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Rumour: Xbox being bought by Amazon?

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I heard this recently as well, but dismissed it out of hand. Amazon do not have the finances to buy the Xbox division. The asking price would be too high for them and they would have to drain at least a third of their cash since MS are unlikely to accept shares in a volatile company like Amazon.

If MS are looking to sell then private equity is a more likely buyer. I could see a joint PE-AMZN consortium getting together to buy the division, but I don't know if Bezos would be interested in that.

Well, at least we know the rumor is legit.

I agree though, one of the reasons I don't see this happening is AMZN money situation.
 

Yaoibot

Member
I agree Xbox is the only thing that gives them credibility in the consumer device world, hence xbox music, xbox video etc plus it now links in nicely with windows 8, I really struggle to believe this, unless the deal is that amazon pay MS to continue to develop the OS side of things

But they make like 98% of their profits from enterprise solutions. Thinking that they need a window into the consumer market is like thinking that some massive, billion dollar security firms that handle trillions of dollars in assets need to get into home alarm systems. They don't. They don't need brand recognition, outside of cellphone contracts enterprise solutions are decided by totally different merits. If anything, MS' diversion in focusing on consumers has left the door open for Google to slid a foot in to enterprise. That scenario is nothing but bad news, as the real bread and butter is being stolen. That's what a lot of investors fear.

Not to diminish Sony, but a nightmare scenario would be MS reduced to a similar level of consumer services and electronics. There's almost no money in it, the manufacturing and development costs are too high to make much profit. Sony makes a ton of income off insurance, let's not forget. Insurance. We certainly don't hear much of that branch either, which shows you how enterprise works. (They offer life, if I recall too, but most of it is enterprise solutions.)

As an aside, I'd be far more partial to an Amazon managed Xbox, than an MS one.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Famousmortimer's sources

Basically. I don't get why people prop him up on the level of CBOAT.

geordiemp said:
Anyone laughing at the possibility, watch this Bloomberg on Amazon, a USA company who has the biggest cloud service world wide.

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2...-big-is-amazon

Big in servers, online, computing and USA based.....

Don't be fooled into thinking they are just a web site to buy things from....

Now, go look at MS's "Software and Entertainment" business expenses and see how little profit they have gotten from it since the 360 Slim launched or so.

Yeahhhhhh... why would Amazon want that?
 
Anyone laughing at the possibility, watch this Bloomberg on Amazon, a USA company who has the biggest cloud service world wide.

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2013-06-27/from-the-cia-to-your-freezer-how-big-is-amazon

Big in servers, online, computing and USA based.....

Don't be fooled into thinking they are just a web site to buy things from....

I'm not fooled at all. Amazon is a huge company, how much profit do they pull down? The thing is Amazon does not have the resources for a purchase like this. They would have been better off purchasing TWC than Xbox.
 

kyser73

Member
I heard this recently as well, but dismissed it out of hand. Amazon do not have the finances to buy the Xbox division. The asking price would be too high for them and they would have to drain at least a third of their cash since MS are unlikely to accept shares in a volatile company like Amazon.

If MS are looking to sell then private equity is a more likely buyer. I could see a joint PE-AMZN consortium getting together to buy the division, but I don't know if Bezos would be interested in that.

What about a group like KKR (if they're still around!)?
 

Acheteedo

Member
Hmm, extra cheap Xbox games on Amazon?

Such a big change in ownership is potentially terrible for Xbox, but it could also end up being a good thing.
 

KZObsessed

Member
Amazon have probably approached Microsoft about a possible purchase of Xbox doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen, or happen anytime soon.

Would be very interesting, don't know if it would be a good thing or a terrible thing. Wonder if they'd stil sell Playstation? Interesting anyway.
 

Eusis

Member
It'll just be Chinese whispers from talks around Amazon integrating Xbox store into Amazon.com, like they've done with Sony.
Xbox is MS's trojan horse for windows 8, store, apps, too much to lose for any price.
This is why you bargain, perhaps the Xbox consoles would forever use variants of Microsoft OSes, which is something Amazon's probably lacking in anyway and would probably work better with a gaming console than something Android based anyway.

But the bigger question is if Microsoft really wants to even stay involved in any of that but OSes themselves.
 
Famousmortimer's sources
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I see your and raise you new sauce:

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MormaPope

Banned
Ben-Stiller-Do-It-Starsky-and-Hutch.gif


Lets see some crazy shit go down. Amazon buying Xbox and doing something interesting with the brand will make me care about that brand once again.
 

SparkTR

Member
Wait? What?

I do think Amazon could potentially be better to manage Xbox than MS. They would probably be much more competitive. But... reaching...

Competitive with what? An Amazon Xbox likely won't have powerful components, will likely run on Android and will be primarily be a multimedia machine.
 

Yaoibot

Member
They had $12.5B in cash and short term investments as at Dec 31 2013, don't know if this will happen but cash does not seem to be an impediment.

