Without a doubt, Bethesda for me has been the biggest let down in the last several years.
Microsoft rumored to be buying...... [2020-04, 2020-07, 2020-11]
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Without a doubt, Bethesda for me has been the biggest let down in the last several years.
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Bethesda annoyed some of their older, smaller fanbase to attract a new larger fanbase. I too would have liked to see an Elder Scrolls on this gen but I also want it to be a genuine leap forward in every way over Skyrim and I don't think it could have been that big a leap if constrained by this generation's consoles. Nextgen though, with decent processors and fantastic I/O to make loading a thing of the past? That is a hardware platform for Elder Scrolls VI.
StarField was always nextgen, this was part of the announcement of Bethesda's E3 2018 conference and was further clarified in an interview with Eurogamer. You can't blame Bethesda because you didn't listen to what they said.
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cheapchips
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I'm pretty confident stating the MS are not buying Bethesda or licencing the creation engine.
Moved most of the engine discussion to: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/the-scalability-and-evolution-of-game-engines-spawn.61872/
Moved Zenimax Lawsuit discussion to existing thread: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/zenimax-vs-oculus-lawsuit.59882/
https://www.windowscentral.com/warner-bros-interactive-entertainment-isnt-being-sold-yet
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment remains part of AT&T and isn't being sold yet
Maintaining the status quo for now.
Reports over the last couple of months have indicated that Warner Media parent company AT&T is interested in selling Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a gaming division that comprises studios such as Rocksteady Games, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions and more.
Activision-Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Take-Two Interactive were all reported parties interested in potentially purchasing the unit for anywhere from $2 billion to $4 billion. Now, it seems like that isn't happening, at least right now.
In a letter to all Warner Bros. employees, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar outlined his plan for organizing the company moving forward. While much of this has to do with elevating the role of HBO Max and making some changes to the company's structure, Kilar explicitly notes that the gaming division will remain part of WarnerMedia.
He writes that "Warner Bros. Interactive remains part of the Studios and Networks group", alongside several other brands that are "all focused on engaging fans with our brands and franchises through games and other interactive experiences."
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment remains part of AT&T and isn't being sold yet
Maintaining the status quo for now.
Reports over the last couple of months have indicated that Warner Media parent company AT&T is interested in selling Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a gaming division that comprises studios such as Rocksteady Games, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions and more.
Activision-Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Take-Two Interactive were all reported parties interested in potentially purchasing the unit for anywhere from $2 billion to $4 billion. Now, it seems like that isn't happening, at least right now.
In a letter to all Warner Bros. employees, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar outlined his plan for organizing the company moving forward. While much of this has to do with elevating the role of HBO Max and making some changes to the company's structure, Kilar explicitly notes that the gaming division will remain part of WarnerMedia.
He writes that "Warner Bros. Interactive remains part of the Studios and Networks group", alongside several other brands that are "all focused on engaging fans with our brands and franchises through games and other interactive experiences."
Not surprising, but disappointing. Although it doesn't preclude them selling later. It is possible parts may go piecemeal. I suspect they wanted to get this out there so they could announce the Suicide Squad game & anything else coming out at DC FanDome event on August 22.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
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Presumably WB wanted more money than anyone was willing to pay. It would be interesting to know what kind of numbers were flying around.
WB gaming is worthless without exclusive IP access.
MS could buy a dozen or two of small devs for the price of WB games and get a lot more out of those purchases
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Monolith created FEAR and FEAR2, not to mention No One Lives Forever and the sequel. Had they not had The Lord of The Rings IP, they could have come up wit something equally as good as Shadow of Mordor and Shadow or War. Probably better given they were undoubtably limited in terms of original story.
Ditto Rocksteady. They don't need the Batman IP to made a seriously good third person action superhero game.
But sure, just dismiss a couple of veteran studios.
IMHO No. Content is king no? No licensed IP & they have to start over from scratch.
Tommy McClain
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It depends what you value more the talent or the IP? Monolith and Rocksteady were clearly talented enough to be trusted with two of Warner's biggest IPs: Batman and The Lord of The Rings and the games were commercial successes. You don't need licensed IP to come up with good games. Look at Sony, the biggest licensing IP Sony got this gen (Spider-Man) they threw out to a third party developer (Insomniac) while their own teams worked on their own IPs.
