Support NeoGAF

[SlimySnake]

That's not how I wanted to become internet famous lol

Timdog used to quote me when i was on era. I had no idea for the longest time that this guy with some 20k followers was tweeting about me. I was like mom I am famous!

P.S I made fun of Timdog's tweets mocking me and Judge, the Xbox MVP, gave me a warning. Im like that mother fucker isnt even a member here. Why do you care if i hurt his feelings?? Clearly these guys are all friends in their bubble.

P.P.S Sony doesnt need to buy Epic. Just buy Take2 and future GTAs will be all the leverage they will ever need. MS studios can always make their own engines. Half of them already use internal engines.

 

[feynoob]

I really hope Phil Spencer follows Senjutsu and sees that tweet with your tag

That will be peak internet for adamsapple .

 

[anothertech]

You made it adamsapple!!

You really made it

 

[adamsapple]

That will be peak internet for adamsapple .

If this somehow makes it in front of Phil's eyes and he acknowledges it, I can die a happy choking man.

 

[Warablo]

Hoping to see it happen to be honest. Think Xbox fans are in for a rude awakening when that happens.

I don't think Xbox fans care what Sony does, they already know if you want to play their games you gotta get their system or wait multiple years in hopes for a PC port.

Well people want the status quo shaken up, that would do it. I wouldn't mind seeing COD decline as soon as possible, because it's military porn garbage.

I for one welcome if Sony brings back Socom military porn garbage.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Ya'll think we get the news tomorrow or will the CMA wait until the last minute?

 

[poppabk]

Except that the strategy I mentioned wouldn't just be a simple 'disable all crossplay' functionality, what I suggested is that SIE could announce publicly (or privately to publishers) that from now on, all online games in Playstation's ecosystem can only have crossplay enabled with PC and Nintendo consoles, which would then place the onus on the 3rd party publishers to choose between having their games enable crossplay for Playstation + PC + Nintendo, or Xbox + PC + Nintendo.

Sure, Minecraft would have crossplay with Playstation disabled but that wouldn't be a surprise since Minecraft is already a 1st party Microsoft owned franchise, so the real question would be what the other publishers would decide to do for their online games that have console crossplay enabled. As of now, I'd find it very plausible that those other publishers would opt to go for the Playstation + PC + Nintendo combo for crossplay, as that would give those games a higher userbase, and then the Xbox online gaming communities would be left out in the cold, resulting in lower online population for their multiplayer games, and longer search times to find matches.

If SIE does decide to go down this route with blocking crossplay with Xbox, then I think that would help bolster the perception among the general gaming population that Playstation provides the better online experience for multiplatform online multiplayer games, and helps further drives Playstation console market share upward relative to Xbox. Again, this strategy would take an iron heart to do, but I think Jim Ryan is a ruthless business executive who feels that he is under no obligation to help assist Xbox at all.

This is fucking hilarious. We went from concerns about competition to now hoping for Sony to abuse their market share to establish a de facto monopoly and force third party publishers to do their bidding against a competitor.

 

[SportsFan581]

MS would do just like they did with Minecraft. Promote the fact that all other versions have cross play and that Xbox + Switch + PC is a larger userbase than just PS by itself.

Or just build CoD for cross-play support regardless. If Sony wants to disable online services for CoD on PS, so be it.

 

[Nubulax]

Timdog used to quote me when i was on era. I had no idea for the longest time that this guy with some 20k followers was tweeting about me. I was like mom I am famous!

P.S I made fun of Timdog's tweets mocking me and Judge, the Xbox MVP, gave me a warning. Im like that mother fucker isnt even a member here. Why do you care if i hurt his feelings?? Clearly these guys are all friends in their bubble.

P.P.S Sony doesnt need to buy Epic. Just buy Take2 and future GTAs will be all the leverage they will ever need. MS studios can always make their own engines. Half of them already use internal engines.

