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Machiavellian on 05 April 2023
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Kyuu said:
Machiavellian said:

That is the point right.  Its an escalation war.  Sony uses their market dominance to do 3rd party deals, MS decides to take players off the table for those deal.  Sony moneyhatted 2 games from Bethesda and was in negotiation for a third.  MS made a much bigger and better offer and took that company out of the mix.  All I keep hearing is people complain about the response but as a business that would be the response when you got the pockets.  You want better investment on your money not throw it away.  MS cannot match moneyhat deals at the same cost as Sony but they can remove successful companies from their reach who also strengthen and grow your business.  It really does not matter about the term of a agreement, its about which strategy works. There was always this chance that Sony could wake the sleeping giant because MS always had the money but it appears the time is now as publishers come up for sale.

For your second paragraph, I believe you are missing a very important business point.  You believe that Sony is making these money hat moves as meager but as a business the moves are made to sustain and keep their marketshare.  Its an advantage that Sony has and they are using it which they should. In a competitive market all business use their advantage to gain marketshare and sell their product.  I have no issue with Sony doing this because its good business.  Sony has also made purchases for good Studios because its good business to bring them under their system and continue to make exclusive games. The thing is, there needs to be no excuses made for either tactic, its good business.  

Its also good business for MS to purchase any publisher who comes to them and want to sell especially if they are successful. It would be dumb for either Sony or MS to turn down opportunity because Xbox gamers or Sony gamers are going to be butt hurt about it.  You are basically doing the same thing you say Xbox gamers are doing justifying one tactic over another because personally you do not like it.  In reality, both tactics are valid because as a business they all equal opportunity.  MS has the funds to purchase publishers and they damn well better do it if a publisher comes up for sale and their IP and products help them to expand and grow.  Sony is justified in making as many 3rd party exclusive deals as they can because they have the contacts, marketshare to do it at a price they can afford over their competitor.

Neither company is making these moves to please gamers, they make the moves as a business to sustain and grow their business.

Anything goes in the business world I'm not interested in discussing this and don't disagree with the core of your argument. I explained/justified Microsoft's acquisitions from a business perspective in my response to Chakkra which you read and quoted. Microsoft overpaying for big Japanese exclusives would be poor business, what they're doing obviously makes a lot more sense.

The gamers' reaction to it however is a separate topic. When I see too much blatant bullshit, hypocrisy, and false equivalences, sometimes I feel like pointing them out. MS's louder fans complained non stop about Sony's meager (And they're definitely meager or just shy of meager. The numbers don't lie but agree to disagree) exclusivity deals and just won't act the same way when Microsoft does it 10-100 times worse. Even excluding acquisitions, ARK 2 and Valheim are an order of magnitude bigger than the games you mentioned (Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo which both were untested new IP's from less relevant developers). From the PS360 generation onward, most platforms exclusivity deals were "fucked up" within reason. You can no longer say this with where this industry is heading. And no... it's not "Sony's fault". If someone's not happy about where things are going... blame Microsoft and Microsoft alone. The standard/fair/typical response to Sony from an "ethical standpoint" is to make similar deals.

Otherwise I get it. Ethics have no place in business, and if MS gathers that major 3rd party acquisitions is the only way for Xbox to return to relevance (provided they stick with the PC day and date approach), then it makes sense for them to take this route. It also makes sense for Sony to try to combat or challenge it.

Who said it was Sony fault but if you believe Sony did not have a part in the direction of how the games industry do exclusives then you do not know gaming history.  This was their MO when they came into the gaming space.  Tactics today are directly the results of the past, nothing has really changed.  All that has changed is that a few publisher came up for Sale, and MS took full advantage of it but developers studios left and right have been getting purchase and that will only accelerate as they all look at the bigger amount of money to be had.  Gaming is outpacing everything and is a Trillion dollar industry with mobile.  If you believe that things will remain the same, that would be wishful thinking.  Its the wild wild west now and the companies with the biggest gun gets to go home.  We already see Saudi throwing big bucks around.  I believe Apple is right around the corner.  Google will probably be making another effort and Amazon is trying to carve out their space.  Who knows in 10 years you might be wishing for these days again before the dust settles.

Come on Ark 2 and Valheim are big on PC but have no real presence on console.  At least Deathloop and Ghostwire are from very successful developer studios in the console space and their new games carry way more weight then these 2 PC games.  Even still, it really does not matter, I am talking about response from both companies.  MS has the resource to take it up a notch and as a competitor why should they not.  If you look to lock me out of games, I can go 100 times harder and take the whole company off the board.  That is what we call a big flex move.  Who knows next time, it could be Apple coming into the space and they can make even bigger flex move over MS.  

If you have read any of my post you know I have no problem with Sony response, I just believe that strategy wise they made some big mistakes.  They went all in on the COD angle and it ended up being the worse play they could have made.  I have said this from the beginning that as long as Sony made this deal about COD it was a losing strategy because MS was always willing to do whatever deal using COD.  COD was the carrot and Sony chomp on it like a champ.