Lmao this thread HS me rolling, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a console war combat sortie so this give me nostalgia and a strangely warm feeling to see 30+ fan lads going for blood. Thank you all.
Anyone who is a real fan of gaming better hope Microsoft’s strategy of acquiring publishers and pushing subscriptions fails. Microsoft is a good, profitable company for its owners but that has always come at a cost to its userbase. This is true with Windows, Office, and pretty much everything else they’ve ever touched. Game Pass isn’t trying to compete, it’s trying to put MS in the same place they are in the computing space: a middleman that gets a cut of all the software (and a sub no less). They aren’t interested in hardware, and it’s clear because they’ve offered Game Pass to be on other platforms. They are licking their chops at simply the thought about not needing to invest in hardware and just capturing the high margin income from digital distribution.
It’s ironic because that behavior will shrink the industry. Get everyone to sub to Game Pass, game sales fall dramatically across the board (who would pay $70, especially if it’s a day one on GO?) and devs realize they need to be on Game Pass if they want their games to be visible. Microsoft pays them for this up front and in return they are given power. Falling revenue from purchases and other platforms encourage less competition and scales well for Microsoft, leading toward industry contraction where an increasing percentage of revenue ends up in Microsoft’s pockets.
This is simply bad for the industry and blocking this acquisition is a good idea. If not Microsoft, Google and Amazon and Apple would be even worse. None of those companies understand gaming in the least. I dunno about you guys but I am not interested in the streaming wars happening with gaming, and with all of the services already it’s clear this is in the mindset of the industries biggest players.
What would be good for the industry, Microsoft and gamers as a whole, is for them to be competitive with Sony and Nintendo like they were during the 360 era. Aside from the hardware snafu, the software situation was never better for Microsoft. It’s funny how simple it is too: make excellent exclusive games in multiple genres, including a couple huge first party killer apps. Have a competitive advantage (XBL) that makes your platform better, rather than making others worse. Everything Microsoft has been doing since the XBone announcement disaster is anticompetitive when they should actually be doing what Phil keeps preaching: develop excellent games. I’d love to see Phil work at a company like Nintendo or Sony, not some tech conglomerate that just wants another revenue stream to pad margin.