Sony Claims 'Microsoft Wants PlayStation to Become Like Nintendo' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 23 November 2022 / 11,527 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment in a newly published response to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of the UK over Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard claims that Microsoft's strategy is for PlayStation to become like Nintendo and to no longer able to compete in the shooter gaming market.
Microsoft has previously stated Nintendo has been successful despite not having Call of Duty on the Switch and argues Sony could be successful without the franchise as well.
"Microsoft claims that Nintendo's differentiated model demonstrates that PlayStation doesn’t need Call of Duty to compete effectively," reads the response from Sony Interactive Entertainment (via VideoGamesChronicle). "But this reveals Microsoft’s true strategy. Microsoft wants PlayStation to become like Nintendo, so that it would be a less close and effective competitor to Xbox.
"Post-Transaction, Xbox would become the one-stop-shop for all the best-selling shooter franchises on console (Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, + Doom, Overwatch), as the Decision explains, and it would then be free from serious competitive pressure.
"The franchise is firmly entrenched in gamers’ psyche: every instalment since Call of Duty was first released back in 2003 has consistently topped the charts.
"Ignoring these facts, Microsoft argues that Nintendo has been successful without access to Call of Duty. This misses the point. The Decision identifies a wide body of evidence showing that Nintendo offers a differentiated experience to Xbox and PlayStation because it is focused on family-friendly games that are very different from PEGI 18 FPS games like Call of Duty."
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer last month stated Microsoft's plan with Call of Duty if the Activision Blizzard acquisition is approved is to treat it the same way they do Minecraft. Spencer also stated he would like to see Call of Duty on the Nintendo Switch, as well as expanding Xbox on mobile platforms.
"Call of Duty specifically will be available on PlayStation," said Spencer at the time. "I'd love to see it on the Switch, I'd love to see the game playable on many different screens. Our intent is to treat Call of Duty like Minecraft. This opportunity is really about mobile for us. When you think about 3 billion people playing video games, there's only about 200 million households on console."
Microsoft this month also offered a deal to Sony to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years. Sony declined to comment on the reported offer. The future of Call of Duty has been the main focus for Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard and whether or not it will still release on PlayStation.
Sony Interactive Entertainment in the same response claims Microsoft will raise prices of its consoles and games as it would face weaker competition from PlayStation.
So far only Saudi Arabia and Brazil have been confirmed to approve the deal. Microsoft said it expect Serbia to approve the deal soon.
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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I think this says alot about the way that Sony views Nintendo. They still don't take them seriously as a competitor even though Switch sales will very soon pass PS4 sales in less years on the market. Remember when Sony Computer Entertainment of America President Jack Tretton called the Wii a "lollipop" and the DS a "babysitting tool" compared to PS3 and PSP.
I actually find it somewhat insulting that Sony sees everyone else as non competition to them, but at the same time, trying to act like they aren't being stupid.
Why would they see them as competition. The consoles appeal to very different audiences and that's not going to change. Nintendo doesn't see Sony as a real competitor either. The PS4 didn't really gain anything from Wii U is piss poor performance nor suffered under Switch it's reign. However if an Xbox would sell only 30 million in a gen that would affect the number of PlayStations sold and vice versa. To compete means to affect and currently the PS and Nintendo ecosystem don't affect eachother in a meaningful way.
Why didn't the PS4 sell much more when the Wii U bombed then? There was much more consumer money available to buy PlayStations and Ecosystems need to affect eachother for them to see them as competitors and historically there isn't really a correlation between the success of PlayStation and Nintendo there is a much bigger correlation between the succes of PS and Xbox for a large part Nintendo and PS/Xbox appeal to different consumers.
There is direct competition (which they aren't) and substitutes and whatnot. If you want to push boundaries then mobile would be competitors, movies and series would be competitors (if you are talking about money to expend in entretainment). But Nintendo doesn't affect MS/Sony and vice-versa, people could change from one to the other only in the most preposterous conditions.
I also wonder if it is them admitting they can't adapt to not being the first (or second, or third) stop for third party titles the way Nintendo can more or less can. Does Sony believe they can't survive on just LoU and Horizon and God of War and such the way Nintendo can with its own franchises in most situations bar a Wii U level hiccup (GC, I believe, was profitable, same with N64)
PlayStation IP's don't remotely sell as well as Nintendo IP's and the ones that come close take a long time to develop and cost a lot of money. Meanwhile Nintendo can just release a cheap to make Pokémon entry every year and that alone can outsell basically everything Sony has on offer at a higher average price per unit sold.
