Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[iroboto]

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.

Sony had no control over the PC strategy for Kohima Studios. They hired 505 studios to publish their PC releases. And it’s on MS platforms because MS made the deals to put it there. Thus Japanese content it wants on the MS ecosystem finds a way there. Other publishers would have stepped up to fund Kojima. Let’s be real here.

In a situation that Sony could not block MS, MS took what it could get.

And that’s the story really. It wants Japanese content even if it won’t sell well. And they are willing to make deals to get it even if it’s not worth it for the developers to naturally move it to their platform anyway. But that’s the whole point of the discussion, if Sony is actively blocking MS from getting Japanese content that could be considered anti-competitive when they own 98% of the Japan region high performance market.

Do I care or am making excuses for them? No. But if monopolies are allowed to block out smaller competitors in their market then why can’t that be questioned or investigated ?

 

[stu11]

Sony had no control over the PC strategy for Kohima Studios. They hired 505 studios to publish their PC releases. And it’s on MS platforms because MS made the deals to put it there. Thus Japanese content it wants on the MS ecosystem finds a way there. Other publishers would have stepped up to fund Kojima. Let’s be real here.

In a situation that Sony could not block MS, MS took what it could get.

Sony owns the Death Stranding IP, not Kojima Productions. The PC game was licenced to 505 Games for the PC

 

[iroboto]

Sony owns the Death Stranding IP, not Kojima Productions. The PC game was licenced to 505 Games for the PC

That doesn’t change the argument. It’s a 2nd party title, it’s a gray area. If Kojima went with another publisher it would have been a 3rd party title. Sony offered a better deal , because it’s a platform holder, than what other publishers could offer in exchange for owning the IP.

It’s still the same issue. Owning the IP shouldn’t change the rules on anticompetitive behaviour. If they owned the studio that’s going to be different. If a developer is shopping around for a publisher to help fund it: should Sony be involved if the clause for funding requires exclusivity - because the latter is what makes it anticompetitive for them considering their monopoly share. This is what is at debate. This is the same reason MS brought up Bloodborne but people were confused about it since Sony owns that IP as well.

MS would love to have that title and should another publisher offered a better deal MS would have it on their platform. But Sony offered A better deal In exchange for exclusivity.

 

[stu11]

That doesn’t change the argument. It’s a 2nd party title, it’s a gray area. If Kojima went with another publisher it would have been a 3rd party title. Sony offered a better deal , because it’s a platform holder, than what other publishers could offer in exchange for owning the IP.

It’s still the same issue. Owning the IP shouldn’t change the rules on anticompetitive behaviour. If they owned the studio that’s going to be different. If a developer is shopping around for a publisher to help fund it: should Sony be involved if the clause for funding requires exclusivity - because the latter is what makes it anticompetitive for them considering their monopoly share. This is what is at debate. This is the same reason MS brought up Bloodborne but people were confused about it since Sony owns that IP as well.

MS would love to have that title and should another publisher offered a better deal MS would have it on their platform. But Sony offered A better deal In exchange for exclusivity.

And if Sony hadn't of financed it, how do we know whether any other 3rd party would have taken the risk? Maybe Kojima wanted to work with Sony all along?

What you're basically saying is that Sony should be banned from financing 2nd party games because it is "unfair to Xbox." Am I right?

If MS wanted it so badly why didn't they try outbidding Sony? Lets face it MS dwarfs Sony and should be able to massively outbid them. Could of been another Blue Dragon. Another missed opportunity? Along with GTA3, Spiderman etc.

Yet another warped case of Microsoft's incompetence somehow being Sony's fault.

I think MS needs to provide a redacted Sony contract that spells this issue out and conclusively proving that Sony is guilty of what MS is accusing them of or the whole thing should be thrown out.

 

[Nesh]

@iroboto You are trying to tell a story that doesnt make sense. What you are describing as an argument is exactly why the US's letter to Japan sounds irrational.
The market is international. Software companies are selling games worldwide. Companies make deals with companies as part of their worldwide strategy. Sony and MS make partnership with Western and Eastern companies.
A local marketshare doesnt determine with whom a company is allowed to make partnerships. It's like saying that the only company that is allowed by regulators to make partnerships with Japanese companies is MS. Nintendo and Sony are not allowed because their market share is large. This is not how anti-trust and pro-competitive regulations work.

