Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

[LaveDisco]

7 minutes ago, Gabe said:

Okay, that is clearly trash and reflects badly on both Sony and Capcom. If Capcom is prepared to even discuss hobbling their game on another platform just for some marketing dollars that is really scummy of them. 

those linked documents mention nothing of the sort, but if true, Sony need to be dragged over the coals for that. 
 

 

[RubberJohnny]

15 minutes ago, Gabe said:

Okay, that is clearly trash and reflects badly on both Sony and Capcom.

 

All Sony’s third party exclusives have stuff like that in them, I recall there was some brief upset in here when someone mistakenly thought a Microsoft press release implied that some technical settings would be locked to a certain platform, with people calling it some new stooping low with exclusives.

 

Except Genshin on PS5 already does this, it has volumetric cloud tech locked to PlayStation, even though PC could easily handle it. So lots of fuss over the insinuation that Microsoft might do something, no fuss that Sony has already been doing it for years.

[Gabe]

1 minute ago, Uncle Mike said:

 

What does hobbling mean in this context? Is it worse on Series X? I just went and did a really quick skim of the Digital Foundry review, which suggests that PS5 and Series X are both 4K and the XSX has a better framerate.

I have admittedly taken that tweet at face value, and for that reason was careful to specifically say that just discussing the possibility is scummy (which I think it is), because I don't know if it has been implemented at all. 

[thesnwmn]

Just now, LaveDisco said:

those linked documents mention nothing of the sort, but if true, Sony need to be dragged over the coals for that. 

 

Who would drag them?

 

There are examples where this stuff is starting to pick up some regulatory attention... Qualcomm and Google Android contracting spring to mind. But it's an absolute minefield.

[Gabe]

Just now, RubberJohnny said:

 

All Sony’s third party exclusives have stuff like that in them, I recall there was some brief upset in here when someone thought a press release implied that some technical settings would be locked to a certain platform, with people calling it some new stooping low with exclusives.

 

Except Genshin on PS5 already does this, it has volumetric cloud tech locked to PlayStation, even though PC could easily handle it. So lots of fuss over the insinuation that Microsoft might do something, no fuss that Sony has already been doing it for years.

Oh, wow. A bizarre feature to focus on, but yes, the principle of limiting capabilities on another platform (where there is no technical reason for doing so) is crappy whomever does it.

 

I wonder how prevalent this actually is then, do you know of any other examples? 

[LaveDisco]

1 minute ago, thesnwmn said:

 

Who would drag them?

 

There are examples where this stuff is starting to pick up some regulatory attention... Qualcomm and Google Android contracting spring to mind. But it's an absolute minefield.

Well the only tool we’ve got is public opinion. But that’s at least something. 
 

And in general, all three companies are scummy, but as 'consumers' we are certainly better off when none of them have the upper hand. 
 

And as a fan of MS, who acknowledges they have management issues at the moment, I can’t see any value in them consuming the poisoned corrupt, sexist, exploitative apples that are Activision, Blizzard and King. CoD on gamepass (and so gamepass fees funding weapons dealers) isn’t worth that. 

 

[LaveDisco]

5 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

 

All Sony’s third party exclusives have stuff like that in them, I recall there was some brief upset in here when someone thought a press release implied that some technical settings would be locked to a certain platform, with people calling it some new stooping low with exclusives.

 

Except Genshin on PS5 already does this, it has volumetric cloud tech locked to PlayStation, even though PC could easily handle it. So lots of fuss over the insinuation that Microsoft might do something, no fuss that Sony has already been doing it for years.

That’s rancid behaviour. 

[Ry]

I'm rooting for this this to go through for two simple reasons. 

 

1. I save even more money on games on what is already the best thing in gaming right now. 

 

2. Fuck Sony. They have been shady as fuck for decades and showing truly how shitty they are this gen. I own a PS5 but it's a machine that will be used for maybe 10 games across its lifetime. That's £700 if I buy these exclusives new. 

 

Gamepass basically costs me nothing due to cheap deals and Microsoft rewards. In 10 years of gamepass I will probably play the equivalent of spending minimum £5000 on games. 

[thesnwmn]

Thing is, if Sony paid enough to develop that feature on Genshin then is it fine?

 

Same with say, exclusive DLC?

 

To be clear I hate all exclusive stuff that isn't at the free choice of a developer (and even then I'm almost less likely to buy a third party title that isn't out on Xbox, Playstation and PC) because it implies a bias I wish didn't exist. Of course there are also financials I just want the ideal of everything everywhere.

[thesnwmn]

1 minute ago, Ry said:

I'm rooting for this this to go through for two simple reasons. 

 

1. I save even more money on games on what is already the best thing in gaming right now. 

 

2. Fuck Sony. They have been shady as fuck for decades and showing truly how shitty they are this gen. I own a PS5 but it's a machine that will be used for maybe 10 games across its lifetime. That's £700 if I buy these exclusives new. 

 

Gamepass basically costs me nothing due to cheap deals and Microsoft rewards. In 10 years of gamepass I will probably play the equivalent of spending minimum £5000 on games. 

 

And you're not concerned about what that might mean in 5 years? Or even 1 year?

 

In the end the question people who are pro this and want Game Pass to dominate (to the extent MS own the games, not just pay for the games to be on GP) have to ask is how much are they willing pay for it? £11ppm? £20ppm? £40ppm?

[Uncle Mike]

3 minutes ago, Ry said:

2. Fuck Sony. They have been shady as fuck for decades and showing truly how shitty they are this gen. I own a PS5 but it's a machine that will be used for maybe 10 games across its lifetime. That's £700 if I buy these exclusives new. 

 

How many PS5s have you bought now? It seems like an odd choice if you do, in fact, hate them.

[Gabe]

Just now, thesnwmn said:

Thing is, if Sony paid enough to develop that feature on Genshin then is it fine?

 

Same with say, exclusive DLC?

It would be weird if Sony would pay to develop a specific feature in a title, but no, I don't think that would be fine (though I would view the developer consenting to it as the slightly scummier in that instance).

 

As for exclusive DLC, I think that's a different proposition as, usually, it isn't core content and so it is take-or-leave it. Hasn't Sony paid for exclusive DLC maps for Cod historically, or has that just been timed stuff?

[Ry]

Just now, Uncle Mike said:

 

How many PS5s have you bought now? It seems like an odd choice if you do, in fact, hate them.

This is my third. Got a Christmas bonus and wanted to treat (torture?) Myself. Also, I used Microsoft reward points to get it for peanut. 😁

 

Had to play God of War Ragnarok. Looking forward to the new Spiderman. So I will keep this one. 

[Stanley]

30 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

I don't think anyone comes out of this well in any scenario really - let's say Sony do manage to get it blocked. How happy is Kotick and the Acti board going to be? How willing are they going to be to sit down at the table with Sony and do more deals when the time comes - how likely would they instead be to ask MS if they fancy throwing a tiny slice of that saved $69bn over to them in return for a CoD contract that moves to MS instead of Sony?

 

If I was MS and this got blocked, I'd have $69bn sitting there that I'd use to actually try and do the damage Sony are currently assuring everyone it would do. I'd buy up exclusive games and lock them off of PS all over the shop. I'd point at the FTC and say "look what you made us do" all day long. But then, I'm childish like that.

I don’t really care, honestly, and I doubt many people into COD so either, they’ll get to play it one way or another but will

it really attract loads of new Game Pass subscribers? Doubtful.

 

You’re right though it is ugly and diminishes all the cool stuff that both companies put out, hardware and software. 

[Ry]

3 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

And you're not concerned about what that might mean in 5 years? Or even 1 year?

 

In the end the question people who are pro this and want Game Pass to dominate (to the extent MS own the games, not just pay for the games to be on GP) have to ask is how much are they willing pay for it? £11ppm? £20ppm? £40ppm?

 

I'm not concerned at all. As I said. I don't pay monthly. 

 

I have 3 years continually stacked. I use MS rewards if needed. I use Turkish 6 month codes when needed (usually £15-20)

[RubberJohnny]

10 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

Thing is, if Sony paid enough to develop that feature on Genshin then is it fine?

Genshin makes £3 billion a year, I think they’re fine.

 

And I think we’ve got to stop pretending these exclusivity deals are about cash-starved companies, they’re not. Sony literally went to every developer and publisher at the start of this gen asking for something exclusive to ensure lock-in to their platform.

[thesnwmn]

1 minute ago, Ry said:

 

I'm not concerned at all. As I said. I don't pay monthly. 

 

I have 3 years continually stacked. I use MS rewards if needed. I use Turkish 6 month codes when needed (usually £15-20)

 

But we know* that is going to end. So I guess this is fair, you get 3 years from that moment to enjoy that. Then what? Will the result be that you look across the gaming landscape and wonder what happened to it? Where did all the games not behind the GP paywall go? Whilst you're in the garden it's a joyful place of fun. When you're outside it's a wasteland**.

 

* Okay we don't know for sure or when but I think we all expect it

** Actually it's amazing, it just requires not giving a fuck about big budget stuff

 

(Of course all of this is made up and maybe the world outside GP blossoms - and surely it does if MS cannot get a handle on making games that appeal to all at a rate that keeps them engaged).

[thesnwmn]

Just now, RubberJohnny said:

Genshin makes £3 billion a year, I think they’re fine.

 

And I think we’ve got to stop pretending these exclusivity deals are about cash-starved companies, they’re not. Sony literally went to every developer and publisher at the start of this gen asking for something exclusive to ensure lock-in to their platform.

 

I'm not asking from that perspective. I'm asking from the perspective of would it be odd for it to be a platform locked feature? It's being suggested this is scummy. But if they paid for it why not? That's just a bigger version of an exclusive skin or smaller version of a DLC or level.

[Gabe]

1 minute ago, thesnwmn said:

 

But we know* that is going to end. So I guess this is fair, you get 3 years from that moment to enjoy that. Then what? Will the result be that you look across the gaming landscape and wonder what happened to it? Where did all the games not behind the GP paywall go? Whilst you're in the garden it's a joyful place of fun. When you're outside it's a wasteland**.

 

* Okay we don't know for sure or when but I think we all expect it

** Actually it's amazing, it just requires not giving a fuck about big budget stuff

 

(Of course all of this is made up and maybe the world outside GP blossoms - and surely it does if MS cannot get a handle on making games that appeal to all at a rate that keeps them engaged).

The flippant answer to this is you just buy a PC. 

[Uncle Mike]

Do we even know that's it's contractually encouraged or locked for Genshin's clouds? Rather than that they just haven't done it for PC/yet?

[Ry]

3 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

But we know* that is going to end. So I guess this is fair, you get 3 years from that moment to enjoy that. Then what? Will the result be that you look across the gaming landscape and wonder what happened to it? Where did all the games not behind the GP paywall go? Whilst you're in the garden it's a joyful place of fun. When you're outside it's a wasteland**.

 

* Okay we don't know for sure or when but I think we all expect it

** Actually it's amazing, it just requires not giving a fuck about big budget stuff

 

(Of course all of this is made up and maybe the world outside GP blossoms - and surely it does if MS cannot get a handle on making games that appeal to all at a rate that keeps them engaged).

 

I get what you are saying. But I don't care. I don't earn much and we are in a cost of living crisis. Gamepass enables me to enjoy the hobby I love. 

 

Even if Gamepass goes to £20 a month and the stacking trick stops, it's still a brilliant deal. Plus as I said, MS rewards is going nowhere. Same with cheap Turkish codes. 

 

Things are fine. 

[Stanley]

5 minutes ago, Gabe said:

The flippant answer to this is you just buy a PC. 

I am coming around to this viewpoint having just bought a Steam Deck. It’s made me browse actual gaming PC’s, nothing too high end, and there’s a lot out there with nice form factors, everything is cheaper, backwards compatible etc. 

 

I think this is where it’s headed and of course MS are already there with Game Pass and all their games day one on PC. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

32 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

 

What does hobbling mean in this context? Is it worse on Series X? I just went and did a really quick skim of the Digital Foundry review, which suggests that PS5 and Series X are both 4K and the XSX has a better framerate.

It means that Capcom was forced to run both versions at 4k or both versions at a lower resolution. They could've chosen to lower the resolution on PS5 to improve the framerate, but then they would have been forced to lower it on XSX too because that version isn't contractually allowed to run at a higher res. Apparently Capcom chose to go with a slightly worse performance on PS5 instead.

[RubberJohnny]

8 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

Where did all the games not behind the GP paywall go? Whilst you're in the garden it's a joyful place of fun. When you're outside it's a wasteland**.

