Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[iroboto]

That comment is satisfied by the release of Deathloop and Ghostwire:Tokyo. I'm looking more at his comments to the EU during the Zenimax hearing, Jan 2021, where 'Microsoft stated", although I don't know who that MS was:

This is the real sticking point. MS said to the regulators that other consoles would get future games on a case-by-case basis, implying a proportion of future games would release, expected to relate to that IP's demand and sentiment. It's after this we hear Phil said something along the lines of all future Zenimax games would be XB exclusive, no case-by-case basis applied, but we don't know exactly the words or context.

If in 20 years' time zero Bethesda games come to PS, would that still be appropriate for what was said at the EU hearing? Is "none of those games seemed appropriate to port on a case-by-case basis" going to be a legitimate justification for the lack of content that was implied? And the relevance here is what can MS infer they'll do in the ABK hearing and then change their mind on? We don't have a crystal ball and can only guess by a very short precedent with Zenimax. If either Indiana Jones or ES came to PS5, there'd be no problems, but if neither do, too late to test against the ABK hearings, it's a bit sus!

My interpretation of March 2021 post zenimax hearing, the public statement he gives is that pretty much all the titles are going exclusive with some exceptions.

The EU cleared zenimax under the assumption all titles would go exclusive, they didn’t believe MS anyway when they said it, they just didn’t see this vertical merger as a threat to the market. The only thing Phil is doing is managing the video gamers who will hate Xbox even more for declaring it so.

EU commentary here

The report had concluded from the EU agency: "Even if the combined entity was to engage in a (total or partial) input foreclosure strategy, the Commission considers that such a strategy would not have a material impact on competition in the EEA. Rival consoles would not be deprived of an essential input, and could still rely on a large array of valuable video game content to attract players."

The Nov 2021, wow moment, sounds like Phil was now committed to tossing exceptions out. So Indiana Jones may have been an exception that went exclusive (contractual obligation terminated or rerouted) I do not know.

i recognize that Phil is working very hard to make everything exclusive, I just think he will find that he cannot. That’s his predicament. They have greater aspirations than this, and it would be to their benefit to show regulators (at the very least) that they can hold their word (even more so now that the spotlight is on them).

I anticipate that there will be a title that would fit the criteria for MP release within the next decade and they will use that as their sacrificial offering. GaaS titles are just too reliant on larger populations to keep them alive. And some titles are better as a multiplatform because of their significance on culture like Doom.

 

[iroboto]

Phill Spenser and MS in general is a great example of using wooden language

Without a doubt.

The real question is who it is for; regulators or the gamers?

I think the latter.

 

[Cyan]

For me, it's the lack of clear strategy, combined with Xbox's CEO just deciding on exclusivity without any kind of conversion with other key Xbox executives, like the CFO, that surprise me. I've worked in a lot of large organisations across aerospace and defence industries and Government, and nowhere would one person just pivot on a product strategy without a much larger conversation with other senior people, as well as everybody who can provide an insight on the possible impact to all of the stakeholders.

It looks likePhil Spencer woke up one day and whilst eating his cheerios just decided on a new strategy, then told the CFO about it when he got to work that day. WTaF. Who does that? For folks who can't understand why Microsoft aren't more successful? Probably this.

maybe something common in the culture? I mention this 'cos not much time ago I heard an american girl complaining that sometimes bureaucracy and documents' signing is a very slow in Europe compared to the USA.

Money talks, and where money is involved sometimes it's more important than other considerations.

Phil Spencer is relatively okay, but it lacks a bit of leadership. Most of the Xbox "gang" is what it is. Major Nelson..., for instance, I never liked him, but maybe it's just me. Miyamoto and CIA seems a bit more interesting to me as executives.

Also, being Microsoft a software company why they'd need exclusives, sell the software everywhere and that's it. Print the money.

 

[stu11]

I just want to be clear guys; for those that don’t have me on ignore.

I did read his comment clearly; he linked the IGN article where in his post he said it was a direct email from Xbox CEO to MS CFO. It was not: It was a text message from Matt Booty to MSCFO. It’s listed there in his own linked article.

he mistakenly made it about Phil and Tim and then told me I’m on spin world for willfully ignoring facts in which Phil testified this on stand. He didn’t. Phil said he didn’t recall saying that during the zenimax monthly meeting.

