341–350 of 590 posts
Normally I'm against such huge mergers - but Activision Blizzard is one of the most hostile companies against their users and employees I have ever seen. I can't imagine this being a bad thing for game fans.
Blizzard used to me my absolute favourite game company; its so sad how they have fallen off since they got bought by Activision.
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Do they? I genuinely don't know and a quick search only adds confusion. I see a lot of news from when they went Beta in 2019 and then a lot of radio silence and I don't see any links to the service that don't have a "Technical Preview" or "Beta" next to them. That probably doesn't bode well as a signal for an active player base even if it is technically running.
Looks like they still do: https://www.ea.com/ea-play I think they rebranded Origin or whatever it was called, didn't even realize.
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MS negotiated the agreement. So “allowed” seems like a fair description of the contents of a contract they negotiated and agreed to.
Without knowing all the details, I think it's fair to assume this is a fair approach. I'm sure there are all sorts of legal details to work through that make axing him immediately untenable. 3 months seems like a reasonable timeline.
Does Activision not have HR policies? If I sexually harassed my co-workers, you could bet I wouldn't get a golden parachute.
I'm not even worked up about gaming specifically. I just think the FTC is failing horrifically at its job of protecting consumers from monopoly. The SEC is failing on its end too. Everything will just get slowly worse.
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I think the technology is about 80% there. To my eye, the graphics and performance are the same as running the game locally. Provided you have a good internet connection, if you could just run a AAA game off of your crummy computer or tv, why would you buy an expensive graphics card? It is definitely where things are going.
I think there's still a market for what you're describing, but in terms of players and revenue it seems like competitive multiplayer titles that don't require particularly beefy hardware and where network latency is especially important have become what's most popular and profitable. For example looking at September's games by MAUs[1], #6, #10 and #17 seem like good fits for cloud gaming, but the rest seem like a bad…
there's no need to rent a PC 50ms-100ms away for esports when a bottom of the range PC will happily run it at 144fps
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They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” Regarding at least the Blizzard side of the acquisition, I feel like Microsoft ownership may end up being a good thing for their underused IP.…
> They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. Word on the street is that the principals at the top of Obsidian and Bethesda still hate each other, Microsoft keeps them at arms distance, and Obsidian isn't in a rush to do a new Fallout game even if "Daddy Microsoft" forced Bethesda to share its toys with the other studios (just like "Daddy Interplay"…
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Mostly its because Activision/Blizzard is such an obviously shitty terrible company that any deal that sees cool IPs taken out of their hands is seen as a positive thing.
I've argued about this deal on Twitter at length, and the prevailing sentiment of those who favor this acquisition comes down to one thing, and one thing only: getting more AAA games "for free" on Gamepass. Discovering why these people call this an "increase in competition" will be an exercise for future generations of intelligence researchers.
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Right. Microsoft is just about the only player left in cloud gaming because Sony, Amazon and Google all tried and gave up in different ways, in part because none of them really found a market nor an audience. I heard Sony is trying again but leasing some cloud servers from Microsoft Azure's white box version of xCloud, ironically. That last part is also why I think the Ubisoft deal is probably funny. Rumors are Ubi i…
Sony just relanced their streaming service this month with on paper better spec than Microsoft (4K streaming)
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Right. Microsoft is just about the only player left in cloud gaming because Sony, Amazon and Google all tried and gave up in different ways, in part because none of them really found a market nor an audience. I heard Sony is trying again but leasing some cloud servers from Microsoft Azure's white box version of xCloud, ironically. That last part is also why I think the Ubisoft deal is probably funny. Rumors are Ubi i…
>> so far unfinished cloud gaming app. As a gamer, few things would turn me away from a potential purchase more than the phrase "cloud gaming app". It sounds like DRM-infected bloatware ready to kick me from a server the moment my connection even hiccups. Only "cloud gaming app, now by Microsoft " could be worse.
The "neat" thing about xCloud is that you can try it for free under most Game Pass subscriptions. I think that is actually where "cloud gaming" currently excels, as a faster/better/glorified replacement for the old "Demo" games and modes. (Try a Game Pass game for a bit without downloading it, on a day where you expect few connection hiccups, to see if it is worth the hour or so wait while it downloads.) I think that is also part of why xCloud probably does have large MAU numbers.
I've tried to see if xCloud is also useful on my mobile devices for on-the-go gaming, but the connection issues have mostly tanked that for me. (I do know people using it to play games on the Steam Deck that the Steam Deck doesn't as well support; but they generally play at home on home connections even if they prefer the "mobile-like" form factor of the Deck.)
But yeah, the argument is that the audience for "cloud gaming" is incredibly limited (needs a strong internet connection, doesn't want to invest in up-to-date gaming hardware, or wants stranger form factors) and always will be, which is why it is fascinating that Microsoft got so much flak from the UK commissioners about controlling the current "cloud gaming" marketplace: Microsoft seems to be the most successful mostly just because it is an incredibly limited audience with few gamers interested. Most everyone else who has tried to enter the market, including Google, has failed to find players. (nVidia seems the next most successful and even they admit it is a niche side-project for them. They've been partly so successful by how much money they haven't spent and how cheap they've managed to run it so far, comparatively to the investments of their peers and bigger companies like Amazon and Google.)