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Gary Whitta : Bigger news than Xbox/Activision acquisition coming soon

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OmegaSupreme

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
BusierDonkey said:
Microsoft buying Valve would be a fucking bombshell and to me the only thing I'd perceive as bigger than what went down today. If they did, then left it alone (meaning don't turn it into the Xbox app) they could cement themselves as the PC gaming platform. They already release day-one on Steam, they have expressed intent to make their own game apps more like games available on Steam (no hidden file bullshit) and more open to mods. Acquiring Steam would give them access to a huge userbase and solve their shitty PC distribution issue. Likewise if the acquisition involved basically funneling a ton of cash into Valve and then mostly stepping away Steam could improve as well. Stepping away and running things hands-off would be the key as the second they over-reach the platform will become a ghost town.

That all said I'm not a huge fan of seeing the entire industry turn into a few giants like it is. Eventually one will blot out the sun and everything else will have trouble growing unless the big guy wills it. That's never a good thing.
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Hard to imagine gabe selling the farm like that. It's a cash cow that prints money. But with it getting increasingly more popular than even any current console it's a least not to big of a streatch.

I mentioned it in another thread but ms buying epic would also be huge. They don't have the ip like a bethsda with the huge exception of fortnite of course but getting the engine that powers most games made today? That'd be pretty fucking big.
 
Reallink

Reallink

Member
OmegaSupreme said:
Hard to imagine gabe selling the farm like that. It's a cash cow that prints money. But with it getting increasingly more popular than even any current console it's a least not to big of a streatch.

I mentioned it in another thread but ms buying epic would also be huge. They don't have the ip like a bethsda with the huge exception of fortnite of course but getting the engine that powers most games made today? That'd be pretty fucking big.
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Tencent owns 40% of Epic, they would never sell their interest to Sony.
 
pasterpl

pasterpl

Member
Clear said:
Well, lets be real here. Spending nearly $70b is a huuuuuge move.

And arguably an unnecessary one because certainly based on what's already known did MS really need to do this to shore up their position? I mean there's no way in hell that they'd resort to this sort of expenditure to get over on Sony. Its total overkill.

So. The question becomes, what would spook MS so badly that they'd resort to buying ABK? And bear in mind the conditions of the deal is an all-cash buyout. This isn't for stock, which is pretty unusual. Bear in mind that ABK's net revenue at peak has been around $6.6b per year, so they're looking at 10 years before they even recoup the purchase price, and a decade is a long time in gaming (consider where WoW was then compared to now).
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In 2020 it was just over 8bn so they’re on an upward trajectory
 
Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
SlimySnake said:
Dont see how anything can be bigger than a $70 billion acquisition of the best selling game of the last 13 years.
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Sounds like it’s big news in general. Maybe Nintendo is about to unveil a new console? Switch launched 5 years ago.

Or maybe someone is buying Valve/Steam? Gaben is getting gray.
 
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IDKFA

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
JimRyanGOAT said:
Gamepass coming to Playstation?

Microsoft buys Nintendo ?

Microsoft buys Valve?

GamePass on Steam?

Gamepass on Nintendo?

Microsoft buys Take two?

Microsoft Buys EA?

Cant think of anything bigger except those above
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Yeah, I'm not sure what could be bigger than Microsoft buying Activision for 70bn.

All I can think of is Sony buying some big publishers like Capcom and Square, but I can't see that as being remotely possible and it wouldn't be as big as the Activision deal.

Maybe Sony and Nintendo join up in an alliance and all Nintendo games come to PlayStation and vice versa? That is the only thing I can think of that would trump the Activision news, but it's so unlikely that it might as well be fantasy.

If this rumor is real then I'm honestly stumped as to what it could be.
 
alabtrosMyster

alabtrosMyster

Banned
I say that MS buys both EA and Ubisoft before the end of the week and next week they buy Sega, Square, Capcom and Konami's video games IPs.

After that they get Steam and Epic, but that may take a month or two.
 
The Alien

The Alien

Banned
The only thing that could be bigger is a legit splash by a company trying to break into the market more (Facebook, Amazon, Google).

