Xbox Signs Yet Another 10-Year ActiBlizz Deal, This Time With UK Mobile Network

Hopefully EE give me something else free to go with the Series S I got off them 😄

So how does this deal work? EE already has gamepass as a perk and gamepass is already on mobile devices so EE mobile users can already play Activision games once they hit the service.

@UltimateOtaku91 a service that was probably due to end sometime soon but now it's for 10 years

Wouldn't touch BT products even if they payed me the conning gits. Also shows the corruption within the UK regulatory system. As they allowed BT who owns all the UK landline network & was state owned originally to buy EE who owns most of the UK mobile network infrastructure. Then blocked rivals from merging to compete.

Greggs is next

Sony still hasn't signed. It would be awesome if Microsoft left them with no Activision/Blizzard games until they signed

I’m waiting for a Ten year deal promising day one COD release with console parity to my toaster…..

Cmon Xbox. You guys are AMAZING… us mere mortal gamers are lucky you are on our side.

Let’s do this.

Good for them!

Not long to go now. What is it, 26th? So two weeks tomorrow marks the beginning of the end?

Yo.....MS are you building a family of deals now???

@Kaloudz
Yes it’s very interesting to see what Microsoft will do if Sony don’t sign and the deal goes through.

It is probably the best result for Microsoft.

The point is more that MS are making a point of 'proving' to ANY regulatory bodies that they have NO intention to reduce the Platforms that CoD in particular is available on.

They have already established that MS has no intention to pull games from Playstation and intend to keep CoD multi-platform and now they can clearly prove they have no intention to withhold games from Cloud services too. Therefore it should be a 'formality'.

They stated that 'more' deals would come and it makes sense to try and 'grow' active Online Communities on other Platforms as that ultimately helps recuperate the $70bn - they have a 'ready-made' player base to keep selling to and want to grow their MAU (Monthly Active Users) in these Online Communities - Minecraft has over 140m MAU's even if the majority aren't actually on Xbox.

The More The Merrier 👍 Xbox moving onwards and upwards towards the future

Each one of these deals is less money for Playstation and more money for Xbox. I don't think Sony ever expected this outcome.

The whole purpose of their aggressive marketing and content exclusivity deals with Activision was to lure or force players to the Playstation ecosystem. Now xbox is throwing Cod everywhere in equal terms, letting the consumers choose where they want to play it based on preference, not advantages

Cnat wait see all the games on gamepass I Hope its soon?

Sony will get call of duty regardless of whether they sign or not. Even if regulators didn't require them to include Sony, the whole point of the non cloud based deals is to show that they do not have any plans to make cod exclusive. It will be on Sony for as long as the game is relevant. The next 10 years and beyond.

Another feather in the cap.

@Somebody
Once the acquisition is penned and done if Sony hasn't signed anything with Microsoft they do not have to give them Call of Duty. Would it be a bad business decision, absolutely, but they might keep it exclusive for a year or two or add exclusive modes to the Xbox version to sting Sony a little bit for being difficult lol

@TryToBeHopeful As of November 2016 before BT purchased them, EE's 5G, 4G and 2G networks' combined coverage reaches more than 99% of the UK population, with double speed 4G reaching 80%, while EE's 3G network reaches 98% of the population. They also got government contracts to construct 4G & 5G before others = Wiki.
It also has the biggest 5g network= techradar
EE =112 town/cities
O2= 75
3= 68
Vodafone =54.

@ZuneTattooGuy it is likely that one of the regulators requires a written agreement to include sony whether sony signs it or not.

But either way, no xbox could not make call of duty exclusive from sony. It would make all these statements to regulators a complete lie. It would jeopardize the future of this abk deal and any other acquisitions MS makes.

@ZuneTattooGuy it's true they won't have legal requirements to keep Cod on Playstation, but they will. It's a lot of money and Microsoft (and us players) have little to gain from Cod skipping the Playstation.

Keeping the game on Playstation will also be a sign of good faith and help Ms case whenever they aquire another studio or publisher, because they will.

"Do you guys not have phones?"

@Dezzy70 I'm curious too. I think if the CMA approve, we can safely say for certain that it's in the bag.

