Activision's president and chief executive Bobby Kotick has warned investors that the upcoming launch of Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's next-generation Xbox may not be the gift to the company others are claiming - and that the games industry may have some tough times ahead.
Speaking during his company's most recent earnings call this week, Kotick warned that he has some concerns surrounding the launch of next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony later this year. 'We continue to face the uncertainties of the console transition,' Kotick told investors. 'There are still many unknown factors, such as pricing, launch dates and quantities, the level of first-party support and, importantly, consumer purchase intent in a world where consoles are no longer just competing with each other, but also with new platforms, such as smartphones and tablets.'
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Kotick Made $155 million from MS in the buyout, the little b*tch needs to stop whining. Thanks to this Microslop deal and massive industry consolidation thousands upon thousands of devs and other workers lost their livelihoods. This greedy piggie pervert needs shut up and f-off.
Windows Central: "The money may keep rolling in, but Microsoft is the custodian of one of the biggest selling video game series in history. If something doesn't change, I fear we'll reach a breaking point and irreparable damage will have been done."
In my view, they should probably merge MP with Warzone and essentially make it free to play like Halo Infinite. The campaign/zombies mode can be $30 yearly DLC. I know this would be insanity as most COD players essentially pay the full price of the game simply for the MP. However-with a shrinking player base they may have to consider it. Making it free would bring in a ton of players.
To late MW3 should have been a lesson but here we are two years later with a steaming pile a shite called blops7
Nothing lasts forever, eventually something will come along to make people forget about COD
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@Oumba:”We’ve heard that story many times before 😂”
You know what we seen many times good franchises been run into the ground by bad management like h___o , f___a and most of the sports game oh I forgot the dynasty warriors
Oh forgot to say
Happy thanksgiving to all the N4G members
🥳 🍗 🦃
Halo killer once arrived and technically call of duty killer also arrived, its name is Fortnite
Call of Duty was riding the revenue horse and charts for ~20 years. Whether undeserved or deserved.
But I endorse everyone to remind you that Microsoft could have decided differently when they took it over.
The money was certainly there, and they could have taken their time revamping the franchise:
Current-gen tech, manageable microtransactions, not imitating Fortnite and returning to core values of the franchise's origin.
They didn't.
Let's see next year. Hopefully without the then 13 years old PS4 and One hardware.
A variety of new updates are available this month across the gaming platforms. Coming today, Retro Classics games are available to play for Xbox Game Pass members. Players who stream on the Xbox app on PC now have an additional streaming option with GeForce Now. Game Bar introduces quick settings, visual updates for Widgets in Compact Mode, and coming soon, Microsoft Edge Game Assist, an in-game browser that brings an immersive game-centric experience to Edge. And Xbox gift cards can now be redeemed for any amount via Xbox Rewards.
While i appreciate the gesture.... all of these retro classics have been made available everywhere else. I am hoping to see some other Activision properties make their way out of the shackles of the 5th, 6th and 7th gen. Licensing be damned... bring back the Transformers Cybertron games.
Love the Cybertron games! TF games have been shit lately. Would love to see that era revisited. I even did the multiplayer!
Metaphor on Gamepass just announced! O.o
Seriously, this is the best generation of Xbox ever!!!
We can´t catch a freaking break from awesome games arriving all the time!!!
It’s a HELL of a game. If you like JRPGs in the family of Persona, you will be in heaven… that is until you hear the various battle music…. then you’ll be somewhere BEYOND heaven!
Activision needs to just keep quiet & keep pumping out more COD
well I suppose Activision is in a position to know these things I suppose
This is the part that stuck out most for me
"the level of first-party support"
As he's talking about the PS4 and next Xbox, I believe this reference is in relation to the next Xbox (Cause Sony have a ton of 1st Party support).
I'm curious as to what he knows (Or believes he knows).
It's surprising to see Kotick of all people speaking common sense, but it does just show that their is a reason they put this guy in charge. I am hyped for next-gen as a gamer that wants to play the latest and greatest. But I also know that development cost are going to be a lot higher.
The costs want change right away because the new titles will basically be up scaled 360/ps3 titles. After those are out and developers start taking advantage of the systems true potential cost are going to jump. Combine that with marketing cost and you have a combination that is going to see a lot of companies go under if their title isn't a mega success. Just look at the whole Tomb Raider thing.
Well he isn't entirely wrong, we don't know pricing, release dates or all of the games that will be available right away. No matter how you slice it, the install base on these new consoles isn't going to be as appealing as the current ones for the foreseeable future.
We all assume the Wii U is doing poorly for one reason or another, but it could very well be a trend in the industry, I mean who doesn't see the Xbox 360 and PS3 outselling the Xbox Infinity and PS4 for at least a year?
I think if people have the choice between a $99 Xbox 360 or $199 PS3, those are going to look very appealing to parents and a lot of people in comparison to possible $400-$500 new consoles.
It'll be interesting to see how it all works out, I love gaming and hope everything rebounds, but we've never launched a console generation with so much competition from things like tablets and phones.