Xbox Acquisition |OT5| Talking Exclusively About Xbox Acquisitions

Fine by me.

Market share of this gen? You mean only being a couple million difference? Come on, keep the FUD realistic at least; marketshare differences being conflated as “Xbox One PTSD” is pretty far-fetched.

You’ll be surprised of how many articles similar tp this one float all over the internet nowadays:

I know it’s not 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1, but it’s still roughly 30% or 40% more if we take Zhuge numbers for Xbox (12-13M).

1 Like

I see your point but it would still be cheaper to get game X on GP day 1 than to buy the actual rev stream from the game in its entirety. Also worth noting that they might not have use for all these games landing day 1 on GP in perpetuity either. If GP became dominant at some point it might not be worth the cost to keep re-upping the day 1 deals at some point in the future anyhow.

What is the ‘market’ you are relating terms like ‘marketshare’ to, specifically?

1 Like

How do we know MS didn’t go to ABK and try and get games like CoD on GP?

Would ABK really want to put the top selling console game every year (CoD) on GP - doubtful!

Perhaps part of the appeal of the ABK deal was that ABK was one of the few publishers which didn’t want to go on GamePass - I may be wrong but I don’t think I have ever seen their games on GP (same as Ubisoft until recently).

Not surprised at all given the level of dis/misinformation spread across all industries these days, but given Zhuge and MS’ own statements we know this to be false, so why spread it further? Again, it’s also unrelated to the topic.

3 Likes

Well, I wanted to move it to another topic but have no idea how to move posts or something.

No need, I’ll start deleting posts and sending DMs from now on. There have been ample warnings.

1 Like

They might very well have tried that, but clearly the price wasn’t right for it to happen. I think ABK is happy to put stuff on GP for the right price since its guaranteed higher engagement, which is what ABK’s big IP are all built around harvesting.

Technically we don’t know it’s faulty since MS’s figures are sell in vs what Piers Harding estimated as sell through (thus not including any XSS units on shelves). I don’t think it matters though since ultimately ppl at the end of the gen only care about sell in (shipped) anyhow as sell through becomes too complex to track for most of us by that point.

And to be even keeled here, there was also a lot of news/press coverage suggesting Xbox Series was closer to PS5 than it really was due to the press misunderstanding the timelines being compared (the 13.4mil vs 12mil figures for PS5/Xbox respectively). That stuff was improperly spread around too.

I think that just demonstrates that they either couldn’t make a deal or it just wasn’t viable (financially).

It’s clearly going to be much better in the long term to buy them.

Yes, it wasn’t viable for MS. But we aren’t comparing scenarios where MS opts to find a way to get CoD et al on GP in a vacuum, we are comparing that to the scenario at hand where they buy ABK outright. The asking price from ABK for full day 1 GP adoption would have been WAY tiny in comparison to spending $70bil.

What is the argument you wanna make as to why it would cost more than $70bil to get all that stuff on GP? There are no signs so far that I know of that suggest the deal was centrally related to GP at all. That’s just how MS will frame certain aspects since those are consumer facing and obvious while they are figuring out how to best leverage ABK against Amazon/Facebook/Apple/etc. in a competitive landscape the general public isn’t even aware of yet.

If they wanted Dying Light on GP, it’d be there. You can’t just decide every single game that comes out is either on GP OR MS can’t scrape enough cash together to make that happen. Those are not the only options, lol.

Well, we don’t know. But there should be a reason why Microsoft decided to make February half empty.

This topic kinda feels off topic but I am not sure.

The reply chain was mainly about the idea that ABK was bought principally for GP. Lots of evidence undermines that position, including some points that appear to me rather damning on the surface. Zenimax and ABK were very, very different acquisitions with different elements on offer to MS and they slot into different goals.

ATVI provides Microsoft with a lot of leverage in gaming world, solidifies their PC position (including Korea!), gives them impressive foothold in mobile market, huge foothold in e-sports too, they get a lot of IPs and one of the most successful MMOs too…So many dimensions.

P.S. and finally a good game launcher (Battle Net) lol

1 Like

All of that, plus while not being principally about GP at all it still has the knock on effect of significantly boosting that too, along with putting them in a great spot wrt the whole Metaverse competition stuff. Not many acquisitions force gamers to have to think beyond the contours of what they consider the normal gaming market.

1 Like

Yeah, ATVI deal also affected the market greatly.

1 Like

I have been saying that with Capcom, Sega and T2 Microsoft doesn’t need anything else big and they can pick up smaller studios.

Capcom would generate a huge meltdown simply because a lot of people still believe that Microsoft cannot buy anybody in Japan and still that only Sony has a chance to buy Capcom (“natural fit”). Would be crazy.

Though then we would have “case by case basis”, “some”, “available” and another meltdown fest with misery and bans.

I am not trying to be rude but saying this comes off as a bit ignorants of the state of the industry, we know facebook was also talking to activision and its a sign that the industry is clearly shifting where massive companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Tencent ect. see gaming as important acquisitions. Ultimately Microsoft is just buying while these giants are sleeping, I do believe Microsoft probably wants to snatch EA and Take 2 before someone else does but ultimately the likely situation we are looking at is in the next decade gaming will see a lot of consolidation due to these acquisitions becoming more common.

I do think Microsoft should acquire smaller studios too; Moon studios, studio MDHR, Asobo feel like musts for Microsoft. GSC Game World (the people behind stalker 2) would also be a great pick up in my opinion, maybe someone like platinum to help xbox further expand inside Japan. I do want MS to continue to support smaller teams like them but we are in a turning point in the industry were we are likely looking at an arms race.

Amazon has been investing heavily into gaming, Tencent is literally number 1 in terms of gaming revenue and has been rumoured to be getting money to get ready to do a hostile takeover, Apple is rumoured to be making a console, facebook needs basically game devs to make their metaverse thing ect. These companies are gonna start seeing these companies as important investments

2 Likes

Ignorant of what? I just listed what Microsoft should aim to get. Whether they will able to do is an entirely different matter.

Moon studios won’t happen (especially after their head told that they wanted Microsoft to release the games everywhere)

MDHR is doing whatever

Asobo seems to be keen on staying independent

GSC should deliver the game first (while it looks nice for now, we literally don’t have many gameplay demos yet - just relatively small gameplay sections). It is not like I don’t trust them but the first Stalker game was not all shine and rainbows (and they also tried to push NFT).

Platinum is tied to many projects and I don’t like how the bring Scalebound situation to a public discourse as if trying to apply some pressure on Microsoft.

I think Ubisoft fits Amazon quite nicely. But it is really hard to predict what other giants will do.

I think Ubisoft fits Amazon quite nicely. But it is really hard to predict what other giants will do.

[/quote]

this is the part I am refering to about you sounding Ignorant, Microsoft is currently the only giant away (well tencent too) so they should move now before they are in a situation where they lose their relationship with EA or lose Take 2 ect.