Sony Worries Microsoft Will Only Give It a 'Degraded' Call of Duty (arstechnica.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Late last month, UK regulators said they no longer believed a proposed Microsoft-owned Activision would bar Call of Duty games from PlayStation platforms, a reversal of earlier preliminary findings. Even if you grant that premise, though, Sony says that it's still worried Microsoft could give PlayStation owners a "degraded" version of new Call of Duty games in an effort to make the Xbox versions look better.
In a newly published response (PDF) to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, Sony says the regulators' recent turnaround is "surprising, unprecedented, and irrational." The company takes specific issue with the regulators' "lifetime value" modeling, which Sony says heavily undervalues what an Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty would be worth to Microsoft. Beyond those technical concerns, though, Sony says it worries that Microsoft might subtly undermine PlayStation "simply by not making it as good as it could be." That could include small changes to the game's "performance [or] quality of play," but also secondary moves to "raise [Call of Duty's] price [on PlayStation], release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass." Microsoft would also "have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox," Sony says, an apparent reference to the PS5 controller's advanced haptics and built-in audio capabilities.
In its own newly filed response (PDF), Microsoft reiterated that it has "no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation." That follows on a March filing where Microsoft promised Sony parity on Call of Duty's "release date, content, features, upgrades, quality, and playability." But Sony's response reflects a continued lack of trust in such promises. The company cites detailed analyses from the likes of Digital Foundry in saying that "the technical quality of Modern Warfare II was similar across platforms" in today's market. After a merger, though, Sony argues that "Microsoft would have different incentives because degrading the experience on PlayStation would benefit Xbox, PlayStation's 'closest rival.'" "This kind of 'partial foreclosure' strategy might 'trigger fewer gamer complaints' than full Xbox exclusivity for Call of Duty, Sony says, while also allowing Microsoft to 'still secure revenues from sales of Call of Duty on PlayStation for a transitional period,'" reports Ars. "But Sony says the long-term results of this kind of 'degraded' PlayStation version would be the same as a full PlayStation ban: Call of Duty players abandoning Sony and moving to Microsoft's platforms."
"Such a move would 'seriously damage our reputation,' Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan told the CMA in a recent hearing. 'Our gamers would desert our platform in droves and network effects would exacerbate the problem. Our business would never recover.'"
In a newly published response (PDF) to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, Sony says the regulators' recent turnaround is "surprising, unprecedented, and irrational." The company takes specific issue with the regulators' "lifetime value" modeling, which Sony says heavily undervalues what an Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty would be worth to Microsoft. Beyond those technical concerns, though, Sony says it worries that Microsoft might subtly undermine PlayStation "simply by not making it as good as it could be." That could include small changes to the game's "performance [or] quality of play," but also secondary moves to "raise [Call of Duty's] price [on PlayStation], release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass." Microsoft would also "have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox," Sony says, an apparent reference to the PS5 controller's advanced haptics and built-in audio capabilities.
In its own newly filed response (PDF), Microsoft reiterated that it has "no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation." That follows on a March filing where Microsoft promised Sony parity on Call of Duty's "release date, content, features, upgrades, quality, and playability." But Sony's response reflects a continued lack of trust in such promises. The company cites detailed analyses from the likes of Digital Foundry in saying that "the technical quality of Modern Warfare II was similar across platforms" in today's market. After a merger, though, Sony argues that "Microsoft would have different incentives because degrading the experience on PlayStation would benefit Xbox, PlayStation's 'closest rival.'" "This kind of 'partial foreclosure' strategy might 'trigger fewer gamer complaints' than full Xbox exclusivity for Call of Duty, Sony says, while also allowing Microsoft to 'still secure revenues from sales of Call of Duty on PlayStation for a transitional period,'" reports Ars. "But Sony says the long-term results of this kind of 'degraded' PlayStation version would be the same as a full PlayStation ban: Call of Duty players abandoning Sony and moving to Microsoft's platforms."
"Such a move would 'seriously damage our reputation,' Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan told the CMA in a recent hearing. 'Our gamers would desert our platform in droves and network effects would exacerbate the problem. Our business would never recover.'"
mirror mirror (Score:2, Insightful)
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What product does Sony make that is degraded to MS?
Sony paid blizzard activision to leave out specific features [polygon.com] of call of duty for microsoft platforms in MW2019 for timed exclusivity for example.
They are afraid their own shitty behaviour will be used against them.
Re:mirror mirror (Score:4, Informative)
I think Microsoft started that. The 360 tended to have exclusive DLC where we had from the horse's mouth anecdotes from game devs who flat out stated they ripped chunks of the game out to re-package as 360 exclusive DLC in order to fulfil the terms of the contract.
But console exclusive features go back much farther than that. Back when porting from a SNES to a MegaDrive involved a major undertaking, it was common to use the time to add and remove features to make the versions distinct. This was done in part for technical reasons, and partly business reasons.
