleazy AF. Always has. And they keep it buried in the shadows with cloak and dagger deals. Sony investors benefit from that. PS fans do not, as Sony's built a whole gaming empire throwing around their power to spend the revenue we provide them to, instead of investing it to improve our value, they spend it to hamper competitor's customers value all to keep the industry wrapped around their finger. If that gets dragged into the light of day, the investors lose and we customers win.
@somnambulance My biggest worry if it fails is, the shock to the value of ABK will send its value tumbling and it will have to sell at fire sale prices or break up and sell. I don't see an independent ABK in the cards no matter what. Maybe they sell to AT&T and Disney, who knows who buys them, maybe Tencent buys out the majority (they already own a minority majority) and we get the one entity even bigger than MS having more power. And I worry about MS having 70b earmarked for gaming growth and them just buying a bunch of things and really screwing up the industry in a bidding war with Sony dividing and conquering everything rather than taking what's basically just CoD and a bunch of PC exclusives and getting out of the way.
On the flip side if it goes through I fear it just makes MS worse by being the arrogant CoD platform....basically everything Jim made PS over the past decade.
@themightyant It all reminds me of the classic video in the 90s of then-president Bush (Sr.) in a supermarket amazed an in awe of the conveyor belt and barcode scanner, having never seen one before, marveling at this amazing technology. Meanwhile every supermarket in America had been using that for some years at that point, with manually keyed checkout a rarity. It was a commonplace daily sight for everyone but him. It's amazing how disconnected "leaders" can be when their whole lives have been lived for them by servants. Marie Antoinette would be proud of our modern age.
@thefourfoldroot1 There's all this talk about the "nascent subscription market" including from the FTC, but I don't buy it. that's not a "new market", it's a new distribution business model, and it's hard to define a line of who's "cornered" a business model If consumers move to subscriptions vs retail it means they chose one distribution channel over another. If they don't, the same products are still available in multiple channels. MS isn't the only player in that business model, but Sony and Luna are the only companies chosing to compete, and Sony chose to compete downmarket (despite being the first player in the market), and Amazon is competing more parallel. If MS were to not "corner" that model or "market".....who would be there to outcompete and replace that market segment? At the moment, no one. So the argument then becomes are they competing against other subscription market competitors or are they mostly alone in that space competing against other sales models including physical and digital game sales including their own?
I think the subscription market is actually a weaker argument than the "premium console market" FTC awkwardly is trying to define as though Nintendo and PC don't exist, because there's not actually a competitor MS would leapfrog, they're pretty much competing against themselves in that "market" anyway. It's easier to frame the competition issue as XB vs PS rather than Game Pass vs......lower cost, lower value legacy library Plus Extra and kind of different Luna.
My favorite part of this whole saga is that Microsoft essentially threw a tantrum and started buying up the industry because they couldn't keep up with Sony & Nintendo's console selling exclusives.
Now, apparently exclusives are bad unless Microsoft does them, which they will of course start pushing again if they get control the third of the industry they're trying to get.
Sony crying about COD $$$ aside, my be careful what you wish for is that Microsoft has shown complete incompetence with managing franchises, all they care about is "live services", and subscription services, Gamers™ are not going to like what's on the other side of this deal if it goes through.
@Toypop
To be fair, they don't have to accept the deal. Microsoft plans to honor it regardless if anyone sings it, so why make things easier on Microsoft?
@Mikey856 Maybe they could do tit for tat? Sony let Microsoft have ABK and Sony get Rockstar. It would be fun to watch the fallout on that one.
@Tharsman
I honestly think Sony would consider only keeping CoD multiplatform and nothing else a win. Hell they might even be raising a stink like this just to force Microsoft into making a deal that would go past just the couple years of CoD that they promised.
I hope MS loses and i hope it sends a message to Sony, Tencent and so on that they just can't buy up the industry. This is not a case of wanting Sony to win i just don't want MS to win.
@NEStalgia
“ If MS were to not "corner" that model or "market".....who would be there to outcompete and replace that market segment? At the moment, no one.”
Exactly. Hence they would have an effective monopoly, like they did with their OS. Just by having such a dominant position they would stifle competition, which is not good for anybody. They are looking to make it almost unthinkable to charge a flat rate for a top tier game and then that will strangle the platform model.
[Edit: slightly misread your comment to mean that nobody could compete were MS to corner the market]
@Toypop
It matters not one iota I lose cod, true. But I don’t judge everything by how it immediately impacts me.
@NEStalgia Indeed. Or countless Prime Ministers being asked the price of common household items, not knowing and trying to deflect away from their clear disconnection to the common man.
@NEStalgia
This is possibly open for interpretation, but for me, that argument gets to my nerves. A business model does not create a whole new "market". A business model is simply the way you choose to participate within a market. Selling, vs renting, you still in the game distribution and game platform markets.
If we go in the direction of "subscription services" being a market, how you start narrowing it down? Because PSN basic is larger than Game Pass. Sure, it only gives you random games every month, but its still a subscription service that gives you games. Things don't have to be clones of each other, else you are being extremely stubborn about what separates markets from each other in an attempt to gain some sort of favor (like pretending that Nintendo is not part of the gaming market 🙄)
I think using Nintendo not having a good service is ammo for Sony to use.
Personally, Sony can make something better than COD. They have the best devs. Use them.
This comments section is pretty much a copy & paste of all the other ones regarding this. I hope both companies are preparing for game dev post this whole acquisition; whether it goes through or not.
This should really have flagged Sony’s exclusive practices and I really hope it does. Funny how even Forspoken gets released slap bang in the middle of all this with 2 year console exclusivity. Surely that should be a core talking point?
I don’t want Xbox buying up the market and thinking thats how they can get ahead; but I think the thing I hate most is Sony’s hypocrisy regarding game parity and keeping games away from gamers. I mean that might be the thing I dislike most about this industry. Hate giving PS my money for FFXVI but pretty much have to.
