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Runa216 said:

You clearly haven't been paying attention. I've said repeatedly that acquiring studios is good for the company and should result in success and exclusives...but that in the 20-ish years of them doing it, the best they've done is Rare. you know, that company who used to be a mover and a shaker in the industry but is now mostly a joke and only had one 'hit' over the past 20 years...a hit that was critically panned and hated as a garbage game for almost a year after its launch due to lack of content. 

23 studios is good in theory. In practice it's done nothing for the company. It's done nothing to attract gamers. It's done nothing to appeal to me or many others.

It takes time to build and release a game.
In the last couple of years Microsoft has acquired:

* inXile Entertainment.
   - Wasteland.
   - Bards Tale.

* Obsidian Entertainment.
   - Outerworlds.
   - Pillars of Eternity.

* Ninja Theory.
   - Hellblade.
   - Devil may cry.

* Undead Labs.
   - State of Decay.

* Compulsion Games.
   - Contrast.
   - We Happy Few.

* Playground Games. (Although was a MS developer before purchase, we can kick this off this list.)
   - Forza Horizon.
   - Fable.

* Bethesda Softworks.
   - Elder Scrolls.
   - Fallout.
   - Starfield.

* id Software.
   - Doom.
   - Rage.
   - Quake.

* Arkane Studios.
   - Dishonored.
   - Arx Fatalis.

* Machine Games.
   - Wolfenstein.

* Tango Gameworks.
   - The Evil Within.

* Zenimax Online.
   - Elderscrolls Online.

* Roundhouse Studios. (Former devs of Prey.)
   - ?

* Alpha Dog Studios.
   - Mobile games.

**********

Older acquisitions before 2018 was:

* Mojang.
   - Minecraft.

* Twisted Pixel Games.
   - Splosion Man.
   - The Maw.

**********

I think Microsoft's spending spree (And there are more acquisitions coming!) definitely changes things significantly, the same criticisms that "Xbox has no games" that was leveraged during the Xbox 360/Xbox One era is probably not going to be applicable going forwards.

And if it ends up being a criticism, Microsoft will just likely buy more developers/publishers.

I don't think we can enter generation 9 with the same mindset it's going to be a carbon copy of prior generations, the acquisition list really does say differently.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

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We went from „Xbox has no games!“ to „Please Xbox, release your games on our console“ in 1 week.
Crazy.



Imagine not having GamePass on your console...

The more i think about it i just cant see bethesda games on ps5. The reason is that ms wants u to order game pass and they know that they make more money when someone stays on gane pass for 4 months than from single sale of TES6 copy from a store. Also by selling those games on ps5 sony would also gain money so it just dosent make any sense to give those games for ps5. Anyway they are available also on pc and cloud so it should not be issue.



Pyro as Bill said:
DirtyP2002 said:
When asked about if we'll be seeing any of the ZeniMax games on other consoles Phil says:

"...as the Xbox community, what they should feel is this is a huge investment in the experiences that they're going to have in the Xbox ecosystem. We want the Xbox ecosystem to be the absolutely best place to play, and we think game availability is absolutely a part of that."

Quote from Phil Dpencer straight from the yahoo interview

Anyone who thinks MS needs to put Bethesda games on PS5 to make back the money on their investment hasn't run the numbers imo.

~10m GP subscribers is enough to deliver a AAA game per month and break even.

~60m GP subscribers is enough to buy a Zenimax every year

Game pass will be bleeding for while, though. Giving away more and more games for a 15$ monthly fee is going to need a huge subscriber base to become profitable, especially when people are going to hop in and out to just snatch specific games here and there.



Pyro as Bill said:
DirtyP2002 said:
When asked about if we'll be seeing any of the ZeniMax games on other consoles Phil says:

"...as the Xbox community, what they should feel is this is a huge investment in the experiences that they're going to have in the Xbox ecosystem. We want the Xbox ecosystem to be the absolutely best place to play, and we think game availability is absolutely a part of that."

Quote from Phil Dpencer straight from the yahoo interview

Anyone who thinks MS needs to put Bethesda games on PS5 to make back the money on their investment hasn't run the numbers imo.

~10m GP subscribers is enough to deliver a AAA game per month and break even.

~60m GP subscribers is enough to buy a Zenimax every year

You haven't run the numbers correctly. You're assuming that 100% of the subscription money is profit for Microsoft it is not. They do not make $10.8 Billion profit a year from 60m subscribers, we can't assume it's even $7.5 billion.

The subscription from gamepass ultimate includes gold, thus that money is being used for where that goes (server maintenance, games with gold etc)

Gamepass ultimate includes third party titles, so more of that money is going to third party publishers.

Gamepass ultimate includes EA Play now, so money from it is going to that.

