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

You're comparing a game that's been on the market for over 10 years to single editions of COD?

Who knew MC is worth more than Mario.
one dude made a game on java with no budget and sold it for like 1 billion dollars after perpetual early access, i would say that at this point , yes.
The same game has managed to stay relevant without reinventing itself for a decade now with a huge active user base, if you can't see the money in that, i don't know what to tell you.
I guess League of Legends is a small indie game for you too.
 
Youre right that the change will take some time to materialise. But Starfield is not coming to PlayStation, it is exclusive to the Series consoles. As for CoD I think it is a Minecraft situation yeah. Too much money to leave on Sonys table there.

And when it comes to playing XGS games on console, or PC, or Cloud: Microsoft does not care which door you enter in through, you are still playing on Xbox.
Call of Duty Warzone is a Minecraft situation. It's a huge thing already on Sonys platform (MC came to ps4 a couple months after the acquisition was announced and had been announced for a long time)

Mine craft has had tiny spin-offs that MS put on everything but they haven't had a Minecraft 2. For future CoD games I think those will be exclusive to platforms that have gamepass.
 
Are you reading this guys posts?

People disagreeing with me is fine. Someone still going "we don't know if Starfield is Xbox exclusive" repeatedly at this stage is a clown. Saying that "nothing has changed between Bethesda and Sony since Microsoft bought them" is completely and utterly wrong.

Yes I just got back from a ban, an unjustified ban too. I dared to point out that a certain pixel counters number of videos on his channel are highly skewed in the direction of one console and that earned me a 2 week ban ffs lol.

Argue the post, not try and get the poster banned by being concerned that they just had a ban. How childish are you? I'm not taking anything too seriously. We're having a discussion. Why do people like you have to try and gatekeep? Just go ahead and report me like I'm sure you've done before just because you don't like my opinion.


No reporting from me. Im just calling it out as I see. Insulting people on a forum is lame. The forum is fir discussion. Want an echochamber? Then idk what to tell you.

People are too comfortable with the insults on the internet. Most of you wouldn't take that liberty with someone in person so just stop if you can't handle a civil discussion.
 
No reporting from me. Im just calling it out as I see. Insulting people on a forum is lame. The forum is fir discussion. Want an echochamber? Then idk what to tell you.

People are too comfortable with the insults on the internet. Most of you wouldn't take that liberty with someone in person so just stop if you can't handle a civil discussion.
I would call him a clown to his face if he was presenting these arguments to me. I'm sorry but if you can't handle someone that continually says things that are completely and demonstrably incorrect even after being proven wrong being called a clown then maybe the internet isn't the place for you.

Starfield is 100% exclusive to Xbox, yet this person keeps denying it. I'm sorry but people like that are a blight on the forums and deserve to be called out. He is literally disregarding cold hard facts.
 
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I would call him a clown to his face if he was presenting these arguments to me. I'm sorry but if you can't handle someone that continually says things that are completely and demonstrably setting even after being proven wrong being called a clown then maybe the internet isn't the place for you.

Starfield is 100% exclusive to Xbox, yet this person keeps denying it. I'm sorry but people like that are a blight on the forums and deserve to be called out. He is literally disregarding cold hard facts.


Its perfectly fine for me. Im not the one getting emotional and triggered over someone I've never mets opinion.

Starfield is exclusive from what was said officially. If someone can't accept it, just move on. Otherwise you guys are going in circles for nothing endlessly.
 
I wonder how it must feel for XGS's older devs, like rare, turn 10, the coalition, compulsion, ninja theory etc etc , that there parent company and platform has aquired Zenimax and now Acti-blizz, they must be feeling pretty good to part of the biggest first party in gaming history. There internal "mini E3's" are going to be so helpful for all of them.
 
Its perfectly fine for me. Im not the one getting emotional and triggered over someone I've never mets opinion.

Starfield is exclusive from what was said officially. If someone can't accept it, just move on. Otherwise you guys are going in circles for nothing endlessly.
Neither am I, but good work on trying to play that card lol. You were the one that interjected and had a go at me, so maybe you were actually the one that got triggered? Why else would you jump in?

It's a discussion forum. It takes me 2 seconds to reply, and I get a bit of a laugh from making ignorant people look like the fools they are. Someone that continues to say that Starfield is coming to PlayStation despite being confirmed over and over to be exclusive is a 🤡 and deserves to be called one.
 
