[HN Gopher] Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal
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Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal
Author : daveaiello
Score : 225 points
Date : 2022-01-31 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| jdalgetty wrote:
| So it's race to buy up all the publishers?
| disambiguation wrote:
| yes, MS wants to create the "netflix of games"
| zerocrates wrote:
| Bungie isn't really a publisher... I guess they maybe self-
| publish Destiny 2 now?
|
| Microsoft's last 2 big acquisitions have been publishers with
| many underlying studios all included... I don't know that I can
| think of Sony really ever doing that; they've mostly bought up
| individual studios. Of course they're not nearly as big as
| Microsoft is.
| tantalor wrote:
| > they maybe self-publish Destiny 2 now
|
| Yes since 2019
|
| https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/47569
| HWR_14 wrote:
| In the same way Disney, Amazon, NBC and HBO (now ATT time
| warner) are trying to buy all the back catalogs if content for
| their streaming services.
|
| Being able to play any game from the past (x publishers only)
| on your Xbox/ps for a monthly fee is a giant fight brewing.
| syshum wrote:
| >>now ATT time warner
|
| You mean Warner Bros. Discovery, since ATT is spinning off
| the Media and merging with Discovery to from the new company
| Warner Bros. Discovery
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Oligopolize _all_ the markets!
| efficax wrote:
| Sony is about to sunset Playstation Plus and Now and merge them
| into a service that will try to compete with Xbox Gamepass, and
| to do that you need games.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| Should I max out my PS Plus subscription because it's about
| to get converted to something else at a favorable value
| ratio?
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Its not just to compete with Gamepass, it's moving to where
| the customer is. Over the next 10 years, where is the growth
| in gaming going to come from? Hint: not selling more 400 watt
| white and black boxes dedicated to gaming that plug into
| screens. Sony and Microsoft are less interested in competing
| with each other and more interested in protecting the total
| market from Google, Amazon and Apple. None of those companies
| have legacy console business, have enormous cash piles and
| understand there is a bright future in gaming ($$$)
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Gaming will eventually be where if you want to play a game,
| you just plug into a remote computer system pre-built for
| it, and the only games that will still be installed on
| consumer devices will be those which need extremely low
| latency like shooters and fighting games.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| To me the best explanation for this is as mutually-assured-
| destruction insurance if Microsoft takes the biggest title in the
| Activision portfolio, Call of Duty, away from Playstation.
|
| As a Sony fan, I'm cautiously optimistic that the relationship
| could be more fruitful than that. I don't know what Sony's
| creative secrets are, but they seem good at ushering high
| quality, interesting games with broad appeal into existence, sort
| of akin to what you see at HBO or Pixar. I would love to see them
| exert that influence on a big multiplatform game.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I know bungie doesn't own the halo ip anymore, but _wow_. Bungie,
| halo, and microsoft will forever be linked in my mind. The fact
| that sony is going to buy them? I feel like hell has frozen over.
| What 's next? MS buying naughty dog?
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| For my money the best IP that Bungie ever produced was "Myth",
| specifically The Fallen Lords & Soulblighter.
|
| Sadly, they sold it off to Take Two Interactive who botched the
| 3rd game in the series and killed off the franchise.
|
| I wish I could buy the IP off of Take Two and revive it, but
| until then I just have to settle for playing the modern ports
| that are still being maintained.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Myth was absolutely fantastic. They recently put a Claymore
| from it in Destiny, sadly it's not nearly as good as the
| shotgun from Marathon or the grenade launcher from Pathways
| into Darkness.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| I have Pathways Into Darkness on my vintage Quadra 650
| here. :-)
|
| Also, we should play Destiny. Not to turn HN into LFG or
| anything.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I'd join the HN Destiny clan in a heartbeat
| steveklabnik wrote:
| If someone starts a Discord I'd be happy to join it!
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Myth II still gets rounds at local LAN parties, in part
| because of its modding scene.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| Indeed. :-)
|
| I'm the one that makes everybody install it to play it for
| the first time so that everyone can experience the
| agonizing embarrassment of their best laid plans being
| thwarted by their own dwarves accidentally decimating
| themselves by throwing their molotov cocktails straight up
| into the air. "<BANG>... Casualties." followed by the
| inevitable, "Argh! What?!? Noooooooo!"
|
| Never gets old.
| password321 wrote:
| Sony were making exlusive deals with Bungie for quite some time
| now with Destiny so its not that surprising.
| Ottolay wrote:
| To me, Bungie is associated with Apple and the amazing Marathon
| game series for Mac back in the 90s.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| I'll never forget the video of Steve Jobs himself introducing
| Halo (right before Microsoft bought it).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxdgo1rFcxU
| itisit wrote:
| > What's next? MS buying naughty dog?
|
| I doubt Sony would ever sell them. :)
| pjerem wrote:
| Well, nothing surprises me anymore since Microsoft bought Rare
| two decades ago. Nintendo literally sold a part of its soul on
| this deal.
|
| But yeah, it's hard to dissociate Halo from Bungie and
| Microsoft.
| tus666 wrote:
| So will the gaming industry reshape as a Microsoft vs Sony
| affair?
| Hamuko wrote:
| Doubt it, but it will definitely centralise. Microsoft, Sony,
| Tencent, Take-Two...
| pm90 wrote:
| This seems more like something to calm investors rather than
| interest in taking the IP anywhere. And... I get it, if you're
| Sony you gotta show you're willing to play.
|
| Regardless of what MS has said I suspect people don't really
| trust them, especially since the Sony/MS duopoly (Nintendo not
| really competing in the high end console category) isn't a smooth
| one.
|
| MS wants to dominate the market. XBOX game pass is doing
| ridiculously well. If they can make XBOX the default console and
| reduce Sony to a niche player they will absolutely do it.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I think it's hilarious. Microsoft buys the studio behind iconic
| PS characters (Crash Bandicoot and Spyro), and then a few weeks
| later, Sony buys the studio that made Halo?!
| fractal618 wrote:
| Halo on Playstation?? Cross Platform Halo??
|
| It feels like I suddenly have butterflies in my stomach. <3
| vangelis wrote:
| Sadly they don't own the Halo IP.
| frenchie14 wrote:
| Bungie does not have ownership of the Halo IP. When they became
| independent of Microsoft 15 years ago Microsoft retained the
| rights
| cableshaft wrote:
| No Halo.
|
| Destiny 3 will probably be exclusive to Playstation though.
| capableweb wrote:
| > we will utilize the Sony Group's diverse array of
| entertainment and technology assets to support further
| evolution of Bungie and its ability to create iconic worlds
| across multiple platforms and media
|
| > We will continue pursuing our vision of one, unified Bungie
| community, building games that value our community and meet
| them wherever and however they choose to play
|
| https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220131005684/en/
|
| Seems they'll aim for making it available for multiple
| platforms, not PlayStation exclusive.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| It's not looking like Destiny 3 is ever going to happen.
| There was even an interview from March of last year where a
| director said that they think Destiny 3 would be a mistake.
|
| And on top of that, they've laid out Destiny 2's roadmap
| until roughly 2024, and say that that's not the end then
| either.
|
| We'll see!
