I don’t think Kotick was really in the picture when all their game franchises were being created. The only thing he’s good at is acquiring already successful games and companies and then squeezing everything he can out of them before they turn to shit.
I think that’s the point of the Xbox Game Studios. They purchase a bunch of existing games studios with good talent and let them mostly manage themselves and their own games direction.
MS doesn’t want full control anyway because yeah, they aren’t great at it. They just want to buy enough companies that they get the money from the good games. Then they’ll pull the good talent out of the shitty studios and shut them down.
The only reason I’m for the merger is that I know how much Microsoft can affect a corporations executive structure. I would hope they are already planning to replace him already, but either way he won’t last when he gets tossed into MS’ culture.
At least, that is what I’m hopping.
I don’t care how much he gets as long as he isn’t in charge anymore.
That’s a bit of a massive overgeneralization. The list of games studios under MS is pretty large now and a lot of them make great games:
343 Industries The Coalition Compulsion Games Double Fine Productions The Initiative inXile Entertainment Mojang Studios Ninja Theory Obsidian Entertainment Playground Games Rare Turn 10 Studios Undead Labs World’s Edge Xbox Game Studios Publishing Bethesda Softworks Alpha Dog Games Arkane Studios id Software MachineGames Roundhouse Studios Tango Gameworks ZeniMax Online Studios
The thing is, MS is usually hands off for a few years after they acquire a company. Game launches can be hit and miss based on how good the individual studios are. I don’t think just because they’re owned by MS is a good indicator of whether or not they make good games.
I wouldn’t expect Activision/Blizzard to change much. They’re a huge company. The only good thing would be maybe getting rid of Bobby Kotick
Yeah, mini-computers are one thing, but the NUCs were more than that. Having a PCI-E card that you can slot into your computer to literally run a PC inside your PC is super unique and not something anyone else offers.
Sad to see them drop this. I can understand that it’s not an in-demand market segment, but it was cool none-the-less