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[feynoob]

They had plenty of good exclusives. They just didn't own the rights to some of them. That isn't going to be a problem going forward so they've learned an expensive lesson.

That is the problem.
MS should have owned the rights for those games. It would have helped their platform.

Right now, their big IP is from zenimax.

 

[DarkMage619]

That is the problem.
MS should have owned the rights for those games. It would have helped their platform.

Right now, their big IP is from zenimax.

They should have bought Bioware. They aren't letting that sort of talent go now.

 

[feynoob]

It’s very possible that MS cannot add CoD to GamePass before the end of the marketing agreements if the contract says so. I have no idea what’s in those contracts of course.

But I personally don’t believe it’s the case as it would have come up in the discussion already - MS would have used that argument against the « foreclosing by price » one that Sony used.

I think it's new COD. Old cod could still come to game pass.

 

[reinking]

 

[ToadMan]

I've mentioned this before. People disregarded it. I know it will be disregarded once more, but ...

Microsoft never said, "Game Pass is profitable." Phil was talking about a very different thing, and it was a very long-winded answer, and online publications like Windows Central and The Verge just ran with it and wrote headings like "Game Pass is Profitable, says Phil Spencer" when he never actually said it.

He only said "it is profitable" (not Game Pass is profitable), and the "it" referred to the subscription services role in the overall revenue of the Xbox division being limited only to 10-15% of the total revenue because a bigger revenue share would cannibalize game sales even more and that wouldn't be profitable for Xbox.

If you read the second paragraph, you will see it. The "it" refers to Xbox content and services revenue -- not Game Pass.

The quote was "I think it will stay in the 10-15% range and it's profitable for us" from the WSJ tech live interview.

It being Gamepass.

My personal thoughts is gamepass can be a loss leader for the real money, store transactions similar to Prime.

P.s. 'for us' is an interesting phrase for sure but they weren't talking about the content and service revenue.

We are always looking for the accurate meaning in MS statements... well at least for gaming. They seem to be able to convey their meaning accurately when it comes to OS, or Office or Cloud.

Whether it's "profitable for us", or "more games on more screens" or "on-track ray-tracing". And most recently, "breakout title!"

Oh and "these games are releasing in the next 12 months"...

Oh and "Gamepass increases sales" (or words to that effect - I can't be bothered to lookup the quote now).

Oh and "No incentive to take zenimax games exclusive" (or words to that effect - I can't be bothered to lookup the quote now).

It seems like every time MS makes a declaration, we have to read between the lines - I wouldn't spend that much time considering my Dark Souls build, never mind consumer statements from a videogame supplier.

 

[feynoob]

 

[DryvBy]

I leave for a couple of weeks, come back and we're discussing the US constitution? Fun times.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

A company which spends $70bn only to have that investment rendered much lower value by the unilateral act of a competitor, would indeed be fatally wounded. Share price tanks, senior management dismissed. That's what the CMA concluded when they said there is "no plausible scenario" for MS to foreclose COD on PS.

That's not what CMA concluded but if that's your understanding then it is fine. The idea that by blocking COD on PS Sony would tank the share price of Microsoft is hilarious though.

You know what's interesting? Even that 70b expense does not affect MSFT's operation baseline.

 

[sainraja]

That's just you projecting, isn't it? Or at least, failing to properly parse what I'm saying. Because I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the response you quoted that says 'everything is just fine' or 'Xbox does not need to change anything'.

There's a very wide space between 'Xbox is executing perfectly' and 'Xbox is doomed to become third party in a few years'.

You are pretty dismissive of opinions that don't directly fall in line with yours. For example, the person you quoted brought up mobile as an area MS wants to grow in, and you dismissed that by trying to define what "cloud" is and what devices it can be used on (he wasn't questioning this, btw), when his point centered on MS wanting to use cloud as an option to grow in the mobile space, about how that might be good or bad and what challenges they face.

