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[ShaiKhulud1989]

Phil Spencer's time at Microsoft is up. His endless PR is a significant part of why this deal fails. No. He's not out tomorrow or next month but being part of a 2.5 Billion loss is the reason he'll be shown the door.

Problem with booting Spencer, I can't really see who could possibly replace him. Both from inside and outside of MS. Let's be honest, Xbox at this point is kinda doomed to be behind the pack almost every generation and no really talented top manager will be fighting for that career suicide. Except for maybe Phil Harrison.

 

[NeroDaGod]

Wonder if Sony will continue to “not pick up the phone” to Activision now or if their relationship will go back to pre-acquisition status. I feel like some of the way these people conducted themselves toward one of their biggest partners would result in irreparable damage to the whole relationship.

 

[LordCBH]

Problem with booting Spencer, I can't really see who could possibly replace him. Both from inside and outside of MS. Let's be honest, Xbox at this point is kinda doomed to be behind the pack almost every generation and no really talented top manager will be fighting for that career suicide. Except for maybe Phil Harrison.

The only option IMO would be to seek a replacement outside their own corporate structure. And even then I agree with you. Even hiring outside their corporate structure won’t change a thing because their corporate structure is so fucking awful.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Are they expecting the people to riot? Like we give a fuck.

It's pretty sad. Desperate even.

 

[ZehDon]

lmao

So they would build a studio from scratch(speculation), port down with content parity and crossplay (speculation), an yet that's not the type of assurances they are giving is it?

Because the question goes back to, why doesn't Activision do that already if it's so simple? Kotick doesn't like money? Because it's very convenient to talk about the Switch userbase in full terms.

It's just MS being deceitful, again.

There's nothing simple, or cheap, about building the same game twice. That's especially true when it takes three years and a series of satellite support studios to get it done the first time. Kotick knows what Microsoft knows: the demographic overlap between Switch users and the most profitable target audience for Call of Duty's probably isn't large enough to justify the expense. Microsoft's incentive to do it, however, isn't Kotick's profit driven incentive: it's ABK itself. There's nothing deceitful about it: Microsoft will down-port Call of Duty to Switch, rebuilding the game from scratch if they have to, and eat the expense with a smile if it gets ABK in their stable.

 

[LordCBH]

Wonder if Sony will continue to “not pick up the phone” to Activision now or if their relationship will go back to pre-acquisition status. I feel like some of the way these people conducted themselves toward one of their biggest partners would result in irreparable damage to the whole relationship.

They’ll go where the money is, and PlayStation is where it’s at for COD. It would be suicidal not to. When alls said and done, they’ll likely wash their hands of the last couple years, go “it’s just business” and then it’ll be business as usual.

 

[Poltz]

Wonder if Sony will continue to “not pick up the phone” to Activision now or if their relationship will go back to pre-acquisition status. I feel like some of the way these people conducted themselves toward one of their biggest partners would result in irreparable damage to the whole relationship.

Sony have a folder full of Lulu's tweets printed out waiting for that meeting.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Phil Spencer's time at Microsoft is up. His endless PR is a significant part of why this deal fails. No. He's not out tomorrow or next month but being part of a 2.5 Billion loss is the reason he'll be shown the door.

I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong because reasons, but outside of that bubble where Phil is a deity, this is a major blow for XBOX not just in terms of reputation but to the tune of billions.

Yeah this is just as embarrassing as xbox one reveal. Microsoft will want to replace him with a new face once this deal is officially dead. They should remove Aaron greenberg and major Nelson too. Aaron greenberg especially. That crash bandicoot picture with him next to it is so embarrassing that you can never recover from such a fail. I guess it's not his fault when his superiors are also stupid and don't instruct him to shut the fuck up and be professional. The entire company is arrogant and too loud. They talk the talk but when it comes to action, they can barely even crawl.