So no Sony probably cannot survive on their first party titles unless they go massively back in scope which would lead them to selling much less. If PlayStation wouldn't really receive any meaningful third party anymore they can only survive by developing for pc. For every God of War Sony also needs to develop a game like Returnal, which probably won't ever be profitable.
Pretty sure it is more than just Pokemon that outsells Sony's first party games. Zelda, Mario, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Smash Brothers, plus the dozens of smaller titles.
Heck, fun metric: As of June 2022 Ghost sold about 9.75 million and Luigi Mansion 3 about 11.5 million by about March 2022. Luigi sold more and probably cost less to make. Realism costs millions of dollars you don't have to spend
He never said otherwise. He was just giving an example. Also, Splatoon 2 sold 13mil as of 3/2022. That’s a lot, yes, but it’s not more than most of PS’s biggest first party games: Gow 23mil, Spider-Man “>20mil” as of 11/2020, TLoUp1”>20mil” as of 10/2019, Uncharted 4 16mil as of 5/2019, Horizon ZD >20mil as of 11/2021. And GoWR just broke Sony’s first week sales record, so that’s another 20mil seller.
You also mentioned Nintendo’s “dozens of smaller titles” outselling all of PS’s first party games. That’s utter nonsense.
Luigi is a what, 30yo character? GoT was a new IP. I think you could make arguments in both directions about which is more impressive. Lower budget though? LM3 for sure.
No argument: For the Switch, Nintendo’s first party game sales have gone insane, and their top games sell definitively more than PS’s top games, and for undoubtedly much lower budgets. To be fair, Nintendo has never had the level and breadth of software success as they are with Switch. Wii was closest but still not on Switch level. But regardless, no need to degrade Sony’s success while praising Nintendo. Both can and deserve to be praised for their first party success.
its not rocket science Sony's model has been reliant on 3rd parties since day one and MS duplicated that model when they entered the market, now over the years, Sony has built up its first party but it is still reliant on 3rd party software, its not so much about dismissing Nintendo more about saying we aren't Nintendo and our model is different .
To me regulators saying you will survive is just a vague generalisation with the propensity to diminish valid concerns and goes against how companies think and operate since any impact on growth is also a factor .
The ecosystems that underpin PS and Xbox are more and more reliant on the big franchises like COD in the past that meant units sold, today it means engagement and keeping those players involved because these games are rated on there ability to facilitate post release purchases and while as a gamer I don't care about the result here I can understand Sony's position or at least the reason why they see the need to fight this. but I can also see why MS took the steps that they did.
Not only that but if you pick the marketshare of 1st party vs 3rd party for each system you will certainly see that Nintendo dominates its charts, Sony is a lot smaller and MS until recently would barely make a dent.
They started from behind on PS3 era (and MS bragged they would never pass them), what they are complaining is that they aren't fitted to a business model of no third party not about not being 1st place (and if you consider Nintendo direct competition as you just claimed, then you would have to accept Sony is working fine being second place).
What it says, is that both companies essentially feel the same way:
"This is supported by Microsoft’s internal documents, which, so the CMA found, show that: “In general, Microsoft’s internal documents track PlayStation more closely than Nintendo, with Nintendo often being absent from any internal competitive assessment."
There you have it. Sony says Nintendo compete with a differentiated model and are "focused on family-friendly games that are very different". While Microsoft without needing to say anything at all reveal the same thing with their own internal strategic documents.
Nintendo doesn't see itself as competition for MS and Sony as well, so not sure what you are saying.
Guys what Sony is stating isn't entirely wrong. People need to stop taking statements that say Nintendo offers a more family friendly and different experience as an "offense" all the time. I'm sure there is some competition between Nintendo & Sony/Microsoft. However, its clear to see that Nintendo does not directly compete with Sony/Microsoft to the magnitude Sony competes with Microsoft. Even though the Switch is selling well, it isn't cannibalizing much sales away from Xbox & Playstation, cause the Switch can't offer the same games that would remove the need for a Playstation & Xbox. Just cause the Switch will outsell both platforms doesn't mean the Switch is a major threat to Xbox & Playstation, people DO buy the Switch for a differentiated experience, not as a replacement, and Nintendo games are more family friendly in nature, even though they do appeal mostly to adults. Sony is absolutely right in saying that Nintendo shouldn't be used as an example since they're so different from what Sony & Microsoft offer.
