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Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#51

Post by polski-g »

junaru wrote: post #11
DanielHB wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because regulators don't want a monopoly to be formed around an emerging technology. Sure cloud streaming is not big at the moment but it could literally be the default way to play games in 20 years. Heck Microsoft themselves point this out to their investors. Google's monopoly on search and online advertising today could have been easily prevented 20 years ago by some regulations.

> it could literally be the default way to play games in 20 years. No it couldn't. Its fundamentally inferior to local hardware and no amount of wishful thinking will change the laws of physics.

Cloud streaming would work for the vast majority of games. It just wouldn't work for realtime ones.

Civilization, SimCity, zoo tycoon, Paradox Grand strategy games, etc... Would all be fine to play on a streaming platform

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#52

Post by dmonitor »

xcdzvyn wrote: post #37
matthewfelgate wrote: post #23

At what point does Microsoft become a Monopoly in the gaming sector?

Is it even close? 4 of my 174 Steam games have Microsoft's name on it, and if they bought Activision.. it'd still be 4.

Activision Blizzard doesn’t put most of their games on Steam

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#53

Post by johnnyworker »

gambiting wrote: post #25
johnnyworker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when consoles were touted as having none of the disadvantages of PC (no patches, no loading times, "it just works"), but what we actually got was consoles that are suckier than PC in every way, but instead PC gaming being gimped by consoles existing? (e.g. Fallout 4 having four choices at any point in any conversation has zero to do with "writing" or "game design" and everything to do with a controller havin…

>>e.g. Fallout 4 having four choices at any point in any conversation has zero to do with "writing" or "game design" and everything to do with a controller having 4 buttons) That's an extremely weird argument. Literally no one at Bethesda was being stopped from writing compelling dialogue choices for that game because controllers only have 4 buttons - it's a choice they made conciously, they wanted to simplify the di…

It was one of many examples, if you want to pretend PC game interfaces (speaking of fallout again, the same key for gun bash and grenades, plus a trillion other things in basically all AAA games) aren't gimped by consoles that's great, but you finding it "weird" and "odd" isn't even an argument.

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#54

Post by gambiting »

johnnyworker wrote: post #53
gambiting wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>e.g. Fallout 4 having four choices at any point in any conversation has zero to do with "writing" or "game design" and everything to do with a controller having 4 buttons) That's an extremely weird argument. Literally no one at Bethesda was being stopped from writing compelling dialogue choices for that game because controllers only have 4 buttons - it's a choice they made conciously, they wanted to simplify the di…

It was one of many examples, if you want to pretend PC game interfaces (speaking of fallout again, the same key for gun bash and grenades, plus a trillion other things in basically all AAA games) aren't gimped by consoles that's great, but you finding it "weird" and "odd" isn't even an argument.

Nice move of goalposts - interfaces absolutely got nerfed because of consoles, I never argued otherwise. You argued that the reason why Fallout 4 got crappy dialogue options was because controllers have 4 buttons(to quote you "Fallout 4 having four choices at any point in any conversation has zero to do with "writing" or "game design""), which is complete nonsense, but I don't know how to prove it to you other than by saying I have worked in the industry long enough to tell you with absolute certainty that it doesn't happen. If bethesda wanted to have 20 dialogue options they would have done it regardless. The fact that the conversation options suck in that game and that they basically all mean the same thing has nothing to do with how many buttons are on a controller(!!!!). If you walked into any conversation about NPC conversation systems and said with a straight face "I think we should only have 4 dialogue options because controllers have 4 buttons" you'd be laughed out of the room.

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#55

Post by hx8 »

Reubend wrote: post #10
TheChaplain wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not buying that argument at all. Today there are a ton of cheap 2nd hand console available on different markets, and much thanks to hard-copies they still bring plenty of enjoyment for a cheap coin. The latter also allows access to games no longer published or available for sale. Cloud gaming will ensure older games will be entirely at the mercy of the streaming provider to keep them up to date and compatible wit…

> Today there are a ton of cheap 2nd hand console available on different markets, and much thanks to hard-copies they still bring plenty of enjoyment for a cheap coin. You're missing the point of the parent comment. They aren't saying they had access to no games at all, but rather that they couldn't afford to play the latest games. Nvidia's cloud gaming service costs $10/month, compared to $10 a month just for multip…

> Even just the electricity needed to power a gaming PC is expensive.

The average electrical energy rate is 10.3 cents per kwh. A gaming PC might consume 750 watts. So it cost an average of 7.7cents/hr to power a gaming PC. Hardly expensive.

Of course, both cloud and PC gaming requires things like router, monitor, etc that consume electricity. I think it's fair to assume those things are equal between the two setups.

Edit: Average cost is for US. 750 watts is a good power budget for a gaming PC, but of course machines can be made that consume much more power or gaming capable machines can be made that consume less.

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#56

Post by akaij »

Topfi wrote: post #36
katbyte wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency can only go down so much because as parent comment said: laws of physics dictate the minimum response time between two points given the distance. And it will be higher with each hop /media change

Ok, but we were talking about the default, the average for the majority of consumers. Did any of them care about the far more significant latency that their TVs processing imposes (or did impose, as now many TVs switch to "game mode" by themselves) on their console gaming experience? No, the majority never even noticed. The irreducible latency some are talking about is imperceptible, not a factor for the vast majorit…

How "average" do we want to go? Because another slice of this average population will be mostly fine playing Candy Crush on their mobile.

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#58

Post by katbyte »

Topfi wrote: post #36
katbyte wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency can only go down so much because as parent comment said: laws of physics dictate the minimum response time between two points given the distance. And it will be higher with each hop /media change

Ok, but we were talking about the default, the average for the majority of consumers. Did any of them care about the far more significant latency that their TVs processing imposes (or did impose, as now many TVs switch to "game mode" by themselves) on their console gaming experience? No, the majority never even noticed. The irreducible latency some are talking about is imperceptible, not a factor for the vast majorit…

A lot of people discuss it when purchasing tvs, tvs often have game mode as you say, the entire 30/60 fps debate and how many gamers refuse to accept 30fps as acceptable, ping times in games and how variable they can get. Personally I can notice the difference pretty easily.

Lots of people do discuss this and do care, not to mention to even get to the point of it only being “the lowest possible physics allows” you need great home networking equipment plus a fast/well connected isp and a cloud service provider that isn’t adding any processing delay. That excludes a ton of people.

Cloud gaming isn’t going to be “the default” anytime soon, and for many people it will never be an option.

Heck physical copies are still super popular with a large group of console gamers to this day despite digital delivery being so well tested and ubiquitous

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