Xbox's Phil Spencer Hints At Exclusivity Potential For Bethesda Games (purexbox.com) 37
In an interview with Kotaku, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that Microsoft doesn't need to ship future Bethesda games on PlayStation in order to recoup the $7.5 billion it spent acquiring Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax Media, last month. Spencer also explained that the deal wasn't specifically signed to take games away from the platform. Pure Xbox reports: "This deal was not done to take games away from another player base like that. Nowhere in the documentation that we put together was: 'How do we keep other players from playing these games?' We want more people to be able to play games, not fewer people to be able to go play games. But I'll also say in the model -- I'm just answering directly the question that you had -- when I think about where people are going to be playing and the number of devices that we had, and we have xCloud and PC and Game Pass and our console base, I don't have to go ship those games on any other platform other than the platforms that we support in order to kind of make the deal work for us. Whatever that means."
Previously, Spencer noted to Yahoo Finance that the Xbox community should feel the Bethesda acquisition is a "huge investment in the experiences they are going to have in the Xbox ecosystem," and he wants that ecosystem to "absolutely be the best place to play, and we think game availability is absolutely part of that." However, the Xbox boss has also confirmed that decisions on whether games will be exclusive to Xbox will ultimately be made on a "case-by-case basis", so it might still be a while before we know more.
Previously, Spencer noted to Yahoo Finance that the Xbox community should feel the Bethesda acquisition is a "huge investment in the experiences they are going to have in the Xbox ecosystem," and he wants that ecosystem to "absolutely be the best place to play, and we think game availability is absolutely part of that." However, the Xbox boss has also confirmed that decisions on whether games will be exclusive to Xbox will ultimately be made on a "case-by-case basis", so it might still be a while before we know more.
Bethesda Good?!? (Score:5, Informative)
That would be because Bethesda games have been so good lately, what is the music meme associated with Bethesda by their customers 'tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies, tell me lies, tell me lies'. Either M$ believes those lies or they are just working to spread them more, I think they are working to spread them more.
Bethesda games used to be good, not so much any more and amongst gamers, there reputation is now utter shite. Zero trust, each game on it's own merits probably a year after publication to avoid the chango switcho to micro transaction grind pay to win.
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MS paid what, 7 billion for a company that passed it's popularity peak like 10 years ago, and have been pissing away any trust it earned since? They are going to need to find a way to squeeze some blood out of that stone somehow.
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Brand recognition. Look at our President - it doesn't even matter what the brand actually delivers. Perception is the key to success.
Bethesda's popularity has been decreasing for over a decade, sure. But how big is the market now compared to when Oblivion or Morrowind were released? They were bleeding blood out of a stone in 2002. Now they only have to bleed blood out of a planet... Enter Microsoft.
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Linkedin was 26.2 billion. There is no way they got their money's worth on that, right? Though I suppose there is no way to really tell how much they make on it. Any earnings reports probably ignore or obfuscate the value of the privacy data.
Granted, it was probably a lot less dumb than something like Verizon buying Yahoo at 4.5 billion.
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Humm, aparently you can look up the revenue on the buisness.
Supposedly they reported 6.8 Billion with a fucking B in 2019 and the profits had tripled the last few years.
https://www.businessofapps.com... [businessofapps.com]).
I don't understand how they could make so much money, but it does make it seem like a really good investment. I would venture to guess that they would not have made so much money if they did not have Microsoft backing them.
That said, I don't know if it is fair to a games company to a head hunting company. I
Is anybody surprised? (Score:3)
They have spent over $7 Billion for a purchase, and they would want to maximize what they get for it.
Yes, they can run it as is, and oversee a generic publisher. But there is no reason to do that. They could earn more money by not doing that in investing somewhere else.
And they have over 50 million Xbox consoles sold, and Billions of Windows machines which can run those games. Why would they want to extend this great advantage to PlayStation? Remember even Sony is bringing some of their exclusives to the PC. PC is where most of the players are.
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Microsoft did this for Game Pass, they're trying to maintain a viable subscription service and they need content. The numbers don't really make sense though, or at least I'm not seeing it. Game Pass has "over 15 million subscribers"
Re:Is anybody surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft is not likely to pull games from Steam. In fact, they are pretty big on Steam. Pretty much every PC port is available both from the Microsoft Store and Steam at the same time. Even Game Pass games - you could get them from the Microsoft Store via Game Pass rental and discounted sales, or you could buy it from Steam (no discount, of course).
Yes, Microsoft wants to push subscriptions but Microsoft isn't stupid - they know y ou can pay $100/year for Game Pass Ultimate, but if that doesn't interest you, you can still buy the games on Steam.
If I was Microsoft, I'd milk the buyout by realizing what I've got - Zenimax brings PS5 development to Microsoft. Since there are games that are PS5 exclusives, why not take advantage and bring Game Pass to PS5? Sure you can buy the game at regular price or play it for a subscription price.
I'd use those exclusives to drive home Game Pass on PS5, and maybe even bring other developers into it - the ones already in Game Pass, for example.
Sony is pushing PS5 as a platform. Microsoft is pushing to be subscription services, everywhere. Game Pass on PC, but also grants you Xbox games for your Xbox too, and PS5 games on your PS5. Suddenly it doesn't matter if Xbox fails, Microsoft still wins
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and they would want to maximize what they get for it.
