Microsoft Refers To Lack Of Xbox Exclusives As Why ActiBlizz Deal Should Be Approved

Or you could actually make them instead of just buying them.

Oh boy! I can see this triggering an awful lot of people...

Outside of maybe Batman and Superman, Spiderman is the most popular and well-known superhero in ALL of media. Why wasn't that looked at when it was made exclusive?

Out of those 286 sony exclusives how many are shovelware or niche anime games that don't sell more than 10k and are only exclusive because the developers didnt want to put their games on xbox and not because of sony.

Trust me, you're not missing out.

You are absolutely right, @Snake_V5. I think it fair to say that this is the first generation that Microsoft have taken gaming seriously. I think the way they see it is that to make a game the likes of God of War (as an example) takes 5 years or more. Whilst that period elapses, the competition (Sony) continue to grow exponentially, and Xbox will continue to fall behind, meaning are not viewed favourably when it comes to third-party exclusives, meaning they fall further behind, and so it continues in a never ending cycle. Buying Developers and Publishers is a way of shortening that period, and closing the gap. Is it the ideal way? Probably not, but the alternative is to fall so far behind as to become basically irrelevant...

Well now that that argument is being made, I guess we won't be seeing a huge number of exclusives coming in the next year or so. Wouldn't want to deflate their own argument.

I’ve been on Microsoft’s side this entire time regarding this Activision/Blizzard deal; however, I find this argument of their’s silly. It is not Sony’s or the FTC’s problem that Microsoft doesn’t have as many exclusives. That’s a you problem. If you want more exclusives, tell your first party studios to make them … and make them good.

Microsoft seems to have this laid back approach to gaming which is fine, and even appealing, but they also need to be a business and knuckle down on studios who aren’t producing.

I’m a manager at my job. I’m quite laid back and I treat my employees fairly and joke around with them. That said, I’m also their boss. Sometimes, I have to have uncomfortable conversations with them if they aren’t doing their job or if their performance is slacking. That’s part of the gig. Microsoft seems to forget that part of the business.

Get your affairs in order. It’s not Sony or the FTC’s problem that you don’t have has many exclusives; that’s your problem.

@Snake_V5 If they buy them, they make the games.

I will never understand such statements. You pay people to make games. Period.

FTC complaint that the leader who dominates the market Sony shouldn't have competition

seems the exact opposite of what they should be doing

Xbox only has itself to blame for no exclusives.
Sony has about 5000 developers in their studios.
Activison Blizzard has over 10000 - more than twice the developers Sony has in one purchase.

You have to be nuts to swallow the 'pity poor me' arguments these suits are manufacturing daily when they are the only ones who could ever pay 70 billion for a company.

I don't know which way this decision will eventually fall, and being someone who wants to see Acti/Blizzard managed with more care I'm somewhat split on what I actually want myself. But the more of this bleating MS do to the press every day, the more I hope they lose.
If you have good arguments, make them to the people who are making decisions. This constant stirring on social media and briefing new agencies is backhanded imo, and only fans the flames hatred on forums. Theres a story from MS every single day. Sony isn't washing their dirty laundry in public, which is potentially the only good decision 'crying Jim' has ever made 🤣🤣

Microsoft has way more studios and their games are simpler and much lessor quality than Sony’s yet appear to be taking much longer. Cant blame mismanagement on Sony. Also so many of those exclusives are niche 10K copy sold games that would literally sel under 10 copies on xbox.

Microsoft needs to develop/publish more smaller, simple games that can fill the gaps between big releases. Not every game needs to be Halo. Bring back Xbox Arcade and commission more fun but cheaper to produce games like Fusion Frenzy.

I bought my Xbox purely for gears of war & halo tbh the latter being a huge disappointment for me from the latest release that being said sorry Microsoft but you've had over 20 years & a limitless amount of cash to make your own exclusives & grow your own studios & you didn't lol

I dont want to play on Playstation, but i want to play Playstation games... I want more games like God of War, Horizon, Ghosts of Tsushima and all those first party single player story driven games on Xbox. How can we convince Xbox to make more games like Playstation so us single players can have fun?

How can anyone seriously make this argument? MS is only embarrassing themselves with such angle.

Xbox mate you've got 23 first party Studios that's more than any console creator in history. How about utilising them to full potential first?

The most surprising thing in all of this is that they actually have 59 Exclusives loool. Certainly doesn't feel like 59 tbh lmfao.

The comments here make it seem like most of the studios MS owns are just lying around being lazy and not actively developing more games.

It's embarrassing that a government body would protect the market leader like this. It literally goes against their mission statement of promoting competition and avoiding monopolies.

The consumer loses because US politicians are mad any time someone other than themselves spend a large sum of money. This deal would make the market more balanced and fair. Sony would be more motivated to innovate and less likely to price hike. Sony users would reap the benefits of this deal as well.

They'd have more first party games if they quite sleeping on all the IPs they own.

@Snake_V5 So buy the same devs to make them and brand it as a new studio instead of buying a studio? Lol who cares if it's "organic", the result is what matters.

at this point some things should be kept behind closed doors.

few strange comments are being put out.

MS risk damaging the good PR job done so far.

@lokozar Respect and success are earned not bought.

How about having one of your 23 gaming studios release more games. There's an idea.

Suck it up Microsoft. You were the ones who shuttered all your first party studios in the first place. The lack of any 1st party titles is your own damned fault.

You can use the excuse that Sony doubled down on exclusives whilst you are still fighting the damage done by the Xbox One as evidence on why you should buy AB.

It’s like a kid trying to convince his parents he should have more toys because the kid next door does.

oh yea lets buy out companies rely on them fix your lack of exclusives. the exclusives you do have the developers leave cuz they made half ass game and rushed it.

ie halo infinite cough cough.

I see the Sony guys are out here in full force lol. Must be boring on Push Square.

@lokozar except they have hardly been releasing any games. How many games have we seen from 23 first party Studios that Xbox has in the last 3 years which are big budget AAA games? The answer is 4. In comparison Playstation has 18 Studios, 4 of which who don't contribute to PS5 AAA titles at all. Which means 14 Studios in the last 3 years for Playstation have made games like, The Last of Us Part 2, Spider-Man Miles Morales, Returnal, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, Gran Turismo, Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnarok, Astros Playroom. All of these listed games are critically aclaimed and have won numerous awards and are adored by players. Next year they'll be releasing Spiderman 2.

