Jaxx420

@Moonglow to you and me. It causes no confusion at all.

To the casual out there, the parents who got an Xbox for their kids. There is inevitably those who will see GP console priced higher and automatically think "must be better" realise after. No online play.

Taking it down to the 3 would negate that issue. Its easy for us to sit here avid gamers frequenting gaming sites and know our shiz - gotta consider the ones who arent and dont.

@Total_Weirdo Nope. Mark Cerny and Shu are massive gamers but kept out of the public eye. Strange really.

@Moonglow it could be more simple. Confusion isnt the change with XBL gold. Its the fact that Game Pass lowest tier costs more with no online MP. That is what is confusing some.

Better option as someone said earlier is restructuring to have Core PC and Ultimate as GP models which is what they will probably do soon, just made more sense to do it simultaneously.

I am willing to bet it wasn't Jim Ryan's decision to sign this and someone above him has decided enough is enough. Bit late but was bound to happen.

@Kaloudz there was definitely venom with Sega vs Nintendo. Was a bit atrocious but you hit the nail on the head lack of social media and widespread internet didnt see it as much.

This was always going to go through and FTC losing the appeal was no surprise as their arguments to date have been almost baseless.

The interesting bit is what comes next and what this going through triggers.

Short term it just adds a tonne more content to the Xbox portfolio and creates some interesting competition. Long term - no clue.

Geez, 72 comments in and there has already been bickering and drama.

@Banjo- I dont disagree with the Sony zealots and good ol' JR associating it with the end of days but wouldnt you rather not see his name bandied around all the time? Gets old after a bit.

@Tharsman That is very true.

@HairyRope term used these days is "console exclusive" for that reason.

@Tharsman Nope. I dont think it would be covered the other way around either. Wouldnt make sense.

Gex! That takes me back. Cant wait.

@Banjo- it may be the semi open world style was a bit jarring for me. Used to classic survival horror being all about cramped rooms and narrow corridors nowhere to run and all that jazz.

@AlwaysPlaying feel your pain. I might get through mine by 2040. Maybe.

Im only about 2 hours in to Hi Fi Rush and I already have an urge to go back and play Jet Set Radio.

@Solidchief @Banjo Evil Within was brilliant. Classic survival horror cant beat it. I wasnt as enamoured with the sequel as much but cant put my finger on why.

Game Pass benefits indies big style. The funding they will get from it can almost make or break getting it out for release.

I can understand bigger publishers only dipping into it as it were but its massive for the indie development community.

I long for the day when anything positive about Game Pass doesn't immediately follow by mentions of Jim Ryan. Its constant. Lol.

If this site was a twitter he would be the top trending term at this point.

A snake is better off left in its pit and forgotten about.

They will likely lose it, but not surprised they have done it. Got to be seen as making efforts, political agendas and all that.

@Moonglow ABK are bigger than EA for revenue albeit marginally. MS and ABK together? Different beast.

It could go the way of TV streaming and there will remain room for many big players. Time will tell. The industry is big enough just depends how aggressive all the major companies will now get in buying others up.

@Moonglow PC Market is bigger but industry consolidation impacts that market the least as save for Nintendo, the others release their games on PC at various points anyway. It impacts the console market the most.

We are far away from it on paper but I expect it to accelerate over the next 2-3 years now. Reality is Xbox is a fraction of Microsofts overall profit base. Playstation is a vast majority of Sonys so they will react now and then Microsoft will react again in kind, it will speed up.

What happens after that remains to be seen. Competition creates quality so as long as the quality isnt impacted, things will probably be okay. But no one knows if that will end up being the case.

@Banjo- I give it days, weeks at most after it closes before Bobby goes. He should have been shafted years ago.

Just a shame he will go with a big fat pay packet.

@Moonglow it is positive for Xbox owners worry is what its going to spark now. An acquisition arms race does the industry no good.

Hard to distinguish between the Sony defenders and those genuinely concerned though. That "other place" certainly has a fair few of the former.

@Ep_13 EG went to the dogs years ago mate. I do frequent it for Digital Foundry as that team do some interesting stuff but other than that its a fanboyfest.

