what for 8 months ? Are you sure that is going to continue and not just become day and date ?
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
Oh, it's going to become day and date, absolutely. Sony is deliberately easing their fanbase into accepting it.. and the pandemic has done wonders in speeding up that process for them.
Individual games already released or confirmed:
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Days Gone
God of War
Spider-Man Remastered
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Uncharted 4
Uncharted Lost Legacy
The Last of Us: Part 1
Games we essentially know are coming due to leaks:
Returnal
Ghost of Tsushima
Sackboy
GT7
Ratchet and Clank
Demon's Souls
Games we can basically assume are coming due to games already launched:
Horzion Forbidden West
God of War: Ragnarok (Jetpack Interactive employees even had Ragnarok on their Linkedin)
Spider-Man 2
The Last of Us: Part 2
Think about it like Phases...
Phase 1
-Sony is getting their biggest franchises on PC. Fanboys accept it because they're "~4 year old games"... Announcements come from interviews in articles...
-Games release. Leaks of more games coming. Fanboys are like "Oh, well it will be 2+ years at least, don't expect day and date"...
Phase 2
-Now Sony starts advertising PC trailers in their State of Plays. More leaks "By the time it gets here we'll have X, Y, and Z"... More games release.
-Suddenly you have announcements of PS5 games that also state PC versions are in development. "It'll be at least another year after the PS5 version releases that you get it"
Phase 3
-Then their MP focused "service games" start hitting day and date on both platforms which people accept because they're service games and they want the largest amount of people possible playing.
-Their service games take off and some do very well on PC. Sony perks up... expect more in the future.
-Now PC games are assumed to be happening, fanboys have largely caved in and turn focus to mostly only mocking Xbox for being "Xcluded"... 6 months to a year after console becomes normal.
Phase 4
-Eventually Sony just makes the announcement that PC versions will launch together with their console counterparts.. and by that time there's enough content that Sony puts PS+ subscription services on PC and has their Store running.. they incentivize people to buy games there instead of Steam through deals so they can make all the money off the sale. Some people follow, but most just continue to purchase on Steam.
And while that sounds like a lot... it will happen relatively fast. Sony is just working their way, building up the content, easing the fans into their new business venture. Their plan is growth... not to just accept 2-3M lifetime sales.. They want in new markets and to grow.. and you only do that by going all in.
I'm not sure of that, no. I should sue Sony and make them commit to 8+ months of "real" exclusivity.
I wasn't aware that the regulators were aware of such detail, but I'm probably just an idiot as to how all this stuff gets done.
It's the smart play from MS, but i'd glad to hear some of the various regulatory agencies are making sure that it doesn't become a Gamepass only product.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Nadella has to say this because Microsoft are under scrutiny by multiple regulators and he needs to say something. The said, when companies are confident, genuine confidence means you need to say nothing. You know who else was also recently "confident" about the UK's CMA approving an acquisition? Nvidia about ARM.
Personally, I think this eventually will go through with mitigations but what those might be will be down of the regulators and parties to negotiate. Microsoft may need to commit to ten-plus years of supporting Call of Duty PlayStation, date-and-feature parity - as long as supporting PlayStation is commercially and technically viable, i.e PS6 isn't the next Wii U. Sony can say that's what they wanted, Microsoft can say that intended to do that anyway and everybody can move on.
Desperate actions. Its not going to alter course for them anyway.
Seems like Sony doesnt care for gamers, or very little, as the article describes.
Actually it is not. The website isnt neutral and the narrative doesnt fit objective journalism. Neither Sony or Microsoft want healthy competition. They both want to own the market. This is the truth. This is why MS bought them, this is why they are subsidizing gamepass, and this is why they are likely to use gamepass and popular ex-multiplatform titles to own the market. Now the article falls apart by the very fact that in its own words, this is the most ambitious and biggest buy out compared to any previous buy outs, which includes some of the most sucessful multiplatform franchises.
That alone, ignoring Sony itself, is a valid reason for regulatory departments to see it as a special case that may actually distort healthy competition. If they are gonna use them for gamepass doesnt change this one bit. And Sony, regardless what they want, see this as well.
