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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 Dut

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. That's a heck of a moat.

polishdude20 5y ago
And their windows game store is still full of bad UX and random bugs and glitches that make it look like it was built by amateurs.
u2077 5y ago
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.
- wanda 5y ago
  Fortunately, all the good video games have already been made.
- whoopdedo 5y ago
  You mean a thing of the present. See the other front-page story about Diablo not working if you're offline for too long.
- bduerst 5y ago
  Paying to own is already a thing of the past for music and movie content. How is this different?
  - u2077 5y ago
    I’m not saying it’s different, it’s more like the nail in the coffin. Movies, music, apps, games, treadmills, coffee, printers. Anything that can somehow have internet connectivity becomes a subscription.
    - lpcvoid 5y ago
      ...which is why nobody in their right mind would buy anything "smart" that can't be modified to be dumb.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Thankfully we can still completely avoid subscription for music legally.
- stubish 5y ago
  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.
aeortiz 5y ago
They still don't own the graphics cards and displays (monitors &/or googles)
- Graphguy 5y ago
  They do have HoloLens though.
- zymhan 5y ago
  Those are very much a commodity.
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    Nvidia and AMD, of $650B and $160B market caps, make commodities?!
    - bregma 5y ago
      Consumer game hardware is small potatoes in the revenue stream of those companies. They might be important to the game-playing consumer, but they're regarded as commodities by industry.
    - zymhan 5y ago
      I'm not sure what market cap has to do with it? BHP Billiton is an _actual_ commodity (mining) company with a market cap similar to AMD [1] GPUs aren't commodities in the traditional sense, it's more of a figure of speech to convey how interchangeable and standardized GPUs are nowadays. [1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BHP:NYSE https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BHP:NYSE
- schleck8 5y ago
  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.
kungito 5y ago
They are still missing a mobile platform and that's why I believe they will retry within the next few years
- WithinReason 5y ago
  Wonder if Windows on ARM will be any help there
- curiousllama 5y ago
  That's an interesting idea. I wonder if the size & concentration of that market is an effective deterrent?
- keewee7 5y ago
  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. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/launcher https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/launcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Launcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Launcher
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    I could see using this for work with office 365 integration but that’s the complete opposite direction of gaming for me.
  - keithnz 5y ago
    I use this on my phone, I really like it. All they have to do is leverage it and start a store, but not sure if the timing is right just now. I think if MS embraced ad blocking and made edge (both mobile and desktop) support extensions including ublock origin they could really eat into that platform. At the moment you can run Firefox with ublock origin on Android ( which I do ) but quite a few extensions don't work ( like violent monkey). To me, being able to run ublock origin (and other addons) on Android is a massive competitive advantage, but Firefox can't seem to convert it to users in the mobile space, basically they have no real platform/marketing leverage.
jpablo 5y ago
Isn't that basically the same Nintendo and Sony? Save for the cloud platform.
- smileybarry 5y ago
  Sony practically owns their cloud platform too, with their Gaikai purchase a decade ago[1] and PS Now being "PS3/PS4s in the cloud". [1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-03-sony-acquisition-of-gaikai-a-genius-move https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-03-sony-acqui...
  - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
    This is actually an area where I think Sony has dropped the ball; PS Now is an interesting service, and they have a pretty interesting catalog of older games from the PS2/PS3 era. But they don't advertise it well enough, and I don't think they put enough focus on new releases and keeping them available the way Microsoft does with Gamepass.
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      There's rumours of them revamping PS Now and PS+ into a new service.
      - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
        I've heard these, and they should! It would give them direct competition to GamePass Ultimate, which is a tier of service they don't currently offer (unless you buy PS+ and PS Now as separate subscriptions).
  - phatfish 5y ago
    I assumed Sony were migrating to or already using Azure at this point. https://news.microsoft.com/2019/05/16/sony-and-microsoft-to-explore-strategic-partnership/ https://news.microsoft.com/2019/05/16/sony-and-microsoft-to-... At the time Microsoft where not throwing so much money at games development an IP ownership. I wonder how Sony feel about this now.
