Xbox Teams Up With 'Ubitus' For Latest 10-Year ActiBlizz Partnership

All these deals with companies most ppl have never heard of to try and push the deal over the line.

Even though many of us would never have heard of, or used, many of these companies that are now striking deals with Microsoft, the accumulative affect is to both isolate Sony, and make their claims of this deal being bad for gamers look increasingly ridiculous. These deals will bring ABK games (or at least CoD) to more players than ever before, not fewer.

Honestly, even though I know Microsoft won't do it, I'd be sorely tempted to not offer parity of content to Sony after the deal goes through. They've had their chance to accept the deal, and done everything they can to get the deal thrown out, so why give them what Microsoft have been offering them all along? Unfortunately, Sony know that Microsoft will still give them everything that the deal was offering anyway, so for them, there is no need to sign the deal. But, man, I'd be so tempted to give them the leftovers, rather than the main meal, but then Sony would use that to try and block any future acquisition that Microsoft might wish to make, so it won't happen...

They are establishing the 10 year deal as THE concession. Xbox and regulators can tell Sony that the rest of the industry has found this deal adequate.

It's pathetic how Sonys complaint is fluid and changing as the regulation process unfolds. It used to be they will take it away from us, then it was 3 years is not enough, now it is they might make our version worse. Those along with the "we will not be able to compete" are unfounded flat out lies to government bodies.

Couldn't give a toss about all these buyouts/takeovers and that.

Just give us great games ffs !

Sony is about to lose COD entirely if they aren't careful.

Once they conjure up a deal with Amazon Luna, I hope the CMA's "cloud monopoly" argument gets shredded on the spot.

Sony are really starting to look like the bad dudes here and the ones being awkward and petty.

Surely the deal will go through very soon.

It’s very interesting how other companies are joining the Xbox deal and moving ahead even Nintendo a very traditional Japanese company.

Let the deal go through, leaving Sony out and they can be at the mercy of everybody else.

@UnusedBabyWipes they should do a post mortem deal with stadia as well for all of their loyal fans 😆

The game Xbox are playing is obvious before everyone’s eyes. Announce deals with as many as possible to make Sony look unreasonable so the deal goes through. Smart, brutal business.

Sony half killed their once dominant Walkman market and TV market, through arrogance etc.
will this be the third time for them.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Yeah, it's great that the Stadia controllers now have bluetooth with all of these cloud deals going through.
@Sam_TSM You mean Vicarious Visions? Volition did Saints Row.

@Moonglow I said most ppl. I don't include myself in that.

@JayJ Was just thinking the same thing.

@KaijuKaiser Sony fighting the deal isn’t the joke. They may even legally have to for the sake of their investors. It’s the hypocrisy that people can’t stand with Sony… especially around parity.

Well that's basically EVERY Physical platform PC, Steam Deck (Valve who said they don't 'need' to sign a deal as they TRUST MS to keep CoD on their Platform) and Nintendo - ONLY Sony refusing to sign so can't claim that CoD will be 'exclusive' to Xbox Hardware.

And now with nVidia, Boosteroid and Ubitus, Sony can't claim that MS are also going to make CoD exclusive to their 'Streaming/Cloud' service either.

@Nexozi I can understand why 'Console' gamers in particular are NOT aware of Streaming/PC based Streaming Companies. If you aren't interested in Streaming or gaming on PC, there are a 'ton' of gaming Companies you've never heard of.

'Premium' Gaming does tend to 'dominate' the discussion - AAA games made for 'Premium' Hardware and if your hardware isn't 'good enough', you need to upgrade or 'miss' out. Anything else just isn't 'good enough' as a 'Video' game. Streaming at 1080/60 on Game Pass isn't 'good enough' for these but for those without the 'Premium' budget required, its 'better' than 720/30 on a XB1S or not being able to play at all on their Mobile/Laptop/Tablet.

People won't leave PS5 because CoD can be played for $10 on their Phone because they want the 'Premium' experience they bought a PS5 for - 4k, upto 120fps, RT, lowest latency/lag, no Streaming compression artefacts and no doubt, their friends, their favourite controller, Trophies etc also contribute to the 'experience'. $120 a year for 1080/60 or $70 for a 'lifetime' to play CoD at Premium Quality on their PS5 because they bought it.

If people 'choose' to leave PS5 to play CoD, that is them exercising their consumer choice to play where it suits them 'best' - whether that is on Xbox, on PC, on Nintendo or any streaming service - not feel 'forced' to play on Playstation or miss out on Content, on Bonuses/Perks etc. If it suits them best to stay on PS, they will...

What is going on! Make a joke comment and get jumped on.

