Microsoft CEO Nadella: ZeniMax/Bethesda acquisition is "all about future of software", will consider buying even more video game companies in future

[Ripcord]

I hate that you're assuming that people are complaining because they "want Sony to dominate". There are legitimate reasons to be worried or angry about this, we don't need edglelords telling us how dumb we are for being concerned.

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Nah, I'm not assuming people are complaining because they want Sony to continue dominating the aaa console space, I'm watching Sony fans raise the gates for an obvious threat and it's entertaining to me.

I also agree that there are legitimate reasons to be worried or angry about this news. I've also been watching the video game industry do its best impersonation of the last days of the arcades for a decade now so none of this is particularly shocking to me. Nor is the fact that it's going to get "worse" real soon.

Consolidation bothered me more 20 years ago when EA was buying up and gutting developers I loved. Watching Sony bleed out from wounds inflicted by weapons they built the prototypes for doesn't phase me at all.

This is coming from a pc gamer that has always thought the Xbox was even more pointless than the Playstation.

 

[somerandomweirdguy]

Yeah, I feel if anything Microsoft making gains like this is better on the whole.

I bought into the Sony ecosystem at the start of the generation due to their being the better company for consumers. Xbox was making all the wrong moves

Since being the underdog, Xbox has made a ton of amazing moves, including game pass and back compat.

I'd be eager to see what a truly dead even Sony and Microsoft battle would look like in the console space

 

[Deleted member 10737]

i don't even know why this thread is blowing up like this. this is not really new information. did people expect MS to be done with video game acquisitions?

 

[RedPanda]

I think I did the right thing by skipping upcoming consoles and future consoles.this is absolutely shit for the industry. I know tons of people who are barely making ends meet as a developer for a game studio where the owners make millions. Honestly this is really bad if the developers don't profit as well

 

[Tusken77]

Gross. The company of the Big Three with significantly less genuine passion for gaming than the other two is looking to swallow up more studios. Dark times for the industry.

 

[OutofMana]

So the Disney route of success then? Buy everything out so that you rule the majority of the market? Shit sucks, man.

 

[Putty]

Urgh. Don't like where the industry is heading.

 

[Brohan]

no more timed Exclusives. Game pase day 1?

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Again the games could be go day one without buying the entire publisher. And no more timed exclusives but full on exclusives instead because that's better right?

 

[Deleted member 45460]

No, I'm really not. Constantly being bombarded with bad news about games when my body is in open revolt against me is making it real hard to feel even a shred of positivity about anything.

Especially when the exact same people who were complaining about timed exclusivity for FFXVI or a fucking DLC character in Avengers are happy that Playstation owners will NEVER get to play games from Microsoft's buyouts. Like it's one thing to be happy your console has games - we all want that. It's a completely different thing to cheer the fact that other people get less games, or lose access to franchises they care about. It's spiteful behavior and to see so much of it is really exhausting.

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I'm not happy if others can't play, but I am a GPU subscriber and that getting better makes me happy.

 

[Xando]

Reduce competition is ALWAYS bad for the consumer, even more when we are talking about multiplatform games that are in every big platform.

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But this is the exact opposite of reduced competition.

Sony has a dominant market position in the console gaming market which MS is now challenging more openly than ever.

 

[Spine Crawler]

MS is like Majin Buu and keeps absorbing others for more power. I'd say we are at the point where Zenimax was Gotenks so we are getting close to oh shit territory. If Gohan gets absorbed then we have no choice, Sony and Nintendo need to fuse together to make Vegito. Behold the future of gaming!

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after switch there is zero chance nintendo goes third party

 

[renoch]

Are MS not planning to expand the app they already have for Android to other devices and platforms? If Sony and Nintendo allow it, I would think MS would be happy to put the gamepass app on their consoles as well. Everyone would be able to play all the MS acquired content even without an MS console, much like you can watch netflix through the netflix app that comes on most smart tvs by default.

I'm not sure this would be a bad thing, just depends on whether Sony and Nintendo allow it to happen

 

[CabooseMSG]

the amount of pearl clutching in this thread is ridiculous

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No kidding, especially when Sony has bought plenty of studios over the years. Guess all those studios need to be multi plat again. In fact, it only makes sense.

