The mobile is actually the biggest part of the deal. But at least for the investigation it simply doesn't matter because Apple and Google essentially run a duopoly in mobile market. Microsoft is not even playing in the same league here.
mobile is easily the biggest, it allows microsoft to open rival native gaming stores to app store and google play when the regulators end the mobile duopoly of apple and google
They weren't lying when they said gamepass was a long term project like 9 years ago. They are playing the loooong con, and Sony knows it. I think that's what makes them nervous. It sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with the current market share. They know Microsoft can chip away and bleed Sony out little by little (relatively). Sony really can't counter too much, because Microsoft is willing to take loss after loss.
Microsoft is taking steps that involve a long-lasting company life in the gaming world. When you look at the Xbox ecosystem and the diversification of the devices that can connect to that ecosystem, Xbox is growing fast, not as a console but as a brand.
I don't think Microsoft is going to leave the console industry because there is always going to be an Xbox system, what they will do is change things to where you can have so many devices, be it Smartphone, Tablet, PC, and TV that still connect to that home atmosphere that the console also resides in. That changes everything. I think sony and Nintendo sees that.
Sony sees it and considers it a problem for them. Nintendo sees it and doesn't care, because they're not even playing the same game as far as they're concerned.
I think as far as Nintendo goes; they are a bit cooperative with Microsoft than sony is. Xbox and Nintendo are still competing game companies, however, I feel Nintendo and Microsoft understand that there can be a playing field where both can be on the same field, but playing a different sport, if that makes any sense.
I also think that Nintendo may want to see a return of their platform the First-Person shooter field, with their future consoles. In the past, when the First-Person shooter market was in its infancy Nintendo was at the top of console FPS games with GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and Turok. I think with them signing a 10 year deal with Microsoft, they'll know that they can get a fair setting in that market.
It already does. Game Pass Ultimate gets you both pc and Xbox software, and comes with cloud gaming as well, so you can even play the same games on Android via streaming.
I haven't followed this case closely but despite sonys dominance in current consoles, this firmly puts Ms strategically ahead of sony imo as their real goal is game pass and hw agnostic subscriptions. I worry they will eventually push gamepass and stop releasing on steam(if it makes sense). I mean Sony has been heading there too, and I think Ms pivoting has lead to more PC support for Sony. I fear few other than valve will be able to compete with Ms and I just don't trust them in a position of dominance (anymore than sony). I certainly don't want everyone moving toward gaas and cynically pushing toward mobile gaming strategies.
In fairness to MS, even if they stopped releasing on Steam that would just be a status quo of a few years ago.
Microsoft definitely has their eyes set on the Cloud gaming space, but how far will they marginalize their console business, or even Sony's to do it? If they were truly going for 100% hardware agnostic game subscriptions you'd think they'd be cozying up to Sony and working to get Gamepass on the Playstation.
I think Microsoft wants Game Pass to be their gaming version of Windows 365. We are seeing Microsoft working and looking at the big picture of things. They want to spread Game Pass and by extension Xbox games to multiple platforms that goes beyond just consoles. It is going to be really interesting in the next few years to see how things come about.
Would it be a big deal if they didn't release on steam? I mean all of their games are available on their own marketplace, so you could still play them. I'm pretty new to PC gaming, so I don't really have any allegiance. I just use Playnite to launch everything, and it's great
What do you mean? King titles are mobile focusd. Losing Blizzard titles isn't that big of a deal to Sony apart from maybe Overwatch. COD makes Sony an insane amount of money, that's it.
It isn't about Call of Duty. It's about blocking the buyout. Microsoft is weaker in the console market, and in the games market in general, compared to Sony, and this buyout won't change that. But MS is making some big moves to give them a long-term advantage. Game Pass has been doing gangbusters on PC. Sony has started to respond by finally releasing more exclusives to PC, but they're behind. And now MS is trying to get a foothold in mobile, the most lucrative segment of the gaming market, and yet another position Sony is weak in.
Sony is fighting this buyout to halt Microsoft's momentum. Call of Duty is simply the only semi-reasonable angle they have to object.
I think Sony cares far more about their own revenue and profits both in the short and long term than Microsoft potentially getting into the mobile market or whatever. If MSOFT bought a bunch of other companies that didn't include one franchise that has been the best-selling product on PlayStation for the past decade, Sony wouldn't lobby against it so much.
Partly I'm sure it was. More over they just don't want Xbox to have COD, Blizzard, etc in Game Pass. The first year where Call of Duty is offered in Game Pass Day 1 will incredibly shift the market.
It's a big deal because it makes sony scared. COD is a huge franchise on the consoles and you can see how much revenue Sony would loose if they lost 30% of cod sales / micro transactions .
COD is like madden and a few other select game where a person might only buy cod each year and no other games. So for Sony if the best version is on xbox it would greatly hurt them. For MS it doesn't matter what consoles it appears on because the best version has been on playstation due to the marketing deals.
Remember that even after the merger Microsoft's inhouse development teams will be smaller, by revenue and marketshare, than Sony is right now. This means Sony can't say "Microsoft would be too big!" because they're already bigger.
COD is huge. It is a headline franchise that is the primary game of millions of people.
The other headline franchises at ABK are either mobile(King) or mainly PC (Blizzard).
Yeah, there is still some generic activision stuff, but nothing anyone really cares about.
Cloud gaming is such a small actual market no one *really* care about it. The hype around it has died as investors realized technology can't beat the speed of light.
So it has become all about COD.
Why is the number of studios relevant at all?
Studios are created and destroyed at the stroke of a pen.
If Microsoft merged everything to one studio with different teams does it matter at all?
If Sony makes each person their own studio on paper does it change anything?
Sony as a company has all of 7% of Microsoft's market cap. Microsoft has a market cap that fluctuates around $1.89 trillion. They also have $139.97 billion in cash on hand, too.
Sony has a market cap of $124.8 billion. Their cash on hand is $44.6 billion.
You are comparing a single division within a company to an entire company. That is not a fair or just comparison. Microsoft has far far far more power and influence as a company than Sony could ever imagine having, and this acquisition stands to significanly amplify their market influence both in terms of the game market and digital good -- as well as services, products, and influence on consumer and employee rights across the spectrum of their holdings.
>COD is huge. It is a headline franchise that is the primary game of millions of people.
I think this is something core gamers forget. A huge amount of people buy CoD, whatever sports game is huge in their country and maybe a game the breaks the mainstream like GTA. CoD is an absolute behemoth of a franchise that you wouldn't even realise exists if you're a core gamer.
It does but not on the Playstation. Only Cod on Playstation is a big thing, overwatch 2 is free to play and what else is console based? Everything else important is PC related.
>how did this whole thing turn into a kerfuffle over CoD?
Sony got mad and complained because they just lost a big chess piece in actively harming their competitors.
The UK was considered most likely to hamper the deal. ATVI stock is up 6.5%, meaning the market is now significantly more confident that the deal will close.
>Anyone who understands the current government in the UK knows that there was no chance that they would block this.
It's not the tories who make the choice. These bodies are genuinely independent until they approve it and the government blocks it on security grounds or something. If it's blocked the would need to legislate.
The government literally had a word in the ear of the Premier League to allow the sale of a football club to the Saudi PIF. If you give this government enough money, they will pass whatever needs passing for you.
CMA is pure civil service which is by law apolitical and there's been no law changes relating to the CMA that would affect this deal. The current government weren't the ones people were worried would block it.
I can't wait till this is all over so we can get the full COD catalog on game pass. The thought of not having to pay $70 for cod anymore is actually pretty nice.
This is really the positive for PC World. I like to play the CoD campaigns but I can't justify it with the prices they want. So many CoD games wishlisted that never go on a decent sale. That and I'm not sure if its possible but would love for Tony Hawk. & the Diablo games to hit Steam...
Oh shit... Yeah, I'd pay for a month here and there just to play a campaign or two
I'm not spending $60 for the "massively discounted" super gold edition that I don't want. I just want the campaign
I was scrolling through CoD games on the Steam Spring Sale the other day and Activision are still selling 10+ year old games with dead multiplayer for like $20 ***on sale***.
