These people are part of the reason why Xbox is where its at. No criticism allowed. Just defend, defend, defend. I do NOT want Playstation to be the solo console maker for AAA third party games(Nintendo doesn’t count).
Like I said the Activision purchase was one of the worst things because it jumpstarted a lot of these recent decisions due to how much it cost.
Many “fans” on here are not. But plenty of Xbox or former Xbox fans ARE.
I hate it when people say this. Without exclusives, the console market would consolidate over one platform which is bad for competition and thus innovation and prices. This is ECON 101.
And third party devs don’t make consoles and so that point is moot…
There’s no need for anyone to paint people with such a broad brush or to call names, let’s be better, please. Thanks.
That’s a great call actually
Huh? We’re seeing more gaming specific OS (for a console-like experience), form factors/devices and storefronts on PC. And more access of games to any device via cloud.
Are you really yearning for the old console model?
The old model died due to black hole live service games, it simply doesn’t grow the way the want/need anymore.
I do
For me, the best games as an Xbox console fan were on the OG Xbox and 360. I can understand and appreciate others who won’t share that, but I loved the OG Xbox days
A fabulous console with its own unique identity and to this day, some of the best exclusives yet produced.
Exclusives today only hamper the chance of success for a game on Steam alone there are over 100,000 (one hundred thousand) games. look at most of the exclusives on Sony even with so many consoles sold they are all struggling and yet there are less than 3 to 4000 games on PlayStation as compared to Steam. What happens when or if half of the games on Steam are released on consoles. I understand or get the exclusivity, but an identity can be built on so many other wonderful things than locking a game away from millions that may want it. You know if Sony and Nintendo don’t embrace this idea next gen Xbox could even stand to be the console with the most games and the most exclusives just by default of the large PC library that won’t be available on the other two.
In anycase I do think this way forward is better as it expands the industry rather than shrink it which the traditional one is. This could bring the idea of games being playable anywhere just like movies and bring in many more partners other than the big 3. There are many companies making Blu-ray players not just 1,2 or 3 and soon you could have many hardware companies building consoles that would truly reach the global hemisphere and increase or grow the industry in a big way not to mention Xbox PC OS could be very effective in over a billion PCs. We are in a new age and time for video games.
PlayStation games to consoles ratio has always been a point of contention since the PS2 days and can remember OG Xbox people saying how that ratio was higher on the OG Xbox way back when. People can try and make out Console’s are dead but the point is Nintendo is selling loads the PS5 is on course to do better than the PS4 and PS5 is SONY’s most profitable console in history, SONY don’t hide behind revenue (like Xbox) that’s actual net profit.
What I liked about the OG Xbox was how it looked so different to the other consoles right down to its pad, how it was forward-looking with looking past dial-up up and how it was a monster technologically wise with not just a GPU that blew away the competition but even a massive push on the audio tech with the Media block in the OG Xbox being one of the most powerful parts inside the system and going from 64 channels in most consoles to 256 channel’s , I doubt we’ll ever see a leap like that again.
Xbox looked to have SEGA, FromSoftware, BioWare, Capcom, Team Ninja make exclusives and unlike in the 360 day’s you never had them being allowed to appear on the Sony’s system. The only real bad part was the lack of Japanese RPGs but one can’t have it all 
In the past that you’re talking about first party and exclusives dominated but now it is third party also in those days every console was very different from the next and it was Xbox that first started the PC console which started the homogenizing of the big 3 to a more PC console like platform we have of today. I think you should give the below a listen.
Look mate, I’m not into dominance, reviews or what consoles sells the best .
I liked how the OG had its own image and identity that was separate from the rest and how its exclusives were real exclusive. It’s crazy how good SEGA and FromSoftware games were on the OG Xbox, never mind what we got from Starbreeze, BioWare , and Team Ninja
OG Xbox was a dream console for me, and I loved, enjoyed every part of it rather short lifespan To this day will neverforget going on LIVE for the 1st time and playing Midtown Madness 3 and hearing people talk perfectly, not the 5 seconds you got on Aline Frontonline on the DC with tons of lag
The question is does microsoft want to get into the movie industry which is impossible to know for sure but that movie/TV banch could make it more likely for a Sony, disney or amazon to pick them up since they are already in the movie industry. Its also possible a take two or EA would want to snag them though as it does create easy synergies were their internal studios can make licensed games based on WB IP while WB can make movies based on their pre existing franchises like GTA, Boarderlands and Mathia from T2 or Battlefield, the sims and plants vs zombies for EA. While not as likely it also plausable an individual like Elon Musk or Bobby Kotick would want to make a move on this as Elon has expressed an interest in buying a movie company most notably disney in some form and Bobby Kotick expressed intrest in merging with WB before they were bought by AT&T and having some kind of stake in TIKTOK
Just jumped in and saw this so I don’t have a ton of context, but as someone who really hates where WB (WBDiscovery) is now and knows too much, I also want to remind everyone that WB is in this mess because AT&T couldn’t afford them. AT&T paid 85 billion (more than ABK) for Warner Media way back when. They cost basically as much as ABK did for Microsoft, except Microsoft paid for ABK in cash (not even stock like companies normally do) and AT&T went into a LOT of debt to buy WB. Debt they never got rid of. Debt they just fabricated away by spinning WB off with Discovery and telling the newly formed WBDiscovery that the debt was there responsibility. And now WBDISCOVERY has done the same by spilliting into two public stock companies. God, capitalism can be such a joke. I’d love to get rid of my student loans the same way. Anyway, WB is expensive. Really expensive. They probably cost less after the split, but the company you’d want to buy is still W FREAKING B. And now on top of that they have whatever discovery was worth. Probably not a lot, but something.
