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Axios (Stephen Totilo) Lawyers: Email proves Microsoft’s ABK bid is designed to elimination (Update: MS claims it was a "thought experiment")
Robbinhood
Banned
MS has always been obsessed with Sony. They take any chance they can to be petty in hopes of some internet dubs.
The Forza guy calling Kaz a bitch
"We don't treat our PC players like second class citizens *wink wink nudge nudge*"
"Look at these awesome games coming out on Xbox too, thanks Sony *wink wink nudge nudge*" two seconds later they have 14 multiplat titles at their conference
Anyway thank god for the CMA, the true heroes.
People need to stop acting like this is normal shit, yes Sony wants MS out too but MS has 3 trillion to make it happen, Sony has to actually earn its sales.
The Forza guy calling Kaz a bitch
"We don't treat our PC players like second class citizens *wink wink nudge nudge*"
"Look at these awesome games coming out on Xbox too, thanks Sony *wink wink nudge nudge*" two seconds later they have 14 multiplat titles at their conference
Anyway thank god for the CMA, the true heroes.
People need to stop acting like this is normal shit, yes Sony wants MS out too but MS has 3 trillion to make it happen, Sony has to actually earn its sales.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Varteras
Member
I would rather a company earned its dominance over decades, while clearly still being vulnerable. Rather than fucking up for decades and trying to suddenly change everything by buying out the industry, while being largely impervious as a whole to any catastrophe. PlayStation going under would devastate Sony. Xbox going under would just be one more failed hobby for Microsoft.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
ZehDon
Member
Can I get link for this one? That's hilarious.
Robbinhood
Banned
I'm paraphrasingThis happened?
Something about slapping the emperor and how much better Forza is then GT. I can't find it online.
Varteras
Member
I'm paraphrasing
Something about slapping the emperor and how much better Forza is then GT. I can't find it online.
Was probably in response to Yamauchi claiming Forza isn't quite a simulator the way GT is, back in 2009 or so.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Oh well, looks like other twitter 'personalities' who jumped the gun are also deleting their respective articles and videos.
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Lmao seriously. Sony would give anything to go back to 2003 levels of domination where they helped drive Sega out of the console race and beat Nintendo so bad they had to make a separate lane for themselves via the blue ocean strategy. And I doubt Xbox would have survived that generation without the pockets of Microsoft funding them. And now I'm supposed to feel bad for Sony now that the last place in the console race is spending a ton of money in a gambit to move up? Get the fuck out of here with that crybaby bullshit. Can't wait for this deal to go through.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Yep, very much so. I'd call it monetary attrition, or predatory attrition. Just leveraging the significantly larger parts of the company to tank losses on an inconsequential gaming division for years/decades, then using that same non-gaming money to take away as many pieces from the board needed to fairly play the game as possible, hogging them from competitors.
It's the equivalent of Walmart buying Nestle, Quaker, Tyson, Doritos, Jimmy Dean etc. and controlling the supply & distribution of all those brands. Then gradually removing their availability from Target over the course of five years or whatever. You don't do it all at once; you do it a little at a time so it looks less obvious/suspicious, then remove the big one near the end to send the point home and drive the nail in the coffin.
Too bad for Microsoft there's a reason those strategies are seen as anticompetitive; this email is just going to make things worst for them.
I hope you can realize I never said this email was specifically about ABK. I said the email refers to a strategy Microsoft obviously want to pursue, and the acquisition of large 3P publishers is a means of them to accomplish the goal expressed in the email.
It does not have to literally say "we're making these acquisitions to kill PlayStation" in order for that intention to be true; they may want to make these acquisitions to also add value to their products & ecosystem, but the intent of harming PlayStation enough to drive it out of business is very much seemingly a part of that strategy, as per this email leak.
We're playing 4D chess here; you're still stuck playing checkers.
"Facts"...
Just because the document predates the acquisition attempt doesn't mean shit. It goes to intent. And a pattern of behavior that can be easily proven with regards to the Bethesda acquisition, Phil's initial statement that they weren't going to take away games from PlayStation, only to turn around and do precisely that the moment the ink was dry on the merger.
