It's time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Neum Band together to help keep you informed on everything in the Diablo universe. And now your Diablo Community podcast. Coming to you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode 4 0 1 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Sony. So Silly. It is March 10th, 2023. And this is Jen.
I've got a bunch of stuff to talk about as usual and I'll just get right to it. Code dash CWA tweeted this yesterday, which would've been March 1st at CWA Union filed a U L P charge against Activision for terminating two employees for engaging in protected concerted and union activity. The charge alleges Activision unlawfully fired workers for expressing outrage over the return to office.
And you might remember a couple episodes back, I was talking about how a lot of big companies are requiring people to come back to the office, but they're not necessarily making them safe from catching covid. So I can see why some people would be upset about that. Kotaku has an article about it, which was linked to, in that tweet from the cw, a Activision accused of illegally firing QA testers over remote work protest. The communications workers of America have filed unfair labor
practice charges. Here's from the article, the Communications Workers of America CWA have today filed charges against publisher Activision, accompanied with a long track record of alleged union busting, claiming the publisher violated several workplace laws in relation to the firing of two q and a testers. This was posted on February 28th.
The charges are related to Activision's recent decision to begin forcing workers back into the office, which has been met with resistance across the company's workforce. The CWA say that numerous workers protested the return to office plans, citing cost of living concerns and the impact it would have on their coworkers who might be forced out of their jobs. Two QA testers expressed their outrage using strong language.
In response management set up disciplinary meetings where both workers were fired and quote the cwa.
A argue that the use of outbursts and strong language in the context of concerted activity by employees was protected by the National Labor Relations Board until as recently as 2020 before the Trump administration quote systematically rolled back workers' rights, including modifying the standard for determining whether employees have been lawfully disciplined or discharged after making offensive statements,
which ultimately limits free speech rights for employees. And quote, Activision disagrees, quote, we don't allow employees to use profane or abusive language against each other. A spokesperson for the company, Joseph Krisna told Kotaku, we actually got a name for a spokesperson in this one. That's pretty rare. Quote, we're disappointed the CWA advocates this type of behavior. That's kind of nasty thing to say, you know what I mean?
You're the one doing the union busting. Activision. I mean that's worse. The charges have been filed against Activision's, C E O, Bobby Kotick directly and alleged that the firings which took place on February 17 were made in response to the employee's engagement in protected concerted and union activity end. The CWA also alleged that Activision improperly denied a request to have a coworker witness the disciplinary meeting,
which proceeded the termination of their employment. And quote, for far too long, Activision has gotten away with treating its employees, especially QA testers like disposable workhorses firing two employees for joining with their coworkers to express concern around hasty return to office policies is retaliation pointblank and
CWA. Secretary Treasurer Sarah Steffen says, when faced with unfair treatment by unscrupulous employers like Activision, workers should have the right to express themselves. IGN also has an article about this. The headline of their article is CWA Files charges against Activision for Firing of two q and a. Workers. The two express their outrage using strong language. Uh,
this one mentions Kotaku. Yeah, it's a little bit same z so it's, it's there if you wanna read it, I'll put everything I talk about into the show notes@chadsoulstone.com. In another Kotaku article from February of February 27, uh, there is an article titled Xbox Boss Now downplaying Importance of Controversial Activision Merger. Phil Spencer seems to be trying to reassure investors. Microsoft doesn't really need Activision Blizzard,
which is a weird take altogether. Here's from the article. In a new interview, Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, said that Xbox will exist heads in quotes, even if it's massive deal to buy up Call of Duty publisher Activision Falls apart due to continued and intense regulatory scrutiny and public pushback. It's been over a year. Wow, it's been over a year since Microsoft announced its plan to consume the game
publishing Juggernaut, Activision Blizzard King. And since then, things haven't gone smoothly for all involved as other tech companies and even nation states have continued to criticize the proposed mega dash Big mega big 70 billion deal. Xbox has promised to keep Call of Duty multi-platform among other concessions in an effort to ensure this massive merger is allowed to
complete. But in a new interview, seemingly sensing danger in the air Xbox, Spencer suggested that Xbox would actually be totally fine without Activision, which seems like a major change of tune after Xbox spent the last 12 months suggesting it needed Activision to grow and compete against Nintendo and Sony's dominant PlayStation brand.
Talking to British Paper the Times over the weekend, Spencer pointed out the real reason according to him and Xbox, that the company was trying to buy up Activision Blizzard King, noting that it wasn't to snap up Call of Duty or to keep it off other platforms.
Instead he says the main purpose behind the deal is to help Microsoft quote catch up and quote in the mobile market and eventually become a true competitor to Google and Apple's mobile stores parenthesis, he admitted that this possible future was a long way from today and then there's a little bit more in here, but there we are. That's the idea with that one. Games industry Biz has an article from March 2nd. Microsoft gained access to Sony documents,
the FTCs response in detail. This is written by James Bachelor, editor-in-chief at Games industry.biz. Uh, the little blurb at the top says Xbox Firm will receive PlayStation exclusivity contracts and four years of company records in preparation for summer trial over Activision Blizzard acquisition, the Federal Trade Commission, which is the US' version of the uh, regulators that we've been hearing about from all these other countries.