The article also falls apart by the very fact that neither Sony, nor regulatory departments were as alarmed, nor did they comment when Microsoft bought other studios.
The rest of the article is full of assumptions about Sony and how MS will use COD. It is not based on fact but speculation, or assumptions presented as facts, and presents Sony's exclusives (which are almost completely from it's own studios) as titles "stolen" from other platforms and mentions even PC and Switch. Well newsflash: XBOX exclusives dont exist on PS nor Switch either. Nintendo doesnt release its games on PC, PS or XBOX either. It is normal business practice and all do it. Sony didnt prevent any third party game from appearing on PC and most are console timed exclusives. And now even their own games are released on PC. The article ignores these and other facts including the fact that cross-play is finally happening between all platforms including PS with some titles, and cross platform doesnt exist by default on XBOX or Switch or PC either. Having internally produced exclusives is just normal business to differentiate from each other but the writer seems bothered by Sony specifically, but not by the fact that MS bought out a huge list of multiplatform franchises. Both MS and Sony have exclusive deals with third parties but the article deliberately focuses just on Sony and generalise about their exclusives while glorifying MS having better value for gamers and how much better gamepass is gonna be (even though by buying out multiplatform franchises. But lets ignore that shall we?). Its as if the butthurt about Sony being 1st place talks more than actual journalism.
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Literally from the article
"This is a business, and Sony is merely protecting its interests. But to suggest its interests are somehow to the benefit of "the gaming industry" and "gamers" goes beyond bad faith, it's simply a lie."
"And sure, all of this is just business. Microsoft has done it in the past, especially during the Xbox 360 era. "
There is a reason why i cannot play SF5 or FF7 remake on xbox, there is a reason why sony require devs to pay for cross play. This is all hypocrisy from sony side, they are protecting they own business and try to reduce competition to minimum. Now i am sure msft would do the same in the same situation.
"Both MS and Sony have exclusive deals with third parties but the article deliberately focuses just on Sony "
Because of sony reaction and sonys false claims that they "care" about gamers and gaming industry. If you ask me, msft should do to sony what sony is been doing to msft for the last 10 years or so. Just remove cod from PS. Simple as that.
Thats barely one sentence. Nothing compared to the whole article which is clearly hypocritical. It says this while at the same time plastering Sony as being bad for the industry and MS doing good without having proper arguments to support it.
It even claims that MS stepped back from making AAA deals because of the backlash it received for the Rise of the Tomb Raider to Sony's benefit.
You call this serious journalism?
As for the second quote you should mention the context. It is referring to cross play, which again is hypocritical. They mentioned it because MS now supports it, and falsely claims that Sony does not.
It blatantly lies.
Here is a list of cross play games supported by PS4 and PS5 and the list is growing: https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/all-ps5-ps4-crossplay-games
The article isnt interested about facts. It is interested about creating impressions.
Yeah and how does this disagree with what I already said that both companies make exclusive deals with third parties?
There is a list of third party games we can write that are XBOX exclusive and not available on PS too. So? Whats your point?
Also these games you mentioned are released on PC, again false as per article which claims Sony is preventing them. Street Fighter 6 will be on XBOX, and Final Fantasy 7 Reunion will also arrive on XBOX, which gives possible hints that remake might see its way too.
Clearly none of them are owned by Sony and its up to the third party's discretion if they want to make temporary deals with MS or Sony or Nintendo.
Sony caring about the industry or not is irrelevant because you know very well that no company cares except their own pockets anyways. MS plays the same PR game and talks about how much they care about the "gamer" too.
Good competitive environment doesn't exist because of moral obligation by any company. It exists because companies do not have the means to overtake the market, through undesirable practices that competition cannot balance out.
When a company does have the means and do these practices, thats when regulators step in like in this case.
Sony may not necessarilly say it because they care about the gamer, but it is true, that such practices like this do have the potential to harm the industry. The article provided zero valid argument regardless that are relevant to the industry. Its mostly whining, distorting and lying. Zero objective material or middle ground. It is good material for uninformed public eyes and those who are jumping to one side of the fence.
