Microsoft buys Activision-Blizzard

Retr0gamer · 18-01-2022 5:12pm

In other news, man **** off big corporation on public platform.

https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1483453950745616399?t=kJ19pMElNoyKjSG8H09XAQ&s=19

johnny_ultimate · 18-01-2022 5:12pm

TBH it's going to be impossible to tell in the future whether any Xbox success is driven by genuinely good, innovative ideas (i.e. GamePass) and how much is driven by one of the biggest companies in the world spending all the money simply to brute-force their way to success.

SuperBowserWorld · 18-01-2022 5:20pm

Mark Zuckerberg is probably running around his kitchen now, eating his Rice Krispies and demanding that Sony and Nintendo accept his demand to take over their companies.

18-01-2022 5:20pm

This could well be the death of exclusivity. Its unlikely Sony are going to sit back and not look for conditions attached to this deal and even more unlikely that the ftc will allow it to go through without giving Sony assurances and attaching conditions. The most obvious will be exclusivity and they can't complain about exclusivity while at the same time doing the same themselves.

Sony using exclusivity to sell their hardware has always been a big anti-trust red flag. To the point where the future of Xbox was genuinely in trouble. There was very real talk of the death of Xbox before turning the business into a cloud streaming business

Oh how the tides have changed now. I'd expect a "let's all play nice and be friends" solution. MS gets to sell games on PlayStation and vice versa PlayStation brings games to game pass and will literally name their price for streaming rights. You think 70bill is big?

Mr.Saturn · 18-01-2022 5:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495548#Comment_118495548

Preach. The X-Box brand has been crowbarred into relevance from the get-go, this is a another grim, **** reminder of that. Twat Kotick is staying in charge too, on the offchance anyone thought there might even be smidgen of good news to take from this.

18-01-2022 5:34pm

Interesting on Bloomberg and CNBC the talk is this is all about the Metaverse (and hololens) and apparently FB and possibly others were in the mix to buy them too, hence the 70bill price tag.

2ndcoming · 18-01-2022 5:36pm

One thing that always confuses me - we regularly hear things about how huge gaming is and how GTA was the highest earning franchise in all of entertainment but yet you always hear of even enormous studios responsible for the biggest franchises being "troubled" or going to the wall or selling out? It doesn't really come any bigger than C.O.D and Warcraft, like? Where the hell is all the money going?

Cinemas have been closed worldwide more or less for nearly two years but it's not like Disney or Universal are going to go bust, as far as I can see all the pandemic would have done for gaming would be a positive...

johnny_ultimate · 18-01-2022 5:41pm

Activision-Blizzard being ‘troubled’ or ‘beleaguered’ is mainly down to the allegations of sexual harassment and workplace bullying. Call of Duty remains a runaway success making obscene amounts of money, although Blizzard in particular has also had some significant creative and public relations trouble in recent years.

Penn · 18-01-2022 5:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495667#Comment_118495667

Yeah Kotick mentioned the Metaverse a few times in his email to employees following the announcement of the deal.

ACitizenErased · 18-01-2022 5:42pm

Penny for the thoughts of Sony right now... insane, did not see this coming

Vicxas · 18-01-2022 5:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495705#Comment_118495705

They knew this was coming, you cant move that kind of weight without the competition knowing.

Retr0gamer · 18-01-2022 5:47pm

Metaverse stuff can be ignored. It's just upper management mentioning it as it's a buzzword that inflates share prices and they will be trying hard to do that with this sale after the shares took a hammering with the workplace allegations.

TitianGerm · 18-01-2022 5:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495712#Comment_118495712

Now Sony's announcement about their GP rival will seem even tamer.

Riesen_Meal · 18-01-2022 5:58pm

As a Series X (and Gamepass subscriber) and PS5 owner who only plays Warzone from that stable of games it's not going to effect me all that much, but it just screams of hoovering up to kill competition rivals, and that's business...

Interesting to see how this will turn out

18-01-2022 6:00pm

Hmm so I use Windows to code in Typescript, using VS Code, to upload to GitHub, and I've started learning C#. All developed or now owned by Microsoft.

I guess my gaming is going that way, too.

McFly85 · 18-01-2022 6:10pm

Not a fan of this at all.

I generally don't mind console exclusives, they've existed for years and Nintendo has based their business around their first party titles. Definitely feels different when one company starts hoovering up existing franchises. I have both consoles so won't be losing out but feels like a cheap way to strangle the competition.

