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[Shmunter]

I’m just reading what he wrote, and he made a distinction between honoring contracts - like it was with Bethesda, and in the case of COD it means marketing rights for the next few games probably - and his desire to keep COD on PlayStation.

Here’s what I’m not going to do, I won’t be here making a fool of myself by saying Phil Spencer doesn’t know what he writes. Like you are.

And for Sony? If it still gets Warzone 2 and MW2? Lol, who cares, it basically becomes a problem for PS6 not PS5.

Who knows what happens until then.

I’d be so looking forward to mw2 being a steady cod through the years instead of yet another one diluting the player base every 12m

 

[The_Mike]

Here’s what I’m not going to do, I won’t be here making a fool of myself

You just did.

 

[Thirty7ven]

You just did.

That’s it? A child’s retort? No more brain cells left to compose an argument for why you think Phil Spencer is bad with words?

It’s ok, I understand.

 

[The_Mike]

That’s it? A child’s retort? No more brain cells left to compose an argument for why you think Phil Spencer is bad with words?

It’s ok, I understand.

When I'm literally using your own wording and you say I'm childish, then it really did backfired for you my fellow child.

I feel pretty bad scooping down on your low level of discussing.

So I'm gonna block you so I don't get banned by discussing with a troll.

Have a nice day.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You seem to think that PlayStation owners are only interested in CoD. Nothing else is really compelling in MS's entire roster of games to cause anyone to switch that only games on PlayStation. Only the tiny portion of people that are hardcore CoD players will move. Should MS prove they are infact stupid and pull CoD from PlayStation, then it's more likely Battlefield or Destiny suddenly becomes the MP game of choice for CoD players than switching where they play.

GamePass is not attractive to me as a PC gamer. Most of it is utter garbage, what's good I'd sooner pay for as I would buy the DLC so may as well own the game and get the "Ultimate" version anyway. I'd sooner sub to UBI Play.

In your alternate reality though, I'm pretty sure this will be an outrageous statement.

But anyway, you still believe that Microsoft is only interested in the xbox cash burning project so there is little more to say to you about this.

You're deluded, stupid, trolling or a combination of all three.

I will look for you in the requested bans section when you are proven wrong, but for now

Exactly that, casuals will just go for Battlefield 2042 and it's suddenly the leading FPS game. If someone would argue that it's garbage, then so is COD Vanguard.

And if Deviation Games make a great game, or any of the upcoming FPS, they'll just go for it.

It's not MGS, Final Fantasy, or any other masterpeice with deep story that you can't just let go. I remember when MGS3 was rumores to be Xbox exclusive that I was willing to buy and Xbox just to play it.

Also despite it's doing great overall, if compared to PUBG and Fortnite it's literally a midget in terms of playerbase. Actually Genshin exclusivity to PS is a much more impactful move than COD to MS.

I think what is more likely now is that Sony will re-enter the FPS market and try to put out their own Military Shooter FPS with some level of AAA first party polish that has been lacking on these games for some time.

Whether that ends up coming from Deviation Games, I don't know.

I think they'd be hard-pressed to put out a CoD competitor given their size even with Sony's help, but we'll see.

I think the biggest problem is this will have caught Sony off-guard and the time it will take to produce such a game is probably deeper within the PS5 product cycle.

I do think that Deviation Games has a lot of potential though. The question is whether they can ramp up in size quickly enough without dilluting their mission statement and keep the quality where they need it to be. To give you a comparison Infinity Ward has about 444 employees according to wiki (not source backing that on the page). Deviation Games has like 100.

I would expect that Sony will buy them in the next year or two. Probably as soon as they've seen enough on the quality of this title. They'll probably try to poach as many people from Infinity Ward and Treyarch, as they can who, don't want to stay at the studios either because of Microsoft or Activision.

We'll see how they do compared to say Respawn working with EA. I wonder if the expansion into Canada is after people who might want to leave Respawn.

 

[Dick Jones]

As one door closes another opens as they say.

This will only encourage rivals like EA to push their FPS games on Playstation.

