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Microsoft Bootstraps "Matrix" Game Rights Purchase
richardbowers writes: "An article released today on IGN claims that Microsoft has managed to get its hands on exclusive rights for Internet-based games using the Matrix license.
According to the article, Microsoft lent Interplay five million dollars in exchange for this exclusivity and for a bunch of other contractual goodies - including characters, sound tracks, and other features that will not be included in other versions of the same game, thanks to the agreement. They also have to guarantee delivery of the game in the same time-frame as the release of the next sequel."
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
...is that there is no penguin...
Console games will never be as good as PC games until everyone has an HDTV and the consoles themselves become a lot more like PCs.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Haven't seen anything that handles the joystick plus the spinning directional controller well. Playing the tank/maze portion of the game is quite difficult due to poor aiming :(
Gaming? Gaming? What makes you think that they're going after gaming _alone_?
Honestly if there's one thing that MS loves to do, it's leveraging their monopolies in favor of each other. And if there's one thing that they're deathly afraid of it's any possible threat to their monopolies. Even the crappy hotels on Baltic and Mediterranean.
The XBox is just getting into the door as a game console. That's not the real point though.
The point is that there is an effective floor on the price of PC's at around $400 - the point at which the cost of the OS becomes a serious liability. Rather than drop prices, and permit computers to become as cheap as dirt, MS would prefer to firmly fix that floor in place, before low-end dealers are ever capable of using free (beer) OSes. It's fairly typical monopolistic behavior.
MS has no such costs for the OS, and no desire to permit them to come to a head for others. So they'll just combine the desired features of a home PC into their own box:
*Gaming (obvious)
*Internet (MSN, IE, WebTV, broadband)
*Light office apps (Office.Net over IE)
Thanks to not having to spend money for software on a per-unit basis, the hardware can be somewhat better than everyone else's at the same final cost. (Xbox is expected to be ~$300-400)
Also maybe add a few bonuses, such as video recording (heavily locked up at the behest of big business) a la Ultimate TV as well as DVD playback.
They already have most of the pieces, now they're just going to put them together and essentially restrict the open PC market to everyone that makes sufficiently high end hardware that they don't compete with MS. It's a pretty good strategy, though chock full of the kind of evil we've all come to expect from MS.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
They also have to guarantee delivery of the game in the same time-frame as the release of the next sequel.
I wonder if there is a penalty clause for late delivery in the agreement. If Microsoft's games hardware and software divisions are as tardy as their operating system brethren, the Matrix's famous "There is no spoon" will doubtless be echoed with funnier versions to keep us amused.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Whoa
Well a curious case when SF starts to become reality... Many people considered the Matrix as a serious portrait of a surrealistic view of the World. Well, at least a small piece of it, remarks that the film does show something about this world...
This may be only the beginning... So beware.
..Microsoft buys the market.
This is a dirt cheap way of Microsoft guaranteeing it sells loads of XBoxen and future games.
Joe Consumer buys XBox for his kid to play The Matrix, Joe Consumer's kid wants the next Neat XBox Game, Joe Consumer buys the game as "hey, I already have the XBox.
This $5 million is a cheap CHEAP CHEAP way to get their foot in the door of millions of households looking to buy a new gaming platform.
Pass me a red pill, please .
Trolling is a art,
It's called running a webserver, and a few other public services. It's also called not wanting to pay for a Windows liscense. And I won't buy a box (especially a Microsoft one, just one more industry for them to destroy) just for gaming. Seems like a waste of money to me.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
...instead of Agent Smith, we're going to have Agent Bob and his side-kick Clippy.
You thought the LAST movie was scary!
--
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
$5m buys a lot influence (with me, anyway). I can see it now...
NEO: Wait a second... I've got the codes in my palm pilot
TRINITY: Palm pilot? There's no such thing. It exists only in the Matrix. Here's a winCE PDA.
NEO: WinCE? What about a linux based one?