Just to be clear about it for those that missed that small but important part of my post.

His OP


Dsoup went on to say that Phil internally has made this decision, evidence above, but is publicly saying the opposite to the media and is lying about it on the stand.

The debate of this is here:

Phil Spencer says future Bethesda games will be exclusive to "platforms where Game Pass exists"

It's the question everyone's been eager to have answered since news broke that Microsoft was acquiring Bethesda and par…

www.eurogamer.net

So hopefully this provides the context of my post. They have held this promise so far. And they have not made all existing franchises exclusive.

It was regarding an email that was sent between Tim Stuart and Phil Spencer though. It was after Stuart made a presentation at an investor's conference regarding Bethesda.

Wish we could come out and say we’re taking it all exclusive.’
The FTC has just presented an email between Xbox CFO Tim Stuart and Xbox chief Phil Spencer, where Spencer says Stuart’s investor talk about Bethesda “sure did stir up a lot of stuff.

Stuart responds: "Wish we could come out and say we’re taking [Bethesda content] all exclusive at this point.

Spencer responds: “we can’t say that.”

Another email between Stuart and Matty Booty, Xbox Game Studios chief, discusses making Bethesda’s games exclusives and the financial tradeoffs and concerns about valuation. The email mentions Xbox Game Pass subscriber growth, Xbox units, and offsetting these against the losses of taking games exclusive.

The FTC wants to make it clear that Microsoft would be willing to take a financial hit to boost Xbox Game Pass subscriber growth, sell more consoles, and ultimately bring more consumers to its Xbox platform.

So far the only Bethesda games to have come to PS5 so far are the contractually obligated games of Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop. The Indiana Jones game was supposed to be released on PS, as well as Redfall and we now know that the latter didn't and the former isn't. Spencer is now flip/flopping over ES6, but I highly doubt that will release on PS5 (or PS6 for that matter) either.

The issue is not that Microsoft is making the games exclusive to Xbox, that was to be expected when they bought the company.

The issue is that they are saying one thing publically ("decisions on whether to release of PS will be case by case etc") and then it comes out that they are saying something the opposite in private emails ("all Bethesda games are going to be Xbox exclusive going forward").

It's not a good look, especially when they are buying another large multiplatform publisher and making similar statements about "not taking games away from communities".

 

[eastmen]

MS didn't give a time frame - they gave a reason. An economic reason that it wouldn't make financial sense to take big titles and make them exclusive. They explained the economic reasons to consider taking a title cross-platform and how 'dumb' it would be to turn their nose up at hundreds of millions of dollars of PS revenues. The same reason they are giving for maintaining ABK multiplatform...

Again you are adding in your own opinion to MS's words. COD is different than Zenimax games. Zenimax games do not require large continuous online player bases. COD /Diablo / Overwatch all require large continuous online player bases to exist .

Also once again MS has honored every contract that zenimax had signed with other companies and has honored their own contracts

As for 'honouring' it, they did no such thing. They didn't decide to release T:GW on a 'cases-by-case basis' but they were contractually obligated. Once all pre-existing obligations were satisfied, they changed to 'never on PS', not 'case-by-case, some titles yes, other's no'.


Continued. Past tense, they've stopped now. And only for games they already had in development and contracted to release.

And yes, MS played the regulators, you're right. They should have put in actual limits. MS gave themselves the wriggle room by saying:

“For future ZeniMax games, Microsoft intends to make these games available
for purchase on PC and, where the games are designed as native mobile games, on mobile
devices running both iOS and Android. Future decisions on whether to distribute ZeniMax games
for other consoles will be made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account player demand and
sentiment, Microsoft’s strategic and financial goals, and the willingness of third-party gaming
hardware providers to run Microsoft games and services.​

The implication in court was a case-by-case consideration how much of an income hit they'd like to take on taking big multiplatform IP off a major platform, that for something as big as ES they'd want the money from PS more than they'd want the exclusivity. That's also what the CFO was expecting given the email exchange. But Phil's consideration of "Microsoft’s strategic and financial goals" actually includes taking big multiplatform IPs and making them XB exclusive, without any regard for the loss of income that was presented as a primary reason to maintain multiplatform releases.