All Xbox has done in the last 3 years is made another sequel to Gears, Halo and Forza. We all know how Halo Infinite turned out. Psychonauts 2 was a rare exception but a multiplatform title. There's been no new IP that can match Sony's flagship games, even the little IP xbox has is being ruined with games like Halo Infinite.

Xbox is struggling to produce big budget games, they have 23 Studios, practically unlimited resources, yet can't compete with Playstation in the AAA department.

@Chaudy not really, Microsoft lost almost all their developers. Having other companies work on others IP’s isn’t always a good thing: Sony’s Socom series and Microsoft’s Halo are good examples

@Snake_V5 Errr ... You pay people to make games. You earn success and respect by doing the things you do well. Two different subjects.

Let's get more specific. Scenario A) You have a company that hires people to create a program. You pay said people to do this job. Scenario B) You buy a company that has hired people to create a program. You pay said people to do this job. Where is the difference? In both cases your company is creating programs and you can choose the amount of involvement.

@Chaudy That was not the topic. They still make games. It just takes them more time. I'm a patient person and I'm not fixated on first party titles at all - so this doesn't really concern me. Your mileage may vary, though.

@Chaudy Sony was forcing developers to work together to do remakes, which take less time to make

Microsoft is working on new games not remakes. Plus a lot of Bethesda’s games had contracts with Sony.

See, here's something that Ponies, Xbots, federal courts, and trillion dollar executives can all agree on: Xbox has no exclusive games!

Smith is going hard into the hyperbole here with 200+ vs 59 and "adding one more game" while buying an entire publisher, but much as I'd rather not sympathize with trillion dollar executives, I kinda understand why at this point he's going full-snark in an AGM meeting, usually reserved for srs bsns. There's no other position one can take on this, the whole lawsuit is laughably absurd with no chance of holding up. What does he even say other than highlighting that the politicians his company bought and paid for fair and square are ultimately self serving morons without the slightest clue what is even going on?

@UltimateOtaku91 Don't knock those PS exclusives as shovelware! Stroke the kitty is an amazing game that has me laughing until I cried really really hard!

@UltimateOtaku91 You know that mentality of yours of 'niche anime games' is why Xbox has always struggled to get a lot of Japanese games on their systems...

I can remember the days when there was so many exclusives from the green team! Buying existing Devs isn't unusual for any company.. Sony has done it, MS has! (Rare for example) the main issue here, which has been mentioned, is that past Microsoft has ruined those developers or created such a bad reputation with them that they disbanded or moved on and went independent. I understand business requires closures some times, but they had so many great games in the past, the original Xbox was incredible for in house developed games. One of the reasons I was sold into the ecosystem. If they still had those established Devs now, they would be releasing good quality games. While I love gamepass, unfortunately it has been a huge burden on development.

@shoeses trust me, the anime games im talking about are shovelware such as sakura MMO and Waifu puzzle games that cost £5 or less.

I'm not talking about games like atelier and trails of cold steel etc, to me they are proper anime games that would actually be welcomed on xbox.

@NEStalgia "stroke the kitty" surely not, goes to check...... Wow 😑

That's exactly the type of exclusives I'm talking about, same with nintendo, they have a game that's just a calculator....

The more this new generation that started two years ago goes on the more Microsoft are pushing me away from Xbox.
I have never been this distant and dissatisfied and disappointed in Xbox ever and I’ve have been there day one original Xbox and ever since day one.
Their management of studios, their lack of AAA games, their ability to make the UI worse, their ability to mess HDMI again with an update.
Their obvious attempt to buy their way to the top.

Maybe it’s time to truly say goodbye.

I'm an Xbox fan and even I think Microsoft is being disengenuous. They have enough studios to compete in exclusives without ActiBlizz. But surely they are taking their time...

Who cares about those overrated exclusives? From all the exclusives on PS I only play GT7, the only exclusive I like from Sony.
I have played in 90% of my game time on XBox because I like the system and the controller. My most played games on XBox are Overwatch and Diablo because I play games I like, not because it is an exclusive.

What ms should do is pull their offer. Then offer 69 studios a billion dollars each to develop exclusives, for the remainder of this generation. Or half that and pay for two year exclusivity.

@Kohaku Ditto. I love my Series X and, even though I have a PS5, I’ve played the SXS far more. With hundreds of games out every year, a few exclusives aren’t a big deal to me. Only PS5 exclusive game I really liked this year was Ragnarok. HFW was a letdown.

I love the Xbox eco system with things like Quick Resume and Dolby Vision. GamePass rocks for me. So many good games that I may not have even played if it weren’t for it.

Will love to see some big exclusives like Starfield coming, but they aren’t everything and continue to love Xbox. Game I spend the most time with this year was Elden Ring and it played better on Series X.

Just occasionally dust off the PS5 for a game or two.

@themightyant FWIW, it's not 100% acting. Not that he was the most believable sort but Bill Gates once said that MS's company culture is that it sees itself as the underdog, and in many ways is despite it's dominance in some areas.

There's truth in it. Their money comes largely from simply being the baseline for all business with a trio of key products, but in a lot of their other many, many different business channels they often are merely a bit-player, also-ran, underdog, and kind of scruffy and ragtag in their operations in a way you would not expect a company of their size and wealth to be. They can afford that disjointed almost startup-like approach to everything because they can easily absorb the costs of failure, which in turn becomes a source of success. I think MS being an "underdog" is baked into their actual thinking in everything but OS/Productivity tools categories, and largely is true. It's both what makes Xbox a weird third place platform with a giant top-heavy publisher that can't manage to produce any games and screws up overbudget tentpole games, and also what makes Xbox a breath of fresh air, PC-like, and nimbly maneuverable with things like GP. MS is easily an oxymoron, and I don't think the whole "underdog" sales pitch is all acting, I think it's a big part of their DNA and always has been even if their sheer scale and monopoly behavior with Windows obscures that often.

Though I admit it seems less genuine when coming from Smith or Nadella who preside also over that trio of default products with monopoly power.

@UltimateOtaku91 The Switch calculator is 10/10 emotionally engaging with tight controls and deep gameplay compared to the game that's just a clock.

@Snake_V5 "respect and success are earned not bought"

....said no business school, or political science class, ever....

@Kohaku Probably the tens of millions of people who bought them. Trashing Sony is fun, but to suggest no one cares about their exclusives is ludicrous.

@Snake_V5. Sony has 19 Studios, 8 of them they created. That makes 11 they purchased. 1 was a UK publisher Psygnosis.

@Moonglow playstation brought small studios and developed them. Microsoft is buying a billion dollar 3rd party publisher. How are those the same ?

That works out to less than 3 exclusives a year.