They also have some of the most balanced books in the industry. Almost no debt. I think that they occasionally sell some debt just for shits and giggles and to keep the financial Gods happy. I'm not joking either, look it up.
 

Into

Member
Well they did buy Double Helix, and Amazon did not do this just to publish their games. There are obviously bigger plans ahead here. There is smoke here, its just whether there is a massive fire or a smaller one.

Mort deserves more respect than say: a random Twitter person/console warrior. So outright dismissing him is perhaps not the wisest of things.

Does not mean its going to happen, talks could be on going, and they could also fall apart. But you are too naive to think that all the reports, articles from very reputable sources in the past 18 months and even longer than that, about certain MS higher ups wanting to get rid of the division are -A L L- fake/phony/lolrumor.
 
Nintendo has an already established brand, buying Xbox would do nothing for them.

Not Xbox, but at the very least Rare and their IPs, while Rare is a shadow of their former self, they have the name and assets, which Nintendo can help rebuild into the Rare of old, bring in most of the long-left talent (many of whom would jump at the chance).

If only that.

Other smaller IPs I can see going around would be Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey going to MarvelousAQL, Blinx to Arzest (Blinx must be worth pennies), Halo would naturally be huge for Amazon so they ain't dropping that. Zoo Tycoon and Kinectimals to Frontier?

Amazon might keep Killer Instinct due to now owning Double Helix, and that's not really in Nintendo's best interest anyway.
 

RoyalFool

Banned
Sounds crazy enough to be true.

If Microsoft really are looking to ditch the console market it would be crazy for them not to pass the brand on.
 

Yaoibot

Member
And they are going to put that money into what everyone is calling an anemic market?

Depends on how much they're paying for the brand. Maybe its a firesale price with all the expenses Xbox has incurred lately - launch costs, tv programs, advertising. I remember Phil touting 1b for something back in June.
 

MormaPope

Banned
If this actually happened forums and comment sections across every site would reach nuclear meltdown status. Would be one for the history books.
 
Depends on how much they're paying for the brand. Maybe its a firesale price with all the expenses Xbox has incurred lately - launch costs, tv programs, advertising. I remember Phil touting 1b for something back in June.

And you think with all those expenses MS is going to walk away for a cpl bil? Yah, this is MS we are talking about. Guys, Amazon is not buying Xbox. This is the joke topic of the year.
 
Mortimer? Eh...
I think he has a pretty good track record. He'd probably post it here himself if there was more to it though.

Seems kind of weird to me. I mean, MS just went out of their way to buy Gears of War, so it seems strange they'd be looking into selling the whole division.
 

SeanR1221

Member
So famousmortimer has posted on twitter that 'the scuttlebutt' is that Amazon are buying Xbox. Still a long way from being done. Let's say this happens, what would the implications be, if any?

Well we'd be one step closer to the prediction I made.

The big three will be apple, amazon and samsung.
 

Eusis

Member
And you think with all those expenses MS is going to walk away for a cpl bil? Yah, this is MS we are talking about. Guys, Amazon is not buying Xbox. This is the joke topic of the year.
Microsoft is in something of an upheaval as of late though. I don't think it's likely to go through and doubt it's anyone's best interests here, but I don't think anything can be taken for granted now.
 
Push? No.

Amazon does not have the money to burn to pick up the Xbox brand.

What makes you say that? Amazon are an enormous company. I think they're the biggest Internet based company in the world, if memory serves.

But regardless of that, I don't believe this. I don't think many if any companies would be interested, purely because the brand has been a huge money sink. I think if MS want to be rid of it they'll need to spin it off into its own company.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Lets hope not. I want Rare back at nintendo first.
With how Nintendo is managing their IPs today, I can pretty confidently say they're being put to better use at Microsoft. Viva Piñata, Nuts & Bolts, Rivals and helping with KI is more than I would expect under Nintendo's management.

The downside is, if not Nintendo, it'll probably be gobbled up by Activision to make Skylanders toys. I'd rather they just go independent or to 2K or something.
 

Shtof

Member
If Xbox continues down its current path it is of no worth to MS. The One is a fiasco outside the US, and is losing ground to Sony as we speak even in the US. It sold well before christmas, which could be because of PS4 shortages. In January there was a lot less demand, and suddenly PS4 outsells Xbone 2-1. This could just escalate. In Europe Xbone is pretty much dead.

Also the fact that the Xbox project is still in the red at MS(can't source, just seen evidence multiple times on this very board) and that the road to redemption is long and expensive for MS would suggest they would just dump instead of wasting even more money.
 

braves01

Banned
If this actually happened forums and comment sections across every site would reach nuclear meltdown status. Would be one for the history books.

GAF would die for sure. It can't even handle a Nintendo Direct.
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Fwiw, if I were an Xbox owner, I would desperately want this to be true. Xbox becomes instantly more desirable to me knowing Amazon is running the show.
 
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