Microsoft Consoles and Updates

[Maf]

But Nintendo doesn’t have CoD and they’re still successful. Not having CoD won’t kill Sony, but it could stop them being the lead platform holder, and that’s why they’re annoyed. 
 

But I think ultimately it will be good for video game fans because it means Sony will have to think and try more innovative strategies to stay on top, which I hope means making even better games.

 

Also if the deal doesn’t go through that’s fine too. But I think if it does it will make for interesting developments and I’m interested in seeing that 

[one-armed dwarf]

Nintendo are also the only ones out there making a handheld

 

Maybe in order to be innovative and unique Sony can just make VR games. Sure, I'd be down for that

[Nag]

4 minutes ago, Maf said:

but it could stop them being the lead platform holder, and that’s why they’re annoyed. 

 

Pretty much this, they aren't acting out of kindness for the "gamers" it's their market share and bottom line they're worried about.

[one-armed dwarf]

Of course Sony are pandering with 'protecting the gamers' rhetoric, but people are also playing into that nonsense I think by taking sides of their favourite company for some reason. Like why are people still console warring over this shit lol. If one of the companies' market share gets pummeled into the dust by a series of acquisitions that's not a great outcome if you have Playstation or Xbox. That means one of the companies just lost a ton of leverage when it comes to making similar types of deals

 

 

Sure Sony can invest in their own portfolio to try and catch up on that gap but all available options to them have way more risk involved, and maybe they can't bankroll projects as confidently as they have.

 

I'm open to being convinced by other perspectives but I think fanboy brain rot has taken over this discussion online. Like I'm not fully convinced either that activision's portfolio leads to one company getting a monopoly over the industry but I've already being instructed I may be out of touch on this wrt Call of Duty

 

[Nag]

Sure Sony would take a hit if this deal lands but coming across like a bullied school girl seems pretty disingenuous coming from the market leader... personally I think the CMA are staffed by Sony fanboys.😂

[Maf]

It’s not even being a fan boy for one or the other, I just honestly believe strong competition creates stronger output. 
 

Nintendo is not the best example in some ways, but we only have 3 platform holders so they’ll have to do

 

But look at their own space they’ve carved out since the Wii and look at the excellent and/or different games they’ve made or made homes for on their systems. Whether someone likes Nintendo or their output is not the point, just I think Nintendo are stronger now than they’ve ever been, and they did it without CoD and the like. They adapted around the competition

 

Now Nintendo not the best example for this situation because the space Sony’s carved out is top tier blockbusters, hyper expensive games and stuff like that. That’s what I love about PlayStation and don’t want that too stop (and I don’t think losing CoD will stop that) but I think they’ll have to adapt and either lean in harder in what they do already or come up with something new to try stay on top. Either way I think it’ll just result in better games, which is better for me lol

 

If Xbox gets CoD and Sony buckles in 5 years and gets devoured by Amazon or some shit then I take it all back. But I think Sony could do with a good challenge. They haven’t had one since 2007.

[one-armed dwarf]

11 minutes ago, Maf said:

strong competition creates stronger output

But that's not what this is, this is an argument over whether this agreement is a breach of antitrust, the exact opposite

 

I'm not saying that buying AVB necessarily is that, but if it is then it doesn't not create an environment for companies to be more competitive, the exact opposite. You need to know and probably do know that big companies tend to be risk averse and would only become moreso with this

 

Nintendo got big cause they went big on motion gaming, then they miscalculated on the Wii U tablet gimmick and got on top again with hybrid handheld. I don't know what kind of similar pivot people think Sony are able to pull off here with PS5. I'm not completely joking with my VR comment, I'd be down for that, but VR does not have broad appeal at all and is a non starter.

 

Maybe you might argue that nintendo are a good example of being a risk taker here, you're probably right, but that doesn't really change the situation for current hardware

 

edit it sounds like whatever happens tho a lot of these IP won't be leaving PS systems for a long time, so maybe it's all moot in the near term I don't know. 

[Nag]

Do people honestly think losing CoD would end the Sony PlayStation? Really?

[one-armed dwarf]

4 minutes ago, Nag said:

Do people honestly think losing CoD would end the Sony PlayStation? Really?

I have no idea, I'm just saying that if Acti's portfolio is big enough to have a devastating impact to a competitor's market share then it's not really a good thing for anyone except MS's and AB's shareholders and that I find the cheerleading of that pretty strange imo.

 

But I actually think CoD isn't even that hot, but I haven't played one since 2007

 

But the substance of Sony's argument is that it is worth getting antitrust people to look at it, the people who you bring in when a market situation gets so lopsided to destroy competition. Yet people are excited over that, I don't get it. I think these are people who enjoy console warring more than playing games

[Maf]

If it really would be a monopoly and bad for the video game industry and video game quality overall then I don’t want Xbox to get CoD. I just not a believer that’s what at stake here.

 

I also think losing CoD would hurt PlayStation like a muthafucka. Losing one of the biggest series of all time from their system will fuck their income up big time. But it’s not going to kill them it will probably just set them back to no.2 position. And I want to see what they do when they’re on the back foot. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah it's entirely subjective if it can have that impact. To answer nag's question again, I actually think it doesn't have that impact. I'm playing devil's advocate somewhat on the part of sony here, but even if this isn't necessarily the purchase to constitute antitrust violation it's a step towards that considering how outsized this publisher is.