Timdog is on twitter like its a full time job..... I was just browsing the other day on the for you and came across a few responses to him, clicked on his page and I shit you not he had at least like 60 tweets/replies so far that day all basically console war bs

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Timdog is on twitter like its a full time job..... I was just browsing the other day on the for you and came across a few responses to him, clicked on his page and I shit you not he had at least like 60 tweets/replies so far that day all basically console war bs

Twitter needs THE GREEN LIZARD to counter the force of THE RED DRAGON

 

[Stardust_Dragon]

This is fucking hilarious. We went from concerns about competition to now hoping for Sony to abuse their market share to establish a de facto monopoly and force third party publishers to do their bidding against a competitor.

So apparently I'm "hoping" for Sony to do something, when all I'm doing is just laying out a strategy for a counterpunch that Sony can deliver in the event the merger goes through? The downside of the 10 year behavior agreement that Microsoft has with COD is that it gives Sony a full decade to try and do everything they can possible to throttle Xbox's worldwide console marketshare, and my idea is, in my opinion, a terrific way to continue to boost up Playstation's console marketshare even higher and force Xbox's marketshare even lower than where it's currently at that by the time the 10 year agreement is up, Microsoft's shareholders will feel a lot more compelled to support continuing to release COD on Playstation afterwards, that is if Microsoft doesn't already exit the console hardware business by then, in part because of the idea I mentioned.

 

[feynoob]

Twitter needs THE GREEN LIZARD to counter the force of THE RED DRAGON

Would be an epic fight like king Kong vs Godzilla.

 

[HoofHearted]

Gz, your tag is now famous on the Internet .

There's a new meme in there somewhere….

 

[HoofHearted]

If this somehow makes it in front of Phil's eyes and he acknowledges it, I can die a happy choking man.

Take it easy now… One ball at a time… don't want to get too choked up…

 

[3liteDragon]

Someone's been lurking…

That's not how I wanted to become internet famous lol

lmfao, Phil's gonna be flattered

 

[poppabk]

So apparently I'm "hoping" for Sony to do something, when all I'm doing is just laying out a strategy for a counterpunch that Sony can deliver in the event the merger goes through? The downside of the 10 year behavior agreement that Microsoft has with COD is that it gives Sony a full decade to try and do everything they can possible to throttle Xbox's worldwide console marketshare, and my idea is, in my opinion, a terrific way to continue to boost up Playstation's console marketshare even higher and force Xbox's marketshare even lower than where it's currently at that by the time the 10 year agreement is up, Microsoft's shareholders will feel a lot more compelled to support continuing to release COD on Playstation afterwards, that is if Microsoft doesn't already exit the console hardware business by then, in part because of the idea I mentioned.

Who said that? Sorry didn't see you there because you are so transparent.

 

[In Cold Blood]

The quote was "I think it will stay in the 10-15% range and it's profitable for us" from the WSJ tech live interview.

It being Gamepass.

My personal thoughts is gamepass can be a loss leader for the real money, store transactions similar to Prime.

P.s. 'for us' is an interesting phrase for sure but they weren't talking about the content and service revenue.

It's weird that people think that Gamepass needs to be profitable from the get go to survive. It's backed by one of the most profitable companies in the world. MS thinks long term. Look at how much time, money and resources it has used to develop AI, with no payback.
Look how much money they have spent setting up Azure before it became profitable. They have bought ABK and Zenimax for the long term. They are setting up Gamepass for the long term.
They believe that just like movies and music, subscription and game streaming will be the future of gaming. It might not be in 2023, but they are setting it up for years down the track.
It's going to be too big to fail. The actual Xbox console is going to be just one way to play xbox games. For Sony, the console is nearly everything.
You want to play on PC? Here you go.
You want to play via the cloud? Here you go.
You want to play on the most powerful home console? Here you go.
You want to play on a home console but don't want to pay the money for the more powerful console? Here you go.