anaganisk 5y ago
Guess this was what Steve Balmer meant when he said, DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS.
- pdpi 5y ago
  For how bizarre that moment was, he was 100% correct. Developers are the lifeblood of a hardware platform like this.
goldfeld 5y ago
It is quite wild. The only thing missing is good will.
- t3rabytes 5y ago
  I think Game Pass has built up a helluva goodwill bucket, from talking with friends of mine.
  - icu 5y ago
    The Games Pass is such ridiculous value that my "non-gaming" partner got a Series-S with Games Pass to play MS Flight Simulator, and as an aside, to have games available to myself and our kids (it was impossible to get the Series-X in the UK in the lead up to Christmas without paying scalpers). I have a PS5 (sadly from a scalper), and I begrudgingly got Plus to fully experience the PvP aspect of Demon's Souls but the fact that it comes with a bunch of PS4 games for free, especially a few that I've been meaning to buy, makes it worth the subscription. I doubt Sony would have done this without the pressure from the Games Pass. I think Microsoft know that the PS4 won last gen on the basis of the amazing exclusives it had. I think that Microsoft is going to put a lot of exclusive pressure on Sony this gen with their buying spree (Bethesda etc), and while it is very hard to find time for gaming, I'm glad we have both systems in my house.
    - everdrive 5y ago
      This feels a little like Amazon Prime in that the cost of the total bundled deal is technically good, except that I don’t really want everything in the bundle, and would rather receive much less value for only somewhat less money. It probably works for a lot of customers, but I really avoid as many subscription services as I can.
    - isk517 5y ago
      I liked the PS4 but even I feel like Sony didn't so much win the last generation so much as Microsoft lost it. Microsoft just never recovered from just how bad the XBox One launch was and Sony managed to win by pretty much doing nothing but releasing great exclusive titles. Sony right now seems to be fully into the hubris stage they were in when they made the PS3 and I feel like they are going to slowly lose market to XBox which has immerged from the disastrous XBox One humbled and with a greater desire to cater to their audience.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
DirectX, too.
mathattack 5y ago
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.
- brightball 5y ago
  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.
- luckydata 5y ago
  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.
  - awill 5y ago
    Exactly. They're going for quantity to ensure even if a bunch of stuff fails, they'll get a few hits. Sometimes all you need is a few hits.
  - mathattack 5y ago
    That type of closed garden seems more like Apple, no?
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Microsoft has been understandably eyeing that 30% on all digital goods sales Apple gets for years now. They missed the boat on the Windows store, but they'll do just about anything to keep a similar financial structure on the Xbox side.
- no_wizard 5y ago
andrewparker 5y ago
Creation layer of the stack: Unity or Unreal.
- kizer 5y ago
  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.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    Microsoft already has id Software! Epic Games historical competitor. id Software has Quake, Epic Games has Unreal. id Software is not the company it once was, but they still make engines. idTech 7 is their last one, powering Doom Eternal.
    - terafo 5y ago
      idTech is cutting edge tech. Their team is one of the best in the industry, second to none, competing with Epic, Insomniac and Naughty Dog. But it is not engine for general use, not now. It does one thing(FPS), and does it extremely well. But it lacks tools that you would need to create games of another genres. Things like advanced animation tools, dialogue systems, quest systems, ways to handle vast open worlds, etc. idTech would be great for Halo and Call of Duty. But it isn't great for The Elder Scrolls, Starcraft, Gears, and many different games Microsoft Studios are working on. EA already tried to make every studio to use Frostbite for every single game and ended up with disasters like Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda.
      - fishtacos 5y ago
        >> EA already tried to make every studio to use Frostbite for every single game and ended up with disasters like Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda. By what measure are these games considered disasters? I was under the impression they were critically well-received and sold a decent amount each. DA:I was a better game than DA:O 2, for example (at least IMO). Regardless, I fail to see what the engine has to do with anything, considering they both presented noticeable graphical and mechanical upgrades over their prequels.
devmunchies 5y ago
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.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
muttantt 5y ago
Give it a few months, and they will acquire Subspace.
- mometsi 5y ago
  Already happened. Insiders know that snagging PriitK was the real motivation behind the Skype acquisition...
cletus 5y ago
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.
- blondie9x 5y ago
  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.
