8 ms·

Microsoft employee here, opinions my own. I work in gaming at Microsoft and I really enjoy it. I think Microsoft gives us a ton of space to explore and make o

Microsoft employee here, opinions my own. I work in gaming at Microsoft and I really enjoy it. I think Microsoft gives us a ton of space to explore and make our own impact and I am a huge fan* of Phil Spencer. > Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? Microsoft has been around for 4x that long.

lesuorac 3y ago
> How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? What happens in less than 10 years if they don't abide by it? Does Activision get split back out? I doubt it. We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. We need to be at the point where we also list the punishment ahead of time.
- jxramos 3y ago
  that's not a bad idea, laws without punishments are kind of ambiguous I suppose. I wonder the utility of leaving this open, is it tantamount to mandatory sentencing and takes freedom away from the judge or something like that.
- re-thc 3y ago
  > What happens in less than 10 years if they don't abide by it? Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. > We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. What's the rule / law here anyhow? There are always workarounds, e.g. it says it will keep it in parity with xbox... well what if they called a new console something else?
  - stale2002 3y ago
    You know that Sony could just agree to a contract with microsoft over this right? If they write up a contract with penalty provisions, this could able be guaranteed through civil court. It is not some crazy unsolved question as to how to get a company to commit to something in the future.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    > Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. No kidding. They could just introduce a new game franchise called "Duty of Call - Warfare That's Modern" and make that Xbox exclusive instead. Or any number of other workarounds and sneaky tactics.
  - vkou 3y ago
    > Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. Likely Sony will take them to the cleaners.
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Most likely a fine far less than the money gained from not abiding by the law, if history is anything to go by.
- oh_sigh 3y ago
  Depends how good Sony's lawyers are. Theoretically the courts could offer an injunction preventing sale of the CoD until it is also available on whatever equivalent Playstation type system there is.
  - NovaDudely 3y ago
    Sony vs MS lawyers... that would be messy... and fun to watch. grabs popocorn Would they just build a COD that is dependent on specific MS tech so they cannot release it on competing systems? Why not try and rebrand Call of Duty so that it isn't in violation? Just call it 'Duty'. It starts to get very grey very quickly.
- dathinab 3y ago
  You mean like Facebook/WhatsApp which committed to not do some things and that certain things aren't even technically possible (which even back then was a lie) to get the merger through in the EU and then a few years later was, oh that, yep, let's ignore it and just turn it into a long legal battle which will anyway cost us far less then what we gain from it.
  - swyx 3y ago
    what has fb gained from whatsapp? theyre not charging for it right?
    - dybber 3y ago
      One big competitor less to worry about
    - Jochim 3y ago
      The phone contacts and social graph of everyone using WhatsApp.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. We're not, but this is pretty nebulous stuff. The state blocking freely agreed transactions because it can foresee some damage is not exactly a clear cut good, other than for people who are reassured by the idea of the state as a benevolent, all-knowing mom and pop, and for the lawyers who get paid a fortune to debate past and future hypotheticals. What about this: allow the merger, and if the harm is done, the company must pay, but if the harm is not done, the state must pay?
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Because if there is harm the companies pay so little it's just written off as cost of doing business. Yet the harms too often continue. Companies with more resources than small countries are often too big to regulate because they capture the regulators and/or the judiciary. Prevention is cheaper than treatment, especially when treatments have proven so ineffective.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Companies with more resources than small countries are often too big to regulate because they capture the regulators and/or the judiciary. Regulatory capture is entirely the fault of the regulator. They don't have to be captured. They choose to be. A government body, funded by taxes, that decides to be captured, is a complete disgrace. People work hard to pay taxes, and they shouldn't be spent on employing people who choose to align with those they should be regulating. > Prevention is cheaper than treatment, especially when treatments have proven so ineffective. The same state that has the power to prevent has the power to treat. It chooses not to. Switching approach won't help. Getting regulators to do their jobs will.
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        I wish it were that simple. Sadly a large portion of US voters seem to think a revolving door with "industry experts" (i.e. insiders) is desirable. And that courts should defer to business interests above all else.
changeslitl 3y ago
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LocalH 3y ago