However the regulators will step in, if there is a practice where a company prevents through cartels and anti-competitive practices the ability for a competitor to gain market share or if the low market share of competitor is the result of these practice. One deal or two aren't signaling any of that.
If an investigation takes place, it will decide whether a competitor's practices were adequate and anti-competitive enough to result to the other's underperformance. Pretty much in the same way that NOT all mergers and acquisitions are anti-competitive thus some are allowed and some aren't. In the same sense not all deals are anti-competitive or monopolistic. Trying to present one minor deal or two as enough to demand another country's local company to be penalized beause your country's company is a failure in their territory is signaling other agendas.

According to your logic:
Company X and company Y have 50% 50% of market share. Company X makes 1 deal. Its ok.
Company X and Company Y have 50% 50% worldwide. Company Y is doing badly in one territory because people just dont want it. Z is a company that sells its games worldwide. Company X makes deal with Z.
If company Z is located in country where Y does well it is not anti-competitive.
If by any chance Z is located in the country where Y fails, its anti-competitive practice and it is not allowed. Only Y should be allowed. Y's government sends letter to X's government demanding this X to be blocked by ANY kind of deal in X's territory thus making Y the only company that can make deals with Z as part of their worldwide strategy. Simply just because Y's product is naturally undesirable in said territory.

Thats mindbogglingly communicating government lobbying offense towards another country and its local businesses.

 

[JPT]

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.

Kojima had the cash or backing of somebody else to setup his studio? But he choose to be dependant upon Sony, just because?
I assume he would have gotten the cash somewhere else, but he absolutely needed funding. You never use your own cash reserve to start a company if you can avoid it.

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.

Come on, it takes two to tango, now maybe nobody else wanted to touch a Kojima project with a tentpole and Sony was able to dictate whatever terms they wanted, but if you are going to preach morality like making the "right" move, then any party are obliged to walk away if its wrong.

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.

It's not that hard and if MS wanted to they could have done it easily in my mind, people/companies bend over backwards to get into business with this big companies. And it's not like MS could not have hired people to do it either.

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.

Its not like MS did XBox on a shoe string budget either

 

[Nesh]

Also MS made an exclusive deal easily themselves with KojiPro.
If Iroboto thinks one game damaged XBOX business, then apparently that new XBOX exclusive KojiPro game can just as irrationally make up for huge sales in Japan.
Also someone needs to remind him that XBOX 360 had games like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, DOA4, Ninja Gaiden 2 and a ton of other games as exclusives or timed esclusives. It got all of Namco's, Konami's, Capcom's, Square Enix's games that were originally only on PS. MS announced back then their focus to gain interest from Japanese gamers.
It had a free lunch for almost a full year in Japan. It still failed.

 

[iroboto]

I think you guys need to separate what was and what is and what has changed.
I'm not justifying what Xbox is doing. I'm telling you what's changed and why the US is suddenly doing this.

a) There is a trade union negotiation up for renewal with Japan, because of this new terms are being discussed, so this is brought up as part of that
b) MS could never do this before because in a three horse race Nintendo ensures that there is no monopoly over the market, they are bigger than Sony in Japan.
c) Regulators changed the definition by removing Nintendo from the market and moving Sony and MS into the 'high performance console market' supported by Sony

Point (C) is controversial because it skewed what was a non monopoly, to a monopoly for Sony. With Sony NOW being a monopoly as defined by regulators, it's exclusivity deals with companies may now be considered anticompetitive especially in some regions where they are especially restricting content supply for it's competitors.

It does not matter what MS history is with failure, no one here has any doubt about that. What matters is that over night during this ABK process with MS, when MS used the argument that COD was not an important input for console success pointing to Nintendo, to ensure Sony's points stuck about foreclosure and impact to business, they gerrymandered Nintendo's position out of the market. And now MS is taking advantage of this mistake by making these claims that they could never do before.

What I'm trying to explain is, if this market definition holds, MS will push for this because it's a opportunity to stop Sony for paying for any type of exclusivity for it's platform in regions where it's a monopoly.
And regulators won't care how many mistakes are made by MS, or how much money they have. All that matters by definition is whether by market share Sony is a monopoly, and that whether the moves Sony is making in its space are considered anti-competitive. As we know there are many other players in this space, especially in the cloud gaming space that also have no access to the content that Sony has been signing. Regulators cannot discriminate between who gets content and who doesn't just because MS has more money or has been competing for longer. It their eyes, 2% market ownership and 0% market ownership is not a big difference.

