Xbox Series S/X: Thread 04

[Yakumo]

I absolutely love quick resume, usually works really great. However I don't play on the cloud much, I know there are issues with that.

Yep, on console it works really well. There are one or two titles that have some minor niggles but overall it works perfectly.

[Yakumo]

It seems like the CMA is trying to protect Sony rather than people that buy consoles and games.

The person at the top is probably a Sony fanboy. You know, the type that would jizz their kecks everytime they read a copy of Edge magazine back in the day.

[nonny]

The hypocrisy of Sony is quite amazing in all this... they cry to the CMA citing MS potential to make IP they'd "own" exclusive and then they go and announce another year long timed exclusive with Silent Hill.

[Cassius_Smoke]

The hypocrisy of Sony is quite amazing in all this... they cry to the CMA citing MS potential to make IP they'd "own" exclusive and then they go and announce another year long timed exclusive with Silent Hill.

Wasn't MS last showcase 90% timed exclusives?

[Cassius_Smoke]

"A massive block of Activision Blizzard shares was recently sold off in a move that some are taking as a signal that the proposed sale to Microsoft might not happen due to regulatory concerns.”

“SeekingAlpha discovered (via Ethan Gach) that a block of 3.7 million shares sold recently at a price of $72.25 per share, netting the seller $267,325,000. That is obviously a huge sum, but whoever sold these shares--the report mentioned it might have been Goldman Sachs--would be taking a huge loss against the proposed sale price to Microsoft.”

“As Seeking Alpha mentions, the seller unloading 3.7 million shares might indicate that "traders are a bit skeptical that regulators will approve the deal around the world." That is to say, whoever sold the shares might not be feeling so confident that the deal will happen and they are looking to hedge against that.”


Whoever sold them was clearly getting nervous that the sale wouldn't go through.

[nonny]

Wasn't MS last showcase 90% timed exclusives?

It's true MS has timed exclusives, such as Scorn recently, but to my knowledge they're not a year long window or more and MS isn't then actively restricting them appearing on PS+... I'm not saying MS doesn't do exclusive deals.

Most of the 3rd party stuff in the last showcase was more day one in game pass them full on exclusive anyway. Or I'm having a hard time remembering which ones are timed.

In comparison you've got Sony essentially locking Final Fantasy down, grabbing Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo for a full year... Forspoken is another, and now Silent Hill.

With all this being current standard practices it's just surprising Sony has fed the CMA concerns over exclusivity deals as a whole.

[Cassius_Smoke]

It's true MS has timed exclusives, such as Scorn recently, but to my knowledge they're not a year long window or more and MS isn't then actively restricting them appearing on PS+... I'm not saying MS doesn't do exclusive deals.

Most of the 3rd party stuff in the last showcase was more day one in game pass them full on exclusive anyway. Or I'm having a hard time remembering which ones are timed.

In comparison you've got Sony essentially locking Final Fantasy down, grabbing Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo for a full year... Forspoken is another, and now Silent Hill.

With all this being current standard practices it's just surprising Sony has fed the CMA concerns over exclusivity deals as a whole.

XBox literally bought Bethesda and locked all future games to its console. I think Sony having some timed exclusives is a drop in the ocean compared to that.


'Oh look, Sony paid money for timed exclusives, while poor Xbox only got to buy a game studio and lock all future releases from PlayStation! It's not fair!'

[Neon Ignition]

It's such a simple scenario really, at least on the basis Sony is arguing it.

If Person A owns item X and Person B wants to buy it they make an offer
If Person A accepts the offer they can sell item X to Person B

Item X might be a valuable item but that agreement and decision has absolutely sod all to do with Person C who was never involved in the ownership, decision making and more of item X

Now, you get to the applying it to companies element and monopolies but Microsoft owning Activision either constitutes a monopoly or it doesn't. Call of Duty does not a monopoly make and it's frankly stupid that one country might think it does and all the others don't when dealing with global properties.

If Activision had decided to not launch Call of Duty one year on PS5 for whatever reason what would Sony have done? Naff all, because they don't own it and it's ultimately not up to them. Does Sony have the right to dictate what EA does with FIFA, Rockstar with GTA, Sega with Sonic, Capcom with Resident Evil etc?

Sony should be grateful to have the success that makes those games prioritise PlayStation, they seemed to care less when Call of Duty was in bed deal wise and prioritised on 360 magically.

It's been a hell of a 12 months and it amazes me how quickly I'm finding my view of Sony heel turning.

[fishbowlhead]

I mean it would be very unlike MS to create a monopoly by buying out then snuffing out all competition they possibly can, i for one totally trust them.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I mean it would be very unlike MS to create a monopoly by buying out then snuffing out all competition they possibly can, i for one totally trust them.

MS have never been accused or ruled of being a monopoly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...Microsoft_Corp) and they have never done anything to prevent users from installing software or uninstalling their own software (https://corporatefinanceinstitute.co...ntitrust-case/).

They definitely don't have a history of buying companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_by_Microsoft) to prevent others from using them.

[Ouenben]

For offline games, quick resume is great, but I mostly play BF4 and OW, both of which freak out because they require server connections to function. So every time I turn on the xbox for last 6 months I've had to put up with it making it longer to start a game than it would have done without it.

CoD sometimes had issues connecting to the servers with quickplay so I just made sure to close the game each time when I was done.

[wakka]

For me there is no side which has a moral superiority.

PS and Xbox are identical products. The only differentiation is the content they offer.

Both companies will use all the tools at their disposal - financial, regulatory, etc - to make their own content offering as strong as possible and to weaken the other's as much as possible.

They're driven by impersonal strategic decisions, not a sense of fair play.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, and whilst the history of MS has its issues in the competition field there's simply no case to the argument that Sony is seriously threatened by this acquisition. They might be if MS eyes up several other big publishers too but COD won't top the scale against Sony

[nonny]

For me there is no side which has a moral superiority.

PS and Xbox are identical products. The only differentiation is the content they offer.

Both companies will use all the tools at their disposal - financial, regulatory, etc - to make their own content offering as strong as possible and to weaken the other's as much as possible.

They're driven by impersonal strategic decisions, not a sense of fair play.

This.

Which is why as Neon states above Sony shouldn't be threatened by the acquisition.

If anything, if it were to level the playing fielda little it might spark Sony to diversify more to compete. I'd love to see them return to genres like arcade racing and first person shooters. Maybe improve time to PC releases and remove the fees associated with next gen upgrades.

[cutmymilk]

I'm a little behind but what is a Series E?