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I mean, guys, seriously. Is this not the fucking heist of the century or what!? Some people don't have to like or fuck with Xbox, but you gotta respect Microsoft's gangsta. This is straight kick in the door and just take some shit. :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:


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I think alot of people have this sinking feeling ms might be the harbinger of the end of gaming. Seriously. It's too much lol

They better not Dragonscale and Fable the shit out of all these studios
 
I think alot of people have this sinking feeling ms might be the harbinger of the end of gaming. Seriously. It's too much lol

They better not Dragonscale and Fable the shit out of all these studios

the opposite will be true most likely... nowadays almost all of Activision's studios are co-developing Call of Duty. I bet this will change
 
the opposite will be true most likely... nowadays almost all of Activision's studios are co-developing Call of Duty. I bet this will change

Their raw manpower is outrageous... they will put together some pretty incredible games if allowed some freedom and creative freedom. Microsoft is the absolute perfect company to take this over.
 
One thing is for sure, if CoD does go exclusive MS better have a fuckton of stock for the day that game launches.

It will be the best selling day in Xbox history if the stock is there.

Bookmark it.
 
yo Beenox also made some of the better Spider-Man games out there! Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time actually were pretty decent




and Raven only has CoD listen? what? Hexen, Heretic?.... FUCKING JEDI KNIGHT 2!!!
Raven is probably my favourite dev on the list, can't wait to see what they'll make when they're not being forced to make CoD!
 
Raven is probably my favourite dev on the list, can't wait to see what they'll make when they're not being forced to make CoD!
I played a ton of Raven shit on PC, OG Xbox and 360. They were among my favorite developers and I'd like to see them doing thier own thing again.
 
You can act like armchair contract writer all you want for future games. But nothing has changed since the Mojang deal in 2014. You still got all your Mojang and Bethesda games still there to play and buy on the PS store. And Deathloop even still came out. And so did MC Dungeons in 2020.

And why would you exclude MC? Because it's giant? So is COD.

It looks like the next big game coming out is Starfield in November. Maybe it is Xbox/PC exclusive. Well, there's another 10 months of status quo to add to Sept 2020.

So chill. Nothing is changing tonight at midnight.

The interesting question with Minecraft going forward will be if there is gonna be a PS5 version if they make an Xbox series version. When Minecraft was bought by Microsoft it was already on all devices, it will be interesting if thewy makes some kind of next gen version and if it goes onto PS5. At the moment Microsoft are supporting every version out there which they are doing with other games that are already on other consoles after they purchased company's. Its what they do going forward that will be interesting
 
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.
Don't see the great points at all. This idea of trying to make Sony seem like the bad guy is so tired and wrong. Exclusive deals happened all the time prior.

What was happening in the 360 days? Remember GTA exclusivity on 360? The lost and damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony? Remember when Call of Duty released first on 360 for an entire month due to exclusivity deals. The entire game, not just some skins or something. Remember Mass Effect?

You think the killing blow from Sony was actually greenlighting Final Fantasy 7 remake of all things? That was simply from the E3 of dreams where Shuhei Yoshida and Adam boyes made new games like FF7 remake and Shenmue actually happen. If Phil was worried about an 'entire genre' he wouldn't have cancelled the game he has in that genre. He would have taken risks with launching new IPs with these developers.

Final fantasy of all things was going to kill xbox is not a great point, it's not even logical because it doesn't have the pulling power like GTA and COD.

Xbox failed to get content on their system and somehow people are trying to blame Sony for that now that MS are buying up more publishers. PRing their way to two things
1) that somehow MS is the good guy for taking control of IPs
2) blaming someone else for their own self proclaimed lack of content on Xbox.

During the xbox one gen before this acquisition everybody was saying all the past dev acquisitions will show come Xbox Series launch and Sony will struggle to compete.

Xbox launches with literally nothing and Halo delayed to next years output and that's somehow Sony's fault for "content starving them". No it's MS just not doing a good job of providing anything at launch with all the studios it had. Now you're talking about another acquisition and how that will be unbeatable in the future again and how Sony forced its hand. It's almost comical if it weren't so sad.
 
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I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with Overwatch.

Halo infinite is one of the few fps games I enjoy playing daily so there's a ton of potential here.
 
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T Three I think most would agree that neither Sony or MS are "bad" they are just trying to grow and secure their respective positions in the best ways that they can. Sony can use their market share to gain some control over third-parties and they do that. MS can't do that, but they can utilize piles of cash, as a result that is how they can secure content. Not an unexpected result at the end of the day.
 
I think alot of people have this sinking feeling ms might be the harbinger of the end of gaming. Seriously. It's too much lol

They better not Dragonscale and Fable the shit out of all these studios
With the shit Acti/Blizz has been in recently and the state of COD what if I told you a lot of people I have spoken to feel the very opposite and have hopes MS turns them around.