There are always alternatives.

Personally there isn't a single Western game which will ever push me towards Xbox.

Japanese games is another matter.

If EA was smart they would not release another Battlefield (multiplatform obviously) until 2024 and get Sony to market it. There is enough time to polish the game for release rather than rush it out like the previous one. It could gain a strong foothold when ther is no 2024 COD on PS. Then it's EA so maybe not.

 

[Thirty7ven]

You just did.

 

[Kerotan]

Microsoft has probably made a strategic mistake

From its inception, PlayStation has been treated like a side business which became an accidental success. PlayStation, which accounted for 60% of Sony's free cash flow in FY20, has been nothing more than a cash cow to rebuild Sony's bloated empire.

Strategic Investments FY (2018 - 20)
Sony 1.4 trillion yen (PlayStation 5%)



Invested capital by segment (FY20)

1. Music ¥882.5 bn
2. I&SS 879.7 bn
3. Pictures ¥769.5 bn
4. G&NS ¥489.6 bn
5. EP&S ¥399.8 bn



Return on invested capital by segment (FY21 FCT)

1.G&NS 43.2%
2.EP&S 20.4%
3. Music 11.1%
4. I&SS 9.4%
5. Pictures 6.8%

Suddenly, Microsoft has put PlayStation in a corner and Sony has fallen 15% in 2022.



Microsoft's exhibition of brute force has knocked some sense into Yoshida and Totoki's heads

They've probably realized that the 80s are gone, Sony is living in the Big Tech era and can only be successful if they follow a PlayStation-centric model


Strategic Investments FY 2021
Sony 850 billion yen (PlayStation 40%)


A small company like Take-Two plans to acquire Zynga in a $12.7 billion deal ($3.50 in cash and $6.36 in Take-Two shares for each share of Zynga)

Sony has a vast array of resources at its disposal, and Microsoft, in the face of antitrust scrutiny, won't be able to compete in the M&A market (Activision trades at a big discount)

A PlayStation centric-Sony would be an unexpected nightmarish scenario for Microsoft. The ball is on Yoshida&Totoki's court.



Sony's strength FY21 (billion yen)

Operating Cash Flow 940 (w/o Financial Services)

Total Assets 9,883 (w/o Financial Services)

Long-Term debt 687 (w/o Financial Services)



Market Cap (second largest company in Japan)

Corporate Ratings A-

I doubted sony could aquire T2 but after seeing T2 aquire zynga for 12BN I now firmly believe they could. And they need to strike while they can as MS has a lot of heat on them as do the other tech companies.

Go all out, T2 and 1 of Capcom or Ubi. Whichever they pull out.

 

[Andodalf]

I doubted sony could aquire T2 but after seeing T2 aquire zynga for 12BN I now firmly believe they could. And they need to strike while they can as MS has a lot of heat on them as do the other tech companies.

Go all out, T2 and 1 of Capcom or Ubi. Whichever they pull out.

Sony would need to borrow a lot to make that happen, which I don't think they want to do.

 

[SlimySnake]

I doubted sony could aquire T2 but after seeing T2 aquire zynga for 12BN I now firmly believe they could. And they need to strike while they can as MS has a lot of heat on them as do the other tech companies.

Go all out, T2 and 1 of Capcom or Ubi. Whichever they pull out.

Yeah, will MS risk the Activision acquisition by going for Take2? Doubtful especially now that the U.S government has said they will review the deal.

Sony might be able to get Take2 without other parties bidding. It's now or never tbh. MS waited no time after finishing up the Zenimax deal last year to begin the activision talks. They will move on to Take2 or Ubisoft or Capcom the day that deal is finalized.

It will be bad for gamers if Sony buys Take2, but they may survive.

 

[reksveks]

T2 and EA are personally off the table full stop.
Bandai is kinda off the table as well.
Square Enix, CDPR and Capcom would be big buys.
The rest are up for grabs.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Sony would need to borrow a lot to make that happen, which I don't think they want to do.

