| Dante9 said: Let's be honest here. If the situation was reversed and Sony was the one trying to make this acquisition happen, most of the people here now defending the deal would be arguing against it. |
And the same could be said in reverse, I bet several in this thread who claim they are against the deal now would be ok with it if the shoe was on the other foot and Sony was the one acquiring them. That being said, there is a difference between Xbox acquiring ABK and Sony acquiring ABK. Xbox is coming off of a gen where they got outsold by both Sony and Nintendo by more than 2:1 each, and Sony and Nintendo both also lead Xbox massively in software sales, both 1st and 3rd party. So Xbox is 3rd place in all 3 metrics that are the biggest drivers of a console maker's success, while Sony is 2nd place in hardware, 1st place in 3rd party software, and 2nd place in 1st party software I believe. There would be some legitimate monopoly concerns with allowing Sony to acquire ABK, it could potentially catapult them above Nintendo in all 3 metrics while also pretty much dealing a death blow to Xbox (because we know that Sony, unlike Xbox, would likely have no issue whatsoever with making CoD exclusive to Playstation and PC, they have done so with numerous other franchises so far such as the 3 most recent main series Final Fantasy games, not to mention we have seen them buy exclusive CoD content in order to hurt Xbox, their primary competitor).
Meanwhile I personally don't believe that any single acquisition at this point is big enough to create an Xbox monopoly since they are 3rd place in all 3 key metrics of success, not ABK, not EA, not Take-Two/2K, not Ubisoft, etc. The acquisitions of Zenimax and ABK combined are still unlikely to catapult Xbox even into 2nd place in any of the 3 main metrics of console maker success, hardware, 1st party software, or 3rd party software, those 2 acquisitions will just make Xbox a less distant 3rd place in each of the 3 metrics most likely, which is a good thing imo, if Sony feels the pressure of Xbox nipping at their heels they might do a better job with pricing and such, benefitting Sony gamers.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 30 December 2022
