Microsoft Signs 10-Year Contract to Get Xbox Games on Nintendo | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Signs 10-Year Contract to Get Xbox Games on Nintendo

kotaku.com

60 pointst2322 comments

This is about Activision purchase. Hey regulators, look we play well with others companies... and 10 years is pretty good right we can buy Activision now right? (10 years 1 day later all Activision games are Xbox XL exclusives)

There is no indication that Microsoft would do that.

Their entire MO this generation (and part of last) has been to try and offer GamePass games on as many places as possible. Their current strategy would be to push the subscription and cloud service onto the Switch (and PS4) but Nintendo has refused.

If anything, this would very much be a Sony move, where exclusives show up on PCs years later and never on other consoles.

No indication other than the fact that they purchased ZeniMax and then almost immediately cancelled the PlayStation version of Starfield.

They still haven't come out and said definitively that Elder Scrolls 6 will release on Playstation. It will very likely be an Xbox exclusive.

If they intend to continue support for non-Microsoft platforms past 10 years then they should codify that in the contract. It's telling that the deals that they offered Nintendo, Nvidia, and Sony have all been for 10 years.

> It will very likely be an Xbox exclusive.

Aren't most xbox games just PC games anyway? It seems like exclusives are mostly limited to Nintendo these days. Everything else is dumbed down console ports of PC games.

Here's wikipedia's list of Xbox one exclusives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Xbox_One-only_games

Halo 5 is the only one that really matters.

> There is no indication that Microsoft would do that.

They immediately did so for any upcoming Bethesda/zenimax games that did not have a prior agreement with Sony.

Regulators have had enough time to look into Sony exclusives and XBox being on the third place.

However Sony crying how poor they are seems to be winning them.

If MSFT brings Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms via a form of gamepass, that is actually really bad for the economics of game developers, and great for MSFT. They would love to see everyone paying them a subscription fee.

I guarantee you Nintendo isn't going to allow Gamepass on their app store.

How will Nintendo's hardware run new games? Will it be a Nintendo cloud gaming service like Stadia?

One would have to imagine they'll be cut down ports suited to the hardware ala Nintendo ports of yore, but their verbiage of "content and feature parity" implies otherwise. I am kind of curious.

They could be. But there is this pretty awful trend of AAA publishers "porting" their games to Switch via cloud streaming. Maybe they won't do that for a competitive shooter like CoD though?

The real question though - will we finally see Master Chief in Super Smash Bros.?

Ok. I've checked. it's not 1 April.

It's been good knowing you, Nintendo. I can see what Microsoft gets out of this, but I don't think it's at all to your advantage long-term. Short term it may be nice (get access to Microsoft's catalog) but long term, it'll bring down your revenue because gamers will spend less (buying more xbox games and streaming them) and publishers will not port to Nintendo; they'll just publish on Xbox/Windows instead of porting.

Some additional info at https://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-teams-up-with-nv...

I think you misunderstand what's happening. Microsoft commits to keep porting their games (mainly CoD) to Nintendo's platform as is, to appease the authorities. Basically MS is saying that they won't change the status quo for 10 years. It's not something like bringing the Xbox streaming/game pass to Nintendo Switch.

Ah. The MarketWatch and tweet seem to indicate that it's streaming. Also, the tweet (https://twitter.com/BradSmi/status/1627926790172811264) seems to indicate many games. If it's just a few, hand-ported games then that's fine. Otherwise, my analysis stands.

Yeah microsoft is appeasing the public by doing this deal for 10 years to allow the regulators sufficient breathing room to allow them to sign Nintendo’s death warrant without them facing public blowback until they’ve long left the job.

That’s the point. Regulators - Nintendo will turn into a shell of its former self when you aren’t around! No need to worry about optics!

Honestly not sure Nintendo even needs publihers making cut down ports. The only games I've ever wanted to play on Nintendo systems are first party ones.

But do you own other consoles or a gaming pc?

> It's been good knowing you, Nintendo.

The impending death of Nintendo has been trumpeted basically forever, and it still hasn't happened. The company is 134 years old ...

Sure giving Microsoft a Monopoly isn't a problem if they will defer crushing the competition for 1-2 generations of consoles. When Nintendo's game developers are already using Microsoft products as it is.

What a joke. What is Microsoft even sacrificing? Absolutely nothing besides what they gain through the activision merger to begin with.

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