It benefits gamers that massive conglomerates absorb more and more studios and publishers? You can have any opinion you want, but to see this merger as beneficial to gamers and that it will increase competition is quite the stretch. Let's not forget what happened when Activision and Blizzard merged, it's not like it kickstarted a series of some of the biggest and worst douche moves against gamers and old fans that we ever saw. Blizzard's fall from grace literally ties directly into merging with Activision. In my ideal world, most developers would be independent, or at the very least have complete creative control without publisher meddling and top-down control with maximum profits on behalf of boards being the sole purpose of the industry. I don't want Sony to acquire more studios with the intent of shutting out other gamers on other platforms either.

The FTC doesn't study deals, they study acquisitions mostly. The FF remasters also come to Switch, so SE might just not bother to port them to Xbox. The same way FTV also doesn't look in the Ark 2 deal for example. 

Basically this. The pro-buyout people are full of shit when it comes to this statement of “it benefits gamers.”

They never explain how it’s beneficial for massive conglomerates to swallow up companies. They also completely ignore the long history of criticism of these sorts of deals being called consistently since the days of Adam Smith.

And then when anyone is pushed about the benefits. They  being up l whataboutisms like “Disney + Fox” - yeah, that was bad too, and the FTC shouldn’t have approved that either. And these manufactured “crusades against big tech” arguments are based on pure stinky sensationalist fantasy. The last time I saw that argument in the forum, the guy even labelled Microsoft as the top tech company, and still supported them swallowing up third parties.

Bottom line, people shouldn’t blindly support these sorts of corporate gorging deals just because it supports their bias or bandwagon selection. Large conglomerates swallowing up other large companies (or smaller competitive companies, for that matter) is unhealthy.

I thought its obvious how it will. Benefit gamers but people dont see it. 

1) you don't need an xbox to have access to gamepass. It can be accessed via TV, tablet, mobile phone and pc. The amount of people that uses 1 or all of them is huge. Bigger market to target. 

2) gamepass allows people Inc ountries where they can't afford to buy 70 usd games all the time when new ones comes out. Gamepass is much more affordable for those people. It allows them to play more games then they normally would. That alone is attractive and will attract more gamers or people who are on cusp of being a gamer and want to try it out. 

3) cod games will also be on nintendo. That hasn't been done in while. Nintendo has quite a large fan base. Imagine having cod on the go! Or even warzone.. Adding additional platforms increases the user base. More people get to play cod. Not just cod on Nintendo but cod using xcloud is also viable and a good thing. 

4) having abk studious under ms and having access to gamepass day 1,developers can take risk and make different type of games and put them on gamepass. This greatly benefit gamers as we will get more variety in the type of games we play.. More new ip is always a good thing. Also developers can also revive old famous ip that has been dominant and put them on gamepass. Gamers will benefit as that's more games to play for cheap. 

Gamepass is the most consumer friendly services that has ever graced the console industry. From my experience, I have played games that normally I wouldn't play or try. That alone is great for gamers and developers alike. 

To be honest, this abk deal that sony is trying to prevent has nothing to do with Cod. Sony doesn't want cod to be in gamepass day 1. They don't want the scenario if gamepass vs paying 70 usd for physical copy. They believe that the scenario will take Sony customer base and bring that to ms side. 

Jumpin said:

Basically this. The pro-buyout people are full of shit when it comes to this statement of “it benefits gamers.”

They never explain how it’s beneficial for massive conglomerates to swallow up companies. They also completely ignore the long history of criticism of these sorts of deals being called consistently since the days of Adam Smith.

And then when anyone is pushed about the benefits. They  being up l whataboutisms like “Disney + Fox” - yeah, that was bad too, and the FTC shouldn’t have approved that either. And these manufactured “crusades against big tech” arguments are based on pure stinky sensationalist fantasy. I mean, in reality, the FTC and governments should be on a crusade against big tech—big tech is eating up large portions of the economy more than any other industry right now: they’re basically taking over news and advertisement sectors and that’s something the democratic governments of the world should be against. Anyway, the last time I saw that argument in the forum, the guy even labelled Microsoft as the top tech company, and still supported them swallowing up third parties.

*As a note, I don’t agree that Microsoft is the largest “big tech” company. But the fact that a guy supported the largest big tech company swallowing up third parties really just shows how corrupt the mindset of people are by the advertisement of this idea being beneficial to gamers, without there being any actual truth to that statement.

Bottom line, people shouldn’t blindly support these sorts of corporate gorging deals just because it supports some bias, agenda, or bandwagon they happened to jump on without thinking. Large conglomerates swallowing up other large companies (or smaller competitive companies, for that matter) is unhealthy.

Exactly, no where does Square or Sony even state the remasters are from a paid deal especially when it's going to Switch and PS4 with no native PS5 sku so he's mistaken on that one. 

