Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard

HockeyJon

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https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/18/microsoft-to-buy-activision.html

After Take Two bought Zynga for $10B, the thought crossed my mind that maybe someone big like Microsoft might want to target Activision given the recent decline in their share price and the comparatively low valuation vs industry peers like Take Two and EA, plus the fact they bought Bethesda made me think that they might be pushing more into the publishing space. Could be interesting news for Xbox owners, although I doubt they would make titles like Call of Duty exclusive.
 
$68.7B is the deal. Bobby Kotick will remain CEO.

https://news.microsoft.com/features...ty-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/
Could be interesting news for Xbox owners, although I doubt they would make titles like Call of Duty exclusive.
That is just as laughable as people believing Elder Scrolls wouldn't be exclusive after the Zenimax acquisition. Just wishful thinking. Microsoft wouldn't purchase such a large publisher without the intent of gaining exclusive rights to their intellectual property.
 
Holy fucking shit man. This is an absolute HUGE power move. Fucking Overwatch, Diablo, Call of Duty, Starcraft, World of Warcraft could ALL end up being exclusives. And then Microsoft last year buying Bethesda... Microsoft is like the Disney of videogames now... buying up ALL the major franchises.

I am in shock honestly... I mean Microsoft has gone from "Xbox has no games" to Xbox now owns virtually the largest IPs in gaming and they could and probably will ALL end up being either Xbox exclusive or timed-exclusive.
 
Holy fucking shit man. This is an absolute HUGE power move. Fucking Overwatch, Diablo, Call of Duty, Starcraft, World of Warcraft could ALL end up being exclusives. And then Microsoft last year buying Bethesda... Microsoft is like the Disney of videogames now... buying up ALL the major franchises.

I am in shock honestly... I mean Microsoft has gone from "Xbox has no games" to Xbox now owns virtually the largest IPs in gaming and they could and probably will ALL end up being either Xbox exclusive or timed-exclusive.
Good news about that with there gamepass and such we will always get stuff on the pc
 
$68.7B is the deal. Bobby Kotick will remain CEO.

https://news.microsoft.com/features...ty-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

That is just as laughable as people believing Elder Scrolls wouldn't be exclusive after the Zenimax acquisition. Just wishful thinking. Microsoft wouldn't purchase such a large publisher without the intent of gaining exclusive rights to their intellectual property.

I’m not denying it’s a possibility, but I think there are different considerations with a title like COD. They’ll need to weigh the prospect of lost software sales vs boosting hardware sales, but to me, a key difference between COD and Elder Scrolls is that COD is a massive E-sports title with a massive audience across multiple platforms, including PC. The Elder Scrolls is not. It doesn’t affect me either way since I’m pretty well exclusive to PC, but it’s an interesting question to ponder.
 
Holy fucking shit man. This is an absolute HUGE power move. Fucking Overwatch, Diablo, Call of Duty, Starcraft, World of Warcraft could ALL end up being exclusives. And then Microsoft last year buying Bethesda... Microsoft is like the Disney of videogames now... buying up ALL the major franchises.

I am in shock honestly... I mean Microsoft has gone from "Xbox has no games" to Xbox now owns virtually the largest IPs in gaming and they could and probably will ALL end up being either Xbox exclusive or timed-exclusive.
WoW was always exclusive to PC. Yea they cant create any of their own IPs so the next best thing to do is just start buying everything. This is going to be interesting.
 
I'm sure they will keep Bobby long enough for the transition and then boot his ass. Which needs to happen
Has been needing to happen ever since the allegations/lawsuits became public. If not even earlier.

But Share Prices & Profits >>> doing the right thing.

So Daddy Bobby stayed.
 
Holy fucking shit man. This is an absolute HUGE power move. Fucking Overwatch, Diablo, Call of Duty, Starcraft, World of Warcraft could ALL end up being exclusives. And then Microsoft last year buying Bethesda... Microsoft is like the Disney of videogames now... buying up ALL the major franchises.

I am in shock honestly... I mean Microsoft has gone from "Xbox has no games" to Xbox now owns virtually the largest IPs in gaming and they could and probably will ALL end up being either Xbox exclusive or timed-exclusive.
This is a massive blow to Sony. I suspect CoD to remain multiplatform, just for money sake, but yeah, MS now could have a ton of potential popular platform specific IPs.
 
I’m not denying it’s a possibility, but I think there are different considerations with a title like COD. They’ll need to weigh the prospect of lost software sales vs boosting hardware sales, but to me, a key difference between COD and Elder Scrolls is that COD is a massive E-sports title with a massive audience across multiple platforms, including PC. The Elder Scrolls is not. It doesn’t affect me either way since I’m pretty well exclusive to PC, but it’s an interesting question to ponder.
All the more reason to hold the IP close to the belt.
Has been needing to happen ever since the allegations/lawsuits became public. If not even earlier.