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >There was even an interview from March of last year where
| a director said that they think Destiny 3 would be a
| mistake
|
| Destiny, especially Destiny 2 was really mismanaged by the
| directors though.
|
| They do have another IP, Matter in the works though.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| I started playing in late 2019, but I'm up to almost 2500
| hours. Can't speak to before that, but it's only been
| getting better and better as I've played, imho.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Makes EA's purchase of Respawn (Apex Legends) for $400M look like
| an incredible deal.
| excerionsforte wrote:
| Can't wait to see the new IP Bungie will have for Sony to publish
| ;)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| We don't know much about the new IP yet, other than:
|
| 1. 2025 is the target for launch
|
| 2. some job postings have indicated that it's probably
| cooperative multiplayer in some form
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| I can't wait for PlayStation exclusives which will get shitty
| PC ports. Yes, I am looking at you FF7 Remake selling for 70
| bucks.
| 0xDEEPFAC wrote:
| The masochist in me wants to see these mergers continue so that a
| big enough power vacuum can appear for new indie studios as
| creativity and "risk-taking" decline.
| vangelis wrote:
| Hopefully someone at Sony really liked Marathon.
| monocasa wrote:
| Or Oni.
| alanwreath wrote:
| just bring back Oni and do more Marathon lore
| LegitShady wrote:
| I can only see this as some weird way to respond to Microsoft's
| purchase of Activision although they must have been in discussion
| in advance of that.
|
| This is the meme:
|
| "Mom can we get an Activision"
|
| "You have an Activision at home!"
|
| Activision at home is destiny
| px43 wrote:
| Wasn't Bungie Microsoft's first real gaming acquisition?
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-acquires-b...
|
| Almost 22 years ago.
| jhbadger wrote:
| It depends on what is "real gaming", I suppose. Microsoft
| bought the Bruce Artwick Organization (creators of the classic
| versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator) in 1995.
| brokencode wrote:
| Let's hope this goes better for Bungie than when Microsoft owned
| them. It's kind of funny that they'd get out from under the thumb
| of one corporate overlord only to find a new corporate overlord
| 15 years later.
|
| I guess that points to how unbelievably hard it is for
| independent game developers to survive, and it makes me kind of
| sad. If it can happen to Bungie or Blizzard, it can happen to any
| game developer.
|
| Gamers are notoriously hard to part with their money, even though
| games can deliver an incredible amount of value for each dollar
| compared to other types of entertainment.
|
| I've put hundreds of hours into certain games that I've paid $60
| or less for, whereas renting or going to a movie provides only a
| couple hours of entertainment for something like $5-$20.
| gehsty wrote:
| Maybe free to play games that make money through micro
| transactions, without pay to win mechanism (like buying skins
| or hats!) are the way to sustainably produce games? Kinda like
| a SAAS subscription instead of a purchase software outright
| deal.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| This is the current business model of Destiny 2: there's free
| to play, with expansions you can buy for a one-time cost to
| give you more content, or microtransactions for cosmetics.
| erulabs wrote:
| I hear that metric a lot - dollars per entertainment-hour. It's
| an interesting metric - but it's also important to remember the
| 1.5 hour Marvel film almost certainly took more human hours in
| the input side than virtually any video game. At least, my 10k
| hours in StarCraft took far far far fewer human hours to
| _produce_ than my 1.5 hours watching the Avengers.
|
| Sort of a "labor theory of value" for entertainment pricing, I
| guess.
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| I would really like to see that comparison, i.e. the 'human
| hours' required, for a AAA game by a largish developer vs.
| the average Marvel film. I may try to do some rough numbers
| later because that just seems like an interesting thing to
| know.
|
| Also, how far down the stack do you go for each. Both rely on
| tools to make the production happen. Do you count hours to
| make the digital editing software and fx programs for films?
| Do you count the human hours to make Unreal4?
| spelunker wrote:
| Do you count the hours to design and produce the computer
| hardware used to render the CGI for a film? Do you count
| the years and cost of raising a child from birth to being a
| member of the crew?
|
| I doubt they count hours towards tools etc developed as
| they probably paid money for those. So, different bucket I
| guess, and still important for the overall cost.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Paying money for a tool _means_ having a person develop
| that tool for you.
| spelunker wrote:
| Obviously yes, but if you're attempting to add up person
| hours worked for some project, I don't think you would
| include the hours spent in say Mac OS.
| slugiscool99 wrote:
| Sure, but game devs use tools like unreal engine the
| development time of which shouldn't be factored into the
| human hours calculation
| toyg wrote:
| It really depends on the production - some of them,
| particularly animated ones, had to develop their whole
| pipelines from scratch as part of their early
| productions. You can bet that time was accounted for as
| part of production costs. Same for pioneer productions
| like The Mandalorian (iirc costing $3m per episode, a
| large chunk of which went into developing experimental 3d
| soundstages).
|
| For the more common endeavours, then no, of course - they
| just use what is there, or more likely outsource it to
| specialised providers in the same way as they would
| outsource e.g. building a website.
| evrydayhustling wrote:
| If you allocate all those hours to one gamer, there's no
| contest. Check out the dev costs of games here [1] to the
| "net negative" (no marketing) costs for movies here [2] -- 4
| games break $100M while you need $200M as a movie to get on
| the list. So, twice as much for 2h of content!
|
| But if you factor in audience size, things get more
| complicated. Red Dead 2 sold about 38M copies, a near record,
| but Avengers Endgame reached something like 250-300M people
| at the box office, even before streaming etc.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_vide
| o_g... [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Isn't a huge part of that money going to the actors, not
| into more typical actual labor?
|
| Games take a lot longer to produce than films (in total,
| per hour of content that may not be true).
| toyg wrote:
| Not that huge, really. A-list actors will get 10-20m
| tops, add all the others and you're probably looking at
| around 30m-40m over a budget of 300m-500m.
|
| The largest expenses are related to FX costs and
| marketing. That's why the cost of low-effects movies
| falls very rapidly under 100m, you can film a run-of-the-
| mill romcom for less than 10m.
| brokencode wrote:
| The fact is that independent game developers struggle to
| survive, so that is what I'm using as my yardstick for
| whether they are making enough money.
|
| Dollars per entertainment hour is just a way to try to
| convince gamers that it is reasonable to spend more on games,
| but perhaps the better argument to make is that we need to
| pay these companies more or they will go out of business or
| move to scummy pay to win business models.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| That only works out if 1 hour of video games has the same
| value as one hour of a movie.
|
| It's apples to oranges anyway, even when comparing games to
| games.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _also important to remember the 1.5 hour Marvel film almost
| certainly took more human hours in the input side than
| virtually any video game_
|
| This is simply wrong.
|
| Marvel movies (and indeed, most studio releases) are
| generally produced and released within a year or two. Only
| the biggest blockbusters have crews in the hundreds, and it
| is rare for a movie to have a crew in the thousands. For
| example, Endgame is one of the most expensive movies ever
| made...and production and post-production (i.e., VFX) took
| less than 2 years. Dune (2021) was filmed and post-produced
| in under 2 years. Tenet, Nolan's most technically complex
| film, was actually filmed and post-produced in just over 1
| year. (But contrast to Avatar 2 and 3, which have been in
| production for over 4 years and counting.)
