• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Microsoft is Looking to Make another Bethesda Size Acquisition

Please enlighten me, where would the logic be in playing all the time on PlayStation, and having 1000s of platinums, but being bias against them in online forums? What would

I've told you, i saw numerous examples on forums.

You took issue with that, if you remember, and said I pretend like I’m invested in all 3, but only own a Series S.

Everyone would think after this post that you only have XSS

Sold my PS4 Pro for £240, and my Xbox One S without a controller for £130.

The One S only cost me £170 on Black Friday 2 years ago.

Bought a Series S, getting a PS5 Digital towards the end of the year.
 
I don't know if their value is inflated or not, I know that Microsoft has people in their financial divison who are very good to find out if an acquisition is worth it in the long run and CD Projekt is a company that checks off a lot of checkmarks IMO. Also, Microsoft has an huge amount of money tied up overseas that they can't bring into the USA without paying very high taxes. They are known to spend that money on acquiring European companies/buisneses and CD Projekt is Polish so.
CDPR produced basically 3 or 4 games on the whole within long period of time and yet they market cap is bigger than Bethesda's. Not to mention to purchase them you need to add premium which will lead to additional 10-20% that will inflate their price to 10 bil. In addition they don't have a lot of IPs. Witcher & Cyberpunk? I am not sure even if those IPs belong to them at all, considering that they are originated from the third party.

All in all, CDPR is bad investment at this point, and with all those backlash it got with Cyberpunk and internal issues, CDPR do not have the great optics either. Nobody is gonna touch them for now. Their real price is around 3-4 bil. at most though and couple that with their relatively slow production cycle, lack of IPs they are not that great thing for MS for now.

SEGA is also a good candidate but Japan has laws in place that foreign companies can't outright buy Japanese companies I believe so that's why I don't immediately thought of them.
The law states that if purchase threatens Japanese sovereignty, business etc. Unless you buy their military companies or media giants like Sony or Nintendo nobody would bat an eye. Just like Tencent does that in Japan. It is not a problem per se.

The issue with Sega is that they have various other businesses like pachinko, arcades, resorts and MS doesn't need that. But Sega sold their arcade (or resort I don't remember) business to Genda and now decoupling their pachinko and entertainment divisions. It is pretty obvious where it is going. Add to that that the biggest shareholder in Sega is 80-year-old dude and you got the picture.

Considering that Tencent likes getting shares in various companies or purchase them straight away I expect a bidding war to happen, between MS and Tencent. What helps MS though is that they have the long history with Sega. Sega will probably be sold within 7-10 bil as their current market cap is around 4 bil. or something.

My bold scenario is a merge between Sega and Konami - granted they basically the only ones remaining in pachinko business - and then somehow acquisition of Konami's IPs and Sega gaming division by MS.
 
Last edited:

Wizz-Art

Member
CDPR produced basically 3 or 4 games on the whole within long period of time and yet they market cap is bigger than Bethesda's. Not to mention to purchase them you need to add premium which will lead to additional 10-20% that will inflate their price to 10 bil. In addition they don't have a lot of IPs. Witcher & Cyberpunk? I am not sure even if those IPs belong to them at all, considering that they are originated from the third party.

All in all, CDPR is bad investment at this point, and with all those backlash it got with Cyberpunk and internal issues, CDPR do not have the great optics either. Nobody is gonna touch them for now. Their real price is around 3-4 bil. at most though and couple that with their relatively slow production cycle, lack of IPs they are not that great thing for MS for now.

I'm aware that they only produced two games last gen. My thinking was that with a game like Cyberpunk 2077 they can produce an enourmous ammount of content in that game-world which would be awesome for Game Pass to keep the engagement high, look at games like Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2. They're different games in comparison when they released and State of Decay 2 is by far my most played game last gen because it is getting content all the time and they keep improving it.

I thought that the price went down after all the problems they had at release of Cyberpunk 2077 but maybe the price is still inflated.
The law states that if purchase threatens Japanese sovereignty, business etc. Unless you buy their military companies or media giants like Sony or Nintendo nobody would bat an eye. Just like Tencent does that in Japan. It is not a problem per se.

The issue with Sega is that they have various other businesses like pachinko, arcades, resorts and MS doesn't need that. But Sega sold their arcade (or resort I don't remember) business to Genda and now decoupling their pachinko and entertainment divisions. It is pretty obvious where it is going. Add to that that the biggest shareholder in Sega is 80-year-old dude and you got the picture.

