I hope EA shapes up and lets its companies do quality work. It hasnt been like that before.

EA is probably the company i least wanted to buy any of the developers i like. EA has yet to make a game iv wanted to buy since BF1942.

EA is rehash after rehash. They are in it to make money, fuck qúality if people buy the game anyway!

Other not so positive comments on the buyout, not many people are happy with EA

What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with Microsoft quitting (whoever thinks so is a complete moron anyway). Bioware was never owned by Microsoft, they are not " giving up" anything, and EA' s decision to buy the parent company of Bioware will not in any way effect the titles they have in store for the 360.

Get back to reality please. You' re just making yourself look foolish.

In a fucking 3 months, MS let slip 3 studios that used to make to its platform flagship EXCLUSIVE TITLES... in 3 fucking months , bungie , bizzare and bioware are gone.. and let me add this, this happens at the end of their games developmenet..

bizzare gone ===> after finishing PGR 4 ===> no game for 360announced after this game

Bungie gone ====> after finishing HALo 3 ====> no Game for 360 announced after this.

Bioware ====> after finishing Mass effect ===> no games has been announced. (ooh mass effect 2 that one...)

one explanation could be that those companies didn' t announce anything because they know MS won' t be in the console business on the long term. that could be an explanation , is it smart ass ? i' m not saying MS will quite but it might quit as those are indications that things are close to finish, you are moron if you discredit this theory.

may be Mistwalker and lionhead turns will come when they finish Lost odyssey and Fable 2 respectively...

Bioware already confirmed that they will continue to make the Mass Effect trilogy exclusively for 360. And Microsoft is still publishing whatever Bungie releases. So the only thing Microsoft let slip was Bizarre, and that is unfortunate.

The 360 is Microsoft' s last console.

The Mass Effect IP is owned by Bioware, now owned by EA. Microsoft is publishing the first game. Subsequent sequels will be published on any platform EA deems worthy.

I thought MS had the rights to the next 2 games?

Bungie gone ====> after finishing HALo 3 ====> no Game for 360 announced after this.

This is a good thing. MS will still get the games exclusively Im sure, and this gives Bungie opportunities to create more franchises than just halo.

i' m not saying MS will quite but it might quit as those are indications that things are close to finish, you are moron if you discredit this theory.

ORIGINAL: Abasoufiane


In a ***ing 3 months, MS let slip 3 studios that used to make to its platform flagship EXCLUSIVE TITLES... in 3 ***ing months , bungie , bizzare and bioware are gone..

bizzare gone ===> after finishing PGR 4 ===> no game for 360announced after this game

Bungie gone ====> after finishing HALo 3 ====> no Game for 360 announced after this.

Bioware ====> after finishing Mass effect ===> no games has been announced. (ooh mass effect 2 that one...)

one explanation could be that those companies didn' t announce anything because they know MS won' t be in the console business on the long term. that could be an explanation , is it smart ass ? i' m not saying MS will quite but it might quit as those are indications that things are close to finish, you are moron if you discredit this theory.

may be Mistwalker and lionhead turns will come when they finish Lost odyssey and Fable 2 respectively...

Please...

You make it sound like there' s a 50% chance of it happening. You are literally making a mountain out of a mole-hill. The Bizarre and Bioware cases are simply instances of a smaller studio wanting to find financial security. The same thing happened with Lionhead. They needed financial security and found it when Microsoft bought them. Microsoft never actually owned Bizarre or Bioware so they were still independent studios in their own right. You' ll start to see this happen more often due to astronomical budgets being forced on small studios.

Bungie was a different case. I can empathise with their decisions as they probably are sick of Halo and all the Microsoft pressure that comes with it. Being creatively stifled over and over again would probably have broken the studio if they kept at it. They' re still making games for 360 - most likely still exclusive. This is the only case where you could really say Microsoft " let go" of anything.

and let me add this, this happens at the end of their games developmenet..

It happened at the end of game development for logical reasons. You don' t undergo any major business upheavals while you' ve already got massive undertakings such as game development crunch times, etc. It' ll just cause unnecessary trouble for existing projects and employees. Doing it once they' ve got a relatively clean schedule means that things can go smoothly when everything is finalized.

As to the reason why these companies have not announced any new games? They' re probably going through an adjustment phase where they can do a situational analysis to see what' s now available to them and what new opportunities they have as a result of business changes. No point in announcing anything when you have not consolidated everything. Give it time and they' ll be announcing new titles.

So there you have it. My rationalization of these events. Microsoft is not going under. The " ZOMG m$ is quitting!!11" conspiracy theory is asinine.

the first one to mention this was nitro and he got me really think about it, some times later i start hearing the same rumour and today i checked out there is a whole fucking thread on teamxbox about it .. many people are saying the same thing and making good points, one of my favorite posts is :

1. Breaking news that Bioware, a major 2nd party provider of ground breaking Western RPG' s KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect, are now purchased by EA Studios.
2. The divorce of Bungie from MS, the most important first party studio of MS' s and creator of the blockbuster Halo franchise.
3. The loss of major Xbox face, Peter Moore to a third party.
4. The removal of major Xbox face, J. Allard, to a non-gaming division of MS.
5. The closing of FASA studios.
6. The early closing of the MS Sports studio.
7. The recent loss of Bizarre, the creator of exclusive titles such as Geometry Wars and Project Gotham Racing and prior to their buyout, the announcement that they would be going third party with The Club.
8. News that MS' s answer to Sony' s " Home" would come to PC before they would ever bring it to consoles, completely going against the Xbox-first strategy for every other LIVE initiative.
9. The $1,000,000,000 investment to cover faulty hardware.
10. The billions and billions that the console has yet to make up, even with blockbuster releases like Halo 3.
11. E3 focusing on this holiday season exclusively, with no long term big exclusives since announced.
12. The sale/shutdown of Rareware and/or Lionhead Studios... hasn' t happened yet, but that will be the nail in the coffin. We probably won' t hear anymore annoucements from them outside of the existing projects of Banjo and Fable 2.

it is not retarded to think that MS might leave the console business or stay...

