Phil Spencer Interview: Redfall Reviews, Activision Deal - Kinda Funny Xcast Ep. 137

[Deleted member 11852]

That's an argument to let big business do whatever they want because they've got the money, which long-term means a corporate led world where the companies, not the governments, have the power. Syndicate was a cool game but I don't want to live it.

Multinationals will typically invest in a country because of a) tax benefits, b) because the talent will not relocate, or c) because that's where that part of the business needs to be. I've worked in industry (aerospace, defence) and government and at no point was where we need to put people an actual decision. Maybe this city or that city, but really between countries.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

To clarify: I just get tired of some posters claiming that "because this isn't the US" the CMA must be taken at face value and completely trusted. I'm not claiming the CMA is actually corrupt and taking bribes, just that they had an ideological bias against MS going in that they couldn't make stick on the console side, so that they made up this cloud nonsense instead. It's a bullshit reason to block. I also don't think it's going to stick in the end.

 

[eastmen]

A future balanced, competitive cloud gaming landscape with several players providing good competition and choice. That's the intention and motivation, and what regulation is supposed to be about (according to the CMA anyway).

That's an argument to let big business do whatever they want because they've got the money, which long-term means a corporate led world where the companies, not the governments, have the power. Syndicate was a cool game but I don't want to live it.

I don't think you get a future balanced and competitive cloud gaming landscape regardless of if this deal goes through or not. Sony has had 10 years in the market since purchasing gakai and has done nothing. Google already bowed out. Amazon is there with Luna and can tie it with twitch and prime and so they are there regardless. Nvidia is doing this as a side project and are just piggy backing off the games that are on steam that allow them to do so. All the small fries wouldn't be able to sustain themselves against any of these other companies anyway. Regardless of that MS bringing cod to the majority of these cloud services will increase appeal of them all.

I think you have to pick your battles. MS buying Activision a video game company isn't a battle that needs to be fought in the slightest esp not over a market that is so small it may not even exist in 10 years. I think the CMA should be more worried about Energy companies merging or medical companies merging or telecommunication companies merging and so on and so forth. The reason is simple. All of us on this forum can decide tomorrow to start a company and make a cod competitor or diablo competitor and so on and it takes comparatively little investment to do so. The same can not be said for all of us starting a pharmaceutical company or a telecommunication company. It takes as little as tens of thousands to make a game vs hundreds of millions to make any type of drug . It likely takes billions to roll out a new internet company or mobile phone company , heck likely hundreds of billions.

So yea this isn't the hill to die on for any country esp when you are the only country saying no and for such a tiny market. At the end of the day this isn't really going to affect anyones life in any real way. COD will be on sony platforms for the next decade , it will now be on nintendo platforms for a decade and on a host of streaming services it wasn't on before. Even in 2034 when these 10 year deals are over if cod is no longer on those platforms it will be as cheap as subcribing to xcloud or buying a sub $500 console or loading the game on your pc to continue playing .

 

[iroboto]

I don't think you get a future balanced and competitive cloud gaming landscape regardless of if this deal goes through or not. Sony has had 10 years in the market since purchasing gakai and has done nothing. Google already bowed out. Amazon is there with Luna and can tie it with twitch and prime and so they are there regardless. Nvidia is doing this as a side project and are just piggy backing off the games that are on steam that allow them to do so. All the small fries wouldn't be able to sustain themselves against any of these other companies anyway. Regardless of that MS bringing cod to the majority of these cloud services will increase appeal of them all.

Weird I see it the opposite.
There are already more cloud players than there are console players today. The COD deal would just bolster them further.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't think you get a future balanced and competitive cloud gaming landscape regardless of if this deal goes through or not.

Probably not. Not least because regardless what the UK does, if the US lets a player become enormous, or China, then that player who's international will dominate the UK scene too. However, the futility of the decision doesn't mean it's not an honest ruling by the CMA with good intentions. If they stick by their principles and fail, I applaud them anyway for at least trying to do the right thing instead of accepting we're doomed and rolling over to let the corporations win.

 

[Inuhanyou]

A future balanced, competitive cloud gaming landscape with several players providing good competition and choice. That's the intention and motivation, and what regulation is supposed to be about (according to the CMA anyway).

That's an argument to let big business do whatever they want because they've got the money, which long-term means a corporate led world where the companies, not the governments, have the power. Syndicate was a cool game but I don't want to live it.

People literally arguing for corporate dystopias are friggen wild bro. Elon owning Twitter did a number on people's brains

This timeline seems to be one of the worst ones

 

[iroboto]

People literally arguing for corporate dystopias are friggen wild bro. Elon owning Twitter did a number on people's brains

This timeline seems to be one of the worst ones

We are talking about cloud streaming here, and not even video games, but the fear of monopoly over the access to video games.