> I am a huge can of Phil Spencer I'm sure Phil Spencer will be interested to know that he can fit into a can :)
- darknavi 3y ago
  I AM a HUGE can of Phil Spencer lmao. Fixed.
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
[flagged]
- Retric 3y ago
  It’s not about Sony, but customers that own a PS and not an XBox. Microsoft loves to buy studios and restrict access, just look a Halo it was introduced as a Mac game by the studio, Microsoft bought them specifically for XBox and fuck anyone that owned a Mac. 2 years after release they released a copy of the first game because all the work was done. Nothing from the rest of the series.
  - pathartl 3y ago
    Please, Apple has been shooting themselves in the foot with gaming for decades. Halo: CE was also released for the Mac, so I'm not sure what the complaint is here.
    - frumper 3y ago
      If you were a Mac gamer it seems fair to complain about a game going from being made for Mac to a port 2 years after it was released.
    - Retric 3y ago
      What are you blaming Apple for Microsoft’s direct customer harm here? A more than 2 year delay for the first game and never getting the rest of the series is a major downside for existing customers. That’s exactly the kind of monopolist behavior you are supposed to block mergers for. Waiting 2 years cost Microsoft a little revenue directly, but pushed XBox sales which was far more valuable.
    - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
      lol right? Halo would have been a flop if it was Mac exclusive. Keep in mind, this was back in the year ~2000. Mac market share in the home user market was a rounding error. Schools were full of iMacs, but at home, it was all Windows.
throwaway106382 3y ago
in 10 years I fully expect Sony to have a competitive first party title exclusive to playstation, now that they actually have to give a damn. I love the killzone series but Guerilla seems to be doing fine with Horizon, hopefully a new IP
- 16bitvoid 3y ago
  I wish they would bring SOCOM back.
  - throwaway106382 3y ago
    that would be so awesome, Socom was my absolute favorite game on the PS2 and there hasn't really been anythign to capture that same magic since
- nocsi 3y ago
  In 10 years Sony… I don’t think Sony is intending to go all out on gaming going forward. They’ve been figuring out how to cross pollinate their IPs into media productions. It certainly will make them more money in the long term but some people might be turned off with how much they milk each franchise before moving onto a new IP. Naughty dog is working on LoU3 and Guerilla is working on Horizon Remaster, Horizon Multiplayer and supposedly a non horizon game..
xxpor 3y ago
It would be incredibly stupid for MS to make CoD an xbox exclusive and completely misses the business case for buying Activision in the first place. Remember, MS is in business to make money, not to win the console wars. Buying the CoD (etc) IP at an inflated price and then immediately cutting off more than half of the revenue would be so mind-boggingly stupid, almost to the point of malpractice. This is why they really don't even need to be forced into saying they'll maintain it for 10 years on PS. It's all about moving gaming to a recurring revenue model. So you don't care about if the consumer made a one time purchase of your console (in fact, you might even prefer they didn't if you're losing money on each one!), but you do care about the fact that they're playing your games. Ben Thompson put it better than I could: > Notice that this is for games that are purchased, and keep in mind that Microsoft’s goal with the Activision acquisition is not to gain exclusive games to sell but rather games to subscribe to. As I’ve argued the only way this acquisition makes sense is the extent to which it makes possible a new business model for gaming; simply buying exclusives via established titles like Call of Duty would be hugely value destructive. >What is notable about Microsoft’s subscription push is that it aligns the company’s Xbox division with Microsoft’s overall push towards cloud computing and subscription services. What is interesting to consider are two questions: >First, would Microsoft have ever gone down this path absent the investment in its original (failed) Xbox strategy? I would argue the answer is no; this is a reasonable leveraging of Xbox assets, but I do wonder if Microsoft could go back two decades if they would even bother. >Second, if regulators were to kill this deal (Microsoft still needs approval from the UK and the US) would Xbox be long for this world? It’s hard to see how the division makes sense if Microsoft has the current business model dictated to them, given just how dominant Sony is with said business model. https://stratechery.com/2023/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-acquisition-microsoft-and-google-earnings/ https://stratechery.com/2023/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-... (paywalled)
- darknavi 3y ago
  I totally agree. Xbox in the past 5-10 years really has been "Play our games where ever, just give us your money". I just don't really get the argument of "We won't do this for 10 years". OK, what about after that?
NoRelToEmber 3y ago
> How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? Microsoft has been around for 4x that long. "The slow blade penetrates the shield."
justinclift 3y ago
Yeah. Looking at past form, after the MS anti-trust agreement in the EU expired (the browser choice one), MS have now gone all-in to force Edge down everyone's throat. They're clearly "Ok, we have more room to legally get away with XYZ now so LETS GO FOR IT!!!!".
