PlayStation was largely left out of negotiations with Microsoft on the new deal – Report



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Last week, Microsoft and Sony announced unexpectedly that they were paving the way for a future partnership that could unify PlayStation and Xbox. A new report from Bloomberg indicates that the news has surprised the PlayStation team.

The story quotes people with situational awareness who claim that Sony has negotiated with Microsoft over the "largely uninvolved" agreement of the PlayStation team.

"Negotiations with Microsoft began last year and were handled directly by Sony's management in Tokyo, essentially without the participation of the PlayStation unit, according to people close to the record," Bloomberg said.

"The staff of the gambling division was caught off guard by the news.The officials had to calm the workers and assure them that the plans of the next generation console of the company were not affected, said the population, asking not to be identified to discuss private matters. "

Negotiations between Microsoft and Sony began in 2018, said a spokesman for Sony. However, the company did not publicly comment on the statement that the PlayStation team would have been largely left out of the negotiations.

The Bloomberg story also claims that Sony and Amazon have had discussions in 2018 on the potential for a "deeper collaboration on games in the cloud." However, both sides could not hear on the business side, according to one source. After that, Sony apparently started talking to Microsoft. The Amazon cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services powers the PlayStation Network. Sony and Amazon were already working together. (For what it's worth, Amazon is also planning its own future game streaming platform)

The announcement of the Microsoft-Sony agreement indicates that companies will "explore the joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective streaming game and streaming services." In addition, Microsoft and Sony will work together to explore the possibility of Sony leveraging Microsoft's Azure data centers for Sony's game and content delivery platforms.

According to Bloomberg's story, Sony realized that its own network services would not be enough to thrive in the future, where cloud gaming is expected to take off, with new competitors such as Google Stadia entering the competition.

"Sony feels threatened by this trend and the powerful Google, and has decided to leave its network infrastructure to Microsoft," said Amir Anvarzadeh, strategist of Asymmetric Advisors. "Why would they sleep with the enemy unless they feel threatened?"

For what it's worth, the press release announcing the agreement between Microsoft and Sony mentions the PlayStation only once.

The new Microsoft game streaming service is under development under the title of xCloud work. Sony has its own PlayStation Now broadcast service that has been running for years.

Despite no official announcement, the architect of the PlayStation, Mark Cerny, has begun talking about the PlayStation 5. Microsoft is also working on a new generation Xbox, which is expected to be announced at E3 in June.

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