Report: Microsoft Offers Sony The 'Right' To Include Call Of Duty On PlayStation Plus

Don't believe that for one second & even if they did they'd want A LOT of cash for it which would probably prompt Sony to increase the cost of ps plus because there's no way they'd be able to price it competitively

This would still be a bad deal for Sony as they make millions from selling cod games on the console. The new one made a billion dollars in just a few days and you can bet the majority of those sales were on Playstation consoles.

So Sony doesn't only hate other consumers, they hate their own consumers as well. Trying doing everything they can to deny everyone COD purely out of spite. What a nasty company. By this point their fanboys aren't doing COD fans any service.

It is so weird. Imagine Sony granting MS access to all Bungie games for the next 10 years. Just so MS would agree with Sony buying that studio…

I'd like to see the confirmation that this is indeed true & not just according to Bloomberg ,Phil Spencer would be the first one to shout it from the rooftops if that was the case

This is just a rumour so don't take it to heart.

If true though sony would lose a lot of money by including it on playstation plus so makes no sense to take this deal, unless they know insider information that the deal will pass in court, then yeah, definitely take it lol.

@Would_you_kindly exactly, if this was true then the top guys at Xbox/Microsoft would be broadcasting it like some advertisement.

According to SteamSpy, Modern Warfare II has at least 10 million players. If we consider it's 70$ price tag and that it already surpassed 1 Bi in revenue, it seems that the main platform is PC, not Playstation.

https://steamspy.com/app/1938090

@UltimateOtaku91 exactly especially when they've just been doing the rounds about making a 10 years deal with Nintendo they would've surely mentioned this then right ? Unless they've just offered this in which case I don't see how anyone could say anything about Sony rejecting this when they've not responded yet lol

Nice move if it's true, Jimbo will Cry like baby, cuz they don't want CoD for theyre customers, they want deal not happening. Hahaha)))

Christ this story is so boring now.. haha! I doubt Sony would want to take this up still, as it doesn't resolve their issues surrounding profit. Why do you think that their own exclusives arent on PS Plus until a few years down the line. It will still go through of course, but I don't think Sony will accept any of the deals, unless they are told that it won't go on gamepass. That's what they truly want.

If they decline this offer and take it further they are sure being a *itch and a spoilt sport, we know they want a sweet slice of that microtransaction pie but like damn calm down, get back in you're "exclusive" bubble and make those live services plus the cinematic interactive experiences.

Don't like all this bending over backwards just to appease Sony when they don't do anyone else favours ever....but oh well

@StylesT Don't worry, Sony is still going to complain.

Oh dear Drama Again, I’m turning the channel over to Eastenders, Coronation Street and what the hell Emmerdale with a splash of Holly Oaks. 😂😂😂🎄🎄🎄

@JayJ Sony LOVE their consumers. Imagine having a fan base that will unquestionably support you, even defend you, no matter how much you dump on them. Raising game and console prices, releasing £70 remasters then selling them for £50 on PC, charging for upgrades, Sony have hit the sweet spot they can take full advantage of their consumers and they LOVE it.

Dear Phil, let me give you a friendly advice, if you want Sony to sign a deal, pay ABK 70bn, then offer Sony 100 years of COD exclusivity on PS, make Halo, Gears, Forza PS exclusives as well, cancel the deals with Nintendo and Steam, give them bethesda games too, shut down gamepass, and stop making any games. Pretty sure they'll sign today (Contain tons of irony)

@Fenbops True, their fans appear to be the ultimate suckers. They will defend anything they do, no matter how anti-consumer, all in the name of brand loyalty.

@Microbius It's funny how we hardly get many comments on this site when the articles are just covering normal Xbox topics, yet the second there's an article covering this Activision deal Sony drama, there is a rush of Sony fanboys that crawl out of the woodwork and rush to defend Sony with incredible speed and dedication. It's like you know these aren't legitimate Pure Xbox users, they never comment on anything else, they literally just show up here to shill for Sony.

@themightyant I can see your point in a business perspective but I have to think as a consumer now.
I don't have a playstation, only an Xbox and a Switch and for me as a consumer this deal will be good. I'll have plenty of games on GP without the need to buy all of them one by one. I live in a place where COD MWII costs about a third of the common income (and a PS5 costs 5x the regular income), so, I can't see the problem about this merger.

If it convinces a large portion of call Of Duty player to subscribe then Sony will make more than game sales. Once people sub to something like Netflix or gamepass they are likely to stay subbed for a long stretch. This is why Xbox gets away with $1 trial months because it leads to longterm subs. It's a sad reality but many people either forget or are too lazy to unsubscribe even if they are not using the subscription. Gyms have been taking advantage of this for decades.

It would be nice if CoD was on ps plus, gamepass and Nintendo online. Then the customer could decide the platform that is best for them, and not feel like that have had a worse deal than anyone else on a competing platform.

How I see this is that Microsoft want Sony to accept a deal, ANY deal, that will stop them whining about the ABK deal being 'bad for consumers', which for the past couple of months has transparently read as 'bad for Sony'.

Microsoft: We're offering the same deal to Valve, Nintendo and Sony, A guaranteed decade of Call of Duty support, extensions on request.
Sony: Not enough, and it was three years (without mentioning what the ActiBlizz deal they had in place was).

With this:
Microsoft: We're willing to offer Playstation Plus and XBOX Game Pass get the same version at launch.
Sony: We'll accept the deal... if Game Pass is excluded for... six months and doesn't get any exclusive perks.

As mentioned, Sony are trying their best to make Microsoft the next SEGA. Forcing them into developing games for them (and maybe Nintendo) to bolster their market share, while their console division shuts down.

Any EQUAL deal that Microsoft offers, Sony will refuse since it will tip it back to feature parity and other terms Sony seems to have a problem listening to.
If Microsoft offered to let Sony keep their perks, stopped the plans to release on Nintendo and also delayed Game Pass rollout on Call Of Duty for 'a few months' with each release, they'd accept the deal, despite how the only person who profits in that case is Sony.

@themightyant tks for the suggestion, I'll read about it.
But as you said "at least in the short term" it'll be awesome for me and for many gamers around the whole world.
And I do hope that Sony, MS, Nintendo keep competing so consumers get the best games and deals

@Kaloudz
Oh dear you gone all scouser on me 😂

@Sebatrox
You are so harsh 😂🎄

Something I will say...

I know exactly why Sony are whining about Microsoft. They took on Nintendo, it was called the PSP and Vita lines. The Vita even was a card-based system...
And Sony nowadays don't want to talk about the Vita, which died against the GBA and Nintendo DS lines. The only thing that can defeat a Nintendo portable is a Nintendo portable... and Nintendo right now only have a portable system.

So they're not going to lose their entire market trying to stop the Switch. Instead they're going to try to ensure Microsoft remains a minnow.

@themightyant I know it wouldn't matter because it would still be bad business for Sony I just don't believe this is true because we know how vocal Phil Spencer is on the topic he'd be the first to say look what we offered Sony we're so great lol

Microsoft is all about the subscriptions these days; so yes Gamepass revenue coming in is one pillar. Additional to that would be mobile revenue from King/Candy Crush and then World of Warcraft subscriptions (which I assume are still high enough). So yea COD is the thing in the deal that matters to Sony but it’s only one of the things that matter to Microsoft. I think that is why they are allowing all sorts regarding COD to get it through. Dat revenue.

Same with how Windows became subscription based. At some point you hit a ceiling with purchases and then your revenue stops. Xbox is trying to find as many ways to keep that money coming in for as long as possible; even if it is a lower amount that you would get upfront from selling a product as normal. Of course Microsoft don’t need cash right now; but they do need to ensure their future.

