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[Riky]

Good news, Spencer was true to his word. I wonder if we will see the first Switch port next year from Treyarch.

 

[mortal]

I can see this eventually turning into COD being a "Gamepass Exclusive" and if Sony/Nintendo want COD on their system they will have to allow the Gamepass service on their platform.

That's a shitty future no one except MS wants but my money is on that being their ultimate strategy.

Maybe, but I don't think Sony would even play ball with that sort of deal. I'd imagine for this deal to even be reached, required Xbox/Microsoft to refrain from making COD games exclusive to Xbox or Gamepass outright.
At most, I can see certain perks like gear or skins being made exclusive to Xbox platforms, or better discounts perhaps.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Or maybe Microsoft is. For every dollar that Sony would have lost from CoD Microsoft would have lost 4.

Edit: in case someone needs math explained, 80/20 platform revenue split means Sony gets one dollar from a copy of CoD sold, Activision gets 4. If they stopped selling CoD on playstation Sony would lose that one dollar, but Activision would lose 4. In reality its more like $13/$57 or something but you know what I mean.

So let’s say that Sony gets $800M (they’re own words) from CoD every year, that would mean that Activision gets $3.2 billion annually from CoD on PS alone.

Yeah, good luck making up that lost revenue.

There is no world where it makes any financial sense to take CoD off of Playstaion.

 

[lastmessiah]

Well, in a sense I'm happy this is over, but I'm also afraid this is the beginning of the end.

I don't give a shit about Call of Duty and have both a PlayStation and years of game pass because I play games and not consoles. After what came out of the trial, it's pretty obvious MS is trying to take market share away from PlayStation by buying their way there.

Xbox by itself would have never been able to do so but here we are.

This is still bad news for Playstation. The COD money will go down. If the game is free on Game Pass, gamers who mainly play Cod will either switch to Xbox or PC. On top of the loss of revenue coming from the fewer copies sold, they will also make less money from in-game content.

How about any other ABK game? Who knows. We know no more Bethesda games on PS. No more Doom, no more Quake, no more Dishonored, no more Prey, no more Elder Scrolls, no more Fallout. Why assume things are going to be different? And why assume they'll stop? They can keep buying publishers, not independent studios. They can take games away from Sony while their fanbase will praise them for giving them the same games they were always going to get. Having a green boner? Hold on.

Sony will react with their own purchase, and this time it won't be a small organic studio. It will have to actuate the same strategy: Take games away from Xbox. Hell, it could mean taking games away from PC as well unless they make their own store (yuck). Imagine losing all new Capcom games or Square Enix and having to hear crap like "this is going to make everything better".

I don't see any way this is good for gamers in the long run and I hope I'm wrong.

Sony isn’t in a position to make that kind of purchase, especially now. Nothing to worry about.

 

[R3claimer117]

Terrible deal for Sony they should have negotiated better in the beginning I bet the terms now are all to Microsoft’s gain. Soon as the FTC lost all the chips where with Microsoft because in reality they could have just left cod on PlayStation without any deal or terms honestly. Now they’ll most likely only get Cod over watch everything else is probably going to go only Xbox. Damn got to tip my hat to Phil man went from 4 studios to 34 in five years and he owns the shooter and western rpg genres and if they free up the other activision studios and buy support studios for call of duty. Beenox high moon raven toys for bob will all make great content there’s a lot of talent there. Things should get interesting now.

 

[JordiENP]

Still amazes me that Sony couldn't find a studio to create a game to seriously compete with CoD.
Just make a functionally competent arcade military themed shooter and not include bullshit fortnite-esque skins and mictrotransactions.
Please

They need to create something new and fresh and not something that looks like a competition against something else. That Splatoon clone is not it.

 

[Zok310]

Why would MSFT do this when the deal is approved. Seem pretty idiotic.

Seems MS just wanted to get it done with, dropped the hard ball approach and met Sony somewhere in the middle of the rev split(which i believe was Jim's issue). Both agreed and left it at that.

 

[Spyxos]

Still amazes me that Sony couldn't find a studio to create a game to seriously compete with CoD.
Just make a functionally competent arcade military themed shooter and not include bullshit fortnite-esque skins and mictrotransactions.
Please

That didn't work out with Halo before. That it works with Cod now is even more unlikely.

 

[MC68000]

It's been said a million times, its all about the money, on both sides!!!!

 

[ReBurn]

Someone needs to look at the COD teams and tell them to get file sizes down. I installed Cold War on my Xbox the other day and it wanted 250GB. That’s absolutely obscene.

There's a product for that.

