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Microsoft exec reiterates strategy for AB games after acquisition

AJUMP23

Member
COD franchise coming to Playstation
Happy Business GIF by J Hus

30% of every sale on Playstation coming back to MS to help build out Gamepass.

Sweet GIF
 

Topher

Gold Member
I really like Matt Booty. Seems like a good guy. Sounds pretty straight forward to me.

"If anything, we feel that it's our job to be caretakers, to be shepherds, to continue to build and nurture that community, not to cut it up into pieces and try to take some of it away."

To me this plainly says that current franchises will remain on the exact same platforms as they exist now. The article speculates that future exclusive titles would more than likely be from "brand new titles".

Not sure how many different ways Microsoft has to keep saying this stuff for it to sink in.
 

Majukun

Member
If that is so than why do you even care what they do & where they choose to put their games on
Just play the games who cares about the business decision
I'm interested in discussing business decisions, especially when they don't make sense to me
 

Leyasu

Banned
Here we go again.

The status quo for some franchises won’t change, but for others it definitely will. I honestly don’t see crash bandicoot staying multi because of the “community” elsewhere lol

But even then, as someone mentioned above, they are leaving themselves some wiggle room for the future.

Everyone should not be expecting anything, either remaining multi or going exclusive for each and every franchise in the future.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Why people think it is so easy?
If FTC will let this deal through with Microsoft saying "we will keep COD multiplatform" they can't just suddenly make it exclusive because FTC then can revisit this merger.
It's same with people who thinks that Sony can now say that they will keep Bungie games multiplat and then after closing made their games exclusive.

No, I know.

My point was that it's weird people just shorthand this entire massive 70bn deal to CoD.

That's only one IP under the Activision banner.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
The same people who buy consoles just to play CoD & FIFA each year but no other title.

Casuals don’t know what gamepass is? They don’t know Microsoft bought CoD? It was mainstream news for everyone. Had two hardcore PlayStation fans jump the last year to join our group of friends after the news and haven’t looked back and never thought would infect them into the green rat plague.

Keep dreaming dude. It's not going to happen that easily. Most do play other games, but might play Fifa or COD way more. Doesn't mean they are suddenly going to abandon the PS for a whole new console.

Your 2 friends are not the rest of the world and it's meaningless for everything else. If people can keep playing these games on their console, they won't botter.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
No, I know.

My point was that it's weird people just shorthand this entire massive 70bn deal to CoD.

That's only one IP under the Activision banner.

Yep. Booty is talking about any game with a "big community across a number of platforms". To me that includes Diablo, Overwatch, etc. along with Call of Duty. That's good for everyone. More revenue for Microsoft. No lost franchises for PlayStation.
 

Majukun

Member
Keep dreaming dude. It's not going to happen that easily. Most do play other games, but might play Fifa or COD way more. Doesn't mean they are suddenly going to abandon the PS for a whole new console.

Your 2 friends are not the rest of the world and it's meaningless for everything else. If people can keep playing these games on their console, they won't botter.
you don't need to abandon shit.
we are still at the start of the new gen believe it or not, an huge amount of userbase is still rocking previous gen consoles...but they will update someday...and knowing COD is exclusive on one side would definitely guide their choice.
given , same does knowing it will probably be free under subscription on xbox consoles, but with nowhere as the impact.

but now MS just made their choice way easier, which will probably be guided by community, where your friends play, which most likely will be PS just because of bigger market share
 

Swift_Star

Banned
No, I know.

My point was that it's weird people just shorthand this entire massive 70bn deal to CoD.

That's only one IP under the Activision banner.
Because people are missing the point that both this and Destiny are massive cash cows that will bring Sony and Microsoft large amounts of money, the more platforms these games are available, the better for them.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-game-pass-exclusives



does seem to mostly repeat what was already stated but in a more precise and deliberate way

To me it seems like a big waste for them to not put everything under exclusivity, but seems like they don't care about xbox anymore and they are all about gamepass

They need this to make money or at least start recouping money invested into Gamepass. Having big franchises like COD stay multiplat helps them generate revenue, and adds value to gamepass increasing their sub count by a large margin in a shorter span of time than it would take if they were just exclusive.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
They need this to make money or at least start recouping money invested into Gamepass. Having big franchises like COD stay multiplat helps them generate revenue, and adds value to gamepass increasing their sub count by a large margin in a shorter span of time than it would take if they were just exclusive.

King generates billions in revenue annually alone.

I have a suspicion they'll be fine financially.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
- Games with established multi-platform communities will not be exclusive.

Basically everything will be exclusive apart from COD.

MS can do what they want after the deal gone through though
 

johnjohn

Member
Yea pretty much reiterating what we already knew, the big established multiplayer games will remain multiplat while everything else will likely become exclusive. I can't really see games like Crash and Spyro remaining multiplat.
 

Majukun

Member
King generates billions in revenue annually alone.

