Yeah. And that’s why I am advocating for company like Square Enix in Japan. If Microsoft were to buy Square Enix, their position in Japan becomes incredibly strong simply because not developer would want to ignore the platform that owns Square Enix simply due to SE infuence.
If this deal were to be blocked by regulators then the same regulators could point to any similar acquisition in gaming by Microsoft and stop it without an investigation. They have power like that to prevent a company from just throwing money at things that will make them too powerful over and over till the government conceds.
Microsoft is well aware of this and given their desire to expand beyond just the Activision acquisition, we should have a 100% certainty that Microsoft will ensure this deal goes through. They will do so whether with concessions or in court.
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…I’ve heard certain actors here make these kinds of naive assertions that I’m way off base this entire time and every single time when more info shows up it shows the opposite being true. Some folks here insisted I was insane for saying concessions are almost certainly happening, and then MS made a blog post confirming it explicitly. They said I was insane for saying CoD was not going to be exclusive and then every exec at MS confirmed it explicitly over n over. They said I was insane for saying consent decrees and similar agreements should be considered the most likely outcome, and the folks in the know like Hoeg and Idas have said the same. /shrugs
And nobody is ignoring inflation or valuation changes for GP. You appear to be confused between ‘what would happen were there no agreements in place’ and ‘what would happen with agreements in place’. I’m talking (very obviously if you read the post) about the latter. The regs are concerned about GP potentially raising prices beyond the inflation curve if they were to become dominant in that service space. Fixing the price for a few yrs erases any concern there and is something MS would be happy to agree to do anyhow.
Wrt the cloud point, why are you desperate to make this about what ‘Sony is entitled to’? It has nothing to do with that. Regs are not here looking out to protect Sony, they are aiming to curtail anti-competitive moves and MS adding Sony into Azure’s cusomter base as their IaaS provider for the entire PSX ecosystem only to then use that to cripple them is absolutely something regs are concerned about.
Remember: Regs’ job isn’t to adjudicate ‘fairness’, it is to establish the rigid contours of how competition works within individual markets to promote competition. They don’t want MS to dominate in these areas and then make anti-consumer or anti-competitive moves and they don’t want to have to rely on the good graces of Phil Spencer or Satya to keep those moves from happening. They want it in writing and MS has already signaled they are more than happy to provide that. MS’s agenda is to make $$$, and they make more of it by working with Sony to expand the market, not trying to squash them.
Yup, everyone should remember that this ABK deal specifically isn’t about Game Pass or Xbox. It was never part of Xbox’s long term strategy at all. (Zenimax was about GP and Xbox 1P tho)
MS has no qualms at all being less than aggressive in that space. They don’t need to be real aggressive in order to bring in a flood of annual revenues into Xbox as a business, which in turn helps Xbox spend that cash on other stuff too, which leads to more growth/etc. Some ppl online are too focused on promoting the idea that MS will fight tooth and nail to be as aggressive as possible here, but they have made it very clear they aren’t in that camp. MS just wants lots of $$ from this.
As Phil tried to explain in the past, they make a lot more $$ by growing the entire pie compared to squabbling over how big Sony’s slice is. There is sooooooo much growth potential for the industry and MS will be (and presently is) the leader taking the industry in these bold new directions.
I feel like even some Xbox people are joining in on doing this, for what reason I don’t understand.
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Interesting. Can you point to where you stated the deal was only for 3 years and only covered Call of Duty when this acquisition was announced? You’ve only ever insisted that it was that all ABK games would be multiplatform indefinitely…until you changed your tune when Jim Ryan dropped the 3 year figure.
Then you kept saying “well it would be foolish to commit indefinitely”…even though you had insisted it would be indefinite since January …i’ve seen less backpedaling on the reverse cycling olympic team!
Concessions are when they’re forced, if they’re volunteering them they aren’t concessions.
You said Call of Duty would never be exclusive because Microsoft needs $400M from Sony to put into Xbox every 2 years…despite casually dropping $69 Billion up front on Xbox games.
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Last gen has traumatized a lot of people.
