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[WSJ] Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision's Existing Contractual Agreements

assurdum

Banned
Assurdum way:

this-is-fine.0.jpg
MonarchJT way
liga endesa basketball GIF by ACB
 
Microsoft didn’t spend 70 billion dollars on something that won’t come to fruition for 5-10 years. They could have purchased square, capcom, EA and Take2 instead.
 

assurdum

Banned
I'm smiling from 48h
I suggest a good therapist. I mean see all those cringe posts because someone can't play anymore the same games in another platforms, it's really worrying and sad at the same time. Console war really screw some minds.
 
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You don't spend $70 billion to cut off 80% of the revenue from the IP that mainly drove that value to $70 billion in the first place.

You don't spend $70 billion to play chicken with the largest gaming publisher in the world only to tell your investors in a subsequent conference call that nearly an entire year's worth of COMPANY WIDE (all of Microsoft's) operating cash flows is completely wiped out because we want Sony to blink first and it will happen very soon! Just you wait!
Huh? None of this will happen if CoD goes exclusive.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
I suggest a good therapist. I mean see all those people rejoice because someone can't play anymore their same games in another platforms, it's really worrying and sad at the same time.
isn't me that I'm don't wanna accept reality )
i suggest you to buy an Xbox
 

assurdum

Banned
isn't me that I'm don't wanna accept reality )
i suggest you to buy an Xbox
I suggest to you to get a life. Really. You are not payed to promote XBX stuff. Only a sad person as you can think there is something of good to private Sony fan to AAA games just because you hate so much the brand.. That's pathological and unhealthy. I can even live without a ps5 thanks to the pc. No way a give a penny to MS for such move.
 
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Hugare

Member
I have a PS5 only, but this is hilarious

Sony port begging. This is something else.

Lets be honest: Microsoft paid 70 billion for Call of Duty + Blizzard. Which is insane. No other franchise from Activision would be trully missed by most people.

Shows how much COD is still relevant, and why Sony is so hurt now
 

MonarchJT

Banned
I suggest to you to get a life. Really. You are not payed to promote XBX stuff.
I'm saving money by subtracting 9.99 from the 82 euros I would have spent on each PlayStation game. I see that all these discussions affect you personally ... relax and take it as a game .. in the real life I would give you a pat on the back and offer you a beer telling you that everything will be fine
 

assurdum

Banned
I'm saving money by subtracting 9.99 from the 82 euros I would have spent on each PlayStation game. I see that all these discussions affect you personally ... relax and take it as a game .. in the real life I would give you a pat on the back and offer you a beer telling you that everything will be fine
You know there are people are against subscription service so stop to promote MS is embarrassing now.
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
Clickbait thread title


Of course Microsoft will honour existing contracts. After that though….
After that, then what? Does Sony stop selling consoles in the interim? Does upcoming Spiderman and similar marquee titles fail to move units? When does the major catalyst for PS base shift to Xbox occur?



Huh? None of this will happen if CoD goes exclusive.

Where does COD revenue come from after hypothetical game pass exclusivity? Does development budget for an exclusive COD get determined before or after it is known how many PS players are able to be converted?
 

MonarchJT

Banned
Sometimes I suspect behind your desktop there is someone like him
despicable me idiot GIF
don't go so low insulting people personally every time someone responds to you in kind...nobody does it with you. As I said after this acquisition you should disconnect from the forum for a while maybe it is better
 
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NewYork214

Member
All I read that as, is there is some contract l. which makes sense since sony has been the main advertiser for CoD.


I swear gamers are just as pathetic and tribalistic as the people who act like there political party was sent from God to save the world. While in reality neither the companies or the politicians give a fuck about you personally.
 

Darsxx82

Member
It sounds like a damage control attempt to prevent or delay the decision of which console to buy from potential PS5 buyers.
Keep hope to its users that everything will stay the same and that MS bought Activision to stay the same. Which is hardly believable.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
In what way I'm obsessed 🤣 I just point out to you how perpetually hysterical you are about anything "negative" relative to PlayStation. Buy a pc and an XSX and go on with your life if you can't stand such tension for the ps5.
Oh please. You are sticking your head in the sand, baghdad bobbing any bad news about playstation, defending Jim Ryan of all people, and been saying losing CoD is no big deal. A classic case of fanboy denial. But I chose to read those posts of yours and ignore them like normal people would, instead of writing some pathetic meta-commentary about other users like an obsessed teenage girl on facebook.

