Is MS preparing for the arrival of Amazon and Google in gaming?

[the-pi-guy]

It's clear that Microsoft is preparing for the arrival of Amazon and Google into gaming | ResetEra

With Amazon and Google entering into the game streaming market at an impressive rate, Microsoft has been aggressively buying up studios, increasing Game Pass and introducing XCloud while also having a native console. It's clear that all these moves have been to prepare to compete with those companies and Not Sony.

 I expect Amazon, Google and Microsoft to aggressively buy up Publishers and Studios to bulk up their platforms, while improving their Cloud infrastructure they already have.

 With the rate things are going right now with subscription gaming and game streaming at the moment, I see the gaming industry to be pretty much consolidated in 5 years time.

 Sony will likely continue to dominate Consoles, but will increasingly have to rely on First Party to carry their consoles as Amazon, Google and Microsoft and other tech giants gobble up third parties to push their own platforms, moving away from consoles.  

[/size]

[Dr. Pezus]

Moving away from consoles to what?

Pc, tablet or phone streaming? Lol

[the-pi-guy]

Moving away from consoles to what?

Pc, tablet or phone streaming? Lol

Yeah.  
It's something that a lot of people in the industry have talked about.

Legend has talked about it, Sony recently said that the infrastructure for streaming isn't there yet.

A netflix for gaming, seems to be where everyone is trying to go towards.

[Legend]

Why is it clear that these moves are not to compete with Sony? PlayStation has been beating Xbox by a wide margin and has been beating them in these specific areas.

I don't think MS is preparing for the arrival of Amazon and Google. Instead they are preparing for massive changes just within the traditional players. If game streaming becomes a perfectly acceptable option for a significant amount of players, how does that change the landscape? If games are built to target multiple hardware variations, how does that change the landscape? Throw in VR and next gen is set to be a battle of redefining how games are played.

A netflix for gaming, seems to be where everyone is trying to go towards.

I think the problem is that no one wants to give up microtransactions. A netflix for gaming doesn't work if it's full of essentially free to play titles.

[the-pi-guy]

Why is it clear that these moves are not to compete with Sony?

Some people on Era think so.  I don't, so I changed it to "is ... preparing?" instead of "it's clear they are".  

I think the problem is that no one wants to give up microtransactions. A netflix for gaming doesn't work if it's full of essentially free to play titles.

Yeah, it'd be awkward to say the least.