Microsoft might have purchased someone, maybe

Aye, you can pretty much guarantee that the next consoles from both will just be a newer generation of whatever AMD are offering. I'd say Sony probably wouldn't even bother with fancy pants SSD tech again. Just whack a gen5 drive in there and away you go.

As a Nintendo fan (that owns two Xbox consoles) this whole thing means so little to me. It’s very rare I play anything published by Activision, and when I do it’s hardly essential.

I remember back in the PS2 era folk said not having EA as a publisher would kill your console of, like the Dreamcast, but I’ve been living a gaming life that is almost completely void of EA and Activision and it’s been amazing. Honestly, just let Microsoft take Activision and ruin the studios, waste the IP and create a big hole in the market for new talent to fill.

I’ve always owned all three company’s consoles, and used to feel the same. I’ve always liked Blizzard’s games, but didn’t play much on the Activision side. I was like, who cares about Call of Duty? Bethesda is the bigger get!
While I probably do still find the Bethesda purchase the bigger deal (even if not much has come from it as of yet aside from Hi-Fi Rush…), I’ve been playing through a few Call of Duty campaigns lately, and turns out… I kind of like them!
I haven’t dabbled in the multiplayer and not sure I will, as I still have flashbacks of walking into a room and getting shot immediately, countless of times, on 360. But the idea of having the campaigns on GamePass for a quick playthrough of the story mode, then immediate uninstall and move onto something else is kinda nice.

Also, I think PS2 hype over its apparent* superior hardware, and the inclusion of a DVD player killed the Dreamcast off more than a loss of EA. I think people
enjoyed the (Sega owned) 2K sports games well enough, reviews for them often being higher than scores for the EA-developed equivalent titles.

*(I say “apparent” because while later in PS2’s life cycle, there were certainly games that pushed beyond what the Dreamcast managed in its admittedly very short life span, that wasn’t the case in the first few years, when often multiplat games looked worse on it. A bit like the 360 and PS3, actually)

Just going to say Yes! I enjoyed Sega Sport games.

Still the chance MS wins this case. Closes the deal then takes Activision out of the UK unless the CMA comes to to some concessions with MS.
MS have already said Activision will be kept separate.

Phil Spencer's now claiming - in court, no less! - that The Elder Scrolls VI may yet come to PlayStation, and that platforms haven't been decided yet as the game is still c. 5 years away.

I can believe him re the timing of its eventual release, but the rest is pure bullshit.

The same is true of Starfield, and Spencer was full of mealy-mouthed, evasive waffle when the issue of exclusivity for that game was first mooted.

As soon as the ink was dry on the Zenimax acquisition, his tune was less, "We're not doing this to keep games away from players on other platforms", and more, "Hey, PlayStation - Starfeel deez nuts!"

The FTC thinks that Starfield was planned for PS5 prior to the MS takeover of Zenimax:

www.gamespot.com/articles/starfield-was-planned-for-ps5-prior-to-microsofts-zenimax-acquisition-ftc-says/1100-6515427/

I'm inclined to believe it, with all of BGS's games from... what, Oblivion?... onwards being multiplatform.

Harvey Smith recently came out and said that Redfall was being developed for PS5 before Arkane were told by their new paymasters to scrap those plans. (Not much of a loss, as it turned out )

I see what you're saying about Starfield being a new IP versus Elder Scrolls being established, really I do; I just think the former would've sold like gangbusters on PS5 anyway, with people being hungry for a new BGS release that wasn't TES or Fallout, and Microsoft still had no qualms about throwing away those sales in the name of exclusivity.

I'll put money on them taking the exact same approach with TES6.

I believe after their MS acquisition Bungie didn't want to be tied down like that. Sony bought them purely for their live service consultancy seeing as they've got 14 live service games in development. They're the reason that Last of Us Factions is has been "retooled for development" as it were.

I hadn’t really considered the argument that Starfield, as a new IP, was higher risk than Elder Scrolls, because I think everyone alive just assumes it will be a hit no matter what they do. I’ve got huge doubts about the game based on what little I’ve seen, but I also expect it to sell a shit-ton.

Who knows, PlayStation may even get it after 12 months Xbox exclusivity if the game is a massive hit.

Starfield may not have an existing fanbase on any platform as things stand, 'cause it's not out yet, but it *does* have a ready-made audience made up of fans of Bethesda's previous work. As Aubergine says, it was always going to sell well.

This isn't a new IP along the lines of, say, Forspoken - it's Elder Scrolls/Fallout in space, or Bethesda's answer to Mass Effect, or however one wishes to frame it.

I don't believe for a nanosecond that MS decided to keep Starfield to themselves because they thought it might not sell well enough to justify a multi-platform release.

Pete Hines claimed it would be releasing next year if it was still multiplatform.

Yeah Spencer said they got word Sony was looking to take it from Xbox(completely) and said it played a massive part in them buying Bethesda.

But wouldn't that mean they knew how big the game could be so should have kept it Multiplatform?

Isn't the whole point of exclusives to make people buy your console?

Seems pretty straightfoward why they'd make it exclusive - lots of people will want to play it and anyone without an Xbox will need to get one. The fact it would sell more on Playstation is the problem