BacklogBrad

It is one of the most addictively fun games I have ever played. I don't have a problem with it winning over the "technically advanced" games.

I imagine real artists will iterate on the ai creations.

I can picture a tinder like app where a team of creative humans will be swiping right on or saving the ai creations they like. Then they will tweak them to their liking later if needed or make their own design based on something that inspired them.

@EhronLocke From the perspective of a company well behind sony and nintendo in marketspace and exclusive content, buying a publisher seems like a solid strategy. If the deal put them way out in front of the competition than yes it would be scummy and regulators should do something but that is clearly not the case here.

@thefourfoldroot1 I don't agree that COD would have been exclusive without concessions or that one company now owns everything. But again I was only pointing out the lunacy of sonys complaint that was literally their current practice with the title.

@EhronLocke it was one of their official complaints to CMA and FTC. They would be harmed by exclusive in game content for COD on Xbox. Something they currently have over xbox.

@thefourfoldroot1 I'm only relaying sonys complaint that this deal might lead to exclusive in game content for Xbox. Something that they currently have over Xbox. Their argument made no sense.

When Sony made call of duty exclusivity the sole complaint it would only make sense that governments would research the topic and find exclusivity is a common tactic and one that sony relies on heavily.

@EhronLocke but it is Sony complaining about it and saying it is an unfair practice while doing it.

It's bizarre that they would expect government to step in and "prevent" actions they are currently using.

I admire Sonys courage to tell regulators "as market leader, only we should be able to do this" but I'm not surprised they are facing clapback.

It was Sony who defined this "high end" console market with their FTC/CMA arguments. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to fight so hard over the abk deal that was never getting blocked.

Nothing will come of this thing with congress but Sony shouldn't be surprised the microscope is back on them after they flew so close to the sun with their ridiculous abk arguments. They literally complained that MS might have exclusive in game content someday for COD while paying for exclusive in game content for COD.

I don't mind games still supporting ps4/xone but the users have to realize it will be worse there. If your complaints are all the main selling points of the new consoles (load times, frame rate, visuals) then it might be time to upgrade.

The FTC making up the fake market segment of "high end home consoles" was the miscalculation that pushes this deal over the finish line. They made it solely about Xbox vs playstation and gave MS the golden argument of "look at how much more of the market Sony currently has." More than 90% in some countries. Any blockage would now appear as government stepping in to protect the far and away market leader of this fake segment.

The deal always should have gone through IMO, it is now a lock.

I'm okay with this.

If true, this seems like a shady business practice. A ton of people are finally able to find one of these consoles and Sony might have a secret console that will make their purchase feel outdated after only 1 year of owning it.

I doubt the delay has anything to do with the poor reception after the showcase. It's probably just not ready yet. I don't think a good reception would have changed this outcome.

@Llamageddon the regulators would have the ability to enforce any behavior remedies likely through a 3rd party. Microsoft is already floating the idea of the CMA using the same company that provided oversight for the LinkedIn remedies.

If MS was able to prove that COD is still being made they could probably have one of the 3 arms of COD studios make an exclusive military shooter but I doubt they would even entertain that. They are extremely hands off with their other acquisitions almost to a fault. It would most likely be business as usual for Activision blizzard development wise.

Glad to see the "they might take it away" narrative has finally changed. This new take seems just as dull though.

"They might screw up our annual copy paste game that scores mid 70s on a good year."

Sounds like good news. True cross platform play should be equal and not have people gaining XP and having a leveling advantage for no reason other than where they are playing it.

@Titntin I'm sure the accountants at MS and Nintendo were thrilled when Sony announced the price hikes because they could follow suit. Sony was comfortable with the decision to raise the price of games and consoles because they don't currently feel threatened by the Series X/S. If this deal leads them to be threatened then they will have to think harder about any future price hikes.

Playstation did report record profits to go along with their "inflation forced us to do it" narrative.

