Support NeoGAF

[feynoob]

Ouya

 

[StreetsofBeige]

why are xbox fans angry still? , the deal is almost done ................they should be happy

Who's mad? I'm up $12/share as I got in the low $70s. When the deal finalizes it'll be $22/share since the buy out price is around $95/share. Easy money. Only problem is the deal has dragged on for more than a year.

 

[Iced Arcade]

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Funny, when Xbox 360 was killing it, Sony's reply was to improve what they have. When MS is losing, they buy up the products to keep them off other platforms. And when that still doesn't help, they do it again. They're response is never improve their own product, it's to moneyhat the competition out of the market. If you think this is a good thing, you're proving that you're just a fanboy because no way someone like this thinks this is good if every company starts buying up everything.

Sony's reply could be to start a new set of IPs which is a lot more expensive than just buying up properties from their competitors as well. So pretend for a minute Sony wants to stay dominating, you're going to pretend if they bought say Rockstar and Square that this is a good thing? GTFO with that. But that's where they should go because if not, MS will just buy the companies when they stay in 3rd place. Because they still haven't addressed that with their current studios, they could be competitive but they have idiots worshipping Phil Spencer, the constipated idiot ruining things.

What you described as "competition" can become anticompetitive when they're acquiring too many properties. This goes for anyone. This works if they didn't have more studios than everyone else but guess what: they already do.

Sony is just as guilty of the bolded above. Except they do it from a market leader position.

But I was just replying how competition was used in relation to Brad Smith's tweet. Not saying acquisitions are better than organic growth.

I think Sony (as market leader) would run into the same issues as Microsoft did with CoD if they tried to acquire Take 2 (due to the GTA franchise). Surprisingly, the research done by CADE had more significance put on GTA than CoD among CoD gamers.

However, I don't see any issues arising from Sony acquiring Square Enix, I actually expect and selfishly want Sony to acquire Square Enix. I also think Sony acquiring Capcom would go through with relative ease. Some roadblocks probably, a long process like this one, but would go through.

I'll say this though, I agree that the Microsoft acquiring spree while they haven't seen their marketshare shift is worrisome. It's a smart move from Microsoft, and could prove to be anti-competitive. (Example being Zenimax and ABK may improve their marketshare so much that they'll be the market leader in 8 years, and any acquisitions before that point may compound those effects)

It's hard to say what will happen in the future though. I don't look too much/far into hypothetical futures to say why I am for or against something.

If developer studios is the metric we are arbitrarily saying is the metric we should use to determine someone's marketshare, then look at Embracer with over 100 development studios. When you view Xbox through other metrics, revenue, console sales, they're still behind Sony even after ABK goes through.

 

[Heisenberg007]

You and any other fearmongers have this theory that's it's guaranteed MS will cut off games from competing platforms, when in reality they havent. Even going back to MInecraft they bought in 2012 when it was just rolling, they could had cut the cord and funnel it to Xbox and PC only and didn't.

MS even offered Nintendo a 10 year deal they accepted and offered a 10 year deal to Sony (which looks like they said forget it).

Same question for you: Out of all the Mincecraft based games and Bethesda games, how many were taken off competing platforms? You still even got new games released on PS and even recently added Bethesda games to PS+.

Go on. We will wait.

Hey, at least when MS buys a company games still can go on other platforms, and PC is a guaranteed one assuming it's not a tried and true PC only kind of game. But even then MS is converting some to console like Age of Empires showing up on Xbox lately.

When Sony buys up a studio, they basically cut the cord off their multiplat games right away. Psygnosis cut the cord soon after, Naughty Dog started out as computer and Sega Genesis developers and Insomniac has made multiplat games including a slew of PC VR games. Now all walled off behind the Sony ecosystem except for PC porting years later for some games.

So if you're going to talk about platform support, MS supports other platforms a lot more than Sony does the second they get acquired.

Theory?

• Hellblade 2
• The Outer Worlds 2
• Redfall
• Starfield
• Hi-Fi Rush
• Psychonauts 2 (PS5)
• Bleeding Edge
• Avowed

All these games were in production when Microsoft acquired these studios. TOW2 likely wasn't, but that's still an IP that MS made exclusive after the acquisition. And so will be Elder Scrolls 6.

