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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Xbox head Phil Spencer discuss further acquisitions

THEAP99

Banned
My fellow PlayStation nation,

anywhere Sony sticks there nose now will be met with a one-up bid from The Giant. There is nothing they can do now, as there long time of cruising the quietude waters on the ship of success is coming to a halt. Except watch everything disappear from there platform as talent is sucked away left & right in the sudden night.
..

The end is truly nigh



 
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GetemMa

Member
People need to realize too that it was no secret that Zenimax shareholders have been intent on selling for years and that there was a lot of ill will between upper management and Bethesda.

Everyone thinks of Bethesda as this behemoth developer that was just printing money but the reality is that they haven't had a sure fire hit for about 5 years now and they have released a lot of games. Fallout 4 did well but 76 was a disaster and Starfield has gone through development hell and cost a shitload of money to make. Doom, Wolfenstein 2, Dishonored 2, Rage, were not big sellers and cost quite a lot to make as well. Quake Champions went no where and Elder Scrolls Legends did not really become the DCG hit that Bethesda had hoped it would so their entire GAAS attempt wasn't lucrative and probably cost a lot to implement.

Long story short, if Microsoft hadn't just bough them out Bethesda probably would have gone under some serious downsizing anyway. They probably still will undergo cuts. There is at least a hope that MS will now give them the money to still make games like DOOM and Wolfenstein and not just be the Elder Scrolls / Fallout studio.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
This is kinda my point. If you are into the console wars this is good. If not, not really. If you were an Xbox fan would you not rather have that 7.5 billion spent on new studios and games you never would have played without those new studios? You could still play Bethesda games AND you would get whatever 7.5 in new studios gets you. I hate buying third party exclusives and don't like when Sony does it. But this is a whole new level.
It's not as simple as just creating a studio from scratch and having them make AAA bangers, it doesn't work like that. It'd take 5+ years for them to get their first game out as they'd have to make an engine or use an off the shelf one and then customise it to their liking. Where is all the new talent coming from? Games take hundreds of people to make, and there aren't just hundreds of AAA quality game developers out there twiddling their thumbs.

What they can do now is expand existing teams and fund them to make even better and even more games, because they have existing talent and processes and management.
 
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MarkMe2525

Gold Member
If I think about how RARE has become kind of a totally different animals, or what happened with Bungie eventually and just things like that I have to ask....

Is it Microsoft that is ruining them or is Microsoft buying whats available to buy because its already devalued? (in those cases, not saying that about more recent ones)
Your looking back 15 years for rare and I couldn't tell you if bungie is worse or better off then when they were with MS. We have heard though from devs working at studios that have been aquired over the past few years.

Every single studio they have purchased since 2017 has all repeated the same thing, that MS has been hands off for the most part. It seems they are, as of now, just playing support and allowing devs to do their thing. Not having to worry about pushing a game out to keep the lights on is actually going to help the development.
 
Your looking back 15 years for rare and I couldn't tell you if bungie is worse or better off then when they were with MS. We have heard though from devs working at studios that have been aquired over the past few years.

Every single studio they have purchased since 2017 has all repeated the same thing, that MS has been hands off for the most part. It seems they are, as of now, just playing support and allowing devs to do their thing. Not having to worry about pushing a game out to keep the lights on is actually going to help the development.

I hope its all for the best. I mean let me be frank... I was on the fence about the series X, not sure yet. if the SEGA thing is true its a probable buy but
I own a One X and when I saw what a crap job 343 was doing, I was actually hurt, disappointed. I dont know what the oversight is but I feel like....
Come on. Whatever might be GAINED from being under MS - it isnt showing that well. Quantum break was like .... a flash in the pan and between
fable, and scalebound and shit being cancelled over time, I mean I get frustrated as anyone would.

I am not against buying literally everything if everything feels well done. I am trying here. And yeah I know its a LONG time to go back and you can
look at rare as ancient history or as a "criminal record" so to speak.
 
This really confirms something I have said in every single Phil Spencer thread. You can't build studios overnight. The damage done by Don Mattrick takes 10-15 years to fix minimum. Most Sony studios started out pretty mediocre, and put out entire trilogies of games that are mediocre. Only after constantly polishing their skills over a prolonged period of time, gaining experience, and confidence, promoting people with experience to higher levels in the company, and then training new people in the company culture - can they approach making metacritic 90+ games consistently. Even if MS starts a brand new studio, they have the time to make maybe 1 game by now. It's going to take years before they have any experience or a strong company culture.

What this shows everyone is that places that have spent the time to develop that long term experience, are becoming increasingly more valuable because you can't instantly replicate it. Nintendo's first party is irreplaceable, with continuity of employee experience reaching all the way back to the 70s. It's unmatched. Sony reaches back to the 90s. Xbox reaches back to 2010. And now, with HD games development taking longer and longer, that window required to get experience will be stretched out even further.
 
