Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion [FTC sues to stop - CMA issues updated preliminary findings]

[Stargazer2600]

Bethesda and now Activision. Getting harder and harder to consider a PS5 when Microsoft is getting all the exclusives and Sony is letting them do it.

 

You cant survive on God of war and last of us alone

[Xenoblast91]

20 minutes ago, Stargazer2600 said:

Bethesda and now Activision. Getting harder and harder to consider a PS5 when Microsoft is getting all the exclusives and Sony is letting them do it.

 

You cant survive on God of war and last of us alone

 

 

Plus they are giving them away to PC, and playing them with a Xbox controller...

 

Nintendo is inmune to all this because, you remember the Wii? Yeah, exactly. Nintendo has done his target audience completely outside of hardcore gaming for so long that they don't strive for the battle between all this passive agressive tactics, and because they do everything by themselves. So well, unless you're super Western (specifically an American), you'll see this a huge disappointment and something even alien for your tastes. 

 

I agree that this can be a kill of for videogames, so I think we reach that end sooner that we must've thought for years back.

 

We're also loosing the sight of what all this means: MS doesn't care about console competition anymore. That's our bias; they are into the streaming service as Amazon/Google/Steam makes all this, they consider them their biggest threats. We aren't going to lose those games, but likely to close the road for all those digital platforms in first place.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Xenoblast91

[J2VLegacy]

That is huge and Microsoft isn’t playing around. 

[Quink666]

Almost 70 billions spent and I still don’t want to buy an Xbox. Everything I play from blizzard I play on PC. 
 

Nothing of value lost and it’s all but been confirmed that CoD will remain on PlayStation, so need to worry for the people who buy it every year. 
 

Gamepass will get even more bang for its buck

though. Hopefully “Spartacus” will release soon and have FULL backwards compatibility so you can stream/buy PS2/3 games. 

[CatHasTrophies]

I had a very short daydream a few minutes ago. Imagine, rich people like Gates would spend this huge amount of money to set a message. Buying Activision Blizzard, just to start a huge investigation in this awful case, destroy the life of everyone involved by spreading all facts in public, give the important jobs to better people (like the old Blizzard ones) to give all the victims some kind of revenge and to give the gaming community the chance to get their quality content back. Just to destroy these dickheads and clear shit up. Not just for more money again... for something bigger instead...

 

God. This world could be so beautiful if it was about making others happy.

Edited January 18, 2022 by I-CatHasTrophy-I

[AJ_-_808]

22 minutes ago, Stargazer2600 said:

... and Sony is letting them do it.

 

Because Sony can control what company that is not Sony agrees to with other company that is not Sony?

What exactly do you expect them to do?

 

Sony doesn't have the riskable capital to make a huge acquisition like that.

 

Lawsuit may be, but probably isn't an option yet

 

Nobody really saw this (or the Bethesda purchase) coming.  Sony has good history with Square, maybe they'll respond with a bid for that.  Maybe they'll do like last time and acquire a couple more smaller but sensible studios they work with regularly.

 

Regardless, there isn't much they can buy to compare to if CoD were to go exclusive. No denying it's a huge amount if sales, and MS might do it just to starve out the PS player base.

[Yuuria_]

15 minutes ago, Stargazer2600 said:

Bethesda and now Activision. Getting harder and harder to consider a PS5 when Microsoft is getting all the exclusives and Sony is letting them do it.

 

I can agree with Sony offerings being less and less palatable the more Microsoft takes third party products away but what is Sony supposed to do? When competing against one of the 3 richest companies in the world in a bidding war you can only slighly increase buyout price, if at all, and nothing else. 

If Sony, or even Nintendo to a much lesser extent, had the money to make major multi-billion moves like this they probably would but they don't have the means to do so and that's why their respective strategies have always been centered around being on the lookout for and nurturing small studios to make something of them. 

The Xbox division knows that no one can compete with them in terms of investment capital and that's why they can get away with not having in-house built studios.

All Sony can try to do to offer a more inviting experience in focusing more on the betterment of the services they offer and the customer experience.

[AJ_-_808]

14 minutes ago, Quink666 said:

it’s all but been confirmed that CoD will remain on PlayStation, so need to worry for the people who buy it every year. 

 

That's the same thing they said about Fallout and Elder Scrolls, and look at the reversal afterward.  Nothing is confirmed until it's on store shelves

[Ghost-Zeus514]

thats a shit Ton Of money

[kidson2004]

Update: Bobby Kotick will be stepping down once the deal is complete

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-to-buy-activision-blizzard-games-11642512435

[Abby_TheLastofUs]

At least something good is coming out of this.

 

 

[Doomsdayman]

EXPECTED, doesn't mean that he will. Still let's keep our fingers crossed.

[darkrequiem7]

This is depressing. It's one thing to gobble up a bunch of small independent studios, but with Bethesda and AB, they're buying large publishers of multiple studios and the 3rd party space is shrinking drastically. If EA, Square, Ubisoft, Take Two, Epic Games and Embracer Group went up for sale MS would probably try to buy them all.

 

Hopefully new companies can rise up to replace the lost multiplatform titles with new franchises. Then they'll get bought out too, I suppose.

