They’re building teams. The Initiative is new, and they’ve expanded Playground into another team for Fable.
Ironically, we’ve had threads on Fable with complaints that the new team hadn’t put out an open world RPG in 4+ years.
They’ve also partnered with external studios like IOI and Avalanche. Not to mention a substantial first party base that’s already working on games.
Their main issue is how slow their pipeline is to delivery, combined with shoddy marketing and baffling decisions made in the past. Not to mention some leadership issues. It’ll get rolling eventually, but for now there are glaring gaps in their AAA output.
They want Activision for mobile, Gamepass content and COD revenue. None of that requires COD exclusivity.
They started their aggressive acquisition spree in 2018. Hellblade 2 still hasn't released. These teams aren't getting enough out to really start working on their own franchises and to make matters worse, they're now internally competing against Bethesda and soon to be ABK. It's like Naughty Dog not releasing a title in five years, polyphony just pumping out an iteration of Gran Turismo every year and God of War coming out every few years.
Microsoft have done very little to establish franchises that they're simply buying them. Claiming they're a victim and hopelessly have no chance of ever increasing market share, despite doing all the stupid things you mentioned that ruin their good work.
Microsoft want Activision because the exclusives they can make for their platforms, as well as Bethesda and the teams they continue to run/build/buy will make the console a must have. That'll increase market share and in turn revenue. And it would only cost the wider market two major publishers, arguably one of the biggest in the market.
So they have more control over the franchise and can put it on gamepass or prevent Sony from getting exclusive content deals.
Unlike console warriors, these companies care about whatever makes the most money, not just who has the most exclusives.
Why'd they buy Minecraft if they're just going to share it with everyone?
Bullshit. Come on. They want Call of Duty to be exclusive and realistically the same for Minecraft. The only reason they aren't outright doing that is because Microsoft don't own the majority share of the console market. If they did of course they would and it'd massively hurt the competition. Business is business.
The statement about caring what makes the most money literally makes no sense. XBOX hardware doesn't make money, Microsoft admitted it barely ever has. GamePass isn't increasing in subscribers the way Microsoft need it too. It's not profitable. Microsoft are literally losing money to try and buy love from gamers and buy market share.
They own incredible IP from Bethesda, that library is going to massively expand in the future. Are they going to port every Spyro, Crash, Tony Hawk, WoW and Diablo game in the future to all platforms? People are so hung up on CoD they don't even talk about everything else involved in this deal.
And if they keep it all multiplatform, what's the point in being a console manufacturer.
By your logic, the console manufacturers should buy up every publisher and developer, just to ensure all games come to all consoles and nobody gets exclusivity rights.
