Support NeoGAF

[ArcaneNLSC]

Why would I do that?

This thread in a nutshell.

Lets completely ignore that Sony currently has significant monopoly power over the market with 70% WW marketshare and uses it to screw over its customers into paying more and having less options.

Lets focus entirely on the fear that someday maybe MS could increase their market share and do the same thing. Nevermind they are currently making gaming cheaper and more accessible than it has ever been.

A lot of Sony's marketshare success has been because of quality product not buying 3rd party publishers. Look at Microsoft's history they just buy then fail to succeed in growing their investment when they purchase it (Nokia and Skype as mentioned)
Sony bounced back after a horrific start withe PS3 where it was a huge financial loss to the company so much so people thought Sony was going to go under and would struggle with launching a PS4. Microsoft's missteps and failure to claw back after the Xbox One is part of their problem and why they lost so many people but also because Microsoft's shift in around 2011 especially with Kinect.

Microsoft was aggressive with 3rd party deals during the 360 era and early stages with Xbox One Titanfall and Tomb raider as an example. Sony don't have a 2 Trillion dollar warchest this Activision deal is what about 70% approx of all of Sony's value and Microsoft were notorious in the 90's for buying out any form of competition and are looking to repeat that. You can't just buy your way to the top all the time you actually you know have to fucking earn it by doing the hard yards. Gamepass yeah seems like a good deal upfront but unless you have that 2 billion gamers subscribed to it paying the full price you are not going to sustain developing big budget games and will likely have to look at monetization methods to make up for any loses in people not physically buying copies of the game instead of renting them out in a subscription service.

Movies have multiple ways they recoup loses from cinema to then bluray 4K and DVD sales then digital sales on platforms to then agreements with streaming services/subscriptions.

 

[splattered]

But then that shows MS don't need to own Call of Duty to be successful.

Apparently nobody needs to own COD to be successful, so why are Sony even worried?

 

[SneakersSO]

Only bit about the hearing is this

So they already did this in the hearing, and this was just chest thumping to the public.

Exactly what I said here yesterday. Given the time MS and ATVI both had to make presentations yesterday, and how long Smith's hotel press conference was, its almost proof positive that Smith's conference was largely the presentation he did to the EC, although I didn't expect it would be verbatim.

I ultimately think the EC will approve of the deal, but I also always felt that they would. I agree with Dring that the CMA was always the one most likely to wind up blocking it. And like I outlined yesterday in a post in here, i'm not quite sure how Smith's presentation, if it indeed was that that he presented to the EC, will convince the CMA (although i'm sure the EC will buy it no problem).

 

[Thirty7ven]

Apparently nobody needs to own COD to be successful, so why are Sony even worried?

Why are MS so worried the deal won’t go through?

 

[SneakersSO]

Well but he says really clear the deal will be approved in Europe. So UK will be on the corner and forced to approve.

The CMA doesn't care at all about what the EC's findings are. As long as the main opponent of the deal has not back down, Sony, then the CMA is going to continue what they've been doing so far. There have been a variety of regulators who have rubber-stamped this deal, and it didn't matter at all for the big 3 regulators when it came time to make their assessments.

 

[ToadMan]

Lets completely ignore that Sony currently has significant monopoly power over the market with 70% WW marketshare and uses it to screw over its customers into paying more and having less options.

Let’s not ignore that.

How did Sony get to that position and why didn’t MS get there instead?

 

[ToadMan]

Without Call of Duty. It doesn't matter if you include Switch or not, it doesn't really change much.

Exactly what the CMA said…

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

Let’s not ignore that.

How did Sony get to that position and why didn’t MS get there instead?

Exactly MS have every opportunity to have the same kind of success and marketshare Sony do today without having to buy their way with buying every publisher

 

[Hendrick's]

Chris drings take on the matter.



He goes in hard in the article and normally his a reserved dude. But he sees through the microsofts/acitivisions bullshit.

His bias is really showing lately. Clearly another Sony shill journalist.

