Ubisoft CEO Explains Decision To Buy ActiBlizz Cloud Rights From Xbox

Odd how this all worked out, but glad the end is in sight! Can’t wait to start seeing some of those ABK titles coming to Game Pass Ultimate! I’m very curious to see if they’ll port WoW to console and make it free on Game Pass. Hell, makes paid sub version available on PS5 too. That could be REALLY popular to have cross play, especially if PC and consoles get full crossplay. Truly would breath a lot of new life into the game.

I agree that cloud gaming has advantages. BUT they need to make it better than it is today. There needs to be co-processing with the end user device so that things that need local optimization are optimized and things that are better processed centrally are processed centrally.

Also, need to work on lag and latency. You get games like God of War, the Souls type games, etc. where one mistake can really cost you in gameplay. They need to get rid of the problems around that.

Once those are solved cloud gaming will become more and more embedded into gaming.

A slippery slope of joining forces with Microsoft and not getting absorbed eventually…

Ubisoft is save keeping Xbox's Cloud until they get acquired by Microsoft.

@MasterPlayerOne @AlwaysPlaying They probably need to be acquired by someone soon. Ubisoft is not doing well financially. Tencent gave them hundreds of millions to keep afloat last year, but they'll likely need another injection like that from another investor soon, as they've lost more money since last year.

Most likely Tencent will buy them out though, seeing as Tencent already owns a significant amount of Ubisoft.

Bring back guitar hero

Phones are starting to have chipsets capable of running these new AAA games natively. Especially once Android phones get the new chipsets, I bet getting Game Pass games running natively on your phone will be easily possible. Handheld PCs is a very fast growing market that also enable you to play your games natively on the go. The future of Cloud Gaming is far from a safe bet.

For me it was the oddest part of the ABK saga that regulators were so hung up on the cloud aspect while Microsoft clearly did not care much at all about the cloud aspect.

I often defend the Ubisoft formula but if Ubisoft is interested in a segment of the market, that segment is probably already past its peak.

@BacklogBrad most of them are still expensive and not attractive to the general public. Cloud gaming is a cheap way for people to use what they already own. I can see a big potential with that.

@Lightning720 Steam deck is $50 more than a Nintendo Switch OLED and less than a Series X/PS5. Plus the nature of new tech is that the price will eventually go down.

Cloud gaming has unlimited potential. I mean unlimited. Imagine playing the latest game on any device. Have a TV a keyboard and mouse, you have the latest PC. Have a controller and a phone, you have the latest console. Have a headset, you have a portable PSVR. I mean take away hardware requirements and just think of what can be achieved. Kinect/motion play could return using your phones camera. Party games that use your touch screen that you currently need a console to play. Bam unlimited potential of cloud gaming in your pocket. I am a true believer that this is the future.

@BacklogBrad Most people will already have a device that plays cloud streaming without having to spend hundreds more. That is the entire point.

@Lightning720 I have had flawless experiences with cloud but still don't have that desire to use it. I think cloud would be doing better right now if it was actually something that people wanted. This isn't some future tech, its here right now and as Xbox has pointed out in court not many people actively use it.

The whole point I am making is that eventually those devices that everyone already owns will be able to play the big games natively not just through cloud. Your phone, tv, etc. 4k used to be the new big thing and TVs cost $3000 to have 4k now they can be had for a few hundred dollars. Eventually the processing power will be there where many affordable TVs allow you to install the full games instead of messing around with cloud.

@BacklogBrad
A phone/TV/portable PC, will never have the power of a server bank. Cloud gaming is in its infancy. It has just been born. Imagine games designed with cloud in mind. Creating mods in real time and sharing them with your friends. Procedurally generated world's in real time with real world graphics. Portable. A little over 20 years ago a phone had two lines of text. You could send a message, but it had to be less than 200 characters. Cloud gaming is that phone. In 20 years it can do so much more than we can even imagine. That is what Microsoft sees. That is what Ubisoft sees. That is what I see.

@Astig gaming companies are currently abandoning games within a year of their release because they don't want to pay for the servers to keep them going. How is that going to be when the cost rises astronomically?

In the context for Ubisoft owning ABK cloud rights for 15 years, I don't think we are talking about the same thing. They are literally just putting a native game they didn't develop onto whichever streaming platform pays them. The same games that will be natively playable on a long list of devices.

Until all data caps are dropped across all internet providers, cloud gaming will never succeed.

@BacklogBrad
This is indeed true. Perhaps I have a little too much wishful thinking. I see a world where AI infused quantum computers, create my perfect game with limitless potential. But you bring up a good point of the economics of this world. The future will be decided by the mindless consumer robots of the world. Not by me. So yes in my AI, quantum cloud, it could all just be free to play, politics and mediocre garbage. Then I'll be buying a portable PC to play good old games locally. Ha.

