Board 8 > Microsoft to acquire Activison Blizzard

(+) Yeah! (+)

FWIW Playstation hasnt been based out of Japan for nearly a decade though obviously all acquisition talk has to go through Sony Japan. I would imagine that Playstation leadership and Sony leadership likely have different priorities here.

The only major publisher I can see Sony being able to buy is Warner interactive if they get spun off from Warner Bros. as was rumoured. Even that is less than ideal as you dont get access to the Warner Bros. IP, just the studios and games like Mortal Kombat. Even then it now seems like Warner Bros. is keeping them.

So yeah, just to further add to what is being said that Sony cannot compete with Microsoft here.

Seanchan posted...

Thanks for all the other company suggestions. My brain sort of went numb at this news. So we've still got the following big boys:

Bandai Namco
Capcom
EA
Take Two (i.e. Rockstar)
Sega
Square
Epic Games

also Warner Bros and Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic)

Roblox and Unity are more talked about than most of these other gaming companies.

Could see a huge fight for Roblox

voltch posted...

I could see this being a play by MSFT to make Nintendo and Sony eventually include gamepass on their platforms.

that's my read too

I see MS's main target being Amazon/Google/Netflix/etc rather than Sony or Nintendo.

Amazon I can especially see making a big power play soon and buy up EA or Take Two.

It should absolutely be expected that CoD will be Xbox/PC exclusive now. That's the whole point. Just look at the Bethesda acquisition to see how they're going to handle Activision games.

Really not great for Sony. They let themselves lose Japan and now Microsoft is buying up the west.

WoW on Xbox

This entire thing is a fuck you to SE for not giving them XIV /s

"The company has studios around the word with nearly 10,000 employees."

I guess someone didn't check their important announcement for spelling errors before posting.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

WoW on Xbox

This entire thing is a fuck you to SE for not giving them XIV /s

i mean, bliz did talk about controller/console support fairly recently... (and why wouldn't they with the success of xiv)

Epic Games and Take Two are unbuyable because they print money.

CD Projekt Red probably tanked their value immensely with Cyberpunk.

Sega is part of Sammy which makes them hard to get.

Man I'm not going to pretend to be in the ground floor with WoW, but I follow a lot of people who are, and I hope they don't think that the reason they're getting their butts kicked is because people can't use a cross hotbar.

I like it!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Man I'm not going to pretend to be in the ground floor with WoW, but I follow a lot of people who are, and I hope they don't think that the reason they're getting their butts kicked is because people can't use a cross hotbar.

i'm not entirely sure what you mean here but are you suggesting that wow on consoles wouldn't sell a boatload?

looks like the perfect excuse to finally end WoW/roll out WoW 2.

AdamantRock posted...

Fiscal year 2023 overlaps with calendar year 2022.

I think it's the other way around? Unless they name the fiscal years based on when they end rather than when they majority take place.

Good riddance? Microsoft doing its best impression of Disney I see...

Steiner posted...

i'm not entirely sure what you mean here but are you suggesting that wow on consoles wouldn't sell a boatload?

I'm sure it would, but that wouldn't actually fix any of the reasons that people are leaving in droves/hating the game. It'd be an artificial inflation of players.

artificial $10 a month is still $10 a month

To put this in perspective, Bethesda cost Microsoft $7.5 billion in comparison. Jesus

Also guys we already had the "no way Microsoft makes Elder Scrolls exclusive" talk, yada yada. Yes, CoD will be exclusive in time. Maybe I'll actually check them out on Game Pass. Never really played one.

If you can buy Activision for 70bn, then someone best make an offer to Valve that has Gabe thinking twice.

Reminder that Disney bought Lucasfilm, all its IPs, ILM, and Skywalker Sound for ~$4 billion.

The thing about exclusives is that it can hit game sales but in favor of console sales
So I am not sure which is more profitable

MrGreenonion posted...

I think it's the other way around? Unless they name the fiscal years based on when they end rather than when they majority take place.

They're about to have their Fiscal Year 2022 Quarter 2 call next week, which means that their Fiscal Year 2023 begins July 1, 2022.

ActiBlizz already has a ton of PS4/PS5 games in development and I'm sure Microsoft won't cancel most of them, if any, but if you think they won't eventually make some big titles exclusives I don't know what you think they bought for $70 billion.

Nanis23 posted...

The thing about exclusives is that it can hit game sales but in favor of console sales
So I am not sure which is more profitable

I don't think they actually care about console sales because their obvious goal is to get Game Pass on as many platforms as possible.