TRINITY: Linux? You don't believe in linux, do you? You really think it's possible to have stable code that's open source?
RMS: You mean Free.
TRINITY: Whatever. Seriously, Neo. The only company to survive the OS wars was Microsoft, thanks to their stable, user-friendly software that's well worth relicencing every six months.
NEO: I guess you're right. It is the world's favourite operating system.
TRINITY: It's not just an operating system; it's a friend.
NEO: Thanks, Microsoft!
Raiders of the Lost Ark (2600)
Star Wars (arcade, vector)
Hmmm.. that's about it
Hey everyone! Its time for everybody's favorite show... THE INACCURATE SLASHDOT ARTICLE.
Truth: MS has forward Shiny some dough, so that they can have a 3 month exclusive on the game and so that only MS gets multiplayer. That is what the article should read. I swear, anyone else sick of these misleading articles?
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold
Microsoft has played the gaming business better than anyone else ever has.
The may eventually win, and possibly make a profit, but I don't think they've necessarilly played the game all that well.
Let's take an analogy. I wrestle. The last tournament I was in, I ended up wrestling a gentleman 20lbs lighter than me. I didn't have to wrestle 'well' in order to win, because I could 'muscle' my way out of bad situations. Futhermore, everything I did looked smoother because I didn't have apply as much force as he did.
Microsoft is able to 'win' in the same way. With huge cash reserves already built up, the can stumble, fall, and roll around in the mud a while and still get up and win. They can bleed cash for years and still pull it out of their asses.
I don't think Microsoft has 'played' the gaming business at all. They've just bought up a lot of companies with their huge cash reserves.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Robocop (arcade)
The Robocop Arcade game being -- oddly -- based on the Sinclair Spectrum version of Robocop. Which spawned the Amiga & Atari version... and so on and so on...
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
It's called running a webserver, and a few other public services. It's also called not wanting to pay for a Windows liscense. And I won't buy a box (especially a Microsoft one, just one more industry for them to destroy) just for gaming. Seems like a waste of money to me.
So you run games on your webserver? Intelligent.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Microsoft is able to 'win' in the same way. With huge cash reserves already built up, the can stumble, fall, and roll around in the mud a while and still get up and win. They can bleed cash for years and still pull it out of their asses.
Comments like this really puzzle me. Microsoft is a public company, accountable to their shareholders. They're not just going to burn cash so that they can turn to the competition and say "haw haw! we won!" If they didn't believe they could turn a *profit* in the console market, they wouldn't be entering it. And sure, some people will say, "oh, they're just building a monopoly now so they can have profits in the future." But the history of the console industry does not support the concept of a lasting console monopoly at all. With every new generation of consoles, a company's fortune can change dramatically. I'm sure microsoft realizes this.
And also, about this whole "microsoft has lots of cash so they'll win!" thing...just what the hell is Sony, some kind of sniveling upstart company?
Courting developers like this is common in the gaming industry. There's really nothing special about this.
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hot foreign sheep.
The major issue isn't exclusive rights to the Matrix games (MS only wants a 6 month lead, after which Interplay is free to publish it for other plats). It's the exclusive rights to certain features of games based on this license.
Goldeneye for N64 is published by Rareware. They hold second-party status with Nintendo for their consoles -- they make games for no one else. Interplay does not have the same status with MS, AFAIK. MS is only trying to limit how well the implementation of the Matrix games on the other consoles are.
The reason and result are obvious. Whereas previously it was preferred for, say, Sega to have exclusive rights to a particular title from a third-party dev, MS wants to show the world that only the BEST version runs on xbox. "It's available on other platforms, but why in hell would you want to play it like THAT? You can't even play it on the internet!"
If this were the PC world, it would be like MS paying Adobe to give the Windows Photoshop release a 6 month headstart over Mac OS versions, and the Mac version isn't allowed to do Gaussian blur. It is NOT like MS paying Adobe to make Photoshop exclusively for Windows.