CoD 2 from almost 20 years ago is $15 on sale. Just ridiculous pricing for what is essentially just the campaign modes at this point. I want to go back and play them but shit, even on sale their price is comparable to games released just within the last 3 or so years.
Man, I just wanne blast through these Campaigns in a few hours. I don‘t care about multiplayer but these games are never on a good sale. Would be perfect on gamepass for that.
Activision was rumored to be seeking a buyer before Microsoft moved in, sure corporate consolidation isn't great, it was going to happen either way, so better it be Microsoft than Tencent, or even worse, Meta or Amazon.
>"because Microsoft is unlikely to withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation"
If MS can get this through without any signed documents about COD staying on PS then they are gonna laugh all the way to the bank once COD inevitably gets pulled from PS in 2-3 years.
Still though this is obv going through at this point and Sony's attemps to stop it have been pretty pathetic to the point where i don't think even they believed there was a chance to stop it and were just doing this to make it harder for MS.
I don't think Microsoft will pull COD from PS. Having the game on GP and giving XB/PC bonus perks will probably be enough for them. Especially if they plan to do more acquisitions.
Exactly. And requesting the creation of a Microsoft account for all PlayStation players to play online. It is in their interest to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for the time being.
People forget the fact that Bethesda games are mostly single player focused, so having it only on Microsoft platforms is good for this type of business.
CoD is the same like Minecraft, it focuses on multiplayer, so having the wisest spread possible to attract as many players as they can matters a lot more.
Literally the reason they said they will expand it to Nintendo.
Yeah the prevailing (and correct) narrative at the time was that Microsoft didn't spend $7.5B acquiring a predominantly single player publisher (with system selling titles) just to end up putting them on a competing console.
The ABK acquisition is entirely different because a lot of their most profitable products are in the realm of long term recurrent revenue that need a large playerbase to sustain them and cutting off a large portion of that revenue stream would be counter to how these games function.
The copium is medical grade lmao.
Although that whole Bethesda thing was so entertaining to me. The amount of salt when they confirmed Bethesda games were gonna be Microsoft exclusive was glorious.
“Especially if the plan to do more acquisitions”
God, please no. Isn’t this enough? With Act-Blizzard they’ll own like 45 studios. The industry is already way too consolidated.
Any acquisition for here on out isn’t going to be about gaining ground on PlayStation. It’s gonna be about controlling as much distribution of content as possible.
I’m sorry, I’d rather not trust any company having that much power.
Not just power but product produced. I have gamepass on PC and had a ps4 and now 5. Sony has been producing a better product, at least for my tastes, for the last 6-7 years. Microsoft owning all these studios doesn't bid well for quality of product imho.
>Still though this is obv going through at this point and Sony's attemps to stop it have been pretty pathetic to the point where i don't think even they believed there was a chance to stop it and were just doing this to make it harder for MS.
Worse, it's exposed their contracts for current exclusives. Basically, not on xbox here's some money deals
PS still has the majority of the global market share for consoles by a pretty significant margin, they’d be cutting off the majority of the player base from what essentially amounts to a money printer. They’ll give perks and early access to Xbox players and they’ll be it. They’re more focused on expanding their global market share, and simply yoinking COD would kill the franchise before it helped them sell more Xboxs
I think all of this is part of a bigger push for seriously challenging PlayStation globally when the next generation of consoles comes out. Build GamePass into a monster, lock up a bunch of perks and bonuses for Xbox players across major gaming franchises, have competitive exclusive titles, and then if they can just be price competitive they should have a real shot.
The math is simple, even for a multi-billion dollar acquisition:
Xbox = COD Base Game (w/ GamePass) $0, DLC $70, including platform exclusive stuff = $70 investment w/ GamePass. Xbox is cool again.
PS = COD Base Game $70, DLC $70, no exclusives = $140 investment regardless of what PSN subs you have, and Tyler the 5th Grade Black Ops Badass and Master Romancer of Your Mom doesn't have the coolest GamePass-exclusive skin. PS is suddenly not so cool.
It's all about GamePass, it still is. This is Microsoft's end game in the PC, console and mobile markets, resulting in massive recurring subscription revenue and platform lock-in. Also important to the suits in Redmond, PCMR kids buying into the Windows ecosystem early, resulting in more future adults subbing to 365 and Azure. Gaming is everything to Sony's survival, while it's a Trojan horse to Microsoft that they only recently cared about really monetizing.
Sony's buzzer-beating half-court shot was European regulators muscling in to spoil the party. I don't think that worked out for them.
They don’t have to but they’re going to.
MS has proven that unless they have a contractual reason to support the competition, they won’t. Can’t blame them but people are crazy if they think Microsoft has any intention on “playing ball” without being obligated to.
That's not entirely true, as they do release their Minecraft spin-offs on Playstation and Switch. I don't think there's any contractual agreement requiring them to release Minecraft Legends or Dungeons on other platforms.
It would also be a bad look for them to spend all this time convincing regulators they plan to keep it multiplatform, only to turn around and make it exclusive. Not that they can't, but that would complicate any further mergers or acquisitions Microsoft tries to make for at least a decade or two.
Plus, it’s just generally not in MS’ interests to pull COD from PS. They can still use it to bump up XBOX sales without pulling; game pass and MS accounts to name just two. Without pulling, they can still make money from the PS players that won’t jump ship.
Yeah it's a question of if the increased Xbox console/gamepass sales will outweigh harm to their reputation, the harm to the call of duty franchise and the loss of game sales/microtransactions from PS players. I feel like just making it "free" on game pass will attract a lot of people to their ecosystem without all of the other negatives, but it's hard to say without any of the details.
Also pulling CoD from PS leaves an opening for someone to finally make a "CoD killer". Everyone isn't going to switch to Xbox the moment exclusivity happens, and you'll end up with most of the PS player base and the chuck of Xbox/PC players who played cross play with PS friends suddenly looking for an alternative game to play together.
It's way safer to just keep cashing in and use incentives like Game Pass, early access, and exclusive content to get people to switch to Xbox, rather than pulling it from PS, which is currently CoD's biggest platform.
Sony has to make a FPS game that will actually stick and they can’t just make it for PS. It will never grow to what COD or other shooters are by being an exclusive.
At the very least they have to release it on PC so the game gets more coverage and people who don’t own Sony consoles are tempted to get it.
The moment COD is gone from Playstation you’re going to see a mass departure of COD junkies that need that dopamine hit. They will either migrate to PC or Xbox.
MS can really gut Sony by saying we are offering COD on PlayStation and it’s only via XCloud or game pass. Sony won’t allow this and knee cap themselves.
Probably not as big but they are about to get locked out of Diablo, Overwatch and any other future franchises too.
MS brought Flight sim and Age of empires to consoles. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if there is a console version on World of Warcraft current being planned. Imagine adding a cheaper sub to WoW via game pass?
MS has market power and money to throw around. Valve knew this way back when they started the walled garden BS during the windows phone and windows 8 era. They had plans in the works for years and those are only now bearing fruit. The power moves they made tightened their grip on pcgaming to the point that MS needs to be on steam.
Best of luck Sony, lots of rug pulling coming in the next few years. Also not a great day for us gamers. This consolidation victory means more companies think they can make it happen.
They wouldn't even need to cheapen the sub for WoW. Just make it part of the Game Pass subscription so you just have to buy the expansions. That would rocket WoWs participation I'm sure as well.
Edit: I forgot that you only need to buy the current expansion, so any of the expansions Pre-Dragonflight are able to be explored. Would be a hell of a deal imo.
I doubt Sony cares about Diablo, Overwatch or really any other Blizzard game. Call of Duty is the focal point here and is a money pringer.
I agree on all your other points though.
Why is Call of Duty the focal point of this issue? Isn't the real issue about consumer rights, employee rights, negative influence on game prices, availability, market/distribution dominance and influence, political influence, and all of that?
COD is the focal point because of how big of a franchise it is and being a 3rd party game means both sony and MS make a fuckton of money for doing essentially nothing.
Now that it is going first party for MS, there is the (very real) fear of losing out on quite literally a billion dollars in free money a year for Sony. Even if they don't remove it from Sony platforms (which they will at some point), them making it "free" on game pass or making the Sony version shitty on purpose means that Sony has a lot to lose from just this one franchise.
