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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
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mansoor1980

Gold Member
For anybody wondering what his previous deleted tweet said:

FpwEgNsXoAIwdbs


It mentioned xbox games and Activision title(s). Obviously they have no intention of doing that so he's deleted the old tweet and left just the Call of duty agreement image in the repost.
dude can never be trusted
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Genuine mistake? Or Chicanery?

I'd imagine their lawyers would have had a look that before went out? I mean it's not even a few words that are mistakes, it's the entire sentence.
yeah, I'd not put it past these people.

Just before the EC meeting, they put out a tweet saying "bringing Xbox games to Nintendo" kickstarting speculations on the internet that all games are going to Nintendo and Xbox might even be offering something similar to PlayStation.

Once the meeting is over, they are now putting the "correct" tweet so there's no "confusion", because they made a whoopsie in the previous tweet.

I call bullshit.
 
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Game Pass is definitely a disruptive move by MS and they seem to be fully behind it, but they could have taken it further by putting their games on any platform that could play them and I think, the game pass conversation would have gone a lot easier too.

Well I believe MS already said they were interested in launching Game Pass on every platform (for cloud gaming), problem is platform owners such as Sony don’t want it to be on their platforms
 

b6a6es

Banned
Well I believe MS already said they were interested in launching Game Pass on every platform (for cloud gaming), problem is platform owners such as Sony don’t want it to be on their platforms
Correction (my theory though) - both Sony, Steam & even possibly nintendo would agree on putting GP, only if it’s MS titles only (aka, no 3rd party & indie titles that would eat their revenues, think EA play or Ubisoft+ like)
 
Correction (my theory though) - both Sony, Steam & even possibly nintendo would agree on putting GP, only if it’s MS titles only (aka, no 3rd party & indie titles that would eat their revenues, think EA play or Ubisoft+ like)
This isn't even the primary issue GP faces with these platforms. The issues MS has had with getting GP support onto the big 3 platforms they want to expand onto (Steam/PSN/Nintendo) is specifically around these items, as per knowledge i've heard on the matter:

  • Rev. Split for total amount of platform users who utilize said service (how much does PSN/Nintendo/Valve get per user who uses GP on their platform). Say I was subscribed to GP at $14.99 per month- how much of that 14.99 should the respective platform holder get if I use the service on their platform.
    • As an addendum to this, there is also contention around multi-platform users - how much does this revenue get further split if the user, say, plays on PS as a console, then switches over to Switch when on the go - does MS split the rev. split between both Sony and Nintendo, or do they base it off of how much total time the user spent in that month on which platform?
  • In-game MTX sales - If a in-game sale occurs for a GP game, say you're buying some cosmetics in Halo Infinite: does that sale go through the Xbox or Windows store, or does it go through the specific platform holder's store?
    • Obviously, MS stands to make the most if all the in-game mtx was instead going through their store front. A lot of the fiscal fighting over this is also exactly what we saw play out with Apple regarding them allowing sales to bypass the App Store. For Sony/Nintendo, they also gain value from these transactions going through their store front in the form high increasing MAU and SW revenue, so for them, they are incentivized to make all of the in-game transactions go through their store front, but doing so means they also have to take on the costs associated with hosting that content, so they'd want the full 30% they normally get, and MS really doesn't want to pay that.
  • GP-Only or non-GP native releases as well- very self-explanatory: will the games also be on offer in their respective platforms as a native client that a user can purchase and access without the need for GP. While Steam has already won this fight when it comes to getting MS support on their platform, with Sony and Nintendo, MS would vastly prefer to have their respective roll outs of GP have the games be GP exclusive in order to maximize the amount of users they could onboard; it would save them the 30% cut they'd have to hand out to the respective platform holder for the sale, while also ensuring they don't have to compete with each respective store's sale prices.
    • This also creates a conflict for the 2nd bullet point, because if the games are not being natively released, then that'd also mean that, in a case where Sony/Nintendo still are processing in-game mtx purchases, they need to host all of those items on their respective stores, without the one item that'd make them the most money: the full-game itself.
What MS was attempting to do with their market displacement strategy was to create as much leverage as they could to ensure they could get favorable terms on the above 3 items thanks to the audience they had hoped to capture with GP. Hasn't panned out so far but we'll see how things go should the ATVI deal go through and GP starts getting things like CoD.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
This isn't even the primary issue GP faces with these platforms. The issues MS has had with getting GP support onto the big 3 platforms they want to expand onto (Steam/PSN/Nintendo) is specifically around these items, as per knowledge i've heard on the matter:

