Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time.
Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or without Activision belonging to Microsoft.
Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what.
I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP that I've loved for most of my life.
[0] - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/minecraft-switch/
Apart from maybe a couple unicorns they aren't, they're a seperate market.
The overlap of people playing Call of Duty and those playing The Binding of Isaac will be family minimal, same goes for sport games which you're hard pressed to find people in the previous camps playing despite massive sales.
I agree with the sentiment though, there's no shortage of quality games made by smaller teams both independently funded or with investment from big players.
You're not wrong, but I can't agree with this.
The "information overload" problem has been known about for at least 40 years!
I'm sure that a pervasive predatory corporate development department backed by a cash-heavy company could reel in virtually all AAA PC games, but the long tail not so much. And the funny thing is, AAA has been a huge disappointment for gamers and I imagine investors as well over the last years, compared to its golden days.
Compare to say "owning your social graph" like Facebook, that's something that's much more robust. A good messaging platform doesn't take over the world in a few weeks like an indie game (almost) can, so Facebook has plenty time to acquire it or copy/steal their features.
Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.
Point is I agree it's not for sale, for the reason you describe, but also that one of the leviathans already has nearly the entire minority interest.
The internet has no updated information based thr original press release. Since that 40% Sonys purchase would have further diluted tencent. The only thing we know for sure, because he's said so: is Tim has a controlling stake.
We do not know if there is a dual class of shares, but that would be a simple tactic to maintaining comtrol.
I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can a problem be before it stops being a problem.
Looks like Rust, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Escape from Tarkov are in the top 10 on Twitch. All came out within the past 5 years.
They have so much money they could easily buy Ubisoft, EA and Take-Two and make all major games Xbox and Windows 11+ exclusives.
The only emotion I can feel is disgust. Disgust that Microsoft would tacitly approve of Kotick's decades of harboring, encouraging, and protecting sexual assault within his companies. The man allegedly, and settled out of court, for telling his secretary he was "going to have her killed". He hid internal sexual assault allegations from the board. They threw parties with strippers & DJs telling the women to drink more so their male coworkers could have more fun. They passed around a nude picture of a female coworker, leading to her suicide. An awesome person was promoted to be head of Blizzard, before leaving just months later, telling the board that she had experienced years of sexual misconduct working there, and there was no hope for them to ever change their frat-boy culture.
This isn't old information. It came to light just weeks before Halo Infinite was released. Phil Spencer & Microsoft had to be well into discussions at this point; and it didn't phase them. They didn't stipulate that he would have to leave; they instead leave him in charge of the company post-acquisition. They fire, what, a couple dozen people? In a company of tens of thousands?
Just... disgust. Maybe a little hope that Microsoft can improve their culture, but without signaling a fundamental change in leadership, that hope is dim. But at least they'll make some money.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kot...
1. It's been reported that Kotick will leave once the acquisition is finalized (i.e. when MS actually owns the company). If and when that doesn't happen, _then_ I'll join in on the criticism. [edit: based on WSJ reporting, not official statement]
2. Kotick is the de-facto ruler of ABK. The acquisition's not happening unless you play ball. If getting ABK under new management and kicking Kotick out requires playing along for a while, then so be it.
3. A big part of MS's investment thesis here seems to be "ABK's assets are worth more than $69B, but their scandals are suppressing their valuation. We can fix the scandals and better realize the IP's true value". MS will be stupid to let ABK keep going without decisively handling the scandals.
This is the correct answer.
The intrinsic value of the company is worth more than the share price, which is being pulled down by the scandals and highly negative PR.
Microsoft have bought a bargain.
Do you have a source for that? Not because I disagree but I really want to hope you're right, and I would like evidence to make that belief have some real evidence.
You're getting worked up for no reason. Maybe wait until Kotick actually sticks around before the outage?
This is likely good for current employees who might otherwise be likely future victims.
Edit: It seems it's not expected to close until 2023 so maybe it takes MS longer to get him out.
edit: ah the WSJ article
>The board of directors was blindsided by the California lawsuit’s allegations, including that an Activision employee killed herself after a photo of her vagina allegedly was circulated at a company party, according to people familiar with the board.
And here
> But here is where it gets even worse. A former female employee who hasn't been named publicly committed suicide while on a business trip with one of her male supervisors. The unnamed supervisor apparently brought sex toys and lube on their trip, and the state investigators believe this and a previous event where the female in question had a photo of her vagina shared around the office Christmas party led to her taking her own life.
Ugh.
Microsoft has not been making money on xbox. They're not investing money made with xbox. They're using Office/Windows/Azure funds to boost Xbox, and it's not a fair fight. Sony and Nintendo don't have that kind of money.
