Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
I am not following. Can you explain this better? What deals exactly are you referring to?
For example CoD didnt require a special 10 year deal before. Activision simply targeted all platforms.
Why should the games be released through MS?
CMA refutes Microsoft's claim Nintendo Switch can run Call of Duty
The Competition and Markets Authority has refuted Microsoft's claim the Nintendo Switch is capable of running a Call of…
www.eurogamer.net
"COD is currently available on two gaming consoles - Xbox and PlayStation," reads the CMA's report.
"We found that these consoles compete closely with each other in terms of content, target audience, and console technology. We found that Nintendo's consoles compete less closely with either of Xbox or PlayStation, generally offering consoles with different technical specifications, and with its most popular titles tending to be more family and child-friendly.
"Nintendo does not currently offer COD, and we have seen no evidence to suggest that its consoles would be technically capable of running a version of COD that is similar to those in Xbox and PlayStation in terms of quality of gameplay and content."
During stage 2 of the process, MS began to sign with cloud providers the ability to get COD on their platforms.
The cost of doing such business is costly. Activision would never sign such a deal and the cloud providers could never afford to get COD onto their platforms without significant licensing fees, which pose a huge risk if you don't get any new revenue from such a deal.
Uh... How about cloud games like a bunch of high spec games on Switch?CMA refutes Microsoft's claim Nintendo Switch can run Call of Duty
The Competition and Markets Authority has refuted Microsoft's claim the Nintendo Switch is capable of running a Call of…
"COD is currently available on two gaming consoles - Xbox and PlayStation," reads the CMA's report.
"We found that these consoles compete closely with each other in terms of content, target audience, and console technology. We found that Nintendo's consoles compete less closely with either of Xbox or PlayStation, generally offering consoles with different technical specifications, and with its most popular titles tending to be more family and child-friendly.
"Nintendo does not currently offer COD, and we have seen no evidence to suggest that its consoles would be technically capable of running a version of COD that is similar to those in Xbox and PlayStation in terms of quality of gameplay and content."
But then cma didn't like ms cloud gaming business... Afraid it will become too successful. Despite cloud gaming is tiny market
If anything, evidence says it wont be. Its not like nobody tried and msft is first with this idea.
yes the vision of console market ruled 100% by Sony is sooo much better. Competition is bad for customers after all right?
And what does it mean "organically"? Sony, EA, ABK they all invest money, they grow by investing capital. They grow doing acquisitions.
Welcome to internet where have you been all these years?
This whole merger was a great example of how much pure PR BS both companies can produce. Both sony and msft.
Truth be told, I actually took some serious time away from internet (checking or posting occasionally) to travel the world with my family. Anyhow, the nonsense that I'm seeing now, is one for the books.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
My personal opinion is that the CMA wanted to block the deal for a number of reasons, but used Cloud as the excuse to do so. MS should try to work around it by taking ABK titles out of xCloud. It's nothing right now. Kick the football down the road and worry about it in 10 years if Cloud takes off. If it takes off and everyone in the rest of the world is getting ABK titles on xCloud, British consumers will demand that ABK titles be on UK xCloud as well and MS will get what they want in the end anyway.
Well, part of me is sort of thinking they succeeded here, even if indirectly. Sony's main push was that COD was the most important franchise in the history of gaming.
But Sony lost the argument around COD being important on console.
So instead they put COD on the pedestal but for cloud.
A bit of a switcheroo, it's as if these 3 titles, WoW, COD, and Overwatch hold the keys to the cloud gaming industry - when they technically don't even exist on cloud today.
That's just about the only thing that is frustrating to read. I think COD is pretty shit, and if it was as a great as everyone thinks it is, they wouldn't need to remake MW1 and MW2. Frankly, I don't mind MS losing this because 70B is too large to pay for COD. But at the same time, it's a bit discouraging that they got away with basically saying this singular franchise controls the driving seat to the gaming market.
If this merger doesn't go through, and the market shifts heavily towards cloud gaming within the next 10-15yrs, Activision will have no choice but to do so. Personally, I don't see cloud gaming as a major threat to standalone console gaming as we know it, but more of a companion gaming service for those who want to be able to game anywhere when on the move.
