Today's News:
* Bethesda confirmed that they have delayed their upcoming Starfield game from a first/second quarter of 2023 release to a new release date of September 6th. It was also announced that they will be holding a Nintendo Direct-like stream for the game on June 11th.
Link:
https://www.destructoid.com/starfiel...tember-6-2023/ ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raWbElTCea8
* In a recent filing to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sony is currently claiming that Microsoft will release inferior versions of Call of Duty games on their Playstation platforms should they be successful in their purchase of Activision Blizzard. In the filing, Sony is going as far as to claim that MS could push for certain bugs to only be present on non-Xbox versions of the game and would hold back on timely fixes in order to make Xbox versions more enticing for players, especially during launch week. Sony is also claiming that despite MS promising equal support for CoD games on all platforms, they feel CoD games on Playstation platforms will become second fiddle in stature if MS were to own the series. Sony is also claiming that MS could engage in business practices that could hurt the CoD brand but also push players away from PS in favor of their Game Pass service.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Destructoid
In a document submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) filed in late February, as spotted by The Verge, Sony raises concerns about what Microsoft may do with Call of Duty. This includes concerns that Activision could even create a worse COD experience on a competitor’s console. Here’s the slice where Sony lays out this possibility:
“For example, Microsoft might release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates. Even if such degradations could be swiftly detected, any remedy would likely come too late, by which time the gaming community would have lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty. Indeed, as Modern Warfare II attests, Call of Duty is most often purchased in just the first few weeks of release. If it became known that the game’s performance on PlayStation was worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty gamers could decide to switch to Xbox, for fear of playing their favourite game at a second-class or less competitive venue.”
Though this doesn’t quite allege intended sabotage, the concern seems to be that the PlayStation version would become second fiddle. Sony alleges that even if Microsoft were to operate in good faith, it would be incentivized to support and prioritize development of the Xbox version. Sony also other ways in which Call of Duty could skew towards Xbox, including the price of the series going up and making it available on a subscription service only through Game Pass. It concludes by saying that the transaction should be either prohibited, or subject to a “structural remedy.”
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Link:
https://www.destructoid.com/sony-con...on-cma-filing/ ,
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/8/23...ctivision-deal