@Slowdive Bethesda may be a successful, popular publisher, and due to their mmo business, zenimax may have had a pretty high price tag, but they're so nowhere near the scale of being considered competition for either Sony or Microsoft. They're not remotely close to platform holders size, nor to the large publishers like ea, Activision, 2k, or Ubisoft. I'm a big fan of strong antitrust laws and enforcement, but I'm seeing no trust concerns in this. No more than when Microsoft, Sony, or EA bought plenty of other companies, albeit they ruined most of them. This is more strategic than vertical integration. I still prefer publishers being independent, but Sony started this cold war by money hatting exclusives and buying up studios, while ms was openly declaring disinterest in focusing on exclusives and studios, favoring providing third party software a pc like platform. They even closed most of their own studios. But Sony didn't relent poking the bear and hammering their studios as their selling point as they bought more and more.
This is ms responding big. Sony poked the bear for 7 years, and the bear woke up. And the bear is a lot bigger. With a sudden need of tons of killer exclusives and to strike a blow against an industry dominant competitor, and secure more stable recurring payment revenue, buying zenimax, most of their money is made on mmos none of us play or talk about, not fallout and doom, that was a strategic fit. Secure a big studio and multiple big ips to expand their exclusive stable, acquire a stable revenue stream from mmo to compliment game pass revenue, gain the ability to pull some super popular franchises from a competitor, or monitize the competitors own platform. It's big, and it will have ramifications of either sony buying someone and back and forth, or Google or sometime jumping in for stadia it done Apple Amazon competitor. But this isn't Microsoft monopolizing. This is them reacting to fill strategic needs against a competitor that started this process. They just escalated the cold war.
@eel oof.... That's got to hurt. Not surprising. Stupid naming on a Nintendo level. But that truly sucks. Like the eBay listing of the $350 "xbox 360 box" back in the day. That was literally just the box from an x360,....
@NEStalgia What I see in Microsoft with the Bethesda move is insecurity. They probably couldn't cope anymore with the jokes about them in May - August (particularly in response to the May and July events) so they did some "If I can't have fun, no-one can have fun" moves.
It's not monopolising, it's just a company investing. In general situations i don't like massive companies buying up smaller ones and eliminating competition but this is far from that type of situation as Bethesda is also a massive company, so it's just Microsoft investing in increasing the amount of games on Game Pass. Also Microsoft are being extremely consumer friendly with their creation of the Xbox Adaptive controller helping disabled people access gaming, the incredible value of Game Pass increasing the ability for people to be able to afford to play the latest games and the fact that they are willing to let their games appear on other platforms (Minecraft and Minecraft Dungeons, Ori and Cuphead on Switch)
If Sony bought a company then they would lock all their games straight away to the Playstation because that's how their business works, whereas Microsoft is invested in increasing Game Pass subscribers which is actually helping people access games more across PC and Xbox. I highly doubt they would lock massive games like Elder Scrolls to Xbox and they have already said that games would appear on a case by case basis on other consoles.
So in general I don't like massive US corporations buying up competitors but this is totally different and is an investment in gaming that benefits gamers. Remember that all these games are on PC as well and will likely come to other consoles anyway at some point. The whole idea is to increase the value of Game Pass and that benefits Xbox, PC and in fact anyone who wants to stream games to phones or tablets with XCloud being introduced to the service. I would be a lot more negative if Sony did this because their whole business relies on you buying their console so they would lock all those games to their service. It is in fact extremely consumer-friendly and an investment in gaming that benefits lots of gamers across different platforms (Xbox, PC, mobile)
MS buying Zeni is a 'vertical' take-over, rather than 'horizontal' .... If they'd brought out PlayStation, that'd be monopolies & mergers concerns But MS doesn't exactly MAKE games, they have studios that do so for them. While Zeni isn't involved in making consoles or anything
Let's at least wait to find out just what it all does mean for games rather than assuming the worst, please
@BruceCM Well, they own those studios that make games, so that's the same really. I don't know how much of the SEGA rumours are true, but if that's also happening, then it starts to become worrying. With Ninja Theory it's just a studio, but Zenimax and SEGA are big companies with multiple studios. I feel like at this rate the whole industry will be owned by a couple of companies in a few years time. Just like the movie industry.
@DarthNocturnal The digital only consoles seem to be less popular than the media would have you believe. Any word on the number of Series X versus Series S sold? For PS5 it was about 75% regular PS5, and 25% digital; so I presume the numbers are in the same ballpark for MS.
