By Furious Francis, editor in chief
If all the internet rumors are to be believed, the PS4 and Xbox 720 are right around the corner. Major E3 unveilings could be coming in a little over half a year’s time for Microsoft and Sony. The industry needs new consoles, and I am really excited to get my hands on the PS4 and Xbox 720. However, there are a few concerns I have about these systems. Cost of Development, and Japanese game support to name a few.
With Arkane Austin no more and Lyon living for who knows how long, the superb Dishonored is in serious danger; Microsoft cannot be trusted.
I love the Dishonored series so much and really want Dishonored 3. Microsoft better not screw this up.
I mean, I think the fans will probably kill Arkane Lyon by cooking up reasons to hate whatever they do next without playing it. I've never seen a game so artificially disliked as Deathloop.
Lol, why don't we just say, we are worried about all studios owned by MS now. They will keep closing studios until they have none left ...🙄
Just merge them all into a single studio, have it churn out a single Call of Duty every year and call it a day, lol.
I think it's becoming clear based on matt bootys comments there's no future for any IP that can't sell above 10 million within the launch window. But is also a small game that gives them prestige
/S it's beyond a joke right now
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.
"However, there are a few concerns I have about these systems. Cost of Development, and Japanese game support to name a few."
Cost of development is a myth, the sad reality is millions of USD these days are spent marketing a game. Marketing budgets are infact double or quadrupole the cost of making the game specially in todays AAA releases. Take a game like COD, it costs Activision about 50million usd to make the game (i dont see how though since its just a copy and paste job), Marketing the same game costs them 200million usd.
Its the gamers in the end who have to pay.
Crysis 1 from 2007 is still one of the best looking games out there, from a technical perspective nothing on console can touch it even today. Guess how much it cost to develop a game with Crysis level graphics? It cost 20million usd.
Games like Witcher 2, Metro 2033 are about the best looking games in recent years, even they didnt cost more than 20 million usd to produce.
My belief is developers cry costs, so they can increase prices of games, when really they need to find a way to better manage how they market games.
Edit:
"The HD era raised development costs to unseen levels back in 2005 with the Xbox 360."
Please this is about the most retarded thing i have heard. HD is simply a term given to graphics being rendered at 1280*720. Just because a game is going to run in a particular res doesnt increase its development costs. Us PC gamers have been seeing games run way beyond 1280*720 way before the HD term was created. Personally i been playing at resolutions close to this back in the late 90's. Hence games going HD for consoles is just an excuse for developers to raise prices, its not like consoles introduced games running at these resolutions, its been done long before console Makers / developers are only looking for way to milk the console crowd be it with:
charging to go online,
DLCS (no mods),
over priced accessories
Imo they only need an excuse to some how raise prices.
One of these things is not like the other thing.
Its nice to finally see someone looking at stuff more realistically. Funny enough these points are exactly how I am looking at things.
I think Japanese support for PS4 will be fine. Its 720 you should question. With Nintendo set to dominate Japan with Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter and Xbox not being accepted there, I see it ending exactly the same as the first Xbox. If Wii U and PS4 are sustainable enough for companies like Capcom and Namco as multiplat devs they could choose to exclude 720 altogether in some cases.
More and more, signs are pointing to the next generation of consoles not being the significant leap everyone thought they would be. But I'm not all that worried, I have a gaming PC if I want amazing graphics @ 60fps.
But if the past is any indication, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo's first party developers will make exclusives that will make those consoles sing and make them worth owning. Exclusives are the main reason to own a console anyway. I grew up on Sony and Nintendo and they haven't let me down yet when it comes to their games so I'm pretty much guaranteed to get a Wii U and a PS4 for exclusives. Will most likely use my PC for multiplats.
im not worried about ps4 but more for the devs..
i lost count how many had to leave this gen crazy!
Now with the better grafics it will be even worse..