Mr Moose
Gold Member
They pulled a Nokia?
Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
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No, don't be daft. Unless you think Math Jam and Keef the thief were akin to Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, or World of warcraft back in the day this isn't equivalent. If MS went on to buy 4J Studios and turned them into the Naughty Dog of today nobody would bat an eye but you know buying Activison and Zenimax are different. You just want to be oblivious to it.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
just chill bro. i guess is being a rough day for many like you. is not that bad.
xHunter
Member
I mean we have to wait and see if it is really a benefit for gamers.
The last time i witnessed a rise in competition in an entertainment sector, i had to subscribe to 4 different providers just to be able to watch what i used to watch on one provider ( in this case football). Plus i am not paying less.
Gravemind
Member
Won't happen.
They only need marketing rights + gamepass day one release in order to boost gamepass sales and keep people subscribed. The most I see them doing is a pre order bonus or a gamepass early access incentive. It all depends on what's in the 10 year deal, assuming Sony even wants to sign it.
They're not taking COD away from playstation. This has all to do with making money to sustain their gamepass strategy, not taking COD away from playstation to sell more hardware.
Believe what you want though. I really dont think this is going to be the doom and gloom that people are predicting.
Yoboman
Member
When was the last really good Battlefield game though? Battlefield 4 in 2013? Essentially 10 years COD has gone unchecked since then
And you can argue that COD really retained the quality advantage through the PS360 era to early last gen. But then there was no real competition for most of last gen for it
Anyhow, my point isn't that something can come and outsell COD. Its that COD will never drop in sales unless there is an alternative for its userbase to flock to
Mr Moose
Gold Member
They literally made Elder Scrolls 6 "exclusive".
Gravemind
Member
Single player games are a different beast imo. Microtransactions and season passes are big money makers for both COD multiplayer and free to play warzone.
Much less to be made off playstation consumers with single player games like Starfield and Elder Scrolls, which are IPs not even close to the cash cow that COD is. Likely more worth it financially to make those games subscription sellers.
I could very well be wrong, but I really don't see them making COD exclusive. I don't think it would make much sense financially.
Iced Arcade
Member
- Sonys fumbling of the PS3 launch cause xbox go full stream and take a massive lead in north America which in turn Sony to turn into a beast... gamers benefited.
- xbox's arrogance was disastrous for the launch of the XBO, Sony took advantage of it and had massive gain with the PS4. xbox had to take it's lump, reinvent itself and got them to kill kinect, bulk up its abysmal 1st party studios, launch gamepass.
you could use those instead of reaching for a different industry for examples.
feynoob
Banned
A fetish is what others call it. They starved badly.What is this? Fantasy League Gaming Studios? Some gamers out there are way too invested in this.
The difference between that gen and now is that when they turned into "a beast" they did so with funding new games like Gears, Uncharted, etc. Today they are turning into "beasts" by market contraction and consolidation so you're not getting anything new, you're just being made to buy multiple things or get multiple subs to get what you were getting before because it's being sliced up. The football analogy he gave.
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Iced Arcade
Member
you don't think Sony will create new if they start to feel tight competition?
Mr Moose
Gold Member
New 20+M a year selling shooter? No.
bitbydeath
Member
ulantan
Member
No the competition is to buy not to create.
ReBurn
Gold Member
Weird retcon. Sega discontinued Dreamcast because they were going broke, not because of a pending threat from Xbox. Dreamcast was losing money from day 1 and the momentum behind PS2 was rapidly pulling players and third party developers over to the PlayStation platform. As good as the Sega arcade ports and first party games were, without solid third party support to bolster sales the platform was finished and Sega Japan pulled the plug. Once the plug was pulled Sega actively sought to partner with Microsoft to release games on Xbox and released several great exclusives on Xbox.
Iced Arcade
Member
And I said "No real gamer should be cheerleading for any company to dominate"
Warriors definitely want it's favored cooperation to dominate
Warriors definitely want it's favored cooperation to dominate
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Ok buddy. You can keep believing that Sony had nothing to do it with it. Fannies and their delusions.
