Sony's New $320M 'Alliance' Has Left Xbox Fans Breathing A Sigh Of Relief

Manchester united won city on Sunday on Tuesday I got my series x and today this news hit!!
It's been a good week for me so far have to say!

Weird how it's apparently only bad when Sony buys a publisher. I don't recall seeing any articles on this site condemning the Bethesda and Activision acquisitions, nor celebrating when the CMA temporarily blocked the Activision deal 🤔

@Ricky-Spanish Something tells me you didn't have the same energy when the CMA blocked the ABK merger

I kind wanted it to go through (from a gaming perspective only) to shake things up a bit and maybe make Xbox question themselves (unlikely of course). But then i’m not big on FromSoftware.

I was never too concerned about this or whatever sonys next major acquisition will be.

I don’t think Sony would have held Fromsoft games from other platforms (well I’d like to hope they wouldn’t) especially as they did it before with bungee.

I think it only totals 10% share, so not much really.
Fuss about nothing.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Im just happy fromsoftware games will still remain on Xbox the ABK deal is old news and I wasn't really bothered anyways about it

@FraserG I'm one of those people!

@Ricky-Spanish
But you still 13th in the premier league so calm down 🤣
Glad you got the X.

@FraserG You're telling me "Xbox Fans Breathing A Sigh Of Relief" doesn't pain the acquisition in a negative light?

@Ricky-Spanish But you likely had no problem with Bethesda going exclusive of course

@FraserG But for those same people the Bethesda acquisition was fine right?

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Have a great day byebye

@OldGamer999 Exactly why I'm so happy we won my friend ha because we have been disgraceful all year!
And thanks bud it's unreal!!

Wouldn't it be just awful if a big company acquired another big company? Microsoft would never do that.

Not me. Zero relief here, doesn't affect me. 😂

@Markatron84 Thank god local Mom-and-Pop microsoft and fellow gamer Phil Spencer would never do such a horrendous thing

@PSDeckSwitchOwner

Facts.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner weren’t u the person that said this on the push square site:

‘What a shame. I was hoping to see future FromSoftware games become exclusive 😫

At least PlayStation and PC would've been fine’.

@ZAHMED Joined yesterday to troll. Best ignored.

I personally have never enjoyed most From Software games so I could care less if they became exclusive to the Playstation.

Always amused how bent out of shape folks get with this sort of stuff.

Fanboy (& girl) angst isn't why I got into gaming but some of you seem to put more effort into it than actually enjoying the games you have.

@ZAHMED Haha I just seen that myself haha he is obviously starving for attention over the story sweet little lad!

I'm just putting it out there 1) if the acquisition went through it would have largely been for the wider entertainment media business which is still where Sony's bread and butter is and 2) I'm just saying the last big acquisition Sony made was Bungie in which case part of the purchase was a promise for multiplatform releases. With how well fromsoftware games sell on all platforms, I really don't expect Sony to have taken potential sales away from Xbox. Not with the margins the company currently has. They'd have to somehow justify spending money to aquire a company so that said company could make less money for them on the hope that it somehow leads to a mass flock of console gamers which would be really unlikely.

In general the way this turned into an "xbox fans vs Sony" over just rumors of a potential purchase of a parent company, is wild and somewhat shameful to me. It feels like all gaming journalists can do is stir the pot on hearsay and speculation these days. Like I get it, these posts get clicks (heck, I clicked and commented), but it's still awful. Tbh, I hate myself for engaging with this type of content (which speaks to how well it works and why it seems to dominate the "journalism" landscape). I will say, more and more new posts feel less like news and more like posts.

I would not have seen a situation where Sony would have brought these dev houses in house and made their games exclusive. This was never that type of deal and was always likely to leave Fromsoft operating independently, even if Sony owned the parent company.
At least that's confirmation now.

@FraserG

Since when? All I saw on this website and other social media sites were the Xbox commuting gloating, theorising that MS would then buy Take Two afterwards, Sony getting spent out of the industry and attacks towards the CMA and FTC.

I didn't want this deal to go through as I don't want Microsoft's ridiculous nonsense being copied the industry over but why act like the Xbox commuting wasn't a complete joke about how "amazing" the ABK and Bethesda deals were.

