It's not blocking investment, tech companies will definitely not see it that way.
They can set-up Server Farms to house cloud processing facilities, Microsoft has already done that without oposition from the government.
What about this actually stops Microsoft poaching the talent from Activision to create new Studios or make games in the same style as CoD or other Activision-Blizzard owned IPs, basing them in the UK?
Or a CoD competitor that's fresh.
With even a fraction of that cash they could make a ton of quality games, they need to focus on bringing in new blood, support new ideas and actually become good at making games.
The difference between Sony and Nintendo, compared to Microsoft, Microsoft doesn't even approach the talent pools and productivity levels to actually put out great content for their respective audiences.
Cleverly using a massive amount of resources like Microsoft has they should be rel...
Today was the first time the UK blocked this deal, so how could Activision and Microsoft appeal it any time before today?
The deal is toast and Microsoft will have to pay Activision $3B, it's probably what Activision wanted all along, just another way to generate money, because the likelihood of the deal being allowed was very slim.
That would be the best news!
Phil Spencer is the worst thing to happen to the XBox brand, a new head executive or whatever he's called now.
There's far too little action and productivity coming from the studios within the brand and with Gamepass they've diminished the value of their content, because people expect to pay nothing or next to nothign for XBox games.
This is true, but tbh they may as well create more new IPs, get games out and build new studios to grow the industry, instead of taking from it and denying content from going to PlayStation or whoever may be competition for XBox in the future.
ZeniMax is a prime example of how not to handle this situation and the UK government can see that, as much as I hate them!
As it should be, no company should be able to buy any of these publishers and control them.
The ZeniMax deal should have been blocked as well.
Microsoft should just take that money, use it to build new studios of their own and IPs from the ground up.
Add to the industry, don't just consume and stop content going to platforms it has thrived on for generations.
Even 120FPS wouldn't have helped, the game just doesn't look compelling or exciting in any way IMO, which seems to be shared by many people.
"Obscure_Observer: SE have been naturally gravitating to PlayStation Exclusivity for quite a while, they do so because their games are Japan focused and Sony has the audience out there.
MS could have developed a more global brand that actually works out in Japan, but they can't be bothered to.
There are no examples of Sony trying to buyout major industry players like Microsoft has been, an anomaly is an outlier, it happens rarely, but it isn't the rule...
@BandarHub: You have any other examples, Bend were given years to make Days Gone, the IP didn't do well, despite having a faithful core audience, but Sony are also giving them another chance to make another game.
Days Gone also had a big budget, their next game is apparently another new IP.
I'd call that nurturing on Sony's part, to support them to make another new IP.
Tough love can also be a part of nurturing if you need to teach a studio how...
@mocaak: Exactly, the scale that Microsoft did what Sony has done has always been so much greater and in many cases Sony had already made titles like Tomb Raider what they are with the audience preferring to play the game on PlayStation.
Dead Rising had a huge fanbase on PlayStation 3 with the first and second games, far bigger than 360, but the 3rd game has never touched PS4, was a launch exlcusive during the XB1 fiasco.
@giovinni: It's not even remotely the same thing.
The scale is much larger in the case of Microsoft buying and making games that were already established as multiplats and sold better on PlayStation are now XBox or Windows Exclusive.
Games that were most certainly going to release on PlayStation and undoubtedly sell better aren't, in the case of new IPs that were developed while ZeniMax had a relationship with PlayStation.
In the case of Sony buyin...
That doesn't matter to these people, because it doesn't suite their agenda.
Microsoft have been trying to pay their way through this whole ordeal, it doesn't matter what it does to the industry.
No matter what anyone says, buying entire publishing houses and allowing a platform holder to remove games from the very platform most IPs exist on and sell best on is certainly anti-competition and anti-consumer.
We already see what Microsoft has done ...
It really doesn't, the first game was awesome, Forbidden West takes everything the first game had and expands on that further with the experience the team gained.
Yep, the game isn't just a good looking title, it actually has great gameplay, story, audio and acting by the cast, recorded in painstaking detail.
Animations in this game are phenomenal, it makes for a highly immersive experience.
This game definitely doesn't get the recognition it deserves by many gamers.
Burning Shores looks like a big visual step up from Forbidden West on PS5, but those new mechanics look like they add to everything.
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They're a studio made up of highly experienced veterans of the industry, so it makes sense to be excited for what they could make, plus Sony aren't just using their existing pool of devs to take away from their resources in making quality single player experiences.
Yep, COD was already very stagnent, Sony could easily just poach the talent from those studios and give them the freedom, along with technical support to take the genre forward.
Sony even has IPs that could have a massive revival and leave COD in the dust.
Many would love to see Socom and Killzone return.
It would be awesome to see Warhawk or Spacehawk get new titles for PS5 and of course Firewall could have non-VR entries to allow the games to be played b...
Yep, at some point in the not too distant future there will be a bunch of new IPs announced, along with great new additions to established franchises.
Yep, Sony arguably has way better relationships with them than Microsoft, plus Japanese regulators would also favor Sony as a Japanese based company.
Anyone arguing that Sony couldn't afford is stuck in the past, believing they're still going bankrupt and also ignores that Sony has way better relationships and sells far more copies of those games than Xbox does.
The issue is their focus on taking from the industry last gen and now, along with little in the way of new IPs actually releasing .
When they were behind devs making Gears, Forza and other Microsoft owned new IPs, either created from within or by 2nd/3rd party partnews they were giving to the industry back in the 360 or on the OG XBox days, you even had games like Brute Force and a bunch of new content that made people excited for XBox.
That isn't what's ha...