Some interesting quotes came from Size Five Games founder Dan Marshal on Nintendo and the Wii U. He clams that Nintendo's problem is their established franchises like Mario, Metroid, and Zelda. He goes on to say Mario Galaxy was great but Mario Galaxy 2 was boring and Nintendo releases the same games over and over again to self-destruction. Not only did he forget Nintendo released Three new IPs in The Last Story, Xenoblade, and Pandora's Tower for core gamer's, he doesn't understand Sony and Microsoft both release vast amounts of sequels. Uncharted 1-3, Killzone 1-3, Resistance 1-3, Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, Halo Reach, Halo 4, Halo Wars, Uncharted Fight for Fortune, Uncharted Golden Abyss and then some. Many of the industries biggest games are sequels or based off established IPs. Why is Nintendo the only company getting called out for it? Even when they reinvent the franchise from Super Metroid to Metroid Prime to Metroid Other M somehow people still claim it's a rehash. Playeressence's Furious Francis takes a look at the blasting of Nintendo's establish franchises and tries to sort out the vast amounts of hypocrisy being thrown around the internet.
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.
agree completely with this article, with all the rehashes Sony and Microsoft pull outta there asses kinda dumb to call out Nintendo for doing the same (and not even on the same scale Sony, Microsoft shove out sequels)
The longevity of each of their (Nintendo) franchises. It's a argument that'll plague Nintendo for the duration of the company's existence.
They should be praised if anything for sustaining those games over three decades.
How many new franchises did sony make this gen alone? how many did nintendo make in the last ten years?
please this article is off base and a little silly. uncahrted first game was in 2007, resistance 2006, in fact the only 2 games that i know of from sony that has been on each system they have made is wipeout and twisted metal (and TW does not have a game on vita yet).
Every gen you can expect a mario, zelda, metriod, mario kart and 15 mario sports titles. nintendo has made 1 good new franchise in 10 years and that is pikmin.
Sony is releasing 2 new franchises NEXT YEAR ALONE with the last of us and beyond 2 souls. i dont even know what nintendo is releasing next year on wii u.... sorry guys its not even close.
in short its not about how many Sequels nintendo makes or sony makes its about how many new franchises nintendo DOES NOT make compared to the others.
PS3:
Uncharted
Resistance
Heavy Rain
The Last of Us
Beyond 2 Souls
Demon's Souls
PS All-Star
Journey
Heavenly Sword
inFamous
Little Big Planet
ModNation
MAG
MotorStorm
But what Nintendo got? Wii-Sports, Wii Play, Wii-Music and more Wii-ShovelWare? Yeah, and Xenoblade since Nintendo owns Monolith... Lucky them.
PS2:
God of War
Ico
Shadow of the Colossus
Jak & Daxter
Ratchet and Clank
Killzone
Siren
Sly Cooper
Socom
But what Nintendo got? Pikmin and nothing more.
PS1 had:
Legend of Dragoon
Omega Boost
Gran Turismo
Spyro
Crash Bandicoot
Ape Escape
Syphon Filter
MediEvil
But what Nintedo got? The same old franchises but now in 3D and Jet Force Gemini.