Yikes.

This is laughable. Xbox fans have been screaming for more exclusive games and Xbox have failed to deliver, especially when it comes to quality. They’re using lack of games as a defence for this acquisition 🤣 Jesus.

I’d say a bigger problem for Xbox is that Sony is buying small bonusses for games, such as timed exclusives, exclusive promotions or advertising options, exclusive features, weapons or characters in the game.

Something like the street fighter 2 inclusion in street fighter 6 if you have street fighter 5 on your playstation. It is very small, but it makes the game on playstation feel like the superior version. Xbox needs a couple of long term series to feel superior on Xbox without the need to actually make them.

They could do something with the Dragon Quest series, with GTA, with all EA sports, Mass effect, Star Wars series, Soul Calibur, etc. So those games also say ‘this is what you need an Xbox for’.

Difference is Sony make their exclusives, Microsoft want to buy theirs!!

@GunValkyrian It's a mixture of having had their studios gutted and closed by matrick, restarting from 0 a generation ago by buying studios to rebuild with obligations for those games to release elsewhere, and early mistakes that allowed exclusives to end up owned by others. Mass effect, Jade empire, knights of the old republic we're all Microsoft games that ended up owned by ea. Sunset overdrive owned by Sony. Blue dragon and lost Odyssey are Marvelous AQL. Big mistakes on MS part. They never owned what they built in the early days.

@jordan1992 It's kind of arbitrary to define "buying" the exclusives vs "making". Much of Sony's studios are bought, and their 2 biggest games by sales are a sports license and marvel license they bought. And their oldest actual home grown studio, they closed after years of using it as an outsource for their other studios. Yeah this represents buying more at once, but the argument then becomes one of growth caps more than how the games are made. Only Nintendo really rolls their own, but they rely on skeleton teams and outsource most of the actual labor.

Now Amazon is a publisher. Everyone wanted games to get bigger and bigger.... This is where that lead.

So when trying to sell gamers on why they should subscribe to Gamepass MS is all about touting how many Xbox studios there are, but when selling this acquisition to regulators its all about how they have so few exclusive games.

I don't know WTH goes on at Xbox studios, but they have to be the easiest publishers to work for (other than RSI where all one has to do is pump out concept art to entice whales to keep giving you money).

Even when it comes to trying to buy their way into some exclusives MS doesn't seem to know how to spend. Insomniac, which Sony made 1st party for only $229 million has matched Xbox studios output this generation, by itself. Don't even get me started on 343 Industries, which has one f'n job they can't do right, make Halo games!

This is why I can't get excited for MS to Acquire ABK, Xbox doesn't have its own house in order, yet just keeps taking on studios like it will fix everything.

@NEStalgia When Sony purchases a studio, for the most part, they've at least "dated for awhile before putting a ring on it", so they seem to have a notion as to how these studios will fit into their ecosystem and what they'll produce. MS acquires studios like a drunk at 2AM trying to buy as many girls as they can shots in order to try and score.

@Serpentes420 😂 that's a hilariously accurate description!

Though in reality Microsoft is much more connected to both zenimax and Activision than people think due to windows and pc content. They don't buy exclusives from these companies but they're still pretty familiar on working terms.

@NarutosBiggestFan I bought both consoles this generation precisely because I want to play games on both - Sony exclusives largely favour single player gamers and then Gamepass is just too good a value to pass up. The average age of a gamer is increasing as it really took off in the 90's therefore old gits like me are commonplace now and we don't want to play Fortnite and other multiplayer only games necessarily. I really hope Xbox catches up with the single player games. Starfield at least looks promising.

I mean they do have a valid point. Sony fanboys still push the "Xbox has no games" BS.

@GunValkyrian Well Sony had the luxury of buying up studios without any opposition. Apparently it's different when their competition does that.

@JayJ yeah, fanboys say fanboy *****. The problem is many long time xbox fans have the same sentiment and feel like they have been misled. Not everyone is ok with replaying old games for years

And now we see their master plan for the poor showing recently. Perfect strategy! This gave me deep belly laughs! Oh MS, you sneaky b*st*rd!

@Notoriousmakavel you're actually paying attention! Lol Everyone else seems to have completely missed the subtlety of this post.

@Moto5 What are you talking about, and why are you on an Xbox site complaining about Xbox fans?

He held back all the first party games himself so they could raise the price to $70 and get people to subscribe to Game Pass.

Not reading every comment here but a lot of people are taking this the wrong way, the headline did not help. The point they are trying to make is simply about how many exclusive titles they would have relative to playstation post acquisition.

Sure, not all titles are created equal, if the information was available, a better argument would be a comparison of copies sold by all these exclusives in aggregate. Better: how many dollars have the aggregate of these exclusives generated in net revenue for each platform, and then compare how that would look should all ABK console title sales were instead moved to the XBox bucket.

Anyways, another thing i keep seeing popping up through the comments is how all the studios MS own have not delivered anything, and that is simply not true. These studios have all delivered content post acquisition, the problem is that they all got acquired while they were already under contract for multi-platform titles (some even PlayStation timed exclusive deals.)

Not only did those have to ship on the contracted platforms, but they could not even start working on Xbox exclusives until after those projects were finished. They got lucky that StarField was not also contracted to be a PlayStation timed exclusive. They were actively attempting to do so before MS jumped in and bought them.

@Snake_V5 That takes years upon years to do. They companies are for sale and gives microsoft lot’s of developers that can go spinoff new studios down the line for xbox, but for now fixes the issues of needing studios and games. Building a studio from the ground up and getting out new IP’s is almost a decade long venture.

@uptownsoul in no way shape or form is that what they are saying. They are saying studios for sale should be allowed to be bought with major IP’s being shared across multiple devices from all brands.

@uptownsoul that are for sale and yet keeping games on the other platforms. Hardly a takeoff and then keeping COD, cause keeping COD turns sony into everything else they closed and walked away from. This isn’t trying to be that.

@Snake_V5 Actually, @InterceptorAlpha has a point about "buying staff, starting a new studio under a different name." Have you read the portions of the interview, over on the Time Extension retro sister site of this site, with the old Sega America CEO? I recommend it if not, It's a great read for Sega or PlayStation fans. It has some fantastic history of the 1994 period and E3 1995 and the behind the scenes of Sony and Segas duel to the death. Including Kutaragi telling his Sega counterpart that Sega can't compete with Sony which can make all it's own chips and should get out of hardware, and interestingly the fact that Sony was poaching Sega devs and staff. That was a long time ago of course, most of the people are gone, but that's still how they bridged the gap quickly been them and Nintendo/Sega, same overall thing as buying the studios rather than poaching the employees without the other company's agreement. It's not really unusual save for the 8 bit duo.