Even funnier is MS saying Nintendo can live without 3rd parties so Sony can as well while at the same time buying those corporations, would that be admition of being unable to do anything without a purchase? Both MS and Sony are just throwing whatever they can as argument to see what sticks, and pulling Nintendo into this mess or other 3rd parties (that wouldn't be affected at all) is ridiculous.
Sony's been trying to do this to all others (remember Sega) for decades. They sure do like to play the victim.
Sega failed because they couldn't make their consoles nor their franchises appealing enough. Unless So y also bought two major publishers back then. Also all Sega consoles combined couldn't even outsell the PS3, whilst they where in the business earlier. Blaming Sony for that is pretty rich.
I don't understand.
So Sony was responsible for the mess of a hardware Saturn was, which was so complicated to program for that developers gladly accepted the alternative Playstation offered them?
Or do you mean that Sony was responsible for dissuading EA to publish their games on Dreamcast and was also responsible for the manufactoring troubles and shortages this console had at the beginning?
"...become like Nintendo and no longer compete in the shooter market"
Splatoon disagrees
Splatoon is not your typical FPS. Comparing COD to Splatoon is saying Ratchet and Clank and Mario are basically the same game because both have platforming in them.
Killzone, Resistance, SOCOM and Mag. It's a nice time to remember them.
And you can always make your own studios, with 70B that should be doable.
And where do you get workers for those new studios in an already resource scarce situation?
Of course you could aggressively head hunt every bits of talent from you competition but chance are they would be far more impacted than with this acquisition and fans of those would be much more upset.
70B is the equivalent of 35k $200k/year workers for 10 years, that's more employee than PlayStation, Nintendo and Activision blizzard combine at a much more enticing average salary.
There is plenty of countries over the world that have people available and not own big studios. Nintendo and Sony have been able to create internal teams and increase their studios without buying major publishers.
Also don't forget that MS already have more studios than Sony and Nintendo before ABK deal. Tencent and Embracer where able to buy several small and startup studios to foster then, some of PS partners have increase their size a lot recently as well.
We know the purchases are more about controlling IPs than manpower itself.
Sony is not an arbiter of ethics, what Sony don't do does not make doing it wrong further more when you know some of what they don't do is due to a lack of capacity or willingness due to them already enjoying significant and well established dominant position in this industry.
"We know the purchases are more about controlling IPs than manpower itself" If so franchise could be bought alone and for significantly less than this, MS done just this with Gears of War. It may be true in some scenario like Minecraft which only boasted a small studio and had 1 mega hit for $2.5b but for an entity with 10k employee and only 1 mega hit and only 2-3 other significant active IP and all other that have faded to obscurity for $70B, studios and employee certainly seems like the crux of the transaction over the Ips to me.
Have I said what Sony do or don't determines if it is ethical? Nope I didn't.
What I said is that with this money MS could make studios instead of buying publishers, you countered that there is no manpower available and gave you examples of other companies doing it.
MS bought Gears that was an IP going only on MS by contract and that Epic didn't had plan to keep making it. When Activision side of ABK basically do only CoD wouldn't make much sense for them selling only the IP. As you said 70B would pay the wages of all dev teams of Sony for several years, so on headcount (which in itself is pointless as you don't buy people and would still be paying the wages after the purchase) and installed structure the deal wouldn't go anywhere close to 70B, that price is on the IP mostly and another big portion on the expertise of the team.
No other compagnies is investing $70B in the industry. For this amount they will be forced to aggressively hunt talent from competition has they've done in the past with other industries. I'd argue that this would be far more detrimental to the competition then simply buying an existing entity.
Also I'm not an expert on this but employees seems like a more important assets than you would like to believe here.
did a little research and :
https://www.e-learningpartners.com/blog/why-employees-are-your-companys-most-valuable-asset#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20employees%20are%20the%20most,order%20to%20propel%20themselves%20ahead.
"Therefore, employees are the most valuable assets an organization has" many more source shows the same conclusion.