In five years time, this is going to be a very different conversation.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Its cute how New Zealand think they have any sway in if the deal goes through.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

So apparently I'm "hoping" for Sony to do something, when all I'm doing is just laying out a strategy for a counterpunch that Sony can deliver in the event the merger goes through? The downside of the 10 year behavior agreement that Microsoft has with COD is that it gives Sony a full decade to try and do everything they can possible to throttle Xbox's worldwide console marketshare, and my idea is, in my opinion, a terrific way to continue to boost up Playstation's console marketshare even higher and force Xbox's marketshare even lower than where it's currently at that by the time the 10 year agreement is up, Microsoft's shareholders will feel a lot more compelled to support continuing to release COD on Playstation afterwards, that is if Microsoft doesn't already exit the console hardware business by then, in part because of the idea I mentioned.

keep going, i am sure Jim is reading this thread in search for a strategy like those only seen in anime.

 

[reksveks]

Ya'll think we get the news tomorrow or will the CMA wait until the last minute?

Think it will be Wednesday sadly. Today will just have to be the earnings call.

 

[Edmund]

Someone's been lurking…

He finally gets released from the ban today. I miss him so much.

Please continue to bless us with your infinite wisdom, O Great One SenjutsuSage

 

[Stardust_Dragon]

keep going, i am sure Jim is reading this thread in search for a strategy like those only seen in anime.

Hey, if you want to mock my idea, go right ahead, but I just simply believe that my suggestion is a heck of a lot cheaper and simpler for SIE than trying to directly compete with COD 10 years from now by building a 1st party COD competitor.

 

[reksveks]

Think someone is having fun.

Source: https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...njunction-sony-supported-class-action-lawyers

 

[El Pistolero]

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

And even so you have people here saying its IMPOSSIBLE for MS to make COD exclusive ... people that Okeyd your very post. It would Definitely NEVER HAPPEN!

You can only choose one ...
1 - its impossible for MS to make COD exclusive because would demage the brand and make the aquisition pointless therefore demaging the xbox business beyond repair (not MS of course)

In this case it makes perfect sense for sony to take the hit and tank COD so they can sink XBOX even more

Sony would not die and would "kill" their biggest competition

2 - MS can make COD exlcusive if they really wanted ... it would not kill the brand or demage xbox, it would lessing the money made (same as bethesda games by the way) aiming is this case to bring more users for the xbox platform, and they would not bleed money as you said it.

........


All of this is hypothesis of course, but people have to be coherent, people saying its impossible for MS to make COD exclusive because would cause some insane repercussions to the brands (cod/xbox) when also saying is ludicrous for sony to not accept COD anymore because would harm them and do nothing to xbox are trying to make two opposing points without any cohesive argument
..........

Sony is not MS friends and vice versa... they are here to make money and the lesser the competition the better as MS well know

Let's start off by saying Sony is the one claiming their Playstation business would be dead without CoD, that fact on it's face means this hypothetical of Sony not accepting CoD is ludicrous.

Secondly, you're pairing damage and kill. Decisions can damage you while not killing you. Making CoD exclusive would hurt the CoD and Xbox brands, but it wouldn't kill them. Neither 1 or 2 give that option.

The only way I see Microsoft taking CoD away from Playstation is if there comes a time where it would result in a net gain (or negligible loss).

Spoiler: Why Bethesda exclusives make sense

I won't get into the math, but Skyrim over the last 12 years has sold roughly 30M units at last count. It'll be probably be another 5 years until the next installment in the TES franchise. CoD often does 20+M units every year. There's a case to say the LTV of new users switching due to TES being exclusive will result in a net gain (The CMA made this case with CoD before they amended their error, something they wouldn't have had to do with TES)

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Hey, if you want to mock my idea, go right ahead, but I just simply believe that my suggestion is a heck of a lot cheaper and simpler for SIE than trying to directly compete with COD 10 years from now by building a 1st party COD competitor.

I am not even mocking...I just dont understand how do you even think anything you wrote is a good strategy

 

[mrmustard]

And even so you have people here saying its IMPOSSIBLE for MS to make COD exclusive ... people that Okeyd your very post. It would Definitely NEVER HAPPEN!

