OtherEra starting a witchhunt against Mike Rose and accusing him of hating Sony and being a shill.
All because Market Participant E sounds like stuff he’s previously said, lmao.
I’m pretty sure there are dozens upon dozens of developers that share his sentiment, but no, he publicly defaced Sony. He must pay the price! /pitchforks
But seriously, the topic about him from a while back made me embrassed to me a gamer. People leaving him death threats on Twitter without having the brain cells to realize they use the same profile pic and username as on the forum, as if nobody can put 2 and 2 together.
Sony’s paragraph 18 about Minecraft being a single game release is laughable in the face of Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Legends. What’s that? They’re still releasing related games on all platforms including PS?
I saw that, and this is one of the reason why the deal should go through. Sony has brainwashed the entire gaming market so much that its fans or even casual people think its the only brand that matters and that having a compelling competitor as a option is a grave sin and must be protected from other corporations like its their life mission. Its disgusting and this is whats wrong with brand loyalty culture, we don’t hold these corporations accountable.
And those same indie devs have lauded Xbox for its more balanced policies. The people trying to crucify Rose should probably get a reality check - Sony actually having competition to their absolute shit pay-to-play deals, in addition to the general toxic hold they have over the industry (and some regulators apparently), is more beneficial to gamers and creators.
COD exclusivity wouldnt make Xbox outsell Playstation. During the 360 era, where Microsoft had the marketing for COD, runned better, launched earlier,etc PS3 outsold X360 in UK anyway
COD doesnt have the effect you guys think it has. It sells because its available, but people have moved on from COD several years until a comeback to the formula was available. As soon as it moves to being exclusive(it wont happen), people will just move on unless they already are interested in Xbox or PC
No publisher large or small was going to agree with Sony on Activision Blizzard, they would prefer all of ABK games be exclusive to XBOX which would create a vacuum for them to compete. Every publisher knows their main competitor is time itself for the customer’s attention. The less competition you’ve to take up the customer’s attention, the better it’s to gain traction with your product. For instance, COD not being on PlayStation gives Ubisoft the opportunity to grow its games. Microsoft making COD available on more platforms actually kill the competition because according to Sony, COD is the dominant FPS game. The regulators should recognize it would be better for COD to be exclusive on Xbox. COD being exclusive on Xbox would allow other Publisher to grow their FPS games.
I think they just took advantage of the dominant years of the PS4 very effectively and it will be really hard to take that away to have a more even market, not only is their brand the strongest it’s been since the PS2 days but they have far stronger 3rd party partnerships and clearly talking to regulators as well because the status quo benefits them further than it does anyone else, this whole circus with ABK is nothing more than a power move of a dominant market leader to see how much further they can influence the industry, I just hope it doesn’t go their way.
Its ridiculous because this is what regulators should prevent in the first place, which is having a dominant market leader dictating terms of how the market should operate, and having the power to pressure publishers, developers, and even antitrust bodies to do their bidding. This is some Apple/Amazon like behavior they are displaying and they are not even on the level of big tech.
It is precisely because Sony doesn’t really fit the definition of big tech to regulators that they can get away with it or even make regulators believe that they are vulnerable, Sony has probably seen how easy it is to do this with these regulators they are dealing with because they are politically motivated against big corps like Microsoft, the truth is thus deal should’ve passed with the concessions on COD as the biggest requirement, due to Microsoft’s position in the market they shouldn’t be required to have to support every other system out there, it’s ridiculous.
I don’t think it will happen, but I really hope the regulators after ABK is purchased they take a long hard look at what Sony has done in the industry.
I think if they do, they’ll find out what Sony was/is doing isn’t in the best interests of gamers or the video game industry as a whole.
After this clown show from Sony, I dont think MS will keep treating them with the kumbaya mantra of lately. These companies like Google /MS /Apple are pretty lame with each other and I think Sony will start to get some heat from MS with suits here and there.
If regulators prevent big tech or other big companies from investing and growing because “they are big omg, we must weaken them”, companies might as well give up competing because there is no incentive to capture more marketshare anymore, because apparently taking away like 3% of marketshare from other competitors will foreclose them lol, what kind of horsesh*t logic is that?
The 360 outsold the PS3 in 2 markets, maybe more but if they are confirmed I don’t know but those 2 confirmed ones were the UK and USA and in both of those markets the 360 not only outsold but also dominated the PS3, 360 sold 49 million consoles in the US and the PS3 sold 27-29 million and the 360 sold 8.5 million consoles in the UK and the PS3 sold around 5 or 5.5 million (maybe more but I’m certain of the other numbers).
Due to that generation is why Xbox still has a decent market share and the Xbox One still had very respectable numbers in the UK and US by the way, PS4 was dominating the Xbox One in every market but the UK and US last gen but it didn’t reach the 360’s dominance in the UK and US, if that were to happen that would be a disaster for Xbox, Xbox needs those markets far more than PlayStation does, who has the European market pretty much locked, that is what Microsoft should be aiming for with the UK and US IMO because as history shows they can be evenly with PlayStation when they dominate those 2 markets (hell the USA alone would suffice) but that’s gonna be tough these days with how much stronger PlayStation now is.
And about COD, it’s not like I think Xbox would dominate in the UK and US if it was exclusive, even the CMA agrees, the market share would just be like 55/45 in Xbox’s favor, probably the same in the US, PS’s numbers would still be greater than Xbox’s worldwide.
I think these deals should always be looked into very seriously, on the outside the CMA appears to be doing a good job but I think they’ve shown they just want to block and aren’t being reasonable, if COD is so important, will ABK themselves be forced to have to offer it on all other streaming services if they themselves decide to make their own? I don’t get it.
All of the recent facts in this thing, including the 100% support by everyone but the freaking current market leader Sony, totally point to either the CMA doing the right thing or embarrassing themselves with an appeal/overturn by the CAT or another government ministry avenue. There is no way that there is prior precedent of something being blocked where the objective current sales facts of the participants and the support of basically all other industry participants except the market leader makes this logically a deal to pass even with some remedies. Let alone the fact that Sony has done plenty to “foreclose” access to Xbox for certain 3rd party games/content while they sit as the current market leader. The CMA would be wise to choose the path of least resistance by passing this because I think they sit on a throne of lies that will crumble in any other appeal setting, with real questions of what type of influence Sony has with the CMA behind the scenes even coming into play for example as they should.
I’m honestly starting to doubt the CMA’s objectivity about this merger, feels like they were out for blood from the very beginning , and the “divestiture” stuff or the possible behavioral remedy “considerations” are just for show so they can look “objective and fair” before they bring the hammer down. And they are not subjected to any judicial review. I’m all for extra scrutiny with big mergers to prevent actual anticompetitive or monopolistic behavior. But I want it to be objective, backed by facts, and be consistent with the law (sherman act, Clayton act, or the enterprise act in the UK).