  • Rev. Split for total amount of platform users who utilize said service (how much does PSN/Nintendo/Valve get per user who uses GP on their platform). Say I was subscribed to GP at $14.99 per month- how much of that 14.99 should the respective platform holder get if I use the service on their platform.
    • As an addendum to this, there is also contention around multi-platform users - how much does this revenue get further split if the user, say, plays on PS as a console, then switches over to Switch when on the go - does MS split the rev. split between both Sony and Nintendo, or do they base it off of how much total time the user spent in that month on which platform?
  • In-game MTX sales - If a in-game sale occurs for a GP game, say you're buying some cosmetics in Halo Infinite: does that sale go through the Xbox or Windows store, or does it go through the specific platform holder's store?
    • Obviously, MS stands to make the most if all the in-game mtx was instead going through their store front. A lot of the fiscal fighting over this is also exactly what we saw play out with Apple regarding them allowing sales to bypass the App Store. For Sony/Nintendo, they also gain value from these transactions going through their store front in the form high increasing MAU and SW revenue, so for them, they are incentivized to make all of the in-game transactions go through their store front, but doing so means they also have to take on the costs associated with hosting that content, so they'd want the full 30% they normally get, and MS really doesn't want to pay that.
  • GP-Only or non-GP native releases as well- very self-explanatory: will the games also be on offer in their respective platforms as a native client that a user can purchase and access without the need for GP. While Steam has already won this fight when it comes to getting MS support on their platform, with Sony and Nintendo, MS would vastly prefer to have their respective roll outs of GP have the games be GP exclusive in order to maximize the amount of users they could onboard; it would save them the 30% cut they'd have to hand out to the respective platform holder for the sale, while also ensuring they don't have to compete with each respective store's sale prices.
    • This also creates a conflict for the 2nd bullet point, because if the games are not being natively released, then that'd also mean that, in a case where Sony/Nintendo still are processing in-game mtx purchases, they need to host all of those items on their respective stores, without the one item that'd make them the most money: the full-game itself.
What MS was attempting to do with their market displacement strategy was to create as much leverage as they could to ensure they could get favorable terms on the above 3 items thanks to the audience they had hoped to capture with GP. Hasn't panned out so far but we'll see how things go should the ATVI deal go through and GP starts getting things like CoD.

Out of curiosity. How do you see the industry responding should the deal go through? Either with no concessions or just a behavioral remedy like a 10-year CoD deal to go to all platforms. We saw quite a feeding frenzy occur over the last 5 years as companies gobbled each other up. Do you think such a deal, should it go through, opens the floodgates for something even more wild?
 
Now.

You said “at launch”.
You kept suggesting that I don't have one because I couldn't get one but was saying I didn't want one to "cope". I'm saying, I didn't want one prior to, at, or after (and still) Even though they are available right now. The only "exclusive" that is on there that I can't play anywhere else that I personally had any interest in playing was Ratchet and Clank.
 

graywolf323

Member
Screenshot or it didn’t happen.
it’s already in the thread man and you were even told who posted it

For anybody wondering what his previous deleted tweet said:

FpwEgNsXoAIwdbs


It mentioned xbox games and Activision title(s). Obviously they have no intention of doing that so he's deleted the old tweet and left just the Call of duty agreement image in the repost.
 
