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[vpance]

The only real counter buy I could even see being a thing Sony would do is to buy SquareEnix.
Take-Two is massive and I dont think really wants to be bought up.

That would be such a terrible buy. But at this point you'd have to assume everything is under threat so Sony will probably be forced to make a few defensive acquisitions.

What's the best one apart from T2?

 

[nemiroff]

COD for $70 billion…hey Microsoft I have piece of trash I can dig out of my bin for you for $70 billion as well.

Unless you have millions of people in outside your house throwing money at you trying to get to your bin I'm afraid your trash isn't as popular as you seem to think.

 

[Guilty_AI]

What happens to Bungie, isn't it publishing under Activision?

hasn't been since 2019

 

[chixdiggit]

I enjoy playing COD occasionally but really not enough to buy it every year. Hopefully this means we get fewer releases and higher quality.

 

[JawaSaysUtinni]

Well my days, did not expect to be reading that kind of news today.

Couple of thoughts. First, gamers will get all hyped about this move. I would reserve getting too excited until competition authorities approve the deal. There is about 18 months before the deal is finalised, and Activision operate in a whole heap of markets, so it'll be interesting to see if it gets regulatory approval. When you compare it to the scale of the Bethesda purchase, we are in a different ball park. Second, really curious to how Microsoft's vision plays out. There is a lot of talk of how this deal is meant to support their metaverse vision.

I think it's really interesting overall. We haven't even had chance to see what Bethesda's output will look like in a Microsoft owned world. Either way, it is going to be an interesting few years.

 

[DustQueen]

 

[Nobody_Important]

Yeah fuck this I'm just going to upgrade my PC.


This back and forth spiteful purchasing of major exclusives between Sony and Microsoft with no regard to the industry or the playerbases is just getting very old and depressing at this point.



It's like that story from the Bible where the two women are fighting over the baby except in this version both women want to cut the baby into as many pieces as possible because neither of them give a shit about the baby or it's well being.

 

[oldergamer]

More like bad for everyone. I don’t see Activision being a better company as a result of this. Microsoft doesn’t have a good track record with acquisitions

Totally disagree on both points. Look at the MS recent record of acquisitions and not what happened years ago. They have done a really good job being hands off. the Microsoft today is nothing like the MS when Ballmer was running the show.

 

[Little Mac]

Amazing if true ... My series S keeps on evolving ... I'm starting to become a little afraid of it.

 

[Badlucktroll]

Forget Metal gear dude, it’s dead, it’s dead Jim.

If Sony tries to get exclusive deals again, I can sort of guess what will happen next

I think what would top this activision thing is; “Sony Santa Monica’s next game after Ragnarok is Metal Gear Ressurections” lmao

 

[StreetsofBeige]

That would be such a terrible buy. But at this point you'd have to assume everything is under threat so Sony will probably be forced to make a few defensive acquisitions.

What's the best one apart from T2?

There's lots out there:

- T2
- UBI
- Square
- Capcom
- Konami
- Namco
- Sega

If they want to get into more PC gaming, there's those PC skewed publishers which there's no way they cost a ton to buy like the above.

 

[Max Payne’s Baretta]

The real implications of this are the inevitable subscription content wars. This significantly devalues the value proposition of any competing service.

 

[sinnergy]

Totally disagree on both points. Look at the MS recent record of acquisitions and not what happened years ago. They have done a really good job being hands off. the Microsoft today is nothing like the MS when Ballmer was running the show.

Yup, but they will keep posting Evil MS stuff probably.

 

[Guilty_AI]

It's like that story from the Bible where the two women are fighting over the baby except in this version both women want to cut the baby into as many pieces as possible because neither of them give a shit about the baby or it's well being.

uh, the story wasn't quite like that tho

nvm i can't read

 

[Romulus]

I feel like sony will need to be basically perfect to win this generation. Just the idea of the casual base needs an xbox to play COD now could be a thing. Not sure if thats true but it won't take long for that idea to spread.