Back then poaching talent was common. That's why Shigeru Miyamoto was credited as "S. Miyahon" on old NES games. Most Nintendo devs were made to use pseudonyms to hide their identities so competitors couldn't try to poach them. Compared to that just buying studios seems very open...

@Tharsman that is what is so annoying. Sony would have had timed deals on Deathloop, Ghostwire, Starfield and who knows what else; plus the “exclusive content” in COD. Actually ridiculous that they do this with so many games; not just one or two. Sometimes I feel Xbox is just buying these studios so they can at least have parity; and shut down Playstations sneaky behind the scene *****. But according to the ponies Playstation curates everything themselves. Paying money for content doesn’t happen(?).

@K1LLEGAL
You do know that Xbox has alot if timed exclusive games. Not Sonys fault that they are on smaller games.
CoD exclusive stuff started on Xbox 360 so Xbox started it all. When Xbox One failed Activision turned to Sony when deal with Xbox was done.
So not Sonys fault on anything, its all on Xbox not manage to handle console and games, so maybe start blaming them instead.

LOL. Is xbox trolling it’s own gatekeepers. Love it.

I find it all a bit embarrassing. They say one thing when they are getting you to buy a console and another when trying to push a deal through.

Just make some games with the 4000 studios you already own.

Bethesda have hardly been churning out announcements on new games since they were bought.

How about a new doom? Quake? Wolfenstien? Fallout? No? You need to buy another company to not announce any new games.

Halo, Forza, GOW and COD that’s what you’re saying right?

Exclusives “free” on GPU was always gonna affect quality and quantity and it’s turned out to be true.

I’m not saying GPU isn’t a good service I’m talking purely exclusives. We all want exclusives surely?

@Neverwild I do know that Xbox has timed exclusives yes. Thank you for that. I’m talking about the argument that Xbox “buys” its content… as opposed to Sony who do what?

@K1LLEGAL if MS bought exclusive content/timed, no one would care.

you think when the likes of ABK/SE etc, get an offer from sony, they dont reach out to MS to get one? Its MS who decide its not worth to outbid.

difference between that and buying a publisher for 69bil no?

@stvevan I have no idea whether Microsoft gets involved in these conversations or not (with Square Enix as an example). From a business perspective maybe they should; from a customer perspective I hate timed stuff so I don’t think they should. But all you are doing is emphasising my point that yes Playstation buys their content too. Deathloop was an early PS5 exclusive, not because Sony got a team together to build it from the ground up; but because they paid for it to be “their” content. This point was in response to those who try to argue Xbox buys their content and Sony do not. Which is incorrect.

“If MS bought exclusive content/timed, no one would care.” - Sony has made it clear that they need parity (at the very least) so I disagree that no one would care.

Would you really want Xbox to go back to making deals for 1 or 2 year timed exclusive games? With their bank account? I think you would care too.

@K1LLEGAL
No one is saying Sony doesnt buy exclusives.
But you hardcore Xbox fans cant see differrence between 1 year timed exclusive and buying entire publisher and taking away lots of games from players.
How you cant see a differrence is mind blowing and shocking.

But since you defend Microsoft buying 30 studios in 4 years, then you shouldnt have any problem if Sony buys Square Enix, Capcom, Bandai Namco to even things out.

@Neverwild I haven’t defended them. Why are you responding to me with nonsense?

“Taking away lots of games from players” yea they both do that. Simple as that.

How can I not see the difference between those 2 things. You literally explained it in your sentence. One is timed exclusive deals for a year or whatever, and the other is purchasing a publisher. At what point did I misunderstand the difference?

I’m not a hardcore Xbox fan either. I’m sitting here playing Ragnarok; thinking that Xbox need to stop pissing around with their studios and they need to release games. Not everything needs to be a big epic like Starfield. We have all been patient with Xbox and that’s fine to an extent but now it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Don’t call me a hardcore Xbox fan just because I play Xbox and i’m not kissing Sony’s feet and trying to insert myself into the PS5.

I was literally replying about one thing to do with Sony apparently not buying any of their content and suddenly everyone starts jumping down my throat.

This is laughable. I know some have defended them or tried to explain it so to speak, but it's still laughable. At the end of the day, the lack of exclusives in comparison isn't because Sony is buying up that many developers. They've bought some, but nothing like buying the amount of developers and games that buying ZeniMax and Activision/Blizzard gives you. It's because Microsoft has been absolutely inept in that area ever since roughly late in the Xbox 360 generation. If they had put in the effort to continue to make sure their output was respectable rather than just blindly relying on Halo, Gears, Forza, and even Call of Duty, then maybe they wouldn't be in this position where they feel they have to buy up huge companies just to cover up their mistakes from over a decade of bad management.

They've made some really weak arguments during this whole process of buying Activision, but this is likely the worst one yet. It just highlights their own failures, not a reason to support them buying huge companies. Those numbers are amazingly skewed too. They should focus on actually working on improving the Xbox brand, not constantly crying about people being opposed to them buying up huge companies to make up for their failures.

@Snake_V5 And spend fewer billions (or even...millions) on timed exclusives, as well.

@Fenbops This is going before regulators who have no clue about the industry. Of course the statements are hyperbolic.

Jim Ryan came out the gates saying Microsoft wanted to take away CoD, Sony would crumble, and he would have to sell every orifice to survive on the streets. Things escalated from there.

Sony exclaimed that Call of Duty is essential to their customers and therefore their business. "CoD is irreplaceable, on a level that could not be replicated." They are trying to liken it to creating a monopoly on food, water, power, fuel. No one needs a single game to survive.

Xbox has to respond with their own exaggerations to counter.
"We are not good at making games." The truth is, Microsoft wouldn't give them much money, and now they are given them access to a ton of money. MS sees the chance blow up their profits by expanding games beyond the restricting console pipeline.

How many game series would these regulators even recognize by name? Halo, Call of Duty, "Mario"?

@TJ81 Agreed, i turned 40 this year and will never stop gaming. Yes i have a wife and 2 kids, but i love my xbox and all the stories that game developers have to offer. I just wish Xbox would learn from PlayStation on their single player games because you are correct, PS holds the crown on those types of games.