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  MS is the definition of a Slippery Slope in action.
shmerl 3y ago
Why can't MS play along with the industry and support Vulkan on Xbox though? That would make them not look like the worst lock-in examples of the '90s. Feels like these kind of issues are what anti-trust should have handled.
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  I don't think they really care what people think until it becomes a really major issue. MS has been through this these fazes so many times in the past and look at were they are. It doesn't seem to have slowed them down that much. That lock in of the 90's never really stopped, they just figure out how to make it look better. The only times they gave up on the lock in was when it was starting to look really bad and even then they just pivot the messaging and then try to lock themselves in. Look at MS with "We love Linux", it didn't slow Windows down one bit.
  - shmerl 3y ago
    Well, that's what you think competition law should have fixed. But yeah, it's pretty toothless in practice.
- dave7 3y ago
  A large chunk of the entire purpose of Xbox is to cement DirectX as the default option to perpetuate that lock-in. It's even in the name: The Direct X-Box!
  - shmerl 3y ago
    Yeah, clearly. But that's my point. Competition law should focus on preventing lock-in like this.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Playstation and Nintendo's support of Vulkan isn't exactly stellar. They support Vulkan the same way Unity/Unreal Engine support Linux.
wredue 3y ago
Why would you be a huge fan of the man who’s single handedly responsible for sinking the Xbox IP ship to the point of having to monopolize the industry to right the ship? I’m surprised people didn’t wake up with the One era lies he kept pushing, and given HNs general distaste for “marketer talk”, how can one be a fan of a dude that every time he opens his mouth, it’s marketing talk (when it’s not a lie). This dude would constantly say shit like “the console wars are stupid. We need to all get along”. And then when pressed about “hidden DGPU” that he knew didn’t exist, he lies and responds “we are not letting Sony have a hardware advantage”. This dude is a scumbag. He’s been terrible for Xbox, and now his horrid management of Xbox has led to being terrible for gaming in general. Big fan? Nah.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  You're thinking of Don Mattrick.
  - wredue 3y ago
    I am most definitely not, Mattick was Mr “we have a console for that, the Xbox 360” ultimately leading to Spencer taking his role over. Spencer was 100% the dude saying “we’re not letting Sony have a hardware advantage” although I may have mixed up which obviously bullshit Xbox fanboy excuse it was about. None of it really matter though, because even forgetting Phil obviously constantly fanning the console wars, he’s presided over Xbox for what like 10 years? In that time, what he’s managed to do is be a baby, and complain that his ineffective management is leading to their console having no games.
W4RH4WK55 3y ago
A bit of a loaded question, but how do you feel about xbox f-in up major titles like Halo Infinite and Phil Spencer just saying "yep, we are sorry, that's on me". When a) there doesn't seem to be any change in quality assurance (see Redfall) and b) the devs still take the hit (see 343). To me it's incomprehensible how they managed to f-up Halo Infinite, then just stand there in silence and then say, yeah we are sorry for not having a lot of interesting titles on Xbox, but here's what's coming next year. If I were a game dev at Microsoft, I'd be furious!
lucubratory 3y ago
The judge considers it reasonable because if the market is as the FTC defines it and if Call of Duty is actually an essential input for a competitor in the "high-performance gaming console" space, then those commitments from Microsoft give Sony ten years to innovate and come up with a replacement for CoD. It makes a lot more sense if you read the whole judgement, Judge Corley is basically saying "Most of what the FTC is asserting is questionable, but even if we assume that their assertions are correct, the argument to temporarily prevent & potentially permanently ban the deal to prevent harm there is little evidence for is not strong enough to harm Microsoft and Activision in this way". There's other stuff that had some impact as well, like how the FTC knew the deals deadline (six days from now) more than a year ago, but only chose to bring the PI motion recently, giving Microsoft barely any time to prepare (and making the federal judge in this case have to work some unusual hours, including the entire weekend, because it's now so time critical). Basically, a lot more went into this decision than just the ten year agreements.
happymellon 3y ago
> Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. Yeah, heard that one before. > Oh but we promised Call of Duty and this is Duty Called, so we don't have to care about anything we have promised before. I mean, this is Microsoft.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>What happens after 10 years? Optimistically, Sony utilizes their Bungie aquisition and makes something worthy as a competitor. I imagine the 10 years is less a promise and more of a timer, and 10 years is enough for a AAA company to get at least a few attempts. Pessimistically, MS drives Activision to the ground and COD isn't even a valuable IP anymore. Bigger icons have fallen from grace faster.

