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

MonarchJT

Banned
How is it that any different from the idea that Sony want to add value to their platform though?
The porblem isn't what Sony done and what Sony will do...The real story here is what people expect a company to do when your direct competitor has more than double your usebase and uses it (rightly or not) to reduce your hand action ..stealing complete exclusivity, times exclusivity, dlc's, special modes, character exclusivity from third party devs. All this without counting the first parties expenditure which must demonstrate the difference with other platforms.
People should understand that if Microsoft weren't that rich it would already be out of the game market because of Sony.. This is why any new player if he's not rich enough in the videogames market it doesn't even have a chance.
So I ask again what was Microsoft supposed to do? Don't buy Bethesda and Activision and wait 10 years for the famous "organic growth"? While Sony was workingout exclusivity deals left and right for Final Fantasy, Cod, Death loop, Ghostwire new square Enix game and from the rumors also Starfield reducing, month after month, the power of action of rivals and in the eyes of customers the value of their products? I am thrilled by the stupidity of a certain line of thinking. Microsoft is doing (rightly) what any wealthy company would do against a market predatory rival like is Sony.
 
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Yoboman

Member
The porblem isn't what Sony done and what Sony will do...The real story here is what people expect a company to do when your direct competitor has more than double your usebase and uses it (rightly or not) to reduce your hand action ..stealing complete exclusivity, times exclusivity, dlc's, special modes, character exclusivity from third party devs. All this without counting the first parties expenditure which must demonstrate the difference with other platforms.
People should understand that if Microsoft weren't that rich it would already be out of the game market because of Sony.. This is why any new player if he's not rich enough in the videogames market it doesn't even have a chance.
So I ask again what was Microsoft supposed to do? Don't buy Bethesda and Activision and wait 10 years for the famous "organic growth"? While Sony was workingout exclusivity deals left and right for Final Fantasy, Cod, Death loop, Ghostwire new square Enix game and from the rumors also Starfield reducing, month after month, the power of action of rivals and in the eyes of customers the value of their products? I am thrilled by the stupidity of a certain line of thinking. Microsoft is doing (rightly) what any wealthy company would do against a market predatory rival like is Sony.
You guys come up with some real nonsense to justify this. Just admit you're happy because your favourite company is buying up the industry
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Long dev time goes for many big budget AAA games. This will trigger people but I doubt that we’ll see a new The Elder Scrolls and Fallout this generation for example. GT7 will likely be the only non-Sport GT this gen. No more mainline Halo either. Will we see more than one TLOU and/or Uncharted this gen? Doubtful.

There are a few devs that seems to work with constant nitro boost turned on; Insomniac, Playground Games, Ubisoft, Capcom. But they’re not the norm today unfortunately.

The problem with take 2 though is they dont have other titles which create that much excitement.
They certainly make a lot of money, but if sold for $25 billion it would take about 12 years to recoup the investment.

Microsoft can do long term business like that but I dont know if sony can.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
You guys come up with some real nonsense to justify this. Just admit you're happy because your favourite company is buying up the industry
I said it before and I repeat I'm happy because Gamepass is imho probably the best thing it ever happen in the game industry in the last 30 or 40 years. The price of video games was reaching exorbitant costs and I definitely prefer to pay 9.99 per month to be able to access all the games released by Xbox games studios, Bethesda, Activision,EAplay, and everything in between, instead of shelling out 69.99 to 81.99 for every single game. I am a customer not a shareholder and MS's offer is currently becoming much more advantageous than what Sony is offering. Wake up if project Spartacus will make Sony releases its games on day one on the service and whether Sony will have enough Devs studios to support the service.
After this acquisition the needle of the balance has changed markedly.
 
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I said it before and I repeat I'm happy because Gamepass is imho probably the best thing it ever happen in the game industry in the last 30 or 40 years. The price of video games was reaching exorbitant costs and I definitely prefer to pay 9.99 per month to be able to access all the games released by Xbox games studios, Bethesda, Activision,EAplay, and everything in between, instead of shelling out 69.99 to 81.99 for every single game. I am a customer not a shareholder and MS's offer is currently becoming much more advantageous than what Sony is offering. Wake up if project Spartacus will make Sony releases its games on day one on the service and whether Sony will have enough Devs studios to support the service.
After this acquisition the needle of the balance has changed markedly.
I agree but with these games COD being by far the biggest, Microsoft will bump the subscription up. Currently I pay £10.99 for Ultimate but I'd happily pay up to 14.99 as its incredible value already. Obviously I'd prefer them to keep the price as is but we'll see.
 

