Group Of 'Gamers' Who Tried To Sue Microsoft Faced With Dismissal In Court

That’s 10 people going home and having a cry into their PlayStation onesie’s.

Imagine being such a loser, having no life, no responsibilities, or relationships to invest time in, that you decide to take Microsoft to court over a gaming acquisition. Honestly unbelievable.

@Chaudy this was likely brought over by career vulture settlement seeking lawyers. Not that I think highly of them by any mean, as obvious by my choice of adjectives, but they certainly have a very likely, very successful careers bullying parties into settlements.

@themightyant although such a case can be made, there is a line that you cross where you stop being profitable. I doubt CoD would be able to sustain its development cadence if they didn’t support at minimum PlayStation, supporting Nintendo will further help keeping the gears turning.

Not that the judge likely had any knowledge of the nuance, and he would had likely said the same about Crash Bandicoot even if that could just easily be sustained as an exclusive.

What was interesting about this case is that alot of the arguments used in this, were mirrored/very similar to the ones used by the FTC. The fact the judge dismissed it, is a good sign for Microsoft if the case with the FTC goes to Federal Court.

They were throwing around that buzz word that so many people use lately "anti-competitive." The problem with that argument is that this deal is a move that makes the console industry more competitive. How can it be "anti-competitive" when it increases competition in the console space?

@themightyant Starfield is not an established franchise, for all they know Starfield will flop. Why waste money bringing it to other consoles.

God loves a trier.

I’m not sure the purpose of these things is to ‘win’ though. I mean I’m sure a few of them had visions of single-handedly saving PlayStation and getting high fives from Jim Ryan… but I think most probably reckoned on it not going much further than the goal these things are supposed to create…

So then what’s the point? Well it brings further negative attention to the ABK deal whilst the ABK deal is trying to get passed by these governing bodies that are taking in feedback from all corners. They may have not have had a hope in winning…but it still adds some fuel to the fire - demonstrated by how widely it’s been reported the last couple of days and last year

@themightyant embracer and tencent are capable of spending like microsoft. Either one of those companies are a plastic box away from having the most exclusives titles out of anyone. If it is strictly an issue of money would it be anti competitive for Microsoft to spent 80 billion dollars starting up brand new studios?

I think we will see what sony is actually capable of once the deal goes through. A healthy xbox is already paying off for ps users. I am confident that my ps4 games would not work on my ps5 without the resurgence of Xbox in the second half of last gen.

It is kind of funny that Sony execs were reportedly predicting internally that they would force Microsoft to exit the gaming space this gen but are now telling governing bodies that they can't compete with them. I wonder if any of those previous predictions will show up in the subpoena documents.

And a side note xbox is the only console manufacturer without exclusive content. You can purchase any Xbox published game on pc day and date with console release.

What sad individuals these 10 are..... laughably cringe

@themightyant if CoD was just one game every 10 years, I think it could hypothetically go without supporting third party consoles, but as it stands it has 3 full time studios working on each year entries, and that’s just the main studios, each of them have additional support studios behind them.

Individually all those studios could be delivering a larger array of distinct titles that would add a lot more diversity to a first party lineup.

On the other hand, Minecraft is a game that likely runs on a barebone budget, I doubt it’s too expensive to run that operation (all spin-off games are outsourced) so the only reason to keep that one going multiplat is that the mass appeal is so large that it simply prints money that in turn subsidizes other Microsoft gaming initiatives (not unlike mobile will also end up doing.)

@themightyant maybe it is the "we believe in generations" type of quotes or the constant re-releases they send out.

Why did playstation ever get away from backwards compatibility? It's odd that they suddenly found inspiration to do back compat again after it became the main marketing strategy of xbox.

@themightyant multiplat was not a part of the minecraft deal with Microsoft. The previous owner was quoted as saying he does not have insight into minecrafts future under microsoft. It was strictly a financial decision on Microsoft part.

