VGW's Russell Jones looks at why Microsoft's Xbox One paywall controversy is only going to become more common as the industry matures.
Paul Thurrott in a recent episode commented on the on-going Microsoft fiasco hinting at more job losses and that "there's more to come".
There won't be no more acquiring game publishers from Microsoft in the future . Xbox has to pay Microsoft back. It might take two decades to do that.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. Xbox IS microsoft so there’s no “paying back “.
And MS gross profit in 2023 was over 140 billion dollars so forget your 2 decades.
Unless you mean the money MS invested in Xbox (acquisitions included) and the time it will take for xbox as a brand to gain that money back on it’s own, then yeah, that could take a while.
The better term to use might be return on investment, xbox is simply a division of Microsoft one that MS can easily do away with if profit margins are not met. So in that regard he's right, if xbox isn't showing the expected return on investment the higher ups are expecting than it's unlikely Microsoft will acquire any other studios any time soon, especially if they are spending billions buying developers just to shut them down in the end.
Xbox is a division that they discussed shutting down but doubled down on after Gamepass was pitched.
It needs to make money at some point. Big money.
According to Statista the net income of Microsoft is about $72.4 billion dollars which is a bit lower than last year profit. That is almost as much as Activision's acquisition but I assume that would be a one off since it costs so much plus I see how their focus has been shifted to AI, thus any major future investments will probably be in that area.
@romulus23
That is not why MS buys studios. They might continue to buy because it's about taking that sweet sweet IP out of the corporate husks of their acquisitions.
“There won't be no more acquiring game publishers from Microsoft in the future”
No bro, there do be is for Microsoft not acquiring for what is now if not what it be is 😂
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Let’s be real, this is the media spinning all the acquisitions and liquidations of said developers and spinning it to make M$ the villain.
This was bound to happen, a bigger slice of pie and cut costs, when the games come they stand to make more and that’s their agenda—it was the writing on the wall when the sales went through and legally all those who approved the sale and mergers knew this would happen.
Snowflakes need to realize business is ugly and you can cry all you want but this is how capitalism works. And it works.
That said, M$ needs to steer the narrative and grab hold of all this, make their plans known, hype the hell out of all those dead IP’s they plan to revive, and be honest about the timeline. This is likely to involve mobile and IP on other consoles, and most people realize that.
The problem is this company is incapable of being transparent and seems to often want to dissuade and confuse is customer base. The lack of E3 has hurt Microsoft and I don’t think they know how to properly or effectively market their brand anymore.
There really needs to be a class action lawsuit here. You buy these companies just to put people out of jobs. And it’s not like something happened to derail their plans this WAS the plan. Microsoft has no business in this space at all.
Microsoft has been doing this for years. They simply want the IPs. Look at Nokia. Look at Skype. This time it simply expanded to games. Gaming is not as important to Microsoft’s executives as it was to the founders too. Bill Gates was willing to sell the og Xbox at a loss. Steve Balmer approved the red ring of death fiasco. This CEO isn’t really a gamer.
Maybe it's time though to put a stop to it and use a big giant like Microsoft as a huge example to the rest of these big companies.
There has to be a line drawn somewhere.
People like the FTC and the like went against Microsoft yet their Actvision deal was still allowed to go through yet look what's happened...it's not even Acitivisions studios aswell, it's Bethesdas.
You do realize this happens in ALL industries? Or are you just saying this because it is Microsoft? In any case I feel for those that are being let go but the trch industry is suffering right now.
This absolutely does NOT happen all the time. Let me know the last time 1 company with a terrible product track record spent 100 billion onto acquire MULTIPLE successful companies in under a year only to shut them down and stop making their products regardless of how successful they were. Not merge them, completely shut them down.
And you can’t use Microsoft in your example.
Class action lawsuit? The law is on their side and protects them at all costs. There are no rules to protect the people at the bottom.
Ninja Theory, Perfect Dark, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Wolfenstein 3, Dishonored, Prey, Doom, Quake... something tells me that bad things are going to happen to these entities under Microsoft.