Out of curiosity. How do you see the industry responding should the deal go through? Either with no concessions or just a behavioral remedy like a 10-year CoD deal to go to all platforms. We saw quite a feeding frenzy occur over the last 5 years as companies gobbled each other up. Do you think such a deal, should it go through, opens the floodgates for something even more wild?
If the deal goes through, whether thats through behavioral remedies or a full on pass, then its a big 'green light' for anyone in the market to allow the industry to continue consolidation. Most of Sony's current batch of purchases were centered around taking SW sales that was 2nd party in nature, aka at-risk future SW revenue, and making them consolidation-risk-free software revenue streams. Hence getting folks like HouseMarque/BluePoint/Insomniac. The other batch of acquisitions they've made has either centered around enabling the future direction of their publishing slate and how they plan on expanding into genres they don't normally target (Bungie/Haven) or around expanding their publishing support on PC.

With that said you're going to see Sony, whose current business plan is most impacted by being in a consolidating market, begin protecting sources of revenue on the SW front from potential future acquisition moves. This means some of their current big SW drivers for the platform that they can make moves around, meaning they can afford to do it: Capcom, Square-Enix, From Software. They already have an ownership stake in From that got increased, but protecting their rev streams from Capcom and SE will probably be high on their priority list, along with Take-Two and Ubisoft.

Now I know that may sound like a full on acquisition, but there are loads of partnerships they can enter with all of these groups to secure to mitigate that potential risk. Also, just to quell any fears folks will obviously have on potentially losing SW support should Sony even go the distance and move towards full on acquisition: the financial size of any deal around these 3 groups, as well as the two others they'd likely try to pursue (Ubisoft & Take-Two) will probably ensure, thanks to Sony just having far less capital to burn, but the platform support likely will not decrease; almost assuredly, Sony will continue releasing on all the platforms all these groups currently publish on, with the only exception I can see to this being From Software.

However, this isn't the only thing that occurs when the industry is in a consolidation phase. Many of us just weren't paying attention or may not have even been born, but the industry has already gone through a consolidation phase in the 80s, back when Atari and Intellivision were having their back and forth in the console market, before Nintendo took the risk and entered it themselves. Both EA and Activision were born from developers who were displaced by consolidation in that era; in almost all entertainment mediums, whenever they enter a consolidation phase, a large amount of talent winds up being displaced and starting up new ventures, some of which wind up becoming the future of those mediums.

Right now, the industry has more well-funded start-ups with incredible amount of years of experience, more so than at any other point in time in the last 30 years or so of gaming. I myself have colleagues at 6 different teams, all founded in the last 4-6 years or so, all of which have gotten AAA levels of funding thanks to these developers being in high-ranking positions in their earlier years and now branching off to do their own thing on their own terms. We are probably witnessing the birth of some new big publishers right before our very eyes, which means new gaming experiences being delivered by them.

You likely will not see Nintendo or Valve really change anything in their tactics since their business plans are agnostic to the current consolidation we're seeing: Nintendo's SW revenue is majorly driven by 1st party sales. Steam makes their money on everything sold, and most folks are seeking to increase how much they publish into Steam, so thats just more free money for them.
 

b6a6es

Banned
This isn't even the primary issue GP faces with these platforms. The issues MS has had with getting GP support onto the big 3 platforms they want to expand onto (Steam/PSN/Nintendo) is specifically around these items, as per knowledge i've heard on the matter:

  • Rev. Split for total amount of platform users who utilize said service (how much does PSN/Nintendo/Valve get per user who uses GP on their platform). Say I was subscribed to GP at $14.99 per month- how much of that 14.99 should the respective platform holder get if I use the service on their platform.
    • As an addendum to this, there is also contention around multi-platform users - how much does this revenue get further split if the user, say, plays on PS as a console, then switches over to Switch when on the go - does MS split the rev. split between both Sony and Nintendo, or do they base it off of how much total time the user spent in that month on which platform?
  • In-game MTX sales - If a in-game sale occurs for a GP game, say you're buying some cosmetics in Halo Infinite: does that sale go through the Xbox or Windows store, or does it go through the specific platform holder's store?
    • Obviously, MS stands to make the most if all the in-game mtx was instead going through their store front. A lot of the fiscal fighting over this is also exactly what we saw play out with Apple regarding them allowing sales to bypass the App Store. For Sony/Nintendo, they also gain value from these transactions going through their store front in the form high increasing MAU and SW revenue, so for them, they are incentivized to make all of the in-game transactions go through their store front, but doing so means they also have to take on the costs associated with hosting that content, so they'd want the full 30% they normally get, and MS really doesn't want to pay that.
  • GP-Only or non-GP native releases as well- very self-explanatory: will the games also be on offer in their respective platforms as a native client that a user can purchase and access without the need for GP. While Steam has already won this fight when it comes to getting MS support on their platform, with Sony and Nintendo, MS would vastly prefer to have their respective roll outs of GP have the games be GP exclusive in order to maximize the amount of users they could onboard; it would save them the 30% cut they'd have to hand out to the respective platform holder for the sale, while also ensuring they don't have to compete with each respective store's sale prices.
    • This also creates a conflict for the 2nd bullet point, because if the games are not being natively released, then that'd also mean that, in a case where Sony/Nintendo still are processing in-game mtx purchases, they need to host all of those items on their respective stores, without the one item that'd make them the most money: the full-game itself.
What MS was attempting to do with their market displacement strategy was to create as much leverage as they could to ensure they could get favorable terms on the above 3 items thanks to the audience they had hoped to capture with GP. Hasn't panned out so far but we'll see how things go should the ATVI deal go through and GP starts getting things like CoD.
Simple,

The sub (14,99$) split can be similar as in ubisoft+/EA Play, or Netflix assuming it’s the same

As for MTX Revenue split it’ll be the usual 70/30 as it is for all platforms & ecosystems, switching or not should be similar in nature to say Minecraft and/or Fortnite, whatever platform the player pays with, all sales of MTX/DLC’s of said 1st Party GP titles would to it’s respective ecosystem, then which MS’s gains its 70% share, as we’ve seen this with minecraft Bedrock & Fortnite




& as for MAU, MS would still benefit the most with it’s 70% share & having a bigger chance of expansion with it’s subscribers metric
 
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sainraja

Member
Streaming won't take away the retail market, physical media will still be sold.

I do still remember how Spotify was said to cannibalize not only the digital sales of music records, but also the physical ones, ironically the music industry has been experiencing since several years ago the rise of vinyl sales since 17 years ago, and you know what? Spotify made its debut back in 2008: https://www.billboard.com/pro/vinyl-album-sales-rise-growth-slowing/

Netflix, who moved its DVD rental business to the first cloud movie streaming platform, hasn't stopped people from buying DVD and Bluray movies, and though it's not as high as it used to be it hasn't stopped people from buying the latest releases, tv show boxsets, their fav films on physical media, or anniversary editions.

Same will happen with cloud gaming and subscriptions.
I am not expecting anything to happen overnight. I don't see the option of buying to go away — but sub service, quantity of content and pricing could undermine buying. We just don't know yet.

Well I believe MS already said they were interested in launching Game Pass on every platform (for cloud gaming), problem is platform owners such as Sony don’t want it to be on their platforms
My point was that they could have done things prior to their acquisition sprees to better position the conversation about putting Game Pass on other platforms. Putting the cloud version on other consoles isn't it, at-least for the scenario I was considering. If they had announced native versions of their content on other platforms and then gone on to acquire and negotiate for Game Pass, they would have had better luck. See EA Play, etc. There is no rulebook saying that a multi-platform publisher cannot have their own hardware, and Microsoft is a company that can afford to do this. They can also afford to keep doing what they're doing, so that is not lost on me.

it’s already in the thread man and you were even told who posted it
Careful. He does not handle being wrong all that well.
 
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Varteras

Gold Member
If the deal goes through, whether thats through behavioral remedies or a full on pass, then its a big 'green light' for anyone in the market to allow the industry to continue consolidation. Most of Sony's current batch of purchases were centered around taking SW sales that was 2nd party in nature, aka at-risk future SW revenue, and making them consolidation-risk-free software revenue streams. Hence getting folks like HouseMarque/BluePoint/Insomniac. The other batch of acquisitions they've made has either centered around enabling the future direction of their publishing slate and how they plan on expanding into genres they don't normally target (Bungie/Haven) or around expanding their publishing support on PC.

