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Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

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Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#861

Post by nightski »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #747
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.

Activision-Blizzard was the worst performing gaming companies during COVID so it stands to reason that this would be the best gaming developer considering how well Bungie did as an acquisition for Halo and the acquisition of mojang. There is so much IP that is tied up with Activision-Blizzard that it seems like a good deal.

Sure... If $2B in profit up 46% YoY is worst performing I'll take it.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#862

Post by 0xedd »

mise_en_place wrote: post #729
nvarsj wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're way past the point where government is meant to be a check on unchecked capitalism. Mega monolith corps are the now and future.

It makes sense they’d acquire Activision now, especially after Intel and AMD are bootlicking them and implementing Pluton. Essentially any new or even existing titles will not be able to be pirated with Pluton enabled.

So, more proprietary hardware which now only MS controls, only they can update and audit. According to security researchers, is not physical tamper proof. Tackles niche security issue while the number one vector of attack, comprising 80% of them, is social engineering and not kernel modifications. And, according to you, eliminate piracy which not only doesn't hurt the gaming industry but has also become redundant with multiplayer only titles dominating said industry.

Nah, it's just a play to gain more monopoly into PCs and what runs on them. Today, it's a nightmare to get something signed for MS. God forbid you need to sign drivers. With them moving the goal post every now and then, broken APIs, broken SDKs and support SLA of infinity, pluton is a forced dependency.

Pluton is a pure business move with zero customer value. The greatest threat, last year, in security was supply chain attacks. And this tries to "solve" kernel modifications? End users have nothing to gain.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#863

Post by goldcd »

I'm not sure how good a deal this really is.

I can definitely see why MS bought up publishers and developers to add to their stable - they can now, like Netflix, sell a monthly recurrent service that will keep their customers entertained with 'free' releases available on day#1, plus a leased library.

But (to me at least), they were already there. I'm there on PC and think the sell is even easier on Xbox. Buying Activision seems a bit pointless. Sure they can now fold in wavering CoD lovers, but the franchise is already looking a little wobbly - but they're paying for a company that's valued as selling a game every year for $50 to lure in the subset of customers who now think game pass is now worth it with CoD. (That's a shitload of new subs they need, or the price is going up)

My larger concern is that when they bought Zenimax or even minecraft, they'd paid well for 'good bones' they could build on. Activision is really just a pile of slightly rusty franchises (https://www.denofgeek.com/games/activision-blizzard-microsof...)

Now maybe they can revive some of those - Doublefine knocking out episodic Gabriel Knight makes me moist, or simply Guitar Hero with new weekly tunes - but MS could have done similar for a lot cheaper.

If I'd had the money in my bank account, I'd have maybe just had a slush fund to pick up and promote new talent/IP.

If they really wanted infra, Steam is still out there. If they wanted IP, Sega.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#864

Post by LocalH »

ekianjo wrote: post #380
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…

> 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 You forgot to mention he started with billions of dollars backing him up. It was not like a small startup or something.

You forget how big Nintendo's war chest is

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#865

Post by advael »

I continue to be very uncomfortable with gigantic companies becoming more gigantic for any reason, even though all involved players are already ones I've been carefully avoiding even accidentally giving money to for several years

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#866

Post by einpoklum »

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.

So, you're saying that between the giant douche and the turd sandwich you pick the sandwich?

Somehow I'm not impressed.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#868

Post by DimmieMan »

TameAntelope wrote: post #704
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?…

A real monopoly in video gaming isn't nearly as valuable as it first seems. Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time. Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating g…

"So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL"

Apart from maybe a couple unicorns they aren't, they're a seperate market.

The overlap of people playing Call of Duty and those playing The Binding of Isaac will be family minimal, same goes for sport games which you're hard pressed to find people in the previous camps playing despite massive sales.

I agree with the sentiment though, there's no shortage of quality games made by smaller teams both independently funded or with investment from big players.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#869

Post by mometsi »

muttantt wrote: post #657
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.

Give it a few months, and they will acquire Subspace.

Already happened. Insiders know that snagging PriitK was the real motivation behind the Skype acquisition...

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#870

Post by Trasmatta »

ho_schi wrote: post #519

Competition oversight? Probably dead since Regan? After they stopped controlling AT&T the UNIX-Wars happened, impcompatiblity, lawsuits, closed-source has become a normal thing and proprietary software locked users in and competitors out. What platform will Microsoft support? Likely not: * Linux * BSD * MacOS * Nintendo * Sony Does anyone miss id Software? Native ports on Linux, incredible source-code and impressive…

> Does anyone miss id Software? Native ports on Linux, incredible source-code and impressive games?

I don't miss id software, because they're still here, continuing to make amazing games. The last two Doom games were excellent.

...incidentally, Microsoft also owns them now.

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