Microsoft Signs 10-Year Cloud Gaming Deal With Europe-Based Nware - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 28 April 2023 / 5,156 Views
Microsoft announced it has signed a 10-year agreement with European cloud gaming platform Nware. The deal will bring all Xbox games on PC to the cloud gaming platform, as well as Activision Blizzard games if the deal closes.
"Microsoft and European cloud gaming platform Nware have signed a 10-year agreement to stream PC games built by Xbox on its platform, as well as Activision Blizzard titles after the acquisition closes," reads a statement from Microsoft.
"While it's still early for the emerging cloud segment in gaming, this new partnership combined with our other recent commitments will make more popular games available on more cloud game streaming services than they are today."
Nware added, "Excited to be working with Microsoft to bring access to even more titles on the Nware platform to give our gamers the freedom to play any game, anywhere!"
This is the fourth cloud gaming platform Microsoft has signed a 10-year agreement with. Microsoft also has deals with Nvidia's GeForce Now, Boosteroid, and Ubitus.
Excited to be working with @Microsoft to bring access to even more titles on the Nware platform to give our gamers the #freedom to play any game, anywhere! 🚀 https://t.co/XL5rdSgo7h
— NWARE (@playnware) April 28, 2023
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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So heartfelt and kind including all the companies that no one has heard of.
Oh wait no! None of these deals would exist with out the push backs they were/are getting. Microsoft doesn't want any of this.
Why didn't they do this when they bought Bethesda. Thats right! No one pushed them and they pulled all new multiplatform games immediately that weren't xbox/pc the second the deal was completed.
More smoke and mirror stepping stones from Microsoft.
You never heard of them because the market isn't that big. You are right MS would not be making these deals unless they believe it will help with the purchase of ABK. The thing is, these deals help small Cloud businesses like these access to ABK games they would probably never have had access to thus helping them improve their sales and increase their market share.
Not understanding business decisions is the leading cause of gamers not understanding the pros and cons of any business decision. MS wanting to get ABK is a boon to all of these small, medium and to large Cloud players because they get access to ABK games while they would never had had the opportunity or a 10 year agreement.
Also to answer your question, MS did not do this with Bethesda nor are they offering Bethesda games from my understanding is because they were no conditions to acquire them. Why would a business do anything unless they either have to proactively get things done.
I see you get your information for xbot comment forums.
They dont care about those platforms at all.
If you look at the cma's report 100% of all the sales from these platforms goes to Microsoft. 100%.
Not a penny goes to them.
They're just hoping for passing trade while customers are there.
Microsoft will eventually pull the blanket from underneath them when the deals are up
100% of the sales goes to MS when the said game is purchased through Xbox windows store only, ~70% if the sale occurred with steam or most other. Those cloud gaming providers are not stores themselves, they are only subscription based enabling you to play your own pc libraries through the cloud. It's not like those deals changed their business' models in any way.
Everyone knows those deals occurred because of the challenge MS faced and yet any actor who did sign one could not care less. It would still have boosted their business many time what they are today.
"Microsoft will eventually pull the blanket from underneath them when the deals are up"
Why would they? You yourself even stated MS get to keeps 100% of those game transactions so what's would be the benefits? If the backlash was enough for MS to cancel Xbox live subs cost increase why would they face the backlash of this whit no perceived benefits?
Why would they? So that everyone is forced to leave that service and sign up for MS cloud gaming.
If you have all these purchases made to COD and then the service loses the game but you can sign up for MS and play through them and continue with your account what are you going to do? Abandon all the money you spent on COD or just switch over?
For this you have to make the assumption that Xcloud is going to be a standalone service and not remain a feature tied to GamePass, you also have to consider that Xcloud is going to actually benefits from this and not others competitor, and more importantly that users will find Xcloud to already be the reference with cloud gaming and would resort to other providers only in marginal numbers.
There's a reason MS contents is on steam and that it will stay this way for as long as steam is a popular store, because despite steam revenue cut it help MS fill the gap of their own shortcomings. No reasons to believe it will be any different for the cloud gaming providers.
Furthermore, supporting those service will still have the added benefits of more exposition to MS contents and those may also rely on Azure services to operate. MS is also changing the way it measure success to MAU and those service will just help them with this especially if they developed any measurable success when the 10 years is up. MS may well find benefits of cutting them up vs the benefits continued support too little to worth the backlash of any such short sighted move here.
Why does it have to be a standalone service? It doesn't. If your game is removed you're put into a position. Abandon the money you spent or just start cloud gaming with MS those are your choices. MS doesn't care if you can find them or not. They will remove it and make them the sole provider. People will either find there way there or abandon cloud gaming which do you think is more likely?