 

[BeforeU]

Heard about this as soon as it broke this morning, but didn't have time to react. first of all congrats to people who own ATVI, was going to buy some when it got hit hard after all the whole scandal but didn't have cash

Anyways, holly fucking shit. Absolute megaton of a news. Insanity. Microsoft has outclassed Sony and everyone in gaming space, people don't see it yet but this will be very evident in this decade. Content is king and if you can make it available to all platform you win by default. MSFT just looking at the Netflix model, imagine gamepass on every freaking device, they will have content to back up their subscription. Today its dirt cheap, but it will not be. Imagine when they have 20-30-50 million subscribers and they start increasing price $2-$5, its gonna reck in immense money. This is exactly what netflix does. Microsoft has created immense cloud and gamepass infrastructure, this is years in making.

Sony is still stuck with sell more hardware mindset, slowly putting content on PC but not the same thing at all. Its criminal that Microsoft have no competition on cloud (the next frontier of gaming).

 

[Agent_Nobody]

I am no fan of mergers. They tend to be bad for consumers. But Activision is a hot mess, so maybe in this case it could be better.

Yeah, especially when Phil explicitly says that the’ll be reporting to him as CEO, it basically gets Kotic out and Phil in, which is completely different from the tone of the Bethesda buyout. And his earlier comments on the sexual scandals at Activision:

“The work we do specifically with a partner like Activision is something that, obviously, I’m not going to talk publicly about. We have changed how we do certain things with them, and they’re aware of that.”

It kinda makes you wonder if that was their plan all along to keep working with them, since at the time the quote kinda seemed silly like: ‘what are you going to do? stop carrying their games?’. Now this news comes out and it’s like: ‘well I guess that’s one way of dealing with it’.

 

[mckmas8808]

Alright. So here are my thoughts after digesting the news for a bit.

I like this Microsoft that is going all in on gaming. I cautiously applauded their Zenimax acquisition because it confirmed to me that they were in it for good. However, this kind of consolidation feels a bit troubling. Especially if Sony goes out and buys Ubisoft or partners with EA or Nintendo. In the end, gamers will lose.

I am a big proponent of exclusives. The last 8 years, 6 have been exclusives. These games can be riskier, more ambtious and are given time for polish. However, acquiring big publishers like this is not going to make yearly CoDs more ambitious or less buggy. They would still need to ship in November every year. They will still need to be formulaic. Who does this help really? Were Xbox owners ever NOT going to get COD games? It just locks out content on PS platforms.

I think those $70 billion would've been better spent elsewhere. For example, their first party has yet to release a single next gen only game. We are literally 2 years in. They shouldve invested a billion into doubling if not tripling every single studio. Get them more productive so they can get games out every 2 years. Hiring Crystal Dynamics is NOT the answer. They need to build their internal teams.

Acquire smaller studios like KojiPro for a couple of hundred million dollars and give them a massive budget and full creative freedom. Same goes for many other creative geniuses who are currently struggling to put games out. Build them a team. Give them $100 million. Let them make their dream game. Invest in talent, not in publishers.

You can do all of that for a fraction of $70 billion. It would give Xbox gamers MORE value because those would be games not possible without Microsoft's involvement whereas CoD was always going to be on MS systems. All they get now is CoD on Gamepass on Day one. That saves them $70 a year. $60 if you count that month's sub cost. It's good, but investing in NEW games would be a much better use of that money.

I really hope Sony doesnt overreact and go and buy Ubisoft or merge with Nintendo or EA. It would be bad for Xbox gamers, and it would provide zero value to PS fanbase. They dont even have a Gamepass sub for cheaper day one games.

Lastly, best of luck to MS. This is them flexing and while I dont quite love it, I admire it. This is them saying we are here to stay, come at me.

1. This means Sony REALLY needs to triple their money on 1st party development of games. They need at least 3 studios at ND now for instance. ND needs to have multiple studios in the same way Insomniac does.

2. I agree with you that I hope this doesn't push Sony to try to buy Square or Ubisoft.

3. MS was always going to keep Xbox and stay in gaming. Now they are trying to be Number 1 on Planet Earth. They realized that they couldn't do it naturally, so they are just buying up the whole world. But don't get it twisted....MS was always here to stay (regardless of these purchases).