I would be very surprised to see CoD go exclusive, though. Apart from the huge money from in game transactions they'd be leaving on the table, I think it would create a gap in the market for EA and Battlefield to become the big all-platform multiplayer shooter(assuming they can get their sh*t together and release a working game). Be interesting to see how MS prioritises it.

johnny_ultimate · 18-01-2022 6:15pm

“Players everywhere love Activision Blizzard games, and we believe the creative teams have their best work in front of them. Together we will build a future where people can play the games they want, virtually anywhere they want.” - Fair play to Phil Spencer putting his name to such inclusive, ‘pro-gamer’ language as he announces his megacorp employer has just bought exclusive rights to several popular franchises for eternity and a company at the centre of a sexual harassment firestorm 🙃.

Remember folks: Executives and their giant companies are never our friend.

Exclamation Marc · 18-01-2022 6:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495737#Comment_118495737

Sony never advertised a GP rival nor has it ever been expected to be a rival to it.

TitianGerm · 18-01-2022 6:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495977#Comment_118495977

Project Spartacus.

Sony apparently pulled all the PS Now and PS Plus cards from shelves in the US last week before the announcement.

It's meant to be available in three tiers.

There was a more recent tweet about it last week but I can't find it now.

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1466820186011541504?t=ThPQ3Nsub3GWo7aL9WJsjQ&s=19

awec · 18-01-2022 6:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495977#Comment_118495977

Sony will definitely bring out something like Game Pass because they've no choice really, but it'll be a lot smaller in comparison.

Exclamation Marc · 18-01-2022 6:51pm

Sorry, I think I phrased my (short) response pretty poorly.

What I meant is that whatever Sony is launching was never going to rival or challenge GamePass. I think PlayStation users (like myself) would love something to challenge it but realistically, while Sony will certainly release something 'better' than what's there now but I expect it to fall well short of Gamepass.

Sephiroth_dude · 18-01-2022 7:08pm

Big games alright but I don't play any of them really so Let them have it, hopefully sony will buy up some Japanese studio's.

CatInABox · 18-01-2022 7:13pm

WSJ now saying that Kotick is expected to leave after the deal closes, at least according to "people familiar with those plans."

johnny_ultimate · 18-01-2022 7:22pm

Remember: a lot of us may not personally play many Activision Blizzard games, but it’s impossible to overstate the sheer scale of Call of Duty. Just today it was reported Vanguard was the biggest selling game across all consoles in the US last year, and that was considered a ‘disappointing’ entry in the series.

Good news Kotick could be gone. Bad news is he’ll get an obscene exit payout and an exit on his own terms.

BeerWolf · 18-01-2022 7:32pm

Players in WoW panicking whether this is a good thing or not for them, especially after the whole harassment lawsuit thing going on. 🙃

18-01-2022 7:53pm

https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/18/npd-the-top-20-best-selling-games-of-2021-in-the-u-s/

The two best selling games in the US in 2021 were Call of duty games, Vanguard and Black ops: Cold war. On Xbox they were 1st and 2nd best selling. On PlayStation they were 1st and 3rd best selling.

SuperBowserWorld · 18-01-2022 7:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118496456#Comment_118496456

I see Super Mario 3D World is on that list,.so there is still hope for humanity. 😀

Retr0gamer · 18-01-2022 8:25pm

https://twitter.com/scully1888/status/1483498806889132038?t=fGm_GO2B_34PJAFjptByrA&s=19

BlitzKrieg · 18-01-2022 8:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495667#Comment_118495667

I would 100% believe FB were sniffing around, they got their foot in the door with the quest 2 being the biggest VR device on the market (and I know small market but its growing and facebook are dominating it https://uploadvr.com/vr-player-sales-numbers-christmas-2021/) and had the other foot kicked out with the decline of facebook gaming. Getting that 2nd foot back in via game streaming or just generally being one of the biggest multiplatform title producers would have been exactly what they needed.

Exclamation Marc · 18-01-2022 9:15pm

Anyone who thinks this is positive in any way is delusional.

Sony and Nintendo didn't brute force their way into being industry leaders, they made great games and let the gamers choose.

5/10 years down the line if Microsoft owns the market entirely, how good do you think games will be when they're nearly all being sold under a €15 per month cost.

It's easy to think this is a short term win for gamers with games suddenly under Gamepass but long term, gamers will lose out.

Microsoft buys Activision-Blizzard

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