You're implying that exclusivities are the best way to do this as a foregone conclusion. I'm inclined to think this is anything but. Exclusivities are a way of moving units, units that are often sold at or below cost. So you end up with a very complex multi-variable equation with different outcomes:
a) Is it better to limit the potential sales of your IP to push a piece of hardware that costs in the hope of making money from other IP and secondary sales?
b) Is it better to sell your IP to a much MUCH wider au
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Oh one thing I forgot:
A windows customer may or may not be happy buying something from Microsoft. One thing that we've clearly seen with Epic's assault on PC gaming recently is that timed exclusives do not necessarily make financial sense with an absolutely dazzling number of players waiting out until their game is released on Steam or GoG and boycotting the Epic Games Store entirely.
So even a Windows *gamer* may not be interested in a Microsoft exclusive title.
Future looks dark (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see the games going in a good direction. Microsoft also bought out the developers of Wasteland 3 a couple of years ago, in the latter part of that game's development. You can tell they shoehorned consolization into it after the buyout.
WL2 had a year's worth of time between the PC and console releases. As it should be with a game like this - The combat is turn-based, grid-based strategy... Lots of reading... the exact opposite of what works on a console. WL3 had all the platforms' release date synchronized. After MS bought the studio, suddenly they felt the need to add voice acting for all dialog, and add detailed 3D models for two or three characters... characters that you spend maybe 5% of the game's dialog-time conversing with. It adds nothing to the game. All this pushed back the game's release date by about a year. Meanwhile there are huge sections of the map that have obviously deleted dungeons, and lots of other clues to cut content, that are probably to appear as DLC. The previous game actually came with a parody of DLC on its title screen, a fake ad for non-existent DLC. Way to shit all over a series' legacy.
And of course, the game's release 6 weeks ago came with a mountain of game-killing bugs that are too numerous to discuss on this post. But they could find time to add those pointless full-screen scenes with detailed models to look at, while you work through a couple minutes of dialog trees.
Bethesda has been consolizing their games for over a decade, so I'm actually less concerned about them, they have a shorter way to fall. But I am pretty disappointed in Wasteland 3, and my hopes for the next one have all but died. Microsoft couldn't even let them finish developing Wasteland 3 as-is, and that game was halfway done when they bought the studio.
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I don't see the games going in a good direction.
The future was dark as soon from 1995 onwards, the kids and idiots that bought Meridian 59, Utlima online, everquest set us on down the path of World of warcraft, they had been stealing PC RPG games since the mid 90's by client-serverin the shit out of them once they figured out the average gamer was a fucking irrational computer illiterate moron.
That's where Valve got the idea from steam, EA and other companies trial ballooned stolen RPG's with a hardware dongle by ripping the networking code out of it and
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What's the problem with MMOs and client/server exactly?
First see the science, your brain doesn't see the world as it is, I can tell you the facts and the figures and you won't reason to the right conclusion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You don't get they just took regular PC RPG's they had in development to justify getting rid of ownership, you could have had "ultima online" which was just the ultima sequel rebadged and had its' networking code stolen. That's all "MMO's" are, you don't get any piece of software can be split into two pieces, it's literally
Does anyone remember Bungie? (Score:1)
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Actually, Bungie started out making some awesome games for Mac.
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Whut? It was Phil Spector who was convicted of her murder. Phil Spencer of Microsofts XBox division not the same Phil.
Get your facts straight before you press the submit button.
morons (Score:2)
Nowhere in the documentation that we put together was
Of course you don't put that in writing. It's one of those things everyone understands, but nobody puts down on paper. You don't want such things used against you at some future point. Experienced business people and politicians both know what to put in writing and what not.
Meanwhile, we all remember that the original Halo was originally one of the most expected titles for Mac before Bungie was acquired by MS, who made them change platform to the Xbox. It eventually came out for Mac 2 years after the Xbox r
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Halo 2 was Microsoft-only. Halo 3 and following were Xbox-only.
But now Halo 3 and ODST are on PC, and Halo 4 will be fairly soon as well. If you bought a Mac for gaming, you bought the wrong thing. And Halo for Mac would not have changed that.
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Check indie games. There are a lot of them on Steam, or GOG, or in the Humble Bundles.
Yes, you have to wade through a lot of trash. People put things on Steam that I'd be ashamed to show as a prototype (I am a hobby game dev). But there are also gems, developed by one person or a small team. The Asset Stores for Unity and Unreal have put 3D models, animations, textures, music, soundfx and hundreds of tools and toys into the hands of us indie devs and it's possible to make great games with a reasonable inves
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If you bought a Mac for gaming, you bought the wrong thing.
I'm not 13 anymore, so I don't buy a computer for one thing. I have a Mac because it is better at absolutely everything I do, except gaming. I'm happy to accept that disadvantage as a price.
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> Halo was originally one of the most expected titles
> for Mac
Oh, it's worse than that. Halo was originally going to be a cross-platform release; coming out simultaneously for both Apple and Microsoft. Gates and company would always have had Halo from the outset. They bought out Bungie, not to get a release of the game for themselves; but to harm Apple and their users. It was purely and only a leveraging of their windows-derived financial warchest to harm competition.
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It wasn't planned on the Xbox, though.
So they can melt away into oblivion (Score:1)
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If TES becomes MS-only (again) I won't play them anymore, and I've played them all. Oblivion and Skyrim suffered terribly from the limitations of console play, without shenanigans from Redmond.
So, no new Bethesda VR (Score:2)
Not surprised (Score:1)