With that said you're going to see Sony, whose current business plan is most impacted by being in a consolidating market, begin protecting sources of revenue on the SW front from potential future acquisition moves. This means some of their current big SW drivers for the platform that they can make moves around, meaning they can afford to do it: Capcom, Square-Enix, From Software. They already have an ownership stake in From that got increased, but protecting their rev streams from Capcom and SE will probably be high on their priority list, along with Take-Two and Ubisoft.

Now I know that may sound like a full on acquisition, but there are loads of partnerships they can enter with all of these groups to secure to mitigate that potential risk. Also, just to quell any fears folks will obviously have on potentially losing SW support should Sony even go the distance and move towards full on acquisition: the financial size of any deal around these 3 groups, as well as the two others they'd likely try to pursue (Ubisoft & Take-Two) will probably ensure, thanks to Sony just having far less capital to burn, but the platform support likely will not decrease; almost assuredly, Sony will continue releasing on all the platforms all these groups currently publish on, with the only exception I can see to this being From Software.

However, this isn't the only thing that occurs when the industry is in a consolidation phase. Many of us just weren't paying attention or may not have even been born, but the industry has already gone through a consolidation phase in the 80s, back when Atari and Intellivision were having their back and forth in the console market, before Nintendo took the risk and entered it themselves. Both EA and Activision were born from developers who were displaced by consolidation in that era; in almost all entertainment mediums, whenever they enter a consolidation phase, a large amount of talent winds up being displaced and starting up new ventures, some of which wind up becoming the future of those mediums.

Right now, the industry has more well-funded start-ups with incredible amount of years of experience, more so than at any other point in time in the last 30 years or so of gaming. I myself have colleagues at 6 different teams, all founded in the last 4-6 years or so, all of which have gotten AAA levels of funding thanks to these developers being in high-ranking positions in their earlier years and now branching off to do their own thing on their own terms. We are probably witnessing the birth of some new big publishers right before our very eyes, which means new gaming experiences being delivered by them.

You likely will not see Nintendo or Valve really change anything in their tactics since their business plans are agnostic to the current consolidation we're seeing: Nintendo's SW revenue is majorly driven by 1st party sales. Steam makes their money on everything sold, and most folks are seeking to increase how much they publish into Steam, so thats just more free money for them.

Yeah, the consolidation of the industry isn't some permanent change where only a handful of game companies own everything. At least not necessarily. I was at first concerned about that but I watched as tons of upstarts with boat loads of experience in their ranks kept popping up. In a rather short span of time Sony announced partnerships with three of them. Being Deviation, Firewalk, and Haven. Many in their ranks are former Ubisoft, Activision, or even Bungie devs. Other rumors and indications that they also started projects with Ballistic Moon and possibly Gravity Well.

Then you see Dreamhaven and a bunch of their partner studios are all staffed by former Blizzard devs. Humanoid and Yellow Brick from former Bioware devs. Embark from former DICE devs. The list goes on. Now, some of these companies will also be acquired, like Haven was, but many still will try to find success in independence. The ones who do, and inevitably a few of them will find big success, could eventually grow into the next EA or ABK. I can easily see Dreamhaven becoming the next huge publisher considering the minds behind that company and the number of partner studios they've already got onboard.

I have to agree that Sony stands the most to lose in such a situation. Though I do wonder if companies like Apple, Amazon, or Google will jump into the fray to protect their future ambitions in gaming. I'm very much surprised that Amazon hasn't made a successful bid at one of the larger remaining publishers. But perhaps a successful ABK deal pushes them to offer a lot more than they might have before?

I also wonder how this all might transform Sony in general. Clearly they've been looking to beef up their first-party already. Do they try to become more like Nintendo where their first-party sales are so strong that they can weather a storm of old third-party cash-cows suddenly going away? Is that pretty much the scenario you already laid out?
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?


Microsoft seeing 'steady' cloud deal flow, Activision deal likely to close: Wedbush

Investment firm Wedbush Securities said on Friday that Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has seen a "steady" flow of cloud computing deals since the weakness in December, while adding the tech giant is likely to close its deal for Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) despite negativity surrounding it.