@NEStalgia The way this reads is interesting. They specifically say 'PC games built by Activision Blizzard'. Is MS finally looking into cloud streaming for PC, perhaps? Personally, I think that's a lot better idea than building server blades from Xbox hardware, since you are limiting the available software to just what's on Xbox. I mean, at least let us stream Nihon Falcom titles through an Xbox service.

@SplooshDmg That actually really is weird and interesting. I thought it was a randomly misquoted thing, but it's from Phil himself. But....also weird because right now NONE of their games on the cloud are PC games.

Even if MS does cloud PC though it would only be Windows Store, still, so the vast amount of Steam and EGS games etc (Nihon Falcom, Square-Enix, Sony, etc) availability wouldn't be much different.

In terms of the hardware, IDK, I imagine it's cheaper for them to roll out a ton of Xbox hardware and cuts the cost on producing Xboxes by sharing it with the cloud servers, I'm not sure if going the PC route makes more sense or not.

It would also introduce a mess because cloud and console saves would no longer be compatible. That means complimenting your console with cloud streaming wouldn't work anymore, but complimenting PC with it would. Or they'll host two version of cloud games, both PC and Xbox which is possible, but then that gets expensive and confusing.

I honestly can't tell what's up with that detail.

Edit: Could also be a distinction to separate it from "mobile" games but really means "PC type games including consoles that are just custom x86 PCs." I've heard some people around here say in the UK they never really called them "video games" they called them "computer games", so it could just be Phil mis-localizing the dialect from "computer games" to "PC games" because at MS nobody says "computer" they say "PC"?

@NEStalgia its a tiny announcement, GPU is openly advertised on EE. its not like EE customers werent going to get ABK games.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Yeah, though guaranteeing the duration of the contract is a big plus, those things end randomly. But @SplooshDmg has a point with the wording saying "PC games" and not "Xbox games", could be a nothing, but if it's specifically worded that way on purpose that indicates a big change to GPU because right now it only serves Xbox games from Xbox hardware based server blades. If PC games means PC games it means GPU is either adding to, or switching from Xbox servers to host PC titles. Could just be loose phrasing, or could indicate a change in the cloud offering. And also indicates things like WoW and Starcraft would be possible where it otherwise wouldn't.

@NEStalgia I dunno, cloud gaming is infantile, but Nvidia is probably offering the single best service right now in terms of visuals and latency. xCloud wins out in terms of just having a lot of software available for a reasonable price, but I don't think MS should just sit on their hands while Nvidia is out here building RTX 4080 servers. It would definitely be interesting to see MS bring some PC only titles to streaming devices in the future, though.

I'll be ecstatic when Microsoft buys Activision blizzard. I'm so sick of Activision blizzard being such a lame duck company that only cares about money rather than treatment of their DEVS and their games. I'm hoping under Microsoft we will see COD become better because as it sits it's just not even close to the quality of other games on the market.

@SplooshDmg Oh yeah don't get me wrong, I'm all for ADDING PC. I just think replacing Xbox games or having PC versions alternate to Xbox versions gets messy when the save progress gets split up between cloud and the local platforms, etc.

But it won't bring those Japanese games that exist on PC and not Xbox even if they do it because most of those are on Steam, not Windows Store. Otherwise we'd be getting Sony exclusives day and date on Xbox which would be hilarious, but isn't going to happen.

I'd seriously do Geforce Now if it didn't have time limits on it. I think I'd hit the time caps and it would annoy me, so the Xbox ecosystem is working better for me.

WAIT... So is the implication here that PC games will become available on devices other than PC? There currently aren't any PC games on the cloud, only console!

@Master_Cthulhu70 unfortunately i expect it to be business as usual for most of the abk devs. Call of duty and WOW will probably stay exactly the same. Xbox is very hands off with devs almost to a fault. Abk will most likely run semi-independent like bethesda.

Hopefully xbox's other studios will want to make use of the Activision IP like spyro, crash, Tony Hawk, etc but since literally all of their studios have passed on banjo so far I'm not optimistic that this will happen.

Creative possibilities doesn't really seem to be a reasoning for this deal. They are picking up massive guaranteed revenue in COD, WoW and King's mobile games much like the minecraft deal. Plus it gives gamepass a surplus of games.