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I was interested in the new harry potter until I found out that I can pay $60 for it on the pc or xbox and get an incomplete game for a year or buy it on the playstation and get a complete game. It's odd that the playstation fan base is okay with this. It would be hilarious to me that if this deal doesn't go through MS would start spending those billions and go to all third parties for exclusive content only on xbox /xbox pc versions of the game. Maybe sony would actually face back lash
You guys need to separate exclusivity and shopping for IPs.
ABK is in decline. Everyone knows it. COD is the only franchise they put out with any investment and they are already on their second remake. WoW is on decline and they are at the end of their remake cycle, any release beyond Wrath of Lich King is back to where they started, the point in which WoW became different.
All other blizzard IPs are dead. All other activision IPs are dead. Cod is a 1 trick pony that if the world ever decided to move on, ABK would fall into irrelevance. MS is looking to pad their IPs on their game service because IPs are actually what increase the value of their sub service. COD alone cannot improve game pass to become the only thing people should buy, no is fooled here, just buy the one title and move on with it, no need for GP.
Sony does not want MS to have these IPs and have made the discussion around CoD because making a discussion that MS would revive dead IPs to their benefit would make regulators approve it. If this isn’t obvious I don’t know what else to say. Nintendo has lived perfectly fine without COD. It is not this behemoth everyone makes it out to be. They are propping COD way above its value to make it seem like the company that controls COD controls the market. This is just pure BS At its finest.
Strategically, a fully invested in Blizzard entertainment, a PC tour de force, in will result in returning more people back to PC or iPads etc where consoles don’t really play in. The same could be said about the plethora of PC IPs that activision has let die, even ABK has figured out that bringing back a dead Sierra studios name has benefit considering the massive impact Space, Police, Kings, Larry, and Quest for Glory series has had on the industry. That’s a problem that MS doesn’t care about, and a problem that Sony does. PC is the place of innovation, and Sony wants PS5 to be the place of innovation. You want to do remakes? Remake a Sierra game proper using UE5. I'd scared shitless to play Police Quest II with UE5 graphics. Cause the story of that shit was straight up well made.
It’s pretty damn simple. Get your head off CoD and you can see the issue ABK going to MS has to Sony in the next 10 years. They'll have studio power, and they don't need to release COD every single year. That's a problem. You don't need a COD every year. MS knows it, they have a lot of FPS titles that they can put on rotation with this acquisition. Sony will be looking for a new FPS to prop up annually and MS isn't required to release one even if they agree to multiplatform in perpetuity. Just cycle between Doom, Quake, Halo, COD, Overwatch. MS no longer needs to send IPs to die. No releasing title X and being killed by COD 2 months later. If you can't see how Sony benefits from COD being out there, because they 0 investment in FPS titles, they thrive on the fact that FPS titles eat each other, so they only need to pay for marketing and exclusivity in the one that will win. Don't release them, suddenly all the FPS titles are going to do well. Holy shit. Revelations.
TLDR; The market is way over saturated with titles and most of them never get the attention they deserve, most of these AAA titles don't get the amount of time they deserve in terms of development either. Gamers will benefit from CoD going away from annual releases, because they can actually enjoy other FPS releases. There can be more investment in these titles because you know you aren't sending them out to die. Sony won't just be having an issue with CoD being the prime IP. What happens if people start taking to Doom and Quake and all these other FPS IPs that typically die to CoD? Now Sony has to worry about a shit ton of IPs that typically are fodder to be killed by ... well... something familiar.
ABK is in decline. Everyone knows it. COD is the only franchise they put out with any investment and they are already on their second remake. WoW is on decline and they are at the end of their remake cycle, any release beyond Wrath of Lich King is back to where they started, the point in which WoW became different.
All other blizzard IPs are dead. All other activision IPs are dead. Cod is a 1 trick pony that if the world ever decided to move on, ABK would fall into irrelevance. MS is looking to pad their IPs on their game service because IPs are actually what increase the value of their sub service. COD alone cannot improve game pass to become the only thing people should buy, no is fooled here, just buy the one title and move on with it, no need for GP.