I get Sony has acquired studios too, but by comparison they seem carefully planned. They're usually studios already making (mostly) playstation exclusives (e.g. devs of Returnal, Spider-Man and Dark Souls).
Torn on this. On the one hand I completely agree. I doubt there'll be any anti-trust action, first because that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore and second because I can't imagine the American authorities getting in the way of Microsoft's competition with what are, at the end of the day, Japanese companies.
As a gamer who's loved Activision's franchises since childhood, they've run them all into the ground and if Microsoft can do better with them then let them try.
Side thought - maybe Nintendo and Sony will finally join forces to compete, as they almost did in the 90s.
No antitrust action will be taken because even after all these acquisitions, Microsoft still competes with Take-Two, EA, Nintendo, Square Enix, Sony, Tencent, etc., plus a vast number of smaller players (Paradox, Sega, the sixteen gazillion indie developers on Steam...).
The purpose of antitrust law is to prevent anticompetitive behaviour by limiting the accumulation of market power. The most extreme case of this is monopolies.
I agree that no action will be taken, though. The current status quo is so full of market power abuse that this acquisition looks normal.
The interesting one here for me has always been Nintendo, they are a still a pure gamers play, and have managed to thrive in a world of shifting sands, sometimes bucking entire trends in the industry with success, like going all in on the Nintendo Switch form factor (a lot of the industry people thought mobile gaming consoles were dead in the water)
I think there's a lot of competition in this space still, and while I don't like consolidation either, its also hard to say Activision Blizzard is a well managed company at this point
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/global/sonys-bre...
[1]: https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-no-way-home-sony-most-profita...
But I imagine Sony execs are struggling to comprehend what's going on. They've done so much right in the last few years. They've built some of the best studios in the world. They've delivered the best exclusive AAA content. Just in the last few years: The Last of us Part 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted.... And despite that, they still might not come out on top. Life isn't fair :).
>> Sony spent 20+ years building up and planning their 1st party studios. Microsoft could do that too, but it would take 20 more years.
Ironically, the Xbox (OG) was released 20 years ago.
First, the price they are paying is insane. The investors will be demanding the results eventually.
Also, buying studios won't fix the culture in Microsoft. They've had so many years and still can't make consistently good games. There are some gems in between but they are usually form partnerships or newly bought studios. Their in-house development seems like actual hell (Halo).
I also suspect that game pass will make them focus on GAS games (service games) with microtransactions, optimised for profit instead of fun.
EDIT: They tried to buy Nintendo, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672443
When Zenimax was acquired, it was coming off a couple of failed fallout games, a meh ESO and delayed Elder scrolls 6. Similarly, Activision-Blizzard has been in the midst of COD and Overwatch losing their gaming monopoly to Fortnite, Blizzard failing to create a good game for about 5 years and the big workplace lawsuit.
It feels like Microsoft is taking on the challenge of reviving these companies back to being the powerhouses of old. In that sense it is a big challenge and not as simple as just buying the future of gaming.
If they wanted to do that, they'd probably try to buy Naughty Dog or Fortnite.
It's like acquiring Fiat Chrysler or General motors. Still big names, but clearly not the 'brands of the decade'. You wouldn't buy them to form a monopoly. You'd buy them to revive the brand.
The #1 and #2 titles of 2021 are has-beens? And they also had the #1 and #2 of 2020.
https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/18/npd-the-top-20-best-selli...
https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/15/npd-reveals-the-best-sell...
COD is admittedly not a has been, but it is like a top athlete in the twilight of their career. Still performing at the top, but no more #1 and the trends aren't looking great.
[1] https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Call_of_Duty
[2] https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_vid...
Activision/Blizzard certainly had a big sales tag on their forehead.
On what day? Looks like they dropped from 70bn last year same time to ~50bn at the start of the year and then sold for 69bn.
What are you talking about? Microsoft is embracing PC and cross play more than ever.
It also really should be the target of anti-trust action if that was a thing anymore. It's going to be a reality fairly soon that anyone who wants to play all the latest AAA titles will have to own at least two gaming devices.
That's not only annoying from a consumer perspective, but it's counter-productive from the perspective of how much redundant hardware it means in the midst of a chip shortage.
Microsoft has been releasing their PC games on Steam the same day they do on their own store for a few years now.
This is an excellent point. You can argue that the Switch is so different, it can make sense to own a Switch plus a PS5. But the PS5 and Xbox Series X are so similar it is wasteful to be arbitrarily requiring you to buy both if you want 2 sets of exclusives.
That's ultimately why Microsoft did this. Previously it made sense to just get a PS4/PS5. You get the excellent Sony exclusives, and all the cross-platform games. You missed out on very few good Xbox exclusives. Not anymore.
