Deal Closed: Microsoft acquires Activision/Blizzard for $68.7 Billion

[djw4bucs]

Gonna be cool to see some of those games on Game Pass, PC Game pass is already worth 10 bucks so its probably gonna climb in price in a year or 2.

Glad i have a PS5 and PC, still no need for a Xbox if u have a PC

[Danger]

3 hours ago, Heimdallr said:

Watch Sony go all-out and buy EA in retaliation. 

That's cute.

[Danger]

Playstation getting Square Enix seems like the most obvious, while realistic move. It just makes too much damn sense. That said, I hope they don't because I STILL HAVEN'T WANTED TO GET A PS5 BAD ENOUGH APPARENTLY.

[Kiltman]

A personal view on this. 

It is weird to have Xbox, the system I play the majority of my games at this point, make one of the biggest buys of anything ever and it really doesn’t do a lot for me personally on face value. 

Best case for me is some of the studios can come off COD as it shifts to every other year at least, so Infinity War and Treyarch have plenty of time to make it themselves. And from that we can get some returning IP or new stuff from those studios.

Like I get it all from an Xbox corporate side and I’m not in the majority who plays mostly COD, but just kinda odd thought to be left wondering what to get hype for right away.

I’m excited that this potentially fixes one of the worst companies out there and flushes them of some awful people. I’m happy that one of the most anti-consumer large gaming companies is being bought by one of the least. I’m happy Microsoft bought it instead of Tencent or someone outside the industry. But game front I need to see what they’ll do.

Have some fears too, not a huge fan of consolidation. Takes away competition which is great for all of us. It sucks for fans of those franchises to potentially miss out, yeah we have xCloud but that’s not a solution for everyone.

[Danger]

1 hour ago, Kiltman said:

A personal view on this. 

It is weird to have Xbox, the system I play the majority of my games at this point, make one of the biggest buys of anything ever and it really doesn’t do a lot for me personally on face value. 

Best case for me is some of the studios can come off COD as it shifts to every other year at least, so Infinity War and Treyarch have plenty of time to make it themselves. And from that we can get some returning IP or new stuff from those studios.

Like I get it all from an Xbox corporate side and I’m not in the majority who plays mostly COD, but just kinda odd thought to be left wondering what to get hype for right away.

I’m excited that this potentially fixes one of the worst companies out there and flushes them of some awful people. I’m happy that one of the most anti-consumer large gaming companies is being bought by one of the least. I’m happy Microsoft bought it instead of Tencent or someone outside the industry. But game front I need to see what they’ll do.

Have some fears too, not a huge fan of consolidation. Takes away competition which is great for all of us. It sucks for fans of those franchises to potentially miss out, yeah we have xCloud but that’s not a solution for everyone.

The positives I take away are fixing Activision/Blizzard culture and re-exploring some burried IPs that could use a lot of love. And maybe more of a stable sailing ship on some of their other titles. Like the things that ended up driving Bungie away from Activision. Which is something that is an interesting what if. Bungie could've been back under Microsoft.

[Ty21]

“Sony this morning”

[Danger]

Something else just occurred to me. Microsoft would absolutely have the depth of characters now to do their own Super Smash esque game if they desired.

[Kiltman]

52 minutes ago, Danger said:

The positives I take away are fixing Activision/Blizzard culture and re-exploring some burried IPs that could use a lot of love. And maybe more of a stable sailing ship on some of their other titles. Like the things that ended up driving Bungie away from Activision. Which is something that is an interesting what if. Bungie could've been back under Microsoft.

agree. Cool thing is they can take on some defunct Xbox or Bethesda|Zenimax too.

Was looking through again... Raven Soft, Vicarious Visions, High Moon, Beenox, Radical, Toys for Bob.
Those 6 studios have all been forced to make CoD for years, with the occasional HD remake on the side.
You set them free with the proper back and can get way more game diversity than I initially thought.

Blizzard maybe being able to return to what made them Blizzard, would be a nice thing too for the industry.

 

On the Bungie front, I know they would like to stay indie and too tencent money.
But you have to think Sony eyes them up for a buy. Destiny would stay multiplat, but they are working on a new IP/
If CoD, Doom, Halo, Wolfenstein and most FPSs are on Xbox, would make sense for Sony to acquire a shooter franchise.
I know they are investing in that now with new teams too.

[Deadpulse]

55 minutes ago, Ty21 said:

“Sony this morning”

I read somewhere that Sony and Tencent are still ahead of Microsoft in terms revenue even if you roll in Activision/Blizzard's numbers. 

[showtime]

3 hours ago, Kiltman said:

A personal view on this. 

It is weird to have Xbox, the system I play the majority of my games at this point, make one of the biggest buys of anything ever and it really doesn’t do a lot for me personally on face value. 

Best case for me is some of the studios can come off COD as it shifts to every other year at least, so Infinity War and Treyarch have plenty of time to make it themselves. And from that we can get some returning IP or new stuff from those studios.

Like I get it all from an Xbox corporate side and I’m not in the majority who plays mostly COD, but just kinda odd thought to be left wondering what to get hype for right away.