@Moonglow I agree but I believe it is only a matter of time until tvs are closer to a full-blown PC than a display. I think there is a future where you can natively play games on your TV.

@Astig Your vision could become true but I wouldn't build it into a level of certainty that the metaverse crowd did. The cynic in me thinks the "cloud revolution" will just be a way for streamers to interact with their chat in game.

Gaming always seems to be a new trend and then a race back to the single player experience. I think that will always be the case.

I do feel cloud is the future. I just hope they can get it so aiming feels like you're playing on a console. I completed a quest on Starfield yesterday on my tablet so I could watch Money for Nothing before I went to work lol. Once you get used to the slight delay it feels great.

Nothing Ubisoft does will force my hand to pay for anything they produce.

The ultimate touché Microsoft can throw out there, is to just include Ubisoft+ with Gamepass Ultimate.

Pretty big FU to the CMA

Royal Games the main portal to King who created Candy Crush, I’ve just found out that the rest of the Royal Games site will be shut down soon, surely this can’t be right when there are thousands still logging in, this deal is closing soon so Royal Games can’t be shut down soon can it?

@BacklogBrad Phones had the ability to run new AAA games natively for years. The issue had nothing to do with hardware, but the cost of port said game to an entirely new environment. No developer is going to port games to phone cause mobile gamers have been conditioned for years to only expect freemium.

Most likely the only reason we’re seeing all these AAA ports being announced is cause Apple is footing the bill. But once that money runs out, you’ll be back to relying on cloud gaming.

Corporations desperately want to push video game streaming, yet they refuse to spend the money on the necessary internet infrastructure upgrades to make that actually viable for the general public.

Reading this is like a glimpse into a future corporate hellscape.

@AlexAtwell this happened in 2021 not now. Just use king.com

@AverageGamer the iPhone 15 pro has a new A17 processor that is comparible to the handheld pcs like ROG Ally, Steam Deck, etc. That is new for the phone market. I really doubt it took that much convincing for Ubisoft, Capcom, etc to port their games to a platform that has the potential of over 1 billion active users. Obviously, they won't all have the 15 pro model in year 1 when it is just the pro model with the chip but over the next couple years it should show up in the base model as well. This is a lucrative market and next frontier for AAA gaming. Companies would be stupid to not be actively porting their games there.

Wonder of absorbing Ubi+ into gamepass ultimate, like EA play, is on the cards.

Because 'oh look at that the acti-bliz titles cloud streaming are back on gamepass'

@BacklogBrad I couldn't agree more with what you just wrote.

Cloud gaming is a doomed idea, from the beginning, for me, just because of... phones, really. When you see the power of those phones that everyone is buying, the concept of cloud gaming, in itself, just becomes irrelevant.

Plus, they're often comparing it to streaming services, like Netflix and co, but for this kind of streaming, they don't need a huge computer running something for every user that is accessing the service. Streaming videos and streaming video GAMES are totally different things, structurally.

Anyway... what's left to do for ms to acquire Activision?

Cloud will be the future but quite a distant one yet imo. Until they definitely solve latency, target audience is going to be in the thousands instead of millions.

@Xeno_Aura why would Ubisoft sell for less when fhey can get more from Xbox

@demian Ah, I thought that Royal Games had update the message, I wondered if it was from 2021, I have played on King.com before and it’s nothing like Royal Games, so Royal Games could still be revived after the deal closes if the site is lucky?

Microsoft to buy Ubisoft within 5 years.

@AlexAtwell I don't think so, the site will go offline at some point. No way to keep 2 sites.

@demian It’s funny how all the profiles are still there though, Royal Games is the main portal to King and it was a major gaming site with really good games

I truly believe cloud gaming will control to grow especially within the next 10 years. Internet access is getting better by the year even in rural America. I live in a tiny Oregon town that had only satellite or 1 cable provider as options, over the course of 5 years we now have multiple ISP and I now have gig speed fiber Internet, something I couldn't fathom 8 years ago when I moved here. This is just one example and I know a massive amount of Americans don't have access to high speed Internet but it has been steadily improving. With Star Link proving low orbit satellite Internet is good enough for online gaming & the fact that Amazon is launching their own AFFORDABLE low orbit satellite Internet which is great for people living where they don't have access to high speed Internet.

I personally use Xcloud way more than I anticipated. I use it to try out games before downloading them to my Series S, I also use it to play games on my Galaxy Tablet when I'm not home. Streaming games has gotten so much better over the years and it's only going to get better as time goes on. I'm glad Microsoft has made Xcloud available to it's gamepass ultimate subscribers & I can't even imagine how awesome it'd be to play Activision games via the cloud. I imagine playing through classic COD campaigns right from my tablet lol Long Live Xbox ✌️