@PixelDragon Microsoft tried to pretend that they are nobody, so they can own ABK. ...same as Sony pretended that PlayStation would go bankrupt if Microsoft will own Call of Duty.
It's almost like every company tried to pursue hyperbole to "win." Shocker. I know.
@somnambulance Nah. They very much know it. But they also know that if they transform that IP into live service game successfully, they will earn significantly more money. Risk is higher of course, but payout is just not comparable.
@Kevw2006 No.
Because if you stop making consoles you are at the mercy of others. Sony could refuse to put Game Pass on PlayStation and then you are basically *****. And I have huge doubts that you can offset all lost Game Pass/Gold revenue by releasing your games on PlayStation. Especially since you need to let 30% of your revenue to Sony. And I don't think Sony would allow GP on PlayStation even if Microsoft was not making consoles, because Game Pass directly competes with their own service.
There is no doubt that Microsoft is already working on next Xbox and they will release it. Even if Series X/S will sell less than Xbox One.
@Kevw2006 It's not that hard to understand
They care about sales, but their business strategy is not dependent entirely on sales of console. They are growing their business despite selling less consoles. Unlike Sony and Nintendo. They go only as far as sales of consoles will let them. You could saw that perfectly during WiiU era.
If they cared only about sales of console, they wouldn't release first-party games on PC day one (like Sony). But they see PC (especially Game Pass on PC) as a growth vector for their subscription service. But on the other hand if there is a guy who wants to game on console, they have Xbox for him. That's why Starfield (for example) is not on PlayStation.
@Kevw2006 Nah. Because console is easiest way to monetise your audience. That's why Microsoft won't stop making them.
Because you are getting 30% from every purchase on your console, and you can easily sell Ultimate tier of GamePass because you are bundling Gold and Game Pass (Gold does not exist on PC). You will be loosing all of that.
Also. Majority of Game Pass subs are still on Xbox console and not on PC. And since Sony won't allow Game Pass on PlayStation it's not like they have a chance to not make consoles.
But the point of Xbox's business strategy is that they are not "entirely" reliant on sales of consoles as PlayStation or Nintendo. In last quarter 30% of all PlayStation revenue came from sales of hardware. On Xbox it was only 19%.
@DonaldMcRonald But that's the goal for Microsoft. Not how many consoles they sold, but how many MAU they have in their games.
And you can see that pretty clear if you look at their financials. Without ABK of course. Xbox had 3,16 billion during last quarter from "Content and services." PlayStation had 4,3 billion from "Contend and services" segment. While having twice of addressable target audience on consoles and outselling Xbox sometimes more than 2:1. Strange, isn't it. It's almost like a pivot of Microsoft to broaden their service outside of their own ecosystem works in their favour.
But general public just wants to drag them into "who sold more consoles" despite the fact that with ABK Xbox is more profitable division the PlayStation while selling less then 50% of what competition is selling.
And it's absolutely irrelevant if they created Minecraft, since they are profiting from it for last 10 years. And they are getting 70% of all revenue of Call of Duty (and other ABK games) on PlayStation. Who even cares if they are selling less consoles tbh?
And let's not pretend like Starfield was not impressive. Game was instantly 6th best selling game in US despite the fact that it ignored PlayStation as a platform and it was available to subscribers of Game Pass. And it also contributed to highest one-day addition of Game Pass subscribers in history of service.
@BrettAwesome 25 millions consoles sold during 3 years is "being stuck to the PC market" since when?
Jesus. I have a feeling that some users around here wants Xbox consoles to be failure, so Microsoft will ditch them and starts releasing XGS/Bethesda games on PlayStation.
But I have a news for you. That won't happen unless Sony will allow Game Pass on PlayStation. And we all know Sony won't allow it.
@Flaming_Kaiser I'm not defending state of MW3, but I understand why ABK management pushed for it's release, especially since buyout by Microsoft was in real danger.
What I was criticising was implication, that Modern Warfare 3 is trend moving forward. Which is not.
Wow. Are they dumb? If this device is not generating profit then I really don't understand why it exists in it's current form. If it supported cloud streaming you could theoretically earn new customer and earn money on subscription that would not be possible without this device. But since you are required to have PS5 to use it, you are already PlayStation customer.
No wonder PlayStation division margins are so slim.
Big difference is that while Xbox One was at that point "closed ecosystem" with Microsoft pushing that device, Series X/S is really one of the options to enter ecosystem ie. you can subscribe into Game Pass without owning an Xbox console and Microsoft will still have your money. PlayStation is still all about selling consoles.
And after ABK whole point of comparing console sales is pretty much irrelevant since Xbox division is on par with PlayStation division in terms of revenue, while Xbox division has higher margins.
in TOP 20 most played games on PlayStation during october there were four games that Microsoft owns.
@Jswift56 Talking about overreaction, right?
