Right. Like, they're already a giant company in their own right. When was the last time AB released a game that was as creative or risk-taking as, say, Pentiment?
I did not insinuate at all that MS was pressuring Rare to make a liveservice game, I merely said that I find it unlikely they would prefer a Banjo-Threeie over Everwild. And yes, they have acquired Toys for Bob (or try to do that currently); probably not because they specifically wanted TfB, but I do think TfB is probably the best chance Banjo-Threeie ever had of existing.
No clause against GamePass. Think a few "timed exclusive" games released on GamePass once they came to XBox. Maybe something they'll look to limit.
Lmao. People in this thread really acting like Sony has any say in it. Sony aren't regulators. There is no "by extension". They might have some sway in certain sectors, but if EU and FTC pass it the CMA will eventually cave.
Sony already windows competitive subs in all their marketing deals. They're already limiting XGP wherever possible.
Well if Crash was exclusive to MS you wouldn't need to buy an Xbox to play it. Which is why I'm an Xbox fan more than a Sony fan personally.
Not to be rude or anything but
Yea but by that point, they're not exclusive anymore and aren't under contract..
Yeah Activision is taking so many risks nowadays and has so much creativity, I would hate seeing ms buying them up and turning them into a cod factory
ABK deal has many dimensions. It is also a part of the whole breaking the walled gardens of Apple and Google.
Sony 3rd person games are all blockbusters and very successful (ms own words). I mean what 3rd person and 1st person blockbusters are MS putting out before their acquisitions? How are their success self inflicted damage?
Though they're much diminished, I'd consider Halo and Gears to be blockbusters still. Sea of Thieves would also probably qualify.
Well yes of course they can, they're Sony, they just chose not to even try and replace some of that CoD revenue. Sony has the studio power, they have existing franchises and they have the money to do it.
Sony's self-inflicted damage is not creating a rival to a game published by an (at the time, and to be honest, likely never considered to really never not be) independent third party developer whom they've had a fruitful, decades long relationship?
When I say "need", it's referring to my personal preferences. I understand the conveniences of playing games on any device of your choosing, but I prefer playing platformers on a game console. I play PC games for other genres that are better suited for that platform and likewise for mobile devices.
It's not that much of their revenue, tho. They totally can survive without COD.
I don't know if I would quite call it "self-inflicted," but if CoD is as crucial to Sony as they're claiming, they absolutely should have worked through the "what if Microsoft buys them" scenario and had a plan in place to mitigate their exposure to that risk. There's inherent risk in being reliant on a revenue source that you don't control.
I think it is a stretch to say that it was poor risk mitigation to not have game planned for the largest video game publisher to no longer be an independent. But regardless, Sony has long tried to break into the FPS genre (Killzone, Resistance), have partnered with new studios to attempt to create new FPS IP that could perhaps make some noise (Firewalk, Deviation), sought to acquire Bungie to shore up their GAAS and FPS capabilities, all before this acquisition was announced.
Google looked to pay Activision, others to stop app store rivals, Epic says (NASDAQ:GOOG)
A new detail from Epic Games' 2020 lawsuit against Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) over its Android and Play Store policies accuses Google of agreeing to pay $360M to Activision Blizzard (ATVI)...seekingalpha.com
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Yeah, agreed. It's the kind of thing that would be nice to have, but not really worth actively trying to build while in a leadership position and collecting big CoD royalties risk-free. Like you said, hindsight.
I think it's more an incredulous response to the absurd notion that CoD potentially not launching on Playstation 5 years down the line would lead to the downfall of Playstation. More tongue in cheek, "well if it's that important to you, you should have made your own" kind of thing.
I mean it's a bit of a stretch to go that far back with the industry only just starting up. The business community is a lot more mature and the numbers involved (not only financial but people too - Bungie have what about 1,000 staff?) are far greater.
The (home videogames) industry was already nearing two decades old when Sony bought Psygnosis and their shutdown was in the PS2 era. This wasn't some garage startup way back in the immature 90s, it was the biggest electronics company in the world entering the fastest growing media industry already worth billions.
ABK deal was unexpected event, it would be not affect their plans and they did not play to acquire ABK in the first place.
The irony is that's the example of anti-trust and not whatever Microsoft is doing 🤣 Which is similar to what Sony was doing with cross-play too (and some stuff even to this day). Would they dare to do that if they did not have a control over the biggest chunk of the market - obviously not.
Yeah I was referring to Psygnosis. They bought them for about £20 million with a much smaller workforce. The considerations are vastly higher and more complex with Bungie.
Sony acquired Bungie after the AB acquisition was announced, just to be accurate.
Sony announced the acquisition of Bungie after the announcement of ATVI, but the talks had been ongoing for over a year, so it wasn't really a response to ATVI.
Psygnosis was itself nearly a decade old and one of the top publishers in the UK (and really Europe at large) when Sony bought them. They had multiple dev studios in the UK and Germany (and shortly the USA and France), a huge publishing and marketing program with over a dozen partner studios (including notably DMA Design) and even developed micro/console dev kits with partner SN Systems (who Sony also bought). They weren't some fledgling garage start up by the time they were acquired.