After ABK, do you think all ABK games will continue to be released on PlayStation? Just like Zenimax's, right?

This is an old tactic of deflecting and derailing the conversation by bringing up these really illogical arguments and naming Guerrilla and Bluepoint as Sony's acquisitions lol. See, now we are not even talking about the actual discussion that DryvBy raised, i.e., how does acquiring multiplatform companies and making their games exclusive equal to increased competition.

 

[DrFigs]

Sony is just as guilty of the bolded above. Except they do it from a market leader position.

But I was just replying how competition was used in relation to Brad Smith's tweet. Not saying acquisitions are better than organic growth.

I think Sony (as market leader) would run into the same issues as Microsoft did with CoD if they tried to acquire Take 2 (due to the GTA franchise). Surprisingly, the research done by CADE had more significance put on GTA than CoD among CoD gamers.

However, I don't see any issues arising from Sony acquiring Square Enix, I actually expect and selfishly want Sony to acquire Square Enix. I also think Sony acquiring Capcom would go through with relative ease. Some roadblocks probably, a long process like this one, but would go through.

I'll say this though, I agree that the Microsoft acquiring spree while they haven't seen their marketshare shift is worrisome. It's a smart move from Microsoft, and could prove to be anti-competitive. (Example being Zenimax and ABK may improve their marketshare so much that they'll be the market leader in 8 years, and any acquisitions before that point may compound those effects)

It's hard to say what will happen in the future though. I don't look too much/far into hypothetical futures to say why I am for or against something.

If developer studios is the metric we are arbitrarily saying is the metric we should use to determine someone's marketshare, then look at Embracer with over 100 development studios. When you view Xbox through other metrics, revenue, console sales, they're still behind Sony even after ABK goes through.

Why are we pretending that sony has made any acquisitions at the scale of Bethesda or Activision. Why is this something we're doing again?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I'll say this though, I agree that the Microsoft acquiring spree while they haven't seen their marketshare shift is worrisome. It's a smart move from Microsoft, and could prove to be anti-competitive. (Example being Zenimax and ABK may improve their marketshare so much that they'll be the market leader in 8 years, and any acquisitions before that point may compound those effects)

It's not worrisome. It's actually good. It'll prove that scooping up game makers isn't making them zoom to the top of the mountain which is what many people think will happen. Where out of all the game studios they bought, GP, EA Play, first party games on GP etc.... havent really done anything. But somehow Activision will???

There's more to the games market than COD.

COD got ultra poplar during the 360/PS3 era. Some of those old games sell more copies than recent games. And MS had marketing rights always talking about it at E3 and had timed DLC. And 360 will trailed PS3 and Wii in console sales.

 

[Jimmyisback]

This is great news. Closer and closer to getting done. I've said it from the begining before this thread was created that this deal was likely gonna go through. Everything else was theater. We should start a celebration thread akin to the power meme thread for Series X once this deal goes through. Is it too early to buy the pinata, nachos, and pizza?

 

[feynoob]

We reached a point of no return.
This is from era

Wouldn't it make more sense to MS to try to buy Disney?

People are crazy.

 

[poppabk]

Please also name all the IPs that were taken off of the competitor platforms because of all these acquisitions.

Go on. We will wait.

You said
"Acquisitions and consolidations only hurt competitors, remove games, minimize choices for gamers"
Now you are saying:

MS hasn't taken any IPs off competitors either so far either.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

On the contrary. Anti-competitive acquisitions cannot be justified by this.

Sony has been leading the charge in terms of games since at least 2013. Has Microsoft offerings improved in that period? No.

So why are we assuming that Microsoft is doing a favor to Sony and PS gamers by acquiring publishers and giving Sony a kick in the ass so Sony can improve its offerings?

Acquisitions and consolidations only hurt competitors, remove games, minimize choices for gamers, and in some cases like these, minimize the competitors' ability to invest in their studios and games.

There are other ways to be competitive outside of content offerings. Competitive pricing is one. Consumer friendly practices is another.

