Phil Spencer: It's Not Our Intent to Pull Communities Away From PlayStation - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 18 January 2022 / 4,404 Views
Microsoft today announced it is acquiring Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion. Once the deal closes the number of first-party Xbox studios will grow from 23 to 32.
IPs that will be owned by Microsoft once the deal closes include Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft, and more.
This has lead some people to wonder what this means for Activision Blizzard games coming to PlayStation consoles in the future.
A person familiar with Microsoft's thinking has said the plan is to keep releasing some of Activision Blizzard's games on PlayStation consoles, but will make some Xbox console exclusives.
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in an interview with Bloomberg said it isn't Microsoft's goal to pull communities away from PlayStation consoles.
"I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that," said Spencer.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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-"It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform"- Phil
... but we will.
?
-READING BETWEEN THE LINES NINJA APPROVED-
He will do that while sheading tears.
I am sure Sony shred plenty of tears when they got the rights to Spiderman and Wolverine.
They certainly didnt, and also werent complaining about exclusivity, being defenders of play anywhere or any other contradicting point.
Disney approached them and offered Sony to chose a dev and an IP to make a game. Sony chose Insomniac and Insomniac chose Spider-Man.
Now MS could have approached Disney and try an IP or Disney could have approached them, why do you think they haven`t?
Why didn't Sony release Spiderman on multiple devices if they aren't complaining about exclusivity?
I'm absolutely not happy with this acquisition, it's not good for the industry. But I have to say, these companies are here for the money and are heavy competitor's. If they buy something it's only logical to keep it away from your competitors. They shelled out so much money for a reason, they are not a charity. Welcome to capitalism! Of course, if we talk about money only in the short- to mid-term they make more money if they keep the content on their competitor's consoles but in the long term they want that all these people migrate to their platform. In the long term it makes more sense for them to cut it off from the competitor's platforms.
Microsoft plans to become a game streaming platform in the long run, they will be phasing out Xbox eventually. It makes no sense to shut out a ton of players so they won't.
That's a complete lie.
Phil has the infinity gauntlet and just got the next infinity stone. Who's next?
Well if they want Japan I can see Level-5.
It's not our intention, but a nice side effect, I guess :D
Everything that has already been released will remain, it's the upcoming titles. Did M$ pull minecraft? No. Did M$ pull TES5? No. They won't be pulling the Old COD games ether.
Its not their intent on purpose however that's just how business works. They didn't buy these companies for that sole reason. They brought them to increase GP subs and to gain more content. However in doing so, naturally the competition will feel it.
One word Bullshit
I doubt he's shedding tears if it happens, though.
Let's see how many people who have been calling Phil a liar for years, will actually believe this one.
call of duty sells millions of copies each year so not a great idea pulling it from playstation consoles when its mostly going to be downloaded via gamepass on xbox
Theres 25 million subscribers. Even if half download it then that's 12.5 million users. That's pretty good
But those 12,5 million users would not directly pay for the game. I think that is his point. What if it could have sold the same amount on XBox outside of GP? And Starfield aswell? And Redfall. And Halo, and Forza, etc. At some point you would just make more money not having GP as an option. So I think 25 mill subs is not going to cut it for all their content. But if they manage to doubld that amount, or perhaps even tripple it, I could be convinced of its profitability.
That doesn't matter.
It works like how a movie or a tv show works on netflix. Its based on the
user numbers.
Alot of publishes have said they made not only the money spent on the game and marketing cost but also made profit. Just look what happened to medium and forza horizon 5 and halo infinite or outerworlds when it came out
.
Don't forget its not just Gp but thoss who play on steam and epic who don't have gp and those who buy the game on xbox with no GP.
How would u make more money with no gp? With GP games gets the greatest exposure and reaches a wider audiences.
Remember not everyone in the world can afford buying a brand new game at full retail price but more people can afford the price of GP. Therefore prior to GP there would be people who wanted to buy the game but couldn't because of financial and other problems. But now with GP they can.
Phil has said that GP is sustainable lol
I hear you. More subs means more money. But more subs also means less people who buy games individualy.