 

[Nesh]

So you are admitting that MS and US regulators are playing a game of interpretation and statistics as an act of retaliation to present Sony as a company that performs anti-competitive practices that prevent MS from succeeding while that is not the case? And US is nonsensically calling for regulations that prevent Sony from making any kind of deal with a Japanese game developer?
You are presenting regulators as some guys that make decisions based solely on market share. Thats not how it goes. Under that logic since American companies own almost 100% of the OS and GPU market, Japan must request from US to stop every single deal these companies are making because EVERY deal they do with a US based company is monopolistic by some cooked up definition that isnt allowing related Japanese companies to compete or get fair prices in US soil.

edit: in essence MS and the US government are asking for Japan to regulate it's local businesses in a way that it opens way to a failed US one, which in effect will have potentially local and worldwide negative implications in a Japanese economy and business in favor of the US government and US corporate demands. That is a big W T F

 

[iroboto]

o you are admitting that MS and US regulators are playing a game of interpretation and statistics as an act of retaliation to present Sony as a company that performs anti-competitive practices that prevent MS from succeeding while that is not the case?

I think I'm explaining the situation as clearly as I can and I believe you (reading your comments) understand the scenario playing out right now. I would say that if the regulators did not move the boundaries, MS would not do this. But I think you're taking this too far, regulators are not in everyone's business, someone needs to complain for them to formally look into anti competitive practices. What you are seeing is, in some ways, with the new rules, a formal complaint for investigation. It doesn't mean they will win. I'm not really sure of the significance of this. But they're going to take their shot I guess, if they see one.

EVERY deal they do with a US based company is monopolistic by some cooked up definition that isnt allowing related Japanese companies to compete or get fair prices in US soil.

Any competitor in that space that feels that the market leaders are making anticompetitive moves are free to complain to regulators, and this does happen more often than you think. I think a poster posted a couple a few pages back. As long as they aren't making anticompetitive moves, there's not really anything people can complain about.

edit: in essence MS and the US government are asking for Japan to regulate it's local businesses in a way that it opens way to a failed US one, which in effect will have potentially local and worldwide negative implications in a Japanese economy and business in favor of the US government and US corporate demands. That is a big W T F

I think you've taken one idea, which the concept of understanding the scenario, and pushed it too far. I think if for whatever reason, let's say Sony could no longer have exclusivity clauses for Japanese content as a hypothetical scenario, and suddenly the market share for MS started jumping up significantly, that would be a bad sign, but not for MS. That would actually imply Sony was actively engaged in anticompetitive behaviour that was keeping competitors out of the market by having a monopoly over Japanese content.

So the expectation here is, if MS is a indeed a failure, that everyone believes them to be, and they can't get their shit together, but once they have access to AAA Japanese exclusives, they should not be able to change their position in the market. If they suddenly flip positions with Sony internationally, then Japanese AAA content is a critical input for success for anyone in the industry and they better take a closer look at exclusivity practices period.

So, I would say nothing changes, because no one is expecting MS to suddenly catapult to the top just because they have access to SQEnix titles and some one offs. There would be no impact to the Japanese economy just because a formal complaint has been lobbied.

But I don't expect anything to come of this. TLDR; this is a complaint, but there will be no action.

 

[Nesh]

I think I'm explaining the situation as clearly as I can and I believe you (reading your comments) understand the scenario playing out right now. I would say that if the regulators did not move the boundaries, MS would not do this. But I think you're taking this too far, regulators are not in everyone's business, someone needs to complain for them to formally look into anti competitive practices. What you are seeing is, in some ways, with the new rules, a formal complaint for investigation. It doesn't mean they will win. I'm not really sure of the significance of this. But they're going to take their shot I guess, if they see one.

Any competitor in that space that feels that the market leaders are making anticompetitive moves are free to complain to regulators, and this does happen more often than you think. I think a poster posted a couple a few pages back. As long as they aren't making anticompetitive moves, there's not really anything people can complain about.

I think you've taken one idea, which the concept of understanding the scenario, and pushed it too far. I think if for whatever reason, let's say Sony could no longer have exclusivity clauses for Japanese content as a hypothetical scenario, and suddenly the market share for MS started jumping up significantly, that would be a bad sign, but not for MS. That would actually imply Sony was actively engaged in anticompetitive behaviour that was keeping competitors out of the market by having a monopoly over Japanese content.

