They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway.
That's a heck of a moat.
All it takes is missing one generation and the house of cards gets written down. Someone can create the next generation blockbuster for a lot less than $69bln.
To argue against myself, they’ve become a lot better at picking trends since Balmer left too.
For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile revolution.
For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so quickly and right before the new Xbox launch.
Imagine if Mixer streamers had early access to the new console and titles? And drops? Viewers absolutely love drops.
What if the Xbox Game Pass included a Mixer sub like Amazon Prime does with Twitch Prime?
To me this just showed they have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
I mean, look at how much money they've thrown at Bing.
There is so much IP that is tied up with Activision-Blizzard that it seems like a good deal.
Stardew Valley and Terraria were actually IMO the best games produced with that
MS for a long time had such opportunities which it missed almost every single time.
On the other hand, Apple had similar opportunities and succeeded almost every single time.
The MS list:
- Windows Mobile
- Zune
- MSN
The Apple list:
- iTunes
- iMessage
- iCloud
- iOs (some more)
Between gaming (the biggest form of media), supercomputers, science computation, crypto nonsense, etc. It's really looking to me like nvidia is actually one of the biggest power players across the globe. Makes me really wonder about the tech they aren't flashing to the public. I was personally astounded when I saw their announcement to purchase ARM. I've seen a few instances of people saying the dead acquisition is stifling innovation. Honestly I'm kind of happy it didn't go through. Probably just a lack of vision on my part, though.
I think we'll look back in 10 years and wonder why antitrust regulators did nothing, but it may be too late by then.
For the gaming industry, this seems to push Microsoft into 3rd place (by size) behind Sony and Tencent. So hardly a monopoly and akin to T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint a few years ago. It makes Microsoft much more competitive against Sony and even Nintendo since it'll likely bolster their 1P offerings in the future.
But if Microsoft uses their ownership to favor their own game subscription services (aka GamePass) as well as platforms (aka Windows 11, Xbox console), then certainly that'll be monopolistic behavior. Interesting to note that they're probably #1-#2 in either of those sub-industries. It's possible to end up with an "Internet Explorer-esque" antitrust scenario if Microsoft removes or heavily discourages Activision and Bethesda from making their titles cross-platform.
I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different than what actually happens.
I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two players in the market, and it was wild to me how that was allowed to happen.
I haven't really ever used it. I used to buy everything Blizzard made (OK that's an exaggeration, but I was all about WarCraft/StarCraft/Diablo...). Before Steam, I bought lots of games on disk. Now I buy most things on Steam. And I haven't bought anything Blizzard since Diablo III.
Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pass?
(I'm just one person, but among the people I know that play PC games, I don't hear about Game Pass much. One person mentioned he's on a 14 day $1 trial - that was the extent of it.)
Saw an indie game last night and felt like buying it.
Steam Deck is Valve opening up an alternative to Microsoft land.
Although I will admit I'm tempted to cancel my pre order since I'm worried it won't run well.
It's only an issue if this negatively. affects the competitive market. And since games are a creative market - there's hardly any reason to fear that Microsoft can restrict access to new players.
This is not like a utility, that could technically force something on you. One company can buy all of game developers/publishers and still not make a dent in competitiveness of the games market.
The thing about subscriptions is that consumers tend to buy multiple.
Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time.
Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or without Activision belonging to Microsoft.
Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what.
I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP that I've loved for most of my life.
[0] - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/minecraft-switch/
Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.
I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can a problem be before it stops being a problem.
They have so much money they could easily buy Ubisoft, EA and Take-Two and make all major games Xbox and Windows 11+ exclusives.
Probably dead since Regan? After they stopped controlling AT&T the UNIX-Wars happened, impcompatiblity, lawsuits, closed-source has become a normal thing and proprietary software locked users in and competitors out.
What platform will Microsoft support? Likely not:
* Linux
* BSD
* MacOS
* Nintendo
* Sony
I don't miss id software, because they're still here, continuing to make amazing games. The last two Doom games were excellent.
...incidentally, Microsoft also owns them now.
OW only support Windows.
I guess SC2 and D3 had support for many platforms, but not Linux.
It's a crap situation that I don't think is being improved or worsened here.
Console platforms have not competed for games to be on their platforms for.... ever.
The "new" Microsoft though, really is different than the old and might actually do quite well in stewarding this supposedly sinking ship into fairer waters.
