Everyone Being Dumb About IP: McDonald's No Longer Offering Dope Custom PS5 Controllers In Australia

from the all-about-control dept

If you search for stories about McDonald's on Techdirt, you will come away with the impression that the company, like many large corporate entities, puts heavy emphasis on its intellectual property rights. Sony, the company responsible for the PlayStation consoles, exudes a similar reputation, despite some recent moves to loosen its IP grip as of late. So, just to be clear, everyone involved in this story tends to trend toward the more restrictive end of the IP spectrum.

Which makes it super-duper stupid that McDonald's Australia had a plan to offer up customized PlayStation 5 controllers, but never bothered to formalize any part of this plan with Sony. And, if you're like me, that's a shame because the cosmetics on the controllers are pretty dang fun.

Shortly after the announcement, McDonald's Australia had to issue a follow up cancelling the whole thing. It turns out that nobody at the company bothered to get in touch with Sony before the announcement and, well, you know what happened next.

As of last week McDonalds Australia had been planning on giving away a bunch of custom PS5 controllers, each plastered with a burgers + fries motif in celebration of the company’s 50th birthday (in Australia). Weirdly, the international dining behemoth forgot to ask Sony about this first.

You’d think that would be the first thing a company with an actual legal team would have thought to do if you were going to be mentioning “PlayStation 5" and using a controller image as part of your own marketing, but nope! McDonalds just got straight to it, announcing plans to give the controllers away as part of a competition, along with sending some out to local streamers as well.

So, Sony stepped in and put an end to the entire promotion. While that is absolutely Sony's right, it's also incredibly stupid. What, really, is the end result of this promotion? Sure, McDonald's is attempting to sell more of its fast food. But it also would have served as essentially free advertising for Sony's PS5, wouldn't it? The giveaway was part of McDonald's upcoming "Stream Week", an event that also had to be canceled. And the communication to the public by McDonald's puts the blame squarely on Sony for that.

Sony PlayStation has not authorised the use of its controller in promotional materials related to the proposed Stream Week event and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. McDonald’s stream week has been postponed and Sony PlayStation controllers will not be included in the giveaway.

Which is how Sony managed to turn an opportunity for the free promotion of its consoles in Australia into a PR negative, where the company is now blamed for the delay of McDonalds' Stream Week. It didn't have to be this way. Sony could have instead reached out to McDonald's and quickly worked something out, given that both sides in all of this would have benefited.

But, no, instead the company is apparently reinvigorated with the IP maximalist attitude of control over everything. That this concerns the control over video game controllers is at least partial evidence that the universe is not without a sense of irony.

Filed Under: marketing, playstation 5, playstation controllers, ps5
Companies: microsoft, sony

Microsoft: Bethesda Games Will Be 'First, Best' On Xbox, PC

from the fragmentation dept

Several weeks back, we discussed how Microsoft and its newly acquired property, Bethesda Softworks, were making seemingly conflicting statements on what the purchase of the studio meant for beloved franchises like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, among others. Concerns popped up immediately after the acquisition, with people wondering whether the next Fallout game would be siloed to the Xbox and/or PC, as opposed to showing up on other consoles, such as Sony's PlayStation. Xbox's Phil Spencer kicked the concern into overdrive by noting that he thought Microsoft could recoup its purchase price of Bethesda even if the studio's games weren't sold for the PlayStation. Todd Howard of Bethesda, however, said the studio is committed to making its games available across platforms, while also acknowledging such details with Microsoft hadn't been ironed out.

And so the public was left wondering. Well, now Microsoft has once again commented publicly, this time stating that it doesn't plan to restrict Bethesda games from other consoles, but would instead look to make those games "first and best" on the Xbox and PC.

Speaking at the Jeffries Interactive Entertainment Virtual Conference last Friday (as transcribed by Seeking Alpha), Stuart said directly that "in the long run... we don't have intentions of just pulling all of Bethesda content out of Sony or Nintendo or otherwise. But what we want is we want that content, in the long run, to be either first or better or best or pick your differentiated experience, on our platforms."

"That's not a point about being exclusive," Stuart continued. "That's not a point about... adjusting timing or content or road map. But if you think about something like Game Pass, if it shows up best in Game Pass, that's what we want to see, and we want to drive our Game Pass subscriber base through that Bethesda pipeline."

This, frankly, clarifies nothing. Stating that perhaps games will be "first" on Microsoft's platforms and then stating that it has nothing to do with timing of the release on other platforms is contradictory. If it's "first" on one platform, it must therefore be at least "second" on others. Likewise, stating you want a game to be "best" on Microsoft platforms and then stating it has nothing to do with content is, again, contradictory. If not the content, what could possibly make a game better on one platform than the other.

It's unclear why Microsoft is remaining so opaque about all of this, but it sure sounds like some version of either EPIC's timed exclusives or Sony's exclusive content for games. Both are controversial in their own rights, and likely not great for the gaming ecosystem as a whole, but at least both companies play it straight with their customers.

In this case, we all just have to wait and see how high a fence Microsoft does or does not want to put around these beloved game franchises.

Filed Under: compatibility, elder scrolls, fallout, pcs, platforms, ps5, video games, xbox
Companies: bethesda, microsoft