An Update to the Microsoft and Sony Agreements

by Menashe

I’ll give an update based on the reply I got from my source. He saw the trouble I was causing and he sent me a message that I should “hold my horses.” There is no way Sony and Microsoft are making a console together. In fact, the communication here isn’t even happening directly face to face. It’s just that Sony and Microsoft are reluctantly agreeing to similar hardware features in their next-gen systems that will put an end to the “arms race/bloodshed”. Apparently, Sony and Microsoft both don’t like that whole race, and the people negotiating in the middle of both of them (the EA’s and Valve’s of the world) definitely don’t like it. It makes their jobs harder. So, basically, it’s getting everyone on board together for common purposes.

Now, I would really leave this part out, but he did keep on emphasizing this, that a big part of Sony and Microsoft “agreeing” to this is their common desire to exclude Nintendo. By making it easy to port between Microsoft and Sony systems, and making it require extra work to port for Nintendo, it will once again leave Nintendo standing in a corner all alone. I hesitated including this because it makes it more of a “drama” and it’s much easier to find out what Sony and Microsoft are doing than it is to find out what Sony and Microsoft are “feeling.” There is definitely nothing on record that will ever prove Sony and Microsoft have said anything of the sort outright. I guess the most likely scenario for this would be if the publishers came to M and S and demanded they build similar hardware because enough is enough already. It takes too much time and resources to require an extra team for each individual port of a game. It would be better if a developer can work on making one game and the code will essentially work for any system. Microsoft and Sony might have insinuated that they’d agree to hardware features that somehow distance themselves from Nintendo.

It might have been hard for Sony and Microsoft to swallow cooperating with each other, but in their common agenda to make it easier for the developers (and a bit more difficult for Nintendo), they’re going along with it.

If I get another update, I will let everyone know.