Last I read, Microsoft had $80 billion in cash on hand. I'm pretty sure they have the resources to run whatever the fuck they want.

I wonder if regulators will bring this up the next time Microsoft wants to buy another publisher. They fought tooth-and-nail to buy Activision Blizzard and like a child that got a new toy they're throwing out the old ones.

Well then, maybe they shouldn't have bought them to begin them?

Well of course not. These game studios were selling games at 60-80$ each. Microsoft bought them, then started providing the all the games for a flat fee of 15$ per month.

I assumed their strategy was to lose money in the medium term while they worked on getting people used to playing games on subscription. Where they make their money back is when they stop outright selling games at full price and make them only available on subscription, and then they slowly start increasing that monthly subscription cost.

In order for that to work they need a large library and like 5-10 years.

And the studios didn't run themselves before the purchases?

Is Microsofts PR AI that bad at dumb excuses?

Yeah, they needed a shitload of money to pay Bobby Kotick apparently.

As a gamer who has owned every Xbox from the OG to a Xbox One S, I just don't understand Microsoft's strategy for this generation. Vanishingly few console exclusives, and most of those shipped on PC, too. As someone with a decent PC and enough income to buy 2-3 consoles per gen, they just haven't given me a reason to buy an Xbox Series console.

I know they hoped to sell Game Pass to PC only players, but without the lock-in of a console, there's just no incentive to buy it over a PS Plus subscription and individually buying the exclusives I want on PC.

Now they're burning bridges with players by closing down beloved developers, even if their last title was successful. I wonder what Ninja Theory devs are thinking with Hellblade 2 a couple weeks out.

Xbox President Matt Booty

Matt Booty

Booty

Lol

ref.