@TavishHill I always liked to see your input on this acquisition! Has your opinion of the chances of the deal going through change or are you still optimist? I remember Hoeg saying in its “MS union neutral video” that the chances of the deal going through increased significantly due to Microsofts stance on unions (I don’t know, maybe going back to 80/20 :v)…but since then he has never brought that point again haha
Edit: I would also like to point that ABK’s market cap value as increase a little bit since las time I saw it (it was 78$) but I dont know if that means anything
And I’m in the opinion that putting out COD from Playstation…just doesn’t make sense.
He was recently on a podcast (breakfast with boom) so I can try and summarize some of his points.
Held at 70/30 simply due to the strange nature of the current FTC setup (aka blocking a Facebook deal that doesn’t seem to hold much water).
Analysts haven’t heard any rumblings of the deal being an issue.
In summery very confident in goes through with a consent decree, Microsoft has already signaled they are happy with multiplat COD concession and have been getting out in-front of the story essentially (publicly stating they want to keep it multi-platform).
Interesting note as well, if it wasn’t for all the political posturing from the FTC it would normally be a 90%. Reiterated Microsoft knows what they are doing here.
Yeah it is undoubtedly that this FTC is unpredictable and they do seem to "hate" big tech. Its a shame Hoeg is not as well verse with other regulators as he is with US regulators. I would really like to see what he thinks about EU, UK and China but I think I've heard somewhere that EU and USA seems to kinda "share" the same opinion (Idas who is an european lawyer on other era said he's confident the deal will go through there so in Idas we trust!) As for the consent decree...yeah I don't see the BIGGEST deal in tech history going easily through just like that. Luckily MS has already done movements to ensure the deal going through smoothly.
Yeah it is undoubtedly that this FTC is unpredictable and they do seem to “hate” big tech. Its a shame Hoeg is not as well verse with other regulators as he is with US regulators. I would really like to see what he thinks about EU, UK and China but I think I’ve heard somewhere that EU and USA seems to kinda “share” the same opinion (Idas who is an european lawyer on other era said he’s confident the deal will go through there so in Idas we trust!) As for the consent decree…yeah I don’t see the BIGGEST deal in tech history going easily through just like that. Luckily MS has already done movements to ensure the deal going through smoothly.
How would consent decrees and mandates of multi-platform be “free market” if PS5 doesn’t post numbers warranting additional development beyond PC and Xbox architecture? Or, can MS push through what they’ve said before that anything they own is multiplatform as long as it’s on gamepass (Android, iOS, TVs, PS, Switch, etc.). Regardless of some of those platforms balking at allowing gamepass/cloud gaming through MS infrastructure or services?
I’ve always felt it was almost a certainty to go through. The one area I felt would be tough for them was CoD exclusivity and it turned out union related matters were important too, but they nailed those both down real fast. With every piece of new info we get it sounds more and more likely. The union stuff definitely seemed to help since the FTC was asking around about the impact on workers, so having union orgs in their corner is huge. Their concession wrt CoD being multiplat seems to have greatly streamlined the process and it seems to be ahead of schedule.
I wouldn’t put a number on the odds. That’d require a Bayesian analysis on lots of info I don’t have and don’t have the expertise to draw meaningful conclusions from even if I did, lol. I’d just say it seems almost certain to go thru.
I don’t think the angle about ‘just let Game Pass exist on PS5!’ is gonna work since it’s a trojan horse that would probably about bankrupt the PSX business. Letting MS come in to sell Sony’s userbase a service that keeps them from playing games in Sony’s ecosystem is probably gonna be seen as an anti-competitive move. PS5 owners would give their cash to MS and not buy anything on Sony’s storefront, which is how Sony makes the vast majority of its revenues.
That’s the reason Sony has no interest whatsoever in having GP on their platform, nor does Nintendo according to Phil. The economics work great for MS but not at all for the other platform holder. I do think Xbox can leverage that framing in how they communicate to gamers tho (i.e. have messaging telling PS5 gamers that they’d let them have CoD etc on GP on PS5 if only big bad Sony would let these customers have what they want!').
I think there could be issues of anti-competitive behavior too were MS to try forcing Sony to bend to their will by leveraging CoD and using it as a cudgel. They won’t do that though, nor would they ever need to. I suspect Xbox will become vastly more potent in the industry than ppl presume even if they changed nothing of the status quo other than absorbing ABK’s revenue streams. And we all agree they will go further than that.
This is not the same SONY that looked to lock Tomb Raider out of none SONY consoles and much the same with Final Fantasy, no issue’s over console choice then.
Sony fans mocked the Xbox One lack of exclusives,the lack of investment with In-House teams and its underpowered GPU. One reap’s what you sow.
Its going to be great to have all the COD games on Gamepass IMO
Playstation fans like to own their games. Hopefully they will own many copies of Crash Bandicoot 5 to convince MS to invest money in buying Playful games…and making them 30 day exclusives!
In the 32Bit Era for Tomb Raider and where we even had CORE design make that dreadful exclusive that Saturn couldn’t handle Tomb Raider 2. And with Square SONY bought a 12 or 17% (think it may have been NCLs old stake) stake in the corp to help make sure FF only appeared on SONY consoles (non PC’s)
Yes ok SEGA did the same and Nintendo/NCL were terrible in the 8 bit days. Its nice to see SONY having some serious comp now
Sony was the big tech conglomerate to Nintendo and SEGA. Undercutting on price. Acquiring devs/pubs. Paying to make content exclusive. Utilizing their large and global distribution channels.
There are several types of Playstation folks. The notable two are - the ones that started in PS1 era and since then live in PS1 era and those that started in Xbox 360 but with PS3 console
Yeah, Sony for Sega/Nintendo was the same as today’s Microsoft for Sony/Nintendo.
I think Nintendo was the worst in 8Bit day really. If you wanted to develop on their console the Fami/NES would couldn’t developer on other’s or you had to have the likes of SEGA, NEC had the game theirself.
I agree with you on SONY. So its nice to see them having a tase of their own medicine
Good guy Sony and their innocent, organic moneyhats…someone think of the Playstation! If they won’t sell 120 million consoles again it will be a disaster for the industry I tell ya! /s
And to think that there are indeed people that say that crap for real.
That’s the crazy thing. Sony entered the gaming market by using their money from other parts of their company, bought up developers, bought a publisher (that had a lot of marketshare for the time), moneyhatted timed and FULL exclusives, negotiated with Universal to have Crash Bandicoot be their mascot because they didn’t have a Sonic or Mario, etcetera, etcetera. Sure, they probably wouldn’t be in gaming if not for a soured relationship with their Nintendo partnership, but that’s irrelevant.
And you know what? None of this is bad! Competition and capatalism, baby.
Yet, somehow, Sony fanboys attack Microsoft for doing these same things with disingenuous arguments or goalposts that constantly move, and at the same time pretend Sony did none of this. It’s a baffling affliction.
Glad to see Microsoft giving Sony a taste of their own medicine. It’s about damn time.
Edit: I just realized you’re probably talking about Sony having their foot on Microsofts neck going for the kill these past few generations, where no media outlet ever called out Sony for constantly and purposefully kicking Microsoft over and over when they were down.
It’s clear as day they tried to extinguish Xbox as competition, lol. And we’re supposed to feel bad for little ol’ Sony after they took away two games from Xbox by Bethesda, one of Microsoft’s biggest partners for over two decades, and almost grabbing a third which happens to be the biggest RPG in the past two decades. All because Microsoft swooped in, knocked that shit down, and took control away from them. Similarly, Sony being extremely aggressive with CoD, far more then Microsofts short timed map packs, and Microsoft swoops in again with the goal of growing Game Pass and assosiating CoD with Xbox. Again, we’re supposed to feel bad for little ol’ Sony. Why, because this is an area where they can’t throw their marketshare around in to bully everyone else?