|
| On the other hand, almost every AAA game of the last decade
| has spent years in development with a crew of hundreds for
| almost the entire time. For example, Red Dead 2 was in
| development for _7 years_. Starcraft 2 was in development for
| over 5 years. Destiny was in development for 4 years.
|
| Note that the above timeline _does not include_ pre-
| production work (like writing the screenplay, casting, hiring
| crew, raising funds) because in the movie industry pre-
| production work proceeds very slowly (for example: Avatar 2
| was in pre-production for 7 years; Gemini Man for over 20
| years), but the actual production and post-production (i.e.,
| the actual making of the movie, editing, FX) happens at a
| lightning pace. In the game industry, the creative parts
| happen in tandem with the development of the game itself.
|
| Also note that while movies can have large crews, the
| different teams aren't all working at the same time; for
| example, film crews and other production crews rarely
| interact with the VFX or other post-production crew.
| toyg wrote:
| _> the 1.5 hour Marvel film almost certainly took more human
| hours in the input side than virtually any video game_
|
| I'm not sure what you mean.
|
| A big Marvel movie costs around $300m-$500m to produce, these
| days. AAA videogames can go over $300m-$400m I believe. It's
| basically the same ballpark, as far as _input_ costs go.
| However, a film results in 2h of _output_ enjoyment for a
| consumer, whereas games get several multiples of that.
| snarfy wrote:
| Do you not remember beating StarCraft and watching the ending
| credits scroll?
|
| It's a giant wall of text for 30 minutes.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Bungir became a household name while MS owned them and they
| launched an iconic franchise. How was that bad?
| rodgerd wrote:
| Prior to their Microsoft deal they produced a variety of
| games with different settings (the Marathon universe which
| linked to their earlier games and forward to Halo, Myth I/II
| which were RTS with rich lore, and Oni which was a close-
| combat game that functioned as a precursor to the likes of
| Yakuza and Sleeping Dogs in terms of the mechanics).
|
| With Halo, the single-player and lore began to tail off to
| focus on the multi-player market, and their other settings
| and styles of games were all discarded in favour of an FPS
| treadmill.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Why are so many people trying to make triple A games? It just
| seems like there is too much supply and not enough demand.
| Don't even most hardcore gamers only play a select few triple A
| games? And aren't triple A games unpopular with almost all
| casual and sports gamers?
|
| And most importantly - isn't there the LEAST growth in the
| hardcore gaming segment?
| Brave-Steak wrote:
| password321 wrote:
| There is an extreme demand. Many franchises like Pokemon are
| still breaking sales records along with consoles.
|
| https://gamerant.com/pokemon-legends-arceus-sales-records/
| klohto wrote:
| Pokemon isn't AAA
| kbelder wrote:
| What, there's a AAAA category now?
| parkingrift wrote:
| I think the word "find" is pretty descriptive. It's hard to
| find people willing to turn down billions of dollars. This is
| more like an indictment on M&A in the modern economy. Why
| compete when you can simply acquire?
| abakker wrote:
| Acquiring is good! Not every company that wants to grow needs
| to do something original, sometimes funding people doing
| original things is good. Bad management is not a requirement
| for acquiring companies, though it is frustratingly common.
| adolph wrote:
| They've done better the second time around:
|
| _The Wall Street Journal reports today that some analysts
| estimate Microsoft paid between $20 million and $40 million for
| Bungie in total._
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-acquires-b...
| saynay wrote:
| Isn't this the third time? I thought they were owned by
| Activision for a bit, before leaving again.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Publishing agreement, not ownership.
| willis936 wrote:
| And yet they appeared to have an all-time low in creative
| freedom during that period.
| tylerchilds wrote:
| They partnered with Activision to leverage them for
| distribution in a ten year deal that they broke part way
| through, iirc.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Halo 1-3, ODST and Reach what exactly went wrong for Bungie
| when they were under Microsoft?
|
| Microsoft, Activision, Sony they were never truly independent
| no studio these days can afford too.
|
| Game development is a mess and a very expensive mess at that,
| you need a sugar daddy if you would to survive.
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Exactly. Just looking at the Master Chief collection shows
| that the games were quite alright.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > Halo 1-3, ODST and Reach what exactly went wrong for Bungie
| when they were under Microsoft?
|
| Bungie didn't like how Microsoft managed them. Bungie wanted
| to do something other than Halo, but Microsoft wanted more
| Halo.
|
| A Destiny reference can be seen in ODST: https://www.gameinfo
| rmer.com/b/features/archive/2014/01/09/h...
| umvi wrote:
| > I guess that points to how unbelievable hard it is for
| independent game developers to survive
|
| I thought companies like Bungie, Bioware, etc. sold out.
|
| i.e. it's easy to survive if you make blockbuster titles like
| Halo or Mass Effect, but then a big corp comes by and offers
| mega bucks to buy you and so you sell out. The solution if you
| don't want to be "under the thumb of [a] corporate overlord" is
| to not sell out in the first place.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| MS bought Bungie, and then Bungie had the money to make the
| first Halo
| bsimpson wrote:
| I still remember when Bungie was one of the only companies that
| made games for Macs. The Marathon trilogy was a memorable part of
| my childhood.
|
| Then Microsoft bought them for Halo, and spun them back out (sans
| Halo). Halo was first demoed by Steve Jobs - it was going to be a
| Mac game.
| jl6 wrote:
| Marathon felt like such a huge deal at the time, with its funky
| triangular prism box, its hyperliterate storyline, and its
| novel network multiplayer modes. And yet it seems to get little
| to no airtime in video game nostalgia mythology.
|
| Maybe it was just too niche as a Mac game.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| It was going to be an RTS. Pretty different if you ask me.
| mig39 wrote:
| Nah, here's a preview of Halo for Mac, in 1999.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebI5lkLRTdg Before Microsoft
| bought Bungie. It looks almost identical to the Xbox version
| from 2001.
|
| It definitely started as an RTS, but it had morphed into
| Combat Evolved before Microsoft bought bungie.
| ace2358 wrote:
| Just to be clear, it was a mac game. It still came out and
| Halo: Combat Involved ran beautifully on PPC and Intel (Rosetta
| 1 translation?).
|
| Good memories of that game. I still haven't played marathon :0
| synthos wrote:
| Who's left (as large distinct publishers/studios)?
|
| - Sony
|
| - Microsoft
|
| - Electronic Arts
|
| - Capcom
|
| - Ubisoft
|
| - Nintendo
|
| - Konami
|
| - Square Enix
|
| - Tencent
|
| - Take Two
|
| - Warner Brother Games
|
| - Embracer Group
|
| IP license biz model (Disney, Sega, etc...)
|
| I'd include Valve, but they just don't make games anymore
|
| edit: Added Embracer
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd classify Konami as "large distinct
| publishers/studios" anymore. Apart from the obligatory yearly
| installments of PES and BeatMania, they seem to mostly make
| gambling machines these days.
| jackling wrote:
| Half-Life: Alyx was made recently no?
| syshum wrote:
| Until we get an actual Half-Life 3 they should never be
| called a Game Studio ;)
| synthos wrote:
| True, but is one game in a decade really notable? It was only
| for a niche market. Compare to the mainstream
| console/pc/mobile.