The funny thing is, he wrote what he said as "cloud/mobile" and expanded on why he thinks going after mobile might not work out as they hope. So far, I am completely ignoring the fact that your response does not address the point he was raising at all... and you are saying that I am having trouble understanding what you are saying? lol

 

[ToadMan]

That's not what CMA concluded but if that's your understanding then it is fine. The idea that by blocking COD on PS Sony would tank the share price of Microsoft is hilarious though.

I think you didn't read the CMA amendment.

You know what's interesting? Even that 70b expense does not affect MSFT's operation baseline.

With MS somewhere north of around $100bn in cash, spending $70bn of that and then seeing it go to zero. Yeah, that is a problem for any company. Especially when it's the largest acquisition MS has attempted. Cash is to be invested in growth - not loss.

 

[ToadMan]

It’s very possible that MS cannot add CoD to GamePass before the end of the marketing agreements if the contract says so. I have no idea what’s in those contracts of course.

But I personally don’t believe it’s the case as it would have come up in the discussion already - MS would have used that argument against the « foreclosing by price » one that Sony used.

Perhaps. Sony seems to be putting a lot of MS content on their sub anyway. Perhaps there's an equivalence requirement.

 

[ToadMan]

If Sony refuses COD, their shareholders will be pissed off badly.

Activision blizzard brings these amount of money to Sony platform.

Quite right.

Which is why the CMA argument is specious.

Content drives platform adoption, not the other way around.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Now this thread is discussing the idea of Sony "refusing" COD?

Good lord people.. get back to reality.

 

[Elios83]

Sony refusing COD doesn't make business sense. They would damage Activision/Microsoft but they would also damage themselves as much?
The will continue to take the COD revenues gladly but they will develop other games with the help of talented developers (see Bungie, Deviation Games, Firewalk and other teams), they will get marketing deals with games from the competition (ex. EA).
The goal will be to bridge their installed base to these new games giving the spotlight to them and trying to make COD redundant so that they're not reliant on it anymore.
They will definetly have some of these projects ready in 2024 and 2025 so we'll see this strategy put in place as soon as their marketing contract with Activision expires.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Do you take everything that every bureaucrat says at face value? Or just this one?

It's not my opinion. What's happening at the FTC since she took over is well documented and doesn't support a "just trying to defend competition" position. In reality it's been her attempting to redefine competition based on her personal ideology and removing everyone in the FTC who doesn't fall in line with her personal agenda. But the law defines what anti-trust means in the US, not agencies like the FTC and DOJ. These agencies are supposed to take their findings of fact to the courts and advise Congress on changes needed to law, not supplant those agencies by creating their own courts and laws. You're setting it up like she's doing the right thing for the right reasons, but she's actually doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. Makes sense, though, as you live in a country that's more comfortable with government authority controlling more aspects of your life.

When it comes to the Constitution you clearly have no idea what it means. Freedom in the US is based on a system that aims to protect citizens from the tyranny of government by limiting the control that government can exert over us. That's how the Constitution serves citizens. By giving citizens a level of freedom and autonomy that you can't seem to comprehend. Getting away from controlling autocracy is the entire point of the US Constitution.

Practically, so far no regulatory body has found that enough harm to competition will occur to outright block this acquisition. It could still happen. The process isn't finished yet. If it is blocked it likely won't be by the FTC because independently blocking mergers and acquisitions is not a power they have. Only the courts can do that here.

As I said, unless you are saying the US Constitution isn't to defend the rights of it citizens primarily - as is the commonality of all legal systems in all modern democracies in the world -then it is all word play.

In the cnbc interview I was more interested in the interviewers' cynicisms of US companies anti-trust actions than taking Lina's word by themselves. It was three intelligent people that aren't drinking the cool aid discussing the ways that the "tyranny" you mentioned exists wherever the power/wealth exists, to the extent that the interviewers directly discussed the lobbying and messaging power of the corporations being greater than the most powerful government on the planet and how under resource they are to take up every case to deter anti-trust.

Your barometer must be way off if you can't see the trend of wealth distribution in the last 100years accelerating to a unhealthy place, then rapidly getting worse in the last 40years, and accelerating faster again in the last 10-15years, where we'd never had a $1Trillion company in the world, and then we quickly had a few - I mean even Nvidia are closing in on that - and then we had multi trillion dollar companies. To what extent do the 1% need to control the entire world's wealth for you to no longer see someone like Lina Khan or those interviewers as the problem?