lesuorac 3y ago

> How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? What happens in less than 10 years if they don't abide by it? Does Activision get split back out? I doubt it. We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. We need to be at the point where we also list the punishment ahead of time.

jxramos 3y ago
that's not a bad idea, laws without punishments are kind of ambiguous I suppose. I wonder the utility of leaving this open, is it tantamount to mandatory sentencing and takes freedom away from the judge or something like that.
re-thc 3y ago
> What happens in less than 10 years if they don't abide by it? Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. > We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. What's the rule / law here anyhow? There are always workarounds, e.g. it says it will keep it in parity with xbox... well what if they called a new console something else?
- stale2002 3y ago
  You know that Sony could just agree to a contract with microsoft over this right? If they write up a contract with penalty provisions, this could able be guaranteed through civil court. It is not some crazy unsolved question as to how to get a company to commit to something in the future.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  > Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. No kidding. They could just introduce a new game franchise called "Duty of Call - Warfare That's Modern" and make that Xbox exclusive instead. Or any number of other workarounds and sneaky tactics.
- vkou 3y ago
  > Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. Likely Sony will take them to the cleaners.
mysterydip 3y ago
Most likely a fine far less than the money gained from not abiding by the law, if history is anything to go by.
oh_sigh 3y ago
Depends how good Sony's lawyers are. Theoretically the courts could offer an injunction preventing sale of the CoD until it is also available on whatever equivalent Playstation type system there is.
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  Sony vs MS lawyers... that would be messy... and fun to watch. grabs popocorn Would they just build a COD that is dependent on specific MS tech so they cannot release it on competing systems? Why not try and rebrand Call of Duty so that it isn't in violation? Just call it 'Duty'. It starts to get very grey very quickly.
dathinab 3y ago
You mean like Facebook/WhatsApp which committed to not do some things and that certain things aren't even technically possible (which even back then was a lie) to get the merger through in the EU and then a few years later was, oh that, yep, let's ignore it and just turn it into a long legal battle which will anyway cost us far less then what we gain from it.
- swyx 3y ago
  what has fb gained from whatsapp? theyre not charging for it right?
  - dybber 3y ago
    One big competitor less to worry about
  - Jochim 3y ago
    The phone contacts and social graph of everyone using WhatsApp.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. We're not, but this is pretty nebulous stuff. The state blocking freely agreed transactions because it can foresee some damage is not exactly a clear cut good, other than for people who are reassured by the idea of the state as a benevolent, all-knowing mom and pop, and for the lawyers who get paid a fortune to debate past and future hypotheticals. What about this: allow the merger, and if the harm is done, the company must pay, but if the harm is not done, the state must pay?
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Because if there is harm the companies pay so little it's just written off as cost of doing business. Yet the harms too often continue. Companies with more resources than small countries are often too big to regulate because they capture the regulators and/or the judiciary. Prevention is cheaper than treatment, especially when treatments have proven so ineffective.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Companies with more resources than small countries are often too big to regulate because they capture the regulators and/or the judiciary. Regulatory capture is entirely the fault of the regulator. They don't have to be captured. They choose to be. A government body, funded by taxes, that decides to be captured, is a complete disgrace. People work hard to pay taxes, and they shouldn't be spent on employing people who choose to align with those they should be regulating. > Prevention is cheaper than treatment, especially when treatments have proven so ineffective. The same state that has the power to prevent has the power to treat. It chooses not to. Switching approach won't help. Getting regulators to do their jobs will.
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      I wish it were that simple. Sadly a large portion of US voters seem to think a revolving door with "industry experts" (i.e. insiders) is desirable. And that courts should defer to business interests above all else.

changeslitl 3y ago

[dead]

LocalH 3y ago

> I am a huge can of Phil Spencer I'm sure Phil Spencer will be interested to know that he can fit into a can :)

darknavi 3y ago
I AM a HUGE can of Phil Spencer lmao. Fixed.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

[flagged]

