Xbox Boss "Trusts" Nintendo To Not Do Anything That Would Harm The Games Industry

All Microsoft have really ever done is try to buy out other companies. That is damaging the video game scene. You can have your crash, cod and whatever you decide to buy. You'll never get Mario and co. Long live the king Nintendo!

@PushMyGran1986 I don't think MS would actually want to take over Nintendo right now. Simply because it would take out their competiton which would put them into a "monopolistic" role. Which could cause real issues.

@PushMyGran1986 that's right. If anything Microsoft will hurt the gaming industry. Just leave Nintendo alone. Let them do what they do best.

@sanderev hopefully Microsoft is smart enough to leave them alone. Not like Nintendo will sell to anyone willingly anyway.

He says while Nintendo targets safe ROM sites for games they don't provide legal options of playing,

The real truth and I am a XSX owner and a GPU subber - Xbox continue to damage the industry for self gain. We will get less games from these companies they gobble up. They have plenty of IPs they do nothing with. Plenty that would sell well.

MS wouldn’t be allowed to buy Nintendo Japan has strict rules about how companies can be bought and sold. So that will never be a thing.

Curious... is this Microsoft saying they didn't trust Activision to not harm the video game industry, at least with KoDick at the helm?

Also, not mentioning EA there arguably could be a silent arrow to Microsoft's next target...

Nintendo is doing things now that Iwata wouldn't have approved of (a paid subscription for rental of games, rushing games with intent to sell DLC to pad them out later), so I don't know.
Nintendo's leadership (both in Japan and in the west) is very different from what it was when the Switch launched, and that does make me worried for their future.

Let's be honest, that's a threat right there!

Just straight yo bullying the gaming industry at this point. Gaming is going to rapidly go downhill from this point forward and nintendo will feel the pressure in 10-20 years time when they literally can't get any third party games and have to just survive with in house studios which at the moment bring 2-3 games a year at most

HA! That's rich.

@Stocksy that's the issue, less games will be made and more franchises left to rot.

Also Microsoft will force them to create multiplayer games instead of single player as thats what they believe is best for gamepass.

Have you noticed more and more multiplayer games are coming to gamepass than actual AAA single player games

Would everyone here prefer Activision sold to Google or whatever Facebook is now? I think the consumer is better off with Microsoft and there approach with game pass and streaming (might help I have game pass for the next 3 years...)

@sanderev honestly don't trust Microsoft. There just greedy and always have been. Love the consoles, hate the company. They just bully everyone. Let's be real, IF the opportunity came and could 'legally' buy Nintendo, of course they would.

That would be the end of Nintendo right there.

@CharlieGirl The NSO was announced even before the Switch launched. And I am 100% sure Iwata knew about these developments.

And what games are rushed with padded DLC? I can literally not think of ANY from Nintendo.

@PushMyGran1986 Maybe you don't know this. But Microsoft is a company, their sole purpose is to make a profit. So you can ditch the "greedy" part directly.

"They bully everyone" do you have any proof to elaborate to this? Because that's absolutely not how MS is operating (right now).

"Let's be real, IF the opportunity came and could 'legally' buy Nintendo, of course they would."
If the opportunity came for Nintendo to buy Microsoft, they would. This is exactly the same.

That's wild, Spencer publicly separating tech companies as untrustworthy from Gaming companies as being so. I wonder how close Acti-Blizz was to being bought by Google or Tencent. As much as I would love one device to play everything, the only one that could and slowly is supporting that is PC.

@UltimateOtaku91 all of their games have a built in GaaS - log in everyday style grind. I love Forza Horizon - but 4/5 don’t feel as brilliant as 3 did. 3 was a solo players dream. I don’t play online ever. I’m connected but I only player solo modes. So it’s more noticeable to me when those aspect invade a game.

I like Xbox and GPU but it’s got it’s draw backs and I’d rather just buy the games I want and the focus is on balance and not just keeping people hooked.

To be fair, I would MUCH rather Activision be in Microsoft's hands than Facebook. Not a fan of the acquisition overall, but this was the best possible outcome beyond them continuing as an independent company.

Nintendo rarely seems to invest in developer acquisition indeed.😆 Granted, what few investments they did have pretty much all struck gold so far. I confess, padre, a part of me sometimes wishes Sony would just offload Japan Studio [and maybe some of its past IPs] to them... or at least HAD done so back when Japan Studio was still populated outside the Astro Bot folks.

@Noid uTorrent and Flylink weren't invented yesterday. For decades, the survivability of rom/image archives has been directly proportional to their discretion.

@Medic_Alert Microsoft: "Oh, you folks are nostalgic about Lost Vikings? Got it!"

buys Frozenbyte

Why is he talking like he’s so important. Sure, he’s a head figure for Microsoft, but he’s hardly the biggest voice in gaming. Don’t talk down to Sony and Nintendo you look foolish.

I feel Microsoft sees Nintendo as their preferred competitors, because they're not selling to the same demographic. Sony has really been their rival for a while, though some would argue that they're still slightly different demographics due to the Japanese games on PlayStation--however, Sony has been annoying Japanese fans for a while. Changing the button mapping for X and O to match American and European preferences instead of Japanese was really a bad idea, and they aren't fond of the censorship it seems.

@sanderev Mario Golf

Microsoft buying all these companies is net negative for the video game Industry. Imagina a future where you get all your games through game pass, don't own anything and Microsoft has complete control of the market?

That would be the darkest timeline.

That’s just another way of saying don’t buy anything because we want it all

The underlying meaning to this- and the reason Microsoft bought Activision- is it doesn’t want anyone to sell up to a company that rhymes with ‘Cen Tent’.

I genuinely believe there’s never been a worse time to be a gamer.