@uptownsoul And Sony is still a corporation looking to use any competitive advantage to sell consoles and lock games to it’s platform , it’s called business and your opinion on that is irrelevant to the industry as a whole. You are a consumer you have the right to buy or not and thats about it. Whining has no outcome on companies looking to sell, only dollars and cents do and Sony if able would have bought ABK to cement themselves as the market leader forever if able to. Remember ABK said MS wasn’t even the first company they called about the sale.

@NarutosBiggestFan i agree i am almost your age and will never stop gaming, i don’t watch much TV or movies. Video games are my form of entertainment. I love PS’s God of War and Last of Us series. They are unmatched on the Xbox side and MS will admit that. However i only use my PS5 for Sony exclusives and my Switch for exclusives, everything else is played on my Series X. I hope MS can get some killer IP’s going in the single player story driven way Sony does. It’s a big missing piece of their portfolio.

@Neverwild Buying studios has inherent deterrents. Those studios and publishers have to be managed and supported. It comes with a burden. Not to mention the cost.

Sony does not usually make huge acquisitions (besides Bungie) because they do not have the capital. Nor the desire to bloat up and spend money. There is notable risk involved. Sony instead leverages their market position and buys copious timed exclusives to prop themselves up in slow times.

Microsoft didn't win the billion $ Powerball a couple of years ago. They have had hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars the entire 2+ decades of Xbox. To expect a company in their class to be shackled or obliged to behave as lesser companies is not reasonable.

You are correct that buying timed exclusivity is not the same as buying studios or a publisher. It is faster, cheaper, and thus more immediately effective for the purchaser and damaging to the competition. Sony buy 1, 2, and indefinite exclusivity periods. Many 3rd party titles have yet to see the light of day of Xbox.

What if Xbox spent millions to a couple billion, a fraction of the cost of ABK, on timed exclusivity each year? One, two, never-coming to Playstation-years? The Sony M.O.

Would that be "OK"? Sony and MS bid for all the biggest and most critically acclaimed games. Sony Playstation has the market position and Microsoft (the parent company) has deeper pockets.

@Snake_V5
When they buy a developer or publisher they are making the games. Many of the studios we know and love today were purchased (Naughty Dog, Bungie, Infinity Ward, Insomniac, Guerrilla Games, Sucker Punch, FromSoftware, etc. have all been bought at least once) . A common practice in any evolving industry is for there to be start-ups and failures. Start-ups often want to be bought as an end game.

Even publishers build shareholder value often with an intent to sell eventually. Because the game industry has been on such a growth pattern for a long time publishers were waiting to top out their market potential before selling.

This is all free-market 101.

@UltimateOtaku91
When you look at quality of exclusives how many game of the year awards have sony exclusives been nominated for vs XB exclusives for say the last 10 years? It is clear that not only does Sony lead in quantity, they also lead in quality. This is what XB has been trying to address since Phil took over.

@NeoRatt Yeah and they never have.

@uptownsoul You're absolutely right. But concentration cannot be stopped now. The gaming industry is highly profitable, but also require massive investments. Buyouts will also happen from the outside, with GAFAs waiting for the right opportunity.

And giant publishers are more fragile than people realize. Another THQ-sized collapse can and probably will happen in the decade.

@uptownsoul if a company is for sale i am smart enough to know i have no say in the matter, as a consumer i can either buy that platform and buy those games i want to play or not. I am blessed to have all 3 consoles so i won’t miss out on anything. But i do think MS needs to get more competitive and this deal makes GP a killer place to be if and only if the consumer wants that type of service. It gives great choice for when buying a console if you plan to only buy one. I have no horse in the race as i play all my 3rd party titles on xbox to begin with. I only use Nintendo and Sony platforms for their exclusives. Which is smart they continue to deliver AAA experiences that make them seem like a good buy for me. Xbox needed help in AAA exclusives, i think we all agree on that, so this deal while not netting them much exclusives, it does make GP really a strong offer and in today’s world these large publishers will come up for sale more than in decades past. This won’t be the last one that Sony or Microsoft take a shot at. It’s just this one is huge and pending on the way MS handles it, could make the next one feel safer and better. Sony was never going to win a arm’s race with a 2 trillion dollar company, lucky for them that 2 trillion dollar company was asleep at the wheel and not running it’s race car around the track, now they are and Sony is a bit nervous and rightfully so. But as a player and consumer we have choice what to buy and support, not cry whine and block.

@NEStalgia that doesn’t matter. Some of Playstation’s biggest selling games are TLOU, Spiderman, GoW 2018, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, all made by Sony owned devs after Sony bought them. Xbox true exclusives, Halo, Gears, Forza don’t come close in sales so now MS are simply buying already huge, 3rd party games.
It’s like me inventing a new car and my cars become the best selling cars in the world so Ford buy Nissan, BMW, Volkswagen, Skoda an put Ford badges on their cars an Ford become the biggest sellers in the world.

@uptownsoul normally i would agree with you, cause you aren’t wrong entirely. One company holding to much power can’t hurt that particular field. But tech and entertainment is different. Take MS for an example owned the computer world. Apple said we will create new markets and now MS is behind apple not only in money, but mindshare and daily usage. Look at nintendo they said we don’t have the money to compete with the bigger players but we have great creative teams that make games that are played by all ages and for every 1 Wii-U we have 2 Wii and Switches printing money. So it can be done in this industry. Sony is going to be just fine after this ABK deal goes through . As for my preferred platform you like to say. Let me just say it isn’t my fault Sony has made some of the most uncomfortable and non competitive gaming controllers around. Yes it really is that simple as to why i buy all my 3rd party titles on xbox. Off set sticks and just a better controller for my play style. If Sony made a first party off set stick controller without a useless trackpad taking up loads of space, i would easily be buying more games there. I have no favorite company here, only favorite controllers. It really is just that simple.

@jordan1992 That's somewhat true, but it's an incomplete look. Yeah, those studios made those games after Sony bought them, but more importantly, those are studios that have existed for a long time (no matter who owned them) and are decades experienced and capable of making great games. Microsoft basically didn't have any old studios they own at all, the ones they had, prior management closed, and most of their exclusives were just made by established 3rd parties under contract with no ownership or rights retained by MS (yes, due to failures of prior management.) The only way for them to compete was to either buy old, established studios ready-made, or build their own and wait 15-20+ years to be competitive, which obviously, is a non-starter, you can't catch up to a competitor by arriving where they are now, 20 years from now. They'll be somewhere else by then.

343 is basically newly created to replace Bungie when they were spun off, and originally made largely of non-game-devs that were meant to manage a media site, plus some Bungie staff that stayed. It grew into a monster studio but it's a monster studio that's inexperienced and it shows.

