I agree that Final Fantasy skipping Xbox isn't the same thing as COD skipping PlayStation, however, what people don't get is that Microsoft is about to own the IP along with everything else that comes with Activision Blizzard King just like they do with Bethesda. It's going to be theirs which means if they want to make it exclusive, multi-platform, end the series or sell it to someone else, they can do so. This is what I believe PlayStation fanboys/extremists can't seem to comprehend. Also, let's say for the argument sake, Sony acquired ABK. Do you truly believe that any PlayStation fanboy/extremist wouldn't be laughing at Microsoft and Xbox completely? They would be doing the exact same shit that Xbox fanboys/extremists have done since January.
Well yeah, fanboys are gonna fanboy but I don't care about what they do, personally. What we're talking about is more what MS will realistically do with IP like COD even after owning them, and to what degree stuff like GamePass will play into that. Whatever console warriors want to think doesn't really come into the picture for me except when they use it to spread FUD or concern troll.
The bigger issue is that I have realized that because of the domination by Sony over the last 25+ years that their fanboys/extremists simply believe that everything should be catered or favored to them which I disagree with completely. In short, these fanboys/extremists have been so fucking spoiled that they just can't accept the new reality which is Microsoft isn't fucking around anymore. People can bitch about them buying this or that but if it was Sony, these same people would be ecstatic and quite honestly, maybe if Sony was a trillion dollar company, they could afford a major big time purchase like ABK but they're not and quite honestly, that's not Microsoft's fault or their problem.
Well technically speaking, Sony doesn't need to be a trillion-dollar company to buy ABK. They have the cash-on-hand combined with shares and loans they can take out, to buy a company like ABK; market cap isn't the only factor into deciding what a company can buy. We've already seen this with Disney when they bought 20th Century Fox. But Sony's priorities would have also required necessitating ABK to some degree and that simply was not the case, hence they didn't bother with the buy. Also IIRC, it was ABK board members who had Phil and Satya on the hotline when they decided to sell the company, so ABK already had a company in mind who were also the most likely to easily make the purchase (which from what I've seen someone on Twitter point out, who IIRC has an account here, they may've still taken out a loan from Goldman Sach's to put towards the ABK purchase).
I don't know how many PS diehard fanboys/fangirls feel the way you describe, but in terms of the wider install base, well there are certain expectations that come with a brand that's usually outsold its competitors by a decent margin almost every generation for the past 20+ years. There are certain expectations that come with IP from a brand that's been multiplatform since the 1970s. There's a shock associated with the looming reality that said company will be owned by a platform holder in less than a year, and it takes time to accept that. This is a WAY bigger shock than Zenimax being bought (by the same platform holder, no less), a WAYYY bigger shock than Squaresoft leaving Nintendo for Sony with the PS1.
So you have to understand on some level that acceptance of the new reality will take a while even for the non-extremists console warriors. That's normal.
Microsoft should have been investing since 2001 and they barely did outside of Rare. It took them 17 years to finally start investing into Xbox on a major level and instead of praising them for finally spending money and yes, they should be spending their money into Xbox because otherwise, what's the point in having Xbox exist and second, what's the point of being a $2 trillion dollar company if you can't spend the money to acquire companies? If anything, that IS the entire point.
I think part of the issue is that for some people, MS's idea of "investing" has come at the expense of spearheading a big shift in industry consolidation of the 3P market, and that the investing is mainly only in the form of throwing money at studios and publishers, but very little in terms of creative leadership and guidance/curation from the upper management of the Xbox division.
Because, and I believe this as well, you can't have real, profound growth of studio talent and results if you don't have a strong balance of both, this is where comparisons with Sony look unfavorable for Microsoft. Look at the growth we've seen from Insomniac Games from the start of PS4 gen to where they are now. Sony didn't need to spend $70 billion to get those results, they didn't even need $7 billion to get them. The $250 million they paid in acquiring them was to lock down a studio they've already been investing in with both smart money and sound creative/leadership guidance for over two decades.
Microsoft doesn't honestly have a single studio under their belt with that type of growth from investments into them. Rare was a great chance to do that and, yes, I guess Sea of Thieves is financially their best-performing game ever. But you'd be hard-pressed to get a majority of Rare fans or gamers in general, to claim that SoT is their best work yet from a creative POV. We hadn't even really seen what type of payoff came from the Obsidian, Ninja Theory, IneXile etc. acquisitions in 2018 before MS purchased Zenimax in 2020/2021, or ABK this year going into 2023 (the latest the deal will be approved).
So the idea they have purchased yet more studios, and may purchase yet another publisher or two in the future, when we're still waiting to see results that show clear scope & creative growth for the teams MS already own and have owned for years, of course that's going to make some folks (myself included) side-eye those types of moves because otherwise it feels like a lot of money being thrown at a problem, but no direction in how that money's actually going to be applied for technical & creative growth/polish, much less growth in leadership from division management showing strong guidance for their teams.
