MS history of buying out competition and lowballing who remains is enough for me to say it needs to fail. The ONLY reason for this purchase is to take games off other platforms.
Thats not the longterm goal though. It never was, Microsoft's goal is to fund services/Subscription models that align with rest of Enterprise. In doing this it expands cloud infrastructure, and they are doing this to combat google and mainly Amazon AWS. Which has a larger foot print than Azure.
They want to be the main leader in cloud anything. And using gamers to do it, so spending 70 Billion to make you're subscription/cloud model for gamers look amazing throughout the world through GIANT brands like COD.
The issue is honestly Phil made a deal with the devil and no one has any clue what this leads to in terms of long term effects on the industry. Go look at how healthy the entertainment industry was mid 2000's. People were buying dvd's/Bluray's, renting, going to theaters for multiple viewings.
Now hardly any movies are being seen outside of big blockbusters, and even those are being selected by the audience in which one they think is worth their time.
The issue regardless of what
@David Jaffe thinks is the landscape will forever be changed and not for the better in long term. Right now yes, smaller developers and smaller games may get made because there are more options now to get you're game into someones hands. But thats in a still buying/purchasing world.
What happens when that becomes less because gamepass, Uplay+, EAPLAY, even PS PREMIUM have like 100+ million subs scribers? What does the landscape look like?
Well take a look at whats happening in film right now with hardly anything indie or unique interesting being greenlit thats not a action/horror/superhero/war film.
The days of going to big comedy movie like American pie, or a weird small sci-fi film like Looper are long gone. No one wants to fund those because there is no second market to re-coup money if box office falls flat.
Subscribers are leaving in the millions, WB is trying to figure out what to do with their movies/streaming services. Netflix has ups and downs and cant turn a profit because they spend so much money on content, and a lot of it doesnt drive the sub numbers they need. Like Gray Man film.
The film industry is literally closing theaters, Regal just filed for Bankruptcy.
And now we have consolidation going on. The thing keeping film in tact is outside of Disney buying Fox, we still have universal, paramount, WB, Magnet ect.
Soon if Microsoft sets a precedent, then you will see 2k, EA all get bought, and then to me the industry is fucked.
Nothing but F2P, subscriptions, and hit or miss Single player games that will probably get less and less as time goes on.
Microsoft wants to be #1 in cloud/server infrastructure/sub services for enterprise. ANd they will ruin the gaming sphere to do it.
I totally understand right now, its a awesome time to be a gamer. Cheap entry to games, through gamepass and the idea of not having to buy cod for $70 every year similar to madden is a sweet deal.
But the longterm effects in having that will cause a ripple effect. If CMA is looking at this deal, then they also need to look at Licenses because the Monopoly that has been going on with NFL, NBA and up until recent Fifa has made it a very non-compete area.
