Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: boltronics

Quoting: ShabbyXSo why go through the trouble? Because it's *users* microsoft is buying.

A agree, at least to a point. It's not the only reason, since Activition gave them a very strong incentive.

Activision was threatening to pull CoD from Xbox unless they were cut a better deal. MS would have been getting a worse deal than Sony for the same rights because they have a worse bargaining position, being 3rd place in the console war. By buying Activision, they no longer need to worry about competing on uneven ground, and turn a great disadvantage into an advantage going forward.

Anyway, that's just another aspect to it, although a smaller point in the grand scheme of things (as I'll point out in a moment).

Quoting: ShabbyXAnd with users microsoft can keep its other businesses alive. More users on microsoft platforms == fewer users on other platforms == worse software support for other platforms.

This is incorrect.

In the end, the primary reason Microsoft purchased Activision was not because of CoD. It wasn't even about cloud gaming.

It was primarily about King.

Microsoft is desperate to compete in the mobile space, which dwarfs all of console gaming in potential revenue. These mobile games will not be on fewer platforms. Definitely not. If anything, they'll be on more platforms than ever.

As for CoD, it's is still going to be on PlayStation. It's going to end up being basically everywhere. Sure, this and the other games in the Blizzard/Activision catalogue will help GamePass (and many of the smaller console/PC games will likely remain exclusive to MS and Steam, no argument there), but it hardly means that there will be fewer users on other platforms.

Why is this? Did you watch the Kinda Funny interview? Phil Spencer himself said that Microsoft could release the best games possible on Xbox today, and it still won't stop people buying a PlayStation. At best, people might play games from both ecosystems. PlayStation is too far ahead when it comes to the average gamer's digital library, and unless Sony make some really anti-consumer moves that drive people away (similar to what MS tried to do in the previous console generation), it's going to take a long time before we see that change.

You mention mobile gaming being so huge... ha, the only way I could ever see myself getting into mobile gaming is if Valve makes a phone that runs SteamOS that can physically morph into a Z Fold style phone. We may need Nanites or something... granted, then we'll probably have to go to war with them like in Stargate SG-1...

You and I may not like it, and mobile games may generally be garbage, but mobile gaming *is* huge, much bigger than desktop and console gaming (in terms of revenue).

Not saying I'm agreeing with boltronics on it being the reason though.

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Quoting: boltronicsObviously if you are not interested in those companies, what they do should not impact you to any degree. If there was strong evidence of it negatively impacting your decision to go elsewhere, then that would be a clear case of there being a problem.

On the phone, so I'll keep it short. Think about *why* microsoft is buying all these companies. It's *not* to make money from their games, the price of the company is so high, and the income is so small compared to everything else that makes money for microsoft.

So why go through the trouble? Because it's *users* microsoft is buying. And with users microsoft can keep its other businesses alive. More users on microsoft platforms == fewer users on other platforms == worse software support for other platforms. That's how the merger negatively affects all of us here, even if we never buy activision, blizzard or microsoft games.

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Quoting: ElectricPrismI thought Intel just canned their entire NUC division?

I think the phrase you are looking for is "nuked their NUC division" :D

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Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: ShabbyXHow well would you think it works for gaming on a TV? I can't imagine fanless could handle that.

Since it relies on Intel's iGPU gaming will be restricted to non-demanding titles.

I mean, obviously, but I wouldn't even be sure it would be good for non-demanding titles :shrug:

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How well would you think it works for gaming on a TV? I can't imagine fanless could handle that.

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Quoting: Grogan"Oh, but look at how much Microsoft has done for the computing industry!" I counter that with who knows what we could have had, if not for those bloody creeps throughout the history of PC computing.

Next time someone says that, tell them that multics (in the 60s, before unix) was multi user. First actually multi-user windows was vista. That's a set back of ~40 years. If DOS had file permissions like Unix did, we wouldn't be in a world of rampant viruses. That's a 30-year set back too.

Yeap, they _have_ done much for computing, mostly in the form of ruining it.

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Quoting: hardpenguin

Quoting: ShabbyXSDL is awesome, but it looks like it's planning to to be not-so-simple anymore.

Like, we don't need yet snother 3d graphics API. Especially not now when the serious APIs (like Vulkan) are still struggling trying to figure out how to best do things. APIs like SDL's would end up based on those 3 APIs and naturally make the same mistakes.

Why not?

<removed because I was talking about a subject I do not have the detailed knowledge of>

I feel like I already said why not. A lot of ideas that shaped Vulkan turned out to be impractical (multipass render passes, fully static pipelines, decriptor pools, etc). A *lot* of it has fundamentally changed in recent years. Other APIs (d3d12 and metal) have solved some other problems but not half of what Vulkan has solved. A common API (which will necessarily be layered over the main APIs) will end up being a common denominator which means the worst of all worlds.

Also, SDL's strength is in making system integration easy. A real usable graphics API is soooo much work, it just takes away SDL's resources from what people need it for.

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SDL is awesome, but it looks like it's planning to be not-so-simple anymore.

Like, we don't need yet snother 3d graphics API. Especially not now when the serious APIs (like Vulkan) are still struggling trying to figure out how to best do things. APIs like SDL's would end up based on those 3 APIs and naturally make the same mistakes.

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Quoting: Geppeto35Again, about my experience: playing on linux 80% of my time, switching for some games on my windows session for ~20%. I'm a gamer: playing nearly 2 to 3h per days. This was the exactly 12th time last month, since 2012 (I begun to count), that Steam asks me my config stuff while I'm on my windows session. Was only asked on linux one time while being on my laptop during a trip abroad (I nearly play around 10 days per year on my laptop, always when moving from house).

I'm a probabilist for my job, this succession of events are uneven. Steam MUST ask users to declare their prefered plateform at some point, before (to be sure to be surveyed when on this machine) or during the survey at least, especially considering that it matters for the market.

Valve has no reason to _ask_ you about your platform they already know that because they have to serve you updates based that. That's ignoring all the other channels they could use to figure that out.

So while the hardware survey may not be accurate, pretty sure the platform usage data is.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: StalePopcornUnfortunately everyone has a price

Not everyone has a price, it just rarely makes a functional difference because the people who don't have one rarely end up in positions of power.

Of course everyone has a price. Won't you sign up for a microsoft account if you were given absolute rulership over the world including ownership of microsoft itself? Everyone has a price, it just lies somewhere in between zero and the above.

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