Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
That's a good point. MS are only able to make this acquisition happen because of the market value Office, Azure & Windows (divisions completely separate from Xbox) have managed to generate over the years. And I don't think it needs repeating what sort of tactics MS did in the past to push Windows as the dominant OS in the tech space; even if they've significantly eased back on those tactics these days, the fact is they CURRENTLY enjoy the revenue, profit and market valuation they have built off the back of those more cutthroat and monopolistic tactics of the past.
Though a discussion could be had to what degree they should "pay" for that (if any) considering the market enabled those actions up until the government finally decided to give a crap.
So I guess you're referring to Psygnosis? The publisher Sony bought in 1993 to jumpstart their entry into the market as a platform holder, ensure they served a purpose wholly upon themselves and as soon as Sony got their footing, never bought another publisher until 29 years later? You really wanna go that far back?
As ridiculous as Microsoft trying to buy Nintendo in 2000 was, at least that would been a bit more understandable than what they're doing today with ABK. MS were an actual new platform holder at the time, and would've needed to kickstart their market presence. They just tried buying the wrong publisher (IMO it should've been Sega, if they needed a publisher), because Nintendo were also a platform holder and competitor.
And I think maybe for some of you and even for Microsoft the thought about GamePass is that it IS a new platform so to speak, so a move like buying ABK to service that platform should be seen contextually similar to Sony buying Psygonsis back in the day. I can see that to an extent. However, I don't think that necessarily works because GamePass itself was born OF the Xbox division and is technically structured as something within the Xbox division itself, not its own division or corporate entity.
So in effect GamePass is an extension of Xbox, therefore it can be argued it is not a new platform. Meaning the comparison to Sony buying Psygnosis doesn't hold up (for anyone trying to make that comparison).
Also quick aside for people calling out the FTC for not considering Nintendo a competitor to Sony & Microsoft...IIRC, isn't that what EVERYONE ELSE has been saying for YEARS!? "On, Nintendo's in their own lane, they do their own thing." "Nintendo's completely different from PlayStation & Xbox." "Nintendo's business model is completely different from Sony's or Microsoft's" "Nintendo goes after a wholly different audience!" etc. etc.
Some of y'all have been saying this for almost a decade and even Nintendo themselves have marketed their consoles since the Wii as being in a different market segment to Sony & Microsoft, so if the FTC have come to similar conclusions, well they have 16 years of both Nintendo and endless number of gamers supporting that conclusion to draw upon. Even if you can factually argue that Nintendo do in fact compete with Sony & Microsoft on some level (getting Monster Hunter exclusivity for a time for example), the fact is perception doesn't position it that way.
What did they moneyhat from "Day 1"? Tomb Raider? It's true Core used Saturn as the lead platform at first, but progress was slow, and Eidos (Core's publisher at the time) wanted to prioritize PlayStation; Sony didn't have to cut them a check for that, the PS1 was just a much easier system to work with and time was money. Yes, Sony did sign a deal for Tomb Raider exclusivity after Tomb Raider 1, but mainly because sales results for the first game favored PS1 heavily, the Saturn was already more or less dead in the West by the time Tomb Raider 2 would've came out, and the N64 may have been limited to a port due to using cartridges. Chances are very high Tomb Raiders 2 & 3 would've been PS1 exclusives (at least timed) anyway without Sony signing a deal, but that didn't stop the TR games getting ported to the Dreamcast now did it?
Only other example is Sony signing a RE 1-3 deal with Capcom to have the original trilogy debut exclusively on PS1 following RE1's success but, similar trajectory to Tomb Raider. RE1 sales on Saturn were very bad compared to PS1, so the chance of RE2 getting a Saturn port even without the deal were very slim due to Capcom's limited experience with 3D on Saturn (they had another porting studio handle RE1 on the Saturn). The only potential threat by that point was N64 which would have seemed technologically impossible to port something like RE2 or 3 to but given the sales leverage Sony already had through RE1's performance on PS1, they entered a deal with Capcom, and Capcom agreed to the deal. Which BTW, didn't stop RE2 from getting ported to N64 later on (by a different team, and took about 1.5 years to do the port).