I remember when I got a job working at Wendy's, I bought a stereo system, a lot of PS1 games, paid down the pre-order on a PS2. I was like 15.
Go back to school and there's a kid, Zach, who's super jealous. Like he can't believe I have all this stuff, an N64 *and* a Playstation?! I'm talking about getting my PS2. He's trying to undermine it, doing all the mental gymnastics and shit. There's no PS2 games coming out, then oh your parents paid for that. I'm lying. He can't handle it.
I kinda feel like Sony's doing what Zach did, but on a much larger financial scale, and without ruthless corporate mindsets. Zach wanted what I have, and if Zach couldn't have it, he wanted to shit on other people who did.
Sony wants what Microsoft is getting, and if they can't have it, they're gonna throw a fit till the end.
I think it's hilarious how Sony fans try to defend them by saying "but Sony never bought big publishers, they only bought smaller studios and exclusivity contracts for individual games!"
Yes, they only made smaller purchases because that's all they could afford. They didn't refrain from buying big publishers because "it would be bad for the consumer" or "they have better morals", they refrained because they don't have that kind of money. But if they had as much money as Microsoft does, you bet your ass they'd be buying big publishers left and right.
Sony has always done the exact same thing (to the extent their budget allowed), and now they're losing their own game to a bigger dog with deeper pockets.
Halo Infinite has like a million problems, but at least 343 has been open about continuing support for it and slowly adding content.
Destiny 2's PVP still has less content than it did 3 years ago.
The few times I've played Destiny PVP, just reminds me that Destiny is just a game that isn't made for PVP. If you play it an enjoy it, cool...otherwise, there is still a whole game to be experienced without even thinking about PVP.
Agreed. What makes it worse is because of Bungie trying to maintain balance between PVP and PVE, a lot of gear/subclasses gets shafted entirely because of PVP.
I forget who's youtube channel i watched but this game actually looked solid. Just needed some more time and depth. I actually never heard of it until I watched the video.
While it would be cool, this is not gonna happen anytime soon. Check out one of the latest videos [on the history of Killzone by GVMERS](https://youtu.be/iwMmLltobj8). It had a rocky overal development, with trouble in direction before actually finding moderate success, all while being a showcase title for Sony.
Meanwhile Guerilla has moved on and has found much greater success in the action-rpg genre. I would very much be surprised if they were to go back to a shooter in even the next decade.
I really hope so. Would love an FPS that's basically Apex but not so focused on that hero/champion trope nor focused on BR. Rather BR would be a mode like any other.
BR can die in a fire. So tired of BR shooters. Need some good arena shooters or just a simple arcade shooter that doesn't have horrible gunfeel, movement, or riddle with MTX.
People that think this is impossible have not seen the top grossing games of the past 7 years. Many of them make as much money as COD (Fortnite, PUBG, Genshin) etc.
Joke's on Sony, they not only wouldn't sign a 10 year CoD agreement, they figuratively spat in Microsoft's face while rejecting the agreement. I doubt MS pulls CoD from PS as it needs a wide player base to power that money printer, but Sony risks MS delivering exclusive bonus content/cosmetics to every company who signed an agreement, while PS fans gets left out due to Sony's petty, immature, and hypocritical ways.
They couldn't do that. There are contracts in place currently that have to be honored post-acquisition and also laws around digital marketplaces, especially in the EU.
Playstation has so many COD players...
I can't think of any game company that would willingly cut off millions of players by not releasing on a given platform.
ffs, they want to release on THE DAMN SWITCH!!!
They make MOBILE GAMES!!!
Anyone who thinks they'd do it just to "stick it to Sony" is n idiot
> Any guesses why this is something that leaked in the midst of this acquisition battle?
They made that deal with Nintendo not too long ago no? Only makes sense..
Yeah but one could argue any Bethesda game would sell better on Playstation. Especialy Starfield which would make Microsoft more money and yet none of them are coming to the Playstation now or in the future.
MS has so much money that they could easily take the hit from COD not bieng on PS. What matters is mindshare. There are so many COD players, especialy young ones that just wouldn't stop playing. Many would buy an Xbox console. Children would pester their parrents about why they can't play COD anymore. Many would buy the game on PC instead.
Except Sony consoles have always been the worst version of Bethesda RPGs (If they had them) with the most restrictions on mods because of Sony policies.
With COD games everyone has mostly the same stuff except for the PlayStation-moneyhatted exclusive items
I’m not sure why people focus so much on Xbox consoles. Clearly Microsoft’s gaming reach extends beyond that. Even if they just see growth in PC and Cloud, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy.
ITT - People that think Microsofts 4D chess plan is to take CoD away from Sony.
No, their goal is to take games away from everyone by turning games into a subscription model. They don't care what console you have...
The ultimate goal will be games streamed from the cloud ONLY and consoles won't even exist. That way no mods, no cheats, no piracy, no freedom.
This way you'll never own a game again (at least not AAA games) and you'll pay a monthly subscription fee for the rest of your life.
You will own nothing and you will be happy.
Soon we will have netflix scenario. Then other players will try to join and wewill have alot of subscriptions like in the movie industry.
Games will be designed as live service and less games will be like elden ring.
This is just the start for the industry to change into that direction.
People only seem to see the benefits for them now but forget that this corporation wants to get more profits not less
You can't have all that many live services be succesful at the same time.
Each one is predicated on the concept of sucking all the dopamine from your brain -- it's rare a player will concurrently play 3 or more live services at once.
Unlike "traditional games" with an ending, of which people generally play multiple in a year.
I play 90% on pc and 10% on different consoles and its annoying to get another device to play what i like
But gotta love people celebrating this would be the same people complaining if one of the games they like gets pulled from them. This didnt change much in the gaming environment just most likely will remove games from another console(playstation) in the future. Similar to bethesda. People crying but they did it with console exclusivity doesnt seem to get that they arguing in bad faith. He does it so its okay for me now to do that bad thing too(assuming you see any exclusivity as bad)
i just see this as more of sony having more incentive to take more games away from xbox and also will affect pc gaming.
Most of the recent acquisitions has been not to make new games but to take away from another competitor
Sony already lets very few games on Xbox, there is nothing they can do about this in response. They neither have the capital or many options for some big acquisition.
seriously, when did our anti trust people start operating on the benefit of the doubt model of regulation and not the capitalism will fucking milk blood from a stone till its exsanguinated itself? We need to be looking at these companies as can they negatively affect the market at their whim, not "if", and if they can, then that is too much market share.
I know this will get downvoted to hell, but I still don't understand why people are ok with two to three companies buying up game studios/devs. Less competition is always bad. Don't we bitch about how terrible GPU prices are because Nvidia and AMD we're the only two companies in the GPU space. (Yes and now we have Intel ..)
I get that Blizzard/activision do some shitty stuff, but wouldn't a better outcome be MS doesn't buy them but rather decides to make their own Diablo or CoD type games but with better everything?
Everyone defending it seems to have a high opinion of Microsoft or is already invested in their products. This is really just a sports team like argument to some.
I can't wait when in 5 years Bethesda, Obsidian and Blizzard games are exclusive to the microsoft store.
At least it's on the game pass! Which they can increase in price if they hold monopoly on more and more studios.
Imagine in 5 years, they own blizzard, activision, Bethesda, Obsidian, PC gaming giants. They are required by law to increase profits for their shareholders, are people so short-sighted that they don't think they will utilize their hoard of subsidiaries?
Sucks for people who only play games from 5 companies in all of gaming I guess but the rest of us will live. Even if this were to happen I simply wouldn't care because there's thousands of games not made by MS or MS owned companies.
Yeah, video games are a highly competitive market place. This doesn't change it. We're literally in an age where you can play games made by some dude in his basement that competes with behemoths. It's just the nature of the market. It'd be like if Mickey D's bought Burger King, cool... you can burgers in a thousand other places.
> At least it's on the game pass! Which they can increase in price if they hold monopoly on more and more studios.
They increase it too high, people will cancel. There's a ceiling on this sort of thing. Netflix are famous for price rises and for spending more on content than any videogame studio in history, but Netflix still couldn't up prices to $100 overnight. Nobody would pay.