Nintendo honestly always tries to do their own games and consoles. my main iff with them is the artificial demand they make their older titles. rarely making them accessible and then getting upset when people emulate them. Either resell them every other company does or accept the fact that people will find free ways to play them

MS has to hope that the properties they’ve purchased don’t wane in popularity and people get bored of those games. Buying a lot of content means that over time it just becomes average content

That's rich coming of Microsoft

Thats actually a very interesting point of view. Microsoft might actually view the aquisition as a protectionist strategy. By buying up a huge 3rd party and then still making games for Sony and Nintendo platforms but crucially not anything Amazon, Google et al might cook up they can maintain the current status quo.

If that is their plan it is certainly a clever one.

I buy Nintendo systems for first party games. If a game is on other systems, I’m going to buy the best version.
Nintendo charges full price for ports. They are no different than Microsoft. Nintendo cares about their fans….money.

Phil has seemed (subversively) ingenuine for a long time, despite that he provided a sense of hopefulness in the games industry. Now that Microsoft's gaming division is in a much better place than last generation (financially and credibility-wise), the true face is being revealed. Quite unfortunate how he turned out.

@Stocksy

Might be true but Nintendo isn't doing much with their franchises either, in my opinion.

@CharlieGirl Almost seems like there's no vision at the company anymore without Iwata. Just salarymen trying to appease (and sometimes intentionally neglect) fanbases they don't understand.

@HamatoYoshi I think I see why you say that but can't totally agree, the spectrum/amstrad days of a few pixels and colours will never match what is around now.

He does speak some sense.
Id rather Microsoft buyout sectors of the industry than say Google,Amazon or Apple.

You know Microsoft are heavily invested in the gaming industry. So even if it means Ill have to invest in an Xbox......theres a better chance of those companies survival than if they went with say Google

Yes I know Microsoft doesnt have the best track record .....rare.....cough....cough.
But its probably still better than google track record for pulling out entire product. (you know they will pull the plug on Stadia sooner rather than later)

Microsoft buying out chunks of the sector is the lesser of the two evils in my eyes.
Sure it might not be the ideal solution for consumers.......but it will probably benefit the industry as a whole (unless Microsoft start controlling waht every studio makes......Im.sure they have learnt from Rare though)

Says Microsoft who destroyed and cloned Sega (Look at the Dreamcast controller compared to original Xbox controller)

@sanderev Animal Crossing New Horizons
Kirby Star Allies (that was free updates, but still applies)
Captain Toad Treasure Tracker port (true co-op locked behind paid DLC)
Super Smash Bros Ultimate

@Gauchorino you are, unfortunately, exactly right.

To be honest, it things seemed pretty damaging in terms of relations between Microsoft and Sony. Only recently did they start giving each other some exclusives, but now we see Microsoft setting some sort of expectation level towards Sony and Sony giving out a rather blunt statement over contractual obligations with Activision Blizzard.

@Henmii but they aren’t buying up huge companies left right and centre to stock pile more IPs

@HamatoYoshi why? I think in a way services like game pass is the most affordable way to play games ever given to gamers. And it’s available technically to all of us without purchasing a new device. I mean if you don’t have an Xbox console you may have a decent pc and if you don’t even have that you can stream it all… on your phone… I feel gamers have never had these many options but I would be curious to hear your take on it.

Microsoft didnt gobble up AB. AB wanted to sell and Microsoft bought them. Rather that than Meta, Amazon, Google or Tencent buying AB. Microsoft has no plans on buying Nintendo or Sony for that matter. Unless they go bankrupt and have to sell. Nothing more to this really.

I don't work in the industry and only experience the end product, so I have no stake in whatever these big companies do. I ain't gonna get tilted over a hobby of mine, otherwise I'd just find a different hobby. The discourse is pretty amusing, though

@sanderev
Switch Online was NOT announced before switch came out!

@PushMyGran1986

Them buying Activision will help the game industry and here's why.

Once sony stops depending on third party ***** to sell their systems, they might actually have to make something other than an over the shoulder third person action game.

Seriously some of the best news in gaming, ever. We can get a more out there and experimental sony, like they were between the ps1 and ps2 days, instead of the modern sony which is just make the same game a thousand times with different skins.

I hate to say it but if Japan wants to compete with America moving forward (and they need too) Sony, Sega and Nintendo are gonna have to forge a very tight relationship if not merge entirely. I can’t really envision what that company would look like, and the action is fraught with many challenges and risks, but Sony, Sega, and Nintendo need to start adopting an “us vs them” mentality.

There are far bigger threats to gaming than this acquisition.

Microsoft shouldn't have to defend themselves over this.

The nightmare scenario would be Google/FB/Apple buying up these developers and making them exclusive to their platforms, so I understand what he's saying. What Microsoft will do remains to be seen. I still have a shiny new PS5 in my entertainment center that I WON'T be able to play Starfield on. If they were truly making a platform agnostic service, they'd be putting their games on everything that can play them.

@TheBigK I think your comment was the most balanced and sensible one yet.

@thenewguy Hopefully it's as innocent of a situation as you're arguing, and I hope you're right. However, I'm not very confident that Microsoft is much better than those four other companies, sadly (see Spencer's recent comments on his support for crypto-monopolyesque platform banning, for example). We'll see.

I realize Microsoft is a business and aim to make money first and foremost, even though they use much less tactful methods than most others. But this Phil Spencer always going on about "We are doing this for everyone" and "Our aim is not to just divide and conquer - we care for all gamers" has gone beyond hollow. I wish he at least was honest and said "Look, Sony and Nintendo beat the crap out of us last generation so now we will use our economic muscles to change that." That is what is happening here, nothing more, nothing less.

Loads of gamers made a choice and the chose to play on Nintendo and/or Sony systems - which means they are not interested in either Xbox, PC or some sort of half-arsed streaming on mobile phones, so to keep talking about how this will benefit "all" gamers is just pathetic and disrespectful to gamers who made their choice.

This is all really interesting. I see a lot of people here talking about Microsoft not being a threat to Nintendo, but I wonder;
While I agree that Nintendo has some of the absolute best first-party titles and is way more innovative than MS or Sony, when is this going to turn into a value for money thing?

