So what was it they were offering before? 10 years right? So probably extended to 15 I'd guess. Perhaps that will be a sufficient remedy for the CMA as well and they can wrap this thing up..
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
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I just read the tweet. What were those games?
Unless they file late at which point the deal goes through.
Which games and how many were excluded because of Sony and not because of Developer decision? The XBOX was failing in Japan when it was alone in the market and was getting exclusive support by Japanese devs.
edit: Based on that, to me that sounds more like corporate lobbying and trying to penalize Sony for meddling in the fruition of the ABK deal than anything else, hoping that Japan being blackmailed will tie a leash around Sony's neck to open an opportunity for MS.
The Switch doesnt seem to lose games because of Sony. A lot of a japanese games released on both Sony and Switch worldwide are fully excluded from XBOX worldwide not just Japan. These games also arent getting any major special advertisement/Marketing from Sony (excluding FF16 and 7 Remake and we know that the series barely has an effect on XBOX sales in Japan to begin with). That signals no real exclusivity deal.
It is most likely the XBOX is failing hard in Japan and thus developers dont bother. The tweet doesnt specify games excluded in Japan region while seeing releases in other regions. It speaks about popular japanese games not being available on XBOX. We dont know if these are Japan specific games that are fully local. Even if these games are released in other regions, it is likely, that due to almost non existent sales, the publishers dont want to waste money distributing games that just wont sell in a region where the XBOX just doesnt breathe.
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Why it matters is because the exclusivity clauses can be leveraged to ensure games don’t come to xcloud.
Xbox consoles doesn’t need to sell well in a country, they only need to have a catalog of games to sell via streaming. No developer would say no to such a large potential market.
What you quoted is referring to XBOX exclusion without exclusivity clauses
It’s excluded because there are no consoles. That doesn’t apply anymore. If Sony is paying to block games of Japanese origin off Xbox, that’s all they need to do to cause antitrust given the market share differences.
Joost is absolutely correct in my opinion.
Is there a distinction between paying to keep a game off a platform and helping to finance a game? And which games are affected and are they not allowed on XBox streaming, or Xbox console, given typically Windows ports. If a game is available on Windows but MS can't add it to XCloud, and the game was blocked rather than commissioned, than I'd agree there's an antitrust case. At the moment I haven't heard any details and just this notion Sony is blocking content, without that being illustrated when and how, only with the market share being used as evidence instead of the actual titles and deals.
The point is Sony doesnt need to pay to block games. Developers most likely just choose not to unless there is something else going on we arent aware of.
The only common examples we have are some minor games that Japanese developers release on Switch and PS5 but dont release on XBOX worldwide.
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I’m sure that’s a gray area. What does funding a game really mean here? 100% development fees and marketing? Is platform holder spending over 150 Million? Or we talking about some minor financial backing and additional marketing support to declare it as being “funded”.
I’m pretty sure MS is referring to square Enix titles, there might be others like Death Stranding but effectively if MS cannot get Japanese content on their platform this is going to be what keeps them from succeeding globally again.
We had in our very old discussions about the importance of catalog and library and the idea is that more is better, ultimately comes down to choice, the reality is that Sony and Nintendo have a heavy monopoly on Japanese originated content and they can continually use that advantage over MS to ensure that they stay the global leader by having access to a full catalog of games.
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There are always bound to be some titles that Xbox may not want on their platform for specific reasons but let’s be real here, if you are on PC and PS, MS has made it really easy to instantly deploy onto Xbox. All the unified engines all deploy onto Xbox. And now that also means they deploy onto xcloud.
I get there is a convenient excuse to just say it’s not worth their time, but if you’ve ever done B2B sales, Microsoft would be meeting with these publishers daily to get their content over and helping them solve roadblocks to put their content onto Xbox if that is what they want. It’s my job today to help our product into service providers and convince them it’s worth it to hold our product. If we can do it, it’s hard to imagine MICROSOFT the biggest corporation in the world cannot do it.
Developers are unlikely to say no to money and the opening of an international market. When MS comes banging on your door saying we want your shit. You say no? Like who seriously who is so successful in Japan to say no for support and money ?
if publishers had no interest in publishing, sony wouldn't need to pay them not to
Agreed but that's something an antitrust case is surely going to need to pin down. 2nd party titles is part and parcel of this industry, and something MS jumped into with XB360 in Japan. So as part of their 20 years investment mentioned in that Congressional letter, there's multiple titles MS paid to make exclusive on their platform. What's the difference between that and what Sony is supposedly doing now that requires intervention?
Yes. However, does Sony really have enough clout and money to stop at such a large scale? How many Japanese exclusives are there?
Also, where do the US games being excluded in Japan fit in, carrying on from my response to that letter? Still no examples there of US software companies missing out. Are we just talking the streaming market?? So the complaint is Sony blocks some Japanese titles which causes XBox streaming to fail in Japan which affects US game devs streaming on XCloud not being able to reach Japan? What is the overall harm being done to the US games industry?
exactly my point
There are no roadblocks if you dont believe in a product and considering the lack of marketing in EU, inability to create or grow enough internal studios all these 20 years, inability to sell well even with japanese exclusives and FF releases and during absence of competition, the last thing you would expect is MS trying to convince nationwide local japanese companies to support it
I just want to clarify the question here. We all acknowledge that MS doesn't sell well in Japan. The question is more of a chicken-and-egg explanation. Is it that MS failed to reach the market and so the market has turned its back on XB, or is it that the market was encouraged to turn its back on XB so the platform failed? I can accept potential shades of grey. What's needed here isn't the conjecture as they are pretty straight-forward arguments, but the evidence showing what has happened.
For me, evidence MS fumbled the market is quite apparent, covered in various post-mortem's such as this (grabbed at random!). We can see numerous missteps, and in particular successes when MS played a better game. In short, XB arrived from an untrusted company and it wasn't culturally sensitive. MS improved things with XB360 including library, but they fumbled again with their trump card, Kinect. Come XBO, they had no relevance in Japan and it'd take a seismic investment to turn things around. But despite that, Japanese devs have become more platform agnostic as cross-platform development has become easier. I see XB's failure there as no different to Zune's failure or Lumia's (or other products from other companies). They just weren't the right products - which admittedly does require overcoming a cultural roadblock but that roadblock is not insurmountable.
For me, evidence MS fumbled the market is quite apparent, covered in various post-mortem's such as this (grabbed at random!). We can see numerous missteps, and in particular successes when MS played a better game. In short, XB arrived from an untrusted company and it wasn't culturally sensitive. MS improved things with XB360 including library, but they fumbled again with their trump card, Kinect. Come XBO, they had no relevance in Japan and it'd take a seismic investment to turn things around. But despite that, Japanese devs have become more platform agnostic as cross-platform development has become easier. I see XB's failure there as no different to Zune's failure or Lumia's (or other products from other companies). They just weren't the right products - which admittedly does require overcoming a cultural roadblock but that roadblock is not insurmountable.
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