It's wild how Microsoft has been able to vertically integrate gaming.
They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway.
People may be flooding into vertical integration, though the history of that isn’t great. (Look at AOL/TimeWarner or Verizon/AOL/Tumblr/Yahoo)
All it takes is missing one generation and the house of cards gets written down. Someone can create the next generation blockbuster for a lot less than $69bln.
To argue against myself, they’ve become a lot better at picking trends since Balmer left too.
AOL/TimeWarner was a failure because because it valued AOL at $200B and TimeWarner at $164B. AOL was just way over-valued. It wasn't really an integration failure so much as paying too much for something. If Time Warner had bought AOL for $2B, it would have been fine. The problem is that they merged valuing AOL at 100x that when it wasn't worth it and later sold for $4.4B to Verizon.
Likewise, Yahoo/Verizon bought a lot of properties at inflated values. Tumblr wasn't worth $1.1B, but Yahoo wanted to buy one of the hot up-and-coming properties to feel relevant.
I think the big issue is the price one is paying and whether one has a plan for the purchase or if the purchase is more "but if I don't make a big move, what am I doing? I can't go wrong following trends, right?"
For example, AOL/TimeWarner was a situation of over-paying because TimeWarner was afraid that the internet was going to eat the world and they needed to stay relevant. AOL was so hot and it's easy to get swept up in the moment thinking "I need to get on board now or I'll miss it!" Likewise, Yahoo feared becoming irrelevant as Google took over the internet and thought buying Tumblr would make them the hip forward company once again.
Activision Blizard seems like a reasonable add-on for Microsoft. $69B isn't that much money for it given it would represent a P/E ratio of around 26. Apple's P/E is 30, Amazon 62, Microsoft 34, Google 26. So they aren't paying an absurd amount given Activision's profits. Even if they did no integration or strategy, Activision could simply continue doing its thing and contribute favorably to Microsoft's bottom line.
With a tiny bit of strategy, it seems clear Microsoft could get even more value out of the company. Maybe a few Xbox exclusive titles to push their console business. Maybe some stuff for their game streaming service.
If Disney has shown us something over the past few years, it's that owning IP that people like allows you to keep spinning new versions of that IP. Activision has lots of that kind of IP in the gaming space so Microsoft should be able to use that to its advantage.
I think there's a big difference between buying Activision at a price whose P/E ratio is better than your own and where there are clear strategies that could offer you even more value compared with the "omg, I'm getting left behind! I'll pay anything you want" panic purchases/mergers of other companies.
I think vertical integration tends to win when the floor is built atop of commodities. The new consoles have similar hardware[0] and it really comes down to allocation of those hardware resources, which makes first party studios ways to differentiate your product from the competition, as you can justify the extra cost to make sure your first party console is optimized for in its unique ways, where cross publishing houses don't always do that, for example. This can differentiate gaming experience, even for titles that are cross platform, if one is optimized for say, the Xbox ecosystem, but its PlayStation port does not have the same kind of optimizations. How much this matters may remain to be seen, for now.
Having highly optimized flagship titles though is what makes these vertical integrations so appealing in this market, in my estimation.
Intel has also been feeling the pain of vertical integration. Like with most things, double edged sword.
They fabricated their chips - not sure if they still do. Initially this was great, they owned the equipment and got things 'at cost'. However, they had trouble refining their tooling to get < 14nm for several generations.
This made them less competitive for a while, while having a pile of expenses a more lean design house wouldn't have. They'll surely be fine, but it's not the same sprint they've had for quite a while.
It probably means more to keep the Blizzard catalog off of Oculus than anything else. IMO many games in their catalog would be ideal in that environment and keeping them off of it goes a long way towards buying time.
To argue in favor of your point. Big vertically integrated firms often become insulated from economic, technical, and business realities. This eventually leads to politics winning out over technical or business savvy. At the extremes you'll have companies burning 10s of billions on pet projects going nowhere, or software engineers producing 0 lines of code per year.
I wouldn't be surprised if this effect could even be mathematically quantified.
At least for Xbox, the biggest positive change in leadership has been the replacement of Don Mattrick with Phil Spencer in 2014. Xbox as a brand was in real bad shape when he took over.
Ballmer gets a bad rap but he was the one that got them moving towards Azure and cloud. He made MS a lot of money, they didn’t suffer under him. It was mostly just optics where he didn’t look good.
Nah, their model is different. They are building a Disneyland-like experience, where the public pays to "be there" and the attractions always change. Never been done before.
This is an overly rosy view of Microsoft's moat (and acumen) IMHO.
For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile revolution.
For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so quickly and right before the new Xbox launch.
Imagine if Mixer streamers had early access to the new console and titles? And drops? Viewers absolutely love drops.
What if the Xbox Game Pass included a Mixer sub like Amazon Prime does with Twitch Prime?
To me this just showed they have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
I mean, look at how much money they've thrown at Bing.
I think "the mobile revolution" is a joke and never materialized. 95+% of mobile games are unoriginal clones with layers of mechanisms to reduce fun unless the user pays. People who enjoy games have largely abandoned mobile, save a handful of decent titles that were ported from other platforms.
Mobile-first gamers are: people (mostly kids) who are so naive about games they will accept garbage (or cant afford a better gaming system) and whales who enjoy spending large amounts of money to move up the leaderboards.
Mobile gaming C-level's loved talking about the mobile revolution for a decade, but I really think it was all optimistic nonsense in service of their fundraising.
I don't know about that. They gave it like four years and spent a lot of money promoting it and it was still microscopic. They could have tried other things, but if Ninja couldn't draw viewers, do you really think a bunch of obscure streamers nobody watches having drops would have made a bigger difference? At some point you have to stop throwing good money after bad.
They tried with the failed Windows phone. I think after that they wanted to stay out and focus on their strengths. Besides this purchase gives them King - of Candy Crush fame. So now they own one of the biggest mobile game devs.