  - cletus 5y ago
    Who is Microsoft "doing good" for? It's not Microsoft shareholders. Bing is a money pit and poorly executed. Do you know who benefits the most from Bing? Google. Why? Because Bing's (subsidized) existence helps create this illusion that there really is more than one search engine. Google loves that Bing exists because it nicely helps them avoid having to have the monopoly talk.
    - kooshball 5y ago
      bing made 8b in revenue last year. your data is way out of date. its wildly profitable
  - astrange 5y ago
    Baidu and Yandex are doing pretty well in their markets.
- chc 5y ago
zitterbewegung 5y ago
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.
- nightski 5y ago
  Sure... If $2B in profit up 46% YoY is worst performing I'll take it.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  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.
AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
I mean, isn't this basically how it used to work when the console manufacturers were also the game developers? Like Sega and Nintendo.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  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.
  - nightski 5y ago
    It's definitely a compelling offering. I don't think one model has to win over the other though. There will be room for subs and there will be room for steam libraries where you own licenses as well in the future. For me personally I have a hard time justifying game pass. I only complete 2-3 games a year at best and it's really expensive at that rate.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      > For me personally I have a hard time justifying game pass. I only complete 2-3 games a year at best and it's really expensive at that rate. Weirdly, that's the exact reason that I can justify Game Pass. Though I imagine you mean that you only play 2-3 games thoroughly, where I play a much larger number of games through the year, but rarely for long enough to finish them.
pelasaco 5y ago
Unfortunately they didn't support their own game engine as they could: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA Stardew Valley and Terraria were actually IMO the best games produced with that
- icemelt8 5y ago
- pjmlp 5y ago
  That you have to thank the traditional WinDev vs DevDiv political wars. As usual the .NET product (XNA), got replaced by a C++ one (DirectXTK). https://walbourn.github.io/welcome/ 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-idxbox-updates-gdc/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2016/03/14/letter-chris-charla-i...
tytrdev 5y ago
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.
- tytrdev 5y ago
  Also apparently tencent owns like 40% of Epic Games? It's all bullshit folks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-r7GNlZvk&ab_channel=Cap.Haddock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-r7GNlZvk&ab_channel=Cap.H...
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    What’s the bullshit part of Tencent owning 40% of Epic Games? Fortnite possibly wouldn’t be what it is if not for Tencent’s early investment and support of Epic Games. That then further goes into Unreal Engine not being what is today either.
    - tytrdev 5y ago
      I was just getting at the illusion of choice. At the end of the day it's all owned by the same handful of small groups. Found out yesterday that Blizzard apparently owns King. Tencent owns a cut of Activision Blizzard, as well as a slice of basically every gaming company. https://dataromas.com/what-companies-does-tencent-own/ https://dataromas.com/what-companies-does-tencent-own/ Note that I'm not even criticizing or otherwise knocking these business practices, I'm simply making some observations. My use of the term bullshit was particularly to describe the illusion of choice. Not that it's anything new. http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/consumer-brands-infographic.jpg http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/c... I think the world would be just fine without fortnite, but I will say unreal engine is pretty nice to have. Probably just a matter of time until Microsoft owns unreal engine as well. Tangentially relevant due to Tencent involvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ&ab_channel=PeopleMakeGames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ&ab_channel=Peopl... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY&ab_channel=PeopleMakeGames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY&ab_channel=Peopl...
StreamBright 5y ago
>> has been able to vertically integrate 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)
- dgellow 5y ago
  Microsoft is extremely successful with Azure. Apple did not compete at all on public cloud offering.
  - StreamBright 5y ago
    >> missed _almost_ every single time. > Microsoft is extremely successful with Azure. I do not see any disagreement here.
unsigner 5y ago
The only thing they're missing is hardware design capabilities.
- vsnf 5y ago
  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.
  - unsigner 5y ago
    You are right, of course. The Xboxes are better and better hardware-design-wise each generation, and the Surfaces are highly rated. I should have been more specific - I was thinking of the CPU and GPU design.
- ksec 5y ago
  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.
footlose_3815 5y ago
[dead]