People are delusional if they think that this is some kind of trend. Remember, Sledgehammer had 16 months to make this game in times, when AAA games takes 4-5 years to make. All because ABK execs were terrified what will happen if regulators would block ABK deal and they would be without Call of Duty.
2024 will have Treyarch's new Call of Duty that has usual 3-years dev cycle.
Not to mention fact that despite low scores, game is selling like hotcakes.
But it is clear that moving forward (after Treyarch's COD), doing annual releases is unsustainable. And I hope that Microsoft will realise that and they will switch to bi-annual releases with longer support for existing COD games.
@Swirly No, it does not. It did in one month (april 2022 if I remember correctly), but that was because of Series X shortages. But some websites took the info and extrapolated it to the whole three years for some reason.
@UltimateOtaku91 Xbox has way higher digital copies ratio than PlayStation. It's well known fact. Also you have to realise that MW3 copies bundled with PlayStation 5 are counted as physical copies despite fact that there are codes inside boxes, not game discs.
It's Modern Warfare 2 all over again. That game in physical was 71% PlayStation, 29% Xbox. When counted digital it shifted 57% PlayStation, 33% Xbox, 11% PC. So it's pretty clear that Xbox is performing better when you include digital and Xbox platform is skewed more towards digital distribution.
Let's not forget that Series X and Series S has +- 50/50 split and Series S is digital only console. PS5 vs PS5 DE is split of 80/20.
@Grumblevolcano Taking paycut is more about being compassionate, but it's hardly revelant to the economics of running a business.
If you take Bungie for example. Considering median yearly salary of one developer in Seattle (where Bungie is located) is 134k dollars per year. Not counting expenses that you as a employer have on your employee (health coverage etc.) No cutting of execs pay will match that, because it's not like there is 1000 Bungie execs that can cut their salary. There are just a few of them. Same thing for Epic.
Nintendo survived WiiU era because they had huge amount of money in reserves from Wii success (they also had 3DS). Not because Iwata cut his salary. As I said. It was more about "gesture" and not about real economic policy.
@nessisonett Thing is... Companies like Epic, Microsoft, Sony are successful and profitable in part because they know when and where to "cut the fat." It is cynical, but it's also making sense.
@themightyant Well, their game Matter is supposedly cancelled (in December 2020) and Marathon doesn't look so hot according to people who attended Marathon summit at the start of this year.
And I agree that it takes many people to sustain GaaS game, but still 1200 people with one game with declining popularity is just recipe for disaster. And while technically Destiny 2 is new game, it was basically forced upon Bungie by Bobby Kotick. It is two, but at the same time it isn't...
@themightyant Yeah. Nobody is saying that Destiny 2 is dead or anything. But it is clearly not enough to sustain 1200 employees of Bungie. 1200 employees is just ridiculous number for studio that haven't released new game in almost 10 years. If Bungie already got Marathon out I could see that working for them.
For comparision, Blizzard has 5000 employees, but they have hugely successful (albeit hated) Diablo Immortal and live services with World of Warcraft, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. And they will probably announce their survival game (Odyssey) during the weekend.
@ROTTIEMAN16 Nope. There was a talk about Bungie purchase by Microsoft for much of 2020 and 2021. That's why was kinda surprising when Sony announced that they are buying Bungie.
It was such a "talk" that even Bungie CEO had to comment on them. He said that they are not in talk with anybody about acquisition. Which proved to be ***** because they sell to Sony few weeks later.
And even Microsoft internal documents had Bungie on the "shortlist" of what to buy.
@RadioHedgeFund Nope. According to rumors, Bungie was willing to sell to Microsoft for less then Sony bough them, but dealbreaker for Microsoft was fact that Bungie has requested too much autonomy and Microsoft did not liked it.
And when Microsoft went heels deep into ABK stuff, it was clear that they would not buy Bungie.
And yet, Xbox had their best Q1 quarter in history of division.
It's almost like they are not relying on sales of hardware as much as Sony. Which is kinda obvious if you are releasing your first-party games on PC at same time as on Xbox consoles.
But I fully expect that people just won't get it for sake of console wars. Same as they did not get that ABK purchase was mainly about gateway to mobile and not about Call of Duty...
I would prefer if Insomniac stopped being Marvel company and start making something original.
I would rather have Sunset Overdrive 2 then Spider-Man 3/Venom/Wolverine.
But I'm probably in minority, so I'm not gonna hold my breath.
I would not be surprised if even that GAAS game that Insomniac is making would be with Marvel IP.
@themightyant But that's called PR. Reason why people liked Spencer more then Ryan (for example) is because he plays games, he interacts with community and he has that "gamer" energy around him. How much of that is pretended is questionable, but the point is that if he says something there is higher probability that people will take it at face value, because he built an image around him. Which is in one part PR.
