The point of Jim’s argument wasn’t intended to be a rational one imho. He made the claims he did because he has to make them as part of his job. He knows full well they are bogus. All the energy ppl are using to debunk them miss the point behind why he made the claims.
He couldn’t possibly have said anything else in his position. He can’t say the deal was adequate or more than adequate (which everyone knows it was), because Sony’s position from a negotiation pov is to see what agreements the regs can force upon MS first and admitting the offer was ‘fine’ would completely negate any reason for regs to bother investigating as the lone dissident party would be satisfied. It’d also be beyond stupid for Jim Ryan and Sony to accept ANY presumptive deal at all prior to the regs finalizing the concessions. Let the regs get baseline concessions first and THEN it makes sense for Sony to come to the table and see what they can get.
Only after those concessions are set in place will Sony strike a deal. I don’t just mean due to legally MS not being able to ink such deals til they own ABK here, I mean it doesn’t make sense for Sony to sign anything until they first see how far out the regs force MS to agree to put CoD on PSX systems. Jim’s statements don’t reflect what he imagines is a sound argument, they reflect him doing his job as a man desperate to look like he is fighting to keep CoD on PSX so he doesn’t get replaced.
I agree 100%. He literally can’t say anything else. They make far too much money off COD to just be like “eh it’s fine, we’ll be fine”. And conceding that would be signaling your user base that plays COD “go ahead and switch platforms”. He is trying to appease his users and stockholders at the same time.
This is how I feel. While I sort of understand the business excuses, it reminds me of how much I fucking hate corporate, for profit, “profiteering” models above all (especially basic human needs). We, as a species, could do so much more. Yet…money/profits.
This is pretty Tame compared to what would have happened during the Kutaragi Days. Father of Sony would have gone Mafia Style gangster to try and block deal.
Find me a source that states forever…
No business will ever state they will offer X forever, it will be for X years, then they will renegotiate for another X years.
I think you are referring to this:
Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward
I doubt it. Xbox at this point will have a whole strategy figured out for Call of Duty rooted in what makes the most sense for them, whether it’s bringing customers to Xbox using Call of Duty as an exclusive or profiting by keeping Call of Duty multiplatform. They’re probably not going to change this to spite Jim Ryan for something he said, they’re a business after all and Call of Duty alone is a billion dollar franchise. Especially when future acquisitions could be affected by these sorts of decisions.
I mean there’s different interpretations and then there’s being told in black and white the opposite to those interpretations multiple times and still ignoring them through blind ignorance.
Return #sigh
I was using standard business terminology, considering I deal with contracts in my daily work life.
Contract negotiation would happen after whatever X years they both agree, you don’t agree a contract ‘forever’ or in perpetuity as you suggested. At no point did I say Microsoft would be in a weak position either, it would be Sony trying to negotiate the duration and any monetary values (if applicable) with whatever Microsoft present them.
It could be that they can’t come to a future arrangement.
Interesting. I dont recall anyone pointing out the offer was only for 3 years back in January. Ever since Jim Ryan ran his mouth 7 months later i’ve seen a lot of backpeddling.
Quite literally posters swearing blindly Call of Duty will release on Playstation indefinitely (their words) are now claiming “Of course its only 3 years”
There wont be a negotiation. Because you dont negotiate for games that arent releasing on a platform. Likewise Microsoft doesnt need a contract to continue releasing CoD on Playstation…they just would.
Thats the neat thing about a contract…you dont have to renegociate your position or the contracts means nothing.
Microsoft is offering 3 years because thats all they cared to offer.
Probably an offering recommended by the lawyers to push this deal through successfully.
They could have offered 10 or 25 years which is a lot closer to “indefinitely” then 3 years…but its a lot closer to “nothing really”.
Well yeah, I think that goes without saying at this point. Microsoft have plans looking ahead but they are always going to change to reflect changes in the industry. But for now - they have a plan and I think they’re going to stick to it. I mean, if their plan is to have CoD on Playstation to better profit off the franchise they’re not going to suddenly not want that extra billion dollars just to spite Jim Ryan. Same goes if it is exclusive.
I could see Microsoft going either way with Call of Duty in the future. Pulling CoD for the final years of a console generation won’t make any sense so unless 2027 is the last current gen version, I’d expect at least one more extension. Generally if you’re going to make a decision to remove a major IP from a platform, its best to announce it early in a generation to reap the most reward and limit the short term financial impact.
After that, all bets are off. As of today, we don’t know:
What percentage of Call of Duty players will be on Playstation in 2028. This current gen we may see far more multi-ecosystem gamers since Microsoft is making it easy and affordable to jump into Xbox as an addition to PlayStation. CoD on Game Pass will almost assuredly pull multi-ecosystem gamers away from PlayStation.
How easy it will be to develop for the PS6
The rate of adoption for cloud gaming
Whether next gen consoles launch at the same time
Whether Sony follows a traditional console route
What percentage of the market consoles will make up
Ultimately I believe the most important exclusives will be streaming and subscriptions. CoD being on Game Pass Day One with marketing to support it will change the industry. That’s the main mission. Rest of this are just side quests.
Ah yes random ‘posters’ clearly have more insight on what Microsoft will do then Microsoft themselves… It’s so obvious now, thank you for that useful insight.
It doesn’t matter what terminology they use whether that be: years to come, in future, 3 years or continue to support. They have made it clear they won’t be making it exclusive in the short term.
Why would a company provide a contract requiring them to offer X in 25 years when:
They don’t know if the studio will still want to make X
They don’t know if X will still be financially viable in 25 years
They don’t know what the competition for X is in 25 years
If there is still demand for X in 25 years
What the market situation is with PS is in 25 years (maybe Apple own them and expand PlayStation).
They could basically be signing away bucket loads of cash for no reason, there’s no business logic there at all, therefore they couldn’t offer it for that long.
It’s clear they offered it to appease regulators and yes eventually they may make it exclusive but it’s clearly no time soon when they have said it multiple times!