Considering that Tencent likes getting shares in various companies or purchase them straight away I expect a bidding war to happen, between MS and Tencent. What helps MS though is that they have the long history with Sega. Sega will probably be sold within 7-10 bil as their current market cap is around 4 bil. or something.

My bold scenario is a merge between Sega and Konami - granted they basically the only ones remaining in pachinko business - and then somehow acquisition of Konami's IPs and Sega gaming division by MS.

Sounds plausible, as I said I thought the Japanese laws were too much of an hassle for foreign companies to work with but if it isn't a big problem I can totally see SEGA as a likely candidate.
 
My thinking was that with a game like Cyberpunk 2077 they can produce an enourmous ammount of content in that game-world which would be awesome for Game Pass to keep the engagement high, look at games like Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2
You can always create a game like Cyberpunk 2077 and Bethesda will soon deliver the game like that - Starfield. Not to mention their own TES and Fallout. Cyberpunk could become the next GTA but it seems it won't happen.
 
Last edited:

Banjo64

cumsessed
I've told you, i saw numerous examples on forums.



Everyone would think after this post that you only have XSS
:messenger_tears_of_joy: Please read the post you quoted.

I said; I’ve sold my Pro. I’ve sold my One S. I’ve bought a Series S. I’m buying a PS5 next (this) year.

Where the fuck does that say, or even imply that I only own a Series S? What the fuck does this even have to do with anything? :messenger_tears_of_joy: would my view on acquisitions be invalid if I only owned an Xbox?

For your info grand master, the OG PS4 is recently acquired because, shock horror, I couldn’t stand being outside of the PS ecosystem.
 
Last edited:

BLAUcopter

Gold Member
:messenger_tears_of_joy: Please read the post you quoted.

I said; I’ve sold my Pro. I’ve sold my One S. I’ve bought a Series S. I’m buying a PS5 next (this) year.

Where the fuck does that say, or even imply that I only own a Series S? What the fuck does this even have to do with anything? :messenger_tears_of_joy: would my view on acquisitions be invalid if I only owned an Xbox?
Because you're the enemy dude.
 
Last edited:

yurinka

Member
Also Ubisoft has not been doing well with several problems; watchdogs bombed, Felix bombed, hyperscape bombed, Rainbow Six is dying faster than expected due to a bunch of poor decisions drying up another revenue stream, Division 2 underperformed, ghost recon breakpoint bombed. Not to forget the loss of several key personnel due to workplace toxicity issues. I like Ubisoft but I don’t think they are in as good a place as you think.
As I remember they still didn't show Watchdogs, Fenix and Hyperscape numbers and they didn't show their sales expectations for these games. Each year they release many new games and many of them end being a huge hit (like Valhalla) or over performs, in addition to a ton of DLC for past games, resulting on them getting like more than the half of their revenue from games released in previous years and profits every year and basically no net debt, which help them to don't care if some game bombs or underperforms.

They also have important deals with every single platform holder, have a good position in all gaming markets including even mobile or VR, their own PC shop/service that works well and for streaming they seem to have a very safe position (someone else, Amazon, is the one who pays the required insane related costs to run a service like that, Ubi only provides a copy of their PC game with no extra coding required and gets revenue from it).

Ubi stocks and market cap are in the 2nd highest price ever (they had a higher peak in 2018) and in a growing trend.

Regarding toxicity, I assume that being a 18000+ people company with 30+ years of history, there must have been plenty of really toxic stuff there just by statistics, like in any other similiar group of people.

But also that many of the recently raised complains may have just been sjw whining like 'that guy cheated his wife with a fan and since he works in a popular game he's in a power position', 'I'm a hot woman and that ugly nerd looked at me in a way I dislike so I felt raped', 'that boss took a fair decision I disagree but I call him racist/sexist/homofobic because he's a white male and I'm a woman/poc/lgtb', 'that other guy one night was gross when drunk at a party', 'I envy this successful guy so I create some random lie about him', etc.

Many of them probably coming from the typical angry former employee who was already fired for being themselves the toxic ones, being constantly complaining about everyone and everything (and these days claiming everything is racist/sexist/homophobic/etc), creating bad mood spreading false rumors, etc. But then get amplified by the sjw trend, the woke clickbait gaming 'journalists' and random players who hate Ubisoft and love to throw it shit.

I asume there should have been some very awful cases but other than that I don't think Ubisoft specially toxic place compared to the common toxic situations that are common everywhere else in the society.
 
Last edited:
Would be cool if they used their money to actually build and enhance their own studios so we get more games. Seems all they are is paying bilions of money to just keep PS owners from games.

