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Breaking: Microsoft to acquire Activision-Blizzard in near 70$ billion deal

Pay $70 for your yearly COD upgrade on PS5 or just stream it from any device on GamePass.
Part of me wants to see the rage that would occur if MS choose chaos and opt to make CoD exclusive.

Either way, MS win.

Can't get my head around this deal! Honestly left me with my jaw on the floor.
 

Orpheum

Member
Jesus Christ Microsoft

Edit: Aww man i really wanted to play Diablo IV on PS5. Fucks sake. Guess i'll have to get an XBox sooner than i thought...
 
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GHG

Gold Member
I know that MS did this to increase Gamepass value, and it will work, but I think Sony should start thinking what the fuck are they doing. Either they catch up or next gen they will pretty much be the third choice. They have quality games (besides the Marvel trash they keep trying to shove down our throats trying to ride the Marvel universe position), but now, it's not enough. Nintendo has the advantage of being Nintendo, but Playstation... man, what the fuck are you doing? While you're raising prices on your games, your competition is increasing their subscription service with more quality games.

I don't like this subscription business in everything, but I think this will eventually become the future. Jim, just fucking move.

If Sony are smart they stay far away from the subscription business and anything Xbox are getting heavily involved in. It's not an arena they can compete in now that the knifes are out (aka money).

They need to double down on a business model built around their IP, very much like what Nintendo have done for the last decade.
 

Plantoid

Member
Hopefully Phil pushes Blizzard to reinvest in the Warcraft IP by either expanding their offerings as far as games or allowing other studios within MS to leverage the IP for new types of games. Same goes for Starcraft.
Man that would be insane, warcraft could be the next star wars in terms of expanded universe
 
Haha. They can’t afford these big studios. Only Microsoft has the pockets for these guys. Sony can afford Housemarque and Bluepoint, devs with this size. Forget about any big acquisitions at this level.
You're right. How can Sony not be worth a trilion yet?

M$ is worth 2
 
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Hydroxy

Member
Nice, will finally play some COD on Gamepass PC. One good thing that will come from this is that CoD will no longer be dead on PC like it usually is. They do need to tighten their anti hacking technology though.
 

Tommi84

Member
It seems we have a behind the scenes footage of the deal:
jim-ryan-mischivious.gif
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
This to me is why I'm miffed. Call of duty and properties like Overwatch, diablo are good gets. But outside of call of duty nothing has set the world on fire in a while by ACTI/BLIZZARD. When Skylanders is all but dead, Spyro and crash remakes sold well, but crash 4 did not do super well. Tony hawk Remaster sold well but vangaurd under performed?

So I don't know.

But yea be nice if Microsoft figured their shit out in running studios like 343, rare, before buying up literally giant companies. ANd not Microsoft will be associated with the dumpster fire that is the Activision scandal. If I'm sony I'm laughing. Because it shows that Microsoft internally had to buy their way in, and could not fix their internal issues within how to run a gaming division.

Crash and Spyro don‘t need to be AAA titles. They can be simple, easy to produce A to AA titles And make a ton of money off that alone while also bringing in variety to the release line up.

Overwatch is not that great of a get. Its a dead game. Diablo thougH? That is massive. Same with Warcraft. StarCraft is still the pre-eminent RTS in many gamers minds and was a cultural phenomenon across numerous countries. A new StarCraft could help push MS in a number of Asian Markets.

Its also important to note that Microsoft of today is not the Microsoft of 10 years ago. STill it all comes down to how they manage their companies and if they can actually produce some quality games. So far they have had a few great releases (Gears Tactics, Flight Sim, Forza Horizon 4 Stand Alone Expansion Pack) and a few trash ones (Halo Infinite, Gunk).
 

TheMan

Member
Good and proper megaton. Kotick has made them a LOT of money but I can't see him sticking around after MS takes over.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
At this point I hope Sony buys FROM etc. Not because I don't want Xbox owners to get their games, but because I'm starting to get scared MS will buy fucking EVERYONE.
 
Sony the time is now!!!! No more fucking around, consolidation is the name of the game. Its time to buy square enix, and sega. I cant believe this, this basically leaves square, ea, and ubisoft as the only other three big third party publishers in the game.
And im sure EA has some sort of lengthy contract in place or EA play on Gamepass.
 
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NickFire

Member
there will be nothing to compete.
That’s the whole point and the thought of this getting cheered is crazy to me. Thanks to office revenue the platform holder with worst first party track record is taking away choices left and right. This kind of thing never ends well for the regular guy.
 

xHunter

Member
I agree, i fully believe that every major bethesda game going forward will be xbox exclusive, but they would be fools to make call of duty exclusive! Idk, maybe im totally off base and they will though. This doesnt hit right, bethesda was okay in my eyes, that company was struggling, so the purchase made sense, but this…fuck, this is too far
Agree with this. Saw on Twitter that CoD was the top selling on PS. There comment on the Blog made it look like the games are still multiplatform. But you never know. Thankfully i already have my Gamepass running till late 2024.
 

sainraja

Member
Oh snap. This is a good get for Microsoft but if they keep going at this rate, how soon will they own the game industry?
Hopefully this means good things for Warcraft/Starcraft and we get a Warcraft 4.

I am interested in finding out what this means for Activision Blizzard in the long run. It doesn't sound like a bad thing but it also doesn't seem good either. We'll just have to wait and see.
 
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VAVA Mk2

Member
I think now Take 2, EA or Epic would be candidates to counter this. But this would be in the case they would want to sell. Maybe without the controversy the Activision investors wouldn't have wanted to sell, but now for the it's an opportunity to clean the company or at least to 'buy' time.

It's going to be hard for Sony to compensate this unexpected superbold move.
Epic would be my guess. Everyone uses their dev tools.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
I haven't played any shooters in probably 10yrs+, so I'm talking out of my ass here now. But how difficult would it be for Sony to come up with a shooter that rivals COD's quality of their own?

Whenever I see games like COD, I just keep thinking there's zero innovation in those games. To me personally, it looks like a shooter as run-off-the-mill as it'll ever get.

Now don't get me wrong, I can imagine loads of people enjoying a decent shooter, but I wonder - is COD so big because its so much better than anything else out there? Or is it big because people know it, are already familiar with it, and know they'll get a decent shooter whenever they buy the latest version?
A bit like McDonald's. Its not the best food out there, its not particularly hard to make Burgers as good, or better than McDonald's. But its tried and tested, and people will probably still tend to go there rather than to the no-name burger shop next door because of.. habit and convenience, I guess.

Anyways, that was the case, then I'd think Sony could rather easily develop a shooter of their own with similar quality. Big question then of course is, would people actually play that ("there's no COD on PS5, so I'll just play whatever else there is"), or would they still want COD specifically ("if its not on PS5, I'll buy an XBox instead")
That’s like saying how difficult would it be for MS to make a game like The Last of Us or Nintendo to make a game like Bloodborne.
 
Duuuuude this is huge!
I wonder what the ramification of this will be.

Like all future Acti + Blizz games Xbox exclusive?
I am still in shock of this announcement. The fact that this underwent silently without any leaks until it's 99% done is also quit scary.
Pretty sure ACG sorta leaked this back in nov. He said it was a mindblowing acquisition.
 

BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
Steam is a monopoly on PC as it is already. PC is an open marketplace. Competitors can still enter at anytime, Epic is there, Origin is there.

Yea I am not sure why people are thinking this could run into regulatory issues? Can you please inform me if you know better, any expert out there reading?

IMO: this is obviously major, but it doesn't expand Microsoft's media empire that much in comparison to what is still out there. They also aren't holding or influencing the gates to competition in the market - or any facet of that market (mobile, PC, console, cloud). They're just straight up kind of like the Disney of gaming now.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
No doubt Call of Duty will recouperate all the money back, Even with sales being down on Vanguard it still made an absolute shitton,

Exciting times and MS isnt messing around, people saying "dont care" are just salty fanboys YEET

MS won't make this money back. But that's not also the goal. Trust, they ARE NOT going to profit off of this $70 billion deal.
 
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