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

[iroboto]

But apparently MS doesn't remove games from competing systems.

This probably falls in the grey area of don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Reality is Xbox has not yet removed an existing IP franchise or title off PS yet. Indiana Jones is not yet released and it sounds like it will still be a significant time until it releases which may be why they switched this one. It was an unannounced title.

 

[Shortbread]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671865532486762496

I could have sworn someone from Xbox a few weeks ago was defending Redfall sales as being wonderful by their metrics. Now, it's just meh...

 

[eastmen]

SEGA legitimately lost EA's support all on their own. Maybe I shouldn't assume you're speaking of Dreamcast but it sure seems like it.

They did because EA wasn't happy that Sega went with sh-2 for their console and not the company that an executive at EA had invested at during the time.

My point isn't how they lost support , only that we have seen an example of how a 3rd place company loosing support from a large publisher removed them from the console market. We don't have any examples of a first place competitor having a large publisher stop creating for that company and have them exit the market in that same generation

 

[stu11]

This probably falls in the grey area of don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Reality is Xbox has not yet removed an existing IP franchise or title off PS yet. Indiana Jones is not yet released and it sounds like it will still be a significant time until it releases which may be why they switched this one. It was an unannounced title.

But it does set a precedent going forward for how MS might prevent Activision games being released on other formats. That is why the FTC is interested. Pete Hines also stated that he was "surprised" that MS would be still bringing COD to PS and Nintendo, since MS has made all of the Bethesda stuff except for Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop exclusive.

That being said, Hines also implied that he was blindsided by Xbox's commitments to bring Activision games like Call of Duty to PlayStation and other platforms, while Bethesda games remained strictly Xbox exclusive. Hines said the messaging surrounding Call of Duty confused him, since it was "the opposite of what we were just asked — told — to do with our other titles".

This indicates that Microsoft might yet "revise" the deal to exclude platforms again.

They did because EA wasn't happy that Sega went with sh-2 for their console and not the company that an executive at EA had invested at during the time.

Nonsense. It was Sega's decision to use PowerVR instead of 3DFX that put one bullet in Sega's relationship with EA, it had nothing to do with the SH2, which was for the Saturn.

Of course Sega were not a company to only make small fuckups and decided to really excell at screwing up their relationship with EA by buying Visual Concepts and telling EA that they would need to compete against them on Dreamcast.

Former Electronic Arts CEO] Larry Probst is a dear friend of mine. Larry came to me and said, ‘Bernie, we’ll do Dreamcast games, but we want sports exclusivity.’ I said, ‘You want to be on the system with no other third-party sports games?’

“I looked at him and said, ‘You know what? I’ll do it, but there’s one caveat here: I just bought a company called Visual Concepts for $10 million, so you’ll have to compete with them.’ Larry says, ‘No, you can’t even put them on the system.’ I said ‘Then Larry, you and I are not going to be partners on this system.'” – Bernie Stolar, Ex-SEGA America President and CEO

I mean that is sure to endear Sega to EA isn't it? Bravo Sega!!

Of course that automatically makes it Sony's fault that Sega's relationship with EA was so bad.

 

[iroboto]

But it does set a precedent going forward for how MS might prevent Activision games being released on other formats. That is why the FTC is interested. Pete Hines also stated that he was "surprised" that MS would be still bringing COD to PS and Nintendo, since MS has made all of the Bethesda stuff except for Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop exclusive.

I was under the expectation that this is expected. Xbox would only keep certain titles multiplatform if the titles profitability and survivability depended on it. And they’ve indicated that single player titles typically wouldn’t fit those requirements.

 

[stu11]

I was under the expectation that this is expected. Xbox would only keep certain titles multiplatform if the titles profitability and survivability depended on it. And they’ve indicated that single player titles typically wouldn’t fit those requirements.

Apparently MS never told Pete Hines that or he just "forgot to mention" that he knew to the FTC. He seemed out of the loop. Of course "forgetting to mention something" important in court tends to be a rather foolish strategy that can end up hurting real bad.

 

[stu11]

Sorry meant to comment on this, the 10 minute limit again...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671865532486762496

I could have sworn someone from Xbox a few weeks ago was defending Redfall sales as being wonderful by their metrics. Now, it's just meh...

LOL I loved the line ""many other" future ZeniMax titles will be shipped on PS/Nint" .



