According to foreign media reports, today, Sony Group Corp. The stock fell 13 percent in Tokyo (about 7 percent in U.S. stocks), its biggest drop since October 2008, after Sony PlayStation rival Microsoft announced a $68.7 billion bid to buy game publisher Activision Blizzard.
After Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the move wiped Sony's market value by $20 billion in a single day. Microsoft attracts paying users through a large number of subscription services, challenging Sony's traditional console business model. Sony's model relies on a large number of exclusive game and hardware sales, of which games and web services account for about 30% of Sony's revenue.
Microsoft announced Tuesday that its Game Pass has more than 25 million users, and the Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as possible, including existing games and new ones. Call of Duty, Diablo, and World of Warcraft are all highly successful games under the Activision Blizzard umbrella.
Amir Anwarzadeh, an analyst at Asymmetric Consultancy, said: "Sony will face great challenges to stand alone in this war of attrition, and Call of Duty is now likely to be added to the List of Game Pass, and the difficulties facing Sony will only get bigger and bigger. ”
After Microsoft's announcement, publisher stock prices across the game industry rose, with Capcom and SE both up more than 3.7 percent in Tokyo. Analysts, including Jefferies' Atul Goyal, believe the move raises the valuation of game companies with powerful content and IP.
In several generations of consoles for the PlayStation and Xbox, Sony has consistently been ahead of Microsoft's competitors in console sales and exclusive games. Microsoft has now made it clear that it is determined to close that gap by offering free games through subscription services, so Sony will be under pressure to respond.
Kazunori Ito, an analyst at Morningstar Research, said: "Sony will have a hard time matching Microsoft in terms of funding for ip for popular games." "The drop in stock prices suggests that investors are worried that Sony may not be able to continue to win if the industry does abandon the hardware-based model."