Looking at the past actions, there's no evidence MS are not operating on a case-by-case basis. There's only Hi-Fi Rush, Redfall, and Starfield. It could be that Indiana Jones and ES6 comes out on PS...only now we know that's not happening. And we have an email conversation that states that was never going to happen.

Did all the regulators see this email exchange when making their decisions? Or are they still operating on good faith based just on what's seen so far and what MS told them in the hearings?

The implication ? What is this an always sunny episode ?

The issue is again that single player games can exist and become profitable for MS on only Xbox and Steam. MS has already done the case by case basis and has found that for Zenimax games they can release them all on simply xbox/steam without having financial issues

Let's not forget that for Elder Scrolls Morrowind was able to release on only xbox (20-25m units) and PC and Oblivion was able to release on just Xbox 360 a few months after launch and PC. a year before its release on ps3 So there is precedent there that these games are more than capable of being financial and critical success on just one platform.


Why would regulators care in regards to ABK deal as unlike Zenimax there are contracts that contractually obligate MS on Switch and streaming services as well as steam being offered one.


The whole problem when people go out and spread nonsense is that all the metrics listed in your quote mean nothing when the person actually judging them is microsoft. What is player demand and sentiment , what is MS's strategic and financial goals ? What is that on a case by case basis ? Only Microsoft knows and any speculation on the internets side would be meaningless and the same goes for the regulators. That is because no where does it say the regulators will help with the decisions on a case by case basis. The other issue is that you are again arbitrarily forgeting that MS unlike us knows everything that Zenimax is working on and have known since the purchase. They would have had plenty of time weigh the pros and cons of each in development title. They also now make the decision on all future titles that are produced. So they will be creating all titles to make sure they are viable on just the xbox and pc alone.

Again in the case of ABK there are titles that are live services that exist on other platforms today including sony. COD is developed in mind with the ongoing revenue from Playstation. Diablo 4 is done the same way as is overwatch. For COD they have offered a 10 year contract to sony which means for the next ten years (actually more since the current contract ends this year so the new one would start next year) MS will be contractually obligated to to release COD on playstation if Sony signs the contract and again they have signed the same contract with Nintendo. Diablo 4 is newely released and Ms wont pull it from Sony platforms as it will kill the game. Diablo 3 launched 9 years ago so we will not see another Diablo until the 2030s likely. Overwatch 2 just released and requires large communities of players and thus wont be taken off already launched platforms. The only other big live service game from ABK that I know of is WOW which is only on PC.

The ABK and Zenimax purchases are completely different in terms of what was actually promised and what is contractually promised. To conflate the two is just silly on the face of it.

 

[eastmen]

Not only that but in 2019, Phil Spencer didn't believe that cloud gaming could become an actual market.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood warned employees not to 'build a gold toilet'

Microsoft was in fact working on a gold toilet, the CEO of gaming at Microsoft said in an email as the company was preparing to test cloud streaming.

www.cnbc.com

But they still went with it, likely because Microsoft and the Board of Directors wanted it despite Phil not seeing a future in it.

And along with that...



So, after 4 years, Microsoft's Cloud Gaming initiative still hasn't done anything to establish itself. Honestly, at this point even though there's e-mails and quotes stating that Cloud Gaming is a core pillar for Microsoft, I would not be surprised if MS also abandons it in a few years.

I'm assuming the CMA had access to that information as the EU likely did (them stating that Cloud Gaming likely had no future if it couldn't grow and that this deal might be the best way for cloud gaming to actually become a market), yet they just blithely ignored it?

In other words, sure, someone can say something or state something or write something in e-mail, but this is a business. And if you want to be a successful business, what you said 2-3-4+ years ago may have absolutely zero relevance to what you're actually going to do the next year.

So, when Phil said they were taking ES6 exclusive a few years back, he was absolutely telling the truth.

And when Phil Spencer recently testified that Microsoft are currently unsure of whether they will make ES6 exclusive or not, he's also absolutely telling the truth.

