the thing about microsoft is that they've always had like extremely, extremely good taste. like, o.g. xbox days, they had a shitload of sega games, halo, pgr, etc.

with 360, they partnered with mistwalker/epic/remedy

now we see them picking up a LOT of good rpg studios

the thing is, a lot of these games aren't really _event games_

like, I bought my 360 and x1 both for remedy games, because I love remedy games. I wanted an original xbox in part because of jet set radio future and panzer dragoon orta. but these aren't really, *gestures*

basically, they're driven by legitimately the most sophisticated and varied taste in gaming imo, because their partnerships are incredibly interesting, but microsoft has historically struggled on the 'event game' front except for Halo and Gears

and Halo isn't Halo anymore and hasn't been since Bungie left, and Gears is like... great, but I don't know if it's the juggernaut it was when Epic was making it.

If you asked me what Microsoft needed, I'd tell you 'event games,' and I'd point at third person action/adventure titles, especially open world games, as the studio's big weakness. Today, Microsoft still hasn't done that, but I mean

now they have TES6.

meanwhile sony basically does nothing but event games that copy movies. GoT is samurai movies, Infamous is superhero, Days Gone is Walking Dead + Sons of Anarchy, TLOU is Walking Dead + Children of Men, Uncharted is Indiana Jones, etc etc etc

that drives a LOT of casuals

sony is basically the cbs of game publishers; their library is like 80% CSI and NCIS and two and a half men. Very predictable, very lowest common denominator type stuff. Even when the quality is off the charts (Ghost of Tsushima) it's about hitting the broad, casual audience

TES6/Fallout 5/etc are gonna help MS out a LOT in that regard but I still think they need some big third person event game type shenanigans.

I think they tried this with Rise of the Tomb Raider, but that isn't their property. If Microsoft bought, say, Square Enix tomorrow and FFXVI + Tomb Raider filled that role, they'd be in a REALLY good place, but that obviously isn't going to happen.

Microsoft has always laser-targeted my interests. I mean, I loved Marathon/Max Payne/Unreal Tournament so of course I loved Halo/Alan Wake/Gears of War.

They want to avoid being boring, so they go off and make extremely fun games like Crackdown 3 (which isn't like anything except the other crackdown games) but sometimes you just need like a boring-ass third person cinematic game.

That said?

TES6 is bigger than all of those

the zenimax purchase is really fucking interesting because zenimax isn't like anyone else out there. Someone there has really interesting taste too. See: Arkane, Id, Bethesda. Basically, lots of first person games that have a hefty dose of simulation mechanics and GREAT combat.

I think every other publisher would have tried to push Bethesda to make Fallout and Elder Scrolls into generic, character-driven cinematic event games, and Bethesda's just like "man we're making a fuckin weird janky first person simulation series that's extremely moddable."

I've argued (and will continue to argue) that Bethesda's games are immersive sims, and of course Arkane is doing that in their own way as well.

Someone at Zenimax greenlights extremely interesting first person games.

(and I mean, that partnership with Tango??? they know their horror directors, fuck)

You won't see EA/Ubi/ATVI/2k greenlighting Deathloop/Dishonored/Skyrim/Fallout.

Someone at Zenimax has great taste too. And now MS has that.

So this is like, an extremely understandable microsoft purchase--it is a continuation of that "really fucking good taste" throughline. And it shores up the issue where all the studios they've acquired so far are really interesting but haven't made Huge Hits.

(obviously mojang is the big exception here)

Obsidian has a lot of really good but not HUGE games, right? What was the last $60 game you remember buying at Gamestop from inxile? etc etc etc.

Very good devs but not like, Event Devs.

So basically Microsoft plugged in a hole by acquiring the most Microsoft-compatible publisher outside of Sega.

If I were at Microsoft, I'd personally be eyeing Konami or Sega.

Sega gets you Yakuza and Persona, which is gonna appeal to the Japanese fans MS is missing. Konami gets you MGS/SH/Castlevania but also really solid earners like YGO and PES.

Square would be the biggest megaton but I don't think Square would eeeeeeeeeever sell.

Anyways I think MS still has some gaps in the portfolio (most notably my studio :P) but Bethesda plugs a lot of holes and is also the most on-brand purchase I can think of MS doing.

I'm pretty sure I was tweeting about them buying bethesda two or three years ago.