I’m confused, I keep seeing people here saying MS haven’t leveraged the ABK acquisition and Sony will keep moneyhatting exclusives etc - and all I’m thinking is, how do you know that?
Phil has already talked to Sony personally regarding the acquisition, I’m sure other discussions have taken place too.
Microsoft entered the console business based on four words: “but what about Sony?” - to think they aren’t asking for anything from them in return is naïve.
ya’ll are crazy if you think xbox making 23+ exclusive games, but xbox NEEDS COD or other popular actiblizz games to be exclusive to it to attract new customers.
Idk why Microsoft feels so threatened by Amazon, google or apple that they feel the need to do this. Neither develop content like they do nor have the relationships they have in the industry and if its anything gamers are toxicly known for is loyalty. Gaming isnt something easy you can just spring the next day and be successful in it. You need commitment from top to bottom and So far Google doesnt, Apple makes billions from gaming already without developing a single game and Amazon is right now best know for 2 published games and we dont know how committed they are.
This Activision purchase seems to be like an absolutely reactionary one imo.
Weak move, this was the only chance to outmanouver PS once and for all, but I guess corporate strategies and what if scenarios about FAANG in gaming (which will never materialize, lol), are more important.
I’m waiting for the next big Sony moneyhat to understand why Xbox users should be always the ones to lose games.
Losing the leverage of the most significant IP in gaming is a concession…
Microsoft will make loads of money from this, this is why they made this move and make every other decision. Theres no reason beyond money.
I’m surprised, but MS have done the maths and perhaps more importantly, sent a clear message that they support the wider game industry and they are not Satan. I’m curious to see how some media outlets report this news after their previous ‘concern’.
This also puts more pressure on Sony regarding future acquisitions, beyond Bungie. If Sony say, brought EA and made their content exclusive to Playstation, that would be a bad look compared to what MS have announced today.
I don’t expect any AVB content to show up on rival subscription services, that will be Game Pass exclusive.
This is fear mongering. Those won’t be exclusives just because you saw someone say it on Reddit or Resetera. Capcom’s only history of doing this is SFV and it’s because they were doing financially poor at the time.
I think people should read the article Microsoft posted. The title of it is Adapting ahead of regulation: a principled approach to app stores. This whole front section is about getting ahead of legislation happening worldwide about app store policies. The relevant part to most of the discussion in the thread is:
We also recognize that regulators may well have other important questions as they review our acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We’re committed to addressing every potential question, and we want to address publicly at the outset two such questions here.
First, some commentators have asked whether we will continue to make popular content like Activision’s Call of Duty available on competing platforms like Sony’s PlayStation. The obvious concern is that Microsoft could make this title available exclusively on the Xbox console, undermining opportunities for Sony PlayStation users.
To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision. And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love. We are also interested in taking similar steps to support Nintendo’s successful platform. We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business.
Yes games like COD, Overwatch and potentially Diablo will continue to be on other consoles. But do we not think that there will not be plenty of exclusive games outside of the current titles on Xbox? They certainly did this with the majority of the zenimax pipeline. Do we not think there will be other benefits and extras or even timed exclusivity on Xbox for some of the titles that will remain multiplat? All this statement tells me is that Microsoft are worried about regulators not just on this deal but how much of the tech industry could get regulated and they want to get ahead of it
Massive W for PlayStation and Nintendo. I’m not bothered either way. BUT…selfishly I prefer when a developer makes a game for only 1 console/PC instead of 3 consoles/PC. It usually detracts from the quality of the game. So that’s a bummer that Xbox studios have to put a lot of resources and effort into porting the games over to multiple other consoles instead of using that time and resources to make the game even better for their own platform. Think Minecraft. This is the only frustrating part for me selfishly.
To me, this screams that MS is going to buy MULTIPLE publishers. Like not just 1 more at least a few more. And this move will automatically allow them to do just that. Jeff Grubb did say that MS’ goal is to box out the tech companies from entering this space and MS wanting to OWN this space. Well you need to own a lot of publishers to do that so none of the big tech companies have a lot of strong publishers left to buy and compete with MS and making them exclusive would be nearly impossible to get these future multiple publisher acquisitions go through regulators. But with keeping games on other rival platforms ? No reason why they can’t now.
MS will make a lot of money from this, a lot more short-term than if they were exclusive. But they will help Sony and Nintendo make a lot more money as well. But this will also hurt gamepass’ growth imo. Why would a PlayStation player who only buys 1 COD game each year now join the Xbox ecosystem when he can just pay 70 bucks to own the game on PS instead of join Xbox and sign up to gamepass for 120 a year at the very least or pay you 70 bucks and you own 100% of that. And now you’ll only be getting around 50 bucks max from that person while Sony gets 30% as well. This is why I think this will hurt gamepass’ growth. Gamepass will still grow but not as much as it would’ve with exclusivity. Then those gamers would have to join your ecosystem/gamepass and you get 100% of the profits and you have that person for years in your ecosystem meaning more money from said player long-term.
