Who is "you guys"?
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
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Who is "you guys"?
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Content is not the only issue, depending on where you are or what your financial situation is, technical barriers will remain an issue for quite a few years which is why the ten years commitment really isn't meaningful. Secondary to content is that there are too few options for customers in the cloud gaming space. As far as I'm aware, only Geforce Now offers games the ability to play what they already won from their digital libraries.
Services like Stadia, and xCloud have their business model grounded in also wanting to sell/lease you content that you have to buy from them.
Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Nvidia think cloud will be big and content delivery it's obviously going in that direction. If you think Google are out, think again, they will be back with another iteration just like they plugged away with trying to delivery various social networks and messaging platforms. Not being part of how people are connecting with products and services is simply too big a profitable datapoint fro Google not to want a piece of that pie.
I don't follow. Of cource Netflix had investors, and they built their streaming service on top of Netflix's established and successful DVD-rental business. Netflix's streaming customer base is the biggest in the business because it is popular.
This is fanboy fantasy. Whilst the US appears to be a corrupt landscape where politicians are heavily in corporation's pockets and lobby on behalf of companies, the Government is an entirely different beast. If you think the political administration is engage in trade wars every time another government makes a negative decision regarding a US company, you are naive and it completely ignores that the US has a long history of fining companies like Microsoft for various offences. Not to mention that Microsoft keep most of their funds off US shores.
I didnt say Sony didnt buy any studios. I brought the PS1 example because during that time, the only studio they bought with a pre existing history was Psygnosis. All other studios were founded within Sony.
Also you should be more specific and bring examples.
The only example you brought is Spider Man, which has nothing to do with intellectual property. Sony has owned the movie licence for a few decades, not the intellectual property of Spider Man. As a result Spiderman did appear on all platforms. We have covered this before. The only reason Spider Man is exclusive to Playstation is because Marvel approached MS to make an exclusive game using a Marvel's intellectual property which was rejected, and then they went to Sony. And thats a highly recent example which ignores three successful generations prior.
Thats what I said
Except when one is a huge conglomerate of multiplatform studios that supported historically all platforms with a range for multiplatform franchises and the other is a nobody that creates new exclusive content
From a guy working within the gaming part of Marvel
www.shacknews.com
MS refused Spider-Man
Marvel's Spider-Man could have been an Xbox game, but Microsoft declined
Microsoft once turned down Marvel's offer to make exclusive games for Xbox in favor of its own IP.
www.shacknews.com
MS refused Spider-Man
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I thought I made my point quite clear in a few comments. I'm not arguing from my perspective here. I'm arguing from the real world politics perspective which isn't ruled by fairness and national independence.
Nothing in our current Western nations is *independent* or "sovereign". I truly wish it were.
Why havent you bought apple stocks 20 years ago? So don’t complain you are not millionaire. You had you chance and your blew it. Please give me break with this nonsense.
From a guy working on the gaming part of Marvel
Marvel's Spider-Man could have been an Xbox game, but Microsoft declined
Microsoft once turned down Marvel's offer to make exclusive games for Xbox in favor of its own IP.
MS refused Spider-Man
Sometimes I wonder if a magic 8 ball is manning their gaming portfolio? Maybe, the Activision acquisition is seriously needed!?
Yah, Microsoft are morons in gaming no argument there. But Spider-Man is on PlayStation, not on Xbox. It is exclusive. It doesn’t really matter how it happened. It is Sony’s gain to Microsoft’s loss. That’s how all of this works. You secure talent, you secure games so the companies don’t have them. Exclusive content and talent is as much about making your competitor worse as it is making your own company better.
I mean, I don’t need to explain why Sony doesn’t put their games on Xbox consoles. I also am not criticizing them for doing any of it. I don’t particularly care if a particular studio or franchise switches from one console to another.
In terms of the cma blocking this deal I could understand if the just said the two companies together are too big. The cloud thing just seems brain damaged to me unless they actually have time travellers on staff. Instead of addressing the elephant in the room, which is the existing console space, they’re addressing one that’s tiny and entirely speculative (cloud). I’d rather see regulators address competition in existing markets than try to manipulate the future.
I mean, I don’t need to explain why Sony doesn’t put their games on Xbox consoles. I also am not criticizing them for doing any of it. I don’t particularly care if a particular studio or franchise switches from one console to another.
In terms of the cma blocking this deal I could understand if the just said the two companies together are too big. The cloud thing just seems brain damaged to me unless they actually have time travellers on staff. Instead of addressing the elephant in the room, which is the existing console space, they’re addressing one that’s tiny and entirely speculative (cloud). I’d rather see regulators address competition in existing markets than try to manipulate the future.
After Moore/Mattrick, MS was and probably still is on their "we want the IP to the game" bandwagon, if not it will be very likely rejected otherwise there is a 3-6 month time exclusive deal at best.
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I dont know what we are discussing here. We are specifically discussing the particular deal which is a different situation compared to what preceded it, not acquisitions and exclusives in general.
MS is allowed to make exclusives acquisitions and deals just like everybody else and they have done exactly that. No issue was raised with other exclusivities/deals/acquisitions that MS committed to.
You accept a bribe for "grazing rights in the pasture" for 10 years? Then what, rely on Microsoft's goodwill toward their partners and consumers without any legal safety net?
Microsoft strategy to open their game catalog to other platforms should have been in place way before the Activision bribes. Maybe then I'd have more confidence in what happens after 10 years.