As for COD not having much of an install base on Xbox consoles, that's not true. COD was massive for Microsoft on Xbox 360 just like it was for Sony during PS4. The entire only successful argument on PlayStation is complete bullshit. Via Wikipedia, COD dominated Xbox 360 in sales. 4 of the top 8 games all time were COD. PS3 only had a single game which was at #10 tied with Uncharted. There was only one other COD game for PS3 in the top 22 so basically 2 out of the top 22 spots were COD. Compared to Xbox 360 which required players to pay for online multi-player and yet, COD was still way bigger on Xbox 360 than PS3.
I didn't say COD had a small install base on Xbox, I said
FF does. I know full well how big COD was on 360 compared to 360 back in the day.
COD was bigger on PS4 than XBO because of two reasons - Microsoft didn't renew their marketing deal which was a mistake and XBO was a disaster from the start. Whoever gets the marketing wins when it comes to COD because people tend to believe that it's exclusive to that platform. People thought Destiny was exclusive to PS4 because of the marketing. The only difference is that once contracts are done, COD will be exclusive to Xbox as it should be due to the simple fact that Microsoft owns the fucking thing.
Well yeah, no doubt those reasons played into COD being bigger on PS this gen than Xbox. I'm actually curious how marketing for COD will be handled going forward because I know ABK will act somewhat independent still (just under Microsoft Gaming), but I want to know if the traditional advertising model will get pared back for individual COD releases going forward.
Because it certainly did with Halo Infinite, and that's MS's biggest, marquee FPS IP until they own ABK and get COD.
The best part is that during last generation, all I ever heard from the PlayStation fanboys/extremists was "exclusives", "exclusives", "exclusives", "exclusives" and "exclusives" but when it's not for their platform, they constantly bitch, moan and groan like a fucking 8 year old. I see it as, you're an adult, buy the other fucking console, buy the fucking game and play it if it's so God damn important. If not, then those people should shut the fuck up. And this applies to every PlayStation and Xbox fanboy/extremist.
I mean, maybe just don't pay attention to them as much? It's really easy to just block that stuff out.
I agree with this but there is one slight difference. Nintendo/Sony didn't own Square Enix or Final Fantasy. Microsoft is going to own ABK and in turn COD and quite honestly, they should make it exclusive because it's theirs, not Sony's or the fanboys/extremists. If anything, PlayStation fanboys/extremists should be thrilled that Microsoft is fulfilling contracts because if that was me, Sony and PlayStation wouldn't get shit.
From a
gamer's perspective, especially if you're predominantly an Xbox gamer, then yes it makes sense to think COD should 100% be exclusive. But these companies aren't thinking about it that way. To them, it's business, and they want to recoup the money spent and then some.
Look at it this way: MS's kind of spent $70 billion for COD (this isn't actually true but COD is the biggest thing they get out of this alongside Candy Crush). Does making COD exclusive to Xbox, realistically get them on the path to recouping that $70 billion and making a lot of profit on top of that, in a realistic time frame? Let's say making COD exclusive to Xbox increases Xbox revenue by 10%, and increases Xbox net profit by 10% of whatever that is.
Say Xbox normally makes $1.5 billion a year in net profit, and say COD weighs 35% into the price of the ABK acquisition (that's $23.45 billion). Candy Crush weighs as 45%, all the other IP weigh as the remaining 20%. And now say Xbox division has a FY net profit of $1.65 billion. It'd take Xbox a little under 15 years to make back in net profit the share of COD's weight into the acquisition cost. That's the remainder of the 9th gen, and all of 10th gen (which might be the last console gen).
Do you think MS is willing to wait that long? Say GamePass starts pulling in enough new subs annually to where it's maybe bringing in an extra $1 billion of annual profit on top of what it does today (IMO, I think it brings in ~ $750 million a year); that would help cut the time to recoup down but it's a gamble because it's predicated on if GamePass growth can bring in a pure $1 billion more net per FY than it already does, and what if that takes another 5 years? What if it takes longer? What if it never happens?
There are other factors MS have to consider, too. What if the trend with Vanguard selling less, repeats itself with the next COD release, and the one after that? What if another massive FPS comes onto the scene and replaces COD in popularity? Yes a lot of these "what ifs" have a low chance of happening and MS could actually use these in a court defense to argue for making COD exclusive to Xbox & GamePass if they really wanted, but the point is these are possibilities they as a business have to keep in mind when deciding on things like making COD exclusive or keeping it multiplat.