Interest rates remain very low. Take2 would give them huge leverage going forward with GTA, Red Dead, and 2K sports.

2K Sports might have the opportunity to take over the FIFA license and have made a deal with Tiger Woods as well.

The only major sports game EA has right now is Madden (after Fifa 22)

2K Sports would have FIFA, Tiger Woods, NBA 2K and in conjunction with Sony, they would have MLB The Show. Hell, you could even get Clap Hanz (2nd party) to do the Tiger Woods games.

With Sony being the market leader in sports, I think the NFL would have to re-evaluate having an exclusive license. And who knows what Sony could do, NFL 2K, Tom Brady NFL Football 2K, Romo NFL Football 2K.

Then you consider Zynga and Sony wanting to expand their IP to mobile, something they struggled to do with Sony ForwardWorks. It just makes a lot of sense.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Yeah, will MS risk the Activision acquisition by going for Take2? Doubtful especially now that the U.S government has said they will review the deal.

Sony might be able to get Take2 without other parties bidding. It's now or never tbh. MS waited no time after finishing up the Zenimax deal last year to begin the activision talks. They will move on to Take2 or Ubisoft or Capcom the day that deal is finalized.

It will be bad for gamers if Sony buys Take2, but they may survive.

You don't buy a company for 70b and it not be reviewed. It was always going to be reviewed.

That being said, yes, they can't afford to be seen anywhere near TakeTwo for the foreseeable future if ever.

I'd assume it was between Sony and Tencent on who could realistically buy TakeTwo.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

I wonder if these high up execs, making tons of dough of course, at these companies either purchasing or being purchased in multi billion dollar acquisitions ever come to forums like this to watch the peasants squabble for dozens of pages over these deals.

I picture them furiously masturbating while perusing these threads

 

[DJ12]

Oh my. Let me check the bans page see if anyone has fallen on the sword after being told this was happening for 60 pages, and partaking in some heavy copium to convince themselves that MS would indeed be as stupid as they are saying and throw away money.

 

[ethomaz]

Destiny forced MS hand.

 

[Bernkastel]

Destiny forced MS hand.

Ofcourse, for people who couldnt read when they announced COD will remain multiplat before the announcement of the Bungie deal.

 

[DJ12]

Ofcourse, for people who couldnt read when they announced COD will remain multiplat before the announcement of the Bungie deal.

The new cope?

Ignore 60 pages of CoD is going to force people to abandon PlayStation, we were just playing, you were right all along.

R and indeed O F L

 

[ethomaz]

Ofcourse, for people who couldnt read when they announced COD will remain multiplat before the announcement of the Bungie deal.

Before Bungie deal they announced they were in talk with Sony to fulfill the contracts.
The contracts probably end in 2023.

Now they added beyond the contracts.

Can't you read?

But hey I wonder if that new blog post should happen if Sony did not bought Bungie

 

[Bernkastel]

The new cope?

Ignore 60 pages of CoD is going to force people to abandon PlayStation, we were just playing, you were right all along.

R and indeed O F L

I was right all along though. I know how to read.

Before Bungie deal they announced they were in talk with Sony to fulfill the contracts.
The contracts probably end in 2023.

Now they added beyond the contracts.

Can't you read?

But hey I wonder if that new blog post should happen if Sony did not bought Bungie

 

[ethomaz]

I was right all along though. I know how to read.

That is exactly what I said.

Before: honor all existing agreements.
Now: honor all existing agreements and beyond the existing agreements.

They clearly changed the message… and there are a big difference between the two.

 

[yurinka]

I think what is more likely now is that Sony will re-enter the FPS market and try to put out their own Military Shooter FPS with some level of AAA first party polish that has been lacking on these games for some time.

