Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[AlphaWolf]

You keep harping on the bs narrative of no return for decades. Activision made $6 billion last year and the property still has value. It's not a property with 0 value because MS now owns it.

Paying a premium for boxes they don't want to be selling in the long term doesn't seem like an enlightened use of cash.

 

[techuse]

@techuse When I look at Microsoft's gamese, I don't really see pattern of micro-transaction heavy games. State of Decay, Forza, Gears, Gears Tactics, Ori, Age of Empires, Tell Me Why, Psychonauts 2, Grounded, Flight Simulator, Halo, Halo Wars, Super Lucky's Tale, Sea of Thieves. A few of thieves have skins for PvP multiplayer, like Gears 5 and the Halo Infinite free-to-play multiplayer. I really don't see a pattern of building super micro-transaction heavy games. Halo Infinite free-to-play mp is obviously build directly around micro-transaction. That's probably the worst offender. The rest seem pretty bog standard. I'm guessing games like Wasteland 3 don't have microtransactions and future inXile games won't. I'm guessing Ninja Theory games won't have them. Bethesda games like fallout might have as much as they've ever had. I don't see any reason to be concerned that Microsoft is going to force any studios to change their directions and start building games that are micro heavy revenue generators. If anything, I hope they'll give more studios the freedom to make something other than COD, and we'll actually get some unique stuff.

A game being console exclusive to Xbox doesn't make it a Microsoft 1st party game.

 

[BRiT]

A game being console exclusive to Xbox doesn't make it a Microsoft 1st party game.

Some of those would have been considered 2nd party, but no one uses that term anymore. Since Microsoft owns those IP, they become first party games.

 

[RDGoodla]

If this doesn't force Sony into irrelevance, it's going to force them into making a big purchase probably on the Japanese side. I can see square .

MS has made no indications they are stopping aquisitions until they have pretty much every major publisher under their belt, if Sony even wants to exist as a gaming company they pretty much have to do something as drastic as MS.

But I honestly don't see Sony having the resources to do anything like that.

Now Sony may be regretful that they should have bought Zenimax because this is the biggest buyout which Sony can afford.

 

[BRiT]

They would if they believe that exclusive content is a necessary strategy, to make Square games exclusive to their platform.

They already do that through a lot of SE moneyhat exclusive deals. They can weigh the cost of continued deals versus purchase. I'm guessing the exclusive deals for SE remains cheaper than purchase.

 

[RDGoodla]

They would if they believe that exclusive content is a necessary strategy, to make Square games exclusive to their platform.

But if anything, isn't Sony putting first-party games on Xbox and PC?

If MS keeps buying major publishers than Sony may not buy anything since it’s not useful.

 

[techuse]

Some of those would have been considered 2nd party, but no one uses that term anymore. Since Microsoft owns those IP, they become first party games.

Is FF7 considered Sony 1st Party? This is something new to me.

 

[Scott_Arm]

A game being console exclusive to Xbox doesn't make it a Microsoft 1st party game.

Ok, but whatever semantics you want to argue, what is the pattern that suggests Microsoft wants micro-transaction heavy games if they don't really make them, first or second party?

 

[BRiT]

Is FF7 considered Sony 1st Party? This is something new to me.

Does Sony own the FinalFantasy IP like Microsoft does for nearly all of what Scott_Arm listed? You're getting into semantics just because it doesn't suit the narrative you're trying to present.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Listen, it's the same old story: A few people that hate MS, come into a thread like this and make absurd claims. I'm not going to bother arguing about MTX games when MS is no worse than any other publisher in this regard. It's a waste of time.

Sony has a good thing going with Square... unless MS buy them. Sony might have to buy Square just to stop MS from buying them.

MS should consider acquiring as much as they can get away with, but Square, Sega, and Capcom seem like the most bang for the buck to me.

 

[iroboto]

Listen, it's the same old story: A few people that hate MS, come into a thread like this and make absurd claims. I'm not going to bother arguing about MTX games when MS is no worse than any other publisher in this regard. It's a waste of time.

Sony has a good thing going with Square... unless MS buy them. Sony might have to buy Square just to stop MS from buying them.

MS should consider acquiring as much as they can get away with, but Square, Sega, and Capcom seem like the most bang for the buck to me.