I’m excited that this potentially fixes one of the worst companies out there and flushes them of some awful people. I’m happy that one of the most anti-consumer large gaming companies is being bought by one of the least. I’m happy Microsoft bought it instead of Tencent or someone outside the industry. But game front I need to see what they’ll do.

Have some fears too, not a huge fan of consolidation. Takes away competition which is great for all of us. It sucks for fans of those franchises to potentially miss out, yeah we have xCloud but that’s not a solution for everyone.

For me personally, I don't give a damn about CoD. Call of Duty blows and has sucked for quite a while now. If anything, maybe the franchise gets better in the future.

I mostly am grateful for this move because Blizzard was in literal turmoil. They have not released a new character in Overwatch since March of 2020. Yes, that's not a typo. Almost two damn years. I have played Overwatch since beta in 2015 and I still play it today. I'm hoping this move brings life back into Overwatch and Diablo. Let's get another Starcraft. Blizzard used to make such great titles, but their company has gotten completely floored. I'm super hyped Microsoft did this.

[Kiltman]

18 minutes ago, Danger said:

Something else just occurred to me. Microsoft would absolutely have the depth of characters now to do their own Super Smash esque game if they desired.

They'd have enough to do it with years of expansion

• Master Chief
• Arbiter
• Marcus Fenix / Kait / etc
• Minecraft Steve
• Joanna Dark
• Killer Instinct fighters
• Senua (Hellblade)
• Raz (Psychonauts) tons of other Double Fine characters
• Banjo
• Blinx
• Outer Worlds characters
• Avowed character
• DoomGuy
• The Dovahkiin
• Vault Boy
• Brotherhood of Steel
• B.J. Blazkowicz
• Crash Bandicoot 
• Spyro
• Soap and COD people
• Tracer
• Winston (any other Overwatch character)
• Diablo characters
• Starcraft characters
• Warcraft characters

Can do levels or special pickups from like Forza, State of Decay, Fable, Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Viva Pinata, Candy Crush, Solitaire, etc

Could do the racers or party game too.

 

I think though we could very well get a hero shooter from them, if you think about the shooter IP alone.
i think that actually would make them big money. A game with Master Chief, Doom Guy, B.J, COD guys, Tracer, Brotherhood of Steel, etc would move

[showtime]

Something I want to point out is the way Microsoft has phrased stuff in the past. They use a lot of phrases like "platforms where Game Pass exist." They almost never outright come out and declare something "Xbox exclusive." They normally always use "Game Pass" as the keyword. Last year there was a thread here talking about when they bought Bethesda. I said somewhere in one of those threads that i wouldn't be surprised to see Game Pass on Nintendo and Sony consoles in the future. The phrasing they use kind of tells me that could happen.

[showtime]

Sorry, I know I'm rambling but this is just such amazing news. Even a game like Heroes of the Storm, that was dropped by Blizzard, might have a chance for something in the future. The game was really good, but got dropped because it's not a billion dollar a year game. It's basically a MOBA full of characters from other Blizzard IPs (Overwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft). Dude I'm so excited about this news because Blizzard can do nothing but go up from here.

[Kiltman]

1 minute ago, showtime said:

Something I want to point out is the way Microsoft has phrased stuff in the past. They use a lot of phrases like "platforms where Game Pass exist." They almost never outright come out and declare something "Xbox exclusive." They normally always use "Game Pass" as the keyword. Last year there was a thread here talking about when they bought Bethesda. I said somewhere in one of those threads that i wouldn't be surprised to see Game Pass on Nintendo and Sony consoles in the future. The phrasing they use kind of tells me that could happen.

Yeah, hearing Xbox people talk about Bethesda.... legally they can't talk about it like that and have to operate separately. Same with firing anyone ahead of time.
Part of it too is they are making Gamepass into an outright platform with the cloud. So when they say anywhere gamepass is, they literally mean anywhere gamepass can run.
But yeah you are right in the coded language. 

[showtime]

Just now, Kiltman said:

Yeah, hearing Xbox people talk about Bethesda.... legally they can't talk about it like that and have to operate separately. Same with firing anyone ahead of time.
Part of it too is they are making Gamepass into an outright platform with the cloud. So when they say anywhere gamepass is, they literally mean anywhere gamepass can run.
But yeah you are right in the coded language. 

Well, technically... Game Pass is on Xbox, PC, and mobile. So "platforms where Game Pass exist" is an accurate way to put it because they're more than just only Xbox exclusive. Microsoft is such a smart company. They're basically going to strong arm Sony and/or Nintendo to allow Game Pass to be on their consoles or they don't get any of these triple A titles. Pure genius.

 

I said this before, but Microsoft values software >>>>>>>>>>> hardware. They don't really give a damn where you play Elder Scrolls 6, they just want you to play it through Game Pass. It's just like them on the PC side. They don't give a damn what type of PC you use (Dell, HP, Acer, MSI, etc) or even if you're using Mac. All they care about is that you're using Windows, Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.