 

That's all really

[Maryokutai]

23 minutes ago, Maf said:

They adapted around the competition

 

I wouldn't really call Nintendo's R&D that consists of throwing ideas around and hoping for the best "adapting". They're still doing the same games they did on the N64 (minus F-Zero), the only adaptation I can see is them struggling heavily under the workload of supporting two platforms by the time they went into HD development, so they just merged their platforms into one. But that's purely about hardware. They never adapted to the overall gaming space by developing games that specifically filled a hole in their portfolio. Metroid Prime being first person was probably the closest to that they've ever been and that game is hardly comparable to classic run & gun FPS games.

 

The only non-fanboy positive I can see around this Activision deal is that Activision right now is an absolutely horrible company with awful leadership and disgusting business practices. That is one thing that could potentially improve drastically under MS and pretty much the only reason why I'm not 100% against them absorbing them. 

[Nag]

I'll admit that if I'm being honest this acquisition wouldn't really have any major upsides for my gaming habits at all, yeah I'd play some CoD campaigns on Game Pass but that would be all... I don't buy CoD games and haven't for years.

 

It's the whole soap opera going with it that's got my interest and the characters these companies seem to have adopted... the Bethesda buyout was nothing like this.

[Maf]

The only thing I don’t really like out of the whole situation is Xbox using the Microsoft bank account cheat code. It would be better if they were creating and inventing new games and series that would rock PlayStation “naturally”

 

But is what it is. PlayStation seem unmovable from the top spot so this makes sense. 
 

@Maryokutai Nintendo have done a lot more than that just not with hardware. In a sense they’ve retreated home a bit. But they’ve concentrated on 1st party games, anime games, Japanese games and stronger Japanese partnerships. The return is the most unique and successful console and library they’ve ever had. 
 

They’ve also embraced Mario with guns, Zelda like Skyrim and a multiplayer shooter in Splatoon which was just their biggest Switch launch ever or something. So it’s not like they’ve just done the same things they were doing since the 90’s. 

[Maryokutai]

Eh, I don't see it. The Japanese partnerships are a direct result of the Switch hitting a nerve over there and being a runaway success. Of course Square Enix is going to put every possible JRPG on a system that sells like hotcakes in Japan. The UbiSoft relationship, which was probably on wonky terms after the WiiU, is just a byproduct of that publisher selling quazillions of Just Dance games during the Wii era. Nintendo never went hard into partnerships. They make a deal here and there if they see something in a studio and I'll also give you Bayonetta as something old Nintendo wouldn't have done, but overall this is still 90% the same MO they were following 20 years ago.

 

I did completely forget about their mobile stuff though. You could see that as some sort of market adaptation. But that's an entirely different scenario as what Sony would have to face if CoD would leave Playstation and also not quite on-topic for here.

[Maf]

I admit Nintendo is not the best example but it’s them or Sega and err…

[DANGERMAN]

I think it's worth remembering that we're not talking about a company the Size of Sony and Nintendo buying up the biggest console IP, this thing that prints money through digital purchases (grubby digital purchases admittedly), it's Microsoft. Microsoft are in the top 3 companies in the world, they're huge, they can afford to buy Activision on a whim, that's how big they are

 

The gaming division is a huge part of what keeps Sony profitable, that's not the same for Microsoft

 

There's the false equivalence of "what about Final Fantasy", but the obvious difference is that Sony have got a licencing deal, they haven't bought Square. I doubt Square's whole portfolio generates as much as COD. This is ignoring that Final Fantasy just isn't that big on Xbox, it has no history there, COD is the biggest revenue generator for Sony (possibly 2nd to Fortnite)

 

I'd have thought the only comparable game would be FIFA, but that has so many other people taking a cut I bet that isn't close for profit

[Nag]

15 minutes ago, DANGERMAN said:

they haven't bought Square

 

They may as well have... for all that I've said though I have no real stakes in this and I don't think it would really affect may gaming in any meaningful way if this did fall through. I'm thinking maybe it all boils down to me really disliking Jim Ryan...😂

[DANGERMAN]

24 minutes ago, Nag said:

 

They may as well have... for all that I've said though I have no real stakes in this and I don't think it would really affect may gaming in any meaningful way if this did fall through. I'm thinking maybe it all boils down to me really disliking Jim Ryan...😂

There's something eminently dislikeable about Ryan, the previous guy seemed better ( Lahey or something?).

 

My instinct was that, Sony will survive and I mainly play on pc for Western stuff. But Microsoft own the pc market, sure Steam is the biggest store but if you're playing on PC you're playing on Windows. Microsoft having that much control over gaming, by controlling pc and console, I don't think anyone can argue that isn't a problem

[one-armed dwarf]

It's all very speculative at the moment, but it's good to read up on the previous antitrust issue Microsoft had where they used their position as OS vendor to smother out other web browser vendors offerings 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

 

They were very sneaky here tho. I knew that IE put a wedge in web browser standards for a generation that we really only properly escaped in the past few years. But it says here they did things like make the operation of Windows way worse if IE was uninstalled in favour of another browser, for instance.

 

I don't really think they would do something quite like this in gaming, especially given that they got in trouble for it with Internet Explorer. But the point of this anecdote is when you're in charge of multiple different stages of production you have insane ability to smother out competition. They can disincentives partnerships with Sonys in ways that don't benefit end users at all, instead hurting them, while at the same time hurting opportunities to compete in innovative ways. Gamepass is the way I'd expect it to occur, if it does. But again, just speculating

 

Square Enix can do deals with MS if they want, I'm inclined to believe the real reason FFVII Remake and XVI aren't on xbox is they just aren't that big a deal and MS aren't bothered about having them