< tofuhead >
--
It is still the dark of night.
No, this is different. If you read the linked article, you'll see that MS wants to limit the featureset of Matrix games for other consoles. Amazingly, this is being treated by everybody here like a sidenote, rather than the real meat and potatoes of the deal.
It's true though...exclusive licenses are a dime a dozen. That's why this is a big deal. This is less typical: Effectively MS is castrating any future Nintendo and Sony versions.
< tofuhead >
--
It is still the dark of night.
Nintendo and Sony have their own "exclusive" titles and MS is just trying to build/buy their own.
I still doubt that Halo will come out on the PC.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
This is a key license for MS, but until the game is proven to be a good one, then it doesn't matter what key license it is.
The X-Box isn't going to kill or even hurt the PS2/GameCube in the long run. I think that it will more likley be the beginning of the end of Windows-based PC gaming. If it's as cheap to develop for a console as for a PC, then why develop on a PC. I think that most smaller outfits will prototype their 'breakthrough' game on the PC, then present it to a publisher. If the publisher decides it's good enough, then give them the money to make it an X-Box game. There is and always has been more money in console gamin for the producers and programmers of games then in PC gaming. That's why nintendo still makes gameboys instead of switching over to PC games.
I really wonder why it took them so long to announce a matrix based video game. With the popularity of the Matrix movie you would think that they would to have cashed in on it before. Maybe they are using this game to help generate awareness and hype for the next movie since most 'normal' (read non-slashdot reader) people have not been aware of the next movie.
So how does this show that bagging the rights to the game, preventing any other company from developing a game like it, somehow has the potential to be a good thing? A good thing (tm), perhaps only for the company that bags the rights, and even then, only in their eyes.
Well, looks like the gaming industry is now learning what Microsoft is like, the way every industry has painfully learned for the past dozen years.
Welcome aboard.
They do have a new Space Invaders game. Atari's games were bought by Hasbro Interactive. You can play a shocked version of Centipede on their web site, as well as check out the new Space Invaders, Asteroids and Frogger 1 and 2. Your welcome.
Gorkman
(My apologies for using "efficiency" in a Microsoft post.)
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ET? My god that was a masterpiece compared to some of the licenses on the Amiga!
Does anyone remember any of the millions of 2d platformers? Ocean were one of the worst culprits, although by no means the worst.
I think the games were actually the same, there was a low performance engine which could handle about 5 things moving at the same time, and that was in about 5 frames!
"So, if the Matrix GPFs, you die in real life?" "The body cannot live without the mind, the high memory manager, and the system tray."
"While one game doesnt really matter, MS could (conceivably) make the same offer to all of the other upcoming "BIG" titles--so the XBOX gets all the goodies b/c they have the most money"
Its certainly an interesting idea, but there are two problems with it:
1) The Sony Corporation aren't exactly small fry either, and already have deals sewn up with Square, Polyphony and others.
2) Nintendo, while not as rich as Microsoft, aren't likely to give away exclusive rights to Mario or Zelda unless Microsoft want to buy the whole company.
Somehow I don't think even Microsoft have the guts to try and buy the whole console industry.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
The reality of the situation is that people will make decisions based on product name alone. If you don't believe me, ask yourself the name of the President of the USA.
M$ is going to be a major player in the industry if for no other reason than people recognize the name. Games based on "The Matrix" are going to sell like crazy because it was a cool movie and people will assume it's a cool game. The hardcore gamers won't buy them because they know better than to buy licensed games (they generally suck quite a lot of ass), but since they make up less than 25% of the market, that won't matter in the least.
RIP Dreamcast, RIP.
Game companies get exclusive licenses to things like this all the time. Is there any reason to complain about this other than that the company that got the license is MS?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Does this mean the blue pill is now referred to as the BPOD?
you also have to remember, those quarter million sales will depend pretty much on how well the xbox and games for it sells, since they arent allowed to release the games for any other platform for 6 months. its easy to say they could hit a quarter million doing games for xbox nintendo and ps2, but its too early to tell how well an unreleased system and it's games are really going to sell...