@TryToBeHopeful no it's not EEs fault it's more the government, Ofcom etc. They should never have done exclusive contracts. BT gets payed regardless of any landline & cable broadband company you go with. As you pay them line rental. But with EE they can offer high-speed wireless internet which gives them a one up over the competition. The regulators also blocked rivals from merging until they allowed Virgin media to merge with O2. But like Tesco the UK regulators tend to favour the market leader as they allowed them to buy bookers the whole saler with little to no opposition.

@NEStalgia Not necessarily. MS is looking to grow the Windows Store, and compiling a Windows Store version of a PC game probably isn't too difficult in comparison to porting to console. I think the idea of hinging the PC store and cloud platform around the success of Xbox consoles is... Not the best idea. Even if they don't have a console port, I don't think that should stop MS from trying to offer a more competitive range of titles on cloud and PC. I think we'll just have to wait a good long while and see where cloud gaming goes. I'm here for it. I want it. I'd probably be the first person in line to sell all my local hardware when I feel cloud gaming finally arrives at it's destination.

@SplooshDmg Their own games are already on both, but we're talking about third parties CHOOSING to be on Windows Store.

But they're still going to need some way to keep saves in sync, otherwise it gets really really messy if cloud versions don't line up with owned versions on your platform (PC or XB) and you have to start again if you buy the game....that won't really work when discounts on buying is a baked in feature with GPU.

@NEStalgia Right, which is my point. Third parties can choose to be on the Windows Store and there's no requirement to have a console port. If MS has the largest streaming platform by user base, and software developers only have to deliver a Windows Store version to get in on that streaming market, I think that's possibly huge. I don't really see where you're getting issues with cloud saving, because it's all hinged to Windows Store which is compatible with cloud saving across PC, console and xCloud. Just in this case, there may not be console versions of games, so it's a non-issue. However, if a game were available on Windows Store and not console, it would be streamable on console. Which is still better than just not available at all. But this is all entirely hypothetical that MS grows the cloud user base that they are certainly trying to in probably the coming decade. I also remain unconvinced that MS won't kill Xbox consoles in the future if they thought they could.

Let's get this deal done!

@SplooshDmg If they really wanted that cloud platform, maybe, but I think the store space for PC will remain hypercompetitive, with EGS/Steam/Windows(plz rename this MS)/Origin/GOG exclusivity etc, so I just see it as really unlikely that your example of, say, Falcom, or let's say Squeenix etc games will just magically appear on Windows store if Steam or EGS is offering them a better deal, or, say, Sony pays them to keep it off Windows store, lol.

Although if Sony wanted to destroy Xbox in a way they couldn't recover they could just release a buggy version of TLOU on Windows Store. I know this because Jimmy told me so.

I'm not saying all this won't happen or that it might not be a good thing, I'm just saying I don't see it as the game changer it might appear at a glance, I think the competitiveness of the PC store space keeps things mostly how they already are and the PC/console cloud difference becomes a cost/logistics issue for building server farms and adding certain PC-only titles to streaming that were otherwise not available for streaming, but mostly things stay exactly the same as they are now to the user even if behind the scenes it's all different and there's a handful more games available than there were.

Oh, I didn't realize Windows Store saves were already compatible between PC and console, I think I just assumed they were naturally different. If that's already the case even for non-play-anywhere titles then yeah, that's not an issue.

Also not convinced MS would kill consoles at all. Most of the growth is PC, mobile, and cloud for sure, but console digital game sales still make up a tremendous portion of their revenue, a greater portion than subs, and even Phil doesn't see that changing any time soon, I don't see them ending selling games for native PC hardware, and as an extension of that I don't see them ending selling dedicated slim, low power hardware to natively play games on. It may not be a "console" as we know it, it could be a Surface powered by Xbox PC with a custom SoC with built in GPU....which is basically all an Xbox is with a different color scheme anyway. But as long as they make purpose specific Surface PCs I don't see them not doing the same for gaming PCs. Even if it's a full PC at some point. Especially with Valve entering the mix with Steamdeck and coupling it to their digital store, a console is necessary for a long time to grow Windows store.

I mean eventually, yeah, even Nintendo will just be a cloud service. But it's so far away we'll be lucky if we can hold our controllers by the time it happens, and we won't be able to distinguish the shaking from being HD, HHD, SHHD Haptic Rumble or just our arms shaking again.