The Federal Trade Commission has addressed Sony's objections to Microsoft's subpoena for internal documents and has rejected the majority of them in a ruling signed by Chief Administrative Law Judge d Michael Chappelle. The FTC granted two of Sony's requests but denied the other six.
Microsoft issued the subpoena to Sony requesting access to various documents and information it can use to assist with its defense against the F T C. Later this year, the US regulator issued a legal complaint against the Xbox Firm's app proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard back in December. The subpoena was served on January 17 with Sony issuing its objections on January 23. It later emerged. Sony described some of Microsoft's request as obvious harassment.
The FTC noted that mi, Sony and Microsoft met to discuss these objections on five separate occasions. Microsoft argued that certain information around Sony's PlayStation business will help address concerns over the impact its ownership of Activision Blizzard might have on competition in the video game space. And then there's more insight on this a little bit later in the article.
Request to withhold content to licensing agreements denied in part, Microsoft asked Sony for a copy of every content licensing agreement between PlayStation and any third party publisher from January 1st, 2012 onwards. Sony claimed this was of no value to the case. It added that Sony systems do not allow it to search contracts by company type only by name. So this would mean searching over 150,000 contracts with around 60,000
companies. However, Microsoft insisted this search would help address allegations around exclusivity arrangements with game publishers, some of which involve publishers being restricted from adding titles to Xbox Game Pass. Since exclusivity is one of the many concerns the FTC has about the
proposed acquisition, it denied Sony's request. However, in keeping with the decision detailed below, it limited the search to contract signed from January 1st, 2019 onwards, request to withhold employee perform performance reviews and evaluations. Granted, Sony argued that the requested documents related to performance reviews or evaluations of Jim Ryan and his direct reports as well as other members of the company's leadership were not relevant to the case and were an quote,
unjustified invasion of employee privacy. According to the ftc, Microsoft contended, that such information was required to understand the metrics on which sis E'S executives and business are evaluated. But the FTC stressed that this was not an employment case and these metrics had no logical connection to its complaint or the proposed acquisition. The FTC granted this request request to deny access to Jim Ryan's declaration to the FTC denied.
Microsoft requested the declaration, including all drafts that Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan issued to the FTC regarding the proposed acquisition. Sony did not protest that the information is relevant but insisted there was nothing in these documents that Microsoft did not already have access to. The FTC denied this request, request to limit time period of search. Granted, as mentioned, Microsoft's search focuses on documents from January 1st, 2019 onwards.
However, Sony noted that 10 of the specific requests were made or made required information from 2012 onward. The platform holder argued that documents from a decade ago were not relevant to this case, which is focused on the future of anti-competitive efforts. Microsoft failed to address why it would need documents from before January 1st, 2019. So the FTC granted Sony's request in this case request to limit the scope of the custodial search denied.
The subpoena focuses on searching custodial records from January 1st, 2019 onwards. Some of the people whose files have been requested joined after this date and Sony requested that the search be focused only on their records after their employment began for the time before they joined Sony. The platform holder argued that their predecessor's documents are not needed.
Instead suggesting the search concentrate on their direct supervisors As the documents would quote overlap, end quote, the FTC denied this request. Adding that the idea that predecessor's documents would also be available through the direct supervisor is speculative and un per persuasive. And it just goes on from here. Request to limit the definitions of the subpoena denied. While no detail was given on the definition, Sony refers to the PlayStation firm claimed 20 20th.
The terms in the subpoena are overly broad, unduly burdensome and vague. However, the FTC said Sony failed to deliver appropriate examples or legal arguments and denied this request. So it's kind of a mixed bag here of Sony kind of being awkward. Yeah, and Microsoft may be overstepping its bounds a bit, but eventually this is gonna go through. There's also an article from Game Developer written by Chris Care or Car, k e e r, ke, k e r r, uh, news editor.
And there's a little bit in here about that. I think it's possible that I've already kind of run over that in the previous article, but I'd like to give you more than one source if I can. So you can check those out in the show notes later on. Um, here's a Kotaku article from March 2nd. Sony might have to reveal what it pays for exclusives. Court says that's a new one to me. Microsoft and Sony's battle over the Activision purchase could uncover some
interesting numbers. This is written by Luke Plunkett on March 2nd. The last time we were checking in on the legal tussle over the proposed 69 billion sale of Activision Blizzard. Sony was complaining of harassment at the hands of Microsoft who were asking to see all kinds of records, emails and internal documentation as part of the case's discovery process. And then it talks about the game developer report that, um, has a lot of things in the, uh, previous report that I just mentioned.
So here's a little bit of that as game developer report probably meant reported, though the FTCs Chief Administrative Judge d Michael Chappelle has tossed out most though not all of Sony's complaints, meaning that Microsoft is about to get access to a ton of relevant documents and that PlayStation didn't want released, ranging from its antitrust lawyers external emails to a number of senior vice president's documentation to the records of former employees.
Most interesting though, and I say this on a personal bias, says the writer, not because I'm any kind of laughing fee, this is from the F T C. Here is a piece here and it says Microsoft argues that the complaint in this case makes a number of allegations regarding high performance video game console developers exclusivity arrangements with video
game publishers. Microsoft states that it is aware that s i e, which is Sony, uh, requires many third party publishers to agree to exclusivity exclusivity provisions, including preventing the publishers from putting their games on xbox's multi game subscription service. And that understanding the full extent of s SI's exclusivity arrangements and their effect on industry competitiveness will assist in its defense. That's from the ftc Judge Chappelle says.
