Acti boss – “We might have to stop supporting Sony” next year [Update]

Oh dear.

Batten down the hatches boys and girls, there’s gonnabe shit flung in all directions from this one.

OMG.
something Huuuuuge !!

:O

Horseshit. This is just to try and pressure Sony into making a large price cut on the PS3.

Really, psycho? I’d've never worked that out for myself.

wow, that wuold be going the dreamcast way……
BIG news !!???!?!?!

Make it happen, Sony! Please!

This gen’s GameCube confirmed.

But yeah, Kotick’s just trying to force Sony’s hand, or renegotiate terms which suit Acti better.

Sony have no chose now but to drop the price. lol

So, a fortnight ago they want to sue Double-Fine after ditching them. Now they want to lay some threats down in another direction. Is Bobby going to sue Sony after he ditches them too?

I guess anyone Bobby hasn’t put a ring on had better get in touch with their lawyers.

A PS3 price cut is inevitable. But, when it comes, I’d hate to see Activision try and take the credit for it. In addition to that, if Sony allow anyone to get the impression that one publisher’s threats make a difference to them, lots of other publishers will all try the same stunt.

Have fun developing those exclusives then Bob.

Ofcourse I would be pissed off, but I think the attach rate things, and such are all bullshit.

Activision have had their heads up their asses since the Acti-Blizz merger.

The sooner they stop believing their own hype and get their shit together the better.

What a completely ridiculous thing to say. I bet Sony are TOTALLY quaking in their boots.

Die, Activision! DIE!

It’s not that Activision is going to do it or not that’s interesting, imo – it’s the fact these he’s publicly come out and said it.

If it happens after Brutal Legend comes out then there’s nothing to worry about.

Oh noes! We’ll lose RIDE and Guitar Hero.
Big. Deal.

Activision clearly believe themselves to be the most important company in the industry at the minute and equally think this gives them the right to say what they like and throw their weight around as they see fit. The big headed wankers.

Really Blerk?

xD

I think plenty of other companies said it, so no, it’s not really a surprise.

Does anyone know if Acti-Blizzard have actually lost money on their PS3 projects?

Not just RIDE and Guitar Hero Eregol.

Modern Warfare. James Bond. Blur!

Losing Activision Blizzard would kill PS3. Dead

And, erm… a little game knows as Call of Duty?

As annoying as Acti are, they’ve got 2 *major* games that both 360 and PS3 would do very well to keep…

Plenty of other companies said they wanted a price cut, Pud. None of the others threatened to pull support if they didn’t get one, though.

Those royalty revenues are insane. How the hell isn’t Sony’s gaming division managing to break even when they’re pulling in money like that?

Stop buying Acti Blizz games! NOW !!!

CoD5 was last year’s best seller, CoD: MW1 is still a full price game, and I’m sure CoD: MW2 will eclipse both of those in terms of sales.

Guitar Hero has also sold millions, not just in terms of boxed product but through DLC.

It’ll be a massive loss to any company if Acti pulled out.

But still, Acti’s not going to do it.

I’d have to start buying ActiBlizz games before I could stop buying them, Quiick.

Bear in mind that Guitar Hero 3 is apparently the first game ever to make $1billion in total sales.

That is *NOT* a franchise you care to lose.

(Not that they will as per Mikes posts, but still)

Sony are obviously planning a PS3 price cut regardless, but making such threats public will do much to generate bad blood between the two companies.

I don’t believe for a second that Activision would piss away a 20 million plus user base on next gen titles. The majority of the cost for developing these games is the art assets, and they’ve already got their PS3 tech in order, so this is clearly just sabre rattling, and Kotick’s being a complete cock saying such things in public.

Psycho, isn’t the gaming division, the only division of Sony that was in the black?

> Losing Activision Blizzard would kill PS3. Dead

/knees
/hands

O Sony, in thy divine arrogance,
I beseach thee to firmly stand your ground on pricing,
As the aforementioned losing,
And subsequent demise,
Of the overpriced albatross,
Wouldst, in the hearts of men,
Deliver a chuckle most uplifting.

Amen.

@Pud: No, or at least not for a long while anyway. The gaming division has lost ~$3.6bn in the last 3 years.

This is the amazing bit:

Kotick added that Acti Blizz paid $500 million to Sony in royalties and other goods last year, which “probably still worked out at 400 percent of the profit they made”.

Is Activision really losing money on supporting PS3? If so, then why should they support it exactly?

$3.6bn what? (ah, makes sense after that edit PT )

I always wonder how long will it take for fans to acknowledge the simple fact that Sony screwed up big time with too many aspects of their PS3 strategy.

Every time there’s this “conspiracy theory” halo surrounding the discussions…

Games are tougher to develop and end up worse? Lazy programmers.

Console is too expensive, lacks installed base, fails to generate enough revenues for publishers? That’s their own problems, arrogant SOBs.

Theoretical killer apps fail badly at meeting overblown expectations? People don’t understand good games.

It could be funny, were it not for the fact that it is quite boring instead.

Maybe in the last 3 years, but I swear the last few quarters they’ve been black?

@Lutz: Yeah, I’m not sure how I managed to miss that rather important word.

Lol this will probably work as well. Although I doubt Sony are gonna like this.

Pud:

Y/E 2009 Q1: $51,113,208
Y/E 2009 Q2: -$379,471,154
Y/E 2009 Q3: $4,395,604
Y/E 2009 Q4: -$253,244,898

Y/E 2009: -$577,207,240

PT: How come the figures swing so much? And how do you make a loss in Q4? Something like 70% of all game sales occur in Q4. To go from a $5m profit to a $253m loss is unreal.

Q4 2009?

How?

Is that 2008, right?

@Lutz: Q4 financial, not calendar. (Sony’s Q3 financial is their Q4 calendar). The figures above are year ending 2009 (So April 2008 to March 2009).

The rest are for reasons due to time of year, price cuts, model releases etc.

“This is the amazing bit:

Kotick added that Acti Blizz paid $500 million to Sony in royalties and other goods last year, which “probably still worked out at 400 percent of the profit they made”.

Is Activision really losing money on supporting PS3? If so, then why should they support it exactly?”

Indeed.

The way this lot are going they’re going to make old EA look like a friendly charity shop. Something needs to take their top execs down a peg or two.

Their Guitar Hero money printing machine must cost sweet FA to develop each new interation and makes a ton of money across all Sony platforms.

How long is it before they start binning franchises they can’t bi-annualise?!

@ Blerk
“I’d have to start buying ActiBlizz games before I could stop buying them, Quiiick.”

I thought I was the only one around here who has never, ever bought an Activision/Bizzard/ActiBlizz game.

@deftangel: They already did that, didn’t they?

Mike: Acti aren’t losing money; they’re just paying out more loyalties than they’re making in profit.

Ignoring tax, if sales directly made thanks to Sony are $1billion, and cost of sales/overheads are $375m (For them $1b sales), and they pay $500m to Sony, Acti are left with $125m profit from the Sony sales.

So from Activisions Sony Sales, Sony are making 4x the profit of Acti. For doing fuck all.

I’m scratching my head here, but the only Acti game I can recall buying (2nd hand mind) is Spider-Man Web of Shadows.

Obviously the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all need royalties to subsidise the cost of the hardware, but from the face of it, that does seem high. I’d love to know how much Acti paid Ninty and MS, and what the ratio fo sales across the platforms were.

COD series Lutz? (excluding Treyarch)