| pphysch wrote:
| I think Valve/Steam will get M&A'd when the current leadership
| retires
| 015a wrote:
| Outside looking in, this feels like a far more valuable
| acquisition than Activision for $69B.
|
| Call of Duty is valuable, but Microsoft has already said they
| don't intend to remove it from PlayStation. That could change,
| but so could CoD's importance to the video gaming industry as a
| whole: its popularity has dropped with essentially every release
| since BLOPS2.
|
| Outside of CoD: AB is a shadow of its former self; IMO the second
| most valuable IP suite in the history of gaming (first:
| Nintendo), but years of failed projects, brain drain, and poor
| employee culture make acting on that IP difficult. Halo 4, 5, and
| Infinite have suggested that Xbox can keep dying IP on life
| support, but reclaiming the glory of Blizzard's past likely isn't
| in the cards, at least on the medium term.
|
| In comparison: Sony paid 20x less for Bungie. What they lack in
| variety of products, they make up for in, in my view, Potential.
| Destiny is a great franchise, with lots of fans. The team brings
| rock solid FPS dev & netcode experience (something Sony's first
| party studios are at a deficit for).
|
| This spectacularly echos previous acquisitions from both
| companies. Microsoft buys Halo, Gears, Bethesda, AB; all "glory
| day IP" acquisitions with demonstrated historical mega-success,
| but weaker more recent market success. Sony goes smaller;
| Bluepoint, Housemarque, and Bungie; but despite being smaller
| names, these companies have far more demonstrable ability to
| produce triple-A content, tomorrow. In other words; Microsoft is
| looking for name recognition to sell Game Pass; Sony is looking
| for talent, which the PlayStation name recognition and marketing
| machine can wring success out of.
|
| Most recent tactile example: Returnal was a massive success
| despite being in a very niche genre, which directly led to
| Housemarque's acquisition. Its hard to imagine it seeing the same
| success on Xbox, especially since Xbox _did_ have an exclusive,
| in a different genre, but with rather similar vibes, release
| around the same time (The Medium). It was, to my eyes, a market
| failure (but, of course, I have no insider info).
|
| I don't like centralization. But it is interesting to see these
| two different strategies play out.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Microsoft didn't buy Halo. They bought Bungie, then used them
| to make Halo. They spin them off, keeping then Halo franchise.
|
| Okay, technically Bungie was working on a RTS game called Halo
| when MS bought them, but it was after the purchase it shifted
| genres and found its groove.
|
| In other words, this "echo" isn't really what you are saying.
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| Halo was most certainly an FPS before MS bought Bungie.
|
| https://youtu.be/ebI5lkLRTdg
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| True, but it was initially supposed to be an RTS, just a
| bit longer before Microsoft stepped in.
| mig39 wrote:
| Did you watch the video? It was basically complete before
| Microsoft bought it. They then ported it to Xbox.
|
| It may have been an RTS initially, but when Microsoft
| bought Bungie, it was already "Combat Evolved" and near
| release.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I watched the video. The game in that trailer could just
| as easily have been a tactical RTS with a cinematic
| camera as a FPS (note the complete absence of first-
| person shots).
| mig39 wrote:
| Right! For sure.
|
| But according to
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-
| untold-h...
|
| It was already an FPS by 1998, 2 years before Microsoft
| was involved, and a year before the video shown above.
|
| They started as an RTS, then decided it was way too much
| fun to actually drive the vehicles, and the rest is
| history.
|
| Microsoft definitely helped with the development, but
| Microsoft bought a FPS game, not an RTS one.
| EA wrote:
| HALO was originally based on Myth. That is when Halo was
| briefly (conceptually) an RTS. It evolved into a Third
| Person Shooter, and finally First Person Shooter. After
| Bungie was acquired by Microsoft, they had a year to make
| their game, so they made the decision to start over from
| the beginning and create Halo as a first person shooter.
| mig39 wrote:
| Honestly, that would have been awesome!
|
| I loved Myth and Myth II. A space-based one would have
| been great.
|
| I don't understand the timeline, though, as the videos
| shown at MacWorld in 1999 (before Microsoft), show Halo
| as a first-person shooter. The video is linked above. I
| think it was a FPS long before Microsoft was interested.
| I think Microsoft bought it specifically because of the
| FPS game.
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Believe me, I don't need to watch that video. I've been
| there ;)
|
| A lot of development happened right before Combat Evolved
| got released due to Microsoft injecting a lot of money.
| It wasn't just an Xbox port of an already finished game.
| Look at the E3 2000 trailer which is pretty much what has
| been shown at Macworld the year before. Combat Evolved
| looked quite different when it came out a year later.
| Note that Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000.
| 015a wrote:
| First of all; the original acquisition is not what I was
| referring to, but rather: Microsoft's "maintenance" of the
| Halo IP after Bungie itself left Microsoft's domain, and the
| formation of a near-entirely new studio (343) to develop it.
| Ok, they didn't buy the IP at that juncture; they bought a
| studio to develop an IP they already owned. Use some
| creativity and you can see the parallels are similar enough.
|
| Second: Do you recall the keynote where Bungie unveiled Halo
| for the first time... at MacWorld 1999? For reference,
| Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000. I've literally never heard
| the assertion that Halo was intended to be an RTS; my
| understanding is that it was originally going to be a _third_
| person FPS, as the 1999 MacWorld trailer suggests, but was
| changed to a first person FPS when Microsoft purchased them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZ2yvWl9nQ
| steveklabnik wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo:_Combat_Evolved#Prot
| otype...
|
| The earliest versions were basically built on top of Myth's
| engine, Bungie's RTS. It then eventually became a third
| person shooter, and it was such at the MacWorld
| announcement. It did turn into an FPS after the Microsoft
| acquisition.
| [deleted]
| kipchak wrote:
| Halo was originally designed as a RTS, but playing around
| with it a bit they found it more fun to get the camera down
| closer, especially driving vehicles.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weuRNxpDLUE
| er4hn wrote:
| Halo was an FPS and a spiritual successor to an earlier
| series of theirs called "Marathon". The main characters,
| weapons, and themes of the original game all skew very
| closely to Marathon.
| rodgerd wrote:
| I miss the Bungie that pumped out Marathon, Myth, and Oni.
|
| (I will look forward to people who were screaming that
| console makers mustn't be allowed to buy game authors and
| studios seamlessly turn a 180 if it favours their tribe.)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| There's also tangential evidence that Pathways Into
| Darkness, Marathon, Halo, and Destiny all exist in the same
| universe.
|
| And with this recent 30th anniversary event, it also seems
| like they kind of think of all of their various older IPs
| to be in a multiverse of some sort.
|
| (And Pathways into Darkness was also an FPS, just like
| those three Marathon games. Bungie has been doing FPSes for
| a long time, 100% agree with you.)
| moogleii wrote:
| I think Microsoft's play was to further strengthen Game Pass to
| the point that Sony can't deny it on their platform anymore (or
| at least make it hurt more to continue doing so). It makes
| sense that MS won't remove games from Sony's access, but it
| does give them more levers to play with. "Hey this game is
| 'free' on Game Pass (PC + XBox). You can still buy it for
| PlayStation, though."