Platinumstorm
Member
Thank you for the money today ATVI.
Hmm, I think most Xbox gamers just want more games to come to Gamepass.And I said "No real gamer should be cheerleading for any company to dominate"
Warriors definitely want it's favored cooperation to dominate for list wars.
Iced Arcade
Member
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I think both would have created at least some new things regardless. I think overall they were relying on making their existing IPs bigger because of the market contraction.
When your competitor MS decides consolidation of massive IPs instead of creating new is the way to go though I don't think that's necessarily good for new. Once Zenimax was done Sony bought Bungie and the Destiny IP instead of spending that money creating new too. Consolidation isn't about creating new things, its slicing up what's already there.
MS decided this is a good route to take for their business but I'm not so sure it's the best for 'new' or competition. It would have been best if that investment wasn't about chopping up or restricting existing games/IP.
But not ESO. That's why warzone, at least, will never be exclusive
Mr Moose
Gold Member
Who gives a shit about things already released?
I don't like BR games, waste of SSD space.
SteelCurtain 59
Member
Sony can offer a 10-year deal to Microsoft for GTA. I'm sure Microsoft can come up with a GTA competitor in 10 years
I like GTA way more than COD but from a financial standpoint if COD went Xbox exclusive and GTA went Playstation exclusive that would be a massively slanted trade towards Xbox. GTA is a generation defining game every 6-10 years where COD would be the best selling game basically every other year. Obviously would be a massive lose-lose for gamers though
Not a chance. I'll leave the sharing of wacky theories to @SenjutsuSage
I have shame, not everything that pops into my head needs to be said or written down.
Nothing to do with money exchanging hands at all.
"The CMA simply acted to give an image of impartiality and independence from Sony in its decision, but it had already decided to block using another reason (cloudgaming?)"
Is correct?
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Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
True Crime was actually really good. A proper AAA would be fantastic!
They could decide that as soon as the deal gets final approval and everything is signed, just like Bethesda. "We looked at this carefully on a case-by-case basis and it just made sense for us to just embrace PC, Switch and Xbox console gamers..."
Like Peter Moore before them!
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Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Yes. Sony does have the COD marketing deal until 2024 or 2025 I think. So nothing will happen before that.
But after that, yes, absolutely possible.
StreetsofBeige
Member
Depends if Sony took the 10 year offer from MS. It was offered. Up to them to take it or leave it.
PaintTinJr
Gold Member
That's how I've read the document too.
Microsoft have every incentive to foreclose with CoD despite a billion dollar loss for at least 5years because they've probably been losing 3 or 4 times that amount for the last 2 decades funding Xbox if they counted the entire balance of losses to gains, so another $5billion is nothing to achieve what they've tried to achieve for years, especially when they could afford an easy $2-3b loss from this deal if it gets blocked.
IMO, the CMA know that Microsoft can and will endure losses to take control of the high end gaming market, but they are forced to only use things they can substantiate by the facts present. Their updated provisional facts don't support a strong argument that the merger creates a SLC in the "console" market. But they state this doesn't resolve the SLC in the cloud space, like you say.
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RickMasters
Member
Is it financially viable for them to do so, though? are they capable of spending upwads of 20Bn on a publisher? are they capable of outbidding MS, or any othe rpotentially interested party? We have so many armchair accountants who insist that they do, But elsewhere it says sony have given the PS division 5BN in spending from now till 2025. Then others are saying they have secretly bought square or already have secretly bought take 2 (both of which just sound bizzare because you cant aquire companies that are worth millions without a single person noticing or reporting on it).
"If they can hold Madden and FIFA for ransom when MS decides to take CoD away from PlayStation, they can at least guarantee mutually assured destruction and that's the best outcome Sony can hope for."
this is Outlandish and pretty far fetched. there is no "mutually assured destruction" when one company (MS) is so much larger than the other (sony) that they could basically aquire playsation if sony was for sale and japanese government permitted it. ...... Thats a bidding war that amounts to a one sided ass whoopin'. There is no world where sony can outbid or out spend MS for aquisitions.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Sony would be fools to not at least take a 10 year offer in this changed situation, but I'm willing to bet that's off the table now. Sony might only have CoD until 2024 or 2025? That's literally next year.