 

[intheinbetween]

A lot of Sony's marketshare success has been because of quality product not buying 3rd party publishers. Look at Microsoft's history they just buy then fail to succeed in growing their investment when they purchase it (Nokia and Skype as mentioned)
Sony bounced back after a horrific start withe PS3 where it was a huge financial loss to the company so much so people thought Sony was going to go under and would struggle with launching a PS4. Microsoft's missteps and failure to claw back after the Xbox One is part of their problem and why they lost so many people but also because Microsoft's shift in around 2011 especially with Kinect.

Microsoft was aggressive with 3rd party deals during the 360 era and early stages with Xbox One Titanfall and Tomb raider as an example. Sony don't have a 2 Trillion dollar warchest this Activision deal is what about 70% approx of all of Sony's value and Microsoft were notorious in the 90's for buying out any form of competition and are looking to repeat that. You can't just buy your way to the top all the time you actually you know have to fucking earn it by doing the hard yards. Gamepass yeah seems like a good deal upfront but unless you have that 2 billion gamers subscribed to it paying the full price you are not going to sustain developing big budget games and will likely have to look at monetization methods to make up for any loses in people not physically buying copies of the game instead of renting them out in a subscription service.

Movies have multiple ways they recoup loses from cinema to then bluray 4K and DVD sales then digital sales on platforms to then agreements with streaming services/subscriptions.

Sony has bought many studios and exclusives, permanent and temporary, over the years, that’s a fact. Thank to some of those exclusives, as well as other factors (e.g DVD bet, first party ips such as Gran Turismo and God of War) they managed to position themselves as the dominant platform, but ignoring the fact they have been buying exclusives is whitewashing

 

[dotnotbot]

His bias is really showing lately. Clearly another Sony shill journalist.

What did he write there that you would consider as shilling?

 

[GHG]

Spoiled brats not getting their way so they ran to the media yet again. Woe is me.

You'd think they would learn considering their obsession with winning battles in the media has only resulted in the piechart they had to produce but alas.

"There was something frankly Trumpian and performative about the whole thing"

Xbox marketing in a nutshell. Which is why they've struggled outside of the US/UK.

 

[Hendrick's]

What did he write there that you would consider as shilling?

Nearly everything, starting with the clickbait title.

Facts are not fluff and spin.

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

Sony has bought many studios and exclusives, permanent and temporary, over the years, that’s a fact. Thank to some of those exclusives, as well as other factors (e.g DVD bet) they managed to position themselves as the dominant platform, but ignoring the fact they have been buying exclusives is whitewashing

Yes I stated that they were aggressive on 3rd party deals but so were Xbox but they haven't bought big publishers is what I was stating. Its only been the past year that Sony have been aggressive on buying new studios and in part in retaliation to Microsoft buying some and then Bethesda

 

[Punished Miku]

Exactly what the CMA said…

I haven't agreed with the CMA yet. We don't have the same position.

I personally think it's absurd to not include Nintendo in whatever analysis you're doing. They were literally one of the major players (THE major player) until they got pushed out of the market and had to reinvent themselves to survive. CMA wants to pretend Nintendo doesn't exist or isn't relevant at all which is peak stupidity.

But even if you play by this stupid outlook, it doesn't exactly change much because then it just highlights Sony dominance in comparison to MS. It's a stupid thing to fixate on either way. The CMA arguments have been pretty stupid in my opinion, and I don't think it's an accident that MS literally publicly said they felt the need to explain the industry to them, because they seem pretty clueless, or bought by Sony. Taking any of Sony's arguments seriously in this case is an embarrassment. I personally don't even think the 10 year COD being set in stone was needed, but with that in place - it's pretty much the longest guarantee in the history of gaming. No one signs contracts that long, and they still whine.

 

[Nothing1234]

Sony has bought many studios and exclusives, permanent and temporary, over the years, that’s a fact. Thank to some of those exclusives, as well as other factors (e.g DVD bet, first party ips such as Gran Turismo and God of War) they managed to position themselves as the dominant platform, but ignoring the fact they have been buying exclusives is whitewashing

Did the Xbox 360 just not happen?

 

[Interfectum]

His bias is really showing lately. Clearly another Sony shill journalist.

 

[intheinbetween]

Exactly MS have every opportunity to have the same kind of success and marketshare Sony do today without having to buy their way with buying every publisher

We are living in a different scenario, even when MS started in this industry they knew it was going to be hard to beat PS2, they started from scratch competing against Sony and Nintendo, which had great experience in the gaming console market while MS was the new kid in town.