If you cant adapt as a business, you die. Microsoft are seeing that taking large successful existing multiplatform IP exclusive doesn't bring in ancillary forms of revenue from that which can come even close to replacing the revenue from those titles remaining multiplatform.

Knowing that it's still up in the air as to whether going full exclusive with Bethesda would be a good idea or not, of course, Phil Spencer is going to replay that "we can't say that" about taking all of Bethesda exclusive. If you do, you lock yourself to that strategy publicly and then you can't change course without potential loss of reputation with consumers. Something that Xbox has had a hard time regaining after the XBO launch debacle.

I'm going to speculate here that the one and only thing that might convince MS to keep ES6 exclusive would be if cloud gaming takes off and that provides a new avenue of monetization for ES6 that could come close to replacing the massive revenue loss from making it exclusive.

I can't think of anything else that would pacify investors and the Board of Directors at this point WRT making ES6 exclusive. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was huge pressure being put on MS to make Starfield multiplatform ASAP.

It's all about the money. For the important people influencing the direction that MS goes, increasing Xbox user base isn't tenable if it also comes with a massive loss of potential revenue. And right now, MS (Xbox) has failed to show that making a title exclusive will appreciably increase the Xbox console user base to such a degree that it offsets having the title be multiplatform in the first place.

Regards,
SB

Xcloud is already built out for this generation. It will continue to run until the end of it but I don't think they will be adding capcity unless demand rises. Since all the costs are already sunk its included as a bonus feature to make the alure of game pass ultimate a better value.


As for starfield being multiplatform the Board doesn't care. Its a fart in the wind in comparison to everything else at microsoft. The issue is that without Starfield and ES6 and other games being exclusive the xbox brand will die off and that is way more costly than the profit that starfield and es6 combined will make from being multiplatform.

 

[Nesh]

Without a doubt.

The real question is who it is for; regulators or the gamers?

I think the latter.

Can you elaborate a bit more?

 

[function]

If only console gamers didn't want to game on consoles. If only console gamers wanted to watch all tv on console, and not share games, and be monitored audiovisually while they watched tv, and play Big TV games but on their phones over a laggy connection using a gimpy controller and adapter they have to carry round with them.

[edit: and suffer console availability issues for years while MS build up Xcloud]

If only gamers would see things from MS's perspective and not be selfish, MS wouldn't have to keep losing market share.

But gamers won't do that, so now they're making MS buy ActiBlizz. Why would gamers do this?

 

[iroboto]

Can you elaborate a bit more?

Communications are always carefully crafted in terms of the messaging. MS is vague, purposefully so, but the vague messaging isn’t for regulators imo, it’s for the gamers

 

[iroboto]

If only console gamers didn't want to game on consoles. If only console gamers wanted to watch all tv on console, and not share games, and be monitored audiovisually while they watched tv, and play Big TV games but on their phones over a laggy connection using a gimpy controller and adapter they have to carry round with them.

[edit: and suffer console availability issues for years while MS build up Xcloud]

If only gamers would see things from MS's perspective and not be selfish, MS wouldn't have to keep losing market share.

But gamers won't do that, so now they're making MS buy ActiBlizz. Why would gamers do this?

When you’re losing the game, you pull the goalie and try to even things up. Terrible analogy but it’s sort of what im seeing here. They’ve given up console, so they want to build up the end game now than later.

The majority of ABK is for the mobile sector however, that will be an instant gain for them. Streaming, as everyone is seeing, is likely to be the end state for gaming. It’s sort of a matter of when than a matter of if.

It’s easy to say they messed up, but it seems in our desires to point at how badly MS picks tech for the future (or at least timing of it) people have forgotten entirely about the runaway success of PSVR2 for instance.

I think at the very least we should give all the console makers a break at trying something new. They can’t just release the same thing over and over again with stronger hardware; I don’t mind them trying, it’s the right thing to do. You never know when you land a Wii.

 

[Nesh]

Communications are always carefully crafted in terms of the messaging. MS is vague, purposefully so, but the vague messaging isn’t for regulators imo, it’s for the gamers

Why for the gamers? Which gamers? And what are they trying to achieve?

 

[eastmen]

When you’re losing the game, you pull the goalie and try to even things up. Terrible analogy but it’s sort of what im seeing here. They’ve given up console, so they want to build up the end game now than later.

