Seriously. "MS is just being monopolistic" is a funny take when the whole point to Sony's opposition to the acquisition is to get the government to protect their position of market dominance while simultaneously throwing around cash and using their weight as head honcho of console video games to prevent developers from doing business with the competition.
Microsoft are being monopolistic and their desire to continue with M&A well after this deal closes is more evidence of that. Either you're not seeing the truth or you don't want too. The only thing making it look less obvious than it is, is the fact that Meta, Google and others are doing the same. Albeit, nowhere near the same degree.
Let's look at it from this perspective.
Not including the $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang in 2013, since 2014 Microsoft have acquired Compulsion Games, inXile Entertainment, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Playground Games, Undead Labs, Double Fine Productions, Alpha Dog Games, Arkane Studios, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, MachineGames, Roundhouse Studios, Tango Gameworks, ZeniMax Online Studios.
This is about to grow to include Activision Shanghai, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends Entertainment, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Solid State Studios, Toys for Bob, Treyarch, all 5 development studios within Blizzard and the 11 studios owned by King.
Then include all their IP rights and publishing rights, their employees after lay offs so that you only look at retained staff and that growth is fucking huge.
Say what you want about Sony's acquisition strategy but before they retaliated to Microsoft snapping up studios, Sony, with the exception of Psygnosis when they were starting PlayStation under Sony Music and needed developers have made relatively few acquisitions. Their effects have never really been felt because with the odd exception such as Insomniac, their games have all been exclusive within the PlayStation eco-system. Acquiring Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch or Bluepoint for example, didn't take huge intellectual properties out of the greater gaming market. They only ever bought one publisher before Bungie and that was Psygnosis in 1993. Sony's acquisitions honestly are meagre in comparison and Microsoft are clearly playing down the importance of a Call of Duty. It's not the first time Sony have gone to great lengths to get a deal and then Microsoft have ended up owning the content. Jokes on you Sony for advertising our products Deathloop and GhostWire Tokyo. Not to mention that Microsoft wouldn't allow cross play on their platform unless Sony agreed to terms that effectively meant PlayStation could be an advertising tool for Microsoft services. The acquisitions that Sony made never really disrupted the market, Nintendo don't even come into the equation.
Honestly if Microsoft acquire Embracer then the market situation will be 100% completely fucked. I genuinely believe the only reason Square sold those companies and IP to Embracer is because they didn't want them to become exclusive to any one platform and they didn't want the parent company to be acquired by a console manufacturer. Embracer have no desire to sell up and they fit their mold perfectly.
Either way it's not a healthy market and it's being dished up by the second. The amount of third party developers has drastically decreased generation by generation due to rising costs of development and acquisitions all round. Honestly I'd rather Microsoft and Sony hadn't made some of their moves up to this day with acquisitions. But, such is life eh?
Complaining to regulators because MS is buying a publisher that will remain multiplatform? I mean its essentially a marketing advantage only if the games are still coming to PlayStation.
In the near future. This is a company policy and it isn't embedded in law. At any time in the future Microsoft can remove their properties from all platforms they so choose. There is no guarantee or legal reason to force them to be multiplatform.
I remember a time not so long ago that people seem to have forgotten when Microsoft was market leader with the XBOX 360 and they made many a douchebag moves and arrogance was the odor of their offices.
There is every possibility that if market dominance is within reach, Microsoft would start to remove all their IP from Sony platforms. This would include Diablo, Doom, Wolfenstein, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Call of Duty, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, MineCraft and many more. This list is going to continue to grow as Microsoft effectively buy more studios, publishers and properties. Please do not think for a single second that
just because they are saying that now,
that it won't change in the future.
et it be known for what it is, buying success. XBOX is not a massively profitable venture for Microsoft. In 2021 it was responsible for less than 10% of net profit across the company. They make no money on hardware as shown in the Apple vs Epic case
and most likely never have - with the closest being the XBOX 360 era. However Microsoft saw massive amounts of profit lost in the Red Ring of Death battle against early consoles which let to a gigantic surge in R&D costs as well as write offs for anything classed as B.E.R. GamePass drives revenue but not profit and with the money Microsoft are losing on that service and are pumping into it, it's purely to buy success and love for gamers and clearly,
it's working.
The last time I remember anyone being this positive about XBOX and Microsoft owning this much mind share in the console market was post 2005, pre 2013. But when you make 60 billion in profit a year, you can afford to lose money. They'll also likely recover the whole acquisition cost of Activision with a year. Also, Microsoft are being very dishonest about this whole situation. I mean you don't pay $70 billion dollars for a company that doesn't make something consumers
must have. Equally they're playing down the brand strength and the performance of Call of Duty financially and how important it is in the overall market. Plus with the rapid growth of Microsoft via in-organic strategies, mainly fueled by M&A, I'm majorly surprised that they haven't been reprimanded for monopolisation. I don't think they're accurately reflecting their share of market space within the games industry or just how big it will be after completely absorbing ABK and Bethesda (assuming Bethesda isn't fully integrated).
If MS completes the merger, someone can walk into a store with $250-$300 and go home with a console that'll play next-gen COD right out of the box.
Right now, yes. In the future, probably not.
Honestly, people who think Microsoft are going to keep all this Bethesda/ABK content multiplatform for the rest of time are deluded.
