Amazon US August monthly bestsellers and general Amazon based discussion

[Nuvendil]

jason1637 said:

Nuvendil said:

I think that depends more on Sony than Microsoft.  MS is already burning exorbitant funds to do anything to keep up.  But Sony so far has been pretty merciless with taking away MS's advantage in the 3rd party space while being kinda easy going with the first party.  CoD was just the latest blow.  If they continue to pursue that aggressively  and drop major exclusives as they go, I think things will only get worse for MS after Halo 5.  And I think Sony will; 2016 is looking like it could be especially brutal.  I don't think they want MS just beaten for this gen, I think they want MS on the way out of the industry altogether.  

Yes but Microsoft are trying to stay relevant and branch out with QB, Scalebound etc but its not enough and they need to start getting third party deals like they used to.

Yeah, but the problem is they aren't number 1 anymore, not even close.  And the worse it gets, the more expensive and elusive third party deals and marketing rights will get.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if Fallout 4 is the last Bethesda Game Studios game to have an MS marketing agreement if this continues and that would be a huge blow now that CoD's deal is also gone. 

Their dire first exclusives situation is of their own making though.  They let their exclusives lineup and emphasis decay throughout the second half of Gen 7 while Sony and Nintendo shored theirs up (difference being Sony didn't take amnesia pills like Nintendo and completely forget how to market and build hype :P ).  And now MS is paying the price.  They're trying to get back in it and diversify, but that takes time and time is what they don't have too much of.  And it doesn't help that Sony is doing the same thing with games like Horizon, Deep Down, and Bloodborne.