Microsoft Buying Activision Blizzard.

[iceberg_is_on_fire]

Wait im confused asf isnt Epic games under microsoft called the Coalition??? they spent a ton of money for just the Gears license but not Epic Games itself?!? that makes no sense to me... I'm seeing here Tencent has 40% stake in Epic Games!!?? jesus christ

Microsoft bought the studio inside of Epic that made Gears that has ultimately become The Coalition.

 

[ORDER_66]

Microsoft bought the studio inside of Epic that made Gears that has ultimately become The Coalition.

that's crazy I thought a while back they bought the whole damned thing!!!

 

[iceberg_is_on_fire]

that's crazy I thought a while back they bought the whole damned thing!!!

Unreal Tournament wasn't popping like that and Unreal Engine hadn't become the beast that it is now. Oddly enough though, Microsoft owns Havok game engine. They bought it from Intel.

 

[Spliff]

We need a new DJ Hero.

I’d buy all the DLC.

Oh shyt, we get all the Guitar Heroes too. LMAO

Gamepass the god!!!!!!

 

[iceberg_is_on_fire]

From their conference call

PP Presentation:
https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RWSl55

Conference call quotes:
https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://c.s-microsoft.com/en-us/CMSFiles/ABInvestorCall.docx?version=8a084f42-3d2d-105b-12af-17be79328b24

I have a lot of takeaways from this pic.

Master Chief is now and forever, a co-star, not the star anymore in Xbox gaming world.
A lot of this speaks to what isn't here.
No Perfect Dark, Fable, Dishonored, Killer Instinct, Avowed, Guitar Hero, Spyro, etc.

It's really crazy to see all of this together now. Crazy thing is, they aren't done.

 

[the_FUTURE]

That's how you know this is a big deal.

See how third party games drive sales on non-Nintendo Platforms. We also do see the top two.

Activision made more money on PlayStation platforms than Sony did this year. 3rd parties drive the bus for consoles. Always have.

Mario Kart 8 being 7 on that list is still beyond hilarious to me.

is Overwatch a dead game atm? maybe MS can comfortably speed up Overwatch 2 and help their league.

 

[StretfordRed]

I don't play any Activision blizard games so I'm straight as a Sony dude mostly, still pretty huge news tho

Same. Heck I work for one of these companies involved and there are a few us of us Sony stans in our internal chats saying “”, personally anyway.

I haven’t got the new XBOX mainly because I don’t have that much downtime between PS5 and PC and I also love Sony’s single player driven games.

Big news though.

 

[iceberg_is_on_fire]

Will likely correct itself but the headline alone is bananas.

Microsoft Deal Wipes $20 Billion Off Sony's Market Value in a Day

Microsoft Deal Wipes $20 Billion Off Sony's Market Value in a Day

• Xbox maker announced plan to buy Activision for $69 billion
• Sony lacks Microsoft’s financial muscle for an IP bidding war

Sony Group Corp. shares fell 13% in Tokyo on Wednesday, their biggest drop since October 2008, after PlayStation rival Microsoft Corp. announced a $69 billion deal to acquire games publisher Activision Blizzard Inc.

The blockbuster acquisition escalates Microsoft’s spending spree to secure intellectual property assets for its Xbox Game Pass service, wiping $20 billion off Sony’s valuation in a day. The push to attract paying subscribers with an overwhelming portfolio of games challenges Sony’s traditional console business model that relies on high-profile exclusive titles and hardware sales. Games and network services account for about 30% of Sony revenue.

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it has more than 25 million Game Pass subscribers and “will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass,” spanning both existing and new titles, according to Xbox chief Phil Spencer. Call of Duty, Diablo and World of Warcraft are among several highly successful franchises developed under the Activision Blizzard umbrella.

“Sony will have a monumental challenge on its hands to stand on its own in this war of attrition,” said Amir Anvarzadeh of Asymmetric Advisors. “With Call of Duty now most likely to be added exclusively to the Game Pass roster, the headwinds for Sony are only going to get tougher.”

Elsewhere across the games industry, publishers rallied in the wake of Microsoft’s announcement, with Capcom Co. and Square Enix Holdings Co. up by more than 3.7% in Tokyo. Analysts, including Jefferies’ Atul Goyal, saw the move as raising valuations for game companies with strong content and IP portfolios.

Sony has maintained a consistent lead in sales and exclusive games over Microsoft’s competing offerings across several PlayStation and Xbox generations. Now that its Redmond, Washington-based rival has signaled its determination to spend freely to close that gap, Sony will be under pressure to respond.

