FragRed

@Murray Sega were never successful in Japan with their home consoles

Xbox has never had a big market in Japan. It’s always been between Nintendo and Sony and right now the Switch being a portable is doing gangbusters and the PS5 is starting to show huge sales now it’s more easily available because it’s a brand that historically always did well. Xbox just never got any traction and I don’t think that’s going to change in any meaningful way.

I feel this gets dragged up every decade or so, as others have already mentioned. It’s going to be determined by demand and as things stand that demand is still very strong. Also 10 years from now we will be likely early in the life cycle of the next generation of Xbox and PS6. I definitely feel Sony and Nintendo are going to be very much focused on hardware for the foreseeable future.

There’s a reason I’m assuming Warner have struggled to sell the studios. Insane high prices (especially after the $300 million for the Square Enix western studios) and the fact they don’t come with any IP because they want to go down the licensing route means you are only buying talent that may not stay after the acquisition.

I think the market audience for both games are different enough, and with Hogwarts Legacy being on pretty much every console and PC, I’m not sure it’ll be necessary too effected by Starfield. Just like Starfield won’t be impacted by Hogwarts Legacy.

Broken Sword is awesome. This will be the third time owning it. Kickstarter on PC, Switch now Xbox.

I bought Sonic Generations, Unleashed and All Stars Transformed Racing, Tomb Raider Legends, Underworld and Anniversary, Binary Domain, Crazy Taxi, Nights into Dreams and I think one or two others I forget off top of my head.

@JayJ Yeah I think it was the fact the PS2 was going to double as a DVD player that scared Microsoft. I guess this thinking is why the initial idea behind the Xbox One was the all in one entertainment package rather than just a gaming machine.

@JayJ Not quite true. The reason Microsoft entered into the scene was really because of Sony not wanting to partner up and was therefore seen as a threat with the taking over the entirety of home entertainment.

@LtSarge Not sure Microsoft would want to go into buying up a company that’s publicly trading. It’s a lot more likely that once it’s officially announced Microsoft is looking to buy up the shares, others will also jump in and put forward offers which would drive up the price and could start a bidding war. Much easier and safer to focus on buying up private companies like ZeniMax were.

@LX_FENIX Was going to comment the same thing. Hoping that now new generation of consoles are out, Microsoft isn’t going to scrap adding more games to backwards compatibility.

@Bleachedsmiles 40 year old suits that also think “ making sick plays on Xbox” is how most talk. Why do they have to try and be down with the kids like it’s the 1990s?

@101Force There has been a few remakes of Myst over the years but I don't think they've ever redone Riven which is pretty strange. I hope they do remake Riven as I personally prefer it to Myst.

I’m just glad I lucked out getting the PS5 and Xbox Series X with little trouble, because I really feel for anyone wanting to get hold of one for the next couple years especially during holiday periods.

After reading what’s happening at Activision Blizzard I’m gonna skip buying their games. It’s truly disturbing.

@BrilliantBill A fair amount of people always manage to fail upwards, no matter how much of a disaster your previous work has been. Just look at Phil Harrison as a perfect example.

@ThanosReXXX Ahh thank you for the link. Wow that is real cheap. We don't get enough of these arcade games nowadays. Also thank you for the tips.

@ThanosReXXX I looked for it on the U.K. site and couldn’t see it in the sales. Did a manual search and though found the game, it seems to be full price which is disappointing.

I imagine any game owned by Bethesda that’s not already available will be made available, yes even Wet. Also I’m sure there’s still one or two EA games not available. These would help bolster the Game Pass/EA Access vaults.

@Insightful I’m not sure Microsoft can save this company or this game. They’d need to strip the whole company down starting with management and just rebuild the whole thing. Not sure if it’s worth the cost.

@LtSarge It seems every other day, a new developer or publisher gets tossed into the rumour mill of the next acquisition by Microsoft. I think most of Japan is already on it along with Ubisoft, Techland, Playtonic and Warner Interactive. At some point these people have to ask how realistic all of this really is, no matter how much disposable cash Microsoft has.

Wait I thought it came out that MGM was why it didn’t get released?

@PsykoRobot The PlayStation app which was updated for the PS5 launch allows you to buy games from the store through the app itself so I’m not sure it’s anything to do with Apple’s stance in this case.

I got it on PS5 as it was one of this month’s PS+ games. I’m kinda surprised Microsoft didn’t get this on Game Pass also.

