Microsoft: PlayStation Would Remain Larger Even If Every CoD Player on PlayStation Were to Move to Xbox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 October 2022 / 8,779 Views
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK released a new report on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The report says Sony Interactive Entertainment believes if the deal were to go through it would cause Call of Duty players to switch from PlayStation to Xbox even if the series were to remain multiplatform.
Microsoft has now responded to Sony's claims in a statement to GamesIndustry and says that even if every Call of Duty player on PlayStation switched to Xbox, "the PlayStation gamer base remaining would be significantly larger than Xbox."
Microsoft added, "In short, Sony is not vulnerable to a hypothetical foreclosure strategy, and the Referral Decision incorrectly relies on self-serving statements by Sony which significantly exaggerate the importance of Call of Duty to it and neglect to account for Sony's clear ability to competitively respond.
"While Sony may not welcome increased competition, it has the ability to adapt and compete. Gamers will ultimately benefit from this increased competition and choice."
Microsoft has once again reiterated what Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer recently stated. Microsoft signed an agreement to Sony in a written letter sent to PlayStation boss Jim Ryan in January. The agreement is that Microsoft will keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles for "several more years" beyond the current Sony deal.
If Microsoft were to take Call of Duty away from PlayStation it would "alienate" the fanbase and "tarnish both the Call of Duty and Xbox brands," stated Microsoft.
The big motivation for the deal is to bring Activision Blizzard games to Xbox Game Pass, which would give gamers more choice in how to access the content.
CMA has concerns the deal could "significantly increase Microsoft’s market power, or even tip the market in
its favour" in reference to subscription services.
Microsoft said that if gamers choose to leave PlayStation for Xbox, it is because Xbox is offering more choices on how its games can be played.
"Should any consumers decide to switch from a gaming platform that does not give them a choice as to how to pay for new games (PlayStation) to one that does (Xbox), then that is the sort of consumer switching behavior that the CMA should consider welfare enhancing and indeed encourage," said Microsoft. "It is not something that the CMA should be trying to prevent."
CMA also expressed concerns that the deal would give Microsoft an advantage in the game streaming area, by using Microsoft's Azure service and PCs. However, Microsoft said Xbox Cloud Gaming doesn't us its Azure and are not streamed from PC hardware.
"There is no advantage," Microsoft said. "Indeed, Xbox considers that it faces a number of significant disadvantages as compared to rival providers of infrastructure for game streaming."
Microsoft added, "Consumer adoption of cloud gaming remains low. Harming or degrading rival services would significantly set-back adoption of this technology – protecting market-leading incumbents (i.e., Sony on console, Apple and Google on mobile, as well as Steam on PC).
"Xbox, as a platform which is in last place in console, seventh place in PC and nowhere in mobile game distribution globally, has no incentive to do this – instead its incentive is to encourage the widespread adoption of cloud gaming technologies by as many providers as possible to encourage the major shift in consumer behaviour required for cloud gaming to succeed."
The CMA has set a deadline of March 1, 2023 to publish its final report and decision on Microsoft's proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition.
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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And they're right. You can't overcome the 117m vs 50m split of the last generation with a single exclusive franchise, no matter how big. (Well, maybe GTA could overcome such a large gap, lol). CoD sold what, maybe 12-16m copies on Playstation this past gen depending on the exact CoD title. Even if all 16m of the PS CoD players bought an Xbox (the ones that don't already have an Xbox as a backup console), it still would only close the gap by maybe 13-14m.
Xbox will certainly make-up ground on Sony this gen thanks to the Bethesda and Activision acquisitions, but they won't close the entire gap in a single generation, Playstation has too much brand power and a strong 1st party of their own that specializes in story driven action-adventure games (a genre Xbox is weak in regardless of Activision-Blizzard).
Not sure how 16m of CoD players changing from PS to Xbox would decrease the gap by 14m instead of 32m.
As I said, some PS gamers already own an Xbox as a secondary or tertiary console, so CoD going Xbox exclusive would create no new Xbox sales for those people. Also, most people aren't going to not buy a PS console simply because CoD is no longer on it, most will buy both consoles in such a scenario, an Xbox for CoD and a PS5 for their very popular 1st party IP's like God of War, Spider-Man, and Horizon. So you can't just remove the CoD playerbase from PS and add the same number to Xbox. Maybe my 13-14m estimate is a bit off though, especially since I forgot to factor in CoD Warzone (which likely has alot more PS players than the paid CoD games due to it being F2P).
Understood. Ok if you think only half would skip PS because of that it makes sense. Of course we can't know the precise number anyway and 100% skip wouldn't happen anyway.
Cool, make some new games.
"Increased competition" is not the same as buying up all the big houses and monopolizing.
It is great that Nintendo can compete without CoD, Sony can adapt, but MS can't do without buying big pubs.
Can Sony adapt? By the sounds of it and what Jim even said, they cant.
You act as if Sony is not also spending on developers but it seems you are complaining that they do not have the money to go for bigger purchases. This is business so why should one company kneecap themselves because their competition does not have the same pockets as they do. Sony paid 3 Bill for Bungie, its not like they do not have the means to go for bigger prizes. Sony has over the years purchase a number of companies and made exclusive deals with a number of 3rd party companies to boaster their content. So now when the competition gets serious and take it to another level, Sony gamers want to call foul. Lol all the while Sony gamers is asking when Sony will do the same and purchase a publisher. I guess you can say this is what happens when you poke the bear, it either runs away or come at you with a vengence.
.....and Chicago Bulls would still be able to win championships yoy if Michael Jordan was playing on another team >.>
Jim and Sony have to stop whining and do things like buying other studios (Capcom or SE).
Competition is good for everybody.