 

[Dick Jones]

Wonder if Sony will continue to “not pick up the phone” to Activision now or if their relationship will go back to pre-acquisition status. I feel like some of the way these people conducted themselves toward one of their biggest partners would result in irreparable damage to the whole relationship.

Sony have to wait until the deal falls. At that stage Bobby will be ringing first thing to restart negotiations

 

[FUBARx89]

So, have MS ever said how streaming CoD and MS titles would work on these platforms? Would they need xbox gamepass sub to stream them? Or is it free reign to let people "buy" the games to stream from Nintendo etc.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Sony have a folder full of Lulu's tweets printed out waiting for that meeting.

Can see Jim Ryan being petty about her. I would be.

 

[MasterCornholio]

The CMA doesn't care about concessions. They had a a mission just like Khan of the FTC are is trying to flex power. Any concession needed had already be made. If you read the CMA report the entire thing is full of inaccuracies,flat out lies and BS. It shows how incompetent government agencies are and how they need to modernize or hire people who actually know different Industries

Microsoft didn't offer divestment. That's where the problem is.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Are they expecting the people to riot? Like we give a fuck.

Yep

 

[LordCBH]

The CMA doesn't care about concessions. They had a a mission just like Khan of the FTC are is trying to flex power. Any concession needed had already be made. If you read the CMA report the entire thing is full of inaccuracies,flat out lies and BS. It shows how incompetent government agencies are and how they need to modernize or hire people who actually know different Industries

 

[Topher]

So, have MS ever said how streaming CoD and MS titles would work on these platforms? Would they need xbox gamepass sub to stream them? Or is it free reign to let people "buy" the games to stream from Nintendo etc.

I believe the games would have to be purchased.

 

[Topher]

If you read the CMA report the entire thing is full of inaccuracies,flat out lies and BS.

Such as?

 

[Heisenberg007]

Phil Spencer's time at Microsoft is up. His endless PR is a significant part of why this deal fails. No. He's not out tomorrow or next month but being part of a 2.5 Billion loss is the reason he'll be shown the door.

I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong because reasons, but outside of that bubble where Phil is a deity, this is a major blow for XBOX not just in terms of reputation but to the tune of billions.

I hope not.

It'd be a sad day for PlayStation fans when Phil Spencer leaves as the head of Xbox. No kidding.

 

[Thirty7ven]

I hope not.

It'd be a sad day for PlayStation fans when Phil Spencer leaves as the head of Xbox. No kidding.

Maybe for stupid fanboys. I for one would like Xbox to be hitting it out of the park in terms of quality games and messaging.

 

[ulantan]

Maybe for stupid fanboys. I for one would like Xbox to be hitting it out of the park in terms of quality games and messaging.

That's honestly my hope the sooner they are gone the quicker xbox gets back on track.

 

[poppabk]

The only option IMO would be to seek a replacement outside their own corporate structure. And even then I agree with you. Even hiring outside their corporate structure won’t change a thing because their corporate structure is so fucking awful.

Did you miss where MS just knocked it out of the park in a down PC market that gave Intel their biggest loss ever? Where Sony's share price was more impacted by what MS is doing than their record playstation quarter?
MS management is frankly doing stellar - xbox management - well MS have always struggled in anything that requires even a hint of coolness - from phones, music players, consoles, music streaming, PC gaming, they have failed time and time again.

 

[Heisenberg007]

So, have MS ever said how streaming CoD and MS titles would work on these platforms? Would they need xbox gamepass sub to stream them? Or is it free reign to let people "buy" the games to stream from Nintendo etc.

Can't say for sure but so far it seems like (1) you buy the game on Microsoft Store, paying MS 100% of the revenue, (2) subscribe to the cloud gaming service, such as Boosteroid or GeForce Now, and (3) stream the game you bought (from the MS store) using Boosteroid/GeForce Now.

The Cloud gaming company, in this case, will not receive any revenue share if you make an in-game purchase, e.g., buying an MTX.