WD_BLACK C50 Storage Expansion Card for Xbox | Western Digital

WD_BLACK C50 SSD Storage Expansion Card for Xbox is the fast and easy way to give your Xbox Series X|S more capacity and keep more games installed.

www.westerndigital.com

*slaps 500 gb expansion card*

You can fit two Call of Duties in this bad boy

 

[Ozriel]

This is a win win for MS. In fact, it's so win win that I wonder what the point of exclusivity even is with titles that will sell well on the competitor's platform. It's hard to say no to money after all. A future DOOM release will be interesting. Can MS say no to Sony (or even Nintendo because Panic Button are wizards) DOOM dollars? We'll see. Anyway, I can see this playing one of two ways.

1. MS releases COD on PS5 but makes Call of Duty day one on gamepass and uses the discrepancy to bolster the value proposition of gamepass.
2. MS releases on PS5 but DOESN'T add Call of duty to gamepass on day one and uses some weaselly argument about how the agreement with Sony prevented them from doing so. That way MS doesn't lose a ton of money on launch sales of the game.

Personally, I think they'll go with option 2. I think it's pretty clear that MS wants money. It's one thing to give up direct revenue from smaller or niche games, it's another thing entirely to give it up for COD.

Ink on the deal’s barely dried and people are already making up ridiculous theories.

If the deal goes through, COD will be on GamePass day one after the marketing deal with Sony ends. Zero ambiguity.

People who play COD MP actively tend to stick with the game for months, so they’ll likely make up with GPU subscriptions and MTX.

 

[cebri.one]

Idiotic is having to explain to someone that dropping a revenue stream that generated billions in sales to move it exclusively to a console in last place. Even in MS isn’t that stupid.

Exclusivity decision is now MSFT decision, no need to sign any agreement. They just need to keep COD multiplatform, the same way they do with Minecraft. Don't get triggered, it's just a company.

 

[Madonis]

If you can't beat them, join them! Sorta.

 

[Zok310]

And all those months wasted.

Takes time to negotiate a deal this big. Sony did the right thing holding out, they prolly got a better rev split in the end than if they had signed last year.

 

[TheTony316]

COD will remain on Playstation and Xbox players get to play future COD games for free. 2 years of drama for nothing.

 

[Fabieter]

Nah it will be ok

Care to explain how it will be fine? Because most people are soo naive that they think everything will stay the same except they get some more games in their subscription. This will lead in a massive shit in the industry one way or another and the same people cheering for this acquisitions will have melt downs with the next.

 

[adamsapple]

Good news, Spencer was true to his word. I wonder if we will see the first Switch port next year from Treyarch.

My guess

Summer 2024: New Nintendo hardware announced to launch in Fall '24 with a new CoD being one of its launch window titles.

 

[aliadiere25]

I mean, they had to do it based on what the judge said.

 

[Mister Wolf]

 

[Unknown?]

Gamers lost this one, now we can move on.

Fixed.

 

[cebri.one]

 

[JohnnyFootball]

If you view this in a myopic way then sure it may seem like a win for those who play on Playstation. But this going through is really just a prelude of Microsoft potentially attempting to lock up more 3rd party publishers and so far they don't have a good track record managing the ones they own currently.

This deal doesn't impact me at all cause I own a PS5 and PC so I'm good. What does potentially impact me is when they buy up a great studio and then not elevate them or make them better but somehow manage to make them worse and lose talent due to poor management which means future games will suffer, but hey it'll be on gamepass!

OK, you’re talking about the merger. I don’t think that is a good thing. The main reason I don’t think it is good, but not because I am so much against consolidation, but mainly because I DO NO TRUST MS to properly manage their studios and leverage their IPs the way Sony has. I am in favor of games being exclusive to one platform. I always have been. I am not in favor of paying to keep games off of other platforms, but strong first party teams like Sony has 100% in favor. If I trusted that MS was competent enough to manage these studios and properly leverage these IPs then I’d be much more excited about the ABK deal. Until I see otherwise, I feel it is more than likely CoD will go the way of Halo. MS has a goldmine of IPs they own.

 

[Laptop1991]

MS wanted COD to be on PC and Xbox only, Sony got the only game from Activision/Blizzard on their console they really wanted, as it sells bucket loads, looks like a win for Sony to me.

 

[NEbeast]

It's sad to see people hold this guy on a pedestal. He has done nothing in his time in charge. Without buying Bethesda and ABK his tenure is an abject failure. He has over promised and under delivered. Its a sad day when gamers think consolidation is to be praised instead of building up your own studios.

 

[splattered]

I'm just gonna delete my post before i even hit Post Reply.