If you're getting triggered by criticism of Jim Ryan then perhaps gaf is not the forum for you. Try Playstation blog comments or Playstation era discord channels where like minded snowflakes will never challenge your views and never say anything bad about daddy Jim.
 

Neo_game

Member
I think it was same with Bethesda games like Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo so their contract with Activision till 2023 ? will not get affected by this.
 
This feels Ill advised. The existing contracts thing isn’t even in doubt, Microsoft already said it, but they’ve made themselves sound like they’re panicking, which they probably are tbh.

Maybe we’re entering a new era where Sony has to try and cosy up - bit of a swift fall though, and a little premature.

I wonder how their negotiations to keep Final Fantasy games off Xbox are going?
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
For someone who comes to a video game forum LARPing about being someone actually working in the industry, you really don't know how things work do you.
Perhaps not, but I do know how question marks work.

Now instead of being snarky, care to explain your position? Does Fortnite not make money as a free to play battle royal via MTX?
 

THEAP99

Banned
Same deal as Bethesda

Contracts abided by until they expire and then nothing. Though I wonder how long these contracts are into the future. They could've signed something for the next 4 cod games..
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
This is clever by Sony, they have to say something like this to ensure they keep damage to a minimum. Your not going to say 15 months before it signs off that you expect games to not come to PlayStation. You’re pretty much shooting an entire years worth of console sales in the foot.

They have to act like nothings going to happen for the sake of their sales for the next year.
 

Concern

Member
What are you talking about? The contracts literally were called into question in another thread where SOny has actually made a statement. There is information on their market deal with COD that it was re-uped in 2019 and their deals are for 4 years?

Everything in my previous post is true about Jade's new game which was early prototyped back when she was with Google/Stadia, GG is working on a shooter of sorts with lead designer from Rainbow six siege go look it up. Factions has been in the works for a while and expanded we know this from literally official news.

You and others are "LOL" at the fact your think Sony doesn't know how reliant they are and have been on games like COD? You also think that Sony losing a game like this is the end of them? When history has shown they were fine without these games. Just means they will rely on other revenue streams and double down like they have on more internal revenue similar to Nintendo.

The knee jerk threads that are getting made are what they are, reactions.

Do I think SOny will react? In a sense yes. But do I think they are going to knee jerk react on something that wasn't already in play and being worked on? No.


More assumptions lol. Point out where I said "sony is doomed" or this is the "end" of them.

Calling people clowns and insulting them because they don't entertain silly takes only shows you have no valid argument. Its been announced Sony is working on some mo games.

Still no telling how far off they are and if you think a new ip will compare to a juggernaut like cod, you're just further embarrassing yourself. The market for mp is obviously there. Its on Sony to deliver tho. Which idk if they can specifically for a cod replacement. Remember when Socom tried? It died
 

Sleepwalker

Gold Member
Not my post however this actually makes sense and comes from someone who actually knows what they are saying, disregardinf fanboyism

"
Thats a pretty specifically worded statement that if it came from Sony directly (which the WSJ claims) was likely vetted by legal and PR teams before being made. They didn't reference a contractual agreement to blow smoke, as doing so is investor fraud and one of the few white collar crimes actually enforced (because executives can lie to you and me but they sure as fuck can't lie to the investor class).

My guess is that the co-marketing deal is through the end of the generation or some similar term and Sony knows that between the 12-18 month review and approval process and the existing co-marketing deal that CoD being exclusive to Xbox isn't a PS5 problem, its a PS6 problem, i.e. half a decade down the road.

Potentially the same for Overwatch. Blizzard was selling franchise licenses to speculative owners and there is a high likelihood those speculators had contractual language ensuring a broad base for the IP. The market value of an e-sports franchise that isn't playable by the current market leader's audience isn't going to be of the same net value as it was when universally multi-platform.


Anti-trust isn't just about top line market share. A lot of older industries are regulated by regions, market segments, etc.. My company was denied purchase of a competing facility owned by the national market leader that runs entirely thanks to a cooperative deal we have in place, with 90% of its "product" being from our front line and into our end facilities because we were far and away the market leader in the county (not state, though we're that too, just not by as much) for those services.

If MS catches a savvy and progressive assessment team they could pretty easily make a worthwhile case that Microsoft adding Call of Duty and Overwatch to Halo, DOOM, and Gears would provide a significant market advantage in online/competitive shooter space specifically and in the FPS genre at large, both significant segments of the market.

