BREAKING: Microsoft is planning to buy Zenimax/Bethesda, an industry-shaking acquisition that will give Xbox ownership of Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, and more. Story hitting Bloomberg shortly
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1308028385877204993?s=21 - (
New Window )
Biggest for me is Elder Scrolls since Skyrim is easily on my greatest games of all time list.
In all seriousness, this is a great move for them. Im generally an Xbox/PC guy as the services and convenience are so much better than on playstation.
id having a hand in Halo? Obsidian making a Fallout New Vegas sequel? The nerd in me is pretty excited, especially with all of it on game pass, which is an excellent service.
If you don't play much multiplayer then I would agree. PS definitely the route to go on that front. But its the polar opposite for online & multiplayer gaming (as far as consoles go).
Its good that its like this in all honesty. It pushers for stuff like this to happen to make gaming better for everyone.
Just get your GamePass subscription re-upped (or setup).
XBox is GamePass and MS's future in gaming is service-based, not hardware based. The XBox console exists to ensure they have a conduit in the living room - considering Sony will never give up control of their platform/revenue stream.
No reason to buy an XBox with a gaming PC in your possession and the line between PC and XBox is going to only get fuzzier (crossplay, etc. forthcoming).
In CoD they let you toggle crossplay on/off and it was a must to turn off after playing a handful of rounds.
In CoD they let you toggle crossplay on/off and it was a must to turn off after playing a handful of rounds.
I think "logical" crossplay is inevitable - but you're never going to get a fair game with a keyboard + mouse vs a controller in a FPS to your point. They will have to balance that.
Where they can get it setup without chasing people away is the where we'll end up - but MS is clearly trying to be the Netflix of gaming and are probably going to keep gobbling up content/studios like this.
Its going to be weird going forward. I do get the value proposition of GamePass, but I'd hate to see a segmented MS/Valve/Epic/whatever ecosystem on PC/consoles, where you have to sub to one to play certain games and another for something else.
Competition lead to better deals on PC, but as we are seeing with Netflix and media streaming - eventually you're going to stir up a giant (maybe MS is that giant/Disney+) and then all the content providers are going to fragment further. What created great deals today will end up having Rockstar sell you their monthly subscription service to play GTA5 for the umpteenth time in 3 years from now (kind of like NBC trying to straight-face tell you Peacock is worth subscribing to to watch The Office again).
Probably a cynical take, but the console wars are going to become the content wars. Sony is lucky they have AAA in-house studios that are consistently great and Nintendo is lucky they're Nintendo, but nobody is outspending MS.
I'm most curious about Nintendo because they have a golden opportunity but for some reason they've stalled. Mario 3D all stars is shit - instead of making legit updates they basically just gave us 3 emulators. They really need a BotW2 announcement, and either Mario Galaxy 3 or Mario Odyssey 2 announcement. I'd also love to see them finally make a new Mario Golf.