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junguler

Banned
a better more powerful xbox is good for all of us, even if you are a playstation fan, sony might feel the sheer pressure from all this good press for xbox and give their fans better service/prices as to keep them in their ecosystem. sure, loyal fans won't jump ship regardless but there are alot of people who went from x360 to ps4 and now a really juicy enticing xsx might make them go back or at_least buy an xbox too , especially with how good of a deal gamepass is.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Yes, I can read their financial statements as they are public. Revenue ain't profit.

Try finished middle school so you can read numbers as well. Also I was talking about MS's Xbox division.

What's your cut from MSFT's (as a whole) financial profits ? still on mommy's allowance ?
You've had a rough couple of days bud. Maybe take a break from videogames and the internet.

Remember, Sony is still gonna exist. Even if all the games are on Xbox and PC.
 

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
a better more powerful xbox is good for all of us, even if you are a playstation fan, sony might feel the sheer pressure from all this good press for xbox and give their fans better service/prices as to keep them in their ecosystem. sure, loyal fans won't jump ship regardless but there are alot of people who went from x360 to ps4 and now a really juicy enticing xsx might make them go back or at_least buy an xbox too , especially with how good of a deal gamepass is.
This. If series s does well, I would expect more aggressive pricing from Sony. I would love to pick up a ps5 DE in a few years for $299.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
My fellow PlayStation nation,

anywhere Sony sticks there nose now will be met with a one-up bid from The Giant. There is nothing they can do now, as there long time of cruising the quietude waters on the ship of success is coming to a halt. Except watch everything disappear from there platform as talent is sucked away left & right in the sudden night.
..

The end is truly nigh



065.gif
 

Max_Po

Banned
You've had a rough couple of days bud. Maybe take a break from videogames and the internet.

Remember, Sony is still gonna exist. Even if all the games are on Xbox and PC.


C R Y M O A R ... use some Vaseline on that buster butt-hola ... that was torn in this thread...
Any time you call out these clueless fan boys on their made up numbers and lack of knowledge their go to response it to associate you with the other party. I didn't mention SONY just called this clown out on his made up Microsoft Numbers.
 
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Mentat02

Banned
Microsoft needs to moneyhat fromsoftware to develop a game for their platform. Miyazaki games are a must have for any system.
 

IYAOYAS2019

Member
They tried for 20 years.... and failed..

Now just buy the competition out. .. its in their legacy.

Just drop the Xbox and buy SONY's PlayStation Brand.

You have a odd definition of failure. Feel free to explain to us what you think failure is.
 

Mentat02

Banned
They belong to Kadokawa corp, so very unlikely
I'm not saying to buy the studio. If they give enough cash to Miyazaki he is willing to create games. Activision straight up gave a bucket load of cash for Miyazaki to make Sekiro. fromsoftware can definitely develop a first party game for Microsoft without being a first party studio.
 

Ultraslick

Neo Member
Microsoft are truly going for the Netflix model, including a loss leading mentality in order to grow the user base at all costs. Smart. A very long term outlook which could take another 10 years to truly pay off.
 

Pallas

Member
It’s crazy that they purchased ZeniMax, but both sides obviously wanted to be together, since this deal has been in the oven for over a year. I’m not sure why some fans are terrified about this, especially those who enjoy Sony’s consoles. This really doesn’t affect the primary reason why all of you claim is the reason people purchase a PlayStation, and that is the exclusives. Sony still going to deliver those great games, just be happy Microsoft is PC as well, so you still wouldn’t need an Xbox to play potential future exclusive ZeniMax games.



After the last 7 years I find it surprising actual video game fans want MS to own all the studios and have that much control over the games industry.....
I don’t think anyone really wants Microsoft to own all studios but we always hear how Microsoft has no games, even after they purchase studios to make games, the narrative never changed. Maybe it will now?



My fellow PlayStation nation,

anywhere Sony sticks there nose now will be met with a one-up bid from The Giant. There is nothing they can do now, as there long time of cruising the quietude waters on the ship of success is coming to a halt. Except watch everything disappear from there platform as talent is sucked away left & right in the sudden night.
..

The end is truly nigh



Are you the same guy on Twitter that hates Xbox?

Nadella is singing a little song of his:
Nokia got fucked
Skype got fucked
Zenimax, you'll never guess what happens to Zenimax la-la-la

To be fair, Nadella wasn’t in charge. That was Steve Ballmer.
 
I just witnessed the first pages of the "Final Fantasy 16 the official Boy Band Game is exclusive to PlayStation 5" Thread, which is an absolute blast to read after Microsoft bought Bethesda :D

And I can already feel the fear of Microsoft's War Chest in the air from PlayStation Fanboys in this Thread ;)
 

Xaero Gravity

NEXT LEVEL lame™
Lol none of these acquisitions have necessarily paid off yet since they haven't released their major projects yet. How about waiting a bit before gobbling up a few more?
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
Lol none of these acquisitions have necessarily paid off yet since they haven't released their major projects yet. How about waiting a bit before gobbling up a few more?
They need a few that have projects not under contract coming in the next 6-18;months for content honestly. That they can release as gamepass-PC-xbox exclusives. That is the hole to fill now.
 

