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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
O

Ozriel

M$FT
ChiefDada said:
I think it's premature at best for any journalist to suggest MSFT will sell the Xbox division in the event of the deal falling apart, but I also think Phil Spencer is full of it to categorize the deal as "not a linchpin" for the long term future of Xbox because I hate to say, but at $69 billion, that's exactly what it is. They saw that GP model and associated cannibalization of 1st and 3rd party sales is eating way too much into their financials. The turmoil at Activision prior to the deal was a godsend/perfect storm for Microsoft. Make no mistake, they need (needed?) this deal to go through in order to further support this GP promise they've foolishly committed to. These recent 3rd party sales data are abysmal.
Click to expand...

What recent 3rd party sales data is ‘abysmal’?

And while COD will most certainly provide a significant boost to GP, they still have a large first party setup that drive subscribers and sell consoles…if they stick the landing.


ChiefDada said:
Without CoD and without the 3rd party revenue stream they unnecessarily kneecapped, where does the funding for future 1st party titles come from? Microsoft played themselves.
Click to expand...

3rd party revenue stream continues to come unimpeded, and they’re pulling in revenue from GP subscriptions, strong first party sales on Steam and IAP.
 
ToadMan

ToadMan

Member
GHG said:
They don't see Nintendo as competition but yet they've directly said to regulators that Sony can become more like Nintendo should the Activision purchase go through.

Makes you think doesn't it.
Click to expand...

It sure does.

Funnily enough, MS does pretty well with those "boutique" and esoteric games - I mean Pentiment and Hi Fi for example. It seems to me that is the way MS can go - cheap consoles, handhelds, suit the games they can make successfully. Instead they chase after Sony which is a riskier proposition and that MS are struggling with.

I also don't get why if you're 3rd of 3 - you try to just jump straight to first with a disproportionate acquisition. If MS really thought about Nintendo (and they probably should if only to learn how to be successful) they'd go after them first, lock down 2nd place, then move on first.
 
V

vj27

Banned
DenchDeckard said:
I think you maybe right about everything but the xbox controller! You absolute heathen!

Also fellow uk player! 🇬🇧 3060 is an awesome card so you can enjoy all the good xbox content anyway. 👍
Click to expand...
Lol I’m not trying to start a console war because everyone has a preferred taste of course…

But asymmetrical sticks are objectively better. Even Nintendo knows this lol.

I’m sorry for my words though, be gentle with me.
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
ToadMan said:
It sure does.

Funnily enough, MS does pretty well with those "boutique" and esoteric games - I mean Pentiment and Hi Fi for example. It seems to me that is the way MS can go - cheap consoles, handhelds, suit the games they can make successfully. Instead they chase after Sony which is a riskier proposition and that MS are struggling with.

I also don't get why if you're 3rd of 3 - you try to just jump straight to first with a disproportionate acquisition. If MS really thought about Nintendo (and they probably should if only to learn how to be successful) they'd go after them first, lock down 2nd place, then move on first.
Click to expand...

And funnily enough it's the games of that size that are more suited to gamepass if you want to have a steady pipeline.

It would be much easier to pump out 1-2 high quality games a month of that scale with the studios they have than it would be to pump out 1 AAA game a month from those same studios. The only way they get to a point where they can have 1 AAA first party game a month coming from a studio they have is through owning a lion's share of the industry. But I guess that's how and why we've arrived at this junction, they know it themselves as well.
 
IFireflyl

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Banjo64 said:
💯 it’s gorilla warfare from MS.
Click to expand...

Gorilla...?

ceasar GIF by War for the Planet of the Apes
 
G

Greggy

Member
GHG said:
And funnily enough it's the games of that size that are more suited to gamepass if you want to have a steady pipeline.

It would be much easier to pump out 1-2 high quality games a month of that scale with the studios they have than it would be to pump out 1 AAA game a month from those same studios. The only way they get to a point where they can have 1 AAA first party game a month coming from a studio they have is through owning a lion's share of the industry. But I guess that's how and why we've arrived at this junction, they know it themselves as well.
Click to expand...
They never said that their goal was to realease one AAA game every month. The entire industry combined doesn’t achieve that. Those games take 5 yrs to make.
The most aggressive I’ve heard them be was one AAA game every trimester.
 
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Reactions: GHG
Banjo64

Banjo64

cumsessed
IFireflyl said:
Gorilla...?

ceasar GIF by War for the Planet of the Apes
Click to expand...
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Talkin Hawkin said:
Microsoft's biggest problem is that it doesn't feel failure and feedback or have to respond to it in ways that normal companies do.

Without the backing of Microsoft, the Xbox division would have been forced to make a choice: Continue with the Xbone strategy and risk bankruptcy, or change to suit the market. We saw Atari and Sega choose not to change and we saw Nintendo and Sony change to suit the market.