@NEStalgia Right, and I don't necessarily think any of this is unfounded. I'm talking tee-total hypotheticals. I think with MS working on things like Keystone, etc. Sony working on a remote only handheld, I think every company has their eyes on this remote/cloud scene right now. I was just thinking about how ten years ago if you told me I'd one day be sitting my bed streaming my PC games to my iPad and playing them that way, I wouldn't have believed you. I think the gaming landscape is going to change A LOT in the coming decade. The tech and infrastructure are obviously still works in progress, but I think we're getting closer and closer to cloud and remote play really becoming a sizeable part of the market.

All that said, I do think MS would eventually cut consoles if they thought they really should/could. Not today, not five years from now, but ten years plus, yeah, probably. I think Xbox is still a heavily subsidized part of MS that's still hoping for major market growth, and if they can't get some wind back in the sails I think they would have every incentive to cut consoles, especially post closing of ABK. I think all they care about is Tencent money, and Tencent does that without a console.

@SplooshDmg I think the Sony remote play only handheld without PS5 cloud play support means everybody but Sony has their eye on cloud while Sony's still trying to figure out why Vita wasn't the killer PS4 accessory they thought it was, but.....I get you.

But yeah, I do think the "mobile revolution" of gaming is going to happen. I also think the biggest change in the gaming landscape won't really be cloud itself (after all, sitting in front of a screen with a controller isn't actually going to be changing much unless VR hits it huge which I still dream of), the biggest difference will be "mobile games" and "real games" now occupying the same, undifferentiated space. There's going to be winners and losers, mostly losers, lots and lots of losers in the process.

In terms of hardware, I think I agreed with that more years ago than in the present. I think what we've seen since then is more of a convergence of previous non-hardware companies get into hardware (valve), and "devices" become critical parts of the software ecosystems (Apple, Amazon, Google....) I think the landscape overall is going to require branded "devices" to be relevant in the software/subs game.

I don't know if an Xbox 20 years from now will be a reduced cost power efficient mini-PC, or a glorified "remote play device", or a Microsoft Telescreen Home Speaker, but I think there will be a console that is a gateway you buy for your games, branded. Unless gaming PCs in general vanish, I can't quite see them not being that, either. I think that's why the Surface line exists as well. Does Microsoft need to make their own laptops and tablets when 20 more popular companies already do it? No. But Apple and Google and Amazon and Facebook have their branded devices and MS can't be the only one without it. I think money losing or not an Xbox "device" will continue to exist, because it must exist due to market conditions. Years ago? I didn't think so. Today, I think it's a must. Ok, Google? STFU Alexa I didn't ask your opinion.

@cragis0001 BT doesn't own all the broadband network. There's at least three major providers - virgin, BT and a new fibre network (OFNL). I don't think you've got your facts right all all there.

Business ISPs also have other providers aside form the main three.

Other companies will pay to use those networks (Sky on BT, others on Virgin and a whole raft on the Independent OFNL) and BT certainly doesn't get a cut of all of it. I bought a new build with FTTH and couldn't get any BT packages or companies that use their network as they had zero presence on the estate when it was built and the fibre network wasn't connected to openreach at all; it was entirely separate.

@NEStalgia Sony apparently has some openings for their cloud initiative. Something like 23 heads needed to lead a cloud division. So, we really have no idea what the ambition is for this remote handheld, but I imagine Sony can't build PS5 servers and ship consoles the way they want to. So, this might just be the only viable solution for them right now. But I don't think cloud is being ignored on their end.

I think the thing here is, Xbox isn't a particularly powerful brand. It just isn't, not anymore. Nowadays it's a bit more of a troubled brand. Microsoft is a powerful brand, but it really isn't a powerful brand in the consumer tech space, unlike your Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. Surface products are cool, and they're good, but the only place I ever see one is at the bank or in a school. I literally don't know anyone that has one. SEGA was once a successful console manufacturer, now they're a 3rd party software developer. In my mind, I can't rule it out. MS has every ability to operate a cloud gaming platform, a PC store front, and possibly a mobile store front after ABK. I just don't see that they're too fussed over selling the third place gaming console at a loss when they can just rake money in with some of the industry's strongest IPs. Like, people wonder why Apple doesn't make a console. Why would they? They're already leading the pack with iOS in terms of dollars made. It's not like they couldn't sell one, I just don't think they see any reason to be involved there.