Kumomeme

Member
"You can't wake up one day and say, 'Let me build a game studio,'" Nadella said in an interview after the company announced its $7.5 billion cash purchase of ZeniMax Media, which owns several industry-leading game developers, including Bethesda Softworks and Id Software. "The idea of having content is so we can reach larger communities."

sigh..its sounds like they give up build up their own studio. Now they gonna resort to buying complete, existing, and successfull studio instead.

its like football. There 2 type of club. One is raise, create their own talent/player through academy and absorb it to main senior squad. Second is just buy senior star players from other club, collect them under one roof and create a strong line up in short time.

Both method has pro and cons.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Some of the key things Sony did during PS1 era that gave them a boost was buying Psygnosis (which at the time was a multiplat studio) and moneyhatting Tomb Raider so the sequels got delayed or didn't go to Saturn and N64. The first game was a big success on Saturn, PS and PC.

Psygnosis made game multiplat for a year into PS1 and then Sony seemed to cut them off from other platforms.

People don't know or remember this because back then nobody knew what was going with deals. All you had was whatever was written in game magazines.

In 1997 Core Design opened negotiations with Nintendo to release a Nintendo 64 version of the game, and started work on the port in anticipation of the negotiations being successful.[31] The planning took place between 1996 and 1997, with Douglas wanting to redesign the game mechanics to incorporate the platform's analogue stick controls.[20] The team never received Nintendo 64 development kits,[20] and the port was scrapped when Sony finalised an exclusivity deal to keep subsequent Tomb Raider games exclusive to PlayStation until the year 2000.[11][20]

Sony bought Psygnosis in 1993, and put up with Ian H doing his own thing for a few years, but as I wrote in my earlier post Wipeout 64 just pissed corporate off because they'd told him straight up not to talk to Nintendo. He did, and they removed him.

Thing is though most of the teams that had made Psygnosis a name in the first place had already started working for other publishers, DMA, Reflections, TT, all branched off, Bizarre stuck around longer but only because they had the money-printing F1 license. Once they moved that back in-house... it was off to Sega and MSR!

Basically they had F1 and Wipeout, nothing else really sold. That they never released another game beyond those 2 series past 2001 should show you what a clusterfuck that place was. Hell even WipeOut 3 was done at (if memory serves) the short-lived Newcastle satellite studio...

Don't mythologize the place. It really was a mess for a long, long time.
 
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quest

Not Banned from OT
sigh..its sounds like they give up build up their own studio. Now they gonna resort to buying complete, existing, and successfull studio instead.

its like football. There 2 type of club. One is raise, create their own talent/player through academy and absorb it to main senior squad. Second is just buy senior star players from other club, collect them under one roof and create a strong line up in short time.

Both method has pro and cons.
They built 2 and all they hear is people complaints why they are not producing games yet after 2 years lol. People are not patient enough for building from the ground up.
 
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DeaDPo0L84

Member
It's bothersome but at the same time we live in a country that allows it so I can't be mad. I have always bought the platform necessary to play the games I want to play and this doesn't change that. If we get to a point where Microsoft buys EA, Take2, Square, Sega, CDPR, and Activision then we can all agree it's a problem. As of now, this is simply Microsoft staying competitive the best way they currently know how by keeping future Bethesda games off a competitors platform.
 
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ZehDon

Member
sigh..its sounds like they give up build up their own studio. Now they gonna resort to buying complete, existing, and successfull studio instead.

its like football. There 2 type of club. One is raise, create their own talent/player through academy and absorb it to main senior squad. Second is just buy senior star players from other club, collect them under one roof and create a strong line up in short time.

Both method has pro and cons.
Prior to the Bethesda acquisition, they owned several large scale AAA developers that they built. Then, in 2018, they purchased several smaller studios with the aim to grow them. Now, they've purchased a raft of established studios. It sounds to me that Microsoft are covering their bases; small scale, medium scale, and large scale games. Then there's The Initiative - described as the first AAAA studio. Microsoft built that from scratch, so who knows what they're cooking up.
 
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jakinov

Member
Nadella is singing a little song of his:
Nokia got fucked
Skype got fucked
Zenimax, you'll never guess what happens to Zenimax la-la-la
Nokia is still alive. They acquired a specific business and not the actual company. Their phones were fine they just had the same problem they had before which was they only supported Windows Phone. Also Nadella was not the one that bought that business.

Nadella didn't buy Skype either. And with Skype they promoted the guy who ran Skype originally to a high exec role and was even runner up to be CEO. They pretty much let Skype do what they wanted and they did a piss poor job at adapting to the rise of mobile. The mobile apps were garbage before Microsoft acquired them and revamped them. They still aren't that good but they became at least usable. Skype for Windows had so many vulnerabilities that were since before Microsoft acquired them that they basically had throw away the old client and make a new one from scratch. Skype under Nadella for a period of time actually tried to innovate but by the time Satya was CEO, it was already too little too late because WhatApp, Messenger, Viber, Line, Telegram, wechat, or whatever else was available at the time with actual good mobile support were already multi million or multi-billion dollar companies.
 
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