You know there are essentially only two search engines on the internet right? Google and Bing? Microsoft is doing good and cornering market and is helping users forget that DDG and Ecosia and Yahoo are just Bing.
Interesting. I take that Mixer example as quite the opposite: throwing money at game streamers only really makes sense if they're trying to get yet another point of integration for gamers, no?
I take your word for it that the execution was lacking - and, perhaps, they were never going to win. Perhaps that's why they keep buying other, successful companies.
But it still builds to the same picture: even if they suck as operators, they're building a pretty darn big machine.
Looking from the point of view that most people that actually want to do mobile work are using laptops or hybrid devices like Surface clones, they are doing pretty alright.
Sure they lost the mobile phones, but that market has already plateud, newer Android and iOS versions are only gimmicks for those on 2 year contract renewals to change devices.
Microsoft winning at streaming and mobile would be horizontal integration, not vertical wouldn't it? Neither of those things are part of the "supply chain" of their core gaming business.
I don't think they will. There's no point. There is a stable duopoly, where Microsoft can reap the benefits of competition between the two, without wasting any resources.
May not be best for consumer - really great for business. (especially, if courts hold that Apple/Google cannot outright ban apps from their stores)
They haven't completely given up on mobile. The Microsoft Launcher for Android is really close to what a modern Microsoft mobile platform would feel like.
Convinced they're just going to do the Netflix/Stadia route with mobile etc. Sell a controller, use the device you already have and stream games running from azure.
This will be interesting to see. If Steam Deck becomes a successful device, I believe the Xbox division will release a mobile device to compete with Nintendo.
I don’t think so. They’ve moved away from owning the platform (at least in mobile) in favor of services. Office is wildly popular in mobile OS app stores.
It's too late to capture mobile platforms, not only because the market is stabilized but most importantly: computing moves to the cloud, where Microsoft is already a big player. IMHO there is no point for them to do that.
That is a really interesting thought. Now they got much more of everything both in terms of technology (cloud, mobile apps, hardware experience) and developers trust.
This is what I’m worried about. With them owning both the games and the OS that they are played on, we could be forced into a subscription. Paying to own may be a thing of the past.
I think we can already see what the future market will look like. Gamepass exists right now as a subscription service at $US10 per month and cheaper in many regions. And games to own cost anywhere between 2 months to 1 year of subscription. It does not make economic sense to stop pay-to-own, given almost all owners will keep the subscription in addition or will want to pay-to-own additional games in the future. The reason subscription services like Gamepass are taking off is it makes so much economic sense to many consumers. It even makes sense for infrequent gamers, as they no longer need to purchase dedicated hardware with the streaming services. If paying to own stops being a thing, I think it will be because the market is so small it isn't worth running the store fronts any more.
Activision-Blizzard was the worst performing gaming companies during COVID so it stands to reason that this would be the best gaming developer considering how well Bungie did as an acquisition for Halo and the acquisition of mojang.
There is so much IP that is tied up with Activision-Blizzard that it seems like a good deal.
Bethesda/Zenimax massive $8B acquisition hasn’t appeared to have any issues yet though it is very new. Decent chance this acquisition doesn’t happen, but it does mean Microsoft can go after another 1-2 medium sized gaming companies with success.
Nintendo yes. But they've long been a closed, relatively niche ecosystem. Their entire market cap is less than the value of this deal.
Sony, perhaps. But I do think the cloud platform is a critical piece, because it is a huge source of value capture (e.g., all CoD compute on Azure is no small deal). It also allows significantly more dominance in distribution via cloud gaming - and coincidentally, Microsoft has been much more aggressive about owning distribution with Xbox Game Pass. This is all on top of the fact that Microsoft influences the PC and console markets, not just the console market.
Nintendo operates on different rules due their absurd array of reliable IPs. I get the sense that MS, Sony are still trying to sort out their own "Mario, Zelda, Pokemon" clone with mainstream movies/merch potential and all that entails.
Absolutely not, Microsoft owns your operating system on your general computer. At least you could argue that I am, in some sense, willingly entering the ecosystem by buying an xbox. Blizzard and Minecraft are primarily PC games.
It's not really the same. For one, when those were the two juggernauts in the game cartridge era, they weren't really in the business of just scooping up a bunch of game studios, because financially it didn't make much sense.
What's different now is that Microsoft is focusing on becoming the Amazon Prime Video of video games. While you will still be able to buy the games outright, the games of the companies they're purchasing will be part of the monthly price gamers pay to play.
So for instance, because they own Zenimax, I can load up any of the Bethesda / id games and play as part of my subscription. And when Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI come out, they'll be part of that price too. Buying Activision brings Call of Duty, Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and a host of other games under the same umbrella.
I guess they've decided that low monthly subscriptions paired with season passes for content is the way of the future for gaming.
I'm surprised they didn't snap up Unity before it went public. C# is the main language, cross platform deployment that goes well with .NET's new cross platform story and there are strong commercial markets for Unity like Movies, TV and Architecture that could benefit from Microsoft's enterprise sales force and relationships.
Next headline: MS to acquire Epic Games? Tencent is in the way there.
Really, I could see them launching their own engine. Think of all the studios and talent they have now. They have the engines behind Halo, CoD, WoW, Overwatch. Could build an Unreal competitor.
Microsoft has an AR goggle contract for the US Army, and functioning models of both this and the commercially distributed HoloLens, so you bet VR is in their reach.
another strategy piece is linkedin for competitive analysis. They are able to see industry data for where all the top talent is working and when they are on the market.
I disagree. The Surface line, which came out in 2012 and has been continuously refined each year after, are some really beautiful, inventive, and highly technical pieces of hardware. The hinge on the Surface Book especially generated a bit of buzz when it came out, and the rest of their lineup is quite solid.
To say this also ignores the XBox and its controller, which often trades places with the modern PlayStation controllers for what is considered best-in-class.
Microsoft has plenty of hardware design capabilities.
