It is though. They are removing IPs from their biggest rival to grow their buisness at a much faster rate.
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Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard
- Thread starter Darth Vader
- Start date
So they accused Sony of trying to grow by making Xbox small and then go out and spend $80B buying some of Sony's biggest partners? There is no way you actually don't see it for what it is and I wonder what your attitude would be if it was Sony being that aggressive and buying up entire publishers to remove their games from Xbox.
MS couldn't gain market share and decide to buy it and hopefully they'll once again fail.
Sony bought FFXVI and FFXVIIR timed exclusivity, so what? MS also bought a bunch of exclusives like ARK2, Stalker 2, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, etc.
I honestly wouldn't mind even the Bethesda and ABK deals if not for the hypocrisy of Xbox fans and MS PR. Just own up to it. I can't stand this idiot Phil Spencer still trying to pose as the good guy and the game media going along with it.
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If SEGA can buy Rovio for $1 billion (almost 1/3rd of SEGA's entire market cap...gee I wonder how they're paying for this!?), Sony can buy almost any publisher on the market if they really wanted them. Outbidding only works if the company trying to outbid REALLY wants the asset in question, and there are still other factors at play beyond even that.
Honestly I'm still surprised that they haven't been forced to reveal Xbox Series S & X sales numbers (as in sold-through, to customers) or especially Game Pass revenue figures. Even the leaked numbers from the CADE document did not isolate Game Pass; they included Game Pass, XBL Gold AND Zenimax game services (ESO, FO '76).
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While I might care I wouldn't be a salty baby about it and ask the government to stop it on dubious grounds.
I don't remember raising the argument on timed exclusivity but since you asked, I don't like it. Not because it hurts your competitor but because in the long run it hurts yourself. You aren't actually buying anything for your own system and after a generation of doing so you'll look back and see that you have nothing to show for it. In the long run relying on timed exclusives, especially of franchises not associated with, or usually on, your console is throwing money down a well. And you can look no further than your own list of MS timed exclusives to prove it.
So you are just an enthusiast of MS acquisitions and wouldn't like Sony making the same acquisitions? It's ok for you to get mad over the acquisition potentially being blocked but people that don't want it are salty?
I would have much preferred if neither company was going around acquiring publishers but now this what it has come down to.
Not sure where you got that first sentence from. Generally I don feel like I'm missing out when acquisitions happen. The invisible hand will fill any general void in the other console's shelves, as it always has.
And yes, given that I thought that blocks related to PS vs Xbox were fundamentally misunderstansing of the console marketplace, seeing something like this get blocked because of that would make me salty, though its far less likely now. We'll have to see on the subscription service/streaming arguement. Its a much better one, legally speaking, but I also think we're decades of from having working, usuable streaming services with mass appeal so ymmv.
Oh got it, the invisible hand... Where was the invisible hand to stop a corrupt company like MS with so many shitty products from becoming a trillion dollar company that is able to make this type of acquisitions? Give me a break, this has nothing to do with the moralities of regulating the "free market".
Exactly. They would have MORE revenue if they didn't remove games from PlayStation. Gamepass generates less revenue than full game sales do, so Microsoft clearly have ulterior motives with their acquisitions. This is 100% undeniable.
Further, in reference to a comment about asking the govt to stop acquisitions on dubious grounds, let's cut that shit out, shall we? The CMA is not a government entity, and the largest 3 regulators in the world ALL moved to block or have significant concerns with this anticompetitive deal. Those arguing for it are in the minority and are wrong.
The point is if a product like CoD goes away, something similar will rise up to replace it if the demand is there. Just like how non-Halo shooters arose to garner gamers' interest in the 360 era and eventually easily surpassed it in sales, or how GI used "uts like BotW" to eventually out-earn the original.
Well I don't doubt that is going to happen but MS/ABK is framing it as some bullshit pro-consumer move while going crazy with their open lobbying, their pretty weird anti-Japanese rhetoric, running adds to put pressure on regulators and even going as far as to threaten the UK on TV.
Sony is also full of shit on this one but they have been drastically more tame in comparison to MS/ABK.
I don't want MS buying more publishers going forward and I sure don't want them buying any Japanese publisher. At this rate they are going to crash the console market and I like consoles.
If Gamepass was winning the market based on it's performance, fine I would take the loss, but it all being decided by MS ability to just buy everyone is just lame.
Well, in the short term, they probably aren't going to due to general economic conditions.
Good. Hopefully not in the long term either. The sooner Xbox dies the better for the console market, maybe a decent and capable competitor can then occupy that space.
We need a dedicated misconceptions thread to address false information. There's a lot of it floating around, like the nature of parity clauses, alleged payment for cross-play, or the notion Sony are going around blocking random 3rd-party games from releasing on Game Pass. The only contracts that have such a provision are those Sony have signed a co-marketing agreement with. There's all manner of bogus info. Not limited to any one platform either. Proposed thread title:
End The FUD | Addressing Misconceptions
Is that something members would find helpful and mods would allow?
Lol, well, well, well, look who's anti-competitive now. FWIW. the only new-comers I see, even in a Sony and Nintendo only environment, are shitty streaming boxes that nobody wants (hi, Luna!) Maybe you rebrand Steambox as a console, even though Valve is adamant about calling it a mobile gaming PC, or use some other way to get around the fact that making and selling a gaming console is a monumentally expensive task even if you don't factor in owning the studios to support it with content.
I don't see how competition has anything to do with a terrible product like the Xbox surviving. If it was up to competition the Xbox would long be gone.
Valve in the console space sounds a lot better to me than MS and that is pretty much the spot that Xbox occupies at this point. Valve would actually challenge Sony by not charging for online for example, by providing a store with more features and better policies, VR support, advanced controllers and so on. Xbox hardly seems to be trying outside of spending money on this massive acquisitions.
Valve actually doesn't offer online at all. Stuff like CS is free only because someone other than you or Valve is offering to host the servers. Doesn't apply to their free to play stuff (CS:GO, TF2, etc.), obviously, but only because microtransactions pay for their upkeep instead. Anyways, Steambox is already there regardless of Microsoft's entrance or exit, the only question is if you call it a console or not.
What is the problem with that? Never in my life I noticed PC servers being any worse for online. Paid online on consoles is a scam, always was and it's always going to be. Sony made it a little less offensive with IGC/PS+ Essentials but it is still fucked up to charge for such a basic feature that has always been free on PC, was free on console before and it's even free on mobile.
How exactly is Xbox contributing to the health of the console market? What good thing has ever come out of Xbox ever since it entered the market? I can list a lot of bad things they pioneer or pushed for but it's really hard coming up with anything good other than that accessibility controller if that counts.
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