As someone who has a PC, this is a waste to me since I’d be getting these games anyway.
PS users deserve that, they're the ones constantly bragging about muh exclusives
As a PC gamer I can only encourage microsoft in their quest
 

Fredrik

Member
PS users deserve that, they're the ones constantly bragging about muh exclusives
As a PC gamer I can only encourage microsoft in their quest
Bragging about exclusives happens everywhere but the talk that Xbox isn’t needed since you could just play MS exclusives on your PC quickly went away after the Zenimax acquisition.
Turns out a 20 year old laptop wasn’t doing the job as good as they thought?
 

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
Xbox already has 23 studios, I don't think they need to buy anymore big publishers right now unless Amazon, Google or Tencent start making moves. I would much rather see big publishers with Xbox than any of the other big players.

With the purchase of Bethesda Xbox now has about 90% of the games and studios I'm interested in. I wouldn't mind if Xbox bought Moon, Asobo, Bloober, Eidos Montreal, and Crystal Dynamics, then they'd have 99% of games I want to play.
 

Bridges

Member
Xbox already has 23 studios, I don't think they need to buy anymore big publishers right now unless Amazon, Google or Tencent start making moves. I would much rather see big publishers with Xbox than any of the other big players.

With the purchase of Bethesda Xbox now has about 90% of the games and studios I'm interested in. I wouldn't mind if Xbox bought Moon, Asobo, Bloober, Eidos Montreal, and Crystal Dynamics, then they'd have 99% of games I want to play.
They do still have a noticeable lack of Japanese content though (Tango Gameworks being the only JPN studio, and their upcoming game is still a timed PS5 exclusive).

When I think back to my personal favorite games this last generation (excluding Nintendo releases), most of them came to Xbox later than PS or not at all. Some of those may have been moneyhats, but I think the majority of them were Japanese studios just preferring PS to launch new games on. I think something like Sega would be a good fit because of this, if they can cultivate an audience that is interested more in Japanese content with Sega games, maybe we'll stop having to wait so long for Xbox ports of big games like we did for Nier: Automata.

Sony will continue to moneyhat Final Fantasy and the like, but having more day and date multiplat form releases for non-Western games would be a big win imo.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Maybe




vxj1jEx.jpg

Don't worry, it'll probably be another company that has exclusive contracts with Sony that they must honour for the next 2 years and Xbox will be looking through the window again with even more lighter pocket's
 
I guess so. I feel like they're such a diverse group of developers that they're almost guaranteed some hits.

They likely wouldn't have been on the market if they weren't struggling. Bethesda has great IP, for sure, but this past generation really wasn't all that kind to them. Fallout 76 was a disaster and huge money sink for the company.

They take forever to make games and when one of them is a dud, it has a sizable impact as a business. They agreed with the MS deal because of this, I would imagine.
 

driqe

Member
They likely wouldn't have been on the market if they weren't struggling. Bethesda has great IP, for sure, but this past generation really wasn't all that kind to them. Fallout 76 was a disaster and huge money sink for the company.

They take forever to make games and when one of them is a dud, it has a sizable impact as a business. They agreed with the MS deal because of this, I would imagine.
Good point, I dont think Ninja Theory would've been in a good spot after Bleeding Edge if they weren't with MS
 
In 5-10 years an average consumer will turn it´s TV and play games by streaming with the highest quality, the same way we play movies by streaming.

That motto "this wil be the last console generation" can be true for xbox and playstation; when the time comes, people will buy gaming pcs and gaming consoles the same way today we buy blue-ray devices or rent movies in blockbuster; we dont do it because we only use streaming; when physical media becomes minority, corporations will lose interest in it.
Building and maintaining highend clusters that play 8k30fps games and serve billions of people is a bigger problem than network connection. Let alone tje fact that people demand 60/120 fps at highest resolution. At least PCMR will never downgrade their experience for the sake of cloud gaming
 
Where the fuck does that say, or even imply that I only own a Series S? What the fuck does this even have to do with anything? :messenger_tears_of_joy: would my view on acquisitions be invalid if I only owned an Xbox?

For your info grand master, the OG PS4 is recently acquired because, shock horror, I couldn’t stand being outside of the PS ecosystem.

Oh shit. Of course everyone would think you have only XSS for now and later you"ll buy PS5. But where in that post you implied that you have a vanilla PS4 ( and Switch)? Nowhere.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Oh shit. Of course everyone would think you have only XSS for now and later you"ll buy PS5. But where in that post you implied that you have a vanilla PS4 ( and Switch)? Nowhere.
The thread, if I’m recalling correctly, was ‘which last gen tech have you sold to fund new gen tech?’ or something along those lines.