@RareFan I want to disagree with this as a massive Crash fan but I cant lol. This buyout is all about the money makers and mobile. I do hope they will continue with some of the more fun IPs but it is a worry.

@Gamer83 I dont like where it could lead either. I always expected this to go through and grew tired of the drama owning both anyway but I just hope it doesnt become the start of industry consolidation.

MS wont stop at ABK and Sony wont stop at Bungie either.

Loved the first two. Hated the third. Still think another one would be great under the right dev with the right direction.

If ABK deal goes through I would let Toys for Bob have a crack at it.

@BeerIsAwesome if like me you like martial arts films the whole setting of Sleeping Dogs was just perfect. I think it was a little bit different to GTA with the combat focus, played much differently for me.

@Markatron84 You misunderstood me I think.

I said it was dominating the gaming media at the moment which is a shame. I said they do right reporting it so those here can see the gist of what is going on I didnt say it was right to be in nearly every single article.

I too hate that as it just fills comments threads with fanboy nonsense both on here and the other site, which it appears to have done in this thread yet again sadly.

@BBB getting tiresome isnt it? Cant fault the site its dominated gaming news over the last two weeks in general. Its a shame but they do right reporting it.

@WallyWest Ok have to disagree there.

Was Halo their biggest system seller at the time? Did it help them get a foothold in the market? Absolutely.

But they had other new IPs that set them apart at launch and some time after. With the money side of things included MS would have been successful enough without Halo.

What is foolish is his idea of Sony being the only one moneyhatting exclusives to disrupt competitors. He forgets the 360 era, forgets Tomb Raider, forgets they moneyhatted getting timed exclusives on a next gen upgrade (Yakuza Like a Dragon for example)

He is pot calling kettle, but so is Jim Ryan. Honestly cant pick a side in this whole saga both have come off in a really bad light here.

Its been a sad few months that gaming news has been dominated by this bs.

@WallyWest He wont recognise anything in the industry before Xbox existed. Jim Ryan is the same both are execs spouting bs without a clue.

@Kaloudz the funniest part is COD has been at the forefront of all of this yet its them gaining Kyng that was probably the biggest draw for the acquisition bid.

People are too obsessed with Call of Duty.

Drama at this point. The bottom line in this whole saga has to be, if this goes through is it going to trigger industry consolidation ie Sony acquire Square Enix, MS then acquire another and so on so forth.

If the answer is yes, this shouldnt go through, if its no then its fine.

The real problem is you cant know the answer without it going through to find out and that should be a concern for gamers, those on both sides and the neutrals.

Industry consolidation will hurt gaming.

Maaan. I get this court hearing is technically very relevant to gaming right now but the amount of articles on both sites that are clearly just going to stoke vile fanboyism in comment threads is mind numbing at this point. Lol.

@SplooshDmg gone to the dogs. The toxicity is on both sites now sadly.

@Alpha_Pulse console wars should have died with Nintendo vs Sega in the 90s sadly the rise in social media has brought out the rhetoric and the inciting language again.

@Kaloudz @Alpha_Pulse haha careful now the trend of online rivals having a cage fight is picking up.

@YonkoBuggyTheClown aye not recognised the mistakes of years ago either. I still remember PS3 and "599 US Dollars!" "Get a second job" "this is more than a console its a computer"

Sometimes its who you put in to sell and manage it thats the issue. Phil Harrison/Ken Kuturagi were an issue back then and Jim Ryan is now.

Ironically MS hired ol' Phil too to help spearhead Xbox One marketing. Look how that turned out.

Im not sure Sony would be back to the same old complacencies and bad practice again if lets say, Shu/Kaz/Andrew House et al were at the helm.

@YonkoBuggyTheClown whilst you are still around. Its nice to see a level head amongst all the drama.

This whole saga has drawn out a lot of hostility and fanboyism and for lack of a better term slagging off of both sites from either side which in itself is flawed logic part of the same publishing house they are technically colleagues.

