zamardii12
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Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision Games Multiplatform
- Thread starter zamardii12
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For now I am sure. They proabably have contract that still obligated to meet for a couple years. After the current ones run out then who knows.
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I wonder if Sony will still get their gated limited time exclusives too. If it's part of the contract, they should.
Folks do need to temper their expectations. The hardcore Xbox fans pretend Microsoft is going to lock down every Activision Blizzard game right away; the truth is that Microsoft can't do that for some games, and may choose not to for others. If Activision Blizzard does transition to being an Xbox-only house on consoles, it might take years.
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As I would expect them to say to keep people from jumping ship to xbox. Even if they knew 100% that all games from activision would be xbox only, they wouldn't announce it at least not this early.
I suspect cross release will end with the current contracts unless there's some major concession MS wants out of Sony; in which case continued access to Activision games might be a large enough club to bludgeon it of of them.
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The concession is likely Gamepass App on PlayStation. Microsoft is playing the long game of gobbling up content for a future of services.
Sony expect Microsoft to not buy out or break any current project or contracted future one with a Playstation release is really common (the: will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform).
I imagine mergin like this, it is around 2-3 year's after the first announce that you can judge annoucement and 4-5 year's that you can judge actual release to start to judge them, that does not mean they expect Activision-blizzard release in 2028 to not have a large Xbox bias or exclusivity.
It is really not saying much if at all their statement. The Microsoft one is saying a bit more, but is vague enough to not be anything either.
I imagine mergin like this, it is around 2-3 year's after the first announce that you can judge annoucement and 4-5 year's that you can judge actual release to start to judge them, that does not mean they expect Activision-blizzard release in 2028 to not have a large Xbox bias or exclusivity.
It is really not saying much if at all their statement. The Microsoft one is saying a bit more, but is vague enough to not be anything either.
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For me it's a math equation. How much money do they make on every sold Xbox? multiply that by how many expected console jumpers who drop the PS# for the Xbox(letter) because they want to play CoD. Is that anywhere where close to the number of sales made on the PS x $60 (or whatever the game costs) - additional server/bandwidth costs for having the game available for other consoles? Personally I don't think those two are anywhere close to each other, as a result they won't exclusive the game. But at the end of the day game exclusives really don't make much sense, however they still exist.
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But there is a lot to be said about getting more people in your garden. On top of the new subscription model companies are really loving.
I for sure don't think this will be an all one way or the other, i feel it will be a mix. Some games they will multiplatform and some will be exclusive. I would bet a lot on timed exclusive and addon content exclusives being common though.
I am not sure in which direction ?
Do you think gained a Xbox user for say a decade revenues would be less than a single sale of a game on an other platform ? It is not about the money they make on the sales of an Xbox itself. Really depend on that small percentage of jumper, specially this late in the console generation when it would happen.
But for the new release of the next generation, a shift could make a lot of sense (has it is not a jumper or at least not a big jump) but new buyer.
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I am more expecting Microsoft to offer "Perks" to PC and Xbox players instead, The games may come to all platforms, but Sony will likely be left out of cross-play, may not get access to exclusive maps, characters, or skins. This way they can incentivize playing exclusively on their platform and gradually wean players over while keeping to the letter of any agreements they have signed and keep regulators off their backs. This is a big move from them and if they foul it even later down the road it sours any attempts to make future purchases that may gain the attention of regulators, who do remember past practices and keep those in mind when deciding these things.
Historically Sony has been very resistant to those types of concessions.
I’m not sure Sony is going to get much of a say in the matter. Sadly based on the trend of streaming services and platformed content there doing well I’m expecting gaming to make a similar play. Games as a whole being tied to service platforms then open those platforms to as many devices as possible for some sort of subscription fee. Consoles f’ed up, they’ve become too close to PC’s and each other, at a core level there isn’t any insurmountable platform differences that can’t be overcome at a relatively simple software level. I half expect the next Xbox to be far closer to the original than not, in that it’s going to be all standard PC parts in a custom case on custom PCB’s running a specialized OS. Part of me to expects that OS to actually be Linux based, the other part of me says Microsoft isn’t that bold. Content service platforms have become too good at generating both content and profits, the gaming industry was bound to follow suit eventually and I’m thinking this is the first big step.
