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Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#261

Post by Capricorn2481 »

crazygringo wrote: post #255
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please don't call my point of view embarrassing -- that's uncalled for. I'm not calling your position embarrassing, I'm calling the position you think I have embarrassing. What's uncalled for is reducing what I'm saying to this > I don't think the attitude of "let Sony's gaming business be as big as it already is, but don't allow Microsoft's gaming business to try to expand to match Sony's" is healthy. That's liter…

> Again, Microsoft > Microsoft Gaming > Sony Gaming. This is where you're wrong. Microsoft gaming is around $15B in revenue per year. They sold 8.6 million Xboxes in 2022. Sony gaming is around $30B in revenue per year. They sold 19 million Playstations in 2022. Sony gaming is literally twice as big . Which is why it's fine for Microsoft to compete. (And see my edit in my previous comment.) And please stop calling na…

That's a pretty cherry picked number for all the reasons I stated.

You put words in my mouth and then got bothered when I pointed it out. If you want to argue with yourself be my guest

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#262

Post by edgyquant »

stale2002 wrote: post #179
edgyquant wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is buying up two of the biggest game studios not anti-competitive behavior? The apologism in this comment is hilarious. I hope your getting paid for shilling this hard.

Because the person you responded to just answered that question? It is because Microsoft isn't anywhere close to being a monopoly in games. You could have just read the comment to get the answer to your question.

Show me where I mentioned the word monopoly. You can’t, because I said anti-competitive.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#263

Post by WorldMaker »

everforward wrote: post #202
opportune wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” Regarding at least the Blizzard side of the acquisition, I feel like Microsoft ownership may end up being a good thing for their underused IP.…

> I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” In fairness to Microsoft, "half-baked" would be how I describe all of Bethesda's previous releases as well. I don't think Starfield is that far off how Skyrim or Fallout 4 was on release. Starfield's a long shot from where Skyrim and Fallout are now af…

> In fairness to Microsoft, "half-baked" would be how I describe all of Bethesda's previous releases as well. I don't think Starfield is that far off how Skyrim or Fallout 4 was on release. Starfield's a long shot from where Skyrim and Fallout are now after years of patches and DLC, but I think not far from where they started.

I've got friends that go deep into Bethesda releases on launch and they all agree that Starfield was much more polished than Skyrim or Fallout 4 (or Fallout 76) at launch. They are convinced that Microsoft must have actually attacked Bethesda with QA resources.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#264

Post by 37871808 »

Hamuko wrote: post #235
babypuncher wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” The rumor mill suggests the opposite is true. Bethesda intended to ship the game over a year ago and Microsoft delayed it to make sure it wasn't the next No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk.

> Microsoft delayed it to make sure it wasn't the next No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk. I wish it was the next Cyberpunk. I've gone back and forth between Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 / Phantom Liberty and Starfield, and I like Cyberpunk 2077 so much better. It looks better, it has a way more captivating story, it has so much more interesting characters and it just plays much nicer.

On release, CyberPunk 2077 was so bad that CD Projekt issued an apology and offered refunds. The previous poster's entire point was delaying Starfield to make sure it didn't end up like CyberPunk 1.0. I don't get the comparison between Starfield 1.0 and CyberPunk 2.0.

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/cyberpunk-2077-glitch-refun...

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#265

Post by edgyquant »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #228
micromacrofoot wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a monopoly but I think it's fair to express frustration towards the lack of legislation preventing what's clearly anti-competitive behavior. It doesn't seem very helpful for people to continually state what the current laws are as if that makes this better somehow.

How is it stopping anyone from coming in and competing? It's not like they're selling games at a loss to kill the competition.

They’re giving them away for a small monthly fee with their console subscription. How the hell is this any different, if not worse, than the anti-competitive behavior that Microsoft was brought to court for in the 90s?

