ChuckeRearmed
Regular
Are they though?
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yup...
Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations
The Elder Scrolls Online player count, server population, subscribers and game activity stats (aka elderscrollsonline).
mmo-population.com
And that's for 3 platforms (PS 4/5, XBO/XBS, and PC).
Even Guild Wars 2 has a healthier player base and it's only available on one platform (PC).
Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations
Guild Wars 2 player count, server population, subscribers and game activity stats (aka Guildwars2).
mmo-population.com
Old School RuneScape is even higher and it's based on the 2007 version of RuneScape and has incredibly dated graphics.
Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations
Old School RuneScape player count, server population, subscribers and game activity stats (aka 2007scape).
mmo-population.com
But RuneScape is helped by having crossplay on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
FFXIV with crossplay on PS and PC tops all of them.
Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations
FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn player count, server population, subscribers and game activity stats (aka ffxiv).
mmo-population.com
Basically, it's difficult to have a successful MMO without a large player base. ESO was originally Pay to Play like FFXIV or WoW, but a dying playerbase forced Bethesda to convert it to F2P in order to attempt to recoup their initial investment in the game (MMORPGs are expensive as heck to create and maintain). They are managing to be mildly profitable now, but it'd likely be much better if they had crossplay and as a result healthier server populations.
Regards,
SB
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
Neither Sony or EA are voraciously acquiring massive studios that have been around decades like Microsoft. If Microsoft decide this strategy isn't for them and just gut those acquisitions like failed ventures like Danger, Bean, Nokia. You've heard the idiom, don't keep all your eggs in one basket?
Normal, but infrequent. The automative industry in over a 100 years old and has had two disruptive technologies; diesel and electronic. The desktop OS market has no had one disruption (GUIs) since it became a thing in the 1980s. The mobile phone market has had one disruption (smart phones, and the rise of Apple/Google) in its 30-40 life. Constant disruption = instability.
Who said that? I didn't say that.
Yea I know you didn't say it. Nor did you imply it. But when I think about this particular point that you wrote:Who said that? I didn't say that.
I mean we're only looking at two extreme points with this line of thought for there to be of any significance; either the subscription service fails, and it crashes the market because they own all the IPs and they toss all the studios, or at the other extreme, they monopolistically take over and build shittier games and crash the market. Anything else in between is basically the status quo; the gaming industry has survived all sorts of mergers, dips, disruptions and lulls. Many of these large publishers are basically swallowing up smaller studios, in the same way that MS is swallowing up both studios and publishers.
I do see games changing already, whether as a result of gamepass or not, gamepass is just another mechanism for these titles to be discovered, I don't think it will ever be the only way people will play games. Video games are unlikely to follow the path of movies where only enthusiasts will buy the hardware to watch them. Video games will very much be around for a long time in the current format that it is until cloud gaming is able to reach that particular performance level. Game Pass is just another variant of a store, it has its own limitations. I don't consider anything MS has done as being disruptive.
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And this is what it's all about. After 20 years, this is Microsoft's latest strategy to make Xbox more popular. Is it profitable? The jury is out, but Microsoft individually report all of their very profitably businesses in their quarterly and annual reports and Xbox is showing up yet, other that noting capital investments/acquisitions.
The difference which this particular strategy is that it is disrupting the industry, in terms of a reduction of the number experienced and successful studios. If Microsoft realise that the subscription plan is not a sustainable economic model, what happens to all of these studios? What happens if the subscription model does work but Microsoft coerce all this teams to change the way to develop games to order to get things our faster to feed the content machine?
Having been in the console industry one generation less than Sony, Microsoft have acquired or tried to acquire twice as many studios. Microsoft only really have themselves to blame for their lack of first party studios. They've been working on Xbox for over two decades now, it's not like the have not had the opportunity to build a stable of good first party teams. The company really don't seem to know what they want and they chop-and-change and this is mostly what worries me about GamePass. It's the latest experiment and if it doesn't work.. look at the disruption to the industry.
Having tens of millions of subscribers will be profitable esp when you layer on micro transactions. People are still going to want halo / gears / cod skins and will still buy them on top of their sub.
Who said the studios are sucessful. Zenimax was looking to sell , Activision was looking to sell. If the sub plan isn't sustainable then MS can switch back to the regular way of doing it if that isn't sucessful they can sell studios. So far I have only seen MS delaying games to make sure they are as good as possible. I don't see any short cuts taken.
Sony started buying video game companes in 1993 with Psygnosis.
Psygnosis, Bend , Naughty dog , Incognito , Guerrilla, Zipper , Sigil , Eveolution studios, Sucker punch , Plumbee, Audiokinectic , Insomniac , Smoething Else, housemarque , Nixxxes , Firespirite , Fabrik games , Bluepoint Games , Valkyrie , Lasengle, Haven , Bunge , Savage game studios.
