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[FoxMcChief]

What a wonderful gift for me on my birthday. It’s like the universe just knew what to get me.

 

[NEbeast]

I guarantee by this time next year the xbox fanboys cheering this on are going to start regretting it. Once MS has you by the balls they are going to start twisting, and there will fuck all you can do about it.
It will reach a point where gamepass is the equivalent to buying several Day One releases a year and for most people they won't be 'saving' money. This isn't about saving you money, this is about getting you into the subscription then slowly milking you.
Good luck.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Let's see some games now.

 

[Varteras]

Let's see some games now.

 

[Heisenberg007]

What a wonderful gift for me on my birthday. It’s like the universe just knew what to get me.

Why is one multi-billion corporation buying another multi-billion corporation a gift for you?

 

[FoxMcChief]

Why is one multi-billion corporation buying another multi-billion corporation a gift for you?

You’re right. It’s a gift to all gamers.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Congrats to Microsoft. They really did demonstrate that regulators can't touch them.

Hopefully PlayStation's price hikes to offset the new risks on $2b of their yearly income feels invisible to us gamers, and all those wanting to use ATVI games on gamepass get their fill before the service price gets ramped up, or Microsoft pull the plug on Gamepass - if their numbers claim leak is true.

Maybe a silver lining might be that if this massive deal fails to move the needle it would finally illustrate to Microsoft their entire xbox management culture from OG xbox and parent company ambitions are incongruent with the creative organic rockstar-esq culture that leads everyone else to widespread admiration and market success in gaming, leading Microsoft - and anyone else following in their footsteps - to embrace doing game development in the organic way, without blowing $70b on big publishers. Or finally results in Xbox giving way to someone better taking the 2nd/3rd console seat.

 

[chilichote]

Saddest day in gaming. It's all downhill from here.

 

[Forsythia]

I honestly expected the deal to fail at the last minute. Oh well, here we are.

 

[Dick Jones]

We can now welcome Apple, Amazon, the House of Mouse and Google into the fight for publisher acquisitions. If a trillion dollar company with a console platform can make a 70bn purchase, then it stands to reason that similar companies with no traditional console footprint can make these acquisitions a few times over without any fear of regulators. Hurray for Xbox with a purchase that could possibly put them 4th in a current 3 horse race. #letthemcompete

 

[Gudji]

AB about to get even more fucked confirmed.

 

[Heisenberg007]

You’re right. It’s a gift to all gamers.

No, maybe only to those who suck up to and cheer for billion $$ corporations

 

[//DEVIL//]

Congrats to Xbox fans
Hard luck to PlayStation fans

Hope MS utilize this effectively as this can be their turning point.

Hope Sony stops being arrogant and more consumer friendly and more fierce in investing in studios or pubs if they ever want to do anything more than just repeateting 4 games over and over.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

We can now welcome Apple, Amazon, the House of Mouse and Google into the fight for publisher acquisitions. If a trillion dollar company with a console platform can make a 70bn purchase, then it stands to reason that similar companies with no traditional console footprint can make these acquisitions a few times over without any fear of regulators. Hurray for Xbox with a purchase that could possibly put them 4th in a current 3 horse race. #letthemcompete

If Apple ends up acquiring Sony or something, Microsoft is going to quickly find out their attempt to buy out the industry completely backfired. No one can fuck with Apple, not even Microsoft. FAFO Phil Spender

 

[Lupin25]

Congrats to Xbox fans
Hard luck to PlayStation fans

Hope MS utilize this effectively as this can be their turning point.

Hope Sony stops being arrogant and more consumer friendly and more fierce in investing in studios or pubs if they ever want to do anything more than just repeateting 4 games over and over.

 

[mansoor1980]

 

[Orbital2060]

 

[reksveks]

If Apple ends up acquiring Sony or something, Microsoft is going to quickly find out their attempt to buy out the industry completely backfired. No one can fuck with Apple, not even Microsoft. FAFO Phil Spender

Think that US/Foreign companies can't easily buy Sony cause of the security concerns

 

[L*][*N*K]

I guarantee by this time next year the xbox fanboys cheering this on are going to start regretting it. Once MS has you by the balls they are going to start twisting, and there will fuck all you can do about it.
It will reach a point where gamepass is the equivalent to buying several Day One releases a year and for most people they won't be 'saving' money. This isn't about saving you money, this is about getting you into the subscription then slowly milking you.
Good luck.

