Sony: Microsoft's Activision 'Deal Would Have Major Negative Implications for Gamers' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 15 September 2022 / 5,041 Views
Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard been approved in Saudi Arabia, but needs the approval from multiple regulatory bodies around the world.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK is entering its second phase as it conducts a more in-depth investigation, according to the Financial Times. It is also reported a similar situation with regulators in the European Union is also expected.
A Sony representative in a statement to GamesIndustry says the company "welcomes the announcement" of the CMA doing a more in-depth investigation.
"By giving Microsoft control of Activision games like Call of Duty, this deal would have major negative implications for gamers and the future of the gaming industry," said the Sony representative.
"We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality gaming experience, and we appreciate the CMA’s focus on protecting gamers."
A Microsoft spokesperson has responded to Sony's statement and said, "It makes zero business sense for Microsoft to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation given its market leading console position.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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"This deal would have major negative implications for gamers and the future of the gaming industry," hmm, okay
"We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality gaming experience" there it is!
Look, this is most likely going to be handled the way Minecraft is with a renewed contract every several years. A perpetual license is not something PlayStation is entitled to when they are not the ones spending $70 billion. Only a complete idiot running a company would actually agree to a permanent license.
« Welp. »
Completely fair point! :)
not our friends, still defends KEK
Of course the opposite side would call them out, this is basically an all too obvious power struggle, one that MS could potentially win at this time, because money to them clearly isn't an issue, but you have to admit fully, that this was Sony's own doing, they taunted MS for years, they were also super aggrro when they first entered the marketed, they basically had this coming since day 1.
You don't stay aggro for years, get all smug and satisfied with your aggro behaviour and not expect some form of comeuppance.
It's been like this since I got here back in 2014, only some of the worst were snapped out of this forum for being too obvious with the fanboyism.
It's just stupid to think that Sony could coast on easy wins and market lockdown forever, someone was always going to come up and flip the table and wipe the chess pieces off the board, only it was MS that did it.
No idea, could be today, could be tomorrow, but I know I'm following the rules thus far.
If you want me snapped, be honest with me Hynad. Just an fyi, i do upvote you a good chunk of the time in these articles, because I know you have good points, especially when you call others out.
I don’t see Nintendo making all of these comments to the press. And other big publishers have come out and said this move is fine, and IIRC so has Apple, who is in competition with MS just as much as Sony because of cloud gaming.
That Jez dude is a MS shill but I read an article on GAF where he said it best, this is just Sony acting in bad faith and hoping that regulators are dumb enough to fall for it.
I actually think Nintendo is likely to benefit from the deal. Microsoft has shown willingness to put their games on other platforms. If I had to bet, I'd say Nintendo will get more Activision content after the merger.
Someone should remind him when he's whining about CoD exclusive deals that there is a PlayStation exclusive beta launching tomorrow for CoD lol
What a crock of shit.
Jim and his hilarious hypocrisy strikes again.
If sony wants cod for longer then give ff7 remake, ff16, star ocean, forspoken and many other games they have money hatted. Sony becoming greedy and a hypocrite
Nah... This is good for "gamers" to keep those exclusives :) You do not understand it! ;-)
They obviously care for "gamers"...
Sony bought Square in a different way, so they will moneyhat everything they make, without spending billions (they don't have to begin with,). Instead they are spending millions and making those back when the games release. The latter is also something that Xbox is somehow not able to do with their legion of studios. In a few months Xbox Series turns 2, but doesn't have much to show for it exclusive wise.
Same result for the "gamers" at the end... The game is not available on the other platform.
They are crying about COD here, a game that may not be available on their platform in the future. This has already been beaten to death anyway. Let's stop pretending that Sony is not a business and that they care even a little for the gamers, they are not. They don't, they care for their profit margin to stay the same.
I didn’t know Karen was spelled S-o-n-y…. Wait, I see it now.
I love it when Sony cries about another company doing what they themselves have done before.
This is laughable.
Sony is really coming off as petty.
They're not wrong for saying this, I know they're saying this to save their own ass, but everyone is thinking in the short term. The long term ramifications of this could be much bigger. You guys have a lot of faith for a company that, not even a decade ago, was being lambasted for their anti-consumer practices. Did you guys even forget about the 7th gen where Microsoft held all the chips and is doing what Sony is doing right now with timed exclusives? Everyone is excited for the revival of Activision's dead IPs, but at the same time you look at what what Microsoft has done to it's biggest IP, Halo, and everyone's happy about that?
