The battle over the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft has shed light on the fact that antitrust regulators are woefully unprepared to regulate the gaming industry.
Former Activision studio Toys for Bob partners with Xbox to publish its first game as an indie. This is something of a homecoming, as Microsoft owns Activision.
I guess.
How come they didnt either let them go or sell Tango and others to another publisher? Not saying Ubisoft, EA would be any better. (Capcome would of treated them right )
At least it wouldn't be MS of all ppl destroying them.
MS really should let go Tango go like they did TFB here.
one was under Bethesda (Tango) the other under Activision (TFB). Clearly each one handled the separations of their subordinates differently.
"How come they didnt either let them go or sell Tango and others to another publisher? Not saying Ubisoft, EA would be any better. (Capcome would of treated them right )"
Perhaps because Zenimax and ABK handles such matters differently based on their own internal policies as "independent" publishers.
Whoever, chances are it´s simply because MS didn´t wanted Tango or Austin to be acquired by competitors and develop new bangers for them, giving MS a bad rep in a possible future. Which could also be the reason why they ensured an exclusive partnership with TFB and its new game, before anyone else.
Sad and disgusting. But it is what it is.
"Whoever, chances are it´s simply because MS didn´t wanted Tango or Austin to be acquired by competitors and develop new bangers for them, giving MS a bad rep in a possible future."
MS has a bad rep now because those studios are no more. I rather them sell the studio continue to make multiplatform releases, while MS continues to focus on whatever they're doing. If they didn't want Tango around they should separated from them or sell them to, like they did TFB.
It's inexcusable, they have options on how to handle studios they don't want anymore with killing jobs. Not just MS but the rest of the industry also.
Sad and disgusting sure how many will get shut down next year or this year even?
I don't trust MS decisions and motivations at this point. You have to admit they make one dumb move after another.
Manages to buy their freedom especially after all the shit Microsoft has been doing with its studios lately
...
Goes right back to them as partners.
Okaaaaaay...
Id venture a guess that TFB working directly with MS was a better outcome than working through Activision to get to MS.
From the article...
"Toys for Bob spun out as an indie back in February after Microsoft instituted sweeping layoffs that impacted 86 employees, which was more than half of the staff"
I doubt those 86 employees enjoyed the Microsoft experience over Activisions.
MS shuts down studios because of lack of resources and then helps these guys by giving em resources. Also MS is what forced them to buy their freedom in the first place? What kind of logic 😂
The best thing is that the company that is worth $3 trillion and owns the company instead of Xbox lacks resources. How the hell does a company worth $3 trillion making a measly $70 billion purchase they 'can't' support. Lol
Xbox’s gaming division seems to still function as 3 semi-autonomous sub-divisions, Xbox Studios, Bethesda and ABK. The three main sub-divisions can seemingly shut down or build studios and set up partnerships independently. This would explain why Bethesda can recently shutdown studios, while ABK spins off one studio, while building a new one. Plus, Toys for Bob could be spun off by ABK, only to immediately re-partner with Microsoft.
That's absolutely 💯 BS. Any sane 'autonomous' company would NOT put their games on Gamepass day 1 like COD will lose probably billions.
Also they're all under Xbox game studios so any autonomy is an illusion.
PlayStation Plus has improved the split of PS4 and PS5 players on its priciest tiers, but Sony continues to hide total subscriber numbers.
Uh...They're definitely not equivalent.
"Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service now has 34 million subscribers."
"the total number of PS Plus subscribers across all tiers was 47.4 million"
That PSN number seems like it should be much higher... especially when you consider that PS4 alone has a sell through of over 117m. To not even be at least half that is rather interesting.
To the XB side, having 34m to an install base of roughly 50m (XBO sell through) or even 85m (360 sell through) is a greater percentage of unit to member ratio than PSN.
darthv72
"That PSN number seems like it should be much higher... especially when you consider that PS4 alone has a sell through of over 117m. To not even be at least half that is rather interesting.
To the XB side, having 34m to an install base of roughly 50m (XBO sell through) or even 85m (360 sell through) is a greater percentage of unit to member ratio than PSN."
Have you ever heard of a PC before? I hear they are pretty popular.
What. Definitely more os plus subscribers but that makes sense due to actual console sales
Darth the difference between the bases are huge your right but you gotta think. Ps players buy more games, where as the Xbox base relies on gamepass for their gaming. So it makes perfect sense
What makes perfect sense though? You say PS players buy more games... so then logically there should be more PS+ subscribers given the increased number of online multiplayer games in the PS4 generation alone. The PS4 was the first time that + was required for online play much like Gold was for 360 users.