 

[ReBurn]

The authorities have no power to force a platform holder to accept content.



Marketing contracts would include clauses forcing the platform holder to host the product for sale? I guess it's possible, but I can also imagine this is a scenario netither party envisaged when the marketing deal was signed.

Sony wanted the rights to "drive engagement' with PS platforms, and ABK wanted the agreement to offset risk and drive revenue. Difficult to imagine either party was expecting MS to become the controlling party of COD. Then again, if that was a consideration, I'd also assume that the agreement has exit clauses to account for changing competitive environments.



A company which spends $70bn only to have that investment rendered much lower value by the unilateral act of a competitor, would indeed be fatally wounded. Share price tanks, senior management dismissed. That's what the CMA concluded when they said there is "no plausible scenario" for MS to foreclose COD on PS.

If you credit the CMA analysis that is....

I can fully understand why Sony is against this deal. They currently have the ability to market Call of Duty in a way that makes it seem to the average consumer that the game is only available, or at least best, on PlayStation. People who want to play Call of Duty will buy PlayStation because Sony can put the logo on their console packaging and have the ads feature their watermarks, cementing that COD is synonymous with PlayStation.

When Microsoft buys ABK Sony is in the situation where they are now paying to market a game produced by one of their competitors and the lion's share of the revenue from their efforts goes to that competitor. Think of what happens when Sony loses their marketing rights when the current deal expires. Microsoft can now produce ads that make it look like Xbox is primarily where the game lives and they can put the COD logo on Xbox packaging to tell customers what to buy. People new to console gaming may choose to buy Xbox instead because of it. I can definitely see why Jim Ryan would call any deal inadequate. They lose something more valuable than a 30% cut of COD digital sales. They lose the ability to use one of the most recognizable games as a gateway to their platform.

I don't think Sony will just refuse COD on their platform because that accelerates the likelihood of people leaving PlayStation for other platforms. If someone who bought a PS5 last year for COD can't play the new version because Sony won't allow it they'll leave the platform. Sony will want to keep the customers they have and give them a reason to stay buy continuing to allow the game. It just won't be as valuable as it used to be.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

A company which spends $70bn only to have that investment rendered much lower value by the unilateral act of a competitor, would indeed be fatally wounded. Share price tanks, senior management dismissed. That's what the CMA concluded when they said there is "no plausible scenario" for MS to foreclose COD on PS.

If you credit the CMA analysis that is....

Microsoft's share price would take a hit. But the "$2T company" would be able to recover from an overvalued acquisition.

Microsoft would not be bleeding money, they just wouldn't make as much.


It's a weird hypothetical because Sony would be putting a shotgun in their mouth hoping the pellets take out Microsoft behind them.

 

[Ozriel]

You are pretty dismissive of opinions that don't directly fall in line with yours. For example, the person you quoted brought up mobile as an area MS wants to grow in, and you dismissed that by trying to define what "cloud" is and what devices it can be used on (he wasn't questioning this, btw), when his point centered on MS wanting to use cloud as an option to grow in the mobile space, about how that might be good or bad and what challenges they face.

The funny thing is, he wrote what he said as "cloud/mobile" and expanded on why he thinks going after mobile might not work out as they hope. So far, I am completely ignoring the fact that your response does not address the point he was raising at all... and you are saying that I am having trouble understanding what you are saying? lol

The fellow basically says “go all in on cloud/mobile” and says it’s a losing strategy because 'there’s only a limited amount of people that want to play console games on their mobile phones'. I then explain to him that ‘Cloud’ isn’t about mobile only and that its success and failure doesn’t necessarily rest on luring players away from Mobile storefronts.

Where’s the controversy there?

Your summary isn’t really apt. He doesn’t cite mobile as an option or cloud subset, for example. in the subsequent paragraph he talks about MS assigning devs to make mobile content for their first party strategy to work. Does that seem plausible to you?