Oh, seems like big picture this is also a major metaverse move.
The speed at which companies are paying up big for metaverse content is a little surprising when the general public doesn't seem to know what the metaverse actually is.

voltch posted...

Oh, seems like big picture this is also a major metaverse move.
The speed at which companies are paying up big for metaverse content is a little surprising when the general public doesn't seem to know what the metaverse actually is.

lolno

You mean this move has 0 to do with the Metaverse?

MrGreenonion posted...

ActiBlizz already has a ton of PS4/PS5 games in development and I'm sure Microsoft won't cancel most of them, if any, but if you think they won't eventually make some big titles exclusives I don't know what you think they bought for $70 billion.

They do? What do they have in the works other than Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, and Call of Duty 2022? I'd bet on the next CoD coming to Playstation, especially since I think that'll be before the acquisition goes through, but I wouldn't bet on their 2023+ stuff doing so, though it's not impossible.

If I was MS I would slowly nudge CoD players over to Xbox and Gamepass with heavy incentives like more exp and better lootboxes and playing DLC first so eventually the majority of players move to their platform. Then they can make it exclusive and leave Sony in the dirt. CoD is a franchise that sells something like 15m every year, it's not TES that sell 30m in a decade. They will be more careful in how they migrate the player base.

GranzonEx posted...

If I was MS I would slowly nudge CoD players over to Xbox and Gamepass with heavy incentives like more exp and better lootboxes and playing DLC first so eventually the majority of players move to their platform. Then they can make it exclusive and leave Sony in the dirt. CoD is a franchise that sells something like 15m every year, it's not TES that sell 30m in a decade. They will be more careful in how they migrate the player base.

I don't know, PS5's are still hard to get and a lot of those CoD sales come from people who won't buy a new console unless they have to because CoD stopped coming out of the older ones. They could make the next CoD only on Xbox Series S/X and Gamepass to boost console sales and keep pushing Sony to allow gamepass on Playstation.

GranzonEx posted...

If I was MS I would slowly nudge CoD players over to Xbox and Gamepass with heavy incentives like more exp and better lootboxes and playing DLC first so eventually the majority of players move to their platform. Then they can make it exclusive and leave Sony in the dirt. CoD is a franchise that sells something like 15m every year, it's not TES that sell 30m in a decade. They will be more careful in how they migrate the player base.

Cold War and Modern Warfare remake both sold over 30 million.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Cold War and Modern Warfare remake both sold over 30 million.

Gonna need a source on that as I seriously doubt it. Cold War was down pretty substantially from the preceding games and ModernnEarfare did not sell as well as Black Ops III or WWII. 15 million is probably right, less for Vanguard. The limited info we have is about 10 million worth of copies for 2020 but it will be less than that given other sources of income and more expensive editions. Definitely not 30 million copies numbers.

For reference Modern Warfare 3 sold 30 million and made the same amount in its first 3 days as Cold War did in 6 weeks. I would be floored if it was even close to that amount.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Cold War and Modern Warfare remake both sold over 30 million.

That's even more disgusting than I thought. I think they'll be happy if they can get even 60% of that while they passively generate income with Candy Crush and all those other mobile games.

Activision blows as a company so I'm good with it. Hope they buy ubisoft next

Lightning Strikes posted...

Gonna need a source on that as I seriously doubt it. Cold War was down pretty substantially from the preceding games and ModernnEarfare did not sell as well as Black Ops III or WWII. 15 million is probably right, less for Vanguard. The limited info we have is about 10 million worth of copies for 2020 but it will be less than that given other sources of income and more expensive editions. Definitely not 30 million copies numbers.

For reference Modern Warfare 3 sold 30 million and made the same amount in its first 3 days as Cold War did in 6 weeks. I would be floored if it was even close to that amount.

Idk know about Cold War but MW sold 30 million in a year.
https://www.thegamer.com/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-sells-30-million-units-says-nvidia/

Lightning Strikes posted...

Gonna need a source on that as I seriously doubt it. Cold War was down pretty substantially from the preceding games and ModernnEarfare did not sell as well as Black Ops III or WWII. 15 million is probably right, less for Vanguard. The limited info we have is about 10 million worth of copies for 2020 but it will be less than that given other sources of income and more expensive editions. Definitely not 30 million copies numbers.

For reference Modern Warfare 3 sold 30 million and made the same amount in its first 3 days as Cold War did in 6 weeks. I would be floored if it was even close to that amount.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-last-call-of-duty-has-sold-30-million-copies-n/1100-6481709/

Why would you think Modern Warfare reboot didn't do well? It got people back into CoD, and Warzone came out at the same time, which gave it a huge boost.

