Notch, the creator of Indie megahit Minecraft, has sold his company to Microsoft to the tune of 2.5 billion dollars. But does it matter to you and why is everyone so upset about it?
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
The recently purchased Activision French offices might take over all the licensing and marketing for Microsoft in France from now on.
Hanzla from eXputer inquires: "If Xbox can care about preserving its games and legacy, what exactly is wrong with Nintendo, trying to kill game preservation single-handedly?"
Ahh yes the good old game preservation of saving all your games to a removable hhd on the Xbox 360, taking it round your mates house, setting up multiple tvs to
Be met with “save data corrupted, please re download”
Or how about removing 360 games
From the store
, download them now or else, and, better hope to god that save data doesn’t corrupt, or it’s lost for ever
Nice one ☝️
This is just a scammy PR move to distract from the fact they are going digital only and trying to push streaming and subscriptions only.
No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft.
Without discs there is no preservation, preservation can't be done by the rights holders it can only be done by the consumers, anything else is a lie.
Nobody wants this. Sales or the lack of it in the case of XBOX is very telling. I wonder how the adorably all digital series X will fare. Adorably dismal perhaps?
Only time will tell, but for from someone like me suspecting that Xbox is trying to gracefully exit the console market, that "forward compatibility" team is trying to get Xbox games playing on Windows PCs. I mean, it's nice that they're not planning on exiting with a "enjoy your games while the hardware still works" message, so that's nice. They still have a brand to protect via Microsoft so probably feel obligated to have a better exit strategy.
Microsoft's future in the video game space is murky right now, so let's break it all down.
Not anytime soon. But they're on that path.
One thing not mentioned in the article is Microsoft's money bags. If Sega had Microsoft's money, they would have still been around as a hardware manufacturer. Xbox as a platform only survives because of the money bags. They can continue making consoles for the core and port to PC.
The multiplatform strategy is only the result of arrogance and misguided leadership that blew up in their face. They thought gamers would jump on Xbox in droves if they knew that many of their favorite games would be only on Xbox. But that's not happening at all. Sales didn't increase. They decreased. Why? Because the dumb asses thought giving away these expensively made games in a cheap service would also turn the tide.
Gamers on other platforms are willing to buy quality. They don't need to be handed nearly free games in a service that aren't even finished and sometimes average in their development. Gamers buy Nintendo games. They buy Sony games. Microsoft groomed their base to not buy games. Even the quality ones. It has always been their plan to go digital. But most gamers still like single player gaming. Still like physical releases.
Microsoft's problem has always been that they don't produce high quality games at the same output as Nintendo and Sony. Actually, they should be producing quite a lot more because they're worth over 2 TRILLION. How they don't have more is ridiculous and no excuse. Buying publishers to take away from competition only backfired. Because it still takes millions of dollars to continue to make those games from the publishers they snatched. Their only choice was to crawl back to their competitors to help sustain those developers because Nintendo and Sony platforms were the ones buying games.
Am I sorry for Microsoft? Hell no! They deserved last place for putting in the least effort. They deserved the fallout for buying up the industry and didn't make a single blip on the radar against their competitors where they now need those same gamers they took away games from to support them. Part of it may have been to cash in on their competition. But the result is the slow death of their platform. They may go 3rd party. They may keep making hardware. I don't give a shit about them to worry about it. I only give a shit about the destructive nature of their industry moves that only negatively affect gamers. They could sell and drop out of the industry and I wouldn't blink. Probably laugh. But not blink. They deserve whatever comes to them. At least Sega put in the effort when it came to games. They just had poor leadership. Microsoft has poor leadership and barely makes memorable games. That's a killer combination. And not in a good way.
Not sure about that. It's been two decades and I still think about Power Stone, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Seaman and others, but I'm not sure I'll remember Xbox Series X/S games in a few years from now... Maybe I'll remember about the franchises that the Xbox brand spawned, but I don't believe that the Xbox Series lives up to the late Dreamcast or even to the Xbox name itself. I do have great memories about the 360 with Blue Dragon, Gears 2 and Lost Odyssey though
No, Dreamcast was ahead of it's time and most still have very fond memories of it that had one. It also had some good games on it even in it's short lifespan. Xbox has none of these qualities.
its not really how much he made, thats irrelevant, it happens every day. Look at Dre when he sold Beats to Apple.
I think the problem here is how MS will use the Minecraft IP and the Studio with its Developers. its kinda bothersome for the fact that they could of dropped that money on creating more studios or use that funding to create new IPs with their already established internal studios.
I don't really see a BIG problem with it, I'm more annoyed with the fact they spent so much money on it then I am with it being owned by Microsoft now.
I mean if they do Minecraft 2 and have a shit load of features in it, things which they never put into the first game then I'll be fine. By that I mean stuff which you see in loads of mods but Mojang never added into the official game. Wallpaper, more furniture, bizarre biomes (see The Twilight Forest mod), mechanical stuff like trains/trams, air balloons, introduction of oil, electric (stuff better then redstone), generators, power tools etc. It just felt that despite the updates, even the big ones Minecraft never went as full. Look at the 1.8 one which has taken months to come out, they've just added different doors now, something like that should of been in ages ago
What bugs me though is the fact Notch moaned on about Oculus being sellouts when they were bought by Facebook, then he does the exact same. Bit of a hypocrite don't you think
Gamers these days seem to need hormone replacement therapy always crying over some nonsense, nice work MS .
I love the deal. MS is always being accused of buying timed third party exclusives like Tomb Raider, and yes...even the current Minecraft for the longest and "I'll wait for this _____ (game) to be on my console in 6 months" quote was used constantly by haters. Now, they bought a Huge IP and probably will make the sequel xb1 exclusive on console, the new crying and moaning from haters is that they are wasting money. Go figure. 😕
Because people care about the game, that should be obvious.