How do you feel about this? "Xbox Could Buy Even More Game Studios In The Future"

[anonymous]

Sauce: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xb.../1100-6482486/

I feel like gaming would become super stale (Technically it already is) if the majority of games are made by one company in the future and it would be even worse if the games they made started becoming exclusive to their platform. Not saying that has happened yet, but it seems like that's what they're aiming for. Microsoft claims to be "hands-off" for every company and developer they buy out, but how hands-off are they, really? Worse still is the fact that Microsoft is "woke" and may or may not eventually shoe-horn in SJW agendas.

[VTheKing]

I don't hate the Bethesda buyout due to the company's state, but it would suck balls if it became the norm for sure. Having a death grip over IP's and creating platform exclusivity generates demand for games without devs or publishers needing to do anything to add value. I'm sure denying titles like Elder Scrolls and Fallout from Sony played a major role in the purchase.

Not directly related to controlling content for platforms, but look at how pathetic sports video games are nowadays. EA and 2K recycle the same **** over and over, selling their titles at full price PLUS littering the game with microtransactions (even gambling as of late) every year and generating billions with little effort. The only reason they can do this is because of their exclusivity licenses from the major sports leagues, who don't really care if the games are any good if they bring steady revenue and free advertisement - that's the power of controlling IP. What happened to the sports niche is a lesson of what could be in store for the wider industry if it's consolidated too much. You already see a lot of it with CoD recycling, EA buying then sucking the life out of the good IP's they buy (same for Bethesda as of late), etc.

[JPeeper]

Microsoft finna buy Take-Two and end Sony's entire career.

What's another $20 billion when you get GTA, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, 2K sports, Civ, etc.

[anonymous]

I don't hate the Bethesda buyout due to the company's state, but it would suck balls if it became the norm for sure. Having a death grip over IP's and creating platform exclusivity generates demand for games without devs or publishers needing to do anything to add value. I'm sure denying titles like Elder Scrolls and Fallout from Sony played a major role in the purchase.

Not directly related to controlling content for platforms, but look at how pathetic sports video games are nowadays. EA and 2K recycle the same **** over and over, selling their titles at full price PLUS littering the game with microtransactions (even gambling as of late) every year and generating billions with little effort. The only reason they can do this is because of their exclusivity licenses from the major sports leagues, who don't really care if the games are any good if they bring steady revenue and free advertisement - that's the power of controlling IP. What happened to the sports niche is a lesson of what could be in store for the wider industry if it's consolidated too much. You already see a lot of it with CoD recycling, EA buying then sucking the life out of the good IP's they buy (same for Bethesda as of late), etc.

All great points, microtransactions (And other paywalls like pay2win) are still a great cancer on gaming. I hope that in the future the gaming will correct itself and that one day there will be a renaissance.

Microsoft finna buy Take-Two and end Sony's entire career.

What's another $20 billion when you get GTA, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, 2K sports, Civ, etc.

YUGE if true. I can see them going for it.

[Ravishing_Rick]

Microsoft finna buy Take-Two and end Sony's entire career.

What's another $20 billion when you get GTA, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, 2K sports, Civ, etc.

that would be game over

[rectifryer]

Sony HAS to buy konami and kojiima productions now and release MGS6 NO MATTER WHAT!

good day boyos. Super stoked to hear about this.

[JayJ350]

Microsoft is clearly taking gaming far more seriously at this point, they are ramping up their acquisitions and putting a lot more money into it. Might as well because they basically print money and have an outrageous amount of capitol. Seems like they are really focusing on Xbox as their main consumer brand these days, especially now that it's become an ecosystem involving Windows 10.

[wings_unhinged]

Sauce: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xb.../1100-6482486/

I feel like gaming would become super stale (Technically it already is) if the majority of games are made by one company in the future and it would be even worse if the games they made started becoming exclusive to their platform. Not saying that has happened yet, but it seems like that's what they're aiming for. Microsoft claims to be "hands-off" for every company and developer they buy out, but how hands-off are they, really? Worse still is the fact that Microsoft is "woke" and may or may not eventually shoe-horn in SJW agendas.

There's no incentive in creating a good product anymore. Not when you can churn out soulless cash grabs every year and buy up the competition.

[JayJ350]

There's no incentive in creating a good product anymore. Not when you can churn out soulless cash grabs every year and buy up the competition.

Honestly this is a problem that has been going on for a long time now and it's far from being an issue that Microsoft created. EA and Activision are really the biggest culprits when it comes to this, they have been buying up companies left and right just to eventually make them produce soulless crap and shut down all the talent. It's part of the reason why the gaming industry has become so chitty these days, it's all about milking the idiots who still buy that crap and anything that isn't a scheme to get more money out of them is deemed too risky or they figure out some way to put tons of micro-transactions in it.

