Patcher is well known for his hilarious misreadings and ridiculous market analysis, but this takes the cake. Reads like a PlayStation fan’s wet dream from Gamefaqs or OtherEra, but then you realize it’s from Michael Patcher.
Imagine thinking Microsoft will be “forced” to put Fallout New Vegas 2 on PS5 despite it being made by another of their first party developers (Obsidian, rumored) and them investing millions of dollars of resources into it even being a thing. Or that they can’t increase the price of their subscription service they’re pouring billions upon billions into for TEN years despite a plethora of predatory subscription services that exist today, especially when Game Pass gives you the best bang for your buck on the market and Sony are working on releasing their own “competitor” that’s rumored to have a $16 tier.
Meanwhile, the competition has been doing everything in their power for over a decade to crush Xbox and has become increasingly aggressive over the years by using their gained marketshare as an advantage to continue and further their aspirations on keeping their metaphorical boot on Microsoft’s throat. The rumors that they were going for the “kill” early this gen by taking away games from Xbox that are associated with them either by developer or publisher association ended up being true because they went after Bethesda with Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo (almost got Starfield timed exclusive, and would’ve certainly went after TES6 if it were anywhere near releasing), KoTOR, had Alan Wake 1/2 up on stage (would’ve gotten that too if Epic wasn’t involved) and are heavily rumored to doing something with BioShock and more.
Add in the fact that they want Xbox to have ZERO Final Fantasies this gen aside from mediocre spin-offs and might just get Street Fighter 6 exclusive again despite the source code a year ago saying an Xbox version exists, amonsgt all the other stuff we don’t know about. Business is business, so whatever, that’s captalism. However, the lopsided entitlement that is going on is really fucking annoying and the FUD against Microsoft is really something else.
I can’t wait for Starfield to come out already, where Game Pass exists (PC, Xbox, xCloud, mobile) so reality starts hitting people, and I hope Microsoft remains aggressive for once (and no, that doesn’t mean I think they should remove CoD from PlayStation).
Don’t think it will happen but can’t imagine how screwed AB would be if the deal fell through and it was because of something they did. No COD for 2023 and they would owe Microsoft $2bn+. Their share price would plummet even lower then the $57 it was at in December
I don’t think no CoD for 2023 is just a straight loss to them, they should end up bolstering sales for 2024 by doing so and with expanded support for previous titles mitigate some of the money they would have made in 2023. Plus getting development cycles in a healthier place means a better quality product and avoids any further decline in long term sales.
Imagine being concered about the 3rd largest gaming company, where were they when Sony almost killed the Xbox division, I guess that never mattered. If Xbox bowed out of the console space that would’ve been a MUCH bigger deal than ABK.
This to me just screams ‘oh look theres a ton of money in this, let’s see if we can be a thorn in their side to get some quick cash’
I love how they don’t mention the multiple award winning studios for the best work place in the industry, we’ll keep those hush hush.
While I get the overall sentiment you’re going for. I don’t think when the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Biden’s first call was "QUICK, MOBILIZE THE FTC!!!
Sony is literally 50 percent of the console market. This move increases competition not decreases it. If Sony loses some market share there, that is a good thing for competition.
I don’t know why they’re not worried about the company that actually does use its leverage to increase prices already, encourages double dipping, limits options, gatekeep games from competition, increase accessory prices, blocks accessory compatibility for no reason whatsoever
Because Sony as a whole is a tiny company compared to MS, everything MS does will always be under scrutiny, rightfully or not. MS could easily relieve these fears by promising either to not raise prices for their console or game pass for X time or promise to only increase for inflation.
On the hardware repair side they can easily fix that, probably the easiest fix for them. They can just extend warranties, make it easier to repair the consoles wherever they can. The weird thing about that complaint is MS has slowly started being good on that front with their new surface device having an extremely easy replaceable drive.
The staff complaints I’m not sure how they could work on that, maybe they could interview recent studio purchases and the other studios for pay and work conditions.
My prediction means nothing of course, but I predict that not only this bill passes, but there will be no concessions around keeping games multi-platform. MS may choose to of course I still doubt it. People who read that ‘platform blog’ and interpreted it as having anything to do with console gaming are kidding themselves. See what you want to see etc.
I don’t believe any company would agree to such clause and I don’t expect such clause either. I mean, seriously - people act as Game Pass is attractive to a point where all other services lose subscribers, which is not happening and other services increase the amount of subscribers despite all the perks that Game Pass provides. Imagine thinking that having a good service is something anti-consumer…
Microsoft won’t make concessions over ATVI. But currently we have nothing more than speculations and some weird takes on Twitter lol