But as a die hard Apple user with an active WoW subscription I can't help but feel slightly dismayed that the Apple x Blizzard deal never will (or probably could have) happen(ed).
A Microsoft acquisition of this company is bad, and an Apple acquisition of this company would be bad.
When mega corporations like this consolidate, consumers always lose. Microsoft couldn’t win customers through product and service quality, so they bought one of the largest game publishers in the world so that their competition can’t sell those games anymore.
Unless politicians make major changes to the anti-trust law its unlikely to be effective. And doing so would require major action in congress.
The president could use non anti-trust actions as well of course. But rather unlikely.
If you're not familiar it's basically "Netflix of Videogames" where for a low monthly price (compared to buying a game at full retail) you get access to whole downloadable/streamable library of games.
It's such an outsized value that it's a big reason to choose an Xbox console over a PlayStation and it's pretty clearly the driving force behind these acquisitions. More games in the library -> More Game Pass subscribers -> More Profit.
For example tv streaming, where if your favorite movies/tv series maybe spread over dozen services and you need to pay subscription to all of them. Or it could happen that copyrights get bought by different providers and thus migrate from service to service. I will not be surprised if piracy will have a comeback for movies or tv-series.
So with gaming it will either be the same (too many providers to choose from), or reverse - if you'd like to play AAA title, you will be locked in with Microsoft.
> The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass [MS PR]
In case anyone still doubts that Microsoft is all-in on Game Pass.
As somebody who just got game pass, I feel kinda cheated for what I get; All the games offered there are the “f2p” versions, even MS first party titles like Halo only offer the “default” versions to play “for free” when paying a monthly subscription.
It’s like those free versions Epic hands out; They are playable, but they usually lack any and all of the “extra DLC content” that too often are needed to make a game actually fully fleshed out.
The only emotion I can feel is disgust. Disgust that Microsoft would tacitly approve of Kotick's decades of harboring, encouraging, and protecting sexual assault within his companies. The man allegedly, and settled out of court, for telling his secretary he was "going to have her killed". He hid internal sexual assault allegations from the board. They threw parties with strippers & DJs telling the women to drink more so their male coworkers could have more fun. They passed around a nude picture of a female coworker, leading to her suicide. An awesome person was promoted to be head of Blizzard, before leaving just months later, telling the board that she had experienced years of sexual misconduct working there, and there was no hope for them to ever change their frat-boy culture.
This isn't old information. It came to light just weeks before Halo Infinite was released. Phil Spencer & Microsoft had to be well into discussions at this point; and it didn't phase them. They didn't stipulate that he would have to leave; they instead leave him in charge of the company post-acquisition. They fire, what, a couple dozen people? In a company of tens of thousands?
Just... disgust. Maybe a little hope that Microsoft can improve their culture, but without signaling a fundamental change in leadership, that hope is dim. But at least they'll make some money.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kot...
1. It's been reported that Kotick will leave once the acquisition is finalized (i.e. when MS actually owns the company). If and when that doesn't happen, _then_ I'll join in on the criticism. [edit: based on WSJ reporting, not official statement]
2. Kotick is the de-facto ruler of ABK. The acquisition's not happening unless you play ball. If getting ABK under new management and kicking Kotick out requires playing along for a while, then so be it.
3. A big part of MS's investment thesis here seems to be "ABK's assets are worth more than $69B, but their scandals are suppressing their valuation. We can fix the scandals and better realize the IP's true value". MS will be stupid to let ABK keep going without decisively handling the scandals.
You're getting worked up for no reason. Maybe wait until Kotick actually sticks around before the outage?
This is likely good for current employees who might otherwise be likely future victims.
Edit: It seems it's not expected to close until 2023 so maybe it takes MS longer to get him out.
edit: ah the WSJ article
>The board of directors was blindsided by the California lawsuit’s allegations, including that an Activision employee killed herself after a photo of her vagina allegedly was circulated at a company party, according to people familiar with the board.
And here
> But here is where it gets even worse. A former female employee who hasn't been named publicly committed suicide while on a business trip with one of her male supervisors. The unnamed supervisor apparently brought sex toys and lube on their trip, and the state investigators believe this and a previous event where the female in question had a photo of her vagina shared around the office Christmas party led to her taking her own life.
Ugh.
