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Sacred Symbols x Defining Duke: The Great ABK/Microsoft Blowout | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 314

Welcome to another rousing rendition of Sacred Symbols x Defining Duke, our recurring Sacred Symbols+ subseries that we bring to you each month. This week, the five co-hosts of Sacred and Duke join for a lengthy episode about a topic most of you are clamoring to hear us cover: Microsoft's near-complete acquisition of Activision. Now, anything can happen -- as of the time we recorded, Microsoft and Activision were negotiating an extension to their deal after nearly running out the clock -- but we've recorded this assuming everything goes through. And to keep an incessant focus on Xbox off of the mainline run of Sacred Symbols, we figured we'd dump all of our thoughts here instead. There's not much more to say. Enjoy the show.

Comments

Tygorgon12

Oh snap, I know how I'm starting my morning tomorrow! 👍

Matthew La Canfora

I only have so much of my ear to give!!! This insane pace! I love it!

Hammy

Hell yea!! Love the LSM crew!

Joey

Wow 3 hours! Thank you. The crossover episodes are great.

Josh

Colin: I’m going to operate as if this is happening. Colin 5 minutes later: I mean it might not happen we’ll see.

Benji BOP

Best crossover yet, gentlemen

Bryant

Colin - Your obsession with saying that Microsoft never made revolutionary games is just wrong. Why did the entire industry copy Halo/Gears during those respective generations? They had a bad XB1 output and a slow start to this generation for sure, but stop re-writing history.

Stonehorn

Im generally a PS guy, but Colin’s hyperbole around MS is getting into ridiculous hater territory at this point

Zach

Microsoft may not be known for making revolutionary games, but they are the ones that tend to innovate the industry forward. First builtin HDD - Microsoft, first builtin LAN port - Microsoft, first usable online multiplayer service - Microsoft, first game poppable achievements - Microsoft, first marketplace for indies - Microsoft, first subscription service (whether you like the idea of the service or not) - Microsoft, first first party production of customizable controllers - Microsoft. Almost everyone one of these have been copied by the other console makers.

RU46N2 (REY)

Have you guys ever seen house of Dev. It's a half US/half Russian YouTube channel with game Dev. One of the host is Raf Colantonio. He was the head of Arkane and founder. Would be Cool to see Colin on his show and or Raf on your podcast. I am sure he has a lot of insite to the Arkane and Xbox. I feel Colin would be the best person to interview him. Also he could get history and another perspective on game development in Russia. Love everything you do. Also that new studio Raf has joined with Galaxy studios to make a new game. Can't wait. Take care guys.

Michael Hobbs

I love episodes like this because it shows such an excellent diversity of opinion and perspective. Speaks so highly of the team at LSM. Great work!

Walker Simmons

I'm so confused why so many people are so hyped for this deal just to get call of duty for cheaper on a subscription service

Kenneth Oms

This was a great episode, I feel like everyone brings out the best of one another especially with this topic that has been pretty divisive

Kaleb

Just wanna say you were dead on the money in the smaller games for game pass topic Colin. Not enough people talk about it but Double Fine announced that after Psychonauts 2 they split into 3 teams to develop smaller games. It's already happening.

Taylor Martin

Great discussion! Love the combo of the shows and having everyone together.

Edwin Garcia

How can you forget which podcast you were a guest to?, come on.

Stinkling

Literally they were bought and payed for NOT in house. XBOX has no games, literally, WHERE ARE THE GAMES?

Zack Fair

I seriously don't understand why matty and cog cheer for consolidation. It will eventually kill gaming

Chris Van Buren

I can’t wrap my head around why so many love that Microsoft is buying Activision. I don’t play call of duty, so I could careless if it left PlayStation. But all this love for a massive corporation to gobble up publishers is insane.

Sealegs

wish Sony would still make smaller things. Not having to wait 5+ years is another benefit plus being able to take more risks. Sony is unfortunately more interested in chasing Fortnite money

Sealegs

MS is now investing more in gaming than Sony is. This merger will allow more competition on multiple gaming fronts. MS getting a foothold in mobile is huge. A 3rd competitor to Apple & Google would be welcome. Xbox will be around for decades to come. Many ABK devs will take their payouts and start new studios. Many of you want to see Xbox die and MS exit gaming. The industry would be worse off, for sure.

