PS5 vs. Switch vs. XBOXSX - THUNDERDOME Version 2.0

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Do Square Enix games sell to the younger generations of gamers? My teenage boys have no idea what Final Fantasy is nor are they into that type of game. I just feel those games cater to an aging fan base. I don't see them as system sellers in North America today.

Guardians of the Galaxy was really good.

Final Fantasy and Dragons Quest still have their markets.

As Cube said it would be tough because they support the Switch a lot which is still big in Japan.

I feel like if Sony were to buy Square Enix they would almost need to make a PSP 3 (which would be great and IMO they should doing anyways)

The bigger question IMO would be what's next for Microsoft...you'd have to think that EA might be on the cards as they already have a relationship with Gamepass. What's another $50B for Microsoft to go buy EA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_publisher

Also kind of crazy that Microsoft was number 4 here, and they bought number 6, and they still wouldn't have as much revenue as Sony in terms of publishing revenue.

[Sr. Mints]

How long til Nintendo gets gobbled up--or do they? Never would I have guessed Activision would be on the other end, but here we are.

[bomber317]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

How long til Nintendo gets gobbled up--or do they? Never would I have guessed Activision would be on the other end, but here we are.

Nintendo seems so different from the rest of them.

Would that be a Sony acquisition?

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

How long til Nintendo gets gobbled up--or do they? Never would I have guessed Activision would be on the other end, but here we are.

I remember reading that Microsoft tried that back in the day were laughed out of the room.

https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-w...145746874.html

[photon]

Will they eventually try and make something like CoD Xbox exclusive?

That's a lot of sales to lose but there's a lot of people that would buy an Xbox to play CoD.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

How long til Nintendo gets gobbled up--or do they? Never would I have guessed Activision would be on the other end, but here we are.

Hardware makers is a whole different game - If Switch had bombed like the Wii U then it might be a conversation. But with Switch being a runaway success (the market leader, in fact) and Nintendo IP being more popular than ever, I would say it's extremely unlikely. Don't forget with Activision that, despite good sales numbers, that organization is a mess of controversy right now and investors are not happy at all.

Even then, I don't think there's a situation where Nintendo or Sony would even want to be outright purchased -- even if their hardware sales dried up, both have so much valuable IP and talented developers they would be extremely successful as independent third parties.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

Hardware makers is a whole different game - If Switch had bombed like the Wii U then it might be a conversation. But with Switch being a runaway success (the market leader, in fact) and Nintendo IP being more popular than ever, I would say it's extremely unlikely. Don't forget with Activision that, despite good sales numbers, that organization is a mess of controversy right now and investors are not happy at all.

Even then, I don't think there's a situation where Nintendo or Sony would even want to be outright purchased -- even if their hardware sales dried up, both have so much valuable IP and talented developers they would be extremely successful as independent third parties.

Plus when was the last time a Japanese company was bought by a US one? I don't think Nintendo would ever sell for simple pride alone

[Erick Estrada]

Holy smokes. Ouch!

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/sony-drops...001506944.html

[chemgear]

Man, gimmie my Steamdeck. Is Q1 done yet?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1484010884292698116



https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/c..._in_action_on/

[dino7c]

360 was kicking PS3's ass so Sony started giving away monthly games, Xbox had to match
PS4 was kicking Xbox One's ass so Microsoft created gamepass

I see a lot of high fiving over a company just buying studios (not putting money into their own studios) Lack of competition is a bad thing for the consumer no matter what piece of plastic you have

Sony will probably focus on square/japan their own studios now...not a win for gamers either way

I would lock in cheap memberships while you can for as long as you can

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Man, gimmie my Steamdeck. Is Q1 done yet?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1484010884292698116



https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/c..._in_action_on/

curious to see how well it runs

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by dino7c

360 was kicking PS3's ass so Sony started giving away monthly games, Xbox had to match
PS4 was kicking Xbox One's ass so Microsoft created gamepass

I see a lot of high fiving over a company just buying studios (not putting money into their own studios) Lack of competition is a bad thing for the consumer no matter what piece of plastic you have

Sony will probably focus on square/japan their own studios now...not a win for gamers either way

I would lock in cheap memberships while you can for as long as you can

I don't see how this reduces competition between Sony, MS and Nintendo.

Sony's big draw has always been the home grown studio exclusives, third person story driven games and Square/Japan.

Microsoft always was more of the multi-plat, FPS place to play in the console space.

Nintendo is the home of family centered, child friendly excellent games.

Perhaps with this acquisition, we see Blizzard release a new StarCraft game after Diablo 4 ships? or Activision come out with a new Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Marvel Ultimate Alliance?

