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

reksveks said:


Bit weird to put it out there
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I think that's the very definition of a non-statement lol.

They'll keep whatever's already agreed upon for PS on PS, they're not gonna pull support.

New content after whatever the final agreed upon multi-platform games before the acquisition will be a different matter.
 
adamsapple said:
I think that's the very definition of a non-statement lol.

They'll keep whatever's already agreed upon for PS on PS, they're not gonna pull support.

New content after whatever the final agreed upon multi-platform games before the acquisition will be a different matter.
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That's the way I read it. But I guess time will tell.
 
I've been scouring the list of games that Activision has made in the past. Anyone know if they still have anything to do with the StarTrek license? They used to do a lot of those.

I'd like to see Pitfall come back, but my vision for it would be as a classic side scroller, done in a 3d art style (like the bonus rounds in a crash game) but with all the tried and true elements of an old-school platformer. No cheap art styles like Battletoads though. :messenger_winking_tongue:

I'm excited that they've said that they are looking to do more than just the biggest of the IPs. I wonder if things will start to hit GP before this closes or if we have to wait until 2023.
 
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RoadHazard said:
Suddenly, after years of whining about Sony buying some timed exclusives, Xbox fans love entire massive publishers and all their IPs becoming exclusives. I wonder why.
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Because it's not Microsoft's fault that Sony walked into KFC and ordered a two piece and a biscuit, and Microsoft walked in and bought the Colonel's secret recipe, my dude.
 
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Someone on the 'other' site posted this and its so good that I think it needs to be reposted here because it really makes great points about how Sony had/has been doing this to Xbox slowly all last gen and noone seemed to give a shit, but now they dont like it when sony cant compete.

It's hardly just a couple of moneyhats though. Sony have been signing exclusivity deals relentlessly all last generation, and they've done them largely unanswered as a result of both Xbox having a weaker market position making it cheaper for them to do, but also because the practice of signing them is widely accepted for them, but not for MS.

There's a reason why something like Final Fantasy sells so disproportionately on PlayStation... it's because these exclusivity deals reinforce (or in some cases disrupt) audiences on a given platform, and as time goes on that becomes more difficult to undo. Sony's had Final Fantasy in their corner for a long time now, going back to Final Fantasy 7, but the series DID eventually come to Xbox day and date beginning with Final Fantasy XIII, and was starting to cultivate an audience within that ecosystem that had a desire to play JRPGs. That Final Fantasy 7 Remake got moneyhatted (for what is still an uncertain length of time in regards to Xbox) isn't a random coincidence. This type of moneyhat is a precisely targeted one to cause an entire genre of game not be viable on the platform.

There are some IP that within their sphere carry so much weight that they cause ripple effects across the genre. Sony's Street Fighter V moneyhat effectively buried the entire fighter genre on Xbox, because nobody invested in that genre was going to opt for a console that lacked Street Fighter.. and as a result other titles that weren't (or at least I'm not aware of being) moneyhats would start to skip the console also, because if nobody that's invested in that genre is opting for that console, why should the smaller, more niche IP target that console either, right?

So yes... timed exclusives very much can be used to push a competing platform out of the market, and Sony was routinely targeting games that would be the most crippling across the spectrum. Whether that be Final Fantasy (and possibly Persona?) in the JRPG space, Street Fighter in the fighting game space, the year (or two) long exclusive content deals for Destiny, and the exclusive map content for COD in the FPS space, etc... the goal was to make it so Xbox as a platform wasn't a viable choice for the majority of the market. And quite frankly, it was working and working well... hence the situation in 2016 where MS bowing out of the market entirely was a very real possibility.

When that didn't occur, Sony looked to land killer blows right away at the start of this generation. Hence the announcement of Final Fantasy XVI's timed exclusivity ahead of the consoles being released, and the murmurs of a whole slew of others to be revealed in time. And the general response here was just that it was a foregone conclusion that PS5 would just continue to build on PS4's momentum largely unimpeded. And considering the shit MS took back in 2015 when they dared to land a single comparable exclusivity deal with Rise of the Tomb Raider, that avenue of retaliation was clearly not available to them. Look how quick the clarification of the duration of exclusivity of RoTR was forced out of MS and SquareEnix, and then contrast that with Crash N'Sane Trilogy, Nier Automata, Final Fantasy 7R, KOTOR remake... or any of countless other deals where their eventual Xbox release was happily left vague as hell. That's how we're here today, because MS were either gonna commit fully and land some true heavy blows that made a real difference to the current landscape, or they were inevitably going to see their platform marginalised to the point where they had to drop out.

