According to this post on Resetera, Microsoft has pulled the ultimate Uno Reverse Card

https://www.resetera.com/threads/washington-post-phil-spencer-interview-on-the-activision-deal-and-more.542051/page-14#post-80640275

It’s hardly just a couple of moneyhats though. Sony have been signing exclusivity deals relentlessly all last generation, and they’ve done them largely unanswered as a result of both Xbox having a weaker market position making it cheaper for them to do, but also because the practice of signing them is widely accepted for them, but not for MS.

There’s a reason why something like Final Fantasy sells so disproportionately on PlayStation… it’s because these exclusivity deals reinforce (or in some cases disrupt) audiences on a given platform, and as time goes on that becomes more difficult to undo. Sony’s had Final Fantasy in their corner for a long time now, going back to Final Fantasy 7, but the series DID eventually come to Xbox day and date beginning with Final Fantasy XIII, and was starting to cultivate an audience within that ecosystem that had a desire to play JRPGs. That Final Fantasy 7 Remake got moneyhatted (for what is still an uncertain length of time in regards to Xbox) isn’t a random coincidence. This type of moneyhat is a precisely targeted one to cause an entire genre of game not be viable on the platform.

There are some IP that within their sphere carry so much weight that they cause ripple effects across the genre. Sony’s Street Fighter V moneyhat effectively buried the entire fighter genre on Xbox, because nobody invested in that genre was going to opt for a console that lacked Street Fighter… and as a result other titles that weren’t (or at least I’m not aware of being) moneyhats would start to skip the console also, because if nobody that’s invested in that genre is opting for that console, why should the smaller, more niche IP target that console either, right?

So yes… timed exclusives very much can be used to push a competing platform out of the market, and Sony was routinely targeting games that would be the most crippling across the spectrum. Whether that be Final Fantasy (and possibly Persona?) in the JRPG space, Street Fighter in the fighting game space, the year (or two) long exclusive content deals for Destiny, and the exclusive map content for COD in the FPS space, etc… the goal was to make it so Xbox as a platform wasn’t a viable choice for the majority of the market. And quite frankly, it was working and working well… hence the situation in 2016 where MS bowing out of the market entirely was a very real possibility.

When that didn’t occur, Sony looked to land killer blows right away at the start of this generation. Hence the announcement of Final Fantasy XVI’s timed exclusivity ahead of the consoles being released, and the murmurs of a whole slew of others to be revealed in time. And the general response here was just that it was a foregone conclusion that PS5 would just continue to build on PS4’s momentum largely unimpeded. And considering the shit MS took back in 2015 when they dared to land a single comparable exclusivity deal with Rise of the Tomb Raider, that avenue of retaliation was clearly not available to them. Look how quick the clarification of the duration of exclusivity of RoTR was forced out of MS and SquareEnix, and then contrast that with Crash N’Sane Trilogy, Nier Automata, Final Fantasy 7R, KOTOR remake… or any of countless other deals where their eventual Xbox release was happily left vague as hell. That’s how we’re here today, because MS were either gonna commit fully and land some true heavy blows that made a real difference to the current landscape, or they were inevitably going to see their platform marginalised to the point where they had to drop out.

If people didn’t want to see the level of escalation we’re seeing now today… well, they shouldn’t have been so comfortable commending the ever increasing frequency and severity of deals Sony was making to cripple their primary competition. “Final Fantasy sells 80%+ on PlayStation anyways, so they may as well” and by extension “of course it makes sense for game X to skip Xbox, because the audience is all on PlayStation”. Well, congrats… now they won’t all be. The rampant desire for the glory days of PS2-era domination has led us here, and so cries about how unfair it is ring hollow.

TLDR

• Sony used their market dominance since the Xbox One to constantly moneyhat exclusives and never giving the chance for a fanbase to cultivate on another program ei Final Fantasy
• Sony was prepared to go all in this gen to kill off Xbox once and for all
• Microsoft played the Uno Reverse card...can't get third party exclusives? By the damn publisher and lock Playstation from the games forever
• Now MS/Xbox hold all the cards, Phil is single handedly the most powerful person in gaming, Xbox dictates the terms and Sony has to bend the knee and play by Xbox' rules if they ever want to see games like COD or other now Xbox owned games on Playstation again

Must be true.

