Sony claims Microsoft’s ‘true strategy’ is to ‘make PlayStation like Nintendo’

From VGC: "Sony has claimed that Microsoft’s “true strategy” behind its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is to have PlayStation “become like Nintendo” and not compete in the 18-rated shooter space.

The comments were made in a newly-published response to UK regulator CMA’s decision to expand its investigation into the proposed acquisition.

In its 22-page response, Sony Interactive Entertainment alleges that if the deal were to go through, Microsoft would raise prices, users would leave PlayStation’s ecosystem, and independent developers would be harmed in the fallout."

[IMissJimRyan]

Sony strategy is the same, make Sony like Nintendo.

[darkrider]

Really? Pokemon like gow? Do they seem the same type of game to the same type of gamers?

[TheProfessional]

If it was reversed everyone would be saying "sonyy making bossz moves!" and none of you would be complaining about the acquisition.

[shinoff2183]

I'd call it out as bs myself. Sa.e way I did when ms bought zenimax. These are established games that sold very very good on both systems. I plan on buying an Xbox at some point probably used. Can't support ms sheep in wolves clothing like that

[TricksterArrow]

Not really, because if this was reversed, Sony would be Microsoft.

[Kratos_Kart2007]

log off and go to sleep

[lonewolf10]

and not compete in the 18-rated shooter space

Restart Resistance Fall of Man, that was bloody good. Sony can do these games, yes CoD sells but that doesn't mean Sony can't bring anything to the table.

[Extermin8or3_]

They tried this abd they didn't sell and lost money on them and in sony's eyes lowered their brands pedigree by getting lower review scores.

[SonyStyled]

Iirc Resistance 3 sold 800k launch week, which was under expectations. Though Insomniac did say it was “plenty” in question to not meeting sales expectations, about 3 weeks later they announced they weren’t making any more Resistance games. Ten years ago

[Asplundh]

Or Socom, that seems closer to COD than any of their other ips.

[arkard]

A third person, tactical, 1 death per round game is the same as a First person twitch shooter based around respawns?

[Profchaos]

Restart SOCOM regardless same as killzone

[Asplundh]

@Arkard
You don't play COD do you? It has a campaign, half the mp modes are 1 life and the latest has a third person mode.

[shinoff2183]

It may have been good to those that played it but they stopped making it for a reason. Sales

[WelkinCole]

yep heck there is KZ2, MAG, Warhhawk among others

[LoveSpuds]

Sony are not suggesting they cannot make a game of the quality of COD, lots of people are completely missing the point.

What Sony have stated is that COD is a juggernaut AAA which is released annually by virtue of having thousands of developers across loads of studios working on them, and this is what other publishers cannot match. Releasing a AAA game with these production values on an annual basis would be almost impossible to achieve for anyone.

This is before you acknowledge that COD had over a decade headstart in the market and no matter how good a new franchise was, even if it were a higher rated game, it still couldn't compete with COD's numbers.

This has nowt to do with Sony seeing the quality of COD as unbeatable, it is about competing with a juggernaut on an annual release cycle.

[KillBill]

Right. I mean if Sony is only relying on COD for their FPS competing with other consoles then they are NOT competing. Simple as that. Sony has so many IPs that they can bring back and compete with FPS gaming like COD. I mean they just purchased Bungie did they not? Can they not of the many developers they own put together a team that can bring the likes of Killzone, Resistance, Haze even. Any of these IPs can be brought back with a great team behind them. And any could offer competition in the FPS space. They could even bring back an FPS SOCOM!!!! And the only thing hurting them in terms of competition with actual COD is the fact they will make it exclusive.

https://earlygame.com/gamin...

[sinspirit]

Thinking they could simply just take down CoD even with access to better talent is like saying any brand could make a better nacho flavored chip than Dorito's, better cola than Coke, better candy bars than Nestlē, etcetera. Those brands are so big. You could make better products but you don't have the recognition even if you have higher quality. It doesn't work like that at all. They have tried to compete many times and the consumers voted with their wallets. They want CoD. They want originals, not imitations. Do I want a new Sony shooter? Absolutely. Will I play it? Absolutely. I don't care much for CoD myself. But, this has nothing to do with the topic.. should MS be allowed to buy the devs of one of the absolute biggest franchises to exist, as well as several other number 1 placeholders across several genres. Remember this next time you think it's that easy to make a better product and ask yourself why others hadn't thought of doing that. It's because it can't compete and I guarantee you can find examples where they've tried. MAG, KillZone, Resistance. Look at Sony sales and you'll see how smart they are not to try and compete with the biggest third party games and to instead specialize in what the market lacks.