Helps the deal comes with some of gamings biggest franchises/IP/characters too like Crash, Spyro and THPS. Theres so much about this deal other than COD that will benefit Xbox.

This is getting ridiculous now (assuming this is true) what's next, Microsoft giving Sony the option to put FH, FM, Fable and the Gears series on PS+ just for this deal to get approved?? I also find it increasingly ridiculous that Sony supporters (some fanboys in disguise)now use GamePass as argument and mental gymnastics in their blind support for the status quo just because Sony can't give two s***s about subscription services.

Microsoft should just walk away from this deal and, use the 60 billion in securing third-party timed exclusivity on the biggest ip's (yes, you guessed it for GamePass) for the next two generations, since no-one seems to mind that 😀. He'll they could still afford to get two or three smaller publishers with the leftovers.

@Sol4ris I agree with all except the buying up exclusive IPS ...then the narrative will change to. Microsoft paying all exclusive IPS that bad for the industry .... Goal posts moved yet again

@Sol4ris tbf surely it would benefit Microsoft more to buy 10 studios for the same price, then say each of those studios do atleast 3 ip's each, so that would be 30 new games to put into gamepass instead of the 5-6 they will get from the Activision deal. A bigger line up to make gamepass better and more lucrative and get games on the service more frequently. Especially considering call of duty is planned to be released every two years instead of one, overwatch is free to play and diablo only comes out every 5-6 years.

@Martsmall

Mate, I don't even care much on how this will play out, but the hypocrisy has now reached fever pitch.

@themightyant you speak truth.

sadly Sony are evil here.

we dont even know what MS wanted in fees. hardly going to be free.

the focus on CoD detracts from the main issues

@themightyant

But business doesn't work like that. Microsoft want to buy ABK because it is an asset that increases their market value and ABK was up for a sale at depressed price due to all their bad press. It also allows them to add COD and other major ABK titles Game Pass day 1. In short it was a steal of a deal that fit their business goals

Except Microsoft have hit a concrete wall here. Sony and their fans, the anti- subscription service mob are all out against this deal. And this before we even take into account the Regulators, like I said Microsoft should just admit defeat here and consider other avenues to increase their assets and in turn GamePass growth without the contentious baggage ABK has.

If they don't buy ABK Microsoft won't just give the Xbox division $69 billion to spend just like that it has to be the RIGHT deals

There will always be right deals, its just that ABK is just too RIGHT of a deal

@Moonglow I don't really have a problem with cod being on ps plus as it's just another place i get to play it....it's just the way ps have gone about the whole thing ...complaining about Xbox will have extra benefits etc...when ps have been paying for them said benefits for years etc etc

@Kaloudz this has really nothing to do with cod on ps at this point, we need to look at this as a politics game, one side says something to force the otherside to make a decision, if they(sony) sign onto this thent he deal go through and in 10 yearrs MS can pull CoD from sony(which is what i believe they fear the most that and MS stopping yearly installments) or turn it down and look petty and the deal goes through as the one thats complaining is now doing what they are compllaining about.... essentially MS just put Sony and the FTC lawsuit in a box.....MS can say look see we want it on other systems but they wont sign for it just to block the sale, or they can say see we signed on the line and the game is now guaranteed to be on other system including the one that was complaining the most...

this move just put SONY in a box and the FTC lawsuit looks weaker due to this move, brilliant sony either looks bad by turning it down or by signing they kill the FTC lawsuit either way i think that lawsuit will be dead in the water as what they are saying is now essentially null and void....

I say screw Sony. I wouldn't offer them crap. They are definitely never getting another dime from me that is for sure. Phil pandering to them like this makes me wish he would step down. We need someone who will actually do something for Xbox users. Not lay down for Sony.

@iplaygamesnstuff if i was MS and sony doesnt sign and the FTC lawsuit they win, i would put COD on everything except sony hardware....

@UltimateOtaku91 its about the back catalog not the future games... if they get Activision they get access to i think its close to 30ips, and nearly 200 back catalog games....remember its not just CoD its Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, and StarCraf just to name a few of the big ones.... thats what MS is really after, its the IPs and the older games they can throw on gamepass as soon as the deal closes

@Blessed_Koz That would be awesome!

MS cant offer anything until they own it?
They are trying to offer these contracts of intent to try and get the deal past the regulators. Only a fool or someone with little interest would sign such a contract, so why would Sony sign this? They don't want the deal to go through at all, so signing a contract of intent would completely undermine their position.

I personally feel the whole deal should be blocked regardless of what happens to COD as I fear for the industry if big corps can simply trade whole publishers like trading cards. I believe this is bad for gaming in general.
However, I'm always on gamepass, so no fomo, and I'd like to see the management at Activision Blizzard changed, so I've reasons to be happy which ever way this turns out.

@Blessed_Koz actually that's a good shout, totally forgot about the backlog, although I'm not too familiar with what other games they do on console other than diablo, crash, spyro, COD, overwatch, tony hawk and guitar hero, must have some other ip's to be reaching the 200 games mark. Would be interested to see if Microsoft make an effort to bring their pc line up to console as well like warcraft and starcraft.

Microsoft need this merger to go through as if it fails then it'll leave both companies in the lurch after spending a lot of money so far. Sony will do what they can to stop it from happening at all costs.

If Sony take any deal then it'll signal their tacit approval of the merger. If it were to go through with no agreement reached Sony could then ask for the deal later and if MS refuse then it'd be them "breaking their promise" to the regulators.

They won’t take it, Sony hates the idea of big titles being on subscription services day one. I mean, they don’t care that The Show is on GamePass, they still won’t put it on PS+ Essential.

They want subscription services to take the part of “greatest hits” back catalog, games that would already have saturated their sales numbers and already been heavily discounted.

Smart move! It doesn´t matter if they take it or not. They laying the foundation for a lawsuit/case, to make sure Sony whining looks even more ridiculous.

I find the talk about “market consolidation” extremely hypocritical.

“Consolidation” is not a new issue, it was an issue when Square and Enix merged. When Bandai and Namco merged. When Activision and Blizzard merged. Sony acquired Psygnosis (one of the largest publishers of its time) Etc etc. Consolidation is a natural path of any industry. There comes a point on any company’s lifetime where they either can’t grow further (becoming just a burden for investors that want growth or cash out) or can barely hold their own weight and might end up go the path of the old THQ.

But for some reason, gamers started screaming about “industry consolidation” as an issue only after the Zenimax deal was announced. Now it’s a big deal simply because Xbox is in on it.

And yes, I’m aware people complained for years about EA acquisitions, but not on an “industry consolidation” context and instead on a “they will ruin the games!” context.

@Microbius I really don’t think it’d be a Day One parity, I guess they’d handle it as current PS Plus games where the game is available after a few months on Extra and Premium and years after on Essential.

@Microbius Nope, not good enough for the ridiculous spiteful FTC I'm afraid.. can't wait for them to lose massively in court and be embarrassed. If it goes to further courts maybe Microsoft can win without being required to give Sony ANY concessions, that would be great, and ridicule the FTC at the same time.

@Tharsman I think people are overreacting for every move Xbox has made because of Microsoft’s past, they do have a history of buying all competitors or flat out buying a whole industry and squashing competitors to the dirt, it got to the point 20 years ago that regulators were tempted by the idea of breaking up the company into several smaller businesses because of its massive size and influence around tech.

But since then Microsoft has done a 180º turn in several things and the market has changed drastically, specially since Satya Nadella became CEO in 2015 who basically shifted the entire company to services, and it’s kinda unfair that regulators (and some media outlets) are treating Microsoft as if it was the same company from 20 years ago, they have the right to be afraid that MS will try to monopolize the gaming industry but looking at the facts they’re not even close of doing that when buying out Activision-Blizzard, however I do think that after closing this deal they’ll not be allowed to buy another big publisher such as EA, Take-Two, Ubisoft, and more.

