Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

[Bigbazz]

Blizzard can't get much worse, maybe Microsoft can clean up their mess. I do worry about Microsoft owning all these publishers and game studios though, we as gamers would probably benefit more from healthy competition between companies rather than one giant organisation buying up everything of value. The medium-long term of this could be Microsoft burying the competition through sheer buying power and then attempting to milk us all dry with mediocre games, acti-blizz have already been doing that for the last 5-10 years mind.

 

[Blitz24]

I see Kotick is staying on as CEO of Activison. I would have thought after the sale he would be on his way out. He still might leave after the transition period is over

I think that's "for now". Microsoft would have to be extremely unaware to keep him at the helm.

 

[Silver Arrows]

"You can buy this on PS5 for $70 like an idiot, or you can buy a subscription to Game Pass and buy an Xbox and have it and many other games for $10 a month (or whatever Game Pass costs) and after only playing a few games you'll already have saved money even after buying a new console!"

So basically what MLB The Show did on it's first year on Xbox.

It probably also means a lot of older games Activision published would get rereleases or added to the BC lists, even after Microsoft said they were done with it. That's a huge catalog of older content to not have it as part of Game Pass at the very least.

The issue is...most of what ABK has is already BC though. 95% of the most popular COD titles (MW2, COD4, BLOPS I and II) are on there, and I think most other stuff has made the jump.

Though I will say that, if you are reading the tea leaves from some (and I am inclined to trust them) there is something significant coming to Xbox Backwards Compatability this year, by the name of Goldeneye...

 

[Scaff]

I see Kotick is staying on as CEO of Activison. I would have thought after the sale he would be on his way out. He still might leave after the transition period is over

From what's been said already he will be gone by '23 when it completes..

Here's hoping that MS isn't putting it's old triple E practice into action again.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ICEYOU3]

lol, no it isn't. People who are already COD fans will buy into whatever system they want as long as it's there. Most everyone else won't bother - the only exceptions to this being MW19 and probably MW2022.

Well now it has potential to be so, but we'll see.

 

[Silver Arrows]

Well now it has potential to be so, but we'll see.

Again, no it won't. COD is never going exclusive, and neither is Overwatch.

 

[Tornado]

That's what we all thought with Bethesda and TES6.

No I didn't. I always expected that the collection of historical PC developers united under the umbrella of the historic PC publisher whose games sold best on PC and Xbox anyway would naturally and almost immediately go towards being Microsoft exclusive in their releases.





I don't see the same happening to the games that sell tens of million copies every other year when Microsoft has an easy outlet to double dip on sales from the publisher who cared so little about system fealty that they would release ports of games on platforms that would barely run if it meant they'd get a buck.

 

[ICEYOU3]

Again, no it won't. COD is never going exclusive, and neither is Overwatch.

I suppose, but I'm not sure if you drop that much money to bring games to your competitor's platform.

 

[Silver Arrows]

I suppose, but I'm not sure if you drop that much money to bring games to your competitor's platform.

...half this deal is predicated on Microsoft getting a foothold in the mobile game space, alongside potential metaverse experiences. COD and Overwatch are simply bonuses.

 

[prousonhairy]

This surprised the heck out of me. I think as some others said, this is a play for shoring up game pass and the mobile market, I do not think COD will ever be exclusive.

It’s been said before it would never ever happen, but I wonder if there will be any talk of World of Warcraft coming to Console?

Friday would of been a great day to buy a bunch of Activision Blizzard stock.

 

[ImaRobot]

This surprised the heck out of me. I think as some others said, this is a play for shoring up game pass and the mobile market, I do not think COD will ever be exclusive.

It’s been said before it would never ever happen, but I wonder if there will be any talk of World of Warcraft coming to Console?

Friday would of been a great day to buy a bunch of Activision Blizzard stock.

Heck, I'm still waiting for Age of Empires. Until that happens I wouldn't hold your breath for WoW.

 

[Magog]

Yes, that would be why I typed the first sentence. Schreier is perfectly free to his opinion, but the Disney/Fox deal was a bigger one than this in cost and significantly larger in impact on the respective industry, and the (Trump, again granted) DoJ basically just ignored it.

Trump and Biden see things very differently in regards to monopolies.

 

[Tornado]

Yes, thank you. I'm quite sure I noted that corollary twice, but once again your insight has proven invaluable.

 

[McLaren]

IGN reporting about an hour ago Bobby will step down after the deal closes.

 

[Silver Arrows]

IGN reporting about an hour ago Bobby will step down after the deal closes.

Pretty much as expected.

 

[Com Fox]

I'm more curious what will happen to Crash and Spyro in terms of exclusivity. They aren't big enough like CoD to lose if they went exclusive.

However most of these exclusivity questions are for Sony. I think Nintendo would be fine, it seems Microsoft and Nintendo have some sort of relationship and Microsoft seems generous to put their "Nintendo looking" stuff on the Switch. Banjo in Smash, the enhance version of Lucky's Tail was a Switch timed exclusive and we just got announced Banjo & Kazooie will be on NSO. So if Crash and/or Spyro are going on ahead with new games. I can still see them eventually releasing on the Switch unless the Switch can't handle it. Sony however will be a whole different ball park with a lot of uncertainties

 

[Imari]

Blizzard can't get much worse, maybe Microsoft can clean up their mess.

This was my thought too. It's a sign of how far Blizzard have fallen from their days of every game they made being a masterpiece to "I'm glad Microsoft bought them, maybe that will straighten some of their **** out".

Of the giant gaming conglomerates Microsoft seems like it's trying the least to milk every last cent as it drives all it's franchises into the ground.

It’s been said before it would never ever happen, but I wonder if there will be any talk of World of Warcraft coming to Console?

That's pretty tough. WoW wasn't designed to work on a controller in the way that FFXIV was. It'd be nice if it became more normalised to use a mousey-keyboard with consoles (it wouldn't cost much for the manufacturers to throw a basic set in the box), but I think they're pretty stuck on the controller as the primary peripheral for all games.

 

[GBalao888]

So Microsoft now own famous PlayStation character, Crash Bandicoot.

Try telling someone that in 1999.

Not only that, Spyro the Dragon too. Ironic that both Crash and Spyro are now Xbox franchises when they both had Playstation roots. Probably the biggest mind**** regarding the acquisition.

 

[MaxAttack]

They bought crash and spyro, cod and world of warcraft...

In 2022

Talk about ships that have sailed. You cannot buy your way to the kinds of relationships Sony has with the studios under its umbrella. Microsoft may have 40x the money but they have 40x less tact and sense.

Hopefully this kills Call of Duty as a "yearly event" across all gaming, which has only really ever set the table for copycats with disappointing games and shortsighted ideas.

 

[ArR29]

Monopolizing the gaming industry is totally pro consumer, yeah?

Looks like Mr. Corporation took that loss last gen personally and just start buying all these publishers and developers. Ooof..

 

[SestoScudo]

Pretty bs how games that were once multi platform can easily be turned an exclusive.

 

[tankuroded]

 

[fernandito]

Try telling someone that in 1999.

Laughter might have been heard even on Mars

 

[ICEYOU3]

Yikes.

 

[kjb]

I was doing some reading about the deal I see Kotick is staying on until the deal is done. I also saw he made $400 million with the sale. Crazy stuff. Anyway I think long term this bad for gamers as I believe this is going to cause more mergers in the future. I could be wrong but we have to wait and see how this plays out

 

[Terronium-12]

I wonder how many people would champion this if the title read 'Sony' and not 'Microsoft'.

Don't mind me, just a man walking through...

 

[Silver Arrows]

I wonder how many people would champion this if the title read 'Sony' and not 'Microsoft'.

Don't mind me, just a man walking through...

Absolutely, there'd be some. There are some valid concerns about anti-trust WRT how much Microsoft has bought out developers, and the Kotick conundrum (which was already pretty cut and dry in terms of a resolution) but if anybody actually thinks that COD or Overwatch are going exclusive at any point then they are wrong. Likewise, pretty certain both parties more or less confirmed that the main intent of this deal is metaverse related, with King being a secondary benefit. The actual game franchises? Basically bonuses.

If the metaverse angle is the filet mignon, and the mobile potential the baked potato, then the franchises themselves are basically the side salad. And I seriously doubt that either of the two biggest names in this scenario go Xbox exclusive. But really...it all hinges on Sony. Considering how much the split in terms of player base on COD on console was titled towards Playstation (after it was the other way around for much of the previous generation by way of the DLC exclusivity arrangement with Microsoft) does Sony really believe that burning that potential player base simply because Microsoft is a publisher on the boot up screen is a good thing? They'd be absolutely silly to.

Even the worst COD title (which you could make the argument Vanguard is) is still a guaranteed top 3 seller on a console marketplace. Hell, pretty certain MW19 was still in the top 10 for PSN digital sales for 2021, and that was before the Vanguard integration borked the game hard. That's a lot of money to leave on the table if you are Sony, since it's clear Microsoft stopped giving a **** about appearing on other platforms.

 

[Ferrari458Italia]

"If you can't beat em, buy em"

Microsoft has lost all creativity and rather than grooming and growing a small team of game developers, they buy one of the largest ones. It's a little hilarious actually.

 

[McLaren]

Eh, not really concerned over Spyro & Crash moving under Microsoft's umbrella despite starting as two of Sony's biggest icons; both franchises expanded outside Sony 15-20 years ago & have basically been multi-platform ever since. The two don't even really seem to be big names anymore, so if MS did even think of bringing them back to light, I'd wager they'd remain multi-platform.

 

[ImaRobot]

"If you can't beat em, buy em"

Microsoft has lost all creativity and rather than grooming and growing a small team of game developers, they buy one of the largest ones. It's a little hilarious actually.

Beat what, though?

What is supposed to be creative about acquiring developers to make games for them? From what we can literally see, it doesn't look like Microsoft is ditching any of it's previous team, or giving them any less attention, so I'm not sure its being pointed at as if it's happening.

If you have the ability to expand while keeping up what you already had, why exactly should anyone stay stagnant? That doesn't make much sense at all.