The facts are Microsoft is attempting to use their extreme monetary valuation that Sony cannot match in an attempt to drive out their competition.
With a pattern of behavior that proves it.
Spare me your persecution complex nonsense.
Microsoft is being the arrogant, anti-competitive, "fuck your anti-trust" Microsoft of years past.
Yeah the Zenimax acquisition and some of the moves they've done since then are definitely going to bite them in the ass now. The funny part is, I'm not even talking about RedFall; I know MS said they would not consider making Zenimax games exclusive unless they could clearly lead to an increase in console sales or Game Pass subscriptions, while simultaneously not causing a big loss in revenue from being exclusive to their own consoles. So new IP like RedFall, ironically, fit that bill.
Starfield doesn't. That is basically Fallout in Space, and would have done similar numbers on PS5 as prior Bethesda WRPGs did on PS4 & PS3, if not even more so. They are losing a huge amount of revenue by skipping PlayStation, but have made it exclusive anyway. TES VI DEFINITELY doesn't; Skyrim sold at least as many copies on PS3/PS4 as it did on 360/XBO, if not more, and is also a historically multiplatform IP. But MS have already said it's an exclusive to Xbox console-wise.
Basically. Xbox at best accounts for less than 10% of MS's total annual revenue; in terms of profit, it's even less than that. Just to show how little it matters to their bottom line, when the FY 22 Q3 results came out with drops pretty much everywhere for Xbox, Microsoft's stock prices went up because other parts that actually matter to investors, were still doing good. When the CMA blocked the ABK acquisition, MS's stock didn't take a hit; it actually increased.
To Microsoft, Xbox is like an extra $1 million on top of the $1 billion their main divisions do; it could literally disappear and they would get over it by the next day with two Sting concerts in Satya's office. That's how little Xbox matters to Microsoft's bottom line.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Oh well, looks like other twitter 'personalities' who jumped the gun are also deleting their respective articles and videos.
The dude is a straight up shill who never pulled his article targeting the WRONG PERSON.
Which Phil followed him after knowing it was the wrong person.
Keep posting more cringe clowns, as if the date changes anything. Honk honk.
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
who was the exec that said this?
Dick Jones
Banned
Matt "I am a walking liability" Booty
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I bet. I hear Tweak Town is a shell of itself compared to 5 years ago even. Honk Honk.
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Lol, I wake up to this....
What actually happened?
What actually happened?
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
a rough TL;DR
- Totilo releases an article with redacted info claimed by lawyer in 'gamers lawsuit' about a supposed email from Matt Booty about taking Sony/PlayStation out of business, claiming it's their line of communication for the activision acquisition. All of this is redacted so we don't know the exact wording, context or nature of this communication.
- Internet runs wild with it, numerous websites run articles, twitter sphere blows up
- An hour or so later, an MS rep clarifies the date of the email to Totilo, that it was originally an email from 2019, years before any talks about Activision's
- Totilo retracts original tweets and apologizes for the wording he used which made it sound like this was related to the on-going Activision acquisition. Some websites start removing articles, tweeters start deleting their videos
And now we're on page 10.
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StueyDuck
Member
Lol alot of people don't seem to understand antitrust and M&A laws here I see.
All the hoo hoo hee hee all businesses kill other businesses tee hee are literally why antitrust is a thing.
Sure companies may think it but if there's actually proof of it then that will play a role in the overall decision (and if it doesn't then gaming is proper fucked)
The issue here is the article at hand just says this exists
it still seems like a lot of hearsay.
It sounds like the email isn't even about the ABK purchase. Although it probably should still be taken into consideration by the CMA
All the hoo hoo hee hee all businesses kill other businesses tee hee are literally why antitrust is a thing
.Sure companies may think it but if there's actually proof of it then that will play a role in the overall decision (and if it doesn't then gaming is proper fucked)
The issue here is the article at hand just says this exists
it still seems like a lot of hearsay.It sounds like the email isn't even about the ABK purchase. Although it probably should still be taken into consideration by the CMA
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Sega destroyed themselves. Sega debacle didn’t begin with PlayStation, began with MegaCD and Sega 32x and their poor decissions. Launching expensive peripherals to abandon it some games after killed the trust people had in Sega. They did the same with Saturn and after with DC
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Hahaha, seriously....?