I always try to look at it from a financial POV, it’s fun to speculate. I always assumed making it exclusive or multiplat would bring pros and cons. Making them exclusives would helped gamepass grow the most and the fastest no doubt about that and make Xbox the no.1 console platform. But major franchises such as COD would also have suffered from it imo. At least short-term. Instead of COD selling 20m copies a year it might drop to 10-15m etc. I know MS’ goal is to be number 1 in gaming and they think outside of consoles, but that’s a goal. A major goal. Not easy to attain. Why knows what might happen. Maybe MS won’t reach that goal and what will they do then ? Cut off studios, resources, budgets, staff, games ? etc. I hope they do reach their goal and I hope they know what they’re doing.
Selfishly I hate this decision (I prefer developers focusing on 1 console/PC instead of 3 consoles/PC). I hope to be proven wrong but I think this will make the game slightly worse). But I’m also not bothered with it beyond that. Massive W for PlayStation and Nintendo. They are the real winners here. MS could be the biggest winner in 10-20 years. But that’s a big MAYBE. They have massive ambitions and goals and in the past MS hasn’t really excelled at those areas. Usually their goals and ambitions end up with them canning their projects. I seriously hope they pull this off. I don’t care about anything MS does but Xbox ? I don’t want anything bad to happen to the console/gaming I love the most.
Best of luck to Phil and I hope he knows what he’s doing. I would have said I’m happy for Nintendo and Playstation players if MS only allowed you to play games paying full price and on just 1 console box day 1. But paying them 10 bucks a month to play all their games on any device you want is far better for gamers than having to pay 300-500 for hardware + 70 buck for an individual game. So in that regard I could care less about PS or Nintendo players sorry.
Massive W for Sony and Nintendo. Also a W for MS imo. But not so much of a W for Xbox players. Just look at Minecraft. An Xbox player has to watch an Xbox games studio use time and resources to port games over to the PlayStation and Nintendo consoles taking precious time and resources away from perfecting/improving their games on their platforms. That’s an L for Xbox players.
Yes we simply do not have the answers so feeling strongly either way is a rush to judgment
Crazy to think that you can only buy a new console within a 24 month window of it releasing. It’s not as if they don’t sell the majority after this period…
I wonder what console wee Timmy’s mum and dad might get them for Christmas 2024/25/26/27?
I have no problem with this. I value game pass over having access to “everything” + Sony titles but needing to buy them in full. Nobody loses out on this. People claiming this will lead to the death of the Xbox console are delusional.
pick whatever games you want in place of those two, that wasn’t the point
This SO freaking much!!!
And I don’t get it either. I’ve scrolled through this whole thread and all the others we’ve had since the news about ABK and I don’t recall one single post that said it’s good to take games away from people, or celebrating it. We’ve had joke posts, just making innocent fun of things, stuff meant to take lightly.
In this very thread we had people say it’s not about taking games away, that we actually rejoice because of that. No, it’s to make Xbox as a brand strong again, it’s to make other developers/pubs that think lightly of Xbox start to consider shipping their games to your platform and/or service again, or for the first time.
It’s to make Sony think twice before trying to make other games the next FF (as in locking it away completely) or timed exclusive for God knows how long. We believe having CoD gave them that leverage.
I don’t get these posts like “why do you are if these are exclusive of not?” When we explain why we care, completely valid and understandable reasons too, I would say.
You’re not wrong, we can’t know because this is not something they’d announce. If it is indeed the case we’ll start seeing it or insiders will tweet about it.
But that’s the thing, the not knowing. So I would say both sides here are saying valid things.
I’m cool with this. Wasn’t looking for MS to stomp Sony just to give us more console war ammo. Apparently some of you were
If this indicates MS and Sony playing nice for the forseable future and their own aquisitions and money hats (or hopefuly lack there of) being less detrimental to the fan bases going forward. Great
I believe some here are just better off in the “finances department” so these moves don’t affect them much since they can get whatever they want when they want it.
Some need to touch real grass.
Some people in here just think about “console wars”, it’s tiring. MS is beyond that shit, like come on people…
Xbox has never been in a better position like EVER…
You can calm down now, no need for that “I’ll steal your toys and you’ll never get them back” mentality.
Its the scalability of those companies that is what is threatening. They are not their competitors in gaming but in the cloud space. Biggest cloud services are AWS, GCP and Azure. Google already have a very good cloud game streaming service. It might not be popular but the tech works very well, they are also looking to actively license it out. If any one of these companies makes a major acquisition then they can be a big player in the gaming space pretty quickly.
Say Google or Amazon were to buy Ubisoft they could continue that company as normal but quickly launch a streaming service and even incorporate into something like amazon prime.
I’m not cool with Xbox playing nice while Sony moneyhats everything out there. I want there to be reasons for people to buy an Xbox and see the console succeed and grow.