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Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

news.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#601

Post by hogrider »

MrJagil wrote: post #469
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…

> It’s like teenagers gossiping about celebrity relationships, but with corporations instead. I think that’s accurate. Whether there’s room for and value in these kinds of playful conjectures is of course up to each of us to decide.

It's totally accurate bc humans are a simple ape that should be living in bands of 50 to 150, but then we had several technological revolutions. Someday well be more like star trek vulcans, I'm sure.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#602

Post by cmelbye »

sto11z wrote: post #143
MrJagil wrote: post #63

The old Blizzard always seemed much closer to Apple than Microsoft in culture. An incredible attention to detail and the onboarding experience, clean, fun and friendly design and a slightly rebellious attitude expressed through their willingness to enter new markets. The "new" Microsoft though, really is different than the old and might actually do quite well in stewarding this supposedly sinking ship into fairer wat…

Apple doesn't have a gaming division. Why would they be interested in acquiring Blizzard?

What else are people going to do with their $3,000 Apple Goggles?

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#603

Post by mdoms »

awill wrote: post #572

Microsoft is not building the future of gaming, they're buying it. Seeing a bunch of excellent third-party cross-platform games become xbox-exclusive is really sad for gamers. Microsoft has not been making money on xbox. They're not investing money made with xbox. They're using Office/Windows/Azure funds to boost Xbox, and it's not a fair fight. Sony and Nintendo don't have that kind of money. I get Sony has acquired…

> Seeing a bunch of excellent third-party cross-platform games become xbox-exclusive is really sad for gamers

What are you talking about? Microsoft is embracing PC and cross play more than ever.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#604

Post by awill »

Server6 wrote: post #588
awill wrote: post #572

Microsoft is not building the future of gaming, they're buying it. Seeing a bunch of excellent third-party cross-platform games become xbox-exclusive is really sad for gamers. Microsoft has not been making money on xbox. They're not investing money made with xbox. They're using Office/Windows/Azure funds to boost Xbox, and it's not a fair fight. Sony and Nintendo don't have that kind of money. I get Sony has acquired…

Sony spent 20+ years building up and planning their 1st party studios. Microsoft could do that too, but it would take 20 more years. They don't have the time for that and acquisition is really their only option. I don't like it either, but that's the reality of it.

Agree. If I were in charge at MS, I might have done this too. I can't blame them.

But I imagine Sony execs are struggling to comprehend what's going on. They've done so much right in the last few years. They've built some of the best studios in the world. They've delivered the best exclusive AAA content. Just in the last few years: The Last of us Part 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted.... And despite that, they still might not come out on top. Life isn't fair :).

>> Sony spent 20+ years building up and planning their 1st party studios. Microsoft could do that too, but it would take 20 more years.

Ironically, the Xbox (OG) was released 20 years ago.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#605

Post by Spivak »

erwincoumans wrote: post #597
lopis wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still surprised that to this day Minecraft Java was allowed to survive (albeit just so slightly behind Minecraft Bedrock, but still with some extra features).

Here my kids prefers the Java edition, for its mods.

Yeah, I don't know many people who are playing bedrock because of the spotty mod support and the weird redstone differences making complicated designs harder for no user-visible reason -- I'm sure the code is nicer.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#606

Post by viktorcode »

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #122
agd wrote: post #53

With 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.

At this rate it's going to be Tencent vs Microsoft and if I have to choose I pick Microsoft.

There's a difference though. Tencent doesn't dictate its studios how to conduct business. Microsoft on the other hand made Bethesda leave PlayStation, which negatively impacts their revenue, but plays into the hand of Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#607

Post by jayd16 »

benlumen wrote: post #595
Server6 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony spent 20+ years building up and planning their 1st party studios. Microsoft could do that too, but it would take 20 more years. They don't have the time for that and acquisition is really their only option. I don't like it either, but that's the reality of it.

It's not like Microsoft couldn't have done that from the start. They were the software company, after all, so they probably should have done. They're both over 20 years into the game, now.

MS HAS owned and operated game studios for 20 years. This acquisition doesn't fundamentally change how MS approaches game development.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#608

Post by kizer »

oneoff786 wrote: post #530
faisal_ksa wrote: post #527

I hate to see a monopoly in the gaming industry. Controlling the content will prevent any competition both in gaming consoles and in PC gaming. Forget about gaming on Linux or any new platform. Forget about sony's PlayStation and Nintendo. We are going to see the real face of Microsoft. What do you think Microsoft will do next? Buy unreal engine and unity and have control over the content and the tools to make them?…

I think no chance that Tim Sweeney sells Epic. Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.

I made this point in another comment thread, but I think MS would make a competitor to Unreal/Unity instead. Think of all the game engine talent they now have. The IW engine for CoD, Halo’s slipspace, WoW. They could readily assemble a team to build an engine on par with Unreal.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#609

Post by viktorcode »

panick21_ wrote: post #261
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #34

I wonder if this will trigger any antitrust lawsuits. I know Microsoft isn't that of the 90's but it seems like the political situation is ripe for politicians to go after "big tech" and this is a pretty major acquisition that will help Xbox be the dominant player in terms of content.

Anti-Trust is not magic, its no longer a tool politicans can wield like a club against things they don't like. The courts have a definition and you actually have to prove abuse for those law-suits to do anything. Doing so if you can do it at all takes decades. Unless politicians make major changes to the anti-trust law its unlikely to be effective. And doing so would require major action in congress. The president co…

It's not magic but it can block a deal.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#610

Post by hydrok9 »

apatters wrote: post #412
s3r3nity wrote: post #16

Congratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" - a Microsoft Senior Leadership position. Oh, and he now leads the third biggest gaming company on the planet: > When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. It will be interes…

Sounds lovely for the suits. As a longtime Blizzard fan and a former Microsoft employee, maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit, but there's really only one thing I care about: Will they finally start getting the fucking games right again?

As a fellow longtime Blizzard fan and someone who retired from gaming (in part due to being too old for this shit),

Don't get your hopes up :)

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