Ryan on the other hand only interacts with economics magazines and if he says something in public it come across as "business man talking about games."
"When we all play, we all win" is PR phrase. Same as Sony had "For the Players." They didn't said "For the PlayStation players"
@themightyant But you can.
Same way as Sony wants to have their cake and eat it too. Sony is realeasing live service game on PC day one, because it will bring them more money. Live service games needs huge playerbase for sustain of microtransactions and support. But ***** same PC players if they want to play story-driven PlayStation games day one. They need to wait at least 2 years. And maaaaaybe then they will play them. Or in some cases (Ghost of Tshushima for example) not.
Same for Microsoft. They will do what makes most sense. They made Starfield exclusive, because with that game they want to push consoles and subs. But they will keep Call of Duty multiplatform, because that game lives and dies by huge popularion and microtransactions. Which will not be the case for next Crash game for example and that's why I expect next Crash game to be Xbox exclusive.
@themightyant Of course they want gamers to switch to Xbox. But they want to do that with value proposition (ie. Call of Duty in Game Pass) and not by gimping PlayStation/Nintendo version of COD. Which is basically what he is saying.
Because if you purposefully gimp Call of Duty on other platforms you are risking destroying whole brand, which is not what Microsoft wants. They want Call of Duty to stay on top of the video-game world revenue-wise and then reinvest that revenue into future Xbox growth.
@themightyant That's not what he is saying. He is saying that Call of Duty will not be gimped on PlayStation to force PlayStation players to buy Xbox consoles. Simple as that. You have PlayStation, you will have same exact content/release date/price.
Of course Call of Duty will be on Game Pass from 2024 onwards. But Sony has ability to put Call of Duty into PlayStation Plus day one per contract with Microsoft. They just have to pay Microsoft for that "privilege"
@S1ayeR74 Using cloud to offload some computing power from local hardware is not the same as streaming of whole game. Not only Microsoft is researching that...see Ubisoft Scalar and even EA is exploring stuff like that. Kojima new game for Xbox is supposed to be using cloud to offload processing power into cloud.
Xbox thought that cloud will be big. They even sacrificed Series X consoles because they were offloading Series X chips into datacenters. But cloud is not growing as much as they thought it would and they are winding down investment. Which is in their internal documents.
And that investigation of Azure and AWS has nothing to do with game streaming. It's about enterprise cloud solutions. So I don't really understand why are you trying to imply that it does...
It's pretty hilarious that CMA forced Microsoft to concede cloud gaming license of ABK games while Microsoft was already winding down their investment into cloud because it wasn't as big of the market as they thought it will be
@Flaming_Kaiser Well. There is for sure one possibility. But it is pretty clear that EA is willing to sell. They had talks with Comcast-NBC Universal last year and they conveniently split company in two "halves" for easier sell of one half of company if that situation will occur.
@Jimmer-jammer Outside of fact that both games bombed hard commercially and had to layoff most of their staff you forgot to mention that The Callisto Protocol had help from Sony XDEV and Immortals had help from EA studios.
None of that would be available to Disney if they decided to set up their own studios. You have to also build that.
Not to mention that as a Disney you would need to set up multiple studios at once not just one because setting up whole gaming operation for one studio is pretty big waste of resources if you want to be serious about gaming. That would make things even harder. Also you would have to setup whole management structure for publishing arm and everything included in that...
So it is just way better to buy existing studio that has established workflow. And EA is great candidate because they are working on at least 5 games that are licensed by Disney - Iron Man, Black Panther, Star Wars Jedi sequel and two more Star Wars games from Respawn. You would also have DICE for potential Battlefront 3. So you can basically buy a publisher that is already making "your" games. It would just cost a fortune.
I mean. Even if we are talking about "organic growth" of Sony. Yes, Sony was working closely with almost every studio they bought. But important bit is that they bought studio after it established workflow. Which is crucial. They also bought Bungie because they realised that it will take ages to get required knowledge for live service games if they would decide to create live service studio from scratch.
@wildcat_kickz Can people stop with that suggestion?
You know that if you try to build a dev teams who will then make a game for you, that's 10 year process at minimum? With questionable ROI?
Like, we can all argue if consolidation is bad or a good thing. But the fact is that trying to build gaming division at the time when average AAA game takes 5 years to make is just suicide.
Building gaming division from ground up could be feasible during 360/PS3 era when you could spun of entire trilogy of games during one gen with studio consisting of 100 people. Not today...
Fact is that if Disney/Apple/Comcast etc. wants to enter gaming industry, gobbling up huge publisher is their only option.
It's crazy when you think about fact that Naughty Dog released 3 games (if this remaster is real) during this gen and all of them was remasters... ...meanwhile their new game (TLOU Factions) is in shambles and their other new game is years away...