Besides this is only the end of gaming for a certain group of people that plant their flags only on team blue.

If there are games that go exclusive to MS and someone wants to play them buy a Series S and keep playing, its pretty simple imo
 
T Three I think most would agree that neither Sony or MS are "bad" they are just trying to grow and secure their respective positions in the best ways that they can. Sony can use their market share to gain some control over third-parties and they do that. MS can't do that, but they can utilize piles of cash, as a result that is how they can secure content. Not an unexpected result at the end of the day.
Right, but the self proclaimed lack of content on xbox is not due to the competition. It's MSs own doing by
a) Not managing their own studio output of which they had/have plenty.
b) Not supporting new IPs.

MS can even work with these studios to create the new IPs like Deathloop or Ghostwire Tokyo and make it xbox exclusive. Terms are favourable with non-established IPs. They choose not to. They are more interested in buying IPs and publishers for market share shift. It is what it is and it's fine. people should stop trying to paint this as some justice retaliation though, that's bullshit.
 
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Right, but the self proclaimed lack of content on xbox is not due to the competition. It's MSs own doing by
a) Not managing their own studio output of which they had/have plenty.
b) Not supporting new IPs.

MS can even work with these studios to create the new IPs like Deathloop or Ghostwire Tokyo and make it xbox exclusive. Terms are favourable with non-established IPs. They choose not to. They are more interested in buying IPs and publishers for market share shift. It is what it is and it's fine. people should stop trying to paint this as some justice retaliation though, that's bullshit.

MS didn't have many studios until relatively recently. And almost every studio they acquired had either just released something or was in the process of finishing an already established third-party project. Seeing that most games take 4 or 5 years to make, that makes it hard for them to get a ton of content out of the new studios in the first 3 or 4 years.
 
MS didn't have many studios until relatively recently. And almost every studio they acquired had either just released something or was in the process of finishing an already established third-party project. Seeing that most games take 4 or 5 years to make, that makes it hard for them to get a ton of content out of the new studios in the first 3 or 4 years.
Fair enough but most of MS studio acquisitions and claims of next gen launch being the bringer of these games are from 2018 more than 3 years ago. Then when these games didn't come with the new gen launch people blamed Sony for lack of xbox content and an excuse for the Zenimax/Activision acquisitions as Sony forcing their hand due to this starvation of content.

No, they just provided no content for the xbox. Paying a developer to create games was still on the table for all those years prior to xbox series launch. They didn't do it. Their interest is buying up established IPs to gain market share right now not anything to do with being content starved by the actions of a competitor. People are just trying to excuse it with that.
 
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Don't see the great points at all. This idea of trying to make Sony seem like the bad guy is so tired and wrong. Exclusive deals happened all the time prior.

What was happening in the 360 days? Remember GTA exclusivity on 360? The lost and damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony? Remember when Call of Duty released first on 360 for an entire month due to exclusivity deals. The entire game, not just some skins or something. Remember Mass Effect?

You think the killing blow from Sony was actually greenlighting Final Fantasy 7 remake of all things? That was simply from the E3 of dreams where Shuhei Yoshida and Adam boyes made new games like FF7 remake and Shenmue actually happen. If Phil was worried about an 'entire genre' he wouldn't have cancelled the game he has in that genre. He would have taken risks with launching new IPs with these developers.

Final fantasy of all things was going to kill xbox is not a great point, it's not even logical because it doesn't have the pulling power like GTA and COD.

Xbox failed to get content on their system and somehow people are trying to blame Sony for that now that MS are buying up more publishers. PRing their way to two things
1) that somehow MS is the good guy for taking control of IPs
2) blaming someone else for their own self proclaimed lack of content on Xbox.

During the xbox one gen before this acquisition everybody was saying all the past dev acquisitions will show come Xbox Series launch and Sony will struggle to compete.