polishdude20 5y ago

And their windows game store is still full of bad UX and random bugs and glitches that make it look like it was built by amateurs.

u2077 5y ago

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.

wanda 5y ago
Fortunately, all the good video games have already been made.
whoopdedo 5y ago
You mean a thing of the present. See the other front-page story about Diablo not working if you're offline for too long.
bduerst 5y ago
Paying to own is already a thing of the past for music and movie content. How is this different?
- u2077 5y ago
  I’m not saying it’s different, it’s more like the nail in the coffin. Movies, music, apps, games, treadmills, coffee, printers. Anything that can somehow have internet connectivity becomes a subscription.
  - lpcvoid 5y ago
    ...which is why nobody in their right mind would buy anything "smart" that can't be modified to be dumb.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Thankfully we can still completely avoid subscription for music legally.
stubish 5y ago
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.

aeortiz 5y ago

They still don't own the graphics cards and displays (monitors &/or googles)

Graphguy 5y ago
They do have HoloLens though.
zymhan 5y ago
Those are very much a commodity.
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  Nvidia and AMD, of $650B and $160B market caps, make commodities?!
  - bregma 5y ago
    Consumer game hardware is small potatoes in the revenue stream of those companies. They might be important to the game-playing consumer, but they're regarded as commodities by industry.
  - zymhan 5y ago
    I'm not sure what market cap has to do with it? BHP Billiton is an _actual_ commodity (mining) company with a market cap similar to AMD [1] GPUs aren't commodities in the traditional sense, it's more of a figure of speech to convey how interchangeable and standardized GPUs are nowadays. [1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BHP:NYSE https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BHP:NYSE
schleck8 5y ago
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.

kungito 5y ago

They are still missing a mobile platform and that's why I believe they will retry within the next few years

WithinReason 5y ago
Wonder if Windows on ARM will be any help there
curiousllama 5y ago
That's an interesting idea. I wonder if the size & concentration of that market is an effective deterrent?
keewee7 5y ago
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. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/launcher https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/launcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Launcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Launcher
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  I could see using this for work with office 365 integration but that’s the complete opposite direction of gaming for me.
- keithnz 5y ago
  I use this on my phone, I really like it. All they have to do is leverage it and start a store, but not sure if the timing is right just now. I think if MS embraced ad blocking and made edge (both mobile and desktop) support extensions including ublock origin they could really eat into that platform. At the moment you can run Firefox with ublock origin on Android ( which I do ) but quite a few extensions don't work ( like violent monkey). To me, being able to run ublock origin (and other addons) on Android is a massive competitive advantage, but Firefox can't seem to convert it to users in the mobile space, basically they have no real platform/marketing leverage.

jpablo 5y ago

Isn't that basically the same Nintendo and Sony? Save for the cloud platform.

smileybarry 5y ago
Sony practically owns their cloud platform too, with their Gaikai purchase a decade ago[1] and PS Now being "PS3/PS4s in the cloud". [1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-03-sony-acquisition-of-gaikai-a-genius-move https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-03-sony-acqui...
- brendoelfrendo 5y ago
  This is actually an area where I think Sony has dropped the ball; PS Now is an interesting service, and they have a pretty interesting catalog of older games from the PS2/PS3 era. But they don't advertise it well enough, and I don't think they put enough focus on new releases and keeping them available the way Microsoft does with Gamepass.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    There's rumours of them revamping PS Now and PS+ into a new service.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      I've heard these, and they should! It would give them direct competition to GamePass Ultimate, which is a tier of service they don't currently offer (unless you buy PS+ and PS Now as separate subscriptions).
- phatfish 5y ago
  I assumed Sony were migrating to or already using Azure at this point. https://news.microsoft.com/2019/05/16/sony-and-microsoft-to-explore-strategic-partnership/ https://news.microsoft.com/2019/05/16/sony-and-microsoft-to-... At the time Microsoft where not throwing so much money at games development an IP ownership. I wonder how Sony feel about this now.

anaganisk 5y ago

Guess this was what Steve Balmer meant when he said, DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS.

