Bill Borre wrote on May 16, 2023, 13:13:
It is interesting that no Microsoft titles have been announced for Nvidia's Geforce Now as of yet. Only promises of coming soon but presumably these could've been mentioned from the get go. It makes me suspicious.

Saw this today on Engadget:

Earlier this year, Microsoft signed deals with a number of game streaming services to bring Xbox-exclusive titles to its rivals. Today we see the first fruits from the relationship ‘twixt Microsoft and NVIDIA as Gears 5 makes its bow on GeForce Now. The PC version of the title is available to play right now, with NVIDIA reminding users that it’s offering discounted signups between now and May 21st. And that higher-paying GeForce Now users can play the title in 1080p at 60fps, or in 4K 120fps if they’ve signed up to Ultimate. NVIDIA added that we should expect to see Deathloop, Grounded and Pentiment — three more Microsoft-owned titles — added to the service on May 25th.

VaranDragon wrote on May 17, 2023, 05:31:

RogueSix wrote on May 16, 2023, 12:18:
As always, the EU is dumb as fuck (or corrupt as fuck... looking at recent EU corruption scandals who knows if M$ didn't simply pay for this decision?).

What the hell are you talking about? This decision doesn't benefit Microsoft, in fact it forces Microsoft to "provide" their games on streaming platforms other than their own.

The approval to go ahead with the Actiblizz merger does not benefit Microsoft? OK. Interesting. I guess they just offered almost $70 billion for shits and giggles then(?).

The EU's "requirement" (you can't even call it a restriction with a straight face) is like "but you can not sell ice cream in Antarctica". It's laughable.

Cloud gaming may not be huge yet but thanks to GamePass Microsoft are and will be the King of the Castle and they will eliminate all competition in no time with their $2.3 trillion market weight.
Yeah, so they will be forced to offer popular Actiblizz games through competing (lol) cloud gaming services. That won't be too hard when you have eliminated all competition through aggressive GamePass promos and if the remaining "competition" has a market share of 10% (if that).
A previous poster was right: The only gigs to theoretically compete in cloud gaming are Microsoft, Google and Amazon. And Google has already left the building.

You enjoy your next Microsoft monopoly though. It was already a bit boring that they are only a monopolist in OS, Office software and PC gaming. They clearly need more power and more market share in other areas as well. MICROSOFT ÜBER ALLES.

For the big game publishers this is not about cloud gaming per se, but shifting the entire market from retail to subscriptions that cloud gaming can make the arrangement more convenient and palatable to consumers.

The average US PC gamer spends the equivalent of $70 a year in game purchases, while the average amount spent for a gaming subscription is many times that annually.

This comment was edited on May 17, 2023, 07:08.

Indeed, and they'd already put agreements in place to put CoD et al on nVidia Gamestream. It seems odd that the UK CMA blocked it when it's actually opening Activision games to more platforms. Maybe Sony didn't like losing their paid for exclusivity (IIRC they pay Activision to not have CoD on any subscription service, and also to make some features timebound to Playstation). Apparently that's not anti-competitive somehow.

RogueSix wrote on May 16, 2023, 12:18:
As always, the EU is dumb as fuck (or corrupt as fuck... looking at recent EU corruption scandals who knows if M$ didn't simply pay for this decision?).

What the hell are you talking about? This decision doesn't benefit Microsoft, in fact it forces Microsoft to "provide" their games on streaming platforms other than their own.

The promise of a 10-year duration is pretty damn long in tech.

Sepharo wrote on May 16, 2023, 15:48:

thestryker wrote on May 16, 2023, 14:51:
but let's face it the cloud gaming market isn't a thing and likely won't be a thing

Is that a typo?
Did you mean, "is a thing" and "will continue to be a thing" ?

What actual cloud gaming services exist right now of any note? I may be missing something, but I'm pretty sure there are 4.

• xbox cloud gaming which is for all intents and purposes a gamepass addon
• geforce now which is cloud access to your existing library
• amazon luna which is a weird hybrid of the other two, but effectively is a prime addon
• ps now I think it's called, sony's half hearted addon to ps plus

This isn't exactly a sign that things are prosperous or even really growing. Perhaps someone will come up with a big breakthrough that pushes people to cloud gaming, but it just isn't there now.

RogueSix wrote on May 16, 2023, 12:18:
Finally, to illustrate just how fucking stupid and clueless they are, here is a quote from TPU's article with a direct quote from the EU docs...