It's honestly pretty hilarious that Microsoft is trying to break out into AAA SP games while they have live service stuff pretty much nailed down (Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, Forza Horizon 5 and currently also Halo Infinite (yeah I know first year was rough), not to mention ABK stuff soon and TESO and Fallout 76) while Sony is in exactly opposite space. They have AAA SP games nailed down but they don't know how to break into live service.
It's not possible to say if his tenure was good or bad.
Primarily because he was CEO for only 4 years which is kinda short.
And mainly. He took over ship with set course. All games that carried PlayStation at the start of this gen was already in development before he become head of PlayStation. Even Insomniac buyout wasn't his decision.
His decisions were around studio buyouts from 2020 forward and whole pivot towards GAAS. Will it be successful? Only time will tell. End of current gen will be proper time to say if his tenure was good or bad.
@theMEGAniggle What? Ellie's AI was one of the few points of criticism that game received. And gameplay was mainly praised because it was visceral, not because actual mechanics were that great. As I said. You played the game because you wanted to see where the story goes next. Not because mechanics of said gameplay were great.
@theMEGAniggle In terms of story? Maybe. In terms of gameplay? hardly. TLOU gameplay is average at best and nothing special. You are playing because you want to progress story, not other way around.
People are "shocked" that it is 3 years after TLOU 2 and we don't even have the announcement of what's next for ND. Especially since ND tended to release at least one game every three years.
Get used to it. Game development takes 5 years at minimum. If you are making new IP it's even more. That's just reality of game development. And their Factions project basically got soft-rebooted because Bungie played it and thought it was ***** in terms of staying power.
@Beerheadgamer82 Don't say it's impossible if it is possible. Would it be risky and it would probably backfire? Yup. But it is possible. You don't need to fund your acquisitions through cash like Microsoft with Bethesda or ABK. There are other means to raise funds. But as I said. It would be risky.
@Beerheadgamer82 It's not impossible. You don't need cash to made this kind of merger. Take-Two didn't buy Zynga through cash, because they didn't have 12 billion dollars lying in the bank. So they merge together.
@CielloArc Because Microsoft needs to officially "end" first merger inquiry that CMA blocked in April. That needs to happen before CMA can issue final ruling for second merger inquiry (that which offloads cloud rights to Ubisoft).
Second inquiry is for current merger where CMA will ask 3rd parties for their opinions.
Comments 751
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
@PixelDragon Microsoft tried to pretend that they are nobody, so they can own ABK.
...same as Sony pretended that PlayStation would go bankrupt if Microsoft will own Call of Duty.
It's almost like every company tried to pursue hyperbole to "win." Shocker. I know.
Re: Single Player Wonder Woman Game May Still Have Live-Service Elements
@somnambulance Nah. They very much know it.
But they also know that if they transform that IP into live service game successfully, they will earn significantly more money. Risk is higher of course, but payout is just not comparable.
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
@Kevw2006 No.
Because if you stop making consoles you are at the mercy of others. Sony could refuse to put Game Pass on PlayStation and then you are basically *****. And I have huge doubts that you can offset all lost Game Pass/Gold revenue by releasing your games on PlayStation. Especially since you need to let 30% of your revenue to Sony. And I don't think Sony would allow GP on PlayStation even if Microsoft was not making consoles, because Game Pass directly competes with their own service.
There is no doubt that Microsoft is already working on next Xbox and they will release it. Even if Series X/S will sell less than Xbox One.
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
@Kevw2006 It's not that hard to understand
They care about sales, but their business strategy is not dependent entirely on sales of console. They are growing their business despite selling less consoles. Unlike Sony and Nintendo. They go only as far as sales of consoles will let them. You could saw that perfectly during WiiU era.
If they cared only about sales of console, they wouldn't release first-party games on PC day one (like Sony). But they see PC (especially Game Pass on PC) as a growth vector for their subscription service. But on the other hand if there is a guy who wants to game on console, they have Xbox for him. That's why Starfield (for example) is not on PlayStation.
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
@Kevw2006 Nah. Because console is easiest way to monetise your audience. That's why Microsoft won't stop making them.
Because you are getting 30% from every purchase on your console, and you can easily sell Ultimate tier of GamePass because you are bundling Gold and Game Pass (Gold does not exist on PC). You will be loosing all of that.
Also. Majority of Game Pass subs are still on Xbox console and not on PC. And since Sony won't allow Game Pass on PlayStation it's not like they have a chance to not make consoles.
But the point of Xbox's business strategy is that they are not "entirely" reliant on sales of consoles as PlayStation or Nintendo. In last quarter 30% of all PlayStation revenue came from sales of hardware. On Xbox it was only 19%.
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
@DonaldMcRonald But that's the goal for Microsoft. Not how many consoles they sold, but how many MAU they have in their games.
