Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard
- Thread starter Darth Vader
- Start date
Who is representing MS? Elaine Bredehoft?
The same council that said attack the ftc as unconstitutional. I’m thinking the “army of lawyers” meme is overplayed. Someone at Microsoft got, you copied say philnessed
I wonder if MS is also aiming to force Sony to reveal some trade secrets behind their strategy so they can copy it. Either that or this is about trying to air dirty laundry in court that they can use in a pr offensive later.
Does anyone know what the subpoena is specifically asking of? I know it's about Sony's production pipeline but, does that include learning about their planned release schedule of software & hardware? 3P exclusives they have lined up? Stuff like that?
Because if so, then can this potentially be ruled as a security risk? If MS got their hands on that info, there's no telling what "insiders" it'd go down the grapevine of to then get leaked out to the public. Xbox insiders like Jez & Shrepsal Nick would have a field day using it to bait PS gamers and drive narratives against the brand. Enough of that and it could even affect actual stocks, potentially.
That would be a security risk due to how leaky MS tends to be, IMHO.
I've been wondering that too and if so, the subpoena should be rejected as it poses a security risk to Sony's business operations. If it's just in regards to Sony disclosing what amounts they pay for 3P deals or exclusive content, then that's actually fine IMHO. Sony themselves have argued that 3P revenue and deals (which lead to more 3P sales revenue) helps fund the marquee AAA 1P games they make.
So if they have to provide some of those 3P deal/cofunding/codev costs that could actually work as much in Sony's favor as MS thinks it works in their own. Beyond that, though? Would have to be a hard pass. MS is notorious for being very leaky, they have a lot of insiders who would be very clever in leaking details on Sony's games and release plans, and in ways to negatively impact the brand, if they were to get that info from Sony through a subpoena.
It all comes down to what the subpoena is asking for, as to whether or not it should probably be allowed TBH.
Because if so, then can this potentially be ruled as a security risk? If MS got their hands on that info, there's no telling what "insiders" it'd go down the grapevine of to then get leaked out to the public. Xbox insiders like Jez & Shrepsal Nick would have a field day using it to bait PS gamers and drive narratives against the brand. Enough of that and it could even affect actual stocks, potentially.
That would be a security risk due to how leaky MS tends to be, IMHO.
I've been wondering that too and if so, the subpoena should be rejected as it poses a security risk to Sony's business operations. If it's just in regards to Sony disclosing what amounts they pay for 3P deals or exclusive content, then that's actually fine IMHO. Sony themselves have argued that 3P revenue and deals (which lead to more 3P sales revenue) helps fund the marquee AAA 1P games they make.
So if they have to provide some of those 3P deal/cofunding/codev costs that could actually work as much in Sony's favor as MS thinks it works in their own. Beyond that, though? Would have to be a hard pass. MS is notorious for being very leaky, they have a lot of insiders who would be very clever in leaking details on Sony's games and release plans, and in ways to negatively impact the brand, if they were to get that info from Sony through a subpoena.
It all comes down to what the subpoena is asking for, as to whether or not it should probably be allowed TBH.
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I have noticed that on the rare occasions that Xbox centric insiders like Jez and Nick actually get Playstation scoops they either sit on them if they're too hype/positive or spin them in the most negative way possible.
Sony will ignore this. Microsoft is pathetic at this point if they think they could spin the rules at their desire. Requesting an fierce competitor to reveal their pipeline is beyond arrogant of Microsoft. I also think this not legally to ask about confidential documents and share them with others. Microsoft is shady like always.
This is a good point and another reason the subpoena could work against MS in the case. It'd be an example of Sony actually doing "more with less" and that begs the question why can't MS do the same when they've been in the industry as a platform holder almost as long as Sony.
Yeah. Unless Sony's doing something like blocking 3P publishers from even entertaining bidding offers from Microsoft for 3P exclusivity, then there's nothing to come from this that gets Sony in any trouble.
And I strongly doubt Sony does such a thing, considering Nintendo did similar (actually worst) with the Famicom/NES gen and got sued for antitrust in America (and lost). You never know, but I don't think Sony would have done something like that without it having already been noticed and dealt with; I don't remember Sega, NEC etc. suing Nintendo back in the day but Nintendo were still investigated for antitrust and that's with a much smaller (and less mainstream) gaming market.
