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Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#361

Post by ck425 »

sequence7 wrote: post #183
MaximumMadness wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have some trouble around the idea that hardcore consumers will want a bundle that has maybe 2-5 games they would have bought otherwise + 95 more they dont really care about. Aren't consumers just going to buy what they want anyway? Plus the Sony world just has so many more games worth playing

Doesn't the success of Netflix help convince you? That's the model Microsoft are going for with Game Pass, just pay us a fixed monthly fee and play any of the hundreds of games we have available on Android/PC/XBox.

Not really. The alternative before Netflix was more expensive cable/satellite tv. Netflix was both better and cheaper.

As a gamer I probably only spend ~£150 a year on a few really good big games and the odd cheap sale game. And I prefer not to spend so much because it feels wasteful, moreso than Netflix for reasons I can't figure.

Paying £15-20 a month is more money for something I feel I should be spending less on.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#362

Post by seabrookmx »

awill wrote: post #274

It's unfortunate that the Xbox Series X and PS5 are so, so, so similar. It seems stupid to have to purchase 2 nearly identical boxes. It's not just the console. You then need multiple controllers for each, and possibly other accessories (Sony has a PS5 specific headset, camera, charger, will have a PS5 VR etc.) I've historically preferred PS exclusives (Uncharted, Spiderman, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn), and the cr…

One really refreshing thing is that the Xbox Series S/X are compatible with Xbox One controllers.. so you won't have to buy a bunch of new controllers for it.

That always drove me nuts. Controller design hasn't changed that much since the mid 2000's.. there's zero reason for breaking backwards compatibility other than to sell you more hardware.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#363

Post by aikinai »

francis_t_catte wrote: post #22

Soon we'll just have Microsoft, Epic, and a conglomeration of EA, Activision, and Ubisoft after Bobby Kotick forces them all to merge. Facebook will bungle up any chance they have of capturing the gaming market after writing a cryptic paragraph about their legal right to request blood samples from all Oculous users in the TOS. Valve will quietly exit software development altogether, and pivot to building custom vanit…

How did you leave out Nintendo? :(

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#364

Post by hundchenkatze »

masklinn wrote: post #352
hundchenkatze wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean to be an indie game developer? If you're releasing with the help of a publisher you're no longer independent.

> If you're releasing with the help of a publisher you're no longer independent. Dear diary, I was today years old when I learned that Stardew Valley is not an indie game. > What does it mean to be an indie game developer? There's no hard-and-fast rule, but generally speaking it means the devs are not subordinate to the publisher. There are games for which the publisher contracts a studio, therefore the publisher dec…

> Dear diary, I was today years old when I learned that Stardew Valley is not an indie game.

The snark was unnecessary... Thanks for the rest though.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#365

Post by dogma1138 »

ysleepy wrote: post #346
tosh wrote: post #301

Carmack on the acquisition: > Great! I think Microsoft has been a good parent company for gaming IPs, and they don’t have a grudge against me, so maybe I will be able to re engage with some of my old titles. https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1308069857913720832...

Interesting, didn't Rage pioneer the on-demand texture streaming approach? It fits well with the DMA SSDs in the coming console generation. Wow, that's now a decade ago.

Texture streaming was a thing before Rage.

ID tech implemented megatextures earlier also, Quake Wars heavily relied on that feature.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#366

Post by RealStickman_ »

nonbirithm wrote: post #311
tinus_hn wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals How else are they going to get people to use these stores?

Also the fact that the Epic Games Store exists is a step towards countering Steam's monopoly on mainstream titles. People complain about the loss of functionality like screenshots or the in-game browser when using Epic. And there are exclusivity deals. Complaints against those things are valid, and the actual implementation of the storefront needs a lot of improvement, but I'm wondering if a Steam monopoly would have…

The exclusivity deals were disruptive because they took games that were promised to come to steam and made them exclusive.

The customer has no benefit from the lower cut epic charges.

Epic doesn't treat everyone equally. Big games like Cyberpunk 2077 are allowed to also sell on other platforms, while smaller games either go exclusive or go with everyone else.

Competition is good, but I'd rather have GOG be that competition to Steam than Epic purely based on their anti-DRM stance.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#368

Post by Andrex »

moomin wrote: post #252
staticman2 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worst case scenario for Nintendo would likely be making Xbox and PS5 games and PC games. I don't think they will ever be for sale.

Yeah, I mean, Sega don't have the mindshare they used to when they owned hardware, but they're very much still a thing.

(replying to both you and the parent)

It's a possibility but pivoting to software isn't easy by any stretch, and it wasn't something Sega should have even been able to do (financially.) The only reason it happened is because Sega's biggest debtor, Isao Okawa, forgave that debt on his deathbed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/business/isao-okawa-74-ch...

In a slightly altered timeline where Okawa didn't do this, Sega would have went under and its IP's would have been sold piecemeal to the highest bidders.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#369

Post by aikinai »

Andrex wrote: post #67
SSLy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is self-sustainable, Apple is exerting a lot of influence among smaller studios with Arcade. Like Annapurna Interactive (which is nota bene funded by Oracle).

Nintendo is just two bad generations of hardware from being vulnerable enough to sell itself (IMO.) They had only $4.3 billion cash on hand as of 2018 (surely more by now thanks to the success and maturation of the Switch.) But Microsoft just dropped a little less than double that on ZeniMax. I wish Nintendo were in such a rock-solid place where I'd feel confident about them existing forever like Disney but I don't t…

Over $4 billion cash on hand is an insane amount of money for such a small company. Nintendo is only about 4,000 employees worldwide, so that cash will go a very long way.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#370

Post by michannne »

ysleepy wrote: post #346
tosh wrote: post #301

Carmack on the acquisition: > Great! I think Microsoft has been a good parent company for gaming IPs, and they don’t have a grudge against me, so maybe I will be able to re engage with some of my old titles. https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1308069857913720832...

Interesting, didn't Rage pioneer the on-demand texture streaming approach? It fits well with the DMA SSDs in the coming console generation. Wow, that's now a decade ago.

I believe it did, in addition to mega-textures in video games.

What I am hoping for, and been hoping for a while, is for game engines to start integrating AI into workflows. There are some tools out there that do leverage machine learning to some extent, but what I would love to see are tools for instance that can take a video shot of an actor and then infer the bone structure a decent degree and transfer that animation into the model. Or a tool that allows style transfer of an image onto a 3D model so we can have realistically dynamic brush tools for environments, also integrating Face generation GANs onto models to reduce sculpting effort. Not to mention tools that can dynamically and infinitely scale 3D models based on material information.

I know some tools exist that can do some of these things at an okay degree, but it can be taken even further.

Truly the power of AI in video game tooling has yet to be unlocked, but I believe video games as a medium is in the position of being able to push for practical applications of new and exciting research, second only to CGI films. It's exciting what's in store for the future and I'm sure Carmack can appreciate the kind of breakthroughs that Microsoft would be able to foster

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