@SplooshDmg Xbox's name is attached to Game Pass, though. Maybe they'll call it Microsoft Game Pass, maybe Xbox Game Pass, I think Xbox is a stronger brand than Microsoft Zune lol. Whatever they're selling one of those names will be attached.

I do think MS made a mistake in the 90's branding wise, accepting "PC" as the term when it was an IBM term used generically for the hardware platform and MS never really pushed on separating the term like Mac did with Mac. But it hasn't hurt them financially.

But it's perspective, I don't see them seeing themselves selling the "third place gaming console", I think they see themselves selling "hardware devices" that increase engagement and awareness with their games services platform. I don't think they can drop that without it hurting their games services platform until most people consume games via streaming and by then Nintendo and PS are either distant memories or famous for their cloud platform either.

But that's just it. You don't know anyone that has a Surface device but they still churn them out religiously. It's a vital part of cemeting the MS platform in the public eye. It puts Microsoft first party devices on the shelf at Best Buy across from the Macbooks and Lenovos. The presence is important.

Sega....they were a different story. Their consoles didn't sell and it was the only place their games could be sold otherwise. And they didn't have the budget to produce hardware and compete with Sony, and couldn't tie the hardware into a necessary loss for their software sales, which weren't great to begin with. I think the needs of a closed garden platform vs boosting presence of a digital storefront and ecosystem are just a different set of logistics.

@NEStalgia I've had a couple of Surfaces and you see them often in business set ups. They're bloody brilliant to be honest and it was a shame when they stopped doing the Surface Book. Great corporate/work devices. Also damn good for some productivity stuff and if I had the money I'd get a high end one for music production stuff.

@NEStalgia At the end of the day, after the ABK merger was announced, Microsoft established the Microsoft Gaming division and promoted Phil to CEO of it. So, as it stands now, Xbox is merely just a part of Microsoft Gaming, not the other way around. So... Based on that alone, says a lot to me what their ambitions really are.

Again, I don't think they could drop it today. No way. I think their early cloud successes are attributed to the fact it's tethered as a feature to a console, and not the only option like say Luna or Stadia. But I'm simply not ruling out what the future might look like, and I'm also playing devil's advocate entirely with extreme what if's just for the sake of discussion.

I'm not saying they don't sell scuds of Surface products, but from appearances, they seem popular in the commercial enterprise environment, which is where MS has always thrived and sells metric crap loads of products and services. MS just isn't a 'cool' company, and I like them that way. I can't help that I don't anyone that owns one. I just don't.

Part of me just thinks the ABK merger is going to be a monkeys paw. Fans wanted MS to buy all these publishers and make all these exclusives, and instead they just say, "To heck with console business. Lets make billions selling software everywhere!"

I think it’s funny all the news surrounding CoD in this whole ordeal and how people were scared MS was going to make it an exclusive. I’ve said from the beginning there’s not way that would make financial sense as it would end with them loosing a profit. No way in hell they can make up the annual 10+m sales CoD has on PlayStation alone….

But CoD isn’t even the big fish here. MS could care less what systems CoD is on as long as it’s making them money. No…. The big fish was Zynga and all it’s IP. That makes FAAAAAARR more money than anything Act/Blizz puts out. And without doing anything more, they’ll still make money off of that, but to bring that to multiple platforms or even just Xbox, could stand to make them untold fortunes more.

This whole thing is funny. Especially when you consider MS has more multiplatform titles than either Nintendo or Sony. And if you remove the pc and mobile aspect, then MS is basically the only
one with their titles on rival systems. Smh. Funny times to be an old gamer.

I read that the 10 gamers lawsuit has been re-filled again with additional information provided to them by Sony themselves with a significant copy and paste of the FTC complaint shoe horned in to try and make it an actual case...oh my Sony is that Eau De Desperation I smell by trying to help them, it's absolutely absurd behavior its like watching a child trying to fight the case

@Microbius no, I think the "gamers" case has come to an end and just now people found out these lawyers had been feed with Sony internal documents, that can only mean Sony was behind it all..

@SplooshDmg Yeah but they still need a brand in gaming with clout. The Microsoft name isn't it because as you said ms isn't cool. Xbox isn't a premier name but it at least has some clout versus coming up with a new brand. I don't see them leaving the name behind unless they buy someone with a cooler name to use. Console of Duty? Bobby Kotick's XXXbox? Sonic Boomstick for LG?

