Breaking: Microsoft to acquire Activision-Blizzard in near 70$ billion deal

This is absolutely horrible news to wake up to. Even if they decide to put games on other platforms, we're going to see a lot of franchises turn into the end game of mediocre games as services since that's the direction Phil Spencer has put Xbox.
 
captainnapalm said:
Damn - does this mean we might actually start seeing regular Starcraft and Diablo games again? Because I'd be down for that. That's the extent of my caring about Activision Blizzard, really, aside from the odd Call of Duty campaign.

Microsoft really do mean business in the new gen, don't they. It's kind of crazy to see.
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Frankly I hope they changes things for good. But everytime I think about that, Banjo and Conker comes to mind.

Maybe they're up only for CoD(and for good reason).
 
Papacheeks said:
Sony will make quality games like they always have done. They are the new Nintendo in terms of brand. Microsoft's brand is still not great and their brand isn't synonymous with quality.
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But MS now has COD. MS has Warcraft. MS has Halo. MS has Doom. MS has fucking Overwatch. MS has Fallout. MS has Starcraft.

These franchises are very well known. Sony does have quality games, but they need more now. As good as GoW and TLOU are (fucking amazing games), but are still not the same league as a COD or Overwatch.

All I'm saying is that if Sony keeps doing what they are doing, they will become the third console that people might buy. They need to move, that's all. Expand, cover more genres, stop raising prices, and create even more franchises that associate with your brand.
Papacheeks said:
It's what they have been doing? ANd their games now sell in 10-20 Million. Like God of war, Spiderman, soon wolverine. They have the best studios in the industry. Horizon is a new ip that is about to sell a boatload.

So I dont understand your point.
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True, they sell well. But how much did Playstation win by having COD on their platform? Why did they spend so much money on exclusive maps and all that stuff, if it didn't help them? Now they lost it. They can't be happy with just two or three of their games selling 10-20 million. And these games sold during a time where this acquisition didn't take place. How many of them were on PS4? Will those PS4 owners jump to PS5 after this? Or will they go to Xbox? Saying that a game sold 20 million doesn't mean it will continue selling if the landscape has changed. Many PS4 owners might jump ship because of these acquisitions. And it's not correct to assume that people bought a Playstation console mainly for the exclusives (unlike Nintendo).

yurinka said:
I think now Take 2, EA or Epic would be candidates to counter this. But this would be in the case they would want to sell. Maybe without the controversy the Activision investors wouldn't have wanted to sell, but now for the it's an opportunity to clean the company or at least to 'buy' time.

It's going to be hard for Sony to compensate this unexpected superbold move.


Sony is leading in consoles sold, games sold for a console, gotys won in the last decade, game subscriptions, sales of 1st & 2nd party (but not at Nintendo level, but getting closer) or console VR, revenue of their gaming division with a nice growth and profit, etc.

Sure, this acquisition will shake up, change the market and will force Sony to improve and super likely to make some big acquisition (they already planned to continue with acquisitions and growing their internal teams). MS now will take a clear lead now in areas like PC, mobile, amount of top teams and IPs, eSports or in game division revenue.

If Spartacus is real, with the merge of PS Plus and Now they would start at 50M. I think with Activision Blizzard games now GP will skyrocket, so may soon reach these 50M and probably pass them, but it's fair to assume Spartacus will continue growing too since they are supposed to add more games from multiple generations and bringing it to mobile and smart tvs etc. I think that after a year or two, once all these changes are complete and get stabilized, Spartacus and Gamepass will compete having more or less similar numbers.

Regarding consoles, if all new Activision Blizzard and Zenimax games skip PS (which I think it's what we should assume) I think it will really push Xbox, but PS has a ~2X lead and will continue with their exclusives and all the other major 3rd parties. So I don't think they will pass them on consoles. Same goes with GOTYs/awards, I think MS will get closer but will continue behind.
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The PS5 is having a really good momentum, created by their PS4 performance. Good exclusives and they ended the generation with a bang, this won't change for a while. But when people start seeing COD exclusive, Warcraft, Overwatch, I'm pretty sure the interest on Xbox will rise exponentially. Sony is already realizing this, that's why the Project Spartacus is a thing. They need to find a way to keep the momentum going, to keep that interest high. And consoles sold isn't the only thing they care about. You can buy a PS5 and an Xbox Series after, and if you don't spend money on your PS5 then it's no use to Sony.

