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[Wulfer]

Only for MS.

Once this deal is approved, Google Amazon and other big boys will go shopping around buying big publishers like EA, take 2 and Ubisoft.

Wrong, your not thinking big enough! They'll go shopping for Sony. You don't enter a market to lose when your that big! Sony's just painted "I'm for sale" on its back.

 

[reinking]

Sony now has to ask themselves this: Do they want to accquire major third party studios/publishers or sell the PS division?

Silly talk. People need to stop with the narrative that Sony will consider selling the PS division.

 

[bitbydeath]

Sega was responsible for its own downfall. Microsoft even invested in Sega with the Dreamcast so what you are saying isn't correct. Sega stumbled with how fast they were moving from one product to the next and other factors.

Neither Sony, nor Microsoft are responsible for their downfall but Sega themselves.

That investment is known as Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Where did Peter Moore go after he left Sega?

 

[C2brixx]

This bitch. It's actually sickening. I would've preferred the CMA not even bother with the pump faking if we could avoid self satisfied bullshit like this. Ugh.

Wow, why she got to be all that. She's speaking on behalf of Activision. If this merger was to not go through best believe the relationship with Sony would be strained.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Please.

Convincing microsoft leadership to spend 70 billion in a massive acquisition is not precisely a grand vision.

Because buy cod + blizzard and deny them to rivals is the kind of basic shit fanboys fantasize about.

MS playing Chess while you are all playing rock, paper and scissors.
It's about content to feed the GP monster.
Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in.
They intent to be the biggest name in gaming subscription and they know that getting in on it at this time will put them in a position where no one else can compete. They are building now what will become evident in 10 years time.
Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

 

[Satansblade]

CEO of Microsoft Gaming and can't even get his grammar on-point for a short Tweet when English is his main language.

Embarrassing.

Not quite as embarrassing as your crying over this deal

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

MS playing Chess while you are all playing rock, paper and scissors.
It's about content to feed the GP monster.
Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in.
They intent to be the biggest name in gaming subscription and they know that getting in on it at this time will put them in a position where no one else can compete. They are building now what will become evident in 10 years time.
Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

MS is playng chess without the Queen and the King.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sure, I'm glad you actually replied and did so seriously. So here's what I have to say first about ARM, then about Nvidia.

ARM is not a healthy company. Softbank has been trying to divest, partly because ARM struggles to make a profit, but mainly because Softbank has lost a lot of money in recent years and needs to unload assets as they are bleeding. It was Softbank that shopped ARM around, and it turns out only Nvidia made an offer for that company. ARM is, as you say, essential to the world in much the same way Windows is. But the reality is that ARM was never financially very sound, because the very licensing model which allowed them to become the designs for a vast numbers of the world's microchips also prevented them from profiting from the designs of those very same chips. It's not an exaggeration that the world's successful companies who license ARM designs, including Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, and yes Microsoft, are in many ways leveraging the fact that ARM is perpetually unable to profit from their designs and near bankruptcy all the time in order to make massive profits themselves. ARM is both essential the world's most valuable companies and also simultaneously treated as serfs who give them their essential designs for basically nothing.

Nvidia is, on the other hand, a very healthy company. In the top 10 of the world's most valuable companies by market cap, as it turns out. They have the financial wherewithal to actually own ARM and not be worried about bankruptcy. In terms of what companies could possibly own ARM and pass antitrust muster: There aren't any. That's why when Softbank shopped ARM around, nobody made an offer except Nvidia. Because they knew they would never be able to complete the acquisition. It was a long shot that Nvidia even made an offer, and accepted the scrutiny that resulted. In the end, Nvidia did not acquire, ARM is still perpetually near bankruptcy, and now apparently Softbank are going to through with an attempt at an IPO.

What would be worse for the chip industry? An ARM held by Nvidia, who have made every promise that they will not favor themselves, change the licensing terms, or do anything unfair? Well, that ship has sailed. So what we have now is an ARM which continues to struggle to survive even though their chip designs are in over 2 billion devices around the world, which is a a patently absurd state of affairs. Softbank really thinks they will IPO it, and get this, ARM is now trying to shore up their finances to look better for IPO by asking Qualcomm et. al to pay a licensing fee based on value per device sold instead of per chip sold. A chip probably sells for $10-40, a device sells for a minimum of $100 and most flagship phones sell for $1000+. So guess what, everyone's now looking at terms which are worse than they would have faced from an ARM being owned and subsidized by Nvidia by orders of magnitude. Quite ironic for the chip industry, wouldn't you agree? Qualcomm and everyone probably shouldn't have objected to the Nvidia acquisition, now ARM is demanding a fair share of profits so they can make a profit and look good for an IPO.