Comparing Steam the largest PC digital gaming store to a bunch of small cloud gaming companies doesn't mean anything. It's not a valid comparison at all.
This is all speculation at the end of the day. What no one can deny is that MS will be in a very powerful position with all the companies relying on MS's good will. Not only from the game licensing but from their azure server as well. Is that really the position we want to put MS in? To make it so cloud companies are relying on MS hardware and game licensing just to survive? That's the whole reason the deal was blocked it puts them in an incredibly powerful position.
We can do What ifs all day long but 10 years is a damn long time. No one can predict what the market will be like in 10 years.
If you got a 10 year deal today, you have plenty of time to worry about after the deal but missing the opportunity today would be silly when you are trying to grow your business.
The thing is, MS want more reach for their games but also they want less government oversight into their business. Yes MS could in 10 years just pull everything and from their they would have a hell of a time doing anything else that require government approval. Is it worth it, I would say no because if you believe MS as a company ambition is to have every decision scrutinized by different regulatory bodies that would be just plain stupid.
The reason the deal is blocked would be blocked by all the other government agencies as well. Lets not give more say to one regulatory body than the other. Your whole line of reasoning is that in 10 years these companies would not have enough games on their service that they must depend on just MS. That is what we call pure speculation because I would believe in 10 years all of these companies will have tons of content. Hell we do not even know if COD will still be big in 10 years. How many games have been able to maintain the lead for any length of time. Fatigue is one of the leading cause of consumers jumping to new platforms.
Exactly no one can predict what the market will be like in 10 years so why hand over such a huge advantage to MS and hope they don't abuse it? They've already started their subtle threats just by being denied.
Why does it have to be a standalone service?
Because if Xcloud is not standalone it has no revenue stream of it's own and would even be less justifiable to remove contents from other services that brings revenue with no added expenses.
Comparing Steam the largest PC digital gaming store to a bunch of small cloud gaming companies doesn't mean anything. It's not a valid comparison at all.
Well it is a less costly move from MS to support those Cloud service providers than it is to support Steam. The windows store and xbox pc store experiment shown MS that users are going to be where they want to be and so MS have to reach them where they are not where they want them to be.
Not only from the game licensing but from their azure server as well. Is that really the position we want to put MS in?
No one is forcing any actor to use Azure, some do some don't, PSNow for instance, as far as I know, use Azrure , AWS and some custom server (mainly for ps3 titles) for PSNow.
This is all speculation at the end of the day.
yep that's true, but it contrast directly to absolute statement like "Microsoft will eventually pull the blanket from underneath them when the deals are up" and "They will remove it and make them the sole provider"
This is all speculation at the end of the day.
yep that's true, but it contrast directly to absolute statement like "Microsoft will eventually pull the blanket from underneath them when the deals are up" and "They will remove it and make them the sole provider"
Because that part isn't speculation even the CMA saw right through this. It was in their report. MS started running around signing all these cloud deals as soon as this started because they knew it was going to be an issue. The CMA outright stated there is no financial gain for MS in this situation and they are giving away a large amount of money by doing this. Anyone who believes MS wont start charging a large licensing fee or outright remove the games after 10 years is being naïve. This trillion dollar company didn't get there by being a charity.
That's not the CMA conclusion at all.
They stated that with ABK franchises can provide incentive to MS to make them exclusive to their cloud offering which should have been resolved with those deals however they discredited those 10 years on other basis . Some as wacky as :
1) No guarantee that other provider can have entered into a different type of commercial relationship with Activision themselves.
2) No guarantee to supports cloud gaming providers that may decide to operate using a non-Windows PC operating system (linux).
3) Difficulty to monitor due to context of a dynamic market that is evolving.
Never they stated that those deals where overlooked because of what MS can or will do after 10 years nor did they look at any licensing fee incentives nor did they say there were no financial incentive for MS to pursue those deals after the 10 year period.
I'm not talking about the conclusion. The report is 400 pages are you telling me you read the whole thing? They are talking about the whole report on Restera right now there is a whole thread I've been following for months on this. Now before I waste my time have you actually read through the 400 pages? Or do I need to download this report and find it for you?
Isn't it you that is making statments that you say are in the report so it would be up to you to find the supporting part to justify your opinion. If you cannot find it then we can assume that you came to a conclusion based on what you believed instead of what you actually read.
100%? Only on their own platforms, just like anyone else selling something on their own platform. Can we stick to factual information? Thanks.
