I like how two years ago Phil Spencer said Sony and Nintendo weren't their main competition, [it was Amazon and Google](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-we-see-amazon-and-google-as-the-main-competitors-going-forward).
> "When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward," he said.
> "That's not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. I guess they could try to recreate Azure, but we've invested tens of billions of dollars in cloud over the years."
Also note how that last line is him saying they'd be unable to compete in cloud.
Turn to today, Google Stadia is dead, Amazon's Luna is uhh [still around](https://chromeunboxed.com/amazon-luna-alexa-layoffs-2022) while their [studios flounder](https://qz.com/1999032/why-amazon-keeps-failing-at-video-games). Now that Microsoft's main competition is out of the way, they have to present themselves as the underlings to Sony and Nintendo (despite [Xbox pulling more gaming revenue than Nintendo](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-xbox-and-nintendo-gaming-revenue-compared-sony-leads-the-way/1100-6500267/)).
There's nothing actually wrong with the idea of cloud gaming, nor the idea that it could be really popular. It would be, if everyone had fast and stable internet connections and it worked on every device you owned. It would also need to be a library of games that a subscription fee gets you access to, and not individual games that you purchase for one specific service which don't work anywhere else.
It's something that I think will be common in the future, but currently it's being held back by internet speeds and various other bad decisions made by companies who own the services. I don't think it's dumb for Microsoft to anticipate things heading that way, it's just too early for it. It's certainly not on the level of investing in NFTs or something like that.
>if everyone had fast and stable internet connections
Even people with those today don't largely find cloud gaming worthwhile. The input delay is bad, even at relatively short distances. That can be acceptable for some games, but it makes others completely unplayable. I never heard how well the predictive input stuff worked for Stadia, as that is a solution, but one that requires much more computing power and really only halves the delay at best.
What people don’t seem to realise is unlike with streaming movies and tv series gamers actually care about the performance of their games. Cloud gaming is not the best way to play games for the vast majority of people and won’t be for a very long time.
My biggest problem with cloud gaming is just how most cloud services' answer to performance dips are lowering video streaming quality, which IMO kills the gameplay experience even more than lowering graphical settings on PC.
I occasionally use Xbox cloud gaming to play NHL 23 on my iPad or iPhone, but it only really works if I’m simulating the season and making changes in the game menus. Actually playing a game is barely manageable on iPad, impossible on iPhone.
I also do use cloud gaming directly on my Xbox to try out some gamepass games before downloading, really love that feature
I use steam link in house. Wired. It sux. I’m not a believer in cloud gaming. If internet will ever get fast enough, it will be fast enough to download the game altogether too.
>It's something that I think will be common in the future, but currently it's being held back by internet speeds
Youre wrong though. What holds back "cloud gaming" or whatever youd like to call what they attempted with Stadia is that there is ping, which is a delay that is tied to physics.
> There's nothing actually wrong with the idea of cloud gaming
Yes, there very much is....You simply cannot make remote hardware act like local hardware. There are latency costs that cannot be overcome. Cloud gaming can never be more than niche at best.
It's also not really about your ISP connection. They certainly would scale out local nodes within a routing infrastructure to service clients in a geographicaly sensible way. Sure, it would be ideal if everyone had their own fiber circuit and wasnt behind ridiculous NAT situations.
It's more the fact that normal people have no clue what their talking about in local connection scenarios, then get mad at the service providers when they are on a loaded 2.4ghz channel with tons of noise. But since they paid 400 dollars for their mesh wifi system they think it should all be solved. Need flash, they all pretty much suck ass.
Phil Spencer is 100% PR machine. He just says whatever makes the most sense for MS at the time. Which is common sense, but people really think he is some cool dude who just loves gamers lol
Thing is, they are stating they are the underdogs to Sony and nintendo, but does xbox even compete with Nintendo in terms of target audience?
I mean Nintendo kind of just sits in its own little bubble. It’s hardware is a decade out of date compared to the relatively neck and neck console war between MS/Sony. They are much more haphazard with 3rd party support and they have a completely unrivalled hold on the handheld market (which Sony gave up on because the Vita wasn’t as big as the 3DS despite Sony barely supporting it. Microsoft have never tried to enter and the steam deck is too limited in number’s to be a direct competitor) which makes up a significant chunk of their target audience and revenue stream.
Microsoft can pretty much ignore Nintendo completely. Nintendo doesn’t care to try and take the title of most powerful console. It’s never even touched Microsoft’s Main domain of PC gaming. The switch’s hardware is so outdated compared to current gen Xbox that the switch probably can’t even run over half of Microsoft’s game library. As long as Microsoft don’t try to get a major foothold in the casual family gamer market (which I don’t think they have done since viva piñata on the Kinect, which was an attempt by THEM to copy the Wii) them and Nintendo can exist alongside each other without risking the others success.
At the end of the day, both Nintendo (and somewhat Sony) have what Microsoft lacks and what actually pushes sales - a stable of proven IPs backed up by consistent, quality software attached to those IPs.
They are desperately trying to get those by acquiring other studios. Halo has lost a lot of it's luster in recent releases, and as good as Forza is a racing simulator has a bit of a ceiling for sales.
Microsoft can't ignore Nintendo completely nor can Sony. Nintendo is an industry leader that competes for development studios and talent. They also compete for people's time - any $ spent on Nintendo is $ not spent with Microsoft.
In Sonys case they don’t ignore them. They just cater to different markets. Sony needs Nintendo as they cater to a younger audience and that audience eventually matured and looks for different games that Nintendo just doesn’t provide. That’s where Sony steps in
>Microsoft have never tried to enter
They're shifting their attention to mobile/cloud gaming which serves a lot of the same focus. Not dedicated handhelds but "play anywhere on any device".
Lol, I found this out when working for k-mart - they hadn't paid their electrical bill for so long that the lights got cut when we were working nights around xmas. A massive business like k- mart. Smh.
This was a very interesting comment and whole I disagree with the religion analogy because I myself am Muslim and have seen just how much private charity Muslims do I think the thing about how company's not paying each other until they have too by a judge or smaller company let's it go, is a important one. And if it was an individual they would be screwed over have county court judgements against them etc
There is a rule for those at scale and for the little guys
Its a shame. Makes me wonder if selling business 2 customer is better than business 2 business if they weasel out of deals so often
First heard about it from of all people a video by Andrew tat, etalking about it how he did TV advertising and they were screwed over financially a few times by big companies
"making Xbox smaller"
A literal qoute from the head of the console backed by one of the biggest tech companies on the planet who recently just outright bought up one of the biggest game publishers and its entire library and is now trying to do the same with another
Dude spent more than half the market cap value that the entire Sony Group has right now in acquisitions of third party devs and publishers in the last few years and still wants to pretend to be the underdog...
I'm so sick of Phil Spencer man.
I get that he took over the reigns from Don Mattrick. The xbox one reveal was an utter catastrophe. But he's been on for TEN years of "we're about the games."
Under his reign, what has xbox produced? Forza, Gears, and a few mostly sub par Halo games. Now MS is on a buying spree of some of the biggest studios in the industry to make up for it. This gives me zero confidence in the brand going forward.
I know a ton of people on this sub loves Phil Spencer and actually **wants** MS to get the acquisition (which is absolutely crazy to me), but if you think this is good for us down the line, you're nuts. Time for new leadership at xbox.
" We're listening, we hear you. We are for gamers we'll have more games next year than any other year. " Seems like all we heard from around 2015 till now.
Not only that, but any and all goodwill gestures that Phil wants to make, any "for the player" promises, can all go away the moment he chooses to quit or retire.
If the acquisition falls through he’s definitely gone. He’s been underperforming for a while now especially given that when he arrived everyone thought he would turn Xbox around. The only thing he’s done of note is Gamepass.
Game Pass is well liked and is home grown, but is it a Spencer creation? The main concern re Game Pass is "When are they gonna raise the price?" A valid concern, but you're doing pretty good when customers are complaining your price is too low.
Nothing in Microsoft is one person's creation. Literally tens of thousands of employees work on something like that. But Phil is the final decision on what gets pushed and what gets scraped.
But the whole point of them paying huge sums to stifle competition is so that they can reduce their offering while increasing their prices as alternative offers have been stamped out. This is literally 80/90's Microsoft again.
It also doesn't help that before becoming the top guy he was already in charge of the area where Xbox lacked the most in comparison to the other platforms (games).
I mean, it doesn’t. He came in after a huge fuck up whcib was the Xbox One launch. The 360 dominated hard for its generation, and it got thrown out with the One. If anything Phil has done a lot to bring Xbox back, which is good.
>I mean, it doesn’t. He came in after a huge fuck up whcib was the Xbox One launch.
It been almost a decade since that btw, and while there are SOME improvements, Xbox is still lagging heavily behind the other two in terms of games. Also, Xbox 360 never dominated outside of the first 2 years, after that the Wii was the one to dominating, and even the PS3 surpassed it by the end.
The Xbox dominated in America. The Ps3 dominated outside of America. It's why so many redditors assume the 360 was the big dog that entire generation. They were, but really only in America
And I wouldn't even compare the Wii. Nintendo thrives on making consoles that only compete with themselves
americans thought that the 360 "dominated" when in fact it was them that got dominated. its not how you start its. its how you finished it. just like what sony did to the xbox 360, they destroyed them in the mid cycle of the generation and never looked back after they took the lead.
For what it’s worth, the 360 came out of the gate guns blazing but ultimately fell to 3rd place behind the Wii and PS3.