And you can see that pretty clear if you look at their financials. Without ABK of course. Xbox had 3,16 billion during last quarter from "Content and services." PlayStation had 4,3 billion from "Contend and services" segment. While having twice of addressable target audience on consoles and outselling Xbox sometimes more than 2:1. Strange, isn't it. It's almost like a pivot of Microsoft to broaden their service outside of their own ecosystem works in their favour.
But general public just wants to drag them into "who sold more consoles" despite the fact that with ABK Xbox is more profitable division the PlayStation while selling less then 50% of what competition is selling.
And it's absolutely irrelevant if they created Minecraft, since they are profiting from it for last 10 years. And they are getting 70% of all revenue of Call of Duty (and other ABK games) on PlayStation. Who even cares if they are selling less consoles tbh?
And let's not pretend like Starfield was not impressive. Game was instantly 6th best selling game in US despite the fact that it ignored PlayStation as a platform and it was available to subscribers of Game Pass. And it also contributed to highest one-day addition of Game Pass subscribers in history of service.
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
@BrettAwesome 25 millions consoles sold during 3 years is "being stuck to the PC market" since when?
Jesus. I have a feeling that some users around here wants Xbox consoles to be failure, so Microsoft will ditch them and starts releasing XGS/Bethesda games on PlayStation.
But I have a news for you. That won't happen unless Sony will allow Game Pass on PlayStation. And we all know Sony won't allow it.
Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS5) - Bloated, Undercooked, and Outdated All at Once
@Flaming_Kaiser I'm not defending state of MW3, but I understand why ABK management pushed for it's release, especially since buyout by Microsoft was in real danger.
What I was criticising was implication, that Modern Warfare 3 is trend moving forward. Which is not.
Re: Sony Says PS Portal Wasn't Designed to Make a Profit
Wow. Are they dumb?
If this device is not generating profit then I really don't understand why it exists in it's current form.
If it supported cloud streaming you could theoretically earn new customer and earn money on subscription that would not be possible without this device.
But since you are required to have PS5 to use it, you are already PlayStation customer.
No wonder PlayStation division margins are so slim.
Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders
Big difference is that while Xbox One was at that point "closed ecosystem" with Microsoft pushing that device, Series X/S is really one of the options to enter ecosystem ie. you can subscribe into Game Pass without owning an Xbox console and Microsoft will still have your money. PlayStation is still all about selling consoles.
And after ABK whole point of comparing console sales is pretty much irrelevant since Xbox division is on par with PlayStation division in terms of revenue, while Xbox division has higher margins.
in TOP 20 most played games on PlayStation during october there were four games that Microsoft owns.
Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS5) - Bloated, Undercooked, and Outdated All at Once
@Jswift56 Talking about overreaction, right?
People are delusional if they think that this is some kind of trend. Remember, Sledgehammer had 16 months to make this game in times, when AAA games takes 4-5 years to make. All because ABK execs were terrified what will happen if regulators would block ABK deal and they would be without Call of Duty.
2024 will have Treyarch's new Call of Duty that has usual 3-years dev cycle.
Not to mention fact that despite low scores, game is selling like hotcakes.
But it is clear that moving forward (after Treyarch's COD), doing annual releases is unsustainable. And I hope that Microsoft will realise that and they will switch to bi-annual releases with longer support for existing COD games.
Re: A Whopping 80% of Modern Warfare 3's Physical UK Sales Were on PS5, PS4
@Swirly No, it does not. It did in one month (april 2022 if I remember correctly), but that was because of Series X shortages. But some websites took the info and extrapolated it to the whole three years for some reason.
Re: A Whopping 80% of Modern Warfare 3's Physical UK Sales Were on PS5, PS4
@Jay767 Unless they can get Game Pass on PlayStation/Nintendo that would be dumb as hell...
Re: A Whopping 80% of Modern Warfare 3's Physical UK Sales Were on PS5, PS4
@UltimateOtaku91 Xbox has way higher digital copies ratio than PlayStation. It's well known fact. Also you have to realise that MW3 copies bundled with PlayStation 5 are counted as physical copies despite fact that there are codes inside boxes, not game discs.
It's Modern Warfare 2 all over again. That game in physical was
71% PlayStation, 29% Xbox. When counted digital it shifted 57% PlayStation, 33% Xbox, 11% PC. So it's pretty clear that Xbox is performing better when you include digital and Xbox platform is skewed more towards digital distribution.
Let's not forget that Series X and Series S has +- 50/50 split and Series S is digital only console. PS5 vs PS5 DE is split of 80/20.
Re: A Whopping 80% of Modern Warfare 3's Physical UK Sales Were on PS5, PS4
And Microsoft is thanking all of them for their purchase
Re: PS5's Install Base Closes on 50 Million As Sony Gets Increasingly Aggressive
@OldGamer999 There will be a promo for Series X during Black Friday for 399€. That's aggressive enough if you ask me...