Just curious, why was ARM doing so bad. If they are essential what's up with the bad revenue strategy? Why is their licensing deal so bad if it's so important? Jack up the prices????

Typically big successful chip makers make tons of money and profits unless it's perhaps one of those once every 10 year market downturns. But under normal course of business they have high margins and make bank. This goes for semiconductors too. When I dabbled with Maxim Integrated, those kinds of companies made tons of profit.

 

[feynoob]

Wrong, your not thinking big enough! They'll go shopping for Sony. You don't enter a market to lose when your that big! Sony's just painted "I'm for sale" on its back.

They can't buy Sony due to national security.

 

[Nubulax]

Activision gives Microsoft an injection of competent management into it's gaming division. The Activision side should be able to get the rest of Xbox on track again after the years of hands off management

Oh ya.... the ACTIVISION management should do the trick...... .... would this be the same management that messed up so hard that the reason they are for sale was BECAUSE OF THEM

 

[FoxMcChief]

Very good day. RE4 and the merger in the bag.

 

[Satansblade]

That’s not true. Sega couldn’t compete once MS entered the scene. Had nothing to do with Sony.

That is completely, factually untrue.

 

[Satansblade]

Oh ya.... the ACTIVISION management should do the trick...... .... would this be the same management that messed up so hard that the reason they are for sale was BECAUSE OF THEM

That had nothing to do with management of games.

Man, theres some MAD fanboys in this thread

 

[In Cold Blood]

I think a square acquisition has already been in the works. Slimming down cutting out studios, exclusive deals, CEO's stepping down

It could be, but Sony would be aware of exactly what Square has in the pipeline for the next 5 years. Forspoken bombed, and you have Square doubling down on NFT and Block chain. If Sony bought them they would have to pay the 1000 employees wages, and if the next 5 years is full of rubbish from Square, it would be a terrible buisness decision, especially when Sony already gets their games exclusively now any way.
I think Sony knows things we don't know.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

They should have made it all about Activision and got MS to say that all Activision games will be on PS.

Activision is only CoD at this point

I don’t get what point you’re trying to make. This CMA change of face let’s them do whatever they want now, Sony doesn’t have any bargaining even if they had argued differently

 

[Alex Scott]

They already bought Bungie for $3B as a reactionary purchase.

As for the other big name companies around, you got a slew of Japanese companies and UBI all around $5-10B. EA is worth $32B and T2 is $20B.

Like all acquisitions, they'd have to offer around a 30% premium to make any company consider taking it. The only time you get acquisitions dirt cheap is if the company getting acquired is in a desperate situation an they sell for a bargain premium like 5% or even sometimes you see 0% (the company is down in the dumps and losing crazy money and will take any offer).

But I dont think any of the remaining big game companies are in that situation. So EA would go for around $45B and T2 $26B to even get a sniff.

Bungie will remain multiplatform. If they don't then regulators won't trust Sony anymore.

Sony gains nothing by buying Japanese publishers. Only thing Sony would be getting is a permanent guarantee that their games remain on PS platform.

EA would go for 50+ billion and T2 might be higher because of GTA 6 hype.

Either way Sony only has two choices.

 

[RickMasters]

I'm actually in agreement with you. However Sony has no options left if Microsoft is basically allowed to buy the industry up to crush PlayStation.

Well, there is one option, but the Japanese government would never allow it. If Sony would begin to shop themselves around for acquisition, they could survive as a part of a much larger company. A company like Apple, which has previously tried and failed to break into gaming, would probably be very interested in acquiring Sony for instance. However, as I said, Japan's government would never allow such an acquisition, at least not now while Sony is still apparently healthy.

As an independent company, I rate Sony's likelihood of survival around 50/50. It is more likely that they will be slowly starved of content by Microsoft as other Western studios and publishers are acquired one by one, and only on the brink of bankruptcy will they be acquired for pennies on the dollar by someone like Apple. By then it will already be too late for the gaming industry, Microsoft will control it as thoroughly as they control computer operating systems with Windows today.

