Topic: Microsoft showing their true colors once again.

[Luigi Dude]

Microsoft spends $50 million dollars on exclusive GTA4 content.

If this doesn't prove to people that Microsoft is hell bent on monopolizing the videogame industry then nothing will.  If they are willing to go to such lengths just to have the better version of a game then what's to stop them in the future from spending billions to just buy as many third parties as possible so their competitors have little to no support?

Microsoft strategy is all about them becoming number one, but since they were owned by the PS2 last gen and are having their asses handed to them by the Wii this gen, eventually Microsoft will just say "f*ck it" and resort to what they know best.  Destroying their competition by buying out everything in sight.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Hey MS




how is hemorraging money working out for you?

[Shift Key]

Quote
Originally posted by: S-U-P-E-R
how is hemorraging money working out for you?

Finding new and innovative ways to empty their coffers hrhrhr

[Chozo Ghost]

Microsoft actually tried to buy Nintendo a few years back, but Yamauchi refused. Good thing he did refuse, because look at how much Nintendo has turned around since then. By holding on to Nintendo he has become the third richest man in Japan. As part of Microsoft, Nintendo would only have declined and turned to crap... it would have been a sad day for Nintendo fans everywhere. Good that it didn't happen, eh?

Microsoft is notorious for using their monopoly on Operating Systems to wipe out competition in other markets. For example, they bundled IE with Windows 98 which destroyed Netscape (technically Netscape lives on as part of AOL, but that is in name only), and then they bundled Windows Media Player which hurt Realplayer and others a lot (but to be fair I think Realplayer sucks anyway). Then you got them trying to get WMA to replace MP3 as the new standard and so on and so on...

Not that Sony is that much different, you know. I don't have much tolerance for the business practices of either companies.... maybe Nintendo would do the same if they could, but Nintendo has only ever stuck to Video Games and isn't reaching their tentacles into everything trying to take it all over. Long live Nintendo!

[Spak-Spang]

You know if Microsoft wants to spend that much money on exclusive content let them.  If they think it will help sell systems or sell the game on the Xbox 360 good for them.

As for spending Billions for more development houses I think they learned their lesson with Rare, and Nintendo proved to be right with making partnerships with the companies instead.  In fact, I think that is basically what is going on with the exclusive content Microsoft is buying.

Personally, this type of thing doesn't bother me, and I am actually impressed that Microsoft is going to such great competitive lengths this generation.  Hopefully it will pay off for them, and they will do well this generation.  READ: Better than last generation and perhaps make some profit.  

I don't care who wins the overall console war this generation as long as Nintendo makes tons of money and can stick around to another generation, and that Sony completely fails and is humbled back to its place of respecting the gamer again.  

[couchmonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Chozo Ghost

Not that Sony is that much different, you know. I don't have much tolerance for the business practices of either companies.... maybe Nintendo would do the same if they could, but Nintendo has only ever stuck to Video Games and isn't reaching their tentacles into everything trying to take it all over. Long live Nintendo!

Actually, Nintendo was like this back in the 80s.  It charged high liscencing fees, restricted the number of games third parties could release, censored everything and most notoriously had a rule that no game released on the NES could be ported to another system for at least 2 years.

Nintendo's treatment of third parties is cited by some as one reason why Playstation did so well: Sony did everything it could to woo third parties, while Nintendo used expensive cartridges, continued to censor (albeit to a pretty small degree) and still charged higher liscensing fees.  Nowdays it looks like Sony has become the tougher company to deal with, I guess that's what a decade at the top does to you.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Talk about over reactive, companies spend tens of millions all the time to make their products more "recognizable" all the time.  Look at new movie releases, sometimes 100+ million is spent on advertising alone, so I fail to see why MS should be singled out. Yes it is a different medium but when it boils down to it, this is just another thing to make their product stand out.

[denjet78]

50 million for exclusive download content is insane. I don't care how you want to spin that. MS basically payed for the entire cost of developing GTA4 on both the 360 and PS3 and then some ensuring that the game will be nothing but pure profit. Why in the world did they blow so much cash for download crap when they could have bought 2 or 3 other games straight out for that amount?

And for a game that's multiplatform? MS has totally lost it.

[that Baby guy]

Couchmonkey, I have to agree that Nintendo was very much like you described, however, I have to question that it may have been a necessary evil in order for video games to rebirth in  regions other than Japan.  At that point in time, if Nintendo had gone under, that would probably have been the end of pretty much all video game related things in at least the U.S.  These strict rates caused Nintendo problems later, but at first, Nintendo was the savior of video games, and these rates ensured that developers would only want to make quality games that sell well, strengthening the market.  Of course, when the market was revitalized to levels higher than ever before, it allowed other competitors to show up and do well, and bitter feelings began to arrive in some developers, but this wouldn't have been possible with out Nintendo's initial stance.  