This is amazing, so actually the internet showing their entire ass again?
Man, it would be more interesting if true. I'm loving the memes this morning.
MidGenRefresh
*Refreshes biennially
Microsoft is trying to provide more options for the gamers by eliminating the competition. Logic.
But in all seriousness, not much would be lost with Sony out of the picture.
But in all seriousness, not much would be lost with Sony out of the picture.
They announced the deal in 2022, they were negotiating in 2021. Those years before, was only 2 years lol.
They couldn’t sell Xbox at those prices in EU, there are anti monopoly laws in EU for that scenario.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
MS first approached Activision with it in November 2021, this is known via the SEC filings, it wasn't a prolonged courting period before it got officially announced.
But, yes, you are right. 2019 to 2021 is a full 2 years. I have no reason to object to that.
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Dick Jones
Banned
Sarah Bond's emails were also exhibits, but for some reason they have a caveat that they must be read while playing background music.
Cyberpunkd
Member
Guess Jimbo has been validated.
Setsuna Mudou
Member
How about Zenimax?
Could the strategy have been put into place back then or you think you just decide to invest close to 100Bil overnight?
We all know what they are trying to do, this just killed the corporate plausible deniability, that's all.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
MS in 2019: we want to destroy Sony.
MS: initiates this strategy by buying Zenimax and attempting to buy ABK.
MS fundamentalists: see, completely unrelated.
Tbh, I definitely expect some people in businesses to have this mentality. Matt Booty must just be that guy. I have them in my business. They even come up with "fun" names to express their business plan such as "operation kill...said competitor"
It's just their way of driving themselves to entertain themselves i guess, to come up with plans to take marketshare.
Weirdos I guess.
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Lex Tenebris
Neo Member
Some people here need to log off and start playing more or go outside in the real world, the Holy Inquisition was more reasonable than some of the people commenting
bitbydeath
Member
Banjo64
cumsessed
No man. £2t companies change their long term strategic goals on a monthly basis. 2019 was like the olden days. I think people still had black and white TVs back then."Facts"...
Just because the document predates the acquisition attempt doesn't mean shit. It goes to intent. And a pattern of behavior that can be easily proven with regards to the Bethesda acquisition, Phil's initial statement that they weren't going to take away games from PlayStation, only to turn around and do precisely that the moment the ink was dry on the merger.
The facts are Microsoft is attempting to use their extreme monetary valuation that Sony cannot match in an attempt to drive out their competition.
With a pattern of behavior that proves it.
Spare me your persecution complex nonsense.
Microsoft is being the arrogant, anti-competitive, "fuck your anti-trust" Microsoft of years past.
MaxwellParrish
Member
Kinda ? They released the EyeToy on PS2 in 2003, 3 years before the Wii. The EyeToy software was the same collection of minigames, dance and sports game that popularized the Wii and it was clearly the conceptual base for the Move
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Sure, it is a personal thing of a single individual and not a strategic goal of buying up the biggest multiplatform third party publishers to content starve their competition that they have already proved with Zenimax / Bethesda and they very likely factor in the actual cost of buying Activision - Blizzard using their other monopolies’ money to do so.
Come on…
… look
let’s keep making excuses for the $3 Trillion dollar company’s strategy of buying the competition suppliers being healthy and pro consumers, that is if people really care about that and not just about the company in charge of it.Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Content Starving their competitor and the loss of sales by removing multiplatform games from them was part of the acquisition cost estimation. It is funny to see franchises which have been selling tons of copies on other platforms (or that would have likely done so) like next generation DOOM, TES, Starfield, etc… not launching on PlayStation (DOOM is the poster child of multiplatform development started by fiercely independent hackers, it is sadly very ironic), but it is funnier when you have people repeating the line of “oh no, MS would not do that and lose sales on PS” :smh…
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Sure, it is a personal thing of a single individual and not a strategic goal of buying up the biggest multiplatform third party publishers to content starve their competition that they have already proved with Zenimax / Bethesda and they very likely factor in the actual cost of buying Activision - Blizzard using their other monopolies’ money to do so.
