This is again persecution complex speaking, you are being quite disingenuous here. People do want to see Xbox more competitive, but they want competition to work for it. Disrupting the market by buying the two largest publishers while announcing they want to buy more is competing by content starving the competition opening up a massive checkbox courtesy of their monopoly like status in other big industries. At some point they will want to make a large profit of this investment and that is when the pain may start for users in earnest.
Do they want to buy Rare and Bungie? Do they want to buy plenty of developers, start new studios, hire and poach talent? They have been doing all that. Manage those studios well and have a better eye at content production and prioritisation and grow bigger that way. It is ridiculous how they compare it to Sony buying Psygnosis in 1993 which is the only “big” publisher acquisition they made (excluding Bungie, but then again it is not a like for like).
lol not persecution, speaking truth to power. The bigger red flag is the appearance of the big lie: "Microsoft doesn't manage its studios well." This has honestly never been true. Studios needing time to actually build their games and trying your best to plug the holes in the meantime does not constitute mismanagement. Microsoft simply didn't have enough studios to plug holes with. The studios that Microsoft have created are some of the best run and producing studios under Xbox. 343i, Coalition, World's Edge (age of empires studio), Turn 10. Xbox also quite clearly appeared to have lost funding at a point. That's why E3 after E3 we weren't seeing very many new games announced. It wasn't till Phil joined Microsoft leadership in late 2017 that the acquisitions and funding started to come back, leading immediately to numerous game studio acquisitions in 2018, 2019 and then 2020, and now most notably, Activision Blizzard. And Microsoft has done an incredible job with the studios they've taken on.
Obsidian, Playground, Undead Labs, InXile, Double Fine, have all been doing fantastic work. Bethesda studios haven't skipped a beat under Xbox unless you count studios with recent releases needing time before their next, such as id software as skipping a beat. Fallout 76 has come a long way since the acquisition, new studios were brought on board to help with it. 8 seasons produced under Xbox and the game has attracted more new players. It's doing better than ever. What shows more commitment than bringing on more help for Fallout 76? That's a project everybody expected to be abandoned, but wasn't. Elder Scrolls Online has been doing great. Psychonauts 2 became a better game under Xbox, so did Wasteland 3, Obsidian produced two story DLCs for Outer Worlds, made grounded, made pentiment. Announced Avowed and The Outer Worlds II. I know most will never play Pentiment, but it's fucking EXCELLENT!
Ninja Theory appears to be getting all the resources they need to do a more ambitious version of a Hellblade sequel. Isn't that the kind of investment people want to see Microsoft make in single-player games? Remember we were only supposed to get nothing but live service games and lower quality stuff because of game pass? People laughed at Ninja Theory's live service MP title, right? People laughed when they initially saw Grounded from Obsidian too, but that game turned out great and is highly popular.
Ninja Theory is taking its time on exactly the kind of game people claimed we wouldn't be getting thanks to Game Pass. InXile is taking its time on their brand new FPS RPG. Obsidian is working away on Avowed. It's not difficult to see that a point will come when it all converges. We got a taste of that in 2021. This year is looking amazing.
Microsoft has arrangements in place with Certain Affinity and other studios for more titles and contributions to Xbox. Turn 10 looks like they'll deliver a monster in Forza Motorsport this year. Rare has its most successful game ever to date with Sea of Thieves. Seems to me besides the games needing time, there's no obvious sign of mismanagement anywhere. Whining about Halo aside, the game is still quality.
343i needing more time with Halo Infinite, the first showing not meeting everyone's expectations, and the resulting delay caused them to delay other features; all that happened. And what was the result? Easily one of the best games released so far this gen, one of the best first person shooters ever, and hands down one of the very best games in the entire Halo franchise. What they've done with more time as demonstrated with forge, winter update, 4 player co-op in the first ever Halo open world, is only further proof of what the studio can do given time. They should have never had the launch pressure in the first place. The campaign is the truest embodiment yet of becoming a Spartan. Surveying an area, planning your approach from nearly any direction or angle, even way up in the sky. The MP has consistently been one of the most played games on Xbox consoles. #10 worldwide on Series X|S consoles. Countless games have come and gone, but Halo remains among the most played games. The reviews on the campaign speak for themselves. It was a fantastic game. Negative inside baseball articles about cut content or biomes changes nothing about how good the game they released is. People also conveniently forget that it's 343 who got Halo MCC to where it is.
Everybody knows that while those first-party, internal studio games are being made, and while those first-party games from outside studios are being made, they rely on games from third parties to fill in the gaps.