Yep, exactly. Which is why if the subpoena's asking for that type of stuff, Sony should be able to refuse it. We kinda know how MS likes to leverage that type of sensitive info when rivals/competitors are concerned, sadly.
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I think some Sony contracts with Capcom came out during some other Epic Games court case or something and the "nefarious backroom" deals often touted by some ended up being fairly standard legal jargon that Microsoft also had in their third party contracts. Now that I think about it, if Sony were super worried about what would come out in a subpoena, they probably would have just accepted Microsoft's 10 year offer a while ago. If anything, the biggest risk is MS taking details out of context and having their influencers use them in a PR offensive later. Or leaking every game Sony has planned just to be petty and ruin the surprise of it all.
I'm not getting the counter arguements here pointing to FF, Silent Hill or bloodborne.
No serious JRPG fan plays on Xbox, and Silent Hill had been a playstation exclusive, and most games aren't available on xbox to begin with. There's also no indication silent hills was ever coming to xbox either.
Bloodborne is sony owned, and the entire souls IP slipped through sony's fingers after their involvement with demon's souls.
So we're at a point where honestly, which serious JRPG, souls, or surival horror gamer would ever consider Xbox, even before this?
COD on the other hand, and activision IPs, all sell best and are most popular on PS. We're talking crash bandicoot, even. I mean come on now.
No serious JRPG fan plays on Xbox, and Silent Hill had been a playstation exclusive, and most games aren't available on xbox to begin with. There's also no indication silent hills was ever coming to xbox either.
Bloodborne is sony owned, and the entire souls IP slipped through sony's fingers after their involvement with demon's souls.
So we're at a point where honestly, which serious JRPG, souls, or surival horror gamer would ever consider Xbox, even before this?
COD on the other hand, and activision IPs, all sell best and are most popular on PS. We're talking crash bandicoot, even. I mean come on now.
And it's the latter of that which would piss me off personally, and should piss off any real gamer, too. In fact I'm still kind of upset insiders leaked so much of Microsoft's games way too early, but you know if it's Sony's stuff, they won't hold back. If there's ANYTHING in there that could be spun as negative, they will run with it, and pretty much poison online discourse for months.
We kind of saw that with TLOU2 leaks, although it's hard to say if those were related to MS at all (I doubt they were, in that specific case). However there were definite influencers and such on that side of the gaming space who ran with negative narratives about the game and its plot when they saw it could be used against the game. It's also kind of funny how leaks and spoilers came out for HFW and GOWR last year, yet nothing for other story-driven games like As Dusk Falls or Plague Tale: Requiem (one happened to be an Xbox console exclusive, the other a multiplat but also a Day 1 Game Pass game).
Just interesting how the leaks in those cases tended to work out to always be story-driven Sony exclusives. Now just imagine if Sony had to reveal plans or even some details for TLOU3, GoT2 etc. and somehow that all went down the grapevine and got out to specific Xbox influencers/content creators/associated insiders or just people in particular and disseminated by the public.
I don't like having to entertain those types of scenarios but unfortunately with some segments of the gaming space Microsoft/Xbox have helped cultivate over the years, these are very real scenarios that could play out and end up as a net negative for discourse in the gaming space, and negatively impact Sony's ability to lead control of information flow with their fanbase and customers. Could even have further fiscal and legal ramifications depending on what planned releases, partnerships, deals, developments etc. got leaked out.
And that's all considering if any such things are otherwise rather banal (i.e nothing spicy that would land Sony in hot water).
Their secrets? Sony buys talent, not things like MS first of all.
Talent in writing a script
Talent in gameplay design
Talent in tech
Talent in art
Talent in level/world design
Talent in direction/management
Hit all those and you have something special
Team of lawyers and couldn't even get the subpoena right. Hopefully a judge or whatever tells Microsoft to fuck off.
D
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Sony: "We would show you our upcoming games but they're all third party and it would be a breach of contract. Oh, the first party ones? Sorry, all using UE5 and it would be a breach of contract."