 

[Pelta88]

Problem with booting Spencer, I can't really see who could possibly replace him. Both from inside and outside of MS. Let's be honest, Xbox at this point is kinda doomed to be behind the pack almost every generation and no really talented top manager will be fighting for that career suicide. Except for maybe Phil Harrison.

Truth be told, Phil is just a suit. There will be a long list of lesser known people at Redmond who are probably already being interviewed/lined up for that position. Outside of our bubble, nobody know's who Phil Spencer is. Same deal for the next person in charge.

Yeah this is just as embarrassing as xbox one reveal. Microsoft will want to replace him with a new face once this deal is officially dead. They should remove Aaron greenberg and major Nelson too. Aaron greenberg especially. That crash bandicoot picture with him next to it is so embarrassing that you can never recover from such a fail. I guess it's not his fault when his superiors are also stupid and don't instruct him to shut the fuck up and be professional. The entire company is arrogant and too loud. They talk the talk but when it comes to action, they can barely even crawl.

Yeah, the day the deal died reminded me of 2013. The anger was to a lesser extent, but the embarrassment was amplified. Phil has been in charge for a decade now and outside of the XBOX influencer space, confidence in the brand has reached a new low.

"The CMA has blocked the deal" thread on r/xbox is a difficult read irrespective of where you stand on the deal. I haven't seen that much pain and anguish expressed since 2013.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Truth be told, Phil is just a suit. There will be a long list of lesser known people at Redmond who are probably already being interviewed/lined up for that position. Outside of our bubble, nobody know's who Phil Spencer is. Same deal for the next person in charge.

Fair enough.

 

[feynoob]

Our dear friend is working hard

 

[FunkMiller]

Phil has been in charge for a decade now and outside of the XBOX influencer space, confidence in the brand has reached a new low.

It's quite incredible that he's been in charge that long, and we are still having to talk about XBox not competing with Playstation in terms of the exclusive games it can offer. Ten years is more than long enough to acquire or create dev teams that are capable of producing the kinds of games that could have competed with God Of War, TLOU etc. What on earth has Phil been doing all this time? And what does it say about the culture at XBox that things remain this bad?

 

[Dick Jones]

Our dear friend is working hard

Someone needs to tweet Sage and let him know that Sony recently talked about the cloud recently too and the CMA didn't take it into account in making their decision. This is enough to prove the CMA were acting irrationally

Pushing the envelope: Achieving next-level clouds in Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores

Guerrilla’s teams detail how it elevated the series’ skyscape for the upcoming expansion.

blog.playstation.com

 

[feynoob]

What the hell is going one with game development? These are insane amount of money for AAA games.

According to the report, AAA games that are greenlit now with potential releases in 2024 or 2025 typically receive development budgets of $200 million or higher — Call of Duty has already surpassed $300 million in development costs alone, and the next Grand Theft Auto title will likely require a development budget of $250 million or more. When considering marketing costs, this number can jump to over $1 billion, with one large studio reporting that a major franchise's development cost $660 million and marketing cost nearly $550 million.

These costs demonstrate a significant increase from five years ago, when most AAA games had budgets between $50 and $150 million.

https://www.ign.com/articles/major-...ost-over-a-billion-to-make?utm_source=twitter

 

[Topher]

Our dear friend is working hard

Always the warrior take even when consoles are not even the rationale for the decision. Big reason, I'd say, why he is banned. Just too much of a warrior.

Twitter is definitely his natural habitat.

 

[Edmund]

Our dear friend is working hard

I really wonder what he does for a living. I teach piano and whenever I have to write feedback to the parents I take 15 minutes to carefully type out my message and another 5-10 minutes before that to think about what I have to say. And that's just 2-3 short paragraphs. And i get very exhausted after doing that.

Dude writes fucking essays the entire fucking day!! Just imagine how much energy and time that takes. And he does it every fucking day!

Imagine if he uses that time and energy on doing actual useful things. Or just relaxing or spending time with family or friends. Or picking up a skill.