Not any in the next 10 years or so. Unless MS allows id to remix Doom again and put that out on PS5. We know that Indiana Jones and the next Elder Scrolls game won't be. And bet that any rumored Hexen game won't be either.

 

[Shortbread]

Starfield Was Planned For PS5 Prior To Microsoft's ZeniMax Acquisition, FTC Says

Bethesda's sci-fi RPG would have come to PlayStation if not for Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax in 2021, according to the FTC.

www.gamespot.com

Starfield, the next major Xbox console-exclusive from the makers of Skyrim and Fallout, was originally planned to release on PlayStation 5, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Documents recently made public as part of the FTC's injunction against Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard state that prior to Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax, both Starfield and Redfall were planned to release on rival Sony's PS5 console.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671875372634324993

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671939745293688832

 

[Nesh]

Starfield Was Planned For PS5 Prior To Microsoft's ZeniMax Acquisition, FTC Says

Bethesda's sci-fi RPG would have come to PlayStation if not for Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax in 2021, according to the FTC.

www.gamespot.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671875372634324993

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671939745293688832

What is worrying me the most about the whole situation is how such purchases are opening the gates for true unshakable monopolies in the future.
Surely now PS5 has a big enough userbase to keep some games available on Playstation because it is economically beneficial to do so.
But if something goes wrong in the future and Playstation loses significant market share, MS will have all the incentives to minimize support to destroy competition.
MS, a company with billions of cash sitting in a bank, presents itself as a victim of supposedly having to pay extra to keep COD on XBOX. Even if true its just Activision using their negotiating power to gain extra.
But imagine how the situation is for Sony with Zenimax and ABK under the ownership of direct competitor giant like MS. Think about what kind of deals will be presented for Sony IF they are even on offer. The incentive isnt even about just squeezing a little bit of more revenue. There is an incentive to eliminate competition and severe their existence.
A hint of that was presented already by some of Sony's reports of their case, where the offers made by MS for Activision games were already significantly worse.

We are already seeing significant projects destined for multiplatform releases being held away from other platforms, not under the negotiating conditions of the market between two companies, but one company having control over it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So Disney created and released the spiderman games on playstation and then bought insomniac to continue releasing more ?

No. But neither did Sony/Insomniac control the SM IP to make it exclusive. How would preventing Sony buying Insomniac in 2019 have stopped SM being exclusive in 2018?!?!!

You continue to try and move goal posts.

I haven't moved them at all! From my first post on this matter, all I've said is of the examples one can use, using SM doesn't work.

If IP that was released on a platform must always be released on said paltform then it would have to go for all IP .

Sure, if that's the rule, that the rule that needs regulating...

Spiderman is an IP that was released on many platforms across the entirety of home consoels and so it should continue to be released on all platforms it has in the past. That is what it comes down to.

Sure, it would have to be regulated if that's what we're going for. However, it would not be regulated by controlling Sony's acquisition of Insomniac nor Sony making it exclusive. It would have to be regulated to ensure IP holders aren't allowed to make exclusive deals.

Again, you said for effective regulation. Sony should ahve been blocked from buying Insomniac. Sony bought Insomniac after SM was released. How the heck would preventing that purchase have stopped the IP becoming exclusive? It wouldn't. There were no acquisitions. Ergo, the regulation would have to be when the deal was struck with the IP holder.

You are trying to move goal posts to make it okay for what sony is doing.

No, you're the one trying to assign responsibility to Sony when it wasn't their doing and I'm trying to point out the lack of logic to that. If you had just said that deal would need to be regulated, I'd agree with you. But you said Sony needed regulating on that deal to stop SM becoming exclusive.

I'll repeat a straight-forward question for you to answer. How would preventing Sony buying Insomniac in 2019 have stopped SM being exclusive in 2018?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671875372634324993

"Degrading Performance" arguments are bollocks. There needs to be evidence of that, and also of measuring impact. PS3's versions of many games, particular on UE IIRC, were well below XB360 performance, but the titles and machine still sold. You'd have to make games soooo bad to make a difference, not just 20% less pixels, and then your game would stand out as shit because all the other games are showing the rival's console at its full capabilities. It'd be mind-numbingly obvious the poor game would be because of the poor development, not the platform. Like, we can look at TLOU on PC and think "looks like Sony are trying to make the PC look bad," and that'd be a clearly dumb move, destroying their reputation and massively harming sales of the title. At no point do we (other than die hard Sony FBs) look at TLOU and think, "wow, PS5 must be amazing." Certainly not the wider populace to drive PS5 hardware sales.