It's just so funny, because even if Microsoft offers to give Sony 100 years of guaranteed day and date CoD, included in Plus, a $10 discount per license, and an exclusive horde mode, Sony will still refuse the offers because none of that is what they actually want. They simply want to keep Xbox from ever being competitive, want to block anything that will help them do that, want to block anything that could ever help subscription gaming become more commonplace, supplanting their business model, and they want CoD to continue being seen as more or less a PS exclusive. Anything else is wasted air, they will accept nothing that means a stronger competition because what they say out loud they want isn't actually what they want, they just want their demands to be so unreasonable they can't be met so that they get what they actually want, which is the status-quo. Ryan's Sony does not WANT Plus, to become great. They want subscriptions overall to disappear, and they cripple their own to help that goal. I think Jack Tretton would have disagreed with that were he still running PS. I think he would have made Now/Plus an intense GP competitor, and dove into the new market head first.

I'd expect Sony to accept it to add the older titles but not newer ones.

@Tharsman There's a larger conversation to be had around consolidation. This is the first period in the history of "modern" capitalism where all things are really funneling into a handful of ownerships, which are resembling more and more either socialist-communist state-owned business, or feudal fiefdoms. It's not just a gaming thing, but we've entered a point where "infinite growth" has descended into "all things really need to be owned globally by one of 50 hegemonies." There's no good end to that, it regresses back the progress of the last 800 years, and ultimately stagnates everything, ending the idea of competition in general. Eventually everyone ends up working for America Inc's various subdivisions run by various lords. The question is what to do about that. Blocking ABK isn't really it. And can it be done without a new dark ages.

@themightyant Keep in mind MS is overpaying for Activision, and WAY overpaying their current valuation which has dropped since the agreed price. One doesn't actually need $70bn to compete with equal footing on this deal, MS just wants it so much they're doing the corporate equivalent of paying scalpers $1800 for an XSX. I do get your point, but I think some perspective is in order, ignoring raw dollar amounts, as to if the properties obtained in this transaction are truly as key to dominating multi-game subscriptions as Sony's dependence on CoD would infer. Sony COULD offer a competitor to GP, but they refuse to, even without ABK, and it would be a less profitable enterprise for them than their current. ABK then changes nothing, it doesn't give MS an edge to leapfrog Sony, when Sony walked away from that competition even without it. VS other companies that even have infrastructure and know-how to deliver multi-game subscriptions, does it actually give them an unfair advantage in even raw dollars? We're talking Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Tencent, Comcast NBC-Universal, Disney, AT&T, Netflix, nVidia, probably very few others I'm forgetting. Any of those companies could compete at that scale if they chose to, and if they don't wish to or can't, they would have a pretty hard go of it even without the ABK merger. It's unclear that this merger provides any anti-competitive advantage to MS other than strengthening their position against the only possible competitors in that market, which are all similarly classed corporations. Sony is a non-competitor in that market largely by choice and partly by infrastructure.

@JayJ @Fenbops Sony doesn't care about the diehard ultra-loyal fans at all because they barely represent a few percent of their actual market, and they repeatedly throw those "fans" under the bus in pursuit of that larger, less engaged market. The fans just haven't got the memo yet. The suckers that know nothing about video games, walk into Walmart and buy the first thing they see, which is undoubtedly PlayStation is the consumer they love. The devoted "fans" that defend their favorite corporate megalopoly don't even factor into their strategies. They just don't represent the total revenues Joe Walmart collectively does. Stanning for Returnal Souls may make fans feel loyal, but Jimbo doesn't even notice them as dirt under his $1200 Italian shoes. They're not the target customer. They haven't been for 6 years or so. They just aren't that important to the company's goals.

@StylesT They could give Call of Duty out for free with purchase of Master Chief Monster Energy Drink 6-packs and still make mega bucks from the buyout on King alone. They really don't care what they have to give Sony re CoD. They still get the brand image of being associated with CoD, the work-ready studios with thousands of experienced devs, the turnkey large presence in mobile, and the raw profits of King. Still worth it for them.

@IOI

they do have a history of buying all competitors or flat out buying a whole industry and squashing competitors to the dirt, it got to the point 20 years ago that regulators were tempted by the idea of breaking up the company

They did have a reputation but it was not about buying competitors. Their reputation at the time was that any emerging potentially disruptive technology, they would copy and replicate in house squashing any chances they had to succeed. Although you can find a long history of acquisitions, it was never competitors.

The big antitrust lawsuit was over Internet Explorer and OS bundling, and Microsoft intentionally sabotaging the Netscape Navigator browser. Netscape aside, all of Microsoft competitors in key areas are still around today, most of them stronger than ever, without actual government intervention.

If true, then I’m not surprised PlayStation as a brand doesn’t wish to have the CoD franchise on their Plus tiers. The cost for that would likely be mind boggling. Instead why not just say “no” and keep having CoD publish to the PlayStation platform as they always have.

It just isn’t something the brand needs to have happen to thrive, they just need CoD players on their platform. And when it only costs about £50/60 brand new on day of release for a physical copy, most people like me will just buy it each year anyway.

I mean I’m loving GamePass, but I wouldn’t love it more with CoD on there anyway, as I don’t play anything but the current iteration.

So for me, and in our household, this deal going through only changes two things:

1) CoD goes onto GamePass, but I already own them from point of sale. So that changes nothing for me.

2) Microsoft would be managing Activision, and seeing how they did with things like Halo management, or just management of their brand as a whole up until late, that doesn’t fill me with optimism.

And, despite loving GamePass, I only tend to play a little from it, so it means realistically, just like Netflix, its perceived value I enjoy, not actual value. Clearly. Or I’d realise it’s not remotely worth it due to the lack of time I spend with it and I’d cancel it.

Odd to be aware they (Microsoft) have a grip and yet I won’t stop it. Haha. Wow, that’s some inner evaluation I need to do.

Anyway, now time for a drink! 🎄

@NEStalgia (Sorry for the huge wall of text)

This is the first period in the history of "modern" capitalism where all things are really funneling into a handful of ownerships,

I would say its the first time it happens in a way that gaming audiences notice it.

Chances are if you are buying any kind of eyewear, regardless where you buy them, you are buying from the same massive conglomerate. Same for the vet you might take your pet to, even many "mom and pop" shops actually belong to one of a handful veterinary conglomerates, and this is not new at all. I could go on for pages and pages.

Again, not defending consolidation, just the hypocrisy. How many would had not batted an eye if ABK had been acquired by the Embracer Group, Tencent or 2K? This is why I say its hypocritical. If someone's concern is simply that a game might stop being published in X or Y platform, then the issue is not consolidation, but a personal one against a given platform.

BTW I am aware some people do indeed also worry about the likes of Embracer Group or buying everything in their path.

Now, not personal defense but an objective one, IMO, for these acquisitions: once a company like this gets large enough, and growth becomes unviable, things come to a shaky ground. ABK cannibalizing teams to continue CoD growth at all expenses is an example of them trying to sustain growth at the expense of product diversity for consumers. Other companies simply are at the edge of bankruptcy. At some point, selling is the only path, and only larger companies are capable of buying such large entities, leaving no path forward but consolidation.

It is also no secret Zenimax was in financial trouble, for example. Zenimax, in a few years, could had either ended up either like the old THQ, or simply could had been forced to become a f2p game mill, again, at the expense of product diversity for consumers.

I am personally not overly worried because for the most part, innovation in the gaming industry tends to come out of smaller indie studios. Only one in a thousand succeed, but there are so many projects out there that this results in a good flow of independent design reaching consumers. On the other hand, it is a bit sad that as soon as they succeed, these individuals accept the first big check offered to sell out (example: Minecraft, Fall Guys, Rocket League.) I don't blame them, if someone offered me that many figures for my first game success, I think I would take it too. I guess my point is: I worry more about acquisition of small studios than I worry about acquisition of larger ones, but those small ones are the least likely to ever be scrutinized.

@Kaloudz

I also wonder whether the King side of this aquisition is a footstep towards some sort of mobile store Game Pass - effectively giving them PC, Console, and Mobile Game Pass subs.

In addition to Apple Arcade and whatever the Google Play equivalent is called, there is one small upstart in the market called Game Club (at the time of this writing, it's website seems to be down) that has been running rather well for a few years now. They offer games without microtransactions for "free" on Android and iOS that require you to sign in with a Game Club account to get access to the whole game. It's kinda Game Pass for mobile without even having to make their own store.

Netflix does a similar thing with their mobile game initiative.

I could see Microsoft doing something similar, however King games are not compatible with that since they are already free games, and I doubt there is any interest even at Microsoft to have King start developing premium game experiences on mobile. The most likely thing we will see will likely be Game Pass perks that grant players some currency allowances on these mobile games.

@Tharsman I agree I'm not especially worried about the ABK situation in part because Activision practically removed themselves from the playing field years ago to focus on two or three hyper profitable product lines, and current ABK itself is the result of hostile outide buyout (Vivendi, at one point Universal), itself acquiring and shutting down numerous studios (Sierra, obviously Blizzard, etc), saddling it as a large debt sink, and selling off the husk. So ABK despite their CoD base size, is kind of rickety and unstable at the core to begin with, hardly a bulwark of the industry outside the profitability and importance of some key titles, peak Activision as an actual publisher was in the 90's.

But still, the concept of overall consolidation as the norm has a very bad ending, and people are starting to realize it too late. As you mentioned the single conglomerate dominating most industries, or a duopoly at best. That's not capitalism or a free market in any regard. Whether it more closely represents feudalism or socialism-communism is semantics. What it represents is the opposite of free market which guarantees a bad result. And if it's too late to actually resolve it somehow, likely guarantees inevitable collapse at some point.

@Tharsman

The current deal with Riot Games is pretty much a testbed for the kind of thing I expect from King going forward. Riot are willing to allow XBOX players to have a 'free trial' of every single character in their games, which is a massive incentive for XBOX players to play the games. vis a vis huge profits for Riot and a very convincing offer for you to have XGP on your phone.

I recently met a Sony fanboy who hates the current XBOX consoles due to overheating issues. I borrowed their phone, showed them xCloud and, a few minutes later, they were looking at subscribing to Game Pass. That guy is unlikely to touch an XBOX for a long time, but he's a customer, because Microsoft are trying to get customers that DON'T own their consoles. And it's that which terrifies Sony.

Yes, it would be nice for them if, in 2030, Sony have managed to 'persuade' Nintendo into something similar to what SNK tried to do with the Dreamcast, where the successor to the Switch is a second screen for the Playstation 6, with the 'console wars' ending with Sony the clear and only real winner.

But for the consumers? It would mean that Sony could sell the Playstation 6 for $2000, and we would HAVE to pay it.

I may be wrong but if the ABK deal goes through this only makes Microsoft the third biggest gaming company.
I still believe Sony would be number one.
Not sure who number two is?

@Dezzy70 technically Tencent is #1

@NEStalgia I personally think, so long we are in a field with more than 2 large dominant companies, we are on safe grounds.

Especially if these companies don't really get too well along, because that can lead to legal forms of price fixing and other anti-consumer practices.

Another reason why I would like to see ABK become part of XBox.

I do think this should be Xbox last large acquisition. I think there would be room for some Japanese publisher (despite reputation, only Bandai Namco is considered too big, I think.) That said, I would not be shocked if any future partnership ends up being Microsoft buying a large stake on someone else (like them buying 25% of Sega.)

@NEStalgia
I see didn’t know that. Thank you.
Not sure what it is measured in?
Is it value in dollars or revenue or number of employees?

@Dezzy70 Revenue. Tencent is #1 and not by a small margin. If ABK goes through it moves Microsoft to #3 over Nintendo, but currently Nintendo is above them. Sony is #2 either way.

Tencent may seem foreign as a name to traditional gamers given their key dominance is over mobile (which is a big part of what the ABK deal is about), however they're closer to home than you may think. They own significant chunks of Epic (I.E. the standard engine Unreal, as well as Fortnite profits), Ubisoft (recent stake expansion), even Activision itself (meaning MS would be buying that part back from Tencent.) They own chunks of many other gaming companies, including a stake in Nintendo, plus their own studios, not to mention Supercell and IIRC total ownership of Riot Games - as in that big splash of games arriving on Game Pass today, all Tencent....

@NEStalgia
So Tencent are a Chinese sleeping giant as most people don’t now anything about them.
So how come they are allowed to get that big and also Sony but Microsoft in fourth place possibly moving to third a massive fuss is made.
Surely Tencent is the one to be looking over your shoulder about.
Can’t see what all the Microsoft buying ABK fuss is about then really.

How Tencent got so large?

They pretty much bought a piece here and a piece there. Tencent are equivalent to some kid sneaking around and grabbing a piece here and a piece there of the buffet and getting a pretty damn good meal out of it.

The reason they don't get noticed is that they don't trumpet their ownerships that much. You don't see on Wild Rift 'Copyright Riot Games, a division of Tencent', it's solely 'Riot Games'. It's like some games were developed by Dimps completely uncredited for YEARS.

Sony like to pretend they're still No. 1, and that China, through Tencent, doesn't practically own most of the games market, and probably even has a stake in all three companies under it.

Nintendo doesn't care if they're Number 2 or Number 3, preferring to coast on the fact that they could churn out handheld devices until hell freezes over and still make their shareholders happy.

If Sony stop the ABK deal, and get Activision for its fire sale price after the company value drops even lower, and the same people who helped them block the deal keep the FTC and similar busy, Microsoft drops back to third, and Sony become an even more unassailable first.

Call Of Duty exclusive content becomes the norm, Crash, Spyro etc get less and less development allowance, and eventually even Blizzard finds its teams moved to develop Call Of Duty, until World Of Warcraft is slowly wound down and Overwatch 2 is either sold off or shut down as 'no longer profitable'.

Why? Because Sony only want CoD.

@Dezzy70 Exactly!

Like many Chinese-state-connected entities, they have a lot more control over the west than most realize, because the overall strategy of China is to not outright buy companies and obtain majority ownership drawing scrutiny from regulators regarding concentrated foreign control, but instead buying pieces of companies just enough to be able to control their board and direction, getting a controlling share without majority ownership. A lot of things, not just games, have a lot more Chinese control over everyone's lives than most realize. Especially in the US, real estate/investment..... that's a big one, where land development has been dictated from the shadows by Chinese interests developing the US into a clone of themselves for years, at rapid pace. Tencent is not unusual as far as that goes, beyond that they're actually more visible than most of their contemporaries in other fields.

To give you more of an idea of what kind of company Tencent actually is, and how connected to the Chinese government they are, they're responsible for the software side of the "social credit" system in China (aka big brother.) Alibaba handled the management and infrastructure part of it. They're the makers of WeChat, the official, Party approved (aka monitoring), internet messaging application in China..... Part of the Party through and through. Like an even more evil version of Meta (itself questionably connected.)

That's another reason some speculate the courts will have a pro-MS bias. It's a GSA contractor (which has a whole certification of being free of a certain amount of foreign ownership including China), literally buying from China part of their control as the industry's top player. Just on a national security level, MS buying anything from Tencent would be seen as a national win.

Since Tencent doesn't directly buy the majority of most of the things they invest in (like Activision) they fly under the radar and free of regulation. Government doesn't get say over them buying minority stakes in everything under the sun. Which is why that's a Chinese national strategy in foreign investment.

You're absolutely right that Tencent is, by far, the one to watch out for. MS gets extra scrutiny because of actions of their past leadership 25 years ago, because it's inconvenient timing for a political agenda (that's not necessarily a bad one) regarding big companies getting bigger and is easy bait for it due to the former, because Tencent flies under the radar with only minority controlling stakes in many companies and regulators, clueless and career-self-interested as they are are likely not even aware of that, because Sony has made a big competition complaint about MS but not about Tencent (not sure if Tencent has any holdings in Sony, that would be an interesting conflict of interest, and wouldn't surprise me. MS does not because they're a GSA/DoD contractor), and, on the internet because, in the words of some Sony fanboys, they'd rather Tencent buy Activision because then games would not be taken away from PS. So consolidation is bad, but consolidation to the biggest (by far) player is ok if it benefits you....

1-year on PS+ for $1 billion. 😄

For the record, I don't think MS should make the offer. Ever. I imagine they are calling Sony's bluff and discredit the FTC & CMA claims.

I have my doubts that Sony would bite. One, because they want the deal to break up. Two, because Sony is penny pinching and would fear CoD on PS+ would cut into profits from unit sales.

It's a good bluff, and it puts Sony in a pinch. Microsoft produces a 'draft agreement' offering Sony a generous deal for Call of Duty, and they have to give a good reason to the court why they're not accepting it, when it covers the core part of their complaint.

Add to that an 'earlier agreement' was discussed on the day, and Sony's situation becomes even more shaky. Microsoft could take over the courtroom by stating that Sony is actively sabotaging the deal by requiring Microsoft make anti-competitive concessions to them, citing the agreements Sony felt were inadequate.

Microsoft could have Valve, Nintendo and ABK itself standing with them, all declaring the deal is good for consumers, good for business, and bad for only one person, who is trying to use the FTC and similar to keep their market share intact, if not expand it.

@ValentineMeikin additionally if the deal were to be blocked (it won't be), Activision shareholders, ironically including tencent, could, and would, then sue Sony in the amount of damages to their agreed sale value, which if won, Sony could have to pay up to the difference between the 70bn and whatever value they get later... This is why most cases settle outside the courts. Once that can of worms opens the bottom has no end. It's an endless spiral for a lifetime.

Further it was suggested above Sony could buy Activision on the fire sale after they sabotage the deal, which is true, but it's exceedingly unlikely that would happen. If unhappy with the price, shareholders, again including tencent, could file a new suit through FTC against Sony for market manipulation/fraud, which unlike the anti trust suit against MS moving to freeze an acquisition, would be an actual criminal/misconduct indictment against Sony, much more serious. They wouldn't make that move.

Sony just needed to leave it alone, maybe, behind closed doors, negotiated a better deal, not spent a lot of time and money trying to force Microsoft into a worse deal, Jim Ryan thinking that, if Microsoft fail to get the merger, he'll be able to get it for much less, letting Tencent walk off with Blizzard and King, while he makes a billion dollar deal for Activision itself.

But as @Nestalgia points out, Sony's whole situation hinges on ABK and Tencent not being furious and the FTC not twigging that they're engaging ALREADY in market manipulation on a grand scale.

Back when SEGA collapsed, it was a tragedy that didn't need Sony to spend much at all to help along. With Microsoft, they need to find some huge way to force Microsoft to have billions of dollars wiped off their value, and Jimbo hopes ABK's acquisition collapsing will do just that.

When actually, it could be Sony who end up in a hole they'll never dig their way out of.

A Nintendo fan here. Sony is already anti-consumer. This is pathetic now. Xbox should be able to just buy any games company they like. Why are we treating this as special. Disney acquired 20th Century Fox to own 60% of all TV and movie ip. The courts allowed it. He'll Microsoft can buy Nintendo if the want to spend the cash. Who cares. So long as they keep making Zelda and don't mess with the formula. I mean what is wrong with this deal? I have a Nintendo I play most of my games on Nintendo. But I have recently subscribed to Game Pass. So I will play cod on that. If I wanted do. Haven't played cod since the 90's. But the point is play your favorite games on PS and play cod on game pass if it was exclusive. This childish attitude that you are entitled to play a game on your system is losing ground now. Back in the day if I wanted to play Crash I had to get a ps1. I had an n64 so I only played crash at a friend's place. Can the people trying to put forward an argument for sony please stop. If you are on this site then either you have an Xbox to play on if it becomes exclusive (so you have no argument) or you just came to argue. Netflix did not cry like a little girl when Disney acquired Fox to make a streaming service, so why is Sony doing it. Grow up.

@Would_you_kindly
Honestly, what we hear through the press is only a fraction of what is happening behind the scenes.

@NEStalgia

Like many Chinese-state-connected entities, they have a lot more control over the west than most realize, because the overall strategy of China is to not outright buy companies and obtain majority ownership drawing scrutiny from regulators regarding concentrated foreign control, but instead buying pieces of companies just enough to be able to control their board and direction, getting a controlling share without majority ownership.

And as I mentioned earlier, this is what I expect MS will have to do going forward to influence larger publishers like Sega: buy large-enough stakes that allow them to make calls like "all games this company produce must go to Xbox going forward, and be on Game Pass"

Many love to say that Sony and Square always had a very friendly relationship, and that was proven with all the exclusives they had in the PS1 and PS2 days, but the reason they had that relationship was precisely because Sony also bought a significant stake on Square after Square was starving for money due to the flopped Final Fantasy movie. After that, Square could not even make games for competitors without creating alternate shell companies. Final Fantasy Cristal Chronicles on the Game Cube was not actually "made" by Square, but by a shell company called The Game Designers Studio, the game was published by Nintendo themselves. They jumped through a lot of hoops to get that game to happen due to being rather tied up by Sony.

Sony sold its Square Enix shares (9.52 million shares) in 2014. At the time, that represented 8.2% of Square Enix's shares.

Today, Yasuhiro Fukushima (Enix founder) owns 19.75% of SE shares, and The Master Trust Bank of Japan owns 14.93%. Next largest stock holder is at 5.65%, so you can see, Sony had quite a large voice on SE actions.

@raftos 40% of COD players are on Playstation. 20.3% on PC, 30.7% on Xbox.

Funny how Push Square didn't report on this story. It's like the only people that don't want this to happen only have one console...and that one console starts with a P lol.

@Tharsman Indeed, and not only were they the third largest share holder but they were also SEs largest vendor/distributor making their demands the only one that mattered. Although Sony buying that stake was partly in response to MS having that letter of intent to buy it entirely. They can't pull that stunt with Activision though due to the market manipulation concern.

There's also the interesting stories in interviews about the Xbox failure in Japan and describing meetings MS guys would have with SE that seemed to go very well, then they'd be at a party or event and approach the SE (and other studios) guys who would then pretend they had never met them before, and the MS guys observed some sort of handlers in close proximity that seemed to be Sony handlers the SE guys didn't want to know they were taking to MS people. It's all very Yakuza sounding... That was the late 90s of course.

I could see such partial buyouts of Sega for that. And I could see Sega willingly fast tracking it. Their relationship with MS is very solid and aged, and Sega is openly focused on PC first so it's a natural partnership. Similarly Sony owns a stake in Epic, mainly to have control over UE and gain special treatment for hardware features. (Tencent owns a larger stake however.)

@InfamousOrange Phillips CDi?

Seriously though that might be editorial discretion over there to keep the flame bait to a minimum and spare some mods some sanity while they have vr and game news to cover. These articles get ugly everywhere, but any mention of this stuff on a PS site is like sending Jim Ryan to XO23.

Sony is being disingenuous, shocker! They never have cared about COD and only saw it as a way to ‘bend’ the arms and lie to regulators to get the deal blocked, as far as Sony is concerned only they can buy studios and make games or features exclusive. Microsoft has offered them more then anyone else and exactly all they asked for with COD, it all Sony really wants is this acquisition AND Xbox dead and buried.

@GunValkyrian Wrong, you are looking at this far too literally, what Xbox is actually doing is showing up Sony for disingenuous as they are. The two faced liars that they are, that can be used in any court battle then. Because the regulators and Sony made it all about COD.

@themightyant It'll have a domino effect like if the deal goes through then Sony will be allowed to acquire Square Enix which will hurt Nintendo a lot more than Microsoft's CoD deal will help (CoD is pretty much a no-name in the Nintendo space compared to Square Enix JRPGs). Microsoft have already said Activision isn't the end of acquisitions so it just basically confirms that Microsoft will only stop with acquisitions when forced to by regulators.

@NEStalgia I dont think MS intent to buy Square Soft motivated Sony's stake. From what I read, the only reason that acquisition did not go through was that Square Soft wanted too much money, well, more than MS was willing to pay because "we didn’t need their sales and marketing group, and so that left us with not a lot of value."

Also this happened in 1999, same year the Dreamcast was released in the US and no one knew about Microsoft console ambitions. I think it's more likely that Square, at the time, gave up finding a buyer (until later Enix went for the purchase) and settled for selling stakes. Somehow, Sony kept their stock when Enix bought/merged with Square and didn't sell them until 2014. All around, a wacky history all on its own. I do think Sony taking a stake on Square was more meant to lock them onto PlayStation and prevent them from jumping onto the Dreamcast or GameCube.

@themightyant

ACTI shares were at $103.81 on 12 Feb 2021, an all time high
...
Since then it has been relatively static between $71 and $81 a share, it's currently $76.73

As you noted, their all time high was 103.81. The company just launched their most successful game ever with MW2, and it still is only hovering around $76, less than 75% from its peak. Regardless what anyone argues the company is worth, nobody believes the studio will ever reach that peak again. The pandemic was a one-in-a-lifetime event that peaked game dev investment, reason why everyone wants to sell.

You are somewhat right that an offer to acquire the whole company would have to indeed be above market value, but investors likely see no other way they will ever get that much back for their investment.

While I agree Sony COULD offer a direct competitor to Game Pass i'm not convinced it would be a smart business move for them.

Not a direct reply to this point, but to an accompanying sentiment: subscription models are not a new market, they are just what the name says: a business model. The main reason Sony wants to compete with Game Pass is not because "its a new market" they feel they need to get a foothold on, but because its a model that has some demand and they fear they will lose some of their base if they don't offer a similar model for those of their users that would go for it. Its more about keeping PlayStation gamers on PlayStation instead of having a bunch of them go buy an XBox too.

@Grumblevolcano

It'll have a domino effect like if the deal goes through then Sony will be allowed to acquire Square Enix which will hurt Nintendo a lot more than Microsoft's CoD deal will help (CoD is pretty much a no-name in the Nintendo space compared to Square Enix JRPGs). Microsoft have already said Activision isn't the end of acquisitions so it just basically confirms that Microsoft will only stop with acquisitions when forced to by regulators.

Dragon Quest aside (big game series but does not come regularly enough to make a console lifetime impact) Square Enix does not make that many games for Nintendo these days.

Yea, there are the likes of Octopath Traveler, those are nice to have but its absence would not hurt Nintendo as much as you imply.

As for this deal going through, Sony has dug their own grave. MS is already offering CoD to everyone, promising no exclusivity, due to "tent pole" status concerns. Sony started that argument, and it's very likely should Sony try to acquire Square Enix that their own words be used against them to force similar concessions for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

Microsoft will indeed continue doing acquisitions, but I doubt they will attempt anything as big again. They might go for other large names, but no more $70 billion-esque acquisitions.

For reference, these are the market caps for some publishers:

102.27 billion - Sony Group Corp (bit unfair to list this here since it includes a lot more than SCE)
60.27 billion - Activizion Blizard Inc
53.41 billion - Nintendo Co Ltd
47.11 billion - NetEase Inc
34.89 billion - Electronic Arts Inc
19.15 billion - Nexon Co Ltd
17.55 billion - Take Two Interactive
14.41 billion - Bandai Namco
6.773 billion - Capcom Co Ltd
6.038 billion - Konami Group Corp
5.74 billion - Embracer Group AB
5.645 billion - Square Enix Holdings Co Ltd
5.53 billion - Koei Tecmo Holdings
3.494 billion - Ubisoft
3.054 billion - Sega Sammy Holdings
0.045 billion - Nippon Ichi Software, Inc

My guess is if MS will attempt to acquire another publisher, they will aim for a Japanese one as that might help them into that space. And no, the whole "Japan makes it hard for foreign companies to buy" is a myth rooted on misunderstanding on some financing intricacies over there. As it stands, more than half of Square Enix is owned by foreign investors.

Further reference on giants that are not exclusively game publishers:

2.33 trillion - Apple
1.94 trillion - Microsoft
1.251 trillion - Google
0.950 trillion - Amazon

(funny to think Apple was about to go bankrupt back in the days MS was being sued for anticompetitive practices)

@themightyant There's a lot of tricky arguments and some possibly incorrect framing to this all though, at least, if I'm to play devils advocate and look at it from the regulation aspect. I still think some of that misses the fundamentals which is, if we're not talking Sony v Microsoft consoles, and we're strictly talking about the impact on the multi-game subscription/streaming services, we can't ignore what companies we're actually talking about. Sony COULD compete using their market position in gaming, however the window on them being able to do so is closing. They don't have the infrastructure behind them to run it so they'd have to run it in such a way that their brand power is their primary market advantage despite purchased technology. It wouldn't be their most profitable route, but that's their point, and somewhat MS's point with the "Blockbuster & Netflix" comparison.

Disruptive tech happened, Sony can either get in front of it (they were the first to introduce it!!) or get run over by it. They're choosing to get run over long term to chase quarterlies. Or as you say follow Nintendo's footsteps, which is, ironically what MS has been telling them. The whole conversation smacks of that interview on the rewind part of this site where Ken Kutaragi of Sony told one of Sega's keys the same thing, we have all the chip manufacture, you have to buy everything, you can never compete. Get out of hardware. It's history repeating itself, and Sony just got handed to them what they handed to Sega. Sony doesn't have the cloud infrastructure, MS does, they can never compete. Get out of cloud gaming. Of course MS won't say that because Sony's buying their cloud infrastructure from MS....

Otherwise we have to think of who the competitors are, which is to say, the companies that have or could have the infrastructure to run a massive cloud based multi-sub gaming service. That's not Sony. Or Nintendo. Or Valve. So who is competitively hurt by this? Apple, Alphabet, Tencent, Amazon....that's basically it, they're the only possible competitors with an infrastructure that could compete 1:1, everyone else would be buying the tech from these 5. Budget to buy ABK notwithstanding, only those companies have the infrastructure to compete for the same reason ConAgra can't just compete with AT&T and TMobile, they don't have a cell grid or fiber network to do so and they never will. So individually:

Does this deal competitively hamstring Alphabet?
Yes, they tried and failed early in this market and this makes it even harder for them to reenter.