I'm hopeful this stuff will still come to steam. I'm done having multiple consoles. I have a PS5 and a PC. I'm hopeful that's enough to not miss out on too much.
Specifically Windows, it has to be pointed out these days.
Source on this? They have said in the past that they lose money on xbox unit sales but are very profitable from software/game sales. As far as I know there is no public information to suggest otherwise.
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/448650/microsoft-the-xbox-d...
I hear Horizon: Zero Dawn was great. Didn't play it. Didn't pick it up when it stopped being an exclusive because it was no longer new by the time it hit PC.
My dance card is so full of Steam Early Access that I don't even have time for exclusives these days.
They now have the IP to do whatever they want with our mind, they have the distribution channels, they have the capacity to run servers and also the technology to create truly immersive worlds; their planetary rendering engine, GPT-3 for NPCs, Minecraft, for example.
There is a market for it, the latest awesome release in the space has been World of Warcraft, Amazon's New World is turning out to be a major flop and there's also free publicity in terms of Meta's metaverse.. I'm rooting for Microsoft to create the next gen gaming entertainment experience, however that might look.
At least we have the xbox game pass which is absurdly underpriced.
Ultimately, it will depend on the team building it. Microsoft, the entity, couldn't give a rat's ass about the product, but the people building it might.
At this point, technology has advanced to a point where some truly innovative gameplay mechanics could be employed with relative ease. We're living in a summer of AI and game ones are still dumb as bricks. With the power of cloud and current AI research papers, I think a world could really feel alive with today's technology.
Not unlike in nature, a monoculture corporation lives and dies by their business being at all relevant in general, and the market (especially in the entertainment sector) is fickle.
Diversification is good for any large entity not just an investment firm.
I can definitely see why MS bought up publishers and developers to add to their stable - they can now, like Netflix, sell a monthly recurrent service that will keep their customers entertained with 'free' releases available on day#1, plus a leased library.
But (to me at least), they were already there. I'm there on PC and think the sell is even easier on Xbox. Buying Activision seems a bit pointless. Sure they can now fold in wavering CoD lovers, but the franchise is already looking a little wobbly - but they're paying for a company that's valued as selling a game every year for $50 to lure in the subset of customers who now think game pass is now worth it with CoD. (That's a shitload of new subs they need, or the price is going up)
My larger concern is that when they bought Zenimax or even minecraft, they'd paid well for 'good bones' they could build on. Activision is really just a pile of slightly rusty franchises (https://www.denofgeek.com/games/activision-blizzard-microsof...)
Now maybe they can revive some of those - Doublefine knocking out episodic Gabriel Knight makes me moist, or simply Guitar Hero with new weekly tunes - but MS could have done similar for a lot cheaper.
If I'd had the money in my bank account, I'd have maybe just had a slush fund to pick up and promote new talent/IP.
If they really wanted infra, Steam is still out there. If they wanted IP, Sega.
- Overwatch hit the ground running to massive success, but hasn't materialized Overwatch 2 and has stagnated.
- Warcraft III Reforged is a total disaster and abandoned.
- WoW has a wide following of people in its vanilla form (i.e. taking things awy from what it has become), and the extensions aren't bringing a lot of value. There is speculation on whether it has hit its peak and is in decline.
- The Starcraft Remaster is basically the same game but with a bit nicer graphics.
- Diablo 3 seems to have done well.
I do hope it gets revitalized and the IP gets new life with better management, but Blizzard has been struggling.
Simply quitting would be seen as a sign of failure and would leave a lot of their performance-based compensation behind... But getting bought, that's a different story.
At least with that, I think that's exactly what the audience wanted. Anyone who wanted a different (and mechanically easier) game has Starcraft II.
MS announced today that it was acquiring Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI). This news comes on the heels of a year filled with government lawsuits, internal leaks, low morale and poor performance. Many analysts have commented that years of failing to invest in their IP and a string of poorly-received sequels have diluted customer and stockholder faith.
The past year has seen ATVI stock plummet after it was made public that the company was not being managed or governed in any meaningful way, down approx. 30% prior to today's announcement.
They have no reason to pull out of those markets.
Just like that -- they're in the metaverse!
Should say "to bring the joy and community of gaming to XBOX AND WINDOWS USERS, across every MICROSOFT device".
Apple is almost certainly planning to release AR/VR headset in the near future, this raises the question; what hardware is going to be used to power this headset; I'd bet Apple is working on a console like iDevice, or probably more likely an external GPU, that can be used with any Apple device.
Now imagine if Apple decides, admittingly in a very un-Apple like fashion, to allow anyone to run MacOS on their iPads, and iPhones; what that would do to consumer Windows market share.
This primarily establishes a moat against Apple, not Sony, and protects consumer Windows, not Xbox.