@Octane I think people realized that the price difference between digital only and physical versions of the consoles can be easily saved and more just by waiting a month or so for new games. Everything except 1st party Nintendo games plummet in price soon after launch.
There's still plenty of big gaming companies, though, @Octane .... You'd have to talk to proper legal experts for full explanation, too! As for differences in sales of the PS5 disc version, there were reported to be about 10 of those available for 2 of the digital one. While there were 2 or 3 times as many Series X as S available So, that's probably got more to do with why the digital versions are selling so much less! The digital versions, especially the S, will do a lot better a bit after launch when there's more available
Wow the poll on purexbox.com suggests Series X preorders were 9 times as high as Series S.
I could anticipate they'd be higher because the people buying at this stage are just out for high spec madness, but I didn't think it'd be that much higher.
@BruceCM The regular systems sold out sooner than the digital versions. So I don't think availability was the issue. Microsoft and Sony will undoubtedly have done enough market research to gauge the interest in a digital-only console, and produce quantities accordingly. I just don't think that the $100 ($200 with less specs) saved from buying a digital-only console is enough to convince people into going all-digital.
@Dezzy Well, keep in mind that websites like these garner mostly enthusiasts who are probably going all-in anyway. The more casual crowd will probably skew a more towards digital. I think the 75:25 split is a good estimate.
The digital only consoles seem to be less popular than the media would have you believe.For PS5 it was about 75% regular PS5, and 25% digital
Well, since every console that went up for pre-order was sold, digital only or not, it doesn’t have anything to do with popularity of the digital only systems. If they sold 75% regular and 25% digital, it’s because they have manufactured 75% regular and 25% digital, since every console has sold out.
JoakimZ
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@JoakimZ Yes, but there were actually digital consoles available after the regular consoles were sold out, so anecdotally, that's pointing towards a higher preference for regular systems. It wasn't too bad, so it seems that whatever the actual split was, was indicative of the market preference. The fact that they all sold out in roughly the same time means that they got it right. If all the digital systems were sold out immediately, but the regular systems could be found for a while after, it means that they should've produced more digital system. And vice versa. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
For Xbox or Playstation? The Xbox digital appeal is far stronger in my opinion. $200 cheaper, and gamepass meaning you don't need to pay full price for all digital games.
The Playstation digital doesn't seem worth it at all to me.
I would guess Playstation ends up at 75:25 physical:digital, but Xbox ends up more like 50:50
Just shows how concerned Sony are about cheaper consoles because they've already complained about it being outdated and how these type of consoles always fail (sour grapes)
I don't like Sonys attitude to next-gen with trying to tie every publisher down to exclusive deals, like they're trying to win a console war which Microsoft isn't even engaged in particularly with their focus on Game Pass.
I was thinking digital only consoles will be fated like PSP Go.
Unplayable in the future once the server shutted down.
I never understand the logic of owning digital only consoles when you buy that machine very late in the future, you literally cannot play any games nor even inserting the disc.
It will be an expensive paper weight.
I paid $60 for one full game to be owned forever, not for tons of Free games from Game Pass or whatever by renting (not owning the games).
Consoles with disc will be your lifesafer if you buy the machine very late.
Just like i bought PS3 Slim on 29 December 2019 when the machine itself was already 10 years old.
I wasn't sure if PS3 Store will be still exist but when PS3 store get shutted down, i will unable to get latest update for certain PS3 games i bought.
But at least, with disc drive in the machine i still able to play the games despite lack of latest update.
@Dezzy It is $200 cheaper, but it's also less powerful. I think that if you invest in Series S, you are way more likely to buy the mid-gen upgrade. I mean, you have to I think. So it's difficult to say what the average opinion is on that. I also think that most day-one customers are big Xbox fans, so they'd want the Series X. With Xbox it's not just a choice between digital and physical, the hardware specs also differ.
@Grumblevolcano I'm pretty certain that 99.9% of people haven't heard or read that statement.
Pre ordered my Xbox Series X 10min ago. A wonderful christmas gift from my wife 😍
When it comes to microsofts strategy by buying bethesda, supporting cross play, gamepass, gadgets/4k etc, im all for that. Dont see all the fuzz about it ? It will only push Sony and Nintendo to do better. And this generation with switch, ps5 and Xbox series, you can really see the awesome results from them pushing eachother to the limit.
As a dad whos busy with family life, the Nintendos portability and Xbox’s quick play/save function is awesome. 😃🎉 Just hope Sony dosent suprise with a new Socom game that touches my nostalgia feelings, it will be hard to ignore it 😅
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