It wouldn't have without XBSS either. Overall sales would still be ok but definitely not what they are now if all they had was last gen and XBSX.

XBSS + Game Pass is a no brainer for some that would have been a no go otherwise. Plus the pandemic made that the only next gen option for some.

Though the pandemic and shortages make the future trend a lil tough to estimate along with anymore new tricks MS may have up their sleeve.

Once the shortages are no longer a problem you'd also anticipate the world to be much more normal and open again. Will this help or hurt sales? Plenty of hardware available but not near as much draw for the casual average joe or potential newbie any longer. Could cause a bit of a hardware sale stagnation instead for all corps.

Ahhh yeah, I meant it as the topic states with games being taken away from the competition.

But you are right, takeover can also be done to disrupt the competition, absorb to bury their games and make your own titles.

I could care less if Xbox was in 10th place though. All I know is Microsoft releases their games on Steam so that's cool with me. I dont care about sales figures. I don't even subscribe to Gamepass either. Sorry. 

Bethesda was already on the 'wrong' track with Fallout 76, perhaps MS can put them back on the 'right' path. Or maybe we'll get TES6 online like RDR2 online :/

Anyway apart from lousy console centric menus and controls, you can play it on PC. I just started Tell me Why on Steam, baffled you can't select dialog choices with the mouse and mouse camera movement feels very off. Hold a button down, scroll the mouse wheel to highlight an option and click. wth is that lol. But it looks great all maxed, 144fps. FS2020 now calls it legacy interaction mode if you want to use the mouse as before the XBox release. Yet that's nothing new either, the witcher 2 already had lousy PC controls and menus.

Atm it's all wait and see, still impossible to get any hardware here for a decent price. PS5 might not even show up here until mid next year at this rate, no Series X here either. My gaming laptop will have to do for now.

Gbarsotini said: I'm a Playtation user, I've always been, since the first one, but I understand Microsoft's acquisitions, and even if in this case there's nothing concrete, it's sure that sooner or later another one of the same size, or even bigger than Zenimax, will happen. I think it will be Valve. Just a guess. But the only thing that bothers me is that if Microsoft, let's say hypothetically, has 35 studios, after several purchases, with several beloved franchises, they won't be able to fully support them all, some franchises will end up being extinct, or taking too long to launch. Other than that, if it happens and it gets to the point where several franchises that I like are on Xbox, I can solve it by buying a console, even if it's not my preference. Who knows, maybe I ended up liking it. But I dont like this transformation of gaming into Netflix. Maybe Im just old..

If MS buys Steam, that will certainly shake things up. Yet why on Earth would Valve ever sell to anyone? Valve is also valued about 4x more than Zenimax. Plus buying Valve would hardly bring any new games to GP. Valve hasn't exactly been making a lot of games in the past decade. The only big recent game was HL: Alyx and MS isn't even into VR.

I don't like gaming transforming into Netflix either, but at least gaming was always rooted in physical releases unlike tv. Stuff will continue to get physical releases next to streaming options. At least I hope so, while waiting for S5 of the Expanse to get a blu-ray release, sigh.

Gbarsotini said: I'm a Playtation user, I've always been, since the first one, but I understand Microsoft's acquisitions, and even if in this case there's nothing concrete, it's sure that sooner or later another one of the same size, or even bigger than Zenimax, will happen. I think it will be Valve. Just a guess. But the only thing that bothers me is that if Microsoft, let's say hypothetically, has 35 studios, after several purchases, with several beloved franchises, they won't be able to fully support them all, some franchises will end up being extinct, or taking too long to launch. Other than that, if it happens and it gets to the point where several franchises that I like are on Xbox, I can solve it by buying a console, even if it's not my preference. Who knows, maybe I ended up liking it. But I dont like this transformation of gaming into Netflix. Maybe Im just old..

Yeah, absolutely not. Valve is a private company and Gabe Newll won't sell. And there is no reason to.

On OP these so called leakers or 'insiders' are bs'ing most of the time and guessing on speculation. 

Same I'm just glad MS is back on Steam and PC in general. I haven't been on GP in a while but I will sign back up once I'm ready to work through some of my back log on there. Octopath, The rest of the Yakuza series, the new Forza, etc.

hinch said: Gbarsotini said: I'm a Playtation user, I've always been, since the first one, but I understand Microsoft's acquisitions, and even if in this case there's nothing concrete, it's sure that sooner or later another one of the same size, or even bigger than Zenimax, will happen. I think it will be Valve. Just a guess. But the only thing that bothers me is that if Microsoft, let's say hypothetically, has 35 studios, after several purchases, with several beloved franchises, they won't be able to fully support them all, some franchises will end up being extinct, or taking too long to launch. Other than that, if it happens and it gets to the point where several franchises that I like are on Xbox, I can solve it by buying a console, even if it's not my preference. Who knows, maybe I ended up liking it. But I dont like this transformation of gaming into Netflix. Maybe Im just old.. Yeah, absolutely not. Valve is a private company and Gabe Newll won't sell. And there is no reason to. On OP these so called leakers or 'insiders' are bs'ing most of the time and guessing on speculation.

So weird to suggest as a first post, that MS would buy Valve...

hinch said: Gbarsotini said: I'm a Playtation user, I've always been, since the first one, but I understand Microsoft's acquisitions, and even if in this case there's nothing concrete, it's sure that sooner or later another one of the same size, or even bigger than Zenimax, will happen. I think it will be Valve. Just a guess. But the only thing that bothers me is that if Microsoft, let's say hypothetically, has 35 studios, after several purchases, with several beloved franchises, they won't be able to fully support them all, some franchises will end up being extinct, or taking too long to launch. Other than that, if it happens and it gets to the point where several franchises that I like are on Xbox, I can solve it by buying a console, even if it's not my preference. Who knows, maybe I ended up liking it. But I dont like this transformation of gaming into Netflix. Maybe Im just old.. Yeah, absolutely not. Valve is a private company and Gabe Newll won't sell. And there is no reason to. On OP these so called leakers or 'insiders' are bs'ing most of the time and guessing on speculation.

Gabe could change his mind. He could wake up one day and be like, "you know what, I'm tired, and I'm sick of dealing with all this. People constantly trolling me for third games in series. People begging for an actual Half-Life game and not some VR experiment. I'm done. I'll collect my billions from the highest bidder and buy an island. Let's see, who can give me the most money... oh yeah Microsoft, cool!"

That's the thing with privately owned companies vs. public ones. The public ones you can see takeovers coming from a mile away and there is usually a big build up to it, and there are opportunities for shareholders to be resistant to it, or for the public outcry to derail it. But a private company could be gone literally the next day based on the whim of the owner and no one could do anything or even predict it was coming.