SC 2 recently went free-to-play. If the rest of their catalog is added to Game Pass, that will be something. Blizzard games have been stubbornly expensive years after release. I wonder what this means for Battle.net?
Microsoft has not been making money on xbox. They're not investing money made with xbox. They're using Office/Windows/Azure funds to boost Xbox, and it's not a fair fight. Sony and Nintendo don't have that kind of money.
I get Sony has acquired studios too, but by comparison they seem carefully planned. They're usually studios already making (mostly) playstation exclusives (e.g. devs of Returnal, Spider-Man and Dark Souls).
Torn on this. On the one hand I completely agree. I doubt there'll be any anti-trust action, first because that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore and second because I can't imagine the American authorities getting in the way of Microsoft's competition with what are, at the end of the day, Japanese companies.
As a gamer who's loved Activision's franchises since childhood, they've run them all into the ground and if Microsoft can do better with them then let them try.
Side thought - maybe Nintendo and Sony will finally join forces to compete, as they almost did in the 90s.
The interesting one here for me has always been Nintendo, they are a still a pure gamers play, and have managed to thrive in a world of shifting sands, sometimes bucking entire trends in the industry with success, like going all in on the Nintendo Switch form factor (a lot of the industry people thought mobile gaming consoles were dead in the water)
I think there's a lot of competition in this space still, and while I don't like consolidation either, its also hard to say Activision Blizzard is a well managed company at this point
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/global/sonys-bre...
[1]: https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-no-way-home-sony-most-profita...
When Zenimax was acquired, it was coming off a couple of failed fallout games, a meh ESO and delayed Elder scrolls 6. Similarly, Activision-Blizzard has been in the midst of COD and Overwatch losing their gaming monopoly to Fortnite, Blizzard failing to create a good game for about 5 years and the big workplace lawsuit.
It feels like Microsoft is taking on the challenge of reviving these companies back to being the powerhouses of old. In that sense it is a big challenge and not as simple as just buying the future of gaming.
If they wanted to do that, they'd probably try to buy Naughty Dog or Fortnite.
It's like acquiring Fiat Chrysler or General motors. Still big names, but clearly not the 'brands of the decade'. You wouldn't buy them to form a monopoly. You'd buy them to revive the brand.
Activision/Blizzard certainly had a big sales tag on their forehead.
What are you talking about? Microsoft is embracing PC and cross play more than ever.
Source on this? They have said in the past that they lose money on xbox unit sales but are very profitable from software/game sales. As far as I know there is no public information to suggest otherwise.
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/448650/microsoft-the-xbox-d...
I hear Horizon: Zero Dawn was great. Didn't play it. Didn't pick it up when it stopped being an exclusive because it was no longer new by the time it hit PC.
My dance card is so full of Steam Early Access that I don't even have time for exclusives these days.
Oh, and he now leads the third biggest gaming company on the planet:
> When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.
It will be interesting to see in the medium-term if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an independent company at some point. But for now it's wild to think about the fact that Microsoft owns the Call of Duty franchise.
Congrats to Phil on his resume bump I guess.
I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible to be honest.
Spending ~$70bn to acquire another company is also impressive. Sure, Microsoft has limitless resources, and using acquisitions to hurt the competition is something they love to do, but still.. He did it. This is his win.
As a longtime Blizzard fan and a former Microsoft employee, maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit, but there's really only one thing I care about:
Will they finally start getting the fucking games right again?
You forgot to mention he started with billions of dollars backing him up. It was not like a small startup or something.
According to Wikipedia[0]:
> Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios such as Lionhead Studios and Rare until 2008
He came to be in charge of Xbox via his experience managing their internal studios. How's Lionhead doing these days btw?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executi...
They're becoming the Disney of gaming, which is scary, but hey, Microsoft gonna Microsoft.
I certainly think this should happen.
The trillion dollar giants should not span multiple industries. They have absurd monopoly power and can make growing your own niche impossible.
Why does a cloud computing / operating system vendor / hardware manufacturer / business software / developer tooling company also own the third biggest gaming outfit?
Why, for that matter, are Amazon and Apple also movie studios (and soon to be game studios)?
This is ridiculous. These companies never have to compete with you. It's easy for them to funnel money into any effort and clone your product. You can struggle to grow revenue and they can simply allocate an engineering team and marketing budget.
You'll probably also have to buy your competitor's products or pay their taxes at some point.
