Uh, what? The PSone was the 4th console released that gen IIRC and two others released before it that used CD’s. And BluRay would have been adopted either way. That’s as silly as me saying video game consoles would still be using 56k if it wasn’t for Xbox. It’s silly for the same reasons your comment is. One, natural progression of technology would have ensured broadband came around anyway. And secondly, Xbox wasn’t first. 

You’re missing the point regarding revenue. Someone made a silly comment about investors being unhappy with “third place”. I simply pointed out that investors are happy if they are making money, they don’t play console warz.

Also, I'll defend the US a little, this isn't only a US thing, Embracer Group is the biggest culprit of this from a European standpoint, they're basically gobbling up the entire European market and have now started to expand into America, they have 80 frigging studios and they're in talks with 20+ more at minimum. They became the biggest publisher in terms of studios in the span of a few years of acquisitions and are now worth more than even Ubisoft.

Heck an Embracer Group investor predicted that they will be hitting Activision's market cap in the near future, they sure as sh*t won't slow down their acquisitions anytime soon, if anything they'll go bigger if that is their goal. Then there's Tencent, a Chinese company, who does a lot of acquisitions, company mergers have happened in the past across the entire world, from America to Japan.

As for Xbox, they ain't nowhere near the biggest publisher in terms of market share, studio numbers, employee count, etc. So I don't see any measure which puts them anywhere near to being a monopoly yet, if they do get close, I will call them out, I don't want a monopoly but the gaming industry is a lot bigger than some of you give it credit for, there's still multiple giant publishers, there's still hundreds of indie studios. If you know where to look you will see new AAA studios being formed all the time by former veterans of other studios; I can think of multiple from the top of my head, the former Bungie CEO alone has established 3 new AAA studios, the Arkane co-founder established a new studio, Aspyr is former Bioware veterans and multiple other studios have been former by Bioware veterans, from AA-AAA, etc. etc.

Studio is Acquired > People Leave > They Set Up New Studios > Studio is Acquired > People Leave > Etc. - Has been happening for years now.

Only thing I feel sorry for is some folk having their IPs taken away from their platform of choice if they can't afford a 2nd console or PC. If you can though, I'm sorry, Lol. Just get one if it bothers you that much? I would depending on what IP it is. If Sony acquires a studio I liked, ah that would suck but I would move on, I'd accept it, Microsoft is doing acquiring, Sony is moneyhatting, Sony is acquiring, they're doing whatever makes most sense for their business and ensures they remain competitive.

Folk were complaining for years that Xbox had nothing and mocking them, and now when they try to remedy that it's just "not like that" but the alternative given of building everything from the ground up or only acquiring close partners (which lets be honest, Xbox didn't have many significant ones after the Xbox One era) would have taken years to see any effect, would have ensured they stayed dead for this generation.

I think to Microsoft it would have been either that or close shop, I selfishly want Xbox to stay alive, I don't want Playstation to die either, the competition is good. All 3 are doing great and focusing on their own thing for the most part, Sony will be fine without Zenimax, in fact I still predict they win this generation pretty easily.

Take-Two rumour is nonsense, this thread is panicking over an very weak rumour, Lol.

Sony single-handedly convinced most Japanese publishers, the biggest gaming pubs at the time, to go all in on CD saving an entire generation wasted on cartridges.

Blu-Ray was single-handedly spearheaded by Sony in gaming, no other platform holder did so.

We don't even need to get into how much Sony expanded console gaming globally, from EU to ME.

Investors don't care Xbox is in third place, sure, but they will care if a lot of money is being spent on a venture that is fruitless. Afaik, from the recent court hearings, its questionable how much if any money Xbox is making. We know Xbox hardware is at a loss and we know Gamepass is at a loss.