Flintty

Member
To me it feels that Sony accomplished success and Microsoft always bought it. Especially now. Wasn't a lot like that in early 360 era
How do you think Sony accomplished early success?

6WrISk3.jpg



Yes, I know they’re not all videogame acquisitions but there’s a pattern there.
 
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Fredrik

Member
To me it feels that Sony accomplished success and Microsoft always bought it. Especially now. Wasn't a lot like that in early 360 era
What about the early PS1 era? They started out paying for success no doubt. Rumor says they tried to pay for Starfield exclusivity too, and why isn’t Final Fantasy on Xbox now?
Money talks at all corners of this industry.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
I agree but with these games COD being by far the biggest, Microsoft will bump the subscription up. Currently I pay £10.99 for Ultimate but I'd happily pay up to 14.99 as its incredible value already. Obviously I'd prefer them to keep the price as is but we'll see.
If Microsoft raises the price (and it will a little bit) it will do so towards the end of gen or at the beginning of the next. This is a crucial moment for the service where it has to attract a substantial number of users ... in my opinion they will start increasing the price when they get + or-50 million users
 

Three

Member
Just wondering whether this also means that any Activision blizzard games will be pulled off PN now at some point, if they are already on there.
No because there are more Bethesda games on PSNow right now. They will obviously make some new things exclusive though.
 
Maybe Sony will be incentivized to actually try again? Beyond their hardware team I mean, PS5 is brilliant hardware, but software + games they're doing the bare minimum and also extending Cross Gen for exclusives for some bizarre reason. And porting everything to PC, which is nice and all (still no Bloodborne, the only game that definitely needs an upgrade), but if they want to actually promote their PlayStation console brand they're not achieving that.

Likely though they'll just keep going as now, sure, extend the cross gen another 3 years why not, don't make a Gamepass equivalent, slow down the PS exclusives and don't update your software features ever. Let's see how that works out for them.
 

Flintty

Member
I don't mean it that way.
Look at Bluepoint or Housemarque ?
These seem like natural acquisitions
And the definition of natural acquisition is what? Something out of the ass to fit the agenda?

Truth is, it’s a business and non traditional console firms buying their way into the industry is and always will be a thing. The only remaining hardware firm still in it who hasn’t done so is Nintendo, who built up their IP in house, from the modest beginnings of a card game company.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
I don't mean it that way.
Look at Bluepoint or Housemarque ?
These seem like natural acquisitions
lol good developers are good developers. Insomniac did a great game exclusive to Xbox and a great spiderman game now that is a Sony studio. The fact that Sony payed those developers multiple times to work exclusively with them before buying them have nothing to do with what you mean by "natural"....probably is even worst because they were taking their potential away from the rest of the market and preventing competition from growing using their games.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
If Sony did not response with bigger acquisitions in the upcoming months, i think we can agree Sony is really in deep trouble now : (
Not at all.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Bungie do jump in to bed with Sony though. It would probably suit both parties.

Destiny already has a large following, and it’s as mechanically sound and polished as a Sony first party game. It’s co-op centred too, which would probably appeal to Sony.

Destiny’s popularity would also only grow if it’s the major FPS available on the console with Sony’s full weight behind it.
 

tommib

Member
lol good developers are good developers. Insomniac did a great game exclusive to Xbox and a great spiderman game now that is a Sony studio. The fact that Sony payed those developers multiple times to work exclusively with them before buying them have nothing to do with what you mean by "natural"....probably is even worst because they were taking their potential away from the rest of the market and preventing competition from growing using their games.
To think that anything else is worse than the biggest tech deal in history that translates into to the biggest gatekeeping move in history is the biggest fanboy post in history.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Not at all.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Bungie do jump in to bed with Sony though. It would probably suit both parties.

Destiny already has a large following, and it’s as mechanically sound and polished as a Sony first party game. It’s co-op centred too, which would probably appeal to Sony.

Destiny’s popularity would also only grow if it’s the major FPS available on the console with Sony’s full weight behind it.
Microsoft bought a whole publisher, bigger one than Zenimax.