Unlikely without regulatory intervention. The added value for MS shareholders here is that MS has now more leverage to gently heard gamers towards their platforms.
You are reading too much from too little.
> A summary of those personnel actions was scheduled to be released by Activision before the winter holidays, but Chief Executive Bobby Kotick held it back, telling some people it could make the company’s workplace problems seem bigger than is already known, the people familiar with the situation said.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So long for immersive PC and console games.
For all the flak ActiBlizzard deserves for this situation, I'd be happier if it were illegal for Microsoft to publicly give them shit about while already in talks to buy. There's just way too many ways to abuse that for leverage.
It's self-serving, but more effective, as it actually got Blizzard to do another round of cleaning house.
Consolidation always leads to job loss, the industry is very very small. At the same time, legacy publishers have a very different role now.
If I'm an indie dev, I don't need you to print the discs or box things up. The only 2 things publishers really do are QA and Marketing.
QA, for projects with a good community, can be free or very cheap.
Marketing, with again a good community,can be free or cheap. I think about the hikikomori game Pull Stay.
Nothing stops that game from selling millions.
The big publishers are much weaker now.
One could argue that Apple's actually the world's biggest game publisher.
They have the final say as to if your game reaches the masses
Battlefield 2042, GTA Definitive Edition, Warcraft Reforged, and Cyberpunk 2077 beg to differ.
They now have the IP to do whatever they want with our mind, they have the distribution channels, they have the capacity to run servers and also the technology to create truly immersive worlds; their planetary rendering engine, GPT-3 for NPCs, Minecraft, for example.
There is a market for it, the latest awesome release in the space has been World of Warcraft, Amazon's New World is turning out to be a major flop and there's also free publicity in terms of Meta's metaverse.. I'm rooting for Microsoft to create the next gen gaming entertainment experience, however that might look.
At least we have the xbox game pass which is absurdly underpriced.
>Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise accelerate growth in Microsoft’s Gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud.
I wonder what this "cloud" means. Is Microsoft planing an alternative to Google Stadia?
This already exists [1]. I sometimes play Sea of Thieves with my kids on a Linux laptop through a browser. The only thing missing is haptic feedback / controller vibration, which makes both steering the ship and fishing difficult.
Microsoft didn't just acquire Bethesda. They acquired the entirety of ZeniMax, so Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout Shelter, Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored. Clearly not dead by any stretch of the imagination.
Activision Blizzard, despite the sexual harassment allegations, has Overwatch, World of Warcraft (still a profitable title), Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 launching Soon™. From a business standpoint, I'd say they've made the acquisitions of a lifetime.
They already have it, Xbox Cloud Gaming. It's mostly a steaming pile of crap that can't handle billing or multi-language users without cryptic useless errors. Quality and latency are pretty bad too, and the games are meh and console versions only ( so it's poor for strategy games for instance).
Not unlike in nature, a monoculture corporation lives and dies by their business being at all relevant in general, and the market (especially in the entertainment sector) is fickle.
Diversification is good for any large entity not just an investment firm.
So no loss for the gamers here, move along...
Overwatch is cool though.
edit: and oh my god, let's not forget the absolute dumpster fire of warcraft 3 reforged.
Prolly knocked a few bucks off the price at least.
Activision doesn't create very much new IP these days, and that's where the talent is that brings new games and gamers to your platform.
What I am starting to worry about is Microsoft squeezing Sony out of gaming entirely. For a lot of casual gamers Call of Duty was the game or one of a few games they play and have played for years. A lot of those casual gamers own a Playstation. While Microsoft hasn't announced if Call of Duty will be exclusive or not, making the game PC/XBOX exclusive would be doctrine. The only example I can think of where they don't do that is Minecraft, so it is possible.
I personally prefer more companies rather than fewer. I also anticipate a large brain drain at Activision studios, like what has already happened at Blizzard. But the Activision brands are established enough (and formulaic enough) that it probably won’t matter either way.
Simple timeline of what will happen. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Microsoft embraced gaming, including the openness of the PC platform, and now are in the process of extending it with Game Pass and its value. They will eventually turn to the final E.
They probably won't be a pure monopoly, competitors will pop up, but it'll be an all subscription world and Game Pass will be the Steam of this world, except not just for PC and Xbox but for most platforms they can get their service to work on.