I wouldn't say who knows, I'm quite sure they'll go exclusive. The whole thing that got MS buying up studios was fighting back against Playstation exclusives. A big issue that they've seen this time around in the console wars is people saying "I'm getting PS5 because it has more exclusive games." Neither console is better enough than the other hardware wise to sway people. So a non-trivial number of people are making the decision that most games come to both, but Sony has more exclusives, so get a PS5. MS wants to change that equation. They want to make really big games XBOX (and PC) exclusives so people will get one instead of (or in addition to) a PS5.
The problem isn't so much that the most exclusives are on PlayStation so much as that the best ones have been there. It wasn't until relatively recently that Microsoft's exclusives outside of Halo, Gears and Forza produced shrugs at best (and even then, Halo 5 and Gears 4 weren't exactly sterling recommendations). Like Microsoft's corporate mediocrity was infecting every game the company touched.
Microsoft needs to convince gamers that its new wave of exclusives is actually competitive and will make you excited to own an Xbox. Call of Duty and Elder Scrolls might help, but Microsoft needs a consistently good offering — we need to see a steady stream of hits rather than one or two gems padded by lots of fluff.
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IDK, what's penalty for breaking the contract?
MS could say fuck it and give Sony the shaft if it'll hurt Sony more.
MS could say fuck it and give Sony the shaft if it'll hurt Sony more.
Well aside from breach of contract penalties, it would get Microsoft tangled up in a lot of Monopoly lawsuits, then possibly open them up to retaliatory moves by other studios which could bring upon them their own version of the Epic-Apple lawsuit which wouldn't be good for Microsoft long term.
Armenius
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It just means Warzone is going to continue being supported on both PlayStation and Xbox.
Could they do worse than A/B had been doing? I mean MS puts out a lot of OK’ish stuff but they aren’t completely incompetent. They could also turn around and try to use this as leverage to convince Sony to open up a little and ease off the exclusives and maybe trade up for timed exclusives instead. This whole scenario is just nuts, and I’m not even sure they completely know where they are going with this.
https://mobile.twitter.com/XboxP3/status/1484273335139651585
Intent to honor all "existing" agreements with Sony.
Intent to honor all "existing" agreements with Sony.
This might not even happen until after the next generation consoles launch.
Xbox will be making money from Sony and every console out there. They have no plans to lock it out. They are growing the PC gaming segment with this and the whole cross platforming is starting to take hold. Everyone wins TBH. Getting greedy would hurt their marketshare. The only future concern I would have is the games might get more expensive on the Sony Platform in the future after the contract expires..
That seem to be in complete contradiction with recent annoucement:
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/xbox-phil-spencer-todd-howard-interview
It’s been confirmed that next year’s Starfield, arguably the biggest game of 2022, will be Xbox and PC only. Spencer says he sees the same for The Elder Scrolls VI. In his eyes, Xbox is the whole experience. Xbox Live. Game Pass. Cloud Gaming. Friends lists. Save states. “It’s not about punishing any other platform, like I fundamentally believe all of the platforms can continue to grow,” he says. “But in order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to bring the full complete package of what we have. And that would be true when I think about Elder Scrolls VI. That would be true when I think about any of our franchises.”
Was it a miscommunication ?
If a game like Elder Scrolls 6 is talked to be Xbox/PC exclusive (a giant seller, over 30 millions copy, if there is any that had Nintendo/Sony release) anything could be, I feel like.
rather than more expensive I am thinking they just don't get access to exclusive content, or perhaps get the title 6 months later than the Microsoft platforms but I don't see how cutting off 1/3 of their sales would be good.
Issue with Sony would be one possible element, but also for the game makers and third party, all incentive structure based on sales figure would have been made with all-platform release in mind one can imagine, and would need to be bought out as well.
It could go well for deep pocket entities if their is a good reason like a pandemy to change term (see WB or other studios that bought talent contract on movie release on streaming), but would not necessarily go well here.