Running into the chicken and egg scenario here. No one will join cloud if there are no titles to play there. Activision will move there if there is a big enough market to do so, but they won't if there isn't. The market can't grow without marquee titles.
You could pay _enormous_ amounts of fees to license these games onto your platform, but no one wants to take that hit because you'll likely net 0 returns while the market is as small as it is.
So we're back to why strategically MS wanted to buy ABK. They want to put big international titles with big populations onto cloud gaming, to legitimize it without necessarily losing money you would through exclusivity contracts. They've tried already with Fortnite, but as you can see, it's sucking hard.
So investment != success
I want to see cloud succeed, ultimately. And I also want to see there be fair competition. But I don't see how it will be accomplished without massive investment and risk taking.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
A lot of people showing their fanboy natures and getting really crazy because the deal they have invested their personal emotions into from some corp who doesn't care about them is having trouble.
Well my argument has remained consistent from the start. MS is not in danger of dying nor is Xbox from not being able to eat up publishers like candy. MS like usual will pump infinite money into it indefinitely due to their extreme monopoly of computer OS hardware. The question is what they will prioritize in the Xbox market specifically to find success.
They should not be looked at as some kind of victim because they want to buy up activision blizzard for 70 billion dollars, dictate control of that content on their own terms and are being stopped from doing so. No one in this industry should be able to do such a thing. And if MS is allowed to do it, it will allow for a dangerous precedent where everyone starts doing it. And I don't think the industry will be healthier for that, let alone what these publishers will do with these properties under their wings.
The CMA itself said that the regulation neccesary from a deal of this magnitude alone would be damaging to the effects the industry, where they would have to go overtime to make sure MS isn't going back on the agreed terms of which they probably would. These companies get fined by every week for thousands. They just shrug it off as cost of doing business
Well my argument has remained consistent from the start. MS is not in danger of dying nor is Xbox from not being able to eat up publishers like candy. MS like usual will pump infinite money into it indefinitely due to their extreme monopoly of computer OS hardware. The question is what they will prioritize in the Xbox market specifically to find success.
Right. It seems only half of the people speaking in this conversation actually think every entity should be treated the same. If MS wants to do exclusive titles as they have in the past, do timed exclusives as they still do, and engage with the third party community no one is stopping them.
They should not be looked at as some kind of victim because they want to buy up activision blizzard for 70 billion dollars, dictate control of that content on their own terms and are being stopped from doing so. No one in this industry should be able to do such a thing. And if MS is allowed to do it, it will allow for a dangerous precedent where everyone starts doing it. And I don't think the industry will be healthier for that, let alone what these publishers will do with these properties under their wings.
The CMA itself said that the regulation neccesary from a deal of this magnitude alone would be damaging to the effects the industry, where they would have to go overtime to make sure MS isn't going back on the agreed terms of which they probably would. These companies get fined by every week for thousands. They just shrug it off as cost of doing business
Thats a very simplified interpretation. MS isnt prevented from making acquisitions. Hence why they did. Also you present acquisitions as if they are a necessity for growth. They are not.
But aren't you making the same argument that Sony was making, that Activision (COD and all) is important to them in their current space, on staying successful? I really don't see the difference other than MS wanting to succeed in one space with Activision, and Sony wanting to stay successful with Activision in the current space. As such, I see both their arguments as being valid, but also bullshit at the same time. Sony has the money and studios on making a successful COD clone, and Microsoft has enough wealth and studios on creating great cloud content.
It is it supposed to be semi sarcastic. Well is there any company same size like Sony or msft that dosent acquire studios? Perhaps it’s not necessary if you are not console maker but I think it would be extremely hard if not impossible. Certainly for new actors trying to compete. And acquisition are form of investment you spend money to make more money. Nothing wrong with that.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yup, and there is an, IMO, extremely high likelihood that cloud gaming will never take off and never become a big thing. Sure it reduces the cost of deployment and potentially gaming, however, latency and quality are still unsolved and I still don't believe they can be solved outside of installing cloud servers directly in every single neighborhood and I'm still doubtful that would get latency down far enough that action games would actually feel good to play.
I know lots of people believe cloud gaming is the future, but I just don't see it happening for the vast majority of people that are into "core" or console gaming as anything other than a once in a blue moon thing (like travelling).
Regards,
SB
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