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

[xh117]

AB on a decline anyway but this is a huge blow to Sony. I doubt they will make COD exclusive because that will damage the brand and will make room for another big multiplat fps to take its place. Hopefully this pushes Sony to make Spartacus better because we haven't had any big ps5 news to really get excited for yet, just rumors.

[Ac3dUd3-]

Knowing how Microsoft eats companies which they have been doing for the past 40 years doesn't concern me as I don't care about Activision or Blizzard or most of their IP. It is concerning that a large independent publisher is being eaten to pave the way for more monopolization which is never a good thing, though I do think M$ will help AB in the long run. M$ only knows how to buy talent they can not create in house as we can see from looking at their history.

 

I am however saddened by Spyro and Crash, they are both Sony mascots so I wonder if M$ will allow them to buy them back. 

 

I don't think we would have seen Crash anytime soon regardless as Crash 4 just came out, I would have liked to have seen a Spyro 4 especially after the remaster success. 

 

I enjoy CoD as much as the next guy but i absolutely refuse to support their ridiculous install sizes so i've not played a CoD game for several years.

[Pray_4_the_End]

If Microsoft does end up making COD Xbox/PC exclusive in the coming years maybe it'll give Sony enough of an incentive to try and bring back Killzone & Resistance!

 

I know Guerrilla has been busy with Horizon and Insomniac with Spider-man/Wolverine, but I'd really like to see both studios give the multiplayer fps genre another shot. They've both seemingly only gotten better over time as devs so now should be the time to put those chops to the test and bring these dope fps franchises back imo. 

[cometowner]

6 hours ago, RadiantFlamberge said:

The thought of that just makes me shudder. It's almost like a twisted game of Pac-Man from hell. Picture Microsoft gobbling up all these game companies like little dots... oh wait a moment, I'd rather not. I'd almost bet on another USA vs Microsoft Corp. antitrust lawsuit happening in the near future.

 

TBQH, I'd rather have seen Warner Bros. buy out Activision. But anyway... should Sony lose CoD as a result of this, hopefully they can come out with a new franchise to rival it. I feel that the CoD installments are a little too similar to each other, with few exceptions. I like how Black Ops III changes things up by giving you some special powers.

Sony has two IPS that could counter call of duty Microsoft exclusivity if one day it happens. Killzone which I think won't see the light till the end of the current generation considering the studio is busy with the successful horizon game and Resistance which I also believe is out the radar of insomniac.

 

Sony won't be gaint multi-studio companies like Bethesda or Activision. They hunting for independent studios with high potential which is, in my opinion, a better approach for the gaming industry. 

 

Microsoft gaming division is known for being behind Sony and Nintendo in addition the hardware sale is not doing well. their strategy is now "If you cannot make it, they own it"  

[Ac3dUd3-]

18 minutes ago, cometowner said:

Sony has two IPS that could counter call of duty Microsoft exclusivity if one day it happens. Killzone which I think won't see the light till the end of the current generation considering the studio is busy with the successful horizon game and Resistance which I also believe is out the radar of insomniac.

 

Sony won't be gaint multi-studio companies like Bethesda or Activision. They hunting for independent studios with high potential which is, in my opinion, a better approach for the gaming industry. 

 

Microsoft gaming division is known for being behind Sony and Nintendo in addition the hardware sale is not doing well. their strategy is now "If you cannot make it, they own it"  

 

ehhh I think the ship has sailed on Killzone mate, it was never big to begin with. it has just gone the whole PS4 era with nothing, plus the now dead website. I dont see it coming back.

 

Resistance has always been more popular and Insomniac has been teasing artwork for like the past 18 months.

 

Asd for M$, their mantra has always been "I can't make it so i'll buy the competition and then make the product worse over the next 5 years" See Skype for an example. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Ac3dUd3-

[AJ_-_808]

2 hours ago, W0ndrful101 said:

I always hated this exclusivity crap (To make it obvious, I dislike sony having exclusives as well)

 

Sony, MS and Nintendo are platform holders.  Why would they go through the trouble of developing an IP and then let their competitors benefit from it?  You're basically scolding them for creating something to help their business profit.

 

There's nothing wrong with developing their own games and locking them to their platform.  It's a totally different story to buy out established multiplatform developers and then making them console exclusive.

[Darling Baphomet]

Ironically enough, at the start of this generation I was worried about Sony becoming complacent, since Microsoft had utterly botched the last generation. While I did want Sony to be kept on its toes, this is perhaps a bit excessive.

