Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

[Talk Show Host]

7 minutes ago, JPL said:

When is the decision on this deal going to be reached? Is there a set time it has to be done by?

I think final date for CMA is 22nd of May. But there are other hoops as well after that.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I think the easy answer is Wii U. You don’t get to fail that badly and then expect full support on your next console, not even if you’re Nintendo. COD was on their previous consoles of course, so it’s not as if they’ve always ignored that audience. 
 

I think we also have to concede that there’s not enough love nor money in the world to get some games running on a platform like Switch - not unless you’re tech wizards like Id. 

 

There are games now that don’t run on Steam Deck, like Returnal  but I think as we head not the next generation of portable platforms such as Switch 2, and Steam Deck, it’s likely developers will not get caught out this time and make

more of a concerted effort. I realise I am biased because that’s how I like to play my games, I’m all about mobile and hybrid consoles - and I think (hope) it’s the start of a fantastic new era for PC gaming. 

 
Why is the argument that some big games not coming to Switch a negative argument of sorts? Nintendo doesn’t need those big games to be successful or even being a market leader. Shouldn’t that be viewed as an absolute positive?

[Gabe]

2 minutes ago, Talk Show Host said:

Why is the argument that some big games not coming to Switch a negative argument of sorts? Nintendo doesn’t need those big games to be successful or even being a market leader. Shouldn’t that be viewed as an absolute positive?

Again, why are you focusing on whether Nintendo need it or it is good for them? Nobody is talking about whether Nintendo need CoD (indeed, the view has been 'Of course they don't', which is completely obvious).

 

But for a consumer, if you like those games and previously played them on another console, then the Switch not having them is a negative for you if that is now the only device you have; if you don't care for those games then it doesn't matter either way.

[Stanley]

43 minutes ago, Talk Show Host said:

Why is the argument that some big games not coming to Switch a negative argument of sorts? Nintendo doesn’t need those big games to be successful or even being a market leader. Shouldn’t that be viewed as an absolute positive?

it’s not the argument, it’s just a side talk triggered by discussing whether they [Nintendo] even occupy the same market.

[Talk Show Host]

1 hour ago, Gabe said:

Again, why are you focusing on whether Nintendo need it or it is good for them? Nobody is talking about whether Nintendo need CoD (indeed, the view has been 'Of course they don't', which is completely obvious).

 

But for a consumer, if you like those games and previously played them on another console, then the Switch not having them is a negative for you if that is now the only device you have; if you don't care for those games then it doesn't matter either way.

 

Yeah, I agree. If you care about those games though, getting a Switch for them was not a good choice to begin with. The reason is, as a gamer seeking those games, you do not matter for Nintendo as much, otherwise they would do anything they could to get you those games. And sometimes they do, and other times they don't. Which means they are not bound by the CoDs and GTAs of the world, hence why their audience is quite different and therefore not a direct competitor. 

 

But not because they are doing worse, but because their doing much better.

[Stanley]

It may not be Nintendo though, maybe AB didn’t bother for reasons of their own. Clearly Nintendo would like it because they’ve struck a deal with MS precisely to being it to their platform. 

[Isaac]

1 hour ago, Talk Show Host said:

 

Yeah, I agree. If you care about those games though, getting a Switch for them was not a good choice to begin with. The reason is, as a gamer seeking those games, you do not matter for Nintendo as much, otherwise they would do anything they could to get you those games. And sometimes they do, and other times they don't. Which means they are not bound by the CoDs and GTAs of the world, hence why their audience is quite different and therefore not a direct competitor. 

 

But not because they are doing worse, but because their doing much better.

 

It depends on the metric. Sony and Microsoft make more revenue - significantly more in Sony's case. Nintendo are just more profitable. 

 

Which sure, you could say 'profit is king', except it's not if you're continuously hunting growth, like Sony and Microsoft are.