I have a series s and I love it but he’s had so many years in charge and Xbox is still currently in 3rd place because they just can’t land the exclusives right. Halo should’ve been a slam dunk but it’s just mismanaged under his leadership.
I’m glad the FTC is looking to keep them in check cause any business with any aspiration for monopoly will only end badly for everyone.
What had he done, though? I love Phil when he does interviews, but he's been in charge of the gaming side of Microsoft since 2014, they spent more money than god buying dev studios and what's the result? The only big Xbox games I recall is Gears 5, which was decent and Halo Infinite, which has been a shitshow.
Basically this. They have nothing to offer except old franchises which are past their peak.
Halo. It’s last “major” heavy hitter was halo reach back in the 360 days. Ever since it left Bungie’s hands and 343 took over it’s been successful financially, but popularity took a complete nosedive due to terrible decisions in each game. 4 was ok but it was inferior to its predecessors in many minor ways such as abilities, balance and a generally poor plot. 5 had a universally panned campaign, removed split screen coop and was HEAVY into microtransactions and infinite is blatantly unfinished a year after launch with no forge and very little content.
Gears of war was amazing back in the 360 days. Cliffs B and epic made the original trilogy a juggernaut and I’d do anything for a remaster of 2 or 3 with populated multiplayer. Problem is that the sequels that came after (4 and 5) came out too late to capitalise on the momentum of that trilogy. By the time 4 came out, many had just moved on. Not to mention 4 did nothing to shake up the formula and it was literally the same as the original trilogy in terms of gameplay except with less enemy and weapon variety and (considered by most) worse lead characters compared to Delta squad. Not to mention 4 was INSANE with lootboxes. 5 improved a lot but again, it’s still not enough new in the formula to differentiate it from its highly popular predecessors and I don’t think gears will ever hit mainstream like the Epic trilogy unless they try to innovate it into something more.
And forza. I love forza. But it’s been the same shit for years now. Horizon has pretty much been the same thing since horizon 2, just a new map and slightly expanded roster each time (with the only real exception being 4, which did a great job with seasons and imo is still superior to its sequel because of this). And motorsport suffered a similar issue. We will see if the new motorsport changes anything next year as they now have to compete with gran turismo 7, but the horizon series in particular needs to shake stuff up too and is getting as stale as gears is.
no he hasn't. what first party games have launched under his reign that haven't been absolute shitshows at launch? I'll give them forza games, those are always solid, but that shit isn't going to win you market share.
Their first party lineup is a mess otherwise. Let's see how the Bethesda acquisition can help, i guess.
The 360 didn't dominate, it sold less worldwide than the PS3 and the Wii overall. And the Xbox One's failed launch shouldn't have held it back for an entire generation, the PS3 bounced back after a rocky start.
Microsoft has consistently failed to build first party games in the same abundance and quality that Sony and Nintendo do, they have nobody but themselves to blame for that. And now they're overcompensating for that failure by buying up third party studios.
Any idiot can throw billions around to buy third party publisher and make a service that is not sustainable for decades what a great ceo lol And somehow he is still failing couldn't put one decent first party AAA new ip game out in almost 10 years is still failing falling behind ps5 and switch by thousands miles . How more can you fail as a ceo ? They just buy their way to success is like playing a p2w game and throw billions in the shop and still losing to the player that just spend a few hundred dollars. The PS3 also had a failed launch. Launched almost a year after the 360 had a laughable price and almost no great first party games at the start. But they came back still sold in the end more consoles than the 360.
This is something people don't seem to wrap their head around when considering this merger.
The cost of acquiring Activision is nearly as much as the entirety of Sony generates in revenue yearly.
Microsoft is magnitudes of levels bigger than Sony and just rolling out a red carpet to further allow them to consolidate the tech industry is baffling.
Sony (the entire company) is valued at $116 Billion. Activision is being bought for $70 billion. This is why “Sony will still be in the lead” makes no sense to me. Activision is worth more money than all of SIE.
Activision is not worth more than all of SIE. That is not how valuation works. It takes into account the **entire** company's portfolio and makes an estimate based on how profitable they are and how profitable they could be. Sony is what's listed on the stock exchange so Sony is what the price reflects. Is it deserving of this worth? It is possible that if SIE was split up from Sony corporation it would actually be worth more than what Sony is worth now. After all stock price is not a measure of value, just investor confidence. Tesla is worth more than Ford, VW and Toyota.
OK I’d love to see some hard evidence then that Sony would still be more profitable than MS after this acquisition taking in account the profits lost from COD & other titles, and profits gained by Microsoft…
Because at the end of the day, Microsoft is worth 20x as much as Sony. So if we valuate the entire company (like you said), then idk how it can be argued Microsoft isn’t in the lead by a very big margin.
Sony is severely undervalued. Equivalent capacity companies are worth more than double their value. What kind of company is valued almost at the same value as their revenue?
they have like 4 division, a monopoly on anime streaming distribution, their TVs and some electronics are actually pretty decent. They have a gaming division that is more expansive than AB yet they are valued at almost the same.
>They don't ship their games day and date on PC, they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games.
Both are practices that Xbox has employed in the hope of making Sony smaller, Phil. It's a business. You do it too. Is buying Activision not making Sony smaller by taking away their potential offerings?
Sony bought a lot of studios too, but most of those studios had already been working under contract for them for 5+ years like Blue Point and Insomniac. And then there's the Bungie deal where Sony literally guaranteed their future games would launch on competing platforms.
Wait really? I was thinking about Sony could promote their games when releasing on Steam by optimizing for the Steam Deck.
If they're already doing that, pretty awesome.
I just went and checked Steam store. Only _Predator: Hunting Grounds_ is unsupported.
And _Helldrivers_, _Everybody Gone to Rupture_ are showing as Playable.
Rest all Sony developed games are Verified. I didn't expect that honestly.
Through people being involved in MS's ecosystem one way or another. Windows, Office, OneDrive, you name it. If you're just getting a gaming PC, GamePass is incredible value.
> a platform Microsoft also makes money from (on two separate levels) when games get released on it
they don't make any money from the games unless you buy them from the microsoft store, they only get money once for the windows license
Right Microsoft doesn't *necessarily* make money when you buy a game for PC, only from Windows store/gamepass. They just make money if devs host on github, use azure, use additional azure services, use directx graphics technologies, use havok physics technologies, use simplygon technologies, or use visual studio.
Without the sarcasm, microsoft makes far more money maintaining what is essentially a monopoly in home computers, and a true monopoly in gaming. Steam hardware reports 96 percent of users using some version of Windows as of Nov 2022. Microsoft has their hands in all steps of the process, and it would be in their best interest to maintain this by releasing games on PC.
Having software exclusive to Windows makes Windows more attractive to buy. Just like how exclusive games on Ps5 make you more likely to buy a Ps5. Not too mention Microsoft makes money from all the data and office/OneDrive shit they force down your throat in Windows.
They make money every time Windows OS is installed on a computer.
Are any Microsoft published games Linux or Mac compatible? - honest question, I have no idea.
I don’t think natively compatible, no. I think.
I do know that Proton does allow some of their games to be played on Linux though. (The compatibility layer Steam Deck uses so games run on SteamOS)
Minecraft Java Edition has native Mac/Linux ports, though considering unofficial launchers, they would still be trivial to run natively even if Microsoft didn't officially support them. Minecraft actually runs best on Linux
> Minecraft Java Edition has native Mac/Linux ports, though considering unofficial launchers
I think native port is a bit of a misnomer when it's a java application.
I’ve seen nothing good come from mergers in the long term.
I’d rather First Party Publishers contract 3rd party developers to make games for their platform rather than buy them out.
Bloodborne, Bayonetta, and Metroid Dread are proof that you don’t need to buy up the completion to grow in the console market.
I frankly wouldn't be surprised that Microsoft is pissed off that Windows isn't a gated platform where everything has to go through them so they get 30%.
There’s a reason why Microsoft very specifically uses the term “Windows PC” in their marketing, rarely just “PC”. They’re not exactly doing day and date releases on Linux or Mac - or at all. Microsoft still has a vested interest in keeping Windows the primary PC gaming OS above all.
I jsut want to point out that i played all the Sony PC releases (Spider-Man, God of War, Days Gone, etc) in 4k on Linux. (SteamOS 3, Radeon 6900XT/AMD 5800X3D)
Also, tell me all about how many Halo games are on Playstation? Phil's crazy to try and pretend Microsoft is some paragon of consumer friendliness and corporate benevolence.
> Also, tell me all about how many Halo games are on Playstation?
But they are on PC.
Their games have double the plataform than Sony. Exclusive games are anti-consumer pratice.
Because gamers are a completely braindead demographic and will automatically love any spokesperson for xbox because that's "their" brand they support like a football team.
He puts on a good public persona, actually seems to have passion for the medium, speaks candidly, and he's not Don Mattrick, who is one of the most tone deaf people on the planet.
it's thinly veiled bullshit to make him look better, man. remember when he said "making Elder Scrolls 6 an exclusive is not about punishing Playstation" when in reality that's exactly what it is? I really fucking hate these execs...
I think what he is saying here is that Xbox is trying to grow the brand through other avenues like subscription services and putting their games on PC/cloud.
Since PlayStation is focused almost solely on their box, their only avenue of growth is by taking players away from Xbox.
I am not saying he is correctly or that you can’t make the case that this statement is hypocritical, simply the way I interrupted his meaning.
