Another massive first party acquisition. Looks like Xbox 1 multiplats will have vastly superior animation, destruction, cloth and water physics.



AMD's on lock now.

Well said.

Speculation is fun, which is such a sad sight on here nowadays. Everyone is concerned only about facts when speculation is the most fun part of interaction. If you were to look at the current offering from MS, obviously, they are not abandoning games. But there is a question as to where they are going from here.

We know they are working on PC to device streaming. We know they are integrating xbox with PC through windows 10. We know they are setting up a platform similar to STEAM. We know they are working on cloud. We know now, that they are buying engines.

When you look at this, you could say, microsoft seems to be working a lot on the infrastructure of video game production. They are building a platform, a distribution network, frameworks for game development. We know they wanted to use azure in every gamestop as their new OS. We know they want to have syndicated television shows and networks. There were rumors about talking to cable providers, and the xb1 even has a passthrough for hdmi.

I mean, sure, if you look at the games only, you'd be inclined to think they aren't going anywhere. But when you look at the big picture, with the release of some devs and a studio, and the consolidation of black tusk into only making gears (which they previously annoucned BT would be like the santa monica of MS - big name features and involvement with every other studio's games). It really starts to look like MS is gearing up into become a full content manager rather than content creator. Sure, I bet Coalition and 343 and other studios will still make their headliner games. But the question is really, 'what direction are they headed in'. Certainly, there has been nothing lately pointing to MS making MORE games. Almost all the news has been infrastructure related, or platform development (their glasses thing).

Now that you mention it...AMD does look like it would be the next in the sequence.

I guess the use of the tool on competing platforms will greatly diminish, especially if they were to tamper with its performance when it's running on them.

This would not be un-seen, they did it back in the days with Windows 3.X when it raon on non MS owned operating systems it would somehow "crash", it was later found that they had some lines of code detecting the competing versions of DOS and calling some BS error message.

They had similar strategies when competing against Netscape for browser dominance in the late 90s early 2000s.

There may be other examples, but this is what I am aware of.

So if that was to be true for Havoc in some way, it would not "give a boost" to the XB1 over the PS4, but it could very well slow down the PS4 enough for the systems to perform about the same in some circumstances.... which makes no technical sense, but the bean counters will love it because it will let the marketing people scream "parity"!! yay!

Obviously this could not be the case and all will be fine.

In case people here don't know, competitors use their rivals tools almost ALL THE TIME so this means nothing for the Sony developers ...

When you put it that way, It looks like Microsoft is preparing for a future without gaming consoles. I'm pretty sure that Nintendo and Sony are also making their plans for the next 10 , 20 years. But that doesn't mean that Microsoft will stop creating content as well. It's just not their top priority for the moment, I suppose.  

You guys are crazy if you can't see what they're trying to do...make money from everywhere basically.if a game sells wether it be xbox or not , they're looking to get their cut and it will be the same when they acquire amd...when a console sells wether its xbox or not they'll be getting their cut.

Its abit like how they make more money of android than their own windows mobile.patents my friends.

Also xbox will stick around , as its about the most "hip,cool" (whatever you want to call it) brand they own.

Simples

Well said yourself.

I just feel it ... I don't know what it is or really how to describe it. Something is happening and I'm just trying to make sense of it. I don't think anyone expected those bundles to be as laclustre as they were, and don't think that's a contraversial thing to say, or even subjective. It's as if they're not trying ... or are waiting for something. Have they inflated the prices so that if Sony drop their price they can match it and look like they've dropped the price too? Would that fool enough people? Those bundles certainly look like their looking for a new audience so perhaps MS are counting on new buyer naivity. This isn't an opinion set in concrete of course, but then you already undertood that.

What I feel is a slow dissolvement of XB1 as a brand and a general pulling towards PC under the Microsoft brand.

The bundles are not lackluster as they will become even cheaper in late November.   Sony is charging $450 for a ps4, cod, and an extra 500GB.  They are overcharging the hell out of consumers compared to Microsoft. 

What kind of bundle were you expecting from MS?  Halo 5 and the console for $300? gtfo.  The Wii U is STILL $300 retail. 

Microsoft will get big bucks out of this one! Good buy.