S1ayeR74

@SplooshDmg Yeap looking forward to the (fingers crossed) new Switch 2, u fortunately it will not be released until after March 2024 now as Nintendo, again, told investors no new Nintendo hardware will be launched in its current fiscal year. Humph... so I wonder if the Switch will outsell the PS2?

Literally could not care, I think this was the game I tried to fire up when it was in Game Pass to play the single player campaign, and it point blank refused to run and crashed. Garbage.

May get this. I sold my Steam Deck as using it docked was a faff, and games didn't run too well on my monitor, plus putting Windows on it and none Steam Games was a faff too.
Windows is just so much easier. The US price for the top end Ally is $699, no idea on UK pricing. Just want something I can use docked easily as well as portable.

Yeah well considering that's what they said about the CMA I'll believe it when I see it.

Fancy Far Cry 6 and Gotham Nights.

Damn 2 of those are on my wish list for sure. Hmm... do I want to pull the trigger?

@themightyant Agree with all of that. I'm just not ready to go down this path yet. Must be old fashioned lol.

I will say that the CMA appeals process will take months, and if as I suspect the EU block it also, add many more months for that appeal process. All the whilst that 69 billion is tied up and can't be spent elsewhere. And MS doesn't seem overly keen to get further exclusives, or be hands on with its current studios.
I've lost faith in them now, they don't want to follow the console model, they want a cloud model. So I am not sure what support they'll offer consoles, bar game streaming moving forward? I'm waiting for those Game Pass only exclusive games to start appearing...

@themightyant MS want to monopolise and own the cloud streaming market, hence the comment you've posted. That is why the CMA will never allow it and I suspect neither will the EU. If the EU block it it's dead. MS aren't interested in the traditional console or it's business model or making AAA games according to Spencer. Because they want the cloud.

No it is dead in the water. MS have no case for appeal, the CMA were right to block it on the grounds they did, and I expect the EU will follow suite.
Sucking up to the Prime Minister is t going to help, he's more than useless and self cantered.

@Fiendish-Beaver That makes sense that it includes all the console generations. I think Game Pass figures are around 25 million, I think most are console gamers but the PC market is the fastest growth sector for game Pass currently.

@Fenbops It is one of the reasons why for now, despite my moaning of Phil Spencer, I won’t be selling my Series X. Plus State Of Decay. I have my OG PS4 and am playing Stray on that, it is on the PSN Plus Premium service I subbed to as I wanted to see what it had on it, and I’ve got to say, for me at least I’m not interested in any of the games on the service. I’ve played most of them or their predecessors and didn’t like the games, Sonys story simulators got stale for me.
The only ones I really like are Uncharted and The Last Of Us 1, and 2 was alright bar the stupid plot line and killing the main character in the first 5 mins.

But when I look at Game Pass, it has so many games I will dabble in and play.
I think when a new Uncharted game comes out I’ll grab a PS5 Slim or something.

@eduscxbox I agree, but when Phil does an interview and says the things he does like this week, it’s understandable why they are targeted and their community feels negative. It’s been endless since he gave this interview.

Looking at the graphics I think it'll be 30FPS, but I guess that should be ok. Depends I guess on how much help MS gave Bethesda with the game, they seemed to suggest it was a lot more than they gave Redfall.
I actually looked on PSN Plus Premium and the games on it are alright, but not a patch on what Game Pass has. Horizon and GOW are only on there as trials. More games I want are on Xbox. Starfield is a good example of this.

@S1ayeR74 Yes the 150 million only if the deal passes, and that's not for COD because as the CMA said not produced any evidence to show COD will run on the 'current' Switch model, so far.

@Fiendish-Beaver 50 million? Not bad, does that include Game Pass subscribers though like those on PC? It's not going to be 150 million that's for sure.

@Blessed_Koz Yeap, I can tell your response isn't based on business or reality.
Also the UK market is worth billions to MS, it is a big seller despite what you may think. More than people give it credit for. They could tell the UK to get stuffed, but then the investors in MS will most likely sack the board and take them to court. For losing them billions in returns on their investments.
The UK market is worth more than the 69 billion the deal is costing them. Think about that.

@Fenbops It is THE game that is making me consider keeping my Series X. Best game series on Xbox by far, for me. It was the game that made me get an Xbox 360 all those years ago.

@Fenbops Ah that would be golden, especially if Gears was remastered in Unreal Engine 5!

I played one of their other games on PS4, the one where it turns out your a machine or something, Soma, I stopped playing when I got to one part and haven't played again since as it's too scary hahahaha.....
This studio nails atmosphere!

@Fiendish-Beaver In the interview he said they've had teams from The Coalition and another studio come up with a 60FPS plan as the the studio behind Redfall aren't as experienced with Unreal Engine 4, but Phil admitted they needed the plan in place last year.

