Xbox Accuses Sony Of 'Paying' To Block Games From Game Pass

Microsoft spent billions to gate keep so I don't see any problem with Sony doing the same just on a smaller scale. They both have their own strategies to get exclusives

And also people don't need to act like Sony are doing this to every AAA third party game and use that as an excuse as to why gamepass isn't getting big games, they are obviously referring to square enix in particular final fantasy and capcom with resident evil village which was already leaked.

But everyone blames sony and not bat an eyelid towards the greedy devs who took their money? If sony are scum then so are Activision, Bethesda, capcom and square for taking their cash and their terms.

Pretty obvious from that, none of them respect or care for xbox

Well they’re not wrong… I mean the fact that the only console to get Bethesda games since xbox bought them is a PlayStation speaks volumes.
70 billion won’t even get this years or next years cod on gamepass.
Let’s not even delve into all the 3rd party deals of well established brands they’ve blocked from coming to xbox full stop.

It’s so refreshing to see xbox bite back.

Long live the console wars!!!

Mind you, they simply wouldn't have said that if there wasn't some truth to it...

@uptownsoul exactly, Microsoft buying Bethesda was the reason I got me a series S last year as I know i would need one eventually to play Bethesda games, so if people want to play final fantasy 7 remake or forspoken etc then buy a playstation.

Both companies are spending their money to make people buy their consoles, just using different tactics

@UltimateOtaku91 isn’t it strange how 2 of the 3 companies you mentioned as being ‘scum’ for taking Sonys money have since been sold…and square has sold half its studios and long rumoured to be being bought by Sony… almost like all of them needed the money.

Also, who’s ‘everyone’ that’s blaming just Sony? You mean people on Xbox sites? Of course they see things a certain way.
But let’s not pretend Microsoft didn’t get backlash from when they make timed exclusive deals with established franchises - Tomb raider got far more media back lash and outcry for being xbox timed exclusive than street fighter 5 or final fantasy 7 ever did - those deals were pretty much applauded by big sites.

I think the difference is the exclusivity windows. Sony usually holds exclusivity with their 3rd party deals for years. Where as Xbox is usually a few months. That’s a big difference.
Also, during the 360 era xbox never held back full on game modes with games like Cod when they had marketing rights. They would get map packs first (standard)…but wouldn’t have activision lock off game modes. Where as Sony pay for things like spec ops to be a year exclusive… yet the games cost the same.
Sony just does things a little bit different… a little bit more spite.

Both companies are doing this in their own way. But within the context of this situation I think basically MS is presenting this as an argument for why the act-blizzard deal should go through. They’re saying Sony has no room to talk when they participate in gatekeeping themselves. If MS were arguing this outside of the context of trying to finish a purchase it would be more lame and those bringing up MS’s purchases as gatekeeping would be more justified. But here they’re not saying “we don’t do this but Sony does”. They’re saying “Our deal should go through. Sony has no room to talk here”. If we’re going to say both companies do this and it’s “just business” then Sony paying block fees is fine, and so is MS buying Act-blizzard. In the context of this argument; saying “this is just business” means MS’s deal is fine.

A separate discussion can occur for how this will affect gaming in the long run. That’s worth talking about. But for now, MS has the better point. Sony has no room to speak against gatekeeping IF they are gatekeeping themselves. And that seems to be so.

Is buying a publisher different than blocking fees and timed exclusivity deals? Yeah by degree. But when using blocking fees, timed exclusivity deals, and paying to prevent cross play (hopefully y’all didn’t forget that one) leads to increased business for you, and less for your competitor, then your competitor is allowed to bite back with its own position of strength. In this case, not the position of being market leader and controlling deals with third party companies (which is Sony’s position), but being in the position of having deep pockets to gain a larger share of the market. We’re all flailing and reacting. But in the end, MS has made the point that Sony’s arguments against their purchase are hypocritical. Not that Sony shouldn’t be doing the block deals.

@Bleachedsmiles not just people on xbox sites but people on social media and even playstation sites like pushsquare, like they forgot what Microsoft went through in 1998.

I totally agree that sony are more aggressive when it comes to timed exclusives and modes etc but that has to be understandable considering how much money they have to spend compared to Microsoft, Sony can't spend over 80 billion on tow do the biggest publishers, so instead then spend millions on smaller deals to attract people to their system, both playstation and xbox are doing different things but aiming for the same outcome. Heck I bet Microsoft paid more for Activision than sony paid for all of their studios and timed exclusive deals combined. That the size of the competition sony are up against here, I don't blame them for doing whatever they can afford to undercut the competition.

I bet Nintendo are hiding in a corner hoping no one brings up their gatekeeping of monster hunter rise and octopath traveler

The Push side is big fun right now. Everybody is angry at MS for being hypocrites, when MS isn't condemning the practice, they are just pointing out that Sony are doing the thing that they are complaining about MS doing.