I don't think this is just about DLC though since they talk about performance and quality. Consoles are pretty close in specs these days and so you can reasonably expect similar performance on both. Sony appears to be worried that Microsoft will tell their dev teams to not try too hard to get the PS5 version to the same quality. This would be especially obvious since the PS5 tends to do slightly better than the XSX for some reason, even in games from studios that you'd have expected to favour Xbox. If you're seeing PS5 consistently better than XSX across the industry EXCEPT for CoD, well, it would be fairly suspicious.
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The 360 tended to have exclusive DLC where we had from the horse's mouth anecdotes from game devs who flat out stated they ripped chunks of the game out to re-package as 360 exclusive DLC in order to fulfil the terms of the contract.
I haven't paid serious attention, but I know I've seen games that had different DLC on each platform... Not just missing from one platform, but missing from both.
Any more I've given up on playing the latest games, only later do you know which the best ones will be. I'll let the masses jump on those 'nades.
Re: mirror mirror (Score:2)
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Probably because Mac is a lame dead-end platform that changes processors every few years. Why optimize if they are going to switch from PowerPC to Intel to Arm, then to whatever in the future. What a waste for a third-party company to keep chasing that moving target.
Linux is significant competition for Microsoft these days, they can let the whole Mac ecosystem wither now and not be worried about monopoly litigation.
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You have gotten the incentives backwards. It's highly lucrative to chase Apple's moving target, because all of your customers will absolutely need to upgrade if they want current tools and toys.
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Not if you're a company with a long term product like Office. Every time you get close to good with it, boom, they change the target.
Only reason Microsoft Office for Mac exists is because they had to keep Apple alive decades ago before they got split up for being a monopoly. These days, they are nothing close to a monopoly. (Except in the eyes of Europe who just see them as a cash source)
I fail to see their logic (Score:4, Informative)
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It seems like the writing is on the wall at this point. Sony may have missed their chance to negotiate concessions from Microsoft, and instead they're just going to get the generic 10-year promise to publish Call of Duty games on Playstation. I'm not sure what the purpose of Sony's continuing opposition is at this point.
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Given how all the practices Sony are complaining "might" happen are already well established tactics that Sony has engaged in for years I think it is pretty fair for everyone tell them to go fuck themselves.
On one hand, Sony 100% deserves it. On the other hand, these shenanigans harm consumers. Just because this is leisure time shit doesn't mean they deserve to get screwed over. And Microsoft has done way more anticompetitive things than Sony has done over the years, as horriblarious as that is.
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In what world is supporting a competitor as well as you do yourself make sense? There is a reason I cannot recommend Macs for M365 use. Apple "degrades' their services all the time on non-Apple platforms, it's simply fair play.
Hopefully MS and Google get more aggressive here.
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I must be getting old (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I know it's considered a myth. And no, I don't think it was a myth. Maybe that specific phrase was never uttered, but Microsoft was famous for using position as DOS/Windows developer to undermine rivals.
It's childishly naive to think they'd stop doing that after they've been getting away with it for so long.
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> now they dont do it anymore!?
Oh? So Microsoft sinking its fangs into Bethesda and immediately scrapping the Playstation release of Starfield was... what? A figment of everyones' collective imaginations?
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Sony claims a degraded version would have the same end result as pulling the game from the Playstation entirely.
Not the same result, a more subtle form of marketing. Consoles are often compared against one another on the basis of cross platform games like that. When games look better, even if only slightly, on console A vs. console B, many people will take that as evidence that console A is better / faster / more powerful.
This may seem silly, and it is, but a lot of people obsess over this crap. It does make a difference, and if it happened it would be very difficult for Sony to litigate.
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"But Sony says the long-term results of this kind of 'degraded' PlayStation version would be the same as a full PlayStation ban: Call of Duty players abandoning Sony and moving to Microsoft's platforms."
Quoted from the summary. This is what I'm talking about right here. Sony says a degraded version would be the same as removing it. I'm not saying the findings of the report are correct, but the report says that it's not in Microsoft's interest to remove CoD from Playstation. By Sony's own admission, a degraded version of CoD would have the same result as removing it. Thus, there is the same amount of risk of a degraded version as outright removal.
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The reports say Microsoft would likely lose out on enough sales to make it worth keeping CoD on the Playstion. Sony claims a degraded version would have the same end result as pulling the game from the Playstation entirely. If Sony's claim is accurate, then based on the same report, it would be in Microsoft's best interest to not degrade the game on the Playstation.
The platforms aren't identical, depending on the release versions one might have a better GPU or an extra fancy haptic feedback.
Sony's worry about scenarios like if PS has the better hardware or extra feature then the versions are the same, but it XBox has the better hardware or extra feature then the devs make sure it gets used.
Such an action wouldn't be enough to kill CoD sales on PS. But, if someone is deciding which console to buy they might choose XBox to get CoD with better res or that fancy feature.
I
Re:I fail to see their logic (Score:4, Interesting)
All you have to do is look back at Microsoft's history. Remember when Halo going to be a dual release for both Microsoft's and Apple's OSs? Remember when it amazed everyone when it was demo'd at Macworld? Remember when Microsoft bought Bungie and immediately knifed the Mac version, discarded all of the cross-platform code that was already written for the Mac and threw away all of the money Mac users would have spent on Halo just so they could harm a competitor's platform by denying the Macintosh a much-anticipated game?
