RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS THREAD!

[Delfosse]

Company of Heroes 2 trailer: babbling about sacrifices and stuff

 

Amazing. They got the numbers almost right, which is a rare sight. They showed the person who really won the war and deserves all the merit. I'm very impressed indeed.

[Monte Carlo]

Company of Heroes 2 trailer: babbling about sacrifices and stuff

 

Amazing. They got the numbers almost right, which is a rare sight. They showed the person who really won the war and deserves all the merit. I'm very impressed indeed.

 

Don't. Feed. The. Troll.

 

Oh, OK then. My colleague's father (A British Royal Navy stoker) got the Baltic medal from the Russians for being sunk twice supplying the Commies with ammo, tanks and food on the most dangerous sea-route in history. He deserves no merit apparently.

 

You, sir, are a wanker.

[Morgoth]

Oh, it's Delfosse again. The Kremlin sponsored propaganda commissioner.

[entrerix]

Don't present your opinion as some fact that counts for everyone.

 

 

please stop reading my opinions as facts that count for everyone.

[C2B]

Don't present your opinion as some fact that counts for everyone.

 

 

please stop reading my opinions as facts that count for everyone.

 

"no one is going to miss" is specific.

 

Then again, it's nitpicking and I may be overreacting. So yeah, let's drop it.

Edited June 29, 2012 by C2B

[greylord]

Vivendi selling Blizzard (or activision-blizzard if you will)

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/vivendi-said-to-plan-sale-of-stake-in-activision-blizzard.html

 

Some rumors currently state it's because of Blizzard to a large degree (falling WoW subscriber base, and more so, Diablo 3 which had great initial sales...but the money it was supposed to make off it's online Auction and real money sales are not going to meet goals since the number of players have dropped of soo steeply...just the rumor however so unvalidated).

 

Secondly, some are also stating that Vivendi is anticipating a game crash coming and are getting out before it truly hits hard.

 

Finally, the expectations that some of the franchises with activision are running their course and they are getting out on a high rather than later when the franchises show weakness in sales.

 

It's all rumor thus far, even the article is based off a rumor, so definately non-validated, but pretty big news if true.

[entrerix]

I hope that happens. Blizzard was better when they weren't trying to monetize the gameplay of their games in addition to the initial purchase price

[Morgoth]

Who has the moniez to buy such a giant? There ain't many options. Either some Korean MMO giant, another media/IT giant I never heard of, or the worst, Electronic Arts.

[Calax]

Well, if they can't find a buyer, they might decide to try to spin it off as it's own entity. So Bobby Kotick answers only to his own share holders rather than those at Vivendi too.

 

Of course, having somebody like Time Warner, News Corp, or Walt Disney come in and take over might wind up in interesting positions.

[Zoraptor]

Apple, Google or especially MS might be interested as they have vested interests that might be served by owning a large game maker and all have a lot of usable cash. EA plain doesn't have enough money.

 

Reckon they'd be about a year too late on unloading Actiblizz to get maximum return though.

[pmp10]

Microsoft can't keep it's next gen games in development - what would they do with a giant publisher?

If those rumors are even remotely accurate then hardcore gaming may be hading for a serious slump.

If so f2p will indeed rule in the future.

[Gorgon]

Well good, then we can have some more hardcore f2p games. Giant budgets don't make better games, just prettier ones that are marketed more agressively.

 

The more money is involved the more mainstream it gets. Publishers try to please everyone and wind up with bland tasteless and edgeless TV dinners.

[Morgoth]

As long as there are companies like Rockstar, Bethesda, id and Epic, hardcore gaming won't take a slump.

 

Many other developers however will have to "diversify" their strategy and portfolio in the future to stay in business. That means overall less AAA Retail games, but with (hopefully) better quality. The medium sized devs (Obsidian) are eventually gonna do more F2P, digital etc. stuff. Aka following a trend that may or may not be succesful for many of them.

