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Xbox's biggest crisis right now isn't games. It's hardware. (Opinion - Jez Corden)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Once again you talk about it like the are owed the #1 place rather than having to, you know, compete for it. Are you going to tell me that they didn't get any market benefits from, say, experience with OS and the hardware architecture as well as the networking and cloud technologies that they use? It would make more sense to assume that if not for this they could be even further down, but you are not even counting it because they are not exactly on par with Sony. You gotta do better than to just dismiss this.
By the way, a paradigm shift is already happening. For a lot of people their phones are their primary computing and gaming platform, and while I'm not a fan of the practices in it, a significant change in the market is anything but unpredictable. The second largest gaming company is Tencent, a mobile-focused one. Mobile revenue has surpassed consoles.
But that says nothing of the consoles that we could have tomorrow. It used to be that SEGA was one of the biggest console manufacturers and Sony wasn't even in the market.
Sure, but what is the point here? The question here is whether Microsoft should acquire ActiBlizz. If it has enough capital for that, it's not going bankrupt. It would be a false dichotomy to treat acquisition and leaving the gaming market as the only two options. After all, aren't all the other companies they already acquired appealing enough? Or weren't they worth it? And if they weren't, why would this fix anything?
Even if Microsoft is not so interesting a platform right now, Sony cannot relax or they could catch up, like they did in the 360 era. The only thing lacking here are Microsoft's own efforts.
Well if you are concerned that the top player resorts to anti-consumer tactics, you shouldn't be defending that the playing field is "levelled" (only between two large players) through more anti-competitive and anti-consumer tactics. If you think it's shady that Sony paid to have FF16 as an exclusive, why are you defending that Microsoft does that to Starfield? At least when it comes to Sony, Microsoft could have outbid Square for exclusivity
Which I want to make clear, it can do. Because it has a lot of money, enough to buy Activision Blizzard, the 6th largest game publisher. It could be funding new studios, it could be playing from Sony's handbook, but they decided to one-up them instead by consolidating the market and taking away options from everyone else in a far more concrete way.
The ideal solution here, is that Microsoft's acquisition should be blocked but Sony should also be punished for anti-consumer tactics.
Not at all. I'm saying they have little chance of making Sony even sweat without the acquisition or something like it. Even after this deal, they will not be the #1 console. It will just be closer, and close enough that they decide to stay in the console business.
That seems to be a parallel market rather than one that would overtake it. There's a non-zero amount of overlap, and you can find plenty of examples, but there seem to be games built for mobile and games that aren't. If this is the paradigm shift you expect to shake things up, are you saying you expect Apple or Samsung to enter the console market?
You know how Spotify has exclusives besides Joe Rogan but still got Joe Rogan exclusive? It's the same answer. A bunch of smaller acquisitions move the needle a little bit each. One large acquisition moves the needle a lot on its own. In aggregate, they all make the product desirable. Microsoft needs to move the needle a lot to catch up to Sony.
Maybe now after this deal they can't relax, but they've been going down this path of requiring arbitrary upgrades from PS4 to PS5 in a way that Microsoft had not been, which is the kind of move you only make when you're relaxed enough to take advantage of your customers. Plus their own exclusivity deals.
Defending is the wrong word. Why do you think Microsoft has Starfield? Because they outbid Sony. This acquisition happened because they outbid Sony as well. At the scale that Microsoft is operating at, they may as well buy them outright; and word on the street was that Zenimax and Square Enix were both seeking to be acquired. Activision only makes like 4-6 franchises anymore anyway, so it's basically the same thing as buying exclusivity to those franchises but with more upside.
Exclusivity and studio acquisitions are both out of Sony's handbook. Microsoft just has a bigger pocketbook.
The ideal solution here is one that forbids exclusivity, but I have no idea how to do that ethically.
Again, when this has been in question at all? Does anyone really think the 4th largest gaming company is going to drop the market? Despite all that they already invested even before ActiBlizz?
We've just been talking of if it matters that Microsoft is a larger company in general, and here you are spelling it out like it's a gotcha at Sony, which, seeing as it will lead to more exclusivity, it's not even in your interest as a customer.
I'm just wholly baffled with the way people take Microsoft's side simultaneously like it's a desperate underdog and as if it would be a fool not to crush it all and take it all over with piles of money. As if whatever is more profitable and advantageous to them would be good for the customers losing options too. And that would be fair???
But seeems like you are set in seeing it this way and there's nothing I could say that would make any difference, so I guess I should just drop the matter.
To state one last time, my perspective is that all exclusivity sucks, but it's better that Microsoft buys them than for Sony to have an uncontested high-end console market. That is not me taking Microsoft's "side". It's me not wanting a monopoly.
Acquisitions are what leads to a monopoly.
Currently, these acquisitions are preventing one.
No they aren't. First of all, because Sony is not monopolizing the market. Microsoft is there and so is Nintendo. There is a difference between being a market leader and being a monopoly. Sony doesn't actually control SquareEnix, they can release games for different platforms, which they do. Octopath Traveler II is multiplatform, Dragon Quest Treasures is a Switch and PC release.
The horror scenario of Microsoft leaving and Sony dominating everything isn't going to happen. Xbox is just half as popular as Sony, which is still a sizable chunk of the market.
But lets say it goes as you wish, Microsoft bravely acquires most of the market to match Sony... and then they just keep buying. What do you get then? Microsoft will be able to just tell Bethesda and ActiBlizz not to release for any other console, and refuse any deals.
If you are a Linux user you should know that MS doesn't stop at what's reasonable.
Still, that's not saying that Sony is acting fine. Which is why I believe they should be prevented from making exclusivity agreements for games that aren't entirely funded by them.
Just because this acquisition was let through does not mean all future acquisitions go through. They're under too much scrutiny now.