Microsoft strategy to open their game catalog to other platforms should have been in place way before the Activision bribes. Maybe then I'd have more confidence in what happens after 10 years.
No desktop OS will ever unseat Windows, and not for a lack of trying or time. But one way they got unseated, in some manner, was that mobile flanked them, and mobile OS which doesn't compete with desktop OS, quickly became the default OS in the world, serving more people than the desktop variant. And in a very short time span as everyone moved away from clunky PCs and moved to smaller handhelds and mobile devices, Windows became largely an OS of professional needs, and the apps that are served on it, had to eventually move to online. They lost their browser business, and Office became something you can run from a web browser. They were pretty much on their way to 0 by 2015 waiting to die out until they pivoted to cloud.
Everyone wants in on gaming, but they need the content. Unlike mobile phones, which have an obvious use case outside of the OS, there is none for cloud gaming, they need the games; hell even mobile had games, fighting for Candy Crush, and others, games have a big play on driving mobile OS as well. If cloud can grow as large or larger than console, then they'll get the games, because publishers want to make $$$, which means deploying your games on as many platforms as there are. They need a legitimized library, across the market, and not just a few players. If in 10 years MS can open their catalog to help build this industry, publishers will seek these platforms on their own even if after MS starts closing up.
The reality is, they likely won't after 10 years, because I suspect the job wouldn't have been completed by then. It's a fairly uphill battle for cloud gaming given how entrenched players are used to having a device in their home, it will take some time for people to change.
I am trying to understand the economics. GForceNow if I understood correctly is running its games through DataCenters. I am not sure if they are owned by NVIDIA or if they are renting them.
Regardless, this tells me that all Activison and MS have to do is licence their games to be streamed from NVIDIA's servers. They only need the right agreements.
Curiously ABK's and Bethesda's games were removed from the service due to some licensing complications in 2020.
MS announced bringing XBOX PC games to GforceNow in 2023 and they would have brought along ABK's games. The question is, what kind of economics work for MS but not with ABK as a separate entity.
Whats going on behind these agreements.
I am not following. Desktops and Laptops are still used as much as they always did, the mobile OS serves mostly as an expansion of the industty.
Mobiles and tablets arent substituting Windows computers. Everyone still owns a computer with Windows regardless if its for professional or any other use even though everyone has a tablet and a mobile
That is not an official Nvidia Twitter handle account. All of Nvidia's accounts are certified.
In some markets there is only space for 1 or 2 competitors. And in some markets there is space for a lot of competitors. Mobile OSs have dropped to 2. Desktop OS is 3. PC gaming stores is 1. In the CPU market there is 2. In the GPU market there is 2.
And for all of these markets before it reduced to 2, there were all sorts of competitors. Sometimes that’s all the market is willing to support.
Saying MS has had all the time in the world to beat the other two is not really understanding the realties of what consumers are willing to support. Video game companies dropped to 2 and MS spent an enormous amount of money to stay as a 3rd competitor that likely most people would have been comfortable with just Sony and Nintendo. This idea that they would be able to compete with entrenched incumbents Sony and Nintendo is like saying MacOS will take out windows.
It won’t happen that way and using Microsoft’s piggy bank as an excuse as to why they should not be allowed to pivot and be successful at it is, perhaps every bit as unfair as they feel about trying to be a successful third wheel on a 2 person date. This may very well be their limit of expenditure in this market for a company that is not an electronics company.
Staying relevant all this time and then pivoting to cloud may have been their strategy for the last 10 years, waiting to do this and accelerate their cloud plans and now it’s blocked.
Consider that. If MS fails on the transition to cloud, I’m pretty sure there is a line somewhere in which MS will leave console land. Leaving them in some sort of game pass something something service provider.
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It is within the CMA's remit to prevent ANY possible monopolies in the future whether anyone agree/disagree with their conclusions ...
The CMA wasn't impressed with Microsoft's proposal because they weren't solutions to the issues they raised up. How exactly does a temporary agreement with other parties to access their IPs that may remain popular in the future solve the problem of Microsoft going rogue ? It doesn't because all it does is it kicks the can down the road for the issue to still possibly persist where other parties are left at the mercy Microsoft who now has more leverage against other competitors ...
It can not be stressed enough that the CMA absolutely hate hate hates behavioural remedies since they believe that most issues can't be solved with just time alone and one of their main criticism of Microsoft's proposal was that it was too short lived to prevent anti-competitive practices in the long term. Behavioural remedies are only realistically an option to them if they can see that a problem will actually go away over time. The CMA takes a risk-based approach to their assessments because they realize that big businesses can just out game the market/system by simply waiting for the clock to run out which is exactly what they want to prevent from happening in the first place. The CMA often looks for structural remedies because they want contingency plans in case the original party refuses to cooperate. The risk of Microsoft monopolizing cloud gaming is potentially huge if COD, WoW, and Overwatch still stays popular in the future on top of their cloud infrastructure already using Windows so as a suggested de-risking measure by the CMA, they wanted to see some divestment in content production capacity to specifically lower this risk ...
There's not much that's unreasonable behind the CMA's hypothesis since cloud most gaming services already uses Windows VMs (Google's Stadia is dead which just leaves Sony's PS Now left) so they don't want to give Microsoft the option to starve competitors out of potential access to content ...
I don’t follow, you assume that after 10 years I will not have anything else to offer just msft content? Even if Microsoft decide to hard lock all the content after 10 years so what? Is it end of the world? Do they own 99% of games realased ? Will game market collapse?
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