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

[iceberg187]

Same drill with Bethesda. Microsoft does not need Sony. This is about the streaming wars. When has it ever been advantageous for Netflix to put Stranger Things on Peacock or HBO Max? We got numbers for Gamepass today. That's it. That's the platform. Exclusivity of catalog and content is all that matters. Run most of these through the back compatibility stuff and we will likely see every COD since the 360 on there as well as other things they've made.

 

[PSman1700]

70b dollar wtf lol.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I can't tell the future but I hope Ms buying these properties makes them less threatened in thinking they have to make them all exclusive to their platform. They already have a firm lock on software after the last aquisition

 

[eastmen]

This made me laugh

https://twitter.com/x/status/1483438540453289985

 

[Phantom88]

I can't tell the future but I hope Ms buying these properties makes them less threatened in thinking they have to make them all exclusive to their platform. They already have a firm lock on software after the last aquisition

But microsofts "exclusive" means you can play their games on PC, on series s, series x, steam, windows store. On cloud, to every device made by man - phones, tablets, using any controller. Buy the games or subscribe a couple of months to gamepass for peanuts. MS's exclusivity means anyone can play in a million ways. If sony buys something absolutely nobody can play anything, anywhere, unless they buy their console.

Microsoft seems to want to slowly kill them over a long period of time plus have everyone feel as if subscribing to gamepass is mandatory.

 

[iroboto]

Same drill with Bethesda. Microsoft does not need Sony. This is about the streaming wars. When has it ever been advantageous for Netflix to put Stranger Things on Peacock or HBO Max? We got numbers for Gamepass today. That's it. That's the platform. Exclusivity of catalog and content is all that matters. Run most of these through the back compatibility stuff and we will likely see every COD since the 360 on there as well as other things they've made.

Show/Movie content doesn't require players to come back day after day for revenue.

Games do.

Those games require a larger population to keep players playing, large populations make esport competitions relevant, large populations make streaming relevant, large populations drive micro-transactions; small player bases will die off.

Games are nothing like shows/movies in that sense.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yeah, with that large of a purchase it doesn't make sense to stop making COD for PlayStation.

I don't see how Microsoft could afford to not release Call of Duty (at least) on PlayStation going forward. Throwing GamePass into the mix, somebody - BRiT I think - posted that there are 25m GamePass subscribers who will not all be paying full sub amount for their subs because I sure as well aren't - but assuming the best case scenario and all 25m have $15 GPU subs, Microsoft bring in $375m revenue (not profit) every month. It would take 186 months - or fifteen years - to recoup this one $70b investment.

I assume CoD makes buckets of money and recoup that you need to be selling to as many people as you can. Ergo, cutting out the largest console base and leaving just your own where you are making CoD available in GamePass (presumably) so only selling DLC/MTX, would be insane. Not to mention Microsoft need that GamePass revenue to keep the whole service, including all their game studios funded to make games, which they are not getting any sale on for upto 25m GamePass subscribers.

$70b is just bonkers. And the economics of GamePass still not do not add up!

 

[JPT]

Microsoft would be stupid to make cod exclusive. The backlash would be immense and they probably make 2/3 of their console revenue on playstation. You never know. I think the likely scenario is cod ends up free on gamepass but $70 on playstation.

They might have to release N next COD's (other titles) if there was contract for it between Sony and Activision. But they just plonked down 70B, why not sacrifice short term income for long term gain. As soon as they can go exclusive with everything and next gen console, you will see multiplatform games people go Xbox/Gamepass. If you play COD and do not really care about the exclusives, then why care about which console you buy?
And for the rest of this gen, if you belive that your games will become exclusive to xbox/gamepass, why not buy into that now?
Will be interesting to see what MS does with the titles short term and what if any response Sony might have.
I assume that most of the revenue on playstation is from multiplat titles and not exclusives. Don't think Sony PS can survive doing a Nintendo aka mostly exclusives.

 

[eastmen]

I don't see how Microsoft could afford to not release Call of Duty (at least) on PlayStation going forward. Throwing GamePass into the mix, somebody - BRiT I think - posted that there are 25m GamePass subscribers who will not all be paying full sub amount for their subs because I sure as well aren't - but assuming the best case scenario and all 25m have $15 GPU subs, Microsoft bring in $375m revenue (not profit) every month. It would take 186 months - or fifteen years - to recoup this one $70b investment.

