crispy4000

We'd need to see a paradigm shift in the way people enjoy games for cloud gaming to truly take off as such. No doubt they want to be on the forefront of that when/if it happens. They're not buying Activision-Blizzard and Besthesda strictly for a cloud future though. If they desire to be the top selling platform, these acquisitions and Games Pass paired together are already a hyper aggressive step towards it. Throw in Series S and they've got an unparalleled play for the mainstream console market.

I doubt they’d ever sit down in a meeting with Microsoft to seriously discuss Games Pass on Playstation. Even Nintendo wouldn’t go there. Competitively, I don’t think Microsoft will need to leverage CoD any further than putting it on Games Pass. That would be enough.

As long as the ink is dry, those games are 1st party. I don’t think games previously in production should count any less. It’s a legit part of their lineup. What they’re doing now is so far removed from the closure of Lionhead, Ensemble and FASA that Microsoft deserves credit for investing seriously in their ecosystem. Sure, it’d be better for the industry overall if they started more new studios instead. But I do think some acquisitions were in order to build themselves up quickly. (Just maybe not $75+ billion worth…) We can disagree about how the end of 2023 will look for Microsoft. It’s all just predictions as of now. I just don’t think Hellbalde 2 will be their only tentpole. Q1 and Q2 should be strong, barring any mishaps.

Starfield, Redfall and Forza Motorsport should be launching in the first half of the year. I think we see Hellblade 2 at least by the holidays. Probably something else like Fable, Avowed or Outer Worlds 2 to pair with it. If that comes into fruition and the games deliver, that’s a damn good year. Maybe their best ever, depending on your interests. There’s at least a dozen other question marks too, many of of them small, a couple of them big (ie: Indiana Jones, Perfect Dark, Everwild, etc). I really don’t see Microsoft on the outs anymore as a publisher. They seem poised to take back the narrative this year, after building to it for the last couple.

It’s only a matter of time before they bounce back in a big way. They own so much now, I don’t think content (or quality of it) will be a problem for much longer. I think this would be true even without Activision Blizzard. The new Microsoft shouldn’t be as dependent on Halo/Forza/Gears as they were in the past. I think this E3 in particular will be stellar for them, and 2023 will be a good year for their studios.

Yep, I hear you. I highly doubt Bungie has the final word on any of this. Just like Bethesda doesn’t.

Destiny 2 and future Bungie games will stay cross-platform after Sony purchase | GamesRadar+ WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM "We are by no means done" purchasing studios, Sony's Jim Ryan says They said they intend to keep Bungie multiplatform in future titles. But I’m as skeptical as you are about it. They can just make up whatever reasoning they want to change course, so long as no contract is in place.

Yeah that’s a dumb take. Sony doesn’t want to give in the appearance that it’s not as bad as they say it could be. Valve saw through it and remained neutral. Nintendo wanted in on those royalties they’ve been missing.

Don’t know her argument, but every multiplatform developer that’s scooped up by either company is shots fired at the other, IMO. That’s not bullying, it’s the nature of the buisness on some level. But we’ve never seen this much capital thrown around in the games industry in such a short time frame. Which is why the FTC feels triggered.

There’s not as much assurance of that after Sony’s said they’re keeping Destiny multiplatform. CoD rakes in so much money on every platform it would at least be tempting to keep it as is. If CoD was a Bethesda-sized franchise, there’s no doubt that either company would be locking it off the other platform. Similar situation as Halo in that scenario, however unlikely as it is to happen. But as is, I could see Microsoft directing some of Actiblizzard’s CoD studios to work on new IP that doesn’t come to PS5, dropping annualized CoD releases. They can have their cake and eat it too that way. I think Sony will go in a similar direction with Bungie at some point, in spite of what’s been said. As will Microsoft with Blizzard, etc. Things could get very messy after the ink is dry.