Crisis averted. Phew! It looked like we were on the brink of the apocalypse for a tense couple of weeks there. I’m so relieved. Long may From Software publish on XSX.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Imagine not understanding that when one company has a 70:30 market share lead, people want the company with only 30% market share to grow and want the company with 70% market share to stop growing because it enables monopolistic practices like near zero cost denial of games to the smaller platform.

@Jenkinss So it's morally acceptable for the smaller company to lock an entire publishers' games to its platform?

Sony wanted Kadokawa for the Anime/Manga. I doubt any game is exclusive.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner
This is an XB site. You know that right?

Weird, how I have never seen bad articles about Sony buying a publisher on PlayStation sites.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Locking games to a platform is now bad, playstation guy? Yes I was laughing as I typed that, obviously.

Looks like they learned their lesson after the Bungie catastrophe. Why buy the cow when you can pay a much smaller fee to guarantee the milk?

Sony has historically made smart business moves in regard to the PlayStation division and partnerships/acquisitions (again, Bungie aside…) and this looks like a return to form. Pay what’s necessary to ensure they get what they’re after, along with a hand on the wheel to help guide the ship. I wouldn’t be surprised if they further increased share ownership again in the coming years, until one day there aren’t any left to acquire.

Since absolutely despise, any, and all, souls like games, this is of zero concern or loss to me.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner

So you created this account yesterday just to troll and hate on Xbox

The problem with un the game industry right now Sony is that they sign exclusivity deals and try to keep games from coming to xbox, while Microsoft is now sharing IP with everyone. Probably my last xbox console.

That was a huge blow for Sony and their PlayStation fans....but it sure is a huge win for Microsoft the deal felt through.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner: So you created this account to hate on Xbox....yep sounds like a Sony gamer.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Of course for those people (i.e. Xbox players/fans or whatever you wanna call it) the Bethesda and so aquisition was fine. They knew it was not going to lock any game out of their ecosystem.

You're reading in between lines when there is nothing to read. The article doesn't talk about Sony or MS and whether it's good or bad for them to buy other studios/publishers or whatever. It is also not discussing whether this is good or bad for industry; it's just saying that Xbox players are relieved and they should be cause Sony not buying these people means that, in principle, no FromSoftware games should be made exclusive. So yeah, people are happy that it looks like they're gonna be able to still play games they like in their console; is that really that surprising or evil? (I'm sure the same could be said about PS community if the ABK deal hadn't come through, regardless of what the reality of Xbox and exclusive games is at the moment) People not feeling excluded are relieved and happy, it's basic human nature.

I think you clearly have strong opinions about this kinda stuff and you are very much entitled to that, but you clearly came into this thread wanting to stir the plot and create some negative environment, essentially looking for a "fight".

Personally, in my view you're more than welcome to create healthy debate on topics on the periphery of this piece of news (e.g. is this good for industry whatever), but I find it quite sad to see people act in this sort of way, seeking conflict.

Man, I miss the days when the gaming community wasn't so stuck in pointless conflict, rudeness and brand brainwashing (I'm not directing that at you personally, just speaking generally)

@PSDeckSwitchOwner SUPPORT MICROSOFT AND OTHER SMALL LOCAL BUSINESSES.

@Stamnoso

Mind not rewriting history next time?

Xbox gamers were foaming at the mouth over exclusive Bethesda and would spout "You don't spend 7.5bn to share" every other day.

Sony has a long history of investing in companies, eating up shares as they strengthen their ties with them before they outright aquire them. This has happened with Insomniac, Bluepoint and even Bungie where Sony held a significant amount of shares before they purchased them outright.

@Balaam_ That is exactly what Sony is doing. They have a long history of doing this with many of the companies they have acquired over the years. $320m investment that will see major returns off of Kadokawa's huge portfolio of Anime and video games. Now that they are majority stakeholder they will also be able to influence major decisions, including securing some of Kadowaka's IPs, both video games and anime, for collaborations with Sony's film and anime/film as well as Playstation studios.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner 'Joined Yesterday,' 4:47pm

@Ricky-Spanish ynwa!!!!

I just want want another Sekiro game, dammit!😉.