I have a suspicion they'll be fine financially.
last couple years of actbilz entire net profit was around 7/8 bln annual.
and that includes retail sales, that for MS would be substituted by gamepass subs .
it would take a while to recoup, given it's not as easy as just adding and subtracting given they didn't just lose that money, but turned it into assets, assets with value but also expenses associated with them

I'd say everything Blizzard does would fall under "established multi-platform communities".
aren't those communities mostly on pc?
i mean except maybe overwatch
 
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Majukun

Member
Because people are missing the point that both this and Destiny are massive cash cows that will bring Sony and Microsoft large amounts of money, the more platforms these games are available, the better for them.
the amount of revenue they bring is several magnitudes lower than the price paid though.
actibliz was netting 7 bln of profit annual...MS bought them for 68 bln.

usually you make those kind of acquisition for other reasons other than direct profit.
l
 

Topher

Gold Member
last couple years of actbilz entire net profit was around 7/8 bln annual.
and that includes retail sales, that for MS would be substituted by gamepass subs .
it would take a while to recoup, given it's not as easy as just adding and subtracting given they didn't just lose that money, but turned it into assets, assets with value but also expenses associated with them


aren't those communities mostly on pc?
i mean except maybe overwatch

The communities are multiplatform. Booty didn't differentiate beyond that.
 

The Alien

Banned
They can say whatever they want BEFORE the acquisition goes through. I won't pay attention.

It's what they say AFTER the acquisition goes through is what counts.

COD remaining on PS? Sure. Is that Warzone only? Is that just until existing commitments expire (2025, I think)? Is that no change? Let's see AFTER it's approved.
 

Topher

Gold Member
They can say whatever they want BEFORE the acquisition goes through. I won't pay attention.

It's what they say AFTER the acquisition goes through is what counts.

COD remaining on PS? Sure. Is that Warzone only? Is that just until existing commitments expire (2025, I think)? Is that no change? Let's see AFTER it's approved.

So you think Microsoft could be disingenuous in their words now in order to get FTC approval?
 

yurinka

Member
Game Pass is a platform by itself. It is essentially a walled garden basically. With exclusive content. And their acquisitions are about making exclusive content for that platform.

Minecraft was a released game that they were still supporting. Dungeons (and Ori) is the reason why Phil said that they won't do multiplatform releases anymore as it created false expectations.
Yes, Minecraft was already released but they decided to keep releasing the post acquisition new DLCs for Minecaft in the other consoles, where they also released while after the acquisition Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Story Mode day one. MS could have decide to keep all these things exclusive for Xbox and Windows, but they know that Minecraft was making a shit ton of money on PS and Nintendo and decided to keep getting it.

With Zenimax/Bethesda they kept PS exclusive the two exclusives they had with Sony: Deathloop and Ghostire, while they kept releasing post acquisition DLC on PS for all their games, like Fallout 76, ESO or Doom Eternal. They still have to release a Zenimax or Mojang Xbox exclusive game. Their MS gaming division CFO said their plans for Bethesda wasn't exclusivity but instead provide content for GP and to have their game first (timed console exclusives) or better (multiplatform day one) on GP and also said they didn't plan to keep supporting the communities they had in other consoles. So there may have some Xbox (at least some of them timed) exclusives but their focus will be mostly to provide content for GP, which I understand they will block from appearing in the game subs of the competition.

With Activision Blizzard they said in the SEC filing that they plan to continue supporting their big franchises where they are and even mentioned Minecraft as example (which means that post launch new games and DLC would continue being multiplatform), and both Spencer and the MS president said they'll keep CoD on PS, and even mentioned they want to bring it to Switch.

The thing is that most of this talk was about big franchises existing IPs in other platforms, meaning that the exclusive games pretty likely will be the new IPs from these teams, or some small series. They also mentioned it will be case by case.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
They can say whatever they want BEFORE the acquisition goes through. I won't pay attention.

It's what they say AFTER the acquisition goes through is what counts.

COD remaining on PS? Sure. Is that Warzone only? Is that just until existing commitments expire (2025, I think)? Is that no change? Let's see AFTER it's approved.

Won't end well for MS then lol
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
They can say whatever they want BEFORE the acquisition goes through. I won't pay attention.

It's what they say AFTER the acquisition goes through is what counts.

COD remaining on PS? Sure. Is that Warzone only? Is that just until existing commitments expire (2025, I think)? Is that no change? Let's see AFTER it's approved.


I think Call of Duty will remain multi plat, for at least a couple of entries.

Diablo IV was already announced before the deal so that'll be multi plat, same for Overwatch 2.

But any future new IPs made by any of the dozens of activision studios are fair game to be exclusive.

That, and literally every activision blizzard game from the last couple of decades will be eligible to come to Game Pass.
 

Chukhopops

Member
This is as clear as it gonna get
COD stays Multi
New Crash New Spyro Exclusive
& New IP's also exclusive that all folks you guys can stop arguing now
Yeah the only question mark is whether Blizzard licenses like Diablo 4 will be exclusives or multiplat.