Urgh. TeamXbox is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to any sort of sensibility. Mindless fanboys != Logic. Nearly every user comment I read on that site is just a waste of time. Most of the news that comes from there is garbage too.

It' s just the way business is. Things come, evolve and go. You could cook up a similar theory about Sony leaving the console business with all their changes and problems. Sony is not leaving, let alone the market leader (Microsoft).

I really don' t want that to be true, things would be really boring if one were to have monopoly.

I like the competition which is going on between PS and XBOX, its helping the industry grow aswell.

The more i read stuff like this the more i am starting to believe it but i couldn' t see it happening or could i. I JUST DONT KNOW

somebody has already posted what you just said, the difference is , sony isn' t acting , while mS does, you didn' t see sony giving up on insomniac , guerilla studios or level 5 did you??

oh forget it man, god bless me with your intelligence, the teamxbox is crap, and we are alll mindless fanboys talking out of our asses...

Until there is an official announcement of M$ leaving the marketplace(doubt it very much, as there is something special planned for early next year.) It would be foolhardy to specualte on what may or may not happen. Gates is a clever (albeit through luck) businessman and I doubt if he would have M$ invest so heavily in something and then just pull out at a whim.

Moore going to EA was more a case of jumping before he was pushed, he was starting to get on Gates' nerves.

The selling of the various studios is an excercise in trying to cut a few costs, however there are clauses that relate to each and every sale, that may or may not be made public.

ORIGINAL: alijay034

Until there is an official announcement of M$ leaving the marketplace(doubt it very much, as there is something special planned for early next year.) It would be foolhardy to specualte on what may or may not happen. Gates is a clever (albeit through luck) businessman and I doubt if he would have M$ invest so heavily in something and then just pull out at a whim.

Moore going to EA was more a case of jumping before he was pushed, he was starting to get on Gates' nerves.

The selling of the various studios is an excercise in trying to cut a few costs, however there are clauses that relate to each and every sale, that may or may not be made public.

Now that seems more clear to me.

The selling of the various studios is an excercise in trying to cut a few costs, however there are clauses that relate to each and every sale, that may or may not be made public.

Yes that' s what i thought as well, probably there are some terms that both parties should respect...

Anyone get the feeling like I am that this is similar to what Sony went through when Kurtaragi was still in charge? They lost a lot of exclusives to MS, and now since Peter Moore left we are seeing MS losing a lot of once exclusive dev companies.

It may be nothing, but I just find it kind of interesting.

9. The $1,000,000,000 investment to cover faulty hardware.

That is an interesting list, but this one makes me think they intend to continue in the hardware business. If not, they could just keep the billion and accept the repercussions of having a reputation for having screwed over the people whose consoles croaked.

I dont think MS would have bothered with the ' jasper' chips if it was leaving the console business . Abs u r freaking conspiracy theorist and paranoid . There isnt a question of letting go of bioware when they never owned them in the first place . Same with Bizzare , fuck them . We would hopefully get a better development team to do PGR 5 . The Bungie , MS thing seems to be a good idea . I don' t think Bioware would have let MS buy them because that would make them concentrate on a single platform , EA was obviously a better choice for them . MS could still strike a deal with EA and obtain exclusivity of ME on the 360 .

I dont think MS would have bothered with the ' jasper' chips if it was leaving the console business . Abs u r freaking conspiracy theorist and paranoid . There isnt a question of letting go of bioware when they never owned them in the first place . Same with Bizzare , *** them . We would hopefully get a better development team to do PGR 5 . The Bungie , MS thing seems to be a good idea . I don' t think Bioware would have let MS buy them because that would make them concentrate on a single platform , EA was obviously a better choice for them . MS could still strike a deal with EA and obtain exclusivity of ME on the 360 .

i have many reasons to think that MS is up to something very big, may be not quitting the hardware business but still i don' t think this recent chain of events about developers is a mere coincidence... the possibility is there, it' s not something incredibly surprising, but i seriously don' t want MS to give up, it would be a very sad day... if anything that big should happen , it will be at least in 2009.

MS will make another console, after that they will be out. As will Sony, PS4 and they' re done. Two generations from now we' ll only have Nintendo and PC (maybe a newcomer).

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

MS will make another console, after that they will be out. As will Sony, PS4 and they' re done. Two generations from now we' ll only have Nintendo and PC (maybe a newcomer).

I beg to differ . I think the next gen of consoles will be more like the wii . I mean the production cost and the tech used . We wont have a " SUPA COMPUTA" kinda of a console . Both sony and ms i feel will develop less powerful consoles . God help us all .