I think Sony's FPS plans are:

• More Destiny 2 content, who knows if eventually Destiny 3 too
• 2 Bungie new IPs to be released in a few years, probably learning from hero shooters, batle royales, Fortnite and GTA Online to go another step beyond them
• Firewalk game, made by ex-Bungies leads. Maybe a new take on Halo and Destiny
• Deviation game, made by ex-COD BO leads. Maybe CoD meets Destiny
• Guerrilla multiplatform game directed by the Rainbow Six Siege and Killzone 2 MP director. Maybe a squad tactical shotter (I'd love it to be a Killzone)
• Continue getting top 3rd party support from the top multiplatform shooters like CoD, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG, Battlefield, Far Cry, Ark, GTA, The Division, Splitgate, etc. (we could even include here GTA)

That is exactly what I said.

Before: honor all existing agreements.
Now: honor all existing agreements and beyond existing agreements.

They clearly changed the message… and there are a big difference between the two.

As I said many times here in gaf, Phil was saying that they wanted to do two different, separate things and this is why he uses "and":

• To honor existing and pending agreements/marketing deals for existing of future ABK games
• To keep CoD on PS (meaning all existing and future games, dlcs and updates, not limited to Warzone and not limited to those CoD games affected by the pending deals. So like with Minecraft)

 

[Kerotan]

Yeah, will MS risk the Activision acquisition by going for Take2? Doubtful especially now that the U.S government has said they will review the deal.

Sony might be able to get Take2 without other parties bidding. It's now or never tbh. MS waited no time after finishing up the Zenimax deal last year to begin the activision talks. They will move on to Take2 or Ubisoft or Capcom the day that deal is finalized.

It will be bad for gamers if Sony buys Take2, but they may survive.

Agreed. The writing is on the wall. To me Ubisoft and T2 are the big ones. Western 3rd party publishers there to be bought.

Ubisoft is French and they didn't want a hostile take over from the Chinese but sony or MS would share similar western values so maybe they'd accept a buyout that way. Just not a hostile takeover.

Imo sony have 12 months to nab T2 or else one of the others will refuel and go for them.

 

[Hendrick's]

That is exactly what I said.

Before: honor all existing agreements.
Now: honor all existing agreements and beyond existing agreements.

They clearly changed the message… and there are a big difference between the two.

 

[Neolombax]

At the rate that Bungie is overhauling things in Destiny 2, I don't think there will be a need for Destiny 3. They've been rolling out core changes to the gameplay bit by bit with every expansion or so.

I hope the next IP from Bungie is not Destiny, I'd like to see them do something totally new.

 

[lh032]

Sony would need to borrow a lot to make that happen, which I don't think they want to do.

But that GTA online money though

 

[ethomaz]

Actually it is very different wording.

Before: they will honor existing agreements (so up to 2023)
Now: they will go beyond the existing agreements (after 2023)

 

[Hendrick's]

Actually it is very different wording.

Before: they will honor existing agreements (so up to 2023)
Now: they will go beyond the existing agreements (after 2023)

That's your wording.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I think something that just keeps getting overlooked is the concept of steel sharpening steel.

If this partnership can advance both companies in their timelines and goals by a factor of years, it will just make sense.

Imagine how long it took for Sony to become a AAA publisher.

You could argue that it started with God of War or Uncharted, but I'd say it happened with Uncharted. This was 2007. This was allowed to happen because they bought Naughty Dog in 2001. Note for argument's sake God of War (PS2) was released in 2005.

It wasn't until these games hit mass market success was Sony able to elevate their other studios. Look at Sucker Punch and Guerrilla Games and what they were able to accomplish with Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon compared to Sly Cooper, Infamous, and Killzone. Look at the investment in Insomniac allowing them to build a relationship with Marvel and probably build out some serious open-world chops over time.

I can only imagine that Insomniac will put out some sort of open world game to leverage their tech from Spider-Man, since Wolverine probably shouldn't be open world.

These studios are just now reaching maturity through working with Naughty Dog et all.

Now Sony is building relationships with Haven Studios, Firewalk, and Deviation Games... I can only imagine that they will advance much further with access to tech from all of PlayStation studios as well as Bungie now.

And Bungie's AAA original IP that Sony has almost certainly seen will probably benefit from tech from Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, and Insomniac.

Consider with Bungie that they released Destiny in 2014, just 4 years after Halo Reach was released. Destiny 2 released 3 years later.