“Sony will struggle to match Microsoft in terms of money it can spend to buy popular game IP,” Morningstar Research analyst Kazunori Ito said. “Falling shares illustrate investors are worried that Sony may not be able to keep winning if indeed the industry shifts away from the hardware-based model.”

The crazy thing is, none of this was hard to see. This was for everyone to see. Not Activision and Bethesda specifically but to get busy with the acquisitions. Even the analyst dude using what he calls a war of attrition. I've been saying that going on two years, search will validate that. Microsoft woke and finally said, "what the fukk are we doing, we are Microsoft' and went to fukking work. Fandom blinded a lot of people to this.I realized when they had the 5 acquisitions in 2018 at E3, I saw that Microsoft was building the death star.

I literally just said this a week ago.

Not even being funny, trollish, etc. For as long as Microsoft has been in this space, there has only been one thing that I just couldn't wrap my mind around which is that the world's wealthiest company, a software company no less, wouldn't figure out a software market. It wasn't always guaranteed that they would but if they would, their correction would be swift and will move forward at a breakneck speed to make up for lost time. They have billions, with a B, billions for Gamepass for years according to Jeff Grubb for example. It's a game of economics basically. Doing the tango with a focused Microsoft is asking someone to play in the rain yet not get wet. It's a tough ask to not eventually get soaked if they continue to push and apply pressure.

That's where we are. Every single thing that I've said they'd do this generation, they've either done it or are in the midst of doing it. I can't even call it a prediction, its the damn Microsoft playbook, lol. The shyt has less plays than Tecmo Bowl. Apply financial pressure. That's the damn playbook. Big bank take little bank and it works every time.

 

[Ozymandeas]

It’s interesting how in gaming you can own both the content (buying a major game producer) and distribution (Xbox) whereas in say film, it’s a no no. You cant own movie theaters and film studios at the same time. I have an Xbox so I don’t care but it’s interesting to me from a business perspective.

 

[ORDER_66]

It’s interesting how in gaming you can own both the content (buying a major game producer) and distribution (Xbox) whereas in say film, it’s a no no. You cant own movie theaters and film studios at the same time. I have an Xbox so I don’t care but it’s interesting to me from a business perspective.

its supposed to be big anti trust laws that was supposed to stop this merger from even happening either in U.K courts or America but we havent heard shyt... so it looks like the deal may go through because the people in charge of stopping monopolies just dont care anymore...

 

[iceberg_is_on_fire]

its supposed to be big anti trust laws that was supposed to stop this merger from even happening either in U.K courts or America but we havent heard shyt... so it looks like the deal may go through because the people in charge of stopping monopolies just dont care anymore...

It's a disparity of sorts if you will in IP owned. That is not the case in market share, Nintendo is going to be their cover to get this done. Y'all are just thinking COD. Microsoft has next to no games in the mobile space. They will likely shut down battle.net and put their games on Steam. This is far under the radar stuff.

 

[MenacingMonk]

IMO, This is way worse than Disney doing what they did.

 

[Rev Leon Lonnie Love]

A whole lot of people just became rich off of that acquisition.

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

I only play FPS and RTS games on PC anyway so this doesn't really effect what I would play on the PS5.

That being said, obviously COD is one of the biggest franchises in the industry so it will definitely sell some Xbox's if/when they go that route.

If M$ buys EA or Take Two then yeah its Playstation

Otherwise though the only games MS owns that I give a shyt about like that is the Bethesda titles, most of which are FPS games (meaning I'd only buy them on PC) so

 

[spliz]

YOu never have this energy for SEGA or Nintendo in previous generations.

Sony leeched off of them, and you couldn't even give their predecessors their props.

Serves them right for abandoning Japan and trying to be like M$ with superficial high end graphics and the paradigm of cinematics > gameplay. That paradigm bankrupted a lot of franchises in the PS3 Gen, and killed 2D gameplay. @Knicksman20 can say this from word to word.

fukk u mean Sony leeched off them? nikka Sony was helping Nintendo with their audio chip and some other things. Said they wanted to join the gaming space and then Nintendo agreed. They built the whole fukking console and announced it just for Nintendo to turn around and fukk them over behind their backs with Philips the DAY Sony announced the partnership basically embarrassing the fukk out of them. They went over to Sega to ask to partner with them. Sega of America agreed and then Sega of Japan with their fukking in fighting with Sega of America. Turned around and dubbed it. So Sony ended up being left to fend for themselves. So Sony built relationships with all of the developers and kept it pushin and made their own console. How the fukk Sony leech off anybody? u just making shyt up. U really don’t know what ur talking about. U just hate Sony.