Microsoft started buying video game companies in 1996 with Electric Gravity
Electric gravity , Fasa , Access, Bungie (which the let leave), Netgames , Digital Anvil , Ensemble, Rare, lionhead, Big park, Twisted Pixel, Press play, Mojang , Ninja theory , undead labs , compulsion , playground games , inxile , obsidan , double fine, zenimax , activision .
So 23 vs 22
Also lets reframe your narrative . microsoft has been developing/ publishing video games since 1979 with microsoft adventures. Bill gates and neil konzen made donkey.bas for doc in august of 81 and flight simulator was published in 82.
SCE/SIE wasn't even founded until 1993. The oldest game I could find is 1994 crime crackers and motor toon grand prix.
So MS has been developing and publishing games for 43 years and bought 22 video game companies and Sony has been publishing/ developing games for 28 years and bought 23 companies.
So having been in the video game industry less than Microsoft they purchased more studios in a decade and a half faster time frame. If sony doesn't have a diverse first party offering of more than just 3rd person action / adventure games well that is sony's fault. perhaps they should have invested into resistance and mag and killzone from the companies they bought ?
What worries me is sony will keep marching forward buying studios , making poor exclusive content deals and monopolizing the industry. Disruption is great for the industry , how do you think sony was so sucessfull. Do you think sony entering the market wasn't disruptful ?
That is great , so a decade after microsoft entered the market and not 15 years. It was a joint venture with Sega too
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
Zenimax were critically and commercially successful. Most companies that are sold are commercially viable, otherwise you're buying liability and debt.
Seriously? Microsoft Microsoft acquired nine studios in one acquisition with Zenimax doesn't mean they acquired 1 studios. From Micrsofot's press release on Zenimax:
The planned acquisition includes publishing offices and development studios spanning the globe with over 2,300 employees, including Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios. Bethesda’s critically acclaimed and best-selling franchises include The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein, and Dishonored, among others.
Are you seriously counting BASIC games? Come on, you are taking the piss. And yes, Microsoft published Flight Simulator but this didn't develop it, that was subLogic. Sony published early Final Fantasy games. Both companies are also act as independent publishers.
But to help you focus, we are taking about the console industry.
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I am also gobsmacked he is comparing Sony's small studio acquisitions with MS's multibillion acquisitions of big companies with far bigger presence in the industry prior to their purchase just to come up with a numbers argument.
This far smaller studios that Sony acquired were mostly tiny (sometimes troubled) studios that already had focused or exclusive collaborations with Sony, no significant or any support with other platforms, most of them didnt even have like a strong and healthy future or any big franchise.
Bungie is probably the biggest and most extraordinary acquisition Sony has ever made
This far smaller studios that Sony acquired were mostly tiny (sometimes troubled) studios that already had focused or exclusive collaborations with Sony, no significant or any support with other platforms, most of them didnt even have like a strong and healthy future or any big franchise.
Bungie is probably the biggest and most extraordinary acquisition Sony has ever made
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Visceral Games Joins A Long List Of Studios Closed By EA
Electronic Arts has a long and sad history of buying innovative game development studios and shutting them down.
www.forbes.com
With or without msft this has been happening for very long time now.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
Mergers and acquisitions are not unique to the videogames industry. What makes the last couple of years different is the number, size and calibre of the independent studios that Microsoft have expressed an interest in acquiring. I cannot think of anything remotely like such consolidation in any other industry.Visceral Games Joins A Long List Of Studios Closed By EA
Electronic Arts has a long and sad history of buying innovative game development studios and shutting them down.
With or without msft this has been happening for very long time now.
1) Yet they were still approaching companies to purchase them.
2) Zenimax is one company. Microsoft bought a single company out like they do all the time. If you are upset about the size of the company that is on you. Sony paid a similar price tag for Bungie. If the amount of studios a company has mattered then sony would have surely bought a company with multiple studios at once.
3) I'm taking the piss ? I thought your obvious bias rant about the length of time MS was in the home video game market was you taking the piss. MS helped create a home market for video games. They started doing so in 1979. The earliest FF i can find sony attached to in publishing was FF7 which was in the 90s.
I think what you found is you came to an obviously bias against Microsoft by creating a narrative of MS being an outsider or johnny come lately. But again MS had been in the market since the late 70s a market that only started in 1972. Sony on the other hand took another decade to enter the home video game market.
If you truly want to set the stage. When I grew up there were half a dozen companies making video game systems. You had the turbo graphics 16 , sega genesis , neo geo , super nintendo , jaguar and then smaller one offs. Sony enters the market by leveraging their technology from other business ventures and starts to buy up exclusives and studios. Then you go down to just saturn , playstation and n64. I am sure sega fans were super happy with how disruptive sony was. They swooped in took games that would be multiplatform and had them release only on the playstation. Sony was a company many times the size of Sega and was able to out compete them. But now the shoe is on the other foot, an even larger company is out there now competing against sony , buying up companies larger in scope than sony and Sony fans are crying fowl. they aren't crying fowl when sony pays for exclusive content in games so that other platform buyers get incomplete games , they don't cry fowl when sony raises the price of their video games or raise the price of their consoles. They don't cry fowl when sony buys big companies like bungie or cry fowl while salivating over rumors of sony buying square or other big publishers. They just cry fowl when Microsoft is going to do something. So we hear a constant stream of how Microsoft doesn't have exclusives , Sony has exclusives . MS makes purchases to address this and sony fans put on a surprised pickachu face. Then microsoft trys to make an affordable console for everyone with the series s and we hear oh look at how under powered this is blah blah blah and then MS starts putting up sales numbers they haven't seen in a generation. Then we get to game pass blah blah blah this can't be possible , this can't be good for the industry. Then we hear from the industry on how amazing game pass hs been for them.