Most of the other exclusives? That was 3P publishers choosing Sony over Sega and Nintendo on their own. Square-Enix came to dislike Nintendo and didn't think Sega had all their stuff sorted out, and they didn't want to be limited to cartridges. That basically left them with Sony, and Sony entered a partnership with them as a result, even publishing FF VII in Japan (some of you don't seem to remember that). Namco already had a rivalry with Sega going on in arcades and didn't want arcade ports of their games to be second-fiddle to Sega's own on the Saturn. Sony provided them with tech to license for the arcade (which BTW Sega would later emulate that model licensing out Model 2 tech to Tecmo and Jaleco), and a console where Namco's ports would get top-dollar billing. Namco had issues with Nintendo for obvious reasons, so it made the most business sense to go there.
Do you really thing games like Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Fear Effect, Metal Gear Solid etc. would have been technically feasible on N64 back at that time, without a ton of time to work around architecture limits and storage limitations, which could have significantly affected the game scope? Do you think those devs wanted to deal with the programming issues of N64 (like the restrictive microcode and laggy RAM), or the challenging dual-CPU setup of Saturn (due to Sega being slow on making a decent SDK)? Do you think those teams would have prioritized a console that was struggling in Japan (N64) or globally (Saturn), when they could have just focused on a single system to make the game on and maximize results?
And for all the anger some of you have about the narrative Sony were moneyhatting 3P left and right even from the PS1, somehow Nintendo's moneyhats (like getting RE exclusivity on Gamecube for several years even though the fanbase was already on PS consoles) or Microsoft's moneyhats with the 360 (where they escalated the practice notably)...don't ever get mentioned
. It's as if magically THOSE don't exist, when we both know that's a lie. So now bringing that back to modern times...in what way is Sony supposedly moneyhatting everything today? If that were true, why is Street Fighter 6 multiplat? Why is Tekken 8 multiplat? Why is Harry Potter multiplat? Why was Callisto Protocol, a game with a lot of Sony VASG people involved, a Day 1 multiplat? Why is Crisis Core multiplat? The truth is some of you just don't want Sony to have ANY exclusives outside of their own 1P teams, and funny enough I don't see any of you talking about Sony making acquisitions to "compete", either, so it's almost like you want to box them and make them smaller and smaller for arbitrary reasons.
Pretty much all of the 3P games Sony have exclusivity on are either in franchises that have historically sold significantly more on PS anyway (Final Fantasy), are smaller games in new IP with studios Sony have worked with to help either develop, provide tech assistance and/or market (Kena, Sifu etc.), or are larger 3P games which are effectively new IP which Sony are directly helping to fund and co-develop in some capacity as well as help market (Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Silent Hill 2 remake etc.).
Never mind that Microsoft and Nintendo do this SAME stuff, but have a blind eye turned towards them simply because they don't have as much market share. It's BS because Nintendo getting games like Bayonetta 2 & 3 exclusive (while the IP started as a PS/Xbox multiplat), or Microsoft getting High on Life and various other indies as timed exclusives for GamePass (and yes I know in both cases Nintendo & Microsoft helped fund the games etc. but I'm not just talking about moneyhats here anyway), are the EXACT same thing Sony's pretty much doing, but it's only bad when Sony does it?
.....
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
64gigabyteram
Reverse groomer.
and
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
comes to the rescue by writing an actually thoughtful response that isn't just memes and arguing
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
comes to the rescue by writing an actually thoughtful response that isn't just memes and arguing
Topher
Identifies as young
and
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
and
ReBurn
Gold Member
Topher
Identifies as young
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
and
My thoughtful response
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
iPhone 20
The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
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ReBurn
Gold Member
trypophobia warning!iPhone 20
64gigabyteram
Reverse groomer.
Salty Popsicle
Banned
Every single 3rd party title that releases on the Switch needs to be severely downgraded just to run on the hardware, and even after those downgrades the resolution hovers around less than 720p with framerate in the 20s. Just because the Switch technically can run some games that appear on XSX and PS5 doesn't mean it should.