Is kind of strange, but I think Microsoft have some of the best keyboard and mouse on the market. ( Or at least use to have since I no longer use them ) And Surface Laptop, while far from perfect, you could see their continuous refinement year after year. Most company give up after a while. But Microsoft is actually making lots of progress for the PC industry.
They still rely extremely heavily on Nvidias ability to create more and more powerful hardware. I recently found out that like 70% of the world's supercomputers are powered by nvidia GPU compute. People often talk about the tech power of different countries (personally I've heard a ton of people talk about China in this way), but at the end of the day they are still reliant on the hardware manufacturers. Who am I to say that China or X country doesn't secretly have something that far outclasses nvidia hardware, though?
Between gaming (the biggest form of media), supercomputers, science computation, crypto nonsense, etc. It's really looking to me like nvidia is actually one of the biggest power players across the globe. Makes me really wonder about the tech they aren't flashing to the public. I was personally astounded when I saw their announcement to purchase ARM. I've seen a few instances of people saying the dead acquisition is stifling innovation. Honestly I'm kind of happy it didn't go through. Probably just a lack of vision on my part, though.
For the gaming industry, this seems to push Microsoft into 3rd place (by size) behind Sony and Tencent. So hardly a monopoly and akin to T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint a few years ago. It makes Microsoft much more competitive against Sony and even Nintendo since it'll likely bolster their 1P offerings in the future.
But if Microsoft uses their ownership to favor their own game subscription services (aka GamePass) as well as platforms (aka Windows 11, Xbox console), then certainly that'll be monopolistic behavior. Interesting to note that they're probably #1-#2 in either of those sub-industries. It's possible to end up with an "Internet Explorer-esque" antitrust scenario if Microsoft removes or heavily discourages Activision and Bethesda from making their titles cross-platform.
When they bought Bethesda last year they announced that Elder Scrolls 6 would no longer be a multi platform title, it would be a Microsoft exclusive. I wouldn't be surprised if they would try to take something like the Call of Duty franchise and make it Xbox/Windows only.
Nintendo and Sony are small potatoes compared to MSFT in 2022. 70B and 150B market cap against a 2.27T one. Japanese tech companies are happy to stay in their niche. But now Microsoft has an incomprehensible advantage in available capital. Apart from the Japanese government blocking the sale they could just buy them
It should be worth noting that T-mobile + Sprint succeeded on the third try after the first two were more or less blocked by regulators in the same decade (it didn't actually get all the way to them, but they signaled there was no way they would approved.)
The only reason it got approved the third time was that regulators were convinced that either way, the US would only have three mobile operators because it did not look like Sprint could be a going concern.
People also forget Microsoft’s Xbox sales are 3rd place - I.e. last - behind PlayStation and switch. The 360 is the only console they’ve sold that outsold a PlayStation, but technically that flipped at the very end of the console’s lifespan. It’s not like they dominate the market (yet).
Now if they buy Sony or Nintendo then I’ll actually be concerned. But for now they’re hardly controlled opposition or anything lol
I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually prevented.
I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different than what actually happens.
I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two players in the market, and it was wild to me how that was allowed to happen.
In the EU, Siemens and Alstom weren't allowed to merge their train divisions without significant divestment. Same for Daewoo and Hyundai shipbuilding just last week.
> I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually prevented.
Just today, the DOJ and FTC announced plans to toughen up on mergers and acquisitions.
>The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division kicked off a process to rewrite merger guidelines for businesses on Tuesday, signaling a tougher stance toward large deals.
> other companies are going to find it very hard to compete with Game Pass
I haven't really ever used it. I used to buy everything Blizzard made (OK that's an exaggeration, but I was all about WarCraft/StarCraft/Diablo...). Before Steam, I bought lots of games on disk. Now I buy most things on Steam. And I haven't bought anything Blizzard since Diablo III.
Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pass?
(I'm just one person, but among the people I know that play PC games, I don't hear about Game Pass much. One person mentioned he's on a 14 day $1 trial - that was the extent of it.)
You know that ever growing library of unplayed games that all steam users have? Game Pass is that, but instead of paying for games individually you pay a low fixed rate, and it includes many hot new releases that are still full price elsewhere.
> Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pass?
Game pass is significantly cheaper, unless you buy very few games on steam (and/or only buy them on deep, deep sale. Which doesn't really exist anymore in any meaningful way).
> Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pass?
I paid like $5/mo for 1 year of the Ultimate version, I can play games on both Xbox and PC and carry over progress for most of them. It's great. Steam doesn't have anything like that, so not sure there's any comparison to do.
I would look at consoles first. Why would someone buy a Playstation, when you can now buy an Xbox + GamePass and get access to a large chunk of the biggest games?
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say here?
If Microsoft starts subsidizing Game Pass games from their other businesses (like Amazon, Google and Apple do for their other services), it'll make the business model of actually selling games unviable by pure race to the bottom. As a result, you'll lose independent development and market diversity because everyone will need to beg Microsoft (and maybe Sony and Apple as other megacorps) for money scraps.
This is very similar what actually happened in mobile games market - a race to the bottom that only left a few winners filled with exploitative anti-patterns that feed on peoples addiction to recoup their costs instead of selling the product.
It'll of course be amazing for users - games will be cheap! And free! Just like views on YouTube are, where creators are getting more and more burned out fighting against the algorithm which decides how much they deserve to be paid.
Indeed the Steam Deck is very exciting because what we've seen is that the mobile space is where Linux has been able to defeat Microsoft in end user adoption.
As some other folks have pointed out, the existence of WINE and other compat layers is actually hindering gaming on Linux, by disincentivizing game devs to make games directly for linux. A huge hit with the Steam Deck could actually start bringing more games directly to Linux.
Right, but big developers have also been getting away with producing crappy AAA titles. They always have tried to push unfinished games to the market, but it has become more widespread in the last years. Now, with less competition, things might actually get worse.
> Steam Deck is Valve opening up an alternative to Microsoft land.
