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Microsoft’s Bethesda deal is a $7.5 billion part of its plan to crush Sony (and keeping employees)

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Nice article, especially with saying all employees kept.

Some key snippets below:


Importantly, Microsoft says it will keep ZeniMax’s 2,300 employees and leadership structure in place. That gives hope that Microsoft will allow ZeniMax’s development studios and publishing houses to continue to operate as they have in the past, ensuring they are able to create and push out the kind of content that has won over so many gamers in the firm’s roughly 34-year history.

Microsoft isn’t banking on its consoles being its only money makers, though. The company is also offering its Xbox Game Pass service for $9.99 per month on PC or consoles and $15.99 for Game Pass Ultimate, which works on both PC and consoles and gives users access to the company’s xCloud game streaming service.

Game Pass is easily the best deal in gaming, giving subscribers access to more than 100 games that can be downloaded, or streamed via your Android smartphone or tablet or console. But importantly, Microsoft makes games from its developers and publishers available via Game Pass the same day they go on sale in stores and online, something Microsoft made sure to point out about ZeniMax’s upcoming titles.

Microsoft is clearly positioning itself to become an even greater player in the gaming industry than it already is, and with the ZeniMax acquisition under its belt, a low-priced Xbox on the way, and Game Pass’s incredible value, Sony should be watching its back.
 

SilentUser

Member
Nice article, especially with saying all employees kept.

Some key snippets below:


Importantly, Microsoft says it will keep ZeniMax’s 2,300 employees and leadership structure in place. That gives hope that Microsoft will allow ZeniMax’s development studios and publishing houses to continue to operate as they have in the past, ensuring they are able to create and push out the kind of content that has won over so many gamers in the firm’s roughly 34-year history.

Microsoft isn’t banking on its consoles being its only money makers, though. The company is also offering its Xbox Game Pass service for $9.99 per month on PC or consoles and $15.99 for Game Pass Ultimate, which works on both PC and consoles and gives users access to the company’s xCloud game streaming service.

Game Pass is easily the best deal in gaming, giving subscribers access to more than 100 games that can be downloaded, or streamed via your Android smartphone or tablet or console. But importantly, Microsoft makes games from its developers and publishers available via Game Pass the same day they go on sale in stores and online, something Microsoft made sure to point out about ZeniMax’s upcoming titles.

Microsoft is clearly positioning itself to become an even greater player in the gaming industry than it already is, and with the ZeniMax acquisition under its belt, a low-priced Xbox on the way, and Game Pass’s incredible value, Sony should be watching its back.
Is this a paid journalistic article? Serious question, it sound VERY amateurish. Makes them (Yahoo) look bad, to be honest.
 

Flintty

Member
I believe in Phil Spencer.

*Insert Phil Spencer is the man video*

Fuck sake someone find that video for me. I searched for an hour earlier but found fuck all!
 
Sony have brand and popularity build up since 90's on 4 gens consoles and decades before that from electronics.

Crushing Sony is a joke, first try to gain even same level of popularity as Playstation. And 1 gen wont do it

They are clearly doing it wrong as it kind of works in USA but not on other areas, because different culture and "USA style marketing" looks just silly to many.

This "gamepass is incredible value" starts to get old. And that is the usa style that annoys many.

No, it is not incredible, it is spamming money in desperation to upkeep non-feasible service hoping enough people fall for it and then price starts to climb, or game quality drops.

If it's too good to be true..

Same happened with netflix, american company promised tons of movies&series, then price have almost doubled here over the years and half the stuff have been removed because of other services. So too often they dont have stuff we want to watch

Same as "steam sales are incredible value, I buy 500 games because they are cheap, and never play them. But hey,. INCREDIBLE VALUE!!"

I talked about this with big group of gamer friends and all kind of think that gamepass is just waste of money / attempt to lure people into xbox ecosystem and then fuck them up somehow. Bribing people in is just not trustworthy.

Ultimate for 155,88€ (183$) year it is easy to get 6-15 games from sales/used, even launch games few weeks after the launch.

Whom really plays/needs hundreds of games? Not many. Collecting is a different thing
 
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Crush Sony? how many games do these people think Bethesda puts out? We won't see ES until 2022 at the earliest and it'll likely be 2023 or later, hell Starfield may not make it out until 2022. MS doesn't look to have anything of substance before that other than MAYBE Halo in 2021 and by then Sony will have once again built a huge lead. This deal makes no sense, MS was getting those games on xbox anyway so this was purely to keep games away from PlayStation owners.
 

renzolama

Member
Microsoft says it will keep ZeniMax’s 2,300 employees and leadership structure in place

Hey guys, I've never been part of a tech company buyout / merger before. Surely this claim will stay accurate for months / years to come and they won't start laying off and outsourcing chunks of development to other countries right? There's absolutely no history of that for beloved Microsoft first party franchises so I think they're safe. Good guys Microsoft and Phil, Huzzah!
 
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McCarth

Member
Just so everyone knows, every single major acquisition deal includes a statement about the acquirer promising 'to not change the current culture and let them do what they do best'.

Reality is MS paid huge dollars here, they need these studios to do what they need them to do. All we can hope for is they see the forest from the trees.
 

dano1

A Sheep
The new talking point ladies and gentleman.