My god you type far too much
Everyone knows every company throws money around to get exclusive content. We're not pretending MS and Nintendo don't, we're just pointing out the hypocrisy of Sony fans saying that Sony throwing money around is natural, organic growth, where MS doing it is unearned, buying their way to the top.
If you're happy with Sony throwing money around - which you now appear to be admitting that they do - then you should be happy with Microsoft doing the same
gothmog
Gold Member
Corporations are people, right? So sins of the past should come into account.
I also don't really believe that Microsoft has changed that much over the years. Changed tactics and softened the message? Sure. Changed their need to control things? No. The only reason they have not been as much in the spotlight legally is because nobody has really thought about OSes and office suites from a competitive standpoint in years.
Topher
Identifies as young
I get your point. What is strange is how the angle on "throwing money around" flips when in one conversation we are talking about buying studios and in another we are talking about moneyhatting exclusives. Not really on topic, but when I was reading your post I thought it was about timed exclusives until I saw the part about "organic growth".
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DarkMage619
$MSFT
My point was it is competitive with the Xbox and PlayStation not that the Switch has the same performance profile. People are arguing that Nintendo isn't part of the console market and this just between Sony and MS.
MasterCornholio
Member
64gigabyteram
Reverse groomer.
works best on GAF members, tiktok users and twitter users
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Ass of Can Whooping
Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
You should see
yurinka
and @peter42O s posts when they get deep into it, then 
The issue is you're simplifying "moneyhats" way, WAY too much. I gave examples of Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft actually co-funding games that maybe otherwise wouldn't have existed, helped co-develop as well as put up money to help market. Those aren't moneyhats IMHO, because that term applies to taking a game that was obviously destined as a multiplat, simply buy the exclusivity rights to it, and then do absolutely nothing to help its development, or market it.
I just called out the notion that you think Sony have engaged in actual moneyhats regularly since the PS1. Which is factually false.
I have no problem with platform holders investing money to aid in the development (creative & technical) & marketing of 3P games that maybe otherwise would not have been made, obviously.
The problem is that a lot of people pretend like Sony has never done that, and simply buys up exclusivity rights to 3P games with no further involvement. And they do this with 3P games Sony CLEARLY helped co-fund, co-develop and/or market including Street Fighter 5 and even Bloodborne. And to top that off, act as though Microsoft were cockblocked out of doing similar things when the truth is, Microsoft simply didn't care enough for the Xbox brand anymore to bother making those types of moves.
Same thing with people crying about Sony getting Spiderman...it's not Sony's fault Microsoft passed on a Marvel deal when given the opportunity. And yes I know that means I should say it's not Microsoft's fault Sony wasn't in a position to buy ABK when ABK went looking for a buyer. That's true, too. But at least I can acknowledge both things being true; a lot of Xbox diehards simply cannot acknowledge Microsoft's failures as their own, somehow Sony always has to be the boogeyman.
Then you should blame, like, everyone else who've been saying Nintendo's their "own thing" since 2005. Because that's just become a commonly-accepted belief among LOTS of gamers, and even people in the industry. Even Nintendo market themselves as being divergent from Sony & Microsoft, they took a blue ocean strategy with Wii and have stuck with that strategy ever since in order to avoid direct perception of competition to PlayStation & Xbox.
Nintendo haven't outright competed against Sony & Microsoft since the Gamecube.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Member
At least you have a nice profile pic to look at instead
akimbo009
Member
Sony is egregious in this way though. They use their market position to get favorable terms which - using FF7R - have become effective proxies to locking out content from other platforms. We also know that Starfield was about to undergo a similar exclusive rights process as well.
MS has an obligation to provide content to its customers. There's a lot of ways they can do that, but if their competitor is isolating content consistently and asymmetrically then they need to do something different (acquire in this case).
There's a lot of ways they can combat the situation, but papering over Sony's bullshit is just more bullshit.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
That's a good point. MS are only able to make this acquisition happen because of the market value Office, Azure & Windows (divisions completely separate from Xbox) have managed to generate over the years. And I don't think it needs repeating what sort of tactics MS did in the past to push Windows as the dominant OS in the tech space; even if they've significantly eased back on those tactics these days, the fact is they CURRENTLY enjoy the revenue, profit and market valuation they have built off the back of those more cutthroat and monopolistic tactics of the past.