 

[Fredrik]

Why would MSFT do this when the deal is approved. Seem pretty idiotic.

FTC could still appeal in october and removing CoD from PS has been their concern all along, means they’ll likely back down now. CMA might change their stance too because of this, they’re the only one opposing the deal now I think. And MS gets the day 1 game sales money from PS players, it’s the biggest platform for CoD. And without completely tanking sales for CoD MS can still put the game on Gamepass day 1 if they want to boost subscription numbers. They should do this with more games. Regular game sales on PS, Gamepass library on Xbox. Win win

 

[KaiserBecks]

This was a given. They werent going to sacrifice tens of millions of copies sold just to sell another hundred thousand consoles

Jimbo wasn't willing to sign anything a couple of months ago. So no, this wasn't exactly a given.

 

[tryDEATH]

Takes time to negotiate a deal this big. Sony did the right thing holding out, they prolly got a better rev split in the end than if they had signed last year.

I can guarantee you Sony got significantly worse terms in this deal than the 10 year deal MS offered before. MS did not need to offer Sony a deal at this point as none of the agency considered exclusivity a deal breaker, if anything Sony got strong armed into a shitty deal which would be better than no deal.

 

[Zok310]

Jim said gimme what i want bitch

 

[suspicious mind]

They are only talking about call of duty so i assume othet games will become exclusives. It never made sense to make cod exclusive. Sony and their customers willl now bring in lots of money for xbox and help finance gamepass. Perfect.

 

[Fake]

Time for back to the roots.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yes but the finer details of the agreement needs to be known. Is Call of Duty staying on it with all content is the key because I believe Xbox will make exclusive modes exclusive maps etc down the line. This will happen 3 or more years from now. Could even get worse where they bring out a weapon that's completely op but it's only available on Xbox.

Who cares anymore. Sony signed the agreement; they know what's in there and yet they've still signed it. So if it's one that cripples what they get out of COD, then that's just what it is. There's really no point going on about this ABK circus of BS any longer.

The real question is what is Sony going to do to prevent this from continuing to happen. Better question is what are going to do for their enthusiasts fans to show them the future of the brand is still strong. There's been more news about GaaS/live-service reveals, PC ports, GaaS-targeted little-known studio acquisitions and talent retiring than there has been anything regarding big new 1P traditional game reveals, 3P AAA exclusives that aren't Final Fantasy, or expansion back into 1P AA content, let alone any notable acquisition since Bungie in the face of what's been revealed the past year or so.

If this is the outcome of what Sony were going to do, why be so against the deal? Like others have said, why weren't Sony making moves for a 3P publisher or two of their own during the meantime? Why weren't they making investments and buying shares into AAA and AA 3P publishers and developers while Microsoft were busy trying to clear over this ABK acquisition? Just Microsoft going for ABK right after Zenimax should've signaled that something foul was afoot; the redacted evidence that's come out was great for us gamers & enthusiasts, but Sony's people should already know that stuff or have seriously considered those intentions without leaks to confirm them. This is Microsoft we're talking about here, after all.

In light of all the opposition they provided, to just cave in days before the deadline, yes it makes Sony look stupid and weak. Hate to say that but it's true. This is an L for them. But is it just a small stain they can wash off, or one that's going to never go away and could lead to messing up the whole outfit? I think we'll be able to see which of those is true before the end of the year, easily.

 

[Zok310]

I can guarantee you Sony got significantly worse terms in this deal than the 10 year deal MS offered before. MS did not need to offer Sony a deal at this point as none of the agency considered exclusivity a deal breaker, if anything Sony got strong armed into a shitty deal which would be better than no deal.

What would be the incentive for Sony to take a shit deal when they have the lion's share of the COD population on their platform?

 

[Chiggs]

The more I read post-deal GAF, the more I feel for the mods. Is there anything I can to do help? Is there a GoFundMe? Can I have meals delivered to them?

It's gonna be a shit-show.

 

[bishopcruz]

Well, in a sense I'm happy this is over, but I'm also afraid this is the beginning of the end.

I don't give a shit about Call of Duty and have both a PlayStation and years of game pass because I play games and not consoles. After what came out of the trial, it's pretty obvious MS is trying to take market share away from PlayStation by buying their way there.

Xbox by itself would have never been able to do so but here we are.

This is still bad news for Playstation. The COD money will go down. If the game is free on Game Pass, gamers who mainly play Cod will either switch to Xbox or PC. On top of the loss of revenue coming from the fewer copies sold, they will also make less money from in-game content.

