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

70 bn is a difficult amount to make back, let alone "easily"

Depends on how the GP userbase will grow, which is all MS' plan is about. Let's say by the end of this year the number of subs increases by another 10M, up to 35M total, that's over 4BLN yearly revenue alone (well minus the 1$ conversions), or 350M monthly, which is enough to fund three AAA games. Then there are DLC and MTX, and on top of that people still buy games to own them regardless, as seen with FH5 and Halo, plus there's XBL needed to play online, or GPU to compensate that, so there are another additional streams of revenue. If GP grows to 50M, that's 6B each year just from the subs. With 100M, that's a billion monthly revenue just like that, I mean, it's pretty obvious why MS wants to go this route, that's a business model that doesn't rely on each individual game's success, just like Netflix which has its hit and miss shows/movies, but as long as that 200M+ userbase is there, they can experiment, try out new things, license 3rd party franchises and so on. But unlike Netflix, if a game really succeeds, then there's that additional revenue I mentioned earlier. Hence that's a business model they can bet those kind of investments on.

All in all, the seeds have been planted, but the results have yet to be seen, in theory they have the whole XB1 gen userbase already they can supply via xCloud, then there's Series X/S which sell out like crazy, which I recon will drive the GP growth the most, and then there's PC market, which I assume thanks to Blizzard titles will move quite a lot of subs on its own.
 
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.
You missed the point with the exclusives I listed for Sony, that list showed Sony didn't need anymore heavy hitter exclusives tied to their system and yet Sony was already ready to tie up Starfield to push that "MS has no games" BS that much more. MS put a stop to that upfront and period when they bought Bethesda and how do we not know MS wasn't already courting Activision/Blizzard before the purchase of Bethesda? One thing is clear I bet we don't hear "MS doesn't have any games" anymore from this forum or any other media outlet ever again! Moral of the story don't poke a bear when it's asleep. Sony woke the bear without a plan and now they're paying (and begging) for MS to honor it's contacts. What does that tell you hmmm??? MS wasn't the only ones not ready for Next-gen content. In fact Sony's begging because they're power over FPS and RPG's has been diminished by half. More importantly they can't stop any of these games from coming out on Xbox or with less content or force a later lunch period. This is why Ryan's not so comfy in his chair at the office like he was before Sept 21st 2020. He has good reason to be concerned. Maybe this is better for Sony because a hungry Sony is a better Sony. They just got served a whole lot of humble pie!
 
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People trying to put the blame on Sony for MS's shortcoming and incompetence is really amusing.
Yes. I definitely think everyone needs to concede the point that something horrible happened with Xbox management at the tail-end of the 360 to start of Xbox One gen. At times during the 360 era they showed they were prepared to aggressively pursue exclusive content and even made Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon. Things then just magically tapered off and they became too reliant on the heavy hitters expecting them to get them by. It was largely their own fault that they find themselves in present situation.

All this does not discount the kinds of new levels of 'perks' Sony went on to enjoy with their 2:1 dominant market position. Exclusive deals worked out on the cheap, timed-deals (with no real community push-back) and even extra revenue for just allowing Fortnite crossplay. It's hard to see them clawing back market share under present conditions, unless something drastic were to happen. And here we are.
 
Huge variety of games. No other company comes close.

I would argue that Xbox has been, for the longest time, one of the least diverse in terms of IPs being published. I would love to see this change, however and I am hoping that these recent acquisitions will allow for that. However, given their history of not utilizing their already existant IPs much, I wont' hold out hope.

Going to be a while before we see anything from this acquisition take fruition. Hell, we are still waiting on ones from 3-4 years ago.
 
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Yes. I definitely think everyone needs to concede the point that something horrible happened with Xbox management at the tail-end of the 360 to start of Xbox One gen. At times during the 360 era they showed they were prepared to aggressively pursue exclusive content and even made Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon. Things then just magically tapered off and they became too reliant on the heavy hitters expecting them to get them by. It was largely their own fault that they find themselves in present situation.