Though a discussion could be had to what degree they should "pay" for that (if any) considering the market enabled those actions up until the government finally decided to give a crap.
So I guess you're referring to Psygnosis? The publisher Sony bought in 1993 to jumpstart their entry into the market as a platform holder, ensure they served a purpose wholly upon themselves and as soon as Sony got their footing, never bought another publisher until 29 years later? You really wanna go that far back?
As ridiculous as Microsoft trying to buy Nintendo in 2000 was, at least that would been a bit more understandable than what they're doing today with ABK. MS were an actual new platform holder at the time, and would've needed to kickstart their market presence. They just tried buying the wrong publisher (IMO it should've been Sega, if they needed a publisher), because Nintendo were also a platform holder and competitor.
And I think maybe for some of you and even for Microsoft the thought about GamePass is that it IS a new platform so to speak, so a move like buying ABK to service that platform should be seen contextually similar to Sony buying Psygonsis back in the day. I can see that to an extent. However, I don't think that necessarily works because GamePass itself was born OF the Xbox division and is technically structured as something within the Xbox division itself, not its own division or corporate entity.
So in effect GamePass is an extension of Xbox, therefore it can be argued it is not a new platform. Meaning the comparison to Sony buying Psygnosis doesn't hold up (for anyone trying to make that comparison).
Also quick aside for people calling out the FTC for not considering Nintendo a competitor to Sony & Microsoft...IIRC, isn't that what EVERYONE ELSE has been saying for YEARS!? "On, Nintendo's in their own lane, they do their own thing." "Nintendo's completely different from PlayStation & Xbox." "Nintendo's business model is completely different from Sony's or Microsoft's" "Nintendo goes after a wholly different audience!" etc. etc.
Some of y'all have been saying this for almost a decade and even Nintendo themselves have marketed their consoles since the Wii as being in a different market segment to Sony & Microsoft, so if the FTC have come to similar conclusions, well they have 16 years of both Nintendo and endless number of gamers supporting that conclusion to draw upon. Even if you can factually argue that Nintendo do in fact compete with Sony & Microsoft on some level (getting Monster Hunter exclusivity for a time for example), the fact is perception doesn't position it that way.
What did they moneyhat from "Day 1"? Tomb Raider? It's true Core used Saturn as the lead platform at first, but progress was slow, and Eidos (Core's publisher at the time) wanted to prioritize PlayStation; Sony didn't have to cut them a check for that, the PS1 was just a much easier system to work with and time was money. Yes, Sony did sign a deal for Tomb Raider exclusivity after Tomb Raider 1, but mainly because sales results for the first game favored PS1 heavily, the Saturn was already more or less dead in the West by the time Tomb Raider 2 would've came out, and the N64 may have been limited to a port due to using cartridges. Chances are very high Tomb Raiders 2 & 3 would've been PS1 exclusives (at least timed) anyway without Sony signing a deal, but that didn't stop the TR games getting ported to the Dreamcast now did it?
Only other example is Sony signing a RE 1-3 deal with Capcom to have the original trilogy debut exclusively on PS1 following RE1's success but, similar trajectory to Tomb Raider. RE1 sales on Saturn were very bad compared to PS1, so the chance of RE2 getting a Saturn port even without the deal were very slim due to Capcom's limited experience with 3D on Saturn (they had another porting studio handle RE1 on the Saturn). The only potential threat by that point was N64 which would have seemed technologically impossible to port something like RE2 or 3 to but given the sales leverage Sony already had through RE1's performance on PS1, they entered a deal with Capcom, and Capcom agreed to the deal. Which BTW, didn't stop RE2 from getting ported to N64 later on (by a different team, and took about 1.5 years to do the port).
