Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[Deleted member 417]

Don't bring Gaf talking points to this forum.

Sony and Nintendo are the best because they respect the industry, first and foremost. They respect their devs, their publishers and their customers. Everything they do, have do and have created is based on the basic foundation of respect.

To consider, even for a second, that Sony and Nintendo became so popular for any other reason than respect is disrespectful. There is no coincidence that Japnese companies using Japanese values succeed in an industry that is an artform, where American companies and American values fail. Microsoft, Google and Apple have felt this sting for these reasons.

 

[Zzero]

Don't bring Gaf talking points to this forum.

Sony and Nintendo are the best because they respect the industry, first and foremost. They respect their devs, their publishers and their customers. Everything they do, have do and have created is based on the basic foundation of respect.

To consider, even for a second, that Sony and Nintendo became so popular for any other reason than respect is disrespectful. There is no coincidence that Japnese companies using Japanese values succeed in an industry that is an artform, where American companies and American values fail. Microsoft, Google and Apple have felt this sting for these reasons.

Really? Because the PS2 and 3 were sold to us on beds of lies that would make Todd Howard blush.

 

[Deleted member 417]

Really? Because the PS2 and 3 were sold to us on beds of lies that would make Todd Howard blush.

Nahh. Ps2 was sold as a cheap dvd player and console. Nothing else.

Ps3 was Sony trying to recreate their initial entry into the gaming industry with Phillips CdI (read into the history of that)

Not only that, Kaz Hirai, who was not responsible for the PS3, bowed infront of the heads of Sony as a sign of sorrow, respect and regret. Name me an American company that would even entertain the idea of bowing infront of the board of directors, let alone do it.

 

[Bryank75]

Nahh. Ps2 was sold as a cheap dvd player and console. Nothing else.

Ps3 was Sony trying to recreate their initial entry into the gaming industry with Phillips CdI (read into the history of that)

Not only that, Kaz Hirai, who was not responsible for the PS3, bowed infront of the heads of Sony as a sign of sorrow, respect and regret. Name me an American company that would even entertain the idea of bowing infront of the board of directors, let alone do it.

I think there was a huge disconnect also between the expectations for the cell processor and what it turned out to be in reality. IBM was responsible mostly for the architecture and probably told Sony all types of fantastical things to get them on board as partners.

PS3 was a great machine though, many have not used the OG model which was BC through hardware and could accept loads of different media via the fold up port beside the disc drive..... it was also a much nicer finish compared to all the later models.

It was a serious piece of tech for its time..... people were just too cheap to buy it / not ready to buy a machine for that price.

 

[VillaiN]

The real kicker for me is that many of the people who support this just want more games on Gamepass. That's it, that's their entire reason. It's so pervasive that the CMA had a line in their documentation to the effect that 'putting more games on Gamepass is not a reason to approve the deal'. The pettiest people puff the loudest about morality, though, particularly on Ree.

90% of those who re vocal and support it re just xbox fanboys who hide behind, "more games on gp". Ms could have payed AB few billions to put cod titles on gp for number of years. Every1 happy. Its about buying majority on industry to starve competition from 3p content. Also to steal King users from amazon cloud so ms management boast about numbers and get huge bonuses.

Zero vision, inovation, they dont care about industry. Heck whole concept, free games for subs was started by sony. They just took it to helo them monopolise another industry.

 

[Deleted member 417]

I think there was a huge disconnect also between the expectations for the cell processor and what it turned out to be in reality. IBM was responsible mostly for the architecture and probably told Sony all types of fantastical things to get them on board as partners.

PS3 was a great machine though, many have not used the OG model which was BC through hardware and could accept loads of different media via the fold up port beside the disc drive..... it was also a much nicer finish compared to all the later models.

It was a serious piece of tech for its time..... people were just too cheap to buy it / not ready to buy a machine for that price.