@KaijuKaiser Also just look at what happened with RARE.
The thought that all those great games made by their earlier name (Ultimate Play The Game) are owned by Microsoft genuinely pisses me off.
@Tharsman
Oh sure, the two markets completely cannibalise each other. That’s kind of the issue Sony have. It’s a bit disingenuous to say “we are just going to monopolise this subscription market over here. Don’t worry, doesn’t impact the platform sales market at all…”
@K1LLEGAL
I don’t think many people are saying that platform holders buying publishers or games is bad in all scenarios. Just a scenario in which it can lead to one player becoming so dominant as to impact the competitiveness of the industry.
Like haemorrhoids, when will it ever end?
@Tharsman Yep, that was my point exactly!
@thefourfoldroot1 There's a difference between "having a monopoly" and "having no competitors to begin with" though.
Windows was competing with OS/2 Warp and won a marketing war handily, then actually did a Sony-like strategy of making sure key software would either run on not run on their platform, using their solid lead to secure their dominance until no one was left. Although it's NOT a monopoly. iOS and Android are the two most dominant OSes, the various Unixes dominate in the server space, MacOS has become heavily prominent. Windows has a major market, but it's far from a monopoly, it was actually more of a monopoly in the 90's for a while, but competition did happen.
The Game Pass issue is you can't cite an acquisition building a monopoly or stifling competition when they're already no competition to stifle. If they're the only player in that space there's nothing to condemn the acquisition for. It's also highly debatable if that space is even a "market" at all. They're not selling anything Sony, Nintendo, Steam, EGS, and retail shelves are not selling, it's just a business model for how to distribute it that they're offering that's mostly unique. having a monopoly on a business model is not a legal issue, it's not a cornering of the video games sales market, it's cornering a particular distribution method.
I just think there's no real argument to be made there at all, it's a non-issue. Strengthening their position of a business model they're pretty much the only participant of doesn't change the market order at all.
I think the argument you want to make is that it would strengthen that model to such a point that competing models would fail the test of consumer choice and fail. Maybe so, but you don't regulate new disruptive business models. The law doesn't work that way. That's what Sony tried to abuse the RIAA to do to shut down digital music sales because it would hurt their CD business in the 90's/00's. That went badly for them.
@NEStalgia
Yeah yeah, sure Windows is not a monopoly on PC.
Try running all of your productivity software on Linux or Mac, let's see how it goes.
Face it, Windows is a monopoly on many fronts, and it only became so by doing the exact thing they are doing with ABK acquisition, buying other companies and pushing competitors out of market.
@NEStalgia
Well, I disagree; not with your logic, but your belief that nobody else is in the same subscription and streaming space. Clearly there are competitors, Sony first and foremost, but being a just developing model the scope for one company to come along and buy the rights to so many games that it effectively blocks off any serious competition, is there. And MS are looking to do it.
My concern is with the impact it will have on the current model (which I prefer, but money matters), with the profits this will take away from any competition (because although MS can run at a loss, Sony cannot), and with what it means to have so much industry consolidation locked to one platform (gamepass) under the control of a company with a very poor track record of nurturing talent (MS).
@CielloArc And if MS decided "Hey let's buy Valve and Epic Games" then there's a bigger PC monopoly for them! 🙄
@thefourfoldroot1 I do agree that they're not the ONLY player in the subscription space, but are we talking subscription or streaming? Two different things.
Subscription is a business model and distribution model, not a market. It's part of the EXISTING market as a COMPETING sales model. In that market the only competitors I can think of are Sony, which was the FIRST major player in that market but has chosen to restrict its offerings and offer a lower cost product, largely as a business decision as they believe it's the most profitable route - they just don't want a competitor offering more value, which, is a fear of competition and disruption, hardly anything governments should protect.
There's Apple Arcade which offers a true subscription service, but is mostly competing with a completely different pool of titles, so it's an indirect competition. Most of what's on AA you can't get on GP and most of what's on GP you can't get on AA for the time being. Competitors in the entertainment space, but not a direct competition (I.E. ABK doesn't affect the dynamics at all.) and Luna, which is closer to the Xbox ecosystem in general with both some subscription titles and the option to purchase retail priced titles. PS and Luna are the two real competitors there.
Here's the issue though. CoD is the ONLY piece of this deal that has any impact on that market. And Amazon is the only one that really stands to be harmed, and they haven't said a peep, probably because they're guilty of even more anti-trust issues they squeak by unscathed from at the moment. Sony has their 10 year guarantee, and if they demanded the ability to put it on PS+ to compete directly, I have every confidence MS would grant them that. The problem is they don't want to compete on subscription. They just want to prevent ANYONE else from being able to.
And that's the real problem. I don't disagree with your view of MS's role in this necessarily, but the problem is Sony's view isn't a sympathetic one, theirs isn't one of holding a higher ground, there's is simply one of trying to leverage government to prevent disruptive competition from happening to protect their market share. No matter who wins everyone loses. If MS buys ABK and things go as bad as you think, MS gets too powerful and their subscriptions skyrocket in price and we get a new Disney+ for gaming on our hands. OTOH if Sony wins, it's another victory in industry monopolies wielding purchased politicians to secure their market dominance and price fixing from any and all competition.
Streaming is another matter, and there's a bit more competition there. Microsoft has GP streaming, Sony......doesn't really have a competitor there since Plus doesn't even do PS5 right now. GeForce Now and Luna both compete, Netflix is dipping a toe in, there are smaller third parties like the ones Nintendo's been partnering with. There's a bit more going on there.
But there's a bigger issue with cloud, too. Who CAN compete? In order to compete in cloud you need cloud infrastructure. Right now only 5 companies even HAVE a global cloud infrastructure to be capable of competing at scale, and that's MS, Apple, Google, Tencent, Amazon. MS and Amazon are directly competing. Google tried and failed but they'll be back I'm sure. Tencent, they're already a bigger player than MS so that's actualy an argument that benfits MS, and the rest comes down to Apple. There's literally no other company on earth with infrastructure to even offer such a competitor, so the market is self-limiting.