Also did little more research and found Activision Blizzard balance sheets and the total value of there assets (these does not include value attached to employee though )
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/atvi/financials/balance-sheet
Activisition Blizzard value there assets as $25B of which only $10.46B is attached to Intellectual property which are reported as Intangible Assets or ~40% of there assets not counting value of employee. So really doubt that MS justify the greatest share of the transaction for the IPS.
Also MS have been recognize many time as the no 1 for best working condition which prove they attach higher value to their workforce than most
I find it hilarious that Sony's biggest gripe here is that COD could potentially be missing from Sony systems but it's acceptable to be missing from Nintendo systems.
Sony doesn't own CoD to determine if it goes to Nintendo platform, they also advocate for themselves not others plus when CoD was on Nintendo it almost didn't sell.
It sold millions on Wii and stuff like Overwatch and Fortnite do well enough
Add your reply...CoD 3 sold 2.24, WaW 1.94, MW 1.51, BO 1.37, MW3 0.83
The HW install base of Wii was growing and the SW sales were decreasing, so you can't be surprised they decided to stop doing it. People in vgc love to put devs as big meanies that have prejudice against Nintendo and do stuff to lose money. When it is very simple, if their ROI on the project doesn't match they don't do it.
For those same entries lets see PS3 numbers CoD3 1.51, WaW 5.43, MW 6.72, BO 12.67 MW3 13.35
And on X360 CoD3 2.7, WaW 7.5, MW 9.41, BO 14.74, MW3 14.82
On CoD3 Wii sales was very close to X360 and quite higher than PS3 but after that you can see the big gap.
And on the current system a shooer sells 10ish million and I've never seen any sign that, say, Overwatch doesn't do well. COD could sell well enough if they put a solid port on the system.
Sure they could, but on Activision analysis it wouldn't. That have nothing to do with MS or Sony as neither owns ABK right now.
And the shooter that sells well on Switch is a Nintendo 1st party and have almost 0 similarity with CoD.
Mario Kart sells 30M on Switch, how much would Need for Speed sell on it?
Splatoon is closer to COD than Mario k to NFS. Also you ignored Overwatch. I had Overwatch on Switch and never lacked for players. Also Fortnite is doing fine on the system.
Shooters do work.
And ABK doesn't make CoD on Switch because? And how does that have anything to do with Sony?
Cool, make games.
Cry me a river
Careful not to be dragging Nintendo through the mud, Sony. The last thing you want is to be on the opposite side of Nintendo’s legal team xD
Also, Splatoon 3 sold nearly 8 million units in just 3 weeks. I think they’re doing just fine in the shooter market.
So in other words "we don't want Microsoft to do to us, what we did to Nintendo decades ago"
One way of looking at it. Not helped of course by how Nintendo now is much stronger than Sega then.
I don't remember Sony buying major publishers decade ago.
They admitted to taking away games from Nintendo and Sega to compete.
Nintendo was already taking games from other companies since the 80s, Sega had exclusive deals as well. You are saying Sony is complaining of what they did in the past, show us a purchase Sony made on the level of ABK or even Bethesda.
Nintendo reinvented the console market. Sega came in after and competed directly with N with 1st party content. Sony entered the market as a tech giant, waved cash and took Devs away from Nintendo and made them exclusive to PS. That is how Sony got to the top. You think Sony got to the top by offering better 1st party games? Dont be silly.
Strawman your way out of it. Again, show the big publishers Sony bought.
Dont need to. Keeping games off other platforms is the same thing, just cheaper.
Sony cares a lot about what they think MS wants for them, they should focus on their own offering, this way, MS's will for them should be meaningless.
Considering the games Sony have been releasing I think they are doing fine on their own offering.
Exactly, and because of that, the scenario they point to is impossible, a gross misrepresentation of what would happen if the deal went through.
The frail and insecure player Sony is trying to portray themselves to be is just plain ridiculous and an obvious attempt to manipulate the antitrust authorities. All in a bid to prevent MS from increasing it's competitiveness to Sony's own level, protect their profits margin and unchecked ability to increase it whenever it want on the back of it's consumers.
Both are going extreme portrails to pretend to be poor citizen to gain authorities over.
Which extreme did Microsoft use in this case?
They stated they would only end up 3rd in the industry and still behind Sony revenue wise after the merge which is simply fact based.