|
| And Sony's move is simply a defense against that.
| hlbjhblbljib wrote:
| What is AB?
| generalpf wrote:
| Activision Blizzard
| scarface74 wrote:
| You're forgetting about how profitable (and disgusting)
| Activision's mobile play to win games are.
|
| Besides, MS needs content for its subscription gaming service.
| It's not like consoles themselves are profitable. They are just
| a means to deliver games to users.
| mdasen wrote:
| It feels the opposite way to me. Microsoft bought a company
| with an extensive suite of IP that publishes a lot of games.
| Sony panicked and bought a company that has one franchise
| (Destiny).
|
| When looking at Disney, I see a company that has bought a lot
| of deep IP catalogues. They've used that to really propel their
| future and get high-value talent that wants to work in those
| universes with a Disney-sized budget to tell their stories.
|
| Activision Blizzard may have cost 20x more, but Activision is
| really profitable with a P/E ratio of 26 (at the $69B deal
| price). Microsoft's P/E is 33, Google's is 26, Apple's is 29,
| Amazon's is 58, and Netflix is 38 (even with the tumble in
| price). So Microsoft bought Activision relatively cheap
| compared to its earnings. Bungie is private so we don't really
| know what their finances are like. Activision's cheap price
| means that there isn't a lot of risk for Microsoft. Maybe you
| believe that Activision is about to crater and no one will want
| their games in the future. It's possible. It's also possible
| that everyone is going to get tired of the extensive IP
| catalogues that Disney has assembled. However, when the price
| is that reasonable, you don't need the same explosive growth to
| justify the investment.
|
| So Microsoft bought a business that even if it just keeps
| performing as-usual will be a fine addition to Microsoft. It
| also has the potential to be huge for Microsoft with a deep IP
| catalogue, the potential for Xbox exclusives to help launch the
| next-gen Xbox when the time comes, the potential for cost
| savings with Azure infrastructure, and probably more that I'm
| not thinking of.
|
| If Sony buys Bungie and just lets them do their thing, they
| might get some good games. But it seems like Microsoft wants to
| buy and pour some money in which seems like a recipe for bigger
| successes. We've seen it with some of Microsoft's recent
| purchases. They've poured money into GitHub and made it an even
| bigger platform. They've poured money into .NET Core and
| Xamarin/Mono to recapture developer mindshare. It seems like
| Microsoft is likely to take similar steps with their Activision
| purchase - and similar steps that Disney has taken with their
| IP catalogue.
|
| It's possible that the small places Sony has bought have better
| potential, but Activision Blizard is a profitable company at a
| relatively cheap price which means that the purchase carries
| relatively low risk while still offering a lot of upside for
| Microsoft.
| sensitivefrost wrote:
| "Sony panicked and bought a company that has one franchise
| (Destiny)."
|
| If you think Sony turned around and bought Bungie in the 2
| weeks since the Acti-Blizz acquisition was announced, I dunno
| what to tell you.
| Macha wrote:
| On the flip side, it's highly unlikely that Sony didn't
| know talks were ongoing for ActiBlizz, and may even have
| been offered a chance at the same.
| ezekg wrote:
| Definitely. Especially considering they had (timed)
| exclusivity of all COD content for years.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > Sony panicked and bought a company that has one franchise
| (Destiny).
|
| Beyond the fact that this has supposedly been in the works
| for months, so not exactly a panic, Bungie has a new IP in
| development, and has announced their plan to expand Destiny
| beyond video games, to movies, books, and other media. So
| while you're right in the sense that today, Bungie only has
| Destiny, they've already been working on making that not
| true, even if they're not there just yet.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Honestly, I'm not sure if Activision's IP catalog would
| attract and retain high-value talent in the same way that
| Disney's does.
|
| Yes, the catalogue is deep, but much of it consists of dead
| horses that have been beaten for years or once-great icons
| that were mismanaged into relative irrelevance.
|
| Budget constraints didn't seem to be what was holding them
| back before, and I can't see Microsoft suddenly managing the
| IP any better than Activision were (if anything, I can see it
| going downhill faster).
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| They also get neat tech with the purchase - the blizzard
| launcher is awesome. As far as smooth
| downloads/deployments/go-lives are concerned that launcher
| and the games its services are in leagues of their own, so
| far beyond Microsofts own store it's not even funny (ignoring
| the recent problem of Diablo 2 running twenty year old net
| code causing problems with its recent launch).
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| > these companies have far more demonstrable ability to produce
| triple-A content
|
| I am not so sure. At least not for Bungie. I haven't enjoyed
| Destiny at all. Where on the other side, Arkane's Dishonored
| and Prey are quite good. So are id Software's Doom, Doom
| Eternal, and Wolfenstein. Fallout 4 was okay as well.
| 015a wrote:
| Sure; and the unfortunate reality is, Fallout 4 was released
| nearly 8 years ago. Dishonored: 10. Dishonored 2: 6.
|
| id definitely puts out super solid stuff, consistently.
| Arkane is also in that bucket (Deathloop is the better
| example to judge recent efficacy of the team, not
| Dishonored/Prey. And its great). But, that is counterbalanced
| by... Fallout 76? Warcraft 3 Reforged? The state of WoW,
| Overwatch, and Heroes?
|
| Xbox's acquisitions are a semitruck full of companies. The
| good parts of that truck are good. The bad parts are... quite
| bad. But the bad parts are built on really strong IP, which
| carried its own high price tag. So the question becomes;
| they'll definitely get value out of Arkane, id, and CoD, zero
| question there; but will they get value out of the rest of
| the ~$76B combined they spent, when so much of it is in
| glory-day IPs and not in teams, employed today, that can
| execute on that IP to deliver awesome content (no disrespect
| intended to the teams who _do_ work on that content today;
| but reality is in the metrics, revenue, etc)?
|
| Comparatively: Microsoft bought a semi-truck, Sony bought a
| Miata. It's not the fastest car out there. It's not for
| everyone. But it has its users and there's no question as to
| Mazda's ability to put out another stellar model, nor
| question around whether customers will buy it. Plus: very
| affordable. Ok, that's a bad analogy.
| philistine wrote:
| Mobile gaming invalidates all your argumentation. Activision
| Blizzard King has a large and successful mobile business that
| makes more money than anything you've described here. Bungie
| has none of that, which explains its far lower price.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >In comparison: Sony paid 20x less for Bungie. What they lack
| in variety of products, they make up for in, in my view,
| Potential. Destiny is a great franchise
|
| Strongly disagree. Bungie have one IP. while AB have many well
| know IPs. Blizzard proven, you can make a new game out of old
| IP. Warcraft is used to make Hearthstone the card game.
|
| you are comparing one franchise IP to multiple franchise IPs
| and claiming Bungie is a better deal. that just stretching it.
| cletus wrote:
| > Call of Duty is valuable, but Microsoft has already said they
| don't intend to remove it from PlayStation.
|
| They haven't said that. They have said they will honor their
| existing contracts [1]. That's not permanent guarantee. I'm not
| saying they'll pull it as soon as they can but it gives them a
| lot of power.
