The Ars article is definitely better than the gamesindustry.biz one. Patent trolls for sure.
Also, what the fuck is that patent? They are describing a multi-cast over unicast, which is basically a for loop over the participants. Friggin ridiculous.
The whole piece is worth a read but to me this paragraph sums it all up:
“Who even knows what would please these people? They say they’re focusing their resources on bigger games, then they say they need smaller games. They say they love your games, then they shut your studio down. They make more money than they’ve ever made before, then they cut costs repeatedly, drastically, and cruelly. They buy more studios than they can manage, so the answer is not to use that aforementioned money to hire more (or perhaps better) managers, but to have fewer studios so management’s job can be easier.”
Microsoft has so many spinning plates up in the air right now and they have no idea how to handle them all. Eventually they’re all going to come crashing down and smash on the floor and it’s not going to be pretty.
I hesitate to attribute it to accidental mismanagement. Surely Microsoft has enough experience by now to be pretty good at acquiring firms they think of as competition only to find some excuse to shut them down.
That could work if these firms were somehow competitors, but these aren’t Sony-aligned studios they’re buying, these are studios that were releasing games on Xbox.
This is definitely a case of, “what makes stock line go up? New games, Big names, More stuff!” Then later, “uh oh, did that and stock price not going up. Layoffs mean less cost, now stock line go up again!”
Why are people so confused? Microsoft wanted monopoly by acquiring a bunch of companies, to consolidate their intellectual property and shaft it’s employees, the people who created the software in the first place.
Unfortunately, a lot of people blindly believe in systems and authorities. It doesn’t matter how many times they’re shown that companies give zero fucks and will light everything on fire at a whim, they think they’re rational actors who will do what’s responsible for their product, their customers, and their employees.
Clearly, that assumption isn’t remotely true, but they’d rather roll their eyes at anyone who doesn’t take it on faith than risk having their world view altered.
Hulst is CEO of the newly named Studio Business Group, which includes all of PlayStation’s first-party teams, plus covers the development of PlayStation IP onto other mediums, such as TV and film. Hulst was already head of PlayStation Studios. He was previously the co-founder of Horizon and Killzone developer Guerrilla Games, which was acquired by Sony in 2005.
Hideaki Nishino will lead the Platform Business Group, which includes console hardware, technology, accessories, PlayStation Network and third-party relations (covering major publishers and indie studios). He was already SVP of Platform Experiences. He’s been part of the Sony business since 2006, holding numerous roles at Sony Network Entertainment, Sony Corporation and SIE.
I want multiple streaming services that can stream almost everything so there’s competition, but still a valid reason not to just drop and switch constantly.
Multiple streaming services that all stream from the same database so the competition isn’t what licenses they hold, but how good their UI and back-end are. This only happened in the better timeline with Harambe though…
At least it’s not Kotaku but all this consolidation is far from good news. Heaven forbid reporters should get to stay independent, let alone being puppeted by a company that’s little more than a meme.
gamesindustry.biz
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