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What? o.0
I never said the deal on offer from Phil was for any specific timeframe as of early 2022 when it was announced since we didn’t know details at that point. The 3 yr offer will be taken up by Sony and then offered to them again and again into the future. This is how they do it with Minecraft too, and that is their template for CoD according to MS. MS won’t offer a single deal that spans indefinitely into the future because the details of such a deal can become moot while other relevant market factors might change beneath the foundation of that agreement. Hene they do it every 3 yrs on a recurring basis and make changes as needed. There is no backpedaling there at all. It’s the Minecraft model, and we knew that since Brad Smith told us that their template.
It won’t be exclusive. And Xbox didn’t spend a dime on ABK, MS-corporation did. Those are two very different entities. It isn’t for the cash from Sony’s sw sales, it is also for all the revs from all platforms (billions and billions per yrs just across CoD IP) + similar scale of revenues for Candy Crush + revenues from other IP/games. Also note that MS’s cash on hand was becoming devalued without it being spent.
If you want to make up a word to describe their concessions that makes you less defensive about what happened, go right ahead. I don’t agree that concessions must somehow be made only after other parties make the demand in some explicit way. They can be made beforehand by knowing what concerns regs will have, which was the case here. We don’t have to guess. We know regulators that MS was talking to as well as lawmakers like Ken Buck were airing concerns here, so clearly MS got that message too and acted in response to them before going thru a long drawn out process that would not matter to their broader goals with the deal anyhow.
Note: I see you are already replying seconds after I posted this…take some time to read what I typed here, think on it and digest it and then reply instead of leaping to mash the Reply button. this isn’t a parry move. There’s no extra points for replying instantly, lol.
I don’t know why people keep saying Sony can block a deal as if they have any power. In the video game world they can money hat titles, but in the real world nobody cares about Sony they are just a company who will be consolidated like many other studios and publishers.
People are in denial and that’s ok, I’m sure people thought Sega, Atari & ColecoVision would stay on top too, this is just a natural transition into new market and everyone ain’t got the resources to play it. Alibaba, Amazon, Apple haven’t even started yet and I’m sure Google will come back with a better plan next time around.
Tencent knows that everyone is coming so they are going to start buying full studios and publishers instead of 10% here 5% there. I still think we are 5-7 years out before things really get crazy it surely will be fun to watch. I’m just glad Microsoft got ahead of the curve this time and gonna set the standard for the market with some of the biggest IP’s in gaming history.
You’ve written at length, deriding many other posters claiming you know full well Call of Duty (plus every other ABK game) are never going to be exclusive. “Never” is a specific timeframe. It’s sad you can’t admit you were wrong.
You’re going to need to prove that. I assume you have copies of these rolling contracts and are willing to share? Since Mojang sold in 2014 you should have at least 3 versions from 2014,2017 and 2020 right?
I will wait.
So completely in opposite of your claims from January to July stating that all ABK games would be multiplatform.
It’s nothing but backpedaling.
Hey you should tell Jim Ryan so he doesn’t need to blow anyone else in Brussels.
Who bought Zenmax and made all their games exclusive then?
Applying grease to the cogs because your lawyers recommended it before this was even news is a thing. It’s a speeding ticket in on Ferrari at the end of the day.
Honestly I hope no-one else does. You’re takes have been wrong all year and watching you flip-flop and backpedal recently has been fascinating. You shouldn’t really comment on this deal in anyway, much less of any position of authority.
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I rolled my eyes when I heard this on the podcast.
Microsoft isnt going to face some pushback and adversity and just give up on the deal. Theres a lot riding on this and they’ll go as far as they can to get the deal closed if they need to. It would be a lot faster to just wait until the deal is closed.
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Yeah a ton of weird takes, there was always going to be a lengthy review process and pusback from Sony. So because Jim Ryan is vocal about this deal we should be worried it wont go through? Because Stadia shuts down it means Microsoft doesn’t have a valid case to get the deal done? Just a lot of weird concern and panic like this was not expected.
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It’s almost like a sense of guilt. I know some posters are trying to frame it as a “if you root for CoD to be exclusive you are bad”…this is of course untrue. Xbox games by Xbox should only be on Xbox.