So the expectation here is, if MS is a indeed a failure, that everyone believes them to be, and they can't get their shit together, but once they have access to AAA Japanese exclusives, they should not be able to change their position in the market. If they suddenly flip positions with Sony internationally, then Japanese AAA content is a critical input for success for anyone in the industry and they better take a closer look at exclusivity practices period.

So, I would say nothing changes, because no one is expecting MS to suddenly catapult to the top just because they have access to SQEnix titles and some one offs. There would be no impact to the Japanese economy just because a formal complaint has been lobbied.

But I don't expect anything to come of this. TLDR; this is a complaint, but there will be no action.

Although I agree mostly with the points you make here, the arguments and claims put into the letter are mind boggling.
The US wasnt asking for an investigation to check the validity of the complains. They didnt say that they have suspicion that anticompetitive practices are taking hold. They simply went with MS's narrative, claiming them as fact before any investigation took place. Which shows signs of lobbying to me.

They are accusing Japan specifically that US businesses couldnt get a foothold in Japan because Japanese companies make deals with each other (?). They made bold accusations of trade violations and specifically that Sony is SYSTEMATICALLY making deals that keep the most popular Japanese games away from XBOX in the Japanese market. Trying to find which games are these barely give us any results.
They are literally accusing Japan's tolerance as being the result of the underperforming. They called Sony's practices to be LIMITING US exports in Japan while historical and current information available show that Sony's practices barely are the ones to blame and we barely have enough or good enough examples at least under our knowledge that show these systematic practices. Unless there are local Japanese games we arent aware of.
MS is free to make deals as well, which they did in many occasions, and Japanese companies are both supporting and expressed their willingness to support XBOX.
This offensive and bold accusations are signaling something else entirely.

 

[iroboto]

They are accusing Japan specifically that US businesses couldnt get a foothold in Japan because Japanese companies make deals with each other (?)

No, they are taking advantage of the fact that FTC, CMA, EU declared the high performance console market between 2 players, which they now have reason to file a formal complaint to investigate if exclusivity practices by a monopoly leader is considered anti-competitive.

They made bold accusations of trade violations and specifically that Sony is SYSTEMATICALLY making deals that keep the most popular Japanese games away from XBOX in the Japanese market

I'm not sure which trade violations you're speaking of, they are negotiating a contract that is about to expire, this is typically time to put in stuff. If the scenario is that 98% of the market is owned by Sony, there's no reason for them to require exclusivity deals with Japanese content. They own the whole market as is.

MS is free to make deals as well, which they did in many occasions, and Japanese companies are both supporting and expressed their willingness to support XBOX.

They do make deals, deals are not the issue, it's making deals to box your competition when your competition barely exist is the problem.

If there is content MS wants, they will make deals to acquire it, if they are told they are contractually obligated to deny MS, then that is what congress is pushing on - which they couldn't push on previously because Sony, Nintendo, and MS were together in the same market, Sony could make the claim that this is how they draw users from NSW to PS. It's just a formal complaint added among other things as part of this trade negotiation. It's not likely JPN and US are going to hold everything up on MS' account.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes. However, does Sony really have enough clout and money to stop at such a large scale? How many Japanese exclusives are there?

That is the big question. We have seen that Square-Enix are both happy to provide their games on Xbox platforms going even so far as to have their titles hosted on Game Pass (not many AAA developers are willing to do this).

Yet, "something" prevents them from allowing certain recent titles on GP, even PC GP (for titles with a PC release but no Xbox release).

So, Square-Enix likes having their titles on GP because it generates additional revenue for them, but "something" prevents them from putting certain titles on GP. They still don't do day and date so Octopath Traveller II isn't on there yet, but Octopath Traveller is. FF7-R has been on PC for over a year now and despite Square-Enix liking their games on GP, it's still nowhere to be found.

Hmmmm...

One could make a point, a bad one, that the cost of developing an Xbox version/port of the game isn't seen as financially viable (an extremely questionable point, IMO, especially considering it's a UE4 title and there are tools to make porting relatively easy compared to a custom engine), but putting a game on GP doesn't require much effort. So, uh, yeah...

We can also point to former Xbox adverse Japanese developers and publishers now embracing the platform (SEGA subsidiary Atlus, for example) as they view the additional revenue streams available through PC and Xbox as beneficial to their financial well being. Prior to the past couple years, Atlus mostly just released on PlayStation and Nintendo as they felt their titles might be too niche for western audiences. IE - they weren't sure the ROI would be there for a PC or Xbox release of their bigger titles, yet here we are with them now releasing on PC and Xbox because it's too profitable to ignore.