It's the same toxic song and dance. If it's alright for Sony to buy their way into the living room then it is the same for MS. If you don't like the idea of Ms buying exclusives and buying companies then you better be complaining about sony doing it too . I've been here saying that its fine for sony to buy companies just as its fine for MS but I've been called bias by people who only complain about one side. It's bullshit and I am going to continue calling it out.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
I am not seeing why this is relevant?
One company and nine independent studios. Why are you splitting hairs? There is one less massive publisher around and nine less independent studios around. Where are you going with this?
I'm talking about the console market because we're in the console industry forum. This is not about the wider videogame market, that is clear, this is about the console market. Microsoft are very clearly treating the console market quite differently from the wider non-console market. This is plain to see who you see how many first party Microsoft games are not included in GamePass on PC.
This is what is known as projection. You perceive this because you literally cannot abide any criticism or questioning of Microsoft and anybody who does must be biased - ignoring the fact I game on PCs and a Series X, as well as a PS5, Switch and a Mac, as well as a bunch of handheld retro devices. I just like games. The point I was making was the number of Microsoft acquisitions vastly outnumber the number those by either Nintendo or Sony, despite Microsoft having been in the console market for a shorter span. There is no insinuation other than over the last 20 years, Microsoft have acquired - or tried to acquire - more companies than their two competitors combined.
Sony reducing the number large independent studios available is also not good for the industry. Nobody is saying it is but you cannot see any issue than a criticism of Microsoft being some weird pro-Sony position.
1) I am not seeing how anything in your original post is relevant. You set up goal posts and you move them constantly.
2) Microsoft bought one Company for a similar price that Sony bought a company for. You are here complaining about only one of them. Hmm I wonder which one
3) You can talk about what you want. I can talk about what I want. MS has been in the video game industry longer and MS has always published in the pc market they currently put all their first party games on pc also. So if it helps you sleep in your bed with the pretty sony sheets on them at night just pretend MS is buying these companies for their pc business.
4) Yes its always projection. Maybe you should spend some time looking at your posts and how you come across.
Lets make something clear. You are the one who made the inane premise that amount of companies MS purchased was too high for the amount of time that MS was in the video game business. You are the one who makes comments like
"How much of the industry does Microsoft need to consume in a Borg-like assimilation strategy for people's preferences to change?"
Lets be clear , Sony has always bought out companies also. You can argue as much as you want about the size of companies but that is just moving around goal posts. Why is it okay for Sony to purchase companies to address their short comings? Why can sony buy bungie to make up for their lack of gaas shooters ? Why can they buy Nixxes to start their non existant pc ports ? Heck isn't that Sony buying into an industry they aren't part of ? Hell maybe if Sony invested in their computer division instead of selling it off they wouldn't need to buy up successful developer ? It seems to me that the majority of the popular Sony games currently are from studios they purchased.
But yet its MS's that is the borg. It's MS that gets the negative connotation. It's Ms that has bought too much in too short of a time because of course you have to figure out a way to make it seem like Ms is the outsider. MS has been in the video game business longer than I have been alive . They have been in it almost 45 years.
Like I said , I think you should go back and review your posts and the negative connotations you always subscribe to ms. I don't think you are coming across as you think you are coming across
Diablo 4 was announced at blizzcon 2019
diablo imortal was announced in 2018
Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans To Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal
Yesterday, during a BlizzCon Q&A shortly after the announcement of mobile game Diablo Immortal, a fan in a red shirt approached the mic. “Just was wondering,” he said in a deadpan tone, “is this an out-of-season April Fool’s joke?” The audience cheered. It was just the beginning of a very long...
kotaku.com
diablo 4 was way into development by the time the immortal fiasco happened.
Is there any actual confirmation of that? Or was this just assumed?
Should be
“What makes the last couple of years different is the number, size and calibre of the independent studios that Microsoft, Sony, ea and tencent have expressed an interest in acquiring. “
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Well some youtubers say they played it at that blizzcon. There was also a 2 hour live demo from blizzcon 2019
I think that would be an amazing turn around for something developed in a knee jerk reaction to fan back lash from a year earlier.
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It's only natural esp with the world wide economic down turn. But at the same time i am sure we will see a bunch of small companies form
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
I completely agree. It is a little sad that it's preferable to buy entire companies than grow your talent internally, but that does take time. It seems like nobody has the patience to organically grow capability anymore.
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