Microsoft accuses Sony of paying developers to keep some games off Xbox Game Pass

[Kane99]

Here comes the drama. It looks like Microsoft isn't too happy, as they recently accused Sony of paying developers to keep games off of Xbox's Game pass service. But, Sony isn't too happy about Microsoft buying everything up as of late. Honestly it's just two money giants arguing about money. 

I don't know who to side on this one. In a way I agree with Microsoft, because Sony shouldn't be stopping third party studios from adding their games to gamepass, but also Microsoft shouldn't be buying up all the major studios and making Sony worry about whether or not those games will also be coming out for their platforms. 

What do you guys think? 

You can read this story here - https://en.as.com/meristation_en/2022/08/11/news/1660231627_950415.html

[Withywarlock]

1 hour ago, Kane99 said:

Honestly it's just two money giants arguing about money. 

That's the long and short of this feud. I'd be interested in seeing how Phil Spencer deals with this information given his public egalitarian stance in the console scene: if he doesn't speak against it, he reveals his persona to be farcical. If he does speak against it, he's reigniting the fuse to the very powder keg he likes to pretend doesn't exist.

I side with neither. This is two companies consisting of adults having a bout of "he said, she said" because they've lost opportunities to make a few more millions.

[Kane99]

2 hours ago, Withywarlock said:

That's the long and short of this feud. I'd be interested in seeing how Phil Spencer deals with this information given his public egalitarian stance in the console scene: if he doesn't speak against it, he reveals his persona to be farcical. If he does speak against it, he's reigniting the fuse to the very powder keg he likes to pretend doesn't exist.

I side with neither. This is two companies consisting of adults having a bout of "he said, she said" because they've lost opportunities to make a few more millions.

I don't plan to side with either of them too. I get where MS is coming from if what they say is true, but even so, it's essentially just like paying for exclusivity. If Sony is cool to pay a studio not to release on gamepass and stay on their service, than I think it kinda works out to exclusivity in some ways. 

But either way, it's going to result in nothing happening, and both sides going on their merry way. 

[The Blackangel]

This is more or less of a "my dick's bigger" contest between them. They're at the top of the gaming scene alongside Nintendo, and they want to act like idiots throwing around claims that are most likely baseless. But if they think it can hurt their competitor in some way, they'll do it. However, if Sony really wanted to fuck Microsoft, they could revoke their license of being able to put their games on Blu-ray discs. Sony owns that patent, so Microsoft better play nice or they could be in a world of hurt.

Personally, I don't really give a shit. I play the games, but stay out of the politics.

Edited August 12, 2022 by The Blackangel

[Withywarlock]

18 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

However, if Sony really wanted to fuck Microsoft, they could revoke their license of being able to put their games on Blu-ray discs. Sony owns that patent, so Microsoft better play nice or they could be in a world of hurt.

I didn't realise that. I'd go as far as to say that changes my opinions on the whole security of physical media dramatically: what would happen if Sony just pulled the license? I don't want to derail this topic, but it makes for an interesting thought exercise: what would Microsoft do, and how quickly could they come up with and implement a solution?

Thanks for telling us about this, it'll be interesting to see if these two ever escalate to such fierceness of competition.

[Clasher]

I think this two should just calm down a bit I know staying in the news is good for the market but not every single trivial issue should be blown up out of proportion.

 

[Yaramaki]

15 hours ago, Withywarlock said:

I didn't realise that. I'd go as far as to say that changes my opinions on the whole security of physical media dramatically: what would happen if Sony just pulled the license? I don't want to derail this topic, but it makes for an interesting thought exercise: what would Microsoft do, and how quickly could they come up with and implement a solution?

Thanks for telling us about this, it'll be interesting to see if these two ever escalate to such fierceness of competition.

The Blu-ray disc association are the patent holders of licensing blu-ray so let it be clear that Sony isn't the sole patent holder of the blu-ray technology, was going to react to this yesterday but it probably slipped my mind and got sidetracked along the way. It's doubtfull that sony alone would even be able to provoke microsoft their license for putting their games on blu-ray discs, besides if it were to happen nothing a big sack of cash can't solve. No with Physical media sales in decline they aren't going to stop microsoft from putting their games on blu-ray and grab whatever money they can get.

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Yaramaki

[NightmareFarm]

On 8/12/2022 at 11:53 PM, The Blackangel said:

This is more or less of a "my dick's bigger" contest between them. They're at the top of the gaming scene alongside Nintendo, and they want to act like idiots throwing around claims that are most likely baseless. But if they think it can hurt their competitor in some way, they'll do it. However, if Sony really wanted to fuck Microsoft, they could revoke their license of being able to put their games on Blu-ray discs. Sony owns that patent, so Microsoft better play nice or they could be in a world of hurt.

Personally, I don't really give a shit. I play the games, but stay out of the politics.

Both of them have a huge leverage over each other. Whilst Sony can do that, MS has the money to buy pretty much every third party AAA studio under the sun and it would cost a very small fraction of their net worth. Which is why either haven't made such power moves. 

[Withywarlock]

2 hours ago, NightmareFarm said:

MS has the money to buy pretty much every third party AAA studio under the sun and it would cost a very small fraction of their net worth. Which is why either haven't made such power moves. 

I don't think it's that easy for Microsoft, or rather Xbox Game Studios to do that (as amusing as it would be to think Microsoft buying studios like Bruce Wayne buying a hotel with a cheque). Without knowing the full details I'd hazard a guess that there's contact, contractual negotiations, all the admin sealing the deal and then making the games and hoping to turn a profit on those games before shareholders ask too many questions. And when we look at the list of acquisitions they've made already, it's not as scary a list as I originally thought it to be.