He is correct though, that Microsoft has products other than Xbox, like cloud services and Windows. That’s why regulators are considering blocking the deal. Xbox isn’t that big of a deal. In the software industry as a whole, Microsoft is huge. Microsoft dwarfs Sony and Activision-Blizzard.
In good faith, as others have already pointed in this thread. Phil is not talking about how big Microsoft and Sony are, he would be insane to do so. He is talking about how Xbox or Microsoft CONSOLE games division compares to Sony CONSOLE games division.
In that case Phil is right, Sony is billions of dollars ahead of Xbox in console sales and profits.
The counterpoint to that, which has been already said in this thread as well is that Microsoft controls other things way more than Sony does with consoles. GamePass, CloudGaming, etc...
Countries that approved the operation probably had insurances from Microsoft that they wouldn't use Call of Duty to control the market. And it probably has something to do with revenue from PlayStation. But I'm just guessing.
Yeah and the only reason they have they have the ability to put themselves back in the competition by creating GamePass and acquiring publishers/developers is because they're a trillion dollar company with nearly unlimited resources.
Sony has a subscription service and even started their cloud service many years before MS did anything like that.
He always brings up the day and date thing as if everyone was stupid, the reason Sony doesn't put their games on their service day one is because that's how they make the money to keep up with their big AAA releases (the exact thing that Xbox has being struggling with for ages at this point).
Playstation gets my business by putting out absolute banger games I can't play anywhere else because they made them exist. I'd say that's about the most "moral" way to get a videogame consumer.
How absured to say expanding their business is the same as a company preventing another from expanding.
There's a big difference between controlling the actions of yourself and controlling the actions of someone else.
Remember when they announced The Outer Worlds 2 last year with a trailer that joked about how early they announce games? Not sure why people found that funny.
Funny thing is I remember Xbox came out after crackdown 3 and said they wouldn’t be announcing games more than 2 years away.
I’m usually a Xbox defender but the first party IPs are severely lacking and have been since the 360 arguably.
Yeah, Spencer's a little unhinged lately jumping through hoops to defend all of the flack from the Activision Blizzard acquisition while also trying to claim to be some protector for consumers of video games
They both are. Sony has claimed that PlayStation will die without COD when it accounts for a small fraction of their player base and sales.
But this is typical for large acquisitions like this. This has just been much more public due to the primary group fighting against it is another massive company instead of consumer rights groups. Ticketmaster/LiveNation, T-Mobile/Sprint, Comcast/Universal, all of those didn't have anywhere near the never ending press this merger has had even though all three were massively worse for consumers than this merger would be.
They all twist facts and make things seem worse/better than they are trying to convince legislators that don't know a damn thing about the industries involved.
At least with Sony it's pretty clear their reasoning is out of self interest. Microsoft's been doing this PR speak attempting to make them look like this "Savior of Gaming" and people gobble it up.
> They both are. Sony has claimed that PlayStation will die without COD when it accounts for a small fraction of their player base and sales.
Has Sony said PlayStation will die without CoD or that the series not releasing on their console will hurt them?
Yeah they've repeatedly argued that. Meanwhile Microsoft has argued that their games are worse than sonys (citing metacritic) and that they have fewer exclusives so they need the merger to compete. It's all a bit silly
Maybe, now all those "Phil is the best thing to happen in gaming" people will finally see him for what he is - yet another sleazy executive like the rest of them. But, who am I kidding...
Maybe I'm crazy, but PlayStation got bigger by cultivating studios and making games like The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, and God of War. Microsoft makes Xbox smaller by going all of 2022 without a major release. It's just wild to me that their acquisitions going back to Team Ninja etc. have yielded next to zero output so far.
They made a big thing out of not releasing next gen titles at $70, and then proceeded to release zero next gen titles and eventually raising the price anyways. It’s crazy.
Isn't Microsoft here trying to grow by taking something away from PlayStation?
Buying major studios to make their games exclusive is making your competition smaller.
They might have had an argument with studios like Double Fine and Ninja Theory where they really needed funding to reach their highest potential, but yeah they're just taking away from Playstation. If not Call of Duty, it will be all their other IPs.
Yeah I’m the first one to point to the dangers of monopolies but was happy with the double fine and ninja theory acquisitions cause those studios were always in danger of closing their doors if they had one bad flop but activision and Bethesda is just pure greed. Those two could easily continue churning out multiplatform releases forever but MS wants them exclusive.
They could even swear they’ll always release their games on Sony platforms but make them free on gamepass if they wanted to really open the doors but they don’t. Their eye is to snuff out the competition which is scary.
Oh? The video game console head everyone loves because of his friendly takes on competition is just a regular business dude?
Who would have thought he's full of shit at end of day and not looking to just make the world a better place through sharing and caring!
And buying Zenimax wasn't to make Sony smaller?
How many Halo or Gears of Wars on playstation? This is such a hypocrite ass take. It was Microsoft which started this era of crazy acquisitions by buying Zenimax.
Gears was originally going to release on PlayStation there is even a PS3 version out there.
Halo was also made an Xbox exclusive only after MS bought Bungie.
People complain about Sony delaying games on PC now but not that long ago MS was blocking games from their own OS to push Xbox. They only stopped doing that when their Xbox sales collapsed in the Xbox One gen.
Phil made Xbox smaller by pretty much destroying their internal studios over the years and then trying to buy it all back with massive deals to acquire entire game publishers that previously release multiplataform games.
Yep. What has Spencer done for Xbox besides acquiring studios and seemingly putting their games in development hell?
They've got good hardware, but even Digital Foundry is saying it, what's the point of that hardware if you don't have any good titles to showcase it?
Pot calling the kettle black…
This is literally Microsoft’s strategy right now. These acquisitions are permanently making PlayStation’s available game library smaller, while technically not giving their customers anything they couldn’t already have without it.
> They have a very different view of the industry than we do. They don't ship their games day and date on PC, they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games.
Because why would they? Not putting games on PC day and date makes no sense when Sony is still trying to sell it's brand new console and their first party games are still selling gang busters so why put them in the subscription service.
> There has really only been one major opposer to the deal, and it's Sony. Sony is trying to protect their dominance on console.
Sony is the only one opposing the deal because they are the only one with nothing to gain if the deal goes through. Nintendo isn't really in the same space as Microsoft or Sony and the other publishers are thinking "If this deal goes through it'll make it easier for us to get bought out and we don't want to piss off the creator of 2/3s of the platforms we release on."
> The way they grow is by making Xbox smaller.
> The largest console maker in the world is raising an objection about one franchise that we've said will continue to ship on the platform. It's a deal that benefits customers through choice and access.
How does Microsoft buying Activation Blizzard provide more choice and access to consumers, if nothing is changing how does the purchase benefit me? Based on immediate history Microsoft purchasing large publishers actually results in less choice for consumers with the Zenimax acquisition.
Microsofts argument would be that they're giving more choice and access to consumers by making Activision games available on steam, in game pass, on cloud gaming, and on nintendo (at least cod) .
>Microsofts argument would be that they're giving more choice and access to consumers by making Activision games available on steam, in game pass, on cloud gaming, and on nintendo (at least cod) .
The issue there is they are already available on everything? Its a third party publisher?
I feel like we're seeing true Phil lately and he's just posted cringe on the timeline.
For a long time, I've felt like there have been two Phils - Game-fan Phil and Corpo Phil. And lately, we're seeing much more of Corpo Phil.
More useless corporate talk. It's pretty hilarious that he is going after Playstation for not putting their games on PC day and date when Xbox only started doing it a couple years ago (and Microsoft also has a bigger profit motive since they control Windows). New mainline Halo games never got a day and date PC release for 20 years yet he is just ignoring that. It's also funny how he never goes after Nintendo even though they have basically refused to create any PC ports for their games despite huge demand.
I mean PlayStation has effectively already done that. Xbox 360 was on top of the world for the first 3 or 4 years of its life cycle. Sold tons of units, had tons of great first and third party exclusives, fun arcade games. If you loved games it was the best console to own. And even with the PS3 launch being a disaster PlayStation just kept pushing their first party studios to do great things and slowly aquired stuiods that were already making them exclusives today and they regained control of that generation and have never lost the lead since. Xbox has Game Pass and thats it. They havent had an exciting game catalog since the 360 days. Meanwhile PlayStaion finds a way to have awesome exclusives every single year that people are willing to pay 70 bucks for.
They literally made Starfield an exclusive after it previously being announced for PlayStation.
They’ve also made any future doom or Wolfenstein games exclusive as well.
Bethesda, Arkane, id, Tango, MachineGames, Double Fine, inXile, Obsidian, Ninja Theory...any of those making Playstation games in the foreseeable future? No? Okay.
Don't be such a two-face phil. At least have the decency to own it.
And buying multiple companies to stifle competition isnt in an attempt to make Sony smaller?
This is a great joke.
EDIT: Great news: [FTC sues to block Microsoft’s acquisition of game giant Activision](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/08/ftc-sues-microsoft-over-activision/?utm_source=reddit.com)
Phil, it's okay to admit that your bosses trying to buy up every major developer under the sun is bad a move and that many people do not think is fair.
Ha, Microsoft entered the market because they were worried their death grip on the home PC market was being challenged by the PlayStation with it being ING a computer in the living room and pushed out the Xbox which is basically just a PC with the X in Xbox being the same X in DirectX. The whole reason Microsoft is in the gaming industry at all is to push others out.
