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[nush]

Nice article, especially with saying all employees kept.

Sorry but no. Every time, several in fact I've worked for companies that have been merged or brought out they send a representative call a big all staff meeting and state "Don't worry, nobody's going to lose their jobs".

It's bullshit.

They say that so the staff don't panic and they get a talent drain. They wait a bit until "I guess" a new financial quarter and then "restructure" and cut out duplicate positions for "Efficiency and streamlining".

Keep reading the gaming news and staff cuts will happen sometime early/mid 2021.

This isnt a pro/anti Microsoft stance, it's a real life corporate experience.

 

[DrScissorsMD]

While “crush Sony” is pretty funny hyperbole, its a forest for the trees deal: some people are reading that and either laughing or seeing red. It’s not about whether they will or won’t, it’s about whether they’re trying. So long as MS is hunting Sony and Sony in turn is hunting MS, it’s good for gaming.

 

[DrScissorsMD]

This move is reeks of desperation.

Throwing money at a problem, when has that ever worked, microsoft??

Your comment reeks of naivety. Everything they do costs money. You can’t ask them to fix their games problem with one hand and expect them to do it for free with the other. And people who complain about “why buy established studios, why not build your own”; that’s all sunshine and rainbows but it’s just not realistic, it takes a hell of a lot longer to build a studio from scratch and get it up to AAA level. Look how slow The Initiative is building, for instance. It might be scummy but from a business standpoint, buying exisiting devs with well known IPs is a great move.

 

[Bryank75]

I would go out my way to stop that from happening.

Apple has no real innovation on the phone side...

They do however have massive breakthroughs in AR, they could buy Sony and integrate the sensor production to their phones.

The movie, TV and music into their Apple TV and phones etc.

And then they could combine PlayStation with their AR and give them 60 billion to acquire everything on the table.

Apple bank and Sony bank could merge too.

Then we would see who was bullying who....

 

[BusierDonkey]

This move is reeks of desperation.

Throwing money at a problem, when has that ever worked, microsoft??

A lot, it's kind of how they became what they are now. Their business software suite is almost entirely built using acquired software and the Xbox division was born from the purchase of studios.

Microsoft paid to license Mac OS, then paid engineers to reverse-engineer it and released Windows which destroyed Apple and became a PC fixture for 3 decades and counting.

July 1987 - Forethought's software for 14 million which was renamed Powerpoint. A couple businesses use it.

Dec 1997 - Hotmail for 500 million. Now called Outlook. A few businesses use this as well.

Jan 2000 - Visio for 1.25 billion. Currently Dynamics 365, part of the Office 365 suite. Again, a couple businesses use this software.

Jun 2000 - Bungie. Halo was massive.

Sep 2002 - Rare for 375 million.

Aug 2007 - Advertising agency aQuantive for 6.3 billion. In-house world leading advertising is a very long-term investment.

Apr 2008 - Fast Search & Transfer for 1.2 billion to boost it's search technology.

May 2011 - Skype for 8.5 billion.

Sep 2013 - Nokia for 7.2 billion

Nov 2014 - Mojang for 2.5 billion. I think I know a few people that play this.

Oct 2015 - Havok physics engine. This one was a fun time on GAF people were losing their minds.

Dec 2016 - Linkedin for 26.5 billion.

Now look at Azure. How much do you think that cost to build? It currently costs over 10 billion a year to maintain it and it's still profitable.

Not every purchase ended up being profitable, but obviously they are willing to take chances on properties and ventures as shown by their past acquisitions. The ones that don't work are absorbed as a cost of operating, and the long term investments are left to mature.

 

[Ar¢tos]

None of those other than Insurance make anything more than chump change. Playstation is their main bread winner now. This move absolutely damages playstation. How much we're yet to find out.

Imaging and Sensor department is making more profit than Playstation this year.

 

[Aceofspades]

Crush Sony? Lmao

I swear those nerds

 

[Bogroll]

I hope not, not good for gaming. I also want Bethesda games still to be released on Playstation. Release on Gamepass and on Playstation seems like a good idea imo.

 

[Starfield]

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.

I know we're running dry but don't show weakness here. We're strong. We've waited since 2014 for Starfield so we can wait a little longer

 

[ClosBSAS]

Crush Sony? It's a good start, but that plan will still fail miserably I'm afraid!

nah, it wont...cause sony will bring their exclusives to PC then you will have no reason to own a ps5 and ms will destroy it in th elong run, it has more money, more everything. ps5 fanboys are shaking

 

[Investor9872]

ClosBSAS I'm with you. I hate the fact that Sony had decided to bring their exclusives to other platforms. But realistically, the only game that they had brought over to the PC is Horizon Zero Dawn, which is a 2-year old game. I understand that if a Sony 1st party game is 3-4 years old, and no one is buying it anymore, it's good business for Sony to bring it to the PC (and hopefully to the PC only).