If people didn't want to see the level of escalation we're seeing now today... well, they shouldn't have been so comfortable commending the ever increasing frequency and severity of deals Sony was making to cripple their primary competition. "Final Fantasy sells 80%+ on PlayStation anyways, so they may as well" and by extension "of course it makes sense for game X to skip Xbox, because the audience is all on PlayStation". Well, congrats... now they won't all be. The rampant desire for the glory days of PS2-era domination has led us here, and so cries about how unfair it is ring hollow.
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MS sure is bringing the fight to Sony now, huh.

51832091502_77b2f376f8_o.gif
 
Adam_802 said:
Someone on the 'other' site posted this and its so good that I think it needs to be reposted here because it really makes great points about how Sony had/has been doing this to Xbox slowly all last gen and noone seemed to give a shit, but now they dont like it when sony cant compete.
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Eh. Timed exclusives are hardly a new thing. Everyone does it. MS started timed DLC map packs for CoD back in the 360 era when they had the FPS audience. Sony took over when that audience ditched them because of kinect, tv tv tv, $500 weaker console, and always online. MS has only themselves to blame for that audience leaving and Sony taking over the timed exclusive business.

The other misconception that Sony was out there buying out japanese developers simply ignores that MS also had signed Platinum to make an exclusive around the same time. No one bid for Nioh's exclusivity. Or Yakuza. Or in cases where they did, MS shouldve easily been able to outbid the few million dollars sony probably bribed them with. You can read interviews of Japanese developers who said that they didnt plan the xbox version because they didnt see a reason to. MS at that point shouldve gone to the devs and said hey, we will fund the port. They didn't.

The fact that FF7 was exclusive means nothing because when it was announced, FF15 had not even been released and it was a multiplatform game. That post goes from FF13 releasing in 2008 straight to FF7's 2020 release. Like come on. Are we really absolving Microsoft of all sins here. Were they not the ones who launched that disastrous console and then completely failed to support it? Why was there no Ryse 2? Or Sunset 2? They paid for Titanfall's timed exclusivity and then went out and bought lifetime exclusivity so it's not like they were lacking cash. They just chose to spend it on dumb shit like Tomb Raider, Titanfall's life time exclusive, and of course $3.5 billion on Minecraft.

When 360 was at its peak. MS had no trouble paying for exclusives like Gears, Bioshock, and Mass Effect. Some were timed. Some like Gears MS didnt allow to be ported even though the entire port was done and playable from start to finish. That's just what console manufacturer's do. That post reads like revisionist history at best and a fake excuse to justify how MS phoned in half of that generation after they bombed right out of the gate. Why did they cancel Scalebound? Coalition's new IP? Shutdown Lionhead. Rehire Crytek and Insomniac to fight Sony's exclusives during those early years?

Sony didnt cry or shutdown studios after MS took all those exclusives in the early days of the PS360 gen. Nah, they went out and signed dozens of devs to make new games. Ninja Theory, Incognito, Insomniac, Evolution Studios, the Socom Confrontation devs, GG, Sucker Punch, Media Molecule, From Software, the guys who made the disastrous Haze and Lair. They didnt shut down studios, cancel new IPs and kill all their ties to Japan just because MS won the generation in the first three years.

So no, SFV didnt kill Xbox's userbase. And neither did FF7 releasing in the last year of the PS4 console cycle. MS fumbled the launch, and then sat on their asses until 2018 when they decided they want to stay in the console business. That is why they lost their audience and limped to a 50 million finish while Sony's PS3 disaster still got to 88 million.
 
Self_Destructive said:
MS sure is bringing the fight to Sony now, huh.

51832091502_77b2f376f8_o.gif
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Not really. Both are completely toothless at the moment. Neither have really "brought" anything anywhere. Maybe we can see something of decent value within the next year, but the majority of great titles with this new console generation have been third party games. First Party have mostly either been lacking, disappointing, or just OK.
 
Claus Grimhildyr said:
Not really. Both are completely toothless at the moment. Neither have really "brought" anything anywhere. Maybe we can see something of decent value within the next year, but the majority of great titles with this new console generation have been third party games. First Party have mostly either been lacking, disappointing, or just OK.
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Um, of course they haven't done much just days/months after their respective announcements, they're still going through the games they were contractually obligated to make for other platforms.

Bethesda/Zenimax are putting out 2 new games exclusive to Xbox/PC in 2022 (Redfall, Starfield), more like Deathloop and Ghost Wire will also come to Xbox after their respective PS timed exclusivity clauses are over and other studios under the Zenimax banner are probably creating more games as I type this.
 