Not a lot of companies or people could successfully buy that. Several of the companies you named have a market cap less than what AT&T (couldn’t afford) paid for WB. EA for example only has a market cap of around 40 billion rounding up. A merger is more realistic for those companies. But honestly would they even want to? I’m not sure a lot of companies would WANT to purchase WB. At this point the company is a mess and has so much baggage. It has its hands in so many different media related businesses (from comic books to video games to movies & TV). It also really isn’t doing fantastic in all of them. The company has also been bought and sold off so many times now. If I were an executive and was offered to buy WB I’d raise an eyebrow and think long and hard. When you purchase a company you take the good with the bad. Take ABK for example. The company had peaked and there were some social image issues, but it really never stopped being massively successful. Heck, it sold basically as soon it started to dwindle. The executives just wanted out. That wouldn’t be the case for WB right now.
I do also think that no matter what Sony isn’t in the conversation. They are literally the biggest gaming company by pure revenue (the last number I saw still put them ahead of Microsoft by a good 10 billion USD even post ABK). I also think Sony is going to be really cautious post Bungie and let’s be honest, what assets do you get purchasing WB right now? IP yes but what in terms of talent? At least in the gaming side they haven’t really shown much. In terms of movies well, laws of diminishing returns for Sony. They already have a vast and powerful empire there. Speaking of that’d just be such a massive anti trust issue. Like we can make excuses for Microsoft competiting. There might even be an argument why it’s okay for Sony to just buy WB Games (not as much though because they are further ahead and the market leader), but for Sony to buy or even merge with a company that’s in multiple industries they’re already a dominant presence in? Umm, God I hope that’s not allowed. That’d actually be akin to Google buying Apple. They wouldn’t just be eliminating competition and getting larger in one market they dominate in, but two (really in that case several). Plus there’s further arguments of how this would affect Sony’s relationship with Disney (a competitor in the entertainment industry) and future Marvel license deals (a direct competitor to DC in the comics space).
Tl;dr: WBDiscovery even split is expensive and a can of worms with tons of baggage. Not many can buy them (we’re in this mess because AT&T spent 85 billion USD they didn’t have trying) and I think of those who can, few would want to now.
This is a intresting proposition for Microsoft, lets take a look at the numbers as they stand today WBD market cap currently is 27 billion with 37 billion in debt that is a purchase price of 64 billion plus shareholder buyout of lets just say 30% so somewhere in the vicinity of 83 billion. Ok for ease of numbers lets cut in half because Microsoft only wants the studio and IP portion of the buisness. So with that said your looking roughly at 40 billion, these are really really rough numbers so don’t take them as gospel. All that said lets look at some potential buyers everyone seems to focusing on Amazon,Microsoft and Sony. Amazon has around 90 billion cash on hand, Microsoft has about 80 and sony has about 23 not saying sony couldn’t do it but not likely. So the real question for Microsoft is, is WB and the studio and IP portion of the buisness worth half their cash on hand? What do you get in return a very good streaming service, movie and tv creation capabilities and of course the gaming studios, that already adds to a really robust lineup. Lastly and most importantly is all that IP my goodness i think i would purchase just for the IP and synergies alone.
Well said. If Microsoft could acquire the DC IPs that would be great, but I doubt Warner is ready to sell that without passing of the debt. I do though wonder with their push in AI and the rumor they were at one time interested in Netflix having an entertainment movie and TV division could generate some interest and maybe be useful in their AI pursuit.
A good read from a different angle.
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I always thought Netflix was the right move to be honest as nothing beats it in terms of subscription numbers and it could become their Trojan horse for Game Pass, plus the fact MS could potentially migrate all of Netflix overto Azure over time!
It would be if it wasn’t the same exact thing they’ve published three separate times over the last four years…
Ok then, first time I’ve read it
So safe to say microsoft isn’t buying EA at this point