I think Amazon would be a good fit. Apple not so much because their hardware price would be subject to apple tax. Though a console with an M2 ultra CPU would be pretty damn powerful. If overpriced….


There’s always tencent…..


Long term I don’t see Sony getting out of the game. Though I think there will be some serious adjustments over time. PS earns them more money than any of their traditional markets ( TVs, audio equipment, movies, music etc) they would more likely spin off one of their other divisions to keep PS in the fight than sell PS to stay in those other business that make them less money. Nintendo survives as a games and games hardware only company. Perhaps Sony could make that transition too one day…… but I think it would be painful to let go of the music or
Movie,to free up cash for the games division…. Or the TV division… or maybe they double down on their own subscription service and make it available on PC to to go toe to toe with gamepass…… maybe they put their GAAS games everywhere to try and shore back some of the revenue they will lose long term due to no longer having that marketing affinity with COD.






There future is deffo one of a content platform and the games console will be the center of their business until it’s no longer viable or cloud gaming matures to a point where the experience is a lag free and image quality wise on par with playing from native hardware . Beyond that I find their lack of enthusiasm for subscription services very telling of what their future may look like. They could just as easily survive as a content company that makes great TVs and audio gear. But I don’t see them winning bidding wars for publishers without freeing up more money than they might be willing to free up at the expense of their other departments…. They need investments too. They have their R&D costs too. Must be tricky to balance those costs against unpredictable bidding wars and the fast changing gaming business and even faster changing consumer habits which they seem reluctant to accept…… Even their GAAS plans are years behind everybody else’s.

 

[Satansblade]

I think they might consider going this route

Cash it out (50-60B$+), letting the other big fish handle the headache while having $$ to buy Bandai Namco and making it Sony’s official venture into gaming

Look guys, I made up this ridiculous scenario in my head and totally think it’s real!

 

[trintrop]

Sony now has to ask themselves this: Do they want to accquire major third party studios/publishers or sell the PS division?

I'm sorry but Sony selling the division, well that's nonsense. Guerrilla games now 2 teams, SSM rumored to be now 2 teams, Insomniac now 3 teams, ND now 2 or 3 teams. Heavy hitters. I'm pretty sure Sony will continue to consolidate but they already have a very strong expanding first party.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

You can say this when it actually happens and MS aren’t in last place. You and Pachter are delusional.

People will play games they want to play wherever they are. If I want to play Spider-Man 2 and it’s not on a sub service, guess what? I’m buying the game. GamePass being available also doesn’t change this fact

Sony, Nintendo, and third parties aren’t going the way of blockbuster just because MS has the money to throw around subsidizing a service

 

[Wulfer]

They can't buy Sony due to national security.

Sony will willingly merge with someone or try to get bigger and fail. In Cold Blood just told you why...

 

[mansoor1980]

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Just curious, why was ARM doing so bad. If they are essential what's up with the bad revenue strategy? Why is their licensing deal so bad if it's so important? Jack up the prices????

Typically big successful chip makers make tons of money and profits unless it's perhaps one of those once every 10 year market downturns. But under normal course of business they have high margins and make bank. This goes for semiconductors too. When I dabbled with Maxim Integrated, those kinds of companies made tons of profit.

The reason for ARM's terrible licensing model is historical. ARM was founded partly with the help of the British government, and a lot of their early research into RISC designs was government funded. In the very early days, a few companies also helped fund it and in exchange for that they have founder's rights to ARM IP. Apple in particular has a special license in perpetuity which lets them use and modify ARM's designs freely. ARM would likely never have made it this far without those companies supporting them in the early days, so fair play to Apple there. One of the earliest commercialized ARM designs to reach the market was in fact the Apple Newton, which would later be understood as the world's very first PDA. Today, Apple Silicon is so much more vastly powerful than ARM's own reference designs because Apple actually is as much a founder of ARM is as ARM itself is, and they design their own chips using the ARM architecture documentation as a baseline. They do not use any ARM reference core designs in Apple Silicon.