This seems to put the writing on the wall for the Steam Deck though, right? How many people are really going to care about a Valve system that can't run any of the popular games from the MS catalog?
I preordered the Steam Deck and plan to follow through with the purchase, but things look pretty dismal for Valve at this juncture. It seems like they're five years too late to the party with the Deck, and they now have no leverage to push MS to interoperate.
I'm already wondering why these trillion dollar companies are allowed to make pretty much any acquisitions at all, let alone ones pretty clearly aimed at vertical integration.
Game Pass has major issues still. No integrated backup mechanism; only 3 changes to your home PC per year... Imagine reinstalling more than 3 times to find out that you can no longer play offline; absolutely horrible download speeds... Compared to Steam which maxes out bandwidth; and the interface for Xbox Game Pass on PC is terrible.
> absolutely horrible download speeds... Compared to Steam which maxes out bandwidth
Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know why they do that, it's annoying. If I can download a game in a half hour I'd like it in a half hour, not next Tuesday, please.
On gaming side the Microsoft from big players actually producing games seem the least bad option. Lot less bullshit in general than likes of Ubisoft and EA or Activision.
There's a difference though. Tencent doesn't dictate its studios how to conduct business. Microsoft on the other hand made Bethesda leave PlayStation, which negatively impacts their revenue, but plays into the hand of Microsoft.
Not that regulators might care but game software shapes how young people conceive of software and IP issues. A company notorious for manipulating IP buying out a massive game company means entire generations of children and families will be exposed to this software as a service model of IP consumption.
It's still a market that affects a lot of people's lives. I think it's good for them to stop these huge mergers. Let the small to midsize companies fight it out, but we've had enough of these huge and getting huger tech companies strangling out competition and innovation.
It's only an issue if this negatively. affects the competitive market. And since games are a creative market - there's hardly any reason to fear that Microsoft can restrict access to new players.
This is not like a utility, that could technically force something on you. One company can buy all of game developers/publishers and still not make a dent in competitiveness of the games market.
Kids' PCs are windows. Microsoft has Game Store installed by default. Pop ups about the latest Fortnite NextGen, installed by default. More addictive than gambling but hella legal.
Easy scenario, no regulations. Market is heavily skewed and MS has a big win in the gambling for kids industry.
my question is whether Microsoft was fanning the flames of all the controversy surrounding Activision recently and how much that dropped the acquisition price.
Blizzard had a very big and dedicated fan base, the launch of a Blizzard game used to be one of the biggest gaming events of a year, their IPs are (were) loved by huge numbers. Current management did squander most of that good will in the last few years (mainly optimizing their new games for addictiveness instead of designing for fun), but I don't think it is too late, if under new management Blizzard pulls a 180 and goes back to make good games with the old IPs, fans will come back in droves.
It makes sense they’d acquire Activision now, especially after Intel and AMD are bootlicking them and implementing Pluton. Essentially any new or even existing titles will not be able to be pirated with Pluton enabled.
I hate to see a monopoly in the gaming industry. Controlling the content will prevent any competition both in gaming consoles and in PC gaming. Forget about gaming on Linux or any new platform. Forget about sony's PlayStation and Nintendo. We are going to see the real face of Microsoft. What do you think Microsoft will do next? Buy unreal engine and unity and have control over the content and the tools to make them? We NEED open source game engines (Godot, Bevy) more than ever.
A real monopoly in video gaming isn't nearly as valuable as it first seems.
Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time.
Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or without Activision belonging to Microsoft.
Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what.
I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP that I've loved for most of my life.
"So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL"
Apart from maybe a couple unicorns they aren't, they're a seperate market.
The overlap of people playing Call of Duty and those playing The Binding of Isaac will be family minimal, same goes for sport games which you're hard pressed to find people in the previous camps playing despite massive sales.
I agree with the sentiment though, there's no shortage of quality games made by smaller teams both independently funded or with investment from big players.
I agree, imo unless something drastic changes, there's little chance Tim Sweeney sells control of epic. But I believe Tencent bought nearly half of it all the way back in 2012 I think? I think they raised money from some PE groups a few years ago, the internet seems to agree that Tencent still has 40%? But, it being a private company, I wouldn't stake too much on the accuracy of that.
Point is I agree it's not for sale, for the reason you describe, but also that one of the leviathans already has nearly the entire minority interest.
I made this point in another comment thread, but I think MS would make a competitor to Unreal/Unity instead. Think of all the game engine talent they now have. The IW engine for CoD, Halo’s slipspace, WoW. They could readily assemble a team to build an engine on par with Unreal.
I'm worried that the gaming industry is on a decline. Some of the biggest games are >5 years old, I can't think of a big franchise that started in the last 5 years, the steam greenlight program is a pile of shit, and new games are getting held to the standard of existing games which discourages new-comers.
I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can a problem be before it stops being a problem.
You could run them on Linux for how long? MS will not allow any competition for its dominance over PC gaming. And trust me, they will use gamepass against Linux gaming and Valve and others.
Probably dead since Regan? After they stopped controlling AT&T the UNIX-Wars happened, impcompatiblity, lawsuits, closed-source has become a normal thing and proprietary software locked users in and competitors out.
What platform will Microsoft support? Likely not:
* Linux
* BSD
* MacOS
* Nintendo
* Sony
Does anyone miss id Software? Native ports on Linux, incredible source-code and impressive games? I use this opportunity to thank Gabe Newell and Valve and the people there for their work :)
I honestly think behind climate change, the current state of anti-trust enforcement is one of the biggest issues facing Americans right now. It's disappointing that it's not even expected for anti-trust action to happen anymore.
A guy named Matt Stoller focuses on this sort of thing. He's been saying that the right people have been appointed to the FTC, but it remains to be seen if this will produce any real, consumer-felt fruit. This is him, just 2 hours ago, at the time of this writing:
This is not a new danger. Americans had to deal with that by the end of the 19th century. The elites were able to run back the clock and remove or control any anti-trust structure that has been created to avoid their crazy accumulation of money and power.