Sony have money to burn, and rather than spend it on their PSPlus service, which still needs a lot of work, they are spending it to hold Game Pass back, and the fans got angry at MS for it.

Sony are screwing over Xbox fans and PS fans. All, to make sure (not that PS fans get good games but) that most of the profits of these games go in to Sony pockets. People should be upset with Sony.

@UltimateOtaku91 please explain how xbox spent billions of dollars to gatekeep before Sony was doing it? Sony had been paying for exclusivity rights for years. Microsoft said bet, we'll do the same. Extortion they actually have "screw you" money. So they wetter able to but zenimax, instead of paying for the exclusivity to deathloop and ghost wire Tokyo. Microsoft started giving Sony a taste of their own medicine, and they don't like it

@uptownsoul tbh I remember being more surprised the dlc for gta 4 actually made its way to PlayStation at all. MS paid a lot of millions for them at the time that people pretty much assumed they were exclusive exclusive.
People forget just how much more aggressive MS was back in the early 360 days…but also the fact that they got so much slack for that from mainstream media that it reflected in their strategy with the Xbox one going forward… there’s a reason why one of the richest company’s in the world ‘lost’ it’s cod marketing. You can still see the results of that backlash today with Xbox’s reluctance to do third party marketing deals of AAA games compared to how they used to.

But dlc that came out years after the release of gta4 isn’t the same as locking the other platform out of modes, of course. Ps3 got exactly the same game and content day and date.

Where as that generation Sony was doing deals with EA where games like dead space had extra content, even a full on extra game…for the same price they were charging the Xbox version.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yeah I don’t blame Sony at all for being aggressive where they can. It’s definitely comes at the expense of Xbox gamers…but then that’s business. Regardless of Phil saying how much he’s looking forward to PlayStation games, neither company are in the business of pushing gamers to the other platform. I’m glad we’re seeing the reality of that now…a peek behind the curtain. If you’re a gamer that’s a fan of games rather than some misguided brand loyalty then you’re going to reap the rewards of this.

Sony is like its most fervent fan base, they feel that they deserve everything and have every right but everyone else doesn't. And Sony fan base is more worried about everyone else enjoying anything than enjoying themselves.

@Royalblues of course it's sustainable for a trillion $ company like Microsoft

Doesn't surprise me, Sony is a real petty company

paying for exclusivity is scummy and blocking is scummy.

If you want something exclusive stump up the cash and buy the developer or leave it alone

I don't see this as fiery or outlandish. Sony routinely pays to keep 3rd party games off of Xbox for years at a time. The prospect of release can't even be commented on.

I don't believe for a single second that Sony would ever dare doing this sort of scummy deals or simply money-hat just to preserve their dominant position on the gaming landscape 🤣🤣.

Oh, the the Sony foot soldiers are here to fiercely defend them.....hello fellas - @uptownsoul and UltimateOtaku91, where is the rest of the crew?😉

Isn’t this just like Disney complaining Netflix paid Warner Bros. a ton of money for exclusive streaming rights to ‘Friends’ and this somehow stopped their business from growing?

3rd party exclusives have been around since old days. Nintendo made sure loads of 8-bit titles stayed away from the Master System.

Suck it up, Microsoft.

@RadioHedgeFund

"Suck it up, Microsoft."

They are literally doing just that with their mega acquisitions, don't think that's the wisest thing to suggest here 😉.

Funny, all I keep hearing from Sony fans is how Playstation is this incredible brand with such amazing exclusives that GamePass isn't even a concern to them. Yet here Sony is... feeling so threatened by GamePass they are paying to have games blocked from it.

@Banjo- As the old saying goes; they don't exactly love their favorite platform, they simply hate yours.

@SplooshDmg Sounds like a Megadeth album

@YuNeek23 xbox have had loads of times exclusives throughout the years, big ones such as tomb raider, titan fall, Pubg console, the medium, Stalker 2, tales of vesperia, a few other jrpgs during the 360 era, gta 4 dlc

People can't ignore the fact Microsoft do this as well, it's just sony do it a lot better and more frequent as that's their strategy as its more affordable. I mean Nintendo paid 6 million to make monster hunter rise a timed exclusive, that how cheap it is

@Sol4ris Touché! It comes off as a bit rich though of Microsoft complaining about business practices that have existed in the games industry since the 1980’s.

Microsoft does exactly the same though like Persona 5 got removed from PS+ Collection a month before Persona 5 Royal was announced for Game Pass and Bethesda games got removed from PS Now after Microsoft acquired them.

@UltimateOtaku91

I think it’s important to separate the difference between gatekeeping a select few - which has been a practice employed by everyone in the gaming industry for as long as I can remember - and the hoarding of powerhouse developers and publishers which is a totally different and slightly more worrying practice.

