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

Lognor

Banned
Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear…. Souls games…. Sony better get that shit 100% exclusive on Playstation.
But you would think Capcom or SE after seeing all this money being thrown around my MS would shop their exclusivity, right? MS can outbid Sony easily. Or at a minimum, they can drive up the price for exclusivity from Sony by getting a counter from MS.
 

JLB

Banned
Microsoft being Microsoft....buy instead of create.

Phil needed good IPs ASAP , this is the fastests way....

Bethesta adquisition was nice because it will help Fallout games, specially improving the game engine.

Activision do not know, do not see any improvement for its games , this is only good for Microsoft in order to own the IPs but for.consumers do not see a plus in the future.

I guess Sony created Insomniac etc etc
 

welshrat

Member
Yeah its great news, I cant fault my Game Pass Ultimate subscription, £10.99 and used on my series X, PC and my lads PC. Its very good value. Games will still be on PS5 as its all about the money. Really have no idea why people moan, its such a good time to be a gamer and for anyone on the fence who has the funds, this is the first generation I have bought both Playstation and XBox and not regretted it at all. Such a wealth of titles across both.

As to the subscription fee I pay :-
Netflix :- £13.99
Disney :-£6.99
Spotify :-£16.99 (my most used sub and well worth it)
Gamepass :- £10.99
PSPlus :- £4.99 is (usually a prepaid discount card)

and all of the above is less than a full sky subscription
 

b6a6es

Banned
you know, maybe it’s not who will be acquired by Playstation, but who’s acquiring Playstation

j7qG3Sv.jpg
 
I don't expect a company who names their developer Coalition and 343 making one IP games till they die to get rid of Halo Wars. and what good they will get by having console exclusive HaloWar when Gamepass is there ?, they will put on PC too. Aoe-medieval while Sci-fi will be HW, not SC3.

I say that also because Starcraft was dead for awhile even with Activision-Blizzard. SC3 would be extremely wishful thinking.
Doesn't mean much. Have Halo wars games become system sellers? Do they actually sell that much? Or are they just niche games for the average Halo fan? Starcraft was born as a RTS franchise, loved by many. I'm not saying it will happen, but that's what I would do. Let Starcraft come back from the dead and let it shine as the ultimate Sci-fi RTS franchise from Xbox.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Lol This also means that I will finally catch up on latest campaigns since I am not installing activision launcher just to play cod campaigns
 
The Bethesda purchase seems a lot more reasonable by comparison. It isn't just Elder Scrolls and fallout, they actually get studios capable of creating new IP, Starfield will probably do very well. Plus you get Doom and Wolfenstein and Dishonored...

Activision on the other hand is basically JUST Call of Duty at this point. Every other part of the company has fallen apart. And yes CoD is still the most popular AAA console game in the world, but past results are not a guarantee of future success and that's a lot of money to stake on a single horse.
I agree with the Bethesda purchase. 8 billion is still a lot of money, but they're getting a lot of successful game titles from that end... and future Elder Scrolls titles and Starfield. But 8 billion isn't anywhere much as a gamble as 70 billion. The only title that hurts Sony is COD.... and there hasn't been a good COD game in years.
 

Nvzman

Member
I wouldn't underestimate what a move like this could do for Xbox, even if the majority of the software stays available on PS. That's quite a value proposition for Casual gamers, pay $70 on PS or get the game on GP with Xbox while probably getting extra perks (early access to additional content, exclusive additional content, etc.).
Oh it will be a huge boon for Xbox, no doubt about that. PlayStation will be fine though, we just have to see what their answer to game pass ends up being. Ultimately if most of Activision's bigger franchises (like Overwatch and CoD) end up being on PlayStation anyway I highly doubt this will shift the pendulum like a lot of people in this thread think it will. I don't think people realize marketing rights are not as big of a deal as they are making them out to be, CoD was still marketed by Xbox until like 2015 and with Ghosts and Advanced Warfare PlayStation was vastly outselling Xbox with CoD.
 

splattered

Member
I can't even wrap my head around this. This seems like too much. Too much for MS to own and too much to pay for games I don't give a fuck about. Looking at AB's page all they have is COD, WOW, Starcraft, Mobile shit, and some old forgotten platformers. I am guessing most of the value is COD, WOW and the mobile shit.

Yeah or ... Best possible scenario they fix their culture issues asap and revive all the amazing dormant IPs AP/BL have. Give all the poor support studios back their creative freedom and get back to making magic again.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
It's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out.

It's clearly a big deal but how big of a deal is it? This is something I'm looking forward to watch play out.

