Gotta love rumors.........

I don't see how there is a role reversal.

The only thing that changed is Sony now looks at MS as a real threat. MS's aggressiveness shows they still don't underestimated Sony.

Well no one is going to openly come out and admit it, but it's painfully obvious it's true. It's the same sort of behaviour that happened during the GOP election.

I'm talking about...Yeah you're right. I was gonna say that Ms was acting like Sony of 2005-ish

E3 is a couple of days away but the rumor machine knows no different. Lol, rumors.

what a pathetic and childish company... paying to not air sony. i did not even know that and always wondered why spike wouldn't air sony press conferences.

Kind of like when Sony use to pay secret shoppers to go into game stores and ask about Sega systems.  If the sales person tried to steer the secret shopper to a PlayStation instead, they could win something.  While no one knew who the secret shopper were, the fact that Sony was doing it was well known to the point that sales people in game stores would talk trash about the Sega systems to anyone who asked.  I had a friend that was the store manager of a local Electronic Boutique that confirmed this with me.  There was rumors of big vacation packages being part of the gifts given out.

Or like when Sony paid Funcoland a bunch of money to put huge promotional displays for the PS2 at their entrances during the launch of the Dreamcast.  Thing is, the PS2 was still a full year off, wasn't fully finalized at that time and they didn't even have the price set on it yet.

This is just business as usual.

Yeah I dont think you realize the effects piracy has had on all 3 consoles, Wii and 360 specifically... check out GModz.ca to see the current latest and geatest on piracy. But yeah, im not going to lie and say used games dont play a role here too. Publishers certanly want to be looped on to the used games reselling process. Its their content that is being resold and everyone but them is making money doing it...

With that said, Im a little dissapointed that microsoft is allowing "authorized" resellers to buy and trade games to be honest. Unless its very easy to become "authorized" for all resellers... I dislike the fact that the likes of Gamestop are getting special treatment. They should have just said that every game can be resold by whoever owns it but a 10 dollar activation fee needs to be paid when a buyer attempts to reinstall a used game. That fee would go to publishers and Gamestop couldnt ask for 5 bucks less for a used game because that would make a used game 5 dollars more than a new game when its registered.

Notice how Diablo 3 was not announced for Xbox systems till now? You think Blizzard just didn't want to announce it on Xbox cause they felt like it, or cause Sony gave them an offer they couldn't refuse?

Bold: Yah right; I do not see what is "confirming" anything... First these are complete rumors and even if it is true, what is wrong with that?

Also, talking of having the head in the sand, you really believe Sony did not the same? Like Blizzard for Diablo 3 or Destiny?

You may believe otherwise but this is perfectly normal and Sony is more than certainly doing the same.