They stated they were currently 7th in the PC gaming market which is also fact based
They stated they were currently in last position between the console manufacturer which is also fact based
They stated they were lacking in the mobile game distribution which again is also fact based.
So how his Microsoft "going extreme portrails to pretend to be poor citizen" in this situation exactly?
MS said that CoD isn't relevant
They downplay their own revenue and marketshare
They buffed PS sales (151M as of December 21) to make Sony more than twice bigger than themselves
They ignore they already have a bigger studio count while at the same time saying Sony releases more and better games, as if they were at fault for MS own internal issues on releasing games on their studios
They even mixed info to not put Gamepass dominating streaming and the business model as comparing to PS+ Essentials.
"MS said that CoD isn't relevant"
-The true quote is "Specifically, with respect to Activision Blizzard video games, there is nothing unique about the video games developed and published by Activision Blizzard that is a 'must have' for rival PC and console video game distributors that could give rise to a foreclosure concern"
so no MS never said CoD is not relevant just not a Must have game to which Nintendo certainly agree.
"They downplay their own revenue and marketshare"
-See my previous post, MS were pretty factual here if you have other info please source them
"They buffed PS sales (151M as of December 21) to make Sony more than twice bigger than themselves"
-we don't know for sure what MS included for this 151M figure but VGChartz own figure for the time frame was 141 and MS figure was 63.7 so yeah even then Playstation install base is still more than twice that of Xbox. hardly an "extreme" portayal of the situation
"They ignore they already have a bigger studio count while at the same time saying Sony releases more and better games, as if they were at fault for MS own internal issues on releasing games on their studios"
-The true quote is "Sony has more exclusive games than Microsoft, many of which are better quality"
"of which many" is not without significance and still it depicts an accurate picture of the current situation.
Also even if Microsoft have more studios now Sony still have more employee across theirs so hardly a worthwhile argument
"They even mixed info to not put Gamepass dominating streaming and the business model as comparing to PS+ Essentials."
-share source please cause I don't know what you refer to here. But Gamepass is not a streaming service XCloud is and it is still marginal. Also Gamepass is just starting to be popular and profitable hardly anything dominant here nothing compare to the advantage Netflix once experienced and yet competition never was hindered and It even loss it's number one spot. And does comparing Gamepass to PS+ is relevant in any way when MS is the only one serious about this business model? When Sony will want to compete they will add day one release but right now they only trying to get the bread and butter which are high profit margin on individual sales and a steady low cost revenue from title which don't sell lots anymore.
But Sony fans been telling me for ages its exclusives that sell PS consoles. Now its 3rd partys thats going to save Sony?.
Because exclusives push the hardware sales by differentiation, and if you remove major 3rd party and make them 1st party on the other side only you seem to think it wouldn't change anything.
Xbox is selling faster then ever while releasing all their first party exclusives on PC and with Sony having marketing rights to CoD for years. Sony are really just showing their true colours with this deal imo as its silly of them to be crying so much over it when Ms have said they will allow CoD on a PS console as long as the is PS consoles to ship to.
Nintendo hasn't competed in the shooter market since like GoldenEye, but even then they have their own 3rd person shooter, it's called SPLATOON, IF YOU CARED TO RESEARCH YOUR SHOT, SONY...
Also I find it mildly insulting how Sony views Nintendo as this gnat that can't compete with anyone else, when in reality it's mostly Nintendo living within it's own bubble, doing whatever it is they want to do/make.
But trying to long-word Nintendo as "non competition" is straight up retarded to suggest. Stop being galaxy brain levels of stupid, Sony.
They didn't say Nintendo CAN'T compete, they said they DON'T. And Nintendo themselves already said they don't direct compete against Sony and MS.
“ Post-Transaction, Xbox would become the one-stop-shop for all the best-selling shooter franchises on console”
Sony, didn’t you have a shooter franchise that you used to trumpet, only to can unceremoniously with no releases since 2013?
Sony was clear on this during PS4 time, that they make titles where they don't compete with the big 3rd party offering, since market was covered with CoD, BF, Destiny, Overwatch, etc they didn't touch it.
And as a result they were at the mercy of such companies
puzzled here, Sony has been purchasing studios for years and now that Microsoft has out purchased them, they want to be like Nintendo?