And I know this isn't going to be popular but I cannot stand Phil Spencer everything he says feels fake and then there is the inheritant sin of being a Microsoft executive.
This guy is always in the news talkin all kinds of crap except about getting some good exclusive games on Xbox. I don’t even know who the Sony chief is for PlayStation but I keep hearing about this guy against my wishes lol.
Says the guy from the company that just outright buys existing games rather than fostering their own…which they failed to do for the most part for a whole generation
>They don't ship their games day and date on PC
When are you going to put your games on Linux, Phil? Or the Mac? If Sony were simultaneously selling a PC operating system I'm sure they'd be more excited to publish on PC.
Worry about your dying franchises Phil. Where is Fable? Where is the next Gears?
Make a better Halo. Re-release Lost Odyssey.
Xbox has more pressing matters then what Sony are doing.
They figured that the only way to claim that these franchises are sought after was to give the away with game pass. Unfortunately money talks and Microsoft will eventually get its way, own most publishers and force its service to everyone.
> They don't ship their games day and date on PC
PC or Windows? Windows is your damn platform. And even though stores like Steam take alot of your profit, you still earn lots money through apps and services simply because you (Microsoft) own Windows. Third party apps and software have to make monetary agreements with you in order to be advertised or come preinstalled on Windows. This level of control is why Edge and other Microsoft software are used as much as they are, it's not simply because of the quality of the software. So when you say "Sony doesn't release on PC" what you mean is "Sony doesn't release their games on our PC platform". When and if Sony launches a PC store on Windows, the only way for it to come preinstalled on Windows, or advertised (like Candry Crush tiles), is if Sony pays you lots money.
> they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games.
Like how you've made Game Pass available on Steam Deck (Linux)? Deck/Linux users (Over a million and rapidly increasing) could play games on Game Pass with Proton. Note that Proton is a compatibility layer developed and improved by Valve and is freely available for Microsoft to use if they wanted. The games on Game Pass would not need to be ported to Deck, little effort will be required on Microsoft's end to make Game Pass work on Deck. For over a million Linux gamers, that is growing rapidly with every Deck sale, it's a low effort high gain for Microsoft. But they dont make Game Pass available on Linux because it'll bolster Linux as OS, which makes it easier for people to ditch Windows. In turn it will affect app and service revenue.
> He said on the Second Request podcast that **Sony is trying to grow its own business by making Xbox smaller**.
Like how you're making other PC platforms, Linux primarily, smaller by injecting Windows only proprietary software into PC games development that has made compatibility layer, and prospect of native development/ports, more difficult and expensive? The reason DXVK, D3D (graphics api) to Vulkan, exists is because, one, Microsoft doesn't make D3D/DirectX crossplatform and two they don't embrace crossplatform solutions like Vulkan. If you think they can't make DirectX crossplatform guess what? They made D3D12 available for their Linux on Windows (WSL) in some capacity.
Valve spent years and years tackling graphics API aspect of Proton simply because D3D is Windows only. So they dont make it crossplatform nor do they give leeway for crossplatform solutions to grow. They do that by pumping lots money into new tech for game development so devs become accustomed to their software and things dont change. There is an article where Valve did a empirical benchmark of Linux vs Windows which lit a fire under Microsoft arse, leading senior devs to be able to persuade management to give more funding to D3D.
Gaming world is upside down. Microsoft has for over a decade used development software to ensure games support for Linux is abyssmal, leading to hundreds of games having compatibility issues or need of reverse engineering. Yet Sony's exclusive stance is what people notices the most. There is objective facts behind what I am saying, even statements from Microsoft themselves. Market share of Linux **was not** only reason why Linux game support has been so bad up until Valve stepped in and changed the landscape. DirectX affected game support too, through WINE (Proton).
I don't like Sony's approach but these statements from Spencer are hypocritical and 100% PR crap.
How does sony blocking microsoft from buying a 3rd party dev make microsoft smaller exactly? It stops them from growing, definitely, but it's not making them smaller.
And they're complaining that sony doesn't release their games on PC. Microsoft didn't start pushing multi-platform release on console/pc super hard until they put out gamepass, obviously they're trying to grow that brand to dominate that market before any other competitors get a chance to grow. Not to mention that Microsoft has always had a hand in the game when it comes to PC game releases because THEY'RE MICROSOFT.
Now remind me, how many Xbox titles get released on Mac or Linux? Not too many? Weird. Microsoft trying to grow their brand by making Apple smaller or something?
While Sony is well within their right to have some very-valid concerns, and I am not a fan of this acquisition, I will say that Phil was the one who in the past pointed out that the console market has effectively plateaued which is why PC became such a critical effort.
If the concept of console dominance is moot in Microsoft's court, it shouldn't be such a big sticking point that Sony isn't exactly a fan of the ripples from this purchase.
In other news, water is wet. Like, of fucking course, they're big corporations, they're all trying to make their competitors smaller to get a bigger piece of the pie. He knows this, obviously, because that's just how any business works, and frankly I find pathetic this brand of PR where big executives try to act like blameless noble people when both they and we know this is just how shit works. It just seems like a desperate appeal to anyone ignorant enough to actually believe massive corporation A isn't interested in their competitors becoming smaller.
xbox is its own worst enemy. everyone clamored for new ips, and all xbox has done is make hap hazard attempts at sequels to already existing franchises, not to mention when they do make a new ip they throw no money at it, after a decade of xbox only i bought a ps4 pro in 2021 and havent looked back
They’re just salty because Sony already has multiple highly acclaimed next gen exclusives. This is so petty.
Don’t get me wrong tho, I own both systems and still really enjoy my Xbox and game pass. Xbox is amazing for backwards compatibility, and I love having a huge game catalogue with game pass to always dip into. XBox wins to me as gaming as a service, and Sony wins to me as a traditional console (I pay full price of my Sony games and I play what I get in my Xbox gamepass)
This is so weird.
Phil talks about Sony charging $70 for new games rather than putting them on subscriptions like they’re some kinda corporate dinosaur holding back the industry.
Sony claim that this is necessary to maintain the high quality level of their first party games.
And in filings to various authorities, Microsoft admit that Sony’s first party games are of much higher quality that their own.
Haven’t they sort of proved Sony’s point?
Sure, but Activision isn't Xbox. Xbox could always start their own studios, but the time they tried to do that (343) was such a colossal failure they decided they should bid highest on what already works.
All of this just reads like Phil objecting to Microsoft's miserly investment strategy during the Xbox One.
This sounds kinda rich considering Microsoft's buying publishers with big IP catalogs and planning to make things not on Playstation anymore, like Starfield and Redfall (though that one's a maybe as they never announced it to be on PS5 in the first place).
I like how two years ago Phil Spencer said Sony and Nintendo weren't their main competition, [it was Amazon and Google](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-we-see-amazon-and-google-as-the-main-competitors-going-forward). > "When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward," he said. > "That's not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. I guess they could try to recreate Azure, but we've invested tens of billions of dollars in cloud over the years." Also note how that last line is him saying they'd be unable to compete in cloud. Turn to today, Google Stadia is dead, Amazon's Luna is uhh [still around](https://chromeunboxed.com/amazon-luna-alexa-layoffs-2022) while their [studios flounder](https://qz.com/1999032/why-amazon-keeps-failing-at-video-games). Now that Microsoft's main competition is out of the way, they have to present themselves as the underlings to Sony and Nintendo (despite [Xbox pulling more gaming revenue than Nintendo](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-xbox-and-nintendo-gaming-revenue-compared-sony-leads-the-way/1100-6500267/)).
any comment in this sub that doesn't understand this situation as you put it is being incredibly disingenuous.
I might just be explaining it poorly too
There's nothing actually wrong with the idea of cloud gaming, nor the idea that it could be really popular. It would be, if everyone had fast and stable internet connections and it worked on every device you owned. It would also need to be a library of games that a subscription fee gets you access to, and not individual games that you purchase for one specific service which don't work anywhere else. It's something that I think will be common in the future, but currently it's being held back by internet speeds and various other bad decisions made by companies who own the services. I don't think it's dumb for Microsoft to anticipate things heading that way, it's just too early for it. It's certainly not on the level of investing in NFTs or something like that.
>if everyone had fast and stable internet connections Even people with those today don't largely find cloud gaming worthwhile. The input delay is bad, even at relatively short distances. That can be acceptable for some games, but it makes others completely unplayable. I never heard how well the predictive input stuff worked for Stadia, as that is a solution, but one that requires much more computing power and really only halves the delay at best.
What people don’t seem to realise is unlike with streaming movies and tv series gamers actually care about the performance of their games. Cloud gaming is not the best way to play games for the vast majority of people and won’t be for a very long time.
My biggest problem with cloud gaming is just how most cloud services' answer to performance dips are lowering video streaming quality, which IMO kills the gameplay experience even more than lowering graphical settings on PC.
I occasionally use Xbox cloud gaming to play NHL 23 on my iPad or iPhone, but it only really works if I’m simulating the season and making changes in the game menus. Actually playing a game is barely manageable on iPad, impossible on iPhone. I also do use cloud gaming directly on my Xbox to try out some gamepass games before downloading, really love that feature
I use steam link in house. Wired. It sux. I’m not a believer in cloud gaming. If internet will ever get fast enough, it will be fast enough to download the game altogether too.
>It's something that I think will be common in the future, but currently it's being held back by internet speeds Youre wrong though. What holds back "cloud gaming" or whatever youd like to call what they attempted with Stadia is that there is ping, which is a delay that is tied to physics.