Regarding the subscriptions numbers, I guess you are right, but this will strongly depend on how Sony will approach this.

All I want is Sony to react, to do something. Man, I'm having a blast with my PS4 Pro, but these acquisitions have been pushing me to the Xbox side. Like me, there's a lot of people for sure.

BattleScar said:
Where do you propose they find the money to do all of this. Offering a competing subscription service is meaningless if Microsoft can casually spend tens of billions of dollars to buy up all the potential content.
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They have the money for expansion. Don't worry about it, they don't need to compete directly with MS on studio acquisitions by buying a big publisher or creating a subscription service. They need to expand their teams, and focus on diversity and not being greedy cunts like raising their games prices.


EDIT: Holy shit, my Mac is getting old. Writing all of this took me longer because of how slow my Mac was acting.
 
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Microsoft correctly read the services future of enterprise and it turned the company into a cash monster.

It SHOULD have been too late to do it in gaming.. but the space is so divided that the opportunity was still there to make another behemoth.
This is just the start. Clearly Nadella has been sold on the opportunity that exists. The Microsoft cash machine is real. Its an absolute tangled mess of a company... but once they have an in.. they are really good at exploiting it.
 
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GIF by HULU
 
Sakura said:
Then why now and not 10 years ago or something?
Surely there are significant risks involved with spending this kind of money on an acquisition. I'm not convinced this will be seen as having been the best move for MS to make in the future.
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Well I guess you'd have to ask someone in the know at Microsoft ten years ago. My guess, is ten years ago the Xbox division was still focused on the immediate competition and earnings of their quarterly battles with Sony and Nintendo. Eyes on the long game but not nearly as ambitious and forward thinking.

Here we are ten years later and consumers are willing, even eager, to pay for multiple entertainment subscriptions. Movies and TV, podcast and music providers like Spotify, etc. People are also more willing to stream games. Even TV manufacturers are letting game streaming services get in on their devices. So I guess Microsoft decided that last year and this year would be a good time to become a content provider ala Netflix, and to do that they need content to offer subscribers and streamers. Hence a $70bn purchase of Activision Blizzard (and Bethesda, et al).
 
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just hopefully this wont suddenly encourage other giant in industry to started buying company left and right.

eitherway compared to Bethesda acquisition, itseems there lot of work need to be done within Activision considering lot of scandal being revealed. lets see how they gonna 'clean' the company.
 
DryvBy said:
This is absolutely horrible news to wake up to. Even if they decide to put games on other platforms, we're going to see a lot of franchises turn into the end game of mediocre games as services since that's the direction Phil Spencer has put Xbox.
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You've just described most of Activision's line up.
 
DaGwaphics said:
It depends on how truthful Spencer is being when he says that MS is looking beyond consoles. If they truly feel that consoles are a tiny part of the market, I don't see them worrying about PS customers in the grand scheme of things. They have a third of that market already and could likely move to 50% or better with moves like this. Putting GP on PS might net them less $$ at the end of the day than their current console operation (which would be dead in the water if everything on Xbox was on offer on PS). I can definitely see CoD staying on PS at $70 though.
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My guess is that it's just about software and subs for them, and not hardware. I think they'd gladly stop burning hundreds of millions in R&D by getting out of console development.

This plan would potentially be the best of both worlds: they get a large fraction of the lucrative 'platform' side of the business by having GP literally everywhere, and they don't have to bother trying to flog seriously loss-making hardware.

Things will move to streaming soon enough anyway.
 
That much money for a company with their current reputation? Wonder if it's worth if. Anyway, don't think this is actually that good news for consumers in the long run. But still, big news.
 
Kumomeme said:
just hopefully this wont suddenly encourage other giant in industry to started buying company left and right.

eitherway compared to Bethesda acquisition, itseems there lot of work need to be done within Activision considering lot of scandal being revealed. lets see how they gonna 'clean' the company.
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there is only 1 giant to be fair
 
Are you fucking kidding me? First bethesda and now activision\blizzard?!

Good fucking joob Phil

phil-spencer.gif


(Don't give a shit about most of their IPs but still a megaton acquisition for many people)
 
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Tbf this puts the whole "we are evaluating relationship with activision" - by Spencer in bit bad light. Just virtue signaling to lower market cap, they were clearly eyeing acquisition even back then.
 
