So you’ve decided to engage and that means we all have to re-state the same things we stated 100+ messages ago? Is that how this works?
Do you really think you’re the first person to suggest that Microsoft is “leaving money on the table” if they make CoD exclusive to Xbox? Hint: it came up within like 10 minutes of the news.
No, you didn’t really have to do anything but be an asshole. Carry on.
Hahaha. That “desire” is doing a ton of work in that sentence.
Yeah, I’m sure they do have a desire to sell Game Pass on PlayStation.
I think it’s the ‘all existing agreements’ that’s doing the serious load bearing here.
C’mon now fellers, no need to get testy. The way it looks to me is that if Sony made this purchase there is no way on earth they would let CoD, Diablo, Overwatch 2 etc, ever appear on the Xbox. No amount of 'money on the table, upset xbox user-base, or anything else would make them change their mind.
I just can’t see any way it would be different with MS being the buyers, outside of existing contracts or gamepass appearing on playstation. It just doesn’t make sense to pay that much money but still allow your freshly acquired IP’s appear on your main rival’s platform.
Yeah. There are two parts to that sentence.
“Yeah, we will adhere to any current contractual obligations” (not said: “and then we’re out of there”)
And then
"We would like to have COD on PlayStation " (not said: “but it may not happen”)
My point is more that Microsoft honoring all existing contracts and agreements between A/B and Sony is a given. I think almost everybody understood that they wouldn’t want to default and end up in arbitration, court, or paying a large penalty by yanking something off PlayStation that A/B was contractually bound to have on that platform.
The more interesting part of the statement (to me) is that “desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation” sounds so good for diehard PS CoD players until you start unpacking it.
@Woolen_Horde desires to date Ana De Armas too.
It’s this a common thing?
I was under the impression that companies made offensive plays, contracting out exclusivity, rather than paying developers simply to avoid locking them out.
Well, since the PS4days COD has been getting extra exclusive content that Xbox hasn’t. They both still get the same game, but PlayStation got bonuses. (Same thing happened with Destiny, like PS getting exclusive raids).
It depends on how that was all set up. Was it a multi-game deal to do that? Or was that on a per-game basis?
And if such a deal exists, does that mean MS would be obligated to deliver COD to PS? What are the termination fees if MS breaks it?
Oh, come on, I’m not the only one around here.
It’s possible, but I’ve never heard of a multi-title exclusivity, or timed-exclusivity deal. But I’ve also never worked on an IP as big as CoD, so I don’t know. But it’s definitely not common.
And yet right before that line, MS committed to honor current contracts with Sony for games they do not yet own. How is that consistent with your statement?
We know Sony and A/B definitely had a special marketing deal with Call of Duty, which included branded ads and exclusive/timed-exclusive DLC. I guess the variables are:
In 2015, Sony paid Activision truckload of money to get COD content first on PS4, along with some exclusive PS content. It’s now the #1 COD platform, and I would assume is responsible for a very high percentage of the PS4/5’s online play.
I wonder how long the Sony/COD agreement is signed for. MS will need to honor that.
Yes, by using language like “desire” instead of “commitment”.
Sony would never make this kind of acquisition because they aren’t in a financial position to lose tens of billions by immediately devaluing a new asset in the name of exclusivity.
Activision has been in a long term co-marketing deal for CoD which both ensures new games release on PlayStation, and probably also prohibits the games from appearing on GamePass day one. It is unknown how long the deal is for, and could easily extend for a number of years into the future.
The actual language used was “confirmed our intent”, which lines up exactly with my statement. Or are we to assume he was being duplicitous?
This much is true. You can also bet your ass that if they could afford to do so, they’d spend their money on acquiring studios and publishers rather than exclusivity deals. There’s no white hat here.
Let me rephrase because I was not a precise as I should have been the first time. The first sentence used “intent”, the second sentence use the term “desire”. Neither of those terms assumes current ownership. Both speak to positions on possible future actions, and both are obviously dependent upon the sale going through. There is no legal issue here.
But in fact, we should just put all of that discussion aside - it’s irrelevant. Because in fact, there is no legal issue to begin with - companies doing mergers make announcements about future plans all the time before the merger without legal ramifications - and, indeed, they have to. They can’t wait until Day 1 of the merger to tell employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders, and regulators exactly what is going to happen. For example, companies name executives for the combined companies/operations (MS has already stated that Kotick will report to Spencer - oops, how did their lawyers let them do that!?!), companies name the location of corporate HQ’s (if a merger of equals). Other leadership posts have to be named, all the way down. Sometime the name of the company has to be changed or it has to be decided which name to use - do you think that isn’t going to be communicated until Day 1 of the merger with all the legal filings that need to be made? Employees need to told about changes to benefit plans, such as health care, retirement, etc. Often times, if there is overlap, companies will indicate their plans to divest locations, well ahead of the merger. In fact many mergers/purchases are based upon cutting redundancies, eliminating weak product lines, etc. and companies make public statements about these plans ahead of time to convince shareholders and Wall Street that the merger/purchase is a great deal. There’s tons of stuff that is announced well before any actual change in ownership is made. In fact I think it’s pretty safe to say that most major decisions are made, and many are announced, well before Day 1 of any merger.
Oh, I see. You thought you caught me in a contradiction, but when you found out that was incorrect you are simply changing your argument completely.
But my original point stands. It is in fact highly illegal for businesses to begin acting as though they have already merged prior to the actual completion of a merger, and that definitely extends to how leadership communicate their future plans. As such, you can’t point to word choice in order to conclude the opposite of what is being expressed simply because it is not sufficiently declarative.