I mean, I love Nintendo, but their games are pretty damn expensive, and always stay pricey over time. What if all these new series MS just aquired will be thrown onto GamePass? What if they can just give so much value, so much games, that the mainstream audience (non-diehard Nintendo fans) will automatically choose Xbox over Nintendo because of the sheer amount of value?

And this is starting to seem possible for the PC audience as well with Gamepass for PC.

With over $100b spent in developer acquisitions, somehow I don't think keeping everything console exclusive just to move more Xbox consoles is the big plan.
I think MS becoming a major 3rd publisher, with their own hardware is how they'll handle it. Of course they'll still have some exclusives, but I think they stick with their "first, better, or best" approach when it comes to software, going forward.

@Stocksy What damage has Microsoft done in gaming so far? It’s been 20 years now:

-Hard drives standard
-Xbox Live Arcade
-LAN, online play and DLC
-the Adaptive Controller
-multi-platform publishing
-GamePass

They’ve been great players in the industry, and have made the competition and gaming on the whole better beyond a doubt.

In this blog post’s context, compared to Apple, Google and Amazon, they’ve been waaaaay better stewards of the hobby from a gamer perspective.

I think people are blowing this acquisition way out of proportion. Both Nintendo and Sony have had stronger strangleholds on the industry and it’s always bred innovation, competition, and better gaming overall.

The only monopoly Microsoft has is on “bro-shooters” (COD, Halo, Gears). So now casuals buy XBox over Playstation? Maybe? Who cares!?

So much ignorance in the comments.

A company buying another company who voluntarily wanted to sell isn't "damaging" the industry.

Microsoft has done more for gaming than ppl care to admit.

And they're right. The current players are safe. It's the Amazon's and Googles and Facebooks that don't understand gaming who could damage it.

@JaxonH Read post above yours I totally agree with you:)

@Pat_trick That's where the world seems to be heading unfortunately.

@Rinyuu For me Gamepass on PC “subsidizes” my Nintendo Switch. I had Gamepass for months and it was awesome, cancelled it when Metroid and SMTV came out, and now I’m playing some older games againsaving up scratch for Kirby and Elden Ring. I can either keep digging in the back catalog or throw MS $10 and play Death’s Door, and who knows what else that’ll catch my eye for a month.

I think on PC is where you see the strategy and the value clearest, here in console land it’s still an expensive plastic box and that keeps us in a Console Warz posture.

@Spider-Kev It most certainly was announced before the Switch came out

https://www.polygon.com/2017/1/12/14057166/nintendo-switch-paid-online-service

"Nintendo’s not going to do anything that damages gaming in the long run because that’s the business they’re in. Sony is the same and I trust them." –
I seem to be the only one here who doesn't have the slightest clue what he's saying there. Can anybody translate to me what he's getting at?

Look at the flop that is stadia. That's more harmful than this acquisition. Microsoft has a few ways of acquiring Nintendo if they wanted to do so. Off the top of my head, they could pull a Vivendi and acquire Nintendo that way, no?

@Pat_trick I like your “Great Reset” angle a lot. It really give some something to think about.
I definitely see the appeal in that gaming context as I can afford less and less of the experiences I want to play. Kirby for $60 is a tough pill to swallow in my current economy, where that’s literally half of the cost of Gamepass for PC for 1 year.

The hobby is itself moving towards a “for the elites”. Who the hell has the time and money to afford a PS5 and $70 games!? 15 years ago I could afford every system and a healthy hobby with a modest job at 40 hours a week. Even 10 years ago. Now? Not a chance.

In “IRL”, the “Great Reset” makes me suspicious — that I’ll own nothing and be happy, that we’ll all be eating insect protein while we raise, cook, and distribute cattle for the elites, etc.

Maybe my IRL paranoia can inform my feelings about this, but maybe the vice versa is true too.
If Microsoft is the dark future of gaming, I’m glad they’re securing top games for the poor masses and we’re not just eating bugs from the Free to Play/ Play to Earn trough.

Zuckerberg’s vision of gaming and all this blockchain/NFT stuff is the darkest timeline I believe, where we’re building content for elite players to earn “play” credits. That’s Black Mirror horror.

@MegaMari0 They can’t force a buy because of Japanese law. Nintendo has to want to sell, and this scenario already happened.

SPOILER: Microsoft was laughed out of the room.

Sure, uncle Phil wants all gamers to be able to play every game on any system via 1 big eco system..... via gamepass. MS's ultimate goal it to get GP subscriptions in to as many houses as possible. eg, other consoles, phones, pc, smart apps on TV's, dongles in the back of your tv etc. I can see it coming to switch and PS at some point too, 1,2,5,10 years down the line once the majority of 3rd party are owned "for the industries protection" of course by MS. Then they can charge what ever they want. I dont necessarily think MS wabt to eradicate the competition but i also dont think they care as much as they say they do. Same goes for all these companies really. They dont care about us, just our £££. They are businesses, not our friends.

@Gauchorino @CharlieGirl I can't speak for Kirby or Captain Toad as I don't own them and outside of demos, have not really played them. But as for AC and Smash, I have to disagree that those games were incomplete before any updates. I mean, I guess its really a matter of how you look at things, and certainly, if one feels the games aren't providing something they want, I guess it's more than their right to feel the games aren't complete. I personally felt both were well before their updates and if I didn't play another lick of them before the additional content, feel I would have gotten my $60 worth

But on another note, I would be careful in implying or suggesting what someone, who isn't here to speak for themselves. would or wouldn't have done or felt over decisions that we don't necessarily agree with. It may be a case that Iwata wouldn't be entirely on board with some of the decisions made since the Switch was announced. It also may be the case that before his passing, he was well involved in some of the decisions that were made. None of us really know.

Spencer is talking about Apple, Microsoft's old nemesis.

Apple Made More Money on Games Than Xbox, Sony, Nintendo and Activision Combined.

https://www.ign.com/articles/apple-made-more-than-nintendo-sony-xbox

Actually thinking about it more it's pretty clear what Microsoft are trying to achieve.