@TeiGekiLord Sorry, but you're overinterpreting things. I'm not rewriting history, I haven't said people were not saying that sort of stuff, many were. Neither I'm going into the details about why people are relieved, I'm sure many are just relieved out of "in your face, Sony" (which is wrong and sad, really), others simply are happy they might still be able to play certain games. Regardless of what people's reasons are, I'm sure most will fill in the latter category, and I feel this is a very natural reaction. The comment is made in reply to the other user messages and the context of this piece of news, let's not generalise, but I'm gonna try to clarify my position, so hopefully it's not misleading.

Now, that said, people will then split based on a variety of opinions, both good and bad. There is absolutely no doubt there are plenty of the "bad" on the Xbox community side; my point is Fraser mentioned earlier that "it wasn't fair to tar everybody with that same brush" (the brush of "foaming at the mouth" and so on) and I don't think it's fair to come in and make those sort of statements. I don't think a few people "foaming at the mouth" in the various pages necessarily represent the whole community, and even if they did; my main point is that I don't believe this article is written in a particularly incediary kind of way in this sense. Therefore, I don't understand why certain people have decided to sign up on the page yesterday to start throwing these negative general comments and picking fights with various people.

Now, if you want to "put me in the same room" as the "foaming" people and the "rewriting history" kind of people, be my guest. I truly don't mind, you are entitled to your opinions regardless of how accurate or not they are (and that is a different debate again); but I personally think your generalisation of "Xbox gamers" isn't fair, nor necessarily right either. Same applies to any other "faction" in these pointless console wars things.

@oopsiezz

Sony has a long history of investing in companies, eating up shares as they strengthen their ties with them before they outright aquire them

Sony at one time held shares in Squeenix too, but instead of acquiring them, it just sold of the shares they had....

"...further expand publishing of KADOKAWA's games...". Let's see what this mean for the near future for some of From software games blocked by Sony, being available only on their platform. Probably finding a way to release those IPs/games also on other platforms including Xbox (similarly to Death Stranding for example 🤔)? Actually Sekiro and Elden Ring sold very well also on Xbox. Also, looks like SIE are no way in such a good financial position to make such an acquisition. Far away from this. The best they could do was to increase their shares to 10% 😅

@PurvisP

So you created this account yesterday just to troll and hate on Xbox

I can't quite work out if he's upset about Sony not completely acquiring Kadokawa and making all their games PlayStation exclusive, or is he upset about the Xbox fans who wrongly assumed that Microsoft will make all of Bethesda's output Xbox exclusives. It's hard to pin down 😂😂...

@Ricky-Spanish
Good luck in the cup tonight.

Whew I was nervous not gonna lie

@OldGamer999 Nice one buddy👍
We need it🤺

@Ajfennell77 GGMU!!

@Sol4ris
Dam I have missed some troll action.
It’s normally me that gets it in the neck for being a-bit outlandish 🤣
But it only comes from my passion for Xbox and corporate decisions.

@Sol4ris Probably had his first Red Bull just as he seen the news I'd say!

@PSDeckSwitchOwner
Give it a rest will you.
You're all over the relevant article on PushSquare as well either trolling, baiting, stirring it up on both sites like a poison.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner of course xbox players were cheering for Bethesda acquisition. Not even a question. Because xbox needed exclusives to get back into the competition. Since MS could not produce their own - the logical move was to buy studios. Sony and nin for a decade had edge on that exclusivity topic. Sony is winning already; such acquisition will cement their #1 position in home consoles (excluding hybrid/portable consoles).

See what happened after? they decided nothing is exclusive and we have no competition now. PS owners win short term sure with influx of MS games, but long term more price hikes and PS monopoly in home powerful consoles space.

ABK deal was never about exclusives, early in the process it was obvious that COD, overwatch, diablo gonna be multiplat. Games on mobile and PC only like WOW would be there as well. It was more to give more meat to GP and have better cash flow for MS gaming overall due to billion dollar franchises.

@Major_Player No different than what you're doing over on Pushsquare in the relevant article. Account is less than three months old and your comment history over there is nothing but bait. How many comments of yours have been removed for trolling/baiting over there now?

@OldGamer999 & @Ricky-Spanish

Yeah, he reads like someone who takes the console warriors mindset to new uncharted heights. It's nuts when you think about it 😅.