I think US have motivation not to do anti-trust enforcement. Dominated US companies dominates worldwide market and earn money for US, but also hurts US market.
Blizzard's (not sure about Activision games) ongoing support for most of those platforms has been pretty crap recently anyway. Diablo2 Resurrected removed mac support but they did add consoles.
OW only support Windows.
I guess SC2 and D3 had support for many platforms, but not Linux.
It's a crap situation that I don't think is being improved or worsened here.
Microsoft seems likely to support at least Nintendo. With Game Pass and Minecraft, they've leaned more towards gaming as a platform. Some Switch games have full MS support including Achievements, which was surprising.
Pretty sure they were referring to the amount of resources Valve puts in to keeping the PC platform open, including the vast amounts of ooen source software they create and the ones they contribute to, primarily for Linux. Hiring devs to work on FOSS, contracting out to FOSS companies like Collabora and Sourcehut, these are great things to do. Valve does plenty bad, like any big company, but one thing they don't do is use their marketshare monopoly with Steam to create an actual monopoly, lockin, etc. Even their hardware isn't locked down.
The old Blizzard always seemed much closer to Apple than Microsoft in culture. An incredible attention to detail and the onboarding experience, clean, fun and friendly design and a slightly rebellious attitude expressed through their willingness to enter new markets.
The "new" Microsoft though, really is different than the old and might actually do quite well in stewarding this supposedly sinking ship into fairer waters.
But as a die hard Apple user with an active WoW subscription I can't help but feel slightly dismayed that the Apple x Blizzard deal never will (or probably could have) happen(ed).
What a bizarre view of the world. It’s like teenagers gossiping about celebrity relationships, but with corporations instead.
A Microsoft acquisition of this company is bad, and an Apple acquisition of this company would be bad.
When mega corporations like this consolidate, consumers always lose. Microsoft couldn’t win customers through product and service quality, so they bought one of the largest game publishers in the world so that their competition can’t sell those games anymore.
Complaining about a bizarre world view and then dropping an equally bizarre and hyperbolic statement. I think this will be good, just as I think Microsoft's previous gaming acquisitions have been good.
This sounds a bit like "ms should just make better games". Games are hard. Extremely hard. If Microsoft managed to incorporate the Battle net portfolio into their gamepass, there is some argument to be made about how much better that service would become.
I see your point, I really do, this stinks in all sorts of ways, but there could be a benefit here for a lot of players.
Not sure if an image campaign is enough to convince me that they have changed. They had to embrace open source to some degree because developers were plainly fleeing their environments en masse. Today it is extremely hard to find an expert for hard technical problems. Perhaps everyone is hiding somewhere, but I haven't found them yet.
The Apple of gaming is Valve/Steam. They make hardware and run a leading app distribution service while overall operating as a pricier minority of the industry.
I wonder if this will trigger any antitrust lawsuits. I know Microsoft isn't that of the 90's but it seems like the political situation is ripe for politicians to go after "big tech" and this is a pretty major acquisition that will help Xbox be the dominant player in terms of content.
I know there are but I've been doing research on a ton of gov officials (starting a new gig in DC in tech policy) and wow, so many of them are taking a hardline stance on anything "big tech" now, so the political calculus may have changed since previous acquisitions went through.
Anti-Trust is not magic, its no longer a tool politicans can wield like a club against things they don't like. The courts have a definition and you actually have to prove abuse for those law-suits to do anything. Doing so if you can do it at all takes decades.
Unless politicians make major changes to the anti-trust law its unlikely to be effective. And doing so would require major action in congress.
The president could use non anti-trust actions as well of course. But rather unlikely.
Sure, but sometimes the threat of doing something and having an acquisition mired in a lawsuit or the Prez using the bully pulpit against your co can be a serious deterrent from engaging in an acquisition as well.
You don't need Congressional action - the laws never changed, the definition of the courts did. Biden is appointing federal judges faster than even Trump did, so the opinion of the courts may be shifting very quickly.
the article say Microsoft will be the third largest gaming company behind Tenecent and Sony. how antitrust going to trigger if Microsoft doesn't have the entire market. if antitrust didn't take down Apple just force Apple to allows third party payment option. i don't see how this will trigger antitrust
Neither Tencent nor Sony are based in the US (although Sony does have a US subsidiary). AT&T and T-Mobile together wouldn't have been the whole cell phone market either, although consolidation in physical-presence utilities are seen somewhat differently from more easily distributed products.
If moderate democratic senators could be bought with handouts to toe the party line (anyone remember those times?), perhaps closely examining mergers like this would be a higher priority. There are bills moving through congress though, and eventually with more authority, perhaps the FTC could make meaningful market changes. Like: making MS offer games on other platforms, or at-least not actively stopping them from running by offering good anti-cheat support on all platforms.
Ironically, I made that some years after a serious libertarian phase and the "Un" is supposed to be the operative part of that as while I am a big fan of individuality, hard work, and limited (albeit ideally very effective) government I very much appreciate now the importance of other parts of society and that life is far more complex than many libertarians (and even myself still) would like it to be and requires a lot of nuance
I think that Microsoft's Game Pass has really changed the gaming ecosystem.
If you're not familiar it's basically "Netflix of Videogames" where for a low monthly price (compared to buying a game at full retail) you get access to whole downloadable/streamable library of games.
It's such an outsized value that it's a big reason to choose an Xbox console over a PlayStation and it's pretty clearly the driving force behind these acquisitions. More games in the library -> More Game Pass subscribers -> More Profit.
I guess it's just business at the end of the day, but IMHO this model in the end could not be the best for consumer after all.
For example tv streaming, where if your favorite movies/tv series maybe spread over dozen services and you need to pay subscription to all of them. Or it could happen that copyrights get bought by different providers and thus migrate from service to service. I will not be surprised if piracy will have a comeback for movies or tv-series.
So with gaming it will either be the same (too many providers to choose from), or reverse - if you'd like to play AAA title, you will be locked in with Microsoft.