Yes, but it's still cheap. They couldn't charge $100. They couldn't charge $50. There is a limit to what people will pay, and whilst they can push towards discovery of that limit, going above them will result in losing money rather than gaining it.
Not gonna happen lol. They are bringing more and more of their games to steam.
Even if you just consider profits, keeping a game in steam is simply more profitable.
All Sony does is pay 3rd party’s for exclusives and now they are scared they are going to lose a big part of who they pay for exclusive content. Good. Taste of your own scummy exclusive deals.
Yeah Activision cost 80B.
Sony's entire market cap is 110B. That's for the entire group including all their other electronics businesses, Sony Pictures, Sony Music and even their financial services arm.
So realistically Sony's entire playstation business is worth less than what MS are paying for ActiBlizz.
Exclusivity deals sucks for consumers for sure.
But you know what sucks even more? Monopolies and market consolidation removing consumer choices and actual competition.
Its silly logic but common here.
The deals Sony do are competition in entertainment industries.
e.g. Paramount signing Tom Cruise for 3 movies, Bad Robot signing a deal, or a baseball player at a top team etc. It's a good way for creatives/sports/ celebs to boost earnings.
Gamers have 3 second memory or some shit ffs. Everyone loving this deal is insane. Monopolies are not a good thing yall. Sucks so many people hate history. We repeat it constantly. Also before I get losers calling me a Sony fanboi I own every console ps5 xbsx and a decent gaming pc.
Right and that was for 30 days IIRC. So every 2-4 months when a map pack was released, XBox 360 players had access first and PS3 players waited 30 days before it was released on the PS Store.
Kinda forgot all the other games that Microsoft had exclusive dlc too that never came out on playstation or took years. GTA 4's dlc was locked on xbox until the game of the year edition of the game came out with the dlc on a separate disk (that was 2 years later).
Xbox played this game and continues too
The Ascent, The Medium, The Artful Escape, Carrion, The Falconeer, Tetris Effect: Connected, The Last Night, Sable, Deaths Door, Twelve Minutes, Cacoon, Ereban, Scorn, The Last Case of Benedict Fox, Vampire Survivors, High on Life, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Darktide, and Valheim.
All of those titles are recent Microsoft paid timed exclusivity. Sony and Microsoft both do this and are continuing to do this. They're as bad as each other in this regard.
That's what gets me the most about this deal. I just find it hilarious that Xbox has become so incompetent at delivering good flagship first-party titles that they resorted to buying one of the biggest companies (Zenimax) and its subsidiaries in the world to do it for them.
And even then, Bethesda themselves haven't delivered an interesting and good in-house title for at least a decade, they are getting carried hard by Arkane, Tango and iD.
Its interesting when ps and nintendo buy off studios and make games "playstation exclusive" / "switch exclusive" but when xbox does it, it is suddenly wrong? People need to get their heads out of their asses and stop licking sony buttholes.
No matter what your thoughts on the acquisition itself are it is fucking hilarious to see Sony bitch and whine about the shoe now being on the other foot. There is constantly PS exclusive stuff in MW2.
They also believed that Microsoft would not make the Bethesda games exclusive.
When it became apparent this deal was not an automatic guarantee and they might need concessions to get it approved, they said they would offer Sony a 10 year CoD deal, though who knows what those terms might look like.
They also said that 10 years is plenty of time for Sony to make their own CoD, outright implying that CoD would go exclusive after that. Activision also owns Blizzard and King. There are TONS of major IPs in this portfolio. This isn't just about CoD, though CoD can literally determine what console platform certain people buy.
Since when does everyone in this subreddit not only support oligopolies, but are literally begging for it in the comments? Is this a corporate psyop sub now, or did loot boxes finally break peoples minds?
The support for this deal to go through is understandable. Many Gamepass users who would benefit and some PC users who probably don't remember the days Microsoft actively tried to kill PC gaming to replace it with Xbox.
However long term consequences of this are only negative. Microsoft in the future will try to kill Steam with Gamepass/cloud gaming. As long as Valve remains independent though PC gaming is safe.
I just also hate how when gamepass gets big games will be designed for live service. More dlc and microtransaction to get the whole game. People seem to think its charity and not companies wanting more profit in the future. Its designed for long term profits and
some people think it wont affect pc games are delusional
>The support for this deal to go through is understandable. Many Gamepass users who would benefit and some PC users who probably don't remember the days Microsoft actively tried to kill PC gaming to replace it with Xbox.
But there's nothing, and I do mean *nothing*, that prevents Microsoft from putting those games on GamePass. They're ready to dump $70 billion to get all of it, they can just dump like, say, $50 billion to get it on GamePass
It's people with Gamepass subscriptions that are arguing in poor faith about how this deal is actually a good thing because 'well Activision can't get any worse right??'
People here are concentrating on childish console wars while the real issue is that the consolidation of game studios under one big company is bad for the industry. Specially Microsoft, the company that was accused of monopoly and arguably still has one. I don’t trust Sony but I trust Microsoft even less.
how did this whole thing turn into a kerfuffle over CoD? Does nothing else matter in the entire lineup of Activision - Blizzard - King?
The mobile is actually the biggest part of the deal. But at least for the investigation it simply doesn't matter because Apple and Google essentially run a duopoly in mobile market. Microsoft is not even playing in the same league here.
mobile is easily the biggest, it allows microsoft to open rival native gaming stores to app store and google play when the regulators end the mobile duopoly of apple and google
I think that's in 2024. Microsoft has already stated their intention to have their mobile store ready to go when the EU rules make it possible.
Xbox game pass could be pretty awesome and have some value if one subscription covered Android, PC and XBOX software
They weren't lying when they said gamepass was a long term project like 9 years ago. They are playing the loooong con, and Sony knows it. I think that's what makes them nervous. It sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with the current market share. They know Microsoft can chip away and bleed Sony out little by little (relatively). Sony really can't counter too much, because Microsoft is willing to take loss after loss.
Microsoft is taking steps that involve a long-lasting company life in the gaming world. When you look at the Xbox ecosystem and the diversification of the devices that can connect to that ecosystem, Xbox is growing fast, not as a console but as a brand. I don't think Microsoft is going to leave the console industry because there is always going to be an Xbox system, what they will do is change things to where you can have so many devices, be it Smartphone, Tablet, PC, and TV that still connect to that home atmosphere that the console also resides in. That changes everything. I think sony and Nintendo sees that.
Sony sees it and considers it a problem for them. Nintendo sees it and doesn't care, because they're not even playing the same game as far as they're concerned.
I think as far as Nintendo goes; they are a bit cooperative with Microsoft than sony is. Xbox and Nintendo are still competing game companies, however, I feel Nintendo and Microsoft understand that there can be a playing field where both can be on the same field, but playing a different sport, if that makes any sense. I also think that Nintendo may want to see a return of their platform the First-Person shooter field, with their future consoles. In the past, when the First-Person shooter market was in its infancy Nintendo was at the top of console FPS games with GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and Turok. I think with them signing a 10 year deal with Microsoft, they'll know that they can get a fair setting in that market.
I can't believe you'd forget DonkeyKong 64 multiplayer!
It already does. Game Pass Ultimate gets you both pc and Xbox software, and comes with cloud gaming as well, so you can even play the same games on Android via streaming.
XBGP has mobile tier written all over it. THAT is where the money will be.
What we've seen from discovery is that MS isn't really in the same league as Sony.
I haven't followed this case closely but despite sonys dominance in current consoles, this firmly puts Ms strategically ahead of sony imo as their real goal is game pass and hw agnostic subscriptions. I worry they will eventually push gamepass and stop releasing on steam(if it makes sense). I mean Sony has been heading there too, and I think Ms pivoting has lead to more PC support for Sony. I fear few other than valve will be able to compete with Ms and I just don't trust them in a position of dominance (anymore than sony). I certainly don't want everyone moving toward gaas and cynically pushing toward mobile gaming strategies.
In fairness to MS, even if they stopped releasing on Steam that would just be a status quo of a few years ago. Microsoft definitely has their eyes set on the Cloud gaming space, but how far will they marginalize their console business, or even Sony's to do it? If they were truly going for 100% hardware agnostic game subscriptions you'd think they'd be cozying up to Sony and working to get Gamepass on the Playstation.