The companies are at two different places right now, Sony did a bunch of significant acquisitions years ago that are paying dividends, Microsoft is doing those acquisitions now. Microsoft pivoted in 2013 and it almost ruined Xbox division, now they're becoming a major publisher, because thats the Gamepass vision.

 

[ScubaSteve693]

This is all so unseemly. I don't really give a shit who MS buys but this forum is pretty gross right now. The same people who constantly throw fits about console exclusivity with shit eating grins on their faces. Ugh.

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They are fucking hypocrites and should be called out for their nonsense, they are blind fucking fanboys who get hurt whenever you call them out about it. This is pathetic that it runs as rampant as it does and they don't see anything wrong with their hypocrisy.

 

[black070]

I dont understand the hand wringing. Can you imagine if MS succeeds and triple AAA gaming actually goes mainstream? 5g is growing rapidly. Now people who only have smartphones can sign up for game pass and actually play high end games on phones/tablets! Or what about people with smart tv's? Now they can just click on the Xbox App and tryout 3 free months of game pass provided by samsung/Lg and discover and enjoy games they would never even bother with because they dont own consoles or a gaming PC. That means developers can now produce content for a billion users instead of the measly 150 million that is the console market.

I can barely contain myself from all the excitement!

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I want what you're smoking.

 

[Tygre]

I agree. And the whole "Sony fans would be happy if it was Sony" argument is so garbage.

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It's really, really not.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Insomniac Games

OFFICIAL: FROM KOTAKU: Sony has purchased the California-based game studio Insomniac Games, best known for last year’s Spider-Man on PS4. Insomniac will become an exclusive PlayStation developer, Sony says. Insomniac is also the creator of Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Sunset...

www.resetera.com

Go read that thread, almost 100% positive, salivating over the idea of other studios Sony could acquire like Remedy or Bluepoint, the only complaints being that Sony didn't do it in a "hype" enough manner.

This forum, and the forums that begat it, have always had a heavy Sony slant. It's not exactly hidden.

 

[PopcornMegaphone]

Selling games for purchase is nickel and diming now lol? You Xbox fans have some Trump supporter levels of delusion

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I'm talking about the price increase of games and not allowing free upgrades for spiderman. With Xbox that isn't a problem. GP helps with day one costs and MS is providing a ton of upgrades free of charge (for example, Gears 5). Money is tight for a lot of people right now...

 

[Rex1157]

This is all so unseemly. I don't really give a shit who MS buys but this forum is pretty gross right now. The same people who constantly throw fits about console exclusivity with shit eating grins on their faces. Ugh.

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Just shows that they weren't upset by exclusivity, they were just upset that their platform of choice wasn't the one benefitting from it.

 

[SgtCobra]

Microsoft is buying studios and funding them to be better, sony paying for 6 months exclusivity is just to make xbox seem worse.

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Gaming God bless Microsoft helping the poor and struggling ZeniMax studios out making their games better.

 

[DidactBRHU3]

Gross. The company of the Big Three with significantly less genuine passion for gaming than the other two is looking to swallow up more studios. Dark times for the industry.

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What is this? lol

 

[Friskykillface]

Buy em out boys
Simpson's predicted it.

I kinda see more IP's bought like Konami ones since they are just sitting there
You get a MGS1 remake and it'd be huge

 

[CabooseMSG]

The future of software is very bleak, but at least the company who supports 2/3rds of home systems and mobile is doing this.
It could have been Amazon or Facebook kicking this off.

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Or Sony, what a disaster if you could only play these games on Playstation. Instead of on Xbox or PC or Phones.

 

[cyrribrae]

IP roster. Size of company doesn't really matter that much, Nintendo is a very small company relatively, but their IP roster goes like 10-12 deep on the top end.

EA has FIFA, Madden NFL, Star Wars deal, but after that they start to get thin.

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Are you talking about ACTIVE IP? Sure, but you're ignoring the fact that the most successful IPs get made multiple times.. MS has been expanding into new IP recently (which I thought was a good thing, but apparently...). I mean, before this, wasn't the complaint that Xbox had no exclusives or something XD. I mean, you can use it if you want, but it seems like it's just the weirdest metric you could use to try to claim "consolidation" or "industry market share" or relevance in the community.