SlimySnake said:
The fact that FF7 was exclusive means nothing because when it was announced, FF15 had not even been released and it was a multiplatform game. That post goes from FF13 releasing in 2008 straight to FF7's 2020 release. Like come on. Are we really absolving Microsoft of all sins here. Were they not the ones who launched that disastrous console and then completely failed to support it? Why was there no Ryse 2? Or Sunset 2? They paid for Titanfall's timed exclusivity and then went out and bought lifetime exclusivity so it's not like they were lacking cash. They just chose to spend it on dumb shit like Tomb Raider, Titanfall's life time exclusive, and of course $3.5 billion on Minecraft.
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your post has some good points, but man, this paragraph is a mess.

why is it significant that FF15 hadn't been released when FF7 was announced? Why does that matter at all?

Why are some of MS's missteps justification for Sony moneyhattting FF7? I don't see the relevance.

you kill MS for spending a bunch of money on games that made decent money like TF and Tomb Raider, but then also kill them for not making sequels to games that bombed like Sunset Overdrive (which might be my favorite game of that gen, FYI)

Also I am pretty sure they made their money back on Minecraft a LONG time ago, so again, I don't really know where you are going with that.
 
SlimySnake said:
Eh. Timed exclusives are hardly a new thing. Everyone does it. MS started timed DLC map packs for CoD back in the 360 era when they had the FPS audience. Sony took over when that audience ditched them because of kinect, tv tv tv, $500 weaker console, and always online. MS has only themselves to blame for that audience leaving and Sony taking over the timed exclusive business.

The other misconception that Sony was out there buying out japanese developers simply ignores that MS also had signed Platinum to make an exclusive around the same time. No one bid for Nioh's exclusivity. Or Yakuza. Or in cases where they did, MS shouldve easily been able to outbid the few million dollars sony probably bribed them with. You can read interviews of Japanese developers who said that they didnt plan the xbox version because they didnt see a reason to. MS at that point shouldve gone to the devs and said hey, we will fund the port. They didn't.

The fact that FF7 was exclusive means nothing because when it was announced, FF15 had not even been released and it was a multiplatform game. That post goes from FF13 releasing in 2008 straight to FF7's 2020 release. Like come on. Are we really absolving Microsoft of all sins here. Were they not the ones who launched that disastrous console and then completely failed to support it? Why was there no Ryse 2? Or Sunset 2? They paid for Titanfall's timed exclusivity and then went out and bought lifetime exclusivity so it's not like they were lacking cash. They just chose to spend it on dumb shit like Tomb Raider, Titanfall's life time exclusive, and of course $3.5 billion on Minecraft.

When 360 was at its peak. MS had no trouble paying for exclusives like Gears, Bioshock, and Mass Effect. Some were timed. Some like Gears MS didnt allow to be ported even though the entire port was done and playable from start to finish. That's just what console manufacturer's do. That post reads like revisionist history at best and a fake excuse to justify how MS phoned in half of that generation after they bombed right out of the gate. Why did they cancel Scalebound? Coalition's new IP? Shutdown Lionhead. Rehire Crytek and Insomniac to fight Sony's exclusives during those early years?

Sony didnt cry or shutdown studios after MS took all those exclusives in the early days of the PS360 gen. Nah, they went out and signed dozens of devs to make new games. Ninja Theory, Incognito, Insomniac, Evolution Studios, the Socom Confrontation devs, GG, Sucker Punch, Media Molecule, From Software, the guys who made the disastrous Haze and Lair. They didnt shut down studios, cancel new IPs and kill all their ties to Japan just because MS won the generation in the first three years.

So no, SFV didnt kill Xbox's userbase. And neither did FF7 releasing in the last year of the PS4 console cycle. MS fumbled the launch, and then sat on their asses until 2018 when they decided they want to stay in the console business. That is why they lost their audience and limped to a 50 million finish while Sony's PS3 disaster still got to 88 million.
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There is a lot wrong in your post. Exclusivity didnt start with xbox 360. Sony has been paying to keep games from other platforms since ps2!

Your argument is very one sided considering what has actually happened.
 
oldergamer said:
There is a lot wrong in your post. Exclusivity didnt start with xbox 360. Sony has been paying to keep games from other platforms since ps2!