All this does not discount the kinds of new levels of 'perks' Sony went on to enjoy with their 2:1 dominant market position. Exclusive deals worked out on the cheap, timed-deals (with no real community push-back) and even extra revenue for just allowing Fortnite crossplay. It's hard to see them clawing back market share under present conditions, unless something drastic were to happen. And here we are.
Yes, here we are. And people are going to be wondering why MS actions didn't amount to anything, because it's MS. And I find extremely ridiculous how some people want to paint MS as an innocent and hopeless child. The same company known to buy and shut down the competition.
 
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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?
Where did I say COD will come to Switch? I dont even think there are any COD games even on Switch to begin with.

You have a odd way making accusations when replying.
 
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.
Those are terrible points. The only one to blame for trillion dollar company MS failing is themselves for being incompetent and not setting their sights where they should. They focused on "tv" instead of games. They focused on GAAS and MP games and forgot about single player games, they laughed at the notion of story focused games. This is shitty revisionism and fanboysm. Nintendo is selling numbers because they're good. MS is doing the only thing they're really good at: seizing control of the market. Buying the competition and shutting everyone else down. They did it with Skype, they did it with other products. Blaming Sony for MS shortcomings is like blaming google and apple for the failure that was windows phone. Nah, this won't fly. A trillion dollar company's failure it's on anybody but themselves.
 
I remember when I once stated that XGS needed about 36 Studios in order to make Game Pass a viable subscription service that could one day hit 100+ million subscriptions.

A few people thought I was exaggerating.

XGS will now have 34 1st Party studios. They also have EA's sub tied to GPU.

Game Pass should start to see more growth.
 
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.
God damn, boy!! LOL! Are you still in the denial phase from the last acquisition??? Jesus Christ..
 
He said nothing has changed with the Bethesda acquisition because we didn't actually know if Starfield was ever coming to PlayStation! :messenger_tears_of_joy:
I never said things will never change in the future.

My stance has always been right now, nothing has changed with games released. It's status quo.

All the existing games are still there to play and buy even though MS could cut the cord at anytime. Doom, Fallout, COD, MC etc.... all still there on competing consoles.
 
"existing" games. They aren't going to delist that's already out. New installments in those series will only be on Xbox and PC.
But they could if they want to gimp the game libraries of competing consoles. MC Dungeons is a new game. They didn't have to release that new game on Switch and PS either.
 
I never said things will never change in the future.

My stance has always been right now, nothing has changed with games released. It's status quo.

All the existing games are still there to play and buy even though MS could cut the cord at anytime. Doom, Fallout, COD, MC etc.... all still there on competing consoles.
So you think ms would pull those games that already released on ps? What? That makes no sense! Of course those games that released prior to the acquisition are still there! Delisting those games and making them xbox exclusive would not bring in new users, and would on fact hurt ms with ask the bad press they would get for Delisting dozens of games on ps.

No, nothing has changed as of yet because no Bethesda games that weren't under contract have released since the acquisition! But that will change in 10 months with Starfield.

Pulling games on the console and not releasing future games on the console are two different things!
 
But they could if they want to gimp the game libraries of competing consoles. MC Dungeons is a new game. They didn't have to release that new game on Switch and PS either.
Yeah, bro. At this rate you should be fully beyond the Bethesda acquisition by, say. 2030? Then you've got the AB acquisition to deal with so, you'll come around in about 50 years. You good...lol
 
But they could if they want to gimp the game libraries of competing consoles. MC Dungeons is a new game. They didn't have to release that new game on Switch and PS either.
How is that going to gimp the game libraries when we're talking about a dozen games compared to thousands on the console? Removing them does NOTHING. Those years old games are not selling millions every year so there's no reason to remove them in hopes that people will have to buy an Xbox to play them.
 
Where did I say COD will come to Switch? I dont even think there are any COD games even on Switch to begin with.

You have a odd way making accusations when replying.
sigh....

Your whole point is that microsoft won't "leave money on the table" by cutting of playstation users from new releases. If that was the case, why wouldn't Microsoft also release COD and all their other first party games on the console with the biggest user base, the switch? Again - money left on the table.