And remember when... years later... they finally released a Mac version of Halo; and it was gutted of several of the features that were demo'd at that Macworld and re-engineered so that the performance would suck versus the their own OS?
Remember when they coerced Id/Activision into delaying the release of the Mac and Linux versions (Which were developed simultaneously with the windows version, per Carmack's .plan updates.) of Quake 3? Remember when they strong-armed the packaging suppliers into withholding shipments to Loki and Scott Draeker was mailing Q3 CDs to customers with promise of a box & manual to follow? Remember when they strong-armed Sierra into not releasing the nearly-complete Mac version of Half Life? Remember Starfield ?
I do. I bet Sony does too.
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It's entirely relevant.
> The reports say Microsoft would likely lose out on ...
> enough sales to make it worth keeping CoD on the
> Playstion.
>
> to not degrade the game on the Playstation
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So tired of Sony's BS (Score:1)
The fit they've been throwing over this just reinforces my decision long ago to not purchase another Playstation. I saw game after game become locked away behind their console. This is the classic case of a chronic liar never being able to believe any truth they are told because they assume everyone else lies like they do.
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So in your mind, only Sony can pull off shady shenanigans? Go take a gander at the reviews for The Last of Us on Steam. Also, when was the last Sony exclusive that they made available for Xbox? I think that you just have some irrational MS hate for some grievances that are 20+ years old. Your arguments are silly and don't move me at all.
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I don't know what point you're trying to make by pointing out that Sony has also has exclusives. Yes, they do. So what?
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What are you talking about? Exclusives are at the root of Sony's complaint. Sony has had a strategy in place for years where they would pay 3rd party developers for exclusive rights. Yet now they're angry that some of these developers will be locked away behind Microsoft IP? Please. I can still criticize Sony while saying that the case against the MS acquisition valid. But that's the FTC's case to make. Sony needs to sit down and STFU.
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What are you talking about?
Anti trust policy. This is not unrelated to exclusives, but that is only part of the issue. There are many ways that a company in a monopoly position can benefit which are not as obvious as that, Sony points out one of those right there in the summary. There's a big difference between getting some exclusives and capturing such a large portion of the market. Microsoft (and Sony) have purchased developers and publishers before without anything like this kind of scrutiny, for good reason.
The notion that a r
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Hey Sony, Forget deals with m$ft (Score:2)
It's not about how good the game is (Score:2)
CoD isn't... (Score:2)
Go out and discover more great games. Sony is just afraid that they might actually have to do some actual work.
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Network effects. You can make a better game and it can still have trouble competing with a more popular franchise. It has to be spectacularly better for people to notice a difference, and now all the top games are pretty amazing so that's a very high bar.
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It's hard to have pity for either party here. Both Sony and Microsoft are anti-competitive pricks that have been anti-competitive for decades.
And Disney shouldn't of been allowed to buy all that content either. It's all bad for consumers but since when has the government cared about consumers? Microsoft will probably win this case because it's an American Tech company, and American Interest are those of American's businesses.
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Maybe. But the two are hardly comparable. In the game of corporate bastardry and harming the tech industry and its consumers, Sony is playing high school junior varsity while Microsoft are the San Francisco 49ers in the Joe Montana and Steve Young era. And even if Sony decided right this moment to engage in MS-level corporate shenanigans, it'd take Sony years to ramp up on the ability to do equivalent harm and decades just to catch up with the damage Microsoft has already done.
And realistically, there is
Basically (Score:5, Informative)
Sony do not want Microsoft doing what Sony does. All Sony exclusive titles look like garbage on the XBox, with subpar optimizations and making the PS version much better than the XBox counterpart.
Makes perfect sense.
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All Sony exclusive titles look like garbage on the XBox, with subpar optimizations and making the PS version much better than the XBox counterpart.
you appear to have a tenuous grasp on the term "exclusive".
Projecting (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder why Sony is worried about that?
Oh that's right.... seems that Sony is worried that MS will do to Playstation, what Sony did to PC versions of their own games.
Call of ... (Score:2)
Pot calling the kettle black (Score:2)
Fuck off Sony.
They have done it before (Score:1)
Microsoft has given a degraded Psychonauts 2 experience on PlayStation 5 vs Xbox Series X. They withheld the Bedrock version of Minecraft on the PlayStation unless Sony allowed Xbox network account sign-in on that platform. Microsoft withheld entirely the Elder Scrolls 6 from PlayStation 5.
What is Sony worried about? (Score:1)
It's not like Microsoft got to where it is today by sabotaging its competition and lying to the regulators about it.
Oh no! (Score:2)
Now when I don't play it, I won't be playing a game that's worse.
All the Sony exclusive titles? (Score:2)
degraded ? like the crappy ports Sony do (Score:2)
We already have plenty of evidence (Score:1)
It's not done... (Score:2)
...until Playstation won't run!
I think that ship has sailed... (Score:2)
Call of Duty has been degrading for numerous iterations at this point. Arguably the last good COD was Modern Warfare 2 (2009), put out 14 years ago. Still looks pretty good and runs perfectly on Linux also.