Regards,
SB

 

[Nesh]

No, they are taking advantage of the fact that FTC, CMA, EU declared the high performance console market between 2 players, which they now have reason to file a formal complaint to investigate if exclusivity practices by a monopoly leader is considered anti-competitive.

I'm not sure which trade violations you're speaking of, they are negotiating a contract that is about to expire, this is typically time to put in stuff. If the scenario is that 98% of the market is owned by Sony, there's no reason for them to require exclusivity deals with Japanese content. They own the whole market as is.

They do make deals, deals are not the issue, it's making deals to box your competition when your competition barely exist is the problem.

If there is content MS wants, they will make deals to acquire it, if they are told they are contractually obligated to deny MS, then that is what congress is pushing on - which they couldn't push on previously because Sony, Nintendo, and MS were together in the same market, Sony could make the claim that this is how they draw users from NSW to PS. It's just a formal complaint added among other things as part of this trade negotiation. It's not likely JPN and US are going to hold everything up on MS' account.

Sony is operating in a global market. If there are local japanese titles blocked by Sony is one thing. Making a deal for a title that has global reach with a japanese company is another. MS and the US governmemt arent asking just for investigation. They are claiming monopolistic practices and violations for which we dont have data that support it

 

[Nesh]

That is the big question. We have seen that Square-Enix are both happy to provide their games on Xbox platforms going even so far as to have their titles hosted on Game Pass (not many AAA developers are willing to do this).

Yet, "something" prevents them from allowing certain recent titles on GP, even PC GP (for titles with a PC release but no Xbox release).

So, Square-Enix likes having their titles on GP because it generates additional revenue for them, but "something" prevents them from putting certain titles on GP. They still don't do day and date so Octopath Traveller II isn't on there yet, but Octopath Traveller is. FF7-R has been on PC for over a year now and despite Square-Enix liking their games on GP, it's still nowhere to be found.

Hmmmm...

One could make a point, a bad one, that the cost of developing an Xbox version/port of the game isn't seen as financially viable (an extremely questionable point, IMO, especially considering it's a UE4 title and there are tools to make porting relatively easy compared to a custom engine), but putting a game on GP doesn't require much effort. So, uh, yeah...

We can also point to former Xbox adverse Japanese developers and publishers now embracing the platform (SEGA subsidiary Atlus, for example) as they view the additional revenue streams available through PC and Xbox as beneficial to their financial well being. Prior to the past couple years, Atlus mostly just released on PlayStation and Nintendo as they felt their titles might be too niche for western audiences. IE - they weren't sure the ROI would be there for a PC or Xbox release of their bigger titles, yet here we are with them now releasing on PC and Xbox because it's too profitable to ignore.

Regards,
SB

New Rumour Weighs In On Difficulties Between Xbox And Square Enix

Could Xbox be at fault?

www.purexbox.com

Coincidentally this rumor came recently

 

[iroboto]

Sony is operating in a global market. If there are local japanese titles blocked by Sony is one thing. Making a deal for a title that has global reach with a japanese company is another. MS and the US governmemt arent asking just for investigation. They are claiming monopolistic practices and violations for which we dont have data that support it

you're referencing this?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1643278686919983105

I can only comment on why that door opened up. I can't comment on whether the contents of the claims are true. The claims will have to be investigated.

 

[Nesh]

you're referencing this?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1643278686919983105

I can only comment on why that door opened up. I can't comment on whether the contents of the claims are true. The claims will have to be investigated.

Yes thats the one

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think you guys need to separate what was and what is and what has changed.
I'm not justifying what Xbox is doing. I'm telling you what's changed and why the US is suddenly doing this.
...

I think we are seeing a repeat of the earlier conversation with eastmen - you are discussing the political landscape and activity and why the legal matter is being pursued, whereas others of us are discussing the validity and logic of that argument. You aren't defending MS's/Congress's position or making a case in favour of their complaint, whereas the rebuttals you are receiving are taking you to be doing that.

A case I think of everyone smile and nod and back away, unless they specifically want to discuss the other person's perspective which I don't know that anyone does because I think we're largely in agreement on 1) Why MS are doing this and 2) the complexities of the legal situation and market history should regulators want to follow through.

 

[SmooTh]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1645509571379691522

 

[Dr. Nick]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1645668066578276352