[KillBill]

@sinspirit ~ you are making the fallacy that many make. Competing does not mean taking down the competition. It means being able to share a market with successful results. Xbox is now competing with PlayStation... they aren't "taking down" PlayStation but competing in their market. As well Microsoft has many FPS games on it's console and is known as the FPS console while "PlayStation is known for its amazing story-driven single-player games". Not because Microsoft beats COD with the games it has but the fact they compete. Sony can choose to do the same. they choose not to... simple as that. Sony is focused on results of end money instead of investment that shores up needs and over-all diversity where it is lacking. Their inability to see they need to rejuvenate their own FPS offerings has been their Achilles heal... Bungie acquisition has pointed to a change possibly in that thinking? But they still need to be able to invest in game titles that aren't only the level of Spider-Man earnings to solidify an FPS market presence.

[gangsta_red]

"Sony Interactive Entertainment alleges that if the deal were to go through, Microsoft would raise prices, users would leave PlayStation’s ecosystem, and independent developers would be harmed in the fallout.""

“Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!”

Funny to read that MS would raise the prices considering that Sony has done it themselves already. Sony seems to be in ultra desperate mode pulling out these imaginative stories of what MS will do.

Didn't Sony say their strength lies in their single player, emotional, cinematic single player games, so why are they so concerned about multiplayer FPS games all of a sudden?

Sony already has a few live service and MP games in development, they bought a few devs to make them, there's rumors of a Horizon MMO in development, why are they worried that Xbox will be considered the FPS console when Xbox was slammed throughout the years of being just that.

If they're that concerned about people leaving their ecosystem, bring back Socom, Resistance, MAG and take the 10 year CoD deal MS offered.

[arkard]

Those games don't sell, you know that and sony knows that. Casuals buy COD on name alone they care about nothing else. Those casuals maybe will buy some of sonys exclusives as long as they have the console, but they won't buy the console just for them. They will buy the only console cod will be on and stay there.

[GoodGuy09]

God I miss MAG. Sony should really try these old abandoned ips again for multiplayer. Ps3 owners didn't like anything other than cod back then but things may be different now with ppl being more open to other games. They'll also need to do day one for pc also for their online games because most influencers play over there.

[darthv72]

you know... this could be a ploy. Sony trying to throw people off their real intentions by playing the 'potential' victim here. They don't care about CoD at all... they are using this situation to drum up sympathy for them so then when the time comes to reveal their master plan (resurrecting their previous multiplayer games) it will be to thunderous applause. Like when people saw Kratos appear from the shadows in the teaser trailer for GoW 2018.

Of course that is all just conspiracy theory / speculation bs... haha

[gangsta_red]

"They don't care about CoD at all.."

This i believe is actually true. sony doesn't care about the MS/Activision deal or MS owning CoD. MS has repeatedly said that they would continue to support CoD on PS. If Sony was truly concerned about their players they would take the deal for the 10 years, including parity across all platforms.

The reason Sony is crying and playing up sympathies is because they're afraid of MS putting CoD on GP day and date for their console and PC while PS only users would have to pay $70+ for the game, making CoD on Xbox/PC that more attractive.

That and the possibility of MS offering DLC and other content for "free" for GP users as they did with Gears. This would also be more attractive than having to spend extra dollars on PS or being a non GP subscriber.

Of course Sony can't use this as an excuse to sabotage the deal so they're now coming up with these ridiculous statements even when coming off of a successful GoW launch and a day and date game Stray winning an award.

[SonyStyled]

They spent $70 billion dollars on publishers and their studios. I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to raise prices. And if one doesn’t want to pay $70-$80 dollars on games, they bait you into gamepass for $20/month.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

They spent billions on Bethesda and didn't raise prices

[gold_drake]

Not only Sony raised their pirces. lets not play the blame game.

theh were saying MS would raise the price for the playstation versions.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

No evidence for that

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Sony wouldn't take a 40 year deal. It would help MSFT's case....making them out to be the business that works respectfully with their rivals.

[OmegaSoldati]

Yep Sony is rising prices. They did this to their console just weeks ago. Playstation5 got lighter, its selling more but they are rising the prices and not doing anything against scalpers. Not to mention the rumors about the 70$ price on games that they were pushing before this gen even started, back in 2019. Sony is crying over something they do all the time.

[Extermin8or3_]

It is. Microsoft is clearly using same tactics it used against netsoft in 90's and many other companies. Giving stuff away for free or dirt cheap and eating the losses in order to acquire market share from which they can dominate and bleed a competitor out

[DOMination-]

Sony did the same stuff to Sega in the 90s.

[JayRyu]

☝️

[TricksterArrow]

To be fair, Sega kinda killed itself, tho. So much mismanagement... It's really baffling.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Sega's demise was mostly self-inflicted regardless of what anyone says, it was a string of bad decisions on their part that ruined them in the end.

