Not really, no.
And aside from that, Sony spends hundreds of millions on marketing and advertising. That’s why you see their stuff everywhere, including constant ads on random sites.
Also, I edited my last post with a response to your OtherEra post.
Yeah me either. I will get to it eventually but I’m in no rush. Too me that kind of sums up PS in general this generation. Most of their games will fall into the “value” category: not worth $70 day1 but worth buying at a steep discount down the road. I acknowledge there are going to be essential day1 games like God of War and Spider-Man but everything else is strictly niche budget kinda stuff. And Sony needs to get way bigger to compete as well. We are two years in and coming onto our third holiday. I’m not sure how to even be optimistic about Sony up at this point when they’ve barely revealed any of thier future roadmap. We can only assume the plan is sequels, a few timed exclusives, and remakes.
Which is what I keep trying to tell people
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It sure does. Psychonauts 2 looks fantastic and will always do.
Desire just means PS can have cod post contract if they allow cloud streaming GamePass app on Playstation. No one can force MS to put dev resources into other platform versions when they offer cloud
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Feel like you’re being wilfully obtuse here. Yes they are free to do as they chose but the fact is that Sony in this case are arguing that MS are being anticompetitive whilst demonstrably making anticompetitive moves in the market themselves.
A strategy that is never going to come across well to a regulator.
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Yeah, the problem has never been that Sony isn’t allowed to do these deals, or that they are evil for doing them. Even though, they could have use all the money they wasted into bringing the games to less people, to increase the value for their own customers. It is the fact that Sony is being hypocryte on that, and they know it, and MS has every rights to call them out on that.
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What does not help is that Sony’s offering is worse for the consumer so Sony cannot gain sympathy there - “How dare they prevent games from GP! GP is so good for the consumer!”. Now imagine GP Family Plan launch with CODs and other stuff going there.
People will go outside with banners asking MS to acquire one publisher or another 
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Maybe it’s because im a fan of Xbox and PlayStation in general. Have never been a fanboy or extremist on either side. Will favor whichever platform is my primary for the current generation which for this generation is Xbox Series X but at the same time, I do own a PlayStation 5, I do buy and play games on the console. There’s a few things I prefer on PS5 but there’s also a lot of things I prefer on XSX.
Sony talking to the FTC is them doing what they SHOULD be doing as a company for their business. It’s no different than what Microsoft is doing in response. Sony can pay for full or timed exclusivity but people here need to be honest with themselves, doing this is at a far lower level than acquiring a massive motherfucking AAA publisher like ABK.
Again though, I own both and im not a fanboy/extremist on either side. Both do things that I agree and disagree with but at the end of the day, all I care about is getting excellent exclusive games that I want to play from both sides. Thus far, Sony has given me excellent exclusive games this generation. Outside of Halo Infinite, im still waiting on Microsoft to do the same but I do have confidence that they will because if I didn’t, Series X wouldn’t be my primary gaming console.
In closing, I personally love them fighting and going back and forth. I see it like sports. You want your favorite team to win, don’t you? And you love it when there’s rivalries and your team wins. Of course, this is how I see it and want more. I love Sony attacking Microsoft and Microsoft attacking Sony because it’s exactly what they should be doing.
I don’t want to see them “playing nice” with each other because I know that it’s fake ass bullshit. Both companies will do what is better for them and I have no problem with that whatsoever because if it was me, I would be doing the exact same shit.
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Totally agree. If you have to try to interpret what MS is saying, then they are being purposely vague. They can make it 100% clear but there is no reason to. Business plans can change over the next few years. Why would they box themselves in?
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I completely disagree here. Sony is buying full exclusivities left and right here at a rate that their competition cannot logically do as, Sony being the market leader, can pay a lot less on those deals at a level that MS would be foolish to compete at because they’d have to pay too much to make up for lost sales on the PS side. So Sony is using their market advantage to get cheap deals on exclusive titles, pushing MS back in the corner, hence the big market acquisitions.
If it were fair, the FTC would then have to regulate exclusivity deals imo. And since they won’t, I don’t see any objection in MS playing Sony’s game and start buying exclusivity in a way Sony can’t compete at. At the end of the day both are equal in my book, but one is a more long term approach while the other one is very short sighted and will most likely backfire soon enough.
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I envision several possible scenarios
- Microsoft expected Sony to complain in any case, so everything is just a regular stuff (theatrics)
- Microsoft did not expect Sony to complain and then I guess their attitude towards Sony might change (with MSFT becoming more aggressive)
- Microsoft expected Sony to complain because the negotiations regarding “desire” did not go well
- Microsoft did not expect Sony to complain even after the discussions regarding the “desire”
Still I don’t think that Microsoft was that happy with Sony’s position considering their aggressive response.
There is no scenario where Sony doesn’t display concern over the deal, no matter what happens they would express the concerns for many reasons including protecting their business, Microsoft isn’t dumb either they knew they would do that and if the roles were reversed Microsoft would be doing the same thing.
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Both companies are doing exactly what they should be doing for their business, platform and eco-system. I truly don’t see an issue on either side. Sony pays for timed/full exclusivity and Microsoft counters by acquiring publishers. Neither bothers me.
I don’t have an objection to Microsoft acquiring publishers. In fact, I want them to acquire more because it’s better for me. My only negative with it is that ABK for example is of no interest to me outside of Diablo IV and would prefer a publisher like Ubisoft, WB or EA because I have way more games from all three that im very interested in and in turn, would get more of them in Game Pass compared to ABK.
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Publisher acquisitions would not be required if there were no money-hats.
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I disagree. I think Sony’s response benefits Microsoft because just look at Nintendo with Switch. They’ve never had COD and yet, they’re kicking Sony’s and Microsoft’s asses combined. So if anything, Sony’s response could backfire on them.
Of course, none of this shit matters anyway. The acquisition will go through but until Microsoft’s first party games start getting released from the studios and publishers they’ve acquired, none of this is going to change anything until later on.
Personally, everything Microsoft is doing is more for next generation and beyond than it is for the current generation which is exactly what they should be doing in my opinion.
I think your last point is pretty important - companies like Microsoft make big acquisitions because they’re thinking a decade ahead on these plans. People wonder why they don’t just tear up all the contracts so they can speed up getting new content out when waiting an extra year for Deathloop or waiting 2 year for Call of Duty marketing is nothing in the grand scheme of billion dollar acquisitions.
Agreed.
In regards to those contracts, I believe that Microsoft keeps them intact not just because it would be too much of a hassle to get out of them to where it’s not worth the hassle but also because it fits in with what they say in regards to COD. It will be on PlayStation. It will be multi-platform. It will be supported. Well, if COD MW 2 and Warzone 2 are contracted games then this allows Microsoft to “be nice” by keeping the contracts in tact but long term, can make all future games exclusive because technically, they gave PlayStation COD and with Warzone 2, it would be supported for years to come.
Simply put, Microsoft knows exactly what they’re doing.
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