They want to push sony and nintendo out of the console market by taking as much games and players away from them so that they turn to software only, and Microsoft would be the only platform available for that software to go onto.

Thinking about it that way, they are worse than Google, apple and amazon

I also don’t think Microsoft needs to defend themselves here. If Sony had the money, or Nintendo for that matter, they would do the same thing without hesitation. My personal biggest fear with gaming going forward is the preservation of older titles, and Microsoft seems to be the only company acknowledging it, and doing something about it. I can play OG Xbox games on my series X, with better performance. Compared to Switch Online N64 games, there is a huge chasm in quality. And as far as Microsoft’s greed, can we all really say that with a straight face as Nintendo fans? I’ve been a Nintendo guy for the last 35 years, and love them despite their absurdly stingy business practices, but let’s not pretend that Nintendo is the white knight of the industry here. They are all businesses. I guess I just don’t see Microsoft as the villain that many are making them out to be, and I don’t think this is the endgame scenario that many are touting. But to each their own!

@icomma It’s not my idea! It does exist now circumstantially, and the game has been continually rigged in that direction, but, we’ve always enjoyed ownership as a hedge against that, for those lucky enough to be able to do so.

The “Great Reset” is, among many things a desire to dissolve citizen private ownership and make everything — EVERYTHING — rent. There’s more to it, and suffice to say it’s not a “reset” if it’s what already happening;)

It’s easy to look into: “World Economic Forum” It’s not a conspiracy or even hidden, but you can find a lot of conspiracy theory around it so “safe Googling” and godspeed.

A comment about Microsoft bringing new things to gaming: I'm not saying they haven't done that at all, but the thing they get most credit for, online games and integrated online services, Sega did many years before Microsoft. What Microsoft brought to this was a monthly fee - so just another way of taxing players. I doubt that would have been standard without MS pushing it the way they did.

Also, I feel this discussion about the cost of games is interesting. Modern AAA titles are not expensive considering how many people are involved in making them. Where I live, buying physical games have actually become slightly cheaper than in the 90:s/early 2000:s. (For some reason digital games are often more expensive, especially on PC/Steam). But here's the thing: I want those AAA games! I want to pay 50$ for a Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade Chronicles, Pokemon Sword, Smash Bros Ultimate, or whatever, and know I can play that for at least 50-100 hours and it will have excellent production values all the way. But that is the cost of such a game - it won't go down. Microsoft can't ever hope to have games of that quality in GamePass in the long run unless the price increase or the quality of games suffer. That is another reason why I'm worried about Microsoft. Sure, it's not the Pay2Win and privacy infringing wild west of the app stores where quality was the first casualty, but can it keep from going there? I don't think so, and that is why I choose Nintendos and Sonys classic approach to gaming. I buy a game: Higher cost, but higher quality - and I also get to own the game and can play it whenever I want, even in the future.

@dil_power probably just me being nostalgic as someone who grew up with the 8bit computers……no arcades, no magazines, no brilliant box art, physical media becoming less important, excitement for new games not spoiled by the internet, the lack of real technical leaps with new consoles, the import scene…I could go on and on but I think about this often and I guess just getting old nullifies that excitement that I once had.

@Spiders You actually gave me a lot of food for thought too. I really like your point of view about the situation.

The future definitely doesn't look as dark comparing to the possibilities you presented, but one other thing to think about is that Microsoft makes the game pass model so accessible because they want to defeat the competition. If they do win the console war and become a monopoly, what's stopping them from hiking prices or creating "tiers" with access to different games according to how much you pay, thus creating another class division?

Unfortunately I think it's something very human to try to divide themselves into groups of haves and have-nots.

SPOILER ALERT: In a surprise twist, Nintendo buys Microsoft!

@Spiders Bethesda and Activision have tons of IPs between them and they will be buried in a heavy heavy rotation and some beloved big named games will all but vanish. This is bad for gamers. Especially multiplatform gamers.

This is what I was referring. I own an Xbox. I own every gen of Xbox. Multiple in some gens. They’ve done some amazing things.

Buying up massive third party companies like this isn’t one of them.

Pretty rich coming from XBOX, who all they have ever done is try to buy out other companies rather than make games

@UmbreonsPapa
“I don’t think it’s reasonable to make someone pay for a game and then prepare a network connection and charge a monthly fee.” -Satoru Iwata

I hope Nintendo acquires EA. Not because I care about EA games, but just for the LOLs.

So glad that it was Microsoft and not Tencent/CCP.

@Noid taking down rom sites isn't damaging the industry.

@JaxonH I think its more that Kotick wanted to sell to get out of the situation with a huge payday.

I still don't think Activision needed to be sold to be saved. One company owning 80% of ALL major western FPSs, RTSs etc is not a good thing imo.

This is how monopolies start. Basically MS will eventually force you to buy Gamepass (where you own nothing) or their box to play almost every major Western IP. That's not a fair healthy market when you lose choices and options

what does that even mean, harm the games industry? lol, what is he talking about. As far as I can see, Microsoft has been the one who's been harming it. Bethesda, activision, not that I care about those companies or their games (they should acquire Ubisoft and EA as well, lmao), but choice and options are always nice to have.

I would much rather have Microsoft buy Activision versus Facebook or Amazon if I had to pick.

@Bizzyb
He was the CEO, not the owner. He doesn't decide to sell, the board of majority shareholders do. And if you read Jeff Grubb's article he explains Activision was having trouble expanding beyond CoD, they had trouble attracting enough staff, and the lawsuits just made it even harder.

Point being it wasn't Kotick's call. And it's not about whether it "needed" it. The shareholders wanted to sell, and they shopped themselves around and approached MS, not the other way around.

It's also important to note this is not even remotely close to the start of a "monopoly". In fact, even after these acquisitions Xbox is still behind Tencent and Sony in terms of size. As large as Activision is, it would take a LOT more than that to even begin to encroach on being a monopoly. They're currently at 10% marketshare. Monopolies happen when you own 90% of the market and control pricing and prevent competition. There's massive competition, from Sony, from Nintendo, and from Valve.