The majority of ABK is for the mobile sector however, that will be an instant gain for them. Streaming, as everyone is seeing, is likely to be the end state for gaming. It’s sort of a matter of when than a matter of if.

It’s easy to say they messed up, but it seems in our desires to point at how badly MS picks tech for the future (or at least timing of it) people have forgotten entirely about the runaway success of PSVR2 for instance.

I think at the very least we should give all the console makers a break at trying something new. They can’t just release the same thing over and over again with stronger hardware; I don’t mind them trying, it’s the right thing to do. You never know when you land a Wii.

I disagree.

IF Ms is able to buy ABK and launch a semi successful Mobile store across IOS and Android then its obvious that Xbox pc and console stores will also be tied into that. The series s and x are more than capable of running all mobile apps that I know of and so MS will simply have created one single store front where all your purchases can work across your devices. It's what google is working on doing and what Apple has also largely done.

I have found myself purchasing titles on xbox pc because they simply work on my steam deck (through windows on it) and my desktop pc and my xboxs when they are play anywhere titles. No other company really offers that in terms of higher end games.

Remember also that MS is getting to a point where xbox / xbox 360 games should easily run in emulation on modern cell phones and tablets and MS can simply offer that through their 3rd party app store. There will come a time soon enough that even xbox one titles will run in emulation on cell phones and tablets. Ms is making a play at a uniformed gaming store.

 

[function]

When you’re losing the game, you pull the goalie and try to even things up. Terrible analogy but it’s sort of what im seeing here. They’ve given up console, so they want to build up the end game now than later.

The majority of ABK is for the mobile sector however, that will be an instant gain for them. Streaming, as everyone is seeing, is likely to be the end state for gaming. It’s sort of a matter of when than a matter of if.

It’s easy to say they messed up, but it seems in our desires to point at how badly MS picks tech for the future (or at least timing of it) people have forgotten entirely about the runaway success of PSVR2 for instance.

I think at the very least we should give all the console makers a break at trying something new. They can’t just release the same thing over and over again with stronger hardware; I don’t mind them trying, it’s the right thing to do. You never know when you land a Wii.

The problem is, I think, that MS have been trying to make Xbox console gamers build them new and vast markets while offering nothing but expense and disappointment in return. That is an insane strategy when gamers already have Playstation as an alternative.

And streaming might be the end state for gaming (for some types at least) but chunks of the console market will transition from Vendor X Console to Vendor X Streaming Service, and if you've already Sudoku'd your tentpole console brand and games by that time you lose anyway. And by the time the battle for console game streaming is really on will it be fought with racks of launch Series X silicone?

I can't help thinking back to the reveal of the Xbox One:

Mattrick: "Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity, it's called xbox 360"

No, Don, the product for those people wasn't the Xbox 360 it was the Playstation 4. PS4 was also the product for people who didn't want an underpowered GPU, who wanted to share games, who didn't want to pay for Kinect, who didn't want to be constantly audiovisually surveilled by Kinect, who didn't want their console to primarily be a TV TV TV SPORTS box (that constantly surveilled them with Kinect) and who didn't want an awful huge ugly brick of a machine with a massive power brick to boot.

And just because something is "the future" doesn't mean it's your future. Parachutes were the future, just not for the Bird Man of Eiffel Tower.

I think it's great when console makers try something new. Dreamcast is probably my favourite console. And Kinect for the 360 was super exciting - I have no regrets about buying mine. But on XBOne forcing people to buy and it and use it and sacrificing core specs for it was something very different. That wasn't trying something new, it was doing something very old - forcing an assumed entrenched userbase to act against their own interests and for yours. Only this time it wasn't Windows, it was a market with an equally strong competitor, and it was at the point when digital libraries were taking off. And MS knew this. It was incredibly stupid, and I think it's fair for anyone to point this out.

And yes, I completely agree that PSVR2 looks amazing, but Sony haven't sacrificed huge chunks of the potential PS5 userbase to do it. They haven't forced it on their customers, and they haven't sacrificed PS5 availability to do it. Meanwhile, even more MS customers have gone or gone back to Playstation because of Series X availability.

