Sony is Concerned Xbox Could “Leapfrog” PlayStation Following Activision Deal, as Per Leaked Internal Documents

 Microsoft president Brad Smith has softened his stance on the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) following the completion of the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has seemingly walked back on comments criticising the UK over the handling of its Activision Blizzard deal.

Sony has announced January 2024’s PlayStation Plus Essential games.

We have had yet another posting of sensitive military documents on the War Thunder forums recently. It's s afe to say, everybody’s favorite gaming tradition (unless you’re a military weapons facility) has returned just in time for the holiday season. War Thunder military spec leaks aren’t anything new, which is a wild thing to be able to say about a video game. However, it seems people are serious about the correct specifications of their favorite virtual military wartime vehicles. 

As revealed by the recent Insomniac leaks, one thing Sony is quite concerned about going forward is the viability and competitiveness of their PlayStation Plus service, which they believe could be one of the things most affected by Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. So, how does Sony plan to fortify PS Plus against Microsoft and the growing threat from Game Pass? Thus far, Sony has resisted the Game Pass approach of putting first-party titles on PS Plus on Day 1, and it seems that’s not going to change. That said, according to new documents unearthed from the Insomniac leak, they do have some other plans.

War Thunder players are back at it, posting more restricted military documents on the game's forums when discussing the game's vehicles.

It's been a strong year sales-wise for Sony, as the PlayStation 5 has now reportedly sold over 50 million units as it enters its fourth year on the market.

PS5's November 2023 was Sony's biggest November for PlayStation sales to date, Sony Interactive Entertainment's Head of Global Business has said.

The recent Insomniac ransomware leak has been an eye-wateringly large scale one, revealing details on a number of upcoming titles planned for the next decade or so – from Spider-Man games and an X-Men series to a new Ratchet and Clank instalment and a new IP – as well as undisclosed sales figures for previously-released titles like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Alongside that, much more recent sales figures for Insomniac’s latest release have also emerged.

It's pretty clear that Sony wasn't a huge fan of Microsoft managing to get its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard over the line. You don't go through the trials and tribulations of a court case if you're fine with something happening, but Sony hasn't been too clear on just how much it thinks the acquisition will affect its own business. Turns out, it's actually worried quite a bit.

There will be a lengthy gap of X-Men games on Sony’s rival platforms. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the recent ransomware attack. Well, it looks like Sony didn’t pay up, and the group has since moved on to deliver a series of leaked documents from Insomniac Games. The developer behind Marvel’s Spider-Man and upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine has been finding their upcoming projects’ roadmaps, leaked plot details, and more. Among the recent set of leaked documents, a signed deal between Marvel and Sony shows that X-Men has become an exclusive IP for Sony. 

Sony has applied to patent systems that automatically fiddle with «parameters that change the difficulty of the game» based on your performance, a patent on the World Intellectual Property Organization's website reveals. (Actually, the patent reads «difficultly» at the time of writing, so Sony may in fact be referring to the implementation of dynamic cults. But probably not.) As spotted by Eurogamer, Sony's proposed system would allow a game to adjust its difficulty settings—«movement speed, delay or hesitation, character strengths, numbers of competitors» and so on—based on «an expected level of performance.» The idea isn't new, though the implementation may well be.