You have an odd way of having almost zero comprehension skills.

He said nothing has changed with the Bethesda acquisition because we didn't actually know if Starfield was ever coming to PlayStation! :messenger_tears_of_joy:
No it's worse than that - he still believes that Starfield is releasing on PS5 despite multiple people pointing out to him that the game has been explicitly named as Xbox Exclusive numerous times hahaha
 
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But they could if they want to gimp the game libraries of competing consoles. MC Dungeons is a new game. They didn't have to release that new game on Switch and PS either.
I believe they did, I may be recalling tales from my ass but I seem to remember Mojang only agreed to the sale if it stayed multiplatform, including future spin offs. I might be wrong i'll have to check.

Besides that, MC is treated as a platform, much like xbox itself. Totally different beast to COD in every sense.
 
sigh....

Your whole point is that microsoft won't "leave money on the table" by cutting of playstation users from new releases. If that was the case, why wouldn't Microsoft also release COD and all their other first party games on the console with the biggest user base, the switch? Again - money left on the table.

You have an odd way of having almost zero comprehension skills.

Right. And why doesn't MS put Halo and Forza on PlayStation? Why doesn't Sony put Spider-Man and God of War on XBox? Aren't all these companies 'leaving money on the table'?
 
sigh....

Your whole point is that microsoft won't "leave money on the table" by cutting of playstation users from new releases. If that was the case, why wouldn't Microsoft also release COD and all their other first party games on the console with the biggest user base, the switch? Again - money left on the table.

You have an odd way of having almost zero comprehension skills.


No it's worse than that - he still believes that Starfield is releasing on PS5 despite multiple people pointing out to him that the game has been explicitly named as Xbox Exclusive numerous times hahaha
Big difference between keeping things as is (status quo right now) vs. your new idea of releasing COD games on Switch.
 
Right. And why doesn't MS put Halo and Forza on PlayStation? Why doesn't Sony put Spider-Man and God of War on XBox? Aren't all these companies 'leaving money on the table'?
Exactly.

Anyone using the "leaving money on the table" reasoning for Acti/Bliz games not going exclusive to Xbox has no idea what they're talking about. Companies "leave money on the table" all the time because they're gaining more money by doing so.

Big difference between keeping things as is (status quo right now) vs. your new idea of releasing COD games on Switch.
But there is no "status quo" for COD 2024. The game doesn't exist. They have to make it, and if they don't want to "leave money on the table" they'd release it on PS4, Switch, PS5, and Xbox.

StreetsofBeige StreetsofBeige , can you at least admit to us that you know that Starfield is not coming to the PS5 ever yet?
 
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Exactly.

Anyone using the "leaving money on the table" reasoning for Acti/Bliz games not going exclusive to Xbox has no idea what they're talking about. Companies "leave money on the table" all the time because they're gaining more money by doing so.


But there is no "status quo" for COD 2024. The game doesn't exist. They have to make it, and if they don't want to "leave money on the table" they'd release it on PS4, Switch, PS5, and Xbox.
I never said future games might not go exclusive. All I've said is Mojang, Bethesda or Activision it's been status quo so far. Games still sell, servers still up. Even MC Dungeons released. Existing stuff still there.

Will all future games go exclusive. Maybe. Maybe not. The partnership deal for COD is supposedly to 2023. So right there even that series still has a few years left on PS. And given Minecreaft's precedent with MC Dungeons, the next MC game might be multiplat again.
 
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I never said future games might not go exclusive. All I've said is Mojang, Bethesda or Activision it's been status quo so far. Games still sell, servers still up. Even MC Dungeons released. Existing stuff still there.

Will all future games go exclusive. Maybe. Maybe not. The partnership deal for COD is supposedly to 2023. So right there even that series still has a few years left on PS. And given Minecreaft's precedent with MC Dungeons, the next MC game might be multiplat again.
No, that's not all you've said. You've said that Starfield is NOT xbox exclusive.

It also isn't the status quo so far. All development work on all PS5 versions of Bethesda titles apart from the last remaining game sony bought timed exclusivity for has completely stopped and those versions have been scrapped. That's a change.