I think the whole end of consoles speculation is putting the cart in front of the horse armor. Right now you can't even play games you buy on the service and like 1/100th of the catalogue is streamable at all. They talked about streaming "limited" games you own and it still isn't here. There's still no instant resume save state. It's still in freaking beta, and Microsoft moves at the speed of Flood filled Pelican. They indefinitely delayed their cloud streaming stick. The only thing they did fast is integrate an AI into their search engine that now gives me local real estate listings and insurance brokers in my searches for literally anything that's not at all related to that. We'll be dead and buried long before they decide if the Doritos ad should go next to the old spice ad or the PlayStation ad on the dashboard. I don't think they're getting rid to local game playing devices any time in the next 10,20 years. By then Nintendo's neutral interface that lets shirtless Mario haunt your dreams and charges your bank account for each instance of him in your sleep will be the number one holiday item.

Once the whole catalogue is playable in the cloud I think there's a real discussion about the fate of consoles, but right now gf now is the only service letting you play anything yet cool as it is, it's really just a glorified superior AWS EC2 instance with a cool down timer and a 4080.

Despite my cynicism I'm all in on cloud but.....I think we're still looking at an add on market not a market conversion for longer than it may seem.

@Microbius I think that answers the question I had in the beginning of who was funding their suit to begin with because it was a given they were just proxy litigants. Though it still doesn't answer if it was Sony or FTC/party apparatchiks originally.

@Dm9982 King. Take Two owns Zynga. Kings worth much more.

@NEStalgia ah ty, I always get those two confused. But regardless, like you said, it’s worth a ton. I mean from just Activision and Blizzards base output that deal isn’t worth $68b….. wasn’t till I found out they owned King that I realized where the true cost of that deal lay…. King alone is worth the same or more than Activision and Blizzard, and from a standpoint outside of consoles, it’s worth far more to MS who doesn’t really have much presence in mobile and casual markets.

@Moonglow

No bizarrely its been re-filled on Monday April 11th with updated claims and Sony provided information, they are just feeble voices of course at this point trying to shout down a hurricane but its just more wasted time and resources for everyone while it gets thrown out again

https://www.gamesradar.com/the-gamers-lawsuit-against-microsoft-is-back-and-sony-is-helping/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/video-gamers-renew-legal-challenge-microsofts-activision-bid-after-setback-2023-04-11/#:~:text=April%2011%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20A,version%20of%20the%20antitrust%20lawsuit.

10year deals for all these obscure cloud base platforms that will ultimately help promote the Xbox brand throughout the 10 years…it’s a smart move.

Thing is it does nothing to answer Sonys concerns it’s putting forward - degradation in price…which means cod on gamepass day 1 devalues cod physical for £70 on PlayStation consoles. Sony will want to block cod on gamepass day 1.
Sony obviously aren’t going to have gamepass on PlayStation at this stage as it makes no sense for them. And Xbox, you’d think, wouldn’t allow cod on psplus subs as it doesn’t benefit the value of gamepass.

It’s going to be interesting to see if all these deals make a difference… as cloud gaming is still a concern for the CMA and cod being on GP day 1 will be part of that.

@NEStalgia Right, and I don't disagree with your points because right now they're all accurate. However, as I've stated, I'm speculating way down the road. Fifteen years or more. Every point you are making is 100% addressable and could possibly change over the course of time. The word I use to describe cloud gaming right now is in fact 'infantile'. It's a baby. None of this stuff is ready for mass market consumption, but I imagine the suits at MS are clamoring for the moment it really is. Big tech seems really into this. Google tried it and screwed it up. Amazon is slowly, slowly supporting Luna, mostly by proxy of Prime memberships (Which I think is a good strategy).

Lets face it, though. Xbox console sales are currently bad. Really bad. Like, it's trending down to Xbox One levels of bad right now. There's plenty of time for a recovery in the marketplace, but I'm not convinced that even with a strong lineup of games this year that it will guarantee a turn around. I think it's really just a wait and see sorta thing. I'm not convinced that if the Series X|S turns into another Xbone generation, and then a following generation does the same that MS will keep doing it. They can't decide if they want to be a 3rd party publisher and sell games all over creation or support a console in a hyper competitive market. Part of me really says they just want to be a publisher and not deal with the consumer hardware part.