Retric 3y ago
It’s not about Sony, but customers that own a PS and not an XBox. Microsoft loves to buy studios and restrict access, just look a Halo it was introduced as a Mac game by the studio, Microsoft bought them specifically for XBox and fuck anyone that owned a Mac. 2 years after release they released a copy of the first game because all the work was done. Nothing from the rest of the series.
- pathartl 3y ago
  Please, Apple has been shooting themselves in the foot with gaming for decades. Halo: CE was also released for the Mac, so I'm not sure what the complaint is here.
  - frumper 3y ago
    If you were a Mac gamer it seems fair to complain about a game going from being made for Mac to a port 2 years after it was released.
  - Retric 3y ago
    What are you blaming Apple for Microsoft’s direct customer harm here? A more than 2 year delay for the first game and never getting the rest of the series is a major downside for existing customers. That’s exactly the kind of monopolist behavior you are supposed to block mergers for. Waiting 2 years cost Microsoft a little revenue directly, but pushed XBox sales which was far more valuable.
  - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
    lol right? Halo would have been a flop if it was Mac exclusive. Keep in mind, this was back in the year ~2000. Mac market share in the home user market was a rounding error. Schools were full of iMacs, but at home, it was all Windows.

throwaway106382 3y ago

in 10 years I fully expect Sony to have a competitive first party title exclusive to playstation, now that they actually have to give a damn. I love the killzone series but Guerilla seems to be doing fine with Horizon, hopefully a new IP

16bitvoid 3y ago
I wish they would bring SOCOM back.
- throwaway106382 3y ago
  that would be so awesome, Socom was my absolute favorite game on the PS2 and there hasn't really been anythign to capture that same magic since
nocsi 3y ago
In 10 years Sony… I don’t think Sony is intending to go all out on gaming going forward. They’ve been figuring out how to cross pollinate their IPs into media productions. It certainly will make them more money in the long term but some people might be turned off with how much they milk each franchise before moving onto a new IP. Naughty dog is working on LoU3 and Guerilla is working on Horizon Remaster, Horizon Multiplayer and supposedly a non horizon game..

xxpor 3y ago

It would be incredibly stupid for MS to make CoD an xbox exclusive and completely misses the business case for buying Activision in the first place. Remember, MS is in business to make money, not to win the console wars. Buying the CoD (etc) IP at an inflated price and then immediately cutting off more than half of the revenue would be so mind-boggingly stupid, almost to the point of malpractice. This is why they really don't even need to be forced into saying they'll maintain it for 10 years on PS. It's all about moving gaming to a recurring revenue model. So you don't care about if the consumer made a one time purchase of your console (in fact, you might even prefer they didn't if you're losing money on each one!), but you do care about the fact that they're playing your games. Ben Thompson put it better than I could: > Notice that this is for games that are purchased, and keep in mind that Microsoft’s goal with the Activision acquisition is not to gain exclusive games to sell but rather games to subscribe to. As I’ve argued the only way this acquisition makes sense is the extent to which it makes possible a new business model for gaming; simply buying exclusives via established titles like Call of Duty would be hugely value destructive. >What is notable about Microsoft’s subscription push is that it aligns the company’s Xbox division with Microsoft’s overall push towards cloud computing and subscription services. What is interesting to consider are two questions: >First, would Microsoft have ever gone down this path absent the investment in its original (failed) Xbox strategy? I would argue the answer is no; this is a reasonable leveraging of Xbox assets, but I do wonder if Microsoft could go back two decades if they would even bother. >Second, if regulators were to kill this deal (Microsoft still needs approval from the UK and the US) would Xbox be long for this world? It’s hard to see how the division makes sense if Microsoft has the current business model dictated to them, given just how dominant Sony is with said business model. https://stratechery.com/2023/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-acquisition-microsoft-and-google-earnings/ https://stratechery.com/2023/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-... (paywalled)

darknavi 3y ago
I totally agree. Xbox in the past 5-10 years really has been "Play our games where ever, just give us your money". I just don't really get the argument of "We won't do this for 10 years". OK, what about after that?

NoRelToEmber 3y ago

> How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? Microsoft has been around for 4x that long. "The slow blade penetrates the shield."

justinclift 3y ago

Yeah. Looking at past form, after the MS anti-trust agreement in the EU expired (the browser choice one), MS have now gone all-in to force Edge down everyone's throat. They're clearly "Ok, we have more room to legally get away with XYZ now so LETS GO FOR IT!!!!".

NovaDudely 3y ago
MS is the definition of a Slippery Slope in action.

shmerl 3y ago

Why can't MS play along with the industry and support Vulkan on Xbox though? That would make them not look like the worst lock-in examples of the '90s. Feels like these kind of issues are what anti-trust should have handled.

