I mean, to be fair, we're quite there well before Game Pass arrived. Industry and game consolidation, 'best practices', and game homogeniety are not the result of game pass entering the market. I think one could make a favourably strong statement that Game pass should technically undo that as the current risk reward system on video games is fairly terrible except for the handful at the top. As companies are paid with sustained long term income or a variety of deals instead of upfront. There are a great deal of many ways for a company to generate buzz for their next title by using game pass. The concept is pretty clear, there are too many games to purchase and play, letting more people try more games lets gamers find their games, and developers find their audiences.
Risk. It just comes down to Risk. Until there is a proven technology that would supplant consoles or there is a proven market to stream games on mobile, why does Sony need to be one to pave the way? They just need to hold firm and wait for it to arrive before releasing their own service. I'm sure they're watching this space keenly; I just don't think they're willing to go head first in yet without more information.
Acquisitions of companies won't fall under game pass which is a service. At the very least I would expect that much. Acquisitions like ABK can still be sold off, it's IPs sold off etc. Just because they paid 70B doesn't mean, that they aren't also holding onto 70B in asset value. The 70B to purchase ABK does not need to be subsidized by game pass.
Firesprite made multiplatform games like Persistence which was ps4/5 xbox / switch and windows and their new game is playstation only .
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www.theverge.com
If gamepass represents 100% of xbox profits this would probably make sense. If it's only representing 10-15% of profits, then I don't think this makes sense. ABK titles will still be sold as regular, in physical and digital formats, as well as multiplatform formats as well as profiting from MTX and DLCs.
It would be placed under Xbox Game Studios where all other acquisitions have been placed.
So what does this do the bottom line for Xbox? How many decades until it's profitable following this acquisition?
I’m not sure I understand that part. Profits is just revenues - expenses. Acquisitions don’t fall under expenses, just like buying a truck to move things on a balance sheet don’t fall under expenses. ABK must still have some form of asset class, it doesn’t disappear. Provided that MS holds onto ABK for at least a year and it’s value can fluctuate up and down, it is by definition an asset. ABK is not consumed. Provided it exists as ABK under Xbox Gaming it could technically be sold for more or less than the original buy price. If Xbox had a market cap, it would stay the same before and after the purchase because they spent liquid 70B to buy an asset worth 70B. In my eyes this doesn’t change. Profitability in my eyes is nothing more than whether ABK can make more profit than that same money invested elsewhere. Which in my mind would certainly be more profitable than trying to spin up 20 studios.
www.gamespot.com
www.eurogamer.net
The only company you are right about is Bungie. The rest are just as laughable made up arguments just as those you presented about Sony stealing Square Enix and Resident Evil 2
www.wsj.com
I would disagree with that but ok; we'll likely just agree to disagree on that. For two points that require separation: the first being if you need the money to operate because you're now operating at a loss or can no longer meet targets which in turns is negatively correlated with supply and demand; when you are in deep competition, if it was close, you'd likely not increase prices. The fact that over a year ago prices of games on Sony's platforms were upped and just recently they upped their console prices, while no one else has is still very much a sign that Sony don't GAF about what their competitors are doing about pricing because it has little effect to them. If Sony's is truly not operating off a market leading position, then the US console prices would have risen as well.There goes the argument that Sony is increasing their prices because of their market leading position:
Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says Price Hikes Are Coming, But Not Until After The Holidays
"I do think at some point we'll have to raise the prices on certain things..."
Also I am not sure if this is related to a change of plans after Activision was purchased but you are essentially buying a download:
Modern Warfare 2's disc has a whopping 70MB of data
Physical copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 contain a disc with just 72.23MB of data inside.