Your argument is very one sided considering what has actually happened.
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I thought Sony had been paying to keep games off other platforms since the PlayStations inception? They literally built their MO on doing it.
since the PlayStation 1. Tomb raider etc.


on another note, as an XBOX fan I hope these acquisitions actually make them get some games out in the first 6 months of the year instead of just choosing to buy a company and use that to shape the conversation about Xbox while not actually releasing any games. They rode the Bethesda purchase for months in the news and they are going to do it even more with ACTI Blizzard but I would prefer some actual games thanks please papa Phil!
 
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Adam_802 said:
Someone on the 'other' site posted this and its so good that I think it needs to be reposted here because it really makes great points about how Sony had/has been doing this to Xbox slowly all last gen and noone seemed to give a shit, but now they dont like it when sony cant compete.
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Absolutely correct. And let's not forget that Sony we're sniffing around Starfield. It got to the point where MS had to take action.

I remember eagerly awaiting a release date for Diablo 3 on Xbox One. PS4 had a date but there was no sign of a release for Xbox and very vague statements about it - clearly a weird deal where Sony wanted exclusivity but didn't get it, and settled for no announcement for XB1. It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest they were looking to do the same with Diablo 4. That and the ongoing COD deals probably forced MS into action again. Pure conjecture but there's no smoke without fire.
 
Flintty said:
Absolutely correct. And let's not forget that Sony we're sniffing around Starfield. It got to the point where MS had to take action.

I remember eagerly awaiting a release date for Diablo 3 on Xbox One. PS4 had a date but there was no sign of a release for Xbox and very vague statements about it - clearly a weird deal where Sony wanted exclusivity but didn't get it, and settled for no announcement for XB1. It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest they were looking to do the same with Diablo 4. That and the ongoing COD deals probably forced MS into action again. Pure conjecture but there's no smoke without fire.
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While I understand why the platform holders do it, I've never been of paid for exclusives especially now that the hardware in these systems is so similar largely erasing any benefit you might have seen prior to the One/PS4 generation. I guess it's fair to think Sony's due for some comeuppance since they've been far more successful with this strategy but they were both guild of throwing rocks at one another. Microsoft just got tired of getting their asses kicked and raised the stakes by throwing dynamite instead.

I do think moneyhatting 3rd parties would be more preferable as the 3rd parties still have creative freedom of their projects and then a platform can choose to invest or not. And letting acquired developers branch out to different projects is certainly something that Microsoft has struggled with in the past. I'd have the same concerns for anyone acquired by Sony as their first party catalogue ahs become very "samey". It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
 
oldergamer said:
There is a lot wrong in your post. Exclusivity didnt start with xbox 360. Sony has been paying to keep games from other platforms since ps2!

Your argument is very one sided considering what has actually happened.
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Yep timed exclusivity and moneyhats both started with the inception of Playstation.

Nobody recognizes that as they just took it as normal through the PSX/PS2 generation. Only when MS did it during the 360 gen did anyone actually sit back and see what was happening.

Sony did a bunch of developers dirty in the early days, but it's all forgotten now.
 
Megatron said:
Why are some of MS's missteps justification for Sony moneyhattting FF7? I don't see the relevance.
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Why are some of Sony's missteps justification for MS moneyhatting entire publishers and all the very popular IPs they own? Because that's what a lot of people seem to be arguing. That this is just fine because "Sony did it first" (even though MS has also always been doing it, and Sony has never done anything near as damaging to the other side as this).
 
thismeinteil said:
MS's MO. Can't beat them with your own products, buy them. Guess it's time for Sony to strike back and buy Konami, SE, and Sega.
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MS or Xbox? Because as far as i know, MS i renowned for developing their own products that are still unbeatable to this day. Stuff like MS office for example.
 
I will never understand the human race. We have placed value on gold and diamonds, which are just basically space trash rocks, and 70 billion dollars just so some people have to report to other people? good lord.
 
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Now the dust has settled a bit on this, I do believe it's actually going to be a positive thing for the industry, and more importantly for gamers.

Let's face it, Activision is a fucking dumpster fire of a developer. Things must get better under MS for both the employees and the people who play their games. It sure as shit can't get any worse.

Second, this will make Sony get off its fucking arse and start making effort again. They've been slipping back into arrogant Sony over the last couple of years, and that needs stopping in its fucking tracks, before we slide right back to the Ps3 era bullshit again. They won't just be able to coast on existing franchises and deals to squeeze money with minimum effort. More Xbox exclusives means they'll have to ramp up their own... all good news for us.

I still have many reservations about the size and scope of this deal and what it means for the future, but I'm choosing to be optimistic, and am looking forward the quality of the games we might get int he future, now the two companies will be competing with each other on a much better footing.
 