@SplooshDmg I think for better or worse they weren't ready for this generation. They were REALLY turning things around with X1X, but then they launched Series and it just kind of....is there. IT seems like they're still getting all their ducks in a row in general and just kind of stopped being all in on making a market push for ANYTHING. And I think the ABK thing broke the momentum they did have. Ever since ABK, they've just gone silent and disorganized. I thought Phil had a really sound plan, but it seems like the plan just stopped and went into a holding patterin with the ABK issue, and in that time, Sony's production boom really changed the narrative. Definitely an own goal situation. I think they had a handle on things, and then just completely went on another tangent. Not quite matrick bad, but I'm shocked Phil really want that direction.

I think they're ok with that, but it means this is a place holder generation again for them to relaunch next time. A final push? Maybe. But I think it's only final if even cloud fails. If cloud succeeds, I think the consoles become more important as a halo product (and hopefully not a Halo product.)

Even if the next console is literally just an Alienware/Surface rig with a green X on it.

@NEStalgia Which is my concern. ABK wasn't planned. It just happened. I think their entire strategy turned on a dime the moment Bobby was like, "Okay. Money, yeah. I like money. Lets do this." Long story short, I sold liquor for years. The amount of energy it takes to convince someone to try a brand that isn't their usual is just staggering. I'm just not sure at this point that the Xbox brand will ever be able to punch on the same level as PS. I think that ship set sail and it's just long gone. The 360 got so lucky that Sony did almost everything wrong with the PS3, and despite ludicrous fanboy claims, there's really no obvious flaws with the PS5 like there was with the PS3.

A problem I see is that MS is turning Xbox into a value brand. The Series S is cheap and Game Pass stresses value. But if you try to push too much value to a consumer, you end up making the brand look like it's just the inferior knock off of the real thing. I kid you not, George Dickel whiskey raised their prices to match Jack Daniels because people thought Dickel was just knock off Jack because it was cheaper and kinda looked the same. The irony is Dickel is considerably better whiskey. Marketing is freaking bonkers, and MS freaking sucks at it.

@SplooshDmg PS3 had two flaws: Price and price. Also developers hated it and nothing ran quality on it. But really price was the top eight problems.

Xbox..... They had a good strategy, they really did. X1 was DOA, Xbox was doomed, and going into X1S, X1X, the BC program and into XSXS they were really solidly turning it around full speed. Then ABK happened and IDK what happened, they just went dormant. IDK if it's intentional or if it's just the same kind of mismanagement that made Halo Infinite take 8 years 300M, 2 delays, and still not be finished a year and a half later after a lukewarm reception.

I think some would like to think it's a grand strategy around ABK pivoting their entire plans for the future of Xbox to a cloud-only future in some genius master stroke of moving fast and breaking things. Some fear that it's a genius master stroke of pivoting the entire gaming industry via ABK acquisition and waving around a blank checkbook. I fear the reality is it's just the same meandering incompetence that led to Halo Infinite. They didn't change their strategy due to ABK. They don't plan on ending Xbox due to ABK, they don't have a plan to take over the industry via PC cloud conversion - they just don't have a plan of any sort and are doing more or less nothing as the berm erodes because they don't actually know what they're doing, and they more or less don't need to have a plan or know what they're doing because King alone will print money and make everything else an R&D writeoff, and their AIs will run the whole company from Satya's basement/lair within 10 years anyway so none of it matters.

But that's kind of the lovable Xbox/Microsoft that makes the product somehow good. They have unlimited money, they spend unlimited money, but they don't have an evil mastermind plan because they don't actually know what they're doing or how to do it, and inside that vast inefficiency is a good consumer experience.

