No way Microsoft let’s that happen. He’ll be forced out. The only reason Microsoft looked into this consolidation is because he was running the company value into the core of the earth.
There is currently a handful of devs doing the occational balance patch for SC2 otherwise the game is complelty dead from the developer side. On the MS side, AoE2 and other even older games are doing so much better.
And SS1 came out 29 years ago and just got a remaster. This isn’t a years-pissing context. Starcraft II was supported way long, and extensively. And like all good games, eventually the vast vast majority of players have moved on, and then the devs might move on, too.
The issue is not not players of devs, but the management that probably doesn’t think it’s profitable enough anymore. Yet, Microsoft manages to keep AoE2 going with an even smaller playerbase than SC2.
So MS taking over an abandon francise I care about sounds pretty sweet to me.
yes it does matter. These are businesses. They make money by selling things. You cannot compare one rereleasing the same game with minimal changes for new money to keep supporting an existing game without charging new money.
Isn't the expansion content between SCII's expansions and AoE2's expansions significantly different?
EDIT: the last one was 3 races (note: races are significantly less diverse in AoE2 vs in SC2) and 3 campaigns, each with 6 maps each
I feel like the Co-OP commanders they added fairly frequently would constitute roughly the same amount of race content. Campaign content not so much but the main campaign of each SC2 expansion is 26 stages, not including branching paths.
Not that much. Yes, AoE2 usually adds new factions, that won’t happen in StarCraft II. But introducing new units or reworking existing one is possible.
Adding singleplayer mission is pretty mich the same.
Also the Co-op mode of SC2 is quite popular and there is room to add a “new factions” there.
But do they need the games to be good? Activions sucks balls, but why would microsoft make the games good again and remove all the shit with microtransactions etc.?
I haven’t played it but I have read that Diablo 4 has been mostly well received. I guess there’s been a fiasco about one of the updates to it, but that’s not something unique to Blizzard and theoretically could be fixed in another update, no?
Me too, I know it’s not a popular opinion on here (for good reason) but this should put more pressure on PlayStation and drive competition there, make gsmepass more attractive and hopefully shake things up at Activision blizzard which could go either way, but worth the risk given how shitnthey currently are.
Curious to see the differences between the "real" plans and the leaked ones. Obviously, some of the dates are off since some of those games haven't been released yet and I have a hard time believing Elder Scrolls 6 is coming out next year. I could see some of those games being canceled, but it's hard to see plans around the midgen refresh changing up too much. It makes sense to have something to compete with the PS5 Pro that Sony is probably going to release next year and an all-digital Series X would be a good way to test the waters for going completely digital next generation.
A lot of the planned release dates got pushed back a year or two because of covid, so add a year to each date to get closer to when things are probably going to actually come out, I reckon.
I haven’t heard about any plans for PS5 Pro, but all that leaks have said what’s coming out is more like a Slim, since it’s going to be smaller, and not have a built-in disk drive. We’ll see, tho.
Not very. Negotiating and executing a deal of that size and complexity cross cutting major national, cultural, and business universes would be extremely difficult
Disc’s haven’t seemed to matter in a while. “Pop in this game to download 35GB of game data” “download complete, please download 12GB update before playing game” “update complete, do you have code for expansion pack?, if so please download these 3 7-9GB updates” *phew only a tenth of a TB later I am playing the game
Well that’s a horrible thought for the gaming industry. Nintendo and Valve… and if they don’t sell the companies, they will buy majority stock, presumably for seats on the board, and buy it anyway.
Can’t they keep their fucking greedy mitts to themselves. Conglomerate mega corp shit is really starting to fuck me off.
Steam controller is in its own league, but hell, even the PS and Nintendo controllers have supported gyro control through steam for quite awhile. The Xbox controller is finally advancing past 2003, and into the modern era.
I’m more talking about API level. There isn’t a proper standard operating-system-level interface in Windows for gyro, so 3rd party controllers don’t have it, so it’s not really a thing in Windows/Xbox-first games.
This will raise the floor so every gamepad will be expected to have gyro.
I’m sure they could have a partnership with them without having to purchase them. They could just fund some games for console exclusivity or something similar.
Yeah, look at how almost every game in the Yakuza become permanent residents on Game pass. One of the next game will even be on GP on day 1. They must be in a very good relationship
I hope it actually has gyros, so XBOX can finally get gyro aim. I don’t play on XBOX, but maybe support for that in XBOX controllers would make devs more inclined to support it. But the document only mentions an accelerometer.
Also, what’s up with controllers dropping face button colors? The PS5 did the same thing.
Also, what’s up with controllers dropping face button colors? The PS5 did the same thing.
From an aesthetic standpoint it just looks better^1 , and by now gaming consoles are so Mainstream that the additional accessibility the colors offer is not a good enough reason to keep them anymore.
^1 subjective, of course, but if you look at modern, big corporate design a lot of it is trending towards minimalism, very little use of color, etc.
Sure, buying Nintendo would be a win for Microsoft, but Nintendo would gain absolutely nothing from the deal. Sure, there are people like myself who loudly and rightfully complain about Nintendo's business practices, but at the end of the day, it took until THIS year for Playstation 5 to finally outsell them in a single year, and they're not even CLOSE to matching total unit sales, and Xbox is doing worse than THAT. Add to that Nintendo's software attach rate, and as much as I don't like HOW they do their business, they're WILDLY successful at it and making more money as a function of their costs than anyone else in the industry, so they can't be faulted for continuing to do what is working.
I honestly don't know what Phil Spencer thinks would be different than the previous meeting in another sales proposal today, especially given Microsoft's INCREDIBLY weakened industry market position compared to Nintendo's. Microsoft is only able to approach the idea from a position of power based on its market capitalization funded by its other businesses - in the gaming industry, Nintendo simply occupies the more advantageous market position.
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