Does Overwatch have the power to Reshape the way Retail companies sell games?
Devon argues his case in an opinion piece.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"
Microsoft: "why's that"
Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'
Blizzard writes: "After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024. This decision was not made lightly as BlizzCon remains a very special event for all of us, and we know many of you look forward to it. While we’re approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years."
How about you not hold Blizzcon anymore period. You fucking POS company. I really hope Blizzard would just die.
A new patent recently published by Sony wants to gather biometric data of gamers to track whether one is being harassed using AI tools.
I hope this is one of those patents that never comes to fruition.
I already dislike the fact you can pay a significant amount for a online service buy associated games and content on said service and get banned from that service over potentially a misunderstanding the bans are already handed out for flimsy reasons
I'd rather see money invested in a ban that simply removes the offensive players ability to communicate with unknown players allow them to continue party chats with friends but not with Joe blow on cod.
Agreed. Blizzard recently banned a college Overwatch 2 player who's dependent for saying "shit." Pretty harsh.
How rediculas really. You can't say a word that's allowed in most PG films and prime time TV but the game is based around killing the enemy team using guns, explosives etc.
It's just backwards.
What your talking about is called block list
In 2006 a spaceship dropped of the playstation 3/xbox 360 i say that that generation was the last great gen with game functions/tech that has yet to comeback
Anyhow the playstation 3 if you block listed a id they could not talk to you in chatroom with either text or voice. But that was pre mind fucked 2018 when people were more human than sheep.
But hey gta 6 is coming out billion dollar budget without a single player custom character creator and without singeplayer coop off/online something saints row 1-3 had on the xbox 360.
Take my social security and bank account numbers too! Here’s a picture of my wife and our address.
At this rate I feel Sony will eventually sell a room to play games in it where they can monitor your every breath
I genuinely get a bit worried sometimes when a friend says something that could be offensive In a party
Because I have no trouble believing some bans would happen when in a private party for saying something wrong
I want them to censor erotic content by measuring my groin temperature so i dont get too distracted while playing black ops 2.
Terrible idea. Not only do I not consent to providing my biometric data, the potential for mishandling biometric data is almost a certainty. Positive stress and negative stress can produce similar changes in biometrics. Interpreting the precise emotion a person is feeling is not only invasive but could be easily misconstrued. I hope this never comes to fruition.
Nope although really fun it's just another shooter to add to the pile!
I don't think the at-once scheduling will reshape retail gaming. People will also download this thing once it's available, and it's no big deal. I do think, however, that games like Overwatch have the potential to reshape retail through being *actually successful* transmedia IPs.
So many companies have overstepped on their budgets (Square), their talents (Insomniac), and their capacity (Comcept) in order to put a video game into more than one medium in order to create a more deeply personal connection with characters, or to grow a franchise's audience. Blizzard has decided to release high-quality short (read: affordable enough, but good) films *as* the marketing, promoting characters with gigantic action figures in big cities, sending giant metal loot boxes that are well-thought-out to YouTubers, having Razer tie-ins that look (in a very rare case for Razer) great.
Gamestop could cash in on a franchise that's so successful that a generation of kids - not just niche gamers - would seek out action figures, shirts, comics, and eventually a full movie... and come on, Blizzard is already moving into full-length films, getting significant investments for making a huge Warcraft movie because that long-standing group of fans exists.
This could mean that the big retail publishers could take a year off from their annualized franchises, stop tiring out their overworked and crunched teams, and put out one or two big, giant, quality franchises instead. AAA, after all, is getting supplanted by mobile more and more - if they approached marketing (and not gameplay!!!!) more like blockbuster movies, this could work in retail gaming outlets' favor.
We started talking about Titanfall 2 the minute Titanfall dropped, or the next CoD a month after everyone tired out of playing the current one. What if these guys took a step back and made just one game mean something more? It could lead to more than just digital game sales.