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Microsoft buys Bethesda


cimerians

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22 hours ago, youxia said:

Bethsoft is actually the only studio I know which consistently pushed the envelope when it comes to real next gen worlds with open and emergent gameplay. Everyone else - and that includes the likes of CD Projekt Red and Rockstar - is just happy exploiting the old, tired templates.

I disagree. Red Dead Redemption 2 had shockingly more game play features and details in it compared to not only the previous entry, but Bethesda's more recent titles like Fallout 4 and Skyrim. It was more of an RPG compared to the previous game, and they didn't remove features to "streamline" it. Plus Rockstar managed to add multiplayer to it without any controversy.

Edited by xenomorpher
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Does anyone else think that 7.5B is a bit high?  I'm thinking about the other products MS owns that are worth 7B.  Maybe something like System Center or Sharepoint?  SQL, Office and Windows are all worth double digit Billions.  Those products have existing user bases that pay them either upon upgrade or per cloud usage. However, with this purchase, I guess you are getting:

  • The entire back catalog and can re-sell that or package it with GamePass
  • Fallout 76 and Old Republic subscribers

 

To produce revenue on almost everything else requires more untested product to be released and sell.  And as we've observed, the talent generally drifts away over time, so there's no guarantee of producing similar products in the future.  I'd say it was a VERY good day for ZeniMax ownership.  Well done for them.

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50 minutes ago, wongojack said:

Does anyone else think that 7.5B is a bit high?  I'm thinking about the other products MS owns that are worth 7B.  Maybe something like System Center or Sharepoint?  SQL, Office and Windows are all worth double digit Billions.  Those products have existing user bases that pay them either upon upgrade or per cloud usage. However, with this purchase, I guess you are getting:

  • The entire back catalog and can re-sell that or package it with GamePass
  • Fallout 76 and Old Republic subscribers

 

To produce revenue on almost everything else requires more untested product to be released and sell.  And as we've observed, the talent generally drifts away over time, so there's no guarantee of producing similar products in the future.  I'd say it was a VERY good day for ZeniMax ownership.  Well done for them.

Not if it means the PS5 looses exclusives, the XBOX gains them, and more people subscribe to GamePass.
Part of the reason I said no more cheap titles from those studios is because it makes no sense to let people buy older titles cheap when you can use those titles to encourage people to subscribe to Gamepass instead.

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I wasn't too sure about Starfield or ES6 after the past couple years output from Bethesda. Maybe this will help. The new stuff the acquired studios have done so far have been okay to good. I'm just afraid that Zenimax still being the umbrella over those studios will mean Bethesda will continue to move toward GaaS crap.

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4 hours ago, JamesD said:

Not if it means the PS5 looses exclusives, the XBOX gains them, and more people subscribe to GamePass.
Part of the reason I said no more cheap titles from those studios is because it makes no sense to let people buy older titles cheap when you can use those titles to encourage people to subscribe to Gamepass instead.

There are still deep discounts on sales for GP games every sale, so interesting take, but I don't think it'll hold up.

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21 hours ago, xenomorpher said:

I disagree. Red Dead Redemption 2 had shockingly more game play features and details in it compared to not only the previous entry, but Bethesda's more recent titles like Fallout 4 and Skyrim. It was more of an RPG compared to the previous game, and they didn't remove features to "streamline" it.

I haven't played it myself yet, heard otherwise though.

 

Quote

I was expecting something different. And I’m not talking about better controls — although I’d love that. What I mean is that I thought Rockstar would build a world that would react to players. But instead, the studio built an astronomical number of static, scripted events. And while that is impressive, I can’t help but feel like Red Dead Redemption 2 is stuck in the past.

Quote

 

These are all incredibly complex systems that work together, layering on top of one another. However, the influence they have over actual gameplay isn’t as large as they could be. These things will lower your cores, but will by no means kill Arthur or make it impossible to play.

An average player could, conceivably, play a large portion of Red Dead Redemption 2 and not even realize these things were affecting them if they didn’t pay full attention to the game’s tutorials.

 

 

It's nice that they have added these things and at least tried to spice things up (unlike in GTA V) but as these reviews say they are neither anything new (been in Skyrim for years) or going far enough. More of a lip service. It reminds me of original RDR where everything was so cheap that hunting or gambling was actually redundant and the fact you could just stock up on the Dead Eye elixirs made gunplay exceedingly easy and the whole game boring.

 

Meanwhile, in Fallout 4 you can actually build entire settlements and utilise every little item around you, within the world which is actively changing, not static. And that game was released in 2015. And others are just happy with tweaking cutscene choices.

 

This is the kind of stuff that I live for as a gamer. I've played TES/FO games for hundreds of hours but never completed more than 30% of their storylines. No need, because I was making my own ones. They release worlds you can live in, while others make games you play.

 

This is not to say that the likes of TW3, RDR, GTA, and most likely the upcoming Cyberpunk are inherently bad games, it's just that I want more than their stale design templates. I usually play them also for about 30% of the storyline and then go back to TES or FO (with exception of GTA where occasional bout of a madcap survival is always fun)

 

This is why when Howard talked about how there is no hardware yet which could handle what they want to do in TES 6, or how there is not even a vague release date, makes me really hopeful they actually have something groundbreaking cooking up again. Not just TES 5.5, some sort of updated Skyrim, but a step closer to a truly living-breathing world, that old pipe dream which everyone says is already in their game but only Bethsoft has been trying to realize.

 

Alas, after the recent news...I can totally see how MS bosses step in, hurry them up and release that "Skyrim" 5.5 update.

Edited by youxia
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