"While the macro is clearly a concern for CIOs looking to navigate an uncertain IT spending environment, many larger cloud platform deals have been given the green light for Redmond which is a positive so far this quarter and for 2023," Ives wrote in a note to clients. Ives raised his per-share price target on Microsoft (MSFT) to $290 s a result.

Ives added that cloud budgets for customers are "mostly in place" and any signs of deals being pushed out have "stabilized" over the past month.

The analyst also noted that while Azure growth has slowed from levels seen in the past, it is tracking ahead of the low 30% growth target it set and is likely seeing some share gains.

There ares some concerns that cloud deals in the financial space could be smaller-than-expected, given higher scrutiny than in the past, but that is being offset by strength from federal spending, as competitors Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG) (GOOGL), Oracle (ORCL) and IBM (IBM) are seeing a "surge" in federal activity.

With regards to the deal for Activision (ATVI), Ives added that despite the recent regulatory worries, the deal will "ultimately prevail" in both the U.S. and Europe, with the Call of Duty maker coming into Microsoft's (MSFT) coffers by late summer.

On Tuesday, Microsoft (MSFT) said it had signed deals with Nintendo and Nvidia to bring Xbox and Activision (ATVI) games to their respective platforms.
 
Simple,

The sub (14,99$) split can be similar as in ubisoft+/EA Play, or Netflix assuming it’s the same

As for MTX Revenue split it’ll be the usual 70/30 as it is for all platforms & ecosystems, switching or not should be similar in nature to say Minecraft and/or Fortnite, whatever platform the player pays with, all sales of MTX/DLC’s of said 1st Party GP titles would to it’s respective ecosystem, then which MS’s gains its 70% share, as we’ve seen this with minecraft Bedrock & Fortnite




& as for MAU, MS would still benefit the most with it’s 70% share & having a bigger chance of expansion with it’s subscribers metric
1) As for the $14.99 split on subs, Netflix's model isn't really applicable here. And as for even giving out a split, thats something you have to convince MS of - their entire model is run on a massive loss lead right now; convincing them to take what is meant to be their future profit margin and shred it down for platform holders when they are still in the growth phase is not something they wanna do (hence the displacement/leveraging tactics).

2) Console content going across devices is already a big point of contention with Sony, with most of the individual titles who do have this feature having to give Sony a compensating cut in order to allow it. So getting Sony on board for this is going to be difficult unless you come at it with a proper offer. It should be noted - most of the big players in the AAA space have already agreed to give Sony their cut for cross-progress support on the bigger titles, and Sony will do what it needs to do to defend their position on this. Its really not a big problem in isolation, but its yet another one of those margins MS was intending to make profit from once they hit their fabled scale-point, so again, not really a percentage they want to start dividing up at this turn.

3) One of the points I didn't touch on here that is a factor is that, as we have now been made painfully aware: GP as a service has proven to lower the SW sales on the one (and only) console it has appeared on thus far. The worry with all 3 of those platform holders I listed is that, even with a MS-only GP, that it will still undervalue full price SW within their ecosystems and lead to lower SW sales. This is why, unless Game Pass grows into becoming a kingmaker service, that you will not see any of them fold on this until they get terms that are very agreeable on them on the 2 points above; they are not going to risk the overwhelming large value of their revenue streams for a potential service which will undermine it. And even in the event that GP *does* become a kingmaker service, unless the content delta is so large that what Sony/Nintendo offer in their sub services cannot ever possibly match what MS is offering, you likely see Nintendo and Sony opt to simply compete with their service and turn them into GP-like services instead of letting GP come in and impact their software revenue even further.
 
I have to agree that Sony stands the most to lose in such a situation. Though I do wonder if companies like Apple, Amazon, or Google will jump into the fray to protect their future ambitions in gaming. I'm very much surprised that Amazon hasn't made a successful bid at one of the larger remaining publishers. But perhaps a successful ABK deal pushes them to offer a lot more than they might have before?

