Microsoft has proposed to defend the purchase of Activision in a more intensive way for some time, therefore, in response to the CMA, it proposes that Sony offer its exclusives in its subscription service, PlayStation Plus, as a measure to improve its system of monetization.
In response to all of Sony’s arguments To try to prevent the purchase of Activision, Microsoft has given several answers to the CMA to try to weaken the momentum of the Japanese company. In this case, the issue of subscriptions for each company has been discussed, as well as the strengthening of digital monetization in the industry. For this reason, and in the face of Sony’s complaints for falling behind on Xbox Game Pass, they have been proposed to launch their day one games on their own subscription service. This measure, according to the document, would be a drastic change in the PlayStation model due to its style of video games.
Furthermore, even if Microsoft manages to grow Game Pass with the addition of Call of Duty, the CMA would also have to make sure that Sony mightn’t respond through investments or improvements to its service. It’s clear that Sony has a range of options. to maintain or improve the competitive position of PlayStation Plus.
At the very least, Sony might include additional first-party and third-party releases on PlayStation Plus in the “day and date” release. Sony’s own exclusives that are not currently included in PlayStation Plus include prominent titles like The Last of Us, God of War, Spiderman, and Final Fantasy VII Remake. The inclusion of such titles would be beneficial to players.
Microsoft changed the course of the industry and Sony is complaining regarding it
As we saw in previous notes, Sony has been criticizing that the purchase of Activision would be a negative step in the industry, since platforms like PlayStation would lose part of the control of games like Call of Duty. This is not an exclusive concern of a video game, but of a trend, since Xbox has become a multiplatform experience with several channels that allow users to enjoy video games; quite the opposite of PlayStation, since its business model revolves around exclusivity and “premium”.
And so, Has Sony fallen behind in the industry compared to Microsoft?
The belief is that the business models are going in entirely different directions, which is currently favoring Xbox thanks to the rise of Xbox Game Pass. But PlayStation does not want to be left behind and they hope to have 12 games as a service by 2025, as Jim Ryan has commented. The problem lies in the fact that Sony is afraid of losing its main player and income factor, since it is not an exclusive of its own, but of the Call of Duty saga. This is why Microsoft is raising the possibility of expanding its subscription service to improve monetization, at the expense of that “premium” style.
With all this on the table, Jim Ryan declared several months ago that his business model was sustained by being a “virtuous cycle”, being a subscription service, something that would break the cycle and return his games, to put it another way, from lower value.
e are in a virtuous cycle where success has enabled investment, which has spawned more success, which has allowed us to invest more, and hopefully will spawn even more success.
That virtuous cycle, we felt that if we were to move to a different model, which involved putting our AAA games on a subscription service from day one, we felt there was a significant risk that the virtuous cycle that we have established so successfully would be compromised and potentially broken.
Finally, it remains to be seen what the decision of the CMA will be given all the discussion, but apparently it is not a movement that this regulator likes. Whether due to favoritism or a real concern of monopoly, we will have to wait until March 2023 to have a definitive answer that defines the Activision purchase.