 

Anyway, it seems like Microsoft isn't going to be pulling support for AB's current Playstation offerings, much like how our Minecraft edition has continued to be updated. Not great news, though. As others have said, Spyro and Crash are quite valuable franchises to us, but I doubt they have the capital behind them to incentivize Microsoft to keep them on PS, as they likely will with CoD and Overwatch.

 

20 minutes ago, AJ_-_808 said:

You're basically scolding them for creating something to help their business profit.

 

Would you use this argument to defend microtransactions and pay to win games? I do not see how it is the concern of the consumer whether or not a corporation profits, only how they are affected by the corporation's profiteering.

 

20 minutes ago, AJ_-_808 said:

There's nothing wrong with developing their own games and locking them to their platform.  It's a totally different story to buy out established multiplatform developers and then making them console exclusive.

 

The end result is ultimately the same in either case. Besides, no existing games are being pulled off of Playstation - to my knowledge they'll simply be making new games for Microsoft. Sony has been acquiring third party developers and making them work for them for a long time; hell, just a few years ago, Sony was trying to negotiate for Starfield's timed exclusivity, and successfully negotiated for the timed exclusivity of Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo. The biggest difference is probably that Sony has less money to throw around.

[AJ_-_808]

1 hour ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Would you use this argument to defend microtransactions and pay to win games? I do not see how it is the concern of the consumer whether or not a corporation profits, only how they are affected by the corporation's profiteering.

 

 

The end result is ultimately the same in either case. Besides, no existing games are being pulled off of Playstation - to my knowledge they'll simply be making new games for Microsoft. Sony has been acquiring third party developers and making them work for them for a long time; hell, just a few years ago, Sony was trying to negotiate for Starfield's timed exclusivity, and successfully negotiated for the timed exclusivity of Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo. The biggest difference is probably that Sony has less money to throw around.

 

Micro transactions aren't a problem if they're not required to advance.

 

Pay-to-win games are an entirely different beast than "I'm developing my IP to sell on my platform and not my competitor'".  It's more of a predatory business model and not really a comparison.

 

 

It isn't about existing games being pulled, it's about the future games of historically multi platform IPs now being made exclusive because micro$oft dollars. 

 

Read up on Sony's acquisitions of the studios they've worked with for years. Those studios largely produced only on the Playstation platform. Very little, if anything, was a significant multiplatform IP taken away from xbox.  Do you honestly think that can be compared to purchasing multi-platform publishers?

 

Timed exclusivity and content exclusivity are not factors in this.

[ziggypossum]

Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision Games Multiplatform

 

“We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform,” a Sony spokesman said on Thursday.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sony-expects-microsoft-to-keep-activision-games-multiplatform-11642665939

[richxrdgriffin]

How long do those contractual agreements last though? Won't be forever, surely. They'll presumably all have an end date within the next few years.

[mcnichoj]

6 hours ago, cometowner said:

Sony has two IPS that could counter call of duty Microsoft exclusivity if one day it happens. Killzone which I think won't see the light till the end of the current generation considering the studio is busy with the successful horizon game and Resistance which I also believe is out the radar of insomniac.

Disregarding the notion that Killzone or Resistance could ever touch Call of Duty, you actually believe it's the developers choice that those two games aren't being made anymore? Sony discarded them. Has absolutely nothing to do with GG working on the Horizon franchise because if Killzone was doing well enough for Sony then we wouldn't have ever got Horizon in the first place. They would have been kicked to the curb like Zipper had Horizon not done as well as it did.

Similar thing with Insomniac. Resistance 1 sold over 6 million copies. Resistance 2 sold less and Resistance 3 sold even less than that. Insomniac has shown they can work on multiple games all at the same time. In just 2016 alone Insomniac dropped the Ratchet tie in movie game, Song of the Deep a multiplat that was for two consoles/PC and then three high quality VR games. They had MM ready for PS5 launch in 2020 and then dropped Ratchet RA in 2021 and soon Spider-Man 2 next year. They're also working on Wolverine. Insomniac would have gladly squeezed a new Resistance in there but Ratchet and Marvel are games that sell.

[Floorkiller74]

6 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

Ironically enough, at the start of this generation I was worried about Sony becoming complacent, since Microsoft had utterly botched the last generation. While I did want Sony to be kept on its toes, this is perhaps a bit excessive.

 

 

 

How did MS "Utterly Botch" the last gen? The launch was a clusterfuck, but they righted that ship and ended up doing very well.  

[ziggypossum]

Quote

 

Japanese Internet Reacts To Microsoft's $70 Billion Proposal To Buy Activision

"Sony is done," write fans online as they react to Microsoft's surprising announcement

 

The biggest news this week—probably this year—is Microsoft’s proposed $70 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. Online, people have opinions about this massive event and its ramifications, and in that regard, Japan is no different. The way Microsoft’s flagship console is viewed by many in Japan, however, is rather different.