For instance, how many people are like me who generally don't really care. The Bethesda purchase and Activision purchase don't affect me at all cause I never really bought their games to begin with, not since the PS3 at least and even then it was like 2-3 titles.

Clearly it's going to get people to stick with MS but just how many people? Wild times ahead of us fellow Gaffers, strap in and enjoy the ride!
 

Loope

Member
Well.... Fallout 4 was okay, but their claim to fame is Skyrim. Hence why they're releasing Skyim every couple of years. They're not remastering games like Fallout.
They didn't aquire only Bethesda, it was Zenimax, which had id software, Arkane Studios, Tango Software, Machine Games and a few more. In there you have Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored, Evil Within etc. No way those are bad games. Same can't be said about this deal really.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake

I don't think MS is allowed to discuss any solid plans like that until the acquisition is complete. Companies in this type of situation need to have separate plans until the deal is approved. It's probably because any concrete plan could make investors forget to factor in the risk that the deal will not get approval if they are hearing big plans that are really just maybes.

And this means MS will likely follow ABs plans that have been made independently from now until closure. So a few more CODs for PS5.
 
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Zeroing

Banned
you know, maybe it’s not who will be acquired by Playstation, but who’s acquiring Playstation

j7qG3Sv.jpg
PlayStation is a Sony division. If I’m not mistaken, Japanese law makes it very hard for a Japanese company to purchase by non Japanese corporations.

Maybe that’s why Microsoft still haven’t bought Sega…
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
One step closer to GamePass on PlayStation consoles.
No doubt this will happen.


COD will be exclusive to GamePass as will all the acquired franchises and eventually you will see first game pass come to Sony consoles for a nice wedge of shared cash and finally to the cloud where you won't need bespoke hardware.

The console war is over and Sony won, the streaming wars have begun and Sony doesn't even have a horse in the race (more of a donkey).

JESUS this is such a GREAT point!!!! If in 3 years MS buys 70% of the 3rd party market, it'll force Sony to put GamePass on all Playstation consoles. You're right. Sony won the console war. Now begins a new era that we've never seen before.
 

Star-Lord

Member
Why anyone would want to touch that company is beyond me. They’ve gone so far downhill that it’s gonna be a real struggle to climb back up. Still, good for Microsoft I guess? Exclusive rights and access to COD will be a system seller.
 

Raphael

Member
Yeah its great news, I cant fault my Game Pass Ultimate subscription, £10.99 and used on my series X, PC and my lads PC. Its very good value. Games will still be on PS5 as its all about the money. Really have no idea why people moan, its such a good time to be a gamer and for anyone on the fence who has the funds, this is the first generation I have bought both Playstation and XBox and not regretted it at all. Such a wealth of titles across both.

As to the subscription fee I pay :-
Netflix :- £13.99
Disney :-£6.99
Spotify :-£16.99 (my most used sub and well worth it)
Gamepass :- £10.99
PSPlus :- £4.99 is (usually a prepaid discount card)

and all of the above is less than a full sky subscription
No prime?
 

NickFire

Member
I don't know if your saying I'm part of some tribalism or not. But I don't play any activision games and I own a gaming pc, even if i did.

Plus I own small amount of stock in activision so I'm making money on this. So I don't care about this.

If not what you meant. Then sorry bruv
I was agreeing with your statement about not understanding how this is perceived as good. Not about you at all.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Absolutely nobody should be celebrating this, and I'm saying this as an Xbox fan. Fingers crossed the deal gets blocked.

Also, anybody expecting games from Activision/Blizzard to be Xbox or Gamepass exclusive are dreaming. You don't drop 70bn and cut off tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
 
They didn't aquire only Bethesda, it was Zenimax, which had id software, Arkane Studios, Tango Software, Machine Games and a few more. In there you have Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored, Evil Within etc. No way those are bad games. Same can't be said about this deal really.
I just say Bethesda because Bethesda is more known than Zenimax. Doom is a decent game and so is Wolfenstein, but they're not in the same league as Skyrim. If you ask people what you associate with Bethesda/Zenimax.... what games do you think they're going to mention? Obviously Fallout and Elder Scrolls, especially Skyrim. There is a reason why they keep releasing Skyrim all the time.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
Anyone who thinks this struck a huge blow to Sony is misunderstanding the acquisition. MS made it very clear that CoD will likely remain multi-platform, so the only thing Sony is losing really is marketing rights. This won't really affect players too much, which is a good thing imo. A franchise like CoD being segregated to one console would be a pretty shitty move.
just pls. Don't restart with this story ala Bethesda will never do exclusive bs
 
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