Microsoft Tells UK It Will License 'Call of Duty' To Sony For 10 Years - Slashdo...
source link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/23/03/08/155221/microsoft-tells-uk-it-will-license-call-of-duty-to-sony-for-10-years
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Microsoft Tells UK It Will License 'Call of Duty' To Sony For 10 Years
Microsoft Tells UK It Will License 'Call of Duty' To Sony For 10 Years (reuters.com) 34
Posted by msmash
on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @10:20AM from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.›
Don't get me wrong, but... a game and whether it's gonna be available on some platform should decide whether or not a merger can take place?
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It's just a smoke and mirrors tactic by Microsoft so they can say "Look! Look! No Anti-Trust Concerns Here!" by claiming they aren't attempting to leverage their distribution platforms to enforce exclusivity on Activision/Blizzard titles.
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No its not. It a bone to Sony who are claiming if they don't have access to call of duty then they essentially have no offering even though their primary strategy is acquiring and exploiting exclusive releases.
I get that anti trust is usually a pretty big deal but in this instance it's not a thing. MS/xbox have basically zero fingers in the publishing pie because halo flopped and gears burned out a long time ago and now they are trying to buy in.
If MS/xbox aren't allowed to leverage exclusivity on IP t-
I don't think it is Sony that they are throwing the bone to with this, in my opinion it's to try to placate regulators who may decide to deny the merger.
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Yeah they are throwing the bone the regulators but it's sony who is doing all the barking.
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Well that's definitely true, fair enough!
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Citation needed
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Probably not, but they want to do this merger and become another disney like issue, so they will sweet talk all the way to there.
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Well, that's a major product of one of the companies, and it's the industry the companies are in, so yeah, it's pretty relevant.
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One of the main concerns is that MS buying a major publishers is that they will use it against Sony. MS has shown they are willing to anticompetitive things in the past. The promise of keep CoD on PlayStation is a start but I would be wary of MS regardless. They may still do some anticompetitive things like release buggy, poorly optimized CoD titles on PlayStation. Or not release the same title: Xbox users get CoD 2026 but PS users get CoD (ported from a pay to win mobile 2024 version). Or minor things like
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Sony who buy up developers and properties all the time? Sony who bought Bungie and Destiny right after this announcement and no one gave a shit? That sony? Sony root kit fiasco sony? Sony who care less about antitrust than MS ever did? Is that the sony you are concerned about?
Why is sony so scared of not having call of duty? Do they really have so little faith in the rest of what they have to offer that without it no one will ever even consider a PlayStation? Their mountains of exclusives aren't worth a t-
Two wrongs do not make a right.
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You do know the difference between Sony buying developers and MS buying a major publisher right? So lets look at your exact examples: Bungie: $3.6B, 826 employees. Activision: $68.7B, 9200 employees. So you don't see a difference?
1) Why is that relevant to legitimate antitrust concerns about Microsoft 2) And when did I ever say Sony has done no wrong.?
Why are you speculating on what Sony is "scared of"? These concerns have been raised by organizations outside Sony like the UK's Competition and Markets Aut
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If you truly believe Sony aren't the main driving voice behind all this then let me talk to you about this bridge I have for sale. Yeah regulators do the regulating but I'm yet to hear any specific examples about how this deal might harm gamers or the gaming generally except for the possibility of cod going Xbox exclusive. I'll agree with the concept that exclusives themselves causes some of that and if you want to get rid of that practise im all for it but that's not the idea of concept that's being floate
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Microsoft will own a major publishers that controls hundreds of titles some of which are cross platform. . . can you not connect the dots? Do I need to draw a map for you?
And I need to point out if it was Sony buying Activision, the concerns would be exactly the same. Hardware manufacturer buys major software publisher: There will be antitrust issues to be addressed. Or does your fanboism not allow you to see the potential issue of the scenario?
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The concerns are there sure, it's being looked at and everyone is finding it's not that big of a deal. The worst case scenario you've laid out is Xbox basically gets a bunch of exclusives en masse? In an industry where exclusives are one of the main selling points of a system.
Let's not forget we're talking about video games and consoles here, not CDs or DVDs that will work in any player. It's work taking a game from one system to make it play on another and there are many reasons for a studio to only focu
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The concern is that rather than have a healthy environment where console makers pay studios to make certain games exclusive to their own consoles, those console makers will make their own games after buying the studios and make them exclusive to their own consoles.
Yeah, I think it's all bullshit too. Let Microsoft buy Activision, they're both ultimately software companies, and Microsoft doesn't, right now, make many games of its own except for, obviously, Solitaire and Halo. Sony can make its own games.
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Based on my skim-reading, I think that Call of Duty was the bulk of UK's "Competition and Markets Authority" analysis of the impacts of the merger, and was the bulk of Sony's objection to it, and Microsoft's mitigations were the crux of why Europe seems happy to let the merger go by. http://www.fosspatents.com/202... [fosspatents.com]
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Don't get me wrong, but... a game and whether it's gonna be available on some platform should decide whether or not a merger can take place?
That was the concern of the EU and UK regulators - that Call of Duty will somehow be Xbox exclusive. Despite Xbox sales of CoD being #3 after PlayStation and PC.
Like somehow one game makes a platform - that PlayStation or PC will cease to exist without Call of Duty. And ignoring the fact that Microsoft would make more millions of dollars from PC and PS sales of Call of
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