Microsoft, please buyout EA.
There's no downside.
EA already ruined the sports genre. There's no way it could get any worse than it is now.

Suddenly Microsoft thinks they are the good guys?

@sanderev Because there weren't any.

@CharlieGirl The big Animal Crossing update is free.

@CharlieGirl The comment was made a good decade-plus (and two console generations) before the Switch. Again, I don't know what his involvement was in whatever plans were made for the Switch. But it's quite possible how things played out (good or bad) with the Wii and Wii U led him to change his mind on things. Again, there is no way to know what those internal discussions were prior to its release and where he ultimately fell on those decisions

@HamatoYoshi interesting. I do have to say my excitement decreased over time too but I do think it’s in part my taste becoming more defined over time. Although I am nearly 40 I only started gaming in 2010 but still gaming changed a lot since then. I grew to despise games as a service among others. I gotta say although initially I feared good single player RPGs would be killed off by cheap mobile games and multiplayer games, that hasn’t happened at all and probably never will. If anything there are more options today than ever before! You can still find brand new releases of excellent quality 8 bit/16 bit games on the indie side, there are still top quality rpgs and single player games… on top of all those other mobile and multiplayer games. Essentially there are more gamers than ever before and more game diversity as well and I feel as though you can still find quality games catering to your own taste if you look for it

@Pat_trick "one other think to think about is that Microsoft makes the game pass model so accessible because they want to defeat the competition. If they do win the console war and become a monopoly, what's stopping them from hiking prices or creating 'tiers' with access to different games according to how much you pay, thus creating another class division?"

That's what I've been thinking, too. It would get especially bad since they've recently suggested mass-platform banning of those they designate "the bad guys."

@icomma Abolishing capitalism will show those billionaires! It's not like they (and politburo members in totalitarian governments) are trying to eliminate as much competition as possible or anything. Envy always solves everything!

Phil Spencer intends, not microsoft. See last 40 years of Microsoft. This is a company that cannot be trusted.

@UmbreonsPapa From what I recall, supposedly he was involved with the concept and development of Switch. I'm referring to the company's former direction (especially under Iwata's leadership) of consistently innovating the games industry, while now it seems as if they most often don't care if it's innovative or not as long as they can fling their IPs forward in cheap (and unappealing) ways to make sales instead of constantly adapting and taking risks to make sales, like they did before.

@Stocksy

That's true.

I agree with his angle here. He’s trying to encourage the more traditional Gaming companies to circle the wagons and keep out the tech giants where possible. It’s rumoured part of their motivation in buying ABK was that they were trying to find a buyer and Tencent were interested. The longer the current big players in what is a growing, healthy industry can keep the likes of Google, Tencent and Amazon out the better.

@PushMyGran1986 Gaming on PC is as strong as ever, thanks to Microsoft. Nintendo is okay, but their quality is dwindling. The only way Nintendo can succeed is to keep limiting player options. I mean c'mon, you call them the king and they don't even have file folder options on the Switch, and haven't even attempted to correct joy-con drift. Please.

@CharlieGirl

He said that in 2003, before it was clearly demonstrated that people were willing to pay it. He said something similar in 2004 and 2008 as he was, to say the least, a bit conservative in his understanding of how Online gaming was developing.

By 2012 he’d shifted to ‘ We cannot promise here that Nintendo will always provide you with online services free of charge no matter how deep the experiences are that it may provide, but at least we are not thinking of asking our consumers to pay money to just casually get access to our ordinary online services.’ In the same interview he talked about how they hoped to make money from the Internet without charging a subscription.

So fast forward to January 2017 and having failed to make money from the Internet (unless you count their moves into Mobile gaming and F2P) hey presto! Nintendo announce a subscription service, but one that doesn’t just charge for basic services (as it includes ‘free’ games). Having been heavily involved in the development of the Switch I’m pretty confident hell have been heavily involved in the business strategy too-Kimishima was just continuing what was handed to him.

Is it because Spencer has already harmed the industry enough?

@Gerudo_Guy

Well said. They’re all businesses that exist only to make money. Nintendo have had some very questionable practices in the past and continue to do so. The motivation for that is profit. It’s only more noticeable with MS because the company as a whole is so big.

The sooner people accept this and stop applying human personality traits to large, profit-driven multinational corporations that only exist to take their money, the better. Understanding the whole industry becomes a lot easier at that point.

I keep seeing “Microsoft better not buy Nintendo” sentiments in these comment sections. Don’t worry about it. They can’t. If for some reason Nintendo wanted to sell, the Japanese government would step in and shut down any sales to western companies. Japan (unlike America) actually cares about anti-trust laws.

@electrolite77 yep totally agree!

@CharlieGirl The New Horizons DLC is basically a different game within the game, so no.
Captain Toad port had exactly the same features it had on the Wii U (minus the 3D World levels) and it's a complete game. The added dlc is added stuff.
And Super Smash Bros Ultimate doesn't require you to buy any of the DLC.

@Spider-Kev YES it WAS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuC4YLLkqME
THIS stream from Nintendo was months before the Switch launched. Look at it from 36:33, they talk about the Switch online service being a free trial with a paid subscription coming later.

@DiggleDog Which has free updates. Also not made by Nintendo but Camelot.

@Spider-Kev

Switch Online was announced at the reveal event in January 2017 (with one rotating NES game per month 😂) before Switch came out

Here's an unpopular opinion for all the "Microsoft is a bully" comments. I feel Sony has always been the bigger bully. Microsoft has permitted it's games to be sold and played on other systems. Meanwhile Sony tried to block cross system play on multiple occasions.

I think it's a bit funny that people are so angry that another mega corporation purchased another corporation. This happens all the time! Now this one is fairly large. But still, there have been other large purchases before. Disney - Star Wars/Marvel/Fox, Google - Youtube/HTC/Fitbit, Amazon - MGM/Whole Foods/Twitch/Ring/Blink, Comcast - NBC/Dreamworks These are just some that I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure there are better stronger examples.