 

[jigglet]

If this was all on the back of the 360's momentum, I would have agreed. Right now? They're still building back confidence. It'll be years before they're in a position to attempt to crush anyone.

 

[Vroadstar]

nah, it wont...cause sony will bring their exclusives to PC then you will have no reason to own a ps5 and ms will destroy it in th elong run, it has more money, more everything. ps5 fanboys are shaking

Yup, I agree no reason to own Xbox because all their games are on PC now. Like gamepass? you get that on PC too and oh on mobile! So really no reason to own an X anymore.

 

[Texas Pride]

They should merge with Apple. Then we would see....

Amazon OR Apple with PlayStation would make MS regret playing the game the way they have. I think it's only a matter of time before one or both jump in and shake everything as we know it up.

 

[Dargor]

Man, its like some people really dont wanna see what is right in front of them.

 

[Dolomite]

Tom makes a Good point.we haven't really discussed a Gamepass app for TV. Consoles would be a simple peripheral at this point

 

[sono]

who wrote that ? how old is he/she ?

 

[lastmessiah]

Tom makes a Good point.we haven't really discussed a Gamepass app for TV. Consoles would be a simple peripheral at this point

People laughed at me for saying this will be the last console generation.

 

[TheAssist]

I just quote myself here, cant write it every thread about this.

If you like xbox this is fine. If you like Sony you need not worry.

I kinda believe what MS said a few months back. Sony isnt their competitor. Its amazon and google.
The boxes itself are dragging MS down. They sell at a loss again and all that money spend on a console that isnt making them any money is not spend on gamepass which is gonna make them money at some point.
I dont not see them wanting to continue in the console business. I guess they would be happy if Nintendo and Sony kept gaming exclusive hardware (and take the development, marketing and logistics cost) while they only need to sell the service. This seems much more profitable.
Right now they need the boxes since they are more widely known in the public. But this gen MS will push super hard to get as many people on gamepass as possible. Where do you think all this inclusiveness comes from? Low entry price, can use the same controller etc. They dont want people to spend money on the hardware.
And I do not think they will exclude Sony.
Sony will offer them a great platform to put gamepass on in the future. There will be deals. They already give Sony a lot of server capacity and technology so Sony can do streaming. Its absolutely within their interest that there is famous hardware out there that is connected with gaming. So they can sell their services on that device. It might seem hard to believe now. But from Sonys viewpoint it might be ok. Have gamepass on the system, earn a bit per subscriber and not having to deal with the xbox as a competitor.


We'll see how they are going to react, but I really dont think MS and Sony are competitors anymore, which is why I think you will see all the Bethesda stuff on as many platforms as possible. Not just Playstation. Its going to be platform agnostic to improve sales.

It might be that in 10 years time consoles wont even be important enough to put gamepass on. When you can run it from every TV anyway.
The question is not what will happen with Bethesdas gaming output but will Sony do in this shift torwards services.
Do they have a plan to abandon consoles in the long run and go into services as well or do they try to go into a different niche than MS, google and amazon (because these sure are some hard competitors and personally I dont want the whole gaming market to be in the hand of american companies. Simply for diversity reasons).

 

[Dolomite]

People laughed at me for saying this will be the last console generation.

I hope your wrong but my gut says you're right

 

[lastmessiah]

I hope your wrong but my gut says you're right

there’s no reason to fetishize mass produced hardware boxes. they don’t add anything to gaming, if anything they detract from and stifle it.

 

[Lupin3]

Microsoft cant even crush Nintendo.

No one can crush Nintendo, not even Nintendo. They tried with the Wii U.

 

[Vroadstar]

People laughed at me for saying this will be the last console generation.

Actually see this for Xbox, hopefully not true. Sony needs some competition.

 

[Dolomite]

No one can crush Nintendo, not even Nintendo. They tried with the Wii U.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Well, I'd rather have them make good games to crush Sony than to buy everyone and prevent them to release games on PS5. But I guess that's one way to go.

 

[bhunachicken]

People laughed at me for saying this will be the last console generation.

Well, remember that according to the extreme environmentalists the world is ending in 2030, so ...

 

[Redlancet]

nah,this mantain microsoft on the race,not winning it

 

[Bryank75]

People laughed at me for saying this will be the last console generation.

Sony and Nintendo will continue making hardware... if Xbox want to become an app on a TV, that's fine.

Sony will still sell 150 million PlayStations. Nintendo will still sell handhelds or hybrids.
There will always be a console market.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Imaging and Sensor department is making more profit than Playstation this year.