 

Here are the figures I'm referring to for 2021 (the most up-to-date full year available), gaming units only:

 

Sony:

Revenue: $24.87 billion

Operating Income: $2.63 billion

 

Microsoft:

Revenue: $16.28 billion

(Don’t report gaming segment profit)

 

Nintendo:

Revenue: $15.3 billion

Operating Income: $5.4 billion

 

So sure, Nintendo make the most profit, but that's because they have to. They cannot afford to continuously reinvest profits as their gaming division is all they have - if they don't make significant profits they are absolutely fucked. Whereas Microsoft and Sony can use profits from other divisions and business streams to prop up the gaming side of the business, and continuously pump money into chasing increasingly more revenue.

 

It's not as simple as "Nintendo are doing much better". Nowhere near that simple.

 

 

[MNFRMTMRRW]

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all competing for the same pockets of players and strive for an as large as possible market share. So do Apple and Google, although not as publisher. That they have different strategies and focus demographics to get there does not suddenly stop them from being competitors. That some players fall for Sony’s ridiculous statement that Nintendo isn’t is laughable.

 

Remember Horizon’s lackluster launch and reviews (measured against BOTW as benchmark), which everyone including Guerrilla and Sony blamed on launching head to head with BOTW? That’s called competition. 

 

 

 

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, MNFRMTMRRW said:

Remember Horizon’s lackluster launch and reviews (measured against BOTW as benchmark), which everyone including Guerrilla and Sony blamed on launching head to head with BOTW? That’s called competition. 

 

 

 

Well that’s just fanboy talk really isn’t it. Horizon is a very strong brand for Sony and it performed well. Microsoft would kill for a Horizon, and I would very much like a game of that stature from them too. 
 

That’s what gets me down with them. All that fucking money and we still haven’t even had the first game they ever announced for Series X (Hellblade II) and the rest of them. 
 

18 months between tentpole titles is what’s stopping them being competitive, not COD. 

[Talk Show Host]

1 hour ago, Isaac said:

 

It depends on the metric. Sony and Microsoft make more revenue - significantly more in Sony's case. Nintendo are just more profitable. 

 

Which sure, you could say 'profit is king', except it's not if you're continuously hunting growth, like Sony and Microsoft are.

 

Here are the figures I'm referring to for 2021 (the most up-to-date full year available), gaming units only:

 

Sony:

Revenue: $24.87 billion

Operating Income: $2.63 billion

 

Microsoft:

Revenue: $16.28 billion

(Don’t report gaming segment profit)

 

Nintendo:

Revenue: $15.3 billion

Operating Income: $5.4 billion

 

So sure, Nintendo make the most profit, but that's because they have to. They cannot afford to continuously reinvest profits as their gaming division is all they have - if they don't make significant profits they are absolutely fucked. Whereas Microsoft and Sony can use profits from other divisions and business streams to prop up the gaming side of the business, and continuously pump money into chasing increasingly more revenue.

 

It's not as simple as "Nintendo are doing much better". Nowhere near that simple.

 

 

 

My examples of how good Nintendo is doing were based on the path they have chosen. They are all in context because different things matter for different companies, as you point out. That is why I said above that all this is based on how successful the strategies will be. At the moment Nintendo is the only one doing extremely well without the big 3rd party hitters the other two need. These games do not matter for their platform, they are just a great bonus. If you add to this their incredible numbers and profits, brand awareness and normal development costs, it is easy to see why they are doing better and why Sony, for example, is scared to death by this acquisition.

 

They have no out, like Nintendo has.

 

[Talk Show Host]

15 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Well that’s just fanboy talk really isn’t it. Horizon is a very strong brand for Sony and it performed well. Microsoft would kill for a Horizon, and I would very much like a game of that stature from them too. 
 

That’s what gets me down with them. All that fucking money and we still haven’t even had the first game they ever announced for Series X (Hellblade II) and the rest of them. 
 

18 months between tentpole titles is what’s stopping them being competitive, not COD. 

 

Unfortunately they didn't seem well prepared for the acquisition. They haven't really paved the way properly or lobbied enough, so this is taking forever. 

 

And they can't really make any announcements or even plan properly before AB is in the bag. 

[mushashi]

22 hours ago, Gabe said:

So it isn't therefore unreasonable to suggest that publishers themselves don't see the Switch operating in the same battleground as the Xbox and PS.