It's not anti-competitive to make Sony work for their customers. It's not anti-competitive to take marketshare from Sony. It's not anti-competitive to disrupt the status quo. If Sony's answer to keep customers sacrifices their need to maximize profits, that is not anti-competitive.

Competition doesn't solely focus on competitors. It has a lot to do with consumers.

 

[SportsFan581]

We reached a point of no return.
This is from era

People are crazy.

You know that is perfectly reasonable. There is so much synergy err... between MS and Disney it just makes almost too much sense.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Theory?

• Hellblade 2
• The Outer Worlds 2
• Redfall
• Starfield
• Hi-Fi Rush
• Psychonauts 2 (PS5)
• Bleeding Edge
• Avowed

All these games were in production when Microsoft acquired these studios. TOW2 likely wasn't, but that's still an IP that MS made exclusive after the acquisition. And so will be Elder Scrolls 6.

After ABK, do you think all ABK games will continue to be released on PlayStation? Just like Zenimax's, right?

This is an old tactic of deflecting and derailing the conversation by bringing up these really illogical arguments and naming Guerrilla and Bluepoint as Sony's acquisitions lol. See, now we are not even talking about the actual discussion that DryvBy raised, i.e., how does acquiring multiplatform companies and making their games exclusive equal to increased competition.

What guarantee do you know that a PS5 version wont come later? So it's a timed exclusive for Xbox/PC. No different than Sony doing their million timed exclusive deals against Xbox? Forspoken was even a publicly stated game being a 2 year deal. So it can the same thing. The only difference is that it's MS and not Square.

I'm sure you didn't think all the Sony games they have been releasing on PC would happen. And they did. And MLB the Show is on Xbox now too.

 

[feynoob]

MS hasn't taken any IPs off competitors either so far either.

They did. They took future IPs that were coming to that platform.

Let's not try and downplay these actions.

Both companies are shit on their own

 

[feynoob]

You know that is perfectly reasonable. There is so much synergy err... between MS and Disney it just makes almost too much sense.

Let's stick with gaming. We don't want that kind of future man.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Why are we pretending that sony has made any acquisitions at the scale of Bethesda or Activision. Why is this something we're doing again?

I don't see where I said that.

DryvBy mentioned a general strategy of moneyhatting content/products off their competitor's platform. Framing Sony as exclusively focusing on organic growth. I was saying that's untrue.

 

[poppabk]

They did. They took future IPs that were coming to that platform.

Let's not try and downplay these actions.

Both companies are shit on their own

It's not like any third party doesn't have some sort of plans to release a multiplat title until they are acquired.

 

[Banjo64]

You and any other fearmongers have this theory that's it's guaranteed MS will cut off games from competing platforms, when in reality they havent. Even going back to MInecraft they bought in 2012 when it was just rolling, they could had cut the cord and funnel it to Xbox and PC only and didn't.

MS even offered Nintendo a 10 year deal they accepted and offered a 10 year deal to Sony (which looks like they said forget it).

Here's a question.

Do you think the fact that they've only agreed for CoD in all of those 10 year deals insinuates that future instalments for everything else (Crash/Spyro/THPS/Diablo) could be exclusive?

In my opinion, they will be. Alongside future Fallout, Doom and TES games. To say they aren't cutting anyone else off is a pretty wild statement when Mojang is the only example of a studio they own that continues to release NEW games on competing platforms.

 

[SportsFan581]

What guarantee do you know that a PS5 version wont come later? So it's a timed exclusive for Xbox/PC. No different than Sony doing their million timed exclusive deals against Xbox? Forspoken was even a publicly stated game being a 2 year deal. So it can the same thing. The only difference is that it's MS and not Square.

Forspoken is third party. I think it is an extreme view to take the position as if MS isn't allowed to have first-party console exclusives when their competitors do. MS is paying for the games they can keep them if they choose.

They aren't going exclusive with CoD just like they didn't with Minecraft. MS doesn't take everything exclusive, but them choosing to have some exclusives shouldn't be a problem. Should this deal close, MS will operate within whatever guidelines have been set and comply with all the formal promises they've made.