Dude would be a fucking genius if he spent all that time and energy learning something.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Our dear friend is working hard

Oh he's playing the corruption cars.

Also that CMA document is more than 300 pages. It's obvious they worked on that a lot.

 

[feynoob]

Oh he's playing the corruption cars.

That is the case here.
I dont get why someone who has 15k grand to spend on stocks like an easy money, do these stuff.

If I had that kind of money, I would be staying away from social media and enjoy my life.

 

[Flutta]

Always the warrior take even when consoles are not even the rationale for the decision. Big reason, I'd say, why he is banned. Just too much of a warrior.

Twitter is definitely his natural habitat.

Almost sounds like you’re talking about a wild animal.

 

[Bernardougf]

Cloud gaming isn't going to be as big as the CMA predict to to be. Especially with games like Cod that require almost zero input lag.

It's such an odd choice to refuse the merger on. I can understand other concerns... But not this one.

I know people are saying "yes but we are talking about future potential"..... But who here really sees cloud gaming to be the dominant way to play games in the next 10 years, 20 years ... In particular with online competitive games like Cod? I still see cloud gaming being pretty minute and low in numbers in the future compared to digital downloads etc.

Can you think of any big advance technological (internet, smartphones, etc) that where realistically predicted 20 years before ?

Anyway MS have been themselfs screaming about the cloud for years now, even saying that their real competitors are google and amazon ... well someone was bound to hear them, the CMA listened and moved accordingly, tough luck for Phil and his messages about the future

 

[Topher]

Almost sounds like you’re talking about a wild animal.

Mod of War hunting that beast down....

 

[LordCBH]

I really wonder what he does for a living. I teach piano and whenever I have to write feedback to the parents I take 15 minutes to carefully type out my message and another 5-10 minutes before that to think about what I have to say. And that's just 2-3 short paragraphs. And i get very exhausted after doing that.

Dude writes fucking essays the entire fucking day!! Just imagine how much energy and time that takes. And he does it every fucking day!

Imagine if he uses that time and energy on doing actual useful things. Or just relaxing or spending time with family or friends. Or picking up a skill.


Dude would be a fucking genius if he spent all that time and energy learning something.

He likes to claim he has 15k, over 8K, or over 40k of Activision stock. Truthfully? Dude probably works at Home Depot.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Always the warrior take even when consoles are not even the rationale for the decision. Big reason, I'd say, why he is banned. Just too much of a warrior.

Twitter is definitely his natural habitat.

Yeah the deal gets blocked and he automatically wants to blame Sony for it. If that's not warrior mentality I don't know what it is. Sony isn't even part of the argument here. The CMA are more concerned about that market than Sony being market leader in a different one.

That is the case here.
I dont get why someone who has 15k grand to spend on stocks like an easy money, do these stuff.

If I had that kind of money, I would be staying away from social media and enjoy my life.

Basically. He's saying that the whole plan was to protect Sony. The CMA basically rejected Sonys arguments to take off the focus from them. They essentially used the cloud argument as a red herring. In his mind the CMA wasn't doing this to protect the competition in the cloud market even though their response is centered around that. The true purpose was to protect Sony.

 

[Dick Jones]

Oh he's playing the corruption cars.

Also that CMA document is more than 300 pages. It's obvious they worked on that a lot.

The worst part of this whole sorry episode is he is quote tweeting a link for Kotaku

 

[Pelta88]

It's quite incredible that he's been in charge that long, and we are still having to talk about XBox not competing with Playstation in terms of the exclusive games it can offer. Ten years is more than long enough to acquire or create dev teams that are capable of producing the kinds of games that could have competed with God Of War, TLOU etc. What on earth has Phil been doing all this time? And what does it say about the culture at XBox that things remain this bad?

The entire post should be nominated for post of the day but the bolded is an irony I had to respond to.