UprightAura

kill gaming is such a hyperbole especially considering consolidation has been going on since the 80s

Raymond Stuart

Simple math on GamePass. CADE (Brazil regulator) reported in Oct-22 that Xbox's revenue from GamePass was $2.9B per year. With 25M subscribers, the average subscriber pays $9.66 per month. If all of Xbox's games cost $250M to make, they can fully fund 11-12 AAA games from GamePass revenues alone. And they do still sell games on Xbox, Windows, and Steam. Absolutely, they are giving up opportunity costs because they release 1st party Day 1. I don't understand why people keep saying GamePass is a loss leader and that Xbox has to take money from other parts of the company. Yes when they acquire studios, they use Microsoft money but that is the equivalent of Microsoft investing in their gaming business.

Zack Fair

Only because they've got more money to throw about, not that they do any good with the developers they already had before. People wanting to see Microsoft die is BS but this deal just smacks of desperation by Microsoft as they can't nature talent and studios

NeO JD

I stopped buying COD a while back, so now I can pay a small price and go through the ones I missed. Plus, I figure Diablo V will be on there whenever that happens. For most casual people though, it’s like oh I can get COD for cheaper AND get MLB The Show, Madden, NBA 2K, and all the other titles? It’s a good deal.

Dick Justice

you also need to account for all the payouts they do to get a game on gamepass. Those deals aren't free and usually include an upfront payment and additional payouts based on users or play time not to mention whatever ea gets every month for having ea ultimate in there. I think the better question we all should be asking is how many subscribers do they need to make it a profitable self sustaining service?

RoughSlpr

Now add up how long it will take to cover 80 billion in acquisitions

Elroy Knight

The games used as an example by op (Halo and Gears) were both bought and paid for by Microsoft. Neither were developed in house. Which kind of proves Colin’s point. Colin does give Microsoft a lot of credit for the technology and features they’ve brought to the games industry. On this very show he gave them praise for taking a risk with the Ethernet port in the original Xbox and online gaming in general. Colin’s criticism of Microsoft in this context has always been about the company’s culture of buying success rather than cultivating it.

Zack Fair

I seriously don't see how xbox gamers arw celebrating this merger, the prices medium to long term for them is gonna be unacceptable. Just look at what streaming services like here in the UK did companies like SKY Sports and BT bidded higher than the UK television companies could offer to pay for sports content and got locked out. The result,you have to pay tens of pounds p.m just to watch the sports you like

Zach

How are we judging success? It seems by your last paragraph the only metric is by what games are produced. I would say XBOX live, achievements, online digital store, and console apps are major successes. They are all still in use. They were all things that gave Microsoft an edge until their competitors copied those ideas. They were all ideas developed internally. The only console innovation I can think of Sony providing is backward compatibility, but once they became the leader they did away with that and only tried bringing it back in wake of XBOX doing so. Edit. I'll give Sony credit for the dual joystick controller and introducing disc based games too. Those are big ones.

heyVinno

I just came here to say that Prototype was WAY more fun to play than the first Infamous game.

Raymond Stuart

Basic economics. Investments are long term. GamePass doesn’t have to recover $75B. Mobile, PC, Consoles, game sales, AND subscriptions have to pay off that investment. And they likely have a 7-10 year ROI.

Raymond Stuart

Your question is just the same one that people ask when they say GP isn’t profitable. All you have to do is actually look at the math $2.9B annual revenue. Assume they fund 8 internal games at $250M (very high) and they us $500M-$700M to fund other GamePass games. But few independent AAA games release day one on GamePass. And if they do they aren’t exclusive to Xbox. So that lowers the cost. Sure some short 6 month exclusives for AA or indies-but the cost for those are much much lower. $2.9B looks self sustaining at 25M subscribers. Could they make more revenue? Sure. Microsoft is pushing them to increase margin. Which means more subscribers will ultimately achieve.

TheChosenOne

Microsoft didn't conceive Halo nor Gears. Bungie was bought after Halo was already conceptualized, and Gears was literally developed by a third party (Epic). Microsoft later bought the Gears IP, they don't create anything.

Brian Wagers

I disagreed with nearly everything Colin said( not saying that matters) but I want to say I think he did an awesome job as host of this episode. It would’ve been so easy to have one or two people/views dominate the talk but he did a great job making sure we say this topic from all angles and made sure nobody got lost in the shuffle. Really enjoyable episode and think Colin’s hosting is a big reason for that.

Tommy 2 Mommy

Microsoft market cap is 2.51 Trillion. Sony's is 117 billion...They could just buy Sony Lol