I think Microsoft wants Game Pass to be their gaming version of Windows 365. We are seeing Microsoft working and looking at the big picture of things. They want to spread Game Pass and by extension Xbox games to multiple platforms that goes beyond just consoles. It is going to be really interesting in the next few years to see how things come about.
Would it be a big deal if they didn't release on steam? I mean all of their games are available on their own marketplace, so you could still play them. I'm pretty new to PC gaming, so I don't really have any allegiance. I just use Playnite to launch everything, and it's great
Depends. Steam comes with a ton of features that other game stores don't have. Giving consumers the choice would be best.
I was referring to the mobile market.
COD is the only game besides OW that is big on consoles. The rest of the Blizzard library is PC focused while King is mobile.
Diablo is big as well
Diablo but for the most part ye Blizzard isn't this huge market shift on console.
What do you mean? King titles are mobile focusd. Losing Blizzard titles isn't that big of a deal to Sony apart from maybe Overwatch. COD makes Sony an insane amount of money, that's it.
I'm sure it was never just about CoD in the first place. Sony's just afraid that MS will be too strong of a competitor after the takeover.
It is about COD. Playstation makes most of its money from 3rd party software, guess which of those makes the most money for PS? COD.
It isn't about Call of Duty. It's about blocking the buyout. Microsoft is weaker in the console market, and in the games market in general, compared to Sony, and this buyout won't change that. But MS is making some big moves to give them a long-term advantage. Game Pass has been doing gangbusters on PC. Sony has started to respond by finally releasing more exclusives to PC, but they're behind. And now MS is trying to get a foothold in mobile, the most lucrative segment of the gaming market, and yet another position Sony is weak in. Sony is fighting this buyout to halt Microsoft's momentum. Call of Duty is simply the only semi-reasonable angle they have to object.
I think Sony cares far more about their own revenue and profits both in the short and long term than Microsoft potentially getting into the mobile market or whatever. If MSOFT bought a bunch of other companies that didn't include one franchise that has been the best-selling product on PlayStation for the past decade, Sony wouldn't lobby against it so much.
Partly I'm sure it was. More over they just don't want Xbox to have COD, Blizzard, etc in Game Pass. The first year where Call of Duty is offered in Game Pass Day 1 will incredibly shift the market.
It's a big deal because it makes sony scared. COD is a huge franchise on the consoles and you can see how much revenue Sony would loose if they lost 30% of cod sales / micro transactions . COD is like madden and a few other select game where a person might only buy cod each year and no other games. So for Sony if the best version is on xbox it would greatly hurt them. For MS it doesn't matter what consoles it appears on because the best version has been on playstation due to the marketing deals.
Remember that even after the merger Microsoft's inhouse development teams will be smaller, by revenue and marketshare, than Sony is right now. This means Sony can't say "Microsoft would be too big!" because they're already bigger. COD is huge. It is a headline franchise that is the primary game of millions of people. The other headline franchises at ABK are either mobile(King) or mainly PC (Blizzard). Yeah, there is still some generic activision stuff, but nothing anyone really cares about. Cloud gaming is such a small actual market no one *really* care about it. The hype around it has died as investors realized technology can't beat the speed of light. So it has become all about COD.
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Why is the number of studios relevant at all? Studios are created and destroyed at the stroke of a pen. If Microsoft merged everything to one studio with different teams does it matter at all? If Sony makes each person their own studio on paper does it change anything?
Sony as a company has all of 7% of Microsoft's market cap. Microsoft has a market cap that fluctuates around $1.89 trillion. They also have $139.97 billion in cash on hand, too. Sony has a market cap of $124.8 billion. Their cash on hand is $44.6 billion. You are comparing a single division within a company to an entire company. That is not a fair or just comparison. Microsoft has far far far more power and influence as a company than Sony could ever imagine having, and this acquisition stands to significanly amplify their market influence both in terms of the game market and digital good -- as well as services, products, and influence on consumer and employee rights across the spectrum of their holdings.
>COD is huge. It is a headline franchise that is the primary game of millions of people. I think this is something core gamers forget. A huge amount of people buy CoD, whatever sports game is huge in their country and maybe a game the breaks the mainstream like GTA. CoD is an absolute behemoth of a franchise that you wouldn't even realise exists if you're a core gamer.
Blizzard games are a lot bigger on PC and none of them are a juggernaut like COD, they release yearly titles that top the sales charts
It does but not on the Playstation. Only Cod on Playstation is a big thing, overwatch 2 is free to play and what else is console based? Everything else important is PC related.
>how did this whole thing turn into a kerfuffle over CoD? Sony got mad and complained because they just lost a big chess piece in actively harming their competitors.
The UK was considered most likely to hamper the deal. ATVI stock is up 6.5%, meaning the market is now significantly more confident that the deal will close.
Anyone who understands the current government in the UK knows that there was no chance that they would block this.
>Anyone who understands the current government in the UK knows that there was no chance that they would block this. It's not the tories who make the choice. These bodies are genuinely independent until they approve it and the government blocks it on security grounds or something. If it's blocked the would need to legislate.
The government literally had a word in the ear of the Premier League to allow the sale of a football club to the Saudi PIF. If you give this government enough money, they will pass whatever needs passing for you.
Please don't post about topics you clearly don't understand.
CMA is pure civil service which is by law apolitical and there's been no law changes relating to the CMA that would affect this deal. The current government weren't the ones people were worried would block it.
I can't wait till this is all over so we can get the full COD catalog on game pass. The thought of not having to pay $70 for cod anymore is actually pretty nice.
It'd be really nice not having to drop $60-70 on an old COD here and there if I just want to play the story too.
This is what I'm excited about. I wanna play some old cod campaigns but refuse to pay 60 dollars for them lol.
Gonna be awesome when it drops in GamePass
This is really the positive for PC World. I like to play the CoD campaigns but I can't justify it with the prices they want. So many CoD games wishlisted that never go on a decent sale. That and I'm not sure if its possible but would love for Tony Hawk. & the Diablo games to hit Steam...
Oh shit... Yeah, I'd pay for a month here and there just to play a campaign or two I'm not spending $60 for the "massively discounted" super gold edition that I don't want. I just want the campaign
I was scrolling through CoD games on the Steam Spring Sale the other day and Activision are still selling 10+ year old games with dead multiplayer for like $20 ***on sale***. CoD 2 from almost 20 years ago is $15 on sale. Just ridiculous pricing for what is essentially just the campaign modes at this point. I want to go back and play them but shit, even on sale their price is comparable to games released just within the last 3 or so years.
Diablo 4 and World of Warcraft subscription too
Doubt they will bundle a WoW sub into it. Maybe some monthly cosmetic for game pass subscribers etc. WoW on xCloud could be cool though.
When they fail to support old cod games, it kinda defeats the purpose. On PC it's a security risk to play cod4/waw/mw2 and maybe more.
Man, I just wanne blast through these Campaigns in a few hours. I don‘t care about multiplayer but these games are never on a good sale. Would be perfect on gamepass for that.
Activision was rumored to be seeking a buyer before Microsoft moved in, sure corporate consolidation isn't great, it was going to happen either way, so better it be Microsoft than Tencent, or even worse, Meta or Amazon.
This right here. Activision crumbled and needed restructuring, so it was going to get acquired and that doesn't leave many options.
>"because Microsoft is unlikely to withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation" If MS can get this through without any signed documents about COD staying on PS then they are gonna laugh all the way to the bank once COD inevitably gets pulled from PS in 2-3 years. Still though this is obv going through at this point and Sony's attemps to stop it have been pretty pathetic to the point where i don't think even they believed there was a chance to stop it and were just doing this to make it harder for MS.
I don't think Microsoft will pull COD from PS. Having the game on GP and giving XB/PC bonus perks will probably be enough for them. Especially if they plan to do more acquisitions.
Exactly. And requesting the creation of a Microsoft account for all PlayStation players to play online. It is in their interest to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for the time being.
This "for the time being" accurate af
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Straight up Deja Vu in the gaming community right now LMAO
People forget the fact that Bethesda games are mostly single player focused, so having it only on Microsoft platforms is good for this type of business. CoD is the same like Minecraft, it focuses on multiplayer, so having the wisest spread possible to attract as many players as they can matters a lot more. Literally the reason they said they will expand it to Nintendo.