I mean the reality is I just want to uninvent the internet, go back to the 80's, and stay there forever. Short of that I think all of earth should just be annihilated. If I get neither of those options.... idk, coin flip? I'm willing to be bribed to MS side if they can buy me a fleet for orbital bombardment though. I'm open to negotiation.
@NEStalgia
“ Sony, which was the FIRST major player in that market but has chosen to restrict its offerings and offer a lower cost product, largely as a business decision as they believe it's the most profitable route”
I would say they can’t offer the same insane value because they don’t have the money to run a loss maker, and if they did not for as long as MS. This goes to the heart of fair competition and market blocking, which is being judged.
“ Sony has their 10 year guarantee, and if they demanded the ability to put it on PS+ to compete directly, I have every confidence MS would grant them that. The problem is they don't want to compete on subscription. ”
They do, they are just seeing whether the current legal framework will prevent a competitor from buying up all of the product so they can’t compete (and, no, a distributor just can’t compete with a manufacturer).
“ No matter who wins everyone loses.”
Well, no, as long as all platform holders are competitive everyone wins. If one gets an effective monopoly in what will soon be the only viable mainstream distribution channel, then we all lose.
Sorry I’m not able to do your essay justice, I’m at work currently with limited time. But, yes, I agree that I’d love the internet, and the entire culture that has come from it, to be removed from history. Failing that though, I’d just like a competitive market, with as few multiplat games going exclusive as possible.
I think everyone would. But not everyone understands that Sony are only competitive because MS have chosen not to just buy every big game. This is a litmus test to see if they will now be allowed to do so.
@CielloArc
Easier than you would think. There are ways to run windows software inside Linux, and there are also plenty of native alternatives, it all depends what you are doing and what tool you want to use, but there are likely ways to do it. I still personally choose to run Windows myself, but this is not 1998 anymore, Linux is a viable alternative.
But that's nitpicking, its rare for the common person to go buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed. But you know what you can buy easily? A laptop with Chrome OS or OS X, or a Steam Deck running Steam OS.
Edit: According to Stat Counter, these are the current OS market shares:
44.6% Android
28.41% Windows
17.29% iOS
5.53% OS X
1.88% Unknown
1.11% Linux
Normalized to remove mobile OS:
76.93% Windows
14.97% OS X
5.09% Unknown
3.01% Linux
Edit 2
At the end of the day, Windows did not become the dominant OS via acquisitions. The go-to apps that everyone needs either were already "first-party" (Microsoft Office) or multi-platform (Photoshop, etc.)
Windows became dominant because they were the only OS producer to have a relatively open license for its OS. While Apple was trying to sell every Mac OS device themselves (and still do) Windows gave other manufacturers the chance to sell computers and compete with IBM without having to create their own OS. THAT is how Windows became dominant, by partnering with anyone that wanted to make compatible hardware. Hell, users could just buy parts off the shelf and put together their own frankenstein custom PC and then buy a copy of windows to throw in there.
@thefourfoldroot1
This subscribes to the idea that because a game is day one in Game Pass, it just does not sell a single unit, something that is very easy to prove to be wrong. You can simply go to XBox store list of top paid games and see that Minecraft, Among Us, High on Life, Skyrim, Forza, and Ark are all on the first page, and that is way past their prime.
Its the conundrum of adding games day one:
A) You face the risk of "no one" buying the game, but everyone subscribing to the service and giving you $10 to $15 a month for a whole year....
B) Or just a handful of people subscribe and you still sell a ridiculous number of copies of games...
C) Or something in between.
It was easy for Xbox to do this because at the time they started, they were basically rock bottom, so they had less to lose if things went south.
PlayStation is at its peak, and they are terrified of disrupting things in a way that might give them even a single bad quarter.
I say let MS have them. If they are having this much trouble closing this deal then this will be the end of there publisher buyouts if it goes through.
@thefourfoldroot1 I think that plays heavily into assumptions mostly about fans as to how much GP actually is versus is not subsidized, how much additional add-on sales are being brought in due to increased engagement, advertising sales due to engagement (remember XB has ads on the home page, recently it as advertising the TLOU TV show lol), etc. We really do NOT know what the financials look like on that, and I think it's dangerous to make the total assumption that it's taking a total loss when ALL factors of how that money is utilized can be evaluated. You MAY be right, but you also may not be. Is it a LOSS, or is it just not making AS MUCH profit as Sony feels they can make otherwise? That's a very very important distinction. It's also a distinction that applies differently to Sony than, say, Apple, where Sony is renting infrastructure to support it from companies like MS while for MS, Apple, Tencent, etc, they're their own supplier on internet infrastructure. Ironically that's also the same line of reasoning Sony used to shut down Sega, with Kutaragi's quote to one of Sega's leads about basically, "we make our own chips, you don't, you can't compete, just get out of hardware and go software only." It's a bad case of karma.
If you're referring to cloud infrastructure, yes, MS is an mfr, Sony is a distributor, and yes, they can't compete. And they will NEVER be able to compete in a cloud future. The 5 companies that I listed before are the only companies that will EVER be able to compete in a cloud future. Period. And virtually nothing will ever change that. That's a big problem. But it's a problem outside this particular lawsuit. And ligislators in a position to address that problem have very very clearly stated they have no intention to do so.
If this "litmus test" works, though I think it also needs to come at great cost to Sony as well. This whole "purchased exclusivity of third party" needs to end. Fully and permanently. If third party is hands off, then it's hands off, for all. If it's selective "company X can buy product X for their own, but company Y can not buy product Y or company Y for their own", that's government operating the market not competition.