Come on…
… look
This email was sent before Bethesda or Activision even had a thought of selling themselves....
Are you implying Matt Booty walked into those publishers with a gun and forced them to sell?
If this was a real deal and implying what everyone is saying it's implying, why wouldn't the FTC, CMA and every governing body be shouting this news from a rooftop...but instead it's coming from a "gamers" lawsuit with no context and everything is redacted leaving internet people to speculate what it is talking about.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
This e-mail is about MS strategy, what does it matter what the other companies were thinking in 2019 about selling themselves? Are we desperate to just throw shit in the discussion to confuse the topic?
It is even worse for this e-mail to be from 2019 than if it had been sent yesterday. That is the entire point. What twisted logic makes people think otherwise?
This makes it even more fun considering the articles about Spencer convincing Nadella to go all in gaming years before, opening the check book, and getting the board to approve like more than $70 Billion in publishers purchases while at the same time trying to keep a straight face saying that it would not remove games from their competitors and it was a pro consumer pro competition move
.“You see, your honour, the defendant did not send death threats after the victim was stabbed, but weeks before… I rest my case… case dismissed right? Right?” —> your point
.No, MS waited for the right opportunity and showered then with cash. MS is not kidnapping people or forcing them to sell under duress, again you know this is not the topic so muddying the waters with this (when you DO know better) is just odd to say the least.
This e-mail is new evidence and CMA already passed judgement. There was plausible deniability which fanboys rode on, but this if admitted could and should be used. CMA already remarked how MS mislead regulators with their intentions on Zenimax / Bethesda.
Some regulators still believed the BS (I say bullshit because even the most ardent Xbox fan knows in their heart that MS could definitely withhold more and more of Activision - Blizzard catalogue from PS if it helps cement GamePass and their own platform and it hurts the chances of Sony to stay competitive on their merits, it is part of the acquisition costs like it was for Zenimax - Bethesda).
Ad hominem attacks about where this evidence is coming from is again more like trying to muddy the waters than adding useful data to the discussion.
This coming out at all is news, this being dated to 2019 and MS trying to remove it from the record shows an agreed and premeditated strategy.
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nowhat
Member
As someone who first started using Linux in the mid-90s via a terminal, and early aughts onward on my desktop, it's the Halloween documents all over.
...and like the Halloween documents, probably not much will ever come out of it. But shows the company's intents. "Good guy gamer Phil" may spin things ever which way, but at this point most sane people should realize it's all PR.
...and like the Halloween documents, probably not much will ever come out of it. But shows the company's intents. "Good guy gamer Phil" may spin things ever which way, but at this point most sane people should realize it's all PR.
ZehDon
Member
Er... the Move controller - which launched after the Wii - looks and behaves more like a Wii controller than a Wii looks and behaves like an EyeToy. It's almost as if Nintendo weren't copying the EyeToy, and Sony were absolutely copying the Wii using the technology they had. Its a strategy they've used again with the PSVR1, which repurposes Move technology. And that's ignoring that Sony took rumble out of the original PS3 controllers so they could have their PS3 controllers with built-in motion-controls at launch, making the controller worse but making sure Nintendo didn't have the market to themselves, and their Move controller marketing deliberately compared itself to the Wii controller, to ensure players were drawing the comparison Sony wanted them to.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
nowhat
Member
The reason there was no rumble in the OG Sixaxis was due to a patent dispute at the time.
Its not 'some people' it's us corporate culture at large.
There's a reason some of these companies are policing their own comm to avoid wording of this type. While execs may not care, their lawyers are paranoid about maintaining the air of plausible deniability.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Source? That's a huge assumption on your part, unless you were a part of those meetings.
Slicker than your average
Banned
Yeah some clown in the merger thread kept repeating the case by case basis thing, I couldn't be bothered to reply after the second time he said it.