Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
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About the cloud infrastructure would be interesting to know how is split between aws and azure, but in the case of aws is just pure superiority.
They cover 90% of the use case of a small/middle company, and if you want something exotic and bespoke you go to azure.
The only thing that google cloud increased over aws is the console's messy ui.
Ibm and oracle at this point are mostly legacy and corner cases.
They cover 90% of the use case of a small/middle company, and if you want something exotic and bespoke you go to azure.
The only thing that google cloud increased over aws is the console's messy ui.
Ibm and oracle at this point are mostly legacy and corner cases.
and yet they are for the IPs that matter.
There's
a) MS has failed to reach the market
b) External forces are actively working to ensure that MS doesn't succeed.
A) is entirely on MS, and I'm sure everyone understands this. This was also during a time when Xbox was not heavily invested in, as that has changed dramatically today. The support and funding levels are entirely different. That being said, if MS wants to succeed, they will be working to get their deals in.
B) Is out of their control. And this is where congress actually has any sort of power here. If is actively restricting any type of supply in the Japanese market in which they own 98% of the high performance console category there, then that's basically restricting any new entrant from ever competing with their dominance.
I've no issue in saying their failure is largely the result of A and not B, sure, but that doesn't give Sony a free pass to do (B) given their market share advantage.
That being said, it's pretty grand to for us as observers to point at MS and talk about failures as though others have succeeded. There are no foreign console players that have succeeded in Japan. No one know what it takes to succeed there. There's only ever been Nintendo, Sony, and Sega after the big console crash. Sega is dead. The idea that MS is making tons of missteps in Japan is a weird one. As far as companies exist, its the only foreign console you can actually buy in Japan.
They don't need to dominate to be successful, they just want access to the content to sell on their platforms. That's enough for MS.
Which ones, how many, why and when?
So in the duration of 20 years the XBOX, XBOX 360 and XBOX One failed to barely sell anything because of two games released near the end of One's lifespan of which one is a game that Sony co-created with Kojima Productions? FF16 hasnt even been released yet. Dont tell me less than a handfull of games brought demise to the XBOX business
Come on. If thats an argument Sony must have been routinely preventing games on XBOX and specifically preventing them being released in Japan. None of the examples you mention are enough to support that argument. All major Japanese companies have been supporting XBOX hugely
Sony probably made more deals with the west than with the east. Who determines a single deal is enough? Based on what? Under that logic MS is doing monopolistic practices and still fails miserably
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You have no argument with me. But that’s a separate point from what is being debated by congress: If you were a new entrant or old entrant, if the market is defined by 98% ownership by the market leader, they cannot engage in exclusivity practices that limit supply on competitors consoles.
MS isn’t asking for an excuse. Which you think I’m providing one for their failure. Congress is not asking for an excuse. They want Japanese content, that’s what they want, and they don’t want Sony blocking them from getting it.
That interpretation doesnt make any sense at all. The XBOX clearly fails by itself. Companies arent obliged to adjust their strategies to help competitors sell more. What you are describing here is an exaggerated and irrational idea of what consists a company engaging in monopolistic and anticonpetitive practices.
Sure it does. Because when you own 98% of a region, you cannot limit supply of games to a competing console. It’s anticompetitive.
Says who? That cooked up statistic exists because MS fails as a business by itself and Sony isnt obliged to adjust its strategy to help XBOX or any other failed product. Sony has a bigger market share, not because it pays to sabotage XBOX which is exactly what anti-competitive and monopolistic practices are.
It doesn't indeed. However, to date AFAICS the only argument to show Sony's anticompetitive behaviour is MS saying "look at our lousy Japan performance."
Again, what content aren't they getting and how is that different to existing industry standard practice?
As for international consoles in Japan, there have only been Japanese consoles outside of MS! (Since death of Atari anyway) Of course there's no idea what a console needs to dethrone the established duopoly. And if the home market is producing suitable products from reputable bands, why should the Japanese want to embrace a console from elsewhere? Not even outside Japan - what are the chances of a new Japanese player getting anywhere? Looking at what it takes to succeed in Japan, look at other US brands that have done just fine. It's not insurmountable and ergo there isn't necessarily an anti-foreign barrier. It's more a case of the market having already been served by ideal products.
Contrasting that to Europe, why doesn't XB do as well in some countries here? Because Sony already provides the market with the product they want at the price they want. Brand Loyalty, as it were. MS offers another product that's basically the same things...why switch? So an EU nation preferring PS demonstrates how established brand just gains the wins without the need for cultural bias. Again, MS waves around a highly biased sales figure as evidence of dodgy dealings, but that's circumstantial evidence and needs something concrete.
I'm confused by this. As a new console company, if I release my hardware to Japan, am I to expect everyone to release games on it? Clearly not. So then...Sony are not allowed to go to a company that was going to release on my console and pay them not to? That kinda makes sense, but that practice is okay in the main, paid exclusives. Is there a line that defines when its acceptable and when it's not? Or a general concept of monopoly, once you get that big you aren't allowed to secure exclusive content while small players are allowed?
Surely that would have been an argument if it was a widespread practive by Sony, but the examples of such deals that we have, unless there are more we arent aware of, are too scarce to show that its the existence Sony anti-competitive practices that prevent XBOX from doing well. This is not like Nintendo which forced all developers through contracts to not release their games on other systems during the NES era. That totally killed any hope for others competing.