NovaDudely 3y ago
I don't think they really care what people think until it becomes a really major issue. MS has been through this these fazes so many times in the past and look at were they are. It doesn't seem to have slowed them down that much. That lock in of the 90's never really stopped, they just figure out how to make it look better. The only times they gave up on the lock in was when it was starting to look really bad and even then they just pivot the messaging and then try to lock themselves in. Look at MS with "We love Linux", it didn't slow Windows down one bit.
- shmerl 3y ago
  Well, that's what you think competition law should have fixed. But yeah, it's pretty toothless in practice.
dave7 3y ago
A large chunk of the entire purpose of Xbox is to cement DirectX as the default option to perpetuate that lock-in. It's even in the name: The Direct X-Box!
- shmerl 3y ago
  Yeah, clearly. But that's my point. Competition law should focus on preventing lock-in like this.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Playstation and Nintendo's support of Vulkan isn't exactly stellar. They support Vulkan the same way Unity/Unreal Engine support Linux.

wredue 3y ago

Why would you be a huge fan of the man who’s single handedly responsible for sinking the Xbox IP ship to the point of having to monopolize the industry to right the ship? I’m surprised people didn’t wake up with the One era lies he kept pushing, and given HNs general distaste for “marketer talk”, how can one be a fan of a dude that every time he opens his mouth, it’s marketing talk (when it’s not a lie). This dude would constantly say shit like “the console wars are stupid. We need to all get along”. And then when pressed about “hidden DGPU” that he knew didn’t exist, he lies and responds “we are not letting Sony have a hardware advantage”. This dude is a scumbag. He’s been terrible for Xbox, and now his horrid management of Xbox has led to being terrible for gaming in general. Big fan? Nah.

pjmlp 3y ago
You're thinking of Don Mattrick.
- wredue 3y ago
  I am most definitely not, Mattick was Mr “we have a console for that, the Xbox 360” ultimately leading to Spencer taking his role over. Spencer was 100% the dude saying “we’re not letting Sony have a hardware advantage” although I may have mixed up which obviously bullshit Xbox fanboy excuse it was about. None of it really matter though, because even forgetting Phil obviously constantly fanning the console wars, he’s presided over Xbox for what like 10 years? In that time, what he’s managed to do is be a baby, and complain that his ineffective management is leading to their console having no games.

W4RH4WK55 3y ago

A bit of a loaded question, but how do you feel about xbox f-in up major titles like Halo Infinite and Phil Spencer just saying "yep, we are sorry, that's on me". When a) there doesn't seem to be any change in quality assurance (see Redfall) and b) the devs still take the hit (see 343). To me it's incomprehensible how they managed to f-up Halo Infinite, then just stand there in silence and then say, yeah we are sorry for not having a lot of interesting titles on Xbox, but here's what's coming next year. If I were a game dev at Microsoft, I'd be furious!

lucubratory 3y ago

The judge considers it reasonable because if the market is as the FTC defines it and if Call of Duty is actually an essential input for a competitor in the "high-performance gaming console" space, then those commitments from Microsoft give Sony ten years to innovate and come up with a replacement for CoD. It makes a lot more sense if you read the whole judgement, Judge Corley is basically saying "Most of what the FTC is asserting is questionable, but even if we assume that their assertions are correct, the argument to temporarily prevent & potentially permanently ban the deal to prevent harm there is little evidence for is not strong enough to harm Microsoft and Activision in this way". There's other stuff that had some impact as well, like how the FTC knew the deals deadline (six days from now) more than a year ago, but only chose to bring the PI motion recently, giving Microsoft barely any time to prepare (and making the federal judge in this case have to work some unusual hours, including the entire weekend, because it's now so time critical). Basically, a lot more went into this decision than just the ten year agreements.

happymellon 3y ago

> Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. Yeah, heard that one before. > Oh but we promised Call of Duty and this is Duty Called, so we don't have to care about anything we have promised before. I mean, this is Microsoft.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>What happens after 10 years? Optimistically, Sony utilizes their Bungie aquisition and makes something worthy as a competitor. I imagine the 10 years is less a promise and more of a timer, and 10 years is enough for a AAA company to get at least a few attempts. Pessimistically, MS drives Activision to the ground and COD isn't even a valuable IP anymore. Bigger icons have fallen from grace faster.