Then there's the handling of these studios. So far XGS have failed to put out many noteworthy titles from their acquired studios. Rare have made Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, released Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie on XBLA and make Kinect games. Double Fine have mostly been remastering their classics and released Psychonauts 2. InExile made Wasteland 3 and remasters the old Wasteland and The Bard's Tale (also a VR game, The Mage's Tale). Obsidian have made Grounded under their Xbox tenure and have Pentinent looking to be their latest upcoming title. Ninja Theory released and exited development of Bleeding Edge to no fanfare and we're waiting on Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, which I think loses a lot of its novelty because it's backed by a massive publisher.

I don't think Xbox division's acquisitions of mostly decent-ish or worse studios is that big a concern to Sony (though I'm sure they would've loved to have Ninja Theory and their mocap experience), who seem to only buy studios if they've proven themselves to be capable. Given in another thread it's mentioned that the acquisition of Call of Duty isn't profitable as an exclusive, I doubt their leverage of intellectual property rights is that strong.

There is however plenty of room for observation about a console cold war. What will be the next weapon brought to the arms race, I wonder?

[Kane99]

On 8/14/2022 at 4:03 PM, Withywarlock said:

I don't think it's that easy for Microsoft, or rather Xbox Game Studios to do that (as amusing as it would be to think Microsoft buying studios like Bruce Wayne buying a hotel with a cheque). Without knowing the full details I'd hazard a guess that there's contact, contractual negotiations, all the admin sealing the deal and then making the games and hoping to turn a profit on those games before shareholders ask too many questions. And when we look at the list of acquisitions they've made already, it's not as scary a list as I originally thought it to be.

Then there's the handling of these studios. So far XGS have failed to put out many noteworthy titles from their acquired studios. Rare have made Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, released Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie on XBLA and make Kinect games. Double Fine have mostly been remastering their classics and released Psychonauts 2. InExile made Wasteland 3 and remasters the old Wasteland and The Bard's Tale (also a VR game, The Mage's Tale). Obsidian have made Grounded under their Xbox tenure and have Pentinent looking to be their latest upcoming title. Ninja Theory released and exited development of Bleeding Edge to no fanfare and we're waiting on Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, which I think loses a lot of its novelty because it's backed by a massive publisher.

I don't think Xbox division's acquisitions of mostly decent-ish or worse studios is that big a concern to Sony (though I'm sure they would've loved to have Ninja Theory and their mocap experience), who seem to only buy studios if they've proven themselves to be capable. Given in another thread it's mentioned that the acquisition of Call of Duty isn't profitable as an exclusive, I doubt their leverage of intellectual property rights is that strong.

There is however plenty of room for observation about a console cold war. What will be the next weapon brought to the arms race, I wonder?

Yeah it's not as easy to buy up a company, as it requires a lot of red tape to go through before you can truly get it. I don't even think the Bethesda/Activision deals are officially done yet, as there's a ton of money there and I'm sure contracts they need to figure out and sort. It kinda reminds me about how Elon Musk was wanting to buy Twitter, and rumors was that he bought it, but he would have had to go through months of stuff just to get the deal done, and low and behold, the deal was stopped and both parties moved on. There's still a chance that things could change and Bethesda and Activision aren't sold off to Microsoft. Unless they already got through all the red tape. 

[Heatman]

This is what competition in the game industry is all about and to be very honest, I'm not surprised at all by the moves and counter moves both of the companies are making in order to fortify their control and dominance in the market. From the way I see it, this fight is going to go on for a very long time and Sony wouldn't back down or they would end up surrendering to Microsoft. They have everything to lose. 

[Empire]

If this is right OMG that Micro$oft is the company that is competing since they created Xbox just by throwing money at games companies without even try to improve a thing. They are acquiring all the big publisher because without that they cannot even remotely compete with Sony or Nintendo, two companies with way lower budget. They simply use money to accomplish stuff that couldn't do themselves. "Hey we cannot create a decent game, let's buy the companies that does them".

[Kane99]

On 8/16/2022 at 6:33 AM, Empire said:

If this is right OMG that Micro$oft is the company that is competing since they created Xbox just by throwing money at games companies without even try to improve a thing. They are acquiring all the big publisher because without that they cannot even remotely compete with Sony or Nintendo, two companies with way lower budget. They simply use money to accomplish stuff that couldn't do themselves. "Hey we cannot create a decent game, let's buy the companies that does them".

I wouldn't say they can't compete with Sony and Nintendo. I think they're doing just fine right now in terms of sales. It doesn't matter if they're 2nd or 3rd, as long as they're doing good financially I don't think they'll fret too much. 

[Heatman]

On 8/14/2022 at 10:08 AM, Clasher said:

I think this two should just calm down a bit I know staying in the news is good for the market but not every single trivial issue should be blown up out of proportion.

 

Anything that's linked with what Microsoft does in the video game industry which affects Sony is never going to be taken lightly by Sony because they know what Microsoft is capable of doing. If it's possible to see how pained Sony is with Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard, we would have seen it already. 

[Justin11]

Both of them just want to protect their own interest, I don't have much to say. If Xbox are accusing Sony about restricting companies from adding their games to their game pass it means they want to restrict their games being ported with play station gaming devices and that's a kick in the ass for Sony as well.