@icomma
It's not the rich capitalists, it's the rich socialists who got rich using capitalism to get rich...

@HamatoYoshi

Having been gaming since 1984, I 100% disagree

@Pat_trick
That would be a monopoly which are illegal if I remember right.

@Gauchorino
Just had to make it about politics

@blindsquarel There are ways to go around that.

Isn't Facebook a monopoly? Isn't YouTube? WhatsApp?

All of them have competitors, but they are so weak that it's irrelevant.

@PushMyGran1986 I have to disagree. Microsoft's legacy in gaming goes beyond their purchases - from The Zone and the earliest dedicated multiplayer servers for card games and eventually Age of Empires to in-house projects like Crimson Skies and Flight Simulator (which is so old and so dominant that virtually every pilot and ATC uses it to practice), they've got some people and studios that are ancient and industry-leading in their genres that predate their push for acquisitions. Those genres (RTS, flight simulator, traditional card game) just aren't what people play on console. In the console space, they have bought up other companies. But they've also pushed accessibility in a way no other company ever has, tried some crazier tech stuff (like Kinect) that wouldn't have flown elsewhere, and brought multiplayer services to console in a way no other company could. It isn't a stretch to say they've redesigned server infrastructure for most of the world's internet with connection requirements for gaming in mind, putting in deals that ensured bandwidth and latency could support more than just downloading video content but instead could support playing content together.

Not all of their acquisitions have been positive - particularly the 360 and early Xbox One launch made some terrible decisions. Rare felt leashed until Spencer took over, pressed for Kameo/Perfect Dark, then saddled with Kinect Sports titles. But that disaster led Microsoft to back off their acquisitions under Spencer and give a lot more creative freedom with massive financial backing, leading to excellent titles like Sea of Thieves and Psychonauts 2 that couldn't have happened with a normal dev cycle.

For the moment, I trust Spencer and the direction he's taken the company in the console space to say that this should be good for Activision-Blizzard. I don't see any other way Kotick could've been kicked out - he has a baked in golden parachute of 300 million USD in his contract. But now he'll have a boss who isn't in the game purely for today's share prices or profit, but whose priority is number of engaged users and public image for the greater Microsoft and Xbox brand. Worth noting - Microsoft's studios after acquisition under Spencer aren't full of sex scandals or as crunched.

I think this is great for Activision, though their problems are short-term ones and fixable with a couple replacements and some established HR. In the long term giant companies getting into gaming could well be bad, as like Microsoft's first forrays into console they make stupid mistakes on the way to learning how to loosen the leash for creatives and meet what players want. For every great decision Microsoft makes today (Gamepass, DRM management for rentals that allows you to play even if you can't connect today), there's a terrible skeleton in the closet that taught them what not to do (Games for Windows Live, always-on console DRM). We're seeing with Amazon and New World that the lessons of the industry's past are unfortunately re-learned through direct experience with these tech giants rather than studied when they enter unfamiliar space, IMO. The very real threat that a handful of companies will dominate the industry in the future in the same way they do for movies is, unfortunately, a sign of the industry's maturation. Like movies, this could eventually lead to less creativity in the biggest budget titles as metrics for success become more established.

@Gauchorino
What is that comment #101 even supposed to mean? I remember when people said that the Wii U output, and I guess to a lesser extent the 3DS one, were "too safe" and that Nintendo "wasn't ambitious enough".
Those are some major rose-tinted glasses there. Is the NSMB series about risk-taking? lol Games are games. The only thing they're supposed to be is good, or fun, both of which are subjective. "Risk-taking", "ambitious" - these words feel more like meaningless buzzwords at this point.

@CharlieGirl
I really want to know about the "games rushed out to sell DLC later". Because a full game getting DLC, like MK8, isn't that. Free updates aren't that either, because they're free.

@Pat_trick
I don’t think you know what a monopoly is. As you said they all have competitors. YouTube has twitch, and Facebook has Twitter to name some. If Microsoft controlled everything gaming they would need to either buy out or run Nintendo and Sony out of business. That would then be a monopoly.

@Rin-go
Maybe Kirby Star allies. I guess animal crossings updates were just stuff from new leaf but they were free so not really dlc.

I'm of the same sentiment that Microsoft buying them is the far better option than Facebook, Google, Apple or any of those other companies.
Sounds like Microsoft left the console war as well and is focusing on a new one to keep the others out. (Perhaps Activision-Blizzard will release on Xbox, Nintendo, Playstation and Steam but never on anyone else?)

I just fear that one day Microsoft will own all the big gaming companies, and that wouldn't be fun now would it?

When Sony been buying a bunch of small/medium size entities = Internet is happy
Microsoft buys something huge = Internet cries “monopoly” and “evil corporation”

Never change social media. Still get a laugh when Sony fanboys wants Sony to buy SE, Capcom, etc while acting hypocritical when the “enemy” does the big purchases instead. Never underestimate fanboy hypocrites

@Rinyuu Nintendo games are not pricey they are worth the price regardless of region

@CharlieGirl I strongly support Nintendo taking down rom sites since piracy is bad and people like you should be shamed to support and you should support Nintendo taking them down which in fact is a good thing

@Arawn93 You should've seen the comments at push square.

@Maplemiles I would like to agree with you, because I love Nintendo, and I know they put a ton of polish and content in most of their games... So in that sense, yes they are always worth the money. However, if you view it from a "mainstream" gamer perspective, someone that just wants any console to play some games on, and you start comparing it to stuff like GamePass or Steam, it becomes a different story. I guarantee you'll get at least 4x the value if you shop elswhere, while still getting very high quality games (They exist, outside of the big N!).

This still doesn't mean Nintendo games aren't worth it, just that I can see a future where people choose a system or service with more value over the Nintendo brand.

Umm okay then.

@Rinyuu the Nintendo brand is to powerful and a lot of pc gamers are buying the switch and people are buying 3rd party games for the device I see waht your saying.