Does it harm competition with Amazon?
They currently have their own competitor.....does CoD going to MS hurt them? Yes. But can Amazon easily strike up their own deals or use their install base and existing subscriptions as they do with video and music as a strong competitive move? Yes. This competes against Amazon but not in a way they can't counter. If Amazon pulls Xbox and Surface hardware from their store, it indicates they have a problem with this, otherwise they're fine.

Does it harm competition with Apple?
Apple doesn't offer a 1:1 subscription for the same content, yet, but one can argue that's market differentiation between services. Considering Apple's gaming revenue, whatever gamer's may think about it, eclipses the combined gaming revenue of MS, Sony, and Nintendo together, and they don't even make games, I don't think there's much of an argument that Apple is being harmed, rather it's MS trying to catch up with Apple.

Does this competitively harm Tencent the biggest in gaming revenue by a large margin?
LOL.

Does it improve MS's ability to compete against the two entities that have greater revenue in this space than themselves? Yes....

So the whole "it harms competition in the multi-game subscription" market goes out the window. There's only 4 companies that even could compete 1:1, one already failed out of the market, and there's no real argument of competitive harm with the other 3, and increases the competitiveness between the top 3.

As you say, MS may have an already assailable head start, however, the question then becomes, does acquiring ABK actually change their lead in this space? If they are already in the lead and very hard to catch up to, does them strengthening their product offering actually change the competitive landscape from the status quo?

That next to last paragraph is a tricky one. "Abusing their wealth and already dominant position." antitrust has a blind spot with that. How does one differentiate "abusing wealth" to "cement a market position in a new market before it starts" from simply being at the forefront of a market and outcompeting? At what point does government interference change from "preventing a monopoly" to "holding back a market in hopes that someone will compete directly even though no one is trying"? at which point government becomes the one dictating the terms of the market? It's a slippery slope to say a market concept existed, then a bigger company used their resources to outcompete, so now we punish them for being successful by determining caps on success.

The real problem is what's on trial here isn't MS acquiring ABK. It's the entire system of finance and business itself, and it's relationship to government. But there's nothing here unique from every other industry, and there's less than 0 chance anyone of power wants any of that changed, ever. We need to end duopolies and trillion dollar companies and all the rest for a "fair" landscape. I said before all we have is new feudalism with fancy corporate logos to replace coats of arms. But "society" seems to like that for some reason. And ending it would build a new depression at best or new dark ages at worst. And lots of carnage etc etc.

I'm not a fan of consolidation in the slightest, nor typically big mergers, but being into the weeds on this one, I'm not seeing anything here that presents a regulatory or competitive issue other than the broader sense of consolidation (which is a much bigger topic than this deal and one government has signaled it will never take up), and the fact that the cloud industry itself exists as a tiny set of companies that even could compete.

That's the crux of the issue with this. It doesn't directly change the competitive landscape in any way, it does not directly impact more than one potential or current competitor in any real way. Even if it kills Sony and shifts everything to cloud, and in cloud there's only MS, it changes the market from a dominant console to a dominant streaming platform and still maintains the status quo. There's no real competitor directly challenging it at all, which changes to scope considerably. If MS were buying Nintendo to fight Sony that would change the landscape. If they were buying ABK to take down competing publishers that would be a competitive landscape change. This is a vertical integration and market initiation (mobile) of one vendor that makes one key product ostensibly to strengthen a product portfolio that already has no direct competitor and the only few potential competitors have not really chosen to compete directly up to now anyway.

Anti-competitive action is hard to claim where there isn't a direct competitor in the market to begin with, and it's hard to pin a company down for foreclosing a market they themselves really created. And it's hard to call a market of which there's allegedly only one participant a market at all rather than a differentiated sales model in the broader market it takes place in. Multi-game subscriptions are in competition with digital game marketplaces, physical retailers of games. It can also easily be argued that it is in competition with video and music subscription services for consumer entertainment time. (Competition against other entertainment is a common argument, with solid precedent.) IE Netflix, Hulu, Google Video, Spotify, etc are all "competitors."

The question then changes to "is multi-service game subscriptions" a new market at all, or is it simply Microsoft's means of competition in the overall video games market? In which case Apple and Tencent are both crushing them in that market already and this actually facilitates them entering a competition more even with Apple and Tencent's terms?

It's still not cut and dry. I dont' want to see a dominant MS in cloud the way Sony is dominant in console, or worse. And yet there's just not a strong argument, I don't think, to say this is anticompetitive or to even claim a "new market" of subscriptions exists, when we just don't see a bevvy of competing ideas this drowns out. The fact that no other subscription service is even hosting CoD, and Activision itself would not put it on a sub service, breaks that argument.

Rather than dominating a non-existent subscription market, that move would seem to make the subscription market a stronger competitor against the retail market which according to MS is also their largest game distribution sales channel vs subscription. Which is precisely what MS has been saying, and solid reason for Sony's actions to be what they've been, while Amazon, the only 1:1 direct competitor in cloud that even stands to be harmed by this in the cloud arena, currently, hasn't raised an eyebrow and happily sells Game Pass subscription cards digitally and physically in their retail division....

Ok I typed that all out and then went to post it and didn't even realize it was THAT long! Sorry for the massive text wall, and am thankful spam filters didn't flag me!

Personally, I'm more worried about the domino effect @GrumbleVolcano mentioned. However I'm not convinced that won't happen regardless.

Although I still don't beleive Sony will buy Square-Enix. Sony doesn't just splash out cash to buy things for the sake of owning them, they invest for some amount of control. They already get what is most profitable from them from Square-Enix (FF) for far less money, and Japanese games are not the focus of Sony's profit center, CoD and GTA and its respective markets are. I simply don't see that buying Square gets them anything they don't already have or grants them any competitive advantage at all in exchange for loss of liquidity. If Square still owned the western studios that would have been more beneficial to Sony, but they already sold that to Embracer and spun off IOI as independent. Buying Square gets them almost nothing of particular value other than mobile that does have significant value, and helps them as a business but does nothing for PS itself. If anything the calls from fans about buying Square shows how out of touch fans are with PS's actual market and business direction where "fans" are us old PS1/PS2 players that think PS is all about JRPGs. They'd do WAY better buying Take 2, Embracer, or Ubisoft for their actual direction and goals and as a 1:1 Acitvision competitor. Nintendo's the only company that could stand to benefit from buying Square. It's an important market segment for Sony, sure, and they have that locked buy buying a few exclusives rather than companies.

@Tharsman "(funny to think Apple was about to go bankrupt back in the days MS was being sued for anticompetitive practices)"

And MS floated them the money to continue.... (to save the duopoly for themselves of course.)

OT: I still can't comprehend Apple making that kind of cap for their tiny cadre of mediocre overpriced products....boggles the mind.

@Tharsman Most Square Enix games come to Switch nowadays, for example this year alone these came to Switch:

• Kingdom Hearts cloud versions (hopefully native versions come when Nintendo gets more powerful hardware)
• Voice of Cards The Forsaken Maiden
• Triangle Strategy (Switch exclusive)
• Chocobo GP (Switch exclusive)
• Chrono Cross
• The Centennial Case
• Live a Live remake (Switch exclusive)
• Various Daylife
• The DioField Chronicle
• Life is Strange Arcadia Bay Collection
• Nier Automata
• Harvestella (Switch exclusive)
• Tactics Ogre Reborn
• Romancing Saga Minstrel Song Remastered
• Dragon Quest Treasures (Switch exclusive)
• Crisis Core Reunion

Nowadays if a Square Enix game doesn't come to Switch, the vast majority of the time it's a Playstation exclusive. There are exceptions like both PS and Xbox got Stranger of Paradise and Star Ocean this year but it's less common.