That's even without pointing to another massive IP they own which they eventually decided to keep multiplat: Minecraft :/
Never before have I ever seen this pansy ass bullshit where you buy a company but give your competition what you now own. Get the fuck out of here with this bullshit. And this applies to Sony as well. If they acquire Square Enix, they should be completely exclusive to PlayStation. No fucking Xbox. No fucking Switch. Like seriously, buying companies and going to your competition saying - "here you go, enjoy". Get the fuck out of here.
Again, that's the gamer's way of looking at it, but you have to think like a businessperson on this as well. Now, in the case of Sony buying SE, they could easily justify dropping Xbox for everything outside of games like a Power Wash Simulator, because they wouldn't lose much money by doing so and have a strong chance of retaining the absolute vast majority if they made things PS-exclusive (Xbox JRPG fans who really want FF/Valkyrie/Star Ocean/Dragon Quest will just end up buying a PS to play them).
But Sony would be rather dumb to stop supporting Switch with things like the 2D JRPG remasters/remixes, or smaller new JRPG releases like Octopath. Not unless they decided to make their own portable system as well
Microsoft didn't buy stocks and do some hostile takeover shit. Kotick went to Facebook first and they simply refused. Microsoft took advantage of ABK's situation and simply outbid everyone else which is exactly what you're supposed to do if you're running a company. What if somehow Apple or Amazon had acquired ABK. Then what? Apple is rumored to be developing a console and I wouldn't be shocked if this was true because their brand is massive. What if Amazon acquired ABK? They have Luna. Why wouldn't they make it exclusive to their platform? That would make Luna get a massive boost and there's no way they would give it to PlayStation or Xbox for that matter, nor should they if that happened.
This is all true, although I think even in Apple or Amazon's case, they'd keep some of the games multiplat. No reason to lock Candy Crush behind simply our devices or service, for example, and they may want
some cash from gamers on PS, Xbox & Nintendo who can access their products or apps on those consoles already.
The difference though is that Microsoft does give you plenty of options to play their published games. Two consoles. Two options on PC via Windows Store and Steam. Cloud streaming. Game Pass. Don't even have to buy the game. TV App if it's not available already. Microsoft gives consumers at least five different options. Microsoft has made playing the games the easiest and cheapest it's ever been.
They do have a lot of options for sure, but some of these aren't going to be realistic options most of the time for certain games or certain types of gamers. How many COD players do you think want to mess with (non-mobile) COD competitively on a little smartphone or latency-ridden (compared to a native console) cloud streaming?
That aside, it doesn't take away from the fact that yeah, MS do give people a good number of options to play and that's commendable.
Imagine if Google acquired Bethesda. Oh my God. That would have been far fucking worse than Bethesda could ever be with Microsoft. Streaming only. Must buy the games. Jeez. This shit would have been fucking horrible.
I don't know if buying the games would've been "horrible", that's just the status quote and still the dominant model in the market for many reasons.
Google have shown they can't really manage game studios whatsoever though, so I agree Bethesda's probably be worst under them. Tho that doesn't excuse whatever happens with them under Microsoft; IMO we need some games showing clear improvements in quality and ambition going forward and Starfield was looking kinda rough at the showcase is all I'm gonna say.
FF and COD are not the same in regards to being on the same level but the end result is the same if you're a gamer/consumer. If you truly want to play the fucking game, you know what you need to do. If those people don't do what they need to do in order to play a game that they supposedly love and want to play, then in my mind, they're completely full of shit and second, they need to shut the fuck up because their opinion means nothing simply based on the fact they don't want to do what is necessary in order to play the game that they again, supposedly love and want to play.
This is true, can't really disagree there. Go where the games are, even if that means having multiple platforms. If you're forced to choose, then that's just what it is. People gotta make choices everyday.
My primary is Series X for this generation and would I prefer to play Kena, Sword and Fairy, etc. on Series X day one? Absolutely because that's my preferred platform of choice for this generation. However, I don't cry or bitch constantly or even once for that matter. I do what a normal gamer and fan who wants to play a certain game or games that are not on their referred platform would do - I buy it for the other fucking console. I'm not waiting to see if/when they ever get released on Xbox. Fuck that. I want to play the game.
Excluding the NES generation, it's why I have always owned two or more consoles. It's because at the end of the day, I know there's always to be games on one console that aren't on the other(s) and as a gamer since 1989 with NES, I simply want to play the damn game. If a game is timed/full exclusive to my secondary or lower console, so be it. I'm still buying and playing the game.
Same for me, man. I've always had at least two consoles each gen (three for 7th-gen) since the 5th-gen systems. If I knew about consoles like the Saturn or SNES when I was at the point of maybe being able to game on them (I got into 4th-gen pretty late, and Saturn was basically a unicorn to me at most stores as very few carried them), I'd of probably convinced my parents to get them for me too xD.
Gaming's just better when you have as many platforms at your disposal as possible, just in case there's that big exclusive on only one of those platforms. That way you don't miss out.
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