Ironically, in my response to him, I focused on countering his points. Conversely, your initial response to me was a strawman argument. Go figure.

 

[Ozriel]

The revenue percentage that gamepass has is meaningless in trying to find if it's profitable. Most of the rest of the revenue is going to be hardware and mtxs. Very little of it game sales. I suspect even right now GP revenue is above premium game sales on xbox.

Royalties from third party games? Sales on Steam and Xbox retail?

If the CMA is accurate, there is “no plausible scenario” MS take COD from PS without major losses.

Which begs the question, if they can fatally wound MS as a whole by rendering this acquisition a massive loss, why wouldn’t Sony simply cancel COD on PS the day the acquisition is approved, and see MS disappear from gaming?

Because the CMA uses the term 'significant losses', not 'major losses', and never claimed any such loss would be a 'fatal wound'. It's also not mentioned, but such a withholding strategy would also see Sony take significant revenue drop.

Blocking COD on PlayStation would make no sense, and even it that were to happen, it's not going to make MS disappear from gaming or diminish their ability to compete. I suggest you drop this line of thought

 

[Godot25]

Oh and "Gamepass increases sales" (or words to that effect - I can't be bothered to lookup the quote now).

You mean like this?

 

[ToadMan]

Microsoft's share price would take a hit. But the "$2T company" would be able to recover from an overvalued acquisition.

Microsoft would not be bleeding money, they just wouldn't make as much.


It's a weird hypothetical because Sony would be putting a shotgun in their mouth hoping the pellets take out Microsoft behind them.

Investors trust and expect the board to make financially competent investments.

$70bn to allow a competitor fundamentally make that investment worthless is fatal for the board. No company gets to a trillion dollar valuation by throwing away money.

But again, that is the CMA assessment of this acquisition. They’ve seen the internal data - I haven’t.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I think you didn't read the CMA amendment.

I did, and the only conclusion we can have is that they would lose revenue if they were to remove COD from Playstation. But mortally wound? Nowhere near.

With MS somewhere north of around $100bn in cash, spending $70bn of that and then seeing it go to zero. Yeah, that is a problem for any company. Especially when it's the largest acquisition MS has attempted. Cash is to be invested in growth - not loss.

You do understand that Microsoft gets around 20b every 3 months in pure profits? Since the announcement of the deal they essentially earned around 100b in profits. They also make 200b revenue yearly and thus 1.5 year is 300b revenue.

$70bn to allow a competitor fundamentally make that investment worthless is fatal for the board

Again, this "70b investment" does not live or die due to Playstation. In a grand scheme of things, COD on PS is not relevant much. It is more relevant for Sony, otherwise they would not cry that much.

 

[Three]

Royalties from third party games? Sales on Steam and Xbox retail?

Sorry but I don't understand the question. What are you asking exactly?

The royalties from third party, first party xbox premium game sales are what I'm talking about. I would 3ven include steam fp too.

 

[ToadMan]

It's also not mentioned, but such a withholding strategy would also see Sony take significant revenue drop.

And yet cheerleaders for this acquisition say Sony will be “just fine” even if MS forecloses COD.

Cake -> eat -> cake.

 

[Lasha]

As I said, unless you are saying the US Constitution isn't to defend the rights of it citizens primarily - as is the commonality of all legal systems in all modern democracies in the world -then it is all word play.

In the cnbc interview I was more interested in the interviewers' cynicisms of US companies anti-trust actions than taking Lina's word by themselves. It was three intelligent people that aren't drinking the cool aid discussing the ways that the "tyranny" you mentioned exists wherever the power/wealth exists, to the extent that the interviewers directly discussed the lobbying and messaging power of the corporations being greater than the most powerful government on the planet and how under resource they are to take up every case to deter anti-trust.

Your barometer must be way off if you can't see the trend of wealth distribution in the last 100years accelerating to a unhealthy place, then rapidly getting worse in the last 40years, and accelerating faster again in the last 10-15years, where we'd never had a $1Trillion company in the world, and then we quickly had a few - I mean even Nvidia are closing in on that - and then we had multi trillion dollar companies. To what extent do the 1% need to control the entire world's wealth for you to no longer see someone like Lina Khan or those interviewers as the problem?