Took a look at the Assassin's Creed Valhalla page but it doesn't seem to show up as being on sale in the UK. The page just seems to show the normal price.

Bought this on PS4 in a sale a while back but have yet to play it. If it comes to Game Pass like we expect, then I will hold off and play it on the Series X.

I’m surprised this hasn’t leaked as a ROM or something in the past 13 years since it was cancelled.

Wow, Tencent have been buying both majority and minority stakes in a lot of developers the past few years. I’m not sure this is a good thing either, even if it helps smaller developers expand. Ultimately time will tell how all of this will shape out.

@Jaxx420 Yeah that's the scary thing. Not sure if EA, Activision or Take-Two will be as easy to try and acquire through hostile takeovers simply due to how big their market capital is, even for companies with such infinite pockets as Facebook/Google/Amazon has. Ubisoft being only $3 billion makes it perfect for being targeted.

Not sure how easy Japanese publishers would be due to the laws in Japan on Western takeovers.

People forget that although not seen as the AAA big publishers, there are publishers such as Deep Silver and THQ Nordic that could be on the cards for acquisition by Google/Amazon and Facebook, perhaps not so much Microsoft or Sony but the first three wouldn't be too surprising.

After everything that happened with Vivendi trying to acquire Ubisoft in a hostile takeover, they are one I think will be doing all they can to stay independent and may have safety nets in place this time round should it happen again.

This whole timed exclusivity thing is so horrible, especially when it’s deliberately done in such a way that they know by the time it goes to the competition, it’ll be pretty useless as the next game will be available to play which will have the same year long exclusive tactics.

@KelticDevil I think the Mars company already bought the planet Mars as part of a wider Milky Way acquisition.

The only reason Microsoft are doing this is because they’re launching a new console. They know they haven’t got a chance in getting a market over in Japan. That’s primarily Nintendo territory with Sony in second place and Microsoft almost none existent.

That seems like the most reasonable timeframe, they usually release early November don’t they?

JUST MOVE ON! You’d think the Xbox doesn’t have a bunch of studios working on a bunch of games for their consoles/ecosystem moving forward with this never ending desire to bring back a long cancelled game that always received mixed reaction when shown and was likely canned for good reason.

I won’t be watching it as there’s other things that needs to be done, so I’ll be catching up on whatever is announced.

@Grumblevolcano It’s important to note that some airports and I think planes like Heathrow are locked behind higher tier versions of the game too.

@BlueOcean That is true, but I also think $4 billion is the initial asking price to see who will bite and then who will make the best offer in the hope there’s a bidding war.

@BlueOcean Microsoft would also be purchasing a huge catalogue of IP including anything, I’d imagine by Midway Games and Atari Games (the arcade division which wasn’t sold back in 83). It depends on how much all of that is worth and whether Microsoft or any potential buyer sees value is owning all of that. Could easily get the newly acquired studios to start rebooting some of them such as Gauntlet.

@Octane When you have a series that sells as well as Pokemon, you don't need to put too much effort into the games. If the sales suddenly began to slide then maybe they would be forced to put care and attention into it.

@Link41x I bet you already own at least something that is in someway connected with Tencent. Do you own anything by Epic Games or their Unreal Engine by any chance? Because they are both owned by Tencent and they do unfortunately own or part own a fair amount of western developers including a stake in Ubisoft.

@redd214 Why didn’t he just not say anything. Sometimes it’s better to remain silent, especially as most wouldn’t even have known about these accounts. But now he’s spoken up, anyone following him now is aware and it just adds to the whole rumour mill.

If they have been inactive for years, why do they have 2020 as the year they were created? Me thinks someone is desperately trying to put out the flames.

Didn’t the London store only open last year? What a waste of money.

@SuperNintendoMii I think Microsoft are hoping Sony says something first about price and release date so they don’t end up being more expensive like the start of this generation. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft held out until end of July to make that announcement.

Bit late in the 10 year licensing deal to do that now isn't it EA?

@ralphdibny Probably because they know people aren't going to double dip on these games, especially if this one ends up receiving average reviews.

@ThanosReXXX It feels like EA really had nothing to really showcase this year and just stuck up whatever they could to justify doing the event.

@ThanosReXXX I understand this is still very much a work in progress but those textures look last generation.

I think Microsoft will announce the price in July but they’ll wait until Sony makes their announcement. They may wait till the very last day of July because someone is going to crack and Microsoft can’t really afford to be more expensive again.