@eduscxbox Yes but surely you accept Xbox has brought some of the criticism from the community upon themselves? With showing games 2 years ago, then Halo was delayed then came out missing multiplayer, then they delayed other games and some 2 years later we are still waiting for news on. And then The Coalition had news of big name team members leaving over conflict of creative direction.

They have made endless promises and for many, they've only delivered with Game Pass so far but that was carried over from last gen. And then the ActiBliz deal is blocked by a major market. And they release the dumpster that is Redfall.

All this does leave a bitter taste in the mouth of fans I think.

I watched this show, and the most telling part is towards the end, where he basically states don't expect Xbox to compete on the level of Sony or Nintendo with consoles, they want to make games and Game Pass for all platforms.
That was his response when asked if they aren't giving the Xbox console the same attention as PC Game Pass etc. this is in stark contrast to what he said about the Xbox Series when it was launched.
This was because he basically said they can't compete with Sony and Nintendo and have to find their own way which is Game Pass.

For me that doesn't instil confidence that the console will be around much longer in its current form in their business plan. Maybe they'll sell a streaming box or something? As someone who wants that console experience it may be truly time to bow out.

Well Bethesda stated:

“ "We've made the difficult decision to delay the launches of Redfall and Starfield to the first half of 2023. The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredible ambitions for their games, and we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them.”

http://www.gamesradar.com/starfield-delay/

So why should we believe Spencer when he claims they will do what they should have been doing day one? Stop wasting time and resources chasing ridiculous dreams of buying the worlds biggest game titles, and start doing your job and properly managing the studios you do have!

@eduscxbox Firstly The Last Of Us was already a successful game on console, Redfall has launched across its platforms at the same time and failed. Yes the PC release of TLOU was buggy and Sony did get slammed for it, but as said it was already on console anyway.

As for me not liking the other games doesn’t mean anything, well sorry but it does. If the games ‘I’ want to play are garbage, then that platform has failed for me, and the many others who have the same taste, it doesn’t mean jack if it has launched other successful games. And MS have been promoting this game for what must be a year or more now, bogging it up, and it’s a first party title.

So they fully deserve their backlash and the moniker they have failed, shooter fans will no doubt also be looking forward to Starfield but we have no guarantee that game will be any good, or bug free, and rumours are it’ll be 30fps, on a device advertised by Microsoft as the worlds most powerful console. This is a first party studio and title.
Bethesda stated Redfall and Starfield were delayed by a year to ensure ‘that you receive the best, most polished’ versions of the games. So yeah when they state that forgive me and many others if we see this is Xbox just failing, they lost the ability to properly manage their current studios whilst chasing the purchase of new massive ones. And the games have suffered as a result.

@eduscxbox But many like me are not interested in any of those games, but we like shooters and thought Redfall could be fun. It was heavily promoted and advertised by Microsoft for months as a fun premium shooter, and it is the first game with a 70 dollar / pound price.
So those other games you mentioned don’t mean anything.

@old-dad And unfortunately all that ‘Jank’ will still be in the Xbox console version

Gamers were waiting for this day 2 years ago! Bit hypocritical for the sales team to be spewing that line out now.
Let's see what they show, but I won't go thinking they'll release on time or be any good until they've actually been launched.
Next year will be Xbox's year, next event will be Xbox's event... and round and round it goes.

@SuntannedDuck2 Let's not forget the driving simulator studio they have making a sequel to a cult comedy RPG on its driving simulator games engine too, I'm sure it'll be a success......

Another flop. I'm sure next year will be Xbox's year though... again...
Starfield will probably be 30FPS and I'm not sure Fable will be any good made by a racing game studio in a racing game engine.

Given up, it's obvious Microsoft want Xbox to be a service, not platform. Game Pass and X Cloud are its future now along with mobile. I'll be surprised if they make another console after the next one.

@Blessed_Koz You need to go and read up on business. If they pull out of the UK you can fully expect the share holders to fire the Microsoft board of executives. And dump there stock. And people in the UK will be annoyed with Microsoft then rather than anything the CMA has done, so the backlash could mean dropped sales all round for Microsoft products.

@Fiendish-Beaver Do you mean the 150 million players Xbox claims it will bring Activision Blizzard games to if the deal is passed? That's true but most it that number is made up of Nintendo Switch gamers, the rest are just Nvidia gamers etc. so no deal no 150 million extra players.
Also for now a what Xbox says about COD being brought to 150 million extra gamers can be taken with a pinch of salt, because as the CMA stated no evidence was provided to them to prove that the current Switch can run COD. And considering the next gen Switch isn't out yet then that user base is zero.

@Moonglow Its because NVIDIA signed a 10 year deal to have ActiBlizz games on their platform. They will financially benefit if the deal goes through, hence the comment. Don’t go thinking it’s a good thing, it’s only good for NVIDIA bank balance.

@Titntin I am still waiting for that hug you promised me but totally understand where you are coming from. Take care.