I thought I saw something about Cold War matching it in sales, which isn't super surprising since sequels to good games usually benefit from that good game's quality, but I couldn't find anything other than this: https://www.gamesradar.com/black-ops-cold-war-breaks-the-top-20-best-selling-games-of-all-time/ which says Cold War's top 20 all time in the US, 3 months after it came out (and it stayed in the top 10 for 2021 up to November, so it should've moved up that chart).

Vanguard was a big drop though, yes.

Those numbers are from Nvidia who are effectively guessing. No hard source or even analyst estimates. I would take that number with a colossal grain of salt. Also NPD is severely limited these days, for instance, Nintendo do not provide them with digital data - obviously Animal Crossing outsold Cold War, likely in the US as well. Yet NPD has Cold War as outselling it because they have 0 digital sales for Animal Crossing. For reference Animal Crossing sold 32.63 million in a year. NPD is also only dollar revenue which does not go directly to sales numbers. So yeah no reason to assume either game did THAT well. Just Nvidia guessing that one did.

Well that's the news I needed to hear, back to WoW I go!

Lightning Strikes posted...

Those numbers are from Nvidia who are effectively guessing. No hard source or even analyst estimates.

Lightning Strikes posted...

ModernnEarfare did not sell as well as Black Ops III or WWII. 15 million is probably right

I'm not following... Your claims seem more like guessing to me. Direct comments from Activision-Blizzard if you think Nvidia's numbers aren't credible:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-is-now-the-best-selling-game-in-franchise-history-for-first-year/1100-6483986/

Modern Warfare is the best selling CoD in the first year. Doesn't confirm the 30 million figure from Nvidia of course, but seems more plausible than MW doing worse than WWII.

Oh its all guessing which is kind of the point. There is a huge paucity of sales data and Activision (and others) love to obscure the actual numbers with dollar values to give a better picture for shareholders. It would be great if it was like movies, but even thats becoming less transparent now.

Huh, Jeff Grubb said on the Bombcast that the deal's not going down until June 2023. That's a while!

Lightning Strikes posted...

Oh its all guessing which is kind of the point.

No, we posted sources and you posted nothing. You're the only one guessing, based on nothing at all.

Mac Arrowny posted...

What do they have in the works other than Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, and Call of Duty 2022?

CoD 2023 at least is also in development now, they turn those around fast but not 12 months fast

I read all these and still. So Diablo, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Crash Bandicoot, Warcraft, Call Of Duty and others exclusive? They will lose a ton of sales.

And you say, what the bought these companies in order for things to continue as they are? But here is the thing, every time these games sold now, no matter what the system Microsoft gets the revenue.

So yeah things should be continue as they are because it is better for them. But well obviously they know better.

Mac Arrowny posted...

No, we posted sources and you posted nothing. You're the only one guessing, based on nothing at all.

The source was nothing though. Nvidia dont have that data because Activision Blizzard dont provide it.

One step closer to Game Pass on all consoles

Lightning Strikes posted...

ModernnEarfare did not sell as well as Black Ops III or WWII.

Do you have a source on this? Modern Warfare broke a shit ton of records for the series. Best first three day sales of the series, best digital opening of Activision's history, best series launch on PC, most first three day digital sales ever on PS4, etc. Unless its sales fell off a cliff, that seems unlikely.

I mean if you want an example of how Activision Blizzard cherrypicks data, look at that - it was only the highest three day because they didnt do three day metrics for the peak games, using platform specific numbers etc.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2020-04-22-animal-crossing-new-horizons-broke-record-for-most-digital-units-sold-in-a-single-month

Black Ops III held the digital record for one month sales for nearly five years despite a higher proportion of Modern Warfare (and all game) sales being digital in 2019.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2019-10-28-uk-charts-call-of-duty-modern-warfare-sales-beat-black-ops-4

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2017-11-06-uk-charts-call-of-duty-wwii-launch-57-percent-bigger-than-infinite-warfare

Just UK, but sales below WWII which were below Black Ops III.

It was a huge success and one of the top 3 of the generation of course.

Actually, after some quick Googling, Forbes and other sites reported awhile ago that Activision themselves claimed Modern Warfare was the best selling game in the series. Exact numbers werent given, but it was said in an earnings call.

https://investor.activision.com/static-files/18a3bfed-dfc7-4b5a-a6fa-416d87163950