At least 2 new games by Bethesda have been announced since and both have been announced as Xbox exclusive - Redfall, and The Outer Worlds 2. The Outer Worlds was on PS4, so Sony have lost the sequel. Status Quo? Nope.

No one has EVER suggested that MS would remove all existing previously released games from Playstation lol.

Again I'll ask you - Is Starfield coming to PS5 or not?
 
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I remember when I once stated that XGS needed about 36 Studios in order to make Game Pass a viable subscription service that could one day hit 100+ million subscriptions.

A few people thought I was exaggerating.

XGS will now have 34 1st Party studios. They also have EA's sub tied to GPU.

Game Pass should start to see more growth.
Once they've reached Phil's stated goal of one major release a month, Gamepass will absolutely explode. Subbing a month for Halo or a temp third party titles has carried them to 25 million. Once we're seeing Starfield in November, Call of Duty in December, Fable in January, Quake in March, Banjo-Kazooie in April, and on and on for the entire year, they'll have the necessary continual delivery to take temp subscribers and turn them into forever subscribers. I think it'll take the majority of this generation, but before it closes out, I suspect the industry as a whole will be transformed by it.
 
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You missed the point with the exclusives I listed for Sony, that list showed Sony didn't need anymore heavy hitter exclusives tied to their system and yet Sony was already ready to tie up Starfield to push that "MS has no games" BS that much more. MS put a stop to that upfront and period when they bought Bethesda and how do we not know MS wasn't already courting Activision/Blizzard before the purchase of Bethesda? One thing is clear I bet we don't hear "MS doesn't have any games" anymore from this forum or any other media outlet ever again! Moral of the story don't poke a bear when it's asleep. Sony woke the bear without a plan and now they're paying (and begging) for MS to honor it's contacts. What does that tell you hmmm??? MS wasn't the only ones not ready for Next-gen content. In fact Sony's begging because they're power over FPS and RPG's has been diminished by half. More importantly they can't stop any of these games from coming out on Xbox or with less content or force a later lunch period. This is why Ryan's not so comfy in his chair at the office like he was before Sept 21st 2020. He has good reason to be concerned. Maybe this is better for Sony because a hungry Sony is a better Sony. They just got served a whole lot of humble pie!
And what stopped MS from securing content like Starfield or Deathloop? The answer is nothing. They just didn't secure content for their platform and now you again have to wait for the future.

This nonsense premise is straight out of the narcissists playbook, playing victim and trying to bring up something from 2016 as a reason why you're doing something questionable now. As I said it is what it is, it's business, MS want to buy IPs to shift market share but all this talk of 'provoking the bear' and 'content starving retaliation' is nonsense PR. MS had a no games problem because they just did a lousy job. Running their studios, creating IPs, securing new content. In the future that may now change.
 
No, that's not all you've said. You've said that Starfield is NOT xbox exclusive.

It also isn't the status quo so far. All development work on all PS5 versions of Bethesda titles apart from the last remaining game sony bought timed exclusivity for has completely stopped and those versions have been scrapped. That's a change.

At least 2 new games by Bethesda have been announced since and both have been announced as Xbox exclusive - Redfall, and The Outer Worlds 2. The Outer Worlds was on PS4, so Sony have lost the sequel. Status Quo? Nope.

No one has EVER suggested that MS would remove all existing previously released games from Playstation lol.

Again I'll ask you - Is Starfield coming to PS5 or not?
The Outer Worlds is not from Bethesda.
 
Can somebody give me a tl;dr on this? Just why and how did MS go about acquiring such a big publisher? I have heard of the abuse allegations but it's surely not enough to bring a whole corporation down?
 
Can somebody give me a tl;dr on this? Just why and how did MS go about acquiring such a big publisher? I have heard of the abuse allegations but it's surely not enough to bring a whole corporation down?
Microsoft have other worldly amounts of money.

Activision Blizzard have been looking for a buyer.

Microsoft paid an absurdly large amount of money, one that Sony couldn't dream of matching, to purchase them.
 
