360 Magazine: “Single-player games should be a four-hour experience,” says Lucasarts’ Clint Hocking
Despite losing its lawsuit seeking an injunction to freeze Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard in July 2023, the FTC appealed the decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. While it awaits a final decision from those justices, the FTC’s been filing additional evidence to support its claims that the merger would hurt competition in gaming and hurt customers, including a letter from earlier this year after Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 employees across the newly acquired teams.
FTC never heard of inflation. Did they expect Gampass to remain the same price forever?
Would be funny if Gampass remained at 10€ fifty years from now...
"Microsoft insists Game Pass prices ‘will not increase as a result of Activision merger"
https://www.videogameschron...
"It says a price rise “would be counter-productive as it would increase subscriber churn rates”
"Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the Merger"
Gamepass wouldn't increase in result of the merger... but it doesn't mean it wouldn't increase due to other reasons, like inflation, extra expenses, etc. Do you expect Gamepass to remain the same price forever?
All other online services have been increasing prices.
I cancelled my Ultimate sub after the announcement, so they were right. And yet, they still did it. That is so MS.
Inflation is down since they made that statement.
They also call into question the 2000+ people Microsoft has fired from the developers they bought.
And again, this is contradictory to what Microsoft said they would do.
They lied in court.
Lol...they never said gamepass wouldn't increase and they never said it would because of the merger. And even they did it's their right to do so. So what's your point?
Sony and other streaming services (Netflix, HBO, ...) have been increasing prices and altering their services. Do you expect Gamepass to remain the same price forever?
Others can increase prices and alter their services, but Microsoft can't?
Hypocrite much!
Exactly let's not forget this deal was done under the same economic climate this was predictable yet they maintained they would not be increasing prices yet now the merger is done they increased prices and split tiers to avoid further scrutiny.
This is and always has been how Microsoft do business deflect blame and increase profits
You are correct. It's actually lower. It was around 7% in 2021 and now it's around 3%, which is ideal.
inflation aint the same thing as to lock stuff behind a paywall that was previously not. lol
Yeah you're right. It's just a coincidence that this happened after spending billions of dollars buying up the industry. And closing studios. And firing thousands of people. All while barely being able to give away Xboxes. It's all because of inflation. LOL
Fanboyism bro this is pure fanboyism, it's bs we all know it so stop defending Microsoft.
Except $/mb of broadband, $/mb of storage, and $/compute power only gets cheaper over time. As Microsoft’s overhead has gone down, it’s prices have gone up.
@lelo: “FTC never heard of inflation. Did they expect Gampass to remain the same price forever?
Would be funny if Gampass remained at 10€ fifty years from now...”
I see you got the industrial size chapstick truck from Microsoft and put it into use already.
Add one more backpedaling to Microsoft and Phil rhetorics
Gamepass price was going up regardless of inflation or not and you know it. Hey atleast you guys have an excuse to ride for a little bit
Need I remind you of how much MS is worth? There was no need to let anyone go or any studio. MS are just cancer and should leave the industry.
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Apparently it's ok that they raised PSN prices, but Xbox can't compete?!
The "Standard" is just a rebranded Xbox Live. Not expected but not crazy since they didn't really have a proper entry level subscription to match PSNs entry level.
Xbox raised their prices last year too though, their entry level was core or gamepass console.
The whole "Bu bu but Sony" thing with the PSN doesn't take into consideration Microsofts whole argument to the FTC during the entire Activision merger court case is that they wouldn't raise prices due to the merger, nothing would change.
Sony never said shit about raising prices and the like so while we can think it's scummy the FTC won't have an issue with it because the argument wasn't towards them, they never swore against anything.
If the Activision merger never happened and Microsoft raised their prices as a standard thing, like Sony with the PSN or even how Netflix has done it with their subscription it would have been business as usual.
I'm so tired of the Sony defense team. Pay off me thinks a lot of these comments come from Sony shills
All the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just got a free windows 11 upgrade!
The price hike just brings it closer in line to PSN, yet it still has greater value. The standard sub matches the lowest PSN sub.
FTC trying to seem relevant. Claiming their multi million dollar case was to stop a $3 dollar price hike is a stupid argument and embarrassing for them.
PS+
$80 per year cheaper
More total games
Retro Games - Added monthly
VR games - Added Monthly
Ubisoft + Classics
4 k Streaming of nearly all games including ones you own digital not on the service. (xbox 1080p series s)
Sony Pictures Catalog
Anime from Crunchyroll
Full Game Trials with Trophy Support
PSN absolutely does not have more total games. I have PSN Ultimate or whatever it's called.
They don't get day one exclusives.
They don't even have Last of Us 2 Remake on there yet! Or Last of Us Part 1!!