@UltimateOtaku91 you have to keep in mind both activision and blizzard gamign history goes back to early 90s

but heres a list of all the IPs ms would get in this transaction... keep in mind this is just ips not the many many many sequals for the games that came out for each of them...
Blur
Caesar
Call of Duty
Candy Crush
Crush Bandicoot
Diablo
DJ Hero
Empire Earth
Gabriel Knight
Geometry Wars
Guitar Hero
Gun
Hearthstone
Heroes of the Storm
Hexen
Interstate 76
King’s Quest
Laura Bow Mysteries
The Lost Vikings
Overwatch
Phantasmagoria
Pitfall
Police Quest
Prototype
Quest for Glory
Singularity
Skylanders
Soldier of Fortune
Space Quest
Spyro the Dragon
Starcraft
Tenchu
TimeShift
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
True Crime
World of Warcraft
Zork

and that 200 number was off if you dont count the many ports and iterations of the games...but overall its a ton of games that would be available on gamepass....and many of them are great games...

@themightyant about exclusivity of other titles: they won’t talk about this unless it becomes an issue with regulators simply because it won’t be a popular look, but I doubt anyone involved cares about them.

None of Activision other titles are “market shifters” by any stretch, and that seems to be all regulators seem to care about. The EU admired as much when they said they didn’t care if all of Zenimax games going forward became exclusives.

@themightyant Non-COD content concessions sounds nice in a sort of theoretical conceptual sense about too big business but I don't think it goes beyond the academic. The reality of that is that no affected party actually cares about any of it at all, it's just not a real factor in their revenues or competitiveness even if it all goes exclusive. Overwatch is big enough to matter but is now F2P and unlikely to go exclusive regardless. Blizzard's other properties are mostly PC centric from the beginning, and are almost unaffected, and they prominently direct-sold most of that anyway in their own store so it's even less of an issue. Diablo's the only thing they put on console at all. Skylanders is mostly dead, but even if it were revived the T2L factor means spreading it to at least Nintendo is a guarantee, and really Nintendo's the only one that would have issue with that. And nothing else in the Activision portfolio is of significance enough to any industry player to really care about supposed "concessions" at all. Concessions are about limiting competitive damage, and other than CoD, no competitor or even watchdog group has raised any concern about any of that content being important to their business.

In a way that's the sad tale of Activision as a whole. They went from being a major player with a huge IP library to a company that really only has value for a single IP, plus King which isn't part of the competitive conversation for obvious reasons, and everything else is decoration (or non-existent. The other reality is almost no other IPs but the Blizzarrd PC ones and Diablo were probably going to even be made without a buyout. Spyro/Crash under-performed and those studios, too, got rolled into the CoD/WoW metaverse.)

@Blessed_Koz Activision is older than that. They spun out from Atari with executives leaving to start a competitor and chose the name because it sorts higher alphabetically. Then executives spun out of Activision and started Acclaim, choosing the name because it sorts higher than Activision alphabetically....

Things always go full circle. The biggest drama in gaming today centers around what started as disgruntlement within Atari....

Tangential topic that crosses my mind, early on in the game streaming services life, the two startups that explored the area were OnLive and Gaikai. Sony Computer Entertainment bought both of them, shut down OnLive, kept their patente and built PSNow on Gaikai tech. Now THAT is what I would called an ugly acquisition that should had raised anticompetitive concerns, but being small companies no regulatory body cared.

@themightyant

Compare that with now and we are still at 720-1080p

That is more to blame on the internet infrastructure than on the technology, transmitting higher resolution than that is possible but unreliable and expensive.

But as for the OnLive acquisition: it still is very bad look to this day they bought the company just to shut it down, no one offered any refunds, and their employees not absorbed into the company. They just bought it in what looked like an attempt to monopolize the space. Dont think that changed until Game Pass entered the picture.

Also remember how expensive it was? You would rent PS3 games on a daily basis, for rates that made Blockbuster seem cheap.

@themightyant

Sony is buying up some "important parts" of OnLive, the first major video game streaming platform, and casting the rest aside. The game streaming service, and its related Desktop and SL Go applications, will shut down on April 30, OnLive announced this week.

gamesradar

It had not shut down until the acquisition, because all Sony wanted was the patents.

@themightyant @NEStalgia Some of Sony's acquisitions like Insomniac and Housemarque have been about protecting studios that develop Playstation exclusives from being acquired by others. Mainline Final Fantasy seems to be heading in the direction where ports and remasters are multiplatform meanwhile remakes and new games are permanently Playstation console exclusive.

@themightyant @Grumblevolcano I still think we don't know about FF. Sony seems to have control over it in some hidden way other than traditional exclusivity, 7R allegedly isn't an exclusive contract anymore. Yet there it sits. And it's not that Square has no interest in selling the franchise elsewhere as they just launched Crisis Core on everything, literally the FF7 series. So I assume Sony has some hidden hand over it like they did for 20+ years with the rest of the series via partial ownership, but through some unknown string pulling this time. FF16 may be a "timed exclusive" but after how FF7R has gone, I would be somewhat surprised if it didn't "stay on PS+PC for unknown reasons post exclusivity for seemingly ever" like 7R.

They certainly secured what they wanted and what benefits them without buying S-E though. It will be interesting to see how DQ12 goes. I never forget the little crack in the wall that gave us a glimpse of this sort of thing that DQ11 was. We'll never know what happened that prevented the release of the game that was very literally the first 3rd party game confrmed for "NX" that released as a PS console exclusive (plus the most successful 3DS version.), that was curiously incomplete, mostly for the Japanese release, for one of Japan's most dominant games, Switch was never mentioned again, and S-E explained it was for "adult reasons", and then when they do release it, they rewrite the whole game, then release the Switch version after timed exclusivity everywhere, as though deleting the PS exclusive version from existence. It's hard to tell sometimes where Square being weird ends and where Square being invisibly hamstrung to Sony begins.

@themightyant Pretty sure the timed exclusivity on FFXVI which ends on December 31st 2023 will be about PC later just like FFVII Remake. Such as: June 2023 (PS5) -> January 2024 (Epic Game Store) -> July 2024 (Steam)

@themightyant I agree in general about Square, pretty much completely. However, the whole "operating without an ethos" doesn't fit Japanese business really at all. Not that there's no rogue business leaders there, but even the rogues have an ethos. Even the mob has an ethos there. Even by American standards Square is random. The Square peg does not fit in the round hole. There's some important piece of information about them that we do not have.

They do seem to play all sides for money, though they seem to have earmarked bins, things that are for Sony, things that are for Nintendo. They did technically do Xbox (timed) exclusivity in the past as well, albeit with Tomb Raider from western studios they've now sold to Embracer.

But while that's all true about Square Enix there's definitely a fishier than even normal for Square air about everything around FF/KH/and DQ. Something doesn't add up in the way it leans into Sony, even when it's obvious Square would rather make money selling things more places (Crisis Core makes it very obvious they're interested in, at least, Nintendo, if not Xbox, money for FF7 series.) IDK what ties them to Sony. It's not just exclusivity contracts, there hast to be a "soft money" angle involved that isn't public. Sony pays their marketing bills, buys their sushi for a year, gives them discounts on licensing fees, keeps quiet about that night at that Nintendo-owned motel back in the 70's....SOMETHING that ties them up.

It's more than just paying a fee to get a game. If money were all it took and MS wanted to deal a massive blow to Sony they could take any PS exclusive Square game away from them by outbidding them at any time. No matter how expensive the bid, taking away FF from PS would have been a brand victory to the point that I'd be surprised if they didn't actually try it and were refused.

2000% agreed on ending the cloak and dagger games. Much as I love Japan, that seems to be a Japan thing. It seems like it's mostly Square-Enix deals, Atlus (but not Sega proper), Capcom/Nintendo etc that do that.