assurdum
Banned
Sorry, I know you?
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Breaking: Microsoft to acquire Activision-Blizzard in near 70$ billion deal
- Thread starter Draugoth
- Start date
Lognor
Banned
So your point is it's not fair? Microsoft has money to make these types of acquisitions and Sony doesn't so it's not fair. Too bad, I guess?
Kacho
Member
More like words mean something and you should use them correctly when expressing yourself. A bunch of people have been throwing the word monopoly around when it doesn’t apply here.
fart town usa
Gold Member
Hopefully they make COD's release cycle every 2-3 years and allow some of the studios, namely Raven, to get out of the COD process and make their own games.
I'd be really surprised if COD is released on an annual basis. Digital Foundry touched on it yesterday but it just seems like there would be too much content if these games release on an annual basis. I know some people would love that but it seems like too much gaming content could be an overall negative. Games competing with each other and titles getting overlooked cause there's literally too much stuff to play.
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Right, that "organic growth" bs. Sony has acquired more studios than they have built internally just like MS.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
The annual CoD games are why they cost 70B
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
If you cant see the difference between buying someone like Naughty Dog in 2001 vs freaking Activision in 2022 then....
and mobile
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Flintty
Member
Lol yeah I'm a lock too, and it just felt horrible. Like I said, it was great back in the day but modern QOL systems are so much better.
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
The only difference is scale. If Sony could afford to buy large publishers they would too.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
No it isnt
Sony can buy many of the biggest publishers right now
The question is why would they want to? Addition by subtraction strategy is not an efficient use of capital
Microsoft only has the luxury of making deals that are completely illogical from an ROI standpoint, Sony has to be more tactical
You mean when they had to add last minutes servers because they couldn't deal with demand? Servers which had queues for ages?
TBC and/or its launch kinda killed classic. Classic may not be for everyone, especially people who enjoy modern day/dumbed down wow, but it'll always have its public and MS will probably do better honoring its legagy than actiblizz did.
Kagey K
Banned
Microsoft have had deals (or partnerships) with CoD going all the way back to CoD2 on Xbox 360. That organic growth.
buenoblue
Member
This is a massive gamble as far as I'm concerned. If you have to spend 77 billion to compete, your not really competing. Xbox has barely if ever turned a profit in 20 years, and has consistently bin in third place in the gaming pecking order. They are now 77 billion in the hole. Gonna be decades before they see any return on this investment.
That's a long time in the fickle gaming market and Phil and Xbox are under enormous pressure to deliver top tier sales results. This could implode. What happens if cod implodes like guitar hero and Tony hawk before it?
That's a long time in the fickle gaming market and Phil and Xbox are under enormous pressure to deliver top tier sales results. This could implode. What happens if cod implodes like guitar hero and Tony hawk before it?
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
Paying for past performance, doesn’t always work well in sports, investments, or gaming
It is insanely risky by any objective measure, moreso if you consider them removing their games from PlayStation. The top performers of the last decade in investments, sports, and games generally are NOT the top performers the next decade. Stagnation is a real thing - just look at where Halo was and where it is today.
The market is also dynamic - if CoD continues to dwindle in perceived quality, hungry competitors will be there to take their place (see: Respawn, Firewalk). Buying studios in turmoil and decline is not always wise, it is very hard to break that downward spiral once the talent moves on
Microsoft is riding high on 5 years of meteoric increases in share price. But tech is cyclical. Their stock went nowhere for over 15 years. This seems like a “drunk off their own success” kind of move.
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Bladed Thesis
Member
My biggest takeaway from this is that Call of Duty no longer NEEDS to be an annual release. It still could be but I think the recent Call of Duty has shown that to be the wrong call and Activision KNEW that they were going to need to adjust the release pattern of Call of Duty and what that would do to their consumers and marketshare.
