In my one of my recent posts I wrote about a possible early release of the Playstation 5 and now there are also rumors about Microsoft who apparently is on the acquisition warpath.
Things seem to be heating up in the battle between the consoles. Sony is dominating this generation with their Playstation 4 and Playstation Pro 4 but both Sony and Microsoft have their weak spots. Microsoft has the more powerful machine (Xbox one X) but Sony has the exclusive games locked down.
Both Sony and Microsoft are preparing to do some damage in their upcoming battle for supremacy.
As mentioned before, Sony is ready to strike the first blow by releasing their console sooner than expected (still a rumor) and I made some arguments as to why this would be a smart move on the part of Sony (here).
But don’t expect Microsoft to take this lying down, they have the means to produce a power gaming machine. The only thing lacking is a compelling game library with exclusives.
Exclusives are games that are only released on one platform, either the Playstation or the Xbox. These are the kind of games that people buy a console for, good examples are Halo and Gears of War on the Xbox and God of War on the Playstation.
Sony has the upper hand when it comes to good exclusives, they have publishers like Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Last of Us) and Supermassive Games (Until Dawn) in their corner. The list of great exclusives for the Playstation is extensive (not even taking the timed exclusives into account).
Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier: Automata, Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, Until Dawn, Nioh, The Last Guardian are some of the best exclusives available only on Playstation
Last of Us 2 is Coming! Expect a late 2018 or early 2019 release date.
Microsoft has very little to counter the onslaught of great exclusives from their Japanese rivals. But now there are rumors circulating that Microsoft might use a tactic that they have used in the past many times before. Microsoft is looking to acquire some outside “game making” help and the companies mentioned are nothing to sneeze at. We are not talking about some small studios here but billion dollar companies!
The list of possible targets consists of:
PUBG: The makers of the hottest game at the moment PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Valve: The company behind games like Half-life but nowadays better known for their Steam gaming platform.
EA aka Electronic Arts: The company that produces games like FIFA, Battlefield, Madden, Battlefront, UFC and many, many more.
The acquisition of EA and Valve in particular would have an unprecedented impact on the gaming world. As far as we know these are still rumors but one thing is for sure, if Microsoft wants to take back the crown from Sony they need to bring some system selling exclusives to the table. With either Valve or EA in their ranks they could be able to dominate the console market.
Imagine that the EA games would only be released on the new Xbox or that Valve would make it possible to play PC games on the Xbox, the impact would be huge to say the least.
So what are the chances of the rumors being true? Well, it’s hard to say but Microsoft does have a lot of cash and could be able to gather enough money to actually buy a billion dollar company. Will they take this chance just to become no.1 in Console gaming? It seems like a bit much but who knows for sure?
Another thing is that in the case of EA I am sure that the people there would not be too thrilled with the fact that they can only release their games on Xbox. EA is making a lot of money with their cross platform strategy, so releasing their games exclusively for the Xbox would cost them a lot of money.
Whatever maybe true, it is clear that the electronic and software giants are preparing to go to war. Their reputation is on the line and it will be interesting to see how far either will go to become Victor of the upcoming Console War.
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