We will no longer own our games. Eventually Game Pass will be cloud only and the files won't even sit on our devices. And the worst part is no one cares, not now or in the future. Everyone just wants access to the latest games at the cheapest cost. And clearly the US government (I'm not a US citizen nor do I live there fyi) does not care to lift a finger against something in this sector.
I hate to suck up to another company, who itself does many bad things, but I hope Valve is able to keep the PC platform open for at least as long as I care to play video games. It's out of their own self interest, but they've done wonders for the Linux community and contract some great people to improve linux gaming for everyone, not just them. And they're releasing hardware that isn't locked down. Honestly, I hate to feel good about what a big company like Valve is doing, but I'm greatful.
I can definitely see why MS bought up publishers and developers to add to their stable - they can now, like Netflix, sell a monthly recurrent service that will keep their customers entertained with 'free' releases available on day#1, plus a leased library.
But (to me at least), they were already there. I'm there on PC and think the sell is even easier on Xbox. Buying Activision seems a bit pointless. Sure they can now fold in wavering CoD lovers, but the franchise is already looking a little wobbly - but they're paying for a company that's valued as selling a game every year for $50 to lure in the subset of customers who now think game pass is now worth it with CoD. (That's a shitload of new subs they need, or the price is going up)
My larger concern is that when they bought Zenimax or even minecraft, they'd paid well for 'good bones' they could build on. Activision is really just a pile of slightly rusty franchises (https://www.denofgeek.com/games/activision-blizzard-microsof...)
Now maybe they can revive some of those - Doublefine knocking out episodic Gabriel Knight makes me moist, or simply Guitar Hero with new weekly tunes - but MS could have done similar for a lot cheaper.
If I'd had the money in my bank account, I'd have maybe just had a slush fund to pick up and promote new talent/IP.
If they really wanted infra, Steam is still out there. If they wanted IP, Sega.
In the grand scheme of things I prefer seeing them absorbed by Microsoft than by Tencent.
- Overwatch hit the ground running to massive success, but hasn't materialized Overwatch 2 and has stagnated.
- Warcraft III Reforged is a total disaster and abandoned.
- WoW has a wide following of people in its vanilla form (i.e. taking things awy from what it has become), and the extensions aren't bringing a lot of value. There is speculation on whether it has hit its peak and is in decline.
- The Starcraft Remaster is basically the same game but with a bit nicer graphics.
- Diablo 3 seems to have done well.
I do hope it gets revitalized and the IP gets new life with better management, but Blizzard has been struggling.
When's Microsoft going to bring back Pitfall?
Tho, it certainly fits what MS has been going for with its gaming division; Game pass ultimate has a weird lack of „third party aaa” titles in certain genres.
For example EA Play is included in game pass ultimate, but by now all the new EA stuff is locked behind “EA Play pro”.
Having the whole Acti/Blizz lineup in there would be quite the offering. Particularly all the Call of Duties were never really sold in a “get all of them!” way. Now all of them might end up for “free” on game pass.
Especially this:
> Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash. When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.
What exactly happens between now and "when the transaction closes"? How long does it take? Is there anything that would make it not close?
After all, this is all how the metaverse is going to become a reality and that is how Microsoft is going to create it.
I'm not saying that the harassment reports were false, just that Microsoft could have helped people talking to the press/organize the lawsuits, pushing up the stories in the medias and so on.
I think that this should really put some fear in Valve and I'm not sure what their play is from here. I know that Steam has a lot of goodwill built up but it feels like they've just coasted on Steam for so long, and it was inevitable that the larger players would look at their fat 30% cut for so little work and decide that wasn't going to last. A lot of people thought that Bethesda games would keep coming out for Playstation when the acquisition was first announced, and after it closed MS confirmed that going forward future title would be exclusive to them. I can't see any reason to this this will different, and especially just making these titles available through gamepass alone, not in a launcher or as a separate purchase. Do people think that Microsoft is spending tens of billions just to make sure that Valve can get a 30% cut on sales of COD and Fallout? It's like saying that Netflix is going to let Disney+ carry Stranger Things, because hey, Disney would pay them money to do so. Valve is like the cable company right now, someone else makes the content and they provide the delivery of it and skim off the top. Now that you have competing and more convenient delivery services, its going to be a lot harder to exist. Where do they go from here?
I wonder what will Sony do now?
[1] - https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/microsoft-buying-act...
Overwatch has been on shaky grounds due to uncertainty surrounding the league and the release of the sequel.
