Escapist's Shamus Young writes:
Three months ago I looked at Stadia, Google’s upcoming streaming platform. At the time I was pretty skeptical that it was going to work. OnLive offered a similar service back in 2010, and it closed down after just four years. Despite this, I was hesitant to predict failure for Stadia. Digital infrastructure has come a long way in the last six years, and Google is a powerful company with a lot of impressive technology. I thought it was possible that Google might succeed where OnLive had failed. But this week I read their pricing plan, and I feel a lot more comfortable saying that this whole thing seems like a bad idea.
EA senior staff has been investigated for sexual misconduct involving female coworkers, and these said people have been named publicly.
Aye just call Phil, i mean he somehow made Bobby Kotick's scandal disappear and gave him a few million dollar high five on the way out.
EA about to go down like Activision and then Phil saves the day saying.this is good for the industry and consolidation will help create competition. /s.
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.
“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 😂
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.
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.
Microsoft & Xbox have shut down Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks to lay off more workers, insinuating that they're not in the game anymore.
They're headless for a long time because closing tango isn't exactly a good move
“Acquisitions always come with cuts”
343 trillion points shield activated
343 trillion percent damage negate activated
All damage reduced to 1 for 343 trillion turns.
MICROSOFT DEFENSE FORCE IS A GO
Especially for Microsoft, when Booty pretty much said they didn't know how to handle that many studios.
Why even make the acquisition then.
Didn’t they make the swipe for Bethesda when Sony wanted like 6 months exclusiveness for Starfield
It’s like…chill, you got Rise of the Tomb Raider for a year.
Do they always come with senseless cuts becasue that's exactly what cutting Tango was, senseless.
Everyone's acting now that game companies care about games and Xbox is committing the Ultimate betrayal, they are all like this and you have just been quiet about it for far too long
I wonder if Microsoft do pull out of the console market that it might open the door for valve to relaunch the Steambox. Competition is good for the industry but Microsoft don't even seem to be trying anymore.
Steam / Valve are one of the few truly pro-consumer bright spots in gaming right now. Thankfully.
“Your game has won some pretty significant awards and is a show piece for where we want to go in the future.”
1 hour later.
“We’re gonna have to let you go. You can’t cover our 100 billion dollar acquisition. Oh and take your awards too 👍🏾”
Very coherent and logical line of thought from the author. Google is asking too much from us, for what is effectively a leap of faith. Their current pricing sucks and it needs to be slashed, significantly, if they ever hope of staying alive, let alone compete. Even then issues like ISP reliability, capability, lag, throttling, caps etc are another matter entirely.
I mean what is the point of a paid streaming service when you're still paying separately for the games, at full price no less? Where's the contingency plan if Stadia goes bust? Do we lose everything?
So who is Stadia for? I'll leave it to the author's last words to answer:
"It’s supposedly for people who want to play AAA games but don’t have access to AAA hardware. It’s for people who are into hardcore games but don’t mind an unavoidable baseline of input lag. It’s for people who can’t afford a $400 console but can afford to buy games at full price and pay an additional $120 every single year. It’s for people who have lots of devices who somehow don’t own any dedicated gaming hardware. Most of all, it’s for people who have no memory of OnLive’s failure or who are happy to buy games that will vanish into the ether if the exact same idea fails again.
Stadia is for casual gamers who are into hardcore titles and poor people with lots of disposable income. This is a service for nobody, and it makes no sense."
WOW, I have NEVER seen such unbridled and unwarranted hate for something like I have seen for Stadia. I am an absolute believer in Stadia. The only people against Stadia are the same people who still live in the past and buy physical copy of games to collect and hoard them but never actually play them.
People fail to see the big picture. In a year or two when 5G is the new mobile standard, you will literally be able to play TRUE AAA blockbusters on your phone literally ANYWHERE you are. Think of this as the Switch on super steroids. NO downgrade graphics or resolution, we are talking a full console experience and performance on your phone., or your tablet, or on a desktop PC or on your TV
OH and did I also mention NOMORE WAITING FOR INSTALLS, UPDATES or DOWNLOADS. Cant think of anything worse when you lay down on the couch to power up a game you havent played in a while, only to have to have wait, and wait and wait some more for an update.
I have Stadia pre ordered and there is no doubt it will be a success. Look at the Switch, its a huge success for a reason. Also, look at the absolute stellar launch line up for Stadia, it has the best launch line up of any console in history and thats a fact.
Pay for the subscription and then pay for the games??? No Thanks.
I pay for PS+ and if stadia does offer exclusives that offer better physics, bigger world and better experiences I'm ok with that but it's all an experiment I think so I'm still in wait and see mode.
Pricing yes, that is one. The other is that ownership of games are completely taken away from people. And lastly, most of the planet does not have fast enough internet for this thing and will not have fast enough internet for a very long time to come.
Only casual hipsters are interested in this who don't care about gaming what so ever and don't care how they ruin this hobby for the rest of us real gamers.