Rare, a company nobody gave a fuck about 20 years ago because they shit the bed, are what gets brought up now that Microsoft have saved a series of games.

Oh Really
Besides Nintendo they were the next best thing back then!

The last time I was this excited was the first time I picked up a controller and played a game from Rare," said Ed Fries, vice president of Xbox Game Content at Microsoft. "As a gamer, you could hardly wait until Rare's next title was announced. You didn't know what genre it would be, but it didn't matter because you knew you were going to love it."
 
Yeah that’s some hyperbolic shit meant to fan the console war flames. Nobody’s crushing Sony. Their foothold in the market is too great and they keep improving. They could of course lose market share as any corporation can but it won’t be easy, especially after the thrashing MS took this gen. Gamers are a lot more confident in Sony than they are in MS but hopefully MS will turn things around. We need their competition.
 

GrayFoxPL

Member
Sony is probably feeling flattered seeing how MS is spending billions just to end up in second place.

YsfcQJY.gif
 

Ar¢tos

Member
Unless MS is going to start making movies, electronics, lenses & sensors, appliances, selling insurance, etc, I don't see how they are going to crush "Sony".
 

Razvedka

Banned
Nice article, especially with saying all employees kept.

Some key snippets below:


Importantly, Microsoft says it will keep ZeniMax’s 2,300 employees and leadership structure in place. That gives hope that Microsoft will allow ZeniMax’s development studios and publishing houses to continue to operate as they have in the past, ensuring they are able to create and push out the kind of content that has won over so many gamers in the firm’s roughly 34-year history.

Microsoft isn’t banking on its consoles being its only money makers, though. The company is also offering its Xbox Game Pass service for $9.99 per month on PC or consoles and $15.99 for Game Pass Ultimate, which works on both PC and consoles and gives users access to the company’s xCloud game streaming service.

Game Pass is easily the best deal in gaming, giving subscribers access to more than 100 games that can be downloaded, or streamed via your Android smartphone or tablet or console. But importantly, Microsoft makes games from its developers and publishers available via Game Pass the same day they go on sale in stores and online, something Microsoft made sure to point out about ZeniMax’s upcoming titles.

Microsoft is clearly positioning itself to become an even greater player in the gaming industry than it already is, and with the ZeniMax acquisition under its belt, a low-priced Xbox on the way, and Game Pass’s incredible value, Sony should be watching its back.


Everything else notwithstanding, most companies say the bolded after an acquisition. The truth will be in a year or so. We'll see if there's been any 'restructuring'.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Everything else notwithstanding, most companies say the bolded after an acquisition. The truth will be in a year or so. We'll see if there's been any 'restructuring'.
That was my first thought as well. There's honestly no need to keep all the employees when something is bought like that. MS already has a marketing team, accounting department, and on and on. Most of the people that would be redundant are part of the bureaucracy outside of actual development, because MS already has all of that.
 

vkbest

Member
Crush ”competitor” after big acquisitions and sell services and consoles at losses looks like some thing antimonopoly organization would like to hear. lol that articles, they could use defeat
 
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urmie

Member
Sorry but that narrative of "crushing" is complete BS. MS would never want Playstation or Nintendo to go away. The original triforce of gaming is here to stay and I rather have them than Amazon, Google or Tencent.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Announcing this the day before pre-orders start is pretty genius move.

If they wanted to have a flawless launch, they'd have some kind of Starfield teaser trailer too, even if it's just CG so far.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I thought MS said they aren't competing with Sony. They said they were competing with Google and Amazon. What's happened?
 
Sorry but that narrative of "crushing" is complete BS. MS would never want Playstation or Nintendo to go away. The original triforce of gaming is here to stay and I rather have them than Amazon, Google or Tencent.
It's a BS because you cannot just jump from being crushed to crushing others. They need more than Bethesda to crush Sony. Furthermore, this purchase might not been planned well, Microsoft will still release two exclusive games on PS5 and most likely keep the big games such as ES and Fallout multiplats. There's no crushing here at all.
 

Zok310

Banned
Sony 1st party is head over heels better than anything zenimax can deliver😂😂😂.
And i find it hard to believe that MS wont eliminate redundancy with this purchase. Expect them to merge the similar devs under zenimax and chuck the left overs in 2 years max.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
It’s a massive moment and I fear Sony might try to cool their way out of this, but MS is showing the kind of ambition that spells trouble for PlayStation.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Sony is probably feeling flattered seeing how MS is spending billions just to end up in second place.

YsfcQJY.gif
Ive said before, because Sony won this gen doesnt mean they are guaranteed the win, next gen. This deal changes everything. I guarantee Sony isnt feeling anything near the confidence you have. Hell they are paying Microsoft for a one year exclusive on two games now. Makes what they were trying to do look petty AF.

Crush Sony? No. But they definitely have stiff competition on the software front. And that's been the only piece they were missing. Not anymore. "Xbox has no games" mantra is dead as of today. 23 Fricken studios! Half are AAA. Insane
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
Will certainly be interesting to see in 2-3 years when most of Microsoft's Studio acquisitions start to release their big titles they are working on (or if we are being optimistic, 1 to 2 years out). However, I don't see this as a way to "crush" Sony, or Nintendo - nor do I think the others would ever crush each other. There are ups and downs and this mindless attempts at fanboyism gets tiring.
 
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