Yesterday marked the date where Microsoft and Activision completed its merger, and with it, Microsoft becomes a juggernaut. The big shadow that looms over all the major publishers, and platforms, including Sony and Nintendo. The latter not having a problem with that, of course.
No, I didn't join team PlayStation to write this. I just don't think I want to support this company anymore. Their main motto now is to promote Game Pass. That's their biggest money maker now, but before that, I liked owning an Xbox because I like the ecosystem around it. I didn't even have to pay for cloud saves, and most of the time, Xbox Game Pass either versions have good offers.
But the issue always has been the games, their own games. Halo is coming back, but it has a long way to fixing that trust. Nothing about Gears franchise. Forza is in far worse shape than before. And then there's the following releases this year. 1/4 good releases. 3 of them being Bethesda's.
Game Pass Core is a revamp change of Xbox Gold, after over 22 years of its existence. It is now a basic package of game pass with online gaming. The big change is that every will have access to 25+ games to play, and that library will change. Not a bad offer, but what are the games?
Ah, that's not a question they want to exactly answer. Because for the past 5 years, they've been gobbling up game studios, and publishers. The Activision Blizzard merger is complete, and has that changed anything so far while the deal has been ongoing? I doubt that'll be case anytime soon. And if anything, Microsoft's hands off approach might be more AB's QA team's problem. I'll tell you why.
Quality Control Issues
Remember Redfall, anyone? Well, it did get a special update with improvements. But it wouldn't matter much because the studio that released it, pretty much signed its doom. There's still a lot to change fundamentally if this exceeds the traction it got at first.
But how will that work? Microsoft is so lax on their devs, despite spending so much money on buying them. Well, they won't have to touch that problem probably, Activision Blizzard's own QA team might. And as much as I see Microsoft wanting to be a juggernaut, this could also be their other way of getting their in-house developers now to take things seriously.
Although, I am not entirely sure that's a good idea either. Has anyone seen their track record as of late? Overwatch II is abysmal, Call of Duty and Warzone are in incredibly bad state so much so that they are releasing MWIII as a sequel, but as a DLC, not full-fledged new title. Diablo IV didn't exceed expectations, they've also turned all good studios into skeleton crews.
Otherwise, we'd be getting another Tony Hawks game, sequel to Pro Skater 1 + 2. Vicarious Visions made that possible, and all they got in return was a merger to Blizzard with staff cut off. Maybe that's it, all the hidden talents can finally let themselves out after Bobby Kotick leaves this year.
But even if Activision Blizzard magically fixed everything, we're talking huge human resources involved doing so. Bethesda could have done so too, but ah there's Starfield, Todd Howard tricked us again. It's insane to continue inhaling the hopium at the rate things are going.
Asserting Dominance Without Much Gain
So yeah, Halo is kind of a redemption tour. They had a change in leadership early this year, and since then, the game has gotten really better. I think that's something worth noting. But it's also too little too late. They're also going to be focusing on the next Halo game, because why not.
Remember the Xbox Showcases for their other first party titles, nothing about Fable aside another CG trailer, no Forza Horizon 4 news, neither the new games revealed and promoted around 3 years time. Go to this link here, and see all the 2024 TBD titles, little to coverage of them at all since. 2022 exclusive releases are a joke. But why should that matter when you have Game Pass?
Sony is also porting their games to the PC, but not all of them. Even then, PS5 sold over 30 million units. You know why that is? Because Sony is catching up. You can buy so many games studios, yet Sony has theirs getting the products out, without all these smokescreens.
Even better, PlayStation Plus tier options are getting better, and right after Microsoft decided to change the 1 dollar Game Pass option, and price Ultimate to 17 USD, the other option has never looked better. With the only caveat being that nobody gets day 1 access to newly released games. But I bet you people who owns PS5s are actually ok with that.
The lack of exclusivity power, the complete lack of competition to present despite spending so much money to flex how big they are, Microsoft is now this big dumb guy that has all the good stuff, but not able to do something about them. No wonder Sony is giving exclusive deals to third party devs.
Mark my words, things will get bad for them next year. There's a reason Xbox doesn't sell well in Japan, they just never do a better job of cultivating their games over there. Even if they have money and influence to talk over other Japanese publishers. I.E: Sega/Atlus, Spike Chunsoft, etc.
Unless we do get something concrete, with Activision Blizzard's help of course, state of things will only stay as bad as they are now. Within the past 3 years, majority of their releases are small time, and big titles are becoming increasingly disappointing. They're back to dealing with another case of embarrassment like the one they've had in early years of Xbox One
The Need For New Tech
When Microsoft released court documents in regards to undoing the cease order of the AB merger, they revealed a lot of interesting things. A new updated controller with update tech, and haptic feedbacks that also acts as speakers somehow. New functions, and big changes.
And then there's the trashcan looking Xbox Series X, without a disc drive and twice the storage. Nah, I'll stick with the original one if I had to choose. But hey, if that controller is real, the new redesign is a big change for something Microsoft keeps milking on. Xbox hasn't adapted the VR headsets yet, and for a console all about power, it sure isn't put to use elsewhere aside couch gaming.
I do applaud them for taking the initiate to create a different controller for the disabled and special needs type. To be clear, Microsoft is also a hardware company, they make tablets for crying out loud. A new controller with haptic feedback will allow more game developers to adapt such feature. Newer games will be able to provide far difference experiences, not just Sony exclusives.
There's also the horror stories people are sharing about the Series Elite controllers. How they have poor durability and failure rates. Nothing even more sleazier than selling broken products that cost over 100 USD, and using your seemingly strong reputation to cushion the bad press.
I hope the new controller is revealed. But aside that, I will keep the hate for Microsoft real now. I am being fully cynical because I've seen too much already, and jaded as I am, it makes sense to no longer give them pity for it. Why yes, a multi-trillion dollar company buys games studios, and do nothing with. For shame, sir. For shame.
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