We aren’t talking about actual needs by people like healthcare, or giving away natural resources, politics, the worlds most used social media platform which is about messaging and reach.

We are talking about MS dominating the cloud access portion of video games. Not the video game market. Just the access.

I can’t lump these two together, there’s no equivalence because games, like many other non essential needs all fight for your time which is limited. Want to price it too high? Good luck with that. Everyone moves back to ownership, moves back yo watching TV, to free to play titles, to board games, to playing sports, insert hobby here.

We aren’t forced to play games, and we aren’t forced to do it through cloud streaming.

At the same price of Xbox game pass I could be on nvidia premium. I can play overdrive cyberpunk on cloud streaming for nearly the same price as XGPU. But here’s the real kicker, a 4080 is $1600 dollars. 8 years of streaming is $1600. Much better to go streaming.

 

[eastmen]

Weird I see it the opposite.
There are already more cloud players than there are console players today. The COD deal would just bolster them further.

Or it could just be like the console market. A bunch of small players orbiting bigger players until ultimately there are only 2-3 choices. I grew up when there were many console choices some generations had 5 to 6 consoles.

 

[eastmen]

Probably not. Not least because regardless what the UK does, if the US lets a player become enormous, or China, then that player who's international will dominate the UK scene too. However, the futility of the decision doesn't mean it's not an honest ruling by the CMA with good intentions. If they stick by their principles and fail, I applaud them anyway for at least trying to do the right thing instead of accepting we're doomed and rolling over to let the corporations win.

Isn't it Tencent then Sony then Nintendo and ABK + MS would come after that ?

Anyone of these companies can switch to pushing cloud first

 

[iroboto]

Or it could just be like the console market. A bunch of small players orbiting bigger players until ultimately there are only 2-3 choices. I grew up when there were many console choices some generations had 5 to 6 consoles.

That shouldn't be the case.

Cloud is hardware agnostic. Anyone can get the hardware required and spin up the games. That makes Nvidia, AMD, and Intel hardware desirable, and exotic hardware solution far too expensive. That should also make DX12 and Vulkan and such desirable for developers to continue to support.

You no longer need bespoke console hardware, thus the number of competitors in the space will go up not down.

 

[stu11]

That shouldn't be the case.

Cloud is hardware agnostic. Anyone can get the hardware required and spin up the games. That makes Nvidia, AMD, and Intel hardware desirable, and exotic hardware solution far too expensive. That should also make DX12 and Vulkan and such desirable for developers to continue to support.

You no longer need bespoke console hardware, thus the number of competitors in the space will go up not down.

Having to support Exotic Bespoke console hardware hasn't been a factor since the end of the 7th generation, outside of maybe sound and I/O hardware, and therefore is irrelevant. The last 2 gens of Xbox and PS have both been generic low to mid-spec PC hardware in a simple-to-use box and a walled garden. Nintendo Switch is nothing more than an Nvidia Shield Tablet with a novelty controller. I don't really see anything changing as far as hardware goes other than the Cloud providers being able to target hardware that is much higher spec and ultimately making it economically unviable to be able to run games locally in the future unless you are going to pay thousands of dollars for a system. The ultimate cost of cloud in a future where cloud dominates will be the likely elimination of being able to run games locally.

 

[iroboto]

Exotic Bespoke console hardware hasn't been a factor since the end of the 7th generation and therefore is irrelevant. The last 2 gens of Xbox and PS have both been generic low to mid-spec PC hardware in a simple-to-use box and a walled garden. Nintendo Switch is nothing more than an Nvidia Shield Tablet with a novelty controller. I don't really see anything changing as far as hardware goes other than the Cloud providers being able to target hardware that is much higher spec and ultimately making it economically unviable to be able to run games locally in the future unless you are going to pay thousands of dollars for a system. The ultimate cost of cloud in a future where cloud dominates will be the likely elimination of being able to run games locally.

True, it will come down to just compatibility, or rather backwards compatibility, that may be a better choice of words. Right now Xcloud are Series X consoles. But over time, I suspect it will just become something more like whatever Stadia was. And they'll support a variety of APis over that hardware, BC should be fine.
When the cost of local hardware is too high, that's when cloud dominates. Nvidia is there right now imo, it just doesn't make sense to buy new hardware after my 3070 is obsolete, but right now consoles in the semi-custom space is still affordable. AMD continues to make silicon affordable for the console space, but eventually, there will be a move to pure cloud with higher end hardware

 

[eastmen]

That shouldn't be the case.

Cloud is hardware agnostic. Anyone can get the hardware required and spin up the games. That makes Nvidia, AMD, and Intel hardware desirable, and exotic hardware solution far too expensive. That should also make DX12 and Vulkan and such desirable for developers to continue to support.

You no longer need bespoke console hardware, thus the number of competitors in the space will go up not down.