Most of the other exclusives? That was 3P publishers choosing Sony over Sega and Nintendo on their own. Square-Enix came to dislike Nintendo and didn't think Sega had all their stuff sorted out, and they didn't want to be limited to cartridges. That basically left them with Sony, and Sony entered a partnership with them as a result, even publishing FF VII in Japan (some of you don't seem to remember that). Namco already had a rivalry with Sega going on in arcades and didn't want arcade ports of their games to be second-fiddle to Sega's own on the Saturn. Sony provided them with tech to license for the arcade (which BTW Sega would later emulate that model licensing out Model 2 tech to Tecmo and Jaleco), and a console where Namco's ports would get top-dollar billing. Namco had issues with Nintendo for obvious reasons, so it made the most business sense to go there.
Do you really thing games like Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Fear Effect, Metal Gear Solid etc. would have been technically feasible on N64 back at that time, without a ton of time to work around architecture limits and storage limitations, which could have significantly affected the game scope? Do you think those devs wanted to deal with the programming issues of N64 (like the restrictive microcode and laggy RAM), or the challenging dual-CPU setup of Saturn (due to Sega being slow on making a decent SDK)? Do you think those teams would have prioritized a console that was struggling in Japan (N64) or globally (Saturn), when they could have just focused on a single system to make the game on and maximize results?
And for all the anger some of you have about the narrative Sony were moneyhatting 3P left and right even from the PS1, somehow Nintendo's moneyhats (like getting RE exclusivity on Gamecube for several years even though the fanbase was already on PS consoles) or Microsoft's moneyhats with the 360 (where they escalated the practice notably)...don't ever get mentioned
So now bringing that back to modern times...in what way is Sony supposedly moneyhatting everything today? If that were true, why is Street Fighter 6 multiplat? Why is Tekken 8 multiplat? Why is Harry Potter multiplat? Why was Callisto Protocol, a game with a lot of Sony VASG people involved, a Day 1 multiplat? Why is Crisis Core multiplat? The truth is some of you just don't want Sony to have ANY exclusives outside of their own 1P teams, and funny enough I don't see any of you talking about Sony making acquisitions to "compete", either, so it's almost like you want to box them and make them smaller and smaller for arbitrary reasons.
Pretty much all of the 3P games Sony have exclusivity on are either in franchises that have historically sold significantly more on PS anyway (Final Fantasy), are smaller games in new IP with studios Sony have worked with to help either develop, provide tech assistance and/or market (Kena, Sifu etc.), or are larger 3P games which are effectively new IP which Sony are directly helping to fund and co-develop in some capacity as well as help market (Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Silent Hill 2 remake etc.).
Never mind that Microsoft and Nintendo do this SAME stuff, but have a blind eye turned towards them simply because they don't have as much market share. It's BS because Nintendo getting games like Bayonetta 2 & 3 exclusive (while the IP started as a PS/Xbox multiplat), or Microsoft getting High on Life and various other indies as timed exclusives for GamePass (and yes I know in both cases Nintendo & Microsoft helped fund the games etc. but I'm not just talking about moneyhats here anyway), are the EXACT same thing Sony's pretty much doing, but it's only bad when Sony does it?
Topher
Identifies as young
Microsoft has been doing the same moneyhatting bullshit as Sony for decades now. It is the same bullshit in either direction.
akimbo009
Member
I used the word egregious. It's operative.
The last significant moneyhat I can recall MS doing was Tomb Raider and that was a total shit show of tears and meltdowns.
Outside a handful of indies and smaller AA games they've largely not. I don't think that's cause they don't try - I'm sure they would - but their likely cannot make up the economic loss/difference being the smaller platform to make it sustainable. This is why Sony is able to pull their weight here and cause competitive harm (or demand a separate strategy from MS).
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
DarkMage619
$MSFT
Exactly with the XSS leading the way.You mean, like a high performance profile?
Topher
Identifies as young
Then Microsoft is guilty of "egregious" acquisitions and are using their trillions and causing competitive harm. It works both ways.
It doesn't make sense to me to try and white knight either one of these companies.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
What's it leading?
akimbo009
Member
They may be egregious. The question is also if the acquisition is legal or not. If it's not approved, I do expect MS to acquire another company to continue their content strategy with other companies. Whether that's good or not, I'm not sure - I do think they feeling forced into a position. Ultimately, I think it's unnecessary since they have plenty of pending content to prove out their strategy.
