Microsoft’s game plan for the has never been subtle but now it’s made plain: they take a pay to win approach to the games industry.
Although there have been many revelations already from the between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), very little of it is actually a surprise.
Microsoft has been buying for decades and Sony trying to make a exclusive being the catalyst for Microsoft acquiring Bethesda , given what was going on at that time.
What’s also obvious is that Microsoft’s general game plan is to simply outspend Sony, whether it’s shouldering the loss in profit caused by day one titles on Game Pass or paying $69 billion for Activision Blizzard. Only now there’s proof of Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty saying exactly that in an email.
The email was set in 2019 and involves Booty encouraging fellow Xbox exec Tim Stuart to make more acquisitions, in part so Game Pass appears more attractive to gamers.
‘We are in a very unique position to be able to go spend Sony out of business,’ writes Booty.
‘Content is the one moat that we have, in terms of a catalogue that runs on current devices and capability to create new. Sony is really the only other player who could compete with Game Pass and we have a two year and 10 million subs lead.’
The email is not from the FTC court case but the other one Microsoft is battling at the moment from a group of gamers, aided by Sony. Microsoft previously tried to publicly, but evidently that failed.
It’s not Sony that’s actually the focus of the message, but other giant corporations of a size more equivalent to Microsoft itself, such as Google, Amazon, and Tencent.
‘It is practically impossible for anyone to start a new video streaming service at scale at this point,’ suggests Booty. ‘In games, Google is three to four years away from being able to have a studio up and running. Amazon has shown no ability to execute on game content.’
Considering that was back in 2019, and given the mess Amazon and Google have made of their entries into the games industry, he wasn’t wrong. He’s also not wrong about Microsoft’s ability to outspend Sony, who are several orders of magnitude smaller than the other companies mentioned.
In regard to its use in the court case, Microsoft has claimed that the email refers to ‘industry trends we never pursued and is unrelated to the acquisition [of Activision Blizzard].’ Which is difficult to believe considering everything that’s happened in the last four years.
Interestingly, much of the rest of the email is redacted and it’s not clear what it’s discussing, beyond a comment from Booty about possibly cancelling its policy of releasing all first party games on Game Pass from day one – which, obviously they didn’t do.
It’s also revealed that Microsoft paid $117 million ($92 million) for Hellblade developer Ninja Theory, although clearly that’s small change compared to some of the other purchases they’ve made… and are planning to make in the future.
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