This is how Sega and Nintendo owners felt when Sony swanned into the industry in the 90's and started chucking money around for exclusivity deals.

Personally I don't give a shite as I think COD is turd but the fallout here is going to be a hoot.
 
Zeroing said:
There's a line between competition and monopoly! And it's been crossed! If you think this is good for the gaming industry… you are putting a lot of faith on a single corporation.

I would say the same thing if it was Sony or Nintendo.

this is bad, people can spin it as much as they want.
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Nah. You probably wouldn't say the same thing. Because it's increasingly obvious now that Sony is paying for what looks to be permanent exclusivity for the mainline Final Fantasy series and paying to keep stuff like Persona exclusive to PlayStation. And you haven't said anything about that.
 
DaGwaphics said:
But Epic is getting exclusives now. Steam isn't going to grow in influence because of an ownership change, at least not overnight. Steam is the looming juggernaut already. MS probably wouldn't even change anything there, other than flipping the switch to move GP PC to the Steam launcher. The shear number of users they would have access to with a move like that.
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You think an ownership change wouldn't lead to a change in strategy? Microsoft just spent $70 billion dollars on an acquisition. 10x the already massive acquisition that was Zenimax. They could quite easily outbid Epic for a game just so they can shove it on GamePass.
 
nosseman said:
Sony has sold around 15 million PS5 - that is 7,5 billion dollars in sales (and most of that goes to manufacturers like AMD - at most 1 billion in profit).

MS just paid 70 billion dollars for Activision Blizzard.

Let that sink in.

Content is king!
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Sony barely gets a profit for the hardware itself of a console, in fact the first few millions are always sold at a loss. Their profit comes mostly from selling on average over a dozen games for that console plus services (Plus, Now, etc) and accesories.

So even if directly they don't barely get profit or even get a loss for each console sold, indirectly they compensate it by far turning it into a nice profit with the other things. Same goes for Xbox.
 
From what I'm seeing from Microsoft - I'm thinking their goal is really to get gamepass on all consoles - they're trying to become a distributor they don't want to be limited by hardware
 
Sony can't compete in the subscription space with a MS that is all in. They will be fine short term, but they will need to rethink how they deliver content. The days of locking games to a single piece of hardware are over.
 
Thirty7ven said:
If this isn't confirmation MS/Xbox is a trash company then I don't know what the hell do you need to know more about these cats.
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trash for butting all the goodies on GP instead of 81 ..yeah some gamers nowdays blinded by their partisan mentality would not recognize a real deal even if accompanied by the hand
 
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aliadiere25 said:
And Bethesda wasn't really a good buy. They basically spent 7 billion on Skyrim.

These seem like panic buys. Sony won't be worried about this because they have a history of releasing good games.
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The Bethesda purchase seems a lot more reasonable by comparison. It isn't just Elder Scrolls and fallout, they actually get studios capable of creating new IP, Starfield will probably do very well. Plus you get Doom and Wolfenstein and Dishonored...

Activision on the other hand is basically JUST Call of Duty at this point. Every other part of the company has fallen apart. And yes CoD is still the most popular AAA console game in the world, but past results are not a guarantee of future success and that's a lot of money to stake on a single horse.
 
DryvBy said:
This is absolutely horrible news to wake up to. Even if they decide to put games on other platforms, we're going to see a lot of franchises turn into the end game of mediocre games as services since that's the direction Phil Spencer has put Xbox.
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That's the direction gaming is going anyway....have you seen any Ubisoft titles lately....they are basically online shops with a game attatched.
 
intheinbetween said:
Q. How many game publishers and game studios are out there currently?
Hundreds?

Q. How many gaming platforms are out there?
PC, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft

Q. Do any of those gaming platforms rely mostly on Bethesda or Activision-Blizzard?
Not at all

MS is far from a monopoly accusation, I'm sure they are not concerned at all about that, and hey they have some history on monoply litigations, they know if this would raise any flag otherwise they wouldn't have even acquired Bethesda
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The PC platform isn't owned by any one company, why you out that there is beyond me. And over half of the theoretical number you threw out of gaming studios aren't nowhere near the value of Activision Blizzard combined.

I get it, people like you, want this to happen because it will force more companies to submit to a GAAS/subscription future or get ran over if you ain't with it. However I still stand on what I said said initially. The US is the land of capitalism, meaning for the right price anything can be allowed to slide.