In the U.S., Microsoft’s Xbox gaming platform is popular, but in Japan, it has traditionally been passed over or even ignored. Sony’s PlayStation has long overshadowed the Xbox in Japan and is the country’s default preference over Microsoft’s gaming machine. This perspective makes what folks online in Japan think about the proposed purchase especially interesting.

Below is a cross-section of the reaction on popular Japanese gaming blogs like My Game News Flash as well as on the country’s biggest internet bulletin boards, 2ch and 5ch.

 

“Woah, really?”

“This surprised me.”

“There are a bunch of games I’m not interested in, so this is good.”

“What the hell is Sony doing?”

“Well, that’s it for Diablo.”

“Microsoft! Give us back Diablo!!”

“An industry destroyer.”

“These are wild times.”

“Sony is finished.”

“This is a huge deal.”

It demolishes the PS5's stronghold.
This is only the beginning of the end.
Get ready, Japan.”

“[Activision Blizzard] fell from grace due to the harassment situation, and Microsoft just bought them.”

“With this, the Box wins!!”

“So, Blizzard games are coming to Game Pass!”

“Well, this is fine.”

“The power of Microsoft’s money is awful.”

“They bought sexual harassment.”

“If PlayStation don’t get Call of Duty, it’s finished.”

“Thank you, Bill Gates.”

“Don’t you feel like Microsoft’s gaming branch has truly arrived? (They’re about twenty years late, though.)“

“They really want to monopolize the game industry.”

“Microsoft loves buying hallowed-out companies.”

“Bye bye Trash Station.”

“This is completely wiping out the Japanese game industry.”

“Fix the bugs in Halo.”

“Microsoft is gonna buy Sony Interactive Entertainment. Heck, they might even buy Sony proper.”

“It would’ve been better to buy Square Enix.”

“How much money do they have?”

“To be honest, it’s not worth $70 billion.”

“The PlayStation will lose to the Xbox?”

“Next up is EA? The power of their [Microsoft’s] money is amazing.”

“This is the death of the PlayStation.”

“Farewell Call of Duty.”

“And with this, the PlayStation has lost.”

“I guess this means Call of Duty fans will abandon the PlayStation?”

“It’s just a shell of itself as the talented game creators left due to the sexual harassment issue.”

“Blizzard just releases shitty games now. Their character design is stinks of the 1980s and looks creepy.”

“Saying that the Call of Duty is an Xbox exclusive is a powerful phrase.”

“Nice one Microsoft! I thought Blizzard was ruined, but this should result in some sort of games. Ah, this is good.”

“This leaves a better impression than Tencent [acquiring Activision Blizzard].”

“The PlayStation is finished? Well, the PC is fine, then.”

“If you buy Nintendo next, release Zelda on a next-gen console.”

“Who are they going to buy next?
Keep making Game Pass better!”

“Microsoft is collecting all the third-party studios.”

“The sexual harassment CEO is staying on? Microsoft, c’mon, do things properly.”

“Sony is done. I’m guessing the Xbox’s share will grow.”

“Is this the death of Call of Duty?”

“If you’re talking about Japan, then it’s the Switch.
If you are talking about the West, then it’s the Xbox.
If you are talking about trash, then it’s the Trash Station.”

“Don’t you have to be a moron to buy Blizzard now? lol”

“It would’ve been good to buy Square Enix and Capcom.”

“People said the same thing with Bethesda, but did something change?”

“This has no impact on Nintendo.”

“Sony is done. Their stock also dropped a lot.”

“Where did competition, the fundamental principle of capitalism, go?
Don’t monopolies make things worse?”

“The fate of those under the Microsoft umbrella is not good.”

“I feel like games have peaked.
The hardware battle has cooled.”

“For me, who doesn’t play first-person shooters, I do not care at all.”

“Is anyone with any talent left at Blizzard?”

“Next up, it seems they’d target From [Software].”

“This cuts the PS5's lifespan short.”

“Diablo fans are most happy about this.”

“Those who are saying Sony is done ha ha”

“If things are going this way, then buy Kojima Productions and the rights to Metal Gear.”

“The power of Microsoft’s money sure is something.”

“It’s it okay to spend that much money on this?”

“Are you saying this is a huge victory for Xbox?!”

“PlayStation 5: ‘It’s...okay...because...we have... Gran Turismo...’”

“Please buy Konami...”

“Sony is finished hahahahahaha Nintendo has won hahahaha”

“This has no impact on Japan.”