Sony's strategy for years, especially this gen, has been to come in with the kinds of deals that are designed to starve xbox of new titles, like they did with Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, and like they're doing with Forspoken, FF16, FF7 Remake. They were apparently even attempting the same with Starfield! But if they went after Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, I don't see how Starfield wouldn't have been a major target. So I'm inclined to believe they eyed that game also.
When Sony has a dominant market position that they wield to starve xbox gamers and to create uncertainty for xbox gamers, there's only one way to break through that kind of tactic. You want to know what it is? Buying the whole damn thing. You buy to own the whole publisher, every studio, and every IP. This way you now dictate some terms and provide your customers real guarantees. Notice nobody is doubting for a second as to whether Indiana Jones will come to Xbox? Notice nobody is worried about a huge out-of-nowhere deal on games like Elder Scrolls 6 or some future Bethesda single player RPG? Cause we know the Playstation brand is big enough to make major things happen, like how it deprived Xbox of Street Fighter for an entire generation. Or suddenly went and made FF16 PS only despite the success of FF15.
Sony even cuts deals to keep games from going to Game Pass even when they don't go to PS Plus or when they aren't exclusive games. They have a deal for COD. They have a deal for Resident Evil Village and probably countless other titles. Sony plays for keeps and has been for years, so now that Microsoft is countering that Sony strategy the best way possible, some can't handle it.
Microsoft is buying publishers, all their studios and IPs to offer more guarantees to its customer base, like Sony does with all the deals designed to starve Xbox of games, especially early in the gen when people are making decisions on consoles to pick up. You also said when Microsoft is ready to make a big profit from the deal... You must not realize that Microsoft will be profiting big off Activision Blizzard the FIRST year they own them.
Haven't you realized yet that Microsoft is very comfortable playing the long game? It has worked for them for years. You think that just because they're spending $68.7 billion on this deal, they are expecting to get it all back just from Activision Blizzard in the next 2-3 years or something? Activision Blizzard is as sure a bet as Microsoft has ever made. Call of Duty prints money. King prints money. Blizzard will have a major resurgence under Xbox. Diablo IV will of course be huge, they have new games coming King with Candy Crush brings in more money 3 quarters out of the year than Activision or Blizzard has in the last year. Microsoft's strategy is to use Game Pass boosted by all the new games they have coming from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard to turbo charge the Xbox business while getting backup from King with Candy Crush to show their investors stronger and stronger overall profits and revenues, which in turn will help grow their stock and please their investors. All it takes is to take one look at Microsoft's fiscal year revenue and profit, factor in Game Pass' growth, and factor in the money factory that Activision Blizzard represents (let's not forget COD Mobile and eventually Warzone mobile)
Microsoft is taking the Office 365 route with Game Pass. Game Pass becomes even easier to sustain once Activision Blizzard is on board. Subscribers will grow quite a bit. People are even underestimating just how big a deal Starfield will be. Microsoft, in a rare shock, is actually ahead of the game for once with Game Pass. Those subs are going to keep growing. Bethesda's big singleplayer RPGs and other games combined with Activision Blizzard King will be a killer combo along with the major titles Xbox has coming. Sony is engaging in deals to disrupt this strategy. Notice the moment Microsoft gets hands on a publisher, all the various deals Sony could come up with to harm them vanish with regards to those studios and IP? The strategy works, which is why Microsoft does it.
Sony does what Microsoft does, Sony just does it in smaller pieces across multiple gens.
Sony has purchased 11 videogame studios since 2020. The company with the record breaking first party operation. That's how Sony plugs its holes and helps its first party studios for years while also using its market position to disadvantage Xbox with third parties. Microsoft is simply learning how the game is played. They're no longer relying on a smaller set of internal studios and mostly relying on publishing games by external studios while expecting third parties to understand how important it is to release on Xbox. Can't blame Microsoft for spending to acquire not just studios, but highly valuable and popular game IP. It's smart. Microsoft finally understands an important piece of this industry is guarantees. Moneyhats doesn't get you there against a more popular brand that can likely get certain deals a whole lot cheaper than you can.
EDIT: Apologies for long ass post. It'll be my only one of 2023, I promise. Resolution!
Although they say resolutions are made to be broken.
So the PSP prequel port is viable but the port of the actual game is not
)… then back to crying about Sony growing by making MS smaller to then barking about “They Gave Peace a Chance” as if they were a cartoon villain and back to the pity party circus…
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