Gamepass ultimate includes XCloud, so money from it is going to running these cloud systems.

No 10m subscribers does not give microsoft $150 Million to spend on a AAA game and 60 million does not give them $10.8 billion to spend every year, not even close.

Spending $15 on gamepass utlimate does not give MS $15 to spend. That money goes to gold server maintenance, xcloud, third parties and now EA access too.

The actual money MS get from gamepass could be as little as $2 a month from subscribers or as high as $10 a month, we literally do not know because we don't know how much money they are giving to third parties or for ea access or running costs for xcloud or etc etc etc. But MS themselves have already said it's not super profitable for them at the moment.

Though one figure we do seem to have, MS gave Capcom $19 Million to get Devil May Cry 5 on gamepass. One third party game.

Last edited by Barkley - on 28 September 2020

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Barkley said:

You haven't run the numbers correctly. You're assuming that 100% of the subscription money is profit for Microsoft it is not. They do not make $10.8 Billion profit a year from 60m subscribers, we can't assume it's even $7.5 billion.

The subscription from gamepass ultimate includes gold, thus that money is being used for where that goes (server maintenance, games with gold etc)

Gamepass ultimate includes third party titles, so more of that money is going to third party publishers.

Gamepass ultimate includes EA Play now, so money from it is going to that.

Gamepass ultimate includes XCloud, so money from it is going to running these cloud systems.

No 10m subscribers does not give microsoft $150 Million to spend on a AAA game and 60 million does not give them $10.8 billion to spend every year, not even close.

Spending $15 on gamepass utlimate does not give MS $15 to spend. That money goes to gold server maintenance, xcloud, third parties and now EA access too.

The actual money MS get from gamepass could be as little as $2 a month from subscribers or as high as $10 a month, we literally do not know because we don't know how much money they are giving to third parties or for ea access or running costs for xcloud or etc etc etc. But MS themselves have already said it's not super profitable for them at the moment.

Though one figure we do seem to have, MS gave Capcom $19 Million to get Devil May Cry 5 on gamepass. One third party game.

I never mentioned profit. I was showing how easily it works, it's potential and why PS5 sales aren't needed. It's the reason why everybody is doing it. EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month.

The 3rd party deals are the only real cost. We know Epic, Valve and until recently Nintendo could all do free online and free games without passing on the cost to consumers and MS would be heavily invested in the cloud with or without XB anyway.

Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again? Dropping $20m for a DMC5 deal would be peanuts.

In regards to profit, 10m subs @$15 ($1.8bn/yr) is equivalent to selling 30m full price, digital, first party games every year ($60/$60).
Or 50m first party, physical games per year ($34/$60).
Or 65m physical, 3rd party games per year ($27/$60).
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-60186931fa6306b13009f5b3d2fe8e25.webp

That's a 1:6 ratio for a GP sub compared with a physical 3rd party sale on PS5. If someone only does a $1 sub for a month, that could still cost Sony a sale on the types of games people only play through once.

Even if MS is giving EA the full $30, an annual EA Play sub is still only equal to 2 months of GP. You get a 50% discount when you buy 12mth instead of 1mth.
What sort of discount do you think EA will give MS when they buy 10-20 million? How many games would EA have to sell to match the $300-500m(?) cheque MS has just written for them?

Doesn't surprise me that GP isn't profitable yet. It's possible that Nintendo's $20 sub is more profitable than GP but that's because the games on Nintendo's service have already been built and paid for.



Nov 2016 - NES outsells PS1 (JP)

Don't Play Stationary 4 ever. Switch!

Pyro as Bill said:
Barkley said:

You haven't run the numbers correctly. You're assuming that 100% of the subscription money is profit for Microsoft it is not. They do not make $10.8 Billion profit a year from 60m subscribers, we can't assume it's even $7.5 billion.

The subscription from gamepass ultimate includes gold, thus that money is being used for where that goes (server maintenance, games with gold etc)

Gamepass ultimate includes third party titles, so more of that money is going to third party publishers.

Gamepass ultimate includes EA Play now, so money from it is going to that.

Gamepass ultimate includes XCloud, so money from it is going to running these cloud systems.

No 10m subscribers does not give microsoft $150 Million to spend on a AAA game and 60 million does not give them $10.8 billion to spend every year, not even close.

Spending $15 on gamepass utlimate does not give MS $15 to spend. That money goes to gold server maintenance, xcloud, third parties and now EA access too.

The actual money MS get from gamepass could be as little as $2 a month from subscribers or as high as $10 a month, we literally do not know because we don't know how much money they are giving to third parties or for ea access or running costs for xcloud or etc etc etc. But MS themselves have already said it's not super profitable for them at the moment.

