In one fell swoop, Microsoft's image has changed from games industry hero to dastardly villain. But what was the reasoning behind its decisions, and is all the hysteria really justified?
To create a more informed debate, Gameplanet sought to understand and explain why Microsoft is doing what it plans to do.
Microsoft's Activision subsidiary announced today that it is opening a new game development studio to take advantage of the huge talent pool growing in Poland. It'll be the second Activision studio based in the region, joining Infinity Ward Krakow, although this studio is, in fact, not working on Call of Duty.
Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood's plans to increase every department's margins.
"The plan to move Xbox games to other platforms is codenamed "Latitude" internally, and I know there's debate and unease at Microsoft about whether or not this is a good idea. More upcoming Microsoft-owned games slated for PlayStation are already being developed. At least for now, they're potentially obvious games you'd most likely expect. And yes, while it's true Microsoft is a prolific publisher on PlayStation already, it has typically revolved around specific franchises like Minecraft. From what I've heard, Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood's mandate to increase every department's margins. "
Yeah, they are going to kill Xbox hardware.
"Yeah, they are going to kill Xbox hardware."
It's for the best.
Quit stringing along xbox fans and screwing over PlayStation owners.
An Xbox game on a Playstation. Never in my years of gaming did i ever thought this was gonna happen.
No way can they get rid of the hardware as probably 90% of game pass subscribers are hardware users.
Highly doubtful those users will move to PC or Cloud to subscribe there and the competition (Sony and Nin) will never have gamepass on their system.
If they want to keep the current subscribers, they need to keep releasing new hardware.
I'm not convinced, why then announce that they're actually working on the next-generation Xbox with “the largest technical leap”, and also looking into handhelds now?
Not like MS don’t drop things a hot potato if it is not performing. Look at MS history to see products or platforms discontinued. Xbox is not a charity for MS, it needs to make money and the ABK was the last roll of the dice for Xbox.
Xbox hardware team members have been incorporated into surface team
This perhaps shows they are not expecting big things from Xbox as a separate entity
Seems like they are planning to win next gen. All the acquisitions were this generation and nobody except Xbox fans expect games from the acquisitions any time soon.
I’m sure Microsoft can afford to lose money on the short term, pretty sure they do risk assessment when acquiring many companies and spending billions, they’ll be fine lol.
i think it will kill off the xbox brand. windows will be fine.
but there is and would be a chance that xbox might be killed off in the future. if they fail to make the money they put in. imo.
They wont kill it, but they will go fully PC while keeping xbox as a brand, and go multiplatform for the most part. They will also work tirelessly to diminish console gaming’s importance.
It would be best if Xbox goes the way of Sega, just make and publish games. I know I myself will not support them at all with buying games from them, you all can. 🙃
The Xbox brand will live for the games. I don’t expect Microsoft to entirely drop out of gaming hardware. They make Surface tablets and laptops. They’ll make Xbox branded hardware for those that want it.
"Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation"
Forza and Starfield next?
Starfield would be no surprise and there's the rumor that it will come to Playstation after the Shattered Space DLC, Forza (along with Halo and Gears of War) I find less likely but I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually end up on PlayStation too, especially if Xbox give up on hardware and go the Sega route.
Not to worried about forza. I'd rather see others like what inxile and obsidian are working on. Starfield sounds like it needs more time in the oven so let it cook first imo. If starfield and it's a small if does release on ps it'll be in the fall around the time for dlc or right at the dlc and come packaged with it.
In the words of Phil Spencer when he was talking about Nintendo last year
“It's just taking a long time for Microsoft to see that their future exists off of their own hardware"
100%!!
I wonder what happened to that dude that was always here posting those court articles with cartoons about MS spending all those billions in studios. He suddenly disappeared, I guess he doesn't like bad news when the green brand is in trouble. No new articles from him as of late...
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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
I'll tell you in three simple words......
MONEY MONEY MONEY
"In order to support an ecosystem where discs are no longer required to play games, Microsoft had no choice but to come up with another way to check whether the player was entitled to play each of the games installed on their console. Hence, the online license checks every 24 hours."
Can someone explain to me why this couldn't have been done just the same by requiring connections only when installing games? Whoever is in possesion of the disk would be the one entitled to play it and it would be verified at the time of install. If someone esle had the license it would transfer as soon as someone else installs it.