I don't think we'll see a bunch of equivalent game passes like we see in video streaming, mostly because Microsoft can act as a de facto gatekeeper for what "passes" can be used, and they'd realistically limit it to only theirs, at least on Xbox.
On PC something similar may arise, but there would be much more competition and PC gamers may be more reluctant to use these services because there are more options when choosing where and how to buy/download/play games on PC.
> Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog. [Xbox PR]
> The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass [MS PR]
In case anyone still doubts that Microsoft is all-in on Game Pass.
If they want to be all-in on game pass, then they should actually go all in.
As somebody who just got game pass, I feel kinda cheated for what I get; All the games offered there are the “f2p” versions, even MS first party titles like Halo only offer the “default” versions to play “for free” when paying a monthly subscription.
It’s like those free versions Epic hands out; They are playable, but they usually lack any and all of the “extra DLC content” that too often are needed to make a game actually fully fleshed out.
You've got to be kidding. The version offered on Game Pass is the "Standard" edition, that isn't just a "free to play", "stripped down" version of the game. It is 95% of the game! The remaining 5% is almost always cosmetic items, like skins or cars, that really do not impact the core experience.
There are some exceptions, like Destiny 2 I believe, where the meaningful DLC is excluded, but that is not the rule. Game Pass is an incredible deal.
You’re getting the “standard” edition of the game. Sure, you’re not getting the expansion packs or other cosmetics, but neither is any other person that doesn’t buy the deluxe editions.
Readit News
They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway.
That's a heck of a moat.
All it takes is missing one generation and the house of cards gets written down. Someone can create the next generation blockbuster for a lot less than $69bln.
To argue against myself, they’ve become a lot better at picking trends since Balmer left too.
Likewise, Yahoo/Verizon bought a lot of properties at inflated values. Tumblr wasn't worth $1.1B, but Yahoo wanted to buy one of the hot up-and-coming properties to feel relevant.
I think the big issue is the price one is paying and whether one has a plan for the purchase or if the purchase is more "but if I don't make a big move, what am I doing? I can't go wrong following trends, right?"
For example, AOL/TimeWarner was a situation of over-paying because TimeWarner was afraid that the internet was going to eat the world and they needed to stay relevant. AOL was so hot and it's easy to get swept up in the moment thinking "I need to get on board now or I'll miss it!" Likewise, Yahoo feared becoming irrelevant as Google took over the internet and thought buying Tumblr would make them the hip forward company once again.
Activision Blizard seems like a reasonable add-on for Microsoft. $69B isn't that much money for it given it would represent a P/E ratio of around 26. Apple's P/E is 30, Amazon 62, Microsoft 34, Google 26. So they aren't paying an absurd amount given Activision's profits. Even if they did no integration or strategy, Activision could simply continue doing its thing and contribute favorably to Microsoft's bottom line.
With a tiny bit of strategy, it seems clear Microsoft could get even more value out of the company. Maybe a few Xbox exclusive titles to push their console business. Maybe some stuff for their game streaming service.
If Disney has shown us something over the past few years, it's that owning IP that people like allows you to keep spinning new versions of that IP. Activision has lots of that kind of IP in the gaming space so Microsoft should be able to use that to its advantage.
I think there's a big difference between buying Activision at a price whose P/E ratio is better than your own and where there are clear strategies that could offer you even more value compared with the "omg, I'm getting left behind! I'll pay anything you want" panic purchases/mergers of other companies.
Having highly optimized flagship titles though is what makes these vertical integrations so appealing in this market, in my estimation.
[0]: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ps5-vs-xbox-series-x
FWIW I don't endorse everything in the link to toms guide, I just wanted a reliable source for hardware specs
They fabricated their chips - not sure if they still do. Initially this was great, they owned the equipment and got things 'at cost'. However, they had trouble refining their tooling to get < 14nm for several generations.
This made them less competitive for a while, while having a pile of expenses a more lean design house wouldn't have. They'll surely be fine, but it's not the same sprint they've had for quite a while.
I wouldn't be surprised if this effect could even be mathematically quantified.
Intel is buying fab capacity from TSMC. Backing away from vertical integration to force their own fabs to compete on the open market.
For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile revolution.
For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so quickly and right before the new Xbox launch.
Imagine if Mixer streamers had early access to the new console and titles? And drops? Viewers absolutely love drops.
What if the Xbox Game Pass included a Mixer sub like Amazon Prime does with Twitch Prime?
To me this just showed they have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
I mean, look at how much money they've thrown at Bing.
Mobile-first gamers are: people (mostly kids) who are so naive about games they will accept garbage (or cant afford a better gaming system) and whales who enjoy spending large amounts of money to move up the leaderboards.
Mobile gaming C-level's loved talking about the mobile revolution for a decade, but I really think it was all optimistic nonsense in service of their fundraising.
I take your word for it that the execution was lacking - and, perhaps, they were never going to win. Perhaps that's why they keep buying other, successful companies.
But it still builds to the same picture: even if they suck as operators, they're building a pretty darn big machine.
Sure they lost the mobile phones, but that market has already plateud, newer Android and iOS versions are only gimmicks for those on 2 year contract renewals to change devices.
May not be best for consumer - really great for business. (especially, if courts hold that Apple/Google cannot outright ban apps from their stores)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/launcher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Launcher
Long term plan, obviously.
Or a xPhone where they could leverage Xbox gaming on Mobile with Android compatibility.
It is sort of strange to think Microsoft prospect all of a sudden looks fairly bright.
Deleted Comment
There is so much IP that is tied up with Activision-Blizzard that it seems like a good deal.
[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-03-sony-acqui...
Sony, perhaps. But I do think the cloud platform is a critical piece, because it is a huge source of value capture (e.g., all CoD compute on Azure is no small deal). It also allows significantly more dominance in distribution via cloud gaming - and coincidentally, Microsoft has been much more aggressive about owning distribution with Xbox Game Pass. This is all on top of the fact that Microsoft influences the PC and console markets, not just the console market.