Oh, there's hyperbole abound on Sony's part, no question. They've resorted to moneyhatting too, and have subtly been doing it behind the scenes for years. It became a lot more visible in the PS4 era with Destiny and Call of Duty DLC timed exclusivity, which echoed the GTAIV DLC moves Microsoft made the gen prior. Nowadays, Sony's all about paying off SquareEnix for timed exclusivity of full releases ... and Bethesda, but that's quickly come to an end. Microsoft's stance has shifted since the Mattrick era. You don't see them buying timed AAA exclusivity much anymore, like for Mass Effect or Tomb Raider. The last move like that I can recall was keeping Yakuza 7 off PS5 for a few months. That's good, because these tactics suck for everyone. But it's also happening because Microsoft recently dropped a cool $75+ billion on acquiring two major AAA multiplatform publishers. Keeping much of that IP, and old, new and future, off PlayStation is a significant part of it. So is keeping games off Sony's subscriptions. Sony can't compete on those terms as is. They're doing a much better job retooling their subscriptions into an actual Games Pass competitor (read: not so good) than keeping up with Microsoft's checkbook. They really can't 'behave' like them anymore. Not without getting outside capital involved. I would have rather have seen them split off piecemeal. We know at least one potential investor ("Company E") wasn't able to afford the entirety of them.

Didn’t they already with Monolith?

I wonder if there’d ever be a point where they feel seriously threatened by consolidation. They sold Rare at one of their lowest points. But they also bought Next Level after they expressed interest in being acquired by someone else. Gives me hope they’re investing for the future again.

I’d rather play a female character in a game with less input lag.

Each of the big 3 deserve to get kicked down a notch in certain ways. Microsoft is challenging Sony to not do business as usual. But it’s Nintendo that’s truly skating free these days with their game pricing. All that nonsense about them not competing is just giving them a pass for it. And fuck ‘em all for charging for online multiplayer. Valve is the only company doing it right in the dedicated gaming hardware space, far as I’m concerned. They just need to go back to making more of their own games. It feels bad calling them the consumer friendly option with how much they coast on GaAS and being a legacy frontend.

Cool, at least we’re running with what I actually said now.

If the shoe was on the other foot, Microsoft would be fighting it. But the FTC might not see it quite the same, since Sony isn’t as much of a tech giant. It’d take something bonkers like Sony selling their game division to Tencent, or vice versa, to draw a similar level of scrutiny.

Thing is, they’ve scooped up so many mid/upper-mid sized multiplatform devs in the past few years that the battle over CoD being everywhere for X number of years is almost the distraction. I wonder if we even see games like Pentiment ported to Nintendo platforms anymore. Microsoft is buying their good will with Games Pass, more or less. Whereas if Nintendo was the one making a ton of like acquisitions, people would be fuming. It could be that Microsoft’s earned that right.

They’re both equal offenders over the years IMO. I think we hit the peak levels of that absurdity when GTA DLC was moneyhatted as a timed exclusive. It’s been a game of petty retaliation ever since, culminating in the sort of studio grabs we’re seeing now. Which I don’t actually have as much of a problem with… it’s better to go all in. Regardless, purchasing a studio has a much larger footprint than paying for timed exclusivity game by game. You can pretty much count out new Bethesda games on Sony consoles in the future. Their final contracts expiring just leaves Sony with egg on their face. And just in general, industry consolidation isn’t a great answer to timed exclusive deals. It doesn’t lead to a future anyone should want long term. I’d rather see money poured into new studios and struggling ones than those already flush with cash. Still, it is nice to see Microsoft wanting to pump up their first party efforts this gen. They’re actually playing hardball. It’s definitely not a case today of the big bad Sony making their buisness shrink because they’ve acquired too little. That’s a total misread of the situation, Phil should know better.

It’s just you talking to yourself.

That’s his schtick.

Silly hyperbole is silly

haha, yeah I fucked that up

Sony Wants To Grow PlayStation By Making Xbox Smaller, Phil Spencer Says - GameSpot WWW.GAMESPOT.COM "There has really only been one major opposer to the deal, and it's Sony." Phil’s normally stellar at avoiding PR blunders, especially compared to Jim Ryan. But this might be his worst take. It’s absurd to claim with the direction they’re going with Bethesda’s IP now. The way both of these companies grow now is by eating up other publishers. That’s the new normal.