Thats what anti-trust really amounts to. Does the team catching this at the FTC have the perspicacity to split these hairs, the desire to do so, and if so does the argument hold merit enough for a judge to agree.

If the FTC team on this decide to go after it they'd be able to make some real lop sided looking pie charts within specific segments of the VG industry. They probably won't as the FTC are largely a bunch of old heads who don't get IP power at all, but who knows, Biden's admin claims they're turning things around.


Depends on the terms. For something like Activision and CoD, where CoD is basically all they currently make under the main Activision banner and they have an extensive co-marketing deal Sony could pretty easily:
1. let MS violate the terms.
2. see a CoD release as an Xbox exclusive despite existing contract requirements being violated.
3. argue that damages caused irreparable harm to the Sony brand.
4. require that future CoD releases would only increase the harm and therefore a stay on all future CoD releases is required.
5. Literally make up a mythological number for damages that MS would then be obligated to pay.
6. MS can then either pay Sony billions and go back to honoring the contract or appeal/challenge repeatedly, likely ultimately still lose, and not get to make any money off CoD until its resolved.

We've had multi-billion dollar copyright infringement cases in recent history for the smartphone sector (Samsung caught quite a few specifically) over things with less demonstrable damage than pulling the #1 selling game off a platform despite a contract requiring the exact opposite.

But MS' executives would never intentionally violate a contract like that because while they wouldn't "go to jail" they would massively fuck up the operations of the trillion dollar company and a multi-billion dollar division within it that they've been entrusted with running.

And because they aren't absolute fucking morons."

copium.gif
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And why wouldnt MS honour contracts?

Deathloop still came out. And it released 1 year after the Bethesda/MS deal was announced.

Last night, one of these threads said there's supposed to be a COD deal for 4 years ending in 2023. If that's the deal, then PS gamers will still get COD this year and next year at minimum. So no need to fear MS is going to yank all Activision games today at the stroke of midnight.

It's not like Minecraft and Bethesda games have disappeared. For any brand new games not under contract for the future, who knows what games still get released or not on competing systems. Nobody knows the exact details except MS.
 

ManaByte

Member
Still no telling how far off they are and if you think a new ip will compare to a juggernaut like cod, you're just further embarrassing yourself. The market for mp is obviously there. Its on Sony to deliver tho. Which idk if they can specifically for a cod replacement. Remember when Socom tried? It died

Sony has IPs like SOCOM and Killzone they could've been developing into massive MP IPs. But since the PS4 launch until now they relied on a third-party publisher (Activision) to provide the big MP shooter for their console every year, while MS was building up Gears and Halo in addition to having COD, Battlefield, R6, etc. Now Activision is gone and their #1 selling game every year is going with it, and they don't have a SOCOM or Killzone waiting to fill that void. Maybe if they start right now they can have a MP only SOCOM ready for 2024 when COD is exclusive.
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
The game made $5 billion in 2020. That's more than most paid games make.
Great we both agree that Fortnite is a highly successful franchise.

Hallelujah we have finally found common ground. Time to pop the champagne!

Ok now the next question is this: As a game pass subscriber, are you ok with all of your games being developed under the free to play MTX model? This is not an inherently good or bad thing, just personal preference. Also, are your fellow comrades such as Riky Riky clarky clarky MOTM MOTM (although I'm pretty they're all the same person) fans of an MTX-only future under Game pass? Go ahead and cast votes amongst yourselves then get back to me.
 

DavJay

Member
Sony and Nintendo must merge to defeat Xbox. MS got some of the biggest franchises at their disposal. Halo, Gears, Forza, Elder Scroll, Starfield, Fallout and now Call of Duty. I think it’s too much and Microsoft ensured victory in the USA if they play their cards correctly and make everything Xbox/PC only.
 

MOTM

Banned
Great we both agree that Fortnite is a highly successful franchise.

Hallelujah we have finally found common ground. Time to pop the champagne!

Ok now the next question is this: As a game pass subscriber, are you ok with all of your games being developed under the free to play MTX model? This is not an inherently good or bad thing, just personal preference. Also, are your fellow comrades such as Riky Riky clarky clarky MOTM MOTM (although I'm pretty they're all the same person) fans of an MTX-only future under Game pass? Go ahead and cast votes amongst yourselves then get back to me.
A gazillion games have been developed and released straight to Gamepass day one, from Indies to AAA. Gaming has never been better.

Would have ignored you for such a stupid take but there's your response.
 
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