ID software, the makers of Doom and Wolfenstein that have been with us since 1991 could be gone and MS will keep the IPs.
I hope some of these studios can buy their freedom from MS otherwise this is going to be even more devastating for the industry and gamers.
That's exactly what I'm worried about. I've been a fan of id since Wolfenstein 3D and I'm honestly afraid.
Toys for Bob saw the writing on the wall and bought themselves out.
Wouldn't be the first time a company did that under MS either. Bungie and Twisted Pixel did the same. Considering what just happened, I can see some other devs trying to buy themselves out too.
Won't make a difference.
The whole structure needs to be overhauled. Anyone that replaces Phil will be no different than him, Mattrick, or anyone else.
Until the company changes how they go about business, nothing will change
I just don't have any idea what they would do , they have done sooo much damage on their xbox brand, they have a show at July or June I think, but will it even matter even they show amazing games, idkn
True,
But they may as well get it over with. Whether it happens now or later, the burning is going to hit the same.
Reality is the ONE move that can alleviate a lot of this is the one move they can't make. Remove day 1 from gamepass.
The Xbox brand is expanding, as an Xbox mobile game store is opening this coming July where Microsoft will brings its "first-party portfolio."
“Bond adds that they will start on the web”
This will go nowhere.
Nice knowing you Xbox. This is what happens when the house never gets cleaned.
The only this MS is expanding is the amount of feculence it sprays on everyone who just want to enjoy gaming and make games.
The best thing MS can do for the gaming industry is leave and never return.
It turns out that many moons ago, Microsoft once had its eye on the Sony published LittleBigPlanet series.
Project Spark idea was decent but they quickly gave up ..
LBP was wonderful
Microsoft in a nutshell. Always tried to poach Sony employees, games, 3rd party games and devices like the depth camera that was turned into Kinect but was running on PS2 before Xbox 360. Wouldn't be surprised they wanted LBP. Just like they worked behind the scenes pushing the MLB to bring Sony's baseball game to Xbox instead of making their own.
https://www.playstationlife...
They didn't spend years trying to develop their own baseball game. They wanted Sony's game.
They're scum.
Microsoft didn't force MLB on Xbox. MLB gave Sony 2 options either go multiplat or risk losing the license.
Totally ridiculous comment.
The only exclusivity Sony had was to their own creation of The Show. Microsoft could have paid the MLB for the license just like Sony did and made their own baseball game.
Microsoft instead, groomed MLB for years in trying to poach Sony's game and bring it to Xbox. They're worth 3 TRILLION dollars. You think that's not enough money to make their own baseball game? Don't be delusional.
Microsoft spun it like they always do and told the media that they had to trust Sony with their hardware. After they put Sony in that position of not having a choice. Either go multiplatform or stop making one of their successful games. That's a no win scenario.
And what did Microsoft do? They didn't try to sell the game to the Xbox community. They put it on game pass to hurt Sony. Pushing the idea of why buy games that are $70 when you can play them in their cheap service for $10. It was a dirty tactic.
You fell for the Kool aid drink Microsoft served you instead of spitting it out. Hope it tasted good because you were fooled by Phil and the gang.
Xbox executive Sara Bond has told Axios that Microsoft spent a number of years trying to get MLB The Show onto Xbox consoles. And when it finally succeeded in breaking off PlayStation’s long-held exclusivity, the company had to “trust” Sony with pre-release Xbox Series X/S consoles.
Bond revealed that MLB The Show “always came up” in conversations between Microsoft and the Major League Baseball organization. “We always said, ‘We love this game. It would be a huge opportunity to bring it to Xbox.'” she recalled. However, when Microsoft’s efforts materialized, it put the company in an awkward situation where it had to send in pre-release consoles to a rival company.
"Microsoft instead, groomed MLB for years in trying to poach Sony's game and bring it to Xbox."
Take a nap, conspiracies are rotting your brain.