You can only choose one ...
1 - its impossible for MS to make COD exclusive because would demage the brand and make the aquisition pointless therefore demaging the xbox business beyond repair (not MS of course)

In this case it makes perfect sense for sony to take the hit and tank COD so they can sink XBOX even more

Sony would not die and would "kill" their biggest competition

2 - MS can make COD exlcusive if they really wanted ... it would not kill the brand or demage xbox, it would lessing the money made (same as bethesda games by the way) aiming is this case to bring more users for the xbox platform, and they would not bleed money as you said it.

I said it before. If i was MS i would choose 3 - Release the new COD as a next gen launch game and make it 3-6 month exclusive. Huge marketing campaign with 'only on Xbox' and then the usual fly shit sized 'for a liminted time' that nobobdy reads below. That would be quite cheap but effective, because most COD only players would switch the console.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

And yet

Personally I think Sony would survive not having CoD on their platform, and back when I posted that second quote I believed showing how great Sony's first party games do would be a viable strategy to discount Sony's claim that their business relies on CoD. What I think and what Sony says are 2 different things.

What Sony thinks and what they say are 2 different things.

Do you honestly see Sony giving up hundreds of millions in profit every year to hurt their competitor?

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

I am quite calm, I am just trying to think of just what are SIE's options in dealing with the Activision-Microsoft merger, and I actually do believe that killing off crossplay with Xbox consoles is not some far out there strategy.

I don't think so either. It's far more likely than not allowing CoD to be sold on Playstation. A reputational hit is much easier to justify and recover from then a financial hit. While more likely than not allowing CoD on their platform, I'm not sure how likely it is overall.

And an unintended consequence might be that Microsoft has another anti-competitive practice that Sony engages in that they can point to (whether that be during a new acquistion or a talking point for the politicians they've been lobbying).

 

[Topher]

It's weird that people think that Gamepass needs to be profitable from the get go to survive. It's backed by one of the most profitable companies in the world. MS thinks long term. Look at how much time, money and resources it has used to develop AI, with no payback.
Look how much money they have spent setting up Azure before it became profitable. They have bought ABK and Zenimax for the long term. They are setting up Gamepass for the long term.
They believe that just like movies and music, subscription and game streaming will be the future of gaming. It might not be in 2023, but they are setting it up for years down the track.
It's going to be too big to fail. The actual Xbox console is going to be just one way to play xbox games. For Sony, the console is nearly everything.
You want to play on PC? Here you go.
You want to play via the cloud? Here you go.
You want to play on the most powerful home console? Here you go.
You want to play on a home console but don't want to pay the money for the more powerful console? Here you go.

In five years time, this is going to be a very different conversation.

In five years it will be a new generation entirely. Not sure how any of those arguments will work in five years when they don't work today, but we will see.

 

[feynoob]

Think someone is having fun.

Source: https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...njunction-sony-supported-class-action-lawyers

You know they are gamers, when they 0 idea about outside gaming.
The fact they bring chatbot is hilarious.

These are peak forum guys.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I am just trying to think of just what are SIE's options in dealing with the Activision-Microsoft merger

It'll just be business as usual for them. They'll send the royalty cheques to ABK when someone buys COD, just like right now. There's nothing to deal with.

 

[PaintTinJr]

MS should force a Microsoft account on PS for Call of Duty then. That will likely increase the users on their platform. Or migrate all existing Activision accounts to Microsoft accounts.

Completely plausible if PlayStation kill CoD' cross-play, but that would fall foul of degrading CoD on PlayStation and failing to honour the parity agreement because Xbox/PC players would then only have one account/password login, whereas PlayStation would have an inferior (non-parity) situation with two - PSN account & Microsoft account - so getting that remedied by regulators like the CMA should be pretty easy.

In fact, PlayStation baiting Microsoft into doing partial foreclosure stuff like that could be an easy way for them to get this deal reversed, given that they are binding themselves to certain behaviours for at least a decade.

I still suspect that if/when the CMA pass the deal Sony will begin suing ATVI over the marketing deal they have, saying that selling to a competitor breaches the contract and makes it impossible for Sony to enjoy the "good will" that was probably written into the contract that ATVI were supposed to provide.

