Microsoft rumored to be buying...... [2020-04, 2020-07, 2020-11]

[liams]

tongue_of_colicab I was wondering, assuming Microsoft fixes things like localisation for the Japanese market, do you think something like xcloud would be a viable product in japan?
I'm not sure how popular western games are in japan. Also, do you know how the cloud version of games on switch was received, it's my understanding that cloud games on switch has been in Japan for a little while.

It seems to me that Microsoft sees more promise in South Korea than Japan, they expect to have a million gamepass ultimate subscribers in South Korea by, irrc 2025, according to some info that SK telecom released. This is, imo obviously why they got full exclusivity for the crossfire X campaign, its not even coming to PC, so if your a fan in South Korea you can play it through xcloud or buy a console.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't remember the iPhones struggling particularly compared to other smartphones.

This was back in 2008-2010. It started to pick up a little steam after that as people started to give up on Japanese phone makers making a good touch screen smartphone. The first year was absolutely brutal for the iPhone, however.

Samsung also wasn't in a great position back then as Japanese phone dominated the market. Apple being an American brand was more appealing to the Japanese market than Samsung which is a Korean. So Apple was able to better take advantage of the slowness of Japanese phone makers to not just adopt but to also offer a polished Android experience. Hence, they do relatively better in Japan than just about any other region in the world.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/29/15892640/iphone-anniversary-japan-success-emoji-history

Here's an article that talks about it a little bit. Japan's big mobile operators wouldn't even touch the phone initially. Softbank was giving them away throughout 2008 and most of 2009. But by 2011 it was selling well enough that KDDI contracted with Apple to start selling it and then later in 2014 it was selling so well that NTT Docomo had no choice but to start selling it as well.

So, Apple gradually implementing more things to make the phone attractive to Japanese customer's with Japanese phone makers being slow to adopt and implement a compelling Android experience and the rest is history and Apple now dominates the market there.

It also touches on how Samsung, Apple's biggest competitor worldwide, still can't really get its foot in the door due to being a Korean company.

I could have gotten one for free in 2008 and 2009 had I wanted one, but I decided I didn't need a smartphone (I still mostly don't but now I have one anyway). So I just used a nice flip phone while I was there.

Regards,
SB

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

In recent new Saudis bought SNK. Interesting.

 

[liams]

There was a rumor that there is a batch of studios that will be coming early next year, I guess Asobo isn't on the list as they just put A plagues tale on Amazons Luna

https://twitter.com/x/status/1309393217767514113

I wonder if Microsoft will start cultivating second party relationships again? I could see how someone like remedy might not be super excited about being acquired by Microsoft, but would be more than happy to do the next x number of games exclusive to xbox platforms.

Interestingly, Sarah Bond did an interview recently (link below), where she was saying that Microsoft are in unique position of being a large tech company with a long history in gaming. (paraphrasing), and that their direct competition in the gaming space is tencent, (paraphrasing again). I wonder if Microsoft will start investing into gaming companies like tencent does? 10% here, and there, with a right to match any acquisition offer that the company got to acquire them seems like a great plan, just to ensure they can guarantee that studios who want to remain independent wont get gobbled up by someone else. They wouldn't even need to make exclusive games or anything.

 

[cheapchips]

There was a rumor that there is a batch of studios that will be coming early next year, I guess Asobo isn't on the list as they just put A plagues tale on Amazons Luna

Any prospective purchase will carry on as per usually until a deal is agreed. It's not an indication of anything either way.

 

[see colon]

Any prospective purchase will carry on as per usually until a deal is agreed. It's not an indication of anything either way.

Right. It's not like Phill just woke up one a Tuesday and bought Zenimax, there must have been a long discussion to get to such a large number. Further, Zenimax must have been agreeable to the sale, if not outright looking for a buyer. Yet Bethesda was signing contracts to make PS5 exclusives at the same time.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

In general, whenever mergers, buyouts, or the sale of a company is being looked into or negotiated, everyone not involved in the negotiations isn't going to know about it until the deal is done.

A company I worked for at the turn of the century was purchased by another company. Not a single person at the site I worked for knew about it until we received an e-mail letting us know that we were now part of X company and such and such was how our stock would be converted, etc.

Generally the only time you hear about these things prior to an agreement being reached is if someone leaks information on it. But these industry probes of interest happen all the time and likely significantly less than 1% of the time, information leaks about X company looking to buy Y company. Or even if Z company is shopping around for a buyer.

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Trololololo...

 

[eastmen]

Eastmen, if you don't mind me asking..
You've made some hints here and there about acquisitions you think Microsoft are going to make,
the most recent was $2 B for something eastern, and the other was that you thought Microsoft were looking at someone else at $10 B and someone at around $5B

Is the $2B for something eastern the $5B acquisition you were referring too? or are Microsoft pursuing 3 separate billion-dollar acquisitions in gaming from what your hearing?
And could you clarify if something eastern means a studio/publisher in Asia? I just ask because Phil said that he saw Russia/Eastern Europe as an area of potential growth, which is why the got STALKER 2 going. Something Eastern could mean Eastern European, not just Japan/Asia


Thanks for the clarification, I enjoy wildly speculating

5 is the number your looking for. But some of it is just talks right now some of it is further along. I think the video game awards is too soon but we should hear something in q1 2021 i think if the deals push ahead

 

[liams]

5 is the number your looking for. But some of it is just talks right now some of it is further along. I think the video game awards is too soon but we should hear something in q1 2021 i think if the deals push ahead

Thanks for the clarification, seems Microsoft is juggling a lot at the moment, its going to be a very interesting gen!