Swapping Call of Duty from every year to every other year suddenly changes the development landscape within Call of Duty studios but also changes the roles of several good studios who have been relegated to support studio by Activision and their creativity has been hampered. Nevermind the process now through which the entire MS studio portfolio has been opened up to support Call of Duty developers. Coalition, Turn 10, Playground, Obsidian. All these studios showed that they can rally and support an internal studio like they did with 343 and Halo Infinite and help a product along even by sending a small developer contigent of 20-25 devs to help push the game out the door.
This will see a fundamental shift in the way Call of Duty is developed and produced imo and I think its for the better. That alone is a big deal. Sledgehammer, Infinite Ward, Raven Software. You know there are core groups within these studios who want to try something new but when your bread and butter and entire company relies on you being only a Call of Duty developer with a grueling annual release schedule between 1-4 studios with little wiggle room to try new things this change can be massive. Just swapping Call of Duty to a 2 year cycle gives all those studios 8 year dev cycles. Plenty of time to perfect a product or try new things.
Interested to see what changes come with this acquisition.
Swapping Call of Duty from every year to every other year suddenly changes the development landscape within Call of Duty studios but also changes the roles of several good studios who have been relegated to support studio by Activision and their creativity has been hampered. Nevermind the process now through which the entire MS studio portfolio has been opened up to support Call of Duty developers. Coalition, Turn 10, Playground, Obsidian. All these studios showed that they can rally and support an internal studio like they did with 343 and Halo Infinite and help a product along even by sending a small developer contigent of 20-25 devs to help push the game out the door.
This will see a fundamental shift in the way Call of Duty is developed and produced imo and I think its for the better. That alone is a big deal. Sledgehammer, Infinite Ward, Raven Software. You know there are core groups within these studios who want to try something new but when your bread and butter and entire company relies on you being only a Call of Duty developer with a grueling annual release schedule between 1-4 studios with little wiggle room to try new things this change can be massive. Just swapping Call of Duty to a 2 year cycle gives all those studios 8 year dev cycles. Plenty of time to perfect a product or try new things.
Interested to see what changes come with this acquisition.
ManaByte
Gold Member
Activision Blizzard wanted to sell, so it approached Microsoft
Activision Blizzard had no obvious vector for growth after tapping out Call of Duty and failing to maintain World of Warcraft.
venturebeat.com
El Pistolero
Banned
Never understood the logic...So, if Sony could have, they would have? What kind of argument is that? It is like having somebody who commited a crime defend himself on the basis that other people could have done it, if they had the willingness and the capacity to do so...
That would fly in court!
As to comparing the acquisitions made by Sony (ND were making games for the PS, exclusively, before being bought; Housemarque, same story, almost; Insomniac, ditto...), to the recent moves MS pulled...Well, you have to be the personification of bad faith to even suggest that. The narrative with Bethesda was that a few of their titles were exclusive decades ago...I wonder what secret ties there were between MS and Activision?
It is fine to brandish the "It is on GP, so I benefit financially" card, which can hardly be contradicted, at least from that personal angle, but making the cosmically laughable points above is...well, laughable.
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Why though? Why spend billions unnecessarily? Playstation has been dominating for 20 years without having to spend the GDP of Europe to do so.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I understand why you and others will say that. But MS is forcing Sony's hand. Of course Sony won't do it this year or next year. But mark my words.....by the year 2025 GamePass WILL BE on at least one Playstation console.
What is wrong with you man? Why are you acting as if MS didn't buy the exclusive rights to DOA fighting game back on the 1st Xbox? Were you even around when all of "Team Ninja" games would only come out on Xbox consoles? You think that happened because Itagaki was friends with Bill Gates? Those deals happened over 20 years ago!!!
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
This isn't true at all! You don't spend over $80 BILLION on content and billions on R&D for these current Xbox consoles, and "NOT" care about the hardware. MS cares about the hardware more that you and other think they do. Why? Because anybody that buys an Xbox Series console will almost guaranteed buy Gamepass as a subscription. If they can sell 70 million units in 5 years, they'll easily have over 100 million GamePass accounts total (if you include PC gamers and some others that will use the Xbox Series Z Xbox stick that's rumored to come out next year).