Don’t care either way as long as it comes to GP Day 1 though.
 
Minecraft was already released but they decided to keep releasing the post acquisition new DLCs for Minecaft in the other consoles,
That's the thing - they continue to support the released games. TESO expansions and FO76 expansions are still coming to Playstation. New games are not coming.

So there may have some Xbox (at least some of them timed) exclusives but their focus will be mostly to provide content for GP, which I understand they will block from appearing in the game subs of the competition.
If you still believe that TES or the next FO or new IP from Bethesda is coming to PS then you are up for a rude awakening soon

Anyway, these discussions go nowhere. We should just wait and see.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Yeah the only question mark is whether Blizzard licenses like Diablo 4 will be exclusives or multiplat.

Don’t care either way as long as it comes to GP Day 1 though.


Diablo 4 was announced in 2019 for PS4 and XBO.

It will stay multi plat.
 
Undefined games hand-picked for exclusivity.

As many AB games as possible will come to gamepass.

Oh, boy. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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Chukhopops

Member
Diablo 4 was announced in 2019 for PS4 and XBO.

It will stay multi plat.
Didn’t know that, good to know.
Undefined games hand-picked for exclusivity.

As many AB games as possible will come to gamepass.

Oh, boy. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Maybe some parts of the marketing deals prevent games being added to sub services? That was the case for RE:Village as far as I remember.

Edit: referring to this https://www.neogaf.com/threads/leak...ty-and-blocks-the-game-from-gamepass.1601807/
 
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Maybe some parts of the marketing deals prevent games being added to sub services? That was the case for RE:Village as far as I remember.
Or maybe they will use it as an opportunity to walk back on a promise that will cost them a lot of money if big games like CoD stop selling as well as they do now.

Even movie studios walked back on day one releases for every movie and it's the one thing Sony didn't copy from gamepass. They clearly overcommitted in the past by making that promise, at least that's my read on it.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Didn’t know that, good to know.

Maybe some parts of the marketing deals prevent games being added to sub services? That was the case for RE:Village as far as I remember.

I'm sure even regardless of deals, some games like World of Warcraft will never come to game pass.

So it's understandable vague PR speak.
 

johnjohn

Member
They definitely made clear that they want Activision games in Game Pass ASAP. COD in Game Pass is going to be massive.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
that didn't happen for more than a decade, and not for the lack of trying.
i know a lot of people that literally just play the annual cod and nothing else...an exclusivity would gave brought all those players and many more inside the xbox fence, giving them a chance to actually compete on the console market

Because competition was limited. No major console maker was heavily promoting a COD rival, with the exception of the likes of Halo.

Now, Sony has 12 live service games in development. Many will fail to capture an audience. If you keep COD exclusive to Xbox, it could cause a lot of PlayStation gamers to switch. But would you risk the chance of a big chunk of your audience simply pivoting to something else ?
 

Ozriel

M$FT
who the heck is going to jump ship and buy an entire new console just for cod on gamepass when they could just buy a $70 copy on PS4/PS5 and call it a day? thats not very smart. casuals dont even know what gamepass is. they dont even know that microsoft acquired activision. without cod as an exclusive, its a useless deal. the bethesda one makes much more sense because the games will actually be exclusive meaning PS gamers will have no choice but to buy an XBOX to play those games.

By 2024, the Series X will have $449 or $399 deals. Possibly $199 Series S deals. People can do the maths and determine it makes sense to buy an Xbox console and get on Gamepass vs paying $70 yearly for COD. You forget it’s an annual franchise?

This narrative that folks who play COD religiously are ‘casuals’ is the weirdest thing on GAF.
 

The Alien

Banned
I think Call of Duty will remain multi plat, for at least a couple of entries.

Diablo IV was already announced before the deal so that'll be multi plat, same for Overwatch 2.

But any future new IPs made by any of the dozens of activision studios are fair game to be exclusive.

That, and literally every activision blizzard game from the last couple of decades will be eligible to come to Game Pass.
Yep. And as far as stuff going into GamePass...I can see all AB games (exclusive or multi-plat) being service exclusive. Meaning they'll go into GamePass, but not other streaming services. If u want COD, for example, you gotta buy it.
 

Jaybe

Member
Seems pretty straightforward and what you would expect. Multiplatform games are remaining multiplatform and other games / new games exclusive possibly.
PlayStation has too big player count to just drop multiplatform.

True. MS and Sony are all for the ongoing microtransaction GaaS model that Fortnite, CoD, Apex, GTA, and Destiny have established. I can’t see them removing established platforms. It wouldn’t shock me if Halo F2P multiplayer was at the very least being evaluated internally to put on PlayStation.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
well that's what i said in my post, they don't care about the xbox anymore and are focusing on gamepass, but at this point why did they come out with the new xbox in the first place? just exit the console market and put gamepass on everything...sony would probably put less resistance to GP coming to PS if Microsoft was not a direct competitor anymore

So doesn’t that tell you that your opinion that “they don’t care about xbox” is incorrect?
 
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