MS took bad decisions since the OG XBOX and put wrong people managing the division, no matter how big is your bank account if you don’t have the right team leading it.

 

[adamsapple]

His bias is really showing lately. Clearly another Sony shill journalist.

He wants that Coalt audience on the other front.

 

[Hendrick's]

How did I miss this one? My girl is on fire.

 

[intheinbetween]

Yes I stated that they were aggressive on 3rd party deals but so were Xbox but they haven't bought big publishers is what I was stating. Its only been the past year that Sony have been aggressive on buying new studios and in part in retaliation to Microsoft buying some and then Bethesda

Sony has been acquiring studios since the PS era (e.g Psygnosis), and they have also destroyed many teams as MS, so they have been playing this little game of M&A for a while

 

[SneakersSO]

Sony has bought many studios and exclusives, permanent and temporary, over the years, that’s a fact. Thank to some of those exclusives, as well as other factors (e.g DVD bet) they managed to position themselves as the dominant platform, but ignoring the fact they have been buying exclusives is whitewashing

Everyone in the industry buys exclusives. Everyone. Sony isn't alone in this; MS does it, Nintendo does it, Google was doing it back when Stadia was around. And yes, some of those exclusives were perm, some temp. Sony hasn't done anything this industry doesn't already do. Loads of industry players also buy studios - again, nothing new, has happened since the onset of the industry, done by platform holders and 3rd party publishers alike. What no platform holder in this industry has done is buy a publisher, and MS is now doing that twice.

And Sony, like Nintendo, went a very long time without making a big studio acquisition (Insomniac), and only did so when MS began consolidating the industry. I see you're short-handing the DVD factor for the PS2, when even Sony has admitted that that was the main reason that console moved units, as well as ignoring what Sony's format decision did to position the PSX in both lowering publishing costs and MSRP for consumers back in the 90s, which grew the overall amount of users who entered the core games market, much like the Gameboy had in the early 90s.

What you're ignoring here is that buying big name exclusives didn't help turn the PS3 around. MGS4 didn't turn around the position of the PS3 at all. And no other exclusive Sony had in the PS3 generation from 3rd parties is what did it, and that was Sony's lowest point in the console market without question. The turn around of the PS3 was two specific events:

1)HD DVD being sunset and Blu-Ray ultimately being adopted as the HD format that the movie industry would release on.
2)Sony began fortifying and increasing its first-party production slate.

It wasn't buying exclusives 3rd party games, or buying studios, or market undercutting that got Sony to start building up good will, increasing the PS3's marketshare (and ultimately overtaking the 360 WW), which ultimately set them up to launch a new generation console. It was focusing on making experiences that defined their platform for the wider gaming market which did, much like Nintendo has essentially always done with their platforms.

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

We are living in a different scenario, even when MS started in this industry they knew it was going to be hard to beat PS2, they started from scratch competing against Sony and Nintendo, which had great experience in the gaming console market while MS was the new kid in town.

MS took bad decisions since the OG XBOX and put wrong people managing the division, no matter how big is your bank account if you don’t have the right team leading it.

Sony have only been in the industry for 5 years longer than Microsoft they weren't as established as say Nintendo, Sega and Atari.

Sony yes are an entertainment industry so maybe that helped them transition in to gaming with their understanding of TV and movies along with music.

 

[Represent.]

Pathetic arguments from Microsoft.

“We suck, please feel sorry for our trillion dollar mega corporation”

How about you learn to fucking compete by building quality software from your already existing 25+ fucking studios, you incompetent motherfuckers.

 

[demigod]

He wants that Coalt audience on the other front.

Pretty sure he is not delusional like Colt

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

How did I miss this one? My girl is on fire.

I don't really care about the outcome just in it for these Tweets and the meltdowns

 

[intheinbetween]

Sony have only been in the industry for 5 years longer than Microsoft they weren't as established as say Nintendo, Sega and Atari.

Sony yes are an entertainment industry so maybe that helped them transition in to gaming with their understanding of TV and movies along with music.

Five years around then were key to invest in console gaming, nowdays is almost impossible to consider a new player.