@Sol4ris
I can’t say much I had a couple of 3 day cool offs in the past.
I’m more calm now, but I never baited just got angry and frustrated over decisions made by those in charge that I thought were very wrong. 🤣

Oh dear the usual spats going on again.

I'm never a fan of so much coverage of something from the other side that isn't directly impacting this side (Pushsquare are just as bad when they need clicks) but I can understand the relevance to Xbox in letting their owners know this isn't a full acquisition.

That said even if it had been I strongly doubt anything would have gone exclusive. FromSoftware's titles sell well enough on PS there wouldn't have been much benefit making them exclusive. Would have made them far more money staying multiplat.

@Sol4ris It's nuts because call me an old fuddy duddy but I can't understand why the console warrior mentality still exists. Maybe during the days of Sega Vs Nintendo when it was really aggressive but not now. Just enjoy gaming.

Social Media brings out the nutters though eh.

@Ricky-Spanish touche .

Unlucky tonight actually wanted u to beat spurs

@Ajfennell77 💩 happens what can you do!

sony main interest in kadokawa is there anime division sony already has a good relationship with fromsoft games..

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Could say the same for playstation players crying about Bethesda (morrowind was never on playstation neither was most of the oblivion dlc) and crying about Activision meanwhile the fighting game community on Xbox was killed by sony in 2015

Sony must not have the funds to purchase them because they should have, i wouldn't even play a fromsoftware game if they were free, remember bloodborne was on ps plus once i couldn't be bothered with that mess.

IMO this was a smart step to prevent regulatory interference.

It's Fox News vs CNN. It sells advertising. Have you seen how many ads are on these articles? Used to never be like this. Xbox isn't innovative but AOL apparently was.

Was a waste of money, if you ask me. Sony nearly had a solid grip on the anime scene but, $320 million for some extra shares? They basically bought one exclusive at the apparent cost it is to develop a game that's five years out. Yeah, waste of money if you ask me. Kadekowa is apparently worth at least a billion, maybe not if half a billion only gets you 10% shares, who owns and calls the other 90%. Your shares maybe pay for another Concord that flops and then you lose half a billion. You know many homeless people you could house and get off the street for that much? The profit gets dumped into a Live Service Game that flops and you just threw the money away. I mean, I guess you put some people to work to pay their bills for a little while. Whose making their investment deals? Nintendo just acquired Monolith and Sony bought some shares? That's not how the gaming world works apparently these days, especially if the companies own employees were looking for someone to turn the tide of their work environment, now a targets on their back with their boss looking to fire them for their lack of loyalty.

The name of the game is acquisitions these days. Microsoft just got spooked. Maybe their still recovering from their way over spending, and did you see a Call of Duty announcement for Switch? Neither did I, but you better believe they're on the hunt now and, if they paid $69 billion for Activision, they'll buy out that other 90% Sony and then they have the money to do it, you know they do and then you're up the creek. It'll be like that guy who nearly has a complete Sega CD Collection, he's only missing Kaio but still nearly has the complete set. You almost have a complete anime collection, but the one got away and they're dangling it above your head.

Seriously, get rid of Herman Hulst

@JustinTimberlake they have the money to make the purchase they choose not to..

@Sol4ris they saved square from bankruptcy in return for exclusive rights to final fantasy games in return there 20% stake in square-enix back

@JustinTimberlake Never been a fan of their hardcore difficulty-only approach. The whole "git gud skill issue" thing just doesn't do anything for me. I don't care if I'm good at their games or not, because they never really grab my interest. Worlds are just boring IMO, no real life to them, you just have to kill everything you come across. Difficult boss fighting just isn't my thing either, never liked the repetition and having to slowly hack away at something. I just won't touch anything they make anymore and I won't trust any praise for their games either. One of those developers that has a strong fanboy backing by hardcore gamers so they really get pushed on people on gaming sites and their fans can get really aggressive about their games.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Bloodborne 2 on its way though almost certainly anyway and Miyazaki wants it too by all accounts .

I think Sony will go in again to acquire just the bits they want (anime and gaming).

There will be no "full-on acquisition". Lol. Why? Sony cannot afford them. Microsoft is the only one that can afford to buy a company like this and they already own the biggest developers. At best, Sony will continue to pay them what they can to assure some timed exclusives.