Xbox gamers are the core Xbox audience. Surprise, surprise. The bigger casual audience is what MS will be pushing for in 5+ years.
Dolomite
Member
Think Bigger. Activision owns the mobile space. They own candy crush and countless other cheap over the counter IP's that have been downloaded by millions. Bloomberg reports that part of the reasoning behind deal was to legally circumvent Apple's app store fees, to dig into the metaverse while it's still in its infancy as well as booster cloud gaming. A profitable deal can be just as simple as spending more now to avoid paying more later. This is a 3trillion dollar company we're talking about here, business isn't all "how soon can we make back the cash spent on acquisition" to them. There are so many layers at play and I'm sure MS has wizards who have crunched the numbers before even approaching the board
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OsirisBlack
Banned
Are you comparing a timed exclusive which both companies do and exclusive dlc also which both companies do to the acquisition of a PUBLISHING COMPANY? Sony bought exclusive timed rights to a game and Microsoft bought Bethesda and Activision those are not like for like situations unless you’re being purposefully obtuse or sarcastic. Sorry if you are; my sarcasm detector doesn’t work online. They aren’t game studios they are PUBLISHING companies. What you’re doing is comparing apples to bananas a more like for like situation would be if Sony purchased I don’t know EA and Nintendo. Which also would not be good for GAMERS. I own everything you can so I’m not moved one way or another I’ll play what I want I just think it’s shitty for people that can’t afford to just buy every console and a PC.
Bladed Thesis
Member
Oh my sweet summer child.
Warzone won't be going exclusive, I agree. But mainline Call of Duty release and probably most other new releases will be going Xbox/PC exclusive. It's coming. You don't spend 70b dollars to keep things the same.
Slicker than your average
Banned
Crazy money tbh. Not sure why people are cheering this on? Less people will get to play games from a large 3rd party now. Oh wait fan boys.
On MS part I guess if you can't beat the competition, just buy everything. They might as we'll have just bought sony at this point and be done with it.
On MS part I guess if you can't beat the competition, just buy everything. They might as we'll have just bought sony at this point and be done with it.
Kagey K
Banned
Theres a difference between console exclusive and Gamepass exclusive.
He said they wouldn't be making CoD gamepass exclusive.
Were you gaming during the PS1/PS2 eras? Tomb Raider? Metal Gear?
Kagey K
Banned
Right?
They should have just stepped aside and let Facebook buy them and that way FB could have run them into the ground and nobody would be able to play any of the games.
Silly Microsoft.
Loxus
Member
It was just my take on how long it would take Microsoft to make back 70 billion using only pure game sales or gamepass subs without any other source of revenue like Xbox live.
fart town usa
Gold Member
Can you imagine if COD goes full exclusive to XBOX/PC, but at the same time MS gets super radical in banning people for any kind of offensive language or bad e-sportmanship.
Casuals then drop COD/XBOX because they're banned, they feel like XBOX has gone full woke. These people then move over to PC or go back to Sony.
I would just die laughing, total hypothetical, just having fun with all the different paths this could take.
gameranx.com
Casuals then drop COD/XBOX because they're banned, they feel like XBOX has gone full woke. These people then move over to PC or go back to Sony.
I would just die laughing, total hypothetical, just having fun with all the different paths this could take.
Xbox Executive Vice President Phil Spencer Calls For Cross-Platform Ban Program - Gameranx
During a New York Times podcast interview on Monday, Phil Spencer, the Executive Vice President of Xbox for Microsoft, made an open proposal to implement a cross-platform ban program for wrongdoers. In the podcast, he mentioned how he thinks a player should be blocked on all platforms if they...
gameranx.com
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COD is an annual release because people have been happy to play the same basic game with a few tweaks, new looks, and new maps. It's a cash cow because the basics can be repainted every year and make people happy since they nailed those basics really well a long time ago. The most recent one is getting knocked around because of the design choices primarily, which had nothing to do with development time. If you haven't played it watch out for a free weekend, and give it a shot. Then go into the store where skins are sold. It's cringe on steroids. If you can overlook the full court cringe press, its still a solid game IMO, that runs really nice in 120 FPS in my experience.
