Microsoft claims: Steam Deck Did Not Need Call Of Duty To Succeed
Microsoft has argued that the Steam Deck did not need Call of Duty to be successful, a claim that is easily proven by the Deck's success.
Nobody needs CoD to be Successful.
It's such a weird take, i don't remember any platform CoD had impact.
PC was big before, Nintendo is doing their own thing, smartphones were big before and Sony / Microsoft had both CoD anyway
Yeah, if anything consoles made CoD big, people willing to pay for fucking online are also willing to pay 60 bucks each year for the same game...
Nintendo switch says "sup?"
Nintendo has their own IPs to carry them, I don’t think CoD is helping them much, if at all.
Who buys a Switch to play CoD?
This was just more MS propaganda so they could buy Activision and consolidate. Further harming gaming competition. It shouldn't be taken as anything but twisted truth for a profit.
I'm conflicted. On one hand, monopoly is absolutely bad.
On the other hand, Kotick is an abusive, greedy asswipe who is directly responsible for some of the worst trends in AAA gaming; the sooner he gets the boot, the better we all are.
Kotick is an abusive, greedy asswipe who is directly responsible for some of the worst trends in AAA gaming
And that's why giving him a payout is good?
the better we all are.
I don't think I'm better off when Blizzard games will be exclusive to MS platforms.
And is it confirmed that Kotick will leave after ActiBlizz bought by MS? Usually for big company purchase like this, the key people will be kept and/or integrated to main company
I dunno if he moreso deserves the boot or the sword at this point.
As in, criminal penalties for basically running a harassment ring, if applicable.
He's reported he wants to leave. Because he'll become an even bigger billionaire. But there's no guarantee that we've seen, is there? He's egotistical enough he may want to stay on.
MS has lately had a fairly light touch on their acquisitions. They just want their profits to be theirs and to use their IPs to push Xbox sales.
But even if he leaves, it's unlikely MS is going to radically shift their games to be more consumer friendly. CoD and King already prey on children and make bank doing it. MS isn't throwing that away.
Yeah this isn't news.
It’s amazing how so many people are falling into the trap and arguing against or even in favor of Microsoft’s CoD argument.
A single game of whatever size or importance is not the problem. But it’s in Microsoft’s best interest that the discourse keeps being this lacking in nuance and centered in aspects like this.
LMAO as if anyone needs that shit to have measurable success
Why can't the steam deck run COD exactly? Is Microsoft trying to ship it as some alien UWP app
Malware labeled "anticheat software" that wants obscene access to low level OS information and is a massive security liability.
The driver-level anti-cheat that was used by Genshin Impact and then later on ransomware should always be brought up on the topic of anti-cheat.
Has the steam deck succeeded? It's a cool device but less than 2% of steam users bought a deck. It's not as big as any active console. It's working to gain support but I hope the next stepping stone will be steam releasing a desktop OS made for desktop usage. (It won't be though. It will be a steam deck hardware iteration.)
It outsold all expectations and was successful enough that it brought several traditional PC makes (Asus and Lenovo) into the market.
It's obviously sold less than established consoles, but it's done well for itself. Also even though it's a small percentage of steam users, it seems to represent some of the more active players/spenders on steam. Thanks to that, steam deck players seem to be an actually significant percentage of steam sales for many games despite the lower number of steam deck players.
Oh yeah it did, they weren't going for mass adoption, but there was a niche market that needed it and they filled it. Preorders took a year to produce. Being successful and profitable didn't use to mean literally every person needed to own one
Still, I'm working off the data we have. I wouldn't make the assumption it's been successful or unsuccessful. We can look at known failed steam hardware such as the steam link, controller, and the steam machine partnership. All 3 served the same niche and weren't successful. That said, we don't know what success looks like. Was the Vive successful? Was the index? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Controller#Release_and_reception shows that there were a million units sold and while differently priced than the steam deck, still similar in sales to the steam deck.
Also, Valve is already confirmed a Steam Deck 2 is on the way and shortly: https://www.pcworld.com/article/1555020/valve-says-the-steam-deck-2-is-years-away.html so it's not that the original Steam Deck is a "failure" as it is an experimental piece of hardware created to make a jumping off point for Valve into the console market. That said, if I truly had to guess, and this is just a guess, Valve probably didn't make their money back on the console. It's an investment into the console market and success is determined by different things. Valve would have likely seen the Steam Deck as a success as long as it didn't have major hardware failures and did what was asked of it. Which it does. It's absolutely what you ask for when you ask for a handheld PC. So, that's why Valve might not need CoD on the Steam Deck. It's not trying to outsell a Switch or XBox. It's trying to gain a foothold and not be a disaster. It successfully did that.
Lastly, It's important that hardware is typically sold not for profit but to get people in the door to the console ecosystem. Buying games is where it's at and Valve already has a major step up on that. Steam didn't need CoD but Valve needed CoD (and other games) to get to this point where they can fail or not even seek profitability on hardware to expand their store audience.
less than 2% of steam users bought a deck.
Well seeing as there are a billion accounts and 120M active users, that's a LOT of decks sold. Numbers online saying 1.2M decks sold which is a lot for a niche PC handheld. There's already copycats.
Sure, it's 2.6 million Decks sold (the most recent numbers). It's a lot but the deck isn't successful because of the number of sales. It's Valve finding a foothold in the console market by making hardware that didn't have hardware issues. The deck is only successful because Valve is already successful enough to take the first loss on a console to prove its hardware. The Steam Deck 2 is likely gearing up to be the thing that brings new players into the Valve ecosystem to really make them money. In a roundabout way, Valve is only successful because CoD and games like CoD are already being sold on Steam so they could amass this profit. So while the Steam Deck doesn't directly need CoD, Valve needs CoD. Hardware isn't something console manufacturers profit off of by much anyways.
While I disagree with your core argument about the success of the Steam Deck, I absolutely agree that I'd love to see a desktop variant of SteamOS become available for general use. To the point that I'd likely even finally make the leap from Windows.
Wouldn't that be several million units with the size of Steam's userbase? Of course established consoles are more successful but that doesn't sound like a terrible start, especially for a handheld.
2% of a large number is a large number
It's 2.6 million. The Vita sold 16 million and the PSP sold 80 million. So to put the 2.6 million into perspective with new handhelds. It doesn't seem to have done great. The N-Gage from Nokia was 3 million sold units. The 2% is just how many Linux users on Steam there are which is absolutely inflating the numbers. The numbers I see reported specifically for Steam Decks sold are estimated to be 3 million by the end of 2023. I don't think that many people took Linux off of their Steam deck. Also, the estimate is by Omdia which didn't explain how they got their 2022 numbers or how they estimate 2023 numbers.
All my PC gaming friends have one now after that last sale, and I see the internet buzzing about it still.
I am not very familiar with the gaming industry (casual gamer only) but, while the argument is true, the conclusion that the big players can apply monopolistic practices without constraints leaving smaller players unaffected, is simply false.
Z. Zstd.