MS are laughing. They got everything they could have possibly wanted from this. They will have the blessing of national governments to crush Sony and monopolize the gaming industry for the rest of time.
I'm still somewhat baffled that they stopped Nvidia from acquiring ARM, but this deal is allowed to sail through like nothing is wrong. Amazing. If I was Jensen Huang I would be fuming right now, Jensen almost had ARM in the palm of his hand and the regulators yanked it away.
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RickMasters
Member
You are baffled because you don't understand either deal well enough to have an informed opinion.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Wrong. I understand it better than you do.
Nvidia offered to maintain ARM's independence and fair licensing to everyone in perpetuity as part of their deal. Not 2-3 years. Not 10 years. Perpetuity.
And they still got told to kick rocks by the same regulators who will allow MS to take CoD away from PlayStation anytime in the next 1-10 years.
RickMasters
Member
They can have square. they have practically been a second partyy sony studio isince the 90s....I wont miss them....but I would hate for snoy to aquire sega as a long time die hard sega fan. They are the last company I would ever want to see aquire sega. I would rather nintnendo aquired them as their games seem a good fit on their consoles...or MS aquite them because after the DC died, the xbox became my new 'dreamcast' (at first, what with panzer dragoon, jet set radio, gun valkerie and sega GT.... it seemed like sega was trying to migrate its fans to xbox at the time, and was one of the key factors in getting the OG xbox along with halo (because it was halo...the first time round!) and PGR...which was basically MSR 2. I still have a massive collection of sega games on xbox, so no....I never want to see sony aquiure sega...as a sega fan.
Andodalf
Banned
get help
DrFigs
Member
LOL, no, I have not affirmed anything, I was only indicating "" the possible theory of the conspiracy that GHG thinks but is ashamed to affirm in public
.I don't go into theories. I believe that today's events present the situation very favorable to MS .... but that the final approval does not yet exist. We have to keep waiting to have a final answer and close this thread that has been a real roller coaster
RickMasters
Member
That licensing is your comparison for the two deals says otherwise.
StreetsofBeige
Member
Questionable acquisitions happen all the time. And MS buying Activision is peanuts compared to other ones.
You got telcom companies combining. The latest one is Rogers buying up Shaw which will finalize any time now. It also took a few years of regulation reviews, but it'll go through.
In Canada, you also got crazy deals. Loblaws bought Shoppers Drug Mart. The biggest grocer bought the biggest drug chain. So what happened after that was Metro bought a French company called Jean Coutu. They are the #3 and #2 grocer and drug chain. And then a giant wholesaler (ya a wholesaler) called McKesson bought Rexall which is the #3 drug chain. Then in response to all of that Sobeys (the #2 grocery chain) bought out a regional grocery chain called Longos. So it all consolidated in 10 years of wheeling and dealing. And it all went through smoothly.
DrFigs
Member
It's just unfortunate. Even still I don't really think this acquisition was as bad as Facebook/Instagram or Disney/Fox. But it's up there.
sainraja
Member
That's not really true, though. You can check what is written on their website. In one of the FAQ questions, Xbox is mentioned by name. If they were to do anything different, it would be a reversal of what they have actually said vs being "iffy" about it or saying it is a case-by-case thing.
The question isn't necessarily will they or won't they... if you are doubtful, the only question really is, what will influence them to do a 180 on what they have clearly stated.
PaintTinJr
Gold Member
LOL, no, I have not affirmed anything, I was only indicating "" the possible theory of the conspiracy that GHG thinks but is ashamed to affirm in public
I don't go into theories. I believe that today's events present the situation very favorable to MS .... but that the final approval does not yet exist. We have to keep waiting to have a final answer and close this thread that has been a real roller coaster
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