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

Sony has been acquiring studios since the PS era (e.g Psygnosis), and they have also destroyed many teams as MS, so they have been playing this little game of M&A for a while

Yes but didn't really buy many during the PS3 and PS4 era in fact they shut a few down or restructured a few. Its only been the last year or so that they got aggressive again in purchasing studios that are new and established like bungie but that is more a partnetship in terms of helping bungie become multimedia with TV and movie opportunities to then Bungie helping Sony develop live service games that are successful.

 

[Punished Miku]

It wasn't buying exclusives 3rd party games, or buying studios, or market undercutting that got Sony to start building up good will, increasing the PS3's marketshare (and ultimately overtaking the 360 WW), which ultimately set them up to launch a new generation console. It was focusing on making experiences that defined their platform for the wider gaming market which did, much like Nintendo has essentially always done with their platforms.

Sony really didn't have a significant 1st party presence until mid to late PS3. They took out Sega and Nintendo pretty much exclusively on buying exclusives and undercutting them with advantages from other parts of their much larger company, CD / DVD / Blu-Ray, and the ability to operate with significant debt that Nintendo can't. It was almost the same strategy. It also took them nearly 3 generations to have a good first party, which they do now.

MS is following the same path, but it will take even longer now due to the length of development and the size of teams, and their mistakes last gen. They're not very different at all. Pretty much the only difference is that MS is larger in scale compared to Sony, like Sony was larger in scale compared to Nintendo - and MS is using a cloud distribution advantage while Sony capitalized on optical disc distribution advantage. It's the same shit, which is why it drives me nuts to see this revisionist history.

Does anyone think PS2 beat Gamecube because of Sony 1st party? Give me a break.

 

[adamsapple]

I don't really care about the outcome just in it for these Tweets and the meltdowns

Oh my god.

 

[mansoor1980]

microsoft should bring sega into this , how the sony playstation killed sega dreamcast....................... bcuz monoplies

 

[Hendrick's]

Oh my god.

Honestly could not sum up this whole affair better than that Tweet. Pure genius.

 

[The_Mike]

Pretty sure he is not delusional like Colt

He sounds like he's on the verge to OD from some heavy designer drug with that statement.

 

[IFireflyl]

I haven't agreed with the CMA yet. We don't have the same position.

I personally think it's absurd to not include Nintendo in whatever analysis you're doing. They were literally one of the major players (THE major player) until they got pushed out of the market and had to reinvent themselves to survive. CMA wants to pretend Nintendo doesn't exist or isn't relevant at all which is peak stupidity.

To repeat what you have been told countless times already:

Why would the CMA include Nintendo when Microsoft's internal documents are excluding Nintendo? You can't get mad that the CMA is using Microsoft's own documentation to determine what players are being looked at.

But even if you play by this stupid outlook, it doesn't exactly change much because then it just highlights Sony dominance in comparison to MS. It's a stupid thing to fixate on either way. The CMA arguments have been pretty stupid in my opinion, and I don't think it's an accident that MS literally publicly said they felt the need to explain the industry to them, because they seem pretty clueless, or bought by Sony. Taking any of Sony's arguments seriously in this case is an embarrassment. I personally don't even think the 10 year COD being set in stone was needed, but with that in place - it's pretty much the longest guarantee in the history of gaming. No one signs contracts that long, and they still whine.

There is nothing inherently illegal about having market share dominance. The issue is that Microsoft is a massive company, and Microsoft is (potentially) abusing their dominance as a tech company to bully their way to the top of the gaming sector. Microsoft is about 20 times larger than Sony. This acquisition is valued at over half of Sony's entire company, not just their gaming division. That's a gigantic red flag, and that kind of acquisition should 100% be subject to extreme scrutiny.

 

[intheinbetween]

Yes but didn't really buy many during the PS3 and PS4 era in fact they shut a few down or restructured a few. Its only been the last year or so that they got aggressive again in purchasing studios that are new and established like bungie but that is more a partnetship in terms of helping bungie become multimedia with TV and movie opportunities to then Bungie helping Sony develop live service games that are successful.

Well they bought: Media Molecule, Evolution, BigBig, Sucker Punch, Sigil, Zipper and even GaiKai during the PS3-PS4, interesting acquisitions, but Sony was active back then with their "organic growth", aka acquisitions

 

[Orbital2060]

His bias is really showing lately. Clearly another Sony shill journalist.