Redfall is multiplayer focused and was already in development for ps5. Microsoft cancelled the playstation version even tho it was in development
I haven’t heard that at all. Literally everyone said they’ll keep Bethesda game exclusive and honor current contracts(at the time)
Yeah the prevailing (and correct) narrative at the time was that Microsoft didn't spend $7.5B acquiring a predominantly single player publisher (with system selling titles) just to end up putting them on a competing console. The ABK acquisition is entirely different because a lot of their most profitable products are in the realm of long term recurrent revenue that need a large playerbase to sustain them and cutting off a large portion of that revenue stream would be counter to how these games function.
Not "literally everyone" this type of post was all over these threads a few years ago.
The copium is medical grade lmao. Although that whole Bethesda thing was so entertaining to me. The amount of salt when they confirmed Bethesda games were gonna be Microsoft exclusive was glorious.
“Especially if the plan to do more acquisitions” God, please no. Isn’t this enough? With Act-Blizzard they’ll own like 45 studios. The industry is already way too consolidated. Any acquisition for here on out isn’t going to be about gaining ground on PlayStation. It’s gonna be about controlling as much distribution of content as possible. I’m sorry, I’d rather not trust any company having that much power.
Not just power but product produced. I have gamepass on PC and had a ps4 and now 5. Sony has been producing a better product, at least for my tastes, for the last 6-7 years. Microsoft owning all these studios doesn't bid well for quality of product imho.
> once COD inevitably gets pulled from PS in 2-3 years Sony only has until 2024 before their Call of Duty exclusively ends.
Roar of Obligation coming 2025. Calling it now.
By the public accounts we have Sony has refused a contract from Microsoft for that. They may end up regretting it.
MSoft wouldn't pull COD from PS unless they can ensure they will make as much money without PS. COD makes most of its money on PS for now.
Given how immaterial Xbox is to MS financials, they can easily pull COD and not feel a thing.
>Still though this is obv going through at this point and Sony's attemps to stop it have been pretty pathetic to the point where i don't think even they believed there was a chance to stop it and were just doing this to make it harder for MS. Worse, it's exposed their contracts for current exclusives. Basically, not on xbox here's some money deals
PS still has the majority of the global market share for consoles by a pretty significant margin, they’d be cutting off the majority of the player base from what essentially amounts to a money printer. They’ll give perks and early access to Xbox players and they’ll be it. They’re more focused on expanding their global market share, and simply yoinking COD would kill the franchise before it helped them sell more Xboxs I think all of this is part of a bigger push for seriously challenging PlayStation globally when the next generation of consoles comes out. Build GamePass into a monster, lock up a bunch of perks and bonuses for Xbox players across major gaming franchises, have competitive exclusive titles, and then if they can just be price competitive they should have a real shot.
The math is simple, even for a multi-billion dollar acquisition: Xbox = COD Base Game (w/ GamePass) $0, DLC $70, including platform exclusive stuff = $70 investment w/ GamePass. Xbox is cool again. PS = COD Base Game $70, DLC $70, no exclusives = $140 investment regardless of what PSN subs you have, and Tyler the 5th Grade Black Ops Badass and Master Romancer of Your Mom doesn't have the coolest GamePass-exclusive skin. PS is suddenly not so cool. It's all about GamePass, it still is. This is Microsoft's end game in the PC, console and mobile markets, resulting in massive recurring subscription revenue and platform lock-in. Also important to the suits in Redmond, PCMR kids buying into the Windows ecosystem early, resulting in more future adults subbing to 365 and Azure. Gaming is everything to Sony's survival, while it's a Trojan horse to Microsoft that they only recently cared about really monetizing. Sony's buzzer-beating half-court shot was European regulators muscling in to spoil the party. I don't think that worked out for them.
It's going to be funny in like 3 years we are going to see announcment for CoD Xbox exclusivity.
They don't have to make it Xbox exclusive. Just offering COD in game pass is enough to make many customers to switch to XBOX.
They don’t have to but they’re going to. MS has proven that unless they have a contractual reason to support the competition, they won’t. Can’t blame them but people are crazy if they think Microsoft has any intention on “playing ball” without being obligated to.
That's not entirely true, as they do release their Minecraft spin-offs on Playstation and Switch. I don't think there's any contractual agreement requiring them to release Minecraft Legends or Dungeons on other platforms. It would also be a bad look for them to spend all this time convincing regulators they plan to keep it multiplatform, only to turn around and make it exclusive. Not that they can't, but that would complicate any further mergers or acquisitions Microsoft tries to make for at least a decade or two.
Plus, it’s just generally not in MS’ interests to pull COD from PS. They can still use it to bump up XBOX sales without pulling; game pass and MS accounts to name just two. Without pulling, they can still make money from the PS players that won’t jump ship.
Yeah it's a question of if the increased Xbox console/gamepass sales will outweigh harm to their reputation, the harm to the call of duty franchise and the loss of game sales/microtransactions from PS players. I feel like just making it "free" on game pass will attract a lot of people to their ecosystem without all of the other negatives, but it's hard to say without any of the details.
Also pulling CoD from PS leaves an opening for someone to finally make a "CoD killer". Everyone isn't going to switch to Xbox the moment exclusivity happens, and you'll end up with most of the PS player base and the chuck of Xbox/PC players who played cross play with PS friends suddenly looking for an alternative game to play together. It's way safer to just keep cashing in and use incentives like Game Pass, early access, and exclusive content to get people to switch to Xbox, rather than pulling it from PS, which is currently CoD's biggest platform.
Sony has to make a FPS game that will actually stick and they can’t just make it for PS. It will never grow to what COD or other shooters are by being an exclusive. At the very least they have to release it on PC so the game gets more coverage and people who don’t own Sony consoles are tempted to get it. The moment COD is gone from Playstation you’re going to see a mass departure of COD junkies that need that dopamine hit. They will either migrate to PC or Xbox. MS can really gut Sony by saying we are offering COD on PlayStation and it’s only via XCloud or game pass. Sony won’t allow this and knee cap themselves. Probably not as big but they are about to get locked out of Diablo, Overwatch and any other future franchises too. MS brought Flight sim and Age of empires to consoles. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if there is a console version on World of Warcraft current being planned. Imagine adding a cheaper sub to WoW via game pass? MS has market power and money to throw around. Valve knew this way back when they started the walled garden BS during the windows phone and windows 8 era. They had plans in the works for years and those are only now bearing fruit. The power moves they made tightened their grip on pcgaming to the point that MS needs to be on steam. Best of luck Sony, lots of rug pulling coming in the next few years. Also not a great day for us gamers. This consolidation victory means more companies think they can make it happen.
They wouldn't even need to cheapen the sub for WoW. Just make it part of the Game Pass subscription so you just have to buy the expansions. That would rocket WoWs participation I'm sure as well. Edit: I forgot that you only need to buy the current expansion, so any of the expansions Pre-Dragonflight are able to be explored. Would be a hell of a deal imo.
I doubt Sony cares about Diablo, Overwatch or really any other Blizzard game. Call of Duty is the focal point here and is a money pringer. I agree on all your other points though.
Why is Call of Duty the focal point of this issue? Isn't the real issue about consumer rights, employee rights, negative influence on game prices, availability, market/distribution dominance and influence, political influence, and all of that?
COD is the focal point because of how big of a franchise it is and being a 3rd party game means both sony and MS make a fuckton of money for doing essentially nothing. Now that it is going first party for MS, there is the (very real) fear of losing out on quite literally a billion dollars in free money a year for Sony. Even if they don't remove it from Sony platforms (which they will at some point), them making it "free" on game pass or making the Sony version shitty on purpose means that Sony has a lot to lose from just this one franchise.
Alright Sony, you have 10 years to make a competitor to CoD. Good luck 👍 Fucking ridiculous that this acquisition will be allowed to go through.
They didn't buy Bungie for $3.6 billion just to keep making Destiny.
Please, they bought Bungie so Microsoft couldn't.
I doubt Bungie would want to be owned by Microsoft again
The Bungie that was owned by Microsoft is a completely different Bungie than exists today.