 

https://kotaku.com/the-japanese-internet-reacts-to-microsofts-proposed-pur-1848383640

[jgm4789]

7 hours ago, richxrdgriffin said:

How long do those contractual agreements last though? Won't be forever, surely. They'll presumably all have an end date within the next few years.

It depends on when the games release sometimes as i imagine theres no way sony could have gotten elder scrolls 6 locked in before the buyout was known because its still a few years away. But call of duty releases yearly so the deal could include a minimum 1-2 more games so unless microsoft doesn't release a cod in 2023 they will be forced to support sony platforms for at least a few more years.

[TJ_Solo]

39 minutes ago, ziggypossum said:

https://kotaku.com/the-japanese-internet-reacts-to-microsofts-proposed-pur-1848383640

 

lol 2ch being cited as news worthy.

[DaivRules]

6 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

lol 2ch being cited as news worthy.

 

Also, if that "article" is considered typical Kotaku content, I can now understand the things I have read people say about it. 

 

It's just a post that says "People are morons all over the world, even on the "Japanese Internet"."

 

 

[Nelson_]

1 hour ago, ziggypossum said:

https://kotaku.com/the-japanese-internet-reacts-to-microsofts-proposed-pur-1848383640

 

lol look what the shovelware did, now it's being called Trash Station.

[Sendai-Horatio]

1 hour ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

lol 2ch being cited as news worthy.

Yes but look at their rock solid arguments

 

“If you’re talking about Japan, then it’s the Switch.
If you are talking about the West, then it’s the Xbox.
If you are talking about trash, then it’s the Trash Station.”

 

That's it pack it up move out of California and time to fire Jim Ryan, there's no coming back from a statement like that. Cancel any and all games from Sony's western studios and remaster Jumping Flash because that's what people clearly want.

[Nelson_]

2 hours ago, Sendai-Horatio said:

Yes but look at their rock solid arguments

 

“If you’re talking about Japan, then it’s the Switch.
If you are talking about the West, then it’s the Xbox.
If you are talking about trash, then it’s the Trash Station.”

 

That's it pack it up move out of California and time to fire Jim Ryan, there's no coming back from a statement like that. Cancel any and all games from Sony's western studios and remaster Jumping Flash because that's what people clearly want.

 

He made a mistake closing Japan Studio, this guy was right 1 year ago 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2021/02/27/sony-closing-japan-studio-is-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-playstation-14155264/amp/

 

A reader worries that they’ve thrown away one of their key advantages against Xbox.

 

Sony has given no indication that Japan Studio was losing them money, merely that they weren’t making enough profit as they wanted. Which apparently is reason enough to just shut it all down and instead focus on nothing but American-made third person open world adventures.

PlayStation used to be about more than just that. Sony’s always had its AAA blockbusters but it’s also encouraged indie games, weird Japanese games, and everything in between. There was a sense of variety, and playfulness, and unpredictability to Sony’s output that was completely unlike Xbox and also very different to Nintendo. Now I fear they’re homogenising their output so that it suits American tastes first and foremost, with everyone else a secondary consideration.

[DEI2EK]

Lmfao

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/01/xbox-boss-trusts-playstation-not-to-damage-gaming-industry-cautions-against-tech-giants

[AJ_-_808]

2 minutes ago, DEI2EK said:

Lmfao

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/01/xbox-boss-trusts-playstation-not-to-damage-gaming-industry-cautions-against-tech-giants

 

Im..I'm... speechless.

 

Talk about talking outta both sides of your mouth.

[Eagle]

People are already derailing this into an east vs. west "debate" (AKA people somehow still reeling from the "censorship" Sony did a while ago taking any opportunity they can get to rant about it)? Jeez... it was already bad enough when all the complaints were actually on topic, but I suppose nothing's bad enough that it can't get worse.

[Vanqishd]

https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/1484273335139651585

 

Quote

Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship.

 

From Phil Spencer's Twitter.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Vanqishd

[DEI2EK]

5 minutes ago, Eagle said:

People are already derailing this into an east vs. west "debate" (AKA people somehow still reeling from the "censorship" Sony did a while ago taking any opportunity they can get to rant about it)? Jeez... it was already bad enough when all the complaints were actually on topic, but I suppose nothing's bad enough that it can't get worse.

But it’s true, Sony lost Japan to Nintendo and Microsoft is buying all these western developers

whats left for Sony?

[Zephrese]

13 minutes ago, Eagle said:

People are already derailing this into an east vs. west "debate" (AKA people somehow still reeling from the "censorship" Sony did a while ago taking any opportunity they can get to rant about it)? Jeez... it was already bad enough when all the complaints were actually on topic, but I suppose nothing's bad enough that it can't get worse.

 

It's really obnoxious, yeah, even if I agree with it to an extent.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Zephrese