 

[feynoob]

Today is MS earnings call.
Hopefully, we can see 10-20 pages worth of contents, before CMA drops their news.

 

[reksveks]

Partial foreclosure as it stands isn't a factor in the console market.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If this somehow makes it in front of Phil's eyes and he acknowledges it, I can die a happy choking man.

What if Phil calls you? Would you answer the phone?

 

[feynoob]

I still suspect that if/when the CMA pass the deal Sony will begin suing ATVI over the marketing deal they have, saying that selling to a competitor breaches the contract and makes it impossible for Sony to enjoy the "good will" that was probably written into the contract that ATVI were supposed to provide.

This is a reach.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Partial foreclosure as it stands isn't a factor in the console market.

Yeah, MS will not care enough to partially foreclose. They'll just completely take CoD away from PS and be done with it.

 

[feynoob]

Yeah, MS will not care enough to partially foreclose. They'll just completely take CoD away from PS and be done with it.

There are better ways to foreclosure PS, rather than jeopardize your long term cash cow.

If MS were serious about their foreclosure, they can just use gamepass day1 partnership like EA to foreclosure PS. All that will take under $20b to do it.

 

[PaintTinJr]

This is a reach.

Do you think there is a "good will" clause in the marketing contract? If not, then I agree it won't happen, but even if it was dismissed without merit, if there is a clause in the contract, suing ATVI for bad faith wouldn't be unreasonable, even if just to irritate and delay things slightly, with a wild outside chance of getting the deal delayed until after the contract had completed, to let Sony enjoy the "good will" for the full contract duration.

 

[Sony]

They can block whatever game they like. Just look at Cyberpunks removal. It's their store and they can choose what they sell on it. Regulators can't really say anything legally but the act itself would be really questionable.

Of course they can. It's the exact same argument reversed. Pulling Cyberpunt from the store was a technical argument. The game was in a too bad state to sell, the product wasn't up to par. But in the case of blocking CoD, that would be purposefully blocking your competitior. It's apples and oranges.

Sony could 100% remove it.
Sony 100% will not remove it.

They couldn't without legal ramifications.

The authorities have no power to force a platform holder to accept content.

Just like they have no power to force Apple to open up their platform for content, right?

 

[PaintTinJr]

There are better ways to foreclosure PS, rather than jeopardize your long term cash cow.

If MS were serious about their foreclosure, they can just use gamepass day1 partnership like EA to foreclosure PS. All that will take under $20b to do it.

But that doesn't work if PlayStation revokes cross-play because the largest console userbase would be on PlayStation via B2P because of the PS4 + PS5 install base size

 

[feynoob]

Do you think there is a "good will" clause in the marketing contract? If not, then I agree it won't happen, but even if it was dismissed without merit, if there is a clause in the contract, suing ATVI for bad faith wouldn't be unreasonable, even if just to irritate and delay things slightly, with a wild outside chance of getting the deal delayed until after the contract had completed, to let Sony enjoy the "good will" for the full contract duration.

MS honored death loop and ghostwire tokyo contract.
They could have cancelled those 2 projects from PS, they didn't.

 

[feynoob]

But that doesn't work if PlayStation revokes cross-play because the largest console userbase would be on PlayStation via B2P because of the PS4 + PS5 install base size

If PS revokes cross play, then that is their loss.
We used to play games without cross play. It's not the end of the world.

 

[PaintTinJr]

MS honored death loop and ghostwire tokyo contract.
They could have cancelled those 2 projects from PS, they didn't.

They didn't honour them, anymore than complying with the law. "good will" on the other hand is something intangible that wouldn't necessarily flag up as a law to be complied with. So arguing the case to a judge to say that ATVI have hog tied them with the marketing deal by selling to a competitor could end up a 50/50 toss of a coin decision.

 

[PaintTinJr]

If PS revokes cross play, then that is their loss.
We used to play games without cross play. It's not the end of the world.