We never had a $1T company because $1T used to represent a significantly higher amount of wealth than it did before 30 years of printing money. Microsoft In 1999 is a trillion dollar company in today's dollars.

 

[ToadMan]

I did, and the only conclusion we can have is that they would lose revenue if they were to remove COD from Playstation. But mortally wound? Nowhere near.

A company which sheds $70bn for very little ROI is indeed fatally wounded.

You do understand that Microsoft gets around 20b every 3 months in pure profits? Since the announcement of the deal they essentially earned around 100b in profits. They also make 200b revenue yearly and thus 1.5 year is 300b revenue.

wow.

Again, this "70b investment" does not live or die due to Playstation. In a grand scheme of things, COD on PS is not relevant much. It is more relevant for Sony, otherwise they would not cry that much.

According to the CMA this 70bn does indeed live and die on COD on PS.

If one agrees with the CMA that is …

 

[feynoob]

You mean like this?

Wishlist part is true.

You cant buy a game if you dont have the budget. So wishlist is pointless, if you cant find a funding for that game.

I have several wishlist games, which I cant buy, due to my limit budget.

 

[ToadMan]

I have several wishlist games, which I cant buy, due to my limit budget.

Feel the pain here.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

where is the countdown?

 

[Bernardougf]

Only Microsoft can make so many acquisitions and still gain no ground on the competition. You would think the xbox brand would spread leprosy, the way its avoided by people. Especially Europe. Even in America they are losing ground.

They are on cusp of acquiring the biggest publisher in the industry, yet they are getting outsold 2 to 1 on their strongest turf. I mean its not like sony have a much cheaper console or have even released that many games, so what is the reason for this? Don't both systems have hogwarts and resident evil 4? Sony are getting massive boosts while Microsoft are down yoy. It's a mindshare problem. Will owning Activision change this in any way? We'll have to see. Shifting mindshare is very difficult though. Maybe cod exclusivity is the only way for Microsoft to even begin turning things around.

Bingo... I hope all the shills are here when MS does the 180 and make COD exclusive .. there are going to be many receipts to be charged

 

[reksveks]

where is the countdown?

Doing it in my head, was genuinely going to say how many hours til 5pm on the Wednesday.

46 hrs

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

A company which sheds $70bn for very little ROI is indeed fatally wounded.

Not really. That's the thing with big tech giants - they can spend that amount of money just as investment and don't bother much. As long as Azure is doing good, MSFT stakeholders won't care.

According to the CMA this 70bn does indeed live and die on COD on PS.

Not since the moment they removed console SLC. And in fact even then their conclusion was that PS would die without COD on Playstation. Not Microsoft lol

 

[feynoob]

It will be something like this for either outcome, so hold your brace and prepare for an impact.
Also keep an eye on this twitter.

 

[Bernoulli]

if microsoft puts COD on gamepass shareholders will be mad because it means losing alot of sales on xbox

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

It will be something like this for either outcome, so hold your brace and prepare for an impact.
Also keep an eye on this twitter.

you mean this thread?

 

[feynoob]

you mean this thread?

Yes. I wont be available for that news, due to work and no free time

 

[feynoob]

if microsoft puts COD on gamepass shareholders will be mad because it means losing alot of sales on xbox

They will be happy, as that increases gamepass value for them, which means more numbers in the future.

 

[Bernoulli]

They will be happy, as that increases gamepass value for them, which means more numbers in the future.

shareholders want growth now not wait 10 years

 

[reksveks]

if microsoft puts COD on gamepass shareholders will be mad because it means losing alot of sales on xbox

Shareholders are given Nadella pretty wide range in terms of his actions in regards to xbox because it is currently a single digit part of the business and may still be if Bing and Azure grows. If they don't, I think it's going to be 12% of the MS annual business.

Short summary, shareholders don't particularly care yet. How many questions have MS answered about xbox in the last 1-2 years worth of earnings call?