This is because the nature and extent of Sony's content licensing agreements are relevant to the complaint's allegations of exclusivity arrangements between video game console developers and video game developers and publishers. In other words, Microsoft is free to dig up how much Sony is paying publishers to keep games off Game pass and find out any other details or conditions associated with putting a game on a PlayStation console at the expense of any Xbox platforms or
services. It goes on from there, but I think that's the main idea with this article. Insider Gaming has a article posted actually on February 20th, so it's a little bit old, but I didn't know about this until recently. Activision data breach contains employee details Call of Duty's future
and more. Uh, insider Gaming has been able to verify the legitimacy of an alleged Activision data breach from Twitter user, I can't even pronounce that, who recently posted Key Call of Duty details to his Twitter account overnight. Although the user has only posted several images on Twitter regarding the release slate of modern warfare two, DLCs Insider Gaming has been able to obtain the entirety of the data breach.
The data obtained contains plans from Modern Warfare two s upcoming DLCs Call of Duty 2023 code named Jupiter and Call of Duty 2024 code named Cbus as well as sensitive employee information. Employee information obtained includes full names, corporate emails and phone numbers, job opening, offer amounts, places of work, and more speaking with the person that I can't pronounce his Twitter name
honestly. Um, Activision was breached on December 4th, 2022 and the files were passed onto him recently by a single individual who was unable to sell the contents of the breach. In conversation, it was said that the hacker was able to breach a human resources HR employee's computer, which the hacker was able to scrape easily gaining access to the information. Although not confirmed at this time,
it appears that the hack was limited to that one employee's computer. However, given the responsibilities given to an HR employee, the computer contained employee details of all Activision employees, it's understood that no player slash user data has been compromised. Details on Modern Warfare two D L C plans have already leaked online, but as the information was obtained in December, 2022, some details already appear outdated. Earlier this month.
Insider gaming exclusively reported key dates and details on Call of Duty 2023. And there's a link to, if you wanna see that, then there was an update cuz Activision sent a statement. The statement is the security of our data is paramount and we have comprehensive information security protocols in place to ensure its confidentiality. On December 4th, 2022, our information security team swiftly addressed an s m s phishing attempt and
quickly resolved it. Following a thorough investigation, we determined that no sensitive employee data, game code or player data was accessed. There is no name on this one, which sometimes happens with Activision. Uh, TechCrunch has an article pretty much around the same time. Hacker Steel, Activision Games and Employee Data. It's probably pretty much the same. It is talking about Games Insider, which is that the thing I was looking at?
Yeah, insider gaming, something like that. So there's, you know, just more to it there. An interesting part of this article from TechCrunch is this Act division is just
the latest victim in a series of hacks against video game companies. In January, riot games disclosed a breach in which hackers access the companies quote development environment and allowing them to steal source code of the popular Games, league of Legends and Team Flight tactics, as well as the source code for the company's legal, uh, legacy anti cheat system. Earlier in September, hackers published re unreleased footage from the upcoming and much anticipated
Grand Theft Auto four. At the time, the game maker Rockstar Games admitted that hackers had been able to get their hands on confidential information from our systems, including early development footage from the next Grand Theft auto end quote. And throughout 2022, a hacking group known as Octopus o uh, zero K T a P U s or Scattered Spider targeted at least 130
companies. According to cybersecurity firm, a group ib, the group gained notoriety for hacking the cloud communications company, Twilio, which provides other company services such as sending automated text messages to their users. Among the around 130 companies targeted, there were several game makers including Riot Games and Epic Games. So that's the thing people are doing for shenanigans sake, I guess not legal. Uh, the Verge has an article here from March eight.
It's kind of a little short article and it says it's written by Tom Warren. Microsoft really wants Call of Duty. Microsoft is now running full page ads in the Financial Times and the Daily Mail to push for its Activision Blizzard deal to be approved by UK regulators. It comes just as the UK's competition and markets authority. CMA considers Sony concerns over Call of duty c o d ahead of a decision, uh, on the 68 7 billion deal.
The 150 million more c o D players refers to the the deals Microsoft signed with Nintendo and Nvidia recently. And there is a picture in this article about that full page ad it says Call of Duty for 150 million more players. That's just one of our commitments upon approval to unite Activision Blizzard and Xbox. More games for more players on more platforms and it's got a bunch of different
platforms here to look at, which is kind of interesting. Microsoft insists, and this is from Video Games Chronicle and it was posted by Tom Ivan on March 8th. Microsoft Insists game pass prices quote will not increase as a result of Activision merger. It says a price rise quote would be counterproductive as it would increase subscriber churn rates.
Microsoft has sought to dismiss suggestions that it could raise Xbox Game pass prices should its nine 69 billion merger with Activision Blizzard be approved issuing its provisional findings on the proposed deal last month, UK regulator, uh, the competition and markets authority raised concerns that Microsoft could choose to increase the price of its game pass subscription plans Following the addition of the popular Activision content quote,
prices for subscriptions can easily be revised and Microsoft may have an incentive to do so once it adds content that is as popular as Activisions, including including c o d It suggested, however, in a newly published response to the CMAs findings, Microsoft said it doesn't plan to raise game pass prices due to the deal going through and claim that doing so would be counterproductive because it would lead
to a drop in subscribers. Quote, game pass prices will not increase as a result of the merger and certainly will not increase to a point that offsets the substantial benefits of Activision titles coming to Game Pass on a day and on a day and date basis. It wrote this is especially so given Game Pass will continue to be constrained by buy to play btp. Microsoft went on to point out that they, it had not increased game pass prices since.
