Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7b

[VectorVictor]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/tech/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition/index.html

Microsoft on Tuesday announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a blockbuster deal worth nearly $70 billion. It's one of the biggest acquisitions in the tech industry in recent years, one that will boost Microsoft's standing in the growing gaming industry but could be complicated by recent concerns about Activision's toxic culture...

...The acquisition would boost Microsoft's gaming business with the addition of Activision Blizzard games and the nearly 400 million monthly active players that come with them. Microsoft will also acquire Activision's global game studios and its nearly 10,000 employees, according to the company.

Don't forget that Microsoft just bought ZenniMax, owners of the Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, and other prolific franchises. 

And with Activision, Microsoft now has (former) Sony mascot franchises Crash Bandicoot and Spyro (though they've both been multiplatform recently). And Diablo. And World of Warcraft. And Call of Duty. And Tony Hawk. And..

I don't know how you top this if you're Sony or Nintendo. Perhaps Sony will go after EA and try to force the FIFA and Madden licenses to console exclusivity? Then again, they couldn't do that with MLB and Sony's own in-house game (which was great to play on the XBox Series X this past spring). But if you don't have GamePass yet...you're missing out. 

 

[Cdog923]

Not a fan of the homogenization of the gaming industry; it's a veritible arms race, and the consumer is going to lose in the end.

There's not much Sony can do to compete with this, unless they try and buy Take-Two and/or EA. Nintendo will remain in their quaint corner of the market and march to the beat of their own drummer (and make billions at the same time).

 

[VectorVictor]

Not a fan of the homogenization of the gaming industry; it's a veritible arms race, and the consumer is going to lose in the end.

There's not much Sony can do to compete with this, unless they try and buy Take-Two and/or EA. Nintendo will remain in their quaint corner of the market and march to the beat of their own drummer (and make billions at the same time).

As long as EA makes bank off of sports video games, and those leagues have provisions in their contracts saying the games have to be multiplatform...EA really isn't worth it for either company, I reckon. Star Wars is being farmed out to multiple companies (including Microsoft supposedly), and BioWare is a shell of its former self. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are looking long in the tooth ever since the talent left (and Anthem was a dud). 

Sony's already in a similar boat with their baseball title and MLB--they're making games for the Microsoft platform (and GamePass, no less) because their MLB contract stipulates release on both PS and Xbox platforms. Madden and FIFA have the same stipulations (and FIFA goes further to include Switch--that's why you see the s****y ports every year for that system). 

 

[Cdog923]

As long as EA makes bank off of sports video games, and those leagues have provisions in their contracts saying the games have to be multiplatform...EA really isn't worth it for either company, I reckon. Star Wars is being farmed out to multiple companies (including Microsoft supposedly), and BioWare is a shell of its former self. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are looking long in the tooth ever since the talent left (and Anthem was a dud). 

Sony's already in a similar boat with their baseball title and MLB--they're making games for the Microsoft platform (and GamePass, no less) because their MLB contract stipulates release on both PS and Xbox platforms. Madden and FIFA have the same stipulations (and FIFA goes further to include Switch--that's why you see the s****y ports every year for that system). 

As an aside, I recently got a Series S and bought the Mass Effect Legendary edition, and I had forgotten how much I love that series. I hope ME4 is a return to form rather than a continuation of the mess of Andromeda. 

 

[VectorVictor]

As an aside, I recently got a Series S and bought the Mass Effect Legendary edition, and I had forgotten how much I love that series. I hope ME4 is a return to form rather than a continuation of the mess of Andromeda. 

The Series S is the perfect little 1080p GamePass machine. 

And couple that with pouncing on Three Month GamePass Ultimate cards for $18 each...you can get a hell of a lot of gaming for $72/yr. 

 

[Enhance]

As an aside, I recently got a Series S and bought the Mass Effect Legendary edition, and I had forgotten how much I love that series. I hope ME4 is a return to form rather than a continuation of the mess of Andromeda. 

The ME series (1-3) are amazing. I'll replay them every couple of years... but I skip 1 most of the time and do the pre-story comic book thing in ME2 that lets you make the key decisions from ME1.

As for the news of the day, I'm not sure how to feel about this either. Big win for Microsoft obviously. I play quite a few Activision Blizzard games at the moment (WoW, Warzone).

 

[Cdog923]

The ME series (1-3) are amazing. I'll replay them every couple of years... but I skip 1 most of the time and do the pre-story comic book thing in ME2 that lets you make the key decisions from ME1.

As for the news of the day, I'm not sure how to feel about this either. Big win for Microsoft obviously. I play quite a few Activision Blizzard games at the moment (WoW, Warzone).

I just finished Mass Effect 1 this weekend for the first time in 5-6 years; the upgrades they make for it in the Legendary version make it less clunky, but it still isn't as smooth as ME2 or ME3 are. Still worth a playthrough, though, IMO, as it's on Gamepass now.