Heroes of the Storm is still my favorite MOBA even though it's clearly on life support. I'd love to see Microsoft try reviving it once more by doing a big Heroes 3.0 push.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-buy-activision-bliz...
Beyond petty nonsense - Sure wish we had some antitrust laws in this country. The consolidation of every industry gross.
With inflation probably coming in a big way it sounds like a great idea to spend all that money now.
* Sony is focused on their PlayStation walled garden. * Microsoft is consolidating more resources around Game Pass and the Xbox store. * Mobile is a large and rapidly growing segment, which Steam isn't able to capture. * Epic is pouring money into its own store.
Valve needs a backup plan to stay relevant in the 5-10yr time horizon. If the Steam Deck can take off, that might serve as enough incentive to keep games available on Steam and away from Windows exclusivity where MS might start building a walled garden.
MS announced today that it was acquiring Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI). This news comes on the heels of a year filled with government lawsuits, internal leaks, low morale and poor performance. Many analysts have commented that years of failing to invest in their IP and a string of poorly-received sequels have diluted customer and stockholder faith.
The past year has seen ATVI stock plummet after it was made public that the company was not being managed or governed in any meaningful way, down approx. 30% prior to today's announcement.
But hey, at least better than being acquired by Tencent, eh?
[0] At least if they want to maintain all the government work they do.
Streamers, influencers, and competitive players whose livelihoods are based on some of these games will almost be forced into playing on the platform that gives them an advantage, whether that's an extra couple weeks of access or slight optimizations.
Most comments are about monopoly. But is A & B really that good? Or its just more of a optimization of financial strength between A &B and MSFT?
Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard just put them in number 3 slot. Tencent and Sony are far bigger in gaming. if Apple lawsuit didn't take down Apple store just forced Apple to allows third party payment option. i don't think Microsoft will get slap with a antitrust. Microsoft isn't even number 1 in gaming.
At least they didn't mess up Minecraft on Linux so far.
And now the metaverse is solidified as a new buzzword for venture capitalists to pour money into despite collaborative VR being a thing for almost a decade already. Won't be long until they combine it with NFTs and use an inefficient & expensive blockchain to handle the marketplace of avatars and the like.
EDIT: "Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. [...] he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture."
Shame on you, Microsoft.
Wait, it's an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion?! So at least Microsoft believes they are doing well...
Even if CoD remains cross platform, if it's free on GamePass well that's a pretty severe competitive edge to the Xbox platform.
Not for long, I bet!
Just like that -- they're in the metaverse!
Should say "to bring the joy and community of gaming to XBOX AND WINDOWS USERS, across every MICROSOFT device".
Is the blizzard IP actually worth that much these days?
Might as well try to sell your PS(whatever) now before there are no games.
However with the DOJ taking more shots at large companies, MS should be worried about this one.
Apple is almost certainly planning to release AR/VR headset in the near future, this raises the question; what hardware is going to be used to power this headset; I'd bet Apple is working on a console like iDevice, or probably more likely an external GPU, that can be used with any Apple device.
Now imagine if Apple decides, admittingly in a very un-Apple like fashion, to allow anyone to run MacOS on their iPads, and iPhones; what that would do to consumer Windows market share.
This primarily establishes a moat against Apple, not Sony, and protects consumer Windows, not Xbox.
The cultural integration will be a lot easier than other M&A integrations; everyone at Activision is probably ready to move on from their current culture.
Starcraft 2 is one of the last game I still play with my ("old timer") friends for social interaction in the Covid era.
Dayum. Such cash.
And yet the stock stabilized at $83, meaning a lot of people are not sure the purchase will actually go through.
Wrt Blizzard specifically, where is the amazing company that designed Warcraft, Starcraft, WoW, ...
I find their recent offering ... bland.
I am Team X-Box because I just like it much more than the Playstation, buuut at some point we will all pay our MS-Fees like the powerbill.
now maybe the personnel and HR and abuse can be handled since this is going to be run by a company with adults in the room and we can focus on not abusing people and instead focus on games! Here's to Diablo 4 and maybe a Starcraft 3?!
I am sure this will result in better games than if not, lol.
But my thinking is that they should've acquired Valve which controls digital PC gaming distribution not big gaming studios like Zenimax and Activision Blizzard.
Who is going to be able to compete with Xbox Game Pass?