How about any other ABK game? Who knows. We know no more Bethesda games on PS. No more Doom, no more Quake, no more Dishonored, no more Prey, no more Elder Scrolls, no more Fallout. Why assume things are going to be different? And why assume they'll stop? They can keep buying publishers, not independent studios. They can take games away from Sony while their fanbase will praise them for giving them the same games they were always going to get. Having a green boner? Hold on.

Sony will react with their own purchase, and this time it won't be a small organic studio. It will have to actuate the same strategy: Take games away from Xbox. Hell, it could mean taking games away from PC as well unless they make their own store (yuck). Imagine losing all new Capcom games or Square Enix and having to hear crap like "this is going to make everything better".

I don't see any way this is good for gamers in the long run and I hope I'm wrong.

You act as if Sony hasn't made a habit of "taking games away" from their competitors for literal decades now.

 

[The Alien]

Maybe Sony can use this opportunity to make Killzone a thing again? Or Resistance? How about a first-party FPS?

See. This is what we call competition.
Sony will need a counter that they likely woukd have never pursued before/again.

I'd love another Resistance. Perhaps even another Socom is closer to reality thanks to this deal. This deal will also push Sony to be less reliant on 3rd party to manage any semblance of multiplayer offerings for them.

 

[Lukaku's First Touch]

New game announcement soon:

Call For Duty , Xbox pc exclusive.

 

[JokerMM]

I really don't give a fuck about CoD, but Crash officially being a Microsoft IP is a weird timeline ngl

 

[CatLady]

Guess Jimbo finally saw which way the winds are blowing. Hope Xbox didn't give fat jackass any additional concessions, in fact I hope they took several off the table.

 

[adamsapple]

New game announcement soon:

Call For Duty , Xbox pc exclusive.

"Microsoft and Activision present: Beckoning to Responsibility, exclusively on PC and Xbox"

 

[John Wick]

I mean they have Bungie who have the ultimate FPS pedigree, albeit in sci-fi/space shooters. I'd love to see what they could do with a standard, military shooter.

A combination of Guerilla Games and Bungie could do a super cod like game.

 

[BiohazardX95]

Who knew that the FTC was actually key for this acquisition (Spoiler: they are key for future acquisitions and they are likely going to fail to stop any in them)

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

 

[feynoob]

It wouldn´t even benefit them at all. The whole franchise would collapse.

both you guys and xbox fans wasted your energy for no reason.

these companies only care about their pocket. there is no benefits for the fans.

its why brand loyalty is useless.

 

[cebri.one]

FTC could still appeal in october and removing CoD from PS has been their concern all along, means they’ll likely back down now. CMA might change their stance too because of this, they’re the only one opposing the deal now I think. And MS gets the day 1 game sales money from PS players, it’s the biggest platform for CoD. And without completely tanking sales for CoD MS can still put the game on Gamepass day 1 if they want to boost subscription numbers. They should do this with more games. Regular game sales on PS, Gamepass library on Xbox. Win win

The CMA declared there was not antitrust issue in the console space, they blocked it because of the cloud concerns. Nothing to do with this deal.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Call Of Duty coming to Gamepass Day One is big. I wonder if Microsoft will continue using Battle.net

 

[Gambit2483]

Maybe, but I don't think Sony would even play ball with that sort of deal. I'd imagine for this deal to even be reached, required Xbox/Microsoft to refrain from making COD games exclusive to Xbox or Gamepass outright.
At most, I can see certain perks like gear or skins being made exclusive to Xbox platforms, or better discounts perhaps.

The fact we don't know the details of the deal is more worrying than not.

MS is petty and hates Sony. I cam almost guarantee you they are trying to leverage the hell out of Sony (even though they ironically need Sony to sell the IP).

MS' ultimate goal is Gamepass, not Xbox. They could easily make a deal that's now only 5 years guaranteed without changes and by year 6 draft a new deal that technically keeps COD on PS albeit only through Gamepass and Gamepass only.

By then they expect ppl to just accept COD as a MS IP and if Sony wants to keep it they need to just "play ball". Never put anything past MS.

 

[Kurimao]

 

[tryDEATH]

What would be the incentive for Sony to take a shit deal when they have the lion's share of the COD population on their platform?

The risk is not having a deal in place to guarantee profits from CoD through a contract. Also the publisher can determin what the profit split is and its up to the platform to agree to it, that is how Xbox got strong armed into agreing to the 80/20 split as they had no other option, just like Sony doesn't right now.

 

[Fredrik]

The CMA declared there was not antitrust issue in the console space, they blocked it because of the cloud concerns. Nothing to do with this deal.

Wasn’t that a changed stance? Either way we’ll see if they’re looking the other way now. I think it’ll all be over tomorrow.