So why would I have brought up my 3DS, Switch, Vita or PS3?

Not being rude mate but I think I’m sort of done with this convo. I’ve got nothing more to say really and I don’t think you even had a point to start with.
 
Good point, I dont think Ninja Theory would've been in a good spot after Bleeding Edge if they weren't with MS

That's why I suspect that any new acquisitions Microsoft makes will be devs that have struggled and/or rely on one or two big games. That immediately removes Take 2, EA, Activision, Capcom, Square out of the equation (IMHO).

I could see an acquisition of someone like CDPR or possibly some of Warner's studios or Gearbox
 
Last edited:
The thread, if I’m recalling correctly, was ‘which last gen tech have you sold to fund new gen tech?’ or something along those lines.

why would I have brought up my 3DS, Switch, Vita or PS3?

Not being rude mate but I think I’m sort of done with this convo. I’ve got nothing more to say really and I don’t think you even had a point to start with.
Nope

"Have you recently sold any old gaming hardware due to getting new hardware?"

So, that also means, PS3 which you have and other crap. You could write in addition in sentence something like " didn't want to sell my PS3, 3DS"

Looks like you trying to make me stupid. I've told you, you never implied in that post that you have a PS3, 3DS, PSVita and what not, only XSS. Anyway, good for you that you have them
 
Last edited:

Banjo64

cumsessed
Nope

"Have you recently sold any old gaming hardware due to getting new hardware?"

So, that also means, PS3 which you have and other crap. You could write in addition in sentence something like " didn't want to sell my PS3, 3DS"

Looks like you trying to make me stupid. I've told you, you never implied in that post that you have a PS3, 3DS, PSVita and what not, only XSS. Anyway, good for you that you have them
It was an optional addition?

I’ve got no interest in trying to make anyone look stupid.

I’m going to go play Fenyx on my Switch, goodnight and God bless.
 

kyussman

Member
I'd rather have Xbox buying any big publishers than Google or Amazon...that means with an Xbox and PlayStation I can have access to all the games that interest me.I really don't want Google of Amazon giving me reasons to invest in their gaming ecosystems tbh,two is enough for me....it's currently only one(PlayStation),but I will be picking up an Xbox later in the gen now with all these exclusive games coming.
Honestly I see all these Xbox aqusitions as just making things a bit more even this gen....Xbox got so hammered by PlayStation last gen when it came to exclusives they had to respond,and they have.Why this upsets anyone I don't know,yea if you like only gaming on PlayStation then that's fine,I've done that myself the last two gens...but if the value and games are there on Xbox,which it looks like it will be going forward then it's worth the investment.
 

graywolf323

Gold Member
Sure. The publishers they are buying fail to deliver quality games. See: Rare.

Turns out, it's difficult owning and operating gaming studios.
honestly if there's one major concern everyone should have it's this, Microsoft hasn't had the best success at managing their first party studios & this goes all the way back to when Phil Spencer himself was in charge of Microsoft Studios, for the past decade the only real consistent performers have been Playground & Turn 10, otherwise first party wise has been very hit or miss

they've brought in a LOT of talented studios over the past 2-3 years, will they manage them successfully? hopefully so, but I wouldn't be shocked if when we eventually get a deep dive by Schrier or someone else into what went wrong with 343 & Halo Infinite that mismanagement by Microsoft is a factor as well
 
Last edited:

Batiman

Banned
This would be bad for everyone except MS. I guess it wouldn't exactly be bad for Xbox fans either, but it wouldn't gain them anything, only take it away from people who game on other platforms.
Of course they would gain new customers. I bought a PS4 to play some games that I couldn’t on Xbox. You’re telling me console players won’t buy an Xbox for tons of games they’ve just got through acquiring major studios? Sonic has been trash for long but for some reason it has a lot of hardcore fans. Guarantee that IP alone will gain them lots of new buyers
 

MonarchJT

Banned
This would be bad for everyone except MS. I guess it wouldn't exactly be bad for Xbox fans either, but it wouldn't gain them anything, only take it away from people who game on other platforms.
As right now every first party Ms game end up realesed without leaving it anymore, on its Gamepass service, so on PC, Xbox (S | X and if supported One | One X), Tablet, TV, android phones (xcloud) .. soon iOS and then anything with a browser (MacBook and iMac and finally Linux users for example) therefore objectively a majority compared to the users of the Sony ecosystem whatever it is (ps5 or adding the ps4+ps5+psnow). Here just do the math to understand how wrong you are. Imagine taking into consideration a player who has the ps5 and a PC and then taking as an example the Bethesda + Obsidian games, we will have:

Doom
Wolfenstein
TES
Avowed
Outerworld
The evil within
Fallout
Starfield
Tokyowire
Death loop

Surely they will release many others but for now we will consider only these. Always for example we assume that they will all be bought not at launch but waiting for discounts at a price of 29.99 € (already unlikely). Now the simple simple part :

Ps5 version : 29,99 * 10 = 299,9 € (unlikely minimum price since we don't know after a while a game will go on sale like this)

Gamepass Players : 9 99 * 10= 99.9 €
(maximum price, here too you can find discounts)
Obviously the games will not all come out together but I have given a intermittent month subscription for each game so whoever buys it can play and complete the game.

Gamepass Xbox Ultimate: 14,99 * 10 = 149.9 €
(maximum price, here too you can find discounts)
I also add this for those who want to play online on consoles.

As you can see for yourself it's simple and contrary to what you wrote, practically the vast majority of players will pay A LOT less to play the same games on the Xbox platform (which corresponds to all the devices mentioned above) and that who will remain cut off from the embarrassing advantage are ONLY the PlayStation users who persist for some unknown reason not to even consider the idea of being able to play on other platforms. The advantage is also temporal since Gamepass users in addition to a huge economic advantage they will be able, at that price, to benefit the game on day one at launch, while in the Ps5 version used in the example we have given the game already heavily discounted so after at least 1+ years after launch)
Obviously those who play these games on the Xbox platform will also have the advantage of being able to play (having paid for it) 280+ other games in that time period further strengthening the value of the offer, because it can happen to buy a game and maybe understand only after the purchase, that we do not like it. In the case of purchase on ps5 if the we don't like the game the only solution is to try to sell it to someone else (only if bought in physical form otherwise if digital we have lost 100% of the money), wasting time and probably some money..
This example applies to any game First party Ms old and new acquisitions.

ps. I didn't do the example on Nintendo consoles because third parties rarely come out on that platform except for some rare exceptions and in any case they are always full price)
 
Last edited:

12Dannu123

Member
This would be bad for everyone except MS. I guess it wouldn't exactly be bad for Xbox fans either, but it wouldn't gain them anything, only take it away from people who game on other platforms.
This is good for everyone who doesn't game only on PS5 or Switch. Everybody else has easy access into the Xbox platform be it PC, Conosole or XCloud. People who don't want to enter into the Xbox ecosystem loose access to those games.
 
Last edited:

Little Chicken

Gold Member
The recent Sonic movie performed very well, probably better than anybody expected it too, so it shows there's still an audience for Sonic as a franchise, which is something Microsoft would probably like to invest in. I don't know if MS would or has acquired Sega, but for Sega fans, having a company who is willing and able to give blank checks to studios to make games with is a very exciting scenario.
 

mortal

Gold Member
That's nice for Microsoft and all, but I can't really muster up much excitement off the news of acquisitions alone.
At some point I'll want to see the results and play some actual Series X|S exclusives bred from these acquisitions.

All these studios and still no 1st party Series X|S exclusives for some time.
The acquisition announcements will no doubt generate buzz for a couple weeks, but then it's back to more waiting.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
That's nice for Microsoft and all, but I can't really muster up much excitement off the news of acquisitions alone.
At some point I'll want to see the results and play some actual Series X|S exclusives bred from these acquisitions.

All these studios and still no 1st party Series X|S exclusives for some time.
The acquisition announcements will no doubt generate buzz for a couple weeks, but then it's back to more waiting.
Yes because those studios quit making games the second Microsoft brought them. I'm sure Starfield and the new indiana Jones games are being canceled as we speak.
 

mortal

Gold Member
Yes because those studios quit making games the second Microsoft brought them. I'm sure Starfield and the new indiana Jones games are being canceled as we speak.
Why the snide remark?

I can't play studio acquisition announcements. Just would like to see some results hopefully sooner than later.
Preferably some sort of actual gameplay over more cinematic trailers. That's all....
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
Why the snide remark?

I can't play studio acquisition announcements. Just would like to see some results hopefully sooner than later.
Preferably some sort of actual gameplay over more cinematic trailers. That's all....
Things take time the quick fix properly. The studios were not purchased until June 2018 many had games they had the release under contract. Sure they could of done a quick fix of a few paid exclusives instead and then in 2 years we would be back to square one with broken first party and the rest of the generation of little games. Microsoft is not buying another publisher for pr it is to eventually have a steady flow of content on gamepass. I would guess they would want on average a new first party game every 60-90 days by the end of the generation.
 
Top Bottom