Xbox is not bigger than any of the major publishers. FIFA, RDR2, COD, Assassins Creed, TLOU2 outsells almost all of MS 1st party handily - and that's not a problem whatsoever for Xbox. They don't need to be biggest and they've never shown that they want to be.

Or Sony, what a disaster if you could only play these games on Playstation. Instead of on Xbox or PC or Phones.

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To be fair, Sony COULD put all their exclusives out on PlayStation, PC, and Phones. But instead of making it easy to access their games, they gate them behind multiple purchases and subscriptions (if they ever come to the subscription at all). It's not just the tech, it's the policies and actions that MS have taken that make it clear that they're doing things differently (and IMO better) for consumers. Even those who don't own a single piece of Microsoft hardware - not a console, not a PC, not a controller.

 

[Deleted member 6539]

If you don't think Microsoft's goal with these buyouts is to make Playstation "seem worse" you don't really understand mergers and acquisitions at all.

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Right. This weird belief that their aim isn't to, in essence, starve-out the competition is just naive.

I'm surprised so many people are cheering this on.

 

[chromatic9]

Sega is an old friend of MS

Maybe Nadella hinting a little.

 

[Deleted member 8752]

Gross. The company of the Big Three with significantly less genuine passion for gaming than the other two is looking to swallow up more studios. Dark times for the industry.

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I can't even tell who is trolling and who is serious at this point.

 

[KillaKap]

Honestly, the value argument about Gamepass in these situations is bullshit and everyone arguing it knows it. Buying up every company you possibly can because you were losing in the gaming industry is not healthy for the gaming industry. This will not result in better games, at this point in time, Gamepass is not profitable and most likely will not be profitable enough to fit all of these companies under one umbrella when the majority of the subscribers are going to play them through Gamepass and not actually buy them. This is nightmare scenario for gaming as a whole and if you celebrate it, you are celebrating Gaming going in the wrong direction.

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you forgot to add "imo"

 

[MentalZer0]

But this is the exact opposite of reduced competition.

Sony has a dominant market position in the console gaming market which MS is now challenging more openly than ever.

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I was referring to what I just said and not based on the recent events.

 

[ScubaSteve693]

It's really, really not.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Insomniac Games

OFFICIAL: FROM KOTAKU: Sony has purchased the California-based game studio Insomniac Games, best known for last year’s Spider-Man on PS4. Insomniac will become an exclusive PlayStation developer, Sony says. Insomniac is also the creator of Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Sunset...

www.resetera.com

Go read that thread, almost 100% positive, salivating over the idea of other studios Sony could acquire, the only complaints being that Sony didn't do it in a "hype" enough manner.

This forum, and the forums that begat it, have always had a heavy Sony slant. It's not exactly hidden.

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Oh fuck off with this bullshit. You know it is not the same and are just hiding behind the fact that Sony did somethig AFTER MS had already bought multiple Studios. Insomniac was already heavily involved with Playstation so the fact that Sony buys them out changes hardly anything in the gaming landscape, unlike the Bethesda and any other potential third party publisher deals MS may try to make. Not even comparable in the fucking slightest.

 

[Jiraiya]

Are you aware of Microsoft's past? There is a precedent there, as much as people try to deny it.

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I'm more aware of who they are now...I'm also aware that that past was under radically different leadership.

 

[Fabtacular]

Who was a bigger publisher before the acquisition: Zenimax or Microsoft Studios?

If Zenimax, that means that the implied value of Zenimax+Microsoft Studios is less than $15B.

That would put them in the range of Ubisoft ($10B current market cap, but probably closer to $13B in a buyout scenario), while well smaller than Take Two ($19B), less than half of EA ($38B), and dwarfed by Activision ($60B).

Throwing around the word "monopoly" when you first-party studios are 4th or 5th among the five largest publishers, and likely on a stand-alone basis less valuable than the first-party of Nintendo and Sony, is laughable.