Coalition was created to replace Epic's role for Gears.....before that it was Zipline which made only a Facebook game, then was meant to create Kinekt games that got cancelled, then was meant to create a new Halo-scale shooter, then Gears happened and they were moved to that. They're definitely immensely talented, and I don't know much about their staff but I assume they obtained key staff from other companies to do as well as they have. The original leader actually left to go to Blizzard and run Diablo 4, so it kind of goes full circle with ABK.

The only studios they have that are aged and experienced in the way Sony has are Turn 10 and Playground, and they didn't even own Playground until recently, making Playground the only studio they have that could have gone through that "organic" process of second party to first party like Insomniac or ND, and they make only one game series until adding Fable recently, so more comparable to Santa Monica or San Diego Studio at least prior to them branching to fable. Turn 10, was created internally at Microsoft and is 20 years old, so that's truly the only studio that really compares at all to Sony's structure, though comparing almost 1:1 with Polyphony. Buying their historic 2nd parties for "organic" growth would mean buying EA to get Bioware back, buying Epic (which Sony and Tencent both own substantial stakes of), Buying Bungie back (which Bungie wouldn't want, and is now owned by Sony), Buying Obsidian and Bethesda, and id (which they did), Buying Mistwalker (but I don't think Sakaguchi has any interest in selling). Their position of 7 years ago didn't leave them many options to do it the same exact way Sony did it.

I mean, I get the concept of your point, and it's a common internet point, but the idea that "Sony did it this way so all competitors have to do it this way or it doesn't count" both doesn't make much sense, and also just doesn't reflect reality that both companies are at a different point. Sony was in the PS4 generation with numerous well aged studios that were part of them for many years and existed many years beyond, with original leadership still in place, and a number of partner studios that had been making games mostly exclusively for them since PS1 or PS2, that they absorbed over time.

MS on the other hand had nothing other than Turn 10, a long time partner studio in Playground, and 2 fledgling startup studios hastily built to replace a first party they sold off, and a partner studio they couldn't retain (Epic for Gears), That's it, it's all they had. Basically nothing. The only 3 available options to them were: Close shop and quit, build studios from zero and age them for 20 years (by which time Sonys studios would be 40 years, entrenched, and they would have more of them) which would lead to failing, closing shop, and quitting, or advance the clock by buying existing studios and incorporating them quickly. Google tried the middle option and it went down in flames rapidly.

From a business perspective on their end, there was only one option. And from a consumer perspective that doesn't benefit from a Sony monopoly on non-Nintendo games there was also really one option.

It really doesn't matter if it's Microsoft, Apple, or Amazon, or Disney, or Samsung, any company that wants to compete against an entrenched rival like PS is going to have to acquire a similar structure through purchases, because creating it from scratch and emulating a 20 year established history on a 20 year delay isn't possible. It's not just video games, it's just business in general. You can't enter an industry and catch up to a competitor without key acquisitions to actually rival them. The alternative is to accept that an entrenched industry player is unmovable and accept their monopoly status as permanent, but that's the actual definition of a monopoly trust. And then it has to be regulated including government set pricing, hiring, etc. etc.

I get why the SIZE of the purchase in this case is a debatable action. But the idea of buying their studios at all really can't be debated. They didn't have an alternative choice. And no matter one's preferred platform, it's a darned good thing they did. Imagine the cost and blandness of a single home console with no competitor.

@uptownsoul I agree with you in terms of consolidation in general. But this purchase really isn't the kind of consolidation you're thinking of. The dollar amounts blow Activision's significance out of proportion. Yeah, by money, Acti is massive consolidation, and by number of employees, too. But it's still a tiny fraction of the total staff, number of businesses, or number of important franchises in the overall industry. Most of that Acti money comes from their mobile business, and while CoD pulls in crazy money that's reflected in the deal, it also costs crazy money to make and support the massive staff required to produce it, so the profit line is actually less than what the mobile business pulls in even if the revenues are insane. And other than CoD, Diablo, and Overwatch, 3 titles.....how relevant is almost anything else Activision owns to the overall industry today? Blizzards top 3 products are PC-only (at least pre-buyout). They abandoned a lot of their Activision content to focus on CoD.

In terms of "the industry", especially as far as consumer perspective goes, Zenimax had a lot more competitive products that are relevant to the current market on the market than Activision has. It's just that one of Acti's is a universal industry centerpiece. If you remove CoD and King from the equation....what's Activision's real industry worth after they gutted the company's portfolio to feed CoD? Diablo and Overwatch and Starcraft in Korea? Before MS said they were buying them, outside the CoD market, did gamers really ever mention Activision or Activision products in conversation at all other than to sneer at an example of companies ruining gaming, or to mock Bobby?

What gamers, or really, PS-stans seem to really be upset about isn't that the next Prototype or Hexen game that was probably never going to be made anyway could be an MS exclusive, it's that with a single purchase MS obtains a much larger development capacity than their favorite brand and that could jeopardize their favorite brand's leadership position. It's a fear of "brand X" becoming the bigger, better brand than their chosen brand, or a fear that their chosen brand is unable to compete at all against a bigger competitor. Considering Nintendo's just fine long after both Sony and MS broadsided them with mega budgets, I think a failure of PS would be more a factor of Sony leadership than MS's actions. I think there's also a latent fear of the idea of the era of the home console ending as gaming appears to be moving more toward general computing platforms, even if that's still generations away from totally happening. If Xbox were a brand run by Samsung, or LG, reactions might be different than if it's MS, simply because it doesn't represent gaming moving the general computing direction.

@uptownsoul That's definitely the aspect I'm worried about. Well, Tencent already HAS been doing that, they're just subtle by buying controlling shares of things rather than total ownership that can be scrutinized. But yeah Amazon and Apple certainly worry me. But that would actually please regulators in terms of competition at the same level. Tencent already has significant stake in Ubisoft, Epic, a foot into Nintendo, who knows who else.

I don't disagree with you in the general sense there, though I also don't see it "collapsing" as a result. More like morphing into something people like us are disgusted by and have no interest in yet society at large seems to love it just fine.

I think the bigger problem is the blood is in the water, the pandemic gave investors in these companies an idea of what money they COULD have, and costs of production have finally jumped to a big enough deal, that the consolidation is going to happen regardless. MS actually NEEDS acquisitions to firm up it's 20 year + old games business to actually compete. But the rest of the industry I think will be gobbled up into the megacorps over the next decade just because the math works for the investment industry, regardless of what happens with MS/Acti, simply because it can and because it benefits shareholders and big media moguls. Just as the industry broke when EA/Acti went on buying sprees and turned the world of game studios into a 10-way mega-studio industry, the traditional big media, big tech, big bank companies will come in and devour those 10 into 4. But I don't think it's related to MS/Acti, I think it's parallel.