But the problem is NOTHING about this lawsuit can create legislation or regulation. All it can do is decide if a new monopoly is being created by the acquisition. Regulation and legislation is a whole other process. And we already know legislators have zero interest in it.
Too many people, including the FTC chair, seem to have the wrong idea about the law. They seem to think this lawsuit can be used to "make an example" or "legislate from the bench" to create new rules for business. They can't. It doesn't work that way. If the new rules to change how business don't run through congress, they don't exist. And congress is shooting down yet another bill that aimed to address such things. Laisez faire is the watchword. Do other video game publishers exist? Yes. Is it therefore a monopoly? No. No question, the courts will settle that way, guaranteed. Because for better or worse, that's the law. Thus why Sony and FTC are resorting to stall tactics to make the deal too expensive.
But I also think it's dangerous regardless of personal feelings on MS or mergers, to lean too hard on trying to wield government as a blunt instrument against "thing I don't like." Especially when "thing I don't like" is based on a ton of speculation and bias without relally looking at the landscape. The argument keeps coming down to MS being a monopoly, first in consoles, then it became about subscription. People still keep not pointing out how MS's "monopoly" on subscription is bolstered by ABK when Everything but diablo from B is PC-only to begin with, the main thing from K is mobile only, and among the A stuff, CoD is the only thing that actually has market influence and they're more than willing to concede on that. what monopoly does it build?
@Toypop I think your definition of “real gamer” is different to my own.
There are “real” gamers who cannot afford all the latest games consoles, let alone games. There are “real” gamers who have families and jobs and can only dedicate time to one console or maybe even only a small few titles/franchises/genres.
Someone could only play one game and still be a “real gamer”. Games like Destiny 2, World of Warcraft, Diablo etc can have people sink thousands of hours into them and still not do everything.
Fortunately, I have owned every console released by the big three and played a massive amount of games over the years. But my life has changed now and I can’t play much anymore. I’m still a “real” gamer, just as much as my friend who only play World of Warcraft and Overwatch, regardless if any elitist mindset says others.
@NEStalgia
You are right we don’t know exactly how much MS are losing, but there is one thing we can be certain off, if the industry comes down to who can pay more to get the biggest games for their subscription service, then MS wins hands down. They will have the only sub service worth owning, and therefore the only profitable home gaming business. This is the reason that this deal has so many eyes on it (and I agree that, the way things are set up currently it will likely proceed, Sony are just hoping for more concessions).
But where will it end? Would you be OK with MS purchasing Take2, EA, etc, until everyone had Gamepass as the only system that made sense? Then what would that mean for consumers?
Of course it’s dangerous for government to interfere too much, but it’s probably more dangerous to let unfettered capitalism proceed without checks. Unless Tencent, Amazon, Apple etc come in, there is a real danger this is the route to effective monopoly. Then we’ll be saying it’s too late to do anything, just as we already are with other acquisitions in the tech space.
@thefourfoldroot1 I generally agree, but if we strip "subs" off that and just discuss about if the industry comes down to who can get the biggest games on their ECOSYSTEM - we arrive at the problem. FFXVI, FF7R, "special" chapter for Hogwarts, special content for GTAV, and let's not forget special content..........for CALL OF DUTY!!, have belonged to Sony. We can't look at the negative impact we theorize MS could potentially create without looking at the existing impact PS doing the same thing by augmented budgets and means vs this has already caused. We're not talking about going from a free and open carefree market to one MS opens their wallet and buys. We're talking about one Sony currently controls by opening their market and weilding their muscle as market leader by a longshot to literally buy the biggest games to be the best in their ecosystem. MS simply stands to reverse that by opening their wallet MORE to counter the fact that they don't have the market muscle to do it for less.
I'm not saying I like EITHER tactic, but we can't escape the fact that this is is the pot vs kettle. No matter if we like the dollar amounts, we have both companies playing the exact same game and trying to manipulate the goal posts to look like the other is the bad guy, as it plays into each of their positions.
Even if the deal were to fail and status quo were retained, CONSUMERS have the same exact problem just going in Sony's direction instead of MS's. The company with the power sets the prices and becomes the only relevant player.
Our starting position here is with PS as a peseudo monopoly and using that monopoly to cheaply secure exclusivity deals, including with CoD, to cement that monopoly. MS is, yes, brute forcing away that monopoly, as only a bigger company can do. I agree, I don't like the thought of MS becoming the new monopoly, the king is dead long live the king. And I said since last gen I "want MS to fail" because I want them to remain the underdog because they're great in that role, so I dislike the buyout for that reason. Yet OTOH, something needs to kick Sony out of monopoly status as well, and right now I see them using government to hamstring competition from a bigger company purely to retain their market pseudo-monopoly, which is still a lose-lose.
I agree, I just want equal competition. But at present, we don't have that. IDK that this deal gets us that. But I also know that not having the deal doesn't change it, either. I'm sort of on the sidelines throwing darts.
@NEStalgia
“ Our starting position here is with PS as a peseudo monopoly and using that monopoly to cheaply secure exclusivity deals, including with CoD, to cement that monopoly. ”
Assuming this is correct, and it is why MS want to tear up the script and start again (with a business model only they can really win at because it relies on buying lots of games up front) I would say a smaller company like Sony being able to buy timed exclusives or little perks, is clearly far better than a colossus buying up huge publishers and looking to make games exclusive (with temporary concessions where necessary to get things through regulators).
I would say where we have been these last couple of decades has been perfect for the consumer, as you imply, with MS being behind. This could change everything in a way I don’t think is good for anyone other than MS shareholders in the long term.
@thefourfoldroot1 "with a business model only they can win at"
Isn't that just conventional business wisdom? Who jumps head first into a business model anyone can bet you at? Sony jumped into consoles in a way only they could win (except Nintendo is Nintendo and defies logic, but no mistake Sony INTENDED to crush them along with Sega...especially after the whole Nintendo Play Station episode.... )
But, in all seriousness, I'm not sure it's "better" with a "smaller" (I mean that's relative it's like asking if you'd rather get crushed by a freight train or by a tractor-trailer....the result to you isn't really different no matter of if one is relatively significantly smaller or not....Sony's smaller than the big-10 tech giants and bigger than virtually everybody else....), but anyway the effect on the MARKET is not really so different.
Let's ignore all other things for one moment, because that's what Jim Ryan is doing, and focus only on Call of Duty. Is there a significantly different effect on the market, if PlayStation forever more uses it's market dominance to secure exclusive enhancements of Call of Duty for themselves, so that buying CoD on other platforms just does not make sense, versus if Microsoft makes it "cheaper" on Game Pass (It's $180 a year, is that "cheaper" for one game?!?! Who's taking losses, again?) and adds exclusive content to their version to make buying it on PS to make less sense? I highlight that one because it's most obvious, and it's the very scenario Jim himself raised as a concern about the buyout, that MS could add exclusive content into the game to make it preferable on their platform.......and he added this in the very same verbal paragraph he talked about PS's 10 year special relationship with CoD....of doing exactly the thing he fears MS could do with the exact same product....
That's the thing. We're talking about market effects, not total spendable investment. Yeah buying a COD perk and ffxvi exclusivity doesn't cost as much as $70b to buy Activision. But lets back up and look at the effect on the market, and the position in the market. Sony buys "perks" and "exlusivity" on key products. Perks in CoD means their platform is the only on that makes sense to buy CoD on. They control CoD by controlling those perks. Exclusivity for the "biggest" name in JRPGs means they can secure consumers in the whole JRPG market space by securing the biggest key franchise.
How can they do this without Microsoft's deep wallets? Because they're the dominant market lead by far. It's cheap for them to buy out the competition's share of the market because the competition's sales share of the market is infinitesimally smaller. "Because they are the dominant leader, they can purchase key content for low prices and ensure they remain the dominant leader."
That's a tough cycle to break. How does a competitor break that chokehold on the industry, if the leader can continue security it's position as leader, at low costs, because being the leader affords them a position to simply buy up the remaining market share on key titles?
The answer is simple: Outspend them. It's truly the only way to force into that chokehold is to spend enough money to out-bribe their bribes.
The other question is how many companies can throw around so much money they can out-bribe the market dominator's bribes that control an industry? Again the answer is.....very few. And only MS, Apple, and Tencent REALLY have a position to even try.
I'm not saying ABK definitely solves these problems. And I'm definitely not saying I want MS to simply put the shoe on the other foot and become the new unmovable controller of all gaming. But the current situation is also a bad one, and right now MS using their wallet to bust up the monopoly is the only viable route to changing that I can see.
And I definitely concur that I personally like the status quo of big bad bully playstation that deservedly earns scorn and cynicism, and good guy xbox that we can turn to for consumer value. And mobster Nintendo that just takes our protection money and we don't get choice, lol. And gaben doing gaben things if you have a few grand to wave around. For me that status quo works well and I don't want this deal to change that. But I do feel the market is very much stuck behind Sony's lock and key and pragmatism says something has to budge that. And I also feel that if the deal were to NOT go through, things may get even uglier instead of the relatively benign ABK being bought up that largely affects a market that isn't most of us, but is a bigger chunk of cash, and instead becomes a turf war to gobble up all sorts of studios that do matter to us dramatically reshaping the industry.
Realistically I want to roll back to before the deal was announced to when we thought such things impossible. But I also don't want to see Sony continue as a defacto kingmaker either. While also not just crowning a new king.
Trouble is I'm not sure if such a concept even exists in our modern economic system. And a taking economy is just going to make that even worse.
@KaijuKaiser I think the worst part of this deal is that it devalues the talented studios they DO own, like the Forza guys, Double Fine, Obsidian, Id Software, I could go on.
It just shows that instead of building stronger teams and supporting the developers they already own, they're just gonna buy big companies in order to look like a threat to Sony.
@NEStalgia you sound like a conspiracy theorist , do you have any proof that Sony is paying politicians to help them or are you just speculating 😂
@Would_you_kindly Plenty of proof both MS and Sony are, take a look at the public campaign contributions for the confirmed proof. For the soft-proof it takes a closer eye on their paid lobby firms and who they wine and dine. The former is public record (or some of it is, there's the soft money that's not documented as well of course), and the latter, isn't totally public, but neither company is hiding at least some of their lobby affiliations on K Street....
@NEStalgia I'd say if any company holds leverage with the US government it would be Microsoft , I mean they have defense contracts with them don't they
@Would_you_kindly MS is a GSA contractor. But at the end of the day, the question any politician wants answered is what's in it for them and their party. All it takes is the right promise, or the right advantage for a family member, or the right population delivered come election time. Celebrities hold a lot of sway in an election after all, and Sony certainly has their leashes on quite a few music and film performers and a large media megaphone. MS on the other hand has big data on the electorate. So much to barter with, so few caviar buffets in Georgetown.....
I mean... what evidence is needed? Does the corpse of netscape and the office alternatives not litter the ground of how Microsoft operates? They have always overstepped with monopolistic practices. They are trying to do it again. Their acquisitions offer nothing new to Xbox or gamepass owners. It only removes from Playstation ones.
It is clear what the intent is.
@Impossibilium There actually no reason for any of these companies to be making cuts, none of them are even close to becoming unprofitable. The only reason they are doing it is to impress investors. I suspect in long term they will end up causing damage to themselves.
@NEStalgia
Of course it’s “conventional wisdom”; I don’t blame MS for doing what they do in various markets, just like I don’t blame Sony for investigating the legal means to rein them in.
I disagree though that the impact on the market is the same regardless of whether it’s Sony getting a skin or mission here or there or MS buying up companies like Bethesda and making all their multiplat content exclusive. It seems to me fundamentally different.