Smash and Pokémon get a lot of the Playstation and Xbox gamers and most of the non Nintendo people and I think Mario gets a lot of it as well with Mario being the all time best selling series. I bought a lot of 3rd party games on switch and been playing some DragonBall z kakarot and it runs and plays really well at a solid 30 frames

@Maplemiles There is nothing I "should" do other than play video games however I can.

Y’all would rather have what became of Activision run Activision or have Bethesda run Bethesda? Yikes.

@blindsquarel I do know what it is. As I said before these companies have competitors but they are so weak that it's irrelevant. Microsoft doesn't need to buy out its rivals, just weaken then enough so it won't officially be a monopoly.

But it's clear to see we're never going to agree on this.

@PushMyGran1986

Nintendo is actually the smallest of the 3 companies. "King" Nintendo?

@Maplemiles Actually the Switch is still mostly a Japanese device. The total sales in North America are not unprecedented for a portable device from Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft are sharing the much larger pie, the home console and PC market. More than twice as large as the portable gaming market. Since Apple is mobile focused and more related to portable gaming, it still mostly makes sense for Apple to want to buy Nintendo than any other company. Still true, we've been talking about it for almost 10 years now.

@Arawn93 And Square Enix actually publishes more games than Activision. They just don't make as much money as Candy Crush, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft. SE being bought by Sony would suck for everyone. I'm not concerned about Activision being bought, they don't have a lot of titles and they need a shake up.

I can't believe some are still complaining about the actually rather cheap Switch Online.
It works out to only £1.50 a month or £2.90 with the expansion pack.

I think we do have a unique point of view, which is not about how everything has to run on a single device or platform. That's the key statement. This acquisition was about intellectual property. Microsoft owned franchises are going to be available on Apple, Google, Netflix and every capable "smart" device. The question is, are there still going to be dedicated hardware devices at all in the future!?

@HeeHo

Because ‘cheap’ doesn’t mean ‘good value’

@Rin-go I'm referring mostly to their hardware's direction rather than their software's. It seems like they're trying to take their whole company the way they made the NSMB series: recognizable but very generic.

@dkxcalibur

I agree. Sony were happy to be the bully when they were the big boy in town. They leveraged their existing financial, manufacturing and retail power to carve themselves a huge chunk of the home Console market, merrily moneyhatting third party exclusives in the PS1 and PS2 eras. They ran Sega out of town with their spoiler marketing in the PS2 buildup (as well as the other tactics mentioned). They bought up studios and shut them down when they weren’t profitable enough (Evolution, Psygnosis). They resisted cross play as long as they could.

Similarly Nintendo, when they were the 800-pound gorilla in the room, behaved like an 800-pound gorilla. They kept third parties, magazine publishers and retailers on such tight leashes they finished up in court, getting fined for antitrust Law breaches while trying to shut down the Game Genie.

Only difference now is its a 2-ton gorilla throwing its weight around. Microsoft are a long way from perfect but neither are Sony. It’s the nature of being a money-driven multinational corporation.

Well, look what Microsoft did with/to Rare. Basically flushed the company down the drain until all the talent had left. If there are any genuine creatives at Activision/Bethesda, they will inevitably leave. My experience is that creative people loathe being part of such huge corporate behemoths and always end up leaving en masse, to set up independent dev studio's. Those people are the real talent, and arguably the real value, beyond IP, in Microsoft's acquisition. And they will quickly lose that value.

@Joe-b Which is making games.

@RandomNerds
You forgot Square Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc
I think Japan is just fine w/o having to turn into a Monopoly. Competition brings out the best in the industry.
If MS gets EA, that would be huge!
UbiSoft is strong too and neutral (Europe)

@MarsOne I have seen a lot of people use a switch out in the open and the switch has just as big market share in North America like Japan. Why are people in North America keen on the niche steam deck calling it a "switch killer"

3rd party switch games have also seen some big sales numbers in North America as well so its not just Japan

@UltimateOtaku91 Microsoft hasn't taken any games from Nintendo (recently lol). And recently, they've given Nintendo most of their Non-AAA exclusives (luckys tale, Orí, cup head, etc). They allowed Nintendo to have Banjo in smash and on their overpriced NSO service. So no, Microsoft and Nintendo have actually been playing nicely lately.

Microsoft has been withholding games from Sony. And thats likely because of all the money Sony spends to keep games off of Xbox via timed exclusivity (that seems to keep getting renewed in the case of FF7R) It is to be determined whether or not Microsoft will also withhold games from Sony with this acquisition, but I suspect that any future games under Activision that can support the Switch will probably support the Switch.

@Mark-number-12 The Xbox division is not the same as it was 20 years ago. They used to be very consumer unfriendly. That has changed in recent years. Activision has been pretty terrible for awhile. There is a much higher probability of Activision producing more than just annual CoD games under Microsoft.

@r0mer0 the day where games start not appearing on hardware and on cloud services only is the day I give up on gaming, hopefully that's 20 years away and I won't be that bothered by then

@Maplemiles I really hope your comment is satire, because wow.

So he’s saying they bought Activision so a non-gaming company wouldn’t? Okay. I guess.

Micrsoft would hate to have "ex" employees enter Nintendo and have their news outlets run negative stories to hurt Nintendo enough to destabilize them and purchase them.

looks like a treat to me

How -would- Nintendo harm gaming?
How would any of the others?
How does this statement of trust even make sense?

This literally makes no sense. If they don't see this acquisition as hurting the gaming industry, what in the WORLD could Nintendo do that they think would hurt it?🤣

Let's not forget that in the past both Microsoft and Sony did what Amazon or Google are trying to do. They were not a part of the gaming industry and bought their way into it.

By "harm the games industry" he means unsettle the current system. Right now Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo know the system they are working in. All three of them have their niches and areas where the compete. It's very settled and well-defined. If another tech company with tons of money buys its way into gaming, he says that "harms the industry" but in reality it threatens their market share. It doesn't harm the industry.

@UltimateOtaku91 In other words, business as usual.