[bongowongo]

Depends really, as long as MS is hands off and doesnt meddle in their development and lets these companies create what they want, I'd be more than happy. I think right now, I'd trust in MS to do stuff like that ... If this was something like EA or Activision buying Zenimax that'd be a different story.




The best thing with these acquisitions are that its great for gamers, we get to play all these titles day one on gamepass for "Free" without having to fork out the eventual 70USD price hike on games we might enjoy or get burned by. So that's a great thing, but really it just depends on how Sony replies, if Sony cant keep up then that's gonna be horrible for competition.



Buying big publishers that were formerly third party studios and forcing exclusivity is great for their revenue but its gonna be **** for any sort of healthy competition. Sony's only response is buying other smaller studios they can afford or just forcing their devs to have shorter dev times to keep up with MS's current 23 fkkn studios under their banner lol.



I guess we cant do anything right now other than just speculate and hope that both Sony/MS/Nintendo can each other on their toes.

[mgftp]

I don't see an issue. MS has produced good games in the past and some of the best games this past generation are Sony games.

Sony HAS to buy konami and kojiima productions now and release MGS6 NO MATTER WHAT!

good day boyos. Super stoked to hear about this.

Sony and Konami is such a perfect fit for so many reasons.

[OttomanEmpire]

There's no incentive in creating a good product anymore. Not when you can churn out soulless cash grabs every year and buy up the competition.

Similar to movies these days?

[chaunce54]

Sauce: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xb.../1100-6482486/

I feel like gaming would become super stale (Technically it already is) if the majority of games are made by one company in the future and it would be even worse if the games they made started becoming exclusive to their platform. Not saying that has happened yet, but it seems like that's what they're aiming for. Microsoft claims to be "hands-off" for every company and developer they buy out, but how hands-off are they, really? Worse still is the fact that Microsoft is "woke" and may or may not eventually shoe-horn in SJW agendas.

There's no incentive in creating a good product anymore. Not when you can churn out soulless cash grabs every year and buy up the competition.

This is exactly why I have never purchased an xbox.

Who didn't see this coming when Microsoft first came out with the xbox?

I guess the price tag was just too tempting for the poorcels.

[cromofo]

Rather have MS do it than Sony.

[ohiostate124]

Microsoft finna buy Take-Two and end Sony's entire career.

What's another $20 billion when you get GTA, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, 2K sports, Civ, etc.

You are retarded if you think GTA and Red Dead would ever be exclusive.

[MikeLowrrrey]

Microsoft finna buy Take-Two and end Sony's entire career.

What's another $20 billion when you get GTA, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, 2K sports, Civ, etc.

Take-Two is a joke, all their games are filled with MTX. They can have em.

[KathleenRyan]

Looks like this will be the last era of even maybe fun gaming.

Phucking monopoly bullchit. Games are going to have absolutely 0 flavor, will just be Sony V Microsoft with no other competition. Everything dictated by those two companies.

Definitely not running out to buy a new console as soon as they're out...

[MikeLowrrrey]

Looks like this will be the last era of even maybe fun gaming.

Phucking monopoly bullchit. Games are going to have absolutely 0 flavor, will just be Sony V Microsoft with no other competition. Everything dictated by those two companies.

Definitely not running out to buy a new console as soon as they're out...

You're overexaggerating. There's still plenty of good devs out, just vote with your wallet. And Don't forget about Indie devs. Stop buying from Ubisoft, EA, Activision. If you want new fresh IPs, get a ps5. Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn have all been very well worth it and I don't feel bad buying the sequels for $70. There's also Cyberpunk 2077 still coming.

[BearyManilowe]

Looks like this will be the last era of even maybe fun gaming.

Phucking monopoly bullchit. Games are going to have absolutely 0 flavor, will just be Sony V Microsoft with no other competition. Everything dictated by those two companies.

Definitely not running out to buy a new console as soon as they're out...

You don't understand what the word Monopoly means, and its showing.

[EliteBrah]

They've done this in the past many times and its never worked out.

They completely control the studio and everything they do. Leaving literally no freedom at all for the studio.

The artistic talent leaves the company and the studio is ruined
Microsoft often closes studio at later date

[rocketfish]

microsoft not even trying to develop these games, they just want absolute rights for the future of Game Pass aka we are all going to be stream gaming in the future.

read into how nvidia's now cloud service got bamboozled by game publishers.. they used legal mumble jumbo to get their games off that service even though its the actual user's licensed game since the user still has to login to their steam/ubisoft/ea account etc.

[Steavie]

Microsoft finna buy Take-Two and end Sony's entire career.

What's another $20 billion when you get GTA, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, 2K sports, Civ, etc.

Honestly why didn't they just buy Take-Two in first place? There's absolutely nothing Sony could do to compete with this.

[rectifryer]

They've done this in the past many times and its never worked out.

