Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard For Nearly $70 Billion
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Comments
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Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 07:59 AM
How about they buy $ony too?Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:06 AM
Surely this has to be the start of a monopoly case? Combined with Bethesda, these are some of the biggest businesses in the world suddenly all part of one company.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:10 AM
Well then cod going back to xbox then, well good riddings as not a good series at allTuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:25 AM
I personally don't care. I think these acquiring will just draw me further away from gaming though. Microsoft has a bad track record for releasing good quality. I mean look at the Microsoft 11 reviews... lmao.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:40 AM
This is pretty huge news, but activision essentially have one title that isn’t primarily Microsoft platform anyway. I think we can all agree on the huge loss of quality in cod the last few years too. It’s no big loss.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:43 AM
Meh... better than Tencent I suppose... at least it stays stateside... the lesser evil.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:44 AM
This is definitely a great way to put a nail in the coffin of gaming for me. I'm already burnt out on AAA title after AAA title releasing at crazy prices with countless bugs, glitches and a general lack of content, never bettered until months or even years after release. This acquisition will only serve to make more interesting titles exclusives, as well. I don't like where things are heading.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:51 AM
I can't see this going through market regulations. That's simply insane.
Can't wait for next weeks headlines Ubi and EA merging and SquEnix buying SEGA ...Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 08:59 AM
N7MrChr15topher, not even remotely close. With publishers like Sony, Nintendo, EA, Square-Enix, and Ubisoft all having sizable market shares on gaming, on top of the plethora of indie publishers Microsoft isn't anywhere close to needing to worry about a monopoly. And given how they nearly got there with the PC market in the 90's I'd have to imagine their lawyers are all over making sure it doesn't happen again.
@PSkid, what title is that? I can think of dozens of series that they own that have had multi-platform releases over the last couple of years.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 09:07 AM
@1 your name suits you well. People that use $ as an S for these companies are usually really sad individuals
As to topic. Bit of a surprise. Wonder what sony will do to counter.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 09:31 AM
@WickedSeraph
So what if I use Z as an S.... does this make me a happy?
Tell me about.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 09:46 AM
It will be really interesting to see if MS takes the same approach with COD or will it be the next Minecraft, too big to make exclusive. Writing off 10mil annual sales on PS consoles is a massive hole to fill with new gamepass users.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 10:10 AM
Only thing this makes me sad about is Diablo. But at the end of the day, the Diablo that I loved died a long time ago.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 10:12 AM
Doesn’t affect me as I don’t buy Activision games, as they haven’t (in my opinion) released anything innovative in years.
But in all honesty I really don’t care too much about what MS buy, worst case scenario is I buy that cheap Series S console to play the odd worthwhile exclusive on gamepass, whilst doing the majority of my actual gaming on my PS5. Let’s see them recoup $70B from a service that by their own admittance, doesn’t make a profit as it is.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 10:17 AM
You don't think this a retaliation to the rumour that Sony has made exclusive deal with Square to keep FF7 Remake and FF16(the upcoming one) as a console exclusive to Playstation. As apparently FF& Remake's console exclusivity should have ended already.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 10:23 AM
This might be bad for future Tony Hawk and Crash Bandicoot games on PlayStationTuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 11:36 AM
@Gizmo this would bring them to closer to $100bil in capital investment in a service not making profit. They won't be in the black for years. But then again it's a move only MS (and a few other companies) could afford.
After Bethesda I don't many expected high value acquisitions like this in short term. Now I wonder is there a next target?Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 12:55 PM
meh let them have it, only good game they made in years has been Diablo 3 & Diablo 2 RemasterTuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 01:08 PM
Microsoft buying up companies left and right cos they still keep getting their asses kicked by playstation.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 01:14 PM
Sad, just like with the Zenimax/Bethesda acquisition. A desperate move to gain exclusives. I guess no more COD, Crash Bandicoot or Spyro. Huh, only 3 franchises that I was interested in. For a huge company they have surprisingly few franchises.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 02:00 PM
Now this might push Sony to actively figure out how to acquire Square Enix. Either that, or try to extract the Final Fantasy IP to become a Sony IP.
This acquisition BS is gonna screw over gaming. And not because of high-profile buys like Microsoft and Activision, but also because of companies like Embracer Group and Tencent buying up all the mid-level and small dev studios as wellTuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 03:13 PM
@Patrin18:
Making it profitable isn't the concern here. Big companies can still get money virtually free of interest and they do so just to buyout the competition to eliminate them and secure their current numbers. Zuckerberg said as much a few year ago regarding the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram. It's cheaper to buy them out than trying to compete with them in the future.
So these 100 billion dollars is pretty much what they spend now to not have them as a loss later on. Kind of hard to explain.Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 06:35 PM
Switch to PC and play everything. From 'console' exclusive to emulation.Wednesday, January 19, 2022 @ 12:31 AM
narvalia has the idea, with a good PC setup now you can play everything (almost) in one place.Wednesday, January 19, 2022 @ 01:32 AM
Do they want EA and Ubisoft too? Go for it. These companies have killed anything with a soul and run it into the ground.
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Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Microsoft has announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion, one of the largest value deals in video game history,
The deal will see Microsoft bringing in all areas of the business - Activision, Blizzard, and King - giving them access to IPs like Call of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and Candy Crush,
Until the close of the transaction, Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard will continue to operate independently, with Activision Blizzard reporting to Xbox boss Phil Spencer once the deal is complete.
“Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalogue. We also announced today that Game Pass now has more than 25 million subscribers. As always, we look forward to continuing to add more value and more great games to Game Pass.”
“Around the world, there is no more exciting venue for fun and connection than video games. And there has never been a better time to play than right now. As we extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone, we look forward to welcoming all of our friends at Activision Blizzard to Microsoft Gaming.”
As yet, there is no word on whether future Activision Blizzard titles will be exclusive to Xbox consoles. If it is anything like Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, we can likely expect current and near-future games to remain multiplatform, but there is a very real possibility that Call of Duty titles, among others, could be Xbox exclusive in the future.