And I'm addition to the silly claim that consolidation is good for consumers, now we blame the competition for securing one year exclusivity deals.
Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard
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And I'm addition to the silly claim that consolidation is good for consumers, now we blame the competition for securing one year exclusivity deals.
Yeah, fair. I think I had 3 different posts in my head when I wrote that reply.
Now that I've had time to think about it I've grown on the idea. Without these 2 big acquisitions that would have been the end of Xbox which would be a much worse scenario. Activision are a fairly good fit for a number of reasons.
Please continue to enjoy the privilege of being able to play Warzone
This isn't antitrust and it's not even close. Apple for example makes more revenue from gaming avenues than Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo/Activision combined. Tencent is bigger than that.
Pretty sure the same thing was said when Bethesda was bought and from what I can recall no new Bethesda games are coming to any other system.
All this is going to do is lead to a year of speculation which ultimately will come down to Microsoft coming out and saying all the games from Activision and Blizzard will be Microsoft exclusive.
How is buying more and more third party publishers not a monopoly?
I think Call of Duty and possibly other games will still come to PS they will just automatically be "free" within Game Pass for Xbox players. Also Kotick will be gone as soon as MS is able to get rid of him.
Excuse me WHAT? lol
They spouted the same bullshit when they bought Bethesda and now Starfield and Elder Scrolls are exclusive to Xbox and PC!
It's a monopoly of very specific things people care about. Unfortunately, that's not hoping to hold up in a court of law.
yes? and the current COD games are obviously not going to be removed from Playstation.
It's all about the future. I don't even mean the current gen, I mean the next gen. (but current gen will also be affected, like late current gen)
I also chuckle at Phil saying they won't fuck with exclusivity. Obviously not right away but a merger this fucking big doesn't get approval without the business case for it including complete exclusivity on some of the biggest franchises in gaming like call of duty.
Nobody looses access to anything, just like with Bethesda, everything that's already there stays, as will Warzone. New future titles will be exclusive tho.
wild news to wake up to, not the biggest fan of them turning into one of the biggest owners in the biz but hopefully they clean up shop , scandal price was too good to pass up despite how much it still was.
looking forward to Jeff's thoughts on this one lol
looking forward to Jeff's thoughts on this one lol
As an owner of a PS5 and an XSX, with a Game Pass subscription: This fucking sucks, and anyone cheering this is being supremely stupid.
Who am I blaming? I was Sony ecosystem last gen because they had the better offering for me, this gen I went MS for the same reason. I am saying Sony did an action that greatly benefitted them last gen, MS has upped the anti to not be in the same situation again.
I Wouldn't argument be against platform hardware where instead of just a broad spectrum of the word gaming.
"fuck yeah gamepass" and "now I can enjoy Blizzard games guilt-free :)"
I don't disagree with you, but people seem to have no idea what a monopoly is.
You didn't know that Timed Exclusives = buying the game forever? It's hilarious that people are equating getting a game for 6 months to a year is the same as locking an ecosystem out of a series they have always had...forever.
- Phil: We don't have enough first person shooters
- Nadella: Do you think we need more?
- Phil: Oh yeah. More more more. Please
- Nadella: Do you think we need more?
- Phil: Oh yeah. More more more. Please
Platform agnostic? But obviously only excluding platforms that they do not benefit from directly, how exactly is that agnostic? If Sony was the overwhelming dominant OS supplier for PCs, I am sure they would also make a bigger push for PC and integrating it into their underlying OS ecosystem like MS are doing. Cloud infrastructure that is also owned by their parent company, yeah completely neutral here too. They could release their games on PS tomorrow if they wished to, there is not need for GP integration. They release their games on Steam without it already.
Sony vs. Microsoft brand loyalty is a whole different thing though. The second CoD is announced as Microsoft exclusive, the most vocal opinion will be "I'm done with Call of Duty!" and not "Well, I guess I need to upgrade my gaming rig". It won't convert Sony people. They'll just swear off the thing.
If Sony want some GAAS/MP money I think they'd be better off creating new IPs than trying to revive IPs that got rejected and died two console gens ago. Besides, there's probably a sizeable part of gamers today that have no clue what SOCOM, MAG or Warhawk are/were.
Remember the disastrous reveal for the Xbox One? Remember how they had to pivot away from the initial vision for the console because everyone was fleeing to the competition? If that were to happen now, Microsoft instead will be like "What are you going to do, go to the competition that doesnt have a fraction of the games you want? LOL."
Now, Microsoft will make you buy the reveal Xbox One and you have no other option to run to. We are rapidly on track to that future.
Now, Microsoft will make you buy the reveal Xbox One and you have no other option to run to. We are rapidly on track to that future.
After Sony got a timed exclusivity deal on Knights of the Old Republic, Microsoft had every right to go scorched earth. Such transgressions will not stand!
So when Epic has a 1 year exclusivity on a game, Valve should be buying up major game studios in response?