What has Phil been doing all this time? Collecting awards. Phil is the most awarded, non competitive, person in gaming. His mantle piece is overflowing. It's the craziest juxtaposition I'e seen in this industry. Anyone who takes a peak at gaming could list a litany of major, significant, and damaging L's during his tenure. The month in month out reduction is market share, obfuscated Game Pass numbers, Mindshare at an all time low, etc etc etc

But he keeps getting awards for talking about what he'll do in the future...

 

[DJ12]

Basically. He's saying that the whole plan was to protect Sony. The CMA basically rejected Sonys arguments to take off the focus from them. They essentially used the cloud argument as a red herring. In his mind the CMA wasn't doing this to protect the competition in the cloud market even though their response is centered around that. The true purpose was to protect Sony.

No wonder he thinks they acted irrationally if he thinks hes sane.

Dudes a tinfoil hat away from the asylum.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Our dear friend is working hard

Good lord. What has to happen to someone, that they behave like this? I used to think it was just kids but it's not. We have multiple examples of grown men in their 30s 40s and even 50s acting this way? So embarrassing! What the hell is wrong with these people? Are they going to get paid a million if the deal goes through? Why would you be so invested like this?

 

[MasterCornholio]

No wonder he thinks they acted irrationally if he thinks hes sane.

Dudes a tinfoil hat away from the asylum.

It's basically the only way he can blame Sony for this. As to why they would do that I'm waiting to see him say that Sony bribed the CMA or something similar.

 

[DJ12]

But he keeps getting awards for talking about what he'll do in the future...

Sadly awards can very much be brought.

 

[demigod]

The CMA doesn't care about concessions. They had a a mission just like Khan of the FTC are is trying to flex power. Any concession needed had already be made. If you read the CMA report the entire thing is full of inaccuracies,flat out lies and BS. It shows how incompetent government agencies are and how they need to modernize or hire people who actually know different Industries

New script is up. The CMA met with Jim Ryan for brunch.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Just going with the Sages guys thinking.

I don't think Microsoft will appeal on grounds that the CMA is protecting Sony. The CAT would just deny them the appeal if that happened. As well as any accusations of corruption.

If Microsoft does appeal they will probably say the CMA didn't do their research correct and will sight the math error as proof that they already made mistakes in this.

 

[demigod]

lol How many times has Senjutsu gotten permabanned from gaf now? This must be the third.

I could’ve swore he was permed during the next gen tech thread but he said he wasn’t. /shrug

 

[GHG]

Problem with booting Spencer, I can't really see who could possibly replace him. Both from inside and outside of MS. Let's be honest, Xbox at this point is kinda doomed to be behind the pack almost every generation and no really talented top manager will be fighting for that career suicide. Except for maybe Phil Harrison.

ChatGPT could replace him and the outcome would be no different.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Wonder if Sony will continue to “not pick up the phone” to Activision now or if their relationship will go back to pre-acquisition status. I feel like some of the way these people conducted themselves toward one of their biggest partners would result in irreparable damage to the whole relationship.

Sony will let Activision simmer and reflect on what they just tried to do and then make a 10 year marketing and exclusive content deal for COD.

 

[Dick Jones]

New script is up. The CMA had brunch with Jim Ryan.

The CMA always liked Sony, they even gave them awards

 

[Bernardougf]

The CMA doesn't care about concessions. They had a a mission just like Khan of the FTC are is trying to flex power. Any concession needed had already be made. If you read the CMA report the entire thing is full of inaccuracies,flat out lies and BS. It shows how incompetent government agencies are and how they need to modernize or hire people who actually know different Industries

Now Im convinced, such compelling, well explained and grounded in reality arguments that I just cant refute.

 

[mrmustard]

Good lord. What has to happen to someone, that they behave like this? I used to think it was just kids but it's not. We have multiple examples of grown men in their 30s 40s and even 50s acting this way? So embarrassing! What the hell is wrong with these people? Are they going to get paid a million if the deal goes through? Why would you be so invested like this?

It's called fanboyism, aren't you familiar with it?