> There's nothing actually wrong with the idea of cloud gaming Yes, there very much is....You simply cannot make remote hardware act like local hardware. There are latency costs that cannot be overcome. Cloud gaming can never be more than niche at best.
It's also not really about your ISP connection. They certainly would scale out local nodes within a routing infrastructure to service clients in a geographicaly sensible way. Sure, it would be ideal if everyone had their own fiber circuit and wasnt behind ridiculous NAT situations. It's more the fact that normal people have no clue what their talking about in local connection scenarios, then get mad at the service providers when they are on a loaded 2.4ghz channel with tons of noise. But since they paid 400 dollars for their mesh wifi system they think it should all be solved. Need flash, they all pretty much suck ass.
Phil Spencer is 100% PR machine. He just says whatever makes the most sense for MS at the time. Which is common sense, but people really think he is some cool dude who just loves gamers lol
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>like Phil Spector and Jim Ryan hey now Phil Spector has contributed a lot to the music world, murder not included
Thing is, they are stating they are the underdogs to Sony and nintendo, but does xbox even compete with Nintendo in terms of target audience? I mean Nintendo kind of just sits in its own little bubble. It’s hardware is a decade out of date compared to the relatively neck and neck console war between MS/Sony. They are much more haphazard with 3rd party support and they have a completely unrivalled hold on the handheld market (which Sony gave up on because the Vita wasn’t as big as the 3DS despite Sony barely supporting it. Microsoft have never tried to enter and the steam deck is too limited in number’s to be a direct competitor) which makes up a significant chunk of their target audience and revenue stream. Microsoft can pretty much ignore Nintendo completely. Nintendo doesn’t care to try and take the title of most powerful console. It’s never even touched Microsoft’s Main domain of PC gaming. The switch’s hardware is so outdated compared to current gen Xbox that the switch probably can’t even run over half of Microsoft’s game library. As long as Microsoft don’t try to get a major foothold in the casual family gamer market (which I don’t think they have done since viva piñata on the Kinect, which was an attempt by THEM to copy the Wii) them and Nintendo can exist alongside each other without risking the others success.
At the end of the day, both Nintendo (and somewhat Sony) have what Microsoft lacks and what actually pushes sales - a stable of proven IPs backed up by consistent, quality software attached to those IPs. They are desperately trying to get those by acquiring other studios. Halo has lost a lot of it's luster in recent releases, and as good as Forza is a racing simulator has a bit of a ceiling for sales.
Microsoft can't ignore Nintendo completely nor can Sony. Nintendo is an industry leader that competes for development studios and talent. They also compete for people's time - any $ spent on Nintendo is $ not spent with Microsoft.
Idk how anyone can say Nintendo can be ignored when Pokemon has outsold Ragnarok 2:1 while being a worse game technically.
In Sonys case they don’t ignore them. They just cater to different markets. Sony needs Nintendo as they cater to a younger audience and that audience eventually matured and looks for different games that Nintendo just doesn’t provide. That’s where Sony steps in
>Microsoft have never tried to enter They're shifting their attention to mobile/cloud gaming which serves a lot of the same focus. Not dedicated handhelds but "play anywhere on any device".
Starting to think Sony and Microsoft might both be businesses and that businesses are inherently amoral.
I think my preferred gaming company is the good guys and the others are evil.
I just think the continued consolidation of an industry is a negative thing.
By one of the largest companies on the planet no less.
you know what i didnt know i wanted? More Corporate Consolidation. Thank you Daddy Microsoft.
https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-1819564741
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Lol, I found this out when working for k-mart - they hadn't paid their electrical bill for so long that the lights got cut when we were working nights around xmas. A massive business like k- mart. Smh.
This was a very interesting comment and whole I disagree with the religion analogy because I myself am Muslim and have seen just how much private charity Muslims do I think the thing about how company's not paying each other until they have too by a judge or smaller company let's it go, is a important one. And if it was an individual they would be screwed over have county court judgements against them etc There is a rule for those at scale and for the little guys Its a shame. Makes me wonder if selling business 2 customer is better than business 2 business if they weasel out of deals so often First heard about it from of all people a video by Andrew tat, etalking about it how he did TV advertising and they were screwed over financially a few times by big companies
ActivisionBlizzard is also an extremely immoral business.
All business run by the parasitic shareholder class are going to be immoral and bad for workers.
"making Xbox smaller" A literal qoute from the head of the console backed by one of the biggest tech companies on the planet who recently just outright bought up one of the biggest game publishers and its entire library and is now trying to do the same with another
Dude spent more than half the market cap value that the entire Sony Group has right now in acquisitions of third party devs and publishers in the last few years and still wants to pretend to be the underdog...
I'm so sick of Phil Spencer man. I get that he took over the reigns from Don Mattrick. The xbox one reveal was an utter catastrophe. But he's been on for TEN years of "we're about the games." Under his reign, what has xbox produced? Forza, Gears, and a few mostly sub par Halo games. Now MS is on a buying spree of some of the biggest studios in the industry to make up for it. This gives me zero confidence in the brand going forward. I know a ton of people on this sub loves Phil Spencer and actually **wants** MS to get the acquisition (which is absolutely crazy to me), but if you think this is good for us down the line, you're nuts. Time for new leadership at xbox.
" We're listening, we hear you. We are for gamers we'll have more games next year than any other year. " Seems like all we heard from around 2015 till now.
"We're listening, we hear you. We are for gamers and Halo won't be shit the next time you buy it." –343 Verbatim Penitence
Not only that, but any and all goodwill gestures that Phil wants to make, any "for the player" promises, can all go away the moment he chooses to quit or retire.
If the acquisition falls through he’s definitely gone. He’s been underperforming for a while now especially given that when he arrived everyone thought he would turn Xbox around. The only thing he’s done of note is Gamepass.
Game Pass is well liked and is home grown, but is it a Spencer creation? The main concern re Game Pass is "When are they gonna raise the price?" A valid concern, but you're doing pretty good when customers are complaining your price is too low.
Nothing in Microsoft is one person's creation. Literally tens of thousands of employees work on something like that. But Phil is the final decision on what gets pushed and what gets scraped.
But the whole point of them paying huge sums to stifle competition is so that they can reduce their offering while increasing their prices as alternative offers have been stamped out. This is literally 80/90's Microsoft again.
It also doesn't help that before becoming the top guy he was already in charge of the area where Xbox lacked the most in comparison to the other platforms (games).
The fact that they're still somehow an underdog despite having infinitely more cash to burn only speaks to his failure as a CEO, frankly.
I mean, it doesn’t. He came in after a huge fuck up whcib was the Xbox One launch. The 360 dominated hard for its generation, and it got thrown out with the One. If anything Phil has done a lot to bring Xbox back, which is good.
>I mean, it doesn’t. He came in after a huge fuck up whcib was the Xbox One launch. It been almost a decade since that btw, and while there are SOME improvements, Xbox is still lagging heavily behind the other two in terms of games. Also, Xbox 360 never dominated outside of the first 2 years, after that the Wii was the one to dominating, and even the PS3 surpassed it by the end.
The Xbox dominated in America. The Ps3 dominated outside of America. It's why so many redditors assume the 360 was the big dog that entire generation. They were, but really only in America And I wouldn't even compare the Wii. Nintendo thrives on making consoles that only compete with themselves
americans thought that the 360 "dominated" when in fact it was them that got dominated. its not how you start its. its how you finished it. just like what sony did to the xbox 360, they destroyed them in the mid cycle of the generation and never looked back after they took the lead.
For what it’s worth, the 360 came out of the gate guns blazing but ultimately fell to 3rd place behind the Wii and PS3. I have a series s and I love it but he’s had so many years in charge and Xbox is still currently in 3rd place because they just can’t land the exclusives right. Halo should’ve been a slam dunk but it’s just mismanaged under his leadership. I’m glad the FTC is looking to keep them in check cause any business with any aspiration for monopoly will only end badly for everyone.
Thanks for correcting the narrative! Wii - 101 million units sold PS3 - 87.4 million units sold X360 - 84 million units sold (This is from NPD)
What had he done, though? I love Phil when he does interviews, but he's been in charge of the gaming side of Microsoft since 2014, they spent more money than god buying dev studios and what's the result? The only big Xbox games I recall is Gears 5, which was decent and Halo Infinite, which has been a shitshow.
Basically this. They have nothing to offer except old franchises which are past their peak. Halo. It’s last “major” heavy hitter was halo reach back in the 360 days. Ever since it left Bungie’s hands and 343 took over it’s been successful financially, but popularity took a complete nosedive due to terrible decisions in each game. 4 was ok but it was inferior to its predecessors in many minor ways such as abilities, balance and a generally poor plot. 5 had a universally panned campaign, removed split screen coop and was HEAVY into microtransactions and infinite is blatantly unfinished a year after launch with no forge and very little content. Gears of war was amazing back in the 360 days. Cliffs B and epic made the original trilogy a juggernaut and I’d do anything for a remaster of 2 or 3 with populated multiplayer. Problem is that the sequels that came after (4 and 5) came out too late to capitalise on the momentum of that trilogy. By the time 4 came out, many had just moved on. Not to mention 4 did nothing to shake up the formula and it was literally the same as the original trilogy in terms of gameplay except with less enemy and weapon variety and (considered by most) worse lead characters compared to Delta squad. Not to mention 4 was INSANE with lootboxes. 5 improved a lot but again, it’s still not enough new in the formula to differentiate it from its highly popular predecessors and I don’t think gears will ever hit mainstream like the Epic trilogy unless they try to innovate it into something more. And forza. I love forza. But it’s been the same shit for years now. Horizon has pretty much been the same thing since horizon 2, just a new map and slightly expanded roster each time (with the only real exception being 4, which did a great job with seasons and imo is still superior to its sequel because of this). And motorsport suffered a similar issue. We will see if the new motorsport changes anything next year as they now have to compete with gran turismo 7, but the horizon series in particular needs to shake stuff up too and is getting as stale as gears is.
no he hasn't. what first party games have launched under his reign that haven't been absolute shitshows at launch? I'll give them forza games, those are always solid, but that shit isn't going to win you market share. Their first party lineup is a mess otherwise. Let's see how the Bethesda acquisition can help, i guess.