"Mojang provides no assurances to specific future plans for minecraft"

@Kaloudz Sure, appeals, appeals of the appeals, appeals of the appeals of the appeals up to SCOTUS is the way of the American legal system! OTOH if these handful of "gamers" can afford the legal feels of going up against Microsoft for layers and layers of appeals over an issue that's not an actual direct grievance (consumer protection, faulty products, invasion of privacy etc etc), it only lends one to wonder who's actually backing and funding them....

@themightyant "none of the other current players can can spend $7.5 billion and then $69 billion to acquire studios and make many of those games exclusive. In THAT way it is anti-competitive"

On the flip side none of the other current players including MS could buy the particular third party title exclusivity (FF, even the CoD perks, GTA perks etc ) that Sony does for anywhere near the price they can afford to pay as the dominant player without buying the whole company behind it making more economic sense... If Sony were #3 with only 30% of the market share, there's no chance they could buy FF without buying all of Squeenix making more financial sense. It only works because they're the whole market anyway.

Really the whole problem is the industry got massively imbalanced a decade ago, never truly recovered, and all of this is still the horrible imbalance playing out. Maybe it fixes it, maybe it makes it worse, but it's all the reverberations of a massive industry imbalance. If this were a utility industry rather than entertainment, Sony would have been a regulated monopoly by now at least outside the US.

@Sakai Was 40 plus years of prior jurisprudence not sufficient signal as to how the case would go in federal court?

@themightyant "perhaps not COD, but it's going to happen to many other titles."

Right but the complaint is about CoD. It's expected that almost everything else goes exclusive and none of that has been determined to be a market threat by any evaluating agency, or even Sony itself (publicly)....only CoD....

As far as BC, I don't think there's a lot of reason to expect Sony would have done BC if competition didn't force them to. They didn't the prior generation (for technical reasons) and were more than fine. Nintendo didn't this generation (for technical reasons) and are more than fine. MS didn't intend to last generation but had to add it in after the fact, unplanned, because of market reasons compelling them to add value to gain market and turned it into a tentpole.

By and large the industry was DONE with BC and easily could have ignored it forever more, and consumers had adapted to it. If MS did not shoehorn it back into a spotlight and all THREE of them had successfully moved on without BC....why in the world would Sony, the leader, have spent money and opportunity cost on new sales to support it? They wouldn't have. But MS dragged it back from the past and put it in the spotlight, so it became a necessary feature to directly compete.

Nintendo? Nintedoes WTF it wants to...who knows if Switch 2 will be BC and the market won't care anyway. The only thing we know about Switch 2 is that it will have all the Call of Duty games on it.

@themightyant So you are saying that they weren't BC since PS2 until Xbox forced their hand finally. That "original model" on PS3 was quickly shoved out when they realized they could repackage the same games for more money. No excuse as to why they ended BC on PS3 other than that. Most PS3s in circulation are NOT BC and it isn't even close.

@StrawberryWave Brings more parity to the competition instead of just Sony stomping all over everyone. Competition is good for the consumer.

@Trmn8r The reason they ended BC on PS3 was because their solution to BC on the PS3 was to pretty much build a whole actual PS2 onto the PS3 mainboard. That along with the circuitry for things like SACD playback, install any OS, and a few other features are part of why it was "six hundred ninety nine US dollars", which made it more DOA than Xbone with Kinect. So they made a new model, stripped out all the extra stuff, probably still ate a huge loss on cell and dropped the price to $399 where it.....failed.....less rapidly? Until they had the $299 ultra slim and it finally sold units.

I don't fault Sony for that one, their BC solution sucked, it wasn't software emulation they just put two whole consoles inside the box and called it a day, no matter how high the price tag had to be and assumed people would pay it. Stripping it down was just crisis management to get the box down to a price some people might actually be willing to pay. But, yeah, they learned back then they don't need BC, and they didn't really have BC again, for legit reasons or not, until now.

@themightyant it was a decision that microsoft came to independently. It was not a condition of the deal with Mojang. Exclusivity was always an option for them (still is) and they chose not to.