@BAMozzy @Moonglow

@Moonglow
Right now MS might offer better value but what in future.
What happens if gamepass cant afford all games what happens then?
Will they close it then which will doomed Xbox since players wouldnt buy any games.
Or will games be worse and hope players doesnt care as we already see some do now.

I rather play 3-4 great games a year and nothing else then 20 bad ones.

All Xbox players see now is cheap games on gamepass and doesnt care about future.

@Moonglow it's somewhat ironic that you say Sony should shut up and accept the deal when it's actually largely Microsoft being the ones that are doing all of the talking on the matter. Public comments from Sony on the matter are quite rare, whereas Microsoft are constantly going on about it in interviews and on Twitter etc. They even took out newspaper articles on the matter lol. Not disputing the sentiment that at this point it would probably be in their interests to just sign the deal but it amuses me that people are portraying the idea that Sony are the ones constantly going on about it

@Moonglow Thing is, they don't really need to sign as MS will continue to release on PS - unless Sony themselves 'Block' them from doing so and can jeopardise their own customers experience by not providing adequate tools to port to their System and Optimise. If they don't let MS Studios have Dev-Kits, then it would be 'difficult' to port/optimise CoD.

They don't think they need to sign because they know MS want to keep CoD on their Platform, will keep CoD on their Platform etc even if they don't sign. If they do 'sign' though, then any 'remote' chance of blocking and/or prolonging the deal going through is gone. If they signed, CMA/FTC/EU would certainly of passed it and maybe A/B would be owned by MS now, maybe Diablo 4 would come to GP day1 etc...

If they don't sign, MS could keep games from Sony - maybe not CoD as its a 'high profile' game but maybe a new Crash/Spyro wouldn't come when it was 'guaranteed' under the initial deal. Most are getting deals for A/B games - not just CoD - so maybe won't get WoW or other 'A/B' games that other Platforms will and if Sony does 'lose' most/all its CoD gamers (extremely unlikely) but MS could say its not worth Porting to, not worth the 'cost' anymore, Don't have to bring it to PS6 as no-one bought a PS6 yet specifically to play CoD

@BAMozzy From another perspective, Microsoft needs CoD to be on as many platforms as possible in order to start recouping their 68 Billion investment, preferably as quickly as possible. Given the size of the purchase making the ABK games "exclusive" in any form is probably impossible and the best place to sell them is PS consoles. The idea of brining CoD to Nintendo is similarly aiming to bring it to a far wider audience. So I think Xbox would have done such deals even if there were no regulatory hurdles.
Exclusivity worked with Bethesda because at 7.5 Billion it was almost 1/10 the purchase size. So all in all I don't see why Sony focused so hard on blocking a merger. It is more silly when you consider that even Sony itself has turned to releasing their exclusives on PC for extra profit and better coverage of development costs (with a several-year gap but nonetheless those games released with a great feature set on PC).

@Nexozi Obviously whatever 'humour' you thought you were using doesn't translate well to 'text' - especially sarcasm.

@Neverwild and your evidence is? If the Quality drops, the price goes up etc, people will cancel their Game Pass Subscriptions and opt to just buy the games they want to play on whatever system those games are on.

There are still Xbox gamers who don't subscribe to Game Pass, even cancelled their Subs when Starfield & Redfall were delayed as in their 'heads' Game Pass was not worth the cost - they want at least 3 AAA Xbox Exclusives every year that they WANT to play - not 3rd Party AAA games, Indies or AA scale games and ALL the 'older' games GP offers - so in their head, they need 3 games that would cost $180-$210 to 'Buy' to even start bringing 'value' to them, saving them money.

In 2021, MS had the highest Critical rating of ANY Game Publisher across their releases - Psychonauts 2, FH5, H:I, MSFS, Deathloop etc all critically successes. 2022 wasn't a 'good' year in terms of releases, but the games they did release were all well reviewed and have started 2023 strongly with highly acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush and 'delaying' finished games to polish, something Sony is constantly doing to, is indicative of taking Quality seriously.

Sales really only help those games that have a good Marketing cycle, generate 'hype' etc so people 'buy', but these games are not finished and/or Cash grabs. It can sell more than a 'great' game because of marketing. Game Pass is much more reliant on the Quality being there from the start because if not, people will move on to another game - there are hundreds to choose from. If the game is 'bad', broken etc, people won't play and won't be interested in your next project (or at least be cautious) so its much more important to make a 'Great' game so that when people 'try' it, they will get hooked, maybe 'buy' the game, maybe buy extra content etc.

Every game competes for your time so if these are not good then you will move on. With Sales, if they are not good, you are still left with a 'bad'' game and now $70 out of pocket too - so you may have to wait 'months', even years to get a 'playable' full content version of a game you wanted to play. They have their 'money' from you regardless but with Game Pass, its in their interest to fix fast, to release 'quality' etc to get people in and stay in their games to maximise their 'financial' reward...

