Kevw2006

@Kaloudz thanks, I had just skimmed down the comments and missed that additional detail.

I'd love to see a split on how many of those 5m bought the game and how many played it on game pass. Also a breakdown of how many of those players downloaded it and played it briefly and how many it retained for longer. Just saying how many players had played it isn't really a sufficient stat to measure how successfully a game is under a subscription model.

How many other FPS have come and gone throughout the lifetime of CoD and none has come even remotely close to competing with it. Seems like a bit of a change of tone from having no intentions of making CoD exclusive to the 10 year deal being a hard limit though.

@BAMozzy you just countered your own point there, at the moment people may be willing to buy all three consoles at the moment and then just buy whatever games they want to play for on a particular platform. That's a one off fee to buy the consoles then you can pick and choose what you want to buy for what console. In a streaming future you don't want to sign up to multiple publishers services on an ongoing basis so are likely to sign up for the one that suits the best so others are going to lose out. You have effectively said that you want a monopoly where there are two or three big hitters dominating the market. That's not a future I want to see.

@Moonglow Sony are probably in the unique position where they are the ones that stand to lose the most from the deal going ahead. Even with CoD still being offered on PlayStation there is likely to be a shift of users switching from PlayStation to Xbox after it is all done. Participant E mentions levelling the playing field, that gap will inevitably close by the PlayStation share reducing while the Xbox share increases. I've said it many times before but if Microsoft were in a similar position where their market share in an area was under threat they would be putting up just as much of a fight to prevent it from happening, and we all know they can not play nice when they have to.

I'm curious as to who participant B is as while they may be technically correct, there are definitely titles out there that can be classed as system sellers that are 'must have' titles in some people's eyes (GTA & FIFA along with CoD are a few examples I could think of).

@Moonglow The point I was trying to make is that something that is quite a serious legal process is being dragged out in public (which I generally disagree with going by a few recent examples of things that have occurred in the news recently), but we are largely only getting one side of the story. A lot is being said about these 10 year deals being agreed and Sony not taking the offer but we simply don't know what exactly the finer details of the deals being offered are. Most of the deals that have been signed are with companies that have never had CoD on their service before so it is a lot different a prospect to sign a deal to bring something you have never had than it is to sign a deal when you already have it. One is most definitely benefitting from the deal when the other is probably in the situation where they are going to lose out in some manner.

@Moonglow it's somewhat ironic that you say Sony should shut up and accept the deal when it's actually largely Microsoft being the ones that are doing all of the talking on the matter. Public comments from Sony on the matter are quite rare, whereas Microsoft are constantly going on about it in interviews and on Twitter etc. They even took out newspaper articles on the matter lol. Not disputing the sentiment that at this point it would probably be in their interests to just sign the deal but it amuses me that people are portraying the idea that Sony are the ones constantly going on about it

@ValentineMeikin I seriously doubt that if Call of Duty was taken off the cards and made to be sold off that Sony would be allowed to bid for it. If one isn't allowed to own it then neither should the other.

I'm curious as to what exactly is being offered in these 10 year deals. Are they committing to continuing with yearly releases for the next 10 years? Or in the highly unlikely event that CoD's popularity takes a nosedive within that time and is losing them money are they still required to ensure that CoD games release for the duration of the contract?

Surely they could still come to some sort of arrangement for it to be added to game pass even though the deal hasn't been finalised yet.

I'm interested to see how vast the world is and how much variety and life there is on the various planets.

@Fenbops that's the thing that amuses me. It's mainly the 'hardcore' minority that are really invested in the acquisition. Most of my friends I play online with either aren't aware of it, or never speak about it. I doubt they would even notice it after the deal goes through as long as Call of Duty still releases on all current platforms.

@GeeEssEff Here's the thing though, Microsoft aren't as against exclusive content as they would like you to believe, in fact the actively practice it within their one platform. Just earlier this week there was an article on this site about exclusive content in Halo for Game Pass members so clearly they are in favour of it when it suits them.

Is anyone seriously going to play mainline Call of Duty multiplayer cloud streamed on a mobile phone? That just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I'm not sure if readers of the Financial Times are their target market.

That market share keeps increasing 😂

@Kaloudz my guess would be that they're just throwing every argument they can think of at it in the hope that something sticks.

@Kaloudz That argument really isn't the epic argument you think it is, in fact it's outright false. Under the 'status quo' Microsoft have the means and ability to do the exact same deals that Sony do and they have previously done so. Once Sony's current deal for Call of Duty expired they would have had the opportunity to do a deal themselves.

Call of Duty seems like a weird example to use on this occasion. For the players that solely play Call of Duty it would actually be more cost effective to pay the one off price to purchase the game and then whatever is needed for playing online than paying a sub every month.

Is it really so crazy that Sony are trying to fight their biggest competitor taking control of one of their biggest earners, if not the biggest earners. If Microsoft were away to be in a similar position I'm positive they would be putting up just as much of a fight against it. A lot can happen in 10 years and if Phil Spencer leaves his replacement might not be willing to adhere to the same agreement, or Microsoft's priorities may change. They may decide the penalties they would incur for breaching any arrangement are worth it to do some serious harm to a competition.

@Trmn8r If some Devs, especially those that are familiar with developing for PC, are struggling with optimising for series S compared to series X then clearly it's not quite as straightforward.

It would take something fairly drastic such as a big hitter like Rockstar threatening to not release GTA VI on Xbox because they can't get certain features running on the series S, or release an inferior version on Xbox consoles to ensure parity across the S and X, to make Microsoft even consider it. And that's highly unlikely to happen. Not to mention it would be a PR nightmare if they had to backtrack on their promise. I'm not sure if even cloud streaming would fulfil their promise as some features could still be missed out on.

@Sifi I live in a fairly small town in the UK and in both of the stores that sell games the Xbox display is significantly smaller than the Switch and PlayStation displays. The PlayStation display is also considerably smaller than the Switch display just to put things in perspective. I appreciate that in some bigger gaming stores that there may be a bigger and more even presence but certainly in some places there is a noticeable difference.

@Bleachedsmiles Game Pass, diskless consoles and an overall general shift towards digital helps explain the lack of shelf space in stores they they simply won't want to buy in stock just for it to sit on shelves. The problem is the lack of shelf space does give a perception that it is less popular so casual gamers are likely to go with the option that appears more popular. 100% agree on the ads and marketing though.

Wants game to go in different direction...offers no suggestions on what different direction they could take. Like others have said, it's a racing game and the options are limited.

Unlikely, although I guess if it started losing them a ton of money they may decide to cut their losses. Would surely be a tough deal for whoever bought them to go through though.

@NEStalgia I must admit I only glossed down the document and missed the part about 60,000 companies first time. Someone is going to be really busy at SIE!

@NEStalgia I wasn't meaning that they would have known the finer details of any deals, or had access to the documentation previously. But I am sure they would be somewhat aware of the deals and arrangements that Sony have in place so I'm sure there won't be too many surprises for them in there. Curiously, even Sony didn't seem to be arguing too much about what Microsoft were requesting about them other than how far back they were looking for. Most of their other objections were related to how much of a "burden" it would be to compile the information and not what was actually being asked for.

I doubt there will be much in the documents that Microsoft weren't already aware of as I'm sure they will be perfectly aware of the deals that Sony have in place, and vice versa. Obtaining access to the documents will mostly be about being able to use them as evidence to prove their case.

@ValentineMeikin not disagreeing with most of what you said but I noticed you mention Octopath 2 as an example. The first one has still never released on PlayStation so surely SOMETHING is keeping it from releasing on there too going by the common perception.

Would have loved to see those performance reviews 🤣

@S1ayeR74 I agree that they have worked wonders with some Switch ports, I just picked up on the fact that the report stated that a Switch port of CoD has been tried and they couldn't make it work. Although I did also note that the agreement said bringing CoD to Nintendo and not to the Switch so I'm almost positive it will be to the successor to the Switch.

@Tharsman Good point as, despite constant speculation, we really don't know what sort of contracts are in place behind the scenes. Although I'd be highly surprised if there was any unannounced ZeniMax games that we haven't heard of that will release on PlayStation.

@Tharsman Funnily enough how you worded it was a lot clearer and didn't use that many words either. I agree that the comment about supporting existing communities etc is specifically talking about already existing games receiving update and dlc. However, in this comment "Our competitors have a lot of exclusive games, so when we're launching new games [on Xbox, PC and cloud]...some of those won't be available on other competitive platforms." he is specifically referring to future games and he says that SOME won't be available on future platforms, implying that there are some that may. I think he is being pretty smart though in keeping their cards close to their chest as they may well have intentions of releasing games like Fallout or Elder Scrolls on other platforms but it would be in their best interests for that to not be available until absolutely need to reveal it as if you're looking to but a new console and say Fallout is a decider for you, you're far more likely to opt for the platform where you KNOW it will be available rather than one where it MAY be available.

@Tharsman I wasn't referring to Starfield specifically, as I said in my earlier comment there's no need to justify its exclusivity and I understand and appreciate the reasons for it. The part I find confusing is comments like "so when we're launching new games [on Xbox, PC and cloud]...some of those won't be available on other competitive platforms" and "so we'll continue to support the communities of games...". This could lead some people to believe that the likes of The Elder Scroll, Fallout, or other IP's that have previously released on other platforms may still come to those platforms and only completely new IP's, such as Starfield, are exclusive.

I honestly feel like they should adopt a less is more approach at the moment. There's absolutely no need to justify Starfield being exclusive and it feels like the more they try to explain and justify it the more confusing and contradictory the message comes across.

I actually preferred it to Deathloop.

@Tharsman I certainly hope they don't go down that route as the increasing requirement to register accounts for different services (EA, Epic etc) lately just to play a game has been a particular annoyance for me lately. I miss the days when things were so much simpler.

@Tharsman Interesting figures and I'd be interested to know exactly what each are classing as an 'active' user as there seems to be a large amount of non-paying users for both. For example Minecraft requires you to have an Xbox live account for certain features so is say someone playing Minecraft on PS classed as an active Xbox user? Likewise, does Sony count someone playing Destiny 2 on Xbox as an active user for them? Although I do suspect that non-paying accounts are mostly made up of family members or people that have multiple accounts for whatever reason.

@S1ayeR74 I wouldn't class cod on the vita as any sort of achievement as that game was trash. Interestingly though, the link to the CMA findings also states that Activision did previously attempt to bring cod to the Switch and couldn't manage it so I wonder what has changed to make Microsoft now agree to it.

@Tharsman Already explained this but the comparison was made in response to a comment about user bases. The poster claimed that there was somewhere between 40-50 million game pass users, a figure that is nowhere near close to any official figure that has been stated. I merely pointed out that PS Plus's last confirmed figure was 47 million and both PS plus figures and game pass/gold figures won't be what the actual user bases are for either console as both will have users that are not members of either service. Obviously both are different services but the number of subscribers to either can be used to somewhat gague what the user bases for either console are.

@Romans12 I never said they were the same thing. You were talking about user bases and picked an unconfirmed figure out of nowhere for game pass, I was merely pointing out that PS plus has 47 confirmed subscribers. As far as I know there haven't been any up to date figures for game pass (or gold) released for a long time so we don't really have any way of knowing what these may be at this time.

@Romans12 Most recent reports show PS Plus as having 47 million subscribers. But while they are useful figures, subscriber numbers aren't really all that accurate for player base as not every Xbox owner will be a game pass subscriber, just as not every PlayStation owner will have PS Plus. Microsoft and Sony are both doing well in their own right, there doesn't really need to be a winner and a loser.

The could always bring out a 'New' Series S that is a lot closer to a diskless Series X down the line and then announce that certain games will only be playable on this and not the original. Nintendo got away with doing it numerous times with the DS.

Aren't Xbox games supposed to be just a few lines of code difference from PC games? If so an Xbox version would take less resources than a PS5 version so I doubt it's anything to do with that.

They really are desperate for the metaverse to take off.

Just the Game Pass version? Weird

@Martsmall Bear in mind that those 58 games is largely made up of games that were already availabl, or already in development, on PS before Microsoft acquired the dev/publisher. If anything it shows how much Microsoft have been buying up multiplat devs compared to Sony buying ones that they have previously had a close working relationship with.

What about the sales of games that DON'T make it on to game pass? The obvious big hitters might be okay but you see a lot of comments from people saying things along the lines of "I'd play it on game pass" or "I'll wait for it on game pass". With Microsoft intimately having the final say on what is added to game pass it's dangerous territory as they will add their own first party game on to game pass day one and any similar games could then struggle for sales as they do not get offered the same opportunity.