Assuming there is a miracle here, and Sony grabbed Bungie, their IP is hard to match with COD, and its only 1 IP : S
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
lol good developers are good developers. Insomniac did a great game exclusive to Xbox and a great spiderman game now that is a Sony studio. The fact that Sony payed those developers multiple times to work exclusively with them before buying them have nothing to do with what you mean by "natural"....probably is even worst because they were taking their potential away from the rest of the market and preventing competition from growing using their games.
and no XBOX owner give a crap about that game lol.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
You guys come up with some real nonsense to justify this.
Oh really? :messenger_tears_of_joy:

The only nonsense I’ve read on NeoGAF about acquisitions always seems to be when Sony acquire a studio, and that’s all good but only because they’ve ‘grown’ the studio ‘organically’ (by historically giving bags of cash for exclusives).

I’ve also read that buying a dev is ok, but buying a publisher is not ok (with no justification given).

You’re either ok with acquisitions, or not. There is no ‘this is morally right, but this isn’t’, just business transactions.
 

Blood Borne

Member
It’s probably been mentioned in this thread but this deal really does prove that MS doesn’t see Sony as competition. Sony is not even on their radar.

They’re looking at Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon and Facebook, because it’s inevitable that these companies are eventually going to get really serious about gaming in the future especially when cloud gaming becomes more prevalent, they’re all going to start their own game streaming platform like Game Pass and/or PlayStation Now, hence MS wants to be at the forefront and have a huge competitive advantage when this does happen. MS is looking at the future 10 - 20 years from now.

As a PlayStation fan, I’m somewhat not happy about this news, however from a business perspective MS made a very smart decision. Kudos to them and their war chest. Sony what’s your move?
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Microsoft bought a whole publisher, bigger one than Zenimax.

Assuming there is a miracle here, and Sony grabbed Bungie, their IP is hard to match with COD, and its only 1 IP : S
It’s only estimated but there’s supposedly between 31 and 38 million people who have played Destiny 2 (it’s now F2P but it still draws impressive numbers on Steam). I personally think buying Bungie would be a better buy than Activision.

IMO CoD and Candy Crush were the main pull for the Activision deal. Overwatch is crap compared to Doom, CoD and Halo.
 

NahaNago

Member
Saw this before going to work today and was stunned. I'm kinda on the fence on how much this hurts Sony. I guess I'm not too bothered by this since I rarely play any activision blizzard games. This does mean that Microsoft is starting to dominate in the pc gaming realm though. Maybe this will finally be the swift kick in the pantsSony needs to do more than they are. That extra 200 million a year Sony will use for expansions is a drop in the bucket to the near 80 billion xbox/Microsoft has used in the last 2 years.

With that said it will still take some time for Microsoft to fully utilized their expansion. Next year's E3 for Microsoft is going to be amazing.
 
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Yoboman

Member
Oh really? :messenger_tears_of_joy:

The only nonsense I’ve read on NeoGAF about acquisitions always seems to be when Sony acquire a studio, and that’s all good but only because they’ve ‘grown’ the studio ‘organically’ (by historically giving bags of cash for exclusives).

I’ve also read that buying a dev is ok, but buying a publisher is not ok (with no justification given).

You’re either ok with acquisitions, or not. There is no ‘this is morally right, but this isn’t’, just business transactions.
You are literally repeating the same nonsense I just quoted
 

EekTheKat

Member
tin foil hat time

I gotta admit - this merger makes Phil's comments about cross platform bans a bit more ominous since some fairly large platforms with big userbases are now under his control.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
and no XBOX owner give a crap about that game lol.

The game is universally acclaimed among those who actually played it. But yeah, after the whole dude-bro X360 generation, SO seemed like a really weird, out of place title for Xbox.
 
I mean if they had destiny , u could make an arguement that even though they overpayed atleest if u want all the big first person shooters and looters , Xbox was the place to be but without destiny this shit is just not justifiable
Maybe we are not seeing the big picture with candy crush and other mobile stuff but for Xbox this just doesn't make sense
 

MonarchJT

Banned
Activision owns Call of duty and Warcraft, right? And beyond that?

Blur
Caesar
Call of Duty
Candy Crush
Crash Bandicoot
Diablo
DJ Hero
Empire Earth
Gabriel Knight
Geometry Wars
Guitar Hero
Gun
Hearthstone
Heroes of the Storm
Hexen
Interstate ’76
King’s Quest
Laura Bow Mysteries
The Lost Vikings
Overwatch
Phantasmagoria
Pitfall
Police Quest
Prototype
Quest for Glory
Singularity
Skylanders
Solider of Fortune
Space Quest
Spyro the Dragon
StarCraft
Tenchu (legacy games)
TimeShift
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
True Crime
World of Warcraft
Zork
 
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