It's been over 4 years since Destiny 2 was released. Even if Destiny 1 was in development since 2007 when they left Microsoft that would have been a maximum of 7 years of development time. That should tell us that within 1-3 years we're going to see this new IP release, and honestly, we'll probably see Destiny 3 shortly after that. As Destiny 2 is planned to be supported until 2024.

 

[yurinka]

Actually it is very different wording.

Before: they will honor existing agreements (so up to 2023)
Now: they will go beyond the existing agreements (after 2023)

The never said they were limiting their support to existing agreements. They always said two things: one, that they will honor pending agreements. Second: that they wanted to keep the games in competing platforms and that itt wasn't their intention to remove them from there. Even did use Minecraftt as example in the SEC filling, IP that released 2 new games on PS and Switch several years after the acquisition.

 

[yurinka]

Imagine how long it took for Sony to become a AAA publisher.

You could argue that it started with God of War or Uncharted, but I'd say it happened with Uncharted. This was 2007. This was allowed to happen because they bought Naughty Dog in 2001. Note for argument's sake God of War (PS2) was released in 2005.

Seems you have no idea about Sony's history.

On Europe Wipeout was a release game for the first PlayStation. Back then it had striking visuals and sountrack that was miles beyond of what people saw in previous consoles. It was one of the pillars that made PS appealing to young adults and not only kids/teens, which were the average player before PS. Games like Gran Turismo on the first PS1 raised the bar beyond the other ones. And they also had games that back then were stunning like Destruction Derby and many more. On top of that, they also published in some regions games like Ridge Racer, Tekken, Tohshinden or Ace Combat and had other 1st party AAA games on PS1 like Twisted Metal, Crash Bandicoot, Formula 1, Jet Moto, Colony Wars, G-Police, MLB, Medievil, Spyro and way more.

They were so successful that dominated Nintendo, Sega and the other rivals they had back then.

It's been over 4 years since Destiny 2 was released. Even if Destiny 1 was in development since 2007 when they left Microsoft that would have been a maximum of 7 years of development time. That should tell us that within 1-3 years we're going to see this new IP release, and honestly, we'll probably see Destiny 3 shortly after that. As Destiny 2 is planned to be supported until 2024.

Bungie said they are working on more Destiny 2 content and multiple new IPs, and that they plan to release at least one (which means that maybe they release more) new IP before 2025. So in 2024 or before they will release one or more new IPs.

They have over 900 workers (enough to have 3 or 4 AAA projects on full production) and they plan to continue growing.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Seems you have no idea about Sony's history.

On Europe Wipeout was a release game for the first PlayStation. Back then it had striking visuals and sountrack that was miles beyond of what people saw in previous consoles. It was one of the pillars that made PS appealing to young adults and not only kids/teens, which were the average player before PS. Games like Gran Turismo on the first PS1 raised the bar beyond the other ones. And they also had games that back then were stunning like Destruction Derby and many more. On top of that, they also published in some regions games like Ridge Racer, Tekken, Tohshinden or Ace Combat and had other 1st party AAA games on PS1 like Twisted Metal, Crash Bandicoot, Formula 1, Jet Moto, Colony Wars, G-Police, MLB, Medievil, Spyro and way more.

They were so successful that dominated Nintendo, Sega and the other rivals they had back then.

Trust me I know more about their history than you do.

I'm not saying Sony never had big games, but they were never a consistent year in and year out AAA developer.

Half the games you named were A or AA games.

They were largely successful because of the ecosystem rather than their own games and their DNA today is not the same as their DNA in the 90s and early 2000s. They're a completely different company. And most of the studios that were around in the 90s Sony closed down, they even has a decent amount of shuttered studios in the early 2000s into the 2010s.

 

[yurinka]

Trust me I know more about their history than you do.

No, looking what you posted above it's clear you have no idea.

I'm not saying Sony never had big games, but they were never a consistent year in and year out AAA developer.

Half the games you named were A or AA games.

