That would further divide and stagnate the market.

Say that Sony responds by buying up major eastern publishers like Capcom, Sega, and Square Enix. It is more successful by all metrics than Xbox, but it’ll need to break out some blank checks if it wants to mitigate more disaster.

It’s becoming difficult for Sony to compete. Between Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and its own studios, Xbox has all the biggest western IPs exclusive to its platforms now, with the main exception being EA games. The repercussions of this deal are coming - and I don’t think we’re going to like them.įor a company touting that it wants to let people play how and where they want, Microsoft should really add an asterisk that says “unless you’re on Playstation,” because that’s what this purchase could really mean. Disney quickly became the only place to access them and much of its content began to feel the same as IPs adapted to Disney guidelines. Recall when Disney purchased … seemingly every major media franchise. The problem with all this consolidation, speaking specifically about Microsoft here, is that it builds walls. Sony has made a few purchases as well, but nothing nearly on the scale as this. Microsoft, Tencent, and Embracer (to name a few) have been picking up these studios like they’re hoarding the last couple slices of pizza from the box. We’ve been moving toward a world where independently operated publishers could become less common.

In fact, it will only be worse this time. Even if messaging this time is clear regarding the exclusivity of all the new franchises Microsoft just snatched up, the anger and worry will not be stifled. Less than clear messaging regarding exclusives, plus the fact that some of its new studios were still under contract to release Playstation exclusives. It made me very suspicious that Microsoft was trying to essentially buy success for this generation of consoles, but the latest purchase is genuinely frightening for what it means for everyone, not just Xbox.

Xbox already had around 20 studios under it, and adding in an entire publisher felt like a desperate move to bolster its library with exclusives and valuable IP. I had hoped that that would be the last purchase of that scale for Xbox, but I was very, very wrong.īuying Bethesda (or more accurately, ZeniMax Media) felt like it was crossing a line. We already saw Microsoft building up to these large-scale purchases through small, independent studios early on, followed by the massive Bethesda purchase that was finalized last year.

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