In introducing popular Bethesda content to the service following its acquisition of the publisher's parent company, Zemax Media, which saw it take ownership of franchises including the Elder Scrolls, fallout Doom and Dishonored. And I've, I have an Xbox S and have seen all these things on there. Some of them all play eventually not today. IGN has an article titled Sony is Worried Xbox will Find Ways to Sabotage Call of Duty on PlayStation.
Sony has submitted new documentation to regulators. Here we go. This is written by George Yang on March eight. Sony is worried that Microsoft could sabotage PlayStation versions of Call of Duty if Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard were to be approved as first reported by the Verge.
Sony submitted documentation to the UK's competition and Markets authority saying that Microsoft could do a variety of moves to make the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation unappealing to play on this includes things such as raising the price of the games, prioritizing the development of the Xbox version,
or releasing a buggy build of the games. On PlayStation, quote, 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've lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty, Sony explained in the documents, this is why the show is called Sony So silly by the way. Sony continued indeed as Modern Warfare. Two attest Call of Duty is most often purchased in just the few weeks of a 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 favorite game at a second class or less competitive venue. Sony is positing that the merge, if the merger were to go through Microsoft would have the incentive to allow Call of Duty to fail on PlayStation as well as receive a higher revenue share
for its content than if Activision was an independent entity. Additionally, Sony argues there would be no way for it or the CMA to monitor the quality of Call of Duty to ensure that the PlayStation version receives fair allocation of Microsoft's development resources. This is absolutely ridiculous. Like how are you gonna have, okay, if you have an Xbox, you're probably playing whatever's on the Xbox or whatever you like on there or what you have time to play.
Now the idea that let's say sometime soon, sometime in the near future, all these regulators go, sure, Microsoft go ahead and acquire Activision, blizzard King and Xbox. Uh, you know, people go hazah, they're happy and they go ahead and start hooking up, uh, different games into Xbox's system, right? Cool. Here's the thing.
They could get, you know, they could have Activision, uh, port over, you know, a, a type of, uh, call of Duty that would be functional on an Xbox cause I'm sure it'd be different on a pc, uh, and it doesn't play on a Mac, so that part doesn't matter. But, um, I think that would, they'd be able to find one that would play on a play on an Xbox just fine. But here's the thing, Xbox itself is not gonna say, Hey Activision, could you mess with the code on the ones for,
you know, the Call of Duty stuff for PlayStation for us? That'd be great. There's no way they're gonna do that cuz that would be highly legal. Also, I'm not sure that a game once finished could really easily be manipulated in that way. I just don't think you're gonna have a lot of coders at Activision going, right, let's fuck this up for PlayStation. Just them, that's all. You know what I mean? Like, it's ridiculous.
Sony is like just grasping at straws here with its arguments and they don't make any damn sense at all whatsoever. And here's another one from, uh, video Games Chronicle Sony claims Microsoft could release buggy Call of Duty games for PlayStation consoles. It tells UK watchdog that Activision merger should be blocked or Call of Duty divested, which is really, really strange. Um,
really, really strange. Like, okay, you know, um, there's not a whole lot in this article that was probably different from the other one, but yeah, this is Sony being silly, like really silly overall. Like how would you even, you know, okay, let's say like this part here, um, they're telling the UK watchdog that a, the Activision merger should be blocked or Call of Duty divested.
So it kind of sounds like what they want to have happen is that uh, if this merger goes through that somehow, somehow Activision itself is gonna be able to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, even if, I mean, you know what I mean? And they are there are gonna be able to keep it on PlayStation because everybody at Xbox that's high up has said, yeah, we're not gonna take it away from PlayStation.
So why on earth would Sony come up with this ridiculous concept that, you know, if this merger goes through the only system that's gonna be dinged with bugs and other problems would be Sony. That makes no sense at all whatsoever. All of the Call of Duty stuff has been on Sony forever. I don't see why this merger would change things, but like I said, Sony's so silly.
We've got another games industry biz article from uh, it was updated on March 10th written by James Bachelor's titled to Microsoft Proposes Remedies to Appease UK Regulators' Concerns Over Activision Acquisition. The blurb says Xbox Firm fights back against divestment proposal suggests content and cloud licensing agreements to ensure Activision games remain on other platforms and services.
So I guess this is what happens when you have Sony making up garbage and telling the regulators that you have to be like, no, no, no, that's not what's happening. So here's part of this article. Microsoft has responded to the remedies suggested by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority after the regulator said changes would be needed before it could approve the proposal acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The Xbox platform holder has detailed its own solutions, some of which are built around suggestions it has made throughout this process claiming that these will address all of the regulator's concerns. Sony's response to the CMAs proposed remedies has also been released agreeing with the regulator's suggestions, expressing skepticism that Microsoft could reach an agreement that would address all concerns and once again, calling for the proposed acquisition to be blocked.