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
The thing I found interesting is the fact that MS lent the money, instead of giving them the money. I know the developer is strapped for cash, but I have a hard time seeing how giving $20 out of each unit sold to MS to repay the loan is going to fill their coffers. Im sure the game will be popular and all, but I dont think Interplay is getting the great deal they think they are.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
This deals directly with what is at the heart of Microsofts Monopoly, doesn't it?
Microsoft entered an agreement that prohibited deployment of this game on any console other than MS's XBOX for at least 6 months. Yes, they had to pay a pretty penny for it but they have (in a way) stopped other consoles from ever getting good with this game. 6 months is a long time in an industry that is as fast paced as the gaming industry.
While one game doesnt really matter, MS could (conceivably) make the same offer to all of the other upcoming "BIG" titles--so the XBOX gets all the goodies b/c they have the most money.
While this is partially at the heart of capitalism, doesn't it bother anyone that MS could (and probably will) shut down all console competition? Doesn't matter how good a console is if it has no games . . .
Time for an Open Source Internet play clone - with a distributed system for the modules/rooms/levels/etc - so that this becomes really surreal.
In fact, I like this. P2P Gaming. Could be fun.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I don't think it was "record-setting", but "Alien vs. Predator" was a respectable game in its own right. And when you think about it, it makes sense why it worked -- the Alien and Predator movies were already how I'd expect a FPS-based movie to turn out; they just went the other way in translating it from movie to game.
When I think about "Matrix", it just screams MMORPG. I mean we're talking about a shared, consensual reality in which billions wander around while exceptional entities wield God-like power. That would, of course, make it an Internet game, which is exactly what Microsoft has the exclusive rights on. Then again, a commercial MMORPG releasing a non-Windows client is the exception, rather than the rule. But it still annoys me that that option has been ruled out entirely.
Not neccessarilly. MS is going to push, push, push the console market for all they're worth to break into it, and in some areas of the world they have a good shot. However, there is one place which I feel they will have trouble in:
The Japanese console market.
ALL of the successful consoles have been put out by Japanese companies. Sony and Nintendo are not going to take any sort of incursion of the X-box lightly. If we have not seen them before, expect some heavy licensing restricitons to be placed on console-game makers in response to MS's restrictions: companies will be made or broken based on what console they choose to develop for, which will be a shame.
The Japanese electronics consumers, morover, are very intense. Console gaming is a VERY big thing over there. While in the US and perhaps Europe, you may run into the occasional guy who has one of every console made (even an old Neo*Geo he takes out reverently now and then) in Japan multiple consoles are the norm. Multiple instances of the same consoles is also not unknown, within the same household. There are also consoles over there that are simply not known about abroad.
Gaming also covers a broader spectrum -- it's no joke that 'dating simulations' are pretty popular there, but there's even wierder stuff that has never been really exported (except for Japanese consoles abroad.) Morover, for more "conventional" games, some have never been exported, either. The array of games in the Japanese market is stunning.
X-box is going to have a really tough time in the Japanese market. I would not be surprised if it dies horribly over there, even if it does well in the US and Europe. And even then, expect a strong assault by Nintendo and (what's left of) Sony. If these two companies can keep their sh** together, they've got a fighting chance to survive the first year of X-Box (whenever that might be.)
---
Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Maybe instead of being humans trying to overthrow the evil Matrix, Gates'll change the story "slighty" to be good-natured MS employees fighting against the evil Agent Tux and his evil cohorts, keeping humanity bottled up in a world of Open Sourcing, where people only think it's effective...
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
The exact same thing happened between Nintendo and the producers of Goldeneye. The game company bagged exclusive rights to the game, and stopped any other platform having a Goldeneye game.
But..