So much of this post is just completely wrong

1. Embracer Group is not making multi-billion dollar purchases. They were a small pub now growing to be a big one of the likes of Ubisoft, SE etc. They make $0.5B in revenue. To compare them to MS is hilarious.
2. Tencent is mainly in the mobile space. They're only real foray into high end gaming is backing Epic. Epic really have no business model (90% of the money comes from Fortnite which is seriously declining.). Their EGS platform is burning cash with very little marketshare gain.
3. Anti-trust is not just about being defined as a monopoly but also anti-competitive behaviors. Predatory pricing, the act of crating business models that undercut everyone and burn cash such that only a firm with lots of cash can compete, is just that. Gamepass right now is burning cash. It remains to be seen if it is a viable business model.
4. MS had 4 generations, a ton of cash and some of the best studios in the business to get a decent first party. Bungie, Epic, Bullfrog, Rare could have been their Naughty Dog, Insomniac, SM and GG. However, unlike Sony, they have shown time and time again unable to foster such relationships and instead destroyed nearly all of those relationships. So much of Rare left (Media Molecule was formed by exRare), Bungie left and is now multi-billion dollar company, Epic went on to make the one of the most successful games of all time, and Bullfrog is dead. This is entirely MS's fault and any other competitor would have been bankrupted.
5. The fact that even after buying 12 studios MS was still getting dominated says a lot. Their Bethesda acquisition marks the first time since Halo, that they have a new 10million+ selling IP, and it was a third party IP bought out.

Of course the T2 rumour is nonsense. Xbox twitter users or gaming journalists barely know how to read financials, let alone be privy to sensitive financial information that could have legal ramifications lol

So much of this post is just completely wrong

1. Embracer Group is not making multi-billion dollar purchases. They were a small pub now growing to be a big one of the likes of Ubisoft, SE etc. They make $0.5B in revenue. To compare them to MS is hilarious.
2. Tencent is mainly in the mobile space. They're only real foray into high end gaming is backing Epic. Epic really have no business model (90% of the money comes from Fortnite which is seriously declining.). Their EGS platform is burning cash with very little marketshare gain.
3. Anti-trust is not just about being defined as a monopoly but also anti-competitive behaviors. Predatory pricing, the act of crating business models that undercut everyone and burn cash such that only a firm with lots of cash can compete, is just that. Gamepass right now is burning cash. It remains to be seen if it is a viable business model.
4. MS had 4 generations, a ton of cash and some of the best studios in the business to get a decent first party. Bungie, Epic, Bullfrog, Rare could have been their Naughty Dog, Insomniac, SM and GG. However, unlike Sony, they have shown time and time again unable to foster such relationships and instead destroyed nearly all of those relationships. So much of Rare left (Media Molecule was formed by exRare), Bungie left and is now multi-billion dollar company, Epic went on to make the one of the most successful games of all time, and Bullfrog is dead. This is entirely MS's fault and any other competitor would have been bankrupted.
5. The fact that even after buying 12 studios MS was still getting dominated says a lot. Their Bethesda acquisition marks the first time since Halo, that they have a new 10million+ selling IP, and it was a third party IP bought out.

Of course the T2 rumour is nonsense. Xbox twitter users or gaming journalists barely know how to read financials, let alone be privy to sensitive financial information that could have legal ramifications lol

You know what would be even better? If Microsoft used their existing resources and teams to make games instead of just buying existing companies and accumulating IP. As it stands, they have all the money in the world and all the buying power you could ask for, yet it appears they are terrible at managing their studios. If they were better at management, we'd have seen some new games and new IPs by now.

Sony single-handedly convinced most Japanese publishers, the biggest gaming pubs at the time, to go all in on CD saving an entire generation wasted on cartridges.

Blu-Ray was single-handedly spearheaded by Sony in gaming, no other platform holder did so.

We don't even need to get into how much Sony expanded console gaming globally, from EU to ME.

Investors don't care Xbox is in third place, sure, but they will care if a lot of money is being spent on a venture that is fruitless. Afaik, from the recent court hearings, its questionable how much if any money Xbox is making. We know Xbox hardware is at a loss and we know Gamepass is at a loss.

So much of this post is just completely wrong

1. Embracer Group is not making multi-billion dollar purchases. They were a small pub now growing to be a big one of the likes of Ubisoft, SE etc. They make $0.5B in revenue. To compare them to MS is hilarious.
2. Tencent is mainly in the mobile space. They're only real foray into high end gaming is backing Epic. Epic really have no business model (90% of the money comes from Fortnite which is seriously declining.). Their EGS platform is burning cash with very little marketshare gain.
3. Anti-trust is not just about being defined as a monopoly but also anti-competitive behaviors. Predatory pricing, the act of crating business models that undercut everyone and burn cash such that only a firm with lots of cash can compete, is just that. Gamepass right now is burning cash. It remains to be seen if it is a viable business model.
4. MS had 4 generations, a ton of cash and some of the best studios in the business to get a decent first party. Bungie, Epic, Bullfrog, Rare could have been their Naughty Dog, Insomniac, SM and GG. However, unlike Sony, they have shown time and time again unable to foster such relationships and instead destroyed nearly all of those relationships. So much of Rare left (Media Molecule was formed by exRare), Bungie left and is now multi-billion dollar company, Epic went on to make the one of the most successful games of all time, and Bullfrog is dead. This is entirely MS's fault and any other competitor would have been bankrupted.
5. The fact that even after buying 12 studios MS was still getting dominated says a lot. Their Bethesda acquisition marks the first time since Halo, that they have a new 10million+ selling IP, and it was a third party IP bought out.

Of course the T2 rumour is nonsense. Xbox twitter users or gaming journalists barely know how to read financials, let alone be privy to sensitive financial information that could have legal ramifications lol

seeing as in feb this year alone they set aside a 1.3b deal for gearbox i cant even be bothered to respond towards the rest of this nonsense

Tencent and Embracer have both made investments in large studios so wrong already. 

Stop it. There is nothing anti-trust about what MS is doing. Xbox has 23 studios while Sony has 15. If Sony bought Square Enix, I better see you complaining about the same thing, especially with them already dominating the market. But I have a feeling that wouldn't happen. 

Game Pass is still seeing growing sub numbers. Last numbers officially announced was 18 mill in Jan, then 23 million in April so they are probably close to 26-27M now. As long as subs keep growing, it is a viable options. 

The old, MS didn't do what Sony did so they are doomed, post. Good stuff. We go from, Xbox was a total failure for 4 gens, even though their 4th just started, then MS isn't playing fair, then back to Xbox is still losing, but if they start doing good it's because they cheated. You mean Lionhead? Bullfrog hasn't been around since the 90s. What a weird way to talk about them. Unfortunately, things don't always pan out great for studios. I'm sure Evolution studios would agree. At least Fable gets to live on with Playground. Rare's doing well now with their most successful game to date and a new IP in the works. Good for Epic and Bungie. I would very much hope they would find success after Halo and Gears. 

When did they start purchasing these studios again? 2018, so 3 years ago at the latest, while some were finishing up games like Wasteland 3 and The Outer Worlds. Seems premature to be expecting huge sales when barely any of these studios have released a new game under Xbox yet minus a couple of smaller titles and Psychonauts 2(multiplatform). 

Again, Sony was the third console in that generation to come out with CD’s as the media type. Not even counting stuff that came out before that including add ons like the Sega CD. And Sony persuaded big publishers to come to PSone with money, nothing else. They paid for exclusives and also offered publishers deals on licensing costs that cost Sony money but lead to less support for Sega and Nintendo and more sales for PSone. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Like I said, all of these companies spend money to make money. 

Same shit with BluRay. Expanded storage was coming. Sony utilized it in PS3 with no real benefits to the games but either way the change was coming. Do you honestly believe that without Sony shoehorning BluRay into the PS3 that we’d have seen PS4 and Xbone using CDs or carts or something? 😂😂😂

Game industry was growing and will continue to grow. Biggest growth hasn’t even been related to Sony. And there’s no point in discussing financials because no one has any proof that MS is losing money on Xbox 🤷‍♂️

1. They weren't, at the start, but as they've continued to grow, they have acquired bigger companies and will continue to acquire bigger if you've actually paid attention to them. They were nothing but THQ Nordic only a few years ago and barely worth $200m then they went and acquired Koch Media (owners of Deep Silver), one of the biggest European publishers, while not a billion dollar company, that's still pretty damn significant, then they recently acquired Gearbox for $1.3bn and have made clear to their investors that they are in talks with dozens of companies, big and small.

That has expanded them from a ~$200m market cap company to $12bn one in a short amount of time, they regularly make multi-hundred million dollar acquisitions now, most recent one being a bulk acquisition of studios only back in August for something around $200m-$300m. They are now, last I checked, bigger than Ubisoft in terms of market cap and definitely the largest publisher in the world in terms of studio count by a significant margin and they achieved that in a pretty short amount of time and show no signs of slowing down.

Don't know what you're talking about revenue for, I wasn't comparing them to Microsoft in that sense, I was pointing out that company acquisitions happen all around the world and it isn't just a US thing, Embracer as I pointed out is gobbling up the majority of the European dev scene.

2. Lol What? Tencent has ownership shares in multiple companies, yes some mobile, quite a lot of PC/Console developers too though, Epic isn't the only thing, lets take a look.

• Riot Games - Owned - Best known for League of Legends and Valorant
• Fumcon - Owned - Best known for Conan Exiles
• Leyou - Owned - Published Acquired for $1.5bn - By Extension Owns - Digital Extremes (Best known for Warframe), Splash Damage (Console Support Studio), Certain Affinity (Console Support Studio), Athlon Games (Successor to Telltale Games).
• Sharkmob - Owned - Best known for Bloodhunt
• Supercell - Owned - Mobile Studio
• Sumo Group - Owned - Acquired for $1.3bn - One of the largest UK developers in the industry.
• Grinding Gear Games - Owned - Best known for Path of Exile
• Epic Games - Minority Ownership - Best known for Unreal Engine and Fortnite.

They also own minority but not insignificant ownership shares in Fatshark, Dontnod, Marvelous and Bluehole along with minority and kind of insignificant shares in Frontier, Activision, Ubisoft, Paradox, Remedy, Platinum Games.

They also own undisclosed majority stakes in Miniclip, Klei Entertainment (Don't Starve), Yager (Spec Ops), Bohemia (DayZ)

So I really don't know where your characterisation of Tencent's only real foray into high end gaming being in Epic comes from, the majority of what I listed above are mainly either PC or Console developers, Lol. Also Epic will be fine as long as they have Fortnite and Unreal Engine, folk say Fortnite is declining all the time, EGS burning cash is intentional but if it fails, maybe we'll see Tencent just acquire them outright 😉

3. Bull, Lol. Microsoft ain't doing any predatory pricing and Sony can compete just fine with them, as can Nintendo, Microsoft ain't gonna get slapped with an anti-trust cause Game Pass is too good of a deal and Sony can't compete 😂 Sony is still utterly dominating Xbox, as you yourself said.

4. They never owned Epic or Bullfrog, Lol. Good for Bungie, I'm happy for them. Other companies have closed studios too and/or lost studios and have not been bankrupted either. Nobody here is denying that Microsoft made a lot of mistakes in the past though? They did have both good times and bad, now Xbox is under mostly new leadership and it remains to be seen how they work but so far they're doing the right things in terms of treating their studios right.

5. Okay? Lol.

You’re claiming a generation would have been cartridge if not for Sony when Sony was literally the third console out that gen to not use cartridge. Like what are you even talking about? This doesn’t even take any real knowledge to dispel, just look at release dates.

Losing money on hardware at launch is normal and not even close to the point. I’ll give you a C+ for effort though.

Nope. I said multi-billion for a reason.

Sony buying SE now, great. Sony buying SE in a world where MS did not buy Bethesda. Anti-competitive practice at worst, escalating and consolidation at best. Its too late now. We're in escalation mode.

lmao at making numbers up. GP is at 18M last time we heard. Stick to official numbers.

Lionhead came from Bullfrog, just to give an indication of the talent there. Lmao at comparing Bungie, Epic, Bullfrog or Rare with Evolution.

Still avoids the clear point that despite all those studio acqu. MS felt the need to buy Bethesda. Clearly MS is not confident in what was its current stable.