For a small amount of content Microsoft would just need a small amount of subs to make a profit. For a large amount of content they would need a large amount of subs. And I honestly think they will geht their. And 25 mil is a super impressive number. But (and I did no math whatsoever) 25 mil seems still not enough for all of original Microsoft stuff + all the individual studios they bought + all of Zenimax + all of Activision + all of Blizzard. Say there is no GP - think of how many million copies of games sold all of that would be every year.
You are right to say that 1 sub might have been no game (since buying games individually is expansive). But 1 sub might also have been 10 games a year outside of GP. I always hear GP is the best deal in gaming and this seems to be true. But if the deal is so good, it kind of implys that consumers would have spent more money without the deal.
This purchase isn't just shots fired at Sony, it is to the entire industry. Nobody is at ease with this one. Goodness. I just hope Sony wakes up and puts some real money up. Things are consolidating too fast.
Nintendo needs to start buying up some studios too. Koei Tecmo is a logical first step for them.
Nintendo's war-chest is comparatively small.
At-least Sony has $30 Billion cash on hand to throw around... Which is actually a fairly good amount for a $155 Billion dollar company.
Nintendo and Sony need to play it smart, it's not rocket science that they lack the financial resources of an almost $2.3 Trillion dollar valued company like Microsoft... So they are unable to get the same level of financing, share sales or cash on hand that big Microsoft can.
Smart purchases/investments are more valuable and impactful than random large ones...
I.E. Many gamers would be locked into Sony if Sony bought Square Enix.
Especially as Nintendo and Sony have already got allot of invested resources into game development anyway that pump out highly sought after titles... Microsoft had to play catch up as they started at a lower point.
Issue is Square wont benefit Sony in anyway outside of saying they own them. They are already the platform of choice on the PS. Also Sony's warchest is about $17b which has to be shared across the entire Sony brand, its not dedicated to just the PS business. It might be cheaper just to continue to do deals or unless they can find a company that might actually benefit Sony.
Bungie would be a better buy than Square because Sony lacks quality FPS games and someone like Bungie can fill that void. Thats just an example. Bungie wouldn't be up for sale and probably don't want to get caught up in another corp again. But who knows.
So you would say buying Activision and Zenimax didn`t benefit MS although costing over 85B combined? Because their games were already releasing on MS platforms.
Activision Blizzard have strong PC and mobile ties that's why. Also its to build GamePass up even further, which is pretty obvious. More games day one benefits their eco system. Bethesda always had strong ties with MS, just like Insomica had with Sony. So that argument doesn't hold.
Also their are plenty of Acitivison and Blizzard games not on consoles. So the purchase can change that. What benefit does Sony get for buying out Square? FF exclusives? They already money hat that series.
Yes they had strong ties and that was your number one reason to say there was no benefit.
And MS didn't need to buy either to have that content on GP.
You are just doing double standard.
What? Having strong ties helps with buyouts, you know, just like when Sony buy studios. The benefit for MS is to have control on releases with GP. What part of that don't you understand? They don't have to outsource to have day one releases, they can now do it internally.
For you, its okay for Sony to lock games like FF and Spiderman to PS but not okay for MS to lock games they now own. Its okay for Sony to buy studios, but its not okay when MS do it. I am the one with double standards? wow.
They can ensure those games going to GP with individual deals, no need to buy the whole company.
And there you go trying to equate Sony making a deal for FF or developing an exclusive with MS buying what have been now 30 studios? Yeah sure it is the same.
What are you trying to get at? If a company owns another company, they have every right to control where it lands, just like Sony when they own companies, they choose where the games go. There is no difference. Buy or build does not justify one over the other. If you brought something with your own money, you would expect to have full rights to whatever you purchased. Same goes here.
Long term, its cheaper to supply GP with games with internal studios than to continue to outsource and hope other companies sign on to the deals. This is smart business decisions to cut out costs long term. Not sure why you cannot see the strategy.
Yes, let`s keep believing in the good intentions of Phil.
This was the same guy who said “exclusives hurt the industry” and then bought Bethesda and made some of their games Xbox exclusives. I have no idea what people are smoking, treating Spencer like the second coming of Christ when he let the entire Xbox One generation come and go without giving me one reason to own that platform. “Oh, you want more GAMES? Here’s a new shiny console for double price with slightly sharper textures for games you can play just about as well on the old platform!” Thanks?
