Sony is Hesitant on Sharing PS6 Information With Microsoft - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 June 2023 / 4,982 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan during his pre-recorded deposition video as part of the FTC in the US vs. Microsoft stated Sony is hesitant to give Microsoft dev kits and information on the PlayStation 6.
"We simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information," said Ryan via The Verge.
Sony did decide to delay giving Microsoft PS5 dev kits in order for Mojang to work on a PS5 version of Minecraft.
"The development kits allow developers to have visibility and to work on the feature set that our new console will deploy," said Ryan. "It would a developer may bring its content to the new platform later than would otherwise be the case. The commercial risks associated with the knowledge of these feature sets leaking to our principle competitor is not something we’d rely on any contract to enforce."
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer last week revealed this was the case.
"Sony was reluctant to send us development kits for the PlayStation 5 at the same time they were sending them to other developers, which put us at a disadvantage relative to other developers," said Spencer at the time. "I think Sony could have sent the development kits to Microsoft just as easy as they sent them to any other publisher."
It should be noted Minecraft is playable on the PS5 using the PS4 version of the game and the Xbox Series X|S also doesn't have an optimized version of the game.
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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Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
This is a non issue. If Sony ever manages to prove that MS used its devkit for some reverse engineering tomfoolery, Sony would be able to sue them for hundreds of millions, and the same would happen in reverse. So neither one of them is going to dare doing it.
I wouldn't say that, even without reverse engineering, there are advantages to be had. Also why would Microsoft share Xbox devkits with Sony. They have nothing to offer, especially since Bungie publishes their own games themselves and the MLB games aren't published by PlayStation on Xbox.
Why would Microsoft share Xbox devkits with Sony? Minecraft, for starters. And if the ActiBlizz deal closes down, all of their games.
Why would Microsoft send devkits to Sony to make that happen. Only Sony would need to send devkits to MS
Oh wait, yeah, I mixed them up.
Of course. Why reveal your tech to your competitors
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement, that I certainly hope no one is dumb enough to believe makes any sense. Both Sony and Microsoft have access to each other's dev kits as soon as they get in the hands of any third-party developer (probably even before that). You don't have to send them directly to the competitor for them to have access. These are mega corporations with significant intelligence operations, and more importantly just tons of relationships with developers all over the world. They're not going to have any problem at all getting someone to let them use a dev kit.
They probably have access to the specifications, photographs, and the like, before they've even left the research and development departments.
Not if it's an owned studio, but it's much less likely a third party studio is going to share this information willingly than an internal studio would. In addition, youre suggesting that the third party would share the dev kit which is unlikely. Best they get is probably a spec sheet and some design documents if there is a leak. While that's helpful, it's not the same as actually having a dev kit.
Does Xbox not share it with Sony for MLB The Show?
Maybe this is what Sony meant when they said they were worried Microsoft would ship out worse versions for consoles. Because if Sony is going to drag their feet with the kits, then the games will suffer. And if they suffer, gamers will look to Xbox as having the better versions etc.
Of course, Microsoft would be hesistant as well.
We'll see how that goes, actually, since Sony and its subsidiaries publish games on Xbox now (currently MLB The Show and Destiny, and soon Marathon).
I bet you the contents of a dev-kit would be broadly known within the industry in no time flat, and by the time Sony's laid down their plans solidly enough to ship out a dev-kit Microsoft's plans for the same generation would also likely be locked in. So it's not an "of course" for me.
Why would they be hesitant with the company that wants to destroy them?!?
Microsoft doesn't want to destroy Sony, they are partners in all kinds of industries. Anything Matt Booty said was his feelings on the subject, not Microsoft's, and Microsoft hasn't acted in line with Booty's suggestions anyway.