STICK IT TO THE MAN MY BROTHER

 

[RaZoR No1]

ABK will give Xbox 2 billion dollars in pure profit each year and 10 billion dollars in cash on hand. For the short term Xbox gains alot.

How does that work?
So they are just paying 60 billion dollars in the end, because ABK brings money in cash back already?

And it is really finally over? What about the FTC case?
If it is really over now .... Wow, this was definitely a long battle.

Next stop is next Wednesday

 

[Ozriel]

Well they seem to have glossed over all the other tools MS has to manipulate that market. Has anyone ever had it in writing what MS would charge to ensure their ActiBliz games can appear on non-windows platforms? Has (or will there be) any regulation into Windows license cost manipulation for cloud 'competitors'?

Part of the agreement reached with CMA on the Ubisoft agreement includes support for emulation via Proton and Ubisoft paying MS market rates to port titles to other, non MS platforms.

Seriously, you people need to read more.

I guarantee by this time next year the xbox fanboys cheering this on are going to start regretting it. Once MS has you by the balls they are going to start twisting, and there will fuck all you can do about it.
It will reach a point where gamepass is the equivalent to buying several Day One releases a year and for most people they won't be 'saving' money. This isn't about saving you money, this is about getting you into the subscription then slowly milking you.

This makes zero sense.
Nobody is trapped into a GP subscription. If you’re already locked in with a long term subscription, price increases don’t impact you. If you’re not and the economics changes to be unfavorable, you can always leave and buy your games at retail.

Not to mention the fact that Gamepass already costs the same as several Day One releases (GP annual price exceeds $140).

 

[Jibran#one]

Imagine now Phil starts buying Nintendo I would love to see this thread continuing alot of analysts would suicide here

 

[L*][*N*K]

Some of you are crying like babies right now, it is really embarrassing man Sony will be perfectly fine nothing is going to happen to them.

I wish Activistion bought Bungie back in the day and they become ABBK, that would gave been more fun, everything coming full circle.

 

[supernova8]

Some of you are crying like babies right now, it is really embarrassing man Sony will be perfectly fine nothing is going to happen to them.

I wish Activistion bought Bungie back in the day and they become ABBK, that would gave been more fun, everything coming full circle.

I still stand by my view that Microsoft doesn't "deserve" to buy ActiBliz (given their poor track record in terms of putting out actual bangers as opposed to "eh decent but not unremarkable" titles), personally don't trust Microsoft not to completely fuck up it all up post-merger.

But it's over now so hopefully them buying ActiBliz means Sony has to go from "arrogant smirk" mode to "fuck it all hands on deck mode" and then at least we all win in a way.

 

[Dick Jones]

Think that US/Foreign companies can't easily buy Sony cause of the security concerns

Did you not read the article on how the Japanese should allow American businesses (cough MS career moments cough) buy Nintendo? A few puff pieces will do the job

 

[Rien]

Finally it's done, well done Microsoft. Looking forward to more low quality games and inevitable price hikes on Game Pass

FTFY

 

[PaintTinJr]

We can now welcome Apple, Amazon, the House of Mouse and Google into the fight for publisher acquisitions. If a trillion dollar company with a console platform can make a 70bn purchase, then it stands to reason that similar companies with no traditional console footprint can make these acquisitions a few times over without any fear of regulators. Hurray for Xbox with a purchase that could possibly put them 4th in a current 3 horse race. #letthemcompete

Yeah, something like that or I could imagine that for the first time in nearly 30 year, Sony and Nintendo might be prepared to work together, similar to the way Nintendo and Sega work together on an Olympics game.

 

[End Time]

 

[Godot25]

I would honestly be very surprised if COD MW3 is offered on gamepass day 1

Modern Warfare 3 can't go into Game Pass Day 1 even if Microsoft wanted to do it.
Because Sony has marketing rights for that game and those rights literally forbids Microsoft from putting that game into Game Pass.
I don't expect Modern Warfare 3 in Game Pass until 2024 when new COD will come out.

But as far as I know, Modern Warfare 3 is last COD game under Sony's marketing agreement.

But Microsoft should be free to add every older COD game into Game Pass.

 

[adamsapple]

Gentlemen it is my privilege to announce that the UK is open for business again.

 

[PaintTinJr]

The real win for Microsoft is that many of the important employees that would have jumped ship after the merger and contract allowed, are now looking at a depressed industry employment market, with many other developers having been already laid off, so Microsoft will probably have at least 2years before any sizeable amount of talent decides to walk, although by that time corporate forced redundancy policies at Microsoft will probably already have them wrongly show 10% the door before that.