MS are currently unique in the console market in seemingly not seeing it as having core business value in its own right, and also in using it gen on gen as kindling to light the fires of some grand new mega wing of MS's business empire.

 

[iroboto]

Why for the gamers? Which gamers? And what are they trying to achieve?

Phil often talks about how the gaming audience is ‘very passionate’. And improper wording leads to bad things. Saying the wrong things to the gaming audience means they can lose significant future revenue

Saying the wrong things to regulators means you miss out on an acquisition. The prior has a lot more to lose. They learned a large lesson around buying up exclusivity of Tomb Raider, and AMD seems to be learning that lesson here with Starfield being FSR2.0 only. When you're the smaller platform, it's very easy to piss off the larger group. These are self inflicted wounds and I'm pretty sure Phil is trying to figure out how to get what he wants without getting blowback from the gaming community (while navigating the acquisitions)

 

[iroboto]

The problem is, I think, that MS have been trying to make Xbox console gamers build them new and vast markets while offering nothing but expense and disappointment in return. That is an insane strategy when gamers already have Playstation as an alternative.

And streaming might be the end state for gaming (for some types at least) but chunks of the console market will transition from Vendor X Console to Vendor X Streaming Service, and if you've already Sudoku'd your tentpole console brand and games by that time you lose anyway. And by the time the battle for console game streaming is really on will it be fought with racks of launch Series X silicone?

I can't help thinking back to the reveal of the Xbox One:

Mattrick: "Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity, it's called xbox 360"

No, Don, the product for those people wasn't the Xbox 360 it was the Playstation 4. PS4 was also the product for people who didn't want an underpowered GPU, who wanted to share games, who didn't want to pay for Kinect, who didn't want to be constantly audiovisually surveilled by Kinect, who didn't want their console to primarily be a TV TV TV SPORTS box (that constantly surveilled them with Kinect) and who didn't want an awful huge ugly brick of a machine with a massive power brick to boot.

And just because something is "the future" doesn't mean it's your future. Parachutes were the future, just not for the Bird Man of Eiffel Tower.

I think it's great when console makers try something new. Dreamcast is probably my favourite console. And Kinect for the 360 was super exciting - I have no regrets about buying mine. But on XBOne forcing people to buy and it and use it and sacrificing core specs for it was something very different. That wasn't trying something new, it was doing something very old - forcing an assumed entrenched userbase to act against their own interests and for yours. Only this time it wasn't Windows, it was a market with an equally strong competitor, and it was at the point when digital libraries were taking off. And MS knew this. It was incredibly stupid, and I think it's fair for anyone to point this out.

And yes, I completely agree that PSVR2 looks amazing, but Sony haven't sacrificed huge chunks of the potential PS5 userbase to do it. They haven't forced it on their customers, and they haven't sacrificed PS5 availability to do it. Meanwhile, even more MS customers have gone or gone back to Playstation because of Series X availability.

MS are currently unique in the console market in seemingly not seeing it as having core business value in its own right, and also in using it gen on gen as kindling to light the fires of some grand new mega wing of MS's business empire.

I think MS views it quite differently, because they have data available that can forecast the outcome. For xbox they are probably on track to do more or less what they did with Xbox One. That's what the telemetry is likely saying. This is as large as they get, and their mandate, like all companies, is for growth. They've been pushing into the PC space heavily because of this, and they see growth opportunities in cloud. So the risk of shifting some of this supply over to cloud service seems reasonable. To people looking at this, people are looking at a fixed pie and fighting over the % of it. MS has been here before, and they are looking to expand on it entirely, move to a place where they can grow. And there is no real growth in the console space.

As for what they lost, I think it's pretty fair to say that they don't really lose all that much if they are gaining gamepass subs, and those ready to move to Sony are likely to move regardless of whether supply existed or not, they didn't have a compelling reason to stay, certainly being supplied constrained is likely not the major reason to leave.

 

[iroboto]

I disagree.

IF Ms is able to buy ABK and launch a semi successful Mobile store across IOS and Android then its obvious that Xbox pc and console stores will also be tied into that. The series s and x are more than capable of running all mobile apps that I know of and so MS will simply have created one single store front where all your purchases can work across your devices. It's what google is working on doing and what Apple has also largely done.