|
| I'm not sure you realize just how big the CoD franchise is. It
| pulls in _billions_ of dollars _every year_ by itself.
|
| As for Blizzard, yes the company has seen better days but their
| IP is still valuable. Diablo 4 whenever it comes out will sell
| a ton of copies.
|
| [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/20/22892860/sony-
| microsoft-a...
| sylens wrote:
| > In comparison: Sony paid 20x less for Bungie. What they lack
| in variety of products, they make up for in, in my view,
| Potential. Destiny is a great franchise, with lots of fans. The
| team brings rock solid FPS dev & netcode experience (something
| Sony's first party studios are at a deficit for).
|
| I disagree. Destiny may have once had potential, but Bungie is
| a studio that continually shoots itself in the foot. Just like
| with Halo, they threw out years of work for the first Destiny
| and essentially stitched together a frankenstein of the parts
| to ship on time. It's why the story has never made sense, even
| as they try to retcon various pieces to fit into a much longer
| narrative.
|
| The game has also lost some of its early "looter shooter with
| friends" charm and become a grindfest that feels like a job at
| times, with content that is sunset only 2-3 years after it is
| sold to consumers. Destiny 2 is also extremely hostile to new
| players, bombarding them with dozens of vendors, currencies,
| and no clear sense of where to start and how to begin grokking
| the story. The original campaign has been sunset so if you
| never played before, you will be missing the equivalent of the
| first movie of a trilogy in terms of plot and characters.
|
| My hope for this acquisition is that it lets them course
| correct the design of whatever they do next because I feel that
| Destiny 2 is in decline.
| samsgro wrote:
| Generally agree, but on the other hand, the game feels a LOT
| better since since the Activision divestment.
|
| In the last 12 months narrative team of Destiny 2 have REALLY
| knocked it out of the park, with the seasonal plot actually
| making sense and having some interesting activities (like
| Battlegrounds). Some significant improvements in QoL too.
|
| While there definitely gaps as you say - the New Light
| experience in particular needs some serious work - so long as
| Sony lets the team continue on its current trajectory, there
| may be hope.
| sylens wrote:
| I agree that the seasonal storytelling is better but they
| have a very real problem with the game becoming Bounty
| Collector. They also have basically abandoned Crucible,
| which makes me think the new IP is where all their top PvP
| talent is currently.
| habeebtc wrote:
| To actually finish all the content in each D2 expansion you
| have to invest full time job kind of time in it.
|
| Destiny doesn't just feel like a job, in some sense it IS a
| job.
|
| I thought they did a good job rehabilitating the first game
| from the sorry shape it shipped in (see: the economics of the
| loot cave). It is a mountain which can be climbed, and it is
| fun to do so. (There is also a literal mountain to climb)
| spaceisballer wrote:
| I grabbed Destiny 2 and some expansions a while back on a
| humble bundle. I had a blast, it was fun and could play
| with friends. Then end game seemed to not have much going
| for it. And it was confusing on what you could and couldn't
| access. Came back to it after a break and with more
| expansions out it just seemed even more confusing on what I
| could and couldn't access. It's sort of the WOW problem,
| the game is just overwhelming. There is so much content and
| no clear way on what you can or can't access. The various
| currencies alone are confusing.
| willis936 wrote:
| The child in me always kneejerk reacts "not my Bungie!".
| How much of the Destiny trainwreck was publisher fingering?
| Could the Bungie of 10 years ago have put out a game that
| is fun, like they had consistently for the previous decade?
| Of course, it was just those pesky publishers.
|
| Well, now the Bungie of yore is thoroughly dead. All of the
| faces from the Halo Vid Docs have moved on. What's left is
| a husk. Sony bought a hope. They also prevented Microsoft
| and Bungie from teaming up again. Perhaps they fear that
| duo. I wish them the best.
| Macha wrote:
| They've continued some of their worse monetisation and
| game design decisions while independent for quite a few
| years now, and stuff like the poor value of the 30th
| anniversary pack is entirely their own mistake to make,
| so I feel publisher meddling was a handy deflection for
| Bungie to hide behind in many cases.
| camel_Snake wrote:
| > They've continued some of their worse monetisation and
| game design decisions while independent for quite a few
| years now, and stuff like the poor value of the 30th
| anniversary pack is entirely their own mistake to make...
|
| This is an interesting thought. The 30th anniversary
| *paid* content was a bit lighter than anticipated,
| however the Free To Play content that came alongside it
| was fantastic. Perhaps I'm just used to seeing phrases
| like 'worse monetization' from the consumers perspective
| rather than the business's, but most of the community
| reactions from the 30th were positive, at least in
| regards to what was paid and what wasn't.
| wklauss wrote:
| > Sony paid 20x less for Bungie. What they lack in variety of
| products, they make up for in, in my view, Potential.
|
| Not really. Destiny has a smaller audience than CoD, and
| Activision Blizzard is a huge purchase with lots a of valuable
| IPs that go beyond CoD and can still grow (Bungie, OTOH,
| currently only has Destiny in it's catalog).
|
| Bungie revenue was estimated around $300 million for 2019 vs.
| $6,5b for Activision Blizzard, so price seems to be in line for
| both purchases, around 8x annual rev.
|
| Keep in mind Microsoft has bought ton of small studios as well!
| (Rare, Playground).
|
| Returnal is a good title, but far from being a success by AAA
| standards (last time they reported sales of the game, in June
| 2021. it was 560.000 copies). I think part of the aura of
| success comes from being one of the very few exclusive titles
| created specifically for the PS5.
| 015a wrote:
| Its important to put the Returnal numbers in context: it was
| never supposed to be a triple-A hit. Housemarque is a small
| (50-100 people) studio that traditionally made top-down or
| side-scrolling bullet hell shooters; they developed Returnal
| without being under the PSS banner (though certainly with
| financial support for the exclusive title); and it has sold
| 500k+ copies.
|
| Compare that to Rift Apart, which last I heard is more in the
| 1-2M sales range. Insomniac is a true triple-A studio, with
| more like 400-500 employees plus the full development support
| of PSS's shared resources. Ratchet & Clank is a more broadly
| known franchise, in a genre and aesthetic that is more age
| and demographic accessible.
|
| Additionally, while this would equally affect Returnal & Rift
| Apart; PS5 shortages do dampen all PS5 exclusive game sales
| compared to more broadly available titles.
|
| Within that context, it's clear to me that Returnal was a
| tremendous success. Not a Triple-A success, but its not all
| about raw sales at the end of the day. Cost to produce also
| needs to be considered.
|
| To be clear: I absolutely believe Xbox isn't just "all
| triple-A all the time". They have the triple-A teams. They
| have the smaller teams (Maybe not Rare/Playground as they're
| huge nowadays, but: Ninja Theory, Compulsion, Double Fine,
| World's Edge, maybe even Obsidian, plus their exclusivity
| deals with Moon and Asobo). Its more-so a discussion about
| their recent acquisitions strategy.
| lvl100 wrote:
| Clearly Microsoft making divestitures to get under the antitrust
| hurdle.
| awill wrote:
| Sony didn't want to do this. Microsoft forced their hand.
|
| I'm sure Sony is terrified of a world where MS keeps buying up
| hugely popular cross platform games and shutting them off.