Either way we will see how this affects the industry soon enough.
 
I'm not a COD fan but the idea of every COD going back to the beginning being on gamepass so that people can play the single player is amazing.
 
RoyalLaFlame said:
But MS now has COD. MS has Warcraft. MS has Halo. MS has Doom. MS has fucking Overwatch. MS has Fallout. MS has Starcraft.

These franchises are very well known. Sony does have quality games, but they need more now. As good as GoW and TLOU are (fucking amazing games), but are still not the same league as a COD or Overwatch.

All I'm saying is that if Sony keeps doing what they are doing, they will become the third console that people might buy. They need to move, that's all. Expand, cover more genres, stop raising prices, and create even more franchises that associate with your brand.

True, they sell well. But how much did Playstation win by having COD on their platform? Why did they spend so much money on exclusive maps and all that stuff, if it didn't help them? Now they lost it. They can't be happy with just two or three of their games selling 10-20 million. And these games sold during a time where this acquisition didn't take place. How many of them were on PS4? Will those PS4 owners jump to PS5 after this? Or will they go to Xbox? Saying that a game sold 20 million doesn't mean it will continue selling if the landscape has changed. Many PS4 owners might jump ship because of these acquisitions. And it's not correct to assume that people bought a Playstation console mainly for the exclusives (unlike Nintendo).


The PS5 is having a really good momentum, created by their PS4 performance. Good exclusives and they ended the generation with a bang, this won't change for a while. But when people start seeing COD exclusive, Warcraft, Overwatch, I'm pretty sure the interest on Xbox will rise exponentially. Sony is already realizing this, that's why the Project Spartacus is a thing. They need to find a way to keep the momentum going, to keep that interest high. And consoles sold isn't the only thing they care about. You can buy a PS5 and an Xbox Series after, and if you don't spend money on your PS5 then it's no use to Sony.

Regarding the subscriptions numbers, I guess you are right, but this will strongly depend on how Sony will approach this.

All I want is Sony to react, to do something. Man, I'm having a blast with my PS4 Pro, but these acquisitions have been pushing me to the Xbox side. Like me, there's a lot of people for sure.


They have the money for expansion. Don't worry about it, they don't need to compete directly with MS on studio acquisitions by buying a big publisher or creating a subscription service. They need to expand their teams, and focus on diversity and not being greedy cunts like raising their games prices.


EDIT: Holy shit, my Mac is getting old. Writing all of this took me longer because of how slow my Mac was acting.
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Sony did not have COD as a exclusive? Only Exclusive content? I mean it will be a big blow for sure. But its not the end of the world, Sony is slowly becoming NIntendo with their games selling super well, their issue is they dont have a game currently that they can make yearly money on like a shooter. But thats changing soon.

They have a lot in the pipeline. ANd the fact Sony owns evo solidifies they own the fighting scene.
 
SF Kosmo said:
Activision on the other hand is basically JUST Call of Duty at this point. Every other part of the company has fallen apart. And yes CoD is still the most popular AAA console game in the world, but past results are not a guarantee of future success and that's a lot of money to stake on a single horse.
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Way off base. Despite negative PR, Actiblizz still made 1 billion in profits last quarter and you're forgetting that Activision includes King (Candy Crush), who make more money than both Activision and Blizzard.
 
bethesda was big but this is insane because of call of duty. sony could lose like 20m customers who buy a playstation just to play call of duty. i myself know a few people like that. they will no longer need a playstation now. FIFA will be the only thing keeping casuals on playstation.
 
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Hunnybun said:
My guess is that it's just about software and subs for them, and not hardware. I think they'd gladly stop burning hundreds of millions in R&D by getting out of console development.

This plan would potentially be the best of both worlds: they get a large fraction of the lucrative 'platform' side of the business by having GP literally everywhere, and they don't have to bother trying to flog seriously loss-making hardware.

Things will move to streaming soon enough anyway.
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Having a platform is still a profitable business. Most of MS and Sony's revenue comes from the cut they get on 3rd party software. The rub is, can MS actually make more $$ by basically dissolving their 15b a year operation in favor of becoming a third-party on PS? Or would they rather try and become PS and build towards a console operation that rivals PS as is. As big as Activision is, MS's console operation was already a bigger revenue generator, that's the power of being a platform holder. Plus they have PC and the future of "virtual Xbox customers" via streaming.
 
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