@Trmn8r Go and read post 82 then 92 and you'll finally get the context. And why you are half wrong, I'll give you something as you stated global market. My bad as you said global cloud market in your initial reply and I didn’t correct you. But you can think what ever you want to be honest. I mean you jumped into my reply to another comment and utterly failed to read that comment I was replying to, and took everything out of context and you look foolish for doing so as you miss all the context.

@Sol4ris Oh it's not a surprise mate, not in the slightest. Sunak would only overturn the CMA purely to look good next to the EU. The institution we apparently voted to leave. And we all know what's happened with that.

@Trmn8r If you don't take it out of context it's "global cloud gaming services" and what do you think that means?

@Trmn8r I won't say anything, here is what they state, you can twist what the state to suite your argument: "Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming)."

http://www.gov.uk/government/news/microsoft-activision-deal-prevented-to-protect-innovation-and-choice-in-cloud-gaming#:~:text=The%20CMA%20has%20prevented%20Microsoft's,over%20the%20years%20to%20come.

@Widey85 Thats the worst thing ever. Playing politics with the deal. Dirty politicians in the UK. Worst there is. Sunak and the rest will do anything to stay in power, anything.

@Sebatrox Why? And which post number is it?

@Trmn8r Nope the CMA does, you missed that part in my comments. I'm fairly sure they will know more than you do. Seems anything the CMA has stated in its report is 'news' to you.

@Sebatrox MS can sod off, that's the tricks they use in America, Apple didn't like a courts decision once so they cried to Obama I think to get the courts ruling overturned, MS is thinking like American corporations do, that they can do what they like.

@Moonglow Pretty sure those aren't the exact words they've used. But please link to them if they are.

@Trmn8r Well you fail as the CMA stated 'global market' in its report. And I seriously doubt you work for the CMA.

@Moonglow You do know the regulators job is to look into the future too, like in 5 to 10 years time, by then I doubt VERY much it will be a 2% revenue, and still 70% of the market is a monopoly, simple. CMA did a good job here.

@SplooshDmg I agree, they’ve lost the console war so are trying to corner cloud gaming. Can’t monopolise one market so will try to monopolise another. Just makes Sony and Microsoft out to be as bad as each other in that regard. I wonder how long they would make consoles for? If they invest so much on Xbox being a brand and service on as many devices as possible, will they just ditch the console and maybe just sell a streaming box for cloud gaming?

That’s not what I signed up for.

@Neonix I was actually insulted by the disgusting ActiBlizz comment, no these hard line American giant capitalist comments do not work at all. Socialism from Europe and capitalism from America don’t always work.

Pathetic egotistical comments from Microsoft, if they weren’t trying to monopolise a growing market they are dominant in then there wouldn’t be a problem.
I think some need to read more in depth on this and ignore the hyperbole rhetoric from MS and ActiBlizz employees. 60 to 70% global market owned by Microsoft, and they wanted to buy ActiBlizz.

@SplooshDmg I've had time to reflect, I learnt that globally Microsoft Xbox controls 60 to 70% of cloud gaming, and wants ActiBliz, I can totally understand where the CMA are coming from based on that! How MS ever thought they'd get the deal through is beyond me?

I bought Xbox again for State Of Decay, Avowed, Project Zero, Gears of War, where are they??? MIA as you said. MS first party studios seem to be in a mess and all MS are doing is chasing seemingly impossible acquisitions. Yeah it was fun screaming YES COD ON GAME PASS, but then you realise where are all the other games? Oh look Red Fall that's barely done releasing...

The only time Xbox console was remotely successful in the market is when they copied Sonys strategy in the Xbox 360 days. Exclusive deals. Now they have and want Xbox services to be the success. IMO.
They even recently during their earnings announced a huge drop in console sales...

That's why I am thinking of jumping ship, with Sony you know where you are and what games you'll get, with MS you know the games you love and want but have no idea when or if you'll get them. All you know is they want Xbox as a service and to waste billions in giant acquisitions that are blocked unsurprisingly when looked at objectively.

Game Pass is a winner, all they need to do is get first party games on it, and exclusive deals, that's it. But they want that top level income and revenue so want to just buy everyone.

In short, and I hate to say it, sack Spencer, sack the MS studios boss and team, sack Nedala even, and put people in that want exclusive deals and can manage the studios they own already and be laser focussed on.

With any luck what they should have done, spend far less time and money on exclusivity deals like Sony does, and spend far more time getting their first party studios working! Stop the exodus of high profile staff and for Christ Sake stop the endless game delays. And boost quality.

But it's obvious MS are obsessed with all their product portfolio being offered as a service you subscribe to. They are going to mess up Xbox, again. The 360 was a success because it followed the same plan as PlayStation, exclusive deals.
Ever since they moved to promote multi media and now game services they've messed up.

Can they really not just follow the PS plan? I mean it more then works for them...

Just stop buying every big name under the sun! Just do what Sony does please.. but they won't. However if the EU blocks the deal, which I think they will, then MS will fingers crossed be forced to follow Sonys model. Just like the fantastic Xbox 360 days.