@Banjo- I was gonna comment on this, then seen your comment and couldn’t have put it better myself.

@uptownsoul

"And I can't possibly take them seriously"

I totally understand you man, console wars are an extremely serious matter😅.

But do tell, what did Sony gain by blocking GOW streaming on Xbox via a third party service app no less. The game was released on PC, played by anyone with a passing interest myself included (great game by the way ) yet Sony went out of their way to block it. So forgive me if I think it was/is a scummy move that achieved not much except bad optics for Sony.

I have no loyalty to either Co, I've had all PS consoles and all Xb bar the Xbox 1X.

I personally think that all of this is ridiculous and in no way is about the gamers, its business out to make money that's it!

I'm not a fan of any company taking established franchises that were created multiplatform and making it exclusive to one company and I don't think its right that any company should be able to block 3rd party titles from coming out on all platforms at the same time.

Through all of this, I feel this doesn't show either company in a good light and what I forsee in the future is both companies refusing to do Advertising rights on 3rd party games (not publishers they have bought) due to both being worried that the 3rd party title could come out day 1 on GP or PS Premiun/extra although Sony obviously doesn't have a history of this yet apart from Stray so only time will tell if this is something they want to keep doing.

I would love all this Console wars stuff to be based solely on 1st party games and hardware only then it would truely be down to the gamers which console they would prefer to own but now we're in a situation where to enjoy all games available on console, you need to own both and right now in the UK that comes in at £1000+ which is utter madness and once again not something the players should have to do.

Obviously this is just my opinion though 😁

@trev666 yeh but....the ps fans don't see it that way ,even if Microsoft does buy the companies look at the *hit they get

In Thier eyes if Sony does it it's fine but if Microsoft do it omg their the scum of the earth

"It's only fair when we do it." - Sony

The pot calling kettle black, do microsoft want their console exclusives to be playable on psplus? Of course not, they (sony and microsoft) are both guilty of this.

Reasons like this are why I ditched Sony years ago. Microsoft isn't innocent but Sony is malicious.

So cute to see Sony fanboys in here to flood the comments section... Guessing UltimateGeek91 went on Push Square to recruit some reinforcements.
About time Microsoft strikes back and calls it out. Sure, Microsoft still does exclusive deals. But, it's not even close with how much Sony gatekeeps as their primary strategy. They slap annoying "exclusive" carve outs on just about everything. Earlier betas, dlc, timed dlc, game pass blocks, timed exclusive etc... Microsoft has done some of that, however, they are innovating to a games as service, as a new business strategy. But for Sony, gatekeeping has been and is continuing to be their main strategy...

@UltimateOtaku91 they have, but again don't was playing that game first. Sony has been buying exclusivity since they began making video game consoles. Hell, the reason that Sony is in the position they are, is because they went on a major buying spree in the 90's which completely screwed over Sega. Now they're complaining because it's harrowing to them? It's hypocritical as hell.

And let's not act like xbox didn't get a heap of backlash for the exclusivity of thing raider and other games. They also don't hold the exclusivity licenses nearly at long as Sony. Before the delay, stalker 2 was revealed to be a 3 month exclusive deal. Not very long at all. Death's door, tunic, the ascent, all those have appeared on playstation less than a year after release. While Sony has tried to extend exclusivty deals to keep games of Xbox. You can't complain about someone playing the game the way you do. Sony started this, now they should be big enough to deal with it

@wiiware don't had been doing this since the 90s. Who ate they to complain about it being done to them?

@Grumblevolcano what games have they removed from playstation? Because I'm pretty sure they haven't. Sony had been doing this since the 90s. Now someone does it to them, and they complain. It's hypocrisy at its finest

@Royalblues What I think happened was all PS+ Collection games had to be relicensed because of the new tiers (extra/premium) and Microsoft prevented Persona 5 from being relicensed because of the Game Pass deal for Royal to try to show that Xbox players care about JRPGs.

@Royalblues When the Yakuza games came to Xbox, PS+ Extra/Premium didn't exist so SEGA knows that Game Pass helped the franchise be a big success on Xbox. Persona's popularity on Xbox is yet to be seen.

@YuNeek23 Tomb raider reboot 2 (rise of the tomb raider) released on 2015, console exclusive on xbox. The reason microsoft didn't make more console exclusive deals is because their console are losing to sony, in the xbox 360 era where xbox is the winner, microsoft do console exclusive deals everywhere.

@Royalblues Anime licenses exclusive to sony are really really bad deals for customers because sony really like to censors now.

Microsoft understands the core competency of the video game industry. "Delivering rich interactive media and experiences." The business model is the only thing changung and it gices consumers high quality at an affordable cost like Netflix did to Blockbuster. Same core competency but different business models. Sony wants to slow it but knows it can't be stopped.

