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Autodesk acquires XSI!

Started by zer0wolf Oct 24, 2008 at 1:32 PM 14 replies 3.1k views

Original Post

Oct 24, 2008 at 1:32 PM

You can check it out here. Autodesk now owns 3DS Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, and XSI. Absolutely insane. I'm really interested in seeing how XSI's development will be affected. Softimage has gone through a lot of effort to introduce new features into XSI to keep it as cutting edge as they can. Increased interoperability will be a great thing, but having an option between Autodesk, Autodesk, and uhmm Autodesk kind of worries me a bit. About the only major commercial packages left are Cinema4D and Lightwave.

Promit

Oct 24, 2008 at 1:40 PM

Calling C4D and Lightwave "major" is probably even a stretch. This pretty much means Autodesk owns the market.

Moe

Oct 24, 2008 at 1:42 PM

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em out?

I saw this yesterday as well. It is indeed a bit... concerning. It makes me wonder if there will be any effects on the prices of Autodesk product in the near future, seeing as they own almost all of the market now.

Luckless

Oct 24, 2008 at 1:42 PM

Aren't there laws against mergers/buyouts like these?

zer0wolf

Oct 24, 2008 at 1:48 PM

Quote:
Original post by Talroth
Aren't there laws against mergers/buyouts like these?

Not really because they don't exactly have a monopoly or anything. Other packages do exist, such as the aforementioned C4D, Lightwave, and also Houdini, but as far as the games market none of those packages are really viable options. Autodesk now owns all of the commercial packages that are used in games development, and have make a big dent into what is used for television and films.

Avatar God

Oct 24, 2008 at 3:07 PM

Any economists remember the formula used to test whether a buyout like this is legal? I don't remember it, but presumably it could be checked.

capn_midnight

Oct 24, 2008 at 3:50 PM

Quote:
Original post by zer0wolf
Quote:
Original post by Talroth
Aren't there laws against mergers/buyouts like these?

Not really because they don't exactly have a monopoly or anything. Other packages do exist, such as the aforementioned C4D, Lightwave, and also Houdini, but as far as the games market none of those packages are really viable options. Autodesk now owns all of the commercial packages that are used in games development, and have make a big dent into what is used for television and films.

so pretty much the exact same situation MS was in when they were told they were an illegal monopoly.

Kwizatz

Oct 24, 2008 at 4:19 PM

Meh, I am getting so comfortable with Blender the only reason I would ever go back to XSI is if I get a job where they use it, in which case, I wouldn't be spending a dime on the license, so I don't really care either way.

Economic crisis aside, I guess this explains the Foundation ransom move in case this came as a solvency problem, I wonder how many FND customers there were and how many decided to concede to that.

pinacolada

Oct 24, 2008 at 5:13 PM

Does anyone feel like Maya has been negatively (or at all) affected during its 3 years of being owned by Autodesk? If not, it seems like there's not too much to worry about. They are just becoming the Adobe of 3d graphics.

zer0wolf

Oct 24, 2008 at 5:38 PM

Quote:
Original post by pinacolada
Does anyone feel like Maya has been negatively (or at all) affected during its 3 years of being owned by Autodesk? If not, it seems like there's not too much to worry about. They are just becoming the Adobe of 3d graphics.

I bolded the important part. The problem is in stagnation. In 3 years Maya has gotten Python scripting and a "muscle based" animation system - that's it! No competition means no reason to innovate to pull in more customers. XSI over the past couple of years have done a ton of work in making XSI really cool. What I (and a lot of other people) are worried about is that fast push forward is going to slow to a crawl.

daviangel

Oct 24, 2008 at 7:55 PM

Quote:
Original post by zer0wolf
Quote:
Original post by pinacolada
Does anyone feel like Maya has been negatively (or at all) affected during its 3 years of being owned by Autodesk? If not, it seems like there's not too much to worry about. They are just becoming the Adobe of 3d graphics.

I bolded the important part. The problem is in stagnation. In 3 years Maya has gotten Python scripting and a "muscle based" animation system - that's it! No competition means no reason to innovate to pull in more customers. XSI over the past couple of years have done a ton of work in making XSI really cool. What I (and a lot of other people) are worried about is that fast push forward is going to slow to a crawl.

Only good thing about that if you see it as such is that all my old maya files I made in like version 3 still open up and work for the most part in the latest version;)

Sander

Oct 25, 2008 at 1:57 AM

Quote:
Original post by capn_midnight
so pretty much the exact same situation MS was in when they were told they were an illegal monopoly.

Not really. A monopoly by itself is not illegal. Abusing it is. That's what Microsoft did and got convicted for.

eedok

Oct 25, 2008 at 1:47 PM

Quote:
Original post by pinacolada
Does anyone feel like Maya has been negatively (or at all) affected during its 3 years of being owned by Autodesk? If not, it seems like there's not too much to worry about. They are just becoming the Adobe of 3d graphics.

ugh

I don't know about the rest of you, but does it feel like Flash CS4 is a step backwards from Flash CS3? They halved my workflow by removing shortcuts I use daily :(

Raghar

Oct 26, 2008 at 7:23 AM

It's actually bad news. XSI should make itself freeware when it had the chance. Autodesk didn't behave nicely, it was abusing its position on market already. Now they would have even more influence, and you can expect to see increase in prices and bloadware similar to MS products.

Well Avid sold it for about $35 million.

Actually the best idea how to defend against this would be to create a foundation which would create freeware with at least half of XSI features.

curtmax_0

Oct 26, 2008 at 6:33 PM

Quote:
Original post by Sander
Quote:
Original post by capn_midnight
so pretty much the exact same situation MS was in when they were told they were an illegal monopoly.

Not really. A monopoly by itself is not illegal. Abusing it is. That's what Microsoft did and got convicted for.

Correction: It's legal to abuse a monopoly if you are a government.. which is a monopoly on force :P

Anyways, Adobe and Autodesk have taken care of all the products they buy. Most of them see noticeable improvements soon after. It also doesn't hurt that they often get increased compatibility between software from the same company. I don't see this as a bad move at all.

Hodgman

Oct 27, 2008 at 1:04 AM

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