Licensed IPs are good for insta-recognition but they come with restrictions about what you can do with characters and how long you can use the IP. When it's your own IP, you make the rules. Uncharted, Gears, The Last of Us, Halo, Horizon Zero Dawn, Crackdown, Infamous, Sea of Thieves, Days Gone, Forza, Gran Turismo, State of Decay. Established IPs are just that. Established. The Batman IP is 81 years old. IP behind The Lord of the Rings is 83 years old.
Monolith created FEAR and FEAR2, not to mention No One Lives Forever and the sequel. Had they not had The Lord of The Rings IP, they could have come up wit something equally as good as Shadow of Mordor and Shadow or War. Probably better given they were undoubtably limited in terms of original story.
Ditto Rocksteady. They don't need the Batman IP to made a seriously good third person action superhero game.
But sure, just dismiss a couple of veteran studios.
But thats the point. Yes Rocksteady made good games but look at the games.
2006 Urban Chaos
2009 Matman Arkham Asylum
2011 Batman " Arkham City
2015 Batman Arkham Knight
2016 Batman VR
I'm not going to count batman vr because its an hour long game. So in A 6 year period they put out 3 games which is about a game every 3 years.
Monolith fares better.
2005 - Martix online , Fear , Condemned
2008 Condemned 2
2009 Fear 2
2012 Gotham City impostors / Guardians of middle earth
2014 shadow of mordor
2017 shadow of war
So they have a much better release schedule there.
But what was the asking price. 2-6B ? How much do we think MS payed for Ninja Theory , Undead Labs , Compulsion Games , Playground games ?
Both of the teams you mentioned above are steep into licensed IP and Rocksteady is announcing a new DC ip game soon. So what's the deal for ? I think we could assume that if a purchase went through MS could release the suicide squad game that is rumored since it might release this year or next. But then what? Will WB want a new payment for the sequel? Would MS be in a bidding war for the IP for a sequel ? What about a game 3 years from release ? Will MS have to convert them to other IPs ?
Like I've said from the begining for MS they would need to get an exclusive IP license for as long as possible to make the deal worth it. Rocksteady may make great games but what about 4 or 5 smaller studios that also make great games. What would be best for MS's bottom line ?
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@eastmen I'm not sure what you're getting at here? That Microsoft need teams to bang out smaller games as quickly as possible? Why do Microsoft need licensed IP at all? Nintendo and Sony have rarely, if ever, relied on licensed IP for their own studios. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We know that Sony didn't approach Marvel for Spider-Man, it was the other way around.
We know that Sony didn't approach Marvel for Spider-Man, it was the other way around.
All companies need to produce content. Microsoft wants people to subscribe to their content platform. Sony and Nintendo don't really have that. Look at netflix. They started out with what 90-95% of content being other peoples stuff and each year they produce more and more original content. Look at their big shows they paid almost a 100m dollars to keep Friends streaming for another year on their platform. Now its gone How much content could they have made for that money ? Disney bought fox for 52B. It was to get all the fox content exclusive for their new streaming platform.
So does MS buy a huge developer like WB that has a few teams who have been tied up in other companies IPs for a decade or more. Or do they use that money to buy drastically more developers who are at different stages of building ip. Maybe WB would get them 5 or 6 dev teams with MK being the big IP draw there. But then those teams need new ip and not all the ip may take off. The rumor price tag was 2-8B at some points from what I've heard. What if MS bought a dozen smaller dev teams or two dozen smaller dev teams. They would be smaller games games maybe. But you have more chances for an IP to break out. With a dozen teams vs 6 from WB thats double the chances. With two dozen teams thats 4 times the chances.
So like I said what would former WB studios be worth without the IP that have made them big developers? Would they be worth 2B ? 6B ? Or in terms of devs would they be worth double or triple or more of other studio purchases for MS ?
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Sony does have that but their content platform is their entire PlayStation ecosystem, not just PS Now. Just looks at Sony's financials to see where the bulk of the revenue and profit is: Game and Network Services. Sony offer PS Now for those who want it and presumably it's not making a loss because Sony are pretty ruthless with business units that don't turn a profit.
This is a topic that came up in Alanah Pearce's "Is GamePass Bad for Developers?" video, which includes folks with games in Game Pass. The short answer is no, for Indies Game Pass is good but the consensus was Microsoft tend to churn out more games and faster, with an emphasis on GaaS, with AAA taking a back seat. So I guess it depends on what the console/service audience wants.