That isn't the case either. Cloud still requires large investments and continual investments to stay competitive in the market. It also requires unique content to take players away from larger companies like MS/Sony/EA/Activision/Tencent/ Nintendo.

 

[stu11]

When the cost of local hardware is too high, that's when cloud dominates. Nvidia is there right now imo, it just doesn't make sense to buy new hardware after my 3070 is obsolete, but right now consoles in the semi-custom space is still affordable. AMD continues to make silicon affordable for the console space, but eventually, there will be a move to pure cloud with higher end hardware

TBH I find the move to subscription/cloud gaming to be rather depressing. Taking away game ownership and consumer control and giving all the control to the giant corporate conglomerates. Instead of just being able to turn on a game console and play a game, it will depend on whether you've paid your bill to ABC Gamer Cloud and whether or not Comcrap ( or whatever ISP a person has) has decided to conduct "upgrades" to your connection. I don't think I'll bother thanks.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Isn't it Tencent then Sony then Nintendo and ABK + MS would come after that ?

None of them have the cloud infrastructure of MS and Azure. Being number one revenue generator from gaming is nothing like being able to dominate the cloud gaming market from already having a $gazillion international cloud infrastructure.

The iPod/iPhone wasn't invented for gaming, but it generates huge income from gaming. Apple didn't get massive gaming revenue because of their gaming credentials but their platform.
Likewise, the cloud wasn't invented for gaming but it has the potential to gain huge revenues from it.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

TBH I find the move to subscription/cloud gaming to be rather depressing. Taking away game ownership and consumer control and giving all the control to the giant corporate conglomerates. Instead of just being able to turn on a game console and play a game, it will depend on whether you've paid your bill to ABC Gamer Cloud and whether or not Comcrap ( or whatever ISP a person has) has decided to conduct "upgrades" to your connection. I don't think I'll bother thanks.

Game ownership legally disappeared years ago, for the most part you now own a licence to use a game and that licence can be withdrawn at any point. That said, nobody has really abused this although if you heavily invest in digital libraries and lose access to that library because of a hack, you'll quickly realise how screwed you are compared to owning a game on a disc for a console.

Acknowledging that the game ownership vs licensing situation is unlikely to revert any time soon, it would be nice if there were more options to "buy" games as we do now and run them on whatever remote hardware suits your performance/budget. E.g. swapping the PC under/on your desk for one elsewhere.

 

[iroboto]

TBH I find the move to subscription/cloud gaming to be rather depressing. Taking away game ownership and consumer control and giving all the control to the giant corporate conglomerates. Instead of just being able to turn on a game console and play a game, it will depend on whether you've paid your bill to ABC Gamer Cloud and whether or not Comcrap ( or whatever ISP a person has) has decided to conduct "upgrades" to your connection. I don't think I'll bother thanks.

There will be more options than just subscription services. Nvidia and stadia are both companies in which you pay for titles and only pay for the access.

Considering the rising cost of hardware, I largely suspect more people will be moving towards cloud than away. The reality is, like cars, your hardware is sitting there doing nothing most of the time much like our cars.

Shared services maximizes the usage of the hardware. Means you can serve more with less.

I’m sure 25 years ago before iPhone, if you told PC users that the majority of users would interact with the internet and applications using a phone and not a PC, most people would tell you no way, need a keyboard and mouse.

But times have changed so quickly, as will people’s opinion on needing to own the hardware to run games. Children will grow up playing on the cloud on whatever device they own wherever they are, and ask about how archaic it is to lug plastic around.

 

[troyan]

New Zelda sits at 97% Metacritics. Runs on a 300 GFLOPs console from 2017. Microsoft may or may not be able to overtake Sony but there doesnt exist any excuses for boring and/or bad games.

 

[cheapchips]

New Zelda sits at 97% Metacritics. Runs on a 300 GFLOPs console from 2017. Microsoft may or may not be able to overtake Sony but there doesnt exist any excuses for boring and/or bad games.

Game development is really difficult. No one sets out to make a bad game. There are 100 ways to fail before MS management help or hinder in that. You'd hope they know/learn how to be helpful.

 

[trinibwoy]

TBH I find the move to subscription/cloud gaming to be rather depressing. Taking away game ownership and consumer control and giving all the control to the giant corporate conglomerates. Instead of just being able to turn on a game console and play a game, it will depend on whether you've paid your bill to ABC Gamer Cloud and whether or not Comcrap ( or whatever ISP a person has) has decided to conduct "upgrades" to your connection. I don't think I'll bother thanks.

It’s inevitable and people will get over it eventually. As silicon costs rise it won’t make sense to have all that expensive hardware just sitting in everyone’s living room doing nothing all day. Cloud is a much more cost efficient solution from a hardware standpoint. Internet infrastructure and people’s expectations will evolve in time. I don’t see it going any other way as the cost of a cloud subscription will get more attractive as hardware costs rise.