 

Personally speaking, I think that's good. The game industry is already too big and crowded with "me too" nonsense as it is, and one of the very few branches were the free market still works as it's supposed to work. Once the market is saturated with too much crap, people are gonna lose interest/become more picky and thus the cleansening of "redundance" will be enforced by the free market.

[Delfosse]

Don't. Feed. The. Troll.

 

Oh, OK then. My colleague's father (A British Royal Navy stoker) got the Baltic medal from the Russians for being sunk twice supplying the Commies with ammo, tanks and food on the most dangerous sea-route in history. He deserves no merit apparently.

 

You, sir, are a wanker.

 

Cool story.

 

The Baltic Medal was a campaign medal approved in 1856, for issue to officers and men of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Royal Sappers and Miners who served in Baltic Sea operations against Russia in the Baltic theatre of the Crimean War.

 

And there was no such thing as Baltic medal in USSR. Like I said, cool story. And a nice hot tagline too. "THE MOST DANGEROUS SEA-ROUTE IN HISTORY". When does the trailer come out??

Edited June 30, 2012 by Delfosse

[Masterfade]

I think Vivendi's best bet is to split Activision and Blizzard. These two companies never had any synergies anyway. Activision then can be sold to, say, Microsoft and Blizzard to some Chinese or Korean online gaming company. Microsoft would presumably find little strategic value in Blizzard, same applies for MMO companies with regard to Activision. Breaking up the unholy marriage will help unlock values in both, IMO.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Masterfade

[Zoraptor]

I think MS could certainly find uses for WoW/ Blizzard- if they want to do streaming even as just an option (which they'd be fools not to at least look at) then things like WoW or Diablo become more useful to them on the console side as well.

 

The strategic element would be to lock the games into prefering MS solutions and to use their biggest advantages by (groan) 'synergising' their product lines. There's a hint of that with the (non-Sega) Shogun game which is Win8 exclusive basically because that is what MS have told the devs to do. Putting MW/CoD onto Live would certainly give that a boost, and having a CoD as an exclusive launch title would given the nextbox a significant boost.

 

Having said that THQ arguably would make a more likely targetas it is far far cheaper, even though MS is hardly short of cash reserves.

[Calax]

That assumes that something like COD would still hold enough water for them to get a good RoI.

 

Probably what I'd do as an MS exec would be to spinning off Blizzard as it's own studio and making Acti a semi-exclusive publisher. Blizzard is almost entirely a PC company, so it'd be hard to enforce synergy with the other products in our lineup without heavily alienating my user base. Keep activision and make it so that most triple A titles were Xbox exclusive for 18 months and then let the rights drop, nobody is going to go out and buy a new console for a single game at this point in the cycle so no reason to enforce exclusives and if the rights could be profitable for the other systems, then we could do a quick port, and drag in users.

 

Did I just make a business plan on an internet message board?

[Bos_hybrid]

I think Vivendi's best bet is to split Activision and Blizzard. These two companies never had any synergies anyway. Activision then can be sold to, say, Microsoft and Blizzard to some Chinese or Korean online gaming company. Microsoft would presumably find little strategic value in Blizzard, same applies for MMO companies with regard to Activision. Breaking up the unholy marriage will help unlock values in both, IMO.

 

If M$ buy Activision/Blizzard, that's checkmate MS. There is no way that MS would just buy Acti. Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft would be major exclusives to them and give them market penetration in Asia, something the xbox still doesn't have. You would also have no more Diablo/WC/SC on Apple OS.

 

Still I don't think MS would fork out this much cash, I don't think they are sure that the next gen of console will be a money maker.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Bos_hybrid

[Morgoth]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008FPV88U/ Max Payne 3 Steam key $30

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085NTITS Spec Ops the Line Steam key $25

[Masterfade]

I think Vivendi's best bet is to split Activision and Blizzard. These two companies never had any synergies anyway. Activision then can be sold to, say, Microsoft and Blizzard to some Chinese or Korean online gaming company. Microsoft would presumably find little strategic value in Blizzard, same applies for MMO companies with regard to Activision. Breaking up the unholy marriage will help unlock values in both, IMO.

