FTC: Xbox-exclusive Starfield is “powerful evidence” against Activision deal
"Microsoft's actions following... acquisition of ZeniMax speak louder than... words."
"Microsoft's actions following... acquisition of ZeniMax speak louder than... words."
Spencer went out to say that they lost the most important generation to lose (XBOX One gen, not the current one. Corrected thanks to @Boldizzle ), and that they were going back to the drawing board to turn things around. They just hiked up the prices of Game Pass and the XBOX Series X. They also basically confirmed that there won't be any mid-gen "pro" model and that they expect the next gen to come in 2028. And now their plan to buy the industry is also failing.
So what's next? I doubt they have a queue of heavy hitting first party exclusives in the oven to maintain them until 2028. I'm almost certain that they expected to buy themselves some time by acquiring studios and turning their IPs into system-seller XBOX exclusives.
This is a really good point. I have a PlayStation, (disclaimer) so I'm relatively content with their success in the buying-studios-to-produce-console-exclusives game. But it's objectively bad for the industry. Gamers don't benefit because they can't play where they want (or can afford), developers don't benefit because they lose creative control and market share (with the trade off of some short term capital influx), and publisher's don't even really benefit because its a game of mutually assured destruction that all ends up on Steam discount list anyway.
Plus: if Sony does manage a definitive win in the console wars that will shut down billions of dollars of investment that Microsoft is currently putting into the industry. And not just on the console side. That's bad for everyone. Microsoft has been leading the way in accessibility and interoperability between platforms (Game Pass on mobile/console/pc). And that's to be applauded.
I read somewhere (forgive me for not having a link) that the games industry recently shrunk for the first time in a long time. I think it largely has to do with tiktok and other more instant gratification choices for free-time. But gaming entering into the hellscape of streaming fragmentation is not drawing outsiders to the hobby.
You make a good point about the blow to creative freedom. Exclusivity doesn’t seem to correlate with innovation anymore (sans Nintendo). Even if you look at Sony, with its massive lead in quality first-party exclusives, the majority are gritty narrative third-person action games. They are easy to market because they have a compelling story, are mechanically simple to appeal to a wider audience, and are relatively short to lower the commitment.
Consolidation will kill creativity in the long term. Just look at the post-Disney MCU/Star Wars film industry. Games will surely follow, given the way things are headed.
Edit:
Disclaimer - Just my opinion and I play on PlayStation/Nintendo/PC.
I could've sworn Spencer was talking about the Xbox One/PS4 generation when he said about losing the most important generation. This current gen battle is still ongoing so while MS certainly isn't winning it so far, they've come out swinging pretty hard with the latest lot of announcements and there's still plenty of time left this gen to be declaring it a loss for Xbox.
You're totally right! I just looked at the interview again, and he was referring to the XBOX One / PS4 gen.
It make sense. They were on par with Sony at the end of the PS3/XBOX360 era (I would say that Xbox360 dominated the first half where PS did on the second half), so they needed an strong start for the XBOX One/PS4 era, and all the drama about "always online", the anti-consumer focus of their PR, and the lack of games and exclusivities really hurt them.
I'm not really sure what Xbox is thinking nowadays. Raising the Price of the Xbox AND Game Pass, when the PS5 is still kicking their ass. Buying out expensive game studios only to publish flops like Redfall. Now they're wasting time and money trying to get into a merger with Activision Blizzard, which has a good chance of failing, and they possibly could've spent that time and money doing something less controversial and more productive instead...
...at this point, I have to wonder if the Xbox brand has much of a future in the actual console space.
But other consoles can have exclusives?
I'd be ok with this if they got rid of the concept of "console exclusives" all together :).
Was not expecting call of dutys status as a multiplatform game to warrant federal government intervention to protect.
Would you like to go after shit like Bayer-Monsanto?
On the one hand, Sony is doing the same with plenty of their own games - Spider-man, Horizon, God of War, etc. This is standard in the industry at this point. On the other hand, Sony isn't gobbling up every studio it can get its hands on, let alone one as big as Activision Blizzard.
It's an interesting situation MS has gotten themselves in.
Not that Sony is worthy of any defending on our parts, but they have a recent track record of releasing their console exclusives to the PC a short while after. Of those two big conglomerates, Sony seems to be the more dedicated of the two to preserving multiplatform releases.
The PC release is usually around two years after the PlayStation release, I believe, so it's quite a while. Microsoft also releases all their games on PC on day one, and has done for several years at this point, so I'm not sure I'd agree that Sony is more dedicated to preserving multiplatform than Microsoft.
Starfield is currently available for pre-order on Steam with a release date of Sep 6. It's coming to PC as well, without requiring an Xbox storefront or Game Pass, which does make it by all definitions multiplatform. I think the specific complaint at hand here is that it's not coming to PS5, which seems kind of odd to me. Like, it's cool if it also comes to Playstation, but we know Starfield isn't coming to the Switch, for example. So why is it such a huge deal that it doesn't come to PS5? Developers can't be expected to support every platform on every game. I was mad as hell when Persona 5 wasn't on switch (they eventually released Royal on switch but this was several years later), why wasn't that a problem with the FTC? Should I be mad that Skyrim wasn't ported to my 3DS?
Personally I'm not really a fan of Call Of Duty so I wouldn't be bothered if it did just fall off the face of the earth, but I understand people are concerned about Microsoft pulling a bait and switch and making the next COD Xbox only in order to drive console sales. So why, then, is this article talking about Starfield? Also if they were going to pull that they wouldn't be bringing it to PC either because that just ruins your whole captive audience plan, and most or all of their recent AAA stuff that I know of have been multiplatform console/PC releases.
I just don't get it, I guess, is my point. Someone please explain to me what is going on here?
I have gamepass for pc with lots of Xbox exclusive games... I have 5 Sony exclusives...
They are gobbling up developers. Many are lowly and don't have many credits to their names. Sony may be a hardware company that doesn't fully understand software or services, but if they lost two generations in a row, you can bet your ass they'd drop billions of dollars to acquire Activision, or Take-Two or EA
Ya if Sony bought EA, for example, I'd be just as pissed. Or even Take-Two, which it was rumored they were looking at before, I think.
I’ve been a Sony fan for years, so my perspective is probably biased, but the way I see it, Sony innovates to get an edge while Microsoft just buys everything out.
What has Sony done that's been innovative honestly though?
They have good exclusives, and the controller is objectively better. But they're way behind in online integration for beyond game use. The play station competitor to game pass is objectively bad.
Their studios aren't really doing anything with graphics or physics that is not being done comparably or better by others. Tears of the kingdom physics on a fucking switch is miles beyond anything MS or PS can do on their massively better hardware.
Sony lives and dies on brand loyalty and exclusives. And that controller.
I don't think that really has any bearing on the conversation of exclusives, tbh. A work being "good" or "bad" shouldn't have any influence on if we consider exclusives acceptable.
Regardless, the FTC also argues that this manufactured categorization doesn't matter because Microsoft's exclusivity decision applied to "all future ZeniMax games." While Microsoft said in 2021 that "some" future Bethesda games would be Xbox exclusives, no Bethesda non-exclusives have been announced since then.
In this case, FTC is right and they should be extra careful what Microsoft says, as evident, they will just do the opposite.
Regardless, the FTC also argues that this manufactured categorization doesn't matter because Microsoft's exclusivity decision applied to "all future ZeniMax games." While Microsoft said in 2021 that "some" future Bethesda games would be Xbox exclusives, no Bethesda non-exclusives have been announced since then.
I'm fairly confident that I read someone saying -- maybe on /r/fallout or /r/fo76 or somewhere -- that Bethesda had stated that existing franchises would not be XBox-only, though new ones could.
That may-or-may-not have been an accurate representation of what was said (I only read their summary) and may-or-may-not have changed since then, but that's what I recall the statement being.
I don't trust microsoft with anything. I find this exclusivity-through-acquisition behavior very much in character. It's not surprising at all. Giving them the benefit of the doubt again, on the other hand, would just be dumb.
Microsoft: JustCapitalismThings™
Microsoft was just fed up with Sony just buying one year console exclusivity. See Tokyo Ghostwire and Deathloop. The thought instead of paying for exclusivity for Starfield like Sony why not buy them. I also bet that Sony has to pay less for a console exclusivity then Microsoft because they have to reimburse not so many loss of sales since Playstation is a bigger market.