andy78
Striker
He's done a great job but definitely helps when you have unlimited pocket money. EA or Take Two next IMO.
Microsoft are buying Activision blizzard
- Thread starter Mikeftw
- Start date
bronzebomber
Full Back
This must be where Sony goes to someone like ea or Ubisoft with some kind of proposal , doubt they’d be able to afford a takeover but for some kind of deal
andy78
Striker
EA and Ubisoft are already signed into Game Pass, going to be difficult for Sony to do anything as MS and people like Amazon/FB/Tencent can just outbid them (and those latter ones are a big factor in MS making those moves).
Lester1979
Striker
It’s been like that for the life of console gaming however exclusivity of previously multi platform games is a relatively new thing. I don’t think MS are bottlenecking the market, and it could be argued that they’re doing the opposite. They’re essentially saying that you can play everything that’s available on their console for a monthly cost via a subscription service. If they forced Sony’s hand they could even get Sony “exclusives” added to Gamepass Ultimate in exchange for allowing PlayStation players to access Gamepass just like they would Netflix.
Gaming via a cloud network would allow for this without any issues around compatibility.
coyneeee
Winger
Nothing in the console market will happen.
Sony are still the bigger player here, they don't need to do nutting. Microsoft even acknowledged that in their Press Release statement (Now the 3rd biggest in the world behind Sony)
The most likely scenario they'll just merge the Battle.Net and Gamepass into 1 and put up the price of a gamepass and leave everything else how it is.
The more bold move as posted before would be investment into the under-developed studios - Only Warzone is Blizzard's A* title nowadays, the likes of Call of Duty and WoW have fallen big time thanks to Kotick and new players in their markets - The likes of Valorant and Final Fantasy 14 are laughing at them right now.
Sony are still the bigger player here, they don't need to do nutting. Microsoft even acknowledged that in their Press Release statement (Now the 3rd biggest in the world behind Sony)
The most likely scenario they'll just merge the Battle.Net and Gamepass into 1 and put up the price of a gamepass and leave everything else how it is.
The more bold move as posted before would be investment into the under-developed studios - Only Warzone is Blizzard's A* title nowadays, the likes of Call of Duty and WoW have fallen big time thanks to Kotick and new players in their markets - The likes of Valorant and Final Fantasy 14 are laughing at them right now.
DonaldDownTheWing
Winger
This is potentially exciting news for COD players. AB have been taking the piss out of the players for years. Only the Black Ops series have been worth playing for years now. Vanguard is terrible, MW19 was, BLOPS4 didn’t have a campaign.
Competitive cod has been overlooked for years, too. League play should be released with the game, not 5 months later.
Competitive cod has been overlooked for years, too. League play should be released with the game, not 5 months later.
It wouldn’t shock me if they try to port wow to Xbox.
AndrewP
Striker
They'll probably be quite happy for Sony to lose money on every console and create an income stream for Microsoft at the same time.
Pseudonym Number 1
Striker
Seriously doubt Microsoft are going to make all the companies games xbox exclusives. They will lose around half their sales if they do.
Yeah it would be silly to do that. With games like cod they will probably just get new maps a week early or something like that.
andy78
Striker
They don't care about a short term loss, they just spent 70b to make sure PS players buy into Xbox (either through Game Pass or buying an Xbox), so all new games will be exclusive unless there's a pre-existing contract.
coyneeee
Winger
Exactly. Call of Duty is going nowhere. And absolutely nobody unless you've recently been sectioned will turn around and say I must buy an Xbox so I can play Spyro the Dragon. Nothing will happen.
I don’t think they are, but MS these days is all about selling services via a subscription rather than a one off purchase Xbox is following that model and it is clear they want to get a lot of titles available under it.
£10/month or so from millions of Xbox owners will generate a lot of ongoing and predictable revenue.
And if they can get PS owners subscribed to GP to access the likes of CoD then even more so.
coyneeee
Winger
They don't need people to buy an Xbox achieve that. They can just merge Battle.Net with GamePass so everyone who plays World of Warcraft, Diablo etc has to sign up.
Microsoft's biggest revenue is PC Software and Gamepass. Consoles is bottom of the barrel stuff in comparison to the money gamepass makes - 25 million subscribers already at a tenner a month, that's 300 million revenue on a subscription - They dont care about Spyro the Dragon, they want more signups and it's the PC gamers they want and they've got the 2nd biggest Digital service behind Steam.
The Kinguin studios part of Blizzard which has the likes of Candy Crush revenuing a billion is already guaranteed return, it's just a case of x amount of years until they see the money back
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Toddius
Midfield
I reckon this is the plan too. Phil Spencer has said so many times he's not interested in 'console wars', it's about 'content wars'. Few rumours that Game Pass will hit PlayStation eventually, why would they ignore the revenue from however many million PlayStation users. Both consoles are so similar now internally, they're both basically PCs. And Microsoft have spoken about a 'Netflix for gaming' for years.
Sony will keep their customers too, their exclusives are a cut above for those interested in single player games - Last Of Us, God Of War, Uncharted, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank and on and on, and others will stay just because they're dyed in the wool PlayStation fans, or prefer the controller, or interface - stuff like that has a lot of pull with people. Plus, they're both losing money on console sales until like the fourth or fifth year of production (perhaps longer with this chip shortage mess). Makes sense that they'd both want to be somewhat 'platform agnostic'. PlayStation games appearing on PC, and Microsoft becoming much more altruistic with their business software, subscrptions are the holy grail for companies - ongoing, consistent revenue stream.
coyneeee
Winger
Listening to Phil right now he does want to invest into some studios, but I didn't realise how big their catalogue of games is now - Phil specifically mentioned bringing back Guitar Hero, at first I thought "That's not a Blizzard game?"
Then I look and see Vicarious Visions made Guitar Hero 3, who were bought out by Blizzard only last year to remaster Diablo after they did Crash Bandicoot independently, so it's indeed a Blizzard game which they now have the IP to.
Then I look and see Vicarious Visions made Guitar Hero 3, who were bought out by Blizzard only last year to remaster Diablo after they did Crash Bandicoot independently, so it's indeed a Blizzard game which they now have the IP to.
