Of course they're going to take it away from PlayStation. You don't pay $70 million to own something nice, you do it because they have something that people must have.
You pay $70bn so you have extremely attractive content to put in Gamepass day one, to drive subscriptions. Gamepass is also a major console seller for Xbox.
I promise you now, Microsoft will not keep these multi-platform if it's their route to dominate the games industry. It is a $300 billion dollar industry. Microsoft paid over 20% of that to acquire a huge part of it. They now own core IP to the gaming world such as Doom, Wolfenstein (that practically started first person shooters), Elder Scrolls, Fallout, MineCraft, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Call of Duty, World of WarCraft, Diablo and more. They aren't going to let their opposition benefit from having that on their consoles. The second the pole position in the market is in sight, they'll move.
You can also win by making your ecosystem the best place to play. And they haven’t tried to push Minecraft exclusivity even in the terrible days of the Xbox One when they desperately needed exclusives.
This is just you worrying over absolutely nothing
They'll also hurt Sony by making them available on Game Pass day one so there's no $70/£70 purchase required day one.
how does making their own subscription service more attractive ’hurt Sony’? How is it a bad thing for consumers?
Thanks man, you going to help me buy an XBOX and a Switch? I have bills to pay and a family to feed. I can't afford multiple consoles. And yeah, I am bitter about that but it's not like Sony or Nintendo have done anything like what Microsoft are doing. If Sony acquired 2K tomorrow and Rockstar and said XBOX would never see another GTA release again there'd be fucking hell to pay. Yet somehow, Microsoft have just aggressively expanded through M&A and they're downplaying the importance to people who don't care or understand about games to get away with it.
You don’t NEED to buy an Xbox. Their games launch day one on PC. By 2024, even entry level ultrabooks will have iGPUs capable of playing every Xbox exclusive via Steam. XCloud also exists as an option.
Final Fantasy is a timed exclusive, it will come to XBOX. Does Mass Effect, Bioshock, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction or Gears of War come to mind? How about when Square were blind sided into announcing Rise of the Tomb Raider as an XBOX exclusive?
It’s far more likely for COD to remain on PlayStation than for final fantasy to be on xbox. It’s more than 2 years since FF7 Remake launched on PlayStation and there’s zero indication that the game is coming to Xbox.
Mass Effect, Bioshock, Alan Wake et Al weren’t ever multiplatform franchises. MS even owned the Alan Wake IP at a point.
Microsoft started this acquisition because Sony turned around the PS3 and excelled with the PS4 on the strength of first party studios. Microsoft never had an internal developer network like Sony had. Now it's gone from making numbers match to fuck it, let's just buy it.
However, it's not like Microsoft just designed some incredibly great games, they're just buying them.
It’s just sound business. They didn’t have an extensive first party, so acquisitions are pretty much the only viable route. Same way Sony’s acquiring studios to help them with their live service ambitions.
With a bigger dev pool, you’re definitely going to see lots more new IP coming out. Some are already announced. Lots more to come.