It's happening, and feels inevitable for the future. MS has spent HUGE money to get more IP/games for Xbox Game Pass and Sony seems to have responded by buying Bungie today. I like having the majority of games being multi-plat, with a number of games unique to each system to give each a certain flavor. I'm still a fan of physical games though, so I may very well be the dinosaur here, but a streaming only future where you never own your games is the time I probably stop gaming. That's another thread, I guess. So, not happy to see this happen.
So, as a Sony gamer, can they trade Bungie to MS for Bethesda now, lol? I really have zero interest in Bungie, and really want to be able to play RPGs on my consoles. But I agree with you. I want to go to the store, buy the disc, and own it forever. I have less than zero interest in streaming games ever. I also think that when games are multi platform, its better for everyone. And of course, having as many independant publishers as possible making their games without being told what to do by huge corporations is best for gamers as well.
https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-playstation-more-acquisitions-coming-after-bungie This is great. What the industry needed. Though Sony is a much better master than Microsoft, at least historically. Microsoft has ruined some developers in the past, while Sony has done a better job. Sony's philosophy seems to want to give games to people that they want to play so they sell more consoles. Microsoft wants to make as much money it can and sell streaming services. Overall, this is terrible for the industry. At least there are still a lot of good indy games out there.
I'll admit that seeing EA bought up and brought to complete ruin would be a wonderful irony -given they destroyed so many studios along the way themselves. Sony went out of their way to say that Bungie would continue releasing games on multiple platforms, which is good, and I can see things like sports staying that way too. The NFL would not be excited to have their football game limited to just one console for example.
Oh yeah. Sony buying EA could only be a good thing for absolutely everyone. I don't see that happening, though, unless EA is in some kind of financial trouble that we don't know about. They had a revenue of 5.5 billion dollars in 2020, and they have an enormous amount of studios under their control.
A quick search indicates EA has assets of about $11 billion. So, I'd guess they could be purchased for $25 billion or so. Certainly for much less than that $68.7 billion MS just spent.
I guess I just don't pay much attention to Activision, but it boggles my mind that they're that much bigger than EA, who seems to make half of the games on the market sometimes.
I used to consider myself a physical game player, but frankly I just don't care any more. Steam did a lot to help that, as well as gamesharing between consoles.
Along with just the general feeling of liking having the physical copy as something tangible that I can touch and feel like I possess, I simply don't trust that the PSN will always support the digital titles if/when I want to play them again. If I want to play a PS3 game that I bought 15 years ago, then easy, I just put the disc into the machine and go. But they've already started to end support for that machine online, and some day, they will with the PS4 as well. I bought games digitally for the first time during the pandemic due to the lack of other options, and I wonder if there will come a time that I'd like to replay those and just can't.
I have plenty of old games, and frankly if I move again, they won't be moving with me. I haven't, nor have I wanted to play any of the old games in their original form. There's simply too many games (with great audio and video now) for me to go back. If other people want that, I hope they can have what they want. Just saying I am over it. (Note: I may on occasion get physical games still, but it's exceedingly rare for me to buy it myself)