Anyways, because of this long history, ARM's licensing agreements exist in an age long before modern mobile phones were even invented. They are paid a license fee per chip sold which is based on an ARM design. This is typically a small value, like 1% or equivalent. So for a chip that sells for $10, ARM gets $0.01. You can see how onerous these terms are, and ARM has long sought to get their licensees to change those terms but the licensees obviously aren't going to just offer ARM money for no good reason. That is going to change now, because Softbank is hellbent on IPO-ing ARM and they are having ARM go around and basically put their foot down on this. Pay licensing fee per device instead of per chip is what ARM is trying to demand of Qualcomm, Samsung, Mediatek, HiSilicon, Microsoft, etc. It remains to be seen if this demand will be met or not, no one is going to want to pay 10x to 50x more than they were paying before, but Softbank is desperate. They need to turn some kind of positive cash flow on ARM, since they are forced to hold and not divest ARM because no one can acquire ARM and survive the gauntlet of government regulators.

Nvidia's acquisition of ARM should absolutely have gone through for the sake of the industry status quo, but honestly fuck Qualcomm and the rest. They're about to discover what a desperate Softbank is willing to do to make this IPO happen.

 

[FoxMcChief]

 

[feynoob]

MS playing Chess while you are all playing rock, paper and scissors.
It's about content to feed the GP monster.
Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in.
They intent to be the biggest name in gaming subscription and they know that getting in on it at this time will put them in a position where no one else can compete. They are building now what will become evident in 10 years time.
Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

Because PS+ premium/extra doesn't have enough userbase without PS+.
It's just PSnow in the skin of PS+.

Gamepass on other hand is on track to beat Xbox live gold in 1-2 years, has PC support and EA play.
Sony can't simply compete with that.

Hell, MS can go and put Uplay on gamepass like they did with EA.

Now add this purchase and this service will be on the roof.

 

[MDSLKTR]

she did write it

 

[mansoor1980]

its open season after this , take 2 is next on the MS menu
no other merger/buyout should be blocked now

 

[feynoob]

Sony will willingly merge with someone or try to get bigger and fail. In Cold Blood just told you why...

Japan laws says no.
Sony is ranked as National security. It will be harder to merger with them.

 

[ProtoByte]

MS playing Chess while you are all playing rock, paper and scissors.
It's about content to feed the GP monster.
Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in.
They intent to be the biggest name in gaming subscription and they know that getting in on it at this time will put them in a position where no one else can compete. They are building now what will become evident in 10 years time.
Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

Wow, you actually think you're saying something new here. Yes, we know that this is a bid for Gamepass growth. Dominance actually. And depending on who you ask from Microsoft and when, they'll come up with a new script, but we all know that they want to fundamentally change the economics of the games industry.

What you, Pachter and apparently they seem not to realise is that that is not going to end up being lucrative if they attempt to sustain even the mediocre quality of game that they usually put out now.

 

[Wulfer]

AKA I need to dust off my resume!

 

[C2brixx]

MS playing Chess while you are all playing rock, paper and scissors.
It's about content to feed the GP monster.
Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in.
They intent to be the biggest name in gaming subscription and they know that getting in on it at this time will put them in a position where no one else can compete. They are building now what will become evident in 10 years time.
Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

Ultimately Windows is the playbook for them. You can buy Windows on PCs from a number of manufactures or you can purchase Microsoft Surface hardware. In this example Gamepass is Windows. You'll be able to access Gamepass games from a variety of platforms or you can choose their hardware through an XBox.

 

[bitbydeath]

That is completely, factually untrue.

100% factual, yes Sega had money issues but it took Microsoft arriving on the scene to pull the plug early and Microsoft had a direct hand in pulling that plug.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The reason for ARM's terrible licensing model is historical. ARM was founded partly with the help of the British government, and a lot of their early research into RISC designs was government funded. In the very early days, a few companies also helped fund it and in exchange for that they have founder's rights to ARM IP. Apple in particular has a special license in perpetuity which lets them use and modify ARM's designs freely. ARM would likely never have made it this far without those companies supporting them in the early days, so fair play to Apple there. One of the earliest commercialized ARM designs to reach the market was in fact the Apple Newton, which would later be understood as the world's very first PDA. Today, Apple Silicon is so much more vastly powerful than ARM's own reference designs because Apple actually is as much a founder of ARM is as ARM itself is, and they design their own chips using the ARM architecture documentation as a baseline. They do not use any ARM reference core designs in Apple Silicon.

