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Kyuu 5 hours ago
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BasilZero said:
Kyuu said:

Microsoft started this shit and we warned the guys who actively cheered for MS's insanity that what they're doing will push Sony to do big acquisitions of their own. If this goes through, it will be Sony's 2nd big acquisition, with possibly more to come from both sides.

But I'm not even mad anymore, because the industry (Including Sony. Excluding Nintendo) is moving towards multiplatform support for economic reasons. FromSoftware actually stands to gain from Sony's technical expertise/tools/multimedia power so if their games remain multiplatform, it could be a win for everyone.

Microsoft can prevent an "Elden Ring level" exclusivity by threatening to remove Call of Duty from Playstation, assuming they still care about Xbox hardware and are prepared to sacrifice software sales.

Sony is doing the bare minimum to secure Playstation's future. MS was going to make these acquisitions regardless of Sony's actions/reactions.

@Bolded - not true technically, mergers and buy outs have always been a thing.

In regards to the rivalry between MS and Sony...Kadokawa Corporation's buyout isnt likely because of the gaming side of things.

MS bought Zenimax (Bethesda) in 2020 and Activision Blizzard in 2022.

Sony's counter to the gaming side of things was with Bungie in 2022.

Sony's plans for Kadokawa stems from their plan to dominate the Anime industry - remember its SPE (Sony Pictures Entertainment) and not SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) that is after all these acquisitions.

SPE bought Funimation back in 2017.

SPE bought Crunchyroll back in 2021.

And now Kadokawa in 2024.

FromSoftware and Spike Chunsoft are just collateral in comparison.

Either ways, changes will be made with how the games will be released - same with MS's Activision Blizzard and Bethesda.

I'm assuming a arms war/race type of situation will happen or both Sony and MS will continue distributing purchased IPs as multiplatform as there's more money in doing something like that than making something exclusive.

Microsoft already saw that and Sony has started following that slowly. Nintendo teased interest in doing such - with them releasing a emulator and some games on a Mobile PC in China and eventually caved to expanding their IPs to Mobile devices.

Its just Capitalism, no point in stressing over something us common folk cant control.

@Underline/Italic - not gonna happen, it would be a disaster if they do that. MS wont lose out money on potential customers and they would lose a ton of money if they do that.

Platform holders shouldn't gain control over massive 3rd party assets no matter the promises or expectations. From a consumer perspective, it's at best a waste of resources.

In the console/PC space, multi-billion dollar acquisitions were initiated by Microsoft with Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014 (which ironically proved very cheap and arguably their best get). They then got Bethesda ($7.5b) and ABK ($68b). Sony (gaming) never made acquisitions of this scale until 2022 with Bungie ($3b "overvalued"). Before that, their biggest was Insomniac at $230 million.

I very much doubt FromSoftware and Elden Ring aren't a large part of the appeal. 2 years ago, Sony bought 14% of FromSoftware specifically, months after the release of Elden Ring. Both needs aligned and they're trying to get Kadokawa for gaming AND anime/manga.


I don't necessarily think Microsoft will take CoD off Playstation, but how do you reckon Sony would respond to a bluff from Microsoft? The motherfuckers at Sony worship CoD. Also, timed-exclusivity is a reasonably high probability that would barely hurt software totals at the benefit of increased Xbox subscriptions, software and hardware sales, and brand power.  MS can explore temporarily skipping Playstation and see how the market react (but then, Sony will threaten to remove Elden Ring lol).