@uptownsoul Possibly. And I agree I'm not looking forward to that. Though I still think it would have happened anyway. Amazon buys into every industry even if it's to shut it down. They bought some companies back 15 years ago that were dominant, and recently closed them to "save costs" as they expect a recession hitting their retail margin, leveling those industries and leaving its vendors scrambling.

Whether or not this goes through, Amazon will either buy Acti for cheap or buy EA or Ubi or someone big. There's no antitrust issue with that because they're not really playing in the gaming market at all yet and Sony has no argument against a new competitor. Publishing Tomb Raider is step one, clearly. For the regulators, there's even less of an argument against that, it's a new competitor to a market.

For fans, there's really no argument against it either other than "I don't like/trust" Amazon, or "I don't want games locked to streaming only. But there's certainly no monopoly issue to raise there either. Don't have to like it, but it's not a trust.

@uptownsoul sadly, no. The denial of MS would be over MS specifically having monopoly power (they wouldn't.). No such issue would exist for Amazon, it would go through no problem. They're a new competitor to the market completely. No anti competition issues to raise. One way or another a tech giant is getting bigger and planting a flag in gaming and nothing can stop it even if Microsoft gets stopped. Ironically Microsoft would only be stopped because they make a console and have the first major subscription.

@uptownsoul can't disagree on that being horrible. Though I still think it was going to happen. The high of 2020, Disney becoming a media monopoly. MS identified Amazon, Facebook, tencent, Google, apple, not Sony add their competitors ages ago. I think MS jumped on Activision as soon as it was in trouble precisely because they knew those companies would be going after these publishers regardless. And Ms being Ms would have that information from Activision and other partners that may mention the other tech companies trying to get into it.

I do think, though, looking at windows vs Google, Apple, etc that ms is the most hands off for consumers. Maybe Amazon. They opened the door to drm free music to compete with Napster.

I don't think it's a matter of gaming so much as the same five companies, ultimately will simply become earth gov. The provider of all food and shelter and toilet paper, at their discretion, managing all earth economy. It's Walt Disney's idea of the corporate city on a planetary scale.

@uptownsoul i have no doubt other tech companies want in on the billion dollars cash cow that is gaming. That is why MS said they aren’t in direct competition with just sony. People laughed at that but you did a good job of explaining a situation that could unfold and make what MS said look right on the money. However i only include MS and Sony at the moment cause PS,Xbox and PC is where all the player’s are and they aren’t looking to game on an Amazon or Google hardware or cloud service. Them buying one big publisher isn’t going to sway gamers away from their PC’s and consoles. Not to mention MS will continue to bid on other big sales if those companies decide to sell off. My favorite saying about the gaming industry and really tech in general is it’s always changing and gamers hate any type of change. If gamers pouted their way enough we would all still be driving to stores to buy carts and blowing in them to get them to boot up. Thankfully the industry moves forward and brings the kicking and screaming children with them. The industry is changing at the moment and if it’s for better or worse depends on the single user. I for one like this change, there is plenty of money for all 3 to compete for. I will continue to buy all 3 and support them. All the doom and gloom stories remind me of the articles thats been written since the end of PS3 saying this will be the late console cycle and here we are with 114 million PS4’s and 115 million plus switch’s sold. This ABK deal isn’t going to “harm” the market and deep down Sony fanboys hate this move cause they won’t be able to say Xbox has no games, they hate having to see Xbox not fold tent and walk away into the woods. They would much rather see Xbox struggle to move 50 million units and have Sony 2-1 them and that’s just not going to happen under Phil Spencer. The wallet has come into play and Xbox is here to Stay. Which didn’t look so convincing during the early Xbox one years.

@uptownsoul thats the thing it’s not a lie. Microsoft is aware of the reports that Amazon, Apple, Google and many other’s want to buy up teams and expand their foot print in the industry and why wouldn’t they. They see the numbers gaming rakes in every year. But at the moment MS is competing with Sony, until the others try again at a better console or Cloud service. Sony’s PS is at the moment Xbox’s biggest competitor. But MS knows in 10 years or even less that might not be the only other horse in the race. What they said makes complete sense. Again the only thing the gaming industry has in common with its past is it’s always changing and adopting to new technologies. Those new technologies bring along the kicking and screaming group in time.

@uptownsoul the only thing i will add is if those others want my money they will need A: a great controller that is at least as good for me as the Xbox Controller and not a trash controller such as most of Sony’s and B: must have exclusives, cause as much as i would never want to play call of duty on a sony controller, i will put up with the controller to play God of War and Last of us. If they have both of those then they could become my favorite but they will need one in order for me to even look at them with an open wallet. For as much as the Xbox one was lacking in AAA exclusives, i enjoyed all my 3rd party games there cause the Xbox one controller SMASHED the Dual shock 4 , and 360 vs six axis i am not even sure is a fair argument.

@uptownsoul “i couldn't care less if you spend your money with any of those other corporations or not”

Well that’s strange, I thought you would seeing how all the games on one console or platform will be bad for the industry. Wouldn’t it be better if me and all of us were buying and supporting all the competition? Otherwise if we don’t care who buys what, then why not let MS buy everyone and end the need for 3 consoles. Sure seems like you would rather us all support everyone, but not when you say things like that.

@uptownsoul they haven’t removed any Bethesda games from PS or nintendo, future new IP’s will be on a case by case bases, and Bethesda has always been a Pc and Xbox first developer. Having those games on Xbox and PC only will not hurt sony one bit, but will be a nice incentive to get a few new players over to the Xbox ecosystem and that could only be a good thing seeing as PS is a 2-1 favorite in sales leads, we wouldn’t want one company getting to big now would we?

@uptownsoul it's not a lie in either case. Their future competition are the big tech giants. Again, if there was any doubt, tomb raider confirmed it. It's not that they're not in competition with Sony, but they don't see the PS/Xbox consoles as the future of gaming because they see general purpose computing replacing bespoke consoles and cloud being mainstream. So they don't see PlayStation as their primary concern forever.

Sony isn't oblivious to that. They know. They're going hard into multimedia and pc for reasons. Nintendo knows too. It's why they're playing with cloud and furukawa commented about a future without hardware years ago.