If they were to make an acquisition like EA, Steam, Nintendo, Sony. All craziness, but that's what I feel it'd have to be to be bigger than MS/Activision.
 
kadab

kadab

Member
supercool-creative-agency-attention.jpg
 
V

vj27

Banned
SF Kosmo said:
Gary was trolling



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Oops, y’all can ignore my last comment I figure it out. I heard foxy games Uk tweet/say this same thing… but he’s kinda of a fanboy, a polite one at least ig, so I’m pretty sure that doesn’t hold any water.
 
EverydayBeast

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Microsoft is the guy who built a beautiful fire pit in their backyard, wants to cook burgers on it but just can’t and every burger turns out into Banjo Nuts and Bolts. The way the Zemimax deal went down the typical train of thought was Microsoft just playing with money.
 
yurinka

yurinka

Member
BattleScar said:
When you consider some of the most played games in existence is COD and Warzone, the argument becomes muddled. Lets not pretend that Activision games are a big system seller for PlayStation in Europe and RoW where Microsoft isn't as strong.
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If half of what each CoD sells in all platforms is on PS (so PS is best selling platform), it means around 10% of PS4 owners buy it. Which means around 90% don't.

BattleScar said:
And my point was, if Microsoft then go and buy EA or TakeTwo or whatever, then it will be a monopoly.
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If they buy them, who knows. But as of now with ABK they won't be a monopoly because they won't even be market leaders. Not in the gaming industry. Not in consoles. Not in mobile. Not in PC. Not in game subscriptions. Not in VR.

BattleScar said:
And even now its this Activision Deal should be brought to antitrust. A $70 Billion dollar acquisition is no fucking joke.
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Yes, all big acquisitions are overviewed by antitrust. But they will pass it, because they are far having a monopoly.

BattleScar said:
Microsoft buying Valve would make the PC market a monopoly.
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In this case, it would be a Monopoly. Steam already has (or almost) a monopoly, as I remember they were estimated to have 80-90% of the PC market. Xbox store + Battle.net + Steam specially if merged would be a monopoly, at least for the west (Asia has their own stores).

They would need to check out Riot + Epic Store + GoG + Itch.io + the Ubi/EA/etc ones but not sure if they are 20% of the total (western) market.

BattleScar said:
Microsoft, as evidenced by this acquisition will have the appetite to essentially murder the existence of competing stores like the EGS and whathaveyou by outbidding for store exclusives. Unlike Valve they won't be quite so passive.
Then we're fucked.
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I think the most wanted acquisition at MS now is Valve. To get their VR, portable PC and specially their PC store to get monopoly (or almost) on PC.

BattleScar said:
Sony doesn't have the money to do anything about this. They can spin up a bunch of studios and build up new franchises and game series, but that will take time. Microsoft has basically bought an entire audience with their purchase, and there is nobody else in this industry that can compete with that.
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MS gaming division will continue having less revenue than the Sony one after the acquisition, but now will be close. It's MS who needed to spend $70B to compete with them, not Sony.

Sony will continue clearly dominating them on console and subscriptions at least for a while, and will continue growing, also in other different areas not being affected by MS like mobile, PC, movies or VR.

So Sony will continue growing without needing huge acquisitions, but making instead small acquisitions to make some tweaks here are there or support their existing teams here or there. Or to secure partners who already were working on exclusives. I don't see them acquiring a huge publisher or needing it.
 
Bragr

Bragr

Banned
He wrote an obvious joke tweet, you guys discussed it for 10 pages, then he says it was a joke, and you guys are STILL discussing. Fucking hell.
 
OmegaSupreme

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
GigaBowser said:
Nintendo should allow Gamepass on Switch.

It's not like they get third party support anyway.
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That would require a lot of games to run at specs they weren't designed for. Not remotely realistic. Streaming I suppose but Nintendo has already laughed in ms's face when they tried to buy them years ago.
 
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JimRyanGOAT

JimRyanGOAT

Member
Andodalf said:
Lmao why? It was clearly a joke as everyone with a brain said from the very beginning. Don't get mad that you can't understand a simple joke, even after it's been explained.
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You gotta be brain dead to think im mad about this

Im just asking for mods to edit the thread because most people are still discussing what this really is
 
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Jose92

Jose92

[Membe
Hawking Radiation said:
Always amazes me how twitter trolls and fake insiders always get an audience here on GAF and the threads staying open despite the tweet being obvious BS.
Click to expand...
We don't have to take everything in life literally. Sometimes it is healthy to engage in light hearted discussion in such threads.
 
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