On the marketing point, you're right, and that bothers me greatly. Also not on the marketing front but on the whole human race front. You see it in food. I don't understand the modern restaurants/bakeries etc. You have these old bakeries and restaurants that have the best food on earth, low prices, nice staff, family owned, in buildings that are "adequate". Then you have these "new" ones with these modernist/minimalist prices, they serve frozen/boxed food with weird trendy packaging, are horribly expensive for mediocre to poor quality, supermarket quality at best, in a very pretty storefront, and everyone celebrates how amazing the places are. Food, games ,whisky whatever. I don't understand how people that are supposed to be and much higher social status than me, can be dumber than a farm animal. Pigs are smart. Cows are pretty smart. These people are not. I don't care how many post-doctorates they have and which biotech company they're a senior analyst at, they are 1+1=11 stupid to the degree they can't even evaluate quality of two products without someone telling them to believe one is better. It bothers me to the level that I'd wage atomic warfare against them if I had the power to do so, that they are permitted to exist let alone be rewarded. I don't understand the modern human race. Education is a trillion dollar industry and people have more of it than ever, and the only way they can tell a good whiskey, croissant, or gaming platfrom from a bad one is by comparing the price tag and how pretty the packaging is. Something is wrong with humanity.

That having been said, MS...I see what you mean about Xbox becoming a value brand. To a degree that's a perception of their own making. To a degree that's just the perception of enthusiast gamers, and it's a perception cultivated by PS cultivating "premium" image. But on the flip side PS is going so far out of it's way to be "premium" it risks segmenting itself as a "luxury"/"lifestyle" brand for t he monied while someone else (Xbox, Apple, Nintendo, whoever) becomes the brand for "everyone else." Ironically Apple moved the opposite way. I still think of it as a luxury/lifestyle brand, but it really hasn't been that since Steve Jobs. It became the brand of the masses really. $100 iPhones, sub-$300 iPads.....I didn't even know the prices came down...that's not lifestyle anymore, it's commodity. Marketing is, I think the difference at this point.

I don't think MS will make a dent against PS's "real thing" for the audience that only accepts gaming with physical discs on a local console on a 65+" TV that is of course a TOTL OLED flagship, with of course an Atmos sound system. Which is like 0.5% of the gaming market and the loudest group on internet enthusiast circles. Meanwhile "premium" gaming is getting more and more expensive and isolating itself more and more from "most of all gaming" which is really on mobile. It's not a big market. I do see MS wanting to bridge mobile and core. Which is also what Sony really wants to do and so does Nintendo, and Squeenix, etc. They all just suck at it.

But I do wonder why Xbox is struggling so mightily against PS5 this current year in sales explosion. They still seem to have an inventory issue and the blade servers are part of that. Neither company has really pushed big games this year, and GoW:R sales are great, but it's not really driving that difference. It's got to be the marketing, but they seem fine with this.

Ironically people talk about "Series X Pro" etc, but, I see MS even less likely to do it than PS. Why? Because then that undermines their cloud product as inferior. Why would they want to do that? They're not going to upgrade the whole cloud farm they just built to match the Pro, and they don't want cloud, their flagship to be worse than their console.

Now I COULD see them shift all of Xbox to be a customised (again, see, Alienware, Steamdeck etc) PC environment, end "console" being separate from PC, and just make Xbox a "certified" PC experience, Steambox style. That's actually what I THOUGHT they were going to do this gen and was shcked it was another specialty console really. I bought back into XB because I expected it to go more and more PC. I'd be cool with that for sure. I think we still need local consoles but I'm not against there being a "console" that's a PC. That's what Xbox was supposed to be from the start when the CES OG XB was found out to be an NT4 Dual Xeon under the table in 1999/2000. But I think they need to keep the Xbox brand regardless. It's not the premium brand, but it's still a recognized one. Even if it's their "Alienware". If Sony has "inZone" for premium gaming products because "PlayStation" just wasn't premium enough, Xbox is easily "Microsoft Gaming"'s premium gaming line (or is it the value gaming line? lol. )

But it's funny, because we've turned into Nintendo fans. PS fans are all about Microsoft taking over the whole industry, governments are arguing about if MS has built a monopoly, and were here like "game over, Xbox is doomed, nobody even knows it exists" lol Maybe there's too much whiskey. We've spent too much time on PS and Jim's stash is seeping into our veins.

Does EE do cloud gaming or is it a deal to get gamepass?

I'm thinking of switching my network. I have o2. It's fast. It's good. But the price keeps rising. So I need to switch.

@CutchuSlow in the UK you can get game pass ultimate as a free add on with some of their tariffs. I've just switched to a sim only deal with them as my Vodafone bill hit near £100 over the past two price hikes. Tend to have the best 5G coverage in the UK too. Far better than Vodafone and ahead of O2 I think.

@Jacket_p I stand corrected 👍