 

[Bernoulli]

Shareholders are given Nadella pretty wide range in terms of his actions in regards to xbox because it is currently a single digit part of the business and may still be if Bing and Azure grows. If they don't, I think it's going to be 12% of the MS annual business.

Short summary, shareholders don't particularly care yet. How many questions have MS answered about xbox in the last 1-2 years worth of earnings call?

they spent 70 Billions so they care about getting it back and putting the game for free on gamepass is against that

 

[IntentionalPun]

they spent 70 Billions so they care about getting it back and putting the game for free on gamepass is against that

Them not putting COD on Gamepass would be them abandoning part of their core strategy they've been harping about for YEARS to shareholders.

(also, BTW, last I checked Gamepass wasn't "Free" lol)

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

if microsoft puts COD on gamepass shareholders will be mad because it means losing alot of sales on xbox

I highly doubt that any of shareholders are even playing games. Imagine Morgan Stanley asking about COD lol The main topics of Microsoft are AI and Azure. Not even Windows anymore.

they spent 70 Billions so they care about getting it back and putting the game for free on gamepass is against that

And again, for big tech giants spending money is not about ROI. They can afford such spendings because it does not affect their baseline.

 

[feynoob]

they spent 70 Billions so they care about getting it back and putting the game for free on gamepass is against that

70b is for other reason.
Mobile market, PC market, console market, plus gamepass.

Its not exclusive to gamepass. Plus they are not losing the value. They have assets in form of activision. That money is not going anywhere.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Investors trust and expect the board to make financially competent investments.

$70bn to allow a competitor fundamentally make that investment worthless is fatal for the board. No company gets to a trillion dollar valuation by throwing away money.

But again, that is the CMA assessment of this acquisition. They’ve seen the internal data - I haven’t.

Sony has flat out said if CoD goes exclusive, it will ruin them. They've even gone as far as to say a slightly worse version of CoD would lead to their ruin.

Even if Sony would kill itself to hurt Microsoft, the $70b acquisition doesn't become worthless. It loses value, but it's not worthless.

But Sony won't kill itself to hurt Microsoft. The fiduciary duty that Microsoft has also applies to Sony. These fiduciary duties ARE why companies can't just throw away money. That's why the CMA has come to the conclusion Microsoft wouldn't take CoD off Playstation. And it's why they wouldn't entertain this fantasy scenario where Sony cripples it's own business to devalue Microsoft's acquisition of ABK.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Mobile market, PC market, console market, plus gamepass.

I wonder if stakeholders are more excited about mobile market there. Though I presume the questions again will be about Azure and also AI.

 

[reksveks]

they spent 70 Billions so they care about getting it back and putting the game for free on gamepass is against that

They invested 70bn into an asset that they want to use to beat alternative investments. Who is the 'they' in your sentence? Microsoft or shareholders cause they are two different things.

 

[feynoob]

I wonder if stakeholders are more excited about mobile market there. Though I presume the questions again will be about Azure and also AI.

They should. Mobile is money printing machine.
With king+Xbox+Zenimax content is going to be insane for MS. That is alot of revenue.

Here is nintendo from mobile market.

As reported by mobilegamer.biz, the lifetime global player spending in Nintendo's mobile line-up currently stands at $1,797,000,000. Fire Emblem Heroes makes up a large chunk of the spending, with a total of $983 million in revenue making up roughly 55% of the total takings.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...g-usd1-8-billion-in-revenue-from-mobile-games

 

[TheGodfather07]

how many of you guys even play call of duty here? or even any activision games at all? i havent played an activision game since modern warfare 2.

 

[feynoob]

how many of you guys even play call of duty here? or even any activision games at all? i havent played an activision game since modern warfare 2.

I bought it in the wrong console(Xbox), instead of PC, due to sales.
Both cold war and vanguard.
Now that they are on steam, wont make the same mistake of buying them on consoles.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

how many of you guys even play call of duty here? or even any activision games at all? i havent played an activision game since modern warfare 2.

I haven't played a single COD game since MW3. I don't play FPS on consoles in general and my PC right now is not that strong and I mainly use Mac anyway.