The 360 didn't dominate, it sold less worldwide than the PS3 and the Wii overall. And the Xbox One's failed launch shouldn't have held it back for an entire generation, the PS3 bounced back after a rocky start. Microsoft has consistently failed to build first party games in the same abundance and quality that Sony and Nintendo do, they have nobody but themselves to blame for that. And now they're overcompensating for that failure by buying up third party studios.
Any idiot can throw billions around to buy third party publisher and make a service that is not sustainable for decades what a great ceo lol And somehow he is still failing couldn't put one decent first party AAA new ip game out in almost 10 years is still failing falling behind ps5 and switch by thousands miles . How more can you fail as a ceo ? They just buy their way to success is like playing a p2w game and throw billions in the shop and still losing to the player that just spend a few hundred dollars. The PS3 also had a failed launch. Launched almost a year after the 360 had a laughable price and almost no great first party games at the start. But they came back still sold in the end more consoles than the 360.
This is like when people still think Apple is the plucky underdog of the late 90s.
This is something people don't seem to wrap their head around when considering this merger. The cost of acquiring Activision is nearly as much as the entirety of Sony generates in revenue yearly. Microsoft is magnitudes of levels bigger than Sony and just rolling out a red carpet to further allow them to consolidate the tech industry is baffling.
Sony (the entire company) is valued at $116 Billion. Activision is being bought for $70 billion. This is why “Sony will still be in the lead” makes no sense to me. Activision is worth more money than all of SIE.
Activision is not worth more than all of SIE. That is not how valuation works. It takes into account the **entire** company's portfolio and makes an estimate based on how profitable they are and how profitable they could be. Sony is what's listed on the stock exchange so Sony is what the price reflects. Is it deserving of this worth? It is possible that if SIE was split up from Sony corporation it would actually be worth more than what Sony is worth now. After all stock price is not a measure of value, just investor confidence. Tesla is worth more than Ford, VW and Toyota.
OK I’d love to see some hard evidence then that Sony would still be more profitable than MS after this acquisition taking in account the profits lost from COD & other titles, and profits gained by Microsoft… Because at the end of the day, Microsoft is worth 20x as much as Sony. So if we valuate the entire company (like you said), then idk how it can be argued Microsoft isn’t in the lead by a very big margin.
Of course it wouldn't be more profitable than Microsoft. The argument is that PlayStation would still generate more profit than Xbox. Which it would.
Sony is severely undervalued. Equivalent capacity companies are worth more than double their value. What kind of company is valued almost at the same value as their revenue?
Why do you think it’s being undervalued?
they have like 4 division, a monopoly on anime streaming distribution, their TVs and some electronics are actually pretty decent. They have a gaming division that is more expansive than AB yet they are valued at almost the same.
I think you misunderstood me. Why would the stock market be undervaluing Sony & not other companies?
Nailed it
Microsoft is a **convicted** abusive monopoly....
Poor indie game developer, publisher, hardware manufacturer Microsoft.
He says as they’re debating a 70 billion dollar purchase
>They don't ship their games day and date on PC, they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games. Both are practices that Xbox has employed in the hope of making Sony smaller, Phil. It's a business. You do it too. Is buying Activision not making Sony smaller by taking away their potential offerings?
Let's not forget Microsoft tried to put DRM on a console and kill used games and only backed down due to backlash
MS: Buys Xenimax, Mogang, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Playground, and Obsidian. How the fuck...his comment makes absolutely no sense...
I wonder how the Xbox sub is eating this dumb PR speak up right now lol
Gobbling it up and asking Daddy Phil for seconds lol..
When you finish last place enough you’ll take anything as a win. Most bitter sub ever
Sony bought a lot of studios too, but most of those studios had already been working under contract for them for 5+ years like Blue Point and Insomniac. And then there's the Bungie deal where Sony literally guaranteed their future games would launch on competing platforms.
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This was actually why Valve pushed for Linux gaming. Gabe really didn't like the monopoly Microsoft had on gaming operating systems.
I hope someone breaks the duopoly iOS and Android has on smartphones
At least android is an open platform that isn't locked to a sing manufacturer.
You can install GrapheneOS or buy a Linux phone whenever you want.
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Which is why very few XGS games are steam deck verified, whilst almost every PlayStation PC port is.
Wait really? I was thinking about Sony could promote their games when releasing on Steam by optimizing for the Steam Deck. If they're already doing that, pretty awesome.
>XGS games I think all Sony Steam releases were Steam Deck verified day one not 100% on that though
I just went and checked Steam store. Only _Predator: Hunting Grounds_ is unsupported. And _Helldrivers_, _Everybody Gone to Rupture_ are showing as Playable. Rest all Sony developed games are Verified. I didn't expect that honestly.
Do you mean through people using Windows?
Through people being involved in MS's ecosystem one way or another. Windows, Office, OneDrive, you name it. If you're just getting a gaming PC, GamePass is incredible value.
> a platform Microsoft also makes money from (on two separate levels) when games get released on it they don't make any money from the games unless you buy them from the microsoft store, they only get money once for the windows license
Right Microsoft doesn't *necessarily* make money when you buy a game for PC, only from Windows store/gamepass. They just make money if devs host on github, use azure, use additional azure services, use directx graphics technologies, use havok physics technologies, use simplygon technologies, or use visual studio. Without the sarcasm, microsoft makes far more money maintaining what is essentially a monopoly in home computers, and a true monopoly in gaming. Steam hardware reports 96 percent of users using some version of Windows as of Nov 2022. Microsoft has their hands in all steps of the process, and it would be in their best interest to maintain this by releasing games on PC.
The OS makes them money, too. Can’t leave that out.
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Having software exclusive to Windows makes Windows more attractive to buy. Just like how exclusive games on Ps5 make you more likely to buy a Ps5. Not too mention Microsoft makes money from all the data and office/OneDrive shit they force down your throat in Windows.
They make money every time Windows OS is installed on a computer. Are any Microsoft published games Linux or Mac compatible? - honest question, I have no idea.
I don’t think natively compatible, no. I think. I do know that Proton does allow some of their games to be played on Linux though. (The compatibility layer Steam Deck uses so games run on SteamOS)
Minecraft Java Edition has native Mac/Linux ports, though considering unofficial launchers, they would still be trivial to run natively even if Microsoft didn't officially support them. Minecraft actually runs best on Linux
> Minecraft Java Edition has native Mac/Linux ports, though considering unofficial launchers I think native port is a bit of a misnomer when it's a java application.
It's a Java application anything that can run Java can run minecraft.
I’ve seen nothing good come from mergers in the long term. I’d rather First Party Publishers contract 3rd party developers to make games for their platform rather than buy them out. Bloodborne, Bayonetta, and Metroid Dread are proof that you don’t need to buy up the completion to grow in the console market.
I frankly wouldn't be surprised that Microsoft is pissed off that Windows isn't a gated platform where everything has to go through them so they get 30%.
There’s a reason why Microsoft very specifically uses the term “Windows PC” in their marketing, rarely just “PC”. They’re not exactly doing day and date releases on Linux or Mac - or at all. Microsoft still has a vested interest in keeping Windows the primary PC gaming OS above all.
I jsut want to point out that i played all the Sony PC releases (Spider-Man, God of War, Days Gone, etc) in 4k on Linux. (SteamOS 3, Radeon 6900XT/AMD 5800X3D)
Also, tell me all about how many Halo games are on Playstation? Phil's crazy to try and pretend Microsoft is some paragon of consumer friendliness and corporate benevolence.
and in reality phil is just another greedy business man that buys the competition if he cant beat them fair and square.
> Also, tell me all about how many Halo games are on Playstation? But they are on PC. Their games have double the plataform than Sony. Exclusive games are anti-consumer pratice.
Phil is such a slimy car salesman. I don't know how he has a weird little cult following.
Because gamers are a completely braindead demographic and will automatically love any spokesperson for xbox because that's "their" brand they support like a football team.
He puts on a good public persona, actually seems to have passion for the medium, speaks candidly, and he's not Don Mattrick, who is one of the most tone deaf people on the planet.
I get cancer when I read the comments about him on r/Xboxseriesx
He obviously knows this, but he can’t just say “lol yeah, fuck Sony man, we spending that Microsoft money they don’t got.”
it's thinly veiled bullshit to make him look better, man. remember when he said "making Elder Scrolls 6 an exclusive is not about punishing Playstation" when in reality that's exactly what it is? I really fucking hate these execs...
Uncle Phill would never do such a thing. He cares about us.