But XBOX saw all major releases and even acquired exclusive deals itself.
There is no real case based on the information we have.
Its just Sony making partnerships under normal circumstances like it does with western developers, and not unlike MS. And it appears that such deals are significantly less with Japanese conpanies too.
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That would be up to Japanese law. The 11 members of Congress are petitioning the the US government that is having a trade deal with the Japanese government to look at it and see if Sony are committing anticompetitive practices and the government has just been lax or turning a blind eye to it. Whether they are or aren't is entirely up to what defines a monopoly there, but once you are an established monopoly, typically regulators are much tougher on companies making moves that would limit competition from surviving.
This isn't the same as a regulators being asked to look at something. The US party is asking the Japanese party to see if they can do something about it as part of their trade agreement as they believe Sony may be committing anti-competitive practices.
As per your question: the latter is probably true. The cost for a monopoly to secure exclusivity is pretty cheap. If the competition is only selling 1000 units a month, and you're selling 100,000 units a month or more, the cost for acquiring the exclusivity is minimal since the player base is so small, whereas in reverse for the small players the cost would be enormous, 100x greater to secure exclusivity rights to make up for the loss of not putting your title onto the largest platform. From this perspective, it's very easy for a monopoly to continually knock out entrants into the market because they have no market share so securing exclusivity would also be cheap. Thus the exclusivity practice from the market leader that is a monopoly would be considered an unfair practice.
Japanese content like FF7R, FF16, Death Stranding, MS indicated that they cited others, but because contracts are not public knowledge, it's hard to really know.
So then why can't Japanese content also be served on Xbox if MS is willing to fund and promote those products onto their platform so that this content can also be sold in the America's market?
I suspect, that MS doesn't have the procurement and logistics that Sony has to move hardware to a variety of countries. Ie. it's just not MS forte to ship tons and tons of hardware that consoles require.
Their console strategy may never work for this reason. Which is why they are pivoting to cloud. And for cloud they need content. For content they need to be not blocked from getting it.
Sony funded/invested into Kojima Studios to get it up and running, I am quite sure if Kojima wanted MS to fund him, they would have done so. There might be some bias to your own country, but I would assume that Kojima would also feel more secure/confident with working with a Japanese company to fund his studio for its startup.
If a Japanese developer gets approached by Sony and Sony insists on clauses that they do not like, they most likely can get a meeting with MS and pitch their game there too. And to enter a contract you need two parties, so if Sony got draconian clauses, why would you sign, when there are other publishers available?
Game dev studios are quite similar to contractors, except they might have some more ownership in the end.
MS not being able to do logistics? Come on, they are one of the biggest companies on the planet, is it plausible that they could not acquire this skill/knowledge within a reasonable timescale, like 20 years? We are talking about the Embrace, Extend and Extinguish company after all.
505 handled their PC release and it's on PC GamePass, Windows Store. That was done separately from Sony. So I would disagree that funding was absolutely necessary.
It's not up to the developer to make the right move, the developer will always make the move that will benefit them the most.
Comparatively MS cannot do supply chain. Sony has been shipping Walkman's, discmans, stereos, speakers, monitors, tvs, general electronics for 20 years before MS was even formed. The supply chain and logistics strategy for warehousing hardware, supply chain, etc is extremely different for a company like Sony and Microsoft. So I would disagree.
In 20 years Xbox was not given the absolute go ahead by MS to push forward with Xbox until Satya came onboard. All the major investments within Xbox has only happened in the last 8 years.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I'm going to say what I believe to be true:
The reason that Xbox does so poorly in Japan is:
80% cultural
12% MS poor strategy
8% Sony foreclosure
That's the reality IMO.
Sure MS has made mistakes - huge
Xbox as an example, but why are Japanese gamers buying even bigger PS5s? Culture.
It's mostly that. Pubs/Devs know it too. SE knows there's no point in putting FF on Xbox. Almost no one in Japan will care. Then Sony comes in with money hats and it's easy to see how foreclosure happens.
The reason that Xbox does so poorly in Japan is:
80% cultural
12% MS poor strategy
8% Sony foreclosure
That's the reality IMO.
Sure MS has made mistakes - huge
Xbox as an example, but why are Japanese gamers buying even bigger PS5s? Culture.
It's mostly that. Pubs/Devs know it too. SE knows there's no point in putting FF on Xbox. Almost no one in Japan will care. Then Sony comes in with money hats and it's easy to see how foreclosure happens.
I'm having trouble seeing where you are disagreeing that the funding was necessary, Sony entered in to a partnership with Kojima Productions, the game uses proprietary Sony technology in the form of the Decima engine and Guerilla Games (a Sony Studio) collaborated on the development of the game since it was using their engine. All that required funding that Sony provided. Sony also licenced the PC version to 505 Games as Sony didn't yet publish PC games. If Xbox fans are mad that the game isn't on their console then do what they keep telling PS fans when they complain about Starfield and Redfall not appearing on PS. Go buy a PC and play it on PC with PC Game Pass.
Microsoft has just entered in to a partnership with Kojima Productions on an exclusive game for Game Pass compliant systems, are they going to make that available to the Playstation? Of course not that will never happen.
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