Normal game prices max out at 70, so not sure why it's now 80 dollars per game. And sales happen often. How is having a pretty profitable software company that people are more than happy to pay for not a "good vision"? How is spending dozens of billions of dollars (where they will never recoup the costs) to acquire old declining companies "visionary"? People are apparently blinded by dollar amounts.
How is MS playing Chess while Sony is playing checkers? Again, just throwing around platitudes with no reasoning to back up the statement doesn't mean anything. This, on the same day when we have people linking to IGN articles saying "It's now a content battle!" when Sony and Nintendo still have more and better content. CoD is not going to shift the industry dynamic, even if it does go exclusive. It's aways been a content battle, that's the point. Thats what Microsoft hasn't been focusing on. And the argument that they are now by buying all this stuff ... it doesn't hold water IMO and here is why. Let me ask people, what would you rather have ... All the stuff that has been purchased so far? Or MS to fund 10-20 brand new, visionary, IPs that are industry leading on a level of a naughty dog game, or Nintendo games, and completely exclusive to Xbox. What if MS DID do that, and Sony had bought Zenimax and Activision. I would bet anyone here a lot of money that the MS diehard response would be "Haha, we have all the great new stuff, you can HAVE all that crap I played 10 years ago!" There is no way in hell anyone on the Xbox-only side would want the situations to be reversed in that scenario, and for good reason. I want to see just one .. just one game from MS that is completely original and on the level of Mario, Zelda, the "Ico Series", the God of War series, the Ratchet series, Uncharted, The Last of Us, and I am sure there are more. I can't think of anything that MS has done on that level. And we gamers just got, yet again ... Halo and Forza, after a decade of being criticized as a Halo/Gears/Forza box.
Microsoft has a lot of IP with Zenimax and Activision for sure. How much of it is actually current and being actively developed though? Nintendo and Sony also have a ton of IP that is basically dormant. Game development doesn't just happen out of thin air. I remember how furious Nintendo fans were (including myself really) when Nintendo sold Rare to MS. Look at all the hit IPs they acquired then. It seemed like we were going to get crazy next-gen versions of all the Rare games that were so great on N64. And look what happened. Rare is a shadow of it's former self. Yes Sea of Thieves has seemingly achieved some success, but Rare was a force in the SNES/N64 days. No one cares about them at all today in the same way.I think there are more games on the Rare Replay collection than Rare has made since being acquired. Kinda sad. And thats why past performance does not indicate future results.
The possibilities are endless for everyone in the games industry. Imagination and creativity are more important for the future than a treasure chest of decades old IP. I'd actually say by relying more on older franchises your possibilities are more narrow and defined. It's the new and unseen that has "endless possibilities." Again, this is not something MS has ever demonstrated a real knack for nurturing.
As always, the proof will be in the pudding. I.e. the games that get released. It's about games and only games. Not acquisitions, not sub services, not gimmicks.
Games.
This is such a bullshit
"what would you rather have ... All the stuff that has been purchased so far? Or MS to fund 10-20 brand new, visionary, IPs that are industry leading on a level of a naughty dog game, or Nintendo games, and completely exclusive to Xbox."
This isn't a case of "You spend 70 billion on Activison Blizzard OR fund 10-20 brand new visionary IP's" Because it does not work like that. If chance to buy ActiBlizz did not occur, Microsoft wouldn't write a cheque. They would chug along with 23 XGS + Bethesda studios.
This purchase makes so much sense for Microsoft. It gives them chunk of Asia market thanks to Blizzard, it gives them entry to smartphone games thanks to King, it doubles their workforce in terms of first-party output. It literally gives them solution to many of weakpoints. But let's not pretend that it is at the expense of everything else. Microsoft still organically grows their current studios (mainly Obsidian, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, ZeniMax Online, Machine Games etc.), they are still working on new IP's with external development teams (Project Dragon with ioi, Contraband with Avalanche and many more) and they are still staffing The Initative.
Hell, i would even say, that The Initiative is primary example why it is better to buy established studio instead of creating new from ground up. Because Initiative was formed in 2018 and we still don't have a game from them (Perfect Dark is supposed to come out in 2023). Yes, COVID pandemic was one of the reason why they had problem staffing up and had to bring Crystal Dynamics for production, but it just shows you why.
I'm not even going to touch Rare, because you clearly don't know anything about situation. Yes, Rare was a golden child of Nintendo in SNES/N64 days. But saying that "Sea of Thieves achieved some success" is understatement at best. It is their most successful game by a huge margin. Like it's not even close.
And there is also a case of better Acti Blizz. Sexual harassment cases aside, Blizzard was pressured by Kotick and co. to release games faster and to have all of their games megahits. That pressure will probably lower after purchase, because Blizzard won't be solely responsible for Xbox's performance indicators. So maybe Blizzard can finally go back to the old ways (minus sexual harassment) and make games that are industry leading, but with their own pace. And there is also the case of yearly Call of Duty games. With Game Pass there is literally no point of releasing Call of Duty games yearly, especially when you consider live service aspect of games today. You can release one COD per two years, stretch the support of those games, but mainly you can unshackle all those support studios like Toys for Bob, High Moon, Vicarious etc., so they can make their own games. There are plenty of IP is Xbox/Zenimax/ActiBlizz portfolio they could use. And hell, you can even allow one of the core Call of Duty studios (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer) to branch out and make other games. If you stop releasing Call of Duty every year and let for example Sledgehammer out of Call of Duty mill, you can still have Infinity Ward and Treyarch making Call of Duty's but in 4 years dev cycle which is plenty enough to make some interesting games.
So outside of "will Call of Duty be on PlayStation" I really don't see many downsides of this deal. Workers will probably have better time developing games thanks to ActiBlizz management leaving, studios will probably have more creative freedom, Blizzard can find it's identity again and especially it does not invalidate any other aspect of Xbox business. There will still be new IPs and existing IPs from other studios, there will still be external partnerships through XGS Publishing, there will still be Game Pass and Microsoft will still release all their games on consoles, PC and Cloud. Activision Blizzard deal will just accelerate growth.
))