 

[Bombolone]

..,,

So MS now owns... Diablo, Starcraft Warcraft, Destiny, Sekiro, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Call of Duty, Tenchu, Hearthstone, Candy Crush, what else am I missing?

Ridiculous. KEKW.

Yo, bring my boy Rikimaru back from his slumber.
Splinter Cell is dead
MGS is dead (please save it Kojima san)
A modern Tenchu would kill it.

 

[Sosokrates]

When people spoke like Xbox/Microsoft

"Dont not wake a sleeping giant"

 

[Black_Stride]

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony bought take two.

GTA is the only game I can see that would seem to fit with Sony as an exclusive property. Sony is in desperate need of an identity property, like Nintendo has Mario and MS has Halo.

Dont do this to yourself.

 

[Billbofet]

Holy shit. WOW! This is big

 

[CamHostage]

Totally disagree on both points. Look at the MS recent record of acquisitions and not what happened years ago. They have done a really good job being hands off. the Microsoft today is nothing like the MS when Ballmer was running the show.

I'd agree that this is probably better for the future of Activision brands (given how little Activision had done last gen with any brand except CoD, I'm not sure how it could get worse?), but just curious, what would you consider the "recent record" for MS?

 

[clintar]

Sega who?

 

[Kenpachii]

Activision blizzard has a reveneu of 8b a year.

Battle.net is gigantic on PC, they have 26 million active users.

There IP's are incredible populaire and well known and massive on both PC and Consoles.

PC users could get a huge boon here if they merge wow with gamepass, u will see a gigantic increase in gamepass subs.

Microsoft needs more people on gamepass to compete with sony which will most likely start to compete with microsoft and that could push developers towards there platform. With blizzard in there pocket and call of duty they will have a gigantic amount of people that will join there service. Something sony won't be able to compete with.

Blizzard specifically is now in its worst spot where its probably the cheapest to buy. the company will skyrocket again because lots of talent over there.

Microsoft looks for the future, the only reason xbox made a introduction was to get microsoft in the living room, the reason why they want these publishers is because they want to become the netflix of gaming and u need content for that to push people towards it. While 70b looks a lot right now, it won't be in the future as markets are growing rapidly and value increases + its not like the company isn't making money themselves.

 

[Black_Stride]

That would be such a terrible buy. But at this point you'd have to assume everything is under threat so Sony will probably be forced to make a few defensive acquisitions.

What's the best one apart from T2?

They already have such a deep relationship.
Xbox is now the home of First Person Shooters/RPGs.
Sony might as well be the home of JRPGs.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Eagerly awaiting your 100 page manifesto on why this is good for the industry and an amazing deal for MS

Well after the VR thread I could prob do that to win some points with Team Green for the upcoming Console Representative Presidential Election

Jokes aside, like I've said a ton of times I won't cry about an acquisition or drag my feet in the mud as if that'll change anything. If a deal's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. That said, these deals always tend to follow the books, have consenting parties, and don't infringe on anyone's civil or human rights (Acti's reported workplace problems aside).

And like with the Sony acquisitions, I'm an optimist. These deals tend to do a lot of good, and for this one I'm actually more interested in what it does for the Acti/Blizzard teams. Not just in getting some of the problematic stuff out of some of the studios, but freeing a lot of them up so they can work on IP besides COD. And of course it'll have a lot of benefits for MS too, not just for traditional gaming but mobile too...same as a lot of Sony's acquisitions including whichever ones they do in the future.

...hopefully kept that to 100 words, I save the pages for thread OPs

 

[BeforeU]

EA stock is currently trading at $140. Activision stock was trading at ~$60 and MS offered them $95 a share which is over 50%.

Looking at numbers like that you'd think we'd be approaching "biggest acquisition in history" territory if MS tried to buy EA.

lmao, stock price means jackshit. Apple is at $170 and worth $3T....AMZN is $3200 and worth $1.6T

ATVI worth nearly 2 EA and probably 10 Ubisoft

 

[[Sigma]]

lol ok. Like the Bethesda deal, changes nothing for me.

 

[Dr Bass]

how can sony respond? a big ass timed exclusive like GTA? capcom or square enix buy outs? maybe even kadokawa, which will net them fromsoftware. or do they just accept it and double down on their own first party games? either way they are in a sticky situation because they have nowhere near the amount of money microsoft do.