If you are releasing a game, it's to maximise investment, which means doing the best job you can. This argument of wilful sabotage is such a schoolboy playground level of logic!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A hint of that was presented already by some of Sony's reports of their case, where the offers made by MS for Activision games were already significantly worse.

What are these offers?

 

[Nesh]

What are these offers?

If I recall it was specifically in the terms MS presented in the 10 year CoD deal.
They stated that the charges were significantly larger. I need to find the report again.

 

[Shortbread]

"Degrading Performance" arguments are bollocks. There needs to be evidence of that, and also of measuring impact. PS3's versions of many games, particular on UE IIRC, were well below XB360 performance, but the titles and machine still sold. You'd have to make games soooo bad to make a difference, not just 20% less pixels, and then your game would stand out as shit because all the other games are showing the rival's console at its full capabilities. It'd be mind-numbingly obvious the poor game would be because of the poor development, not the platform. Like, we can look at TLOU on PC and think "looks like Sony are trying to make the PC look bad," and that'd be a clearly dumb move, destroying their reputation and massively harming sales of the title. At no point do we (other than die hard Sony FBs) look at TLOU and think, "wow, PS5 must be amazing." Certainly not the wider populace to drive PS5 hardware sales.

If you are releasing a game, it's to maximise investment, which means doing the best job you can. This argument of wilful sabotage is such a schoolboy playground level of logic!

???

I think you meant to quote someone else, possibly eastmen?

 

[Cyan]

Email shows that Jim Ryan never worried about losing CoD on Playstation.

Jim Ryan private emails show he doesn't think Call of Duty will be made exclusive to Xbox

In private emails Sony's CEO Jim Ryan says that Sony will be 'more than okay' if the merger goes through and that he didn't believe COD would be withheld.

www.tweaktown.com

 

[Shortbread]

Email shows that Jim Ryan never worried about losing CoD on Playstation.

Jim Ryan private emails show he doesn't think Call of Duty will be made exclusive to Xbox

In private emails Sony's CEO Jim Ryan says that Sony will be 'more than okay' if the merger goes through and that he didn't believe COD would be withheld.

www.tweaktown.com

So, between Jim Ryan's email and Phil Spencer's recent comment that "Xbox will exist' if Activision Blizzard deal falls through," then both parties are agreeing that they can survive without Activision/COD? Sounds like a win win to me on keeping Activision as an independent third party.

 

[see colon]

So, between Jim Ryan's email and Phil Spencer's recent comment that "Xbox will exist' if Activision Blizzard deal falls through," then both parties are agreeing that they can survive without Activision/COD? Sounds like a win win to me on keeping Activision as an independent third party.

That ignores Activision's want to be be acquired.

 

[Shortbread]

That ignores Activision's want to be be acquired.

Sure. But the purpose of Jim's email and Phil's quote are from two console manufacturers admitting they can survive without Activision/COD, which they can.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

That ignores Activision's want to be be acquired.

And you have to ask yourself why, when they are already very profitable. The motive seems to be the buyers want to lose a chunk of unknowable liability for the investigations still ongoing into Activision-Blizzard's management. They may or may not happen, but doing nothing guarantees they will continue.

 

[iroboto]

Email shows that Jim Ryan never worried about losing CoD on Playstation.

Jim Ryan private emails show he doesn't think Call of Duty will be made exclusive to Xbox

In private emails Sony's CEO Jim Ryan says that Sony will be 'more than okay' if the merger goes through and that he didn't believe COD would be withheld.

www.tweaktown.com

This pretty much invalidates the FTCs case here. Even their competitors know they will be fine, ergo you don’t block a competitor from trying to compete, you block if you can prove that they are building a monopoly.

Their main competitor isn’t concerned.

So, between Jim Ryan's email and Phil Spencer's recent comment that "Xbox will exist' if Activision Blizzard deal falls through," then both parties are agreeing that they can survive without Activision/COD? Sounds like a win win to me on keeping Activision as an independent third party.

that runs counter intuitive to competition is supposed to make things better for the consumer.

That’s like saying, everyone in the telecom market can survive with very high price points, so let’s block everything to ensure that doesn’t change. We do want things to change, consumers want more value or access for money.

MS will take cod and bring it to the masses for cheap. Sony will respond in kind by making a better service, or making better competing products. Both would be good for consumers.