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Trololololo...

View attachment 5011

Poor hedgehog. If I see a hedgehog in the forest, it means Sega purchase is near

 

[eastmen]

Thanks for the clarification, seems Microsoft is juggling a lot at the moment, its going to be a very interesting gen!

I've stated that I was told that they want to be able to turn out big AAA games every few months for game pass and then some sprinkling of smaller titles. They want game pass to be something like office where you subscribe and never cancel. To do this they need to have a large amount of studios

MS is making a lot of money on their subscriptions

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

MS is making a lot of money on their subscriptions

Is MS hough? I mean MS of course has additional stream of revenue from selling the games, but I cannot believe MS makes tons of money from subscriptions with the current 15kkk people.

 

[liams]

Is MS hough? I mean MS of course has additional stream of revenue from selling the games, but I cannot believe MS makes tons of money from subscriptions with the current 15kkk people.

he's talking about things like office/microsoft 365, and how much revenue that makes for them. Office 365 revenue was $20 billion this year

 

[eastmen]

Is MS hough? I mean MS of course has additional stream of revenue from selling the games, but I cannot believe MS makes tons of money from subscriptions with the current 15kkk people.

he's talking about things like office/microsoft 365, and how much revenue that makes for them. Office 365 revenue was $20 billion this year

as Liams points out , I am indeed talking about their other subscription services.

Look at it this way. MS had stores and they were forced to close them for a duration during covid. Those employees moved to selling and supporting microsoft 365 , project , visio and other software. The stores suddenly became super profitable despite them not being open and ms decided to just close the stores and keep the staff selling and supporting m365.


I believe Game pass ultimate is $200 a year correct ?

So just think of the profits if they can get 10m subscribers or 20m or 50m subscribers paying $200 a year for a subscription. They also know that people in aggregate don't cancel yearly subscriptions if there is one or two misses in the line up. Most just keep the subscription rolling .

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

as Liams points out , I am indeed talking about their other subscription services.

Look at it this way. MS had stores and they were forced to close them for a duration during covid. Those employees moved to selling and supporting microsoft 365 , project , visio and other software. The stores suddenly became super profitable despite them not being open and ms decided to just close the stores and keep the staff selling and supporting m365.


I believe Game pass ultimate is $200 a year correct ?

So just think of the profits if they can get 10m subscribers or 20m or 50m subscribers paying $200 a year for a subscription. They also know that people in aggregate don't cancel yearly subscriptions if there is one or two misses in the line up. Most just keep the subscription rolling .

The problem is that unlike gaming, office does not require a lot of teams to support and develop it. And it doesn't cost as much to develop - after all they are essentially enhance the existing office suite.
In gaming you have to spend money on the cost while in office you basically earn profits on DLCs

 

[cheapchips]

The problem is that unlike gaming, office does not require a lot of teams to support and develop it. And it doesn't cost as much to develop - after all they are essentially enhance the existing office suite.
In gaming you have to spend money on the cost while in office you basically earn profits on DLCs

The development team for Office in 2017 was apprently around 400. I'd expect the support, services and sales teams to be relatively huge. It's a different model to Gamepass.

 

[eastmen]

The problem is that unlike gaming, office does not require a lot of teams to support and develop it. And it doesn't cost as much to develop - after all they are essentially enhance the existing office suite.
In gaming you have to spend money on the cost while in office you basically earn profits on DLCs

The development team for Office in 2017 was apprently around 400. I'd expect the support, services and sales teams to be relatively huge. It's a different model to Gamepass.

Yea Office is a huge project and now they have added in one drive , teams and a host of other features and services into Office which is why its now Microsoft 365

 

[BillSpencer]

Is MS hough? I mean MS of course has additional stream of revenue from selling the games, but I cannot believe MS makes tons of money from subscriptions with the current 15kkk people.

Don't pretty much all their titles feature white protagonists? I don't see why kkk people would take any issue with that...
(j/k)

Personally I would love if MS bought Ubisoft; their titles seem like perfect gamepass candidates; the games are often very, very inflated to the point of needing weeks with one title because if you play more than 2 hours a day you become really sick of the repetition and tediousness.
For gamepass though, this means that people stay subscribed for multiple months, and that is a big win for MS.
A very big bonus would also be MS not needing to worry that potential future splinter cell, assasins creed, farcry and other titles look or perform better on PS5

 

[cheapchips]

Don't pretty much all their titles feature white protagonists? I don't see why kkk people would take any issue with that...
(j/k)

Personally I would love if MS bought Ubisoft; their titles seem like perfect gamepass candidates; the games are often very, very inflated to the point of needing weeks with one title because if you play more than 2 hours a day you become really sick of the repetition and tediousness.
For gamepass though, this means that people stay subscribed for multiple months, and that is a big win for MS.
A very big bonus would also be MS not needing to worry that potential future splinter cell, assasins creed, farcry and other titles look or perform better on PS5

Ubisoft are an interesting one. They've resisted buyouts from EA before. If the Guillemot family have had enough then guess there's the possibility of a sale. 18,000 employees would make that a rather large addition to MS Game Studios.

Ubisoft face the same challenges with finding audiences for big budget titles as everyone else. That seems to be behind Bethesda's decision to sell to MS. Ubisoft are making money though.