[Chozo Ghost]

$50 million may seem like a lot of money to most people, but to Bill Gates that's like his hourly wage or something...

Edit: But yeah, for that amount of money the game itself should have been made exclusive to the 360.

[that Baby guy]

At any rate, it means that users who are undecided about their gaming system, but love the GTA line will go for the Xbox over the Playstation brand this time.

But seriously, can it, in any way, cost 25 mil to produce episodic content?  Really?

[Deguello]

Why don't they just buy Rockstar?  I mean as long as they are just wasting money.

That's only $4 million more than the ONLY profitable Xbox quarter MS ever had.  $54 million Q4 2004, requiring Halo 2 to sell like 3-5 million copies.  $50 million pissed away on exclusive Downloadable content for like 20% of their users who may or may not even care.

That is just stupid.

[ShyGuy]

Nintendo tried to shut down the game rental market too.  

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

360 is incapable of yanking off testicles with immersive interactive vigor.  It does not have that kind of technology.

[Kairon]

Yeah, at this point you'd think they'd just take advantage of Take-Two's weak financial situation and just buy the entire company outright.

[couchmonkey]

Thatguy: You're right in many respects...some of the stuff Nintendo did was necessary, like limiting third parties to a certain number of games was surely a reaction to the flood of crap games that caused the collapse of third parties on Atari (and friends).  Self-censoring also made sense with crap like Custer's Revenge hitting Atari.  However, in the longer run, Nintendo just started exploiting its position...there's no reason to stop third parties from porting their games to other consoles except to squash competition...and that came back to bite Nintendo in the arse.

Anyway, back on topic: this deal seems like a waste of money.  For one thing, $50 million must cover the entire development and marketing cost for the game, and then some.  For another thing, how many people are going to know about this when they decide which console to purchase GTA on?  If MS' marketing does it's job properly, lots, but seriously, it's a tough selling point...."In 6 months, there will be new levels!"

It's still an admirable move, but REALLY pricey, and I'd say killing GTA exclusivity for Sony was a much bigger win.  I look forward to seeing how the GTA thing plays out.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: Spak-Spang
As for spending Billions for more development houses I think they learned their lesson with Rare, and Nintendo proved to be right with making partnerships with the companies instead.  In fact, I think that is basically what is going on with the exclusive content Microsoft is buying.

Time has shown that, when a company is purchased, all that happens is the top executives and talent that made the company so great leave and you're left with an empty, smoking shell which bears resemblance to the former greatness of the company in name only.

That is, unless you strike up an arrangement with the visionaries beforehand and ensure that they're on the same page as you, which MS has never done, to my knowledge.

As for MS, if they ever dominate the gaming industry, then gaming is truly dead. MS is all about assimilating a market and crushing all of things that make it great clean out of it (like innovation and fun).

Their approach to the OS market shows that they couldn't give two sh*ts. Rather than making vista a good OS with excellent security and low resource demand, they made it the biggest pile of crap imaginable and then go about forcing people to upgrade by making future software releases vista-only.

[Kairon]

That's a HUGE moneyhat. I'm glad Nintendo is steering clear of this fight.

[Kairon]

BTW, MS just SUED IMMERSION.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

lol they both suck

[Ian Sane]

This is the game industry equivalent of a sports team paying a huge salary to a has-been former superstar.  This is overpaying no matter what but GTA4 also will not have the selling power last gen's GTA games did because a system seller typically only lasts one gen.  After that it can remain popular but will never be as big because it will no longer be a new experience.  Halo 3 will be the same thing.  Even for GTA4 as an exclusive this really wouldn't affect anything in the long run unless GTA4 redefines the series like, well, GTA3 did.  But I reckon it will be very much like the PS2 games but with better graphics.

MS sucks but remember that all three console makers are deep down completely dicks and that includes Nintendo.  We don't want any of them to get too powerful because all three have a history of f*cking everyone they can once they think they can get away with it.

And MS can never buy the game industry because it's entertainment and thus unessential.  Unessential industries can't have monopolies because no one is forced to use them.  If the product sucks people just get bored and leave.  For gamers that sucks because the whole industry could be killed off but an era of MS or nobody could never exist.  A monopoly in an entertainment industry would require one to have a monopoly on ALL entertainment and somehow be able to prevent people from creating their own fun.

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Ugh... The thought of a MS-dominated game industry gives me the creeps...

I wonder what would happen then, though. Would open-source games get really popular? That open-source RTS TA Spring is getting pretty big.  

[GoldenPhoenix]

::shakes head in disgust:: You guys sound like whiney babies in regards to MS. It seems whenever a company gets big everyone hates them, but whatever, I find Vista to be a solid Operating system and respect MS for not only their products but their employee culture.

[ShyGuy]

I've been battling Microsoft since the OS/2 wars.

NEVAH FOGHAT

[King of Twitch]

If MS were Nintendo, they'd be trying to get a GTA1 remake with exclusive content, and it would take two years to develop.