Microsoft acquires ZeniMax Media and Fallout maker Bethesda for $7.5 billion

I almost wish that Microsoft would also pick up Rockstar, but ONLY to ensure we get proper PC launches alongside the console launch, instead of waiting years for buggy PC ports.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
id software is the major coup here. Technically Microsoft is in position to do what Epic is doing: make an engine and sell that engine and also use that same engine across all developers and platforms under their umbrella.
id has the best engine devs... however the big issue there is that id has traditionally programed for open source API's only (OpenGL and now Vulkan)... Microsoft of course would want DX12 only. If Microsoft gives up on silly DX12, then that means they could be a competitor to Unreal and Unity, by being available on all platforms, including mobile ones. Which is far more money than dicking about with DX12 lock in (engine lock-in making them far more money).

Bethesda Elderscroll and Fallout teams having an engine that isn't a complete garbage pile mess is just icing on the cake. Not that any of those games are worth my time (unless Chris Avellone, Leonard Boyarski, and Brian Fargo head a new Fallout game using the original Fallout 1/2 story). But how this affects inXile and Obsidian is of greater consequence to me. Sadly, I'll probably not get to play another title from any of them again, except exclusively on Windows. Which I generally avoid if at all possible.
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I'm sure the id engines are fine, but the main thing that sets apart Unreal is the flexibility and support. I'm sure if money was poured into it id could do the same.

As for people wanting Obsidian to do another Fallout game. I too think it would be good, and I did like New Vegas for what it was (shit engine aside). But it did have a lot of garbage like invisible walls that FO3 didn't have. Overall, I think we can easily see a dual release schedule. Bethesda and Obsidian take turns with a hopefully more polished product on a better engine, each taking 6 years (a Fallout game every 3 years). Although Obsidian does a lot of interesting things, and I would like to see them do more than just be a Fallout B studio.

Edit: For those that played them, how did Obsidian's KOTR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 compare to the first games made by Bioware?
 
Flogger23m said:
I'm sure the id engines are fine, but the main thing that sets apart Unreal is the flexibility and support. I'm sure if money was poured into it id could do the same.
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If you're Microsoft, and you're interested in games and making money there isn't much of a bigger business than going top down. Sell hardware. The Dev Tools. The engine. And the games. Honestly after purchasing these resources, you're being short sighted if you don't. The coup is taking the money from as many different sources at every level.

Flogger23m said:
As for people wanting Obsidian to do another Fallout game. I too think it would be good, and I did like New Vegas for what it was (shit engine aside). But it did have a lot of garbage like invisible walls that FO3 didn't have. Overall, I think we can easily see a dual release schedule. Bethesda and Obsidian take turns with a hopefully more polished product on a better engine, each taking 6 years (a Fallout game every 3 years). Although Obsidian does a lot of interesting things, and I would like to see them do more than just be a Fallout B studio.
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It's not about Obsidian. It's about very specific writters and game devs. As "edge Lord" as it is to say, there hasn't been a Fallout past 2. Bethesda got a decent amount of stuff right. They managed to imitate Fallout style and tone well. But everything else was a mess. If I had my druthers, I'd get Avellone, Boyarski, and Fargo and have them write/design games like Fallout 3 and its subsequent "sequels" never happened.

I realize that will never happen. It's more important to these studios that games make maximum money rather than the best games get created. It's far more likely that your vision of Fallout on a dumb Call of Duty release cycle happens rather than anything with artistic integrity. We'll sooner see another crap Fallout 76 than a Boyarski designed Fallout. Hell, we'll sooner see an HDR version of Skyrim released on XSX than a Boyarski designed Fallout.

Flogger23m said:
Edit: For those that played them, how did Obsidian's KOTR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 compare to the first games made by Bioware?
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I played KOTOR 2, it's a fantastic game in its own right. Its biggest issue is lack of polish. There are a lot of game breaking bugs that never got patched officially and the community had to come in and fix stuff. Story wise and gameplay wise the game was great and mostly under recognized.

I never got into Balders Gate or Neverwinter Nights or any of the other D&D games so I can't comment much on those.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
If you're Microsoft, and you're interested in games and making money there isn't much of a bigger business than going top down. Sell hardware. The Dev Tools. The engine. And the games. Honestly after purchasing these resources, you're being short sighted if you don't. The coup is taking the money from as many different sources at every level.
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Really depends though. This is Microsoft we're talking about, who have a habit of mismanaging everything consumer related. It even happened with the Xbox One.

UnknownSouljer said:
It's far more likely that your vision of Fallout on a dumb Call of Duty release cycle happens rather than anything with artistic integrity. We'll sooner see another crap Fallout 76 than a Boyarski designed Fallout. Hell, we'll sooner see an HDR version of Skyrim released on XSX than a Boyarski designed Fallout.

Maybe they've learned, but considering what they did with Halo and Gears of War, where they purchased the rights and made a sequel trilogy in house, I expect them to milk their new IPs a lot. And Halo and GoW might be okay games, they certainly aren't as iconic as their original games were.
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Just 2 weeks before the acquisition reinstalled Fallout: New Vegas, the last good fallout on my opinion. Hopefully, Obsidian will now be responsible for the entire fallout franchise and fallout will now be great again :)
 
As a Sony guy who owns a higher tier PC this is awesome news. Buy a PS5 and just do the PC sub to GamePass.

Sony doesn’t need to buy huge companies to compete, most of their purchases have been with decade long partnerships or 2nd party studios. In fact, Sony buying them would have got me pissed because I play ES and other titles like it on PC. Sony’s next acquisition will be Blue Point games I’m sure.

At least with GamePass I don’t have to worry about spending 60 bucks on another broken Bethesda game.
 