And it's not white knighting, it's recognizing that MS has to do something to break the situation they find themselves in and recognizing that Sony is acting like a victim in this trial is a farce. Sony started fucking around is finding out a bit here and that's because they forced a response.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Leading the way for portable consoles
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
This performance profile determines the market for games and audience more than ability to plug into an external display which other handhelds had and you don't consider competitive because of reasons.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
A lot of times it does feel like the biggest change with MS has been in their messaging, not necessarily the desire to stomp out competitors. Some of the offers we've seen them give to Sony for COD feel indicative of that; why would Sony be interested in COD on PS+ when their revenue model is based predominantly on direct sales for gaming?
There was some ruling in the European market a couple years ago involving Microsoft doing something with one of their products, and they had to implement changes. It was only within the past 4-5 years, that ruling. And I agree that because personal computers aren't seen as "mainstream" devices anymore (the way they were in the '90s and '00s), it's allowed MS to skirt by with things regarding Windows that would have gotten a lot more attention if it weren't for smartphones.
So somehow a $2 trillion company is able to offer to buy a 3P publisher valued at $69 billion, yet can't outbid a $100 billion company for exclusivity contracts that at most probably amount to $50 million on average for the big AAA games? How does that even begin to make sense?
And that's supposing MS were even interested in pursuing those sort of deals, or other "deals" that involved them actually co-funding and co-developing those 3P exclusives alongside marketing them. Because it's pretty evident that MS were scaling back on Xbox investment heavily starting sometime around 2015 and up until they figured to buy some 3P developers in 2018.
That's almost three years where they simply wrote the XBO off more or less when it came to software exclusive investments, particularly with 3P devs/pubs. Meanwhile Sony didn't let up because when you have a platform actually meeting your expectations and is successful, you're supposed to not ease off what works. And you're ignoring the fact that software sales of 3P games on XBO were already dropping on average even as soon as 2015, outside of some exceptions.
The RotTR fiasco was due to MS being stupidly unclear on the exclusivity terms, and they had just declared all 1P games would be Day 1 on PC the year prior, suggesting their angle was to prioritize PC more. Yet they secured a third-party exclusive that wasn't even going to go to PC until two months later? Why say you're bringing your 1P games to PC Day 1, but get a 3P exclusive that won't go to PC until months after it hits your consoles? That was terrible messaging on Microsoft's part, they got chewed out for it.
Sony's "weight" when it comes to getting 3P exclusives is due to them providing a product actual gamers/customers came to prefer over competitors, and Sony giving a damn to actually work with 3P developers in co-funding, co-developing and co-marketing games. It's not their fault Microsoft provided a console gamers didn't gravitate towards as much, or that Microsoft cancelled multiple 3P games left and right (like Scalebound) and didn't invest in things like Marvel offers, or lock down Double Helix, etc.
Stop blaming Sony for all of Xbox's problems.
Topher
Identifies as young
Microsoft is buying studios because their first party was severely lacking, not because of timed exclusives. I'm not going to cry for Microsoft's situation as it has much more to do with their own incompetence last gen than anything else. Sony has certainly used timed exclusivity to maintain their position and I think that sucks because timed exclusives simply suck. But then we are back at this argument of whose sins are the more "egregious". Let's just be honest about it. If there were an afterlife for corporations then they'd both burn in hell.
DarkMage619
$MSFT
Regardless of the revisionist history you and others are attempting to tell there are three markets when it comes to video games. PC, console and mobile. It was never divided by the power of the various systems. The Switch being less powerful than Xbox and PlayStation doesn't put it into a different market. That is pure nonsense. Again the XSS is weaker than the PS5 and XSX it doesn't place it into a unique market either.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
So this thread is about the acquisition right? Haha
bender
What time is it?
Ezekiel_
Banned
This thread is whatever you want it to be
feynoob
Banned
We don't like thoughtful responses hereand
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
We don't like thoughtful responses here
No we don't, but i'll support it if aligns with my views
I still won't read them though
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
For $69bn it can be about whatever you want it to be baby.
feynoob
Banned
What acquisition?
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