The PS3 was the most advanced piece of tech in modern history, same with the CDI. They were victims of their own success in a way. It was stupid to put a physical ps2 inside the ps3, but The Cell was, and still is to this day, one of the most advanced CPUs I'm history, unrivaled by almost all other CPUs for what it did.

The big killer was the split ram, which devs told Sony not to do, and they did it anyway.

Amazingly, after all of the difficulty and hate Sony got from devs for the split ram, Microsoft then did it with the Xbone.

 

[TwistedSyn]

Amazingly, after all of the difficulty and hate Sony got from devs for the split ram, Microsoft then did it with the Xbone.

I actually didn't know that. That is hilarious.

 

[AshHunter216]

Idas has more insights on some documents and also commented on the likelihood of the deal in the cma.

There's something about the cuts taken from COD sales and how the dynamic could shift and give MS incentive to make COD exclusive based on Sony's model. Bit out of my depth with this one.




Edit: Involves something called a switching rate.

 

[Dabaus]

My understanding is abk currently gets an extra percentage for every sale on psn, more than the typical 70:30, say 75,25. Sony is taking a hit on revenue made for incentives like marketing and map packs. If the deal goes through Sony expects the percentage to change giving abk/ Microsoft reason to take off PlayStation because abk/ms would be making less with a stand 70/30.

So Sony is giving abk more revenue than than the typical 70/30 split and they still want to screw PlayStation over. Imagine being that greedy!

 

[riesgoyfortuna]

Really? Because the PS2 and 3 were sold to us on beds of lies that would make Todd Howard blush.

And still were two of the finest systems and with some of the Best gaming lineups on console history,all of them sold lies,ms with kinect and the power of the cloud,Nintendo with the wiimote,etc

 

[KiryuRealty]

Nahh. Ps2 was sold as a cheap dvd player and console. Nothing else.

Ps3 was Sony trying to recreate their initial entry into the gaming industry with Phillips CdI (read into the history of that)

Not only that, Kaz Hirai, who was not responsible for the PS3, bowed infront of the heads of Sony as a sign of sorrow, respect and regret. Name me an American company that would even entertain the idea of bowing in front of the board of directors, let alone do it.

Sony had fuck all to do with CDi, aside from being co-author of the CD specs with Philips.

 

[Swift_Star]

Really? Because the PS2 and 3 were sold to us on beds of lies that would make Todd Howard blush.

Were they?

 

[Zzero]

Were they?

Yes. Go watch pre-release PS2 E3s or the infamous PS3 reveal conference (the one before the epic "Giant Enemy Crab" conference, which was funnier but included less bullshit since it was closer to release.) Lots of people claim the pre-release PS2 bullshit killed the Dreamcast with claims of "Toy Story graphics" and other turn of the millennium nonsense.

 

[AshHunter216]

My understanding is abk currently gets an extra percentage for every sale on psn, more than the typical 70:30, say 75,25. Sony is taking a hit on revenue made for incentives like marketing and map packs. If the deal goes through Sony expects the percentage to change giving abk/ Microsoft reason to take off PlayStation because abk/ms would be making less with a stand 70/30.

So Sony is giving abk more revenue than than the typical 70/30 split and they still want to screw PlayStation over. Imagine being that greedy!

That's why the people claiming that Sony should back down because ABK will be mad at them if they stay independent are foolish. If they were willing to sell to MS, they weren't interested in having much more of a relationship with Playstation anyway.

 

[anonpuffs]

That's why the people claiming that Sony should back down because ABK will be mad at them if they stay independent are foolish. If they were willing to sell to MS, they weren't interested in having much more of a relationship with Playstation anyway.

That's foolish thinking. Imagine if someone came to you and said "hey, you know that job you have? Come work for me, I'll pay you triple what you're being paid now, including a $40 million signing bonus" ... you think that that means you didn't plan to go to your job tomorrow if that offer fell through? Kotick & shareholders are trying to get paid any way they can. Of course selling to MSFT will damage the relationship a little bit, but businesses will be businesses. Sony wants that COD money and activision wants that Playstation userbase money.