And yes, MS is right about Sony overestimating the power of COD nowadays
Jim and Sony should bring back Resistance, or MAG, or Planetside, or make a new shooter IP. One that they can own all to themselves, and don't have to worry about who buys what.
I fail to see how buying established publishers is competing in anything other than a buying war they can not win, but that's probably just me.
Sony doesn't need to win the buying war though. They are hardly struggling and really only need to make smart acquisitions to remain in their power position.
I would love to know what is the difference. Whether you buy one big company like Bungie or a bunch of smaller companies like Insomniac, you are still purchasing exclusive developers for your ecosystem. Even now I continue to see PS gamers asking when Sony going to purchase Sega, Capcom Konami or Square/Enix in the same breath while they criticize MS for purchasing Bethesda or Acti/Blizz. I believe the problem is that gamers still believe that MS care about the console war. MS is not concerned about winning the console war, they have moved to the service war. In a service content is king not the hardware. Even no MS allows you to jump straight into play any of their games in he cloud when you search for the game on Bing. Pretty much what Google stated would happen with Stadia but MS already beat them to the punch. You can also stream games that are not on GP with MS cloud as well which is another step MS is headed like you can do with Nvidia service.
At the end of the day, if any publisher is up for sale, whoever gets the opportunity to purchase them would be foolish not to if it allows their competitor the chance to do the same.
Microsoft buying ABK may enhance competition, because:
-
They may launch CoD on Switch.
- Game Pass may grow to offer competition to the App Store and Google Play on mobile, by offering an alternative way to play games on those platforms to the walled gardens.
Microsoft has encouraged mobile developers to approach them about making mobile games for distribution though Game Pass, and that may eventually grow to include not just streaming but also downloads of games, such as you have on Xbox and PC where you have the choice to download it or stream it. It might be an app on Android, and it might be a web app on iOS, but competition to the walled gardens either way.
"Competition is good for everybody." Remember me of ePIG game store who bringed exclusivity on pc. If competition main exclusivity and less access for gamers, how can this be good .
Well, it looks like a new console war as begun. Now we just need the commercials.
Poor poor MS. Those tears just won’t stop. Can someone please help bail out this trillion dollar company. ?
I'm sure after reading your comment, Phil will be wiping those tears with the cash they are paying to buy ABK.
Microsoft has been accused of wrong-doing! But these false accusations from Sony will not deter them!
They WILL annex Activision-Blizzard by the spring!
And their stock will rise HIGH!
Guess they tarnished their brand with Bethesda right? And that removing the games from PS gave gamers more choice on how to consume.
And since for MS competing is buying studios, I guess CMA could take into consideration the available money to buy studios between MS 100+B so far to Sony that have put something like 10-15B, yes Sony is leading by a lot like this.
I would like to see these major players agree that if you purchase a publisher/studio that has existing IP’s that have been multplat that any new games released in those series will continue to be multiplat. New IP’s could be exclusive. I would prefer that publishers never get bought out and games stay multplat though.
Less sales for Activision blizzard if all new games go straight to game pass...
Cod won't be reaching those 10 mil+ per year anymore...
Another day and another article of MS crying and begging trying to get this deal passed.
And Sony is cry and begging for the deal to fail.
And so do people who know massive acquisitions are bad for gamers. Only die hard Americans who adore their American companies would celebrate a purchase of a publisher consisting of over 30 studios.
It has nothing to do with nationality. Stop with that garbage. The acquisition directly benefits me and millions of others who use Game Pass. It benefits Xbox users who are tired of Sony moneyhatting content. It benefits PC players who want consistent releases on Steam. Do you get it now?
And you have 0 issues with MS moneyhatting anything I guess right? Because it is all in your benefit.
I don't, but neither for Sony. They can both do it for all I care. There are CoD players who do care so this benefits them.
You mean CoD players in Xbox that care or you are meaning Xbox won't give any preference to Xbox fanbase?
Yes to the first. I also have no idea if Xbox if will give Xbox players any benefits. My guess is nothing more than some weapon skins as a GP perk.
Why can’t MS invest all that money into the studios they already own and actually put out a better flow of quality games? Why do they need to buy huge publishers? What have they been doing for the last seven years? It’s not like they’re not a trillion dollar company.
Who says they are not. Also you can say the same for Sony, why spend 3 billion on Bungie when you could put that money back into your own studios or create new ones. Answer is simple because trying to build from scratch takes to long then getting a business that is already established.
Wow your comparing one 3 billion single studio to a 70 billion publisher. You must bleed green!!!!
Oh trillion dolar company , how much you been bullied, let me play a sad song in this smoll
violin ?
Crazy as they arent the ones complaining about the deal
No? You better read the whole thing instead of seeing the vgchartz news section or reading the shit xbox fanboys post on twitter
Tweeter is full of ferals on both sides
Seems dishonest, much of it. I think the leading statement (PS remaining larger even with the deal done) completely disregards the 360-generation. Sony went from top of the world to third place in a very short time. We already have a very competitive market. And what means "big" here? More money? Certainly not. More studios or people working for your gaming devision? Don't think so. More consoles sold? Yes, right now. But this generation looks very different from the last already. And next one could be a completely different picture again. Nobody remains "big" just like so.
Just look at Nintendo is volatile history.
The 360 hasn’t been relevant for around a decade.
I referenced the 360 because it is a microsoft topic. I could also have said: look at how bad the gamecube sold and suddenly with the wii nintendo was on top again. WiiU was a plunder. And switch sales rise through the stratosphere.
My point is that saying sony is the largest regardless, disregards how quickly everything can change from one gen to the next.
Bullshit, dominio effect on casual gamers would dry up PS largest revenue stream which is add on content purchase from COD.
MS needs to button it now, jeez.
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