Don't worry everyone. I've been told that Sony will be just fine doing things as normal, and that none of these market foreclosure 3P publisher acquisitions by Microsoft will affect at all, because Microsoft will just mess everything up.
Never mind that such is missing the entire point. Whether MS runs these publishers into the ground or not, each one they purchase is one less Sony can work with as a platform holder. And that's the entire point. MS want to control these IP, the talent, the revenue, and all the negotiating power. They don't want Sony to have these privileges, and they figure by constricting them BTS through acquisitions, they can just limit their effectiveness as a platform holder.
The fact they have politicians now trying to prevent Sony from even making response acquisitions, in their own home country no less, shows what Microsoft's idea of "competition" actually is. It's only "competition" when they can grow, and their direct competitors cannot. They're trying to foreclose on Sony through removal of high-value 3P market options, to weaken them while bolstering themselves and simultaneously moving fast to make more key 3P acquisitions before other Big Tech companies take Microsoft's own blueprint with the ABK acquisition and start buying up yet more key 3P publishers & developers.
Depending on how severe this actually turns out, this could basically be Microsoft attempting to kill Sony as a platform holder not by appealing with a superior offering to the customer market (the way actual competition warrants), but pulling rather disgusting practices BTS that seem to get conveniently ignored even by regulators who are supposed to predict long-term impact of these acquisition strategies.
This is the real Microsoft, and it's a very ugly company. Little has changed in their techniques from the 1980s, except now they seem to have more political support and a more fervent fanbase empowered through social media.
I’ve been saying this all weekend. Should’ve taken the 10 year deal and bought SE.
The dystopian corporate future is the 20 year 2 trillion dollar loser buying publishers endlessly while the company that earned it 1/20 of there size isn’t even allowed to make a timed exclusives in their homeland. I’d like to this will backfire tremendously on Xbox for this. Idk though.
Well, the absolutely nastiness of these acquisition proceedings have pretty much convinced me to skip picking up an Xbox this generation. I did consider a Series S at one point. Not anymore. I won't likely even be subbing to Game Pass, and will definitely be switching OS to Linux (or some flavored Linux distro, more specifically) in the near future as long as WINE compatibility is great (until I can find a Linux native version of favorite Windows apps).
But I also need to see what Sony's long-term plans for PlayStation are to feel really comfortable putting towards that ecosystem, too. I need more than just GOW Ragnarok sequel, Wolverine, 10 GaaS, Ghosts 2 etc. I need to see what Sony are going to do to secure for PlayStation's future in a market that could see rampant consolidation of 3P publishers. Because if they have no meaningful answers to that, then the PS6 doesn't have a great outlook, just based off of things as they are now.
I say that because unlike say Nintendo, Sony actually still rely a lot on 3P revenue, and the budgets for their marquee games are much higher than Nintendo's on average. They also have less games that sell in the regular massive numbers of Pokemon, Zelda, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Wii Fit etc. Or if they do, accomplish those unit numbers at a greater volume which are at a pricing discount, and the profit margins being lower than for the Nintendo equivalents due to the cheaper budgets for Nintendo. And Sony still don't have a trans-media IP with the overall revenue strength of Pokemon. Their hardware costs more to R&D and manufacture than Nintendo's as well, and their marketing budgets for marquee games are much higher than Nintendo's.
So a lot of things would have to change for Sony to where they could afford to just proceed and rely more heavily off 1P alone, in the case of possible mass 3P market consolidation, and not severely suffer in the presence of it. Provided those changes don't come, then yeah, I need to see if Sony secure PlayStation's future for the long-term strategically so that I'd be comfortable investing into that ecosystem long-term.
But at least I am still very much open to such with them. Whereas Microsoft have just completely turned me off, no matter who they buy next or what console the release next. They have just shown a level of tactics I can't consciously support or reward with money.
