There is so much comming out that I fear alan wake may get buried. If I were them Id move it to january. more time for polish and start the year strong.
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Yeah seriously, delay the game. I don’t think no-one will judge them looking at their situation (going against the biggest of the biggest leagues). If the want AW 2 to be “big” surely sending it in of the biggest months of the year wont help it, specially considering the series is not that big.
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Yeah, and it’s digital only too. I don’t think it’s going to sell well tbh. It’s why I feel remedy might be open for a deal with a publisher. I feel their games are expensive, but never had a commercial hit since max Payne
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WAIT WHAT??!!
A bit hyperbolic 
(or maybe no? O.o) but yeah…Now I’m finding it really hard to see if they will be able to recover the production values, maybe the Epic deal help them with reducing costs using UE but not things doesn’t seem to look good.
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Would love to see Ubisoft join Xbox as well and do agree with your takes. However I doubt it would happen at least not now. Taking too many publishers this size of the market puts the responsibility of shaping the industry in Microsoft hands which is already being frowned at as Monopolistic. There are so many developers out there that are better and could use the help. Sega in my opinion not for the studios but for the culture and to show Xbox is serious in Japan. Also I think Xbox can do for Sonic what they have done for Minecraft with them already going with the Hedgehog for Microsoft Edge. The many classic Sega IPs could also gain a resurgence.
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I could see sega having more creativity with their games again aswell sonic team having the resources to do a great game, I wonder if xbox would be interested on working on bayonetta, surely platinum will hope to work with xbox again because sega has most of the ips they created
The backwards compatibilty with most sega consoles could be massive, xbox really needs to bring panzer dragoon saga to the new generations
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Maybe you’re right. Maybe people will play those games and don’t have time for Alan Wake 2, but Starfield is a game you can take a break from and Forza is an on track racing game, it’s not for everyone. It won’t do Horizon numbers either.
PC players play everything. It mainly depends on the game running well and it’s not on Steam so they don’t expect to get many sales day one.
Spiderman 2 looks great but it’s also a game you can finish in a week or wait to play.
Alan Wake 2 don’t have a mass appeal, but if it’s really good and getting some great reviews, I can see it making rounds. There’s also a real thirst for an alternative to Capcom’s Resident Evil Remakes.
I see the arguments, but there’s also no good time for Alan Wake 2 to release. It really depends on the game’s qualities, graphics and performance. The only overlapping I see is with Alone in the Dark, but I bet that one will suffer more than Alan Wake 2.
Just my 2 cents. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can see it going either way.
I’m day one on Alan Wake 2. I waited too long for it that I had lost hope it would be made one day.
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With Hideki Kamiya always begging Phil for Scale Bound I’m sure something can be worked out if it hasn’t already. I would like some of those games as well maybe even do remakes like Capcom did. Would love to see the Sonic franchise get an Ori like format of a game.
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If Xbox can get Ubisoft to sell they will buy them, just my opinion but their current market cap of 3.83 Billion and a current purchase price of around 5.5 Billion they would be a absolute steal. Remember Xbox’s tendencies has shown that they like to buy publishers when they are down and Ubisoft’s market cap has not been this low since 2016. I don’t however think it will be in the next 12 months. As far as monopoly talk goes it’s just foolish xbox doesn’t even own 25 percent of the market so that argument can be thrown out the window.
I am curious what regulators and posters here consider a big publisher acquisition? EA, and Take 2 for me are the only 2 publisher’s at this point that are what I would consider a big publisher (and more than likely off limits). Meaning large market cap and game release that does significant sales numbers (COD,GTA,FIFA) .While Ubisoft has assassin’s creed it doesn’t seem to garner the same attention as the aforementioned titles, however they do produce tons of games every year and have a significant staff number. So what metrics make Ubisoft a large publisher? To me they fall in the middle tier.
The one thing that I could see the regulators having a problem with when it comes to a Xbox acquisition of Ubisoft is the lessoning of competition in the subscription business because of Ubisoft plus. That could be a major point of contention, but I’m sure Microsoft lawyers could spin that or a compromise could be made
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I’d also include Epic Games, Valve & Tencent too.
Tencent are bigger than Sony or Xbox and have their fingers in so many pies (including Epic).
Epic Games is likely a $40+ Billion acquisition.
Valve are much smaller but because they dominate the PC market with Steam I would also consider them a ‘big publisher’.
It would be difficult but I agree with your comments regarding Ubisoft.
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Great points hue, I agree 100 percent I never really look at Tencent,Valve,Epic, PlayStation or Nintendo because it would almost certainly be blocked as it would fringe on monopoly in one category or another but they all do fit into the big publisher category with EA and Take 2.