Sony does not want MS to have these IPs and have made the discussion around CoD because making a discussion that MS would revive dead IPs to their benefit would make regulators approve it. If this isn’t obvious I don’t know what else to say. Nintendo has lived perfectly fine without COD. It is not this behemoth everyone makes it out to be. They are propping COD way above its value to make it seem like the company that controls COD controls the market. This is just pure BS At its finest.
Strategically, a fully invested in Blizzard entertainment, a PC tour de force, in will result in returning more people back to PC or iPads etc where consoles don’t really play in. The same could be said about the plethora of PC IPs that activision has let die, even ABK has figured out that bringing back a dead Sierra studios name has benefit considering the massive impact Space, Police, Kings, Larry, and Quest for Glory series has had on the industry. That’s a problem that MS doesn’t care about, and a problem that Sony does. PC is the place of innovation, and Sony wants PS5 to be the place of innovation. You want to do remakes? Remake a Sierra game proper using UE5. I'd scared shitless to play Police Quest II with UE5 graphics. Cause the story of that shit was straight up well made.
It’s pretty damn simple. Get your head off CoD and you can see the issue ABK going to MS has to Sony in the next 10 years. They'll have studio power, and they don't need to release COD every single year. That's a problem. You don't need a COD every year. MS knows it, they have a lot of FPS titles that they can put on rotation with this acquisition. Sony will be looking for a new FPS to prop up annually and MS isn't required to release one even if they agree to multiplatform in perpetuity. Just cycle between Doom, Quake, Halo, COD, Overwatch. MS no longer needs to send IPs to die. No releasing title X and being killed by COD 2 months later. If you can't see how Sony benefits from COD being out there, because they 0 investment in FPS titles, they thrive on the fact that FPS titles eat each other, so they only need to pay for marketing and exclusivity in the one that will win. Don't release them, suddenly all the FPS titles are going to do well. Holy shit. Revelations.
TLDR; The market is way over saturated with titles and most of them never get the attention they deserve, most of these AAA titles don't get the amount of time they deserve in terms of development either. Gamers will benefit from CoD going away from annual releases, because they can actually enjoy other FPS releases. There can be more investment in these titles because you know you aren't sending them out to die. Sony won't just be having an issue with CoD being the prime IP. What happens if people start taking to Doom and Quake and all these other FPS IPs that typically die to CoD? Now Sony has to worry about a shit ton of IPs that typically are fodder to be killed by ... well... something familiar.
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A lot of the games you say are dead have huge massive player bases. Wow still has close to 5m active subs and that is a game that is almost 20 years old. There are even older mmo's that have smaller bases like Ultima online that is about 6-7 years older. So WOW still has a lot of life left in it. Overwatch has tons of complaints that it is shutting down for Overwatch 2 , if the ip was dead no one would actually care. Diablo Immortal despite the backlash has done extremely well and I am sure Diablo 4 will be another bread winner for activation. The game looks pretty amazing .
I agree with you on COD not having to be released every year, we already heard that before MS made the purchase offer. I think they are too big now to have one each year even with 3 teams. Dev cycles has become longer and fans want longer tails of support on the game. But MS has all of Zenimax plus their own shooter titles that can take some strain off the COD franchise. I also think COD could be better served as an every other year title.
As for the old ip stuff , sure they were great games but does anyone really know them ? At that point it may be easier to just make new IP
"Yeah and how does this disagree with what I already said that both companies make exclusive deals with third parties?"
It dosent, why this is not a problem when sony does that and its a problem and harmfull for gamers if msft does that? This is what bothers me, even if you find article biased it adress just that.
"Sony may not necessarilly say it because they care about the gamer, but it is true, that such practices like this do have the potential to harm the industry. The article provided zero valid argument regardless that are relevant to the industry. Its mostly whining, distorting and lying."
true, thats why competition is good and not harmfull for the customers. I dont want market fully controlled by sony or msft, and this deal make it more even. Which in the end will be better for us - customers.