 

[vj27]

nope

Welp, starfield and redfall is canceled y'all heard it here first lol

 

[feynoob]

It's not like any third party doesn't have some sort of plans to release a multiplat title until they are acquired.

Without MS intervention, those bought studios would have released their games on PS. Same for Sony acquisition.

Every 3rd party of publisher/dev would release their games multiplatform unless it's exclusive to that platform or timed. That rules applies to studios that got bought by Sony and MS.

 

[SportsFan581]

Let's stick with gaming. We don't want that kind of future man.

The err... was meant to be the give away.

 

[feynoob]

The err... was meant to be the give away.

It's hard to detect that with current situation.
All forums are in frenzy mode.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

I have no idea how you could argue PS is the home of JRPGs when Switch exists.

Switch: Xenoblade series, Fire Emblem series, Bravely Default series, Dragon Quest, SMT, Triangle Strategy, etc

PS: 2 FF entries that are basically character action games with nostalgia bait FF trappings + multiplats

In relation to Xbox. The whole debate has been narrowed to a decision between Playstation and Xbox. Nintendo has been shoved into the corner.

If you're looking for a high performance console and you love JRPGs, you'll get a Playstation over an Xbox.

 

[Heisenberg007]

What guarantee do you know that a PS5 version wont come later? So it's a timed exclusive for Xbox/PC. No different than Sony doing their million timed exclusive deals against Xbox? Forspoken was even a publicly stated game being a 2 year deal. So it can the same thing. The only difference is that it's MS and not Square.

I'm sure you didn't think all the Sony games they have been releasing on PC would happen. And they did. And MLB the Show is on Xbox now too.

Nope.

 

[Dick Jones]

Nope.

To be fair Aaron Greenberg isn't normally competent at marketing so I would understand people ignoring his tweets.

 

[Heisenberg007]

You said
"Acquisitions and consolidations only hurt competitors, remove games, minimize choices for gamers"
Now you are saying:

MS hasn't taken any IPs off competitors either so far either.

I haven't shifted my stance at all.

Hasn't Microsoft made Hellblade and The Outer Worlds sequels exclusives?

So those acquisitions have minimized choices for gamers and removed IPs from a competing platform.

Fact remains that these anti-competitive acquisitions do not benefit gamers or the industry. They are mostly done to remove IPs off the other platform and hurt the other platforms' gamers by removing their choice and ability to play games.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Nope.

A tweet from 1.5 years ago.

And if you asked a Sony employee if a PC port of Sony first party game X was being made, they'd say it was exclusive to PS too. Until the day comes around their PR department says a PC port is coming in two months after 2 years.

 

[Heisenberg007]

To be fair Aaron Greenberg isn't normally competent at marketing so I would understand people ignoring his tweets.

He may be incompetent at his job, but we can't just ignore his definitive public statement about the exclusivity of their upcoming game, and assume completely otherwise with no basis.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Here's a question.

Do you think the fact that they've only agreed for CoD in all of those 10 year deals insinuates that future instalments for everything else (Crash/Spyro/THPS/Diablo) could be exclusive?

In my opinion, they will be. Alongside future Fallout, Doom and TES games. To say they aren't cutting anyone else off is a pretty wild statement when Mojang is the only example of a studio they own that continues to release NEW games on competing platforms.

Yeah they didn't cut off Minecraft and are saying they won't cut off cod but somehow the other 10 ip that they will cut off is just ignored? I will never understand fanboys and their logic. Also, xbox fanboys can't fathom that you can be an xbox fan and be against publisher acquisitions. It automatically makes you a Sony fanboy apparently. Even though I love the series x! It's a great system.

 

[Heisenberg007]

A tweet from 1.5 years ago.

And if you asked a Sony employee if a PC port of Sony first party game X was being made, they'd say it was exclusive to PS too. Until the day comes around their PR department says a PC port is coming in two months after 2 years.

So now you are arguing -- with absolutely 0 evidence -- that Starfield, Hellblade 2, Redfall, Outer Worlds 2 are all timed exclusives and will release on PlayStation?

Shifting narratives on the fly so you can defend a company you like is the perfect definition of disingenuity.