But, OK, despite my not caring about it one jot, let’s just restrict the entire conversation to COD for one crazy moment: - IF (and that’s a big if) MS keep it on PlayStation in perpetuity, then you are right, we will likely just go back to the days of exclusive maps and such (which is still a downgrade on what we have now); Likely also MS will give exclusive XP events, maybe even exclusive in game currency if such a thing exists. Because for the type of gamers playing COD obsessively that stuff makes a difference. That’s why Sony do a bit of that Thornton stuff after all.
The biggest difference however, will be getting it for next to nothing on Gamepass (few people pay full price for that, plus you need to subtract the value of all the other games). And, also, just the uncertainty of whether it will stay on PS. I imagine some sort of progress caries from game to game (and if not MS would make sure it does) and that could suddenly all stop.
But, again, it misses the point to just look at COD. No body is looking at just COD (I hope). This is about whether this deal damages competition in the games distribution market in a way that is likely to hurt the consumer long term.
Ok, now if we focus on your “power of dominant market position” argument, which is valid, what we are looking to allow is MS (who could buy Sony in their entirety 200 times over) to buy that dominant position instead…not the best idea if you consider such a situation important as we clearly do. You cannot simply say the current situation is not absolutely perfect, therefore an uncertain alternative is necessarily better - some probabilistic reasoning is required here.
I want Sony to be able to afford R&D in things like VR because they have a sure position. MS have carved out another position for themselves which seems to work, which is a low innovation subsidised subscription model, along with credit lines for those who can’t afford the console straight up…and I’m fine with those alternatives. I am fine with Sony having that market power as I know MS can counterbalance that with their pure cash allowing for them to be the cheaper alternative. If the shoe is on the other foot and MS buy market dominance, then we have nobody who can reasonably compete that is active in the market at the moment.
Some of the name calling and fanboy comments on here really are pathetic.
@Perturbator Let’s be honest, it’s the only way to save ABK, they have been destroyed by Bobby Kotick! Again this week two other controversies all tied to the way he manages his employees.
The recent events showed us that him pushing Activision and Blizzard together even more will kill many franchises.
@thefourfoldroot1 The optics of buying the company vs just buying exclusive content in the game look different from the outside, but the market impact really isn't that different. That's why Sony does it, and that's why for a whole generation the mantra was that there's no reason to own an XB because PS has the most games, and the best of third party games. You can see a lot of that playing out with FIFA as well. I'm surprised it's not catching on as well with Hogwarts, I must say, though.
Also, the exclusive XP, currency, early access, events, maps, skins is what Sony already buys in CoD, along with marketing rights that makes the game largely "a PlayStation game" in most of public consciousness. That's why it's hilarious Jim chose to highlight the potential for MS to do that as a problem.
I do both agree and disagree about "next to nothing on GP". Yes, that will be a marketing point and absolutely will be incentive for all this. OTOH, the CoD obsessive is largely mostly a CoD obsessive, and GP is a poor value for a 1-game player. It's $70 + mtx + $60/hr for Plus Essentails. That's $130/yr +mtx for CoD. GPU is $180/yr + mtx. It's more expensive, but adds a lot more value. It's not quite the "freebie" people make it out to be, unless you're the kind of player that plays a lot of games. But that's the thing is the "typical" CoD player isn't the kind of player that plays lots of other games. Service/online games aren't actually great fits for the service mode. Plus there's the liklihood CoD multi will move to F2P more and more, which negates the GP angle.
In that sense that's sort of the poor arguments of Sony in their desperation for CoD money that framed it around that. Because CoD is the property that is LEAST benefited by GP. It's a better service for people like you and I that play a ton of games, indies, JRPGs, random misc things than for the dedicated online player. And I know right now there's a percentage of players that use the "$1 trick", but that's a relatively small percentage of "in the know" type online players, which isn't the mass market for either player. Heck PS is the bigger platform and Push is one of the if not the biggest PS dedicated sites.......and look how tiny we are! We're not really the mainstream market. And even here, I pay full price for GP, and I get my value from it.
But I think the real issue here is everybody IS only looking at CoD in this. It's the only part that really matters to anyone, including PlayStation. Sony doesn't really care about Spyro and Crash, or really Diablo much. It doesn't move the needle for them meaningfully enough to care. MOST of Activision's IP have been dormant for over a generation and don't even matter anymore. Their biggest games are PC only, and Valve's the only company that has a place to care there, and they seem perfectly fine with it. Their biggest other thing was Destiny which they dumped, and then Sony bought. That's what makes this really confusing. ABK was damaged goods. They make CoD, they make some important PC-only games. They really haven't made much of anything else that means anything particularly important to competition in a long, long time. If you remove CoD from the equation, and you remove CoD's enormous production factory from the company......and in the console space we ignore the PC games because nobody's concerned about the PC games, and mobile because MS doesn't even play in the mobile space right now....what's left? Dead IP, AA tier sellers, and Bobby.
That's why the arguments are so circular. There's all this talk about disrupting distribution and creating a monopoly. And all the talk is about CoD only. Because CoD is the only thing ABK has that actually has any effect on the market. It's why Sony doesn't seem to care about anything else here, because they genuinely don't care about anything else, it has no value to them.
The argument then stops being about what does ABK bring to the table that makes it dangerous for MS to acquire other than CoD? Nothing at all. The argument becomes about MS simply becoming too big and strong in a market simply because they're a big company that can expand at scale rapidly. Which is the problem you're referring to, we'll call it the Walmart effect. Which is real. But the problem is there's nothing illegal about that at all, and nothing that's considered a monopoly issue. The laws are set up specifically to encourage the biggest fish to always win. It's the same reason in the US we have no retailers. You get Walmart, half an hour away at best. And that's where you'll shop, period. People complain about Amazon but Amazon's the only oasis saving us from Walmart's shopping deserts.