A significant portion of Microsoft's 33 page response objects to the CMAs suggestion that some of Activision Blizzard's businesses and properties be divested before the merger goes through. That's something that wasn't in the other article that they were gonna, that Sony's gonna try to pull this before the merger goes through.
That's weird in my opinion. Uh, to continue, Microsoft reiterated that these would be inappropriate and that even a partial divestments would be highly uncertain and impractical. The company said that far from protecting competition, a divestment would actually have severe adverse effects in the game space because it would prevent Microsoft from achieving its key strategic objective. Namely building a mobile gaming business with sufficient scale in order to challenge Google into Apple.
This is because divesting the Activision segment of the business as the CMA suggested, would see Microsoft lose access to Call of Duty mobile and the upcoming war zone mobile as well as other key, uh, key blizzard mobile games such as Diablo, immortal Hearthstone, and the currently in Beta Warcraft Arc Light Rumble.
The company claims dives would mean Xbox and PC would lose out on exclusive Call of Duty content since this would presumably be available to PlayStation and mean and Microsoft is unable to reap the benefits of Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms or any Activision content on Game Pass. This is a giant mess. The article goes on from here, but I mean, you know, there is of course a response in response to this latest release from the UK regulator.
Sony has issued the following statement to games industry.biz quote, redacted versions of the observations filed by s i E and Microsoft on the CMAs remedies. Notice a remedies notice were made public this week. Information regarding the terms of an offer made by Microsoft to provide future Call of duty releases on PlayStation was redacted at the request of Microsoft. We believe their current offer will irreparably harm competition and innovation
in the industry. Sony so silly. Uh, my Nintendo news, which I don't use here very often posted on March eight, Microsoft and Activision, quote, confident that Call of Duty games can be optimized on switch, which is something I was wondering about. I don't play those games, but other people do. And so if they can put 'em on switch and it's gonna work, sure , you know, why not? Um, here's a little bit,
uh, from this article. Uh, Microsoft's desire to acquire Activision Blizzard has been rather messy. They are currently in talks with the UK government in an attempt to convince them that this acquisition should be approved. What makes the whole thing more strange, however,
is that Nintendo has been indirectly caught up in this. For example, Microsoft is also having to reassure the UK government that they can fulfill its agreement to bring Call of Duty games to Nintendo Hardware for the next decade. That said, it isn't surprising that the Nintendo switches power has been a source of concern. Not only has Microsoft heard this, but they have expressed confidence that they can optimize Call of Duty games for
Nintendos council. They told the UK government that Activision has quote, a long history of optimizing game performances for available hardware capabilities. Um, you can run, um, I wanna say Diablo three on a tablet or you could years ago when I was at Bliss Con and someone was playing it on a tablet, you know, or maybe it was playing it on the switch. I'm not sure one of those, right? So I mean I guess they could do it, they could fix it to, to make it work there.
They continued saying that Microsoft and Activision are confident that in addition to War Zone, call of Duty, buy to play titles, example, call of Duty Modern Warfare two can be optimized to run on the Nintendo Switch in a timely manner using standard techniques, which have been used to bring games such as Apex Legends, doom, eternal Doom, maternal Fortnite, and Crisis Three to the Switch. Doo maternal goes, I mean Doom goes back far. I remember playing it back in the day when it was new,
but I don't know that I wanna play Doo maternal, you know, . Um, and it just kinda was kind of goes on from there after a bit. Variety says Sony PlayStation soaring Amid industry decline in consumer spend. So this is was on March 8th written by uh, Kari Erickson, which leads me to believe that all of these, oh, poor us, oh poor Sony, we're gonna lose everything if you let this merger go through. Not so , you know what I mean? . Here's a little bit from this, uh, from Variety.
Sony Interactive Entertainment in February announced PlayStation Playmakers a new initiative to partner with names like LeBron James on promoting the console brand for anyone else in gaming. This move would come across as a plea for consumers to spend at levels not seen since 2021.
But for Sony it's capping off a return to form video gaming was marred by consistent year over year drops in consumer content spend a trend that continued into January, but PlayStation five consoles recently overcame a shortage in semiconductor chips, which led to 7.1 million units shipped by Sony in the fourth quarter of 2022. A new record for PS five, the end result PlayStation resisted the content sales decline.
The 2022 holiday quarter saw revenue from hardware sales more than double year over year, skyrocketing from just 1.5 billion to more than 3.2 billion. In turn, total software sales went up more than 30% for the quarter with the nearly 20% increase in revenue observed for network services as well. Overall revenue for Sony's Group's game and network services segment increased 53% year over year from the 2021 holiday quarter. So Sony's got nothing to complain about.
Here's a fun one from Games Radar and I mean that sarcastically. Uh, there's an article here written by Allie Jones published one day ago, PlayStation Boss reportedly told Activision Execs quote, I don't want a new Call of Duty deal, I just want to block your merger. Jim Ryan seems prepared to prevent the Xbox deal at any cost. Here's a little bit from the article.