Stardew Valley and Terraria were actually IMO the best games produced with that
As usual the .NET product (XNA), got replaced by a C++ one (DirectXTK).
https://walbourn.github.io/welcome/
They acknowledged they should have behaved better, years later with the new management adding support for MonoGame on the XBox,
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2016/03/14/letter-chris-charla-i...
Dead Comment
What's different now is that Microsoft is focusing on becoming the Amazon Prime Video of video games. While you will still be able to buy the games outright, the games of the companies they're purchasing will be part of the monthly price gamers pay to play.
So for instance, because they own Zenimax, I can load up any of the Bethesda / id games and play as part of my subscription. And when Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI come out, they'll be part of that price too. Buying Activision brings Call of Duty, Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and a host of other games under the same umbrella.
I guess they've decided that low monthly subscriptions paired with season passes for content is the way of the future for gaming.
Really, I could see them launching their own engine. Think of all the studios and talent they have now. They have the engines behind Halo, CoD, WoW, Overwatch. Could build an Unreal competitor.
Deleted Comment
To say this also ignores the XBox and its controller, which often trades places with the modern PlayStation controllers for what is considered best-in-class.
Microsoft has plenty of hardware design capabilities.
Dead Comment
MS for a long time had such opportunities which it missed almost every single time.
On the other hand, Apple had similar opportunities and succeeded almost every single time.
The MS list:
- Windows Mobile
- Zune
- MSN
The Apple list:
- iTunes
- iMessage
- iCloud
- iOs (some more)
Between gaming (the biggest form of media), supercomputers, science computation, crypto nonsense, etc. It's really looking to me like nvidia is actually one of the biggest power players across the globe. Makes me really wonder about the tech they aren't flashing to the public. I was personally astounded when I saw their announcement to purchase ARM. I've seen a few instances of people saying the dead acquisition is stifling innovation. Honestly I'm kind of happy it didn't go through. Probably just a lack of vision on my part, though.
I think we'll look back in 10 years and wonder why antitrust regulators did nothing, but it may be too late by then.
For the gaming industry, this seems to push Microsoft into 3rd place (by size) behind Sony and Tencent. So hardly a monopoly and akin to T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint a few years ago. It makes Microsoft much more competitive against Sony and even Nintendo since it'll likely bolster their 1P offerings in the future.
But if Microsoft uses their ownership to favor their own game subscription services (aka GamePass) as well as platforms (aka Windows 11, Xbox console), then certainly that'll be monopolistic behavior. Interesting to note that they're probably #1-#2 in either of those sub-industries. It's possible to end up with an "Internet Explorer-esque" antitrust scenario if Microsoft removes or heavily discourages Activision and Bethesda from making their titles cross-platform.
I'm pretty sure that Starfield is announced to be a Windows/Xbox exclusive already.
The only reason it got approved the third time was that regulators were convinced that either way, the US would only have three mobile operators because it did not look like Sprint could be a going concern.
Now if they buy Sony or Nintendo then I’ll actually be concerned. But for now they’re hardly controlled opposition or anything lol
I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different than what actually happens.
I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two players in the market, and it was wild to me how that was allowed to happen.
The original purchase of Rite Aid by Walgreens was aborted due to similar concerns, although that one ended in a revised partial acquisition anyway.
The Staples acquisition of Office Depot/Office Max was stopped as well on anti-trust grounds.
They also blocked a merger of Nasdaq and NYSE.
Those are all since 2010. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few big ones too. They should definitely be blocking more, but they have stopped some.
A lot has been written about the decline of antitrust enforcement in the US since 1970.
https://hbr.org/2017/12/the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-the-u-s...
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/visa-and-plaid-abandon-merger...
Just today, the DOJ and FTC announced plans to toughen up on mergers and acquisitions.
>The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division kicked off a process to rewrite merger guidelines for businesses on Tuesday, signaling a tougher stance toward large deals.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/18/ftc-doj-seek-to-rewrite-merg...
https://www.rferl.org/a/1096891.html
I haven't really ever used it. I used to buy everything Blizzard made (OK that's an exaggeration, but I was all about WarCraft/StarCraft/Diablo...). Before Steam, I bought lots of games on disk. Now I buy most things on Steam. And I haven't bought anything Blizzard since Diablo III.
Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pass?
(I'm just one person, but among the people I know that play PC games, I don't hear about Game Pass much. One person mentioned he's on a 14 day $1 trial - that was the extent of it.)
Game pass is significantly cheaper, unless you buy very few games on steam (and/or only buy them on deep, deep sale. Which doesn't really exist anymore in any meaningful way).
I paid like $5/mo for 1 year of the Ultimate version, I can play games on both Xbox and PC and carry over progress for most of them. It's great. Steam doesn't have anything like that, so not sure there's any comparison to do.
Saw an indie game last night and felt like buying it.
Steam Deck is Valve opening up an alternative to Microsoft land.
Although I will admit I'm tempted to cancel my pre order since I'm worried it won't run well.
If Microsoft starts subsidizing Game Pass games from their other businesses (like Amazon, Google and Apple do for their other services), it'll make the business model of actually selling games unviable by pure race to the bottom. As a result, you'll lose independent development and market diversity because everyone will need to beg Microsoft (and maybe Sony and Apple as other megacorps) for money scraps.
This is very similar what actually happened in mobile games market - a race to the bottom that only left a few winners filled with exploitative anti-patterns that feed on peoples addiction to recoup their costs instead of selling the product.
It'll of course be amazing for users - games will be cheap! And free! Just like views on YouTube are, where creators are getting more and more burned out fighting against the algorithm which decides how much they deserve to be paid.
As some other folks have pointed out, the existence of WINE and other compat layers is actually hindering gaming on Linux, by disincentivizing game devs to make games directly for linux. A huge hit with the Steam Deck could actually start bringing more games directly to Linux.
