Microsoft can now go ahead and close its giant deal.
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This is a loss for consumers. Massive consolidation, lack of competition. Get ready for them to pull games from PlayStation as soon as they are contractually allowed to. Get ready for everything to be on Game Pass and possibly not on Steam. Worst case: they disable purchasing some games on Game Pass so you always need a subscription.
- They (both Microsoft and ActiBlizz) pulled games from Steam before, and they’re both back on Steam well ahead of this deal. I don’t see why that would change.
- We’ve now seen through court documents and transcripts what many of us suspected in that many of these games and studios that Microsoft purchased for exclusivity were Sony targets for exclusivity as well, so if we had to pick one, the company trailing in the market sounds like the better one to get them as exclusives.
- I can only see this as better for competition than Sony running away with the high-end console market, because then there’s realistically only one console to buy.
- All that said about the above, fuck exclusivity in general.
I see a lot of people using argument #2 and it’s really short-sighted to treat acquisition the same as exclusivity deals. However much I don’t like either, acquisitions are clearly worse. If you had to pick one, why would you wouldn’t just leave it as case-by-case exclusivity deals?
Say, SquareEnix and Atlus are fully capable of releasing games for other consoles even with all the exclusives they release for Playstation. And nothing stopped Microsoft from waving a wad of cash their way to change their minds.
There is absolutely no way such a large acquisition will be better for competition. The publishers become unable to make their own platform decisions, no matter what benefits there are. You are losing sight of the market as a whole and the independence of studios by focusing exclusively on who gets the #1 console crown.
There are people who would be okay if it were Sony making the acquisition, but I want to believe that most people who are against it feel that no large company should be allowed to buy another large company.
It’s like, does no one remember what Microsoft did in the 90s? They were literally forbidding PC manufacturers from not selling any systems that didn’t include windows.
This deal is bad. It rewards shitty individuals and shitty companies, and hurts consumers and employees. This deal will be a calendar marker of when the gaming industry started to fall. Like when Disney bought Marvel and LucasArts.
so if we had to pick one,
Did we, though? Or maybe FTC could prevent further consolidation that will eventually result (and is already) in anticompetitive practices?
I can only see this as better for competition than Sony running away with the high-end console market, because then there’s realistically only one console to buy.
So now your choices will be: 1) pick the console that has more of your favorite games, or 2) now you have to buy BOTH consoles.
Fucking brilliant.
If you felt like you had to buy both consoles, that means the market got more competitive.
Competition means there’s choice. Segregating titles that were once across multiple platforms (choice) into individual platforms (no choice) is anti-competitive.
I can’t really break it down more than that and I thought this was obvious…
You do have choice. You have choice between group of exclusives A and group of exclusives B. It’s better for competition but worse for the consumer. In order for it to be better for the consumer and competition, you’d need to eliminate the concept of exclusives entirely. And I’m all for that, but I don’t know how to make that happen.
It’s better for competition but worse for the consumer.
🤨
Microsoft creates demand for their system largely by buying up publishers and turning all their future games exclusive, that would otherwise have been multiplatform.
Sony and Nintendo create demand for their system largely by making great games in house, that otherwise never would have existed.
So yes you’re right but one is much shittier than the other.
The games made in house are functionally identical to buying a studio that already existed. It’s a game that can’t be played anywhere else for arbitrary business reasons. I’d consider Sony’s shittier, because I have to wait two years for a PC port, and Nintendo’s shittier still because those games will never legally leave their platform.
Nah, I don’t see things this way. Microsoft has been generous with its IP, in contrast to Sony, which keeps its games (and third party games, as was the case with Street Fighter 5) exclusive. Microsoft has licensed its biggest titles to the Switch and even the Playstation 4, and it has a history of cross-platform publishing that goes back decades. For instance, games in the Banjo-Kazooie series were released for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. There’s no reason to believe Microsoft will change that strategy, especially with the Xbox Series lagging so far behind its competitors in sales.
If Microsoft suddenly tightens the reins on its IP, consumers will spite them for it. After the Xbox One debacle, they know better than to force unwanted changes to the status quo of this industry.
They already changed their strategy, Starfield will be exclusive.
Oh you’re right. I thought I read it has a contract with Sony. Must’ve been something else.
This is gross. Cotic has the audacity to refer to Sony as the only market leader in this equation.
They played this one well with promises mainly for CoD and little else. Plus acquiring ABK for gross “live service” tools because the way ABK does THAT will make anything in gaming better.
With how shitty Blizzard has been the past few years, this may be a positive. I’m not saying I trust Microsoft but I certainly don’t trust Blizzard to anything outside of Warcraft anymore. They even mess that up every other expansion.
Isn’t Kotic out after this is all done?
At the very least, that sounds positive.
He’s going to have a golden parachute
He was going to get it no matter what. There really was no path where Kotic got fucked
Yes. He’s gone if this goes through.
I wonder what the first high profile “Starfield” like exclusive will be.