But Share Prices & Profits >>> doing the right thing.

So Daddy Bobby stayed.
Have any of the allegations against Booby been proven true in a court of law, or are we still just going by public opinion on these things? I have never liked the guy, but that isn't a reason to kick him out of the company he helped become such a huge player in the market.
 
If they are willing to throw 70 billion at EA then who knows what is next. Sony is not going to be able to compete when MS is throwing so much money at it. This could be potentially be very bad for gamers. It is only a matter of time before they just buy Sony lol.
 
Mixed feelings on this. On one hand its clearly a move to get into E-Sports and on the other hand....Activision hasn't really done much these days. Outside of pumping out a COD every year, some Blizzard titles every few years, sponsoring Overwatch eSports...what else have they done (controversy aside)?
 
This is a massive blow to Sony. I suspect CoD to remain multiplatform, just for money sake, but yeah, MS now could have a ton of potential popular platform specific IPs.
I don't think i've ever played an activision game on a console.

meh
 
If they are willing to throw 70 billion at EA then who knows what is next. Sony is not going to be able to compete when MS is throwing so much money at it. This could be potentially be very bad for gamers. It is only a matter of time before they just buy Sony lol.
Sony I think very soon is going to be launching their Game Pass competition. Sony while not as big as Microsoft has the advantage of having an absolutely huge fanbase especially internationally where outside of maybe the UK and US not many people buy Xboxs, and Sony's exclusives are just fantastic. I somehow doubt Microsoft will now say that COD will only be on Xbox, but it could very well happen... my best guess is that b/c so many people around the world buy the CODs every year that Xbox will have exclusive content and/or PlayStation will get delayed releases/delayed launch of the game. Weird thinking about it b/c Sony was always first dibs into the COD exclusive content, and now they just got a huge middle finger from Microsoft.
 
Have any of the allegations against Booby been proven true in a court of law, or are we still just going by public opinion on these things? I have never liked the guy, but that isn't a reason to kick him out of the company he helped become such a huge player in the market.
It doesn't matter if they're true or not. Public perception can affect the stock price.
I don't think i've ever played an activision game on a console.

meh
The PlayStation is the biggest platform for CoD. And CoD is still a top 10 seller every year, regardless of it's it's the same game, year after year. Money, and the fact that the engine already works on the PlayStation, is the reason I can still see future installments being multiplatform.
 
If they are willing to throw 70 billion at EA then who knows what is next. Sony is not going to be able to compete when MS is throwing so much money at it. This could be potentially be very bad for gamers. It is only a matter of time before they just buy Sony lol.
I would have to imagine that Sony Interactive Entertainment is worth significantly more than $68.7 billion.
 
Pretty big acquisition - sure Activision Blizzard is taking a beating lately, but there's no denying the strength in their IPs.

I wouldn't be surprised if MS keeps the multiplayer focused titles on all platforms (ie: CoD, Overwatch). I'm not sure what, if any, singleplayer titles Activision makes anymore, but I imagine they'll be MS exclusive, if so.

I think the big 'power move' here will be bringing World of Warcraft exclusively to the Xbox/PC platform. Sure the game's long in the tooth now, but it's still popular and a console release would bring in a whole new slew of subscribers. Tie the WoW and Game Pass subscriptions together - huge killer app. Yuge, even.
 
Will be curious to see how they handle this from a distribution model eventually. Is battle.net going to go away? Will all these games end up on gamepass?
 
Will be curious to see how they handle this from a distribution model eventually. Is battle.net going to go away? Will all these games end up on gamepass?
Battle.net will definitely go away I suspect b/c you just migrate all those games to the PC Xbox/Game Pass app.

All these games will definitely end up on Game Pass...

"Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog."
Screenshot 2022-01-18 090039.jpg
 
$68.7B is the deal. Bobby Kotick will remain CEO.

https://news.microsoft.com/features...ty-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

That is just as laughable as people believing Elder Scrolls wouldn't be exclusive after the Zenimax acquisition. Just wishful thinking. Microsoft wouldn't purchase such a large publisher without the intent of gaining exclusive rights to their intellectual property.
I'm sure Microsoft wants some exclusives, but rushing to make Call of Duty a console exclusive on Xbox would be tantamount to saying "we hate money." For that matter, it'd greatly reduce Activision Blizzard's influence if one of the industry's biggest games was only available on the minority console platform. Microsoft may have to be content with timed exclusives or simply offering Xbox-only bonuses, like maps and other DLC. It can think about Xbox-only releases if its machines are suddenly more popular.

To me, this is more about putting AB's games on Game Pass and making that subscription more compelling. Imagine if $15 a month got you the latest CoD game on top of the usual bunch... yeah, you might be more inclined to pay.
 