 

[Dick Jones]

He may be incompetent at his job, but we can't just ignore his definitive public statement about the exclusivity of their upcoming game, and assume completely otherwise with no basis.

He also claimed all games were 1080 on the Xbox.

If everything he says suits my agenda he is correct and if it doesn't, Aaron is an idiot. I'm waiting to see what response you'll get back on it if any.

Edit: just saw it. Dumber than I was expecting. Could be Aaron's Gaf account

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I haven't shifted my stance at all.

Hasn't Microsoft made Hellblade and The Outer Worlds sequels exclusives?

So those acquisitions have minimized choices for gamers and removed IPs from a competing platform.

Fact remains that these anti-competitive acquisitions do not benefit gamers or the industry. They are mostly done to remove IPs off the other platform and hurt the other platforms' gamers by removing their choice and ability to play games.

Well too bad. Thats life and how acquisitions work.

Sony did the same thing in the 90s battling Sega and Nintendo. They bought Psygnosis which was a multi-console and computer games maker back then. They cut the cord at some point and all games went PS.

And during that same era, Tomb Raider became a giant hit. Sony did a multi year deal preventing it from going on Sega and Nintendo systems for years. I think the first game to finally pop up on competing systems after the first game was a Dreamcast game. So there's another one of Sony's big exclusivity marketing deals preventing games on competing consoles.

 

[Heisenberg007]

He also claimed all games were 1080 on the Xbox.

If everything he says suits my agenda he is correct and if it doesn't, Aaron is an idiot. I'm waiting to see what response you'll get back on it if any.

There is 0 evidence that these games are timed exclusive. A Microsoft executive clarifies that Starfield is not a timed exclusive.

I always go with what's logical - no matter who is saying it. I don't have any personal grudge against any of these executives, so I don't believe or disbelieve any of them 100% of the time.

Aaron's statement here makes sense because that's what every piece of evidence points to. If there is even a single shred of legit evidence or report or leaked info that Starfield is actually a timed exclusive, I'll be happy to change my stance.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Hey, at least when MS buys a company games still can go on other platforms, and PC is a guaranteed one assuming it's not a tried and true PC only kind of game. But even then MS is converting some to console like Age of Empires showing up on Xbox lately.

When Sony buys up a studio, they basically cut the cord off their multiplat games right away. Psygnosis cut the cord soon after, Naughty Dog started out as computer and Sega Genesis developers and Insomniac has made multiplat games including a slew of PC VR games. Now all walled off behind the Sony ecosystem except for PC porting years later for some games.

Psygnosis was acquired in 1993. They continued to bring games to N64, PC and Saturn until at least 1997. If you wonder why they didn't bring games to Saturn after 1997, that's because the Saturn was commercially dead in the West by 1998.

Naughty Dog worked on microcomputers (BIG difference from computer i.e PC because each microcomputer was basically its own enclosed ecosystem and by the early '90s microcomputers were fading out in favor of DOS/Windows PCs anyway); AFAIK they did not make games for Sega Genesis you might have them confused with Core Design (who mainly worked on Sega CD and 32X games when it came to Sega). Naughty Dog's first big shift from microcomputers was the 3DO game Way of the Warrior, which is infamous in how terrible it is. They didn't have much of a future without partnering up with Sony on the Crash games.

Trying to claim Insomniac as a multiplat due to a few PC VR games they made is disingenuous but expected; their actual main portfolio are console games going back to Disruptor on PS1. In fact outside of Sunset Overdrive, all of their console efforts were on PlayStation platforms, across multiple generations. They were, very clearly, considered a PlayStation studio by association for decades by almost all of their fans, the 2018 acquisition just finally made that official. A few PC VR side games from them getting lost means nothing considering those weren't of their main content, plus it's not like they've done much with PSVR or PSVR2 since being acquired so it's clear their developer priorities shifted from VR anyway i.e they haven't made much new VR content post-acquisition you can claim has been "walled off" from PC.