I also wonder how this all might transform Sony in general. Clearly they've been looking to beef up their first-party already. Do they try to become more like Nintendo where their first-party sales are so strong that they can weather a storm of old third-party cash-cows suddenly going away? Is that pretty much the scenario you already laid out?
Most of my post spoke to the realities of what Sony will likely do - making moves to protect their SW revenue flow - in the event the deal closes as is. Sony's spent a lot of money since 2018 or 2019 in slowly but steadily moving their business plan into a direction that more closely resembles Nintendo; ideally their goal is to transition their current SW revenue stream from being majorly driven by 3rd party titles, to 1st party titles. Obviously, consolidating on their part gets them closer to that goal, but they also know they need to service their consumer with high-quality productions; the Nintendo business plan only works when your software output is very highly regarded. Sony's angle is to leverage both the value proposition of their titles, and expand them by beginning to increasingly publish in the PC space.

Keep in mind: Sony's need to increase their 1st party revenue is driven in large part to both offset what they feel will be a smaller amount of releases from 3rd party going forward (which we can plainly see is happening with Asian gaming publishers acting as the exception to this), so its less that they found the Nintendo approach necessarily more lucrative, rather that they needed to keep increasing SW revenue while 3rd party lowered the amount of full-price offerings they were seeking to pursue in the years to come.

Long-term, Sony was already set to transform, and they needed to: the business plan used during the PS3 and PS4 eras would no longer be sustainable. Third parties had drastically lowered the amount of titles they had published per year into the marketplace since 2010, with more and more titles coming out at F2P, and the overwhelming majority of MP titles have completely ditched the entry price and moved to F2P. The one factor Sony probably hadn't counted on is them finding success in their transmedia expansion of their IPs. Now that they are 2/2 on their major attempts (Uncharted at the BO, TLoU on HBO Max), not to mention the upcoming shows for Horizon with Netflix and God of War with Amazon, the ability for the Playstation division to grow their revenue streams beyond their current established lines is a very welcome one.

As for the external players who have a stake in the game's industry, like Amazon/Google, its hard to really say where they come down, but there are a few realities they have to contend with. For one, getting a new hardware unit adopted by consumers would be extraordinarily difficult. In 2012/2013, Amazon almost took a new console to market - I have played this console myself, I have developer colleagues who had nearly shipped launch software for it. Unfortunately, that was probably the last time anyone outside of the current console market paradigm would've been able to make a solid attempt at penetrating it. One of the factors that has made Sony's marketleader position so dominant (that honestly isn't even on regulators radar) is just how unbelievably difficult it is for users with PSN libraries to leave the ecosystem - MS has internal studies that back this up btw, and its one of the major reasons they even went in the direction they did with Game Pass. Sony's position becomes even more solidified as they continue to set records at selling software; if the current estimates hold that 65%+ of all SW sold in their eco is on PSN, then that means thats a record number of users who are buying things to keep them locked into Sony's eco. Very difficult cycle to break.

For the big 3, Amazon/Google/Apple, look for their next major initiatives to be in the gaming peripherals market. This is a massively lucrative sub-section of gaming whose profit margins are insane right out the gate, and whose userbase can flow to anywhere a user plays. One of the major reasons why Sony launched a new line of PC-focused gaming peripherals is because of how unbelievably lucrative this space has become in the last 3 years, how competitive this space is set to get in the short-term, and considering the adoption rate for things like controllers and phone-cradle controllers are taking off, expect to see more and more high-end gaming peripherals offered for anyone with a stake in gaming who doesn't wanna really engage in the console wars.

Apple's major push into gaming, like all their prior attempts, won't be as a dedicated initiative, but rather as an applicable vision for something whose use cases go beyond just gaming, aka their VR headset they intend to launch. Gaming will be a part of that drive, but like all of Apple's gaming initiatives, it'll be 1 part of the larger UX stories they intend for their device.
 
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ManaByte

Member
Seems that everyone want that microsoft keep the same price and content about cod...seems that is even illegal making skins just for one platform but is not
There are already platform locked skins and operators in MWII. The PS+ skins can’t be used on Xbox and some store skins bought for real money (like the Esports teams) are locked to whatever platform you bought them on and cannot be seen on the other.
 
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