An Activision exec claims that Sony chief Jim Ryan said he had no interest in an improved deal over Call of Duty and was simply focused on
blocking the Xbox Activision deal. In a tweet yesterday, Activision Chief Communication Officer Lulu Chang er, who has previously been posting through it in an attempt to help pass the merger, posed a rhetorical question quote, weave, and then there's a dot.dot offered Sony guaranteed long-term access to Call of Duty, but they keep refusing why the CEO of s I e answered that question in Brussels. In his words, I don't want a new Call of Duty deal,
I just want to block your merger. March 8th, 2023 according to Chang er, the answer to that question was provided on February 21st when Microsoft and Sony's executives met in Brussels, reportedly in an attempt to hammer out details of the deal on that day, Microsoft confirmed its deal to bring Call of Duty to the Nintendo Switch and announced an additional similar agreement with Nvidia GForce now, but it seems they didn't ha didn't make much headway with Sony Chang.
Missouri claims that Ryan told Xbox and Activision that quote, I don't want a new Call of duty deal, I just want to block your merger. Microsoft has provided Sony with multiple deals over Call of Duty and while a forever agreement will likely never be on the table, Phil Spencer has suggested he's happy to offer Sony a longer term deal if that helps swing things. But Ryan's comments suggest Sony isn't interested in giving up any market share
if it can avoid doing so. The fate of the merger is still unclear, goes on from there. So there's that. And here's the Verge. Microsoft's Activision deal likely to be approved by EU regulators says Reuters. Reuters generally knows what it's talking about. So this is written by who wrote this one, Tom Warren on March 2nd, Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is likely to be approved by EU regulators.
Reuters Reuters reports the software Giant struck licensing deals with Nintendo and Nvidia recently and Reuters says these deals are likely to satisfy lawmakers in Europe to help Microsoft clear its 68.7 billion deal. The European Commission is reportedly unlikely to demand that Microsoft sell any Activision Blizzard assets as a condition of regulatory approval.
That's a contrast to the UK's competition and Markets Authority cma, which offered a possible remedies last month that include Microsoft being forced to sell off Activision Blizzard's businesses associated with Call of Duty. EU regulators are scheduled to decide on Microsoft's Activision deal by April 25th and it appears that last minute licensing agreements with Nintendo and Nvidia may have helped win favor for Microsoft in Europe.
Microsoft revealed it had signed a binding 10 year agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms just hours before a key EU meeting last month. Uh, Microsoft then held a special press event in Brussels after its meeting with EU regulators to announce a similar deal with Nvidia. Microsoft also offered Sony a similar 10 year deal on New Call of Duty games, but the PlayStation maker hasn't signed a deal yet. And that's pretty much the whole thing there.
And then we move into some Diablo stuff, which you're probably all here for, but it's, it helps to have context here going on because eventually this merger is either gonna happen or it's not and we won't know until it gets there. It looks like possibly Microsoft has some advantage, but you know, Sony's making some weird claims and I don't know how that's gonna be seen by the
regulators. So End Gadget wrote this, uh, article titled Diablo co-creator Eric Schaffer is making an action r p g with the studio of Blizzard North Veterans, the Project Reunites part of the Diablo two team. So that's kind of exciting. This is written by Igor Bonna Faik and on March four. So I'll read you a little bit of this with Diablo four set to arrive later this year. 2023 will be a big year for action RPGs but there's more to look
forward to beyond this year. On Thursday, moon Beast Productions an indie studio founded by Phil s Shank and Peter Hu two former Blizzard North developers announced the hiring of Diablo series co-creator Eric Schaffer. In an interview with Game Speech the studio said Schaffer will serve as lead creator director on a new action R p g. Details on the project are sparse, but what Moon be shared with Schaeffer was reportedly enough to convince him to
come out of retirement. Quote, we have ideas for changing the genre with a different approach to progression and trying to solve some of the problems that are beholden to P V E games, especially games like the Diablo franchise has dealt with. Uh, shank told game speed, all three men worked on Diablo too.
Notably s Shank is credited as the game's lead character artist and was responsible for designing the appearance of a few of the games character classes, including the Nero Answerer and Assassin Lord of Destruction.
Diablo Two's excellent 2001 expansion features a tribute to S Shank in the form of a monster you must slay to complete one of Act Five's quests, Schaeffer told Games Beat Moon Beast currently employs about 12 people making it smaller than many of the other studios working in the A R P G genre. The good news is Schaeffer has plenty of experience leading small teams at
Runick games. He made torchlight with the team of about 25 people. Quote, I want to work on projects that are fun and genuinely try to do something different. Schaffer said it's impressive what the Moon Beast team has built in such a short time. It fired up my imagination with possibilities and that's a huge part of why I wanted to come aboard. So that's pretty neat. There's a thing here from March 6th, I don't know if it's still going on cause today's the 10th and it's about Diablo
Imal. It says Join the Sea Rivers through the Season 11 battle pass. Honestly, I can't keep up with Diablo immortal, it just moves too quickly for me. I'll go in and mess around with it for a while, but I'm never gonna be one of these people that gets everything done. Okay, so there's Adventures Path Limited Time event March 8th through March 16. Um, not sure what you do exactly in there. The fractured plane is a thing you can do.
It's a 15 floor gauntlet that you fight, you know the hells and you get gems and things like that. There's chaos coins you earn that will come to your aid at the Chaos Broker a chaos broker, why not? You know, season Season 11 Battle Pass C Rivers is a cosmetic preview if you want
to get that. It's very like sailor kind of thing. And the uh, cosmetic that they're showing here is a character who is holding some kind of long sword that seems to be spewing water and has like a shield doing the same type of thing with like little lanterns on it. They're wearing an eye patch. It looks to be a female character probably, and they have a peg leg , so I guess they're doing that this time.