The fact that those other publishers are not platform owners doesn't matter. In fact, on a game-by-game basis you're much better off being cross-platform. TLOU2, Spider Man, GoW would have made literally twice as much money if they'd also released on PC and Xbox. And it's why people are saying maybe MS would release Elder Scrolls on PS5.

 

[bi0g3n3sis]

Microsoft is buying studios and funding them to be better, sony paying for 6 months exclusivity is just to make xbox seem worse.

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But one solution is a way way worse. Guess which one?

 

[CaptainBojangles]

It's really, really not.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Insomniac Games

OFFICIAL: FROM KOTAKU: Sony has purchased the California-based game studio Insomniac Games, best known for last year’s Spider-Man on PS4. Insomniac will become an exclusive PlayStation developer, Sony says. Insomniac is also the creator of Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Sunset...

www.resetera.com

Go read that thread, almost 100% positive, salivating over the idea of other studios Sony could acquire, the only complaints being that Sony didn't do it in a "hype" enough manner.

This forum, and the forums that begat it, have always had a heavy Sony slant. It's not exactly hidden.

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Are we really going to pretend like Insomniac and all of Bethesda and its IP's are even remotely comparable purchases?

Exclusivity sucks, but one of these acquisitions is clearly a much larger deal

 

[Dantero]

Again the games could be go day one without buying the entire publisher. And no more timed exclusives but full on exclusives instead because that's better right?

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I think so yeah. Timed Exclusives is spending money to keep it away from others. You are spending money on nothing really. Buying the publisher then you are buying the game. Which might keep it way from others or not but that's not what your buying.

 

[crimilde]

No kidding, especially when Sony has bought plenty of studios over the years. Guess all those studios need to be multi plat again. In fact, it only makes sense.

The companies are at two different places right now, Sony did a bunch of significant acquisitions years ago that are paying dividends, Microsoft is doing those acquisitions now. Microsoft pivoted in 2013 and it almost ruined Xbox division, now they're becoming a major publisher, because thats the Gamepass vision.

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Sony have 13 studios. Microsoft already own 24 and have the money to buy a lot more.

 

[Cosmic Voyager]

If we're gonna see all the major third party publishers get snapped up over the next decade, I at least hope it's the big three (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) doing it.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Tencent, etc. can get mega-fucked

 

[Acido]

Microsoft get a job! Stay away from Nintendo!

 

[Vinc]

INVEST IN NEW STUDIOS INSTEAD for the love of fuck. I understand this is easier, but this isn't a healthy thing AT ALL for the industry. NOBODY should be excited by this.

 

[Lothars]

It's really, really not.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Insomniac Games

OFFICIAL: FROM KOTAKU: Sony has purchased the California-based game studio Insomniac Games, best known for last year’s Spider-Man on PS4. Insomniac will become an exclusive PlayStation developer, Sony says. Insomniac is also the creator of Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Sunset...

www.resetera.com

Go read that thread, almost 100% positive, salivating over the idea of other studios Sony could acquire like Remedy or Bluepoint, the only complaints being that Sony didn't do it in a "hype" enough manner.

This forum, and the forums that begat it, have always had a heavy Sony slant. It's not exactly hidden.

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Posts like this have no clue what they are talking about, Insominaic has mainly made games for Sony, it's a purchase that made sense just like bluepoint would, Microsoft buying a publisher like Zenimax is not the same thing at all and is much worst for the industry. There was very little issues when Microsoft bought ninja theory, obsidian, people can fly and playground games. They made sense. So your ignorance is unreasonable.

you forgot to add "imo"

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Na his post was straight facts.

 

[KillaKap]

Gross. The company of the Big Three with significantly less genuine passion for gaming than the other two is looking to swallow up more studios. Dark times for the industry.

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less genuine passion? were you under a rock or something these past 2 generations? Microsoft may not have had the talented studios but they've made way more passionate consumer-friendly additions to their console and ecosystem than people want to admit.

 

[Pancoar]

It's really, really not.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Insomniac Games

OFFICIAL: FROM KOTAKU: Sony has purchased the California-based game studio Insomniac Games, best known for last year’s Spider-Man on PS4. Insomniac will become an exclusive PlayStation developer, Sony says. Insomniac is also the creator of Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Sunset...

www.resetera.com

Go read that thread, almost 100% positive, salivating over the idea of other studios Sony could acquire like Remedy or Bluepoint, the only complaints being that Sony didn't do it in a "hype" enough manner.