You get Ubisoft classics, so does Xbox. But w Xbox also get EA games!
VR games don't matter to me, but Xbox also gets PC games that don't matter to me.
Both have classic games.
Streaming means nothing to me, it's still a failed concept, Digital Foundry tests it often, and it's not there yet for "serious gamers". The lag is intense!
Sony pictures and anime are neat, I'll give ya that.
Full game trials are cool, but Xbox gets the full game day one, so.... 🤷
I haven't had a good game in PSN since HellDivers, this year has been dead.
Honestly, once Xbox starts dumping all these exclusives on to GamePass, it's gonna be a flood of great titles
It's $80 cheaper, you're paying $240 a year in hopes of getting Microsoft games, and things aren't looking great on the development side of things beyond all the stuff they started 5 years ago. There is no guarantee that some of these studios will even exist going forward.
No, game pass does not offer Ubisoft Classics, and you only need Extra unlike EA Play which requires Ultimate.
And it doesn't matter what you don't want, xbox isn't offering it for people who do. Those things add value for a lot of people.
What digital foundry found was that PS+ Streaming was vastly superior to xcloud.
Full Game Trials include 3'rd party games.
PlayStation get's "good games" all the time that aren't on xbox,GranBlue Fantasy Relink, Final Fantasy, Helldivers, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Zenless Zone Zero, Pacific Drive ect. every week something new comes out or is announced for PlayStation that's not on xbox.
And you're bragging about day one but that keep proving to be unsustainable. That's why studios got closed, 5000+ people got fired, games got ported to PlayStation, the reward system got gutted, prices were increased multiple times and those new games got removed from game pass and paywalled to a more expensive tier.
@GamerRN
I guess you don't subscribe to both services.
PS+ Premium has close to 1000 games.
GPU has less than 500.
GPU doesn't come with Ubisoft Classic.
However, the do have EA Play instead.
I pay 120$ a year by using cdkeys.com for GamePass Ultimate
And I definitely have both... My main gripe is PSN extreme or whatever it's called is u don't have all the 1st party stuff I want. That being said I just started up Death Standing Directors cut (terrible game, cool story)... I really want Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2.... Other than that, I don't think I have access to Ubisoft games? Where do I access those? Are there any good ones? The menu system is very confusing trying to go to classic games, PSN collection, etc etc etc
The FTC should give up. Microsoft owns the US Government and then someday the world and all its useless masses.
EA has published a new patent that wants to add a replay editor to its games, allowing players to modify the captured gameplay content.
Nah you just gotta watch a short, unskipable, 30 seconds ad every time you use the feature. Those same ads will then be automatically edited into your captured gameplay before your video is stored online (no local saves), where they will have the right to use for promotional purposes.
Please don't give them ideas, lol! That definitely sounds like something they'd love to do.
EA has hired ex-military personnel in order to help shape the next Battlefield game as part of the Hiring Our Heroes (HOH) program.
Why don't you Hire Your Old Dev Team who brought us the brilliance of Battlefield Bad Company 2 while you're at it. It was more exciting than anything recent in the Battlefield series. It just needs to be updated to reach modern times, but it was so great at its core.
This would be nice but that team has tossed out the finals and has arc raiders on the back burner
https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-...
20 thousand still play the final's
https://steamcharts.com/app...
Why get slapped around by ea when you already have something going on.
What the next battlefield needs is a step back simple functional not a live service and smaller player servers than 2042. Just make it like battlefiled 3 with bad company destruction just something simple
But they already killed off ridgeline games that had ex halo/cod devs so no singleplayer unless they make another dev team for it.
https://gamerant.com/ea-bat...
It's what made zipper and slant six awesome. They had military vets working for them, no just as consultants, but as developers as well. I wish Sony never closed them, MAG 2 or an update to MAG and a new socom is much needed.
Older ps3 battlefield titles did the same even went to the range to get sound files.
But all these titles we are talking about were on the ps3 a console so powerful it offered free mp and games did not need 4 levels of payment plans even more crazy was the player size of mag's games.
Sadly I think you are correct. They just don’t get it. They will do their live service game with its Battle Royale and fail at both.I hate being so negative, but I have little faith in EA at this point.
acceptable for 10$
It really depends on how you look at it, to be honest. I think some short games ARE worth 60$, mainly thanks to their level of polish and fun. In fact, those are of the few games I ACTUALLY feel like replaying, given I love their gameplay.
I'll take quality over quantity anyday, that's it.
i wouldn't pay 60 bucks for 5hrs
I'd rather have a 6-8 hour game then a 20+ hour game full of bugs and shit.
It is unacceptable when it's at a retail price of $59.99. That's robbery in my opinion.
Magic number is 10 hours, 15-20 including any side quests/mini-games