Also, since release Crisis Core has never made it to the most played list on Xbox in the US. The highest it got was the 42nd spot and dropped out of the top 50 afterwards. Diofield and Star Ocean also bombed on Xbox in the recent months. Octopath Traveler must not have done well either as part 2 is skipping Xbox. The fact of the matter is Xbox users are not buying enough of SE's games and now the publisher has lost faith in releasing their games on that platform. They have only themselves to blame for this. This is a platform community problem, not a Sony problem.  

I agree. This whole thing is more or less a brand of “red herring” and “whataboutism” where they accuse company x of behaving unfairly too, rather than addressing the actual situation of whether company y should be allowed to swallow company z. Not only is the comparison irrelevant, but it’s not even comparable.

Final Fantasy isn’t a major brand on Xbox. Dev resources aren’t infinite. Sony and Square have a long term business to business friendship—so, there is loyalty there. Yet the assumption is being pushed that Sony is somehow bribing Square to keep their games off of Xbox when no such bribe is necessary. It’s a really bad argument on the pro-“Microsoft eat Activision and Blizzard” side.

In the end, the whole argument is straight up bad. The reality is Square Enix is a separate company, they’re not owned by Sony, and they’re not being secretly controlled by money hats to be exclusive to Sony, either.

It's also funny that when Square (or other 3rd party devs) makes exclusive games and series for Nintendo nobody bats an eye. I think it's absolutely fine though, Square likes having a close relationship with both PlayStation and Nintendo. Usually either of them helps them out with financing/marketing their big projects. Dragon Quest XI also skipped Xbox without any exclusive deal in place. The definitive edition launched on Switch first and after on PlayStation. So who knows what the future will bring since titles as KH3 also directly launched on Xbox.

It benefits gamers that massive conglomerates absorb more and more studios and publishers? You can have any opinion you want, but to see this merger as beneficial to gamers and that it will increase competition is quite the stretch. Let's not forget what happened when Activision and Blizzard merged, it's not like it kickstarted a series of some of the biggest and worst douche moves against gamers and old fans that we ever saw. Blizzard's fall from grace literally ties directly into merging with Activision. In my ideal world, most developers would be independent, or at the very least have complete creative control without publisher meddling and top-down control with maximum profits on behalf of boards being the sole purpose of the industry. I don't want Sony to acquire more studios with the intent of shutting out other gamers on other platforms either.
As for exclusives, I find 3rd party exclusives to be more or less bullshit, keep it to the 2nd and 1st parties to supply platforms with exclusive content.

I'm also wondering how exactly Call of Duty "faces intense competition worldwide"? What other FPS franchise even comes close? CoD is the world's 3rd largest franchise in revenue, behind only Pokemon and Mario, it's also the 3rd best-selling franchise of all time, behind only Pokemon and Tetris. The closest FPS franchise in terms of revenue is Battlefield, way down at 41st place. Again, regardless of ones general opinion on this case, this is just plain BS. CoD has over 300 million more copies sold than the closest FPS competitor.

It benefits gamers that massive conglomerates absorb more and more studios and publishers? You can have any opinion you want, but to see this merger as beneficial to gamers and that it will increase competition is quite the stretch. Let's not forget what happened when Activision and Blizzard merged, it's not like it kickstarted a series of some of the biggest and worst douche moves against gamers and old fans that we ever saw. Blizzard's fall from grace literally ties directly into merging with Activision. In my ideal world, most developers would be independent, or at the very least have complete creative control without publisher meddling and top-down control with maximum profits on behalf of boards being the sole purpose of the industry. I don't want Sony to acquire more studios with the intent of shutting out other gamers on other platforms either.
As for exclusives, I find 3rd party exclusives to be more or less bullshit, keep it to the 2nd and 1st parties to supply platforms with exclusive content.

I'm also wondering how exactly Call of Duty "faces intense competition worldwide"? What other FPS franchise even comes close? CoD is the world's 3rd largest franchise in revenue, behind only Pokemon and Mario, it's also the 3rd best-selling franchise of all time, behind only Pokemon and Tetris. The closest FPS franchise in terms of revenue is Battlefield, way down at 41st place. Again, regardless of ones general opinion on this case, this is just plain BS. CoD has over 300 million more copies sold than the closest FPS competitor.

I agree. This whole thing is more or less a brand of “red herring” and “whataboutism” where they accuse company x of behaving unfairly too, rather than addressing the actual situation of whether company y should be allowed to swallow company z. Not only is the comparison irrelevant, but it’s not even comparable.

Final Fantasy isn’t a major brand on Xbox. Dev resources aren’t infinite. Sony and Square have a long term business to business friendship—so, there is loyalty there. Yet the assumption is being pushed that Sony is somehow bribing Square to keep their games off of Xbox when no such bribe is necessary. It’s a really bad argument on the pro-“Microsoft eat Activision and Blizzard” side.

In the end, the whole argument is straight up bad. The reality is Square Enix is a separate company, they’re not owned by Sony, and they’re not being secretly controlled by money hats to be exclusive to Sony, either.