Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard
- Thread starter Darth Vader
- Start date
You're completely ignoring the contradiction in your logic. It doesn't matter if most Switch game sales are Nintendo or not, or if big 3P pubs don't really support it. That is all the MORE reason why, by your logic, Nintendo should have an actual competitor in the portable/handheld space. So that maybe, they are forced to open up to 3P publishers more, and make hardware that they would actually want to bring more of their content to.
And you're being completely silly insisting Steam Deck is a Switch competitor; it has nowhere near the market volume of Nintendo's system, and Valve provides virtually zero 1P software on it so the platform cannot benefit from software designed with vertical integration in mind. Steam Deck is a niche product that has no major competitive threat to Nintendo until Valve produces them at volumes comparable to actual consoles.
And again, you seem to be misguided in thinking they can only have competition from an external product. Do you not think Sony's own 1P teams are internally motivated to do better than their previous work? That some of them have friendly rivalries/competition among each other to see who can push the hardware the most or in creative ways? Do you not think the various 3P devs/pubs have competition among each other, to see who can make the games that become the most popular on the market?
Again, by your logic, if Sony would suddenly become "overconfident, lazy, arrogant and pretty likely abusive", then the argument can be made that Nintendo, who do NOT have an actual direct competitor to the Switch, are ALREADY emblematic of those very same traits! So I'm asking you: are you willing to, right here and now, say that you agree with that assertion?
Because if you do not, then you have to admit your logic is inconsistent, and it's probably best to drop the irrational concern that Sony suddenly takes on those traits simply because there no Xbox in the console space to "check" them.
Which should have been one of your first conclusions reading into the CEO's statements, yet it wasn't :/
We are already seeing a situation where more indie devs are either getting shut out of Game Pass or are afraid of speaking out to problems with the service's model in fear of getting shut out. Do you not see the correlation between Microsoft's acquisitions (particularly Zenimax) and these various indie developers having these concerns or less opportunity into the service?
Also, uh...what?
I hope you are not conflating natural 3P exclusives with targeted 3P exclusivity deals, because they are not the same. During PS1 and PS2 especially, the vast majority of Sony's 3P exclusives were simply by choice of 3P devs and pubs with no specific deals done by Sony. Those 3Ps had little market incentive to put their efforts to comparatively struggling platforms like the Saturn, N64, 3DO, Dreamcast, Gamecube, or Xbox.
If otherwise you are conflating them, you're either intentionally or unintentionally parroting a talking point usually used against Sony to erroneously paint them as anti-competitive.
No, it means MS has less a need for bidding on Take 2 and Take Two would get preferential treatment from Sony because Sony would be the one needing their support more.
If you want historical examples of this, just look at EA's relationship with Sega on the Genesis/MegaDrive and what they tried negotiating (or strong-arming) with Sega on the Dreamcast.
So why are you seemingly in support for MS to acquire big publishers like ABK in order to be more "competitive"?
The fact the EC has forced MS to provide an automatic free license to all cloud providers for the 10-year period might negate the implicit issues of the lopsided revenue cut among most of them. Obviously, it doesn't with companies like Sony (for starters, it wouldn't be on MS's terms to offer a free license as a publisher on PlayStation platforms when Sony as the platform holder dictates companies purchase a license for publishing), Apple, Google, (likely) Amazon etc. though.
But, if the 100% cut for MS remains intact then I figure it's due to the automatic free license requirement. But that only works where MS is treated as the platform holder of the content licensing it out to the equivalent of 3P publishers (that would be the dynamic of the cloud providers in this relationship). It's basically a subversion of the traditional model and favors acquisition of market content.
Which should really be the bigger issue of concern in this.
It is stronger "competition" that MS bought their way towards, though. They did not work for that growth WRT providing a product customers in the gaming market invested into through purchases, it would not be earned on the merits of their effectiveness in the gaming market. That purchasing power comes from entrenchments in non-gaming markets, a lot of which were built off of anti-competitive practices in the past.
You keep talking about "competition" through avenues that represent no legitimate competition, then surmise Sony would be better motivated to compete, in this case (assuming your previous posts) through leanings of strengths and revenue exclusively through the merits of the PlayStation unit and sans acquisitions. Rules for one but not rules for the other.
