I hope they clean up Blizzard. It's been sad to hear everything - my best friend growing up got a dream job there a few years ago, and it's sad to hear how his childhood dream got crushed by a toxic management team (he loved just about everyone he directly worked with, including his boss).
Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
531–540 of 1001 posts
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that basically the same Nintendo and Sony? Save for the cloud platform.
Nintendo operates on different rules due their absurd array of reliable IPs. I get the sense that MS, Sony are still trying to sort out their own "Mario, Zelda, Pokemon" clone with mainstream movies/merch potential and all that entails.
Halo is probably the closest thing they have to a Marioesque IP.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#533But is it a good deal?
Wrt Blizzard specifically, where is the amazing company that designed Warcraft, Starcraft, WoW, ...
I find their recent offering ... bland.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
> other companies are going to find it very hard to compete with Game Pass I haven't really ever used it. I used to buy everything Blizzard made (OK that's an exaggeration, but I was all about WarCraft/StarCraft/Diablo...). Before Steam, I bought lots of games on disk. Now I buy most things on Steam. And I haven't bought anything Blizzard since Diablo III. Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pa…
> Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game Pass? Game pass is significantly cheaper, unless you buy very few games on steam (and/or only buy them on deep, deep sale. Which doesn't really exist anymore in any meaningful way).
Ah yes I don't buy a ton of games, and I see sales all the time for Steam, like seeing $40 games for $10.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#535It'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.
They are still missing a mobile platform and that's why I believe they will retry within the next few years
This will be interesting to see. If Steam Deck becomes a successful device, I believe the Xbox division will release a mobile device to compete with Nintendo.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#536It'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.
DirectX, too.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#537Can't wait for an Overwatch 2 Developer Update that starts with "Hi, I'm Jeff from the Microsoft team."
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#538With these kind of acquisitions, other companies are going to find it very hard to compete with Game Pass. I think we'll look back in 10 years and wonder why antitrust regulators did nothing, but it may be too late by then.
I'm already wondering why these trillion dollar companies are allowed to make pretty much any acquisitions at all, let alone ones pretty clearly aimed at vertical integration.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#539Microsoft continues brute force drive into gaming industry, with zero creativity but outright buying whole gaming companies, and probably locking out competitor out of IPs
I mean with everyone jumping for joy on this news, this is Microsoft's 2022 definition of "Extinguish". It's clever but a reheated version in the 1990s, with a new twist:
1. Buyout the company / developers and they now report to Microsoft.
2. Use a subscription model (game pass) to reduce and undercut the game, SaSS price close to free.
3. Sell the game on other platforms for the RRP.
In the case of software like GitHub, the best tools are now free forever on a near unlimited scalable cloud which many competitors cannot compete with, especially free. Squeezing the competitors to reduce prices and exit entirely. (Extinguish)
OpenAI is next up on this.
Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
#540I think that Microsoft's Game Pass has really changed the gaming ecosystem. If you're not familiar it's basically "Netflix of Videogames" where for a low monthly price (compared to buying a game at full retail) you get access to whole downloadable/streamable library of games. It's such an outsized value that it's a big reason to choose an Xbox console over a PlayStation and it's pretty clearly the driving force behin…
I guess it's just business at the end of the day, but IMHO this model in the end could not be the best for consumer after all.
For example tv streaming, where if your favorite movies/tv series maybe spread over dozen services and you need to pay subscription to all of them. Or it could happen that copyrights get bought by different providers and thus migrate from service to service. I will not be surprised if piracy will have a comeback for movies or tv-series.
So with gaming it will either be the same (too many providers to choose from), or reverse - if you'd like to play AAA title, you will be locked in with Microsoft.