 

[Dick Jones]

Yeah, something like that or I could imagine that for the first time in nearly 30 year, Sony and Nintendo might be prepared to work together, similar to the way Nintendo and Sega work together on an Olympics game.

The only way Nintendo and Sony will work together is if when they merge, the name of the merger is called Nintendo, the management structure remains Nintendo and Nintendo have final say in all matters.

I'd prefer a mutual benefit idea where they protect Japanese publishers from outside interference by lobbying the Japanese politicians (it works both ways) that the big third party publishers go on the list of protected companies or agree a pact to own enough shares that would allow the companies operate independently but not benefit either Sony or Nintendo to the cost of the other.

 

[Mephisto40]

Modern Warfare 3 can't go into Game Pass Day 1 even if Microsoft wanted to do it.
Because Sony has marketing rights for that game and those rights literally forbids Microsoft from putting that game into Game Pass.
I don't expect Modern Warfare 3 in Game Pass until 2024 when new COD will come out.

But as far as I know, Modern Warfare 3 is last COD game under Sony's marketing agreement.

But Microsoft should be free to add every older COD game into Game Pass.

And I've got a feeling they won't and will instead charge people a fee on top of their gamepass subscription to play it day 1

They've got to re coup the money they have spent on this deal somehow, it's ether going to be an extra fee or gamepass subscriptions are about to get a whole lot more expensive

 

[GHG]

UK Clears Microsoft’s $69 Billion Activision Deal: The London Rush

Your morning roundup of key UK business news

www.bloomberg.com

It's over. Unlike most of GAF, I can just move to my phone games, I no longer care what happens to consoles.

 

[draliko]

And I've got a feeling they won't and will instead charge people a fee on top of their gamepass subscription to play it day 1

They've got to re coup the money they have spent on this deal somehow, it's ether going to be an extra fee or gamepass subscriptions are about to get a whole lot more expensive

They don't really have spent money, they invested money and have staff, assets, ip, real estate for 70bn... They don't need to re coup it, it's better invested that sitting in a bank...

 

[Mephisto40]

They don't really have spent money, they invested money and have staff, assets, ip, real estate for 70bn... They don't need to re coup it, it's better invested that sitting in a bank...

Microsoft are not going to pump billions into a project and not expect anything back in return

 

[Heisenberg007]

Congrats to Xbox fans
Hard luck to PlayStation fans

Hope MS utilize this effectively as this can be their turning point.

Hope Sony stops being arrogant and more consumer friendly and more fierce in investing in studios or pubs if they ever want to do anything more than just repeateting 4 games over and over.

Nothing was really lost by Sony or PlayStation or fans. COD will continue to be on PlayStation as per their recent deal. I don't think anything else, especially in the near-to-mid-future lineup, is even remotely big enough to change the balance.

 

[Team Andromeda]

We can now welcome Apple, Amazon, the House of Mouse and Google into the fight for publisher acquisitions. If a trillion dollar company with a console platform can make a 70bn purchase, then it stands to reason that similar companies with no traditional console footprint can make these acquisitions a few times over without any fear of regulators. Hurray for Xbox with a purchase that could possibly put them 4th in a current 3 horse race. #letthemcompete

Apple did help make a console with Bandai. SONY had no issues buying films studios with out any traditional film making experience or out spending SEGA or Nintendo in the console market and buying studios or publishers ..

What goes around comes around .

 

[Heisenberg007]

They don't really have spent money, they invested money and have staff, assets, ip, real estate for 70bn... They don't need to re coup it, it's better invested that sitting in a bank...

Making games is a risky business.

Money sitting in the bank guarantees a profit. That money could also be spent on other more profitable ventures, e.g., Cloud or AI.

Games, on the other hand, do not guarantee profit. Look at Redfall. Microsoft bought that game and studio and that must have cost Xbox a fortune in losses. Seems like Forza and Starfield will share the same fate.

So it's necessarily better invested than sitting in a bank. Or, better invested in gaming either.

 

[Fabieter]

So biggest cooperation can do what the fuck they want confirmed anyone cheering for that is weird and will regret it one day when companys like ms will literally own us.

 

[Dick Jones]

Apple did help make a console with Bandai. SONY had no issues buying films studios with out any traditional film making experience or out spending SEGA or Nintendo in the console market and buying studios or publishers ..

What goes around comes around .

