Phil Spencer on Sony - They protect their dominance by making Xbox smaller

Yeah the market leader needs to be protected from innovation

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So basically, stay out of touch.

It’s a balancing act of when you transition to a new model that might (likely) temporarily decrease your profits for future gain. It’s also less easy to take those sorts of risks when the business is your primary bread winner.

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Right, it’s like we are living in the upside down if this deal doesn’t go through. Gaming is my favorite hobby, I want the industry to grow and innovate. Sony is not just anti gamer but also anti gaming industry. I really don’t see how PlayStation doesn’t become the pariah of the industry after this.

Throw CDprojectRed under the bus, throw Microsoft under the bus, throw Activision under the bus, charge a “Sony tax” on cross play which is holding back live service games, feud with EA over EAplay, feud with Roblox, (rumor) sabotage Sega with bribes keeping Yakuza exclusive…

really that brings up a larger point of just holding back Japan AAA in general; Final Fantasy being exclusive holds it back, Street Fighter being PlayStation exclusive held it back (street fighter 6 is going to be much bigger without that Sony anchor around its neck), Souls being exclusive held it back, if Elden Ring was exclusive it would’ve been disastrous for From in comparison to being multiplatform… anyway just felt like ranting :laughing: modern Sony is annoying

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They can do it, but they’re prioritizing game sales because that makes them a lot of money. It’s the traditional way of making money.

This sums up my opinion better than I did. :smile:

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Yeah. Option 1. They cant afford it.

They can definitely afford it, but there’s an unknown risk attached to it and they seem unwilling to take that risk since it would have a greater negative impact on their business as a whole if things didn’t work out.

We might be having a “Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe” type of discussion here. :smile:

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Microsoft bet big on subscription and streaming being the future of the industry. Looking like a decent bet at this point.

Sony decided to bet instead on… VR, I guess?

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PlayStation seems to have also bet big on the popularity of Horizon Zero Dawn being able to carry VR2 which feels like mistake as I don’t think people were really asking for sequels. The majority of gamers were basically content with that game being a one off.

I think the distinction is between “can’t afford it” and “don’t want to make less than the most amount of money they can right now”

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Rant incoming…

I feel like I’ve been making the same points in regards to the ridiculous of Sony’s arguments, and the ridiculousness of the CMA buying their arguments and protecting the market leader… To the point where I’m just spinning tires.

At this point I’m focused on how the largest gaming news outlets are completely silent on how the CMA is interfering with the industry in a hypocritical and even harmful manner. The CMA isn’t feeling any heat at all from consumers and media. The discourse on this topic favours the market leader and the discourse seems to desire a continued market dominance.

I think this is why you’re seeing Phil do this interview. He needs to get talking points out there because no one in the media are making them. It’s a pretty “last ditch” and maybe even “desperate” play because everyone is on the side of the market leader. It really shouldn’t be at this point when you have a mature industry but this industry isn’t that. It’s full of fanboys, trolls, and zealots where a writer for Kotaku will ignore something harmful for the industry because it benefits their platform of choice. These same people restrict the growth of the industry because they view gaming thru a narrow lens. We saw their reaction to the Wii, mobile gaming, and anything new that didn’t exist when they were kids playing videogames.

These regulatory bodies should be roasted and feeling the heat for buying the arguments of the dominant leader over those trying to compete with that market leader (of 30 years).

So I ask: where is IGN? Kotaku? Gamespot? Game Informer? Game Rant?

Are they scared of losing access to Sony? Scared of no longer getting review copies?

The same applies to losing access to MS, these outlets should also be criticizing the deal and both Activision and MS in trying to make it.

Any criticism from the gaming media would be at least more grounded than the CMA’s criticisms. As Nick has brought up time and time again, Brazil’s regulatory body has made some of the best criticisms of the deal. Nothing you’ve seen explored by the game media.

I’ve worked in industries where large companies gobble up smaller companies and there are some valid and legitimate criticisms of it. While it is a sign of maturity in the industry and overall a net positive there are some apparent negatives that I haven’t seen any gaming media outlet cover. One of which being redundancies in staff. The other being the consolidation of projects (we saw it with Activision when all of these various developers became CoD support teams). The other being growth occurring at an unmanageable rate (it’s fair to say that going from one to two big titles a year to potentially 8 to 12 big titles a year will test Microsoft’s ability to market & distribute these games, whether it be title stepping on each other’s toes or fighting for mindshare).

And I think one reason why you don’t see these criticisms from the gaming media is because they simply don’t care enough to make these points. They really don’t care about industry health, they just care about the next AAA title that hits their platform of choice.

Anyways I think it’s time to put some heat on these gaming media outlets. These regulatory bodies don’t care about what you or I think or say, but these gaming media outlets do.

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We know. So mS need to pull out all the stops

He speaks so well. I like to listen to him to pick up tips for speaking, influence, and charisma tips as I want to be an executive and Phil just jumps out as a great speaker

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