Skyrim sold ~30m units. Gamepass is almost there, a new big title might push them over especially if it's exclusive.
Also the numbers I found actually favor x360 (59%) for skyrim not ps, but it was early numbers.
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
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Also the numbers I found actually favor x360 (59%) for skyrim not ps, but it was early numbers.
I did read it , they never said they will put new games on other platforms in other companies stores. They will simply offer the other companies game pass and xcloud. Your reading into it way to much.
We go through this with each purchase. Go back and look at the bethesda purchase.
At no point does microsoft say anything about new games only existing contracts. Your again adding things that aren't there.
Microsoft has billions of pc's out there tens of millions of xboxs and has game pass on billions of andriod and ios users.
Sony is going to sunset the playstation 4 why would microsoft want to support that ? Which leaves in the future 20m+ ps5s its a tiny market.
Microsoft wants to be a creation and dsitribution model through their stores. They wnat you to use windows store , they wnat you to buy on the xbox store and they want you to buy through game pass on andriod and ios. It's simple what they want to do.
But i've said my fill. When the acitvision/blizzard starfield moment happens then maybe we can move on or maybe ms will have purchased another company for this cycle to continue with
Through xcloud anyone with a pc , xbox , mac , linux , andriod , ios device and most likely a slew of tvs will be able to play Starfield. It will literally be on the largest amount of devices possible.
We also know starfield is just Xbox Series and pc. Which means it wouldn't be on Sony Ps4 it would just be PS5. At the end of the day even if we tack on another 20m sales for the console it would be less than 40m consoles by the release of starfield. Its dwarfed by almost every platform starfield will be available on aside from xbox consoles
The last thing to think about is the Microsoft tv stick that still hasn't been released. if priced simlar to a fire stick you could be looking at a $50 buy in for it or better yet for MS purchase a year or two of game pass and get the xcloud stick for free featuring Call of Duty , Starfield , Halo and Forza.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
This. Was thinking along these lines aswell, MS's (very) long term plans might actually look different to what they seem today.
"And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love"
Now, this is worded in such a way that new IP can be exclusive to Xbox, but it certainly addresses the Call of Duty question fairly directly. And probably applies to Diablo too. So they did talk about stuff outside the existing contract window. There's a commitment to future CoD titles continuing to show up on Playstation beyond what they're currently legally obligated to provide.
MS wants to be ahead of any changes in the market so they can say hey that lawsuit between epic and apple doesn't affect us because look at these steps we took to do it this way.
Thinking about it more , I assume MS will use their open store policies to get gamepas and xcloud onto playstation and switches stores without having to pay sony and nintendo.
People always say Sony is a big player but they are a big player in a tiny market compared to the full gaming market.
There isn't any such thing. Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games(that have already been released or will be released due to contracts) they love. It says nothing about future games outside of the agreements. So yea you can play cod warzone for as long as ms supports it before they sunset it for warzone 2 that is exclusive to xbox , xcloud , windows store and steam.
MS sure also wants this deal to go through aswell.
Unless xCloud is decoupled from Game Pass Ultimate sometime this year, along with a bunch of service changes, that is only technically true; in reality Starfield's market will be gaming PC users, Xbox users, and a small subset of the 25-30 million game pass subscribers that have Ultimate. Almost all of whom will have an Xbox and a gaming PC.
Being able to use xCloud in a bunch of other places when the service that lets you do that is still heavily rooted in appealing to people who own Xboxes and gaming PCs doesn't actually expand your user base. Maybe it helps you a little bit in South Korea. But xCloud penetration is really low outside of the existing user base most places. It's not currently set up for or designed to expand into new markets.
And that's ultimately the biggest challenge MS has with this stuff. Even after they get the service bits to make sense for it, and they very definitely don't currently, they still need to be able to convince people who aren't buying consoles that they want to play console games. And I don't think lowering the cost to entry works by itself. You're still competing against mobile games, which are more mass market to begin with.