They completely control the studio and everything they do. Leaving literally no freedom at all for the studio.

The artistic talent leaves the company and the studio is ruined
Microsoft often closes studio at later date

yes, Everytime. Even halo.

[JStrez]

This is a good read for those wondering on the future of gaming.

Microsoft is buying game studios to eventually put Sony out of business, srs (but won't happen). Xbox Head Phil Spencer said their competitor was Google and Amazon since they have streaming services. Gaming as we know it will soon be a distant memory. You will never actually buy a game ever again, you'll just pay the rights to stream it. Look at what happened with TV, Music and Movies. When's the last time you went out and bought a DVD or CD to watch a movie or listen to an album. Now you either stream it to your device, buy the digital rights to it, or rent it for a few days and stream it. Microsoft is looking to create a game library that will eventually be equivalent to Netflix. In like 8 years I could see that you would just subscribe to a gaming service like Xbox, PlayStation, Stadia, Amazon, etc. Microsoft does not care about making an Xbox Exclusive Console game, they just care that they now have the rights to HUGELY popular games. Whereas Sony is kind of like forcing you to buy their console to play this game. Obviously that will change in time, but Microsoft is currently light years ahead of Sony in this department.

Microsoft also has enough cash to even buy out Sony if they really wanted to, but that would likely be an antitrust issue so they can't do that. So what you'll see now is Sony, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, buying up game studios to build a content collection like Netlix, Disney+, Hulu, HBOMax, etc. Sony does not have the kind of money that these companies have, and Microsoft is the most desirable to developers because they are a true gaming company unlike Google or Amazon. Microsoft also has their own servers and network which Sony does not really have (Azure) network. So as a developer, signing with Microsoft now provides them a leg up on other developers for the inevitable streaming evolution. Once streaming overtakes traditional gaming, Microsoft will pull all of their games (including Minecraft) to solely be played and streamed through Xbox devices, whether it be a console, tv dongle, tv app, computer, laptop, phone, tablet, etc. The console and device gaming that we currently have will be done, and it will all be streaming, especially as 5G is more widely adopted. So again a developer doesn't really give a chit if they sell less physical copies in this current gen, because it will payoff way down the line when streaming takes off. Then on the flip side to that, developers will eventually need to side with a company to stream their games, or they would need to go the self publishing route a la Epic Games, which I don't think they'd want to do. Developers would just be developing one version of a game that could be interchanged with the different streaming services. They also wouldn't need to support their own servers, and just leave it to Sony, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon.

The two biggest developers would be Electronic Arts and Take Two, which would easily fetch $30 Billion+ a piece, so unfortunately I don't think Sony would be able to afford them, but Microsoft sure can. With the Trump tax cuts, Microsoft had an extra $130 Billion to spend, which I'm sure went to this ZeniMax purchase. The next biggest affordable acquisitions would be Konami, Capcom, Ubisoft, and WB Games. These companies would probably run anywhere between $3-$5 Billion Dollars. Sony could definitely afford one, maybe two, but then Microsoft will clapback with the purchase of everything else. For Sony though, their main focus right now is not streaming and more based on console sales, which is the opposite of Microsoft right now. Sony's return on investment for a studio acquisition might not line up with their trajectory with how they want to proceed.

At the end of the day, it might suck right now to see games being exclusive to a console, but soon that won't even matter. Microsoft and Sony currently sell consoles at a loss, so if you eliminate the console entirely it's almost like a net profit for them, which is why streaming makes the most sense to them. Gamers will inevitably win in the long run because we are like 5-8 years away from just having both an Xbox and PlayStation subscription for $15-$20 a month, and playing all the games we want. Console wars will be a thing of the past, and we'll all be gaming what we want.

[JayJ350]

Looks like this will be the last era of even maybe fun gaming.

Phucking monopoly bullchit. Games are going to have absolutely 0 flavor, will just be Sony V Microsoft with no other competition. Everything dictated by those two companies.

Definitely not running out to buy a new console as soon as they're out...

Been saying that for a while now, this generation was disappointing enough and next gen seems like it is only going to be worse. Combined with the way these new consoles aren't any kind of revolution it's like why bother.

[SirFapsAIot]

you see where halo has gone? into the crapper

that's basically the outlook

[rocketfish]

This is a good read for those wondering on the future of gaming.

Microsoft is buying game studios to eventually put Sony out of business, srs (but won't happen). Xbox Head Phil Spencer said their competitor was Google and Amazon since they have streaming services. Gaming as we know it will soon be a distant memory. You will never actually buy a game ever again, you'll just pay the rights to stream it. Look at what happened with TV, Music and Movies. When's the last time you went out and bought a DVD or CD to watch a movie or listen to an album. Now you either stream it to your device, buy the digital rights to it, or rent it for a few days and stream it. Microsoft is looking to create a game library that will eventually be equivalent to Netflix. In like 8 years I could see that you would just subscribe to a gaming service like Xbox, PlayStation, Stadia, Amazon, etc. Microsoft does not care about making an Xbox Exclusive Console game, they just care that they now have the rights to HUGELY popular games. Whereas Sony is kind of like forcing you to buy their console to play this game. Obviously that will change in time, but Microsoft is currently light years ahead of Sony in this department.