 

Precisely, if Nintendo stopped selling consoles tomorrow, most of the major Western Independent Third Party publishers wouldn't exactly have a gaping hole in their financials as Nintendo is a small proportion of their business. The majority of expensive big budget games target Sony & Microsoft controlled hardware platforms only, which is the type of game these publishers dominate the market for.

 

The Microsoft Windows OS PC and mobile aren't also direct competitors to either company, hence why they have no problem supporting both of those markets, it's not a net negative for either party, unlike supporting your direct rival's console box.

 

Call of Duty is the biggest selling game in the US and 2nd biggest in the UK, so unsurprisingly, the competition authorities of both countries have concerns. And these are also the 2 countries where Microsoft is the closest to Sony in terms of market share, hell Microsoft actually managed to beat both Sony and Nintendo with the Xbox 360 in both countries!

[mikeyl]

4 hours ago, Stanley said:

18 months between tentpole titles is what’s stopping them being competitive, not COD. 

Yeah, and the mad thing would be Gamepass would just be a centred on CoD, the big winter release will be CoD, why bother giving as a decent Halo, you’ll have a new tentpole now. The takeover cheerleaders activity hoping for less choice, at least at the moment we can choose to avoid CoD.

[SeanR]

Imagine replacing the Xbox front end with whatever they call that shitty COD launcher… 

[Stanley]

8 hours ago, mushashi said:

 

Precisely, if Nintendo stopped selling consoles tomorrow, most of the major Western Independent Third Party publishers wouldn't exactly have a gaping hole in their financials as Nintendo is a small proportion of their business. The majority of expensive big budget games target Sony & Microsoft controlled hardware platforms only, which is the type of game these publishers dominate the market for.

 

The Microsoft Windows OS PC and mobile aren't also direct competitors to either company, hence why they have no problem supporting both of those markets, it's not a net negative for either party, unlike supporting your direct rival's console box.

 

Call of Duty is the biggest selling game in the US and 2nd biggest in the UK, so unsurprisingly, the competition authorities of both countries have concerns. And these are also the 2 countries where Microsoft is the closest to Sony in terms of market share, hell Microsoft actually managed to beat both Sony and Nintendo with the Xbox 360 in both countries!

If Nintendo stopped selling consoles tomorrow there would be less choice and the market would become less competitive. It’s not about which games are on which consoles. 

[thesnwmn]

30 minutes ago, Stanley said:

If Nintendo stopped selling consoles tomorrow there would be less choice and the market would become less competitive. It’s not about which games are on which consoles. 

 

What even is "it's" at this point?

[Stanley]

32 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

What even is "it's" at this point?

Good question 

[bear]

https://www.ft.com/content/7707705e-b288-4531-b30d-7fa993325018

 

 

Quote

Microsoft is preparing to launch a new app store for games on iPhones and Android smartphones as soon as next year if its $75bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard is cleared by regulators, according to the head of its Xbox business. New rules requiring Apple and Google to open up their mobile platforms to app stores owned and operated by other companies are expected to come into force from March 2024 under the EUs Digital Markets Act.

“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” said Phil Spencer, chief executive of Microsoft Gaming, in an interview ahead of this week’s annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”

I know this has been rumoured but I believe that's the first public confirmation from Microsoft that they want to put an Xbox store on iOS and Android. 

[bear]

13 hours ago, Talk Show Host said:

 

Unfortunately they didn't seem well prepared for the acquisition. They haven't really paved the way properly or lobbied enough, so this is taking forever. 

 

And they can't really make any announcements or even plan properly before AB is in the bag. 

When they announced the deal they said they expected it to be completed by the end of June 2023. Hard to say it's taking forever when it could still be done by then. 

[Stanley]

Strangely worded that isn’t it, I mean why would this be determined by whether their AB acquisition goes through? 

[bear]

Presumably because having the likes of Candy Crush and Call of Duty on their store from day one would make it much more appealling.