@NEStalgia I know what they did. But don't act like that isn't something they knew going in. I think they were surprised by 360 going down BC path and felt forced to shove a PS2 inside it. But it shows that they never planned to be BC after PS2 and wanted to regurgitate old games for more profits ever since the PS3 era.

@Kaloudz Higher courts tend to reject cases that are dismissed before even heard by lower courts. There are rare occasions, but most are dismissed outright.

"When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much. That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?" - Jim Ryan 2017

Doesn't sound like he had BC plans in 2017 when he refers to their past with it as when we've dabbled and then talks negatively about it.

A bunch of losers doing it for the social media attention. Pathetic.

@themightyant @NEStalgia Costs of the PS3 is not the only reason they removed BC, for one, the second model had software based BC that they decided very intentionally to simply patch out of existence.

A big reason they decided to remove it (regardless if they ever admit it) is that the PS2 was still selling very well for several years after the release of the PS3, and they were not ready to stop that income stream so long as consumers were willing to pay for hardware with way better profit margins so they could play their PS2 games.

Anyways the main reason many are dubious about the initial plans for BC on the PS5 is that Sony was extremely cagey about committing to it for almost a year after XBox unveiled the Series X, and its promise for a smart delivery future.

We are in a new era, and yes, the way hardware is going it makes sense to make things backwards compatible, but unlike XBox, that runs the same OS on both, the One and Series X|S, Sony runs a new OS on the PS5. Maintaining backwards compatibility is not a given in the era of software. Android, iOS and MacOS all constantly break older software.

Windows is an anomaly, MS works extremely hard at making sure it is as compatible as possible with old software, and even they never make sure never to over-promise on that department.

Given all Sony would say was "we believe in generations", its hard not to think Sony themselves were not sure they could promise BC yet. Now we know that through that time they were internally running tests for every single PS4 game to make sure it ran on the PS5, and honestly, I have a feeling that compatibility layer would not exist at all if they had felt they didn't need it, after all, who wants to play old games?

@Trmn8r Back then, BC was still in their DNA to retain market from going back to Nintendo. Nintendo was doing BC on their handhelds, the "Nintendo Play Station" was all about 16 bit and 32-bit BC coexisting (cartridge slot + optical), so the whole idea of the early PS was built around BC mostly from the Nintendo side, that rolled into PS2 with PS1 BC, and then PS2 with PS1 and PS2 BC as a natural succession. They dropped PS2 BC, but retained PS1 BC because that was software emulation on the 3. They didn't move away from it until PS4, which was probably seen as risky but necessary, but ultimately would not have hurt them since originally X1 was not going to have BC either. It would have been the new normal had MS not changed strategies in the wake of X1 launch, that much I agree on. But I think they thought they needed it for PS3. At any cost. They learned they didn't only after that was forced to be removed.

@themightyant LOL, you bet!

Almost every console in history up to that point had offered it because they were afraid of losing install base without incentivizing carrying over existing games. That was also the point of the original "Nintendo Play Station." But at that turning point in the industry, there was no incentive for Sony of all players following PS4 dominance to do so after already demonstrating the prior gen that success/dominance does not hinge on it. If MS didn't have BC there would be no incentive for PS to have added it. Lack of BC would mean re-buying or paying for upgrades for almost everything. They wouldn't be doing so just to be nice to their customers. Not modern PS.

@Somebody To be fair and play devil's advocate, Jim also had has famous "...we definitely believe at some point in the future, VR will represent a meaningful component of interactive entertainment. Will it be this year? No. Will it be next year? No. But will it come at some stage? We believe that."

And then less than 48 hours later the Japan division posted pictures of the PSVR2 headset and controllers with a "coming next year (2021)" lead..... It's best not to listen too much to whatever Jim says, I don' think he has a clue what his own organization is doing most of the time.

@themightyant @Tharsman They had to prepare for BC because MS has made BC a competition point since early last generation. Of course it was in the hardware.