Actual competition also factors (or should factor) in the fairness of that competition, and we're talking about a lopsidedness here that is very advantageous (borderline manipulative) towards Microsoft, and very unfair to a company like Sony.
Eurogamer are playing their part
Chancellor says UK regulator must "understand wider responsibilities" after Microsoft Activision deal block
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called upon the country's regulator to understand its "wider responsibilities" to promote…
www.eurogamer.net
They're all taking some pretty non-offensive statements and trying to paint a narrative of this huge uproar against the cma decision within the UK government.Eurogamer are playing their part
Chancellor says UK regulator must "understand wider responsibilities" after Microsoft Activision deal block
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called upon the country's regulator to understand its "wider responsibilities" to promote…
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Nothing, but weren't talking about this. We were talking about MS getting more competitive. Even if the new Minecraft games haven't been huge successes, Minecraft still created them a shit ton of money.
Yes, still there.
Probably, even if I think Zenimax already had their own issues. And ABK also have their own ones. I think under MS some of the issues these publishers had before will be solved, other will grow or added.
The aquired publishers and studios make a lot of revenue and profit in all platforms, that gets added to the one from their gaming division.
Yes, AAA take a lot of years to be made. So we'll need to wait a lot to see their first games started inside MS.
A company doesn't make an acquisition to make the acquired games better, they make an acquisition to get the money they make.
Yes, maybe. In fact, I think both in ceartain way already were an empty shell of what they were in the past before MS was interested on acquiring them. I think with or without MS, Blizzard won't be as great and successful as they were in Overwatch, Warcraft or Hearstone, or with their new IPs, I think King won't make a game as successful as Candy Crash, and that the whole Activision will be mostly a CoD pumping machine with some pretty rare cases of smaller project from time to time.
I think many CoD players are tired of it but continue there due to the lack of better alternatives. And that if some of the Sony GaaS shooters end being good enough will steal a portion of the the CoD fanbase.
I also think that with or without MS, Zenimax won't make an ES as successful as Skyrim, that Fallout won't be as big as it was in the past, that Arkane won't make a game as good and successful as Dishonored and that Machine Games and Tango will never be highly praised super sellers.
I think there may be two exceptions: I think that GaaS Doom (Zenimax and MS are turning all their big IPs that moderately fit into GaaS) may be the most succesful in the series and that Indiana Jones may be the most successful Machine Games (which isn't too difficult) due to the good IP choice.
A close to 50/50 market split is as bad as a monopoly for the stagnation and homogenization of the industry it creates. The sheer mediocrity of third-party releases in the 360/PS3 era was a result of that kind of duopoly, and I never want to see that again. Not even 60/40
Windows only comes on your new laptop if you’re too poor or stupid to buy a Mac.
A Mac is not an answer to everything and being poor doesn't mean the person should suffer being subjected to Windows.
They’ll cry themselves dry this way. And all of them are misinterpreting the quote lmaoEurogamer are playing their part
Chancellor says UK regulator must "understand wider responsibilities" after Microsoft Activision deal block
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called upon the country's regulator to understand its "wider responsibilities" to promote…
Yeah, this narrative is being spread pretty far throughout the gaming media. Here's hoping gaming conference season drowns out the propaganda.
Mac is hardly the answer. The chrome os is pretty good, though it acts more like android, if it became a full fledged OS, it would be amazing.
They might approve it because it helps Tencent. WoW belonging to Xbox would open things up for their WoW knockoff that they're working on. It would also set a precedent for Tencent to buy anything they want as well.I wonder what will happen if China blocked the deal too
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Embarrassing. Here's the quote they should have led withEurogamer are playing their part
Chancellor says UK regulator must "understand wider responsibilities" after Microsoft Activision deal block
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called upon the country's regulator to understand its "wider responsibilities" to promote…
PCGamer spun that line as him being measured in his response, but implying that he doesn't want them to block the deal.
The EU's proposed remedies also seem to imply that if Sony spun up their own separate cloud service that could work on PC and PS5, they could finesse their way into continuing to get all of ABK's games.
That’s what ec wants, knowing won’t happen, then they’ll collect MS’s fines.
Honestly at this point, it might just be that these websites are trying to milk this story for clicks and are just trying to invent drama to keep engagement up.
I learned not to read comments under articles like this a long time ago, lol.