Microsoft also has enough cash to even buy out Sony if they really wanted to, but that would likely be an antitrust issue so they can't do that. So what you'll see now is Sony, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, buying up game studios to build a content collection like Netlix, Disney+, Hulu, HBOMax, etc. Sony does not have the kind of money that these companies have, and Microsoft is the most desirable to developers because they are a true gaming company unlike Google or Amazon. Microsoft also has their own servers and network which Sony does not really have (Azure) network. So as a developer, signing with Microsoft now provides them a leg up on other developers for the inevitable streaming evolution. Once streaming overtakes traditional gaming, Microsoft will pull all of their games (including Minecraft) to solely be played and streamed through Xbox devices, whether it be a console, tv dongle, tv app, computer, laptop, phone, tablet, etc. The console and device gaming that we currently have will be done, and it will all be streaming, especially as 5G is more widely adopted. So again a developer doesn't really give a chit if they sell less physical copies in this current gen, because it will payoff way down the line when streaming takes off. Then on the flip side to that, developers will eventually need to side with a company to stream their games, or they would need to go the self publishing route a la Epic Games, which I don't think they'd want to do. Developers would just be developing one version of a game that could be interchanged with the different streaming services. They also wouldn't need to support their own servers, and just leave it to Sony, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon.

The two biggest developers would be Electronic Arts and Take Two, which would easily fetch $30 Billion+ a piece, so unfortunately I don't think Sony would be able to afford them, but Microsoft sure can. With the Trump tax cuts, Microsoft had an extra $130 Billion to spend, which I'm sure went to this ZeniMax purchase. The next biggest affordable acquisitions would be Konami, Capcom, Ubisoft, and WB Games. These companies would probably run anywhere between $3-$5 Billion Dollars. Sony could definitely afford one, maybe two, but then Microsoft will clapback with the purchase of everything else. For Sony though, their main focus right now is not streaming and more based on console sales, which is the opposite of Microsoft right now. Sony's return on investment for a studio acquisition might not line up with their trajectory with how they want to proceed.

At the end of the day, it might suck right now to see games being exclusive to a console, but soon that won't even matter. Microsoft and Sony currently sell consoles at a loss, so if you eliminate the console entirely it's almost like a net profit for them, which is why streaming makes the most sense to them. Gamers will inevitably win in the long run because we are like 5-8 years away from just having both an Xbox and PlayStation subscription for $15-$20 a month, and playing all the games we want. Console wars will be a thing of the past, and we'll all be gaming what we want.

sony and microsoft are likely going to team up when it comes to the future of streaming service.. because you aren't selling hardware anymore its software (just games). Sony puts out their games from their studios, Microsoft does the same and you battle Nvidia, Google, Amazon.. Microsoft has a good upper hand because they can simply just not allow all those studios they bought to be on the competition. Then again google and amazon are going to be hiring their own developers to make games so competition is good we will get new studios making games as well.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/1...-amazon-google

[JStrez]

sony and microsoft are likely going to team up when it comes to the future of streaming service.. because you aren't selling hardware anymore its software (just games). Sony puts out their games from their studios, Microsoft does the same and you battle Nvidia, Google, Amazon.. Microsoft has a good upper hand because they can simply just not allow all those studios they bought to be on the competition. Then again google and amazon are going to be hiring their own developers to make games so competition is good we will get new studios making games as well.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/1...-amazon-google

Yeah I had seen that article and my main thought was that if Sony went under, and was bought by another company, Microsoft would get screwed since another company, most likely Google or Amazon, would suddenly have a huge collection of games which would be a threat. Microsoft probably realized it was better to help Sony move into the streaming service, since more players in the game is more beneficial to Microsoft. Kind of cool they partnered up, and maybe that will eventually transfer over into their games. Currently it's like two separate departments, gaming and streaming, but I think the possibility is there. How cool would it be to see Microsoft trade Halo for Sony's Spider-Man for a month or something?

I think anyway you slice it, it's going to be kinda lame right now, but in the long run the consumers (gamers) will eventually win regardless of what brand you support.

[taskmob]

Microsoft looking to buy Sega. Good acquisition but they need to acquire something big like Rockstar. If they do... RIP trannystation5.

[anonymous]

Microsoft looking to buy Sega. Good acquisition but they need to acquire something big like Rockstar. If they do... RIP trannystation5.

If they buy SEGA, they'd better not phucking ruin the Yakuza series. SRS