Re: PlayStation Users to Be Considered 'Part of the Xbox Community', Says Xbox Boss
Considering fact that Minecraft is consistently in TOP 10 best selling games on PS4 Store and considering Microsoft now owns ABK, he is not wrong...
Re: In Show of Dominance, Fortnite OG Draws 44.7 Million Players in One Day
@Grumblevolcano Taking paycut is more about being compassionate, but it's hardly revelant to the economics of running a business.
If you take Bungie for example. Considering median yearly salary of one developer in Seattle (where Bungie is located) is 134k dollars per year. Not counting expenses that you as a employer have on your employee (health coverage etc.) No cutting of execs pay will match that, because it's not like there is 1000 Bungie execs that can cut their salary. There are just a few of them. Same thing for Epic.
Nintendo survived WiiU era because they had huge amount of money in reserves from Wii success (they also had 3DS). Not because Iwata cut his salary. As I said. It was more about "gesture" and not about real economic policy.
Re: In Show of Dominance, Fortnite OG Draws 44.7 Million Players in One Day
@nessisonett Thing is...
Companies like Epic, Microsoft, Sony are successful and profitable in part because they know when and where to "cut the fat."
It is cynical, but it's also making sense.
Re: Bungie Layoffs Reportedly Impacted Around 100 Staff, Revenue 45% Below 2023 Projection
@themightyant Well, their game Matter is supposedly cancelled (in December 2020) and Marathon doesn't look so hot according to people who attended Marathon summit at the start of this year.
And I agree that it takes many people to sustain GaaS game, but still 1200 people with one game with declining popularity is just recipe for disaster.
And while technically Destiny 2 is new game, it was basically forced upon Bungie by Bobby Kotick. It is two, but at the same time it isn't...
Re: Bungie Layoffs Reportedly Impacted Around 100 Staff, Revenue 45% Below 2023 Projection
@themightyant Yeah. Nobody is saying that Destiny 2 is dead or anything. But it is clearly not enough to sustain 1200 employees of Bungie.
1200 employees is just ridiculous number for studio that haven't released new game in almost 10 years. If Bungie already got Marathon out I could see that working for them.
For comparision, Blizzard has 5000 employees, but they have hugely successful (albeit hated) Diablo Immortal and live services with World of Warcraft, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. And they will probably announce their survival game (Odyssey) during the weekend.
Re: Bungie CEO Laments 'Sad Day' for Sony Studio Following Layoffs
@ROTTIEMAN16 Nope. There was a talk about Bungie purchase by Microsoft for much of 2020 and 2021. That's why was kinda surprising when Sony announced that they are buying Bungie.
It was such a "talk" that even Bungie CEO had to comment on them. He said that they are not in talk with anybody about acquisition. Which proved to be ***** because they sell to Sony few weeks later.
And even Microsoft internal documents had Bungie on the "shortlist" of what to buy.
Re: Bungie CEO Laments 'Sad Day' for Sony Studio Following Layoffs
@RadioHedgeFund Nope. According to rumors, Bungie was willing to sell to Microsoft for less then Sony bough them, but dealbreaker for Microsoft was fact that Bungie has requested too much autonomy and Microsoft did not liked it.
And when Microsoft went heels deep into ABK stuff, it was clear that they would not buy Bungie.
Re: It Sounds Like PS5 Is Handily Outselling Its New-Gen Rival in France
And yet, Xbox had their best Q1 quarter in history of division.
It's almost like they are not relying on sales of hardware as much as Sony. Which is kinda obvious if you are releasing your first-party games on PC at same time as on Xbox consoles.
But I fully expect that people just won't get it for sake of console wars. Same as they did not get that ABK purchase was mainly about gateway to mobile and not about Call of Duty...
Re: Venom Spin-Off Game an Option for Insomniac, If Fans Want It
I would prefer if Insomniac stopped being Marvel company and start making something original.
I would rather have Sunset Overdrive 2 then Spider-Man 3/Venom/Wolverine.
But I'm probably in minority, so I'm not gonna hold my breath.
I would not be surprised if even that GAAS game that Insomniac is making would be with Marvel IP.
Re: PS5's Dead Space Remake Floats onto EA Play Later This Month
@MagisterMagi Which is funny, because Ubisoft games are still in Game Pass. Just not under "Ubisoft+" banner
Re: Xbox Boss Promises '100% Parity' for Call of Duty on PS5, PS4
@themightyant But that's called PR.
Reason why people liked Spencer more then Ryan (for example) is because he plays games, he interacts with community and he has that "gamer" energy around him. How much of that is pretended is questionable, but the point is that if he says something there is higher probability that people will take it at face value, because he built an image around him. Which is in one part PR.
Ryan on the other hand only interacts with economics magazines and if he says something in public it come across as "business man talking about games."