To me there is only a handful of legitimate console centric publisher acquisition targets and they are all middle tier or lower tier
Middle tier Ubisoft,Sega,WB,Koei tecmo,CDPR,Capcom
Lower tier paradox and Focus
I know some here love Square, Bandai Namco, Konami, Embracer and I do too but just don’t see them personally as a value add obviously I’m not taking into account the more mobile focus of Microsoft at the moment, just my opinion, for all I know they announce take 2 in January 
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Before people start going crazy with Tencent talk (ewww), it’s important to note that Biden just passed an EO limiting American investment into Chinese tech companies, so this one I’m certain we can take off the books (good riddance imo).
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Thanks, most people discount Epic despite being humongous! Much like ABK is the CoD factory they are the Fortnite/Rocket League company. Personally I am not very fond of them anymore, they killed off the entire community for my favourite series (Unreal Tournament) and when they finally made a good game (Fortnite) they renamed it to Save the World, killed it and then replaced it with the BR everybody knows today.
Tencent are so huge but most ‘gamers’ still haven’t heard of them! When they finally release their long rumoured portable console/ streaming service they may become more notable.
Again I agree with your console orientated publishers, Bandai & Koei (also Square) do nothing for me. I enjoy some of Embracers games, mostly those from Square Enix West and Gearbox.
Focus seems to have this talent to keep picking up games which really interest me, therefore I’d always push for them but it’s always going to be Sega and Ubisoft for me from a publisher perspective.
Ew I agree, I wasn’t saying MS should go after them, just that they should be considered one of the big publishers!
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My main ubisoft question is it worth going to court for ? I don’t think their worth the risk when looking at a publisher .
If the aim game is GamePass content I would say it is. There aren’t many publishers which can release as many games as Ubisoft can, especially at their price point.
Just with Ubisoft alone they could probably release one game per quarter!
I don’t think quality is there, but assassins creed does usually do well, but I feel their other games usually under perform
That’s fair, most of their games usually hit a 7/10 minimum except maybe Just Dance. I think part of the problem is much like ABK they have got stuck in a cycle of releasing the same games. When they have the creativity to make their own thing they usually do quite well for example the new Rabbids Mario game got a 86 metacritic.
They are far from the 00’s when they were consistently scoring high 8’s and even some low 9’s but with financial backing imagine what they could do if they could get back to that. Especially if they continued releasing on the same frequent basis (several 80-90 AAA games a year would really push up the competition).
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Remakes of several saturn and dreamcast games, I am not sure if sonic could work well on a metroidvannia but it sounds interesting, platinum will definitely want to work again on their previous ips, and since several people are suggesting a kart racing game for a xbox crossover title I thing it would be phenomenal having sega on it, the roster for sonic all star racing is cool imo, I grew up playing that game
And just as a sugestion, the creator of phanton dust Yukio Futatsugi is interested on making a sequel, I think he is still working on grounding inc so if xbox ends buying sega I think they should go for them aswell, he also helped in the creation of panzer dragoon
I think all the buzz around abk was because the high price and call of duty, I dont remember seeing the regulators talking about the amount of devs abk has, but they consider it as one of the biggest publishers alongside take two and ea, ubisoft has great ips but they dont sell the same as a fifa or gta, when it comes to ubisoft + I think xbox should just keep it alive and put it on ps5 aswell having it in gamepass ultimate like they are doing with ea play right now, for the amount of franchises and development power that ubisoft has I think it would be an absolute steal but I dont think they will acquire them any time soon
I think you could say the same about abk, their ips are still strong but most of the talent have gone away, imo ubisoft games could perform great on gamepass
Ubisoft is tricky with IPs because IPs don’t seem worth going to long court process for which could block chance of other publishers
Assassins creed - yes
Far cry - doesn’t fill a void
The division - yes, but don’t think the franchise is that valuable
Splinter cell - yes
Prince of Persia - yes , but would have to put resources into finding studio for a AAA
Rayman - yes, but i don’t think Microsoft cares much about platformers due to rare ips. Plus m, Ubisoft doesn’t use this ip much
The crew - nope
Watch dog - yes, but franchise is polarizing
Rainbow six - yes, since a popular live service
Ghost recon - no
Hasbro - possibly
Rabbids - possibly
Trackmania - possibly
Trials - possibly
Call of Juarez - meh
Overall , I don’t think they have enough IPs to make it worthwhile to go to court and possibly ruin chances of other valuable publishers . However they do have some IPs that could fill a void , but don’t think they’re that valuable to Risk it for. Some of the void they can fill can be filled by just purchasing studios like IOI, crystal dynamic , square Montreal, etc.
Ubisoft is major 
Stick to Japan/Asia for your publishers please Phil