I do have room for more than one console (and a PC) in my gaming life and I tend to buy different games on Switch that PS4 except where sometimes I might buy a game on Switch instead of PS4 because of portability - the Lego games are a good example, as are JRPGs.
Except PS Plus doesn't need a constant influx of sony titles. People pay to play the big third party games online. Sony's biggest games are a single player experience and are there to sell themselves. PS Now is a small slice of pie for sony and required a price cut to grow. Not a good sign for a new service.
Not all gamers are interested in the same games. What were sony's big 2020 ps4 games ? TLOU2 and Ghost of Tusima ? Did they have mroe games? Anyway for this example lets say those were the two big sony games for this year. Lets say I'm not interested in them. Well Sony only has so many studios which means they can only release so many games a year. If i was a ps now subscriber looking at those releases would I continue to subscribe to ps now ? Now what if sony put out 6 games or 7 games in 2020. The chances there would be something I want to play increases. The chances of a string of games I want to play increases. So I'm not only more likely to subscribe to ps now but I'm more likely to continue subscribing. Its the same when a console first launches. Lets say I'm not interested in Spiderman. What game for ps5 will get me to buy it this year ? next year ? The more games sony can release in a given year the more likely people will want to purchase them and a ps5.
Thats my point with WB games. The cost for WB games without the IP related to it is not worth while for what MS wants to do. These are the studios they would aquire
- Avalanche Software
- Monolith Productions
- NetherRealm Studios
- Rocksteady Studios
- TT Games and its five subsidiaries
- WB Games Boston; Montréal; New York; San Diego; San Francisco
So my point as it has always been is how valuable are these studios without the WB IPs attached ? For 4B you can buy many smaller dev companies that have produced games at the same quality. Yes you might loose out on Rocksteady and Monolith but you can also end up with a lot of dead weight. For intance TT games has an animation studio.
I rather see MS buy smaller developers and grow them organically. I rather them have many chances to create a new beloved ip vs fewer. If 4B could be spent on studios there are many studios that money could buy. As I argue more than what they would get from WB games
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Making things cheaper generally does grow the user base. PS Now has been around four-and-half-years now, I think it's attractiveness has reached the majority of it's intended audience. More than anything I think PS Now is a technology bedrock for something PlayStation may do in the future. Only a fool would discount game streaming increasingly replacing local hardware over the long hall, just as music and video streaming has hammed music and DVD/Blu-ray sales.
As for not a good sign for a new service, I feel same about GamePass and can't see how Microsoft will grow the user base and profits without some compromise to ease up on what it's costing to keep games in. Bur it's a fledging business. We've yet to see how well xCloud will do but I'm really not expecting it to succeed any more than anybody else flogging the game stream dream.
I don't know what the cost is for the WB studios minus any transfer of licensed IP? I can't really engage in a discussion about value without know what monetary figure we're talking about. E.g. we know what Sony paid for Insomniac Games.
I agree, you can't just buy a bunch of talent and shove it together and make great games. It definitely needs to be grown organically and the studios need to organically develop a relationship with Microsoft. We read these accounts of Sony trust their teams to try new IP and that's really worked for them. Frankly, if I'be been Shuhei Yoshida and the Head of Guerrilla Games pitched me on a game about a redhead fighting robot dinosaurs, I feel my response probably would have been to tell him to fuck right off, then call HR and have him drug tested on the way out.
I think Microsoft's biggest threat now isn't Sony but that Nintendo may do something similar to GamePass. The Switch is an absolutely godsend for smaller indie titles, work work equally well on the TV and in your hand. Their relationship with Nvidia could also pay dividends in terms of streaming games.
1) 4 1/2 years and it will be eclipsed in user base by xcloud on its launch month. Sony needs to make some moves on the platform to continue to grow it
2) The rumored selling price that WB was looking for was 2-6B. That is a lot of money.
3) we hear it of MS now also. This isn't the Rare and Bungie days. Obsidian is very happy with MS and other companies have been happy with them. Apparently MS lets them function on their own. MS asked Obsidian what they wanted to do and avowed is what they wanted to do so MS funded it. MS also seems to be happy with the developers they purchased creating new offshoots to work on diffrent IPs. They don't seem to be forcing them to work on specific titles because they have sold well. I've also been told by friends in the companies that if you don't want to work on Gears you can move internally from the colation and move to a team doing something your interested in. Of course providing you have the skill set and are hire by that team.
Also
I think there will be another 4-5 developer purchases in coming.
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