Second-biggest chunk of the console market, effectively necessary for the PC market, gobbling up studios and publishers like fucking Galactus, and these empty suits still treat "making less money than the number we pulled from our asses" as losing money.
While less competition is bad, I'm not sure there's been a competition with Microsoft since like 2009. They have continuously proven that they will make the dumbest choices with stuff like always on online, can't play used games, gimping games for the series x because the series s is basically just the Xbox one again, buying game developers and doing absolutely nothing with them, and releasing maybe two interesting exclusives in the span of 15 years. I was team green from the og launch until I got my PS4 but man I hope they just kick Xbox to the curb and just let PC kinda do its own thing. I have zero confidence in Xbox making any decision right in the gaming space.
That and also - fuck Microsoft.
Games look better on the Series X than the PS5. Very little is gimped.
Click bate title. Just a slide of what they think they will hit. Microsoft is not going to drop gaming when it just spent how much on studios?
Microsoft paid Ninja about $50 million to leave Twitch and stream solely on their Mixer platform, only to close Mixer entirely less than a year later.
They will absolutely buy up a bunch of stuff and then just close down altogether. Their market cap is in the trillions; these things don’t really matter to them in the end.
True but aren't they spending billions for Activision and Bethesda?
Much bigger than millions
Activision has a money printer business in CoD, WoW, hearthstone, etc. Those have realized business equities. They're practically self sustaining.
Why wouldn't they just buy a large stake if they're only there for the money? The reason to buy the company out is control, meaning they can further other interests (e.g. growing XBox market share) through the acquisition.
Nah, even then that guy is still right. Go check out what Microsoft makes in a quarter, Q22023 for example.
They can afford that loss. Remember, Microsoft is stupid big and makes stupid money, if you go to any world index fund, Microsoft is like 3% of it. It is titanic.
They created the Zune only to promptly shut it and the division down. The zunes were awesome and I wish we had more options for music playback devices.
Yeah no way. I can't see it. Maybe shutting down game pass and shuttering xbox integration but I can't see them completely leaving. Too much money on the table.
Software and media rental models are meant to die in a close future . They suck
I get where you're coming from, but I don't mind rentals if they are what you are intending. I miss being able to try out a game for a few days for a few bucks from renting it.
I don't care for it in streaming, though, as when it's a perpetual subscription I feel much more obligated to play the subscription games than those I've traditionally purchased to get my money's worth. I like playing things when I feel like it. It doesn't help that each time I've tried using Game Pass it's taken hours to get it properly working and the games to function
See the latest console they want to make "streaming hybrid" focused? Sounds like the series x is the last console I'll be getting for a while
I'm totally okay with that, I don't think Microsoft represents a positive force in gaming or in technology in general.
Then who? Sony? The company that made rootkit a household name?
How about none of them? But Sony has far less power in this space anyway.
Well, if they provide linux with Game Pass then I'm in lol
They won't.
They might.
Gamepass is neat idea in theory, but I really dont trust corporations to not use it to ruin it all to get more money. If most people used gamepass, you propably couldnt at some point buy games regularly at all or only at crazy prices. Also modding games on gamepass is more difficult or just impossible sometimes due to files being locked.
I would rather it all die and force back to disks, or at least some guarantee you actually own the game.
All these services are going to become endlessly tiered with eventual extra dlc costs. They know most gamers spend $300 a year on games. So if Gamepass takes off, expect the base option to eventually be $15 a month, with tiers up to $40, maybe higher... who knows what whales will spend, especially if they throw in currency bonuses.
Then they will add in some in store currency and give the highest subscriber tiers extra Boxbux to spend on DLC... or probably literally loot boxes.
It would be neat to see support for a universal digital library system. Where it can only be checked to one person. If you want to sell the game, you uninstall and it provides you with a token number it generates. That unique number is tied to the copy of the game. You sell the token number, they now own the game. If they ever uninstall it, they get a new number to trade. Or libraries could lend them for free using the same system.
On top of that, I bet they would make you buy the games anyway. You would just have to pay subscription for "privilege" of doing so.
most gamers spend $300 a year on games
citation needed
Kinda of like a game NFT that tied into some DRM allowing ownership of a license. And the reason it should be distributed, is to not trust any single organization.
As of today, I would trust steam entirely, to do the right thing, with game reselling and so forth. But soon as Gabe dies, and somebody else takes over steam, we're going to lose that trust. Gabe is a benevolent dictator, but his succession plan has no guarantees.
So the way I would envision it working is it gets registered into your ecosystem. So if you want to resell a game, that's fine Xbox or Sony will take a cut if you So it in their ecosystem... but they couldn't force you to do that. They would always have to allow you to take it out of their ecosystem as a code for whatever the consumer wants to do with it. They would probably post huge warnings like "if you do this, you could lose your game forever if you lose this code or if someone steals it", but at least allow the option.
I think it would work out well. Most people wouldn't bother taking it out of the ecosystem, and those that truly care could.
And yes blockchain tech would be a good way to manage it, but the word "blockchain" seems to get people riled up these days.
Hard to hear, especially after dumping so much into acquisitions. What will happen to everything under their umbrella?
Put game pass on steam like EA play ez.
Hopefully the end up leaving, nothing positive has come from Microsoft in the gaming industry since the early 360 era.
Sounds good. Looking forward to Microsoft fucking right off. Plenty of fantastic indie devs, teams, studios, and publishers out there. 👍
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