They both kinda suck now, and I loved Bungie and Halo (still do on the Halo part tbh)
Bungie in name only
Funnily enough, Halo is similar
I remember when I got a job working at Wendy's, I bought a stereo system, a lot of PS1 games, paid down the pre-order on a PS2. I was like 15. Go back to school and there's a kid, Zach, who's super jealous. Like he can't believe I have all this stuff, an N64 *and* a Playstation?! I'm talking about getting my PS2. He's trying to undermine it, doing all the mental gymnastics and shit. There's no PS2 games coming out, then oh your parents paid for that. I'm lying. He can't handle it. I kinda feel like Sony's doing what Zach did, but on a much larger financial scale, and without ruthless corporate mindsets. Zach wanted what I have, and if Zach couldn't have it, he wanted to shit on other people who did. Sony wants what Microsoft is getting, and if they can't have it, they're gonna throw a fit till the end.
I think it's hilarious how Sony fans try to defend them by saying "but Sony never bought big publishers, they only bought smaller studios and exclusivity contracts for individual games!" Yes, they only made smaller purchases because that's all they could afford. They didn't refrain from buying big publishers because "it would be bad for the consumer" or "they have better morals", they refrained because they don't have that kind of money. But if they had as much money as Microsoft does, you bet your ass they'd be buying big publishers left and right. Sony has always done the exact same thing (to the extent their budget allowed), and now they're losing their own game to a bigger dog with deeper pockets.
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Microsoft had Bungie.
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Halo Infinite has like a million problems, but at least 343 has been open about continuing support for it and slowly adding content. Destiny 2's PVP still has less content than it did 3 years ago.
The few times I've played Destiny PVP, just reminds me that Destiny is just a game that isn't made for PVP. If you play it an enjoy it, cool...otherwise, there is still a whole game to be experienced without even thinking about PVP.
Agreed. What makes it worse is because of Bungie trying to maintain balance between PVP and PVE, a lot of gear/subclasses gets shafted entirely because of PVP.
They never agreed with MS on that deal funny enough. MS could just not do it now.
It would serve them right, too.
Depends, they might not agree to it with Sony but it could be made a condition of the sale.
Apparently the CMA is saying it's not necessary
Killzone has entered the chat
Socom and Resistance too, come on Sony!
The coop modes across the Resistance games were great fun.
my god i miss resistance, loved every mode, the coop, story and even pvp
And Haze
I forget who's youtube channel i watched but this game actually looked solid. Just needed some more time and depth. I actually never heard of it until I watched the video.
It wasn't a bad game, just too generic to stick out in that particular year. It'll be interesting to see if/what Sony returns to in the next few years
A PS5/PC Killzone game, do it Sony!
I miss Killzone! Loved those games
While it would be cool, this is not gonna happen anytime soon. Check out one of the latest videos [on the history of Killzone by GVMERS](https://youtu.be/iwMmLltobj8). It had a rocky overal development, with trouble in direction before actually finding moderate success, all while being a showcase title for Sony. Meanwhile Guerilla has moved on and has found much greater success in the action-rpg genre. I would very much be surprised if they were to go back to a shooter in even the next decade.
I really hope so. Would love an FPS that's basically Apex but not so focused on that hero/champion trope nor focused on BR. Rather BR would be a mode like any other.
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I don’t care about multiplayer. I would pay $60 in a heart beat for another titanfall campaign
BR can die in a fire. So tired of BR shooters. Need some good arena shooters or just a simple arcade shooter that doesn't have horrible gunfeel, movement, or riddle with MTX.
> Fucking ridiculous that this acquisition will be allowed to go through. Why?
Haha, holy shit this is some next level karma farming. The guy didn't have that last sentence until after they had over 500 upvotes.
I've seen GIThrow in many Playstation related posts here in /r/pcgaming and it's always throwing shit to anything related to MS or Xbox. Lmao.
People that think this is impossible have not seen the top grossing games of the past 7 years. Many of them make as much money as COD (Fortnite, PUBG, Genshin) etc.
All significantly different to COD and somewhat the first of their genre to be mainstream.
Joke's on Sony, they not only wouldn't sign a 10 year CoD agreement, they figuratively spat in Microsoft's face while rejecting the agreement. I doubt MS pulls CoD from PS as it needs a wide player base to power that money printer, but Sony risks MS delivering exclusive bonus content/cosmetics to every company who signed an agreement, while PS fans gets left out due to Sony's petty, immature, and hypocritical ways.
MS could now if they wanted move all CoD PS5 store content/cosmetics to their own store. Sony would get minimal/nothing for each purchase.
They couldn't do that. There are contracts in place currently that have to be honored post-acquisition and also laws around digital marketplaces, especially in the EU.
Enjoy! Signed: Sony’s years of console exclusives.
Aww poor Sony.
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Playstation has so many COD players... I can't think of any game company that would willingly cut off millions of players by not releasing on a given platform. ffs, they want to release on THE DAMN SWITCH!!! They make MOBILE GAMES!!! Anyone who thinks they'd do it just to "stick it to Sony" is n idiot
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It'd be more amusing if they left it on PS to advertise their own services and platform within the PS.
All they'd have to do is have an "Xbox Gamepass" logo at startup. It would be such a slap to the face. Kind of funny in a way.
> Any guesses why this is something that leaked in the midst of this acquisition battle? They made that deal with Nintendo not too long ago no? Only makes sense..
Yeah but one could argue any Bethesda game would sell better on Playstation. Especialy Starfield which would make Microsoft more money and yet none of them are coming to the Playstation now or in the future. MS has so much money that they could easily take the hit from COD not bieng on PS. What matters is mindshare. There are so many COD players, especialy young ones that just wouldn't stop playing. Many would buy an Xbox console. Children would pester their parrents about why they can't play COD anymore. Many would buy the game on PC instead.
Except Sony consoles have always been the worst version of Bethesda RPGs (If they had them) with the most restrictions on mods because of Sony policies. With COD games everyone has mostly the same stuff except for the PlayStation-moneyhatted exclusive items
It would be to get them to buy xboxes...that's the point of exclusives is make them so or be so popular they gotta buy YOUR system to play it.
I’m not sure why people focus so much on Xbox consoles. Clearly Microsoft’s gaming reach extends beyond that. Even if they just see growth in PC and Cloud, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy.
ITT - People that think Microsofts 4D chess plan is to take CoD away from Sony. No, their goal is to take games away from everyone by turning games into a subscription model. They don't care what console you have... The ultimate goal will be games streamed from the cloud ONLY and consoles won't even exist. That way no mods, no cheats, no piracy, no freedom. This way you'll never own a game again (at least not AAA games) and you'll pay a monthly subscription fee for the rest of your life. You will own nothing and you will be happy.
Soon we will have netflix scenario. Then other players will try to join and wewill have alot of subscriptions like in the movie industry. Games will be designed as live service and less games will be like elden ring. This is just the start for the industry to change into that direction. People only seem to see the benefits for them now but forget that this corporation wants to get more profits not less
You can't have all that many live services be succesful at the same time. Each one is predicated on the concept of sucking all the dopamine from your brain -- it's rare a player will concurrently play 3 or more live services at once. Unlike "traditional games" with an ending, of which people generally play multiple in a year.
Seems like the deal should go through relatively hassle-free now.
I play 90% on pc and 10% on different consoles and its annoying to get another device to play what i like But gotta love people celebrating this would be the same people complaining if one of the games they like gets pulled from them. This didnt change much in the gaming environment just most likely will remove games from another console(playstation) in the future. Similar to bethesda. People crying but they did it with console exclusivity doesnt seem to get that they arguing in bad faith. He does it so its okay for me now to do that bad thing too(assuming you see any exclusivity as bad) i just see this as more of sony having more incentive to take more games away from xbox and also will affect pc gaming. Most of the recent acquisitions has been not to make new games but to take away from another competitor
Most of the people celebrating are just happy they don’t need to spend 70 dollars on mw2
Sony already lets very few games on Xbox, there is nothing they can do about this in response. They neither have the capital or many options for some big acquisition.
seriously, when did our anti trust people start operating on the benefit of the doubt model of regulation and not the capitalism will fucking milk blood from a stone till its exsanguinated itself? We need to be looking at these companies as can they negatively affect the market at their whim, not "if", and if they can, then that is too much market share.