And it would be easy to throw a horse into the ring and say "I side with Sony, stop the evil behemoth", but when Sony's such a an unsympathetic actor who does the exact same things the evil behemoth does or worse, and their main complaint is they want to relive the glory days when they were the biggest most evil behemoth, it's hard to take a side, as the war is really over who gets to squeeze the blood from the consumer, not over if one of them will like a gang turf war between a local gang vs the cartel.
Cloud is another matter, and I do get the concern there. The "network effect" that makes Google a verb. And that's a massive problem with big tech and big corp. But the problem is, who else is even trying to compete, who else could compete, and is that actually a market or just a business model?
The regulators don't even understand the market, so their input is useless. The law is set up so the biggest fish has to win. And even as a consumer that's heavily engaged as an enthusiast, I don't have clear answers or opinions on those questions.
My gut feeling is there's nothing actually inherently monopolistic about the merger legally or conceptually given Activision's actual market position and status. CoD really is the only thing of consequence, and MS has no qualms about unlimited compromises because they're not buying for CoD. Does the end result change the landscape in a way that makes XB worse, PS better, or PS worse? IDK. PS needs a kick in the pants, their position is too monopolistic. The fact they can take any key title they want and buy the competitor's market share for a trifle proves this to us. They need a tough competitor to kick them into place to actually compete. MS is really the only one positioned to do that. But that having been said, I can't predict if the net outcome would be positive or negative for PS or XB or both customers which is the worrying part.
@NEStalgia
Lol, we are going in circular arguments here a bit and, I admit, I haven’t really fully thought out my position. Perhaps my stance is instinctive or reactionary, but my concerns are as follows:
I don’t honestly give a damn about Sony hypocrisy, legal arguments from either side, whether there is a legal framework currently in place to prevent this, etc, etc. I mean, I do, but only in a kind of theoretical, can’t be arsed to do anything about it kind of way.
I still maintain the best thing for the industry is Sony to have a dominant position to invest in advancement, MS to use their dominant position in other markets to sure up investment internally to compete, and Ninty to keep churning out Mario and Zelda games for when we all get tired of these discussions.
@thefourfoldroot1 Haha, it's all in the name of good discussion on complicated topics without definitive answers and a bit of forecasting on things more complex than the meteorologists fail to forecast 24 hours out!
For each of those bullet points
-I'd say Sony should have never backed themselves into a position they were dependent on continuous mtx revenue from a particular 3rd party game, to begin with. That was an obvious point of failure, and only arrogance would keep an otherwise competitive business from putting their eggs in that basket. Even so, MS is still guaranteeing a 10 year transition which in business terms is an eternity. It still gives them an entire generation to plan around it, which they should have been doing anyway.
-Subscription.....that gets complicated. There's definitely personal bias to that. I don't think saying "subscriptions normalizing" is good or bad intrinsically, I think it works differently for different people and it depends if it ends up like Spotify or if it ends up like Disney+/Paramount+/Netflix/Amazon/Who-knows-what. I'm very happy with subscriptions and the model Microsoft offers. I'd gladly join Sony's if they improved what they offer. But it also doesn't cover all my needs, and I also still buy tons. But there's a second half of that: According to MS, subscription accounts for something like 17% of gaming revenue, and they don't expect that percentage to change significantly, they just expect it to become 17% of an increasingly large total revenue. I.E. They expect subscription growth but a proportionately equal growth to all other sales channels, and more importantly even MS expects retail/dlc/mtx/accessory sales to continue to make up the bulk of their total revenue going forward, NOT subscription. I think their own sales numbers and expectations clash with a lot of fan opinion on "they're going to make everything subscriptions!!1" They don't seem to think so. I think they see it as a value added service and-on a promotional leader to get you into the ecosystem, the same way Sony uses over-budget games. I do agree getting more content for GP is the main reason they want AB, but I don't think it's necessarily about making subscription eclipse retail sales so much as strengthening the subscription offering to draw more consumers into the total ecosystem.
The sales charts bare that out. Most recently, High on Life, and last year Forza Horizon 5, both major GP launches, happened to also be leading the retail sales charts on the digital store with heavy sales, and in the case of FH5 made the all formats charts in retail/digital sales despite being a major GP launch. Retail/digital sale is still the primary distribution mechanism for them.
-Totally agree on not wanting the market to become too unbalanced. I don't think anyone wants that. I think the concern right now is following last gen it's already heavily unbalanced in Sony's direction and a correction is needed. I too share the worry this could overcorrect and leave the same situation in the opposite direction though.
Edit: On the second point, it's also about tapping the non-console-buying market. Namely the mobile, low-power-PC/Macbook, and smart-TV market. An ultra casual market who currently doesn't buy consoles or buys cheap PS ultra-slims a generation and a half later, or currently plays mobile games, that has a smart TV or an average laptop, or just wants something more interesting on their phone, and putting an enhanced catalogue of console games into that space (where Sony doesn't compete at all and does not intend to do so) draws on a massive market of possible customers many times larger than XB/PS/Nin combined. In a way the ABK enhanced GP is more about caputuring the long-gone Wii market again than trying to steal PS's market. Because that market is like 10x the size of PS's market. It's always worth remembering Apple's revenue just from gaming is greater than XB/PS/Nin combined, and they don't even make games or gaming hardware, they're just a digital store. That's a LOT of market that XB/PS/Nin just miss entirely right now that MS is trying to tap.
@NEStalgia 'when Sony's such a an unsympathetic actor who does the exact same things the evil behemoth does or worse,' ... They literally can't do 'the exact same thing' they couldn't afford to , nothings stopping Microsoft from making great first party games that rival Sony's or doing some deals to get timed exlusivity on a few 3rd party ones (which they already do) instead Microsofts Xbox division is throwing all its money at its subscription service , cloud tech & just buying the biggest publishers
@Would_you_kindly Would you rather a world where Microsoft just pays out and buys exclusivity of fifa, NBA, cod, GTA, assassin's Creed, and Fortnite until PS just dies with their big money, or one where they buy big publishers and try to build a bigger gaming company?
