Lol I am not sure this one will be allowed but it’s insane. I figure this probably needs its own thread.
The price is being reported all over the place. WSJ says $50b and this rando with a checkmark says $80b
The Xbox press release is indicating they’ll continue to support releases on all platforms, I think this is a push to make game pass even bigger.
No shot these games become exclusives. Guessing Xbox will get early access/DLC first, and the games will go to Gamepass. Makes me happy as a gamepass owner. Don’t think it’s good for the industry. Also, they better fire that CEO or whoever that is a POS.
I think it’s good for the industry if they stay multi platform but go to game pass honestly. Activist on is such a behemoth that them being competently run I think is a huge net benefit for games.
Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture and accelerate business growth. Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming. Looks like Bobby is gone after the deal is officially done.
Article says he has to report to Spencer and he was blasting them on social media earlier in the year. My hope is that they give Kotick the boot, props to Microsoft though they struck at a very opportune time.
Yeah Phil Spencer by all accounts is a good dude, and great to work for. He’s also very plugged into the community, no way he takes a bullet for Kotick to keep him on after this closes.
It's interesting timing, I think the stock probably would have tanked pretty hard today without the acquisition announcement. WSJ ran a story yesterday about a ton of firings related to workplace misconduct at activision.
Realistically we're probably not going to see this impact the shit state of Blizzard games for at least 10 years but hopefully this is the first step in them cleaning house.
Didn't see this had a thread, but been posting in the PS thread about it. I'd be surprised if they cut off a huge percentage of their revenue stream. This acquisition is just too big for them to go full exclusive in the near future, if I had to guess. $70 billion is a lot of money, even for Microsoft. Hopefully this does make Sony get off their ass with the FPS genre, though. I'd take a KZ, Resistance, Socom, or MAG for sure.
Anybody have a Bloomberg subscription? Want to see the context of that quote. I would guess that anything smaller than CoD or Overwatch (guessing on overwatch) will be exclusive. Losing Spyro and Crash would suck, but sackboy can fill that role (arguably better than the recent Crash if we are just comparing recent releases).
They're "keeping" Bobby to ensure the stock doesn't drop then they'll ditch his ass in 6 months after the deal finalizes seems to be the common consensus going around right now.
I think they’re keeping him to get through the acquisition because having a new person learning on the job while trying to complete a deal of this magnitude would probably be a mess.
This is setting up to a situation where Sony will be the go to for your 50-100 hour console single player games like God of War, Elden Ring, Spider-Man etc while Microsoft will be those "lifestyle" 1000+ hr games like MMOs, FPS, RTS and MOBAs. XBox was never beating Sony in the "console war" after the PS4 era, so they pivoted into playing an entirely different battle instead and this was one of the best moves that was available.
And switch will be cutesy/“fun” games. Kind of weird to see the self segmentation becoming so complete
I've seen people wanting Sony to buy Take Two (I don't even think that's possible), but I could see something like Square Enix making much more sense.
I know this is probably the most unlikely wish anyone could have, but maybe all these acquisitions and changes to how we approach gaming will force Nintendo into being a little more innovative and consumer friendly. It's time for them to join the rest of the gaming world and stop selling just straight up nostalgia at an absurdly high premium.
Really just hoping this pushes Sony to put more stuff out on pc. I just want to play bloodborne and Spider-Man.
Just looked and it’s less than half the subscribers compared to when I stopped playing (after Cataclysm.) Still an absurd revenue stream.
Unlikely until Pokemon Emerald re-re-remaster #5 and Legend of Zelda: [Some Random Fantasy Words] stops selling copies, which we know it won't.
WOW isn't even close to the most lucrative IP Microsoft bought today, Candy Crush generates like 3x the amount of revenue