Console launches are notoriously expensive.

Up to the xbox one launch xbox had lost 4 billion and they revealed the launch of the xbox one lost them another half bill. Add to that the recent zenimax purchase and they are -12 billion + whatever profits the bone made. Considering other purchases and investments, it's safe to say xbox is still down 10 billion. Microsoft don't care obviously, but that's the status of their gaming division.

 

[scalman]

like what bethesta made in last couple years

 

[The Leaked Truths]

I personally don't think that Microsoft wants to crush Sony, I believe they want to increase the Value of Game Pass.

 

[AllBizness]

Sorry but no. Every time, several in fact I've worked for companies that have been merged or brought out they send a representative call a big all staff meeting and state "Don't worry, nobody's going to lose their jobs".

It's bullshit.

They say that so the staff don't panic and they get a talent drain. They wait a bit until "I guess" a new financial quarter and then "restructure" and cut out duplicate positions for "Efficiency and streamlining".

Keep reading the gaming news and staff cuts will happen sometime early/mid 2021.

This isnt a pro/anti Microsoft stance, it's a real life corporate experience.

I do expect at least some job cuts because they bought an entire publishing company.
There's going to be alot of redundancies they need to get rid of. I expect some none developer staff to be cut. Microsoft isn't going to need every HR manager Zenimax has and that's just 1 example.

 

[kuncol02]

A lot, it's kind of how they became what they are now. Their business software suite is almost entirely built using acquired software and the Xbox division was born from the purchase of studios.

Microsoft paid to license Mac OS, then paid engineers to reverse-engineer it and released Windows which destroyed Apple and became a PC fixture for 3 decades and counting.

July 1987 - Forethought's software for 14 million which was renamed Powerpoint. A couple businesses use it.

Dec 1997 - Hotmail for 500 million. Now called Outlook. A few businesses use this as well.

Jan 2000 - Visio for 1.25 billion. Currently Dynamics 365, part of the Office 365 suite. Again, a couple businesses use this software.

Jun 2000 - Bungie. Halo was massive.

Sep 2002 - Rare for 375 million.

Aug 2007 - Advertising agency aQuantive for 6.3 billion. In-house world leading advertising is a very long-term investment.

Apr 2008 - Fast Search & Transfer for 1.2 billion to boost it's search technology.

May 2011 - Skype for 8.5 billion.

Sep 2013 - Nokia for 7.2 billion

Nov 2014 - Mojang for 2.5 billion. I think I know a few people that play this.

Oct 2015 - Havok physics engine. This one was a fun time on GAF people were losing their minds.

Dec 2016 - Linkedin for 26.5 billion.

Now look at Azure. How much do you think that cost to build? It currently costs over 10 billion a year to maintain it and it's still profitable.

Not every purchase ended up being profitable, but obviously they are willing to take chances on properties and ventures as shown by their past acquisitions. The ones that don't work are absorbed as a cost of operating, and the long term investments are left to mature.

You forget the first one. One which started that all. MS DOS created from QDOS source code.

 

[CobraAB]

After Sony moneyhatted so many timed exclusives for the PS5, including the money they paid to Zenimax Microsoft for Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop, this isn't the best hill to die on.

Sony has had many of their biggest guns from almost day one and continue to deliver.
This is why generation after generation, Sony put MS in their place.

Bur they keep coming back for more. I give them credit.

 

[The Alien]

At first I scoffed at the "plan to crush Sony" part of the OP.

But thought about it a little...yeah, obviously it is...but why?

In short, this is a long term move. Its a commitment to XBox that its here for a long time. Microsoft is making content moves, infrastructure moves, hardware, aggressive services,, etc.

What is Sony doing? Releasing another generation of hardware. They are stuck in the now...short-siggted for short term profits.

Granted it helps Microsoft to have such a large was che$t, but what is Sony doing for the future?

(Not a flame war, looking for legit info on how Sony is building for life beyond PS5. I know they inked a streaming/cloud deal....but that was WITH Microsoft!!)

 

[Fake]

Sony is Doomed.

 

[yurinka]

Buying Bethesda will help them to don't be as far as they are behind Sony selling consoles, games and specially services. But they will continue behind Sony in all fronts.

Yes, now they will have more well know, impotant IPs, and now will have way more important studios that we can make sure they will do good games.

But only Elder Scrolls and Fallout had huge sales in the recent couple of generations so maybe they may have some kind of impact if they turn into console exclusives. Which would mean 2 or 3 important games per generation.

This generation PS will destroy Xbox again.

 

[thelastword]

This was done to crush Sony? But Phil said they are not even competing with Sony.......It's Amazon, Google etc...the big boys........Sony? Hmmpf! too low brow mane....