Microsoft is resisting efforts to make the contents of the email public

SS: Microsoft wants total control over console and PC gaming.

  • redcalcium@c.calciumlabs.comEnglish
    24·
    2 years ago

    If game companies would stop consolidating themselves into bigger and bigger corporations, that would be great. The bigger the company, the more profits they need in order to sustain themselves at their size. There is only so much you can profit from games without turning them into microtransaction mess. There must be a sweet spot for game company size so they’re able to produce AAA games without needing to add microtransaction to make the game profitable to pay their employees.

    • aksdb@feddit.deEnglish
      9·
      2 years ago

      It would also be great if game companies stopped trying to isolate themselves. Stop building your own launchers and shops and stop resisting GeForce Now and similar services.

  • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
    16·
    2 years ago

    You only have to look at Microsoft’s squandered purchase of Rare to really understand where their motives lie.

    • SpacemanspliffEnglish
      8·
      2 years ago

      Honestly I feel like that was the point it became obvious. That was just a fuck you.

  • themizarkshow@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    They did a real good job with Redfall after the last purchase. And Starfield keeps getting delayed… gotta release good exclusives to eliminate anybody lol

    • thunderbird32@fedia.io
      2·
      2 years ago

      And Starfield keeps getting delayed

      To be fair to Microsoft, that was because (like most Bethesda games) it was a complete mess and needed a lot more QA work. I’d rather it get delayed rather than released broken.

    • NuPNuA@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      On the other hand, Psychonauts 2 was great, Pentiment was great, Hi-Fi Rush was great.

  • cyd@vlemmy.netEnglish
    8·
    2 years ago

    That’s Microsoft’s playbook. If you don’t offer a better product than your competitor, pull out every dirty trick in the book to undermine them.

  • hybrid havoc@beehaw.orgEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    From the link:

    Yes, but: A Microsoft representative told Axios that the company cannot legally share the email’s contents, but that it was sent by Booty in 2019.

    That would mean that whatever Booty may have said about Xbox trying to beat PlayStation preceded the company’s early 2022 bid to buy Activision Blizzard.

  • Kasion@lemmy.mackners.comEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    Still waiting for the ground breaking next gen game bursting with creativity released from one of these Microsoft acquisitions.

      • sandriver@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        I haven’t followed the hype cycle but is it looking like it’s going to be anything more than Daggerfall in space? Which is a great core concept, but it’s not exactly “bursting with creativity”.

        • Naatan@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          Daggerfall itself was a level of creativity we haven’t seen in the gaming industry since. Obviously they aren’t just reskinning that game cause it’s OLD. To say that Starfield is not creative because it is “just” copying Daggerfall sounds a little tonedeaf.

          • sandriver@beehaw.orgEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            It was a genuine question, because I’m honestly not keyed in to the marketing buzz, and I’m generally disinterested in big publisher marketing. Also, “Daggerfall in space” wasn’t a dig; I absolutely love No Man’s Sky, but that game to me, in terms of ethos and mechanics, is Space Daggerfall in all the best ways.

            I should also stipulate, I’d say “creativity” to me means exceptional aesthetic qualities, writing, or mechanical novelty. There are many very good and fun games that I wouldn’t call “bursting with creativity”. I love Skyrim, it’s an incredibly entertaining, beautiful, and compelling game; but it was a step back for the series in terms of innovating the genre the way Daggerfall and Morrowind did.

            But yeah, to be perfectly honest, with small developers who treat their workers well like Motion Twin, Supergiant, or Hello Games, I can’t really get invested in any Bethesda games beyond being kind of curious.

            • Naatan@beehaw.orgEnglish
              2·
              2 years ago

              That’s totally fair, apologies if I came across a bit blunt. And to be fair: the jury is definitely out on whether this game is “bursting with creativity”. My point was just that it being heavily influenced by Daggerfall does not imply a lack of creativity, if anything quite the opposite. That said this is Bethesda and their track record for creativity is definitely on a downward spiral…

  • sub_o@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    Matt Booty made a stupid booty mistake. Also, every big company wants a monopoly.

    • Barry Zuckerkorn@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      In my experience, any sentence submitted in an appeal that starts with “The court also failed to consider” is usually a long shot. Especially if it’s about stuff like whether certain evidence should be considered or published, because appellate courts almost never modify the decisions of the trial courts.

  • CaffinatedOne@kbin.social
    4·
    2 years ago

    Yes, Microsoft would like to dominate the console market and leverage that to push people into the Microsoft PC ecosystem.

    Since they’ve done poorly with the “make a better console with games people want” strategy, they’ve pivoted to their strength, which is a huge pile of money that they can deploy to try and get control of the content which Sony can’t match.

    They’ll say what they need to in order to get this approved, but long term they’ll absolutely leverage their ownership to achieve their goals.

    • mPony@kbin.social
      3·
      2 years ago

      Yes and they also want to dominate the “absolutely everything else” market ; if not now, eventually. If they could just own all the world’s data and all the worlds operating systems and all the world’s gaming platforms and all the world’s everything-else, that would be just ducky, I’m sure.

  • Goronmon@kbin.social
    3·
    2 years ago

    Without the text of the email how does this news mean anything other than “one side of a legal battle believes they are in the right”?

    And aside from the fact that I’m not sure how buying Activision would “eliminate” any gaming platform, how much does that differ from the stance any business has? Does anyone believe that Sony is not out to “eliminate” Microsoft, to borrow the term?

    • OfficialThunderbolt@beehaw.org
      1·
      2 years ago

      Because Activision is the single most important third-party game maker in the world outside of Japan. You wouldn’t believe how many tens of millions of people buy PlayStations only to play CoD to the exclusion of everything else. If Microsoft gets CoD as an exclusive, then Sony will lose half their audience outside of Japan.

      And Microsoft is a two-bit company that can’t stand one bit of competition. Sony can’t eliminate Microsoft; a lot of their software was made for Windows.

  • monk@kbin.social
    3·
    2 years ago

    I see we’ve already got to the comment without reading the article phase of the fediverse 😞

    Its an entirely redacted email…

  • argv_minus_one@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    The Netscape playbook, I see.

    I look forward to all the nothing that will happen to Microsoft as punishment for this blatantly unlawful behavior.