|
| Sony said they want to keep Bungie cross platform. Maybe they're
| doing this to barter for Call of Duty with MS.
| kungito wrote:
| Well Sony was always the one aggressive with exclusives, not
| Microsoft. I only got PS5 to finally catch up on 5-10
| exclusives I've wanted to play for the last few years. If it
| was only up to the specs everyone would go with Xbox Series X
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Supposedly it's been in talks for over five months, so unless
| someone at Sony also knew about the Microsoft deal (which is,
| of course, possible) it doesn't appear to be directly in
| response to it.
| ihuman wrote:
| It could be in response to the Bethesda/Zenimax deal, not the
| Activision-Blizzard one
| donatj wrote:
| Of all the companies they could buy, this one certainly feels
| the most... Spiteful.
| ngngngng wrote:
| Another one! I'm interested to see how this plays out. Most of
| Microsoft's acquisitions in recent years have been failures.
| Studios that had been making iconic games were acquired by
| Microsoft and in short order were only making shovelware (see
| Rare post acquisition).
|
| Sony doesn't seem to have the same problem. Sucker Punch and
| Insomniac are good examples of this, their output has been as
| good as ever since being acquired by Sony. From the outside
| looking in this seems to be because Sony understands how much
| creative freedom means to these teams, and they don't inject Sony
| management into the processes of previously successful game
| studios. I'd love to hear more of an insider opinion on why
| acquisitions over the last decade look so differently at these
| two companies though.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Wait wasn't Bungie a MS division at one point?
| willidiots wrote:
| Yes. Bungie was an independent studio back in the 90's, then
| MS acquired them for Halo. Bungie split from MS in 2007; the
| Halo IP remained behind under 343.
|
| They were under Activision during the Destiny era until 2019.
| So if they stayed, they would've ended up back at MS. The M&A
| merry-go-round continues.
| Hamuko wrote:
| They weren't under Activision, they just had a publishing
| agreement with Activision in the 2010s, and retained all
| intellectual property.
| zppln wrote:
| Hm, surely it must have been later than 2007 that they
| split? Wasn't Reach made by Bungie?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| They split in 2007. MS then had them make reach as an
| independent company.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| When they announced the split in 2007, there was some
| deal that required Bungie to make two more Halo games
| after 3. Bungie released ODST in 2009 and Reach in 2010.
| Xplune13 wrote:
| Rare did go down after acquisition, but what others are you
| talking about? Their biggest (Zenimax) one will start releasing
| new Xbox and PC exclusive games from this year onwards, so it's
| still early to call that one a failure.
|
| Mojang, is doing Mojang thing i.e. Minecraft and while they
| haven't had a great success after that, they're still doing
| fine.
|
| Playground games is doing Forza which is actually pretty
| popular among racing players (perhaps the most popular).
|
| Obsidian haven't started to make Xbox and PC exclusives yet,
| but they'll also start with that presumably next year.
|
| I don't know where you're getting "Most of Microsoft's
| acquisitions in recent years have been failures." this.
|
| On the other hand, Sony's way of buying studios is way
| different. Most of the times, they have already worked with
| those studios in past to make a PS exclusive and then they buy
| them. I agree that Insomniac is doing great (better than any of
| Microsoft's purchases), but other than that, there isn't much
| just like MS.
|
| I think we will get a better picture of whose acquisitions work
| best after 5-6 more years.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| Other one would be Double Fine, while it is relatively early
| days since they were acquired in 2019, they seem to have been
| just working on their projects since then. Psychonauts 2 was
| very well received last year - from what I've read it seems
| like the Microsoft acquisition allowed them to add a bunch of
| content back into the game that they had previously cut for
| time/budget, like boss battles - looks like it helped with
| the overall game quality.
| kupopuffs wrote:
| Ensemble, FASA, Lionhead Studios, Access, Digital Anvil
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisi
| tio...
| Goronmon wrote:
| I don't know if I would classify 15-25 years ago as "recent
| years"...
| monocasa wrote:
| And frankly, Rare was a shadow of it's former self at
| acquisition anyway. There were still some a couple of the
| people left who worked on the games that made Rare famous
| (e.g. Ken Lobb, Grant Kirkhope), but it had a huge amount of
| brain drain around the early 2000s that left it in a state to
| be one of the first game dev studios to be picked up on the
| cheap by Microsoft. Nintendo want interested in supporting
| it, and it probably just would have went under if not for
| Microsoft.
| craz8 wrote:
| It's interesting that Sucker Punch and Bungie offices were
| really close to each other - maybe 2 blocks? Although I read
| that Sucker Punch recently moved, and I don't know the new
| location.
|
| I can imagine them sharing all sorts of things between studios
| now that they have the same ownership. It will at least allow
| shared lunch time conversations to be less guarded
| manojlds wrote:
| Some of the best rated games this year (2021) including Sony
| exclusive this year were from Microsoft / Xbox.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Like what?
| frenchie14 wrote:
| Rare was acquired in 2002 and their list of games since doesn't
| look like shovelware to me [1]. Yeah, there's some misses, but
| there's also some great games in there. The worst ones are the
| ones tied to Kinect and MS has abandoned that venture.
|
| Also, MS acquisitions from the last 5 years have released
| standout games: Psychonauts 2 and Forza Horizon 5 are two that
| I played and loved and are certainly not "shovelware"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_developed_...
| awill wrote:
| >>Rare was acquired in 2002 and their list of games since
| doesn't look like shovelware to me
|
| I don't know.... Honestly Rare was just as good if not better
| than Nintendo themselves. And that's a nearly impossible
| feat.
|
| The n64 did as well as it did because of Rare. GoldenEye,
| Perfect Dark, Banjo, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Jet Force
| Gemini etc.. post-acquisition, Rare didn't made the same sort
| of games. So maybe they found new fans, but the old fans
| hated it. Myself included.
| sylens wrote:
| There was a run of excellence on the N64 (Goldeneye, Banjo
| Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark)
| but Banjo Tooie and Donkey Kong 64, in retrospect, are very
| bloated games. As a kid, I loved them because there was
| more content for my money, but I can't imagine replaying
| them now.
| xtracto wrote:
| Shit I'm old. To me Rare were definitely one of the best
| game studios for NES and SNES: R.C. Pro-Am, NARC,
| Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country. I got
| into University when the N64 came out, so I did not play it
| .
| [deleted]
| z3c0 wrote:
| Maybe it's not shovelware, but there's a pretty stark
| difference in the caliber of games that Rare released after
| their acquisition.
|
| This is the company that made Donkey Kong Country, Banjo &
| Kazooie, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Conker, etc, so anything
| short of iconic is a step down.
|
| However, I'll add that Viva Pinata is an oft overlooked gem.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| It's Wizards and Warriors for me.. loved that game.
| supermatt wrote:
| Feels like sony + ms are just going to shoot each other in the
| foot. Gamers will end up with both consoles (sold as loss
| leaders) to get access to the exclusives and then spread their
| investment in games between the two. Lose/lose
| evrydayhustling wrote:
| Recurring online service payments are replacing game sales as
| the guaranteed loss recouping strategy for consoles. Exclusive
| titles will rely heavily on the online service, driving long-
| term subscriptions and anchoring cross-platform DLC purchases.