Anyways, because of this long history, ARM's licensing agreements exist in an age long before modern mobile phones were even invented. They are paid a license fee per chip sold which is based on an ARM design. This is typically a small value, like 1% or equivalent. So for a chip that sells for $10, ARM gets $0.01. You can see how onerous these terms are, and ARM has long sought to get their licensees to change those terms but the licensees obviously aren't going to just offer ARM money for no good reason. That is going to change now, because Softbank is hellbent on IPO-ing ARM and they are having ARM go around and basically put their foot down on this. Pay licensing fee per device instead of per chip is what ARM is trying to demand of Qualcomm, Mediatek, HiSilicon, Microsoft, etc. It remains to be seen if this demand will be met or not, no one is going to want to pay 10x to 50x more than they were paying before, but Softbank is desperate. They need to turn some kind of positive cash flow on ARM, since they are forced to hold and not divest ARM because no one can acquire ARM and survive the gauntlet of government regulators.

Nvidia's acquisition of ARM should absolutely have gone through for the sake of the industry status quo, but honestly fuck Qualcomm and the rest. They're about to discover what a desperate Softbank is willing to do to make this IPO happen.

Thanks for the quick and dirty info.

Looks like their problem is licensing terms and perpetual kinds of deals. Or perhaps the terms length is giant like 20 year contracts. But if they had to do that back then, then they backed themselves into a corner long term.

However, all contracts can be broken. You just got to pay the price in a court of law. From there, they can reset the deal. Just because a deal has no time limit doesn't mean it lasts forever to the grave.

But hey, everyone makes bad deals. We've had deals at our company with retailers where the account manager didn't put a time limit on it (1 year or 2 year deal). And nobody caught it. We negotiated a new deal with a time factor that needs approvals to renew every so often by both parties. The retail buyer didn't say "too bad, it's forever now". Typically, you let them have their deal for a year to make them happy, then move in with a hammer to nail down a real deal afterwards.

But I guess in the chip world, they'll nail each other to the coffin and trying to break a contract is tough.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Next crazy conspiracy will be that MS paid the CMA off.

It's amazing how quick the narratives change on here. I came for the gaming news, I stay for the melts.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Who is?

I'm only repeating what those lawyers who are infinitely more in the know than any of us dorks, have said.

It's far more likely that the CMA came to their senses and realised they had been fed a bunch of horseshit from Sony that made them look stupid when they ran with it.
The truth eventually became evident.

 

[sainraja]

I'm actually in agreement with you. However Sony has no options left if Microsoft is basically allowed to buy the industry up to crush PlayStation.

Well, there is one option, but the Japanese government would never allow it. If Sony would begin to shop themselves around for acquisition, they could survive as a part of a much larger company. A company like Apple, which has previously tried and failed to break into gaming, would probably be very interested in acquiring Sony for instance. However, as I said, Japan's government would never allow such an acquisition, at least not now while Sony is still apparently healthy.

As an independent company, I rate Sony's likelihood of survival around 50/50. It is more likely that they will be slowly starved of content by Microsoft as other Western studios and publishers are acquired one by one, and only on the brink of bankruptcy will they be acquired for pennies on the dollar by someone like Apple. By then it will already be too late for the gaming industry, Microsoft will control it as thoroughly as they control computer operating systems with Windows today.

I don't get why people here actually want that.

They already bought Bungie for $3B as a reactionary purchase.

It wasn't a reactionary purchase. They had been working on it.

 

[Satansblade]

100% factual, yes Sega had money issues but it took Microsoft arriving on the scene to pull the plug early and Microsoft had a direct hand in pulling that plug.

No it didn’t, that’s complete revisionism. Sega had been second in the hardware market for decades, and PlayStation flew ahead and put them in 3rd. Sega was on its way out the day the dreamcast released, and xbox, the first being quite unsuccessful, had nothing to do with it. Sony dominating the market with Nintendo behind them destroyed Sega.

Anything else is nonsense fanboy revisionism.

 

[trintrop]

Isn't this new guy Totoki known to be much more aggressive growth wise?. Could be interesting.

 

[reinking]

Wrong, your not thinking big enough! They'll go shopping for Sony. You don't enter a market to lose when your that big! Sony's just painted "I'm for sale" on its back.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It's far more likely that the CMA came to their senses and realised they had been fed a bunch of horseshit from Sony that made them look stupid when they ran with it.
The truth eventually became evident.

What truth? That even with MS owning Activision they won’t harm consumers?

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the years and if GamePass increases in price substantially or if the quality and frequency of Activision content declines

Or if after 10 years Microsoft removes CoD from other platforms and makes it GP exclusive.

Funny how the regulators don’t see this as an option when Microsoft baited Sony to make a new CoD after 10 years

 

[sainraja]

Who is?

I'm only repeating what those lawyers who are infinitely more in the know than any of us dorks, have said.

Every now and then, we have to remind ourselves that we might actually be arguing with "kids" who only see things in black and white. "If you are not for it, you are against it!!!" "You are just in denial," etc., etc.

 

[ProtoByte]

Next crazy conspiracy will be that MS paid the CMA off.

"What? Lobbying? What's that?"
-Bumblebeetuna, probably.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Thanks for the quick and dirty info.

Looks like their problem is licensing terms and perpetual kinds of deals. Or perhaps the terms length is giant like 20 year contracts. But if they had to do that back then, then they backed themselves into a corner long term.

However, all contracts can be broken. You just got to pay the price in a court of law. From there, they can reset the deal. Just because a deal has no time limit doesn't mean it lasts forever to the grave.

But hey, everyone makes bad deals. We've had deals at our company with retailers where the account manager didn't put a time limit on it (1 year or 2 year deal). And nobody caught it. We negotiated a new deal with a time factor that needs approvals to renew every so often by both parties. The retail buyer didn't say "too bad, it's forever now". Typically, you let them have their deal for a year to make them happy, then move in with a hammer to nail down a real deal afterwards.

But I guess in the chip world, they'll nail each other to the coffin and trying to break a contract is tough.

I would not at all be surprised if ARM ends up going to court with their licensees over this soon. There will likely be lawsuits that span years because like I said, Qualcomm and the others won't willingly decide to pay much more for the same thing. The question is how long Softbank really has, ARM's runway is kind of short in terms of finding a way to turn a profit because of Softbank's financial situation.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Has anyone answered this? Maybe I'm just very stupid but how does buying a publisher create more competition when we know good and well that they're going to push 99% of their products as exclusive?

Simple.
Xbox will become stronger and create more competition for Sony and we might end up with both selling 80 million consoles each rather than xbox selling 50 million and PlayStation 120 million. That's a good outcome for the industry.

Nintendo users will now get COD on their platform.

Nvidia just got a massive boost to their fledgling cloud service by having access to all Xbox, ABK and Bethesda games to their service. This along with the deals they signed with other streaming companies will create a ton more competition in the streaming industry.

MS now enters the mobile market and can bring alot more of their content to mobile phones. This will boost competition in that industry. There is also the fact that potentially MS is going to legally challenge the walled garden that is Android and IOS in court. More competition if they win.

It definitely creates more competition and there isn't a down side to it at all.

 

[feynoob]

What truth? That even with MS owning Activision they won’t harm consumers?

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the years and if GamePass increases in price substantially or if the quality and frequency of Activision content declines

Or if after 10 years Microsoft removes CoD from other platforms and makes it GP exclusive.

Funny how the regulators don’t see this as an option when Microsoft baited Sony to make a new CoD after 10 years

COD can't be exclusive simply due to the nature of MTX.
Unless MS is full retard, they won't simply give up those money that they are getting from PS.

Then there is the issue of userbase. A live service game like COD needs a huge amount of userbase. by making it exclusive, you are limiting those mtx sales, which otherwise you would have gotten them, if you didn't make them exclusive.

SP games can be exclusive, but not live service games. They print insane amount of money.

Look at Fortnite.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I think Amazon would be a good fit. Apple not so much because their hardware price would be subject to apple tax. Though a console with an M2 ultra CPU would be pretty damn powerful. If overpriced….


There’s always tencent…..