Keep in mind we are talking subscribers, not simply XB/PS users. I assume you meant to say offline single player games, which is most likely true as well. That gen also saw a significant increase in games with an online component comparted to the previous gen.
I for one will be going back to essential at the next renewal. When I feel a game is good & right up my alley, I’ll check trusted reviews & just buy it.
I have the top tier until 2028 as they gave me a massive discount for all the years I had left but I’ll most likely go to essential as well. I buy my games but my kids do use the service occasionally. They do prefer to own their games as well since any game can leave the rental service at some point and they don’t like that idea. They mostly use it to demo games then ask me to buy games if they really like it.
For me, I will cancel it all together but unfortunately I still have it till 2030 lol
I would like to see Sony add a fourth tier of PS Plus for people who just want to be able to play games online without any of the perks like monthly games, store discounts, or anything like that, and it should cost $20 annually, $30 maximum. There’s no way I’m paying $80 just to play games online. Even the original $60 fee was too much, and I would often wait for sales to re-up my subscription.
Essential is too expensive, I agree. We’ve got one Essential and one Premium sub. Dropping the Premium when it expires.
Just let my subscription lapse for the first time since 2010. Will sub again every now and then for a month or so to access my old ps+ games but for me it's the end of an era.
Let those numbers continue to drop because it is now too expensive. $80 per year just to play online. I noticed they didn't offer any discounts on the subscription or controllers during this year's days of play for the first time in many years and they will feel it when people choose not to renew.
My subscription will lapse next month and it will stay that way until further notice.
There were savings on subs and controllers here in the UK? I bought a controller yesterday in the sale..
It would be weird if those deals were not in other territories too?
The Outerhaven writes: While Steam has come out recently, stating that Steam accounts can't be transferred, we need to think about it since we all will eventually kick the bucket. But if Valve is denying transferring accounts, what can be done? Plenty, actually.
It goes to my kids because I gave them the passwords.
To Steam: Missio has a song that conveys my feelings about you stealing my purchase after I die. It's called "Middle Fingers"
Yeah worrying about digital ownership when you’re on the other side of the grass seems a little strange, but also on brand for these millennial journalists to worry about.
I suppose if I have kids, I'd just give em my account details by retirement age. If I die young then...idk lol.
Yea, I mean just give someone the password to your account. Is that difficult to do or something? Like, I’m legit asking because I don’t know.
It's not difficult but It's against the policy. If they find out, they will lock the account permanently.
Ah ok, I had a feeling there was something like that. It seems kind of weird that you can’t just hand your account over to a family member or friend and let them take over the account.
its also the fact that all these regulators are all somewat old and just have no idea about gaming.
and it will continue to be this way unfortunately.
If Sony had the money to acquire Activision Blizzard they wouldn't be allowed to own them, because they basically have a Monopoly in the console market.
With Microsoft, they're in 3rd place which gives them more powers to be allowed to acquire publishers.
Microsoft still doesn't have a Monopoly in the gaming sector. Hopefully, they acquire Sega next...
The CMA actually demonstrated an excellent level of knowledge of the so called "gaming industry ". The problem in general is regulatory capture of these regulators and/or judiciary preventing them from feeling empowered to say no and leave it at that. There has to be a shift in regulations that prevents these tech conglomerates from mindlessly gobbling up industries apart from exceptional circumstances which offer no real percievable value to the market and or consumers. ABK was doing just fine without Microsoft buying them. The agreement for sale was done to enrich the executives at ABK and to fullfill Microsoft irrational desire to control and dominate every market they are in.
They have taken the gaming industry seriously as is their job and they did have experts to fall back on and get advice from. The only part of this that's an absolute fucking joke is that anyone can seriously keep a straight face and make out this deal should have gone through. That they buy any of MS's bullshit. They a judge who had full access to all the info we saw presented, the testimonies we all had access to and a load of documents that came through afterwards literally admitting Microsoft was trying to use its position as a Trillion Dollar Company to buy a market it had utterly failed in repeatedly through sales, innovation and ip creation and helping said industry to grow by creating new studios and helping smaller ones to grow- instead taking a shortcut and buying the largest publisher in order to make most of its future gsmes exclusive to their service and console and she still turned round and said "I see no problem here". The judge also belittled the industry with some of ther comments. The only person not taking the games industry seriously was that judge ruling on the injunction. Who was supposed to be ruling on if the ftc could bring a case against them NOT if it was anticompetitive.
That said the way they made some of their arguments against the acquisition was flawed and the cma should have stuck with its original decision. They backtracked in February over the console market because of data Microsoft provided which when you look at the methodology behind it, it's clear is cherry picked and biased in the way its been collected. That they would accept such data at face value it seems is embarrassing.