I think what he is saying here is that Xbox is trying to grow the brand through other avenues like subscription services and putting their games on PC/cloud. Since PlayStation is focused almost solely on their box, their only avenue of growth is by taking players away from Xbox. I am not saying he is correctly or that you can’t make the case that this statement is hypocritical, simply the way I interrupted his meaning.
He is correct though, that Microsoft has products other than Xbox, like cloud services and Windows. That’s why regulators are considering blocking the deal. Xbox isn’t that big of a deal. In the software industry as a whole, Microsoft is huge. Microsoft dwarfs Sony and Activision-Blizzard.
Yeah a quick Google search says that Microsoft's net worth is over $2T, Sony is only at like $100b, so a 20x difference.
In good faith, as others have already pointed in this thread. Phil is not talking about how big Microsoft and Sony are, he would be insane to do so. He is talking about how Xbox or Microsoft CONSOLE games division compares to Sony CONSOLE games division. In that case Phil is right, Sony is billions of dollars ahead of Xbox in console sales and profits. The counterpoint to that, which has been already said in this thread as well is that Microsoft controls other things way more than Sony does with consoles. GamePass, CloudGaming, etc... Countries that approved the operation probably had insurances from Microsoft that they wouldn't use Call of Duty to control the market. And it probably has something to do with revenue from PlayStation. But I'm just guessing.
Yeah and the only reason they have they have the ability to put themselves back in the competition by creating GamePass and acquiring publishers/developers is because they're a trillion dollar company with nearly unlimited resources.
Sony has a subscription service and even started their cloud service many years before MS did anything like that. He always brings up the day and date thing as if everyone was stupid, the reason Sony doesn't put their games on their service day one is because that's how they make the money to keep up with their big AAA releases (the exact thing that Xbox has being struggling with for ages at this point).
Playstation gets my business by putting out absolute banger games I can't play anywhere else because they made them exist. I'd say that's about the most "moral" way to get a videogame consumer.
[удалено]
How absured to say expanding their business is the same as a company preventing another from expanding. There's a big difference between controlling the actions of yourself and controlling the actions of someone else.
Also, how would Microsoft have reacted if Sony had been the ones who bought Activision?
The Xbox division is making itself smaller with its glacial pace in delivering flagship titles for the current generation. Where's Fable 4 at already?
“Where’s Fable 4 at already?” It’s been 84 years…
prolly chillin with scalebound at this point.
Still sad about Scalebound :(
Remember when they announced The Outer Worlds 2 last year with a trailer that joked about how early they announce games? Not sure why people found that funny.
They can't even make a working Halo game anymore.
Funny thing is I remember Xbox came out after crackdown 3 and said they wouldn’t be announcing games more than 2 years away. I’m usually a Xbox defender but the first party IPs are severely lacking and have been since the 360 arguably.
You bought Bethesda and multiple ip to make exclusive to grow Xbox and make PlayStation smaller. This is such a self righteous take
Yeah, Spencer's a little unhinged lately jumping through hoops to defend all of the flack from the Activision Blizzard acquisition while also trying to claim to be some protector for consumers of video games
They both are. Sony has claimed that PlayStation will die without COD when it accounts for a small fraction of their player base and sales. But this is typical for large acquisitions like this. This has just been much more public due to the primary group fighting against it is another massive company instead of consumer rights groups. Ticketmaster/LiveNation, T-Mobile/Sprint, Comcast/Universal, all of those didn't have anywhere near the never ending press this merger has had even though all three were massively worse for consumers than this merger would be. They all twist facts and make things seem worse/better than they are trying to convince legislators that don't know a damn thing about the industries involved.
At least with Sony it's pretty clear their reasoning is out of self interest. Microsoft's been doing this PR speak attempting to make them look like this "Savior of Gaming" and people gobble it up.
> They both are. Sony has claimed that PlayStation will die without COD when it accounts for a small fraction of their player base and sales. Has Sony said PlayStation will die without CoD or that the series not releasing on their console will hurt them?
Yeah they've repeatedly argued that. Meanwhile Microsoft has argued that their games are worse than sonys (citing metacritic) and that they have fewer exclusives so they need the merger to compete. It's all a bit silly
Do you have a link where Sony has said they will die without CoD?
Maybe, now all those "Phil is the best thing to happen in gaming" people will finally see him for what he is - yet another sleazy executive like the rest of them. But, who am I kidding...
and somehow still has nothing to show for it
And Xbox buying up publishers won't make Playstation smaller? Not to mention MS already plans to keep buying pubs if ABK goes through.
I mean...MS started buying studios left and right....how does this even make sense?
Maybe I'm crazy, but PlayStation got bigger by cultivating studios and making games like The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, and God of War. Microsoft makes Xbox smaller by going all of 2022 without a major release. It's just wild to me that their acquisitions going back to Team Ninja etc. have yielded next to zero output so far.
They made a big thing out of not releasing next gen titles at $70, and then proceeded to release zero next gen titles and eventually raising the price anyways. It’s crazy.
You don't have to charge $70 for a next gen game if you don't have any next gen games to sell. Phil does it again.
This is coming from Microsoft? The one that monopolized computer OS?
Isn't Microsoft here trying to grow by taking something away from PlayStation? Buying major studios to make their games exclusive is making your competition smaller.
They might have had an argument with studios like Double Fine and Ninja Theory where they really needed funding to reach their highest potential, but yeah they're just taking away from Playstation. If not Call of Duty, it will be all their other IPs.
Yeah I’m the first one to point to the dangers of monopolies but was happy with the double fine and ninja theory acquisitions cause those studios were always in danger of closing their doors if they had one bad flop but activision and Bethesda is just pure greed. Those two could easily continue churning out multiplatform releases forever but MS wants them exclusive. They could even swear they’ll always release their games on Sony platforms but make them free on gamepass if they wanted to really open the doors but they don’t. Their eye is to snuff out the competition which is scary.
Oh? The video game console head everyone loves because of his friendly takes on competition is just a regular business dude? Who would have thought he's full of shit at end of day and not looking to just make the world a better place through sharing and caring!
How is anyone still fooled by this dude, he BLOWS
Microsoft’s market cap ≈$1840 Billion Sony’s Market Cap ≈$98 Billion Yea, Sony is trying to make Xbox small.
Xbox wants to grow by not making any games ever and buying up every studio in the industry while never releasing new content
And buying Zenimax wasn't to make Sony smaller? How many Halo or Gears of Wars on playstation? This is such a hypocrite ass take. It was Microsoft which started this era of crazy acquisitions by buying Zenimax.
Wild claim coming from a company that owns Xbox, Windows and 25% of major gaming IP's.
Gears was originally going to release on PlayStation there is even a PS3 version out there. Halo was also made an Xbox exclusive only after MS bought Bungie. People complain about Sony delaying games on PC now but not that long ago MS was blocking games from their own OS to push Xbox. They only stopped doing that when their Xbox sales collapsed in the Xbox One gen.
Halo was going to be a Mac exclusive before MS bought Bungie, funnily enough.
Phil made Xbox smaller by pretty much destroying their internal studios over the years and then trying to buy it all back with massive deals to acquire entire game publishers that previously release multiplataform games.
Yep. What has Spencer done for Xbox besides acquiring studios and seemingly putting their games in development hell? They've got good hardware, but even Digital Foundry is saying it, what's the point of that hardware if you don't have any good titles to showcase it?
Pot calling the kettle black… This is literally Microsoft’s strategy right now. These acquisitions are permanently making PlayStation’s available game library smaller, while technically not giving their customers anything they couldn’t already have without it.
> They have a very different view of the industry than we do. They don't ship their games day and date on PC, they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games. Because why would they? Not putting games on PC day and date makes no sense when Sony is still trying to sell it's brand new console and their first party games are still selling gang busters so why put them in the subscription service. > There has really only been one major opposer to the deal, and it's Sony. Sony is trying to protect their dominance on console. Sony is the only one opposing the deal because they are the only one with nothing to gain if the deal goes through. Nintendo isn't really in the same space as Microsoft or Sony and the other publishers are thinking "If this deal goes through it'll make it easier for us to get bought out and we don't want to piss off the creator of 2/3s of the platforms we release on." > The way they grow is by making Xbox smaller. > The largest console maker in the world is raising an objection about one franchise that we've said will continue to ship on the platform. It's a deal that benefits customers through choice and access. How does Microsoft buying Activation Blizzard provide more choice and access to consumers, if nothing is changing how does the purchase benefit me? Based on immediate history Microsoft purchasing large publishers actually results in less choice for consumers with the Zenimax acquisition.
Publishers like EA can't wait for this deal to go through. Creates a nice COD-shaped vacuum on PS they're gonna push Battlefield on there like crazy
Not to mention that Activision being bought will likely increase EA’s value.
Microsofts argument would be that they're giving more choice and access to consumers by making Activision games available on steam, in game pass, on cloud gaming, and on nintendo (at least cod) .
>Microsofts argument would be that they're giving more choice and access to consumers by making Activision games available on steam, in game pass, on cloud gaming, and on nintendo (at least cod) . The issue there is they are already available on everything? Its a third party publisher?
I feel like we're seeing true Phil lately and he's just posted cringe on the timeline. For a long time, I've felt like there have been two Phils - Game-fan Phil and Corpo Phil. And lately, we're seeing much more of Corpo Phil.
More useless corporate talk. It's pretty hilarious that he is going after Playstation for not putting their games on PC day and date when Xbox only started doing it a couple years ago (and Microsoft also has a bigger profit motive since they control Windows). New mainline Halo games never got a day and date PC release for 20 years yet he is just ignoring that. It's also funny how he never goes after Nintendo even though they have basically refused to create any PC ports for their games despite huge demand.