This forum, and the forums that begat it, have always had a heavy Sony slant. It's not exactly hidden.

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Yeah, people will really try to deny the huge Sony bias here, but it's been plain as day since day one.

People clutching their pearls and shouting MONOPOLY now that Microsoft are actually trying to even the field.

Better Microsoft buying Zenimax, than the likes of fucking Facebook/Google/Apple/Amazon anyway. People are delusional if they think Zenimax would have stayed independent forever.

 

[Team_Feisar]

Yo why is everybody in here talking like it's a marketing presentation..
This Acquisition does increase the Value of my Subscription Service

Y'all realize you sound like the Dude from the "But for a beautiful moment in time, we created a lot of Value for the Shareholders" - Comic, right?

(I hated the Sony Acquisitions, I hate this one even more cause we are talking whole Pubs now. Consolidation on this scale is not good in the long term)

 

[Typhon]

Amazing how people are so excited about Microsoft completely fucking the game industry. Remember when being a monopoly was bad thing? I guess Microsoft's PR moves over the last decade have really payed off. This was the kinda shit we feared when the original Xbox was announced but now that's happening people are in favor of it? Disgusting

 

[ThatCrazyGuy]

What is this? lol

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fanboy stuff, lol.

Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are all in the business of games.

Will see what Sony does to counter and keep their market share.

People, stop with the monopoly stuff. This isn't a monopoly, lol.

 

[Tusken77]

What is this? lol

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MS' heart hasn't truly been in gaming since 2011. They slept through this entire generation.

 

[VeePs]

It really feels like people who were mad at about various timed exclusives or the Insomniac acquirement are happy here, and vice versa. People in this thread should take a good look at themselves.

If Sony bought Zenimax, some of you would be really upset, some of you would be really happy, some of you would still be indifferent, and some of you would still be mad.

Just keep the same energy is what I'm trying to say.

Oh fuck off with this bullshit. You know it is not the same and are just hiding behind the fact that Sony did somethig AFTER MS had already bought multiple Studios. Insomniac was already heavily involved with Playstation so the fact that Sony buys them out changes hardly anything in the gaming landscape, unlike the Bethesda and any other potential third party publisher deals MS may try to make. Not even comparable in the fucking slightest.

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Didn't Sony just try to purchase/acquire Leyou last month? Does that not count because they were outbid and didn't want to spend the money? Weren't there rumors about Sony going after Remedy, and Zenimax? Etc etc.

 

[Trey]

Want to see MS buy out the remainder of EA's Star Wars deal...and then Bio Ware...

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This would all be worth it for Knights of the Old Republic III.

 

[Ales34]

They could have done this without buying the entire publisher. Many games that drop on GP on day one come from studio's that arent owned by MS.

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Paying dozens or likely hundreds of millions for Elder Scrolls 6 to come to Game Pass Day 1 isn't a good idea when the title doesn't even belong to them. Now add other Bethesda titles and you will probably see why just outright buying the whole publisher makes more sense long-term. Besides, Bethesda's games are actually perfect for Game Pass--they're hundreds hours long, so it basically guarantees that people will stay subscribed for months if not years. Owning Bethesda makes a lot of sense for Microsoft.

 

[0ptimusPayne]

Damn I just left the preorder threads just saying how Ive never had this much fun on this site, now look at y'all. Got Damn!

 

[Vinc]

If we're gonna see all the major third party publishers get snapped up over the next decade, I at least hope it's the big three (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) doing it.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Tencent, etc. can get mega-fucked

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Honestly, them being snapped up by the other big guys is probably a better scenario than all of them being snapped up by those 3. At least Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Tencent ALL need to start from near-scratch, so there wouldn't be as many redundancies there.

What we need to avoid is consolidation, and big companies invested in gaming buying up smaller companies invested in gaming is EXACTLY what needs to be avoided. It's the least healthy thing that can happen, it leads to fewer jobs, fewer games, less creative variety, and higher prices over time. It's a bad thing.