I mean it's at least creative. Um, a cursed Secrets Limited Time event that one starts on March 24, goes through 26th and 30th and beginning at level 20 adventures can uncover the accur secrets buried deep beneath the shifting sands and receive rewards by logging in on specific days. And those days are March 24, March 26th and March 30. So that's coming up. The Hungering Moon event is back, that one pops up a lot. Uh, that one's going to start on March 30th and end on April 6th.
Um, bunch of stuff you get to collect contest of naves cosmetic you can buy with a thousand eternal orbs if you want it. And that's, uh, that's all I've got for that one. Season 28 and Diablo three is still alive and I've been playing it. I've been putting up videos on YouTube and on my personal website and uh, yeah, I haven't been putting them on Twitter lately because I'm kind of disillusioned with Twitter. So you can just go to YouTube and look for a book of Jen Original and they'll be
there if you care to look at them. Um, they're not really long and it's just something fun I'm doing because I like playing Diablo three. And this season's really fun with the altar. I think a lot of you have probably made use of that and you might all be done. But again, I'm really slow with these things and that's just how it's gonna be for now at least. Um, there is uh, if you may have seen this on Twitter and there is in fact a blizzard post about
this. It's um, for Diablo four be immortalized in the Cathedral of Diablo. Now, when I first heard about this, I thought for sure, oh well they're gonna put that in D four but no, it's a physical space in the real world and there was a video of people painting uh, scenes to go in the top of this apparently abandoned cathedral. And that was kind of neat to watch. I think the video is actually embedded in this post here on the Blizzard website
for D four. So you know that's a thing. Yeah. Here's a description. Hatred has returned and now is your chance to cast your light and become legend. Sign up below and reach max level with any class in the Diablo. Four open beta to enter for a chance to have your face painted into a colossal Diablo fresco outside the walls of the La Chappel Deja in France to be glorified amongst the hallowed heroes of sanctuary forever. There is an opt-in button if you'd like to do it.
I don't think I'm gonna be doing this, but that leaves room for all of you to possibly have a chance to opt in. There's also official roles here on the Blizzard forums written by Filthy Rich Community Manager. Official roles, uh, Diablo four beta sweepstakes. No er payment of any kind is necessary to enter or receive a prize from the Diablo four beta sweepstakes. A purchase will not increase your chances of receiving a prize.
You will not be eligible to enter this promotion or receive any prize until you meet all of the eligibility criteria described in section three. Let's go look at section three, shall we? Where is section three? Section three eligibility. The promotion is only open and offered to people who are over the age of 18. Okay, that's fair. Or the age of majority in the relevant jurisdiction, whichever is older. And our legal residents of one or more of the following regions.
The first set of regions is North America region, Canada, United States of America. There is Latin America region, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, a AsiaPac, Pacific region, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe, region, region, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.
Participants may only participate in the promotion so long as their participation and receipt of the prize does not violate applicable local laws and or the federal, state, or local laws of the United States, including any such laws applicable to jurisdictions outside of the United States.
And sponsors shall have the right to disqualify any entrant if it reasonably believes that such individuals have entered from a territory in which participation is or becomes illegal in which regulatory action is threatened or taken by any re relevant regulator. Participants are responsible for ensuring that their participation in the promotion and receipt of any prize is compliant with all laws at the jurisdictions in which they're a resident.
Goes on from there to be eligible to enter the promotion, you must also be 18 years of age or older at the time of entry, the promotion is void. Were prohibited or restricted by law employees, officers and directors of sponsor and their parents, uh, affiliated companies and subsidiary companies in their advertising promotion or
production agencies, yada yada probably are exempt. I don't know. Um, it goes on for quite a bit here, but if you wanna know more, this will be in the show notes and you can see what you think about that. There's also, uh, from February 28, it's your guide to the Diablo for open beta, which is interesting. It was updated on February 28th. So this is what you gotta do to get into the beta. And uh, here's what it says. Gather around wanderer.
Your desire to combat lilith's legions in Diablo four can be played out during our open beta and early access weekends. Available on Windows pc, Xbox series X slash S, Xbox One, PlayStation five, and PlayStation four. Those who have Preed Diablo four will receive early access to the open beta from March 17 to 19 on the following weekend. The open beta will be available to everyone from March 24 to 26th.
Now I've purchased Diablo four, so I don't know if that means I'll get into the open beta or if I'll have to wait for the other beta because I don't know how many people have published or have uh, purchased this thing. So we'll just have to wait and see. I'm hoping I can get into it. I will be playing it on my Xbox cuz as you noted here, it doesn't run on a Mac like darn near everything else. But there are games in Xbox that don't run on a Mac that I can play there.
So that's what I'm gonna do. Um, so the focus is during both the open beta and early access weekends, players will be able to intimately explore. That's lovely. The early game of Diablo four. This includes a first taste of the campaign via the prologue and the entirety of act one. The first zone fractured peaks is yours to navigate as you please stampede through the rugged landscape and cut down demons for the open beta and early
access weekends. Your character can only level up to level 25, but you are welcome to continue ripping through demons until the open beta ends. Make your mark on sanctuary by clearing hellish hoards from dungeons, completing intriguing quests provided by the locals and amassing powerful loot from fallen foes. Simply put, this is your opportunity to combat the mite of the Burning Hills prior to
our June 6th release. With that said, the experience is not finalized and you may encounter performance issues, outages, and come across things that simply don't work. After the open beta concludes, we'll evaluate all feedback we've received and will make changes as needed. We look forward to you experiencing this small taste of what Diablo four has to offer. And again, it says you have to, you know, be have, you have to have Prepurchase Diablo form either any of those boxes.
There's three boxes. Pick one. There you go. So early access to the open beta begins March 17 at 9:00 AM p d t and concludes at March 20. That's just a couple of days at grinding y'all. Um, at uh, 12:00 PM p d t, the open beta begins March 24 at 9:00 AM p d t and concludes on March 27 at 12:00 PM P d t, the open beta and early access weekends. Oh, as they get closer, the ability to early download the game will become available. We'll update this section with that information in the future.
And then you get to pick, uh, it looks like, uh, early access weekend is gonna have access to three classes, the Barbarian, the Rogue, and the Sorcerer. Once the open beta weekend comes around the earth and druid and undead Widing, Nero Maner classes can also be played. In addition to the original three, a maximum of 10 characters can be made per battle net account.
After reaching level 25 with one character, we recommend you try repelling demonic chords with additional classes to find your favorite. While progress will transfer from early access to open beta weekends, all characters made during these weekends will be deleted once the beta ends. That's pretty fair. They've been doing it that way with um, like Diablo three was like that. You had a character you could play,
you could make different characters. Um, there wasn't a whole lot of content in there, but we had a lot of fun at the time cause we were all excited about it. And then you don't get to keep those characters really at all. So that's kind of how it goes. You can do co-op if you want, um, with this play, the open beta lead the pack and it has the adorable little wolf puppy backpack, which I desperately want, so I'm gonna be like grinding as much as I can to 25 if I
get into one of these. Cuz I just think it's adorable. That's the thing that really finally got me was the puppy. I know that's kind of sad , but um, you have to understand I have a ton of allergies and I can't be around most animals without getting sick. So I need a puppy that's like not gonna make me sick with allergens. You know, , um, there's spec specifications here for the open beta on PC early access beta code redemption. Do you have a beta early access code for Diablo four?
It's time to redeem it. If you pre-purchase the game digitally early access to the open beta will be automatically available on the platform you pre-purchase for no further action is required of you for those with an early access code. Instructions are listed below and there's a whole thing in there. There's a livestream thing that's gonna happen on March 24th. They're gonna gather members of the development team for their first community
play livestream. Um, on, I assume Twitch , I guess doesn't specifically say. There's also a really neat article here from Game Informer. It's kind of long and it's called a Guided tour through the five regions of Diablo Forests sanctuaries. It's written on March 1st by Marcus Stewart. And it's got some really neat little videos in here about the different locations. And me reading it to you is not really going to describe it as well as if you
just take a look at this. And again, it'll be in the show notes if you wanna really, you know, look at the art and stuff like that. And the last thing I have for you today is from PC games. It's titled Diablo four Fitz Glimmers of Hope among Poison Swamps and Ritual Burnings. Diablo Forest Campaign crosses five major regions with their own looks, cultures, and to enemies. But Blizzard says it doesn't want the R PPG to be all doom and gloom written by
Ken Ssop eight days ago. I'll read you a little bit of this. The Diablo four campaign is set to take players across a range of desolate and danger filled lands, encountering everything from poison swamps and coastlines packed with the undead to draconian religions with the pension for ritual burnings.
But it as it gives a deeper look at the five regions you'll explore in the R PPG game ahead of the Diablo for Beta Blizzard emphasizes that it wants to ensure players have something worthwhile to fight for. There are five key regions that you'll explore as you cross sanctuary in your fight against Lilith. These are the arid deserts of Stan, the rolling Highlands of SCOs Glen, the grim marshlands of what is this EZ arm, the frosty fractured peaks and the dry steps.
A grassland full of rocky cliffs and lava Rivers. Blizzard says however, that it wants to ensure that the zones don't feel like OneNote biome, so they're more diverse than previous entries speaking to game. And former several senior Blizzard designers give a little insight as to what we can expect from each region. Uh, [inaudible] for example, draws inspiration from the Middle East and the Mojave Desert.
But we'll also see players check in with its capital City Kalm, a location that will be very familiar to fans of Diablo three, where it was a major hub. It will also see you encounter triune cultus marking the first in-game appearance of the long established faction. SCOs Glen takes its infer inspiration from the Scottish Highlands and you'll be exploring plenty of coastline packed with undead people that died out at sea.
Wow. Culminating in a giant creature called the Sea Hag Quest Designer Madeline James says this queen like figure is three times as big as all the other drowned and just this bloated, massive body parts. So that's really fun. That was the quote. It goes on from here about the other parts of it, and I'll leave you to check that out when you're ready. And that's the end of this episode. So I'm gonna close out the show. You have been listening to episode 4 0 1 of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo community podcast missed an episode. You could find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in game our in-game community and clan, both named Shattered Soul Stone, are open to anyone who would like to join. You could also join us on Discord for the ultimate team and community-based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter and Facebook page, as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening.