Complaining about a bizarre world view and then dropping an equally bizarre and hyperbolic statement. I think this will be good, just as I think Microsoft's previous gaming acquisitions have been good.

For those who like Bethesda Games and bought into the Sony ecosystem? Good for you, maybe.

I am very sad that ES6 and Starfield will never run on a Sony console. Just like when some Gimlet podcasts I liked went Spotify exclusive -- this kind of thing is a net negative for the world.

Yes exactly - it should meet the current standard for anti-trust action that it hurts consumers. It's quite sad that this is not enforced at all anymore apparently.

personally, I'm glad they won't be wasting time catering to two lowest-common-denominator systems. as someone who's only ever owned a PC, I've always lamented my high end (or, after a few years, low-grade (but still better than console)) hardware going to waste on games which haven't figured out how to make proper use of it. we've had affordable SSDs for nearly a fricken whole decade and essentially zero attempts to optimize their use until now, now that consoles have them. and there still aren't any directstorage games out. it's ridiculous the frontiers we've lost, the games we've gimped, due to low end hardware restraints. someday i hope they ditch the idea of the "xbox" as well, and consoles are lost to the sands of time. but for now, at least they're only wasting their time optimizing for one piece of trash, and at least that trash uses the same OS.

Your complaint boils down to the equivalent of "why aren't safe speed limits on roads optimized around hypercars". Probably because the average car is close to a Toyota Camry. The number of people with high end PCs is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of console owners and publishers want to make money.

it's not just about high end PCs, though. like i said, something as basic as an SSD has been affordable for nearly a decade, for not high-end builds. but the fact the xbox one and ps4 exist, and didn't come with one by default, means nobody cared. it's a tragedy. whatever hardware level they decide that consoles get for a given generation holds back the development of gaming tech for their entire lifespan.

And you weren't aware of the potential risks of a closed ecosystem before?

It's not like you bought into an open ecosystem, but now they closed it off.

I didn't buy into either ecosystem. I'm just trying to show that it's not positive for everyone.

Never said it's positive for everyone but "consumers always lose" is equally false.

Commercial games aren't made to make everyone happy.

No game release is a "positive for everyone" and never will be.

I can equally argue that my neighbor baking bread is not positive for me, because I don't get to eat it. And I like bread...

"consumers always lose" and "it's not positive for everyone" are different statements with non-overlapping meanings.

> It’s like teenagers gossiping about celebrity relationships, but with corporations instead.

I think that’s accurate. Whether there’s room for and value in these kinds of playful conjectures is of course up to each of us to decide.

It's totally accurate bc humans are a simple ape that should be living in bands of 50 to 150, but then we had several technological revolutions. Someday well be more like star trek vulcans, I'm sure.

I'm not sure this is bad because Blizzard has been a total mess for quite some time. I'm excited to see if it can get better.

Consumers loose literally nothing from Microsoft's acquisition of Activision/Blizzard.

The tinted rose glasses are really strong. Most large company merges are close to never good for the end user - less concurrency and competition is not good.

Would've been valid only if the quality of products and services pre-acquisition were actually good, and for Blizzard games at least it's been anything but good in the past few years. Gaming is a very end-user-focused experience and until their testimonies come in due time, your abstract market competition spiel is irrelevant to it.

IP laws already prohibit competition.

There is only one maker of Diablo, and no Torchlight is going to replace Diablo.

Games aren't going to get pulled from other platforms. New games may not come out on (insert-your-preffered-console), but they never were guaranteed to come out at all.

Thus consumers aren't loosing anything here. It doesn't even reduce competition.

Yes consumers are losing here. In the near future, you will have to own at least two almost identical gaming devices to play all the relevant AAA games. That's basically a $500 tax being applied to gaming enthusiasts to get the same access to IP.

So what you're saying is that consumers aren't loosing access to games at all. They aren't forced to choose one to the exclusion of the other. Other consoles aren't forced out of the market. And other console manufacturer will have a market incentive to invest into similar games, to entice people from buying a second console...

And the market that would actually care, will already own multiple consoles... and a gaming rig.

You've actually managed to convince me that this is good for the market, not neutral.

I can't tell if you're joking, but I hope you are. Having to pay more to access the same products is not a net loss to the consumer?

You're stretching the term "same" to mean "new products created for a different use case". (5G is a net loss to a consumer, because you need to buy a new phone to access "same" product.) Same products are quite clearly not same here.

Consumer doesn't mean "a specific individual that owns a PS5", it's a generic term meaning market participants that consume products. Consumers don't loose if prices for new products are substantially higher in a competitive market, because willingness for a consumer to pay the price in a competitive market equals to the value of the product.

Interactive game market is highly competitive. Therefore producer prices a product at $500 => consumer agrees that $500 is acceptable => consumer spends $500 => consumer gets $500 in value => cost - value = 0 => no consumer net loss.

You're essentially making the argument that games are fungible while the other commenter is saying that they are not. The reality is that most games, yes including triple A games, are hot garbage and make no money and provide no benefit to everyone. It's a lot like the movie industry in that sense. So consoling myself that maybe someone will make a copy of the cool game I want to play doesn't really work, because that copy is near guaranteed to be expensive garbage

>It’s like teenagers gossiping about celebrity relationships, but with corporations instead.

very much need, but that's how gaming industry works in general - hype, fans and all.

This is the world we live in now. People rage against capitalism but at the same they'll hang their hat on corporation x and defend them to the death.

I don’t think these are the same people.

> Microsoft couldn’t win customers through product and service quality

GamePass subscriber numbers are growing at an incredible clip.

This sounds a bit like "ms should just make better games". Games are hard. Extremely hard. If Microsoft managed to incorporate the Battle net portfolio into their gamepass, there is some argument to be made about how much better that service would become.

I see your point, I really do, this stinks in all sorts of ways, but there could be a benefit here for a lot of players.

>This sounds a bit like "ms should just make better games". Games are hard. Extremely hard.

The answer to this conundrum for them should be, "Tough titties, learn to compete or die, but we will not allow you to bully your way into a market with money."

I sometimes really question if I'm back on reddit while reading some of these replies...

You're in HN, talking about MS and acquisitions, telling them to learn to compete?

Am I on the right website or has my browser been hijacked?

Buying Blizzivision is not the same as competing, it's them swinging their money dick around to take stuff away from the competition.