It dosent, why this is not a problem when sony does that and its a problem and harmfull for gamers if msft does that? This is what bothers me, even if you find article biased it adress just that.
"Sony may not necessarilly say it because they care about the gamer, but it is true, that such practices like this do have the potential to harm the industry. The article provided zero valid argument regardless that are relevant to the industry. Its mostly whining, distorting and lying."
true, thats why competition is good and not harmfull for the customers. I dont want market fully controlled by sony or msft, and this deal make it more even. Which in the end will be better for us - customers.
Well of course "exclusives" don't exist on other platforms, otherwise they wouldn't be exclusives. But Microsoft owns the Ori IP and it was made available on Switch. And Microsoft has allowed other IPs it owns on Switch, such as the Banjo Kazooie games on Switch Expansion Pak, plus Banjo and Minecraft characters appearing in Smash. And the Quake remaster, including all of the new content made for it was on Switch and Playstation, and had physical releases for those platforms but was digital only on Xbox.
Like what third party deals did MS make that was considered a problem and by whom? Be specific.
And thats why nobody complained when MS bought other studios and acquired some exclusive deals with some third parties but ABK and Zenimax attracted the attention of regulators and the media. Unless you think regulators are Sony
Surely you haven't forgotten the Tomb Raider timed exclusive deal. There are so many articles about that, pick any dozen to look at.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
That brings up another major point that I didn't remember to include when making posts about why MS aren't even considering removing COD from the PlayStation consoles.
Multiplayer games, especially large successful multiplayer games require large player bases in order to succeed and thrive. Once player counts start to drop if it gets below a certain point then the player base will rapidly decrease until the game is dead. COD on PC was basically almost dead in the water until crossplay arrived. Why? Not enough players to support its multiplayer modes.
FFXIV is successful because Square-Enix wouldn't allow Sony to make it PlayStation exclusive. Microsoft keep Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online on PlayStation because it would be the death of those games if they did remove it from PS. MMO's live and die based on their online populations and MMO's traditionally have a much larger playerbase on PC than console. While COD isn't an MMO, it also lives and dies based on it's online player base.
Phil Spencer certainly understands this
It's key to understand just how important PlayStation's market leading position is for the health of COD and its relevance in the market. If you cut out the single largest group of players for the game, you risk killing the IP. Imagine for a second that Capcom were persuaded by Microsoft to make SFV exclusive to Xbox instead of PlayStation despite the vast majority of its online players being on PlayStation. SFV would either be a dead IP now or it'd be on life support. Hell, SFV was basically dead on PC until crossplay arrived.
COD is vastly larger than SFV and thus requires a vastly larger playerbase to keep it healthy and relevant. The reason each release can continue to chart in top 20 sales charts for at least a year after release despite yearly releases is the large online playerbase.
COD basically doesn't stay relevant if you remove over 1/3 (probably close to half due to PlayStation's dominant position WRT COD player base) of it's online player base.
Microsoft are already struggling to keep Halo relevant as a top tier IP, I doubt they want to remove COD from PlayStation and then struggle to also keep that relevant as a top tier IP.
Regards,
SB
Those games were crazy good because of the stories they made. They could easily be reimagined titles. If Cobra Kai can take off in this day of age following several failed Karate Kids after 2, then proper execution of Police Quest is easy. You basically are making a Rockstar title with Police Quest 1 and 2 storylines combined. TPS as a narcotics cop after a promotion? I'd totally play it.
WoW is still on the decline however, and it's clear they've run out of good ideas. 5m active subs from the peak of 12M in 2004. The only reason it's 20 years old and still kicking is because no other game has knocked it off yet, nor did Blizzard/Activision have the guts to replace it with Project Titan.
This is another title that was not green lit until after that Diablo Immortal announcement that they thought the company was a joke. ABK had no intention of greenlighting a D4. That's why we've been waiting so long to get a D4, it only started in production after that fateful Blizzcon.
There's so many good old IPs that can be reimagined that have great relevance in today's market which is largely going through its own, lets 'remake' era.
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