Activision were never going to do anything with a lot of these franchises, it was Call Of Duty or bust.
So I think this is good news for everyone who wants to see the likes of Hexen, Heretic, Crash and Spyro again.
 
oldergamer said:
There is a lot wrong in your post. Exclusivity didnt start with xbox 360. Sony has been paying to keep games from other platforms since ps2!
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Since PS2? They literally entered gaming market with a purchase of a publisher and bunch of moneyhats that destroyed Sega eventually. Sony also has a big clout in gaming industry (and music, but not in the movies anymore). In PS2 they literally had almost a monopoly on a home console gaming market where almost all the games went to Playstation by default.

Xbox literally was one step away from being segaed, but sleeping giant woke up and finally did what all people wanted (dreaded) him to do - used its warchest. I do wonder what other acquisitions were put on hold due to this acquisition - I am pretty sure MS was negotiating some other acquisitions but as this one happened so unexpectedly - it certainly put something on hold.
 
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darrylgorn said:
It's weird seeing people angry about this, as if they've never seen mergers or acquisitions before.

This is how industries work.
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It's been happening a lot, especially in the software industry. Autodesk has been buying shit left and right for example.
 
Adam_802 said:
Someone on the 'other' site posted this and its so good that I think it needs to be reposted here because it really makes great points about how Sony had/has been doing this to Xbox slowly all last gen and noone seemed to give a shit, but now they dont like it when sony cant compete.
Click to expand...
A Few Good Men You Cant Handle The Truth GIF by SundanceTV
 
R3claimer117 said:
Please tell me this is a joke post and you don't believe the 2.5 trillion dollar company is going to go broke from spending 70 billion of a 150 billion they had just laying around that will be made again before the end of their next fiscal year?
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My post never implies any of that. Put your gun down soldier.

Just because you have, and get a lot of money, doesn't mean your immune to spending it unwisely.
 
ChuckeRearmed said:
Remember that article about First or best on Xbox :messenger_tears_of_joy: in regards of Bethesda?
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The ink needs to dry before we can form opinions on what we think their intentions are. Now, they are in that no-man's-land area where they have to be careful what they say, but they want the deal to benefit their brand as much as possible during this process too, so you get those all over the place PR statements that are clear as mud.
 
Roxkis_ii said:
My post never implies any of that. Put your gun down soldier.

Just because you have, and get a lot of money, doesn't mean your immune to spending it unwisely.
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This is in your view an unwise investment? They own all of the most dominant shooters now. Call of duty is the biggest shooter in the world. Halo infinite was number 2 on NPD despite being available on gamepass. Not to mention the bathesda deal give them a dominant advantage in the western rpg genre with already owning obsidian and in exile. This deal alone has a potential to add 20 million more gamepass members. Which will mean billions a year in revenue from mobile micro transactions as well as all the other stuff that Cod players will be spending money on. How this is an unwise investment picking up activision for the low is beyond me. The only reacting like a warrior is you I game on all platforms check my post history i call Xbox out on their bullshit when they do bullshit this isn't it though.
 
Badlucktroll said:
I will never understand the human race. We have placed value on gold and diamonds, which are just basically space trash rocks, and 70 billion dollars just so some people have to report to other people? good lord.
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Spookier is that the 70 billion is just some paper that we marked with ink. :messenger_winking_tongue:
 
DeAndre_ said:
its very difficult to overplay this though lmao. its a 70 BILLION dollar acquisition of one of the biggest game publishers ever
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I mean people saying Sony is completely doomed because of this. Yes it is going to have an impact on their business but I don't think we're at a point where things are "doomed" for Sony.
 
sainraja said:
I mean people saying Sony is completely doomed because of this. Yes it is going to have an impact on their business but I don't think we're at a point where things are "doomed" for Sony.
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No, of course not, but with any big news like this there's a fair share of bad faith actors who just want to revel in the troll-ery.

Never forget the FF13 to 360 or Dragon Quest IX DS threads. They're legendary for a reason.
 
DaGwaphics said:
The ink needs to dry before we can form opinions on what we think their intentions are. Now, they are in that no-man's-land area where they have to be careful what they say, but they want the deal to benefit their brand as much as possible during this process too, so you get those all over the place PR statements that are clear as mud.
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True. I mean until the deal is closed we won't know that much. And even after the deal is closed we won't know when other contracts expire and what games are gonna be released everywhere - and a lot of them probably will be. Like WOW console might come to all the platforms.
What guaranteed though, is when the deal is passed we won't get Sony's moneyhats of new games.

I mean
 
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