But don't think for a second if Phil came out and said "Xbox will no longer support BC going forward" they wouldn't have disabled those power modes in firmware in under a minute and left them unused "to ensure the best next generation experience for our customers." The R&D and fabrication cost would be easily made up by repeat game sales, and future dies for the SoC could omit those components for cost cutting.

@Kaloudz Yep, there's a whole chain of appeals in the process. You start in a low court, appeal to a higher court. Then you can re-appeal to another court within the same circuit, then appeal to a higher circuit, then re-appeal to that same circuit, then if the case has any weight constitutionally can be challenged to SCOTUS, though due to cost alone is a rare event only for the most foundational of topics.

The intended point is so that no judge can have any outsize sway. You can have a corrupt, bribed judge, an ideological judge who views things through their own prism, a tainted jury, a stacked jury, etc, etc, etc. By allowing many retrials and reviews it is supposed to keep the scales of justice from being able to be tilted in any direction by having the chance to go through multiple challenges, so that the culmination of all of them need to be weighted in each iteration and also potentially expose judicial malfeasance. Where at the top, the supreme court weighs on the constitutionality of the judgements in question.

That's the original constitutional design of the judiciary.

The modern point?

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@NEStalgia the psvr2 is an interesting point to bring up in the bc discussion too. Obviously some tech issues there but basically up to the developers discretion to update to make their vr1 games playable and free is optional. Doesn't seem like the Sony games will even get the upgrade. That would help the launch so people didn't have to buy a few games alongside the $550.

So far it looks like about a dozen or so games are doing it. I imagine we eventually see some "ps5 version" or "psvr2 version" of psvr1 games sold at full price.

Kind of sad that a lot of my game purchases are going to be tied forever to that awful setup process of psvr1. It was enough to make me decide against psvr2 and any future vr set I get will be on pc where I know I will always have a massive library.

@Somebody It might be too soon to say about Sony's own VR games, because so far it doesn't look like they're porting them free or paid, and they didn't have many to begin with. Most of them were early tech demos. And Astrobot is more than an upgrade since the game revolves around the old controller etc, it needs more than a mere port done to it (if they ever port it at all.) I can understand VR2 issues to a point because the old games need to be updated to work with the new kit, there's no native BC to the old camera sensor and Move controllers, and most of those games aren't supported by devs anymore, and most of the ones that are have either free or cheap upgrades. It's a bit of a mess. But I do understand there's legit tech reasons this time (now VR 2 to VR3 otoh I will be expecting BC support on PS6, there's no reason now.)

I do think it's maybe a show of good faith that Sony provided the GT7 update for VR for free, on a game they don't even charge full price for anymore. Considering that's the only "existing" game from 1st party Sony even on VR2, I'm not writing off them being friendly quite yet. I don't expect much 1st party to exist on it at all anyway but I expect maybe some VR modes in flat game SKUs possibly.

PC definitely has a lot of advantages in VR of course though. Though also disadvantages (namely, devs are getting restless with the myriad of hardware configurations in the PC VR space, and an impossible to please customer base. Occulus and PSVR are much more dev friendly in that sense. )

These have to be the dumbest people I have seen in a while. Talk about trying to take your internet tough guy attitude to real life and having to face reality for once. Take note everyone, this is why you shouldn't get too wrapped up in gaming drama.

@LightningLeader if Microsoft devs make exclusives that’s fine. Simply buying huge devs and making 3rd party games exclusive isn’t. That’s the problem. Sony an Nintendo make great games. Microsoft buy great games.

@themightyant There is a Difference between Online Active Community based games and those one-off single player story games that have no history at all - like Starfield when those SINGLE PLAYER experiences are what MS NEEDS to bring players into their ECOSYSTEM. Fallout, Elder Scrolls etc all start with you creating your character to play that specific Story so not even a 'sequel' that people will now not get to see how a 'trilogy' ends situation.

Games with big ONLINE ACTIVE COMMUNITIES - like CoD are the exact games that MS want to grow to OTHER Platforms, grow those communities regardless of what platform you are on. Minecraft is a great example and its Spin-offs are also online multi-player based games for all the minecraft fans regardless of where they play - they''ll do the same with CoD, probably WoW too and Overwatch so more people can jump into these Online Community games regardless of which platform you like to play on, but if you want great Single Player games, new IP's from Xbox, well you need to be on Xbox for those...