Xbox executive Sara Bond has told Axios that Microsoft spent a number of years trying to get MLB The Show onto Xbox consoles. And when it finally succeeded in breaking off PlayStation’s long-held exclusivity, the company had to “trust” Sony with pre-release Xbox Series X/S consoles.
Lying to yourself is unbecoming.
Article link tells you all you need to know in Sarah Bond's own words.
They were too cheap/inept/lazy to develop their own mlb game, so they port begged for years and bribed the mlb to make the show multiplatform. Like i said many times, xbox brought nothing to the table their 24 years, ZERO.
At least you and others get it. Note drank the Kool aid and asked for seconds thinking it was refreshing.
Most don't even know how it all played out but it's there in black and white for all to see. Microsoft brought it up for years until the MLB forced Sony's hand. It was a win win for Microsoft. Kill one reason to buy a PlayStation or kill the game by dropping it in a cheap service to kill Sony's sales numbers on PlayStation.
"However, Healey said Media Molecule wouldn't have felt right doing that, adding it would have been "morally corrupt"."
Major kudos to Media Molecule for being an upright studio with principles.
They chose well, Sony gave them the backing to pursue their dreams with no restrictions even tho their games especially dreams have very niche appeal. Media molecule and Sony deserve respect for this in an age of risk averse publishing.
Great, more stories like this please. Show the last of the zombies holding the line what we've been saying for years: Microsoft is anti competition, anti industry and has no interest in making games at all.
But hey, at least there's an Xbox Games Showcase to look forward to, right?
Well considering SONY just killed the series, LBP would've been dead by now either way. Though MM probably wouldn't exist by now either, so I'm glad they stayed with SONY, hopefully they don't get shut down any time soon or ever honestly.
They shut down the servers, that's millions of user created levels gone. That and dead are pretty much the same, it's also been years since 3 and they cancelled HUB soooo.
They shutdown the servers because no one was playing, no one in the community cared about the user created levels so why keep them up? Wtf you guys would never succeed in running a business.
Yea dood no one was playing so they shut off the servers. Cause people with enough common sense can't just Google why they were actually shut of, right?
Well, there's two ways to look at it...
For Xbox, pay $60 and get: online-gaming, twitch streaming, game-DVR, NFL on Xbox, two free games every month, free-to-play games, family sharing, unlimited cloud storage, dedicated servers, deals-special offers, Skype, Smart Match, a variety of apps (entertainment services, internet, youtube, etc).
For PS, Pay $50 and get: online-gaming, free games every month, 1gb cloud storage, special deals and offers. The rest of the features on the PS are "free".
Two marketing different marketing strategies, two ways to look at it.
See, the big problem is, people are getting upset by the fact that Microsoft is doing this when they HAVE BEEN DOING THIS for a good long time now and people will still shell out the $60 a year to play online, watch their Netflix and Hulu, and so forth.
In today's gaming world, if you're online, you have an online service, and if you're not, then there's something else you should be spending your money on aside from video games.
Video games are a want, not a need, so if you're spending money on your wants, despite a frugal mentality, you are splurging to begin with. Getting upset that features are locked from your splurge seems ridiculous.
And anyone who expected otherwise from Microsoft is a fool. Oh, so you can't use ESPN or the in-console DVR without Xbox Live Gold? Boo hoo. This is from the same company that locked out online multiplayer with a paid subscription. Whining about it is ignorant.
It boils down to if its worth the price. I ask myself what do i want XBOX live for? I want it to play games online and for it to give me the best experience. It does that better than PC and PS3 in my opinion and is worth the 30 bucks a year i pay
The features of both psn and live will be virtually identical. It's all about value for money and I think Sony is offering far more in terms of value for money at this point. Anyone that is saying Microsoft is blinded by fanboyism, Microsoft are playing catchup at the moment after years of Sony doing so!
My problem with Microsofts gold strategy is that you either pay it or you basically have a $500 brick. So what's to stop them from jacking the price of gold up when they get an installed base they are happy with? They have already proven they will do it when they raised gold 10$ a few years ago.