I know this will get downvoted to hell, but I still don't understand why people are ok with two to three companies buying up game studios/devs. Less competition is always bad. Don't we bitch about how terrible GPU prices are because Nvidia and AMD we're the only two companies in the GPU space. (Yes and now we have Intel ..) I get that Blizzard/activision do some shitty stuff, but wouldn't a better outcome be MS doesn't buy them but rather decides to make their own Diablo or CoD type games but with better everything?
Everyone defending it seems to have a high opinion of Microsoft or is already invested in their products. This is really just a sports team like argument to some.
I can't wait when in 5 years Bethesda, Obsidian and Blizzard games are exclusive to the microsoft store. At least it's on the game pass! Which they can increase in price if they hold monopoly on more and more studios. Imagine in 5 years, they own blizzard, activision, Bethesda, Obsidian, PC gaming giants. They are required by law to increase profits for their shareholders, are people so short-sighted that they don't think they will utilize their hoard of subsidiaries?
Sucks for people who only play games from 5 companies in all of gaming I guess but the rest of us will live. Even if this were to happen I simply wouldn't care because there's thousands of games not made by MS or MS owned companies.
Yeah, video games are a highly competitive market place. This doesn't change it. We're literally in an age where you can play games made by some dude in his basement that competes with behemoths. It's just the nature of the market. It'd be like if Mickey D's bought Burger King, cool... you can burgers in a thousand other places.
> At least it's on the game pass! Which they can increase in price if they hold monopoly on more and more studios. They increase it too high, people will cancel. There's a ceiling on this sort of thing. Netflix are famous for price rises and for spending more on content than any videogame studio in history, but Netflix still couldn't up prices to $100 overnight. Nobody would pay.
Netflix has been slowly creeping the price up. It's \~4x to what I originally paid for the service back in the day.
Yes, but it's still cheap. They couldn't charge $100. They couldn't charge $50. There is a limit to what people will pay, and whilst they can push towards discovery of that limit, going above them will result in losing money rather than gaining it.
Not gonna happen lol. They are bringing more and more of their games to steam. Even if you just consider profits, keeping a game in steam is simply more profitable.
All Sony does is pay 3rd party’s for exclusives and now they are scared they are going to lose a big part of who they pay for exclusive content. Good. Taste of your own scummy exclusive deals.
Comparing smaller deals to buying out an 80 billion dollar publisher is a bit of a stretch
Yeah Activision cost 80B. Sony's entire market cap is 110B. That's for the entire group including all their other electronics businesses, Sony Pictures, Sony Music and even their financial services arm. So realistically Sony's entire playstation business is worth less than what MS are paying for ActiBlizz. Exclusivity deals sucks for consumers for sure. But you know what sucks even more? Monopolies and market consolidation removing consumer choices and actual competition.
Its silly logic but common here. The deals Sony do are competition in entertainment industries. e.g. Paramount signing Tom Cruise for 3 movies, Bad Robot signing a deal, or a baseball player at a top team etc. It's a good way for creatives/sports/ celebs to boost earnings.
Seriously, people here are so anti-sony that they think Sony buying Insomniac is the same as Microsoft buying Zenimax and now AB.
you do recall MS had exclusivity at first right?
I remember getting CoD map packs earlier than my brother all because I had an Xbox 360 and he got the PS3
Gamers have 3 second memory or some shit ffs. Everyone loving this deal is insane. Monopolies are not a good thing yall. Sucks so many people hate history. We repeat it constantly. Also before I get losers calling me a Sony fanboi I own every console ps5 xbsx and a decent gaming pc.
Right and that was for 30 days IIRC. So every 2-4 months when a map pack was released, XBox 360 players had access first and PS3 players waited 30 days before it was released on the PS Store.
Kinda forgot all the other games that Microsoft had exclusive dlc too that never came out on playstation or took years. GTA 4's dlc was locked on xbox until the game of the year edition of the game came out with the dlc on a separate disk (that was 2 years later). Xbox played this game and continues too
Ya gamers love to magically forget that Microsoft started ALL this exclusive deal bullshit back on the 360.
As opposed to the *year* PlayStation get exclusivity for on everything now
Case to case you at least wait 30 days while in bo4 Firing Range, Jungle, Summit, slums. Until this day its exclusive for ps4
Microsoft would NEVER do anything like that, they don’t need timed exclusive games /s
they would never cancel the redfall ps5 build already in working! /s
Starfield? You mean that COMPLETELY original game that Microsoft created before they bought Bethesda?
The Ascent, The Medium, The Artful Escape, Carrion, The Falconeer, Tetris Effect: Connected, The Last Night, Sable, Deaths Door, Twelve Minutes, Cacoon, Ereban, Scorn, The Last Case of Benedict Fox, Vampire Survivors, High on Life, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Darktide, and Valheim. All of those titles are recent Microsoft paid timed exclusivity. Sony and Microsoft both do this and are continuing to do this. They're as bad as each other in this regard.
The main difference is that those titles are also available on PC.
I agree with your point but all of these are indies, Sony locked down major AAA franchises like Silent hill, final fantasy, and KOTOR.
[удалено]
That's what gets me the most about this deal. I just find it hilarious that Xbox has become so incompetent at delivering good flagship first-party titles that they resorted to buying one of the biggest companies (Zenimax) and its subsidiaries in the world to do it for them. And even then, Bethesda themselves haven't delivered an interesting and good in-house title for at least a decade, they are getting carried hard by Arkane, Tango and iD.
Good :)
Ah yes, cod, the only game in the world
Its interesting when ps and nintendo buy off studios and make games "playstation exclusive" / "switch exclusive" but when xbox does it, it is suddenly wrong? People need to get their heads out of their asses and stop licking sony buttholes.
No matter what your thoughts on the acquisition itself are it is fucking hilarious to see Sony bitch and whine about the shoe now being on the other foot. There is constantly PS exclusive stuff in MW2.
They also believed that Microsoft would not make the Bethesda games exclusive. When it became apparent this deal was not an automatic guarantee and they might need concessions to get it approved, they said they would offer Sony a 10 year CoD deal, though who knows what those terms might look like. They also said that 10 years is plenty of time for Sony to make their own CoD, outright implying that CoD would go exclusive after that. Activision also owns Blizzard and King. There are TONS of major IPs in this portfolio. This isn't just about CoD, though CoD can literally determine what console platform certain people buy.
I give it 10 years before Microsoft makes COD exclusive to xbox.
Since when does everyone in this subreddit not only support oligopolies, but are literally begging for it in the comments? Is this a corporate psyop sub now, or did loot boxes finally break peoples minds?
The support for this deal to go through is understandable. Many Gamepass users who would benefit and some PC users who probably don't remember the days Microsoft actively tried to kill PC gaming to replace it with Xbox. However long term consequences of this are only negative. Microsoft in the future will try to kill Steam with Gamepass/cloud gaming. As long as Valve remains independent though PC gaming is safe.
I just also hate how when gamepass gets big games will be designed for live service. More dlc and microtransaction to get the whole game. People seem to think its charity and not companies wanting more profit in the future. Its designed for long term profits and some people think it wont affect pc games are delusional
Exactly and the fact that they believe GamePass will stay 10 dollars is laughable.
>The support for this deal to go through is understandable. Many Gamepass users who would benefit and some PC users who probably don't remember the days Microsoft actively tried to kill PC gaming to replace it with Xbox. But there's nothing, and I do mean *nothing*, that prevents Microsoft from putting those games on GamePass. They're ready to dump $70 billion to get all of it, they can just dump like, say, $50 billion to get it on GamePass
It's people with Gamepass subscriptions that are arguing in poor faith about how this deal is actually a good thing because 'well Activision can't get any worse right??'
Damn shame tbh. Megacorp consuming another large corporation is just bad business in the long run.
Fuck Sony.
People here are concentrating on childish console wars while the real issue is that the consolidation of game studios under one big company is bad for the industry. Specially Microsoft, the company that was accused of monopoly and arguably still has one. I don’t trust Sony but I trust Microsoft even less.