I know it's not likely to happen, but if there rumours are true and Sony makes a purchase of square enix, I would like to imagine Nintendo throwing a hissy fit the same way Sony is doing with actibliz. And at least Microsoft is trying to reach a compromise while if Sony acquired SE they would likely be like "lol, no more games for you"
I don't think SE would take being bought by sony well at all though.
also don't forget i believe nintendo published DQ in the west and have been the driving force behind increasing DQ's popularity in the west for decades at this point.
The reason MS is doing concession isn't because of goodness of heart is just to avoid the deal being blocked. Did you see any concession on Bethesda? What we saw was they saying they were buying not to take away from others, then saying they couldn't comment further before the deal was finished, then saying it was obvious that the titles would be exclusive. So if they could have the deal approved while being able to make everything exclusive they would have.
So the Switch is a bad thing? Nearly surpasses your PS4, franchises all setting new records for sales...yes being Nintendo is terrible.
Also didn't you buy Bungie? If you want a shooter so bad, just make Destiny 3 exclusive or something
You missing the point...
Sony claims MS wants Playstation to become more close to Nintendo Business model, likely meaning a 1° party centric platform, while XBOX can "buy" space as "king of shooter".
Thats Sonys choice for not competing in the FPS market
Microsoft has Halo, Nintendo has Splatoon, and Sony had Bobby Kottick
They relied upon a 3rd party IP to carry the genre. N and X had inhouse shooters that are still raking in big money. Sony stopped competing on their own merits.
And now they realized one of its fatal flaws.
Well Nintendo has been chugging along quite decently so I guess that's not so bad.
MS becoming the FPS box once again confirmed!!. Wait how did that work out in the 360 days??.
One thing I saw float up in this same mess is apparently Microsoft pointing out that, even if Microsoft was to take control of COD and hold it to their system only, Sony has plenty of time to make a replacement. PS6 would be like 2027 or 2028 after all.
Splatoon, after all, started in development in 2013 and released in 2015, both in mid. Sony has, in theory, 5 years to come up with a shooter and make it, if not just revive and make Shadowzone relevant.
Sure they could, but hardly a certainty of being able to replace the CoD spot.
They would be competing with Battlefront and getting first party margins. They would do fine
Nintendo should come out and say "Sony wishes." Talk about disrespecting your competition.
Eh, not sure Nintendo is quite so trash talking. But maybe doug Bowser will surprise at the Game Awards.
Sony can´t profit like Nintendo and say this ?
Prety sure Sony profits are way bigger than Ninty.
Bigger does not mean more profitable. If anything the fact that something like Breath of the Wild just needs 2 million to break even while we have Days Gone and its 10 mil not enough status suggests that such size is a problem.
Profits are not coming from Just 1° party games.
Profits come from 30% from all 3° party games, PS+ subs, services...
Nintendo makes much more than Sony when you only look at hardware & 1°party, but Sony is Just much better at subs, 30% from 3° party, services...
Wrong again, man. Nintendo make more profit than sony game division counting everything. Sony dreams of Nintendo profitability. https://www.neogaf.com/threads/nintendo-has-officially-made-more-profits-with-nintendo-switch-2017-2020-than-sony-gaming-division-with-playstation-4-2013-2020.1589150/
Nintendo - 12.22 billion USD of operating profits from 2017-2020
Sony gaming division - 10.98 billion USD of operating profits from 2013-2020
Seems like you are correct, some solid data. Indeed, Ninty makes more profit than Sony on gaming
It´s wrong, my friend. Nintendo is profitability king in dedicated game division.
Isn't Sony Second only to Tencent? Prety sure MS talked about this.
Meanwhile at Nintendo HQ
I do agree that the argument that Nintendo sells fine without Activision titles so Sony should as well is very wrong, but this answer from Sony is just as bizarre.
I think Microsoft rather sees Sony go the Sega way, one less obstacle for total domination
I doubt that is going to happen anytime soon.
Doesn't mean Microsoft wouldn't love to see that happen . Same goes for Sony would love to see MS leaving the console space.
I thought they had confirmed that they do not see each other as competition. I'm mainly imagining right now Phil Spencer's child being a Sony fanboy. That would likely trigger him to try to destroy Sony. Other than that, they probably prefer the competition due to legal reasons (remember when Apple almost went bankrupt and Microsoft had to save Apple).
Now you're just feeding into the same nonsense Sony is trying to tell regulators. It's all fictitious.