Yep. No surprises here.

 

[intheinbetween]

Everyone in the industry buys exclusives. Everyone. Sony isn't alone in this; MS does it, Nintendo does it, Google was doing it back when Stadia was around. And yes, some of those exclusives were perm, some temp. Sony hasn't done anything this industry doesn't already do. Loads of industry players also buy studios - again, nothing new, has happened since the onset of the industry, done by platform holders and 3rd party publishers alike. What no platform holder in this industry has done is buy a publisher, and MS is now doing that twice.

And Sony, like Nintendo, went a very long time without making a big studio acquisition (Insomniac), and only did so when MS began consolidating the industry. I see you're short-handing the DVD factor for the PS2, when even Sony has admitted that that was the main reason that console moved units, as well as ignoring what Sony's format decision did to position the PSX in both lowering publishing costs and MSRP for consumers back in the 90s, which grew the overall amount of users who entered the core games market, much like the Gameboy had in the early 90s.

What you're ignoring here is that buying big name exclusives didn't help turn the PS3 around. MGS4 didn't turn around the position of the PS3 at all. And no other exclusive Sony had in the PS3 generation from 3rd parties is what did it, and that was Sony's lowest point in the console market without question. The turn around of the PS3 was two specific events:

1)HD DVD being sunset and Blu-Ray ultimately being adopted as the HD format that the movie industry would release on.
2)Sony began fortifying and increasing its first-party production slate.

It wasn't buying exclusives 3rd party games, or buying studios, or market undercutting that got Sony to start building up good will, increasing the PS3's marketshare (and ultimately overtaking the 360 WW), which ultimately set them up to launch a new generation console. It was focusing on making experiences that defined their platform for the wider gaming market which did, much like Nintendo has essentially always done with their platforms.

case closed

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

Five years around then were key to invest in console gaming, nowdays is almost impossible to consider a new player.

It was ballsy and risky for Sony to go in to the console space too and become successful again Nintendo Sega Atari Panasonic and others were all in the game developing consoles or handhelds at the timethere was more competition then and chances of success were slim against already well established companies. XBOX had a chance to build upon the marketshare with the 360 so you can't blame Sony for that it was Microsoft's own fault for misreading the market. Sony had to do the same with the PS3 with the $599 and get 2 jobs quote. Also then take in to account when Sony got hacked how much that hurt them but again they bounced back.

 

[intheinbetween]

It was ballsy and risky for Sony to go in to the console space too and become successful again Nintendo Sega Atari Panasonic and others were all in the game developing consoles or handhelds at the timethere was more competition then and chances of success were slim against already well established companies. XBOX had a chance to build upon the marketshare with the 360 so you can't blame Sony for that it was Microsoft's own fault for misreading the market. Sony had to do the same with the PS3 with the $599 and get 2 jobs quote. Also then take in to account when Sony got hacked how much that hurt them but again they bounced back.

It wasn't ballsy, Sony knew what they were doing, actually they were involved in gaming with the MSX, they developed and published games on 16-bit consoles, and they were actively involved with the SNES CD prototype, this led them to develop their own console and build relationships with third-parties to secure exclusive content such as Tekken, Final Fantasy, etc..

MS experience on the console market when they released the OG XBOX was their partnership with SEGA for the Dreamcast OS, just like that.

 

[Topher]

The odds of that here are equivalent to being struck by lighting while underground.

 

[drganon]

How did I miss this one? My girl is on fire.

Your pretend girlfriend is fucking dumb.

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

Well they bought: Media Molecule, Evolution, BigBig, Sucker Punch, Sigil, Zipper and even GaiKai during the PS3-PS4, interesting acquisitions, but Sony was active back then with their "organic growth", aka acquisitions

Again small studio buys at the time and Gaikai was an investment in streaming/cloud. Evolution is shut down Media Molecule isn't technically a heavy hitter but a niche and artistic studio how many of those studios cost $69-70 Billion to buy and had multiple franchises/IP's

Alot of those studios too are probably similar to what Sony are doing with these small studios they've bought or partnered with give them a few projects see if they have the chops by giving them the resources and if successful like a test purchase nothing wrong with that given they invested in them during their ealy stages of operations.