Though one figure we do seem to have, MS gave Capcom $19 Million to get Devil May Cry 5 on gamepass. One third party game.

I never mentioned profit. I was showing how easily it works, it's potential and why PS5 sales aren't needed. It's the reason why everybody is doing it. EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month.

The 3rd party deals are the only real cost. We know Epic, Valve and until recently Nintendo could all do free online and free games without passing on the cost to consumers and MS would be heavily invested in the cloud with or without XB anyway.

Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again?

"Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again?" - Yes because 100% of the money would be going to them.

"EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month." - EA charges $15/month for EA Play Pro, the sub that gives you access to all there games day one. Same as UPlay+.

You are talking about profit because you say 60m subscribers means they can buy Zenimax every year, they can't because all the money from those 60m subscribers wouldn't end up in there bank account for them to spend. You even mention profit next.

"In regards to profit, 10m subs @$15 ($1.8bn/yr) is equivalent to selling 30m full price, digital, first party games every year ($60/$60)."

In terms of revenue, not profit..... $1.8 billion in gamepass sales does not give them the same money as $1.8 billion in first party software sales



Dante9 said:
Pyro as Bill said:

Anyone who thinks MS needs to put Bethesda games on PS5 to make back the money on their investment hasn't run the numbers imo.

~10m GP subscribers is enough to deliver a AAA game per month and break even.

~60m GP subscribers is enough to buy a Zenimax every year

Game pass will be bleeding for while, though. Giving away more and more games for a 15$ monthly fee is going to need a huge subscriber base to become profitable, especially when people are going to hop in and out to just snatch specific games here and there.

The idea is that people buying on Windows, Steam and Xbox console make up the short term cash flow, picking up the slack as Game Pass grows. 



Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

Barkley said:
Pyro as Bill said:

I never mentioned profit. I was showing how easily it works, it's potential and why PS5 sales aren't needed. It's the reason why everybody is doing it. EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month.

The 3rd party deals are the only real cost. We know Epic, Valve and until recently Nintendo could all do free online and free games without passing on the cost to consumers and MS would be heavily invested in the cloud with or without XB anyway.

Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again?

"Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again?" - Yes because 100% of the money would be going to them.

$20m deals with 3rd parties would be peanuts. Once MS can deliver a good AAA game per month, they won't need 3rd party deals. 10m subscribers is enough to cover the cost of those 12 games per year.

"EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month." - EA charges $15/month for EA Play Pro, the sub that gives you access to all there games day one. Same as UPlay+.

That's one sub yes, the basic is $2.50/month ($30/yr)

You are talking about profit because you say 60m subscribers means they can buy Zenimax every year, they can't because all the money from those 60m subscribers wouldn't end up in there bank account for them to spend. You even mention profit next.

If Nintendo had 60m subscribers ($10b/yr) and 12 first party games cost them ~$2b/yr to make, could they afford the ~$7b needed to buy Zenimax?

"In regards to profit, 10m subs @$15 ($1.8bn/yr) is equivalent to selling 30m full price, digital, first party games every year ($60/$60)."

In terms of revenue, not profit..... $1.8 billion in gamepass sales does not give them the same money as $1.8 billion in first party software sales

It's a like for like comparison using the profit margins between digital rentals, digital sales and physical sales.



Nov 2016 - NES outsells PS1 (JP)

Don't Play Stationary 4 ever. Switch!

Barkley said:
Pyro as Bill said:

I never mentioned profit. I was showing how easily it works, it's potential and why PS5 sales aren't needed. It's the reason why everybody is doing it. EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month.

The 3rd party deals are the only real cost. We know Epic, Valve and until recently Nintendo could all do free online and free games without passing on the cost to consumers and MS would be heavily invested in the cloud with or without XB anyway.

Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again?

"Ignore 3rd parties and imagine Nintendo starts their own GP but only for their 1st party games. Can you see how profitable they would become with 25-50m subscribers even if nobody bought a physical game ever again?" - Yes because 100% of the money would be going to them.

"EA seems  more than happy with theirs at $2.50/month." - EA charges $15/month for EA Play Pro, the sub that gives you access to all there games day one. Same as UPlay+.

You are talking about profit because you say 60m subscribers means they can buy Zenimax every year, they can't because all the money from those 60m subscribers wouldn't end up in there bank account for them to spend. You even mention profit next.

"In regards to profit, 10m subs @$15 ($1.8bn/yr) is equivalent to selling 30m full price, digital, first party games every year ($60/$60)."

In terms of revenue, not profit..... $1.8 billion in gamepass sales does not give them the same money as $1.8 billion in first party software sales

It’s not our place to worry about things like this. MS has big boy accountants and teams that have a road map for GP growth and profit. It’s our job to play video games. 



Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles.