Microsoft once tried to nab LittleBigPlanet from Sony after a few drinks

It turns out that many moons ago, Microsoft once had its eye on the Sony published LittleBigPlanet series.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Microsoft had a good idea but fumbled it again.

[Cacabunga]

Project Spark idea was decent but they quickly gave up ..
LBP was wonderful

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Ofc

[ApocalypseShadow]

Microsoft in a nutshell. Always tried to poach Sony employees, games, 3rd party games and devices like the depth camera that was turned into Kinect but was running on PS2 before Xbox 360. Wouldn't be surprised they wanted LBP. Just like they worked behind the scenes pushing the MLB to bring Sony's baseball game to Xbox instead of making their own.
https://www.playstationlife...

They didn't spend years trying to develop their own baseball game. They wanted Sony's game.

They're scum.

[Zachmo182]

Microsoft didn't force MLB on Xbox. MLB gave Sony 2 options either go multiplat or risk losing the license.

[Rynxie]

And why do you think MLB said that? I believe Ms approached MLB.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Totally ridiculous comment.

The only exclusivity Sony had was to their own creation of The Show. Microsoft could have paid the MLB for the license just like Sony did and made their own baseball game.

Microsoft instead, groomed MLB for years in trying to poach Sony's game and bring it to Xbox. They're worth 3 TRILLION dollars. You think that's not enough money to make their own baseball game? Don't be delusional.

Microsoft spun it like they always do and told the media that they had to trust Sony with their hardware. After they put Sony in that position of not having a choice. Either go multiplatform or stop making one of their successful games. That's a no win scenario.

And what did Microsoft do? They didn't try to sell the game to the Xbox community. They put it on game pass to hurt Sony. Pushing the idea of why buy games that are $70 when you can play them in their cheap service for $10. It was a dirty tactic.

You fell for the Kool aid drink Microsoft served you instead of spitting it out. Hope it tasted good because you were fooled by Phil and the gang.

[Hereandthere]

Xbox executive Sara Bond has told Axios that Microsoft spent a number of years trying to get MLB The Show onto Xbox consoles. And when it finally succeeded in breaking off PlayStation’s long-held exclusivity, the company had to “trust” Sony with pre-release Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Bond revealed that MLB The Show “always came up” in conversations between Microsoft and the Major League Baseball organization. “We always said, ‘We love this game. It would be a huge opportunity to bring it to Xbox.'” she recalled. However, when Microsoft’s efforts materialized, it put the company in an awkward situation where it had to send in pre-release consoles to a rival company.

[Notellin]

"Microsoft instead, groomed MLB for years in trying to poach Sony's game and bring it to Xbox."

Take a nap, conspiracies are rotting your brain.

[Hereandthere]

Xbox executive Sara Bond has told Axios that Microsoft spent a number of years trying to get MLB The Show onto Xbox consoles. And when it finally succeeded in breaking off PlayStation’s long-held exclusivity, the company had to “trust” Sony with pre-release Xbox Series X/S consoles.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Lying to yourself is unbecoming.

Article link tells you all you need to know in Sarah Bond's own words.

[Hereandthere]

They were too cheap/inept/lazy to develop their own mlb game, so they port begged for years and bribed the mlb to make the show multiplatform. Like i said many times, xbox brought nothing to the table their 24 years, ZERO.

[ApocalypseShadow]

At least you and others get it. Note drank the Kool aid and asked for seconds thinking it was refreshing.

Most don't even know how it all played out but it's there in black and white for all to see. Microsoft brought it up for years until the MLB forced Sony's hand. It was a win win for Microsoft. Kill one reason to buy a PlayStation or kill the game by dropping it in a cheap service to kill Sony's sales numbers on PlayStation.

[OtterX]

"However, Healey said Media Molecule wouldn't have felt right doing that, adding it would have been "morally corrupt"."

Major kudos to Media Molecule for being an upright studio with principles.

[Cockney]

They chose well, Sony gave them the backing to pursue their dreams with no restrictions even tho their games especially dreams have very niche appeal. Media molecule and Sony deserve respect for this in an age of risk averse publishing.

[RNTody]

Great, more stories like this please. Show the last of the zombies holding the line what we've been saying for years: Microsoft is anti competition, anti industry and has no interest in making games at all.

But hey, at least there's an Xbox Games Showcase to look forward to, right?

[Inverno]

Well considering SONY just killed the series, LBP would've been dead by now either way. Though MM probably wouldn't exist by now either, so I'm glad they stayed with SONY, hopefully they don't get shut down any time soon or ever honestly.

[Sheppard7t3]

How did Sony kill the series?

[Inverno]

They shut down the servers, that's millions of user created levels gone. That and dead are pretty much the same, it's also been years since 3 and they cancelled HUB soooo.

[fsfsxii]

They shutdown the servers because no one was playing, no one in the community cared about the user created levels so why keep them up? Wtf you guys would never succeed in running a business.

[Inverno]

Yea dood no one was playing so they shut off the servers. Cause people with enough common sense can't just Google why they were actually shut of, right?

[PassNextquestion]

Have littlebigplanet type games ever done well on xbox? There's no point releasing those sort of games if there's no audience.

[DOMination-]

There really isn't that much difference in the demographic between PlayStation and Xbox imo. If you look at the top selling games on both platforms, they are largely very similar. This is not like a Nintendo platform which caters to a completely different audience.

The only reason why games didn't sell as well on Xbox is much more simple than that. More people have just owned PlayStations than Xbox. With the exception of the first half of the 360/PS3 generation where lo and behold, 360 software sales outperformed PS3 for a bit. And these days of course, more due to Game Pass.

LBP only sold 4 million anyway - which isn't bad - but lets not forget - at one time, sackboy was supposed to be Sonys mascot, their answer to Mario. Nowadays it's been shut down and resigned to history. So lets not pretend this was a huge megaton for PlayStation.

Anyway, regards to the topic in hand - classic scummy Microsoft. Even though it's been treated badly by Sony in recent times, I feel like Mm would have been long gone under the "leadership" of Matt Booty.

[gold_drake]

just goes to show you that this is all they're rly capable of ha.