I've read some poor takes here but have you ever tried rereading your posts before finally hitting post reply?

 

[draliko]

Making games is a risky business.

Money sitting in the bank guarantees a profit. That money could also be spent on other more profitable ventures, e.g., Cloud or AI.

Games, on the other hand, do not guarantee profit. Look at Redfall. Microsoft bought that game and studio and that must have cost Xbox a fortune in losses. Seems like Forza and Starfield will share the same fate.

So it's necessarily better invested than sitting in a bank. Or, better invested in gaming either.

Money in a bank doesn't get interest when it's in the billion range, you pay to keep the money there not the other way. They now have staffs, IP, real estate, technology and a big entry point in mobile market, king will keep making billions, same for cod, except us nobody cares who buys who in the real world. The casual cod fans doesn't know who's behind the game, let alone who owns the developer or the IP, cod is simply cod. Gaming is risky as any other investment, and let's not forget even if everything goes really bad it will not change ms future... They're safe even if they lost those 70bn on the way to the beach

 

[adamsapple]

Let's raise a pint for those we lost along the way. Senju, feynoob, ass of can whooping, Banjos cum reservoir, we did it.

 

[Little Chicken]

Now Microsoft has the only potential genuine competitor to Mario Kart in Crash Team Racing (apart from the incredible Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed which is old as shit now).

I hope they develop another but expand to include MS IPs.

 

[Topher]

Now Microsoft has the only potential genuine competitor to Mario Kart in Crash Team Racing

 

[Ozriel]

We can now welcome Apple, Amazon, the House of Mouse and Google into the fight for publisher acquisitions. If a trillion dollar company with a console platform can make a 70bn purchase, then it stands to reason that similar companies with no traditional console footprint can make these acquisitions a few times over without any fear of regulators. Hurray for Xbox with a purchase that could possibly put them 4th in a current 3 horse race. #letthemcompete

Absolutely strange that you think this ‘opened the floodgates’ for something that was always possible.

Amazon, Google, Apple etc could have acquired publishers years ago, at their leisure. Tencent’s been on this path for a while. This doesn’t change the picture for any of them.

It’s really unlikely any new player sells enough consoles to catch up to any of the three.

Making games is a risky business.

Money sitting in the bank guarantees a profit. That money could also be spent on other more profitable ventures, e.g., Cloud or AI.

Games, on the other hand, do not guarantee profit. Look at Redfall. Microsoft bought that game and studio and that must have cost Xbox a fortune in losses. Seems like Forza and Starfield will share the same fate.

So it's necessarily better invested than sitting in a bank. Or, better invested in gaming either.

AI/Cloud investments are still risky, and Activision has long since been run as a very profitable entity.

It’s hard to square your earlier arguments about this deal being about ‘monopoly’ to this pivot that the deal is a bad one that will drive MS down

 

[RGB'D]

Absolutely strange that you think this ‘opened the floodgates’ for something that was always possible.

Amazon, Google, Apple etc could have acquired publishers years ago, at their leisure. Tencent’s been on this path for a while. This doesn’t change the picture for any of them.

It’s really unlikely any new player sells enough consoles to catch up to any of the three.



AI/Cloud investments are still risky, and Activision has long since been run as a very profitable entity.

It’s hard to square your earlier arguments about this deal being about ‘monopoly’ to this pivot that the deal is a bad one that will drive MS down

Buuut MS is bad so these points all make sense even if the logic doesn't hold up.... /s

 

[Thirty7ven]

It’s clearly an anti competitive, monopolistic style move in the industry, one that follows previous ones from MS, and we should all congratulate them and their fans and I believe years down the line most people will look back and say you know what, thank you MS.

 

[midnightAI]

If Apple ends up acquiring Sony or something, Microsoft is going to quickly find out their attempt to buy out the industry completely backfired. No one can fuck with Apple, not even Microsoft. FAFO Phil Spender

Now THAT would be the worst thing to happen in gaming, can you just imagine the PS6 being $3000 and then you'd have to buy a controller separately for $500, oh, and a $1000 stand, it would have good specs though and look very pretty (actually, scratch that if the Pippin was anything to go off)

 

[ArtHands]

Nothing was really lost by Sony or PlayStation or fans. COD will continue to be on PlayStation as per their recent deal. I don't think anything else, especially in the near-to-mid-future lineup, is even remotely big enough to change the balance.

Exactly. Which is why it is fine that Microsoft acquire Activision Blizzard. Nothing’s going to change