I would have to imagine that Sony Interactive Entertainment is worth significantly more than $68.7 billion.
Sony interactive entertainment is only valued at 13 billion. MS could easily buy it is Sony was willing to sell it. If MS slapped down 100 billion on the table who know what Sony might do.
 
The PlayStation is the biggest platform for CoD. And CoD is still a top 10 seller every year, regardless of it's it's the same game, year after year. Money, and the fact that the engine already works on the PlayStation, is the reason I can still see future installments being multiplatform.
And the only reason PlayStation is the platform of choice for CoD is due to their timed exclusivity deal for DLC. There was much whining to be had among the "esports" community when this deal was struck 10 or so years ago.
I'm sure Microsoft wants some exclusives, but rushing to make Call of Duty a console exclusive on Xbox would be tantamount to saying "we hate money." For that matter, it'd greatly reduce Activision Blizzard's influence if one of the industry's biggest games was only available on the minority console platform. Microsoft may have to be content with timed exclusives or simply offering Xbox-only bonuses, like maps and other DLC. It can think about Xbox-only releases if its machines are suddenly more popular.

To me, this is more about putting AB's games on Game Pass and making that subscription more compelling. Imagine if $15 a month got you the latest CoD game on top of the usual bunch... yeah, you might be more inclined to pay.
They didn't have to spend $70B to buyout the company if all they wanted was to put Call of Duty on Game Pass. Warzone is already free-to-play, anyway.
Sony interactive entertainment is only valued at 13 billion. MS could easily buy it is Sony was willing to sell it. If MS slapped down 100 billion on the table who know what Sony might do.
I can't imagine Sony wanting to dump one of their own subsidiaries on their competitor. If SIE were to ever start losing money, I'd imagine Sony Corp would just reallocate the assets within the corporation.
 
I can't imagine Sony wanting to dump one of their own subsidiaries on their competitor. If SIE were to ever start losing money, I'd imagine Sony Corp would just reallocate the assets within the corporation.
No doubt. I still expected SIE to be valued more then 13 billion.
 
Mixed feelings on this. On one hand its clearly a move to get into E-Sports and on the other hand....Activision hasn't really done much these days. Outside of pumping out a COD every year, some Blizzard titles every few years, sponsoring Overwatch eSports...what else have they done (controversy aside)?

i think this is important to note. Besides CoD, their releases have a lot to be desired. The newest IP is what... overwatch? I haven't played an activision/blizzard game since... starcraft 2?
 
i think this is important to note. Besides CoD, there releases have a lot to be desired. The newest IP is what... overwatch? I haven't played an activision/blizzard game since... starcraft 2?
You are forgetting their sports division. Fifa makes a absurd amount of money every year off MT.
 
If MS buys nearly all of the game studios and made them Xbox and PC exclusive, could Sony sue for Antitrust?

Antitrust was killed off in the Reagan era. The conservative legal argument was that monopolies are actually good for the consumer if they could lower prices and do total integration. That argument was put forward by Robert Bork and has remained the operating principle since then. It's one of the main reasons things are where they are right now.
 
No doubt. I still expected SIE to be valued more then 13 billion.
The only source I can find on the $13B figure was this, and it doesn't provide a source for that number.
https://techjury.net/blog/gaming-industry-worth/

The number I could find was shown in Sony's financial reports that SIE's gross revenue in 2020 was $25B, and their operating income was $3.2B.
You are forgetting their sports division. Fifa makes a absurd amount of money every year off MT.
FIFA is EA. Warzone is Activision's cash cow, making around $5M a day.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/esports/how-much-money-did-warzone-make-in-2021/ar-AARRa5r
 
Wow I’m floored over this move. In some ways I can see this being a good thing as blizzard has been going downhill for awhile.

Now everyone can get masterchief outfit in cod war zone!
 
Is anyone else highly irritated having to download an "Xbox" app to play MS PC games? Most counterintuitive branding I've seen. Went to download AoE other day and couldn't find the MS Store anywhere. Turns out you have to download an app for a console to play MS PC games. If I wanted to play an Xbox game I'd buy an Xbox. And I think I would quit video games before I did that.
 
They didn't have to spend $70B to buyout the company if all they wanted was to put Call of Duty on Game Pass. Warzone is already free-to-play, anyway.
It's not only about Game Pass, but it's definitely a major factor. Remember, Microsoft is focused more on services than hardware. And I'd say Microsoft wants the option of making Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive in the future, even if it can't do that right away.
 
Is anyone else highly irritated having to download an "Xbox" app to play MS PC games? Most counterintuitive branding I've seen. Went to download AoE other day and couldn't find the MS Store anywhere. Turns out you have to download an app for a console to play MS PC games. If I wanted to play an Xbox game I'd buy an Xbox. And I think I would quit video games before I did that.
Yeah while I love the games they have on gamepass its really confusing being "Microsoft" and literally building the OS they couldnt integrate the game launcher in cleaner
 
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