The last paragraph is the general tenor of this situation. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Did anyone really not see Microsoft going after studios after the white hot hate thrown at them last generation for having no studios or games? You can't exist in a bubble.... Things are moving.

🥱 you really can't compare what Xbox did to anything Sony has done.

Why should we care about what a poster on this forum of loonies has to say?

Should we thank you for posting some random person's opinion?

Yet that Xbox dumbass Synth from ERA ignoring exclusive and timed exclusive deals made by Phil Spencer last gen or before him during X360/PS3 era. What an idiot

Lol 👎

So Microsoft never had 3rd party exclusives. Yea dumb write up.

Clearly it's upsetting people not everyone sees the acquisition as a bad thing. I'm sure MS would like to avoid an antitrust fight but if one did occur I'm sure they'd love the opportunity to depose Sony for the full scope of their exclusivity deals. Sure as many point out MS did them too but if it turns out Sony was far more aggressive about it than they ever were it's probably going to not look very good for Sony, and will pretty much justify any such acquisition as necessary for MS to gain market footing. It also probably works in their favor while MS is trying to gain market share by providing their users with value Sony has used its position to increase game prices.

Resetera.

Nobody cares tho. If you talk a regular guy they still want ps5 they don't even know activision is this deal did nothing to the casuals.

@iamthetruth101: Resetera... 🤣 Thanks for mentioning that in the thread title so I could just skip reading any of that nonsense.

Exactly. Now we have Sony fannies pretending that Sony is some angel company that haven't actively and persistently participated in this practice. It is pretty funny to see how they spin the narrative in order to make this move digestible. In the end, Sony fannies are getting what they have celebrated and promoted but now it is in reverse.

I have been seeing more of this sentiment since the acquisition though, don't know who this person is but saw it and "Amen!":

@lamprey263: Here come the spinning.😎

@Pedro: calling the Sony fanboy reactions to the MS acquisition "spin" gives their response too much credit, they're mostly temper tantrum reactions

@lamprey263: fantastic post. The cows are just hypocrites haha. With this acquisition, MS will be strong competition towards sony.

Let's be honest, MS first party titles before the whole acquisition spree was trash. I mean they had halo, forza and gears of War. The games and IP they built up in the xbox 360 Era was completely wasted. No perfect dark, no kameo, no fable, no kotor, or Alan wake. The xbox team completely trashed everything the xbox 360 built up. The xbox 360 had a STRONG library, strong enough to fight playstation on even footing. I remember even tales of vesperia was xbox exclusive for a while. They just let it go because they didn't care about gaming. Thankfully they turned that around with Phil Spencer captaining the ship.

Sony definitely used their position in the market and paid off 3rd party to keep games exclusive to their platform, and it's been going on for a while now. Heck ff7 remake was supposed to be on the xbox. Sony paid enough to prevent that from happening, and even the pc got it before xbox did. A freaking 3rd party game. No need bitch now that tables have turned

@blaznwiipspman1: Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the 360 library was strong because of third party and third party exclusives and not because Xbox had a strong first party?

@Pedro: i think it was a combination of strong first party support and they were in a strong enough position to make deals with 3rd parties.

They really pushed the envelope during the 360 days, and then just coasted along with what they built during xbox one gen. You can't even blame sony for what happened. Alot of damage was just self inflicted.

So I guess it's not fair to say only sony did it, because MS abused the shit out of exclusivity contracts during xbox 360 days. They just got double slapped by the ps4 who continued that nonsense and took it another level.

The thing is though, MS doesn't need to care about sonys stupid games. They have the money to buy out the industry. Guess sony is feeling dumb now, along with all the cows.

I hated Xbox practices during the 360 era. It was downright terrible as far as I am concerned yet, it is the most praised time period for Xbox. I have no desire for them to return to that shitty anti-consumer version of themselves. I also have no desire for MS to be buying out the industry. That is a terrible move and terrible want by anyone. With that said, both companies have participated in these shitty practices of locking games to their hardware with Sony being the most recent and active one. Gamers need to stop celebrating these dumb moves otherwise we will be getting more practices that wouldn't work in gamers' favor.

@Pedro: yeah, its not great but I think sony should be fine for now. They can get killzone up and running again. Plus I'm not sure MS will stop all cod games on PlayStation. The game still releases on steam and other pc platforms. If sony negotiates for it, MS is still a business end of the day.