7 minutes ago, AJ_-_808 said:

 

That's the same thing they said about Fallout and Elder Scrolls, and look at the reversal afterward.  Nothing is confirmed until it's on store shelves

I think Pete Hines said he "hoped" their games would remain multiplatform but I don't think MS ever did.

[peffsi]

Fuck microsoft for this. Not that I care about any of Activision's games (I liked Spyro but they weren't going to make more of those, and I played Diablo but I'm not a huge fan of it). But this is just a bad thing for the industry. Bethesda was already bad, this is 100x worse. If COD doesn't come to PlayStation, that's a potential loss of hundreds of millions, if not billions. The only way I could see COD coming back to PS is if the PS crowd doesn't migrate en masse to Xbox/PC.

 

[OpenScars]

I just hope they don't make stuff exclusive. Or atleast give us Forza, you bar-stewards!

[Chewbacca]

That is a crazy mount of money!

[communistwookiee]

Phil Spencer always seemed like a spoiled rich kid who talks out of both sides of his mouth. Sure, maybe all of the toxic shit will end, and that's good, but nothing else good is gonna come out of this. Nobody should be cheering for this. Nobody should want this. Third-parties exist for a reason. This deal benefits no one except for the shareholders.

[Alayaes]

The amount of armchair business executives and economics masters in these threads are always hilarious.

[AJ_-_808]

16 minutes ago, darkrequiem7 said:

 

I think Pete Hines said he "hoped" their games would remain multiplatform but I don't think MS ever did.

 

Fairly certain I saw tweets from Phil assuring the biggest games would remain multi platform.  Shortly afterward, they announced elder scrolls exclusive 

[JusttJD]

56 minutes ago, Stargazer2600 said:

Bethesda and now Activision. Getting harder and harder to consider a PS5 when Microsoft is getting all the exclusives and Sony is letting them do it.

 

You cant survive on God of war and last of us alone

This has actually pushed me more over the edge to buy a PS5.

 

Sure, the game-pass will have an amazing support and is so much worth your money more than PS Plus.

But for me, playstation has something that Xbox will never have, and that are memories.

From playing on the Playstation 1 in 1996, to now hopefully buying a PS5 very soon and everything in between.

 

And even if those IP's will go Exclusive, even if they buy up even more companies.
Other companies will take their place, sooner or later.

 

During the PS3 life cycle, there was a rough patch where people thought that Microsoft would eclipse Sony.

And we all know what happened after that.

Now everyone is worried again that Microsoft is going to eclipse Sony again, well... let's just wait a couple years and see how the numbers are then.

 

 

[ASMODAIOS344]

3 hours ago, arcanehornet_ said:

This. We have to remember, Microsoft makes computers, phones, Windows, and of course Xbox among a lot more.

Sony pretty much just has PlayStation and TVs at the moment.

 

SIE is only one of the many Sony groups, beside the Playstation and the Bravia TV you many other consumer products. Sounds systems, optic systems like sencors and lences for cameras and phones, their two biggest groups Sony Music which own Spotify among other Sony film and television production, services like Discord and media companys like Funimation and Crunchyroll. Recently they also create a new SIE division Playstation Productions which will adapt Playstation IP into films and TV series( Uncharted film and The Lat of Us tv series are the first).

[jgm4789]

The difference between elder scrolls and call of duty is that call of duty is in the juggernaut tier where only maybe 1% of ips take place in(like literally only mario, pokemon, minecraft and a few others could possibly claim to be in), and because of its focus on multiplayer and warzone pulling it off of playstation platforms would be disastrous for the ip(which is why minecraft is still on everything) because its already too ingraned into the sony ecosystem to not damage the brand if they have the balls to do it. Elder scrolls dispite being quite huge in itself is nowhere near that size(id say it occupies the space occupied by assasins creed, final fantasy or battlefeild in terms of hugeness where they are only the 5-10% tier) so making es6 exclusive is a much more understandable move as skyrim obviously doesn't potentially generate as much revenue as elder scrolls online(which is monitized to hell and back unlike skyrim which has a finite amount of dlc and will be getting future expansions on sony platforms).

[ASMODAIOS344]

It's a very big deal, i wonder how the legal issues that Activision face now will affect the deal along the Anti-Trust cases. COD will be the first big hit that Sony will face as many casuals buy that but their safe till the end of 2023 as the deals they have with Activision must honored. I don't know the how the legal system work in the USA and if they have tools against monopoly but it seems Microsoft follow Disney as to whom will buy more market share.

Edited January 18, 2022 by ASMODAIOS344

[duncanmcleod]

Everyone here seems to think that the CoD licence in its entirety will become Xbox/PC exclusive. Microsoft could very well keep Warzone on PlayStation, make money with its micro transactions, and on the other hand offer yearly solo campaigns (MW2, Cold War 2) and Zombie mode as exclusives, launching with Game Pass. It would be the best way for them to maximize profits without compromising the CoD brand. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by duncanmcleod

[MidnightDragon]

Make of this what you will.

 

Could be they just honor past commitments like with Bethesda, but new stuff under the XBox banner only.