EpicRandy said:
Sony is the only company making arguments against this deal so I don't think saying so is naive or disingenuous. If any other actors resent this deal they have yet to manifest themselves publicly and to regulators. If Nintendo themselves believed the scenario you highlighted as anything serious or likely they would say so to the regulators and won't be making deal with MS improving their chance of success with the deal. Sony might very well acquire more studios because of it or buy studios they already planned to we would never know but Microsoft can't be blocked by what Sony might plan to do or not do. The nice attitude from ms is not because they are behind in console sales, it is because they're in front of subscription base game delivery and don't see Sony's (and others') existence as a threat but as an actor that adds to the potential of the overall market. And this is also true for Sony if MS can bring more consumer to the market some will certainly end up playing Sony games and even some will use the cheaper way of playing MS propose to also buy a PS5+. As for the pricing, to have read many discussion around it I could guarantee you no one here believe Microsoft will ever increase the price. The best I can hope is that the price won't increase as long as Microsoft heavily focuses on growth but that has an end. As for removing the day 1 release to GP, there is 0 indication this will happen short, medium, or long term. If the argument is anything is possible then yeah but 99% sure Sony will add a day 1 release to their subscription way before MS even thinks of stopping it. Also, the transaction would be done with cash on hand as an exchange for the equivalent value in assets, MS may well be increasing the price of their subs pricing afterward but doubt this transaction will be the culprit though, as inflation and a shift of focus from growth to sustain and growth are more like it. Also, keep in mind that Gamepass is still at the same price as in 2017 when it was released. With only a 2% yearly inflation it already makes GamePass $1.02 cheaper than at release and so a 1-dollar potential increase could be solely attributed to it. |
I was clearly referring to the consequences on players. Among corporations, mainly platform holders are affected, and between those, only Sony is negatively impacted for obvious reasons. Nintendo is self sufficient and wouldn't panic at the mere thought of Sony buying Square Enix or Capcom (which don't represent much for Nintendo anyways), let alone FromSoftware which means nothing to Nintendo. They're not so paranoid as to think that deep into ABK's acquisition and per-emtpively attempt to block a Sony response. Zenimax/Bethesda was more important to Sony than any individual Japanese publisher is to Nintendo, and yet Sony made no attempts at blocking that, and only retaliated after the ABK news because it was then clear that Microsoft intends to control the future of gaming and manage huge IP's that sell super well on Playstation consoles.
Microsoft has clear intentions to monopolize the future of gaming via brute force (they will fail). When they gain complete control over some of the most popular gaming IP's and developers, they won't be so nice anymore. They're already raising prices after speaking against it for temporary PR points, and they attempted to double Live Gold's price and only stopped because Xbox isn't powerful enough to absorb the backlash. Things should and will change when they're more comfortable.
A lot of people argued that GamePass won't need any price hikes anytime soon, and the "possible" loss in traditional sales from the inclusions of CoD and the likes would be offset by an increase in subscriber count. I argued that price hike is inevitable if every big Zenimax/ABK game is added day and date, or else Xbox profitability would decline (if it's not in the minus already) and MS higher ups may not be happy about it forever. MS missed their GamePass subs target for two consecutive years.
It's one thing to argue that the benefits/potential outweigh the negatives/risks (fair take), it's another to argue it's only bad for Sony.
"As for removing the day 1 release to GP, there is 0 indication this will happen short, medium, or long term. If the argument is anything is possible then yeah but 99% sure Sony will add a day 1 release to their subscription way before MS even thinks of stopping it."
Hard disagree but we'll wait and see. Sony's not gonna put any AAA game day 1 on a service unless MS's biggest exclusives on GamePass sell nearly as much on Xbox as Sony games do on Playstation. this would send the signal that services aren't hurting sales much, and Sony would put it to the test. There is a chance that they may do a test on their own regardless, but I doubt they'd like the results.
Starfield should be the first "real test", ignoring Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 which left the charts as soon as they entered. Ragnarok sold the majority of copies on PS5... let's see how the Xbox version of Starfield fairs against the PC version. Oh wait... we can't... MS hardly shares anything! The only milestone in recent years they proudly shared is Sea of Thieves selling 5 million on Steam, without announcing Xbox numbers (where the vast majority of GamePass users are).
Last edited by Kyuu - on 15 December 2022