They don't need to if MS if going to keep publishing all the same titles everywhere. Seems like they might want to be going in a bigger publishing role. There is no way they just spent 70 billion dollars, meanwhile incurring further MASSIVE recurring studio costs so they can close everything down to Game Pass. They will never ever recoup the cost if that's the case. They would need 70 billion in profit to do so, on a now much more internally expensive venture.

Though I do think it's funny that Phil Spencer felt the need to come out and chastise Activision, full well knowing they were working on buying them. Making it sound like they were going to distance themselves out of some kind of moral code when they were working on a marriage license. I mean, come on, Phil. Just stop talking for awhile.

Aside from that good. Good luck today mods.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[saintjules]

 

[Jaguar Victory]

Ngl, I don't think there's a single Activision-Blizzard game that I do or ever have cared about.

Then you're missing out on some awesome games. Blizz alone with Diablo, StarCraft and WoW is amazing. Games & merch. If they get Overwatch back on track.. man the potential is enormous.

 

[Imtjnotu]

If only cod wasn't trash

 

[geary]

i think it happens when someone tries to acquire EA(google,amazon,tenscent,epic), microsoft will surely outbid them for sure. thats one property they cant afford to lose.

They dont need EA, they need the FIFA license and from what i heard is on the market right now.

 

[Hari Seldon]

The more I think about this the more I think that this has absolutely nothing to do with "winning" a console generation. This is an arms race to keep Activision away from Tencent or Facebook, or possibly even Amazon.

 

[Hitchyhero]

Hold on to your butts, GP is going to get more expensive.

Everything has risen in price for the past few years but gamepass hasn't. Even a little price increase would make sense with inflation.

 

[FritzJ92]

Kind of glad Xbox has been my main platform since forever right now

 

[MScarpa]

Gamepass is Spartacus
Spartacus is Gamepass

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

Games I’ve bought from activation in the last 7 years:
0

They make absolutely nothing of interest for me personally, so no issue here

 

[Sosokrates]

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony bought take two.

GTA is the only game I can see that would seem to fit with Sony as an exclusive property. Sony is in desperate need of an identity property, like Nintendo has Mario and MS has Halo.

The difference between sony and Microsoft is that ms can do huge bets like this which take 10yrs to pay off.

I expect sony will counter with smaller but effective measures.

Such as,
Aquire remedy, io interactive, buy silent hill I.P maybe fund GTA6 single player DLC.
While the Activision aquisition is a megaton, sony can do a lot of cunning moves for a lot less money, 1 $billion in the gaming industry still goesa long way.

 

[RaZoR No1]

I really hope Blur makes a comeback, but MS isn't even using their PGR IP....

 

[MilkyJoe]

Sony needs to hit back, only thing that would do that is buying rockstar / take two

Why does gaff assume every company is up for sale?

 

[jufonuk]

Video game crash incoming when ?

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

lol ok. Like the Bethesda deal, changes nothing for me.

This, so much this….

 

[iHaunter]

Exactly. Bigger picture here. Governments are not doing enough to stop FDI, so MS stepping in to save gaming.

I’m not a fanboy, but I’m happy with this deal. Really happy. I hope it improves Blizz’s output.

I also hope Sony come out swinging. The industry needs competition, I have no desire to see PS fold.

And in reference to Sony fans screaming about this killing the industry and/or killing Playstation, many of you on GAF were chomping for Xbox to be shuttered over the past 8 years. Hold yourselves to a higher standard. The two need each other.

Stepping in to save gaming? My man, their games are middling at best. They need to save themslves first.

 

[OverHeat]

Damn!

 

[Avian_Grubber]

Microsoft could easily offset the entire cost of this deal by buying shares in salt.

 

[mckmas8808]

This is a loooooong term investment, MS sees where gaming is heading, its all live service cloud based beamed straight to your telly or mobile device via subscription, this is no different than Disney hoovering up Fox for its exclusive content.. MS have the wallet to play the long game

And the bolded is why I HATE this move. I don't want gaming to go in that direction, personally.