"When we all play, we all win" is PR phrase. Same as Sony had "For the Players." They didn't said "For the PlayStation players"
Re: Xbox Boss Promises '100% Parity' for Call of Duty on PS5, PS4
@themightyant But you can.
Same way as Sony wants to have their cake and eat it too. Sony is realeasing live service game on PC day one, because it will bring them more money. Live service games needs huge playerbase for sustain of microtransactions and support. But ***** same PC players if they want to play story-driven PlayStation games day one. They need to wait at least 2 years. And maaaaaybe then they will play them. Or in some cases (Ghost of Tshushima for example) not.
Same for Microsoft. They will do what makes most sense. They made Starfield exclusive, because with that game they want to push consoles and subs. But they will keep Call of Duty multiplatform, because that game lives and dies by huge popularion and microtransactions. Which will not be the case for next Crash game for example and that's why I expect next Crash game to be Xbox exclusive.
Re: Xbox Boss Promises '100% Parity' for Call of Duty on PS5, PS4
@themightyant Of course they want gamers to switch to Xbox. But they want to do that with value proposition (ie. Call of Duty in Game Pass) and not by gimping PlayStation/Nintendo version of COD. Which is basically what he is saying.
Because if you purposefully gimp Call of Duty on other platforms you are risking destroying whole brand, which is not what Microsoft wants. They want Call of Duty to stay on top of the video-game world revenue-wise and then reinvest that revenue into future Xbox growth.
Re: Xbox Boss Promises '100% Parity' for Call of Duty on PS5, PS4
@themightyant That's not what he is saying.
He is saying that Call of Duty will not be gimped on PlayStation to force PlayStation players to buy Xbox consoles. Simple as that. You have PlayStation, you will have same exact content/release date/price.
Of course Call of Duty will be on Game Pass from 2024 onwards. But Sony has ability to put Call of Duty into PlayStation Plus day one per contract with Microsoft. They just have to pay Microsoft for that "privilege"
Re: Xbox Boss Promises '100% Parity' for Call of Duty on PS5, PS4
Oh no! It's not a bluff and whole FTC spiel of "you will destroy PS version of COD" was just bunch of *****? Color me surprised...
Re: Microsoft Activision Deal Finally Given the All-Clear from UK Regulator
@S1ayeR74 Using cloud to offload some computing power from local hardware is not the same as streaming of whole game. Not only Microsoft is researching that...see Ubisoft Scalar and even EA is exploring stuff like that. Kojima new game for Xbox is supposed to be using cloud to offload processing power into cloud.
Xbox thought that cloud will be big. They even sacrificed Series X consoles because they were offloading Series X chips into datacenters. But cloud is not growing as much as they thought it would and they are winding down investment. Which is in their internal documents.
And that investigation of Azure and AWS has nothing to do with game streaming. It's about enterprise cloud solutions. So I don't really understand why are you trying to imply that it does...
Re: Microsoft Activision Deal Finally Given the All-Clear from UK Regulator
@sanderson72 Microsoft can't.
Deal with CMA includes provision that forbids Microsoft from buying Ubisoft for at least 10 years.
Re: Microsoft Activision Deal Finally Given the All-Clear from UK Regulator
It's pretty hilarious that CMA forced Microsoft to concede cloud gaming license of ABK games while Microsoft was already winding down their investment into cloud because it wasn't as big of the market as they thought it will be
Re: Disney CEO Reportedly Being Pressured to Double Down on Gaming
@Flaming_Kaiser Well. There is for sure one possibility. But it is pretty clear that EA is willing to sell.
They had talks with Comcast-NBC Universal last year and they conveniently split company in two "halves" for easier sell of one half of company if that situation will occur.
Re: Disney CEO Reportedly Being Pressured to Double Down on Gaming
@Jimmer-jammer Outside of fact that both games bombed hard commercially and had to layoff most of their staff you forgot to mention that The Callisto Protocol had help from Sony XDEV and Immortals had help from EA studios.
None of that would be available to Disney if they decided to set up their own studios. You have to also build that.
Not to mention that as a Disney you would need to set up multiple studios at once not just one because setting up whole gaming operation for one studio is pretty big waste of resources if you want to be serious about gaming. That would make things even harder. Also you would have to setup whole management structure for publishing arm and everything included in that...
So it is just way better to buy existing studio that has established workflow. And EA is great candidate because they are working on at least 5 games that are licensed by Disney - Iron Man, Black Panther, Star Wars Jedi sequel and two more Star Wars games from Respawn. You would also have DICE for potential Battlefront 3. So you can basically buy a publisher that is already making "your" games. It would just cost a fortune.
I mean. Even if we are talking about "organic growth" of Sony. Yes, Sony was working closely with almost every studio they bought. But important bit is that they bought studio after it established workflow. Which is crucial. They also bought Bungie because they realised that it will take ages to get required knowledge for live service games if they would decide to create live service studio from scratch.