GamePass doesn’t have exclusives, every game on their is purchasable separately and this is a key part of the service.

 

It would be good if we weee discussing reality and not our strawman version of it.

 

5 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

Do we even know that's it's contractually encouraged or locked for Genshin's clouds? Rather than that they just haven't done it for PC/yet?

 

Yes, it’s part of a marketing deal. The game has been on PC since before the PS5 existed, that’s the ‘main’ version so any tech would have been on their and just ported, the clouds thing was specifically highlighted in a Sony blog post about exclusive content - they had Aloy from Horizon show up too, for instance.

 

6 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

I'm asking from the perspective of would it be odd for it to be a platform locked feature? It's being suggested this is scummy. But if they paid for it why not? That's just a bigger version of an exclusive skin or smaller version of a DLC or level.

You’re railing against anti consumer behaviour on the previous page, but you think it would be cool and ethical for the dominant platform to have the all bells and whistles version and the competitors have the N64 graphics version? I think you’re nuts.

[PaB]

Lay off all the people you like, that’s just business. But one thing we won’t stand for is exclusivity contracts that don’t allow volumetric clouds in genshin on all platforms. 

[Uncle Mike]

1 minute ago, RubberJohnny said:

Yes, it’s part of a marketing deal. The game has been on PC since before the PS5 existed, that’s the ‘main’ version so any tech would have been on their and just ported, the clouds thing was specifically highlighted in a Sony blog post about exclusive content - they had Aloy from Horizon show up too, for instance.

Fair enough!

[thesnwmn]

Just now, RubberJohnny said:

GamePass doesn’t have exclusives, every game on their is purchasable separately and this is a key part of the service.

 

 

Agreed. But a successful Game Pass in a market that is dominated by MS if the hoover up too much might lead there. Would MS rather you buy individual games or buy into their ecosystem? Maybe it's just games not in GP creep up in price.

 

Just now, RubberJohnny said:

 

You’re railing against anti consumer behaviour on the previous page, but you think it would be cool and ethical for the dominant platform to have the all bells and whistles version and the competitors have the N64 graphics version? I think you’re nuts.

 

I'm not saying it's good at all. I'm simply asking people where their line of "scummy" is.

I hate these deals. I want them everywhere.

[layten]

1 hour ago, RubberJohnny said:

 

All Sony’s third party exclusives have stuff like that in them, I recall there was some brief upset in here when someone mistakenly thought a Microsoft press release implied that some technical settings would be locked to a certain platform, with people calling it some new stooping low with exclusives.

 

Except Genshin on PS5 already does this, it has volumetric cloud tech locked to PlayStation, even though PC could easily handle it. So lots of fuss over the insinuation that Microsoft might do something, no fuss that Sony has already been doing it for years.

Microsoft have long been pilloried for stuff that Sony get a free ride on.

An editor at IGN there. 

 

You get the feeling that a lot of the gaming press are perfectly content with the status quo of Sony being on top and them only having to really keep a single company sweet.

[Kevvy Metal]

Gamepass has been in the works for years. I was at a studio working under MGS years ago when it was being touted about as "Xbox Live Platinum".

It's been great for indie game curation -and highlighted a lot of cool indie titles that might of sunk under the weekly release tsunami- but these kind of tech companies such as Microsoft absolutely love to reactively "pivot" as soon as the wind changes.

With subscription fatigue, I'd not be surprised if we're currently at the Gamepass peak, and with the faithful in place they'll jack up the price to see a return on their investment, and who knows? maybe back-track on their MGS output going straight to Gamepass, or maybe reduce the output. 

[Kevvy Metal]

1 minute ago, Kevvy Metal said:

Gamepass has been in the works for years. I was at a studio working under MGS years ago when it was being touted about as "Xbox Live Platinum".

It's been great for indie game curation -and highlighted a lot of cool indie titles that might of sunk under the weekly release tsunami- but these kind of tech companies such as Microsoft absolutely love to reactively "pivot" as soon as the wind changes.

With subscription fatigue, I'd not be surprised if we're currently at the Gamepass peak, and with the faithful in place they'll jack up the price to see a return on their investment, and who knows? maybe back-track on their MGS output going straight to Gamepass, or maybe reduce the output. 

 

"...but how can you reduce nothing?" 

I got the obvious joke in there before y'all 😉