 

[demigod]

I don't really care about the outcome just in it for these Tweets and the meltdowns

The 2nd meme makes no sense. It’s ms that’s running to the media with their pr charade embarrassing themselves.

 

[ArcaneNLSC]

It wasn't ballsy, Sony knew what they were doing, actually they were involved in gaming with the MSX, they developed and published games on 16-bit consoles, and they were actively involved with the SNES CD prototype, this led them to develop their own console and build relationships with third-parties to secure exclusive content such as Tekken, Final Fantasy, etc..

MS experience on the console market when they released the OG XBOX was their partnership with SEGA for the Dreamcast OS, just like that.

Of course it was ballsy for Sony to enter the market when Nintendo pulled out of the partnership with Nintendo internally Sony's head office didn't think it would work and execs thought of the PlayStation as a toy. Microsoft technically in a way had more experience or understanding with the gaming lanscape because of the PC market and so forth so don't dismiss that like they walked in blindfolded and shit.

 

[intheinbetween]

Again small studio buys at the time and Gaikai was an investment in streaming/cloud. Evolution is shut down Media Molecule isn't technically a heavy hitter but a niche and artistic studio how many of those studios cost $69-70 Billion to buy and had multiple franchises/IP's

Alot of those studios too are probably similar to what Sony are doing with these small studios they've bought or partnered with give them a few projects see if they have the chops by giving them the resources and if successful like a test purchase nothing wrong with that given they invested in them during their ealy stages of operations.

Sony, as MS, have bought, buy and will buy studios, and that's perfectly fine. But it seems like Sony acquisitions are accepted and even cheered, whereas when MS get criticized for any acquisition, and I'm not saying this to make MS look like the victim in here, mostly because they are in this third place because of their poor management on the XBOX division.

And when it comes to Gaikai, I would like to remember it was the best cloud gaming technology on the market back then, how has it evolved since then?

 

[ToadMan]

I haven't agreed with the CMA yet. We don't have the same position.

Of course you haven’t agreed with the CMA - after all they are trying to protect consumers. All consumers, not just one insular aggressive minority that cheerleads for MS.

What the CMA is not doing is allowing MS to attain a dominant market position through acquisitions - a position which they’ve been unable to earn through honest endeavour to date.

 

[Topher]

Nearly everything, starting with the clickbait title.

Facts are not fluff and spin.

Seriously? This whole thing is nothing but fluff from all sides, dude.

 

[intheinbetween]

Of course it was ballsy for Sony to enter the market when Nintendo pulled out of the partnership with Nintendo internally Sony's head office didn't think it would work and execs thought of the PlayStation as a toy. Microsoft technically in a way had more experience or understanding with the gaming lanscape because of the PC market and so forth so don't dismiss that like they walked in blindfolded and shit.

I beg to differ, they knew what they were doing and they had a brilliant roadmap to achieve success, they nailed it.

Microsoft had very little experience on pc gaming, not console gaming, because they developed some games back then (Flight Simulator, AoE, to name a few) and DirectX, but they were then focused exclusively on PC, not gaming consoles market.

 

[Mr Moose]

Sony, as MS, have bought, buy and will buy studios, and that's perfectly fine. But it seems like Sony acquisitions are accepted and even cheered, whereas when MS get criticized for any acquisition, and I'm not saying this to make MS look like the victim in here, mostly because they are in this third place because of their poor management on the XBOX division.

And when it comes to Gaikai, I would like to remember it was the best cloud gaming technology on the market back then, how has it evolved since then?

Did anyone give a shit when MS acquired Playground Games? Or is it only when they go after large publishers that have many studios and multiplat IPs?

 

[b6a6es]

We are living in a different scenario, even when MS started in this industry they knew it was going to be hard to beat PS2, they started from scratch competing against Sony and Nintendo, which had great experience in the gaming console market while MS was the new kid in town.

MS took bad decisions since the OG XBOX and put wrong people managing the division, no matter how big is your bank account if you don’t have the right team leading it.

It seems you forgot just how dominant MS was during 7th gen, if anything it shows how much incompetent the xbox management post Peter Moore/Allard