@BAMozzy Ah well, no skin off my nose.

@BrilliantBill I know and I agree that MS would keep CoD on PS just to get that 'revenue' stream. Even if Sony lose 20% of their CoD customers, that's still a massive chunk of money for both Sony/MS and Sony won't have spent money out to keep content off of Xbox/PC and all the marketing too.

The difference between Bethesda and A/B is that Bethesda games don't sell Playstation hardware or bring in the Revenue that CoD does. There games are 'popular' but not 'CoD' popular which is released Annually too. Sony have made CoD bundles and know that it will 'hurt' their Annual profits much more than losing Bethesda.

Jim Ryan also probably doesn't want MS owning Crash Bandicoot - a one time Playstation mascot - but can't use that as a reason to 'fight' the deal. Therefore use CoD, an IP that even non-gamers have heard of and try and make out that it will destroy PS, destroy competition and/or 'harm' consumers with 'hypothetical' arguments that cannot be substantiated or really quantified. What if everyone moves to Cloud gaming? What if MS takes CoD away from PS, What if they don't spend the time optimising for their hardware etc etc...

Don't forget, that this also frees up the Money Sony have been paying to keep CoD content away from Xbox/PC gamers and all the CoD/Playstation marketing costs are also freed up. Its now going to be on MS to fund EVERYTHING, the development, the Studios, the manufacturing costs of physical media, the ports to Platforms (inc Paying their own staff to port and optimise the game for Playstation hardware - no cost to Sony), paying for Marketing etc etc

@Moonglow The point I was trying to make is that something that is quite a serious legal process is being dragged out in public (which I generally disagree with going by a few recent examples of things that have occurred in the news recently), but we are largely only getting one side of the story. A lot is being said about these 10 year deals being agreed and Sony not taking the offer but we simply don't know what exactly the finer details of the deals being offered are. Most of the deals that have been signed are with companies that have never had CoD on their service before so it is a lot different a prospect to sign a deal to bring something you have never had than it is to sign a deal when you already have it. One is most definitely benefitting from the deal when the other is probably in the situation where they are going to lose out in some manner.

This deal at this point is to be expected. I think this is Microsoft spelling it out: this is their new policy, if you have a streaming service that allows the consumer to stream PC games they bought, they will be offered a similar deal.

Dont expect this of Luna, unless Luna ever ends up releasing a feature expansion to do just that (play games you own from Steam or the Microsoft Store.)

Edit:
When I first saw the headline I misread it to "Xbox Teams up with Ubisoft for Latest 10 year ActiBliz Publishing deal" and instantly assumed that they were going to have Ubisoft be the primary publisher on non-XBox/PC platforms as a means to show how serious Microsoft was about those versions not being given any preferential treatment.

I'm still waiting for that 10 year deal with Atari to bring CoD to the VCS. We all know it's going to happen.

@NEStalgia Your wish is granted.

@KaijuKaiser "explain why Sony is wrong for fighting this"

Sony's not wrong to be very worried about the effects, and Sony's not necessarily wrong using the legal system to their advantage as is their prerogative to do to protect their business interests, to a point.

But there's a certain point where that simply becomes tort, and they crossed that point months and months ago. They're attempting to use government regulation bodies to interfere in business interests external to their organization simply because the effect runs counter to their business interests, with a baseless case from a legal perspective relying primarily on FUD to influence decision makers who know next to nothing about the business involved, using exaggerated claims and suppositions. That is made even more absurd a position while they're simultaneously thumping their chests boasting how substantial their control of the market is.

Sony's genuine position is that it's negative for them, they do not like what its effect is, and ultimately is a significant obstacle in achieving their growth goals, by eroding a major beachhead they hold in their position as overwhelming market leader.

That doesn't however entitle them to wield government as a blunt instrument to prevent competitors from making major inroads into their market with fearmongering, which is ultimately what they're doing.

Sony wasn't wrong to originally object, however when it was clear early on that their objection was noted and MS was more than prepared to make deals and concessions regarding the all important franchise, their arguments became weaker and more bizarre, and it crossed from being a reasonable objection to simply trying manipulate governments into knee-capping a competitor simply because the competitor has more investment capital, which is gross misuse of public funds behind these regulatory bodies, let alone broaches on market manipulation of related company's stocks.

@Tharsman LOL, there it is, Call of Duty next to E.T. Right were it belongs.

@Fenbops Check and mate in two.

@NEStalgia could be Jim Ryan is getting worried about his job…. Writing is on the wall when he claims “buggy software”. Japan will not like them loosing face.

@grumpypotato ‘Captain Price mini figures coming to a happy meal soon’