The former doesn't make business sense since they'd have to lose a fortune to buy out Sonys market share, but they COULD do it if shutting down ps was their goal, and no one could regulate it. The latter involves them taking the risk of operating the whole publisher and making those exclusives themselves.
I do get your general point, but when you think it through and think of what buying exclusives really does to the market, buying companies looks actually more like the thing you said you'd rather they do, make exclusives, than the later which is just buying control of the market to shut down competitors.
@NEStalgia
Edit: oh, and if MS say Subs will remain 17% of the market they are flat out lying. For the reasons you state - the non console market they will tap once these services are available to stream anywhere.
@thefourfoldroot1 Big third party games will always exist, but PS got cozy depending on a few specific games to be their primary business. That's as self inflicted a wound as Iwata walking out on stage and showing a controller with no console and Matrick walking out on stage to flip everyone the finger and talk about sports.
As for parity, of the game on PS and XB, and PC there's a few ways to interpret that. They did confirm day and date as part of that. I think it's assumed, and PS is assuming as well that MS will give themselves perks and extras....which is exactly what PS currently has for the game so that's a bit pot & kettle. And the game will list for $70 on both systems, as MS already announced its future first party games will be $70 as well. MS "giving it away" is an incentive with GP to get into their ecosystem absolutely. But like I said, for the COD-only player it's a worse value, and current games that are both on the service and on retail/digital sale, already prove that just being on GP does not mean people do not purchase the game in high numbers at full price, and the majority of XB customers are not necessarily subscribers. Most of XB is digital, but where the physical market still exists, it's for games like CoD and the sports titles.
I also think the future of CoD under MS (or even without MS) is shifting the MP over to the F2P Warzone. That shift already has been happening. So what does a "COD release" mean, and does it remain annual with MS or even without MS is another consideration.
-I don't think MS's own data suggests subs are the main way people acquire games currently, or that they expect that to happen. But even if that is the end result, I have a very mixed personal feeling on that. The argument makes sense, but I honestly see the industry going that way with or without subs, and then the question depends on how much cover fee we're willing to pay to be let into the store to purchase things. Moreso than MS and subs, you have Genshin that I think will have monumental ripple effects in the future of game delivery. We've seen the major publishers pushing hard into that direction even in $70 games. And we have even Sony gearing up to go hard into that direction. When I look at what's already going on in console games but also pushback on PC, and then Apple sitting in the middle with Arcade, I'm not sure subs themselves have a significant effect on that path. I think that's our path no matter what.
-MS and Subs, true, if there's significant non-console growth in subs, subs will definitely expand as a percentage, I do think they were talking about console revenue settling in at 17%. They also said that the percentage of sub adoption in console has kind of settled into a static 30% or somewhere around there, and they don't expect it to change much, and most of the sub growth is PC and mobile. Sub grows on console but proportionally to console growth.
Also keep in mind that "sub" and "cloud" have to be separated. The sub is a fixed, time limited catalog. "Cloud" for now is a subset of that catalog, but, they are going to enable "some" (probably eventually all) purchased games to be "cloud" enabled. This means the future of the cloud sub contains a Stadia/GeForce Now aspect where you can still purchase $70 and stream them on the cloud without hardware to go with it, but also means retail sales can contribute even for cloud/sub-only customers.
It does get complicated, and that clouds the predictions of the future as well.
@NEStalgia tango Gameworks first game since being acquired is an Xbox exclusive so that's another game they've taken from other platforms (pretty sure it would run on switch) I don't trust Microsoft when Phil Spencer says stuff like 'we don't want to take away games form gamers' while doing the exact opposite at the first opportunity 😂
@Would_you_kindly No surprises there. They were pretty clear that EXISTING games would be supported on PS/Switch but new games would most likely be exclusive. EG, FO76 (heck they just gave it away with Plus!), Skyrim, (I can hope Skyrim VR but I doubt it), Doom Eternal, etc they weren't going to delist from PS and would continue supporting with content, but FO5 ,TES6, next doom, etc would of course not be. Of course Tango's not making new IP for PlayStation. Insomniac's not making new IP for Xbox either.
Doesn't mean they never will, I mean Minecraft they've made universal. It's absolutely possible they'd do that with Diablo, or a console WoW client etc. But that's a treat, not an expectation.
Same for ABK. They'd support existing content, they're promising CoD continues, Diablo 4 would continue. But you'd expect the next Spyro, Crash, Diablo 5, etc would be XB exclusive....I mean that's the point. And Sony doesn't actually care even if fans care because none of that represents an amount of money that means anything to them.
Personally Hi-Fi Rush was the thing from the MS show I was most interested in, but I don't think PS is losing any sleep over not having that in their ecosystem, or any other new Bethesda IP. Forza 8 was going to be my top game from that, but GT7 going VR stole the thunder in the racing genre for me.
@CielloArc they have gotten 15 out of the 20 they have in less than a 2 years with those years being a lockdown pandemic. If this was 5 years of being dry, I’d say yes to your points. I support Sony and Microsoft both very heavily, love them as they are the peanut butter and jelly to my hobby, i couldn’t do this without having both. But MS is just now starting to take the lid off what these dev teams have been working on behind the scenes during the pandemic. I think they will have some truly great content and ways to distribute those game from Physical and digital sales to game pass and that seems strong. On the Sony side, there is plenty of big hitters coming and us gamers are in for a great generation now that dev teams are back to a more normal work environment.
@ThorsHammer Sadly I can see the exact opposite happening, they "are forced" to delay any 1st party exclusives that were going to be revealed/dated or released this year.
Hopefully I'm just being paranoid and am proven wrong though.
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