SUMMARY
- Insomniac Studios was hit by a massive hack orchestrated by hacker group Rhysida, which resulted in leaks of gameplay footage of Insomniac's Wolverine and many company presentations and documents.
- Many of the documents leaked were presentations with Sony's current data and concerns.
Insomniac’s leaked data is currently all over the internet. A week after threatening the developer and failing to sell the data for $2 million or 50 bitcoins, ransomware group Rhysida published the data online for everyone to access.
The documents that are worth a reported 1.3 million documents include Insomniac’s future projects as well as employee details. Apart from that, reports also suggest it also includes some more data, analysis, and plans related to Sony as a whole.
What does Insomniac’s data say about the Microsoft-Activision acquisition?
Reports suggest one non-Insomniac-specific document, in particular, describes Sony’s concerns about Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. After the deal was completed, there were rumors that Activision Blizzard’s title Call of Duty would become an Xbox exclusive. The documents reportedly addressed those issues as well.
Sony, in the documents, reportedly expressed concerns over Microsoft being able to “leapfrog” them after the Activision acquisition. Besides, the documents also reflected concerns about things that have not come to Game Pass, and that Microsoft says will not come to Game Pass in their court testimony.
In the document, Sony stated its “pillars are already dated and behind the competition”, and grieved the “elusive perfect game subscription”. The document reportedly hints that the expectation of free, best-in-class video games makes an “unsustainable model”, according to Sony, with subscription revenue not sufficient to cover the investment.
Why is Sony threatened by the Microsoft-Activision acquisition?
Reports suggest that when Sony says that its current “pillars” are dated and behind the competition, they are referring to the fact that they do not have a set Game Pass alternative. It may also imply that Sony’s biggest strength is one-off single-player blockbuster games which have no ongoing revenue. Premium, full-priced, single-player games are reportedly believed to be Sony’s main pillar.
These Sony-exclusive titles have a record of being reviewed and accepted well among the community, however, their budgets are increasingly huge and the current industry trend now constantly demands ongoing revenue streams.
Although some documents from the leaked data revealed that top-level executives like Jim Ryan were not very concerned about losing Call of Duty exclusivity, there are other issues presented in the documents. The acquisition could enable Microsoft to bring more titles to its Xbox Game Pass, which Sony considers a massive threat to PlayStation Plus.
Sony is also aware that Microsoft in all its capacity put Activision games on Game Pass day and date at least by 2027, thus making Game Pass a more lucrative deal than a $70 PlayStation Plus. These titles include highly commercial games like Call of Duty
The document also reveals how Sony believes that Microsoft is making its own mobile store to contend with Apple and Google. Sony has no backup or alternative to this. Microsoft will be able to drive significant revenue from it now that they have Candy Crush developer King.