But Ms has better record in sharing games. Minecraft, deathloop, ghostwire Tokyo, 3 years additional on top of what Sony had with Activision and more. Sony has yet to share a game lol
But Ms has better record in sharing games. Minecraft, deathloop, ghostwire Tokyo, 3 years additional on top of what Sony had with Activision and more. Sony has yet to share a game lol
Prior to ms buying Bethesda we didn't know they money hatted it for one year. Ms didn't have to honor it but they did as they own all of Bethesda ip. Same with minecraft. They own it. They didn't have to share but they did. Ff7 remake was meant to be only 1 year times exclusive but looks like Sony has extended it to be permanent. Sounds like ff16 is also permanent and forspoken for now it's 2 year wait with potentisl being permanent. Sony does own final fantasy ip but yet they made sure competition will never get to to play them unless u buy playstation. That's the difference I was outlining
sony just thinking of the millions of lost 30% each year
It's sad how the CMA only consider Playstation Gamers make up the Gaming Industry. When the CMA is quoting Sony's statement as speaking for the industry in questioning this deal something doesn't seem right.
I think MS made a terrible mistake embarking on this deal. They should have just done what Embracer has been doing and buy half the market little buy little. I mean, $70b would be enough to buy around 70 midle-sized studios around the globe.
Fuck gamers.
But if Sony keep making good games why do they care? This is all about his own audience. He doesn't care for the industry or others. Its been okay for them to hold the CoD exclusive rights and butchering content on other platforms but the moment they realised that might get taken away.. they pretend to care and play victim.
They're not wrong. We don't need so much of the video game industry under the roof of one oversized company. Microsoft is not your sugar daddy.
Why not? The number of people who can access gamepass is far bigger then keeping it to a platforms that may sell 110 million or more
If they wouldn't buy Activision the entire damn company would only make CoD games and all their other franchises would die. This way they can keep having an actually diverse portfolio.
Despite the fact that Activision merging with Blizzard was already a bad deal, now that we've seen the long-term ramifications, I fail to see how MS, who are currently still doing stuff for Xbox/PC is somehow a bad thing.
Sony buys up others as well, and is now gearing towards PS/PC, MS is doing the same on their end, the only one who isn't participating in the same ring is Nintendo, because they are just rolling with Switch/Mobile.
If you want to "guarantee" quality of your own brand, you need to either compete on their level or do something new. Valve for example, could have competed in the same way Epic does with buying up temp exclusives, and buying studios to bar them from your competitors storefront, but instead Valve made the Deck, and now that's become another reason for devs to pursue another piece of hw to support, and for customers to gain peak interest in.
just do something new ffs, do something that's different from your competition that truly sets yourself apart, if you're supposedly struggling that much with a one merged publisher buyout.
So Jim "Lying Ryan" has zero legitimate argument to make against this deal, which is why he resorts to non-stop lies.
No wonder so many are pissed with that clown.
Well, he's probably not wrong. This has some potential for positive impact as well, but overall, I'm expecting this to be a negative for gamers. Of course he's saying this just because this is bad for Sony's business, but he's not wrong either.
Really? Because I'm looking forward to the revival of Activision IPs that have been thrown into a vault under lock and key to forever be forgotten all in the name of Call of Duty. We'll actually have a more diverse portfolio of games coming out of Activision after everything finalizes. That's good for gamers.
Activision had one of the least impressive portfolios in gaming even before they went all Call of Duty. They've always been a one- or two-trick pony.
So Bungie and Insomniac? And the other 10 studios Sony has brought over the years?
It's only okay when Sony does it apparently lol, or Nintendo.
Microsoft bought plenty independent studios at the start of the gen. Given they barely produce any games it's alright to forget them though.
No one has forgotten, except those pretending it doesn't happen on the other side.
Yet those are almost never pointed out in these kinds of discussions. It's not just Bethesda and Activision it's also a lot of smaller Devs Microsoft bought these last 5 years. Microsoft is buying a lot more of PlayStation at the moment than the other way around.
Quantity of studios doesnt make it any different. Why is it only brought up when MS do it but ignore it when Sony do it? They both do it.
Then why don’t you ever bring them up?
I am replying to someone who brought it up.
I have argued many times they both do it, yet seems people only like to point the finger at one side for doing it.
Nah, you don’t. You never balance things fairly. It’s always against Sony, and never rational or objective.
As ive said before - Microsoft will allow the game to be on PS, but only as part of Gamepass.....
And this is where it gets interesting - MSFT will want the full game library to be available, Sony will end up saying only MSFT owned games. So in the end MSFT get a slimmed down GP on PS and Sony gets to continue selling games which are covered by GP on other consoles. Players get access to ALL MSFT games through GP.
I tend to agree with this. It's like Netflix being available on Disney+ (or vice-versa). Seems pretty unlikely.