|
| The loser is game devs, who must either (a) do extra dev AND
| pay higher fees to integrate deeply with each platform, or (b)
| integrate minimally with each platform and compete with titles
| that get a leg-up from users' sunk costs into the network
| service.
|
| tl;dr - the online service is the new console
| SllX wrote:
| Decent chance I won't have to change my setup from
| PC/PS5/Switch for a good long while. When I last looked,
| whatever we're calling the Xbox line now doesn't have enough
| exclusives to personally justify any amount of investment in
| the console given my arrangement and that looks unlikely to
| change anytime in the near future.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| It seems like all new Xbox games will be on PC[0], and
| eventually Playstation games will be after some exclusivity
| period[1].
|
| Halo Infinite released same day on Xbox _and_ PC. That 's never
| happened for a mainline Halo game before.
|
| [0] Phil Spencer confirms all first-party Xbox Series X games
| are 'coming to PC' https://www.pcgamer.com/phil-spencer-
| confirms-all-first-part...
|
| [1] Sony wants to bring more first-party games to PC
| https://www.pcgamer.com/sonys-new-strategy-brings-more-of-it...
| synthos wrote:
| They both win if players have and keep both subscriptions
| simultaneously
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Yep, this feels to me like the direction this is going. Sony
| and Microsoft scooping up game developers to make their
| subscription worth it for the number of games relative to the
| cost/month. And I think they've probably both gotten there
| now. Plenty of people maintain Netflix+Hulu+...+..., so I
| don't think its a stretch for people to put up $20/month and
| get both of the subscriptions even after the initial cost of
| the console.
| esturk wrote:
| That's actually not what they care about the most. Yes it's
| great to have players that will buy both consoles and both
| subscriptions. The companies don't worry about them as much
| because they already know it's a guaranteed segment of the
| market.
|
| What they care about more are players that can ONLY buy one
| OR the other. That's higher on their priority list. This is
| about buying the mind shares of tomorrow.
| manojlds wrote:
| Microsoft has said that they don't see Sony and Nintendo as
| competition and the acquisitions are not about Sony. (but about
| Google, Amazon, Apple etc)
|
| Phil Spencer also said he hopes Sony and Nintendo will preserve
| the gaming ecosystem unlike those others.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| i believe for MS, its all about the Xbox game pass. they need
| as many games under game pass as possible in order to lure
| people in to justify paying monthly for game as service.
| pjerem wrote:
| > Microsoft has said that they don't see Sony and Nintendo as
| competition
|
| They all say this and ... that's just marketing/bs. How in
| the world aren't they competing ? They are all battling for a
| limited ressource which is your video game budget.
| rodgerd wrote:
| In the case of Nintendo, they've agreed to support cross-
| play, which Sony refuse to. And their consoles and brand
| are very different from XBox. Very few people are buying a
| Switch instead of an XBox or gaming PC; they're more likely
| to be buying it as another way of gaming.
| Hamuko wrote:
| The way Phil Spencer has been talking, it seems to me like
| they're going to start putting all these acquisitions
| exclusively on the Xbox, so I'm not sure sure about that
| "don't see them as competition" or "hope to preserve the
| gaming ecosystem".
| endisneigh wrote:
| Google should buy Take Two, make Grand Theft Auto Online, Stadia
| exclusive, console unnecessary. $5/month. Checkmate.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| As a PlayStation owner, do I finally get to play Halo, or is this
| everything except Halo?
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Bungie hasn't owned Halo since they were spun off from
| Microsoft in 2007.
|
| Current Bungie is Destiny 2.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Yuck, zero interest in that :)
|
| I wish Sony could make a decent FPS with a great story.
| Something like Mass Effect or Halo. Killzone was okay I
| suppose, but the story was lackluster and the combat involved
| far too much hiding behind boxes.
| myko wrote:
| Destiny is the spiritual successor to Halo. Maybe try
| giving it a shot!
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I sense Sony is in dire straits when it comes to both IP
| availability and their ability to compete with Microsoft.
| [deleted]
| zppln wrote:
| Hm, last time I cared about this stuff was at the end of the
| 360/PS3 generation and back then MS was in a really bad spot
| with respect to first party production. To the point where I'm
| actually amazed they're still in the fight. By the end of that
| generation the Sony studios where really crushing it, whereas
| MS' were just pushing GoW, Halo and Kinect shovelware. Has the
| tables turned?
| capableweb wrote:
| > I sense Sony is in dire straits when it comes to both IP
| availability
|
| Maybe you're referring to that they don't have many IPv4s
| available, because Sony is in no lack of strong Intellectual
| Properties when it comes to gaming. Guerrilla Games (Killzone,
| Horizon Zero Dawn), Insomniac Games (Ratchet & Clank), Naughty
| Dog (Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Dexter, Uncharted, The Last of
| Us), Santa Monica Studio (God of War), Polyphony Digital (Gran
| Turismo) and more are all part of PlayStation Studios which is
| a division of Sony IE. Most of the studios in PlayStation
| Studios are big time IP in the industry.
| rvz wrote:
| It would be silly for the existing mainline franchises of several
| games to become exclusive to Sony, just like the same with
| Microsoft with their recent purchases of Activision and ZeniMax.
| Who doesn't want more money for multi-platform and cross-play
| games?
|
| I would expect that the spin-offs or DLCs and the new IP from
| those studios to make them exclusive.
| bladegash wrote:
| Interesting! I wonder how this bodes for Bungie's relatively
| recent cross-play and cross-save functionality in Destiny 2 (or
| future games). They executed on it extremely well and it has been
| great to play on PS4 and Steam without any huge issues.
| tapoxi wrote:
| They claim no changes and they intend to remain a cross-
| platform studio.
|
| So I wonder if this ties into Sony's upcoming PS Now
| replacement gaming subscription service, you get Destiny
| content while your PS sub is active.
| bladegash wrote:
| That's halfway reassuring at least. Wonder if it's gonna be
| out of their hands though (e.g., Microsoft or Steam
| inhibiting their ability to do it), as opposed to Sony
| preventing them.
|
| It will be interesting to see if the transition the existing
| Season system to being included with a PS subscription. I'd
| imagine they'll keep expansions as separate purchases, but
| seasons get pretty pricey on top.
| glanzwulf wrote:
| Capcom? Konami? Sega? Nah, let's buy this 1 old ass game.
|
| Hope Bungie has something in the works that is 3.6B
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Does Bungie even still own the rights to their older catalog
| (not counting Halo obviously)? Like Myth, Oni, and Marathon?
| glanzwulf wrote:
| I don't think they do. I think Oni is with Take-Two. I
| searched about that one a while back actually as I always
| loved Oni and wanted to see it come back.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Given that they recently put a bunch of weapons from their
| older games in Destiny, but had to modify the names slightly,
| I suspect the answer is "no".
| camel_Snake wrote:
| Their next game is called 'Matter' and is purportedly more akin
| to Overwatch than Destiny. 2025ish is the current estimate.
| topkai22 wrote:
| I know Microsoft originally kept a minority stake in Bungie after
| letting it spin-off. I wonder if they kept the investment and how
| much.
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