I cannot possibly believe they will scale back the output frequency after they spend 70 billion on it, but I do think they will need to start thinking outside the box on development. It is going to be exclusive within a couple years, and there will no doubt be people who buy into their eco-system to either rent or buy it. But MS isn't looking for just a few converts, and their biggest competition (3rd party = EA and 1st = Sony) will be looking to minimize impacts and/or take advantage of any opportunities that arise. Where they take COD will be very interesting. Maybe they take advantage of MS server's and Activision/Blizzard MMO experience and make COD a living / persistent battlefield. I think that would be pretty cool and a big differentiator from other shooters.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yep! But were those games moneyhatted? I thought those games went to the PS1 due to the media that Sony used (CDs) and not just due to being bought.....
Warnen
Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
trust him his uncle works for Nintendo….
Bladed Thesis
Member
Oh. Damn, yeah, that's not happening.
Warnen
Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Can you imagine if COD goes full exclusive to XBOX/PC, but at the same time MS gets super radical in banning people for any kind of offensive language or bad e-sportmanship.
Casuals then drop COD/XBOX because they're banned, they feel like XBOX has gone full woke. These people then move over to PC or go back to Sony.
I would just die laughing, total hypothetical, just having fun with all the different paths this could take.
Xbox Executive Vice President Phil Spencer Calls For Cross-Platform Ban Program - Gameranx
During a New York Times podcast interview on Monday, Phil Spencer, the Executive Vice President of Xbox for Microsoft, made an open proposal to implement a cross-platform ban program for wrongdoers. In the podcast, he mentioned how he thinks a player should be blocked on all platforms if they...
Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
Since Sony owns Funimation and Crunchyroll that could easily make the most sense for them. Also them being Japanese may prevent MS from swooping in with a higher offer
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
That's cool and all. But COD after 2023 will be Xbox\PC exclusive. You can book it!
Kagey K
Banned
I don't disagree it will be console exclusive. It's basically 100% chance of that happening. I disagreed that it would be Gamepass exclusive.
twilo99
Member
What do you think cloud gaming runs on? Even if they didn't sell that hardware in console form to consumers, they will still need it for the cloud stacks.
I didn't say ms didn't do it, I am just saying that Sony did it first and showed how profitable it is to do so.. along with Nintendo.
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
It's bigger than PlayStation or Xbox. The sooner you get your head out of console warrior mode, this would be super clear.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yes, but MS really really wants people to buy their console. It's literally why they made the Series S. To think otherwise is crazy!
Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
COD is released annually so they can put it into their fiscal year reports. There shouldn't be any demand for that under Microsoft.
When it becomes exclusive will depend on when its approved and any prior contracts expire, but it will absolutely be exclusive unless Sony opens its doors to GP on terms MS agrees to. I just hope Sony requires a sale option if they allow GP on there.
twilo99
Member
I don't know why people will think otherwise. Perhaps the importance of selling that hardware will diminish over time if the cloud thing works out, but as of right now its obviously very important.
Dr.Morris79
Gold Member
Ah I see. Sony makes games, Microsoft doesnt. Makes sense
assurdum
Banned
You know what's the difference? Sony has grown almost anonymous studios for the most, from the nothing and continue to use such strategy; this is how such things should be handled. If you think all the MS money give to them the necessary management skills to handle to the success so many companies, I have bad news. Will see I guess.
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OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Nintendo has also dominated without having to spend the GDP of Europe. There you go. Feel better? So why should they spend money when they don't have to?
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