By giving up on hardware, Xbox close the door to future acquisitions

[Cool hand luke]

It's well documented that horizontal mergers are looked at more harshly than vertical ones like MS and ABK. What will become (one of) the largest third party publisher(s) will not be allowed to purchase their rivals.

I wanted to say that because I wanted to remove any semblance of a silver lining to this from Xbots' hopes and dreams.

It's important to keep in mind that they're now just another EA, Ubisoft etc.

 

[JAHGamer]

It's important to keep in mind that they're now just another EA, Ubisoft etc.

Feels like they're more of a Tencent now.... and Tecent never stops acquiring/investing, so I don't think MS will either sadly.

 

[Danja1187]

Somebody lied to you several times that's for sure.

They definitely aren't gonna be able to gobble up a huge 3rd pub nor will they want to anytime soon. But I don't see them not acquiring smaller studios... Well they will be able to IF they so desire.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Somebody lied to you several times that's for sure.

They definitely aren't gonna be able to gobble up a huge 3rd pub nor will they want to anytime soon. But I don't see them not acquiring smaller studios... Well they will be able to IF they so desire.

Correct. No large 3rd party pubs can be purchased. Smaller studios? Ok cool. They can't grow anything from that point given their culture of ineptitude so there will be no consequences.

 

[Bryank75]

Good point.

They have more than enough anyway.

Mostly the acquisition of ABK was just about investors owning stock in both companies and seeing a way to extract massive gains out of it while retaining ownership of both assets at the same time.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

I fear Microsoft will acquire whatever they want if they are stupid enough to do so. You know the rules don't apply to them.

The politicians and regulators are a failure, they are too busy going after vacuum cleaners. The only people that can stop them are customers and until now it worked.

We are the power

 

[shrike0fth0rns]

Feels like they're more of a Tencent now.... and Tecent never stops acquiring/investing, so I don't think MS will either sadly.

Tencent is a warning to Microsoft. They bought so much just because they had money and studios were there and now after their Covid acquisition spree they’ve had layoffs throughout their gaming division on console and pc. 530 + layoffs at riot, they shut down a whole studio and canceled a major game, layoffs at turtle rock whom they just bought, supercell layoffs, paradock whom they are invested in layoffs, ubi also invested in layoffs, last yr over 300 layoffs from their ar/vr division and they disbanded the unit. Tencent or tencent related gaming investments have shed probably over 1500 jobs in the past yr and it’s only going to get worse as the industry definitely seems to be contracting. Tencent is very stupid and like Xbox I don’t think they have a firm grasp of the console market. Rumors are they want to buy the rights to d&d now just because BGS is a popular hit. They run to what’s popular because they see it as easy money in the console space same like Microsoft. Now Microsoft is going 3rd prty and tencent is worried about their maintaining their position in the gaming industry. Both Xbox and tencent are leaning on their mobile division to prop them up.

 

[Nimrota]

This has me thinking if Xbox is even capable of being a 3rd party dev. How are they going to get by with not producing sales numbers going forward? Being a platform, they've been heavily subsidised by Microsoft, if they go into 3rd party the metrics absolutely change.

 

[KnittedKnight]

Folks still think its about the "rules"... smh.

Its ok to get your worldview shattered....

Another variation of "it's gonna be different next time because ...insert my opinion here...."

You gotta give it to to the system.... the brainwashing trance - conditioned since birth is hard to break out of.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Folks still think its about the "rules"... smh.

Its ok to get your worldview shattered....

Another variation of "it's gonna be different next time because ...insert my opinion here...."

You gotta give it to to the system.... the brainwashing trance - conditioned since birth is hard to break out of.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

This thread is on point because the new cope is "Microsoft is doing this so it's easier for them to buy more studios and publishers"

It's spreading fast on Era (Idas) and GaF (Oddvintagechap). You'll see this new narrative everywhere this week.