Evolution is adapting to the change in the environment, from external pressures and forces. Microsoft have been able to soak up the feedback and charge ahead into what would have been bankruptcy for any other company, but still come out alive because of their financial failsafe.

Microsoft should stop, look around and take note of what the market wants. Stop listening to online shills like they have since the days of Kinect and listen to the fans who got the xbox to where it was at its' peak.

Gamepass is a great service for B-tier, Indie and AA games; a place to nurture and grow new talent. It is the death of AAA games though. We all want free or cheap games, myself included, but it isn't sustainable for Xbox. The Elite pad v1 is the best controller ever made, the 1X was the best console Microsoft have ever made. They need to stop with the split console idea and rushed off-the-shelf hardware and take some real risks like they did with the xbox360 - minus the RROD.

Microsoft can turn the Xbox division around and turn it into a very profitable department, but they need to have a honest and long, hard look in the mirror.
Click to expand...

Halo Infinite budget and results proves that ultimately Microsoft doesn’t know how and isn’t interested in creating games. They want to own the platform be it a physical box or game pass and make content providers pay the toll. Essentially their old windows dreams with UWP and the windows store.

The problem is you sort of need incredible games to pull people into the platform and they’re being outcompeted by Sony and Nintendo. Purchasing Activision is all about making competitors less desirable by consumers.

I fully believe if they don’t get Activision they’ll be looking for buyers. Game pass is not getting into the subscriber numbers they need and their hardware platform isn’t doing well neither. No point in continuing to subsidize gamepass if it doesn’t lead to a Netflix like market position.
 
DenchDeckard

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Thirty7ven said:
Some people just have asymmetrical hands it seems. I was born with the fingers in the same places so symmetrical just works better.
Click to expand...

Seems like the majority of controller manufacturers know that asymmetrical is the best, but hey there's always a few freaks out there.
 
Drell

Drell

Member
I won't necessarly say that "asymetrical" is the best. But personally what I like is having the left stick up so it is directly under my thumb. The Wii U symetrical configuration with both stick up was fine for me. The asymetrical way of NGC, Xbox and Switch are fine too, i'm just not really a fan of PS, sticks being both under the buttons.

Edit: also fuck that Dreamcast/Xbox "standard" for naming the main buttons with the same letters as Nintendo but in a totally reversed order.
 
Last edited:
Topher

Topher

Identifies as young
Drell said:
I won't necessarly say that "asymetrical" is the best. But personally what I like is having the left stick up so it is directly under my thumb. The Wii U symetrical configuration with both stick up was fine for me. The asymetrical way of NGC, Xbox and Switch are fine too, i'm just not really a fan of PS, sticks being both under the buttons.
Click to expand...

Whatever works for you. I'm amazed when folks actually try to debate personal preferences.

Rainbow Thumbs Down GIF by Mind Pump Media
 
Polygonal_Sprite

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
Thirty7ven said:
You think MS transferred 70B into Xbox’s bank account or something?
Click to expand...
Obviously not but it shows Microsoft top brass would commit an absolutely obscene amount of capital to win market share from Sony in the gaming space.

If MS can’t outright buy a huge collection of studios and IP in one go then I’m sure they’d be willing to commit even $5 billion of the $75 to strategically go after the exclusive or timed exclusive deals which would hurt Sony the most and give them the best shot at gaining market share. Think CoD, Battlefield, EA Soccer, From Software games, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter etc. Absolutely nothing would be off the table when you’re talking about that kind of money including any so called loyalty the Japanese third parties apparently have with Sony.

I don’t understand why people wouldn’t think they’d do the above if the acquisition didn’t go through. Do you actually think they’re just going to go back to accepting being trounced every generation all the while their market share shrinks from 30 to 20 to 10%?

MS don’t have Nintendo’s IP or imagination in terms of something out of left field hardware wise to gain market share.

I should note that although I have a Series X, PS5 is my main preferred platform by a mile and I don’t want the above to happen because I think it would be far worse for PlayStation than MS just buying Activision Blizzard so I’d rather Sony just take the 10 year CoD deal and let them get on with the acquisition.

What exactly do AB have outside of CoD anyway? Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero and Crash…
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Greggy said:
They never said that their goal was to realease one AAA game every month. The entire industry combined doesn’t achieve that. Those games take 5 yrs to make.
The most aggressive I’ve heard them be was one AAA game every trimester.
Click to expand...

Yeh just checked and you're correct, they said once a quarter. I'm not sure how that works in terms of retention for their sub service but that's their problem to deal with. Once a month would ensure there's far fewer people sporadically subscribing and then unsubscribing dependant on game releases.
 
Topher

Topher

Identifies as young
Polygonal_Sprite said:
Obviously not but it shows Microsoft top brass would commit an absolutely obscene amount of capital to win market share from Sony in the gaming space.

If MS can’t outright buy a huge collection of studios and IP in one go then I’m sure they’d be willing to commit even $5 billion of the $75 to strategically go after the exclusive or timed exclusive deals which would hurt Sony the most and give them the best shot at gaining market share. Think CoD, Battlefield, EA Soccer, From Software games, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter etc. Absolutely nothing would be off the table when you’re talking about that kind of money including any so called loyalty the Japanese third parties apparently have with Sony.

I don’t understand why people wouldn’t think they’d do the above if the acquisition didn’t go through. Do you actually think they’re just going to go back to accepting being trounced every generation all the while their market share shrinks from 30 to 20 to 10%?

MS don’t have Nintendo’s IP or imagination in terms of something out of left field hardware wise to gain market share.
Click to expand...

I think the MS brass are fine committing those funds to an acquisition like ABK, but I don't think that should be interpreted as Microsoft being willing to allow Xbox to spend billions however they please. Microsoft has shown that they are very specific about where they are willing to spend their money. Buying AAA timed exclusives didn't work out for them last gen so I think they are targeting smaller AA games to fill out Game Pass until the first party games start to flow.
 
MasterCornholio

MasterCornholio

Member
Banjo64 said:
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
Click to expand...
full metal jacket GIF
 
solidus12

solidus12

Member
I’m no expert, but I feel like the higher ups at Xbox e.g., Spencer, Booty, Bond have no clue what they’re doing.

It is no rocket science to continuously release quality games, you don’t need to buy big publishers. Just do like PlayStation did in the PS3 days…

If they didn’t acquire Bethesda what the fuck would they have released??

If you want to attract more customers release high quality games that compete with PlayStation in Nintendo, Period.
 
T

Talkin Hawkin

Banned
Bitmap Frogs said:
Halo Infinite budget and results proves that ultimately Microsoft doesn’t know how and isn’t interested in creating games. They want to own the platform be it a physical box or game pass and make content providers pay the toll. Essentially their old windows dreams with UWP and the windows store.

The problem is you sort of need incredible games to pull people into the platform and they’re being outcompeted by Sony and Nintendo. Purchasing Activision is all about making competitors less desirable by consumers.

I fully believe if they don’t get Activision they’ll be looking for buyers. Game pass is not getting into the subscriber numbers they need and their hardware platform isn’t doing well neither. No point in continuing to subsidize gamepass if it doesn’t lead to a Netflix like market position.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately you are 100% accurate.

The real sad part is that Microsoft once had industry-leading pull with their ideas, innovations and genre-defining games. They need to get back to that at once. Gamepass is a brilliant idea for the industry, but a terrible one for AAA games. It should be a place chock-full of smaller games, be they indie, AA or B tier. Who would turn down the opportunity of playing the most ground-breaking games or experimenting with idea from new talent, for the same price as Gamepass? The only customer who would resent that, is one that just wants the best games for free and doesn't care about the art form of the medium.

Microsoft have a history of having amazing product, with no idea to use them. They are a chimp with a machine gun.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
vj27 said:
Lol I’m not trying to start a console war because everyone has a preferred taste of course…

But asymmetrical sticks are objectively better. Even Nintendo knows this lol.

I’m sorry for my words though, be gentle with me.
Click to expand...
Nah, dude. I switch between the two very often, and I don't find one to be better compared to the other. If you struggle, then that is a YOU problem.
My preference is towards symmetrical having played on it more but I don't find it to be "better" and I certainly do not struggle when I am playing on the Xbox.
 
Last edited:
splattered

splattered

Member
sainraja said:
Nah, dude. I switch between the two very often, and I don't find one to be better compared to the other. If you struggle, then that is a YOU problem.
My preference is towards symmetrical having played on it more but I don't find it to be "better" and I certainly do not struggle when I am playing on the Xbox.
Click to expand...

Right on... i actually do struggle with symmetrical a bit though. Like playing Destiny 2 with friends... Xbox all day long but when i switch to Playstation and do something like intense PVP it really hurts my thumbs and my accuracy sucks because it's a bit painful.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
splattered said:
Right on... i actually do struggle with symmetrical a bit though. Like playing Destiny 2 with friends... Xbox all day long but when i switch to Playstation and do something like intense PVP it really hurts my thumbs and my accuracy sucks because it's a bit painful.
Click to expand...
Not surprisingly, Destiny is the game I play on both systems, as evidenced by the fact that I have the most hours on it on both haha (I have shared the stats in the past). As for the controllers hurting, I feel like that can happen with both controllers because when I have played Xbox more, I feel the same way and that also applies to PlayStation when I play it more but when I feel like this, there are usually other factors, like if I did a lot of other physical work and switched to gaming. On a low key day, I generally have no issues with any of the controller types hurting. So I don't think one is better than the other... you may get to prefer one over the other but....having used both so much, I just don't see how anyone can say one is "objectively" better.

EDIT
During the end of the PS4 gen, and before the start of the new, I was playing Destiny 2 pretty much exclusively on Xbox.
 
Last edited:
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