EU antitrust regulators have found that Microsoft "would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision's games to Sony" and that "even if Microsoft did decide to withdraw Activision's games from the PlayStation, this would not significantly harm competition in the home gaming console market."

^ ROFL ... I'm actually more inclined to believe that M$ bought the EU decision because even for EU standards this is fucking DUMBER than DUMB

Uhh, there's only one incentive to refuse distribution and that is to push hardware, which Microsoft knows it cannot do in non-Western regions, even if they forced exclusiveness of titles to their particular hardware. They also know, in the long run, they make far more money off licensing fees than they would off straight one-shot sales.

That said, I laugh at the thought that people would believe losing something like CoD on Playstation hardware would doom the entire console market. If that were the case, we'd have already seen it with Sony's strong-arming of specific titles to their platform.

jdreyer wrote on May 16, 2023, 16:08:
Everyone here is interpreting "cloud gaming services" as meaning game streaming services like Amazon Luna or Nvidia GeForce Now. But those are still pretty niche operations and the tweet said "millions of consumers." I think the actual inference is to Steam and EGS.

Nah if you read the thing it's very clear what they mean... and they also touch on what you guys have pointed out, that it's not very big yet.

The acquisition would harm competition in the distribution of PC and console games via cloud game streaming services, an innovative market segment that could transform the way many gamers play video games. Despite its potential, cloud game streaming is very limited today. The Commission found that the popularity of Activision's games could promote its growth. Instead, if Microsoft made Activision's games exclusive to its own cloud game streaming service, Game Pass Ultimate, and withheld them from rival cloud game streaming providers, it would reduce competition in the distribution of games via cloud game streaming.

Everyone here is interpreting "cloud gaming services" as meaning game streaming services like Amazon Luna or Nvidia GeForce Now. But those are still pretty niche operations and the tweet said "millions of consumers." I think the actual inference is to Steam and EGS.

thestryker wrote on May 16, 2023, 14:51:
but let's face it the cloud gaming market isn't a thing and likely won't be a thing

Is that a typo?
Did you mean, "is a thing" and "will continue to be a thing" ?

This seemed like the obvious move, but let's face it the cloud gaming market isn't a thing and likely won't be a thing. There are only 3 cloud providers big enough to even run services at scale: google, amazon and microsoft. Nvidia's service makes the most sense as a standalone, google didn't have a good business model with stadia and microsoft's is a value add for gamepass.

Overall I don't really see this acquisition changing the landscape of gaming in a major fashion. It seems more like a branding win for microsoft than anything else (well and cod/candycrush seem to print money). Generally speaking I don't think mega mergers are good, and this one could turn sour. For now microsoft is capitulating and more importantly has agreed to not stand in the way of unionization. Top actibliz corpo leadership is likely out as well if it goes through which is another win for the employees. It's hard to view this one as harshly as the recent ones which have floated through with no requirements and have changed industry landscapes.

So i suppose this means that Sony must offer the next Uncharted game or Spiderman game on XBOX Live gamepass.. right?... Right??!!

It is interesting that no Microsoft titles have been announced for Nvidia's Geforce Now as of yet. Only promises of coming soon but presumably these could've been mentioned from the get go. It makes me suspicious.

As always, the EU is dumb as fuck (or corrupt as fuck... looking at recent EU corruption scandals who knows if M$ didn't simply pay for this decision?).

What a bunch of bullshit. It is very clear what Microsoft's next mission statement is going to be: Eliminate all cloud gaming competition to make these EU requirements void. And they have an excellent chance of achieving that goal. GamePass is already a force to be reckoned with and Microsoft will naturally continue to aggressively promote their services.

Microsoft is making $2.3 trillion per year and their net profit (yes, NET PROFIT) was $72 billion in 2022. They can easily afford and keep up the GamePass promo campaigns for centuries.

While all of this may be good news for short-sighted gamers as Microsoft will keep pushing GamePass aggressively with price dumping, the long term consequences will not be favorable to put it mildly.

Luckily there is a large indie games market on Steam but AAA will be dominated in monopoly fashion by Microsoft before too long. Thanks for nothing to the EU dumbasses.

Finally, to illustrate just how fucking stupid and clueless they are, here is a quote from TPU's article with a direct quote from the EU docs...

EU antitrust regulators have found that Microsoft "would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision's games to Sony" and that "even if Microsoft did decide to withdraw Activision's games from the PlayStation, this would not significantly harm competition in the home gaming console market."

^ ROFL ... I'm actually more inclined to believe that M$ bought the EU decision because even for EU standards this is fucking DUMBER than DUMB