Can't expect MS to pay for Development creating all these Games, owning all the studios/IP's/Publishing Rights etc to release those on their competitors platforms, pay to port to Playstation? That's when you leave the Console market as you have lost the big incentive to buy an Xbox - unique Games you can't play elsewhere - online games make more sense to have big online communities to succeed so multi-platform/cross-play etc. Single Player to bring gamers in...

Bunch of losers expected themselves to make any difference in this whole acquisition situation. Lol

@themightyant you could make that argument about every studio and game. If they weren't acquired by whoever that their games would have eventually released on their competitor's console and every other device.

@themightyant I think this is going to be a good thing and spur competition.

@Fenbops I'm picturing them with the X's, O's, triangles and squares all over them. Now that I think about it, I bet that looks absolutely childish. Wait a minute, PlayStation even sounds like it's for children. How did I just now realize that after almost 30 years?

I'm just ready for this deal to go through and have my game pass explode with even more games. Ah i love it.

@themightyant OTOH I don't want to see gaming become what TV is on the other sense, either. Sure, library streaming services has the fragmentation issue. Every show is on a different service and you need all the services to see all the shows.

But TV streaming went the other way. Every company has to offer the WHOLE package no matter if you want Oprah Network or not, you're going to pay for it, and the more they all incorporate the higher prices get. YouTube TV went from $35 to $45, to $50 to $65 to $73. It will never go down, it'll be over $100 in a few years...not because it needed to cost more but because the bundles get bigger and bigger with more junk you don't want and you have to pay for all of it if you want any of it. And all the competitors are "equal" and therefore the same price within a few dollars. TV=$70. No exceptions.

The future of all things continues to get more bleak, and somehow the masses seem ok with it no matter what. I don't get it. Some would say I'm a pessimist, but I look around and can't believe how optimistic I am.

@LightningLeader they’re not Playstation exclusives, it’s just a deal devs are willing to do as they know their game will sell massively on Playstation. I’m talking about games made by Sony/Microsoft owned devs. So TLOU, God of War, Spiderman, Miles, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Horizon, Ratchet an Clank, Gran Turismo, etc. xbox has Gears, Halo, Forza, etc. Sony buy devs an invest an nurture them and they turn out GOTY contenders. Microsoft simply want to buy already huge games an make them exclusive.

@NorthwestEagle That's extremely interesting about the emulator. I did not know that. So if they DID have software BC that worked on the platform, that's in interesting narrative revision to the PS3. They launched it with full BC as an advertised feature. They incorporated hardware BC in at high cost due to lack of imagination to begin with (which harmed only themselves and demand for their product.) Then realized they didn't even NEED to have done that to begin with. And then decided to milk their limited PS3 install base for re-selling games to recover costs, rather than try to increase PS3 adoption by improving it's value by offering SW BC. Then launched the doomed Vita they abandoned as soon as they launched it. And then nearly went out of business if PS4 hadn't been an instant hit.

Wow. Maybe Jim isn't the worst leadership PS has had....

@themightyant

@themightyant That definitely sounds more sensible, because with how bad PS3 was selling most of that time I really can't imagine they'd have gated the ability to open it to PS2 owners and their bottomless libraries just to sell a few more copies of emulated Jak 2.

@themightyant any new franchise that Bungie makes will be a Playstation exclusive. Bungie is the best at making first person shooters and that is what Sony bought them for.

Out of curiosity, if this aquisition of Activision products is apparently going to cause harm to the community because of exclusivity then shouldn't we be crying wolf over Sony's exclusive games such as Final Fantasy VII and XIV, Horizon Zero, God of War and many other titles that Xbox will never see unless they give in and purchase a Playstation?

End of story, each platform including Xbox, Playstation, PC and Switch all have their own exclusive games...