Xbox launches with literally nothing and Halo delayed to next years output and that's somehow Sony's fault for "content starving them". No it's MS just not doing a good job of providing anything at launch with all the studios it had. Now you're talking about another acquisition and how that will be unbeatable in the future again and how Sony forced its hand. It's almost comical if it weren't so sad.
Ahh no you don't get off that easy the talk of "Xbox has no games" got so strong in 2016 that Sony even started chanting you don't need a PC all you need is a Playstation under your TV. Also, their was the very real situation/talk that MS would exit the video game industry all together. You didn't hear Sony or anyone else begging MS to stay in the industry back then. MS at least wants to include Playstation in it's plans. Sony wanted MS completely out of the industry and was happy to trout they could even take the place of PC too. Nah you don't get a pass with the statement above. When MS tried and failed to play the same game with exclusives AKA the famous Rise of Tomb Raider time exclusive for example. The audience and the media were happy to hammer MS to the point to reveal all details of the deal. MS had to allow CD to tell how long the deal would last even though MS wanted those details under wraps. MS tried to add to their userbase but, everyone told them "that's okay I can play something else for a year. See you in a year ROTTR that way I don't have to buy a Xbox". What did that leave MS to do, because the field had to be leveled some how? The choices were 1) Leave and focus on PC 2) try more timed Exclusives (that would fail) 3) buy some studios to gain back market share. Sony was already talking to Bethesda for the exclusive on Starfield and we know this. Remember the famous quote Ryan made we're not just going to have Playstation content this gen were going after exclusive content from other area's as well. Sony knew it could get other content locked up just like FF why because Sony had done it before! This worked with Resident Evil, Street Frighter, Call of Duty, Destiny, Spider-man and FF for starters. Sony knew the gaming media didn't care and the audience wouldn't push them to release the exclusive details. MS knowing all this decided to go big or go home. They went big and you have a problem with it? Sorry man this is exactly what happened to Sega, so many years ago. Content is king and Sony muscled Sega (Got EA to stop developing for Sega) right into a 3rd party developer just ask Peter Moore.
 
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Ahh no you don't get off that easy the talk of "Xbox has no games" got so strong in 2016 that Sony even started chanting you don't need a PC all you need is a Playstation under your TV. Also, their was the very real situation/talk that MS would exit the video game industry all together. You didn't hear Sony or anyone else begging MS to stay in the industry back then. MS at least wants to include Playstation in it's plans. Sony wanted MS completely out of the industry and was happy to trout they could even take the place of PC too. Nah you don't get a pass with the statement above. When MS tried and failed to play the same game with exclusives AKA the famous Rise of Tomb Raider time exclusive for example. The audience and the media were happy to hammer MS to the point to reveal all details of the deal. MS had to allow CD to tell how long the deal would last even though MS wanted those details under wraps. MS tried to add to their userbase but, everyone told them "that's okay I can play something else for a year. See you in a year ROTTR that way I don't have to buy a Xbox". What did that leave MS to do, because the field had to be leveled some how? The choices were 1) Leave and focus on PC 2) try more timed Exclusives (that would fail) 3) buy some studios to gain back market share. Sony was already talking to Bethesda for the exclusive on Starfield and we know this. Remember the famous quote Ryan made we're not just going to have Playstation content this gen were going after exclusive content from other area's as well. Sony knew it could get other content locked up just like FF why because Sony had done it before! This worked with Resident Evil, Street Frighter, Call of Duty, Destiny, Spider-man and FF for starters. Sony knew the gaming media didn't care and the audience wouldn't push them to release the exclusive details. MS knowing all this decided to go big or go home. They went big and you have a problem with it? Sorry man this is exactly what happened to Sega, so many years ago. Content is king and Sony muscled Sega (Got EA to stop developing for Sega) right into a 3rd party developer just ask Peter Moore.
If MS with all the money it has decided to exit the video game industry in 2016 (Due to what? FF and Street fighter weren't released yet) that was on them. What were they starved of? They were just doing a bad job.

I don't remember anyone saying Sony were content starved by MS when PS3 'had no games' and MS were paying for exclusives and therefore sony bought SF and FF exclusivity with PS4 yet here we are with MS fans making that argument now. It's ridiculous but whatever floats your boat. Sony when "content starved" made new IPs, new franchises, they made games.

I'm not saying I have a problem with this just that the premise that this is some justice retaliation is such a stupid PR excuse for MS' failure to actually create content.


P. S. wtf are you talking about Spiderman. That's a Sony game. That would be like complaining about MS releasing Halo.
Nobody has a problem with new content but if for example Sony paid for the next Mass Effect exclusivity you will get the same complaints as Tomb Raider. Context is key. You may think MS get unfairly treated for the Tomb Raider deal but it would be the same if the above were to happen.
 
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yo Beenox also made some of the better Spider-Man games out there! Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time actually were pretty decent




and Raven only has CoD listen? what? Hexen, Heretic?.... FUCKING JEDI KNIGHT 2!!!

Raven's history has those games. But they aren't the same studiO they once were. Hell, I would be surprised if more than 10% of the devs that worked on Jedi Knight 2 were still employed there. Just as modern blizzard is not the same blizzard that created Warcraft 3, WoW, Diablo 2, or StarCraft.
 
May as well say future of Sony on there too though since you'll play them all on your PlayStation right? MS wouldn't want to leave money on the table.
Possibly. Minecraft has been there since day one and still humming in 2022. And Minecraft Dungeons even came out too in 2020 on PS. They didnt have to release that side game for PS.