I think the deal going through is bad for industry consolidation but a part of me would be glad if it closed if it meant drama over and everyone could get back to enjoying gaming again.

@Moonglow Sonys stance on cross play was truly horrendous cant agree more on that one. Couple of counters though.

• Sony has been late to the party including PC gamers but it didnt have much incentive to. Xbox has a vested interest as most of the games run on Windows.
• PSVR2 only being compatible with Playstation. Would you expect anything less there? Kinect was only compatible with Xbox after all. As Apple do quite successfully if you have spent all the R and D on it why not lock it to your system.

Spot on with the rest though especially with the Switch mention. One would think both being Japanese there would be more collaboration there.

@Jenkinss appreciate all the info given that you are working too! A lot of rubbish going around on twitter hard to siphen what is true and what isn't.

I too expect more clangers will have and will still drop today. This is the messiest story in gaming since the crash in the 80s tbh.

@Jenkinss I am only reading on a twitter thread so I want to check source is right, but did Phil also say to the judge they only bought Zenimax because they learned Sony was trying to pay for Starfield exclusivity?

@abe_hikura totally seconding that. That mako vehicle was absolutely horrendous.

Makes sense for it to be at least a few years from now. I feel like with all the cross gen games so far this gen hasnt quite kicked into gear yet, and should start to this year.

@Sol4ris maybe they were slow to post knowing how heavily they would need to moderate the comment threads lol. Trolls will jump on their own interpretations of it as usual and the handbags will come out.

Similarly with Sarah Bonds admission that they were worried Xbox would lose COD by Bobby asking for more revenue share. Slightly less of a headline but seeing nothing of that either besides a small tidbit on Sky news here in the UK. Probably for the same reason.

Seems to be a lot of lies coming out from both sides on this one granted this one is probably the biggest.

I think even if this this deal does close. Neither side will have an easy time of it making further acquisitions now.

@Moonglow Not at all, but the argument they are making here with this statement is they dont have the resources right now to do it and need ABK to compete.

Does Apple need to acquire another firm to compete with Samsung? Nope its already close anyway and Apple are arguably close to beating Samsung and were until this year, the gap is just wider between IOS vs Android.

Amazon and Disney just need to invest in content and are and that gap between them and Netflix is already narrowing without them acquiring any further production houses to do it.

Azure doesnt need acquire another cloud developer to compete with AWS either, their brand is just more popular right now.

It isnt that the ABK investment wouldnt push Xbox forward and help that ability to compete, it would.

But they are arguing they need it to go through in order to continue to compete at all. and if you look at the resources they have, the number of studios they already own and the fact they are a trillon dollar company, its a struggle to believe that.

@Moonglow I think the point is MS presenting the idea of a trillion dollar company needing to spend another 70bil on another company just to get past 3rd place is frankly, ridiculous.

I will add to that I agree they will be in a far better place moving forward and if it does close I hope they do look at some of the forgotten IPs in ABKs archive, but I think one could argue they have the resources without this acquisition.

Wow a lot of drama on here already. Here is my take on it. Im either going to cause more drama or get a few polite disagreements. Hopefully the latter!

• Price Increase was predictable even from MS. Dont like quoting a certain political figure that makes me cringe but inflation is a global issue and we are seeing big corps react accordingly some later than others. The previous article some people are quoting wasnt BS from Microsoft it was spot on, they wanted to hold off passing costs on while they saw what the market would do long term, nothing wrong there.
• Subscription price increases are inevitable was bound to happen here.
• Do not think it has much to do with the releases suddenly about to become more frequent. I think most consumers casual or hardcore would spot that game a mile off and vote with their wallets accordingly.
• Those bragging about using whatever offer was on and getting GPU for however many months/years. Good fer yew. Not everyone has access to that now and it most likely contributed to this happening quicker. Id be mindful of those who missed the boat here. They are the ones paying the higher price in a bad economy now.
• Bottom line. GPU is still insane value for money. Even at 12.99 I still think first party day one alone is worth the hike, but doesnt hurt any less.

Im sure ill get some rants and raves at me for this but ill suffix every comment with one thing.

Just my opinion.