This seems to put the writing on the wall for the Steam Deck though, right? How many people are really going to care about a Valve system that can't run any of the popular games from the MS catalog?
I preordered the Steam Deck and plan to follow through with the purchase, but things look pretty dismal for Valve at this juncture. It seems like they're five years too late to the party with the Deck, and they now have no leverage to push MS to interoperate.
Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know why they do that, it's annoying. If I can download a game in a half hour I'd like it in a half hour, not next Tuesday, please.
Somehow I'm not impressed.
Dead Comment
Besides, with so many games out right seeking to get kids addicted, let's at least have some trade regulations. It's not like parents can ignore them.
It's only an issue if this negatively. affects the competitive market. And since games are a creative market - there's hardly any reason to fear that Microsoft can restrict access to new players.
This is not like a utility, that could technically force something on you. One company can buy all of game developers/publishers and still not make a dent in competitiveness of the games market.
Kids' PCs are windows. Microsoft has Game Store installed by default. Pop ups about the latest Fortnite NextGen, installed by default. More addictive than gambling but hella legal.
Easy scenario, no regulations. Market is heavily skewed and MS has a big win in the gambling for kids industry.
The thing about subscriptions is that consumers tend to buy multiple.
Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time.
Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or without Activision belonging to Microsoft.
Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what.
I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP that I've loved for most of my life.
[0] - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/minecraft-switch/
Apart from maybe a couple unicorns they aren't, they're a seperate market.
The overlap of people playing Call of Duty and those playing The Binding of Isaac will be family minimal, same goes for sport games which you're hard pressed to find people in the previous camps playing despite massive sales.
I agree with the sentiment though, there's no shortage of quality games made by smaller teams both independently funded or with investment from big players.
You're not wrong, but I can't agree with this.
Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.
Point is I agree it's not for sale, for the reason you describe, but also that one of the leviathans already has nearly the entire minority interest.
I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can a problem be before it stops being a problem.
Looks like Rust, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Escape from Tarkov are in the top 10 on Twitch. All came out within the past 5 years.
Dead Comment
They have so much money they could easily buy Ubisoft, EA and Take-Two and make all major games Xbox and Windows 11+ exclusives.
Probably dead since Regan? After they stopped controlling AT&T the UNIX-Wars happened, impcompatiblity, lawsuits, closed-source has become a normal thing and proprietary software locked users in and competitors out.
What platform will Microsoft support? Likely not:
Does anyone miss id Software? Native ports on Linux, incredible source-code and impressive games? I use this opportunity to thank Gabe Newell and Valve and the people there for their work :)I don't miss id software, because they're still here, continuing to make amazing games. The last two Doom games were excellent.
...incidentally, Microsoft also owns them now.
https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/148348691488801996...
He is reporting that the chair of the FTC is begging for public comment on merger activity.
UPDATE
And just a few minutes ago, questioning whether this whole Microsoft/Activision will be stopped.
https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/148353211536295117...
OW only support Windows.
I guess SC2 and D3 had support for many platforms, but not Linux.
It's a crap situation that I don't think is being improved or worsened here.
https://www.nintendo.com/sg/games/smartphone/index.html
Console platforms have not competed for games to be on their platforms for.... ever.
The "new" Microsoft though, really is different than the old and might actually do quite well in stewarding this supposedly sinking ship into fairer waters.
But as a die hard Apple user with an active WoW subscription I can't help but feel slightly dismayed that the Apple x Blizzard deal never will (or probably could have) happen(ed).
A Microsoft acquisition of this company is bad, and an Apple acquisition of this company would be bad.
When mega corporations like this consolidate, consumers always lose. Microsoft couldn’t win customers through product and service quality, so they bought one of the largest game publishers in the world so that their competition can’t sell those games anymore.
I think that’s accurate. Whether there’s room for and value in these kinds of playful conjectures is of course up to each of us to decide.
very much need, but that's how gaming industry works in general - hype, fans and all.
GamePass subscriber numbers are growing at an incredible clip.
Dead Comment
I see your point, I really do, this stinks in all sorts of ways, but there could be a benefit here for a lot of players.
That said, they do have a gaming service: https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/
Unless politicians make major changes to the anti-trust law its unlikely to be effective. And doing so would require major action in congress.
The president could use non anti-trust actions as well of course. But rather unlikely.
If you're not familiar it's basically "Netflix of Videogames" where for a low monthly price (compared to buying a game at full retail) you get access to whole downloadable/streamable library of games.
It's such an outsized value that it's a big reason to choose an Xbox console over a PlayStation and it's pretty clearly the driving force behind these acquisitions. More games in the library -> More Game Pass subscribers -> More Profit.
For example tv streaming, where if your favorite movies/tv series maybe spread over dozen services and you need to pay subscription to all of them. Or it could happen that copyrights get bought by different providers and thus migrate from service to service. I will not be surprised if piracy will have a comeback for movies or tv-series.
So with gaming it will either be the same (too many providers to choose from), or reverse - if you'd like to play AAA title, you will be locked in with Microsoft.
On PC something similar may arise, but there would be much more competition and PC gamers may be more reluctant to use these services because there are more options when choosing where and how to buy/download/play games on PC.
I'm pretty sure piracy numbers for movies and series went up with the number of streaming services
> The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass [MS PR]
In case anyone still doubts that Microsoft is all-in on Game Pass.
As somebody who just got game pass, I feel kinda cheated for what I get; All the games offered there are the “f2p” versions, even MS first party titles like Halo only offer the “default” versions to play “for free” when paying a monthly subscription.
It’s like those free versions Epic hands out; They are playable, but they usually lack any and all of the “extra DLC content” that too often are needed to make a game actually fully fleshed out.
There are some exceptions, like Destiny 2 I believe, where the meaningful DLC is excluded, but that is not the rule. Game Pass is an incredible deal.
You’re getting the “standard” edition of the game. Sure, you’re not getting the expansion packs or other cosmetics, but neither is any other person that doesn’t buy the deluxe editions.