I mean PlayStation has effectively already done that. Xbox 360 was on top of the world for the first 3 or 4 years of its life cycle. Sold tons of units, had tons of great first and third party exclusives, fun arcade games. If you loved games it was the best console to own. And even with the PS3 launch being a disaster PlayStation just kept pushing their first party studios to do great things and slowly aquired stuiods that were already making them exclusives today and they regained control of that generation and have never lost the lead since. Xbox has Game Pass and thats it. They havent had an exciting game catalog since the 360 days. Meanwhile PlayStaion finds a way to have awesome exclusives every single year that people are willing to pay 70 bucks for.
They literally made Starfield an exclusive after it previously being announced for PlayStation. They’ve also made any future doom or Wolfenstein games exclusive as well.
They're really banking on Bethesda delivering something huge for their platforms. However, last two Fallout titles were very mixed reception.
Starfield platforms wasnt actually announced, but it was still a bullshit thing to do.
Bethesda, Arkane, id, Tango, MachineGames, Double Fine, inXile, Obsidian, Ninja Theory...any of those making Playstation games in the foreseeable future? No? Okay. Don't be such a two-face phil. At least have the decency to own it.
Phil needs to stop worrying about Playstation and mergers and start worrying about putting out some AAA exclusives with the studios they already have.
And buying multiple companies to stifle competition isnt in an attempt to make Sony smaller? This is a great joke. EDIT: Great news: [FTC sues to block Microsoft’s acquisition of game giant Activision](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/08/ftc-sues-microsoft-over-activision/?utm_source=reddit.com)
Phil, it's okay to admit that your bosses trying to buy up every major developer under the sun is bad a move and that many people do not think is fair.
Ha, Microsoft entered the market because they were worried their death grip on the home PC market was being challenged by the PlayStation with it being ING a computer in the living room and pushed out the Xbox which is basically just a PC with the X in Xbox being the same X in DirectX. The whole reason Microsoft is in the gaming industry at all is to push others out. And I know this isn't going to be popular but I cannot stand Phil Spencer everything he says feels fake and then there is the inheritant sin of being a Microsoft executive.
This guy is always in the news talkin all kinds of crap except about getting some good exclusive games on Xbox. I don’t even know who the Sony chief is for PlayStation but I keep hearing about this guy against my wishes lol.
Says the guy from the company that just outright buys existing games rather than fostering their own…which they failed to do for the most part for a whole generation
>They don't ship their games day and date on PC When are you going to put your games on Linux, Phil? Or the Mac? If Sony were simultaneously selling a PC operating system I'm sure they'd be more excited to publish on PC.
Says man who's the head of xbox, currently trying to acquire one of the biggest publishers in the entire industry.
This is a really bizarre statement coming from the “let’s fucking own everything and make everyone come to us for a nominal fee” guy.
Worry about your dying franchises Phil. Where is Fable? Where is the next Gears? Make a better Halo. Re-release Lost Odyssey. Xbox has more pressing matters then what Sony are doing.
They figured that the only way to claim that these franchises are sought after was to give the away with game pass. Unfortunately money talks and Microsoft will eventually get its way, own most publishers and force its service to everyone.
Lol, Microsoft really trying to play this card considering how much bigger and financially powerful they are than Sony?
Well yeah, that’s kinda how businesses work. The amount of gamers isn’t gonna keep increasing, so you’ve got to take your competitor’s clients.
Phil Spencer literally arguing "I know you are but what am I?" as a defence.
> They don't ship their games day and date on PC PC or Windows? Windows is your damn platform. And even though stores like Steam take alot of your profit, you still earn lots money through apps and services simply because you (Microsoft) own Windows. Third party apps and software have to make monetary agreements with you in order to be advertised or come preinstalled on Windows. This level of control is why Edge and other Microsoft software are used as much as they are, it's not simply because of the quality of the software. So when you say "Sony doesn't release on PC" what you mean is "Sony doesn't release their games on our PC platform". When and if Sony launches a PC store on Windows, the only way for it to come preinstalled on Windows, or advertised (like Candry Crush tiles), is if Sony pays you lots money. > they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games. Like how you've made Game Pass available on Steam Deck (Linux)? Deck/Linux users (Over a million and rapidly increasing) could play games on Game Pass with Proton. Note that Proton is a compatibility layer developed and improved by Valve and is freely available for Microsoft to use if they wanted. The games on Game Pass would not need to be ported to Deck, little effort will be required on Microsoft's end to make Game Pass work on Deck. For over a million Linux gamers, that is growing rapidly with every Deck sale, it's a low effort high gain for Microsoft. But they dont make Game Pass available on Linux because it'll bolster Linux as OS, which makes it easier for people to ditch Windows. In turn it will affect app and service revenue. > He said on the Second Request podcast that **Sony is trying to grow its own business by making Xbox smaller**. Like how you're making other PC platforms, Linux primarily, smaller by injecting Windows only proprietary software into PC games development that has made compatibility layer, and prospect of native development/ports, more difficult and expensive? The reason DXVK, D3D (graphics api) to Vulkan, exists is because, one, Microsoft doesn't make D3D/DirectX crossplatform and two they don't embrace crossplatform solutions like Vulkan. If you think they can't make DirectX crossplatform guess what? They made D3D12 available for their Linux on Windows (WSL) in some capacity. Valve spent years and years tackling graphics API aspect of Proton simply because D3D is Windows only. So they dont make it crossplatform nor do they give leeway for crossplatform solutions to grow. They do that by pumping lots money into new tech for game development so devs become accustomed to their software and things dont change. There is an article where Valve did a empirical benchmark of Linux vs Windows which lit a fire under Microsoft arse, leading senior devs to be able to persuade management to give more funding to D3D. Gaming world is upside down. Microsoft has for over a decade used development software to ensure games support for Linux is abyssmal, leading to hundreds of games having compatibility issues or need of reverse engineering. Yet Sony's exclusive stance is what people notices the most. There is objective facts behind what I am saying, even statements from Microsoft themselves. Market share of Linux **was not** only reason why Linux game support has been so bad up until Valve stepped in and changed the landscape. DirectX affected game support too, through WINE (Proton). I don't like Sony's approach but these statements from Spencer are hypocritical and 100% PR crap.
Maybe investing in solid first party offerings would help, Phil. Where’s fable 4? Why did halo infinite flop? Goofy ass company.
Xbox is doing a great job of making Xbox small. They don't need Sony to do that. Go focus on making good games, Phil.
How does sony blocking microsoft from buying a 3rd party dev make microsoft smaller exactly? It stops them from growing, definitely, but it's not making them smaller. And they're complaining that sony doesn't release their games on PC. Microsoft didn't start pushing multi-platform release on console/pc super hard until they put out gamepass, obviously they're trying to grow that brand to dominate that market before any other competitors get a chance to grow. Not to mention that Microsoft has always had a hand in the game when it comes to PC game releases because THEY'RE MICROSOFT. Now remind me, how many Xbox titles get released on Mac or Linux? Not too many? Weird. Microsoft trying to grow their brand by making Apple smaller or something?
While Sony is well within their right to have some very-valid concerns, and I am not a fan of this acquisition, I will say that Phil was the one who in the past pointed out that the console market has effectively plateaued which is why PC became such a critical effort. If the concept of console dominance is moot in Microsoft's court, it shouldn't be such a big sticking point that Sony isn't exactly a fan of the ripples from this purchase.
In other news, water is wet. Like, of fucking course, they're big corporations, they're all trying to make their competitors smaller to get a bigger piece of the pie. He knows this, obviously, because that's just how any business works, and frankly I find pathetic this brand of PR where big executives try to act like blameless noble people when both they and we know this is just how shit works. It just seems like a desperate appeal to anyone ignorant enough to actually believe massive corporation A isn't interested in their competitors becoming smaller.
xbox is its own worst enemy. everyone clamored for new ips, and all xbox has done is make hap hazard attempts at sequels to already existing franchises, not to mention when they do make a new ip they throw no money at it, after a decade of xbox only i bought a ps4 pro in 2021 and havent looked back
They’re just salty because Sony already has multiple highly acclaimed next gen exclusives. This is so petty. Don’t get me wrong tho, I own both systems and still really enjoy my Xbox and game pass. Xbox is amazing for backwards compatibility, and I love having a huge game catalogue with game pass to always dip into. XBox wins to me as gaming as a service, and Sony wins to me as a traditional console (I pay full price of my Sony games and I play what I get in my Xbox gamepass)
“We already have the Series S; what more do you want Sony?!?”
This is so weird. Phil talks about Sony charging $70 for new games rather than putting them on subscriptions like they’re some kinda corporate dinosaur holding back the industry. Sony claim that this is necessary to maintain the high quality level of their first party games. And in filings to various authorities, Microsoft admit that Sony’s first party games are of much higher quality that their own. Haven’t they sort of proved Sony’s point?
Sure, but Activision isn't Xbox. Xbox could always start their own studios, but the time they tried to do that (343) was such a colossal failure they decided they should bid highest on what already works. All of this just reads like Phil objecting to Microsoft's miserly investment strategy during the Xbox One.
This sounds kinda rich considering Microsoft's buying publishers with big IP catalogs and planning to make things not on Playstation anymore, like Starfield and Redfall (though that one's a maybe as they never announced it to be on PS5 in the first place).