MS CEO Nadella: We Will Consider Buying Even More Game Companies In Future

[EricHiggin]

FloatingWaffles said:

EricHiggin said:

I would assume most meant build upon what they already have and come up with exciting new IP. SNY mostly uses it's existing studio's to expand and make new IP. They don't just go buying new studio's every time they want to diversify their game portfolio. This is the problem some people will have. Making new games out of what already exists is one thing. Buying up multi platform games and keeping them to yourself is quite a bit different. Instead, as Nadella put's it, that's tough to do and a lot of work which could all be for nothing, so the easier and smarter thing to do, is just buy something that's already well established.

I don't think those people thought MS would go buying entire publishers and big multi franchise studios like that, potentially making them exclusive to XB. Even if they're not exclusive to XB, but hurting SNY in the long run, they won't be happy about that. For MS to brag about this, they aren't winning over any of those criticizers because they've solved one problem yet created another.

But the thing is people always compare it to what Sony has done when they aren't the same circumstances. Sony has had years for their first parties to be able to get to that level because they were able to make that investment a long time ago since Playstation is one of their biggest money makers atm, they need to make sure it succeeds. Whereas with Xbox we know for a fact this gen that Microsoft started looking at it as not as important and possibly even going on without it, as Nadella once said, and its budget was slashed heavily as a result of that which lead to them not really being able to do much until Phil finally got promoted in late 2017 and was able to convince them that Xbox was important and actually got the funding to make some real changes, which we started seeing in 2018 almost immediately. 

That's always been the main thing said for ages now, no matter what, is "where are the games". Even now, after everything Xbox has done, you still see people saying "but the games still aren't here", and at this point it just feels disingenuous and mostly like fanboy shit because that means there was literally no winning situation for Microsoft with some of these people. We've seen the games, we know they are coming, just because they aren't here at this very second doesn't change that, and ignoring the circumstances as to why they aren't here yet is a convenience argument. Xbox basically had 3 options:

1) Create EVERY new studio they would have from the ground up and expand their current ones, which would take even LONGER for the games to develop and come out as a result, and these people would just still keep complaining about the same thing regardless for years about how "there's still no games tho", despite knowing that it's because they made every new studio completely like they apparently asked for? 

2) Acquire some new studios that already have a culture and development cycle that can now do a lot better with more funding and security, decreasing the amount of waiting it will take for games to release while also expanding their first party much quicker, which is the same thing these people have been asking for but suddenly that's not the way they want it when it was REALISTICALLY the only way it could be done in a reasonable amount of time, the same thing they were previously complaining about how long it was taking?

3) Rush out games sooner in order to fill a barren lineup that would have released at lower quality as a result, then these people would just use the lower quality to fuel their console war shit while STILL trying to say there are no games. 

Tell me what choice Microsoft could have made here that wouldn't have had these people (mostly fanboys) ultimately complaining about the same thing; ie wHERe aRe tHE gAmES. And i've seen "but they should have done these things years ago so the games would be ready by now" plenty of times which also makes no sense, as I mentioned they literally COULDN'T do anything to change these things until recently. 

It's just like when these random armchair devs on forums who have never worked on a piece of hardware kept trying to dictate what the Switch could run third party wise, and the goalposts just kept moving and destroying everything they said to the point where all they can say now is "lol well the games look like shit tho" in the corner passive aggressively because they don't like looking dumb. That's what "well still no games rn tho" has become for Xbox because now that Microsoft is making moves that these people didn't expect they ever would be, it's the only thing they can resort to saying to try to downplay it all, especially when plenty of games actually have released already too. 

In terms of acquisitions it's no different from how you see the passive aggressive angry comments of "lol when you can't make it yourself just buy it", "gotta buy stuff to keep away from other platforms", etc as if it's some good dig at Microsoft when it literally just shows how clueless they are. It's like these people are pretending Microsoft walked into their offices, pointed a gun to their heads and performed a hostile takeover. Every single company Microsoft has acquired has agreed to be acquired, and i'm pretty sure I would trust these companies to know more about what the pros and cons of being acquired are for themselves compared to random forum posters who will never work there or in the industry whatsoever. 

So to sum it all up in a much more condensed manner, MS was screwed one way or another. Either they took the time to create new studio's and IP and deal with the nagging until they hopefully got to an acceptable first party position, or they buy up some established third party studio's to solve the problem here and now.

Well it's their decision, and they made it, but they were screwed one way or another. They were going to get the negativity thrown their way regardless, they just chose what would solve the immediate problem. Being upset or irritated that some people still aren't happy is useless. There was no getting around it.

MS hasn't done a good job focusing on first party overall. They started out with the right idea in terms of exclusives with OG XB, but quickly decided it wasn't something to focus too much on going forward. Now they're paying the price. That's how life works. The balance is maintained one way or another. MS didn't focus enough on exclusives over the gens, so now they're going to have to deal with the negativity until they fix it. There is no magic wand to instantly solve the problem at this point.

It's also important to note, the haters are going to hate. Plain and simple. These people can never be pleased, so just ignore them. The rest are basically offering constructive criticism and there's nothing wrong with that. You can either choose to solve that problem asap, or explain to them they are wrong based on the companies chosen direction, otherwise you're going to keep hearing the same criticisms.

Just because MS and ZeniMax came to a business agreement, doesn't mean it's automatically good for all gamers. It's certainly good for both companies, but whether that pans out to be for the good of all remains to be seen. Plenty of times money wins if it means screwing over some if not all customers. Maybe this will be the case, perhaps not. Time will tell. Everything needs time.