Also what is the obsession with people like you when it comes to "expecting" PC support? PC is not an entitled platform; it has its own exclusives anyway like League of Legends, Counterstrike, and tons of PC-exclusive games on Steam...by your logic console owners could complain about being "locked out" of those games on similarly flimsy grounds. Console content going to PC is a privilege, not a right. Stop acting like your platform is so entitled; the only reason PC has a modern AAA scene today is partly thanks to Valve and mainly thanks to consoles providing a large enough audience and revenue for once PC-exclusive developers to actually justify big budgets on AAA games for to recoup in console software sales and get some PC sales on top of that, after the PC gaming market basically cratered in the early-mid '00s.

So if you're going to talk about platform support, MS supports other platforms a lot more than Sony does the second they get acquired.

What range of platforms are supported isn't a worthwhile consideration when justifying one company's acquisitions over the other. Spreading out your range of platforms can similarly become a negative when it means software has to be optimized and made with a design scope to suit ALL of those different platforms and spec configurations.

All that should matter is if the company making the acquisition can uphold the quality of the acquired content, and if they can help the acquired company & content get even better and reach new levels of critical & commercial success. Otherwise what is the point in acquiring them when if they want to bring their content to more people, there are many ways that can be accomplished without acquisition?

 

[Ozriel]

Funny, when Xbox 360 was killing it, Sony's reply was to improve what they have. When MS is losing, they buy up the products to keep them off other platforms. And when that still doesn't help, they do it again. They're response is never improve their own product, it's to moneyhat the competition out of the market. If you think this is a good thing, you're proving that you're just a fanboy because no way someone like this thinks this is good if every company starts buying up everything.

Microsoft is doing both, though. Their response to falling back in the Xbox One generation has been to expand their existing first party setup, both through acqusitions but also by setting up new dev studios, investing in more publishing deals and enabling their existing studios to expand. Not to mention significantly boosting the value of GamePass.

If you're strongly against using funds to buy exclusivity to try to diminish rivals, you can pretty much only support Nintendo. They're the only ones not partaking in this game.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

half of those are licensed or in license hell.


not going to lie... I'm going to be low-key pissy if they invest in Crash and Spiro while they sit on Banjo & Conker for decades.

Yeah I don't understand this fantasy that people have constructed that Microsoft acquiring Activision will lead to a return of the glory days of resurrecting old franchises when in fact the opposite happened when they acquired RARE and they are basically now a studio that only does GaaS titles and one of the stuff that made them popular to begin with.

I have zero faith in Activision getting better under MS management.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

So now you are arguing -- with absolutely 0 evidence -- that Starfield, Hellblade 2, Redfall, Outer Worlds 2 are all timed exclusives and will release on PlayStation?

Shifting narratives on the fly so you can defend a company you like is the perfect definition of disingenuity.

Not at all.

Nobody knows what will happen. It could be a 100% exclusive deal or a timed deal. Nobody knows until the games come out and wait around for a few years to see if they come on competing platforms.

Which is absolutely no different than Sony games being labeled PS exclusives and then a PC port shows up a few years later.

So you arent a fortune teller. And neither am I or anyone else.

 

[TheGodfather07]

I keep hearing that Sony moneyhat everything. Yet even though they have been super dominant, I can barely remember that many. Seeing as people ignore small games that xbox moneyhat, let's ignore them. So what's left? From the beginning of ps4 to now, how many big name ip did sony moneyhat? I count 3 final fantasy games and street fighter 5. What am I missing?

 

[DeepEnigma]

They said that because that is what Sony said in their submission. MS was arguing that Nintendo doesn't have COD and is doing fine, so Sony tried to take that out of the equation by saying that Nintendo isn't in the same buisness and that there is a high performance console market which the switch isn't in.
It backfired on them.

They've been saying that for YEARS prior to Sony. Even Nintendo has said that years prior. I provided the links in this thread. Keep at it tho, champ!

 

[Heisenberg007]

Not at all.

Nobody knows what will happen. It could be a 100% exclusive deal or a timed deal. Nobody knows until the games come out and wait around for a few years to see if they come on competing platforms.

Which is absolutely no different than Sony games being labeled PS exclusives and then a PC port shows up a few years later.

So you arent a fortune teller. And neither am I or anyone else.

No, that's not how it works. And you know it.