[Stanley]

5 minutes ago, bear said:

When they announced the deal they said they expected it to be completed by the end of June 2023. Hard to say it's taking forever when it could still be done by then. 

Yeah, and it’s don’t really understand why it would have any effect on their other releases either, it’s not like they need to

to put COD on their service before they can do anything else. Unless I misunderstood what @Talk Show Hostmeant. 

[bear]

3 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Yeah, and it’s don’t really understand why it would have any effect on their other releases either, it’s not like they need to

to put COD on their service before they can do anything else. Unless I misunderstood what @Talk Show Hostmeant. 

I think they meant that MS had no choice but to sit on their hands while Square Enix sold off Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider. If the Activision deal wasn't going through then you'd have thought MS would be first in line to buy them when they got the chance. 

[Talk Show Host]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

Yeah, and it’s don’t really understand why it would have any effect on their other releases either, it’s not like they need to

to put COD on their service before they can do anything else. Unless I misunderstood what @Talk Show Hostmeant. 

I think their entire plan was based on using AB titles and its exclusives to fill the gap until their own productions start coming (it’s understandable that it’s being taking a while since you need minimum 4-5 years for a proper AAA, especially new IPs). I also think that the new Elder Scrolls has been wiped clean and production has been restarted as well.

 

But now that AB has been taking a year to go through, their hands are tight. It feels like Microsoft just wanted something “quick” to expand game pass and thought it would be a great idea to go after AB until their production pipeline would be ready to go. 
 

Tturns out that completing the biggest acquisition in the history of histories is a little more complicated than that.😜

[Stanley]

Oh yeah I get that AB titles would plug gaps, but it still doesn’t answer the question of just where the hell all their games are that seem to be stuck forever in development hell. 
 

You know, what about that RPG that looked a bit like Skyrim. I was really looking forward to that one and we have had not a single word on it, or Rare’s game, State of Decay 3, etc.

[RubberJohnny]

They're all apparently in development hell.

 

I think after the previous guy micromanaged studios like Lionhead to death with their chasing-the-zeitgeist requirements, they backed off and tried giving them full creative control and independence - there's some stuff in the Psychonauts documentary about what the terms of those acquisitions was and it was basically this.

 

Unfortunately that didn't work out either, it just ended up with a bunch of games getting stuck in development hell or being overambitious, or not having a strong design locked in and rebooting, which isn't great when you've got a new console out and need titles in the first few years to drive adoption.

 

There's a reason they've been acquiring publishers and it's because they need that publishing side experience, it's notable how much better Bethesda have been at putting the games out than their own internal studios, despite them being roughly equal in size.

[LaveDisco]

15 minutes ago, Talk Show Host said:

(it’s understandable that it’s being taking a while since you need minimum 4-5 years for a proper AAA, especially new IPs)

 

That doesn't explain this issue lasting since almost the launch of xbox one though.

[Isaac]

It turns out shipping modern, AAA games is really, really hard.

 

Who knew?

[footle]

48 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Oh yeah I get that AB titles would plug gaps, but it still doesn’t answer the question of just where the hell all their games are that seem to be stuck forever in development hell. 
 

You know, what about that RPG that looked a bit like Skyrim. I was really looking forward to that one and we have had not a single word on it, or Rare’s game, State of Decay 3, etc.

games take a long time to make. 
 

there were five years between God of War Ascension and God of War (the remake).

 

there were four years between God of War (the remake) and God of War Ragarnok despite them using what was presumably the same underlying engine.

 

the “troubled development of Halo Infinite” took six years with a pandemic in the way (so only one year longer than God Of War, which didn’t have the pandemic and was only targeting one platform).

avowed was announced with a brief snippet of footage in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. You’d imagine it’s using new art, new gameplay, an engine that’s significantly more capable than The Outer Worlds (also version 2 announced then with a logo).

 

Wolverine was announced in 2021, and none of us are expecting that next year!

 

(the one I’d agree with you on is Forza Motorsport, and I wonder how much its delays are linked to performance on the Series S)

[SeanR]

Reboot. 

[footle]

4 minutes ago, SeanR said:

Reboot. 

I knew there was a word!