Goldeneye on the Nintendo64 was a fantastic game. A real killer app for the (then) fledging console. Perhaps MS want to do the same for theirs.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
On the Matrix site linked, there is are shockwave games...they seem internet-based. They certainly are on-line. Do they violate the Interplay-XBox deal?
Finder of the any key.
Microsoft will indeed have an impressive stable of horses when the XBox comes out, but they are counting heavily upon older titles. As we all know, the next Hot game always comes from some least expected group, not because they have money or big backing, but because they had a dream.
Expect Microsoft to snap up some of these, too.
Any game company getting into bed with Microsoft best remember the Flight Simulator disaster for SubLogic, where Microsoft pointed out that they could indeed sell the same game for less than SubLogic and thus drove them out of business. Jet was cool, but too late to save them.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Grrrrr.....if that happens, Interplay can kiss any future business from me goodbye. 'By Gamers, For Gamers' indeed....
-PARANOIA is fun. D20 is not fun. The Computer says so.
-The Computer
I am guessing they felt that they were portrayed incorrectly in the movie and feel the need to correct that by assuming control over the game?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Doesn't matter how good a console is if it has no games . . .
While I agree that Microsoft is (once again) using their monopoly power to leverage games, it's worth noting that there's really no way to say which title is going to be big and which isn't.
For example, Daikatana was supposed to be super-big, and fell flatter than John Romero's ego. If Microsoft had done the same thing here, they would have been stuck with an incredible bomb while everyone was playing the 'Sleeper' titles that they missed.
Sure, you can accuse them of cashing in on name recognition, but the truth of the matter is that movie-based video games tend to do very poorly, with the notable exception of Starwars stuff. Some of the Trek stuff does okay, too, but M$ was in bed with Paramount quite a while before any of the Trek games hit the shelf.
Long and short is the fact marketroids have the intelligence of sea slugs and just because someone *says* something's going to be a hit, and even if they license it, it just ain't so.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Morpheus: It's a prison for your mind. You can see it all around you. It's there when you go to church or pay your taxes.
Neo: But what is it, really? When you get right down to it.
Morpheus: No one can be told what the matrix is, but I can tell you this: You see that little paperclip guy?
Neo: Yeah...
Morphus: Part of the matrix. That annoying sound you get when you start your computer? Also part of the matrix. That smiling guy who asks 'Where do you want to go today?"
Neo: (gulps, realizing the severity of Morpheus's words.)
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"I just wonder what will happen to Interplay if the X-Box is a flop and the game doesn't sell well."
I wonder what would be happening to Interplay if Microsoft hadn't offered them this money. It appears the company is cash-strapped enough to accept this deal, so they obviously are in some trouble staying afloat now. At least this deal gives them cash to play with and continue development. And Microsoft is only placing a requirement on $500,000 of the $5 million loan, leaving the vast remainder entirely in Interplay's hands. The deal doesn't say they have to put all of that money into the XBox game. Yes, I know that a lot of that money will likely end up in the Matrix game, and the company's fortunes will be somewhat tied to the success or failure of that XBox game... but Interplay has at least been given a chance to stay afloat through this loan. Better to get money now and have a chance at survival, than to stop all development from a lack of funds and die sooner.
After the ruckus he raised at that Time Warner sharholders meeting by reading the lyrics to Cop Killer I think he'd really like to address the shareholders meeting of a company that pushes a first person shooter where the majority of the targets are cops.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Goldeneye for N64. In fact, now that I think about it.. Nintendo has done pretty well with movie based titles. Rouge Squadron was a good Star Wars title.
And ET was fucking cool. I still remember cute little ET sticking his head up to eat a pixel (reese) and getting caged in a 16 block by 16 block cell until that guy came and rescued me. And the part in the forest type thing where you got back on your space ship?? It was probably one of my most favorite games, second only to maybe Midnight Maddness.