pdpi 5y ago
For how bizarre that moment was, he was 100% correct. Developers are the lifeblood of a hardware platform like this.

goldfeld 5y ago

It is quite wild. The only thing missing is good will.

t3rabytes 5y ago
I think Game Pass has built up a helluva goodwill bucket, from talking with friends of mine.
- icu 5y ago
  The Games Pass is such ridiculous value that my "non-gaming" partner got a Series-S with Games Pass to play MS Flight Simulator, and as an aside, to have games available to myself and our kids (it was impossible to get the Series-X in the UK in the lead up to Christmas without paying scalpers). I have a PS5 (sadly from a scalper), and I begrudgingly got Plus to fully experience the PvP aspect of Demon's Souls but the fact that it comes with a bunch of PS4 games for free, especially a few that I've been meaning to buy, makes it worth the subscription. I doubt Sony would have done this without the pressure from the Games Pass. I think Microsoft know that the PS4 won last gen on the basis of the amazing exclusives it had. I think that Microsoft is going to put a lot of exclusive pressure on Sony this gen with their buying spree (Bethesda etc), and while it is very hard to find time for gaming, I'm glad we have both systems in my house.
  - everdrive 5y ago
    This feels a little like Amazon Prime in that the cost of the total bundled deal is technically good, except that I don’t really want everything in the bundle, and would rather receive much less value for only somewhat less money. It probably works for a lot of customers, but I really avoid as many subscription services as I can.
  - isk517 5y ago
    I liked the PS4 but even I feel like Sony didn't so much win the last generation so much as Microsoft lost it. Microsoft just never recovered from just how bad the XBox One launch was and Sony managed to win by pretty much doing nothing but releasing great exclusive titles. Sony right now seems to be fully into the hubris stage they were in when they made the PS3 and I feel like they are going to slowly lose market to XBox which has immerged from the disastrous XBox One humbled and with a greater desire to cater to their audience.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

DirectX, too.

mathattack 5y ago

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.

brightball 5y ago
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.
luckydata 5y ago
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.
- awill 5y ago
  Exactly. They're going for quantity to ensure even if a bunch of stuff fails, they'll get a few hits. Sometimes all you need is a few hits.
- mathattack 5y ago
  That type of closed garden seems more like Apple, no?
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Microsoft has been understandably eyeing that 30% on all digital goods sales Apple gets for years now. They missed the boat on the Windows store, but they'll do just about anything to keep a similar financial structure on the Xbox side.
no_wizard 5y ago

andrewparker 5y ago

Creation layer of the stack: Unity or Unreal.

kizer 5y ago
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.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  Microsoft already has id Software! Epic Games historical competitor. id Software has Quake, Epic Games has Unreal. id Software is not the company it once was, but they still make engines. idTech 7 is their last one, powering Doom Eternal.
  - terafo 5y ago
    idTech is cutting edge tech. Their team is one of the best in the industry, second to none, competing with Epic, Insomniac and Naughty Dog. But it is not engine for general use, not now. It does one thing(FPS), and does it extremely well. But it lacks tools that you would need to create games of another genres. Things like advanced animation tools, dialogue systems, quest systems, ways to handle vast open worlds, etc. idTech would be great for Halo and Call of Duty. But it isn't great for The Elder Scrolls, Starcraft, Gears, and many different games Microsoft Studios are working on. EA already tried to make every studio to use Frostbite for every single game and ended up with disasters like Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda.
    - fishtacos 5y ago
      >> EA already tried to make every studio to use Frostbite for every single game and ended up with disasters like Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda. By what measure are these games considered disasters? I was under the impression they were critically well-received and sold a decent amount each. DA:I was a better game than DA:O 2, for example (at least IMO). Regardless, I fail to see what the engine has to do with anything, considering they both presented noticeable graphical and mechanical upgrades over their prequels.

devmunchies 5y ago

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.

deleted 5y ago

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muttantt 5y ago

Give it a few months, and they will acquire Subspace.

mometsi 5y ago
Already happened. Insiders know that snagging PriitK was the real motivation behind the Skype acquisition...

cletus 5y ago

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.

