Stadia, Google Game Streaming platform [2019-2021]

Would you not also argue that from Microsoft's perspective that Sony and Nintendo's existing exclusive first party content is not good for them (Microsoft) as a company?

I might be in the minority opinion on this with respect to the issue on acquisitions but I feel from a logical stand point that the reasons you object to an acquisition/merger should also be applied similarly to advocating to splitting up existing companies.

This is off topic but similarity I have this disconnect with people who are against another major merger that is undergoing scrutiny currently in the tech space but would not advocate the splitting of existing companies in similar circumstances (if anything cheering for them).

 

From Microsoft's perspective, they are stacked against two companies who have spent literally decades building their first party studios. There were acquisitions along the way but many organically developed in-house studios that were formed without removing anything from the free market.

Yes, 100% . And this is the position that the EU is now hardening on. Where it becomes complicated is it is relatively easy to assess the market impact of Microsoft buying Zenimax, you look at the games released over the past 5 years, looks at critical acclaim and sales on individual platforms, then picture the market where those games are not on other platforms - because there is no guarantee that will continue. It is much more difficult to picture the market if - for example - Sony was forced to allow Naughty Dog to become independent again. Would an independent Naughty Dog, denied almost unlimited funding from Sony, produce as good games? Even when they were independent the majority of their console output was on PlayStation anyway. Would that change? How would the be market be better? Or worse? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Absolutely, you can't have it both ways.

 

Some people have a favourite company that get "special treatment" and thus you arrive at that cognetive dissonans

I have pointed out before that I dislike the "walled gardens" of Sony and Apple in regards to people calling Microsoft a "monopoly"...but the bias kicks in and excuses start flying combined with "whataboutism"...the answer always seems to be "2+2=5"

 

This sort of surprises me. I think they'd still have technical developers available to work with outside devs on getting issues resolved. It would be catastrophic if all their techs were part of the first party studio which they have dissolved.

Oh, it may be even worse, since the outside devs were acquired by Google. I forgot that part.

 

They almost certainly have technical support but if nobody is familiar with the codebase, it could take months to sift through just to work out what the code is doing, let alone diagnose the bugs and fix them.

Going in cold on somebody else's code cold is absolutely the worst and the bug may not be in their code but in something in a library that is called.

 

It seems the game has been patched, but no details on how long the patch development was in flight since it was one of the launch games for Stadia. The entire article was updated, the new headlines now reads:

Google has now patched Journey to the Savage Planet, though its studio is no more
It was unclear who would fix the bugs, but they’ve been fixed now

https://www.theverge.com/platform/a...o-the-savage-planet-bug-issues-studio-closure​

 

Considering all those issues with chip making, if only MS could roll out XCloud faster, it could gain a lot of subscribers by this time.

 

Of course no companies wants competition or a level of competition that makes it harder to compete. But its not MS's job to create a more viable or friendly environment for its competitors.

Sony, Tencent and Nintendo are all 60-80% larger than MS by revenue. Both Sony and Tencent built up their publishing arm through acquisitions.

You don't think other big pubs see what MS is doing and trying to figure out how to be bigger or better.

A healthy market is usually built by the pressure of competition and not by trying to establish some type of harmonious collective.

 

I agree. This is the role of a regulator based on whatever their aim is for individual markets.

What separates Take Two, EA and Ubisoft from Sony or Microsoft is that the aforementioned publishers don't also own a platform where a considerable chunk of profitability (licensing games) comes from just existing. Games like GTA V are free money to platform holders. The economic situation for a software publisher is wholly different, they're not selling platform hardware or accessories with any kind of profit, nor subscription online services. Independent publishers are still competing with Microsoft and Sony for where consumers spend their money but those console manufacturer first party publishers are subsidised by the platform holder being able to charge licensing for independent publishers.

When you look at the economics of the console platform market, it looks like something the mafia would have created.

 

Revenue in what?

 

I'd guess games since Sony's FY 2020 revenue was roughly half of Microsoft's FY2020 revenue.

Regards,
SB

 

Gaming revenue

 

Oh, so Sony is making 20 bil. per quarter?

 

yes

what are the latest numbers of each companies gaming segment revenue?
I believe MS is larger than Nintendo, Sure if you count only consoles it will be smaller but MS also has a lot of PC stuff

 

I think 20 Bil. per quarter for gaming is not true:
• Sony sales by business segments 2012-2019 | Statista

This says ~18. Bill...for a full year.

 

Yup, it's ~$5bn revenue per quarter as of last year. Gaming had a bit of a boost from COVID-19.

 

Well yes its not true, but if you look at the posts I was quoting where it leads in from sony revenue is about half that of MS's (closer ~53%) and the 20 billion number (closer ~19 billion) they are talking about I assume the whole company. i.e. why would sonys gaming revenue be half that of MS's?

(numbers from wikipedia)

2020 MS revenue $143 billion
2020 sony revenue $ 76 billion ~19billion a quarter

Like I said gaming only its harder to get figures, from the above link
sony in 2019 was $18.19 billion
MS's numbers were $45.7 billion but this encompasing heaps of non gaming things

according to MS this 45billion is from


1/ Windows, including Windows original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) licensing and other non-volume licensing of the Windows operating system; Windows Commercial, comprising volume licensing of the Windows operating system, Windows cloud services, and other Windows commercial offerings; patent licensing; Windows Internet of Things (“IoT”); and MSN advertising.
2/ Devices, including Microsoft Surface and PC accessories.
3/ Gaming, including Xbox hardware and Xbox content and services, comprising Xbox Live transactions, subscriptions, cloud services, and advertising (“Xbox Live”), video games, and third-party video game royalties.
4/ Search.

 

76 bil. is a lot as it is half of MS while Sony has 10 times less market cap.

 

You also have to consider profit margin, Microsofts is much higher than sony. In the most recent quarter that we have numbers for microsoft has a 32.3% profit margin, compared with sonys ~9%

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...me-unit-stadia-struggled-to-be-googley-enough

Google’s Stadia Problem? A Video Game Unit That’s Not Googley Enough
The tech giant likes to test and tweak. Stadia promised to change the industry and failed to deliver.