 

If M$ buy Activision/Blizzard, that's checkmate MS. There is no way that MS would just buy Acti. Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft would be major exclusives to them and give them market penetration in Asia, something the xbox still doesn't have. You would also have no more Diablo/WC/SC on Apple OS.

 

Still I don't think MS would fork out this much cash, I don't think they are sure that the next gen of console will be a money maker.

 

I'm not sure core gamers and Mac users overlap to any great extent in Asia.

 

Diablo III for example still haven't got a localized Korean or Chinese OSX client (us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-system-requirements) and I think the same applies for WoW. With minimal efforts, Blizzard can make localized Mac clients available for two of its biggest markets. The fact it hasn't done so shows there's little demand for them. It makes no sense for Microsoft to spend billions of dollars on Blizzard just to prevent potential OSX releases.

 

As for synergies between Blizzard and Xbox, it's unproven as Blizzard has yet to make a splash on the console market. We still don't know whether a console Diablo III is coming, and I just don't think the prospect of playing Diablo or WoW (with controllers!) will convince a console gamer to choose the next Xbox over the next Playstation (whereas the next CoD might).

[entrerix]

whoa i just read some reviews for max payne 3... the game has cover mechanics and no quick save? maybe i'll skip it after all.

 

edit: one of my favorite things in the original was the way it played. i quicksaved before every room or corridor and would play them over and over again until i had them perfect and could clear the area without being hit once, it was almost like a puzzle game. it sounds like that element is completely missing from the new one

Edited July 1, 2012 by entrerix

[Orogun01]

whoa i just read some reviews for max payne 3... the game has cover mechanics and no quick save? maybe i'll skip it after all.

 

edit: one of my favorite things in the original was the way it played. i quicksaved before every room or corridor and would play them over and over again until i had them perfect and could clear the area without being hit once, it was almost like a puzzle game. it sounds like that element is completely missing from the new one

Actually the game has checkpoints set before every major confrontation and what you describe its the way that I played that game. Plus don't deceive yourself into believing that the cover mechanics turn the game into a wack a mole shooter. I found the gameplay to be both dynamic and challenging, so that it encourages alternate approaches rather than staying on a fixed position which is a sure fire way to get you killed.

[Zoraptor]

Still I don't think MS would fork out this much cash, I don't think they are sure that the next gen of console will be a money maker.

I'd agree that MS probably shouldn't shell out that much cash, but they're committed to consoles at this point- if they could build a time machine they'd probably go back to 2002 and kill the Xbox project and invest the money into tablet computers and shiny smart phones but as it stands a lot of people at MS have no option but to keep pushing the xbox until it succeeds. Best way to do that given it will almost certainly be a shrinking market is to get exclusives (kill the competition in the cradle) and diversify what the xbox offers as much as possible in preparation for TV makers starting to seriously go for internet capable TV which has the potential to eat console market share badly in the medium term.

[entrerix]

im still not sure i understand what console games and internet tv have to do with eachother. did the nintendo experience a shrinking market share because people started getting cable tv? did the super nintendo experience shrinking market share because people started using the internet?

 

or is it more because of the amount of "casuals" that bought game systems as netflix streaming devices, and those people wont bother buying the next xbox because they will have tvs that do it? i cant see those consumers mattering very much, since they probably had few game purchases

[Orogun01]

Actually I would guess that they are trying to cash into the market of people who aren't subscribed or are leaving their cable/satellite provider and instead using the internet as a TV.

I actually convinced my family that it would be cheaper just to keep the subscription to the networks which have the shows we watch and do away with cable and satellite and instead use sites like Hulu. Also, it is actually cheaper.