General Gaming Phil Spencer: The way Sony grows is by making Xbox smaller

[crispy4000]

Sony Wants To Grow PlayStation By Making Xbox Smaller, Phil Spencer Says - GameSpot

WWW.GAMESPOT.COM

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"There has really only been one major opposer to the deal, and it's Sony."

 

Quote

"There has really only been one major opposer to the deal, and it's Sony. Sony is trying to protect their dominance on console. The way they grow is by making Xbox smaller," Spencer said. "They have a very different view of the industry than we do. They don't ship their games day and date on PC, they don't put their games into subscription when they launch their games. They're starting to think about mobile as I see from the outside, just reading some of the moves they're doing."

Phil’s normally stellar at avoiding PR blunders, especially compared to Jim Ryan.  But this might be his worst take.

 

It’s absurd to claim with the direction they’re going with Bethesda’s IP now.  The way both of these companies grow now is by eating up other publishers.  That’s the new normal.

[Brian]

Wrong Phil

[Keyser_Soze]

If it was Phil Harrison saying it we might be in trouble!

[crispy4000]

1 minute ago, Brian said:

Wrong Phil

haha, yeah I fucked that up

[Keyser_Soze]

I agree with the OP. One of the most asinine comments I've seen by someone. Hopefully he steps down soon. He's such a clown.

[crispy4000]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

I agree with the OP. One of the most asinine comments I've seen by someone. Hopefully he steps down soon. He's such a clown.

Silly hyperbole is silly

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I agree with the OP. One of the most asinine comments I've seen by someone. Hopefully he steps down soon. He's such a clown.

How did you immediately make a worse take?

[Keyser_Soze]

3 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

How did you immediately make a worse take?

 

I took the only reasonable take in this situation. Anyone knows that this is a huge PR blunder especially after what they did to Bethesda.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

This statement is a bit of an "own goal" by the normally unflappable Mr. Spencer which indicates that the situation with the acquisition is getting a bit under his skin.  

 

He might've given assurances to MS CEO Satya Nadella that it would be relatively painless from a regulatory standpoint, but that just hasn't turned out to be the case.

[Dodger]

I mean he’s not wrong. Sonys entire strategy is to starve Xbox of content and for some reason everyone is ok with it. Regulators bring up Bethesda as an example of high is laughable considering they paid for timed exclusivity for two of their recent games and were trying to do the same with Starfield but now that Sony will be exclusive to Xbox instead of Sony it’s a problem? This is all dumb and regulators are just trying to look like they are standing up to big business.

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

How did you immediately make a worse take?

That’s his schtick.

[Keyser_Soze]

Just now, crispy4000 said:

That’s his schtick.

 

So if I agree with you it's a shtick?

[Brian]

43 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

This statement is a bit of an "own goal" by the normally unflappable Mr. Spencer which indicates that the situation with the acquisition is getting a bit under his skin.  

 

He might've given assurances to MS CEO Satya Nadella that it would be relatively painless from a regulatory standpoint, but that just hasn't turned out to be the case.

I would be annoyed too. The FTC has rubber stamped so many “worse for consumer” M&A transactions that you assume this would be approved with minimal difficulty. 

[crispy4000]

52 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

So if I agree with you it's a shtick?

It’s just you talking to yourself.  

[Paperclyp]

25 minutes ago, Dodger said:

I mean he’s not wrong. Sonys entire strategy is to starve Xbox of content and for some reason everyone is ok with it. Regulators bring up Bethesda as an example of high is laughable considering they paid for timed exclusivity for two of their recent games and were trying to do the same with Starfield but now that Sony will be exclusive to Xbox instead of Sony it’s a problem? This is all dumb and regulators are just trying to look like they are standing up to big business.

 

This is kinda weird. 

 

Sony is operating how everyone has operated until the last few years. MS's end goal is similar, it just appears more consumer friendly at this specific time. 

[johnny]

i, for one, am pleased that microsoft has to spend a lot more time and money on their quest for domination 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Dodger said:

I mean he’s not wrong. Sonys entire strategy is to starve Xbox of content and for some reason everyone is ok with it. Regulators bring up Bethesda as an example of high is laughable considering they paid for timed exclusivity for two of their recent games and were trying to do the same with Starfield but now that Sony will be exclusive to Xbox instead of Sony it’s a problem? This is all dumb and regulators are just trying to look like they are standing up to big business.

They’re both equal offenders over the years IMO.  I think we hit the peak levels of that absurdity when GTA DLC was moneyhatted as a timed exclusive.  It’s been a game of petty retaliation ever since, culminating in the sort of studio grabs we’re seeing now.  Which I don’t actually have as much of a problem with… it’s better to go all in.

Regardless, purchasing a studio has a much larger footprint than paying for timed exclusivity game by game.  You can pretty much count out new Bethesda games on Sony consoles in the future.  Their final contracts expiring just leaves Sony with egg on their face.

 

And just in general, industry consolidation isn’t a great answer to timed exclusive deals.  It doesn’t lead to a future anyone should want long term.  I’d rather see money poured into new studios and struggling ones than those already flush with cash.  Still, it is nice to see Microsoft wanting to pump up their first party efforts this gen.  They’re actually playing hardball.  
 

It’s definitely not a case today of the big bad Sony making their buisness shrink because they’ve acquired too little.  That’s a total misread of the situation, Phil should know better.

[crispy4000]

47 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

 

This is kinda weird. 

 

Sony is operating how everyone has operated until the last few years. MS's end goal is similar, it just appears more consumer friendly at this specific time. 

Thing is, they’ve scooped up so many mid/upper-mid sized multiplatform devs in the past few years that the battle over CoD being everywhere for X number of years is almost the distraction.  I wonder if we even see games like Pentiment ported to Nintendo platforms anymore.

 

Microsoft is buying their good will with Games Pass, more or less.  Whereas if Nintendo was the one making a ton of like acquisitions, people would be fuming.  It could be that Microsoft’s earned that right.

[SuperSpreader]

 

 

This is all bad for gamers. More consolidation, more power and franchises in fewer hands. Break them all up. Publishers shouldn't be allowed to be developers. 

 

Like this one dude, and his name is fucking Phil is going to single handedly make all the final calls on ALL MSFT franchises, Bethesda, Activision, Blizzard, King, 343, Coalition, inexile, initiative, ninja theory, obsidian, playground, turn10, arkane, etc etc. How is this not much more than "entertain me" plebes after a while. No human can in any way have this much awareness of so much. It's disgusting. 

[Mr.Vic20]

Moral high ground in business, what a concept. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

1 hour ago, Brian said:

I would be annoyed too. The FTC has rubber stamped so many “worse for consumer” M&A transactions that you assume this would be approved with minimal difficulty. 

probably because they weren’t going to be directly and negatively impacted. But they don’t want to risk having to get a gaming PC or Xbox to play COD. If it was Sony trying to buy Activision/Blizzard regulators would have approved this by July of this year. 

[crispy4000]

5 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

probably because they weren’t going to be directly and negatively impacted. But they don’t want to risk having to get a gaming PC or Xbox to play COD. If it was Sony trying to buy Activision/Blizzard regulators would have approved this by July of this year. 

If the shoe was on the other foot, Microsoft would be fighting it.  But the FTC might not see it quite the same, since Sony isn’t as much of a tech giant.

 

It’d take something bonkers like Sony selling their game division to Tencent, or vice versa, to draw a similar level of scrutiny.

[Keyser_Soze]

6 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

It’s definitely not a case today of the big bad Sony making their buisness shrink because they’ve acquired too little.  That’s a total misread of the situation, Phil should know better.

 

I agree </not a shtick>

[Bacon]

I want Sony to get fucked over. They've had it too good for too long and need to be brought down a peg.

[crispy4000]

42 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I agree </not a shtick>

Cool, at least we’re running with what I actually said now.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

I want Sony to get fucked over. They've had it too good for too long and need to be brought down a peg.

Each of the big 3 deserve to get kicked down a notch in certain ways.  Microsoft is challenging Sony to not do business as usual.  But it’s Nintendo that’s truly skating free these days with their game pricing.  All that nonsense about them not competing is just giving them a pass for it.  

 

And fuck ‘em all for charging for online multiplayer.  Valve is the only company doing it right in the dedicated gaming hardware space, far as I’m concerned.  They just need to go back to making more of their own games.  It feels bad calling them the consumer friendly option with how much they coast on GaAS and being a legacy frontend.

[Ghost_MH]

33 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Each of the big 3 deserve to get kicked down a notch in certain ways.  Microsoft’s challenging Sony to not do business as usual.  But it’s Nintendo that’s truly skating free these days with their game pricing.  All that nonsense about them not competing is just people trying to give them a pass for it.

 

And fuck ‘em all for charging for online multiplayer.  Valve is the only company doing it right in the dedicated gaming hardware space, far as I’m concerned.  They just need to go back to making more of their own games now.

 

Meanwhile Nintendo is sitting to the side watching these acquisitions while thinking "We only just bought SRD earlier this year and they did coding on nearly every game we've made since the NES."

[crispy4000]

11 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Meanwhile Nintendo is sitting to the side watching these acquisitions while thinking "We only just bought SRD earlier this year and they did coding on nearly every game we've made since the NES."

 

I wonder if there’d ever be a point where they feel seriously threatened by consolidation.  

 

They sold Rare at one of their lowest points.  But they also bought Next Level after they expressed interest in being acquired by someone else.  Gives me hope they’re investing for the future again.

[Ghost_MH]

24 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I wonder if there’d ever be a point where they feel seriously threatened by consolidation.  

 

They sold Rare at one of their lowest points.  But they also bought Next Level after they expressed interest in being acquired by someone else.  Gives me hope they’re investing for the future again.

 

Their last big acquisition was that animation studio to help them branch off into making their own movies. Nintendo is a weird company. They famously do not own HAL Labs, but they also don't own Intelligent Systems. It's no use trying to guess what they're thinking of doing. There was a lot of wondering if they'd buy up Platinum, but probably not. Kirby is a Nintendo mascot and those games are all made by a third party. I doubt Bayonetta moves the needle.

 

That said, if we were to get into wild speculation territory, I could see Nintendo trying to gobble up some of Bandai Namco. They're worth like $15b and are one of the healthiest toy manufacturers on the planet. I'm pretty sure Bandai is second only to like Lego and that's mostly because Lego makes plastic bricks they sell in bags and for 100x cost. Meanwhile, Bandai sells plastic robot pieces they sell in bags for only 50x cost.

[crispy4000]

3 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

That said, if we were to get into wild speculation territory, I could see Nintendo trying to gobble up some of Bandai Namco.

 

Didn’t they already with Monolith?

[Brick]

Well so much for being friendly the past few years 

[BloodyHell]

9 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

They’re both equal offenders over the years IMO.  I think we hit the peak levels of that absurdity when GTA DLC was moneyhatted as a timed exclusive.  It’s been a game of petty retaliation ever since, culminating in the sort of studio grabs we’re seeing now.  Which I don’t actually have as much of a problem with… it’s better to go all in.

Regardless, purchasing a studio has a much larger footprint than paying for timed exclusivity game by game.  You can pretty much count out new Bethesda games on Sony consoles in the future.  Their final contracts expiring just leaves Sony with egg on their face.

 

And just in general, industry consolidation isn’t a great answer to timed exclusive deals.  It doesn’t lead to a future anyone should want long term.  I’d rather see money poured into new studios and struggling ones than those already flush with cash.  Still, it is nice to see Microsoft wanting to pump up their first party efforts this gen.  They’re actually playing hardball.  
 

It’s definitely not a case today of the big bad Sony making their buisness shrink because they’ve acquired too little.  That’s a total misread of the situation, Phil should know better.

I disagree. It’s Sony fighting to hold on to their sales model and profits, while doing everything they can to behave the way they accuse MS of behaving.

 

anyway, the FTC hasn’t won a case in a while, and it’s unlikely they win this one in the end. It’ll just take longer.

 

if ABK wants to sell, I’d rather MS get it than tencent.

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Didn’t they already with Monolith?

I don’t think so, just rights to the xenoblade series. iirc.

[Ghost_MH]

35 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

I don’t think so, just rights to the xenoblade series. iirc.

 

The joke is that Monolith Soft used to belong to Namco. It was actually the Bandai Namco merger that made Monolith Soft shop around for a new owner. Nintendo partly bought Monolith Soft at first and then bought the rest of Bandai Namco's shares at a later date. Nintendo owns like 99% of Monolith Soft at this point because Nintendo is weird a bunch of their very important, internal teams aren't always owned 100%. At this point I'd call Monolith Soft important for Nintendo since they do a ton of engine work for games like Zelda, Splatoon, and Animals Crossing.

 

So in a way, Nintendo already gobbled up a bit of Bandai Namco.

[crispy4000]

  

1 hour ago, BloodyHell said:

I disagree. It’s Sony fighting to hold on to their sales model and profits, while doing everything they can to behave the way they accuse MS of behaving.

 

Oh, there's hyperbole abound on Sony's part, no question.  They've resorted to moneyhatting too, and have subtly been doing it behind the scenes for years.  It became a lot more visible in the PS4 era with Destiny and Call of Duty DLC timed exclusivity, which echoed the GTAIV DLC moves Microsoft made the gen prior.  Nowadays, Sony's all about paying off SquareEnix for timed exclusivity of full releases ... and Bethesda, but that's quickly come to an end.

Microsoft's stance has shifted since the Mattrick era.  You don't see them buying timed AAA exclusivity much anymore, like for Mass Effect or Tomb Raider.  The last move like that I can recall was keeping Yakuza 7 off PS5 for a few months.  That's good, because these tactics suck for everyone.  But it's also happening because Microsoft recently dropped a cool $75+ billion on acquiring two major AAA multiplatform publishers.  Keeping much of that IP, and old, new and future, off PlayStation is a significant part of it.  So is keeping games off Sony's subscriptions.

 

Sony can't compete on those terms as is.  They're doing a much better job retooling their subscriptions into an actual Games Pass competitor (read: not so good) than keeping up with Microsoft's checkbook.  They really can't 'behave' like them anymore.  Not without getting outside capital involved.
 

 

1 hour ago, BloodyHell said:

If ABK wants to sell, I’d rather MS get it than tencent.

 

I would have rather have seen them split off piecemeal.  We know at least one potential investor ("Company E") wasn't able to afford the entirety of them.