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Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#371

Post by tonyhart7 »

WorldMaker wrote: post #350
sandworm101 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

xCloud (Microsoft's) and Geforce Now (nVidia's) both allegedly have large player bases. 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 connect…

that actually make a good reason to use cloud gaming honestly, trying game for 2-3 hours before downloading 100gb for it and not to make refund if you buy themselves is pretty neat

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#372

Post by brailsafe »

everforward wrote: post #202
opportune wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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!” In fairness to Microsoft, "half-baked" would be how I describe all of Bethesda's previous releases as well. I don't think Starfield is that far off how Skyrim or Fallout 4 was on release. Starfield's a long shot from where Skyrim and Fallout are now af…

WoW oscillates. It gets stale, then becomes fun again, and repeats. It's been going and actively developed for 20 years, which is incredible; if that cycle keeps operating for another 10 years for any reason it would be incredible.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#373

Post by kobalsky »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #237
Lacerda69 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blizzard used to me my absolute favourite game company; its so sad how they have fallen off since they got bought by Activision.

Well, King makes almost twice as much money as Blizzard iirc, so I would say that they're focusing their resources in the right places. Making $60 desktop games is just a horrible business to be in, the development costs are too high, and the return is too low. Why would you make a AAA title when you can make Candy Crush? It only makes sense to divert resources where the ROI picture is prettier.

maybe this way of thinking is why japenese developers have been doing so well?

I know that everyone is in for the money, but there's an undeniable difference in how they view the result of their work.

sometimes in western companies it feels like everyone is just sprinting towards a buyout / merger to cash out.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#374

Post by vel0city »

sandworm101 wrote: post #336
WorldMaker wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It all depends on what you're looking for in your gaming. I rarely replay old games. I'm often on the go, and don't really want to spend the money on a high end gaming rig nor a console at home. So from my non-gaming laptop I can hop on Xbox Cloud Gaming and play recent games in high quality pretty much anywhere. I've been able to play on cafe wifi, tethered to my phone, on wifi around the house, loads of places. And after finding the subscription on a sale its cheaper than buying even two new games a year.

If you're the kind of gamer who does love having a collection of old games you go back to, then yeah its pretty terrible.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#375

Post by kbenson »

sandworm101 wrote: post #336
WorldMaker wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly, there's a bunch of games where cloud gaming could really help the cheating problem. The issue with it is that if you're a ways away from the cloud servers it puts you at more of a disadvantage.

Then again, for a lot of these games you currently get some level of advantage for throwing a lot of money at your system so you can run with better settings at a faster framerate, so maybe it's not so much less fair as differently fair.

Having your competitive game reduced to pure input output doesn't solve cheating (especially in an age of image recognition and trained AI/ML), but it does even the playing field a lot.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#376

Post by fernandotakai »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #293
edgyquant wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re giving them away for a small monthly fee with their console subscription. How the hell is this any different, if not worse, than the anti-competitive behavior that Microsoft was brought to court for in the 90s?

So you think that Microsoft is going to run their gaming business at a loss until all the other gaming studios go out of business, then jack up the prices? If not, I don't see what the problem is. It isn't anti-completive to simply sell a product for a better price unless you are dumping (selling under cost to drive competitors out of business).

> So you think that Microsoft is going to run their gaming business at a loss until all the other gaming studios go out of business, then jack up the prices?

i wish people realize that king is probably earning more than activision and blizzard combined.

and guess what? king is a mobile app company, nothing to do with xbox's main business.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#377

Post by vel0city »

WorldMaker wrote: post #350
sandworm101 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

xCloud (Microsoft's) and Geforce Now (nVidia's) both allegedly have large player bases. 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 connect…

> needs a strong internet connection

I've used Xbox Cloud Gaming on a cheap $300 Walmart laptop all over my home on WiFi, several different cafe/bar WiFi networks, and several places tethered to my phone without any real playability concerns. I might not recommend it if you're playing some kind of twitch shooter kind of game, but I've played a lot of Forza, Starfield, Gotham Knights, and Ghost Recon Wildlands on it.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#378

Post by mathgeek »

nerdjon wrote: post #53
manuelabeledo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these grievances are more about changes in the architectural direction than anything else. I don't see how using the Cell processor could be considered "anti-consumer". After all, we are talking about a time when consoles didn't generally use "off the self" processors - Nintendo had a customized PowerPC, too. Using more generic architectures is a quite recent development. > Paying developers either for exclus…

Maybe the cell processor was not anti-consumer but I also mentioned Sony being cocky which it very much was. As far as Bungie, they were bought by Microsoft by the time Halo was made exclusive. I am not remembering any exclusive games from Rare before being bought by Microsoft? You are right that Phil Spensor was the GM in 2014. That is a year after the Xbox One release ate, after many of the past mistakes were made.…

> I am not remembering any exclusive games from Rare before being bought by Microsoft?

Although not universally, most Rare games were exclusive to Nintendo consoles from 1986-2002.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#379

Post by eric-hu »

rollcat wrote: post #369

I keep my fingers crossed for the revival of the StarCraft franchise. I grew up with the game, and it's kinda sad to see the current state of SC2: old bugs, new bugs, community trying to take over the processes but having a very bumpy ride, opaque decision making (de-facto spokespersons/community figures under muddy NDAs), and unfortunately all our 2010 fears (no local/LAN play!) coming true, when server outages are…

As a StarCraft 2 fan, I’m actually quite happy with the current game balance. The last two rounds of balance patches from the community were far better for the playability and fun of the game. It was alarming when Blizzard cut funding for GSL and it looked like the Korean scene was practically done, but Afreeca and the community pulled together and kept that prize pool interesting enough for the Korean pros.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#380

Post by jonhohle »

nerdjon wrote: post #39
manuelabeledo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Sony having some real competition is a good thing. Sony has a bad tendency of anti-consumer tendencies in their gaming space when they are the leader and they get cocky. They did it with the PS3 and they are repeating some of that with the PS5 generation. I'm curious about which "anti-consumer practices" Sony is responsible for, that Microsoft isn't. So far it seems to me that Sony did acquire some gaming studi…

A few things, and I am likely forgetting others: Backwards compatibility: It was a mess on the PS3 with different launch models having different levels of compatibility. They later removed this functionality completely on the PS3. The PS4 had no backwards compatibility for PS3 instead you had to purchase (or subscribe) to play games in the cloud, games you may already own. Compared to Xbox which the Xbox One did not…

I’m not sure what you mean by backwards compatibility of launch PS3s. At launch the PS3 had PS2 hardware backwards compatibility in both models (20GB and 60GB). The launch PS3 is the ultimate backwards compatibility console (imho). Later revisions removed that hardware but provided software emulation for PS2 (except it seems like they removed that at some later date). A launch PS3 and PS5, both unmodded, will allow you to effectively play every PS console game (not portable) made since 1995.

I have several Xbox games that have to be played on original hardware and are not supported by backwards compatibility, and Nintendo only ever supported previous systems when they did offer backwards compatibility.

You missed Sony removing Other OS, SACD playback, and other on the box features from the PS3. I still have no idea how they got away with that.

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