Microsoft's Call of Duty acquisition could be great for Battlefield

Android Wilson's Windows has crashed someone needs to reboot him.

I think he forgot the masses rejected BF2042and the playerbase for old BFs is much higher

What nonsense, shaming other companies miscomings when all you do is release lacklustre games with few exceptions

Except Microsoft is serious when they say it makes zero sense to remove CoD from PlayStation. Because it doesn't make any sense and they won't do it.

I believe the Battlefield series does have the potential considering the huge success of Bad Company 1 & 2, but it seems like EA & DICE were not able recreate the past success of the franchise either because their most talented guys have left or because they are chasing trends (battle royale, hero/operator shooters) without fully understanding what makes a Battlefield game good. I replayed Battlefield 4 and Hardline a year ago and I had a good time with those games. Since Vince Zampella (Respwan Entertainment - Titenfall, Apex Legends) Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto are involved in the Battlefield franchise, maybe they can revitalize the series and make sure that the future games are more fun and attractive to play.

I think the reason why Call of Duty is such a huge success is because it's on nearly every platform. Decades ago we even got Call of Duty on Nintendo Wii, PS Vita and Nintendo DS. So Call of Duty going away from PlayStation won't happen anytime soon. Sony is just afraid that the casual gamers will migrate to Xbox if Call of Duty is released day-1 on GamePass. That's what Sony wants to "protect" - their dominance in the console market.

Tubbed said:I think it would be a possible business decision for Microsoft to buy a few more companies, maybe for example Riot Games, EA, Ubisoft and then one day make all their games Xbox/PC Exclusives. If that happens Playstation would have almost nothing going for them except for exclusives.

I see two ways this could go, 1: EA does what they've consistently failed to do since bf1 and tf2 and actually make a fun shooter having seen the potential for a comeback with the lack of competition, or 2: the lack of competition means EA let standards slump knowing that their audience have little other choice for a new triple A multiplayer shooter.

All of this, of course, is dependent on whether CoD actually becomes an exclusive, and I don't think EA and dice are willing to take the risk of making a good game based on that. Most likely just an opportunity to say "this changes things, our games will be good now", while changing nothing.

Thijminecraft02 said:Destroying the competition would be a disaster.

Thijminecraft02 said:Riot is owned by tencent, one of the largest companies in the world, period. Microsoft won't be buying them anytime soon, and tencent wouldn't sell the cashcow that is Riot.

There was always a possibility for opportunity, but not necessarily a given one. It's not enough to simply exist where the premier option isn't available, a game has to establish itself as a competitor to stand any chance of filling that void.

Look at fighting games and Street Fighter 5; with SF5 being exclusive there was an open market for fighters on Xbox, but nothing ever filled that void. That's because Street Fighter is so genre-defining that everyone followed it, they weren't going to settle for alternatives. Sure we still had some multiplatform fighting games, but none of them surpassed Street Fighter by virtue of being widely available.

COD is in a similar position being the genre-defining FPS. People that really want to play it are going to follow it, not flock to secondary choices. EA is extremely optimistic to expect a windfall from exclusivity, especially given their series' current predicament.

I love Xbox and sony pony tears equally but I think good competition is needed for games to progress. If there was no competition games would just marginally improve or even decline due to no competition putting pressure on them (see Madden franchise).

ThreeHaddock62 said:Not for Microsoft.

Fejer said:Though I am doubtful "CoD" becoming an Xbox console exclusive or being best experienced on Xbox/Windows would cripple Sony’s console “dominance” (there’s only 3 parties at the pie, such a thing isn’t really doable in my eyes unless if it’s on the verge of a monopoly), I do think as avid consumers it may be worth being avid (hey I used a non-simple word twice in the same sentence) of what such a move could bring causal consumers to do, you never know with those people. As much as we may like Xbox, the last thing we want is for them to have a monopoly on the console scene. (Again, extremely doubtful that that would happen from just the "CoD" situation, but again, causal consumers exist.)

2042 isn't doing as bad as the internet wants you to believe.

Still in the top Xbox games played charts nearly a year after release.

Not even a fan of the franchise, just saying the belief that the game was a massive dis-success isn't backed up by evidence.

ChiflaGoodluck said:Nice word-play there. :)
I'm also doubtful that "COD being Xbox/Windows" exclusive would cripple Sony's dominance, but that's the narrative Sony is currently trying to sell to everyone. And while I agree that a monopoly is bad for consoles (no matter if it's Microsoft, Sony, Tencent, NetEase, Google or Embracer) I still think that even with this acquisition Microsoft is far away from becoming a monopoly. Sony has gained a huge dominance thanks to their exclusive 3rd party deals and Microsoft is gaining back some market share with the help of this acquisition.

Thijminecraft02 said:No. But for the consumer…

Veedrock said:I feel like Killer Instinct might have been the attempt to fill that void for Xbox. Personally I spent many hours enjoying it. But it didn't gain popularity since it was only on Xbox and PC.

Though you are right, the fighting scene followed Street Fighter 5 to PlayStation and many games in the same genre were PlayStation exclusive, that's why we probably missed out on Guilty Gear for example.

Lol, Android Wilson strikes again. I wonder what happened when EA got a hold of the Star Wars license

the last good battlefield game was bad company 2 so i doubt they will take advantage of this opportunity very well

i dunno maybe they could do a remaster of bc2, maybe that could get them somewhere

Veedrock said:Killer Instinct might have been able to --- that remake was amazing at XB 1 launch --- but there did not seem to be an effort by MS.

Now, I do prefer Mortal Kombat/Injustice over SF personally.

There's a 0% chance Battlefield is as popular as CoD.