 

[AshHunter216]

That's foolish thinking. Imagine if someone came to you and said "hey, you know that job you have? Come work for me, I'll pay you triple what you're being paid now, including a $40 million signing bonus" ... you think that that means you didn't plan to go to your job tomorrow if that offer fell through? Kotick & shareholders are trying to get paid any way they can. Of course selling to MSFT will damage the relationship a little bit, but businesses will be businesses. Sony wants that COD money and activision wants that Playstation userbase money.

I mean if the deal goes through it ultimately wouldn't matter if there were hard feelings from Sony trying to block the deal within ABK.

My point is that there's no reason for them not to protest the deal.

 

[Swift_Star]

Yes. Go watch pre-release PS2 E3s or the infamous PS3 reveal conference (the one before the epic "Giant Enemy Crab" conference, which was funnier but included less bullshit since it was closer to release.) Lots of people claim the pre-release PS2 bullshit killed the Dreamcast with claims of "Toy Story graphics" and other turn of the millennium nonsense.

Lol

 

[laynelane]

90% of those who re vocal and support it re just xbox fanboys who hide behind, "more games on gp". Ms could have payed AB few billions to put cod titles on gp for number of years. Every1 happy. Its about buying majority on industry to starve competition from 3p content. Also to steal King users from amazon cloud so ms management boast about numbers and get huge bonuses.

Zero vision, inovation, they dont care about industry. Heck whole concept, free games for subs was started by sony. They just took it to helo them monopolise another industry.

I find that many people don't even have the honesty to admit it's about getting more games on Gamepass. It's that MS needs ABK to challenge Sony's unfair tactics, they need it to compete against Sony, etc. I can't say I agree with wanting more games on a sub service to the detriment of the entire industry, but at least it's honest. Agreed about the rest of your points about MS and, thankfully, regulators are seeing it that way too.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Yes. Go watch pre-release PS2 E3s or the infamous PS3 reveal conference (the one before the epic "Giant Enemy Crab" conference, which was funnier but included less bullshit since it was closer to release.) Lots of people claim the pre-release PS2 bullshit killed the Dreamcast with claims of "Toy Story graphics" and other turn of the millennium nonsense.

Ah, you’re one of THOSE idiots. Explains a lot.

 

[Yobo]

Going back to the cloud tweet for a second, it is a valid concern. Redfall having a persistent online connection even for single-player, is a fate that will come to all Xbox games in the future. All of those games will run on Azure servers. I know I sound like a broken record but look at this:

AWS: Powering the Internet and Amazon’s Profits

Amazon is best known for its sprawling ecommerce empire, but three-quarters of the company's profits actually come from cloud computing.

www.visualcapitalist.com

This year we saw in Microsoft reports that their Cloud computing services (Azure) were the areas that saw the biggest growth and profit (I looked for the breakdown on Icon but I can't find the thread).

Microsoft stated that Sony we not their competitor and it was the likes of Amazon that they are up against. Microsoft could use the gaming industry as a wedge to drive Azure into other areas and aggressively take market share from Amazon without having to directly compete.

They could also own a vertical monopoly. In a scenario where cloud gaming takes over as the main way to access games like streaming is for movies you could see MS already owning

1. The servers necessary to power streaming. Giving them the power to decide what hardware is used to stream games.

2. The largest collection of developers including two of the most popular IPs on the planet, Minecraft and COD. This will make them not only the biggest publisher but the biggest employer in the industry

3. The largest consumer facing distribution network with Xcloud and Gamepass


The future MS envisions for themselves is leasing out Azure to Sony and Nintendo which run on Xbox or PC server racks and just change out button prompts for Sony or Nintendo who run their own smaller services and are at the whim of MS pricing. Oh and Sony/Nintendo needing to pay for licenses to access content like COD, Minecraft, and whatever massive publishers they sweep up if left unchecked

They can run Gamepass at a loss right now because they see themselves being paid in the long term for Azure access and content access while still running their own platform