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Flogger23m said:
Edit: For those that played them, how did Obsidian's KOTR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 compare to the first games made by Bioware?
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KOTOR is ep4, KOTOR2 is ep5 as far as story-emotional factor goes. 2 felt more deep in story (they did some great homework on the star wars lore and came up with a lot of novel stuff), but game felt less polished especially since the ending was abrupt since further work they wanted to do got axed. It was "ship it now".

NWN2 had amazing story telling. Their expansion pack especially. But also buggier than #1. But I think they fixed their stuff for the most part later on though.

Good story but buggy was their story for a while. The excuse was that the publisher was too impatient. And it's probably at least mostly true. They are like the underdog devs with great talent for story, but easily get pushed around since they have little leverage in any negotiation with those who publish for them.

Also their talent for making their own assets (3d model/animation/texture) isn't great, which MS might supply them with better talent there.

Combine their story with Bethesda's world making, you have an awesome game, that's buggy..... MS doesn't have a great track record with bugs as of late either
 
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Flogger23m said:
Edit: For those that played them, how did Obsidian's KOTR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 compare to the first games made by Bioware?
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They were both better in almost every way, but they were also both rushed. KOTOR2 had a ton of content cut out throughout the game to the point where it's only really worth playing on the PC with the Restoration Project. I have and am currently replaying both sequels right now following the original games.

It's a chocolate and peanut butter thing. Bioware has good ideas but rough execution*. Obsidian can really lift a framework above what it was originally set up to achieve, if they have enough time, of course, but they also need a launching point.

*The exception to this was Jade Empire, which never received the proper accolades. That game did everything right.
 
Axman said:
They were both better in almost every way, but they were also both rushed. KOTOR2 had a ton of content cut out throughout the game to the point where it's only really worth playing on the PC with the Restoration Project. I have and am currently replaying both sequels right now following the original games.

It's a chocolate and peanut butter thing. Bioware has good ideas but rough execution*. Obsidian can really lift a framework above what it was originally set up to achieve, if they have enough time, of course, but they also need a launching point.

*The exception to this was Jade Empire, which never received the proper accolades. That game did everything right.
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I always wondered how much truth there was to the rumor that a lot of the conceptual stuff for Jade Empire was supposed to be for a third KOTOR before Lucasarts decided against doing a third. It certainly felt like a spiritual successor to KOTOR and while I was playing it before even hearing that rumor I noticed how several of the missions would have fit into the SW setting very well with just a few simple tweaks.

I actually just started a playthrough of KOTOR the other day and it was a real PITA to get it working and running at 1440 but the last time I played the KOTOR 2 was much easier to get running properly(with or without the restoration project) so I'm hoping that one will be easier. I will say it looks pretty good at 1440 at least for its age. I had forgotten how complex the D&D system it uses is since it's a fairly casual game but I guess compared to modern games any of those older ones would seem complex.
 
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Ebernanut said:
I actually just started a playthrough of KOTOR the other day and it was a real PITA to get it working
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Try the GLOverride fix. Always works for me. Surprising that they haven't patched it officially it with the resurgence in classic gaming.

And yeah, the 3.5-ish system gave you a lot of wiggle room for, not bad, but at least not optimal characters if you were playing it on normal difficulties, but both games, if you wanted to play on harder modes knowing what to do really was necessary.

I'd never heard that about Jade Empire but I could believe it. The big spoiler would have followed KOTOR perfectly. Now that I think of it, KOTOR2 and Jade Empire do have a lot of similarities...
 
Luna is amazon's cloud gaming alternate to Google stadia, let's hope that MS isn't already trying to build theirs with Bethesda busy making exclusives to this hypothetical cloud platform.
 
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SecretStash said:
Luna is amazon's cloud gaming alternate to Google stadia, let's hope that MS isn't already trying to build theirs with Bethesda busy making exclusives to this hypothetical cloud platform.
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Not exactly the same thing but they could be exclusively tying the games back to the Azure network for it's AI compute for some games going forward, it's kind of a huge deal if they can make it work for all the right reasons.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
RIP new company lol

Zune - dead
Nokia - dead
Windows phone - dead

and so many more
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It may have taken years, but updates to my Surface Pro 4 have made it rock solid. SP3 updated with all Windows updates and firmware solid now too.

Countless X360 games for Xbox updated until they ran really well. Halo Reach is a fine example.

Huge effort to keep fixing Halo MCE on Xbox until it was excellent.

High res textures for Halo3 XB1X eventually passed down to Xbox One S owners as well.

Slow release of MCE games to Steam to make sure each game was ported, tested, and Beta'd properly to the community and improved with player feedback.

Storyline complaints aside, GOW 5 is an exceptional game. It runs fantastic on PC as well.

Constant improvements to Teams for at home work and education.

Game Pass for PC has a great selection of games. Installs are dead easy. Launcher is solid and easy to use.

You aren't wrong about past Microsoft at all. But I don't think Microsoft is that same company anymore.
 
chameleoneel said:
MS just closed Mixer a year after paying Ninja millions to be an exclusive streamer ;p
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Can't hate on Ninja. Dude made bank of that deal and recently has gotten back on twitch. Think he had like 50k subs already. Yes subs not follows. So he making nearly 200k a month just from twitch.
 

'Some' Bethesda Games Will Be Xbox/PC Exclusives Under Microsoft​

In an article on Xbox Wire welcoming Bethesda to Team Xbox, Spencer wrote the following: "With the addition of the Bethesda creative teams, gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players."
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/03/09/officially-welcoming-bethesda-to-the-xbox-family/
https://www.ign.com/articles/some-bethesda-games-will-be-xboxpc-exclusives-under-microsoft
 
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