@JayJ 100 % agree.

@Romans12 That's exactly what happened. It's not that Sony didn't want to acquire publishers, but all they could afford was timed exclusivity for ABK, Zenimax and Square Enix's games and DLC.

@Romans12 sony has 15 billion in cash and investments they certainly could easily buy kadokawa they made the decision not to. they only wanted the anime part of kadokawa not all the company the deal was buy all or no deal..

@johnedwin1969 Microsoft has over 75 billion in cash and is a 3 + trillion dollar company. It's laughable to compare who has more money. When it comes to Microsoft, Sony is not the competition - Apple, Amazon and Google is.

Surely this would have been awesome news just like the Bethesda or Activision deals??? Everyone here loves 3rd party companies disappearing….

Oh hypocrisy…. I get ya.

I was against Bethesda and Activision and I was against this….. I’m consistent, informed and sensible.

Others should try it

@PSDeckSwitchOwner actually there was plenty of bad press on both. If you're honestly comparing the two, you're out of touch with reality. Had Sony had the pockets to do it they would have and would have demanded they be exclusive to PlayStation. Xbox will not make Activision IP exclusive, this I can say with confidence. I could see WOW hitting Xbox first as a test of it ever happens but that's it. Now on to the second point, the gravity of this acquisition is on another level. Highly beloved, one of a kind, award winning IPs that Sony would, again, 100% make exclusive. They are so anti consumer it's unreal yet the consumer just loves em. Brainwashing at its finest.

@Fragslayer "Highly beloved, one of a kind, award winning IPs that Sony would, again, 100% make exclusive"

You mean like Elder Scrolls and Fallout?

@Stocksy yeah I would agree with you 100% but that's just how the industry has always worked, like it, hate it, it changes nothing. If TES is exclusive I'll scream into the void with you, not cool or acceptable at all. Every studio at Sony that pumps out those games you all love were 3rd party/independent studios until Sony bought them, Short of SMS.

Activision though I honestly think this saved what was left of them, they were in turmoil and Bobby never would have stepped down he would have buried the conglomerate with him. I could be wrong of course, don't think I'm spouting this as fact, just based off what I was seeing it was going to end up like every other massive 3rd party dev is going through these days. Ubisoft is looking to be next. When the industry needed all you're voices the most nobody was there... It was to busy focusing on Xbox and not Embracer Group. That was devastating even with the companies that were spared. I don't even think it's over yet honestly, I still worry about 4A games and Crystal Dynamics.

@Fragslayer "Every studio at Sony that pumps out those games you all love were 3rd party/independent studios until Sony bought them, Short of SMS."

You're forgetting that most of Sony's studios primarily made PlayStation exclusive games prior to being acquired. Not the same as Zenimax who used to release games everywhere, now PlayStation fans are forced to miss out on Starfield, Redfall, Elder Scrolls 6, Blade etc

@PSDeckSwitchOwner riiight because there was so much competition in the console market at the time? Sega didn't really work with the western side much and Nintendo was doing what it's always done, Nintendo. It's not comparable at all really and redundant to keep repeating this across the Internet. Now Sony has a direct competitor and they did exactly what Sony did to get to where they are.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner apparently we aren't being productive in our comments lol. I'll leave it be, it's just the same arguments over and over I just don't seem to understand the takes on all this. I understand it to a point but one is no different than the other. Not sure why our comments go removed.

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Because Microsoft acquired Minecraft and it is still multiplatform. Microsoft acquired Call of Duty and is still multiplatform. There is no history of Microsoft acquiring a multiplatform IP and making it exclusive.

Sony on the other hand, try to make everything it can a PS exclusive, they even did contracts to have exclusivity of game modes on Call of Duty for a year before MS acquisition.

They made FF XVI exclusive even when FF XV was multiplatform.

Sony is the one who can't be trusted in that case.

I have tried various older From Software games and I just couldn't get into the games. Tried Demon Souls, Dark Souls 1-3, and non of them were really very interesting to me. Also tried a Samurai on Xbox and also lost interest. Elden Ring might be interesting but since I haven't enjoyed any previous games I doubt it. I wouldn't miss any From Software games if they became exclusive to the Playstation.