You prove again that you have no idea about their history. Before continuing posting bullshit I'd suggest you to go and read what are the games they published and in which year they were published:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_Interactive_Entertainment_video_games#PlayStation

You even have no idea of how the size of the games, developers or publishers are classified. Or how big were these games for the standards of that generation in terms of production or success.

I also have to tell you that "A" games don't exist. And that back then the biggest games were made by way less people than now and that in average (with some exceptions) sales of all games -not only the Sony ones- did sell way less because the userbase was smaller and on average back then the players were buying less games per consoles because discounts and price cuts weren't as common are as today specially in digital stores.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

No, looking what you posted above it's clear you have no idea.



You prove again that you have no idea about their history. Before continuing posting bullshit I'd suggest you to go and read what are the games they published and in which year they were published:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_Interactive_Entertainment_video_games#PlayStation

You even have no idea of how the size of the games, developers or publishers are classified. Or how big were these games for the standards of that generation in terms of production or success.

I also have to tell you that "A" games don't exist. And that back then the biggest games were made by way less people than now and that in average (with some exceptions) sales of all games -not only the Sony ones- did sell way less because the userbase was smaller and on average back then the players were buying less games per consoles because discounts and price cuts weren't as common are as today specially in digital stores.

You're embarrassing yourself here.

The user base on the PS2 was smaller? Interesting, because I thought the PS2 was the best selling PS product in history.

There are reasons why Sony has given up on most of their franchises from PS2 and PS3 and why Sony many of their studios were shuttered.

You seem to have no concept of Sony's history, 989 Studios, 989 Sports, the declining quality of their games from studios like Zipper Interactive, Singletrac, Evolution studios. Diminishing sales from Japanese Studios including franchises like Arc the Lad, Alundra, Wild Arms, and even Gran Turismo's significant decline after Ps2. The closing of Studio Liverpool and Soho.

You're clueless.

 

[yurinka]

The user base on the PS2 was smaller?

Wtf are you talking about? I was obviously talking about the PS1 days, I didn't mentioned a single PS2 game.

You seem to have no concept of Sony's history, 989 Studios, 989 Sports, the declining quality of their games from studios like Zipper Interactive, Singletrac, Evolution studios. Diminishing sales from Japanese Studios including franchises like Arc the Lad, Alundra, Wild Arms, and even Gran Turismo's significant decline after Ps2. The closing of Studio Liverpool and Soho.

You're clueless.

I know perfectly their history. You're the clueless one, saying dumb shit like that Sony became a AAA publisher maybe with Uncharted, talking about Sony's success in 2007 as a catalyst to grow their other teams. At that time they were the worst times for the history of PlayStation, the only part of the history where they were being outsold by Microsoft, Wii and DS were getting a great success and Sony had a good amount of exclusive turds in the PS3 launch window.

The PS1 and PS2 were way more successful and dominant partly because their exclusives were way more successful and relevant back then than the early PS3 ones, and many of these PS1 hits were published by Sony.

Go fuck yourself.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Wtf are you talking about? I was obviously talking about the PS1 days, I didn't mentioned a single PS2 game.


I know perfectly their history. You're the clueless one, saying dumb shit like that Sony became a AAA publisher maybe with Uncharted, talking about Sony's success in 2007 as a catalyst to grow their other teams. At that time they were the worst times for the history of PlayStation, the only part of the history where they were being outsold by Microsoft, Wii and DS were getting a great success and Sony had a good amount of exclusive turds in the PS3 launch window.

The PS1 and PS2 were way more successful and dominant partly because their exclusives were way more successful and relevant back then than the early PS3 ones, and many of these PS1 hits were published by Sony.

Go fuck yourself.

Way to double down on stupid...

PS was successful because of Twisted Metal and Jet Moto and not Tony Hawk, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Metal Gear Solid... I'm sure that you're right and I'm wrong...

Sony went from a bit player on their own system to driving system sells outside of just Gran Turismo. You must be like 20 or something to not know that.

 

[ethomaz]

That's your wording.

Nope, MS / Phil.