Truthfully it makes no financial sense whatsoever to continue Call of Duty on Playstation in any form for any reason. In the long term you only end up with just a more successful Xbox.
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For right now and likely through the rest of the gen it won’t. You won’t find anyone with sanity who would argue MS taking COD off Playstation in the near future, after 2027 though…
Ironically Hoeg himself has said that MS would never make an agreement in perpetuity and that if there were a consent degree for COD to stay on Playstation it would only be for a limited time
What you’re suggesting implies MS would HAVE to offer a deal for an extension beyond 2027 which is what people are calling nonsense
If you’re going to quote someone like Hoeg in this case you should at least watch the video and listen to what he actually says, just some advice
Ironically out of all of the articles the Game Pass price increase isn’t among the biggest concern here. Will MS keep the price as is for the foreseeable future regardless? They likely will but they aren’t going to commit to it
You certainly are framing it that way…“give Sony COD, Give them a new deal, give them Azure” every point you’ve made so far has been that MS having to bend over backwards so their competitor can benefit from it. That’s not regulating anti competitve moves and I guarantee you can’t find a single comparable example of regulators trying to enforce something similar
You don’t curtail anti competitive moves by giving handouts to to a competitor. Sony has the opportunity to compete, it’s up to Sony to do so. Just like Nintendo is despite not having COD, despite not paying to use a massive cloud service.
By the logic you’re using, does MS have to do the same for Nintendo? Does MS have to put COD on Switch? Do they have to offer Switch Azure?
If you’re trying to make the argument that, in the case Sony did go with Azure, that MS would gimp their treatment on the platform, cripple them, handicap them and give them unfair treatment, that has nothing to do with regulations, that would be a case of MS breaching terms of service and Sony being able to sue them for it.
That’s entirely different than MS being able to refuse to offer Sony access to their platform. MS isn’t going to give Sony unfair treatment on Azure because Sony is a paying customer.
This an entirely different topic than “You must let Sony onto Azure if they want it”
What MS has stated and what you’re arguing do not align with each other in the slightest
MS has apparently offered to give COD to Sony for an additional 3 years, nothing beyond that, no guarantee that they’ll offer a new term, no guarantee beyond that they want to do any further business with Sony. Does does mean they absolutely won’t? No, but they haven’t guaranteed it either
MS has made no statement regarding the price of Game Pass nor any indication that they’d keep the price the same. Will they keep the price as is? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t but they’ve already shown in India recently that they’re willing to adjust the price based off currency value.
MS has no statement regarding Azure, would MS accept Sony if they wanted to use the Azure platform? Very likely yes, they’re a customer and MS only benefits from it. There certainly isn’t going to be any decree that they have to allow Sony on the platform
As I said earlier I guarantee you cannot find any Merger/Acquisition where regulatory bodies made similar conditions to what you’re suggestting here for MS/ABK
Will conditions be required? Sure, the most obvious one is COD staying multiplat for a period (Period of time) but everything else is nonsense
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And that’s the most absurd thing. Imagine feeling guilt for getting games after Xbox One era 
Yep, just listened to Hoeg in the bitcast podcast and he said he fully expect ABK to be under Microsoft’s rofts by april BUT he also expect it to be concessions and he said those concessions are something that MS already predicted were to happen.
Hoeg also noted that even if some regulators were to sue to block the deal, it won’t be the end of the story as he fully expects MS to go to court and why wouldn’t they? I agree with @TheBrightestSun this is the acquisition of acquisition in the gaming industry, nothing would ever dream to come close to the impact and ramifications this deal will have in the gaming industry and as @TavishHill said, ABK will fasten Microsoft’s plans in the gaming sector (btw I have always been team it will go through but with concessions :3)
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Yeah, the proper take is “I hope this deal closes soon,” not that it fails lol.
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It’s like the Xbox folks secretly still want Sony to be strongly in the dominant position because if Xbox becomes number one they’re going to remove the mask and laugh maniacally as they become viciously anti-consumer or something.
It’s weird.
Well I don’t know what will happen in the future but Minecraft wouldn’t be the behemoth that it is today if it were exclusive to xbox back in the day (with not supporting other versions and all that stuff)