Bioware fits the bill for Xbox. I don't think Sega and Capcom do.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Activision makes more in the realm of $2 billion annually, which suggests a PE ratio of 35:1, which is inline with what many tech companies trade at today.

MS is obviously hoping to do better and given the allegedly poor management at Activision, they probably will.

I agree with those who say that PC is the main reason for this deal. I think MS has realized that GP is doing really well on console where as many as 30% of users have it, but that the real potential of GP is on PC where adoption is pretty low still.

Imagine Diablo, WoW and Starcraft properly reinvigorated for PC.

Also, mobile is a big part of it as well.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Honestly, from the sounds of it this was all a special case. Activision Blizzard was looking to be bought, and then went to MS. I don't know if any of these other big publishers are actually looking to be purchased.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

MS should consider acquiring as much as they can get away with, but Square, Sega, and Capcom seem like the most bang for the buck to me.

This is a topic that seems to come up a lot and I agree that these would be good commercial acquisitions for Microsoft, but Japan has the Japanese Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (that is almost 80 years old) that is literally intended to limit the ability of foreign owned companies from buying Japanese companies. It's entirely predicated on pressuring Japanese culture. There is a presumption of denial for foreign headquartered companies from getting approval to even significantly invest in Japanese companies, let alone buy outright.

The reason Japanese companies have tended to endure and be successful of decades, if not for hundreds of years, is that Japan literally does not allow them to be fucked out about with.

 

[eastmen]

https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/19/activision-blizzard-wanted-to-sell-so-it-approached-microsoft/

Interesting......

Still digesting this. The fact that AB approached MS in and of itself..... This really does seem to have been thrown together. By the usual standards of buyouts of this size anyway.

Now I am wondering if this has put the kibosh on the acquisitions that were discussed as being in the works previously, or if MS are not done yet.

Nothing I heard of approaches this size of this deal. Biggest I heard was 20B. I think MS did this because if they didn't then Facebook would have or amazon or apple.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Activision makes more in the realm of $2 billion annually, which suggests a PE ratio of 35:1, which is inline with what many tech companies trade at today.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/...ase from 2017. Compare ATVI With Other Stocks

• Activision Blizzard gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2021 was $6.576B, a 18.25% increase year-over-year.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

This is a topic that seems to come up a lot and I agree that these would be good commercial acquisitions for Microsoft, but Japan has the Japanese Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (that is almost 80 years old) that is literally intended to limit the ability of foreign owned companies from buying Japanese companies. It's entirely predicated on pressuring Japanese culture. There is a presumption of denial for foreign headquartered companies from getting approval to even significantly invest in Japanese companies, let alone buy outright.

The reason Japanese companies have tended to endure and be successful of decades, if not for hundreds of years, is that Japan literally does not allow them to be fucked out about with.

Yup, people here are a bit disconnected with reality. Once the dust settles and people calm down, they may stop making apocalyptic predictions about the future of companies very well stablished on their markets.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Activision makes more in the realm of $2 billion annually, which suggests a PE ratio of 35:1, which is inline with what many tech companies trade at today.

Is there a source for this? As somebody with signification investments none of the outlooks I have put Activitions's PE ratio anywhere near 35:1?

 

[eastmen]

Activision makes more in the realm of $2 billion annually, which suggests a PE ratio of 35:1, which is inline with what many tech companies trade at today.

MS is obviously hoping to do better and given the allegedly poor management at Activision, they probably will.

I agree with those who say that PC is the main reason for this deal. I think MS has realized that GP is doing really well on console where as many as 30% of users have it, but that the real potential of GP is on PC where adoption is pretty low still.

Imagine Diablo, WoW and Starcraft properly reinvigorated for PC.

Also, mobile is a big part of it as well.

I dunno man , looking at all the forums and reddit , people are running around trying to justify why MS would keep games on the playstation and switch. I think it shows how important some of these games are to the purchasing discissions are console gamers.

 

[BRiT]

It's entirely predicated on pressuring Japanese culture. There is a presumption of denial for foreign headquartered companies from getting approval to even significantly invest in Japanese companies, let alone buy outright.

That didn't have any impact on the acquisitions over the past 4-6 months by Chinese companies, which that act was mostly tailored towards. It's at a point where if it isn't the military or state owned company it doesn't seem like it makes any difference.