It was the likely conclusion from the start. The deal will ultimately pass, there just simply isn't an argument against it. It would be a joke for regulators to protect the company with 75% market share. This is the correct decision by the EU.

I personally have both consoles but I see the deal as a good thing for the industry. Sony will do what it does best and innovate. They will make their subscription better. They will have to think a little harder next time they want to drive the industry to higher prices.

I think this is pretty typical from State of Plays (and Nintendo Directs). The big announcements are in the summer show while the early show is pretty weak. The state of play in March 2022 was headlined by Ghostwire Tokyo and Forspoken, the first party stuff was saved for June.

This begs the question why have a show at all but it seems typical from all 3 consoles lately, small show now, big show in June.

I imagine the summer showcase will be much better. They are probably saving all big announcements for that show but man this show was a waste of 45 minutes.

Nintendo isn't included because the regulators like FTC have established a fake market called the "high end home console." It is the only way they can make a case that the deal would have a significant impact on the gaming industry. They can't make a big deal out of call of duty when Nintendo is dominating without it.

Xbox is more than happy to play this game through the lense that the regulators created where playstation and Xbox are the only competitors because they can easily make the case that they are behind Sony. It makes it very hard to challenge the deal when blocking it is only protecting the company currently dominating the market. Blocking the deal is more harmful to competition than allowing the deal. The deal is definitely going through.

How confident would you be opposing a deal on the basis of it causing a monopoly and when you look for any other company supporting your argument all you see is Google?

"Could harm gamers that cannot afford expensive consoles"

Xbox offers the cheapest next gen console.

I'm not surprised preorders are disappointing. I plan to wait a solid 2 years to decide on this. I need to get a sense of their long term software plans. I wasn't impressed with the catalog of psvr1. If it's not substantially better I will save the $550.

Remake of the 2nd game and a remaster of the remade 1st game are next I believe.

Having used your ps5 vertically for 2 years with no issues does not mean that there are no long term issues possible. This is probably a very small percentage of people that will see this but I agree with their logic that if you use it horizontally then you are not as reliant on a seal holding up.

It probably is safer to lay it flat but that is so much more desk space that I don't have. I will probably keep it vertical unless this starts being a more common issue.

Better than a broken version of the game being released but those stuck on ps4 will have spoilers floating around while they wait.

Geoff Keighley tries way too hard to keep the spotlight on him at all times. It would be better if he talked less and didn't feel like he needs to introduce and recap each trailer shown.

I can see why Sony and Nintendo would rather put their announcements in their own format where they let a series of trailers play uninterrupted and let the reveals speak for themselves.

This is a bad example but at the Summer Game Fest, Geoff went on a string of goat puns to the point where the reveal of Goat Sim 3 was already spoiled before the trailer started. Like imagine if the original Smash Bros ultimate reveal trailer was shown after some guy made a bunch of obvious references to Smash beforehand. Completely ruins the shock of the reveal.

@Juanalf sony wouldn't get the 10 year guarantee that the signed deal would promise but that doesnt mean it would not be available on PS. I tend to agree with their sentiment that call Of Duty will remain multiplat. They have been reiterating that since day one. Microsoft is really just trying to make this look like a concession for regulators. They aren't really doing anything that they didn't want to do anyway.

Frustrating but not surprising. I will wait a year or two to see if the psvr2 library justifies the price tag.

The real question is will we have to cross play with Nintendo's jank online?

At least it would cut down on lobby chatter.

@thefourfoldroot1 I wouldn't call 10 years the blink of an eye. 10 years represents 67% of the online multiplayer lifetime of COD which started in 2007. 10 years will easily enter the next generation of playstation (which we have no idea what that will look like.)

Recently there has been speculation that the mainline series could possibly die off in favor of the free to play model. We have no idea if COD will even be relevant in 10 years or what it will look like.

Will sony games get the safe for work mode like Bayonetta 3? Kratos will have a shirt next time.

@Fenbops they would still get that 30% for any of the games or content sold on their store.

And blocking this deal doesn't mean that Sony will keep the marketing deal they have. Once it expires Microsoft could just outbid them on the next one and spend the rest of the 70 billion elsewhere.

Why do they need to replace a franchise that will continue to be available on playstation?

Gears of War is a shooter but Uncharted and The Last of Us are not?

Sony does have a glaring hole in the first person genre but they certainly have shooters.

Losing one franchise (which is a hypothetical assumption because xbox seems dead set on keeping it multiplat) doesn't mean that Sony is a kids platform. Sony themselves make plenty of M rated games. What a bizarre take.

Losing the game played by 13 year olds will drive away all the adults lol.

This is representative of my view of 95% of the VR space. This game looks like a neat experience that you play for 2-3 hours then never play again.

I believe this is the first time they released a pc port during the holiday time frame.

Spiderman and HZD were august. God of War was January. Days Gone was May.

I wouldn't be shocked if sackboy and miles morales underwhelm against the big holiday titles too.

@thefourfoldroot1 they don't have a platform yet. They can easily make a subscription service to access their games. Plus MS is not locking any games to their console as the games can be purchased by anyone on PC day 1. They can also be played on your phone or internet browser.

@The_Moose I don't know about that, had Starfield and Redfall made their release window it would have been a good year for them.

They seem to be making money off the service already. They also said that GP is not the main source of revenue for them as physical/digital sales still generate a lot of money for them. What has is been now, three record revenue years in a row for xbox?

@The_Moose some indie developers have said that the money they receive for going to gamepass pretty much covers the cost of making the game so they are essentially breaking even before selling a single game.

There are other examples of games seeing increased sales on Switch, PS, PC etc after going to gamepass because the GP users created a buzz for the game.

I think gamepass and subscriptions like it are great for indie devs. Gamepass appears to be working out great for gamers, devs, and MS.

@thefourfoldroot1 embracer and tencent are far outpacing xbox in acquisitions with very little oversight. Embracer claims to have 130 studios and over 850 IP.

We are in a period of consolidation for the gaming industry. Developers and publishers WANT to be aquired right now. Its not like this was a hostile takeover of AB, they wanted to be aquired and Xbox was the one that made an offer they wanted. Microsoft is not the only one acquiring other companies and really has nothing close to a monopoly.

@JustPlainLoco it's not about if xbox ever did it. Xbox is not saying the practice is unfair, neither am I.

The company currently doing it (sony) is saying the practice is harmful to competition.

It's an absurd take from Sony.

@Neverwild it's not about who has done it in the past. It is sony suddenly saying that it is unfair. If it is so unfair that a government needs to stop it, why has it been going on for over a decade? The majority of which Sony itself has been doing it.

It looks even dumber when considering that it is the market leader saying the practice they are currently doing would be harmful to the market leader if one of the lesser gaming companies stole that practice from them.

Sony says Xbox having exclusive COD content will impact consumers console choice and is unfair to Sony. (Something microsoft promised will not happen)

Sony currently pays for exclusive COD content.

What a stupid argument.

@Casco it was likely announced to attract developers or investors. This a common practice lately. They aren't really hyping anything here. It's literally just saying what we already should have expected, there will be another cyberpunk.

They must be in recruitment mode at cdpr, whether that be devs or investors.

@Kingleo31 my advise would be to stop thinking of them as ps4 or ps5 games and think of them as playstation games. The best way to experience them will be ps5.
They are doing this for the same reason they make pc ports, so as many people as possible have the opportunity to spend money on their games.

Microsoft have dragged sony into this pc mentality where the game is available wherever and it is up to you to decide which hardware you want to experience them on. Do you want the best possible experience or a the sluggish ps4 experience? Choice is a good thing.

@Casco I don't know if a single tweet saying a sequel is being made and it will take the franchise further is overhype that they can't live up to.

@Kingleo31 I wouldn't say the ps5 is pointless because games are available on ps4 too. It is a much worse experience playing a newer game on a base ps4. The point of the ps5 is 60+fps and 4k.