[porkChop]

Huh? But Sony literally doesn't compete in the shooter space. That's not Microsoft's goal because Sony already wasn't making shooters to begin with.

[SullysCigar]

Because COD exists and so many play only that until the next annual iteration.

[porkChop]

That doesn't change the fact that Sony literally does not compete in the shooter market. Taking 30% cut of sales doesn't mean you're competing.

[GoodGuy09]

My god sony...what are you guys doing lol. Just shut it and form and buy more developers or something.

[Profchaos]

If you start encouraging consolidation for the sake of team support you'll have nothing left at the end of the day

[Thundercat77]

Wow... Such wisdom... You should be Sony's CEO.

s/

[The3faces]

Every day it's something new. For years Xbox was being laughed at for having nothing but shooter's now shooter's are the new rage? .It's often implied how playstation user's buy games and Xbox gamers don't. With a install base of 150 million PS5/PS4 Sony should have nothing to worry about. Why not bring back socom, resistance or mag? I'm sure the PlayStation community would support it.

[IanTH]

It's not about this generation, it's about the next. The old deal MS put out was almost transparent in that fact, given it would have ran out just before or around the time a new generation of consoles would be coming out. Just long enough to let people know "if you want CoD next gen, you'll have to go Xbox".

There are TONS of consoles sold to people who don't go on gaming forum sites like this. We may give them more than average money per user, but there are so many casual players that they make up a massive chunk of the money Sony makes in platform fees & game sales. I think most here wouldn't care much if CoD went away, and would be happy to support a new IP to get their fix. But outside our bubble, games like CoD are massively important.

Do I think it would be the end of Sony or PlayStation? No. Do I think it would hurt them? Yes. Is it possible they could come up with as good, or better, a competitor (espeically since they are now launching on PC)? Absolutely. But why trudge into the unknown? And making noise now makes it that much harder for MS to try and push another massive deal through, should they try to again. They kinda can't just sit on their hands.

[Vengeance1138]

As harmful as it would be to allow MS to have Acti-Blizz, I think it could be even more harmful to imagine what MS would turn around and do with that $68B on hand that is just free money again. Any purchases made after being denied ActiBlizz would not be blocked, so they could just buy up 3-5 smaller publishers. Leaving only 1 or 2 left for Sony.

[TricksterArrow]

"So they could just buy up 3-5 smaller publishers".

This is actually not bad, tho. Smaller studios thrive on small projects, if they get backed by a big company, they can, more often than not, prosper. This is what publisher are and do. Small studios will always appear and come by on droves and overnight, big publishers with huge marketshares... nope.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Leaving out the fact they could just buy exclusive rights to COD or other Ips like Sony does often.

[DanielEndurance]

They should buy the Medal Of Honor IP and bring us back to the glory days of military shooter competition.

[ApocalypseShadow]

So interesting how people are trying to spin it into Sony's direction. Microsoft is buying up the industry. COD is one of many games they are buying up. It's a representation of the overall publisher purchase of Activision. When you think of Activision, the first game you think up would be COD. It's their most successful and profitable franchise.

Microsoft is buying up shooters they were already getting. Western RPGs they were already getting. And so on. 70 billion for Activision Blizzard, added to the 7.5 billion for Zenimax Bethesda, is to take away from Sony's success over Microsoft. The money Sony made from 3rd parties is used to make these successful single player games and risk taking on new IPs and platforms like VR.

Sony is being told to make multiplayer games to compete against a buyout of the industry of those same genres. But no one is telling a 2 TRILLION dollar company to step up and compete by making better games and be consistent in putting out more of it. No matter how you look at it, a larger corporation is saying they can't compete against a smaller one. So, they are buying up publishers that helped make Playstation a success over Xbox. It can't be seen any other way.

And everyone here knows Microsoft has enough money to hire employees, build studios, and create games. They just don't want to. They'd rather buy up the industry and act all innocent like that's an okay thing to do. As Sony said, Microsoft will eventually raise their prices. EA did this with Madden and NFL 2K. They bought out all the football licenses, purchased all the players, bought the rights to use ESPN and everyone else was asked to somehow continue making football games to compete. What happened next? Madden became the only licensed football game. And EA raised the price of Madden when NFL 2K was no longer competition. Microsoft is doing the same thing. Just on a bigger stage.

[darthv72]

When I think of Activision, first game that comes to mind is Pitfall. but then again im 50y old.

[ApocalypseShadow]

So am I. But kids these days no nothing about Pitfall. So, it's COD.

[z2g]

Lmao. K.

Seems Sony is grasping at straws here. They have 100s of adult 18+ games and are free to make whatever content they see fit. Not sure how MS owning Activision changes that.

[shinoff2183]

To all the people saying Sony should just make Sodom or resistance or mag or any other game they have in the past. The sales are the reason they don't. Just cause you liked it don't mean it sold well enough.

[badz149]

I don't think Sony has anything Adult Only (AO) rated in their portfolio like you claimed there

[Thundercat77]

And let's not forget Microsoft is working closely with Activision's CEO to make this work in order to clean up the legal mess and sexual accusations. There is an investigation in place already showing the evil and corruption behind this deal.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

I see but isn't that a bad thing since you can make exclusives, more Japanese exclusives and make more games?

[agnosticgamer]

The real question is Sony could compete… if God for bid they fell to #2 and I think we all know the answer is yes. Their first party’s are strong enough to compete. They also now own Bungie who could develop an exclusive new FPS IP for them within the 10-year time frame COD would be guaranteed to be on the PlayStation platform. Not to mention if they treated COD like Minecraft which has been mentioned it would never leave the platform anyway.

[HeliosHex]

Sony should reboot killzone. So much potential in that franchise.

[Yama]

Make something better... looking at you TLOU Online. The next big multi game everyone will be playing but nobody knows it yet.

[Petebloodyonion]

Ha ha ha ha ha This is a good joke! who made that news should have the parody award of the year...
Can't stop laughing.
wait let me copy-paste that while keeping a straight face
"if the deal were to go through, users would leave PlayStation’s ecosystem, Microsoft could raise Xbox prices, and independent developers would be harmed in the fallout."
Coming from the ppl who just charged me 10$ more for GOW just because it says PS5 on the box well that's classic British humor.
wait ha ha forgot independent developers would be harmed in the fallout
Lol LOL, it's the same ppl who are blaming Sony for asking 30% cut, preventing them from selling keys on other sites, being forced to pay Sony a certain amount of money over crossplay sales, and complaining about Store practices.
https://dotesports.com/news...
https://www.ign.com/article...

LOL they would be harmed by having more negotiating power over Sony lololo
I can picture the harm of let's say Epic saying well you know about that extra money that we are not paying Nintendo and MS about crossplay sales let's talk about that...

Again who wrote that satire is a genius...

[contra157]

If they are going to copy them keep in mind nintendo puts gameplay #1 priority

[goldwyncq]

But Nintendo actually has a great deal of variety in their exclusives...

[ThEusAisPoisonous]

PlayStation can only dream of being like Nintendo.

[obidanshinobi]

Doesn't sound like such a bad thing.
I don't think people realise just how big Nintendo are, they are swimming in cash.
Unlike Sony and MS, Nintendo make profit on every console sold, they're not sold at a loss like the PS5 and Xboxs.
And their games rarely drop in price, so they make a good mark-up on their games even years later.
And their games sell, boy oh boy do they sell well. In the UK the top 10 charts are dominated by Switch games, not unusual for half of the top 10 to be Switch exclusives or the Switch version of a multi-plat game such as Minecraft.
Nintendo are making serious bank.

[OmegaSoldati]

So Microsoft would rise prices just like you did with your console and games recently? Not to mention your online services that offers less and costs more.

[Father__Merrin]

I'd Sony made a cod competitor with ex cod deva working on it. With better visuals story more maps guns unlocks etc iit still wouldn't compete because of the name alone

[MegaLogic]

ummmm Nintendo is bad? but i guess i understand that insecurity by Sony, however they are truley showing their true colors here, they equally pushed Sega out of business the exact same way when they came in with a huhge financial monopoly in pricing, and financial aliognments with square and many others to name a few. This is a joke!, Lazy!

[headshotfrosty]

Haters

[Drakul]

cry baby sony...

[GhostTurtle]

Sony shills are out in full force!!

[Wrex369]

Playstation fans been wanting Playstation to bring back SOCOM now they're telling us to our faces that they just don't want to innovate, invest, and take up risk. Lol but let's get that Destiny and turn all our single player games into MMOs lmfao 10 multiplayer games coming guys. And this acquisition is likely why.

[Rashers]

Our games are rubbish, so give us these other games you really like and we will make them rubbish too. It wont matter as you wont have any option anyway. Plus we will drip feed you the game so that £70 you would have paid turns into a year subscription for even more despite the fact you have no interest in our other rubbish games.

[Moonman]

Microsoft needs to go make some quality first party games. Until then, keep your mouth shut about Sony and Nintendo. Nobody is buying your smoke and mirrors promises and overrated online service that is getting stale as hell. They exist on almost nothing. Even their "Black Friday" deals looks GENERIC. lol

[Tex4242]

In my opinion the only way this deal hurts Sony is if they sit back and do nothing instead of innovate. They are more than capable of making a shooter that's great. The reason they don't right now tho is cuz they just sit back and take those COD Billions. So I'm hoping whether this deal goes through or not, it at least lights a fire under Sony to take advice from Kratos and Do Better.