@MarsOne
One big difference. Nintendo’s main source of money comes from games. Yes they have the Mario movie and Nintendo world but if Mario, or Zelda is no longer popular then those things don’t work.
Microsoft is operating Xbox on a loss they could pull out of the gaming space and be okay. Sony to a lesser extent than Microsoft, could pull out to with their movies and other things. So yes overall Microsoft and Sony are bigger than Nintendo but Xbox and PlayStation are not. As shown by the fact a 5 year old handheld is outselling the series x and ps5.

@electrolite77 wow! Great work. Seriously, well said!

I keep seeing reports like "Xbox now owns IP like Crash and Skylanders" and it's like saying "Nintendo own IP like F-Zero and Chibi Robo".

I don't want to buy the XBOX version of next Crash Bandicoot and Skylanders games.
I want the PlayStation version since I like the Blue color retail box over than Green color retail box.
Also, PlayStation style controller is more comfortable to use than XBOX style controller.

@electrolite77 I'd say giving basically pocket change to have access to retro games and Online play for a month is great value.

@Ogbert Skylanders was pretty popular

@Stocksy I’d completely disagree with this. ActiBlizz has not released nor is scheduled to release anything outside of cod for the near future. They were/are a dying company with 2 core products (wow and cod)

In this instance, it’s almost certain to expand on the diversity of games the acti/blizz division will put out. So no, not a reduction as you are saying.

I think we’re going to be fine, in fact, as a long time acti/blizz game supporter, I’m looking forward to this change. It’d be wonderful to see gamepass with cod/wow available on switch.

Note: I too am a gpu subscriber with a series x, series s, ps5, 2 switches, a gaming pc, and more. All of which is completely irrelevant to this entire conversation.

@Anti-Matter Subjective in both regards, but understandable. Personally I prefer the asymmetric analogues over the symmetric ones. Making the Xbox controllers superior, though the dual sense controller is really nice.

@faint Nothing to do with antitrust, it’s pure isolationism. Japanese only like Japanese, and strongly guard any intrusion into the market.

I lived and worked in Japan for quite some time, even went through the arduous process of starting a business there. It was a nightmare from day 1. As an American trying to create a startup, it was just roadblock after roadblock.

The country is from the ground up designed to limit foreign influences. There is a reason 98% of the population is Japanese.

I have a Switch, PS5, and a high end PC. I'm good. Have never found a reason I need a Xbox. If anything the biggest competitor now to an Xbox is a PC.

@PushMyGran1986 if a company is listed in the stock market, anyone can decide to buy 50.1% of it and then run it. They don't need permission. It's called a hostile takeover.

It can get really absurd at times. Xerox tried to forcifully buy HP a few years ago even though HP is 4-5tiles bigger than xerox. They just decided to take out a huge loan and pay it back with the money HP had stashed in their reserves.

Microsoft really want their game pass to succeed in the long run. That is what this news is telling me.

@LUIGITORNADO yeah. Was. It's been a dead IP for some time now. The relevant IP they acquired in the console space (for better or worse) are Call of Duty, Overwatch and Diablo.

@HeeHo

It may well be to you. But that doesn’t mean it’s good value to anyone else. Value is a totally subjective call.

@Mark-number-12

I doubt there are many employees too upset at going from Activision to Microsoft

@Runex2121 No, it does have a lot to do with anti-trust. That why they didn’t let Nintendo buy Namco Bandi some years back.

@sanderev hey Microsoft’s history of bullying is incredibly documented and easily searchable

@Frobodobo just a heads up - you can only buy listed shares on the stock market - people in the C suite and investors don’t just lose their stock unwillingly if you but 50.1% of available stock - you’d probably end up owning something like 8% of a company

@Maplemiles lol roms are good though if people literally can’t buy the games

@electrolite77 How is £1.50 a month not good value for what you're getting? I lose more than that down the back of my sofa a week.

So many of the comments about Microsoft wanting to buy or force Nintendo to sell. Microsoft didn’t force Activision or Bethesda to sell. They wanted to sell. Honestly, I’m glad companies like Google, Amazon, or Facebook didn’t get them. Who will they buy next? That’s up in the air. I don’t think Microsoft is done buying. I do think they are going to be slowing down. They have a good amount of studios now and can really boost their gamepass which is what their end goal is.

@HeeHo

Try and understand what value means. Just because it’s worth it to you doesn’t mean it is to anyone else.

https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2010/Borderssubjectivity.html

@GannonBanned damn! But i already spent my millions!

@Frobodobo well 8% is still not bad haha - start throwing your weight around at corporate and call yourself “mini-boss”

@HeeHo lol why do you always have coins in your pocket

@Stocksy What makes you say that? Obsidian and Bethesda still seem to be on track with their development plans.

I don't share the fears a lot of people have because studio acquisition has always been a thing. And I prefer it to the alternative, when a company goes under and the IP rights get tossed in a blender or lost (see: Telltale), or the company restructures to focus on other areas and leverage their IP in new and exciting ways (please read that with utmost sarcasm as I reference: Konami).

Sega's acquisition of Atlus has not seemed to harm Atlus as yet, and gave it some stability. Activision-Blizzard have some notable IP, so questions are hanging on what the plans will be. And I'm sure some folks will chafe at console exclusives. I tend to get multiple systems and do some pc gaming so that stuff doesn't strike me as inherently bad or harmful. I mean, does anyone who thinks this is killing the industry also chafe at Sony buying Insomniac and thus forcing any Marvel contracts Insomniac takes to be PS exclusive? What about Sony buying up Guerrilla I'm the mid 00s, leaving to for example the Horizon series being PS console exclusive (and PC, but I'm talking consoles mainly)? Sony picked up Bluepoint last year after they did the remake of Demons Souls. Speaking of, Sony cultivates exclusive third party support as well - Demons Souls, Bloodborne, FF VII Remake, I forget the name but Squenix has another upcoming exclusive. All the companies do this, I'm just noting it because when Nintendo does it people act like the game is being exiled and when Microsoft does it people act like they are greedily damaging the industry. But when Sony does, I mostly hear people praising the PlayStation exclusive library.