You go by with official reports and statements until they are proven wrong. So, as of now, because Microsoft has explicitly confirmed it leaving no room for doubts, Starfield is a permanent Xbox/PC exclusive and will remain so -- until they announce a PlayStation port.

 

[DeepEnigma]

It's far more likely that the CMA came to their senses and realised they had been fed a bunch of horseshit from Sony that made them look stupid when they ran with it.
The truth eventually became evident.

So they are no longer ignorant fools who don't know shit and on Sony's take trying to protect Sony?

Huh! Funny, that.

Flippy floppies on a boat bitch.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Well too bad. Thats life and how acquisitions work.

Sony did the same thing in the 90s battling Sega and Nintendo. They bought Psygnosis which was a multi-console and computer games maker back then. They cut the cord at some point and all games went PS.

And during that same era, Tomb Raider became a giant hit. Sony did a multi year deal preventing it from going on Sega and Nintendo systems for years. I think the first game to finally pop up on competing systems after the first game was a Dreamcast game. So there's another one of Sony's big exclusivity marketing deals preventing games on competing consoles.

Glad you agree then.

Anti-competitive acquisitions that take games and IPs away from another platform do not create competition. They only work to remove gamers' choice.

As you said, that's just how acquisitions work.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Not at all.

Nobody knows what will happen. It could be a 100% exclusive deal or a timed deal. Nobody knows until the games come out and wait around for a few years to see if they come on competing platforms.

Which is absolutely no different than Sony games being labeled PS exclusives and then a PC port shows up a few years later.

So you arent a fortune teller. And neither am I or anyone else.

 

[Dick Jones]

The best part of the Psygnosis acquisition points raised is that it is by Xbox fans angry at it. That acquisition was in the 90s when the Xbox console released in 2001. There isn't even a hint of an overlap. How is this still a thing? You fucking look like Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper. Useless.

 

[Heisenberg007]

The best part of the Psygnosis acquisition points raised is that it is by Xbox fans angry at it. That acquisition was in the 90s when the Xbox console released in 2001. There isn't even a hint of an overlap. How is this still a thing? You fucking look like Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper. Useless.

• Psygnosis, a $50 million purchase, that continued releasing games on competitor platforms = Bad acquisition
• Zenimax and ABK, bought for $75 billion, to immediately cut off 90% of the games releasing on competitor platforms = Good acquisition that increases competition.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

No, that's not how it works. And you know it.

You go by with official reports and statements until they are proven wrong. So, as of now, because Microsoft has explicitly confirmed it leaving no room for doubts, Starfield is a permanent Xbox/PC exclusive and will remain so -- until they announce a PlayStation port.

Statements mean nothing because things change all the time. Not only did Spiderman come to PC, so did Mile Morales.

 

[SportsFan581]

So they are no longer ignorant fools who don't know shit and on Sony's take trying to protect Sony?

Huh! Funny, that.

Flippy floppies on a boat bitch.

I don't see how anything they've said even remotely points in that direction.

They've actually just admitted that they can't do the maths too good and effectively foobarred their entire impact analysis regarding the consoles. I feel like they are just leaning into their reputation more than anything.

Side note not addressing DeepEnigma at all: I think there are people here who don't understand how competition works. Iron sharpens iron, a stronger MS (Xbox) should boost competition between the big three. Regardless of what games go where or what gets taken from this or that platform. The results of the entities themselves are what pushes the competitive landscape. Moves MS makes can bolster competition while at the same time hurting Sony or Nintendo, that's the very nature of competition. It works the other way as well, Sony's moves can hurt MS and that is still part of Sony trying to compete. It's only if Sony and MS use their strength to directly hurt each other that it becomes a problem (say either charges devs additional fees if they release on the competing platform, or they use leverage against hardware vendors to stop them from selling components to competitors, etc.).

 

[Ozriel]

We reached a point of no return.
This is from era

People are crazy.

This was probably posted in response to commentary about that silly rumor of MS trying to buy Netflix.

You've also contributed to discussion of that nature on GAF, so I'm kinda puzzled you're making this post.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

We should start a celebration thread akin to the power meme thread for Series X once this deal goes through.

How'd that turn out for you guys?