Cows are so dumb to think Sony didn't start this.

I’m surprised a Era poster was able to type that many words without accusing somebody of being racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic. They didn’t play the victim card once…

They’ll be banned in a week

@goldenelementxl: lol

The idea that PlayStation wanted to kill off Xbox is some fan-fiction bull****.

It is Resetera so I take it with a grain of salt lol.

That maybe but we can't ignore the fact that they have spent a lot of money keep games of the system.

Random Resetera posts and random Twitter posts.. This forum is so shit lol

Maybe this will give some leverage for Xbox to bring some "stollen" ips back from PS.

I really enjoy the Sony fanboys meltdowns knowing it's done with real emotion 🤣

Not only are Sony dry bumming cows,but MS are tearing them a new one as well.

Me,well I know that console exclusives'are a thing and have been for a long time,do I shit on the floor and stamp in it?...NO I have a version of both consoles.

It's not rocket science cows, instead of pissing yourselves because MS is counterpunching Sony,buy a series s,its free over time thanks to gamepass 👍

You console kids keep thinking that the reason why MS bought all these developers and publishers is to dethrone Sony and the Playstation. Sony is a small fish in a big pond. Microsoft is anticipating the entrance of Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta into the arena. Sony isn't even on Microsoft's mind anymore.

Yeah they did though it was before Xbox even existed. Kutaragi famously quoted that he is going to kill MS (PC Gaming).

Why must someone have a job on a site for their opinion piece to matter?

He made very good points.

@HalcyonScarlet: We still wouldn’t care about an opinion piece from a random game "journalist". I’d care if it were someone accredited like a game dev, businessman or someone like that.

Cows should know this best. You mess with the bull, you get the horns. lol :P

Sometimes their opinions are no more worthy.

Take David Jaffe. I'm supposed to take seriously criticisms on video games from the guy behind the first God of War game?

A game that came out one year after Ninja Gaiden and 4 years after Devil May Cry, yet some how made God of War an absolutely horrific game. But this guy gets threads in SWs?

Listen to opinions and if you agree, great if not fine. But I'm not convinced that people in the industry have default more worth while opinions.

@HalcyonScarlet: God of War a horrific game? GTFO.

God of War 2005 is a cluster f*** to play today. Yet DMC 2001 and NG 2004 more than playable.

I was playing it in November last year on PSNow on the PC, and it was just so bad.

It's remembered for the story and gore more than the gameplay which is bottom of the barrel in it's genre.

I didn't say I would take them seriously, I said I would at least bother listening.

I agree that DMC and especially Ninja Garden are much better than GOW but I wouldn't call GOW horrific by any means. It's a solid game. Also, on this particular topic I would listen to a CEO, businessman, or financial analyst. Guys who got chops and a background on the business side of things.

@HalcyonScarlet: You played it on a streaming service...of course it felt like shit 🤣. But even then to say it's horrific, well that's Ghost levels of stupid.

@theam0g: I don't get this line of thinking...so MS just spent 70 billion to not try to dethrone the current kings of gaming (Sony, Nintendo) but to stop a bunch of non gaming entities from doing not much in gaming...what?

Ah yes, let us discuss some random salty fanboy's forum post.

Users on this forum need to stop shooting the messenger, but shoot his message instead if they disagree with him. There is no need to make it personal.

And one thing: the fact that the post is from Resetera is irrelevent regardless of the site's dubious reputation. What is irelevent is the contents of that post.

And one last thing: for anyone who is unfamiliar with the card game Uno, what is the Uno Reverse Card?

@onesiphorus: "what is the Uno Reverse Card?"

Just reverses order the players play their cards, now that you mention it the analogy wasn't thought out very well.

All I can say is bravo and we’ll said.

The pass and applause Sony get for playing hardball is absurd. I remember when RotTR exclusivity was announced and they people wouldn’t stop pressing for how long will it be. But on the other side it’s mums the word. Well eat a bag of shit if it bothers you that you woke the monster up now.

@SolidGame_basic: 🥱 you really can't compare what Xbox did to anything Sony has done.“

If you can read that and not see how easily it compares well your blind. Escalating is natural in business as it is in war.

Only Sony is going to suffer here. Let's not pretend third parties do anything for Kidtendo anyway.