blondie9x 5y ago
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.
- cletus 5y ago
  Who is Microsoft "doing good" for? It's not Microsoft shareholders. Bing is a money pit and poorly executed. Do you know who benefits the most from Bing? Google. Why? Because Bing's (subsidized) existence helps create this illusion that there really is more than one search engine. Google loves that Bing exists because it nicely helps them avoid having to have the monopoly talk.
  - kooshball 5y ago
    bing made 8b in revenue last year. your data is way out of date. its wildly profitable
- astrange 5y ago
  Baidu and Yandex are doing pretty well in their markets.
chc 5y ago

zitterbewegung 5y ago

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.

nightski 5y ago
Sure... If $2B in profit up 46% YoY is worst performing I'll take it.
skinnymuch 5y ago
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.

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago

I mean, isn't this basically how it used to work when the console manufacturers were also the game developers? Like Sega and Nintendo.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
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.
- nightski 5y ago
  It's definitely a compelling offering. I don't think one model has to win over the other though. There will be room for subs and there will be room for steam libraries where you own licenses as well in the future. For me personally I have a hard time justifying game pass. I only complete 2-3 games a year at best and it's really expensive at that rate.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    > For me personally I have a hard time justifying game pass. I only complete 2-3 games a year at best and it's really expensive at that rate. Weirdly, that's the exact reason that I can justify Game Pass. Though I imagine you mean that you only play 2-3 games thoroughly, where I play a much larger number of games through the year, but rarely for long enough to finish them.

pelasaco 5y ago

Unfortunately they didn't support their own game engine as they could: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA Stardew Valley and Terraria were actually IMO the best games produced with that

icemelt8 5y ago
pjmlp 5y ago
That you have to thank the traditional WinDev vs DevDiv political wars. As usual the .NET product (XNA), got replaced by a C++ one (DirectXTK). https://walbourn.github.io/welcome/ 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-idxbox-updates-gdc/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2016/03/14/letter-chris-charla-i...

tytrdev 5y ago

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.

tytrdev 5y ago
Also apparently tencent owns like 40% of Epic Games? It's all bullshit folks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-r7GNlZvk&ab_channel=Cap.Haddock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-r7GNlZvk&ab_channel=Cap.H...
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  What’s the bullshit part of Tencent owning 40% of Epic Games? Fortnite possibly wouldn’t be what it is if not for Tencent’s early investment and support of Epic Games. That then further goes into Unreal Engine not being what is today either.
  - tytrdev 5y ago
    I was just getting at the illusion of choice. At the end of the day it's all owned by the same handful of small groups. Found out yesterday that Blizzard apparently owns King. Tencent owns a cut of Activision Blizzard, as well as a slice of basically every gaming company. https://dataromas.com/what-companies-does-tencent-own/ https://dataromas.com/what-companies-does-tencent-own/ Note that I'm not even criticizing or otherwise knocking these business practices, I'm simply making some observations. My use of the term bullshit was particularly to describe the illusion of choice. Not that it's anything new. http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/consumer-brands-infographic.jpg http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/c... I think the world would be just fine without fortnite, but I will say unreal engine is pretty nice to have. Probably just a matter of time until Microsoft owns unreal engine as well. Tangentially relevant due to Tencent involvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ&ab_channel=PeopleMakeGames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ&ab_channel=Peopl... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY&ab_channel=PeopleMakeGames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY&ab_channel=Peopl...

StreamBright 5y ago

>> has been able to vertically integrate 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)

dgellow 5y ago
Microsoft is extremely successful with Azure. Apple did not compete at all on public cloud offering.
- StreamBright 5y ago
  >> missed _almost_ every single time. > Microsoft is extremely successful with Azure. I do not see any disagreement here.

unsigner 5y ago

The only thing they're missing is hardware design capabilities.

vsnf 5y ago
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.
- unsigner 5y ago
  You are right, of course. The Xboxes are better and better hardware-design-wise each generation, and the Surfaces are highly rated. I should have been more specific - I was thinking of the CPU and GPU design.
ksec 5y ago
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.

footlose_3815 5y ago

[dead]