In the specific case of Activision, I really don't think making Activision be Xbox exclusive would kill Playstation. Activision has a pretty bad reputation in recent years, and (besides Call of Duty) the games they've put out recently have generally failed to be very influential: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision#2010s

However, purchase of Activision may still be part of a larger anti-competitive scheme Microsoft has cooked up. I believe they've been buying lots of other game studios and publishers as well.

You're looking at part of the acquisition, not the full one.

MS isn't acquiring Activision alone, they are acquiring Activision-Blizzard.

Which includes Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King (Candy Crush), Major League Gaming, Activision Blizzard Studios, Infinity Ward and Treyarch among others.

No one on that list devs or publishes the games that sell PlayStations.

Sony are at least a decade ahead of MS in terms of having built a pipeline of developers that have the IP and quality standards that are console sellers even at the $500 price point.

I toyed with the idea of buying a series s because forza horizon is fun but it wasn't enough to justify even a $250 console.

Do you not think if Diablo V for example is only available on Xbox or PC but not PlayStation or Nintendo that might shift a few Xboxs?

Obviously Activision-Blizzard games are not PlayStation system sellers currently but that's because they're not exclusive.

Don’t move the goalposts, this isn’t about shifting a “few Xboxs” this is about PlayStation going out of business because of the merger, which is obviously an impossible claim by your own admission.

Yeah, they don't sell PlayStations but they're going to start selling Xboxes. I'd love to play Starfield on my PS5 but that's just not an option.

So what you're saying is it would increase competition by selling more of the currently-less-popular platform rather than reduce it by eliminating the dominant platform? That sounds like an argument in favor of the deal.

I’d love to play God of War, The Last of Us, Drake’s Uncharted, Horizon Forbidden West, and a bunch of other PS5 exclusives.

Somehow this is different though, because Microsoft.

Sony went all in on exclusivity agreements and were dragged kicking and screaming into allowing cross play with other platforms. They are not the good guys here.

Many of them are on PC, they are no longer PS exclusives

So then there’s nothing wrong with Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard as long as they release all their titles on PC as well as XBox?

With the possible exception of "Drake’s Uncharted" which I've never heard of, none of the other games you listed (including all currently released games in the Uncharted franchise) are PS5 exclusives (although most were initially only released on PS 2, 3, or 4)

If that's the standard you're using to define exclusives then Xbox has no exclusives at all, because every single Xbox game comes out on PC.

It's kind of true. I've always looked at Xbox as a low-end gaming PC that can't do much else but play games. Last time I checked there were only a few PS5 exclusives, and all of the biggest titles for the PS5 were either also PC games or remakes of PS3 or PS4 titles.

The difference is that the games you mentioned were made by developers that have been Sony in-house or second-party studios for literal decades, and weren't hoovered up from the open market like Microsoft is trying to do now because of how badly they mismanaged their own studios (343 Industries, The Coalition, Rare, etc).

FYI at least God of War and Horizon are not PS5 exclusives as they are also available on PS4.

I agree that Activision does have a bad reputation, but I'm not so sure that is what comes to most peoples mind when they look at series like Call of Duty. Remember, a console is a multi-year investment. Even if Call of Duty games (and their other series) are bad right now, people will still consider the next 5 years of games when making their decision.

Diablo IV just came out and was a massive success, that's an Activision title.

Blizzard fans are not largely console gamers.

Console Overwatch's playerbase begs to differ. This isn't StarCraft 2 era Blizzard.

Playstation also has longstanding advantage for non-competitive games (JRPGs, action adventure, etc). The 360 was the last generation of Xbox that had a comparably wide spread of genres… each generation since has been host mostly to things like competitive FPS games.

Due to this, I've not felt a need to own an Xbox in a long time. A combo of a PS4/PS5 and custom PC has yielded the best coverage.

The Blizzard brands also have a massive hold in terms of player attention. Other than the names, I'm not sure it would be exceedingly difficult to re-create CoD style gameplay in another game. I mean even CoD isn't so unique, just critical mass and popularity over time.

In the end, it's the brands themselves that hold customers. They carry from release to release, good and bad. That's a harder ground to make up for than gameplay or style.

> If most of the popular and recurring franchises are only available for one platform

Funny how noone asked that over last decade when Sony paid mountains of gold to various developers for exclusivity.

Aren’t most of those cases Sony funding the development of a game? I.E. If it does well, great, Sony has a new IP. If it bombs, then it’s Sony’s money down the drain.

I can only see it benefiting the market since certain games might not have gotten made otherwise - e.g. Demon Souls; which spawn quite a number of spin offs, together they practically form their own genre.

If Microsoft buys Activision, wouldn't they then be funding Activision's development? The major difference here appears to be looking at a deal in foresight vs. hindsight.

Let me put it this way:

Sony funds developers = PlayStation gets “extra” games that otherwise wouldn’t exist. No one else is affected.

Microsoft buys Activision = long running Activision franchises (eventually) become MS exclusive. Xbox gain nothing but everyone else lose out on franchises they used to enjoy.

Different steps to achieve the same outcome (buying a game company). Why should I, as a consumer, give a shit on the “how”?

Not quite the same outcome.

One brings into existence games that probably wouldn’t have been made otherwise - and the investor takes the risk of the game bombing.

The other is primarily to deny the competition access to long running popular franchises - and is practically risk free since those franchises are almost guaranteed to print money.

There's a difference between "X company pays a developer for one game, now" and "X company has purchased the developer outright so all future games will be available only on this platform."

Wait until I tell you how the developers who made The Last of Us came to work at Sony.

There is also a difference between buying one singular developer and buying a top 10 (top 5?) publisher and all its developers.