I assume CoD makes buckets of money and recoup that you need to be selling to as many people as you can. Ergo, cutting out the largest console base and leaving just your own where you are making CoD available in GamePass (presumably) so only selling DLC/MTX, would be insane. Not to mention Microsoft need that GamePass revenue to keep the whole service, including all their game studios funded to make games, which they are not getting any sale on for upto 25m GamePass subscribers.

$70b is just bonkers. And the economics of GamePass still not do not add up!

Its an all cash sale. Its money making little interest in banks right now. So does it really matter as long as they are bringing in more than that money would have just sitting there ?

Think about it , Game pass increased by 7m subs in a year right ? So by this time next year they will be over 30m subs. What about a year after that ? 5 years after that ? That is the game they are playing

https://twitter.com/x/status/1483476502305906689

I'm guessing COD 2022 releases on playstation and 2023. But I think aside from that games going forward will be xbox only. 2024 cod will most likely be xbox only at that point Anything that had a contract signed with sony will still get released.

 

[BRiT]

$70b is just bonkers.

Yes and no. It's bonkers for us mere peasants. When you have that much Cash On Hand that's not earning anything, it makes sense for a 2.5 Trillion Dollar Company.

 

[Phantom88]

Just the idea of having 70 billion in cash How long until you count that ?

 

[iroboto]

I'm guessing COD 2022 releases on playstation and 2023. But I think aside from that games going forward will be xbox only. 2024 cod will most likely be xbox only at that point Anything that had a contract signed with sony will still get released.

disagree with this part of your post lol, unless numbers landslide towards Xbox, I don't see this happening. PS is still the largest console market.

 

[eastmen]

Yes and no. It's bonkers for us mere peasants. When you have that much Cash On Hand that's not earning anything, it makes sense for a 2.5 Trillion Dollar Company.

For all of us , we gotta make that money work. I wouldn't keep more than I had to in say a checking account which will get me what 0.05% or do I put it in a savings account that gets me 0.50% ? Do purchase stock and hope it increases quickly ? Maybe by property and rent it out ?

it's the same for MS and other companies. Let it sit there doing almost nothing ot buy another company and bring in more money.

disagree with this part of your post lol, unless numbers landslide towards Xbox, I don't see this happening. PS is still the largest console market.

That is what people said with Starfield and elder scrolls and so on and so forth.

Right now Sony shipped 13.4M consoles world wide. Ms is at 12m as of january. So how many more consoles does sony really have out there over microsoft ? 5 million ?

That isn't really all that much in terms of sales. Sony will take a 30% cut of anything sold on that platform

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Its an all cash sale. Its money making little interest in banks right now. So does it really matter as long as they are bringing in more than that money would have just sitting there ?

I have money in the bank, but I'm not buying crazy things.

I'm not arguing it's a bad buy, you only need to look at Activision Blizzards financials reports. But these are based on selling their wares to a combined base of customers using PC, PlayStation, Switch and Xbox. If you change the target market, and Microsoft have not announced any massive plans to do so - although some are inevitable like Bethesda and Starfield - then your revenue from the studios changes. Negatively.

I think Microsoft could do well here. They sure as hell couldn't run these companies worse than the current management. I don't think Hitler could.

Yes and no. It's bonkers for us mere peasants. When you have that much Cash On Hand that's not earning anything, it makes sense for a 2.5 Trillion Dollar Company.

Companies make acquisitions to make money back. Making money for shareholders is the point. I think they can do that over time.

edits: so many typos.

 

[iroboto]

That is what people said with Starfield and elder scrolls and so on and so forth.

Starfield is a new IP that is single player? I'm not sure how this is the same as a pure CoD esport title.

 

[Phantom88]

https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/18/npd-the-top-20-best-selling-games-of-2021-in-the-u-s/

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Having just looked at their last financials, Q3 2021 was a good quarter for Activision-Blizzard, they took just over $2b in revenue that quarter. That is revenue, not profit. Their highest quarterly revenue (not profit) in the last ten years was $2.4b.

There has to be a plan that doesn't involve waiting 25 years to recoup this investment.

This is like Brewsters's Millions, but where Satya