Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#481

Post by kesselvon » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #273

echelon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an independent company at some point. I certainly think this should happen. The trillion dollar giants should not span multiple industries. They have absurd monopoly power and can make growing your own niche impossible. Why does a cloud computing / operating system vendor / hardware manufacturer / business software / developer tooling company also own the third bigg…

400 - 1400 (Feudal economics) 1850 - 1920 (Railroad + oil/steel trusts) 1880 - 1982 (ATT) 1950 - 1975 (IBM) 1985 - 2000 (Intel/Microsoft) 2008 - current (Google/Apple/Amazon) 2014 - current (Meta) It's the nature of technology to produce consolidation, before the next breakthrough occurs and incumbents are typically swept away. On the plus side, the length of dominant periods seems to be decreasing. And realistically…

Consolidation is not a function of technology, but a function of unregulated capitalist economics.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#482

Post by whoopdedo » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

u2077 wrote: post #352

curiousllama wrote: post #315

It's wild how Microsoft has been able to vertically integrate gaming. They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway. That's a heck of a moat.

This is what I’m worried about. With them owning both the games and the OS that they are played on, we could be forced into a subscription. Paying to own may be a thing of the past.

You mean a thing of the present. See the other front-page story about Diablo not working if you're offline for too long.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#483

Post by jhoelzel » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

oh boy. I am happy and crying at the same time. I have an idea where this is going and "vendor lock in" is going to be a hashtag for a long time now.

I am Team X-Box because I just like it much more than the Playstation, buuut at some point we will all pay our MS-Fees like the powerbill.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#484

Post by f6v » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #355

As someone who spent a good time in gaming, I'm perplexed and sad. Consolidation always leads to job loss, the industry is very very small. At the same time, legacy publishers have a very different role now. If I'm an indie dev, I don't need you to print the discs or box things up. The only 2 things publishers really do are QA and Marketing. QA, for projects with a good community, can be free or very cheap. Marketing…

> QA, for projects with a good community, can be free or very cheap.

Battlefield 2042, GTA Definitive Edition, Warcraft Reforged, and Cyberpunk 2077 beg to differ.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#485

Post by Underphil » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #472

bogwog wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre view of the world. It’s like teenagers gossiping about celebrity relationships, but with corporations instead. A Microsoft acquisition of this company is bad, and an Apple acquisition of this company would be bad. When mega corporations like this consolidate, consumers always lose. Microsoft couldn’t win customers through product and service quality, so they bought one of the largest game publishers in…

Complaining about a bizarre world view and then dropping an equally bizarre and hyperbolic statement. I think this will be good, just as I think Microsoft's previous gaming acquisitions have been good.

For those who like Bethesda Games and bought into the Sony ecosystem? Good for you, maybe.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#486

Post by mrkramer » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #223

mrkramer wrote: post #193

All cash deal. Yup. Inflation is going to eat all of your cash pile Microsoft so you better spend it fast. But my thinking is that they should've acquired Valve which controls digital PC gaming distribution not big gaming studios like Zenimax and Activision Blizzard.

I don't think Gaben will sell... And why would he, he has company he build over the years to do what ever he wants. With very robust income streams just by existing and occasionally releasing crap for Dota 2 and CSGO... Or continuing to sell other peoples games and taking 20-30% cut in process... Already personally likely making more than enough money for him. I can kinda see point of selling when you want to do some…

>I don't think Gaben will sell

He is ex long time employee of Microsoft and if the price is right he would probably sell. But Microsoft's mind is on Xbox/PC, cloud gaming, Xbox pass etc.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#487

Post by phasersout » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

Kelteseth wrote: post #31

Can somebody please explain to me, why is it allowed for a company like MS to buy all of their (indirect) competitors?

This deal has to be approved by a lot of regulators before it will go through. AB is a global company. MS thinks it will take at least 12 to 18 month before the deal will happen. Or not, since regulators are a bit iffy with big-tech these days.

But overall even though it's a big acquisition both together will still remain one amongst a few big gaming companies.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#488

Post by yalogin » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

EtienneK wrote: post #293

yalogin wrote: post #232

Will the DoJ jump in? Only two gaming consoles in the world and one of it is buying one of the biggest game developer for both platforms. Very good reason for DoJ to jump in

The Nintendo Switch waves hi...

Does Nintendo compete with Sony and Microsoft? Their segments are different. They compete with Xbox and PS just like Apple TV and the iPhone apps do, not head on. So yeah only two console companies in that segment of the market.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#489

Post by smileybarry » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #418

How does the exclusive game work now? It's okay to have exclusives to compete with the big boys but surely the rules are different once you get to this scale. When you get close to a monopolistic position using exclusives to lock out competitors is abusive. Though MS is still not quite in a monopolistic position yet... they're getting close.

Sony already locks out competitors with exclusives, whether via studios they acquired or games they pay to make exclusive.

Not to mention that ATVI is a behemoth but their catalog isn't the same "everything-store" as 2000s ATVI (or current EA), it's a few (big) franchises. Hell, the Bethesda deal had more franchises involved.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#490

Post by goldfeld » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #315

It's wild how Microsoft has been able to vertically integrate gaming. They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway. That's a heck of a moat.

It is quite wild. The only thing missing is good will.