As you said in a post, you even predict Warzone will keep on chugging on PS. I wouldnt be surprised if it stayed.

As I said to many times, just because there's Mojang, Bethesda and Activision deals, it doesn't mean things come to a grinding halt.
 
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Possibly. Minecraft has been there since day one and still humming in 2022. And Minecraft Dungeons even came out too in 2020 on PS. They didnt have to release that side game for PS.

As you said in a post, you even predict Warzone will keep on chugging on PS. I wouldnt be surprised if it stayed.

As I said to many times, just because there's Mojang, Bethesda and Activision deals, it doesn't mean things come to a grinding halt.
You think the Switch will start getting COD etc now too? 100+ million consoles sold, that a lot of money to leave on the table now that MS need to recoup the $70bil they just lost. PS4 versions of all games incoming too? Another 120 mill user base. Realistically that means anything less than what, 40 million sales per Xbox first party game from here on out is a massive failure hey?
 
You think the Switch will start getting COD etc now too? 100+ million consoles sold, that a lot of money to leave on the table now that MS need to recoup the $70bil they just lost. PS4 versions of all games incoming too? Another 120 mill user base. Realistically that means anything less than what, 40 million sales per Xbox first party game from here on out is a massive failure hey?
the amount of units the switch has counts little when you look at the demographic, hardware and network infrastracture
 
70 bn is a difficult amount to make back, let alone "easily"
The $70B isn't something they'll be looking to immediately "make back." It's not a zero sum game. This is essentially Microsoft buying their way into a new kind of recurring revenue based games business with the goal of immediately being the market leader. It's a long term investment.
 
The $70B isn't something they'll be looking to immediately "make back." It's not a zero sum game. This is essentially Microsoft buying their way into a new kind of recurring revenue based games business with the goal of immediately being the market leader. It's a long term investment.
i agree, but i also wouldn't call that target easy either..netflix is still currently trying to actually make some profit as far as i know..and game licensing and making is probably even more expensive than the movie one
 
The $70B isn't something they'll be looking to immediately "make back." It's not a zero sum game. This is essentially Microsoft buying their way into a new kind of recurring revenue based games business with the goal of immediately being the market leader. It's a long term investment.
It's not something they need to make back though because it hasn't gone anywhere.

They had $70bil sitting in a bank actually *losing* them money due to low interest rates and inflation. They took that money and bought a profit generating asset that's worth $70bil.

Their net worth didn't go down by $70bil. In fact it likely went up on the news of the purchase.

Some of you need to learn how assets, investments, and net worth work, otherwise you're going to struggle in the real world. Like legitimately, educate yourself or you will probably end up in financial trouble.
 
i agree, but i also wouldn't call that target easy either..netflix is still currently trying to actually make some profit as far as i know..and game licensing and making is probably even more expensive than the movie one
Netflix make tonnes of profit, but they reinvest it back into original programming etc. They're spending something like $9bil a year on original content now. You can't do that without profit.
 
Don't see the great points at all. This idea of trying to make Sony seem like the bad guy is so tired and wrong. Exclusive deals happened all the time prior.

What was happening in the 360 days? Remember GTA exclusivity on 360? The lost and damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony? Remember when Call of Duty released first on 360 for an entire month due to exclusivity deals. The entire game, not just some skins or something. Remember Mass Effect?

You think the killing blow from Sony was actually greenlighting Final Fantasy 7 remake of all things? That was simply from the E3 of dreams where Shuhei Yoshida and Adam boyes made new games like FF7 remake and Shenmue actually happen. If Phil was worried about an 'entire genre' he wouldn't have cancelled the game he has in that genre. He would have taken risks with launching new IPs with these developers.

Final fantasy of all things was going to kill xbox is not a great point, it's not even logical because it doesn't have the pulling power like GTA and COD.

Xbox failed to get content on their system and somehow people are trying to blame Sony for that now that MS are buying up more publishers. PRing their way to two things
1) that somehow MS is the good guy for taking control of IPs
2) blaming someone else for their own self proclaimed lack of content on Xbox.

During the xbox one gen before this acquisition everybody was saying all the past dev acquisitions will show come Xbox Series launch and Sony will struggle to compete.

Xbox launches with literally nothing and Halo delayed to next years output and that's somehow Sony's fault for "content starving them". No it's MS just not doing a good job of providing anything at launch with all the studios it had. Now you're talking about another acquisition and how that will be unbeatable in the future again and how Sony forced its hand. It's almost comical if it weren't so sad.
People trying to put the blame on Sony for MS's shortcoming and incompetence is really amusing.
 
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