Re: Disney CEO Reportedly Being Pressured to Double Down on Gaming
@wildcat_kickz Can people stop with that suggestion?
You know that if you try to build a dev teams who will then make a game for you, that's 10 year process at minimum? With questionable ROI?
Like, we can all argue if consolidation is bad or a good thing. But the fact is that trying to build gaming division at the time when average AAA game takes 5 years to make is just suicide.
Building gaming division from ground up could be feasible during 360/PS3 era when you could spun of entire trilogy of games during one gen with studio consisting of 100 people. Not today...
Fact is that if Disney/Apple/Comcast etc. wants to enter gaming industry, gobbling up huge publisher is their only option.
Re: PS5, PS4 Exclusive Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Operator Pack Revealed
It's hilarious that this game will came out after Activision will be part of Microsoft and PlayStation users will still have exclusive content...
Re: The Last of Us 2 PS5 Remaster Seems to Be Real
It's crazy when you think about fact that Naughty Dog released 3 games (if this remaster is real) during this gen and all of them was remasters...
...meanwhile their new game (TLOU Factions) is in shambles and their other new game is years away...
Re: PlayStation's Push for Live Service Games Hasn't Been Going Smoothly
It's honestly pretty hilarious that Microsoft is trying to break out into AAA SP games while they have live service stuff pretty much nailed down (Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, Forza Horizon 5 and currently also Halo Infinite (yeah I know first year was rough), not to mention ABK stuff soon and TESO and Fallout 76) while Sony is in exactly opposite space. They have AAA SP games nailed down but they don't know how to break into live service.
Re: Reaction: PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan May Have Been Disliked, But Leaves Big Boots to Fill
It's not possible to say if his tenure was good or bad.
Primarily because he was CEO for only 4 years which is kinda short.
And mainly. He took over ship with set course. All games that carried PlayStation at the start of this gen was already in development before he become head of PlayStation. Even Insomniac buyout wasn't his decision.
His decisions were around studio buyouts from 2020 forward and whole pivot towards GAAS. Will it be successful? Only time will tell. End of current gen will be proper time to say if his tenure was good or bad.
Re: No New The Last of Us Game or TV Show Announcements Tomorrow
@theMEGAniggle What? Ellie's AI was one of the few points of criticism that game received.
And gameplay was mainly praised because it was visceral, not because actual mechanics were that great.
As I said. You played the game because you wanted to see where the story goes next. Not because mechanics of said gameplay were great.
Re: No New The Last of Us Game or TV Show Announcements Tomorrow
@theMEGAniggle In terms of story? Maybe. In terms of gameplay? hardly. TLOU gameplay is average at best and nothing special. You are playing because you want to progress story, not other way around.
Re: No New The Last of Us Game or TV Show Announcements Tomorrow
People are "shocked" that it is 3 years after TLOU 2 and we don't even have the announcement of what's next for ND. Especially since ND tended to release at least one game every three years.
Get used to it. Game development takes 5 years at minimum. If you are making new IP it's even more. That's just reality of game development. And their Factions project basically got soft-rebooted because Bungie played it and thought it was ***** in terms of staying power.
So this is not surprising.
Re: Microsoft One Step Closer to Activision Buyout as CMA Approves of Deal Changes
@Beerheadgamer82 Don't say it's impossible if it is possible. Would it be risky and it would probably backfire? Yup. But it is possible.
You don't need to fund your acquisitions through cash like Microsoft with Bethesda or ABK. There are other means to raise funds. But as I said. It would be risky.
Re: Microsoft One Step Closer to Activision Buyout as CMA Approves of Deal Changes
@Beerheadgamer82 It's not impossible. You don't need cash to made this kind of merger. Take-Two didn't buy Zynga through cash, because they didn't have 12 billion dollars lying in the bank. So they merge together.
Re: Microsoft One Step Closer to Activision Buyout as CMA Approves of Deal Changes
@gaston Microsoft can't buy Ubisoft for 10 years. License for cloud stuff is for 15 years.
Re: Microsoft One Step Closer to Activision Buyout as CMA Approves of Deal Changes
@CielloArc Because Microsoft needs to officially "end" first merger inquiry that CMA blocked in April. That needs to happen before CMA can issue final ruling for second merger inquiry (that which offloads cloud rights to Ubisoft).
Second inquiry is for current merger where CMA will ask 3rd parties for their opinions.
Re: Microsoft One Step Closer to Activision Buyout as CMA Approves of Deal Changes
@Grumblevolcano In relation to what exactly?
Re: Microsoft One Step Closer to Activision Buyout as CMA Approves of Deal Changes
@gaston They can't
Under modified deal they are forbidden from purchasing Ubisoft for next 10 years.