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#266

Post by xinayder »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #118
echelon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on one asshole getting undeserved rewards is one thing, but it distracts from the real story. What hurts way more at scale is the increasing monopolistic power of Microsoft Games. That should be the primary focus of everyone's attention. This weakens Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Epic. The consumer. Everyone but Microsoft. Microsoft can give away "experiences" under-cost and sink a lot of human attention into it. T…

Sony has behaved in an identical manner for years. Nintendo refuses to do anything that makes them NOT a hardware company, and so they will continue to languish on last-generation hardware. Steam is doing just fine. Microsoft sells games on Steam because it made business sense for them to do so. Epic has good first party titles but they give away two games a week and it has never moved the needle for me because (a) S…

If your competitors do shitty stuff, it's not an excuse for you to be as shitty as them.

Microsoft could fix this problem, but they decided to enact vengeance against Sony for Call of Duty.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#267

Post by xinayder »

crazygringo wrote: post #157
wredue wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh no. Buying out previously cross platform studios and then converting their titles to Microsoft only is absolutely not “strengthening competition”. If Microsoft want to strengthen competition, they would stop burning their first party studios to the ground.

Of course it is strengthening competition. Playstation has tons of exclusive titles. By one estimate, 4x as many as Xbox [1]. How is that a fair playing field? I'm personally totally in favor of ending exclusivity entirely for all consoles. (What gamer wouldn't be?) But as long as Sony is playing that game, Microsoft is simply trying to level the playing field here, to make Xbox more competitive against PS . That's w…

How many are actually relevant, though?

I can name a few that are definitely relevant: Uncharted, Horizon, God of War, The Last of Us, titles that are also being released for PC. They are no longer exclusives.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#268

Post by muwtyhg »

w0m wrote: post #244
mrweasel wrote: post #70

And what is Microsoft going to do with this purchase? Seriously, Microsoft is buy all these game studios and fail to utilize them probably. They own all the IP required to do a followup to Fallout New Vegas and NOTHING.

My theory is Mobile gaming (King) was the key here. Outside of that it's simply to try and narrow the (surprisingly large) Exclusives gap Sony has been enjoying the last decade or so. > They own all the IP required to do a followup to Fallout New Vegas and NOTHING I mean - didn't the team that would work on that launch Starfield in the last month ?

Starfield was developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#269

Post by Hamuko »

37871808 wrote: post #264
Hamuko wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft delayed it to make sure it wasn't the next No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk. I wish it was the next Cyberpunk. I've gone back and forth between Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 / Phantom Liberty and Starfield, and I like Cyberpunk 2077 so much better. It looks better, it has a way more captivating story, it has so much more interesting characters and it just plays much nicer.

On release, CyberPunk 2077 was so bad that CD Projekt issued an apology and offered refunds. The previous poster's entire point was delaying Starfield to make sure it didn't end up like CyberPunk 1.0. I don't get the comparison between Starfield 1.0 and CyberPunk 2.0. https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/cyberpunk-2077-glitch-refun...

But Cyberpunk 1.0 was an interesting game even if buggy. Starfield is just not interesting.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#270

Post by WorldMaker »

opportune wrote: post #135
mrweasel wrote: post #70

And what is Microsoft going to do with this purchase? Seriously, Microsoft is buy all these game studios and fail to utilize them probably. They own all the IP required to do a followup to Fallout New Vegas and NOTHING.

They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” Regarding at least the Blizzard side of the acquisition, I feel like Microsoft ownership may end up being a good thing for their underused IP.…

> They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet.

Word on the street is that the principals at the top of Obsidian and Bethesda still hate each other, Microsoft keeps them at arms distance, and Obsidian isn't in a rush to do a new Fallout game even if "Daddy Microsoft" forced Bethesda to share its toys with the other studios (just like "Daddy Interplay" used to do, which is part of what led to the mess of Obsidian, inXile, and Bethesda all having crazy drama with each other before Microsoft became the new Interplay of RPG company owners).

I think that Obsidian's Outer Worlds was a very good F:NV successor. It had most of the hallmarks of the Fallout universe, just tweaked with a bit more space sci-fi and a weirder sense of humor. One of the interesting things about Starfield to me is how often I'm comparing it to Outer Worlds (and how often it feels like Outer Worlds was the better more coherent story/RPG in a similar way to F:NV fans like to compare Fallout 3/4 on either side of F:NV).

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