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Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

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Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#261

Post by lockhouse »

sundvor wrote: post #140
lockhouse wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't a Nintendo-Sony duopoly. They don't really compete with each other. It's a handheld game system with the ability to dock and work with a TV. The hardware and its gaming capabilities are very different. There is almost no overlap in the games available to each console. Nintendo stopped competing on high performance hardware several generations ago. It competes like a Honda Civic competes with a Chev…

Side comment, but I think you may underestimate the Civic (Type R). Of course the C7 is still on top, but still.. Both in 2017: 7:13.9 - Chevrolet Corvette C7 Z06 Christian Gebhardt. 7:43.8 - Civic Type R, Honda didn't name the driver. Having said that the Nintendo Switch competes against the Series X in my home for time . It has some seriously good titles that my son loves to play.

That’s why I love this place! Always learning new things when you least expect it.

Thank you!

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#262

Post by lotsofpulp »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #226
Pufferbo wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years is also nothing in game development. Games now can take up to 7 years from conception to release, and then there is post release content. Based on the “10 years”, that would mean like what, 1 game out of each series would be cross platform? And for Sony, they would need to start developing a competent competitor to Call of Duty immediately. Or Sony could just buy EA and create a Titanfall 3 since I guess it’…

> I guess it’s okay for big ass companies to buy one another now. Unfortunately that’s just the standard. I mean look at AT&T.

And yet ATT ($109B market cap) is in last place, quite a bit behind Tmobile ($168B) and Verizon ($147B).

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#263

Post by wlesieutre »

doodlesdev wrote: post #254
sundvor wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to say these were Nordschleife lap times. It's about a serious test of both driver and car as you get.

Out of curiosity, which year Type R did that lap? I'm familliar with the EK9 generation from the 90s, is this lap in one of the newer models from the last years?

That time is a 2017. The 2023 actually went faster, but the lap length changed in 2019 so its 7:44.9 time isn’t directly comparable.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/2023-honda-civic-type-r-nurb...

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#264

Post by throwaway2990 »

Aeolun wrote: post #172

This is weird. The judge says that because there won’t be any anticompetitive effects in the next 10 years (because MS made a pinky promise), this merger is fine? What about after those 10 years? What about anything not Call of Duty?

MS would shoot them selves in the foot if they took call of duty off the PS. They will make exclusives. But not COD.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#265

Post by maroonblazer »

taeric wrote: post #237
maroonblazer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft proves the parent's point. Following your logic, Microsoft should've made Minecraft an exclusive. They didn't. In fact they're expanding the footprint, rolling it out to Chromebooks last month.

Oddly, I feel the writing is on the wall for this one. Minecraft would be a perfect game for the PSVR2, and yet?

People don't want to play Minecraft in VR. Witness Minecraft on Oculus.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#267

Post by pnw »

throwaway202351 wrote: post #166

Maybe it's just sour grapes from me, but it feels like a lot of these acquisitions are for has-been companies that were great 10+ years ago but haven't had much success lately. Bethesda, Double Fine, and now Activation Blizzard.

Activision isn’t successful? They own several of the biggest franchises in console, PC and mobile. 2022 was a record year for them - over $7b in revenue - and that was before Diablo IV shipped.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#268

Post by AmericanChopper »

kiwijamo wrote: post #210
addisonl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A portable console.

So you'd put the Gameboy for example on par with the PlayStation? Despite one being portable and the other not?

The portability doesn’t matter. Nintendo operates in a different market segment because of the hardware specs, and games they support. If you want to play the latest Call of Duty, Halo, God of War, Elden Ring… then Sony and Microsoft are competing for your business (sometimes with exclusive contracts), Nintendo is not. Their consoles wouldn’t be able to support those games.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#270

Post by FumblingBear »

smoldesu wrote: post #239
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that practically the definition of “anti consumer”behavior - A company division being bailed out by another because of its ineptness? It’s one thing for Microsoft to continue to pump money into Xbox (look at Amazon and Alexa). It’s another for them to simply purchase the competition.

Anti-consumer behavior? I don't think so. Bailing out failing studios doesn't necessarily harm the consumer, and it's especially the case with dead-in-the-water studios like Activision-Blizzard. The alternative would be their corpse getting picked over by companies who want to buy up their IP, and that's certainly not what their consumers want. If Microsoft is really subsidizing a failing business, they should be all…

Activision-Blizzard-King is by no means a "failing studio" though. They are one of the most successful by nearly any metric. According to MacroTrends [0], "Activision Blizzard gross profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2023 was $1.718B, a 33.28% increase year-over-year."

Between powerhouses like CoD, the mobile division of both King's legacy titles like Candy Crush, and newer ones like Diablo Immortal, and Blizzard's Diablo 4 + WoW being very well received, the concern is primarily that instead of making better first party titles, Xbox just wants to acquire exclusive rights to already successful studios + publishers like Bethesda + now ABK. (Weather or not this will actually happen or not is anyone's guess. I'm assuming they will indeed make the titles exclusive).

The GP seems to be talking about how Microsoft's Xbox is the one being bailed out by Microsoft Azure / enterprise licensing allowing Xbox to continue to fumble with first party titles without being forced out of the market.

IMO the main reason for the uproar is that Microsoft is clearly leveraging their immense market share in the enterprise world to buy out the competition by acquiring studios that were formerly multi-platform and making them exclusive, which absolutely does seem to be anti-competitive and anti-consumer. (To be clear, I think Sony spending a ton of money on exclusivity contracts with Square Enix, etc. is also anti-consumer).

[0] - https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ATVI/activision-bl....

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