Long term I don’t see Sony getting out of the game. Though I think there will be some serious adjustments over time. PS earns them more money than any of their traditional markets ( TVs, audio equipment, movies, music etc) they would more likely spin off one of their other divisions to keep PS in the fight than sell PS to stay in those other business that make them less money. Nintendo survives as a games and games hardware only company. Perhaps Sony could make that transition too one day…… but I think it would be painful to let go of the music or
Movie,to free up cash for the games division…. Or the TV division… or maybe they double down on their own subscription service and make it available on PC to to go toe to toe with gamepass…… maybe they put their GAAS games everywhere to try and shore back some of the revenue they will lose long term due to no longer having that marketing affinity with COD.






There future is deffo one of a content platform and the games console will be the center of their business until it’s no longer viable or cloud gaming matures to a point where the experience is a lag free and image quality wise on par with playing from native hardware . Beyond that I find their lack of enthusiasm for subscription services very telling of what their future may look like. They could just as easily survive as a content company that makes great TVs and audio gear. But I don’t see them winning bidding wars for publishers without freeing up more money than they might be willing to free up at the expense of their other departments…. They need investments too. They have their R&D costs too. Must be tricky to balance those costs against unpredictable bidding wars and the fast changing gaming business and even faster changing consumer habits which they seem reluctant to accept…… Even their GAAS plans are years behind everybody else’s.

Since both Apple and Amazon would really love to have more content for their own content services, they would both really love having Sony just for the movie, TV, and music catalogs that company holds. Sony is quietly a vast media conglomerate but no one really thinks about it because PlayStation is so much more significant.

But PlayStation is the lion's share of Sony's revenue and profits today. If PlayStation doesn't survive, Sony doesn't survive. That's the short financial summary of Sony.

They really should explore the idea of acquisition, Japanese government be damned. They have, as I say, a solid 50/50 chance of survival as an independent company. I don't like those odds and neither should Sony. They need to find one of the companies on that Top 10 list of market caps who's willing to acquire and also negotiate with the Japanese government and convince them that Sony's survival is at stake, because it is.

Tencent wouldn't be allowed, there's no Earth where Japan would allow China to acquire one of their marquee companies. The Americans, maybe, with some convincing.

 

[Nubulax]

MS playing Chess while you are all playing rock, paper and scissors.
It's about content to feed the GP monster.
Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in.
They intent to be the biggest name in gaming subscription and they know that getting in on it at this time will put them in a position where no one else can compete. They are building now what will become evident in 10 years time.
Remember what Patcher said about Sony not being able to compete with MS and GP in the future? You all laughed, but now you are starting to see what he was talking about.

"Sony has chosen not to compete with MS on a subscription service while MS has gone all in."

Give me a F break..... ya geez I wonder why Sony hasnt chosen to pursue that path. Maybe because they realize without fudging the numbers to look favorable it really isnt that profitable to do and they cant take massive losses like MS can with money made OUTSIDE of Xbox. Even right now Phil himself has stated they lose over $100-$200 on every console they are selling as well.

 

[bitbydeath]

No it didn’t, that’s complete revisionism. Sega had been second in the hardware market for decades, and PlayStation flew ahead and put them in 3rd. Sega was on its way out the day the dreamcast released, and xbox, the first being quite unsuccessful, had nothing to do with it. Sony dominating the market with Nintendo behind them destroyed Sega.

Anything else is nonsense fanboy revisionism.

Who are you trying to kid?
Sega was offered a deal to get out, it’s well documented in Microsoft’s partnership. If Microsoft didn’t create Xbox, Sega would not have been able to make such a deal and would have continued selling the Dreamcast.

The tipping point would have been Microsoft coming onto the scene in the first place, knowing the pot would dry up even more for them.

 

[Nubulax]

That had nothing to do with management of games.

Man, theres some MAD fanboys in this thread

No that was the literal truth... you think it was just a coincidence ABK shopped around to be bought when the massive shit storm of PR due to their horrible management practices all the way up to the top with bobby came out? Besides that.... look at the "B" side of ABK to see how well that was handled. They turned what I would argue could be larger than COD at its peak (12 million wow subscribers) in world of warcraft into a total shell of itself currently.

 

[quest]

Sony and playstation are going no where. If losing marketing rights to COD causes them to go out of business that's on management. COD is staying on playstation you need a massive user count to compete in the high end gaas model. Its why minecraft is on everything because if they pulled it that let other games take its spot. Even the cma study says only 2-3% of gamers would switch if exclusive. That's not worth killing the ip by tanking the user base.