Football Manager boss disputes PlayStation's "value destructive" Xbox Game Pass claim
Among the many, many claims and discoveries flying around in the wake of Microsoft's ongoing FTC lawsuit over the attempted purchase of Activision Blizzard, one particular quote stands out: PlayStation boss Jim Ryan's accusation that Xbox Game Pass and other subscription-based services are «value destructive» to video games.
Ryan, speaking in pre-recorded video testimony, also claimed other publishers «unanimously do not like Game Pass» for that reason. When pressed by Microsoft's lawyer, he added: «I talk to publishers all the time, and this is a very commonly-held view over many years by the publishers.»
Talking to Eurogamer yesterday, Miles Jacobson, studio head of Sports Interactive, the Sega-owned developer of the ever-popular Football Manager series, disagreed with that quite directly.
«Every studio is going to have different opinions on this,» Jacobson explained, «and different studios will have different data, because different games work well in different situations. For us, it's nothing but positive on all three platforms.
»We run quite a tight ship," he continued, «and I like our studio to be profitable — Sega took a big gamble on us all those years ago, and their shareholders — however weird it might sound — should be rewarded for that. So we don't tend to do deals that are bad for any parts of the business.»
For Sports Interactive, Jacobson cites subscription services as having had a major impact on Football Manager's reach. «With the success of our launches on Game Pass for Xbox and PC, this year saw us bring back Football Manager Touch for Apple Arcade and launch FM23 Console on PlayStation 5, both of which have exceeded our expectations,» he wrote in a recent development blog.
Before the studio launched
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