I keep seeing this quote being brought up, but zero context to what was actually be discussed. Phil was referring to generational exclusives, like having to buy a next-gen console to play certain games or only being able to play a certain game on older hardware. He kept his word by making it so Xbox One consoles can stream Series X games and making BC an important feature going forward.
"we believe gamers should play wherever they want".... as long as it is on a Microsoft platform.
It is the new Henry Ford with "you can buy a car of the color you chose", as long as it is black.
Once again, it is coming from an article titled; "Are Xbox Series X developers being held back by Xbox One?" He not talking about exclusives in the sense of Xbox and Playstation shouldn't have exclusive games, he's talking about allowing gamers to keep playing new games on the devices they have already ie Ps4 games on Ps5 and visa-versa.
Last I checked MS wasn't telling gamers to only buy on the Xbox platform and never support anything else. Infact, if they did ALL their games would be only on Xbox and PC, but they're not.
I know it's the hot topic right now to scrutinize Phil, and in the case of this specific article we are commenting on, it's more of a half-truth because we still don't know exactly how this will play out. But for the quote about "exclusives hurting the industry", it's completely out of context.
he said games with a legacy on Playstation will keep those games and get updates. That is exactly what happens with TES Online or Fallout 76.
Starfield and Redfall have no legacy on PS and are Xbox exclusive. It was not a lie.
There's still not a game announced from them that "pulls communities from playstation"
Starfield/Redfall have have never been on playstation amd they're the only exclusives that have properly been confirmed. I don't doubt that will be some but we really gotta wait and see
Your last point is a particularly good one, IMO. This deal could be bad news for competing streaming services (Stadia, GeForce Now, etc.).
Yeah if WoW comes to console I don’t see MS keeping it Xbox Exclusive.
There's yet to be an Xbox exclusive announced from Zenimax/Bethesda that's had an existing community on Playstation, correct me if I'm wrong?
Yeah same feeling, CoD might still stay multi but If ever a renewed focus is put on single player I would expect the single player and multiplayer both be treated independently with multiplayer remaining multiplat while single player being exclusive. or something like that. For Diablo 4 it's 50/50. Other than that remaster/remaster collection with big tie to Playstation might still go multiplat as well but any new entry likely won't.
So you agree he is full of shit and constantly regurgitates BS to make himself look good?
It is actually the first I see him not believing Phil.
My bad them. And you are right, he do what he needs for the business, but he lies a lot to keep a good guy image that I don`t know why so many buy it so easily. And agree with you that for Xbox itself he is doing much better than Don even if that took like 5 years of empty promises and them an avalanche of purchases (but very little organic growth or developing themselves).
Don changes don't happen over night. 5 years is a realistic turn around. He changed Xbox by removing Kinect and dropping the price. he got Xbox back to creating the most powerful consoles again, He organically grew multiple studios with The Coalition, The Intuitive and Worlds Edge. Two of them are designed to be industry leading. He brought back Backwards Compatibly, he brought in Game Pass.
He fixed so many issues as well as growing the brand and offering new amazing features which are industry leading like BC and GP. You might hate him because you don't game on Xbox but for Xbox gamers, he has done everything for the brand and fans.
Sure sure. He took 5 years to make the deals that now they can announce once a month. It is a pretending game.
He lied through and through during X1 because they had no more interest in it but couldn`t say, they were preparing to this gen do their action.
My dislike for him have nothing to do against not playing on Xbox, I barely play on Nintendo but have zero dislike for them. Also had no dislike for most of Xbox team. My dislike for Phil Spencer is exactly because he lie, deceive and pretend to manipulate.
How has he lied? give some examples? What do you mean he lied through the X1 generation?
Everything Phil has said he has done. You are taking what he says out of context which is well known by now.
Exactly, Sony do this type of stuff all the time yet they only want to hate on the competition for doing it. Credit to MS, atleast they are upfront with their ideas and dont hide behind other companies to avoid the criticism.
These are the same people who dont want competition, and only see the industry thier way. The moment the competition steps it up, they hate it. Sony and its fans have bullied the industry for way to long, they have now awoken the sleeping giant. Xbox had no games, to Xbox has too many games.
Damn. I didn’t know it could be worse than it looked. But it is.
It gets much worse