If I find a single article that talks about this, is it sufficient for you to accept that people did talk about it?

People certainly talked about it, but nobody decried the exclusivity of Persona 5 as an anticompetitive move by Atlus or Sony. It's just how they do business - Sony licenses and funds exclusive titles for their platform, and nobody really bats an eye.

Microsoft has decided turnabout is fair play, and people are acting like it's a Console War-crime. Why? Nintendo has spurned AAA devs since the Wii era and they're doing just fine. I take no side in the console war, but Sony can't be a fair-weather friend to platform exclusivity.

Sony has created or acquihired many of its first party studios that develop original IP specifically for PlayStation. Or they just fund third-party studios to create new exclusive games. You could argue that, if not for Sony, many of those games wouldn't even exist. In recent times, from what I can recall, the only large studio that Sony acquired was Bungie. Which is tiny compared to Bethesda or Activision, and continues to support and release (Marathon) new games on Xbox and Windows.

Now compare this to what Microsoft is doing. They mostly failed to create good first party games on their own (apart from a few gems), and are now resorting to buying up not just individual game studios but whole publishers in order to make their games exclusives to their own platforms.

What Sony is doing is creating real value to players. What Microsoft is doing is primarily meant to create value for shareholders. As a gamer, I strongly prefer the former.

I’m going to have to strongly disagree with the idea that Microsoft isn’t creating real value to players.

Gamepass is literally the best deal for someone playing video games, full stop. The price may get jacked up in the future but right now it is stupid good.

Also you’re really not being honest about the historical aspect of Sony and first party games. You said as much but I don’t see why you’re giving Sony a pass for snapping up a stable of developers for first party games over time but knocking Microsoft for being late to the party and close the gap. It’s the same thing for the same result.

Whichever you prefer is fine. Most of Sony’s first party stuff is very different to the Microsoft stuff.

Sony has engaged in anticompetitive practices a lot in recent history. They tried really hard to prevent cross platform play, going so far as to both lie about it and also throw a “think of the children” in there. They also are the platform that wants money to support cross platform play.

I'm not arguing that Sony are saints and Microsoft is the devil. I agree that Gamepass is awesome value and forced Sony to improve their PS+ offerings (competition is awesome!). However, there's a stark difference between Sony buying and investing in game studios after a long partnership (like in the case of Naughty Dog or Insomniac Games), which allows those studios to create bigger and more ambitious games, and Microsoft snapping up multiple large, well funded and profitable, game publishing companies. All I'm really trying to say is that the former deploys capital to fund new games in order to gain market share by competing on quality of the product (which is clearly working for Sony), whereas the latter is deploying capital to just snap up market share directly...

Left to their own devices, Activision/Blizzard would have just died. If your goal is games continuing to get made regardless of the platform they appear on, I'd argue the Microsoft acquisition is a net win for Blizzard fans.

So you are fine when Microsoft would fund the next games of Activision-Blizzard and demand exclusivity for Xbox platform after Sony's exclusivity contracts end like for CoD next year?

It's much more than a year. Microsoft pledged full Call of Duty availability on rival platforms for at least 10 years[1]. Sony refused to sign, Nintendo signed it[2].

1: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/5/23494886/microsoft-sony-1...

2: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/02/microsoft-signs-10-ye...

I was talking https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstations-call-of-duty-...

“Sony has created or acquihired many of its first party studios” so you admit Sony is acquiring studios too—why is it only bad when Xbox does it?

Size of the involved companies matters

Let’s entertain the idea and pretend they “eliminated” Sony with this acquisition and, against all odds, all those Sony gamers jumped ship and moved over.

Well, I guess that would make Microsoft quite the monopoly then, right? Oh darn, everyone seems to have forgotten about Nintendo who sells more consoles than Sony and Microsoft. Oops, everyone also forgot about Steam with hundreds of millions of users who is also releasing consoles. Last, but certainly not least, Amazon just entered the streaming game space and, based the CMA’s recent definition (https://www.vgchartz.com/article/457194/eu-official-cma-over...), that’s 200m new streaming game subscribers.

At the end of the day this acquisition will suck for Sony gamers just like it sucked when Sony acquired developers and made their games Sony exclusives. This won’t make Microsoft a monopoly in any quantifiable metric, so I see no way the acquisition gets stopped by any logical judge.

If you disagree and think this can make Microsoft a monopoly then show me the numbers because I see 0 paths forward for Microsoft to do that without acquiring or eliminating Sony, Nintendo, Steam and Amazon. I know Microsoft has deep pockets but they are not that deep.

A Sony video game console monopoly will not create value to players.

Without Microsoft making drastic moves like this, the XBox won’t survive much longer. Nintendo has effectively become a different market segment, and I just don’t see any other company ever bringing a serious competitor to market any time soon if Microsoft is forced to exit.

Is the Persona series even remotely close to Call of Duty or Diablo levels of success? This doesn't seem like a great comparison.

Not even close. I was just grabbing for a popular PS exclusives and figured Persona was a decent choice.

You could replace my comment with any of the more popular PS exclusives like TLOU, Nathan Drake or Tsushima and I think it would still hold up.

Those are all published by Sony, though. Are you saying that console makers simply shouldn’t work on games at all?

IMO there’s a huge difference between negotiating exclusivity for a handful of popular games you publish, and spending 2/3 of your competitor’s entire market cap to acquire the giant studios making a significant amount of the most successful game franchises on the market.

Because everyone and their brother seems to prefer PlayStation. You said it yourself, what consoles do my friends have? I have both the XSX and the PS5, but most of my friends and relatives only have a PS5. They have an extensive catalog of digital games from the PlayStation store and it would take a lot more than this deal to get them to completely abandon Sony.