We already had (this it was) M ManaByte say that disabling cross-play on xbox CoD isn't implemented, and someone else said it has to be done at a system level and that's because Xbox would have far less players to keep it active so the decision not to implement was Xbox's

 

[feynoob]

They didn't honour them, anymore than complying with the law. "good will" on the other hand is something intangible that wouldn't necessarily flag up as a law to be complied with. So arguing the case to a judge to say that ATVI have hog tied them with the marketing deal by selling to a competitor could end up a 50/50 toss of a coin decision.

That is what honoring means. They had every right to breach that contract. They didn't.

MS would not breach PS marketing contract for COD. Infact, it could help MS alot, as you will see Xbox logo on COD games.

 

[PaintTinJr]

That is what honoring means. They had every right to breach that contract. They didn't.

MS would not breach PS marketing contract for COD. Infact, it could help MS alot, as you will see Xbox logo on COD games.

But if there is a "good will" clause in the contract, it is already being breached by ATVI (IMHO) because the sale to Microsoft damages PlayStation in numerous ways that could easily be evidenced by Sony.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Yeah, MS will not care enough to partially foreclose. They'll just completely take CoD away from PS and be done with it.

I think Reksveks was saying the CMA doesn't view partial foreclosure strategies as an issue. Partial foreclosure strategies being things like exclusive modes, early betas, unique skins, double exp weekends.

I think Microsoft will want to engage in these things, it's a way to keep getting the hundreds of millions in revenue from Sony while slowly shifting the mindshare to Xbox. Kinda like having your cake and eating it too.

However, I'm not entirely sure if they will want to engage in these partial foreclosure strategies OVER being a good boy and keeping 100% parity (despite not being obligated to), so that they have this "good boy behavior" to point to during future acquisitions. Not sure which Microsoft would prefer.

 

[Bernardougf]

Let's start off by saying Sony is the one claiming their Playstation business would be dead without CoD, that fact on it's face means this hypothetical of Sony not accepting CoD is ludicrous.

Secondly, you're pairing damage and kill. Decisions can damage you while not killing you. Making CoD exclusive would hurt the CoD and Xbox brands, but it wouldn't kill them. Neither 1 or 2 give that option.

The only way I see Microsoft taking CoD away from Playstation is if there comes a time where it would result in a net gain (or negligible loss).

Spoiler: Why Bethesda exclusives make sense

I won't get into the math, but Skyrim over the last 12 years has sold roughly 30M units at last count. It'll be probably be another 5 years until the next installment in the TES franchise. CoD often does 20+M units every year. There's a case to say the LTV of new users switching due to TES being exclusive will result in a net gain (The CMA made this case with CoD before they amended their error, something they wouldn't have had to do with TES)

Of course loosing COD brand hurts Sony, I know that, I only saying that if people think that MS has so much to loose from COD at the point of damaging the brand and business making it IMPOSSIBLE to take away COD from playstation it opens the question why sony would not follow this strategy.

I just cant agree with this absolutes people use as if they had MS inside plans in their desk, IMPOSSIBLE, NEVER, are heavy words to say when you dont really know jackshit about the plans and goals of said company.

People talk busness sense, charity and etc and forget the xbox beeing burning money for years without MS doing shit, if money was the only goal for xbox/MS they had 20 thousands options to grow and be lucrative, they just bought bethesda and choose to loose more money making it exclusive, "ah theres a case to be made for bla bla" a case to be made is not a fact and the only fact you have is you where going to sell millions of dollars of starfield on PS and now you will not, so money is not the ONLY driving force for xbox and untill now never has been.

Im not here saying MS is going to take COD away from playstation, Im not saying that it makes crude business sense or not to do it, Im only saying that for a trillion dollar company that none os us has any inside information, beeing here all high and mighty pretending to be an MS executive saying they will NEVER take COD away, that it is impossible is just ridiculous and pretentious. Is basically PR talk and wishfull thinking copied direct from the lies Spencer likes to spills all so often. As he did for bethesda.