Depends on how the GP userbase will grow, which is all MS' plan is about. Let's say by the end of this year the number of subs increases by another 10M, up to 35M total, that's over 4BLN yearly revenue alone (well minus the 1$ conversions), or 350M monthly, which is enough to fund three AAA games. Then there are DLC and MTX, and on top of that people still buy games to own them regardless, as seen with FH5 and Halo, plus there's XBL needed to play online, or GPU to compensate that, so there are another additional streams of revenue. If GP grows to 50M, that's 6B each year just from the subs. With 100M, that's a billion monthly revenue just like that, I mean, it's pretty obvious why MS wants to go this route, that's a business model that doesn't rely on each individual game's success, just like Netflix which has its hit and miss shows/movies, but as long as that 200M+ userbase is there, they can experiment, try out new things, license 3rd party franchises and so on. But unlike Netflix, if a game really succeeds, then there's that additional revenue I mentioned earlier. Hence that's a business model they can bet those kind of investments on.

All in all, the seeds have been planted, but the results have yet to be seen, in theory they have the whole XB1 gen userbase already they can supply via xCloud, then there's Series X/S which sell out like crazy, which I recon will drive the GP growth the most, and then there's PC market, which I assume thanks to Blizzard titles will move quite a lot of subs on its own.
thing is, netflix with all its subscribers, plsans to become profitable only this year
and game making and licensing is probably on par if not more expensuve than the movie counterpart
 
Microsoft have other worldly amounts of money.

Activision Blizzard have been looking for a buyer.

Microsoft paid an absurdly large amount of money, one that Sony couldn't dream of matching, to purchase them.
I get the first bits but why were Acti so keen on selling?
 
Call of Duty: exclusively on Gamepass. Meaning, you can't even purchase it. You must be subscribed to play. Gamepass active subscribers 25m -> 50m overnight.
 
It also isn't the status quo so far. All development work on all PS5 versions of Bethesda titles apart from the last remaining game sony bought timed exclusivity for has completely stopped and those versions have been scrapped. That's a change.
Not true. Quake remaster was developed and released after acquisition.
 
You wrote "all games" not "all games that will sell single console", also for PS4/PS5 Quake Remaster IS new game.
Ok let's give you quake. Does that mean that redfall and Starfield are coming to PS5? Because they'd have to be for the status quo to be maintained.
 
JcQ5Dr8.jpg

the naked gun facepalm GIF


Wonder what their Era name is?
This Twitter person should study the weekly UK boxed sales charts more thoroughly. He would know then that Microsoft are constantly losing relevance in the console space and are just trying to stay afloat with this acquisition.
 
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Depends on how the GP userbase will grow, which is all MS' plan is about. Let's say by the end of this year the number of subs increases by another 10M, up to 35M total, that's over 4BLN yearly revenue alone (well minus the 1$ conversions), or 350M monthly, which is enough to fund three AAA games. Then there are DLC and MTX, and on top of that people still buy games to own them regardless, as seen with FH5 and Halo, plus there's XBL needed to play online, or GPU to compensate that, so there are another additional streams of revenue. If GP grows to 50M, that's 6B each year just from the subs. With 100M, that's a billion monthly revenue just like that, I mean, it's pretty obvious why MS wants to go this route, that's a business model that doesn't rely on each individual game's success, just like Netflix which has its hit and miss shows/movies, but as long as that 200M+ userbase is there, they can experiment, try out new things, license 3rd party franchises and so on. But unlike Netflix, if a game really succeeds, then there's that additional revenue I mentioned earlier. Hence that's a business model they can bet those kind of investments on.

All in all, the seeds have been planted, but the results have yet to be seen, in theory they have the whole XB1 gen userbase already they can supply via xCloud, then there's Series X/S which sell out like crazy, which I recon will drive the GP growth the most, and then there's PC market, which I assume thanks to Blizzard titles will move quite a lot of subs on its own.
What is crazy was that WoW alone was making almost $2 billion/year by itself at its peak, but that was all profit, unike the GP subs which a significant portion of that sub money is going to the actual game studios on the service.
 
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