@wiiware @Royalblues sony own funimation and Crunchyroll, sites that only dub and sub anime from Japan, Sony do not create their own anime shows so there is no way sony are controlling what anime you can watch, especially as Crunchyroll pretty much sub every anime that comes out in Japan whilst funimation dub the most popular ones, and in fact every year funimation are dubbing more and more anime than the previous year and this is from someone who watches hundreds of episodes of anime every year.

There are still countless echhi (sexual) anime that release on those platforms and those animes still get blu Ray releases in the west un-censored

And finally with funimation, Crunchyroll, HiDive and Netflix anime has taken the west by storm over the last 3 years which I'd say is primarily down to sony and Netflix because of their investment into it.

It’s simple fight fire with fire.
Make ever Xbox studio game including COD Xbox exclusive, maybe a little switch love with Minecraft etc 😂

I just want all the games i was promised from Microsoft when i bought the series s they keep promising the earth then failing to deliver. I really liked this site when i first found it but recently every 2nd article seems to be some drama or ***** about Sony said this and Sony said that.

So Sony is blocking content from coming to a service that I pay hard earned money for by paying these companies off? Yeah, that's dirty. Sony is trash and a bunch of big babies. The balls, after outselling the Xbox over 100% last gen, to complain. Trash. My PS5 has been sitting for months with no use. It just needs to kill itself now.

I'm glad Microsoft finally found a voice. Sony has always, always employed anti competitive practices, they rather spend all their money building an image, a cult of 'for the gamers' and then spend what's left over in actual games and services. So them spending money to keep games off Game Pass isn't really surprising. I've had consoles since SNES, even the Game Gear, I had a PS1 when it was on sale, and when I look back I always remember the Sony exclusive deals, usually total lockouts too, I remember the media though always trying to criticise Microsoft more if they ever dared to get exclusive deals.
But all during the last gen Sony was ruthless in its exclusive deals.
Microsoft has taken gaming seriously this time and invested billions in it, it is now competing strongly against Sony and Sony doesn't like it, as MS said they don't like a business model that threatens them. Well I'm glad for this new era and Microsoft. Sony should start spending its money of getting games onto PSN, instead of PC and exclusivity deals.

Cry a river. It's business.

if i was MS i would be a ass, i would as soon as this is pushed through make EVERYTHING exclusive to PC and xbox and tell sony to pound salt... id do it to spite them hell id go one step further and put all activisions games on everything EXCEPT sonys systems, id go put it on gamepass, switch, steamdeck, steam, googles game streaming , i mean everything except sony hardware... But thats just me, id go for the jugular, and make it clear you will never play a activision game on sony hardware....maybe go as far as to make sure they never see a bethesda game either. then if they pissed me off enough id go and try to buy ea or ubisoft.... not like sony has the money to do anything that big...

@SpacemanJupiter my first playstation was the 3 and it was cuase of some of the esclusive deals they had at the time, i only got the ps4 cause of the cod timed exclusive *****.. but overall i hate ps gamers for a few reasons, mainly their mics suck... nobody on the PlayStation mutes their mics, to many kids im 40 i dont wanna hear a 13 yr old cussing and calling me trash even if i killed more and did more damage in the game....and lastly while it has improved their online service is not as good as xbox, from chat to friends list to everything. these are obviously my opinions about how i feel about it....

@Rangers420 Unfortunately Microsoft is too busy buying up everything instead of improving what they already have. I'd absolutely rather have had a situation where Halo Infinite was the best Halo game and MCC didn't have microtransactions than the outcome where Halo is killed off because buying Activision gives Microsoft CoD for example.

@UltimateOtaku91
Sony built their whole console strategy on exclusivity long before MS had a console. How do you think Sony shoved out Sega and pushed Nintendo to second with PS1? Exclusivity deals. It may have been smaller scale then because the industry was smaller.

The facts are that we don't know what games this applies to. So acting like you know something that is unknown is pretty interesting. I am not saying I disagree. I am just saying you are making up facts by saying this only applies to Capcom and Square Enix.

All companies aim to dominate. Sony, MS, Nintendo, etc. are no exception. If they find a successful angle they exploit it to the max. For the past 2+ decades Sony has always talked up their exclusives and marketed their console almost solely around exclusivity. To complain, that any company by taking over another company will gain exclusivity truly is ironic.

@Royalblues @Royalblues Thankfully, now japanese company start to release their anime on their youtube channel, in Indonesia, you can watch anime free (legally) on Muse Asia and Ani-One channel, they have newest anime like slime oad, skeleton knight in another world and black summoner etc.

Crunchyrolls are super horrible in Indonesia, there a lot of anime that isn't available here, heck muse asia and ani-one are better than crunchyrolls and these 2 channel are free on youtube.