Things do change, and often rapidly. So I wouldn't be shocked if Starfield is being developed alongside PS5... possibly releasing a year later after XBSX|S release date. Both Sony and Microsoft will be acquiring more and more developers, and wishing they had acquired a certain developer from each others respective camps. So, it becomes more of a game of allowing these high profiled [acquired] development houses to act more neutral or independent in service to all gamers, regardless of platform. So don't be surprised if Sony starts offering first-party titles (other than MLB) on XBOX platforms/systems. The end game with Sony and Microsoft is making money (making as much as possible), so if that means offering current and future system exclusives further down the line to other platforms other than PC, you can bet executives on both sides are having these discussions.
For me, I would love to see Spider-Man, God of War, Uncharted, or any other Sony first party title on XBOX systems, and vice versa with XBOX titles such as Halo, Forza, Gears of War, and so-on, showing up on PlayStation hardware. All gamers should really want this...
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"And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love"
MS is signaling intent to continue to provide CoD games, and some other things, beyond the existing agreement window. You have to engage in major logical contortions to read that sentence any other way in context. That clearly doesn't apply to new IP. They aren't committing to bringing every game forward. But they are committing to CoD games staying multiplat for longer than Activision has agreements in place.
This blog is just them talking about stuff they have been talking about since 2019. They have already dropped windows store % to 14. There really isn't any new info here.
There are already game pass subscriptions that don't include x cloud. I am sure there will be xcloud subscriptins that don't include game pass ultimate
Xcloud is growing well organically and will keep growing well as more and more exclusive games come and engagement on it is very high just look at halo and forza.
It's fun because in steam deck and xbox portable threads people say oh no one wants that they just play on their phone. But then in xcloud stuff people say oh well no one wants that either. I guess everyone just wants to play candy crush on their phone ? Well guess what MIcrosoft owns. But seriously the majority of people I know are moving away from phones being their main device because it no longer works for them
I read it as Microsoft is going to continue to support those games beyond the agreements. Not that MS is going to make new games after the agreements.
So basicly MS will release all the games under contract between Acitvision and sony. They will also keep them on the store past the agreement which is in the future and continue allow Sony fans to enjoy the games they love. Which are the games they purchased.
it doesn't actually say anything about games past the agreement.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
Faster it closes, faster Microsoft will acquire something else.
Not providing, but "make them available" basically not pulling off anything that was released. Like they won't remove them from the store.
"To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision." <- This is clearly talking about not yet released titles that are being developed under existing agreements.
" And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love." <- Because this follows the above, it does not make sense for it to suddenly shift focus to be talking about only providing support to old titles.
Sony will probably need to agree to a deal here. MS gets some leverage around crossplay.
Its clear that the second Sentence is about the Existing agreement games from the prior sentence. COD has long tails with lots of micro transactions. MS is saying that they wont pull those games and other released games so that customers can continue to enjoy them. At no point does it say future games or new games. It's all referencing the existing agreement with activision.
This is the same stuff from zenimax and bethesda. I guess we will all just have to wait
The prior Zen/Beth acquisition took about 7 months to complete. I have a feeling this one will take longer and be more scrutinized by regulators, but eventually will be approved. I say by mid-October or early November.
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We know that those existing agreement titles include currently unreleased titles though. Activision has a multi year deal with Sony around CoD content that includes future titles.
Also MS never made a statement like this with regard to the Bethesda purchase about extending existing agreements or making titles available on other platforms. They used the will support existing communities language. And said exclusives decisions would be case by case. This is very different signaling.
And I guarantee it's at least partially to get ahead of any regulatory issues with the purchase. That Sony stock drop was all about CoD potentially leaving the platform. It's big enough to matter to a competitor's ability to compete. Nothing else is.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
Considering that regulators right now are kinda busy with Facebook across the world and other tech companies it is possible that it is gonna be faster.
The thing is that MS is currently involved into the fighting to break into App Store on iOS. The whole letter was dedicated to that and they mentioned ATVI and COD as something like "BTW we are buying ATIV but we won't pull off the games from competitors store (you can't pull off something that doesn't exist) and they will be available after that. But Apple is a problem!"
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