There are a lot of interesting opportunities that can come from this. I am cautiously optimistic that this will be a good thing for gamers moving forward not because it creates lack of competition but because it could breathe life into studios that have been killing themselves from the inside out and have been lacking recently.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by dino7c

360 was kicking PS3's ass so Sony started giving away monthly games, Xbox had to match
PS4 was kicking Xbox One's ass so Microsoft created gamepass

I see a lot of high fiving over a company just buying studios (not putting money into their own studios) Lack of competition is a bad thing for the consumer no matter what piece of plastic you have

Sony will probably focus on square/japan their own studios now...not a win for gamers either way

I would lock in cheap memberships while you can for as long as you can

Yeah, I don't understand how people can watch the last decade of media mergers and conclude that less variety is a good thing.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah, I don't understand how people can watch the last decade of media mergers and conclude that less variety is a good thing.

There isn't less variety though. The games aren't going anywhere. At the very least they will be released on Xbox and PC. Sony fans for years have been trumpeting PlayStation exclusives as their big advantage and the moment Microsoft makes some moves to secure some top studios they start crying that exclusivity is bad. I personally believe exclusivity isn't a great thing but to me it seems like Microsoft has shifted their focus from hardware to software as they feel Game Pass is the future and they want to succeed off content and not hardware. I feel that one way or another, some games from these studios will be available to play on other platforms.

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

There isn't less variety though. The games aren't going anywhere. At the very least they will be released on Xbox and PC. Sony fans for years have been trumpeting PlayStation exclusives as their big advantage and the moment Microsoft makes some moves to secure some top studios they start crying that exclusivity is bad. I personally believe exclusivity isn't a great thing but to me it seems like Microsoft has shifted their focus from hardware to software as they feel Game Pass is the future and they want to succeed off content and not hardware. I feel that one way or another, some games from these studios will be available to play on other platforms.

I agree 100% with everything you have said, the bolded caught my eye after watching the XBOX doc.

Microsoft never wanted to be a hardware company, before the XBOX came out Bill Gates was asked about making hardware and he said they didn't want to do it. So it is just MS moving back to their roots but in the gaming sector.

As of now, it looks like CoD will be remain on PS for the foreseeable future until all pre-existing contracts have expired. Then I assume Warzone will remain multi-plat, with main CoD games eventually becoming exclusive. As for Blizzard games, I fully assume those games will be PC/XBOX exclusive.

[SuperMatt18]

Microsoft wants to be the Netflix of Gaming.

They will produce hardware because customers will always want to be able to buy a console to play the games on.

But with Gamepass and XCloud they aren't going to be as worried about hardware.

Subscription service revenue is what Microsoft wants here.

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Microsoft wants to be the Netflix of Gaming.

They will produce hardware because customers will always want to be able to buy a console to play the games on.

But with Gamepass and XCloud they aren't going to be as worried about hardware.

Subscription service revenue is what Microsoft wants here.

They also want King Digital Entertainment so they can make money in the mobile space, I think this is an overlooked part of the acquisition as well. King games are on far more peoples phones then either Activision or Blizzard's games on peoples PC/PSX/XBOX.

[Hemi-Cuda]

It's wrong to compare Microsoft to Disney and worrying about lack of competition in games. Movies\TV are a very different beast with a much higher barrier of entry than games, hell Hades was the overwhelming GOTY a couple of years ago with only a handful of people behind it. Either Microsoft helps fix Activision's issues and they release good games, or the good developers leave (whatever are left) to join different studios. The cycle of small studio making great indie games, growing enough to release bigger budget games, getting bought by one of the big players, then devs leaving to form another small studio has been ongoing for decades, I don't see how this changes anything

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Microsoft wants to be the Netflix of Gaming.

They will produce hardware because customers will always want to be able to buy a console to play the games on.

But with Gamepass and XCloud they aren't going to be as worried about hardware.

Subscription service revenue is what Microsoft wants here.

I'm pretty impressed with Cloud Gaming. I was wasting some time after work yesterday and saw that DIRT 5 was on Game Pass. It was a pretty huge install and I didn't have a ton of time to wait around for it (Gigabit internet connection or not), but I noticed it had a cloud gaming option, so what the hell.

For something like a racing game where you know that split-second reactions are the difference between making a corner and drifting into a wall, I was blown away how well the game played. Caveats: I have a really fast home connection, and high-end home wireless network, and I didn't have quite as good an experience using my laptop to play Forza Horizon 5 on Cloud Gaming over a crappier wireless network elsewhere. But if you've got the support of a good network behind you, damn, some pretty great results can be had.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

For something like a racing game where you know that split-second reactions are the difference between making a corner and drifting into a wall, I was blown away how well the game played. Caveats: I have a really fast home connection, and high-end home wireless network, and I didn't have quite as good an experience using my laptop to play Forza Horizon 5 on Cloud Gaming over a crappier wireless network elsewhere. But if you've got the support of a good network behind you, damn, some pretty great results can be had.

On a related note, I saw that the Kingdom Hearts games are coming to the Switch through some kind of cloud gaming service. I'm extremely skeptical it will be good on the Switch but who knows?