Seriously, some of these responses are fucking wild and will fall on the big corporate sword just so they can have their "value" increased, even if it's worse as a whole.
Like, I know these are funny jokes and japes, but fuck it's hard to really laugh at them as it's just depressing and fucked.
Thats what youll see on youtube comments maybe, but id bet my left nut its not whats going to be reflected in the market.
I think the plastic instruments got criticised so much for environmental reasons towards the end that would never happen, not in it's original form at least
Hmmm... like many mentioned the real issue is the consolidation of publishers in the industry. Development studios come and go, but when a major third party publisher is taken off the table it's not a good look.
as a gamer... Xbox Game Pass is a really good deal lol
as a gamer... Xbox Game Pass is a really good deal lol
The year is 2038; every major publisher is owned by either Microsoft, Tencent or Amazon/Google.
Sony, under pressure from it's shareholders, sold it's IP and the PlayStation brand to Tencent.
Nintendo is still yet to re-announce Metroid Prime 4
Sony, under pressure from it's shareholders, sold it's IP and the PlayStation brand to Tencent.
Nintendo is still yet to re-announce Metroid Prime 4
Because even by the most basic definition of the word, Microsoft isn't there. Their gaming revenue is still smaller than Tencent and Sony with this purchase. Just because a company can acquire many companies doesn't mean it's a monopoly.
The always-online future that the Xbox One reveal angered people with is already here, they just put it into a compelling package this time.
I woke up to such a bombshell I don't even really know what to say.
I have seen some people question whether or not Call of Duty will go full exclusive, and my bet is that it will. I think it'd be insane to spend that much money and not keep such a titan of a franchise all to yourself. I think MS letting Minecraft stay on everything was more a courtesy that they won't repeat again.
I have seen some people question whether or not Call of Duty will go full exclusive, and my bet is that it will. I think it'd be insane to spend that much money and not keep such a titan of a franchise all to yourself. I think MS letting Minecraft stay on everything was more a courtesy that they won't repeat again.
People keep saying this but with no proof.
MLB The Show is a successful IP for Sony that made a fraction of the revenue their other major first party IPs make. Releasing on Xbox basically doubled its sales, and therefore MTX, for almost zero additional cost.
Y'all keep thinking this is a boxing match when in reality its just two gangster grinding out their hustle. Sony's hustle is, at this point, to take any and all profits they can, as fast as they can. That means Xbox ports for a game that would double sales by doing so without costing them a meaningful system seller. That also means putting those major system sellers on PC a few years after they deliver on the hardware side.
EA makes sense for no one. They've burnt all their owned IPs to the ground and live off of sports IPs that are on renewable licenses, where trying to go platform exclusive would likely end the relationship. At the same time the sports game heyday of the 90's and early 2000's has waned significantly. They still do really well but in a very inflexible way, and other than Respawn none of their in-house studios have a track record of being able to deliver without a major sport or brand IP attached.
I really doubt Sony funding the first game from a bunch of ex-BLOPS guys is a coincidence.
And before they even get started the mess at Activision is now going to stew for about 18 months as this goes through oversight/approval, during which time the HR for Activision is going to try even harder to squash harassment issues, as they'll be largely unable to effectively backfill turnover due to the short term nature of the job, and any upper level manager/director would need to be absolutely bonkers levels of bad to actually get fired instead of giving a fat severance package to avoid a termination grievance.
For the next year and a half being a junior staffer at Activision Blizzard probably just got tangibly worse.
MS doesn't give a shit about Sony's "air". They want to build a streaming game service equal to Netflix before any of the FAANG companies move with equal aggression to do the same thing. Gaming is a secondary business for MS, it just so happens that right now the secondary business is the best way to feed their desire to rapidly grow cloud services, both the infrastructure footprint and the end users who justify that expanded footprint.
More like "I'm personally going to work to make you a literal billionaire because its convenient for my corporation's agenda, so lets just put the past behind us over the next 18 months while we sing a song of unity!"
This is Spencer and co. doing a MASSIVE favor for Kotick, and I'll believe that he's actually out when I see it. He'll probably leave on his own accord since being relegated to second fiddle behind Spencer guarantees him a $300M check on the way out the door though.
Sony bought a PC port specialist in Nixxes, has released a growing number of their own major first party IPs on PC in recent years, signed deals for exclusives with multiple studios, including one using a Sony proprietary engine (Death Stranding) that had PC releases planned from day one.
What are all these exclusives you claim Sony bought up that supposedly forced MS' hand into nearly $100B in acquisitions, to then do the same?
Also anyone who gives MS credit for releasing on PC is immediately suspect imo. They make the operating system, the core coding libraries, and the application for Game Pass on Xbox and yet it has a fatal flaw that effectively bricks disc space that has been going on for two years now, with no real confirmation of resolution in sight.
Playing on Steam is the only way to get access to MS' first party games on PC without risking a full reformat and reboot of the install drive, and yet thats the kind of multiplatform support being championed here.
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