I have found myself purchasing titles on xbox pc because they simply work on my steam deck (through windows on it) and my desktop pc and my xboxs when they are play anywhere titles. No other company really offers that in terms of higher end games.

Remember also that MS is getting to a point where xbox / xbox 360 games should easily run in emulation on modern cell phones and tablets and MS can simply offer that through their 3rd party app store. There will come a time soon enough that even xbox one titles will run in emulation on cell phones and tablets. Ms is making a play at a uniformed gaming store.

Yea mobile is probably the biggest factor here, they have instant footing straight into the mobile space with one of the largest mobile games. It's just that as gaming requirements continue to increase, I just don't see a future for these low powered, low cost consoles. The trends just aren't pointing in that direction anymore.

 

[see colon]

So far the only Bethesda games to have come to PS5 so far are the contractually obligated games of Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop.

Sure. If you ignore the releases of Doom Eternal, ESO, Quake and Skyrim. They all got PS5 releases. Quake even got a physical release for PS5 (and PS4, and Switch), but not on Xbox. Plus Ghostwire and Deathloop.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sure. If you ignore the releases of Doom Eternal, ESO, Quake and Skyrim. They all got PS5 releases. Quake even got a physical release for PS5 (and PS4, and Switch), but not on Xbox. Plus Ghostwire and Deathloop.

Remakes and re-releases (Quake, Skyrim) have come to both PlayStation and Switch, and support has continued for titles that were released years ago like Elder Scrolls Online (released 2015). Doom Eternal released on 20 March 2021 with Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax being approved just a week or so before, by which time the game was finished, pressed on discs and boxed up and already in retail channels, not to mention all the marketing had long since been paid for.

Ghostwire and Deathloop were contractual obligations.

 

[eastmen]

Yea mobile is probably the biggest factor here, they have instant footing straight into the mobile space with one of the largest mobile games. It's just that as gaming requirements continue to increase, I just don't see a future for these low powered, low cost consoles. The trends just aren't pointing in that direction anymore.

I think the market may change a bit but there will always be a reason to have a dedicated box inside the house with video games until we literally can't move forward with technology anymore. I think we will likely see the cost of consoles continue to rise each generation from now on. Perhaps ps6 / xbox next will be $600 at launch or even $700. I believe each generation is still selling more consoles than the previous generations

 

[Nesh]

Phil often talks about how the gaming audience is ‘very passionate’. And improper wording leads to bad things. Saying the wrong things to the gaming audience means they can lose significant future revenue

Saying the wrong things to regulators means you miss out on an acquisition. The prior has a lot more to lose. They learned a large lesson around buying up exclusivity of Tomb Raider, and AMD seems to be learning that lesson here with Starfield being FSR2.0 only. When you're the smaller platform, it's very easy to piss off the larger group. These are self inflicted wounds and I'm pretty sure Phil is trying to figure out how to get what he wants without getting blowback from the gaming community (while navigating the acquisitions)

Phill didnt care if Tomb Raider sold less on Playstation or if PS owners are angry. What matters for him is XBOX sales and how many will gradually jump in it. A strong exclusivity line up will disatisfy a lot but will make more jump in. The One couldnt do it because one title alone cant do the difference, and the One was still inferior in almost every way. Its like shooting one bullet from a pistol expecting to make a difference while the opponent has 10 machine guns with lots of bullets. Make yourself own 40 machine guns and you will make people join you.

Regarding trying to convince the regulators and the market PR or community, One doesnt exist without the other. The communication towards the community is the PR image they are building to make themselves look like the poor good guy victims in the market instead of the lying empire that wants to eliminate competition, to make the acquisition happen. And thats tied directly to the acquisition and the regulators. They arent separate things. The latter go-exists with the former and it wouldnt have been their PR if it wasnt for the acquisition. The competition and consumers would have had an argument against them with the regulators. They cant communicate one thing to the regulator and another to the market. The acquisition needs to happen for them, thus the existence of their wooden language as a side effect to the market because thats what they need to do to convince the regulators. If the acquisition did happen by now, rest assure that making every single game exclusive on XBOX looking forward, except from losing sales from other platforms, would have only benefited their brand.