Good God the ignorance(maybe its bias...or maybe plain stupidity) out there on the internet and in a majority of the mainstream press baffles me.
Microsoft has pretty much won this console war before it begins. Exclusivity is a huge thing in the gaming world
You're quite right, exclusivity is, obviously, a major influencing factor behind who wins most console wars. But to compare, Microsoft easily comes in a distant 3rd place behind Sony and miles behind Nintendo. Heres a quick breakdown of major exclusives:
Sony- Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, and Dragon Warrior, four incredibly established franchises.
Nintendo- Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon ($$), Wave Race, every Rare franchise out there, etc etc etc (theres many more).
Microsoft- Halo, Oddeworld: Abes Oddyssey, which arent really even franchises yet. See my point?
especially for a game that will almost certainly be a blockbuster.
*Sigh*. Where to begin. Movie franchises converted to games over the years have been notoriously shoddy. Goldeneye, which im assuming was the basis for your comment, was the exception to the rule. Why? Because it was made by Rare. Does microsoft have Rare? No. Just have one thing to say if youre gonna start comparing Interplay to Rare. Interplays bankrupt for a reason.
In no way is Microsoft going to dominate the next console war, unless of course people like you perpetuate the image of the "kiddy" gamecube and the blatant lie that Microsoft somehow has a majority of exclusives.
Just myBatman (NES)
True Lies (SNES)
Robocop (arcade)
Those are just the three that immediately come to my mind.
Nintendo, on the other hand, has extremely strong first- and second-party developers, so strong that in-house development is practically the sole reason the N64 managed to stay afloat against competition from Sony. The only software publisher that even comes close to Nintendo as far as variety and great games are concerned is Sega (though Squaresoft tries to pretend that it doesn't just make RPGs). This looks to be a major asset to Nintendo in the next console war, because they'll be the only one with great exclusive games.
So, is the fact that Microsoft went out and bagged exclusive rights for The Matrix a sign that they're seriously concerned about GameCube's ability to sell on exclusive games alone?
More importantly, will a Matrix game written by Microsoft be able to stand up against Zelda, Metroid, Perfect Dark, etc, or will Microsoft just be another poser to get smacked down hard like so many before? (After the PhotoShop debacle, I'm tempted to think the latter).
Oh, and one more thing: Does the fact that Microsoft now needs to ship out patches for a bug in UltimateTV an example of Microsoft's (lack of) ability to build a solid set-top box?
I can't think of any record-setting games that were based on a movie. Most of the best-sellers are original material, such as Final Fantasy and Zelda.
"and the XBox tech looks pretty good"
Yeah, no other system runs PhotoShop quite as well...
"Microsoft has played the gaming business better than anyone else ever has."
Like hell they have! When my friends and I have a LAN party, it's StarCraft we're playing, not AoE.
"Microsoft has decided they want to break into this market, and they're well on their way to domination."
I'm sorry, but I've yet to see anything from Microsoft that suggests that they'll be able to top Nintendo. So far, everything I've seen in the way of products for the Xbox seem rather wishy-washy at best, nothing really solid. At the very least, I don't see them being able to compete with a company that has been publishing sold and record-breaking hits from Donkey Kong to Zelda. If anything, Nintendo is gearing to seriously mess with Microsoft's turf with the new Metroid.
"The XBox will have a huge selection of software when it arrives"
A "quantity over quality" kind of person, I see... And what makes you think either GameCube or PS2 aren't going to have equally large libraries?
The Nintendo platform had already been out. Microsoft is buying out game companies to make games for the so far non-existant X-Box. They are using every dollar they can to strongarm their way into the console game market.
I just wonder what will happen to Interplay if the X-Box is a flop and the game doesn't sell well..
well realistically you could put any sort of command line prompt in front of people now days and they'd think they were a hacker.
C:>
Awesome! I'm in!
C:> cd windows
"Dude I cracked the system!"
the matrix has you, microsoft has the matrix
who watches the watcher? . . hmm...