You don't need to believe them saying it, you more or less said the same thing yourself with the worry over Amazon, tencent, etc. We all see that writing on the wall, because that's how big tech does things. They do need to focus on competing with Sony today, but they also need to plan for competition against the coming total consolidation among peers. It's that market they're really readying for. They may well intend to use Sony at a valuable tool to prevent the new rivals from gaining traction just as they did with Apple, which ironically surpassed then after.

Here's the part you're confusing:. Regulators are framing the conversation around Sony because they're making noise. And they're the visibly affected competitor. Microsoft is setting the pieces of the board to fight a battle that won't fully start for another 5 years or so. Regulators are simple bureaucrats. Understanding the future Amazon battle they didn't even start fighting yet is beyond regulators capacity to really grasp. Ms gets nowhere arguing about the future competition they know about but regs can't see. Regs want to look at the market as it is today. So the conversation is sony.

Behind closed doors I'm sure Ms is just beside themselves that they're jumping through all these hoops about a competition issue that's not even part of what they're doing.

@electrolite77 @uptownsoul Thank you Electrolite, you said it better than me but yes not JUST Sony, and obviously at this point in time Sony is the major competitor cause well they just sold 114 million PS4’s, however MS knows in the future it won’t just be sony to compete with and uptownsoul basically say’s it in his wish of Amazon spending 40 Billion dollars, well if thats right then that would prove MS knew all along they would be in competition there. Both things can be true and MS’s comment was in fact truth.

@uptownsoul “i can care about the industry without caring how every single person, like you, spends their money”

Indeed you can, but trust me you need the people like minded as myself out there spending money on all 3 consoles, services and games. I support the entire industry the best i can and as long as others like me and yourself are doing that we will have a healthy industry full of new ideas and competition.

@uptownsoul cause it contradicts your point of the industry is doomed, the industry will shrink in size due to the buying of studios. My point is if myself and others support all 3 and give them back the money they took risks on, they will continue to flourish and keep the industry healthy. I could care less what you care about, outside of you spewing non sense about the industry that isn’t true. The industry will change, others will come at it with bags of cash, but as long as we gamers buy the good games on whatever device or service, we will continue deep into the future of having great gaming experiences in our homes and let the business side of the industry do what it’s going to do, cause we can’t whine, cry and pout ourselves out of 60 Billion dollar deals. We can however choose to not support those games and i know many people that won’t buy Diablo 4, my most wanted game by a long shot, because of the way that studio handled bad situations. I respect their decisions, but it don’t mean that the game shouldn’t come out, it don’t mean it shouldn’t be on GP and if MS so choose to keep it exclusive that is fine also. As someone that is a diablo fanatic i will get whatever platform i need to to play it. I suppose my point is i don’t sit around and complain that the suit and ties of the industry is going to ruin my fun of the hobby, i buy all 3 consoles to give myself as much fun and access to games as i can and know that by doing so i am supporting the industry as a whole. If amazon, google, Apple and Tencent want my money, they will get it if they have games i wish to play. It’s a really simple concept. Last point i don’t think people think it’s good per say, but it’s not this looming doom of the industry failing or gamers not being able to gain access to those games. Amazon is not going to buy EA and take Madden and FIFA off every device but their own. That would be a waste of money and so much negative PR to the amazon name that it would do them more harm then good. Same as MS knows taking COD off devices would be negative PR for the Xbox brand and not do them any good. Could the smaller games go exclusive? Maybe, yeah, but at the moment no company is looking to pull COD or FIFA from the 100’s of million of console players. Sorry i don’t see it, if in years time i am wrong, i will eat crow and be happy to admit i was wrong, but i don’t see that happening until consoles are gone for good and cloud and PC is the only place to play.

@uptownsoul i disagree, but thats the fun part of debating the gaming industry. I think as gamers we will follow the games and the industry will be different, but just fine. So somehow Apple and Amazon having games will doom the industry? How? Will people just put down their controllers and say i quit? I could care less if I play Diablo 4 on any of those companies platforms as long as i get to play it and it’s good. I for one would love to see Apple a major player in the AAA space. I don’t play mobile games on my ipad or iPhone or Apple TV, but if they had AAA games on a device that ran well and had a great controller i would give it some time. Amazon has Luna now and it is more dead than Stadia, sure they could say buy EA, but not sure what they would really do for them and if ABK goes to MS and Sony buys Square or someone else. It is going to be really hard for others to crack into that space. Now if it all goes to cloud and PC then it could really benefit amazon and others to spend and become a big publisher. Again it won’t be a bad thing, when it was just Sega and Nintendo and Sony and MS entered it wasn’t a bad thing, many would say it got better.

@electrolite77 Very well said! I think many are raising some brilliant points and their concerns are of course valid, but as for the trajectory of the industry - only time will tell.

I mean at the beginning of last generation I couldn’t dislike Microsoft more, they basically spat in the face of gaming at large, got laughed at on a global scale. Even so far as many industry “insiders” expected them to move away from the industry.

Even this very website couldn’t justify existing, and still pales in comparison to many others.

Yet now, we are seeing a serious bounce back, mainly off the back of “appearing” more consumer friendly. So the opposite of last generation, and that’s even won people like me over more.

Now to the point whereby I genuinely just want all the key players to remain as such, because if the three main industry leaders no longer lead, that’s an unwritten future non can predict.

Despite of course the self appointed futurists you read on website comments like this one.

As for the deal, it won’t personally impact me. But what comes years down the line as a ripple effect may well do. As is the case for us all.

Anyway, I ramble, but I think yourself and a few others have made very valid points. Ones that don’t claim to know exactly how the industry will go, because non of us do.

As I said, not even Xbox as it is now was thought to be here at this point 8 years or so ago. So who knows what the future holds.

@uptownsoul Apparently when i have said multiple times i will follow the games regardless of what company has them, you missed that point. I am not upset if those big tech companies spend $200 Billion on the industry.i will follow the games, cause gaming is what i enjoy, not worrying about who buys who or what. I get no fun out of who buys what, if someday i can only play a certain game on Amazon or Apple, then i will be supporting those platforms.

And maybe I haven’t been clear enough saying your personal gaming concerns and habits are irrelevant to me, you aren’t the follow the games gamer, you are the doom and gloom and fear of what may or may not even happen. I am supporting games on all platforms and not caring who buys what. The Big 3 are very important to the industry and i don’t see anyone cracking into that space anytime soon. Now if it all goes cloud and PC, then yes i would agree with you that i think more big tech companies will try and own and publish games for profit. But the console space is 90% locked up with the Big 3.