All out war? Yikes that’s cringe. I physically crunched up my face reading that.
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That’s what happens when you have marketshare , its so hard to say no to SONY when they have such a commanding hardware lead in almost all of the major gamming markets in the entire world. Over the last few months, how much more market share has the PS5 got over the Series S/X ?.
Microsoft will have to spend like it did in the OG Xbox Days no doubt. Not quite all doom and gloom mind, if Starfield turns out to be Skyrim in space some might say we don’t even need Activision
Had a good run tho
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that will create more problems more than anything xbox already have issues dont wanna make more issues due to idea u suggest sometime people need to calm down
Sony sold more but software sales went down. Not great for them either at the this time honestly.
They can still do that by funding third party devs and publishers that can’t foot the bill for projects . I mentioned in a different thread, but a publisher like Koei Tecmo leveraged Sony and EA to publish wild hearts and rise of ronin. I feel microsoft can do more of those because some publishers/developers don’t want to take risk on new IPs. Microsoft did this early last gen which gave them software advantage.
I know they’re also doing that this gen with contraband, Wutang, and project belfry. I just feel it won’t hurt to take these risks
I know it would be more of a long term investment, but Microsoft should really look at legendary game developers from around the world, help them set up their new studio, like what MS did with Mistwalker and Sakaguchi.
It wouldn’t really be an acquisition, more so something like Tencent having a share in the company, but this will lead to these new studios being loyal to Xbox.
Also if Microsoft decides to fully buy the studio they would have first rights to buy them. We don’t want to see another company like Respawn getting picked up before MS waves their first rights of refusal.
Starfield is coming in September and then Forza 8 will probably come out in November. I get what you are saying. We need all hands on deck to make sure game releases come out so there are no more droughts. But Hellblade 2 and Avowed coming out this year isnt needed. Let those games cook a little more. 2024 is a fine date.
Regardless of what the current situation means long-term, those smaller studios that you and others have clamored for would be unaffected. If the ABK merger is ultimately blocked, I’m still not wholly convinced that the same justifications would fly for any of the smaller publishers - Sega, Paradox, Capcom, etc…
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It’s gonna sound very greedy but after Bethesda and the ABK announcement, studio acquisitions don’t do much for me anymore
There’s a lot of talented studios out there but knowing I’m gonna get like 1 game every 4 or 5 years on GP from the majority of them
At least with Bethesda and having to wait a while for their games although we can thank Sony’s moneyhats for that, they had a big library and back catalog that could be dropped into GP, not to mention going forward you’ll have different teams and studio dropping games likely every year or so
At this point, MS would have to announce a whole bunch together like E32018 for me to care much, give me a Sega or Capcom over these Remedy’s and Asobo’s people keep clamouring for
I’m not asking for every studio or for it to be permanent but they must be now a few games ready to enter the Beta stage? I would say MS needs to get them out this year to add to StarField and Forza and give the Xbox one its best Christmas peroids every and more importantly take full advantage of SONYs lack of big hitters meant for this year.
Not nice for staff, but if you’re fair and open expain and show the situation to staff, fair with overtime pay, extra holidays Ect. I’m sure most could see it needs to be done and be willing too
Maybe MS needs to slash the price of the Series S as well, to help get some sales momentum back too. Even if its just a showcase June promotion push only for June …
Yeah, im not an expert or in a high ranking job. What I am is a gamer who cares for and loves the Xbox .
Xbox does need to do a little better 
It’s not ‘fair’ to ask staff to crunch for something that is unneeded. If this was 2022 and they were trying to bring say… Hi Fi Rush in, I’d understand it. Not in 2023 where not a single person will look back and say it was anything other than a great year.
Sad that this is how it’ll end, I have to wonder if they’ll even be able to acquire something like CDPR now or if anything in the billions will be too risky to even try, what proven independent studios are even out there besides Asobo and Certain Affinity? Which they need to get immediately btw. I think Ubisoft would be a good buy, they have some great IPs and could definitely use better management but realistically will it be worth it to gamble on that considering the CMA can likely block that too…?
Microsoft is in no mans land right now and that’s why unfortunately they’re going to fight this until the bitter end 
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Microsofts strategy moving forward should be to avoid regulators, and gain broad influence with many board seats all over the industry.
Buy up 14.9% of every major publisher, get a board member on every single major publisher, and use that to work to influence more profitable models such as multiplatform including cloud and leveraging backcatalog to get more money by making deals with subscription services.
This diversifies income and provides consistent steady income streams as Tencent has shown.
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New studios are being set up all the time.
When situations happen like key folks leaving Playground to start a new studio I would hope someone at Xbox explored the potential of bank rolling their new venture to keep trusted studio leaders close to the brand. If they were tired of FH or didn’t want to work on Fable then let them set up a new team and see where it goes.
I also hope they’re striking up deals to support more studios like IOI, Stoic, Asobo and Certain Affinity. If Microsoft owns the IP then those acquisitions are not about gaining assets, it’s to secure the talent. I can’t imagine the CMA blocking things like that.
Get Platinum. There’s no IP there that will register on the CMA’s radar. Let them make new, experimental things.
There are options outside of buying up big IP. Those routes will take longer to pay off, but I love the idea of Microsoft using its vast resources to enable more creatives and then using Game Pass to get those creations to more players.
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I’m really curious if you know what crunch can do to a team. Yeah, unfortunately it happens, but it shouldn’t. Mandatory crunch is not only bad for the studio and it’s employees but bad for xbox reputation that takes a hit harder than others platforms. C’mon bro…
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Yeah going after the Playground ex devs new studio is something they should try, also they should 100% go after Casey Hudson’s studio, the guy directed the legendary Mass Effect trilogy and Xbox definitely needs a story focused game in that genre, 3rd person shooter RPG! There’s many new formed studios made by veterans with a good track record, it’s time to go after those.
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And then you guys will whine when they take 6 years to make a new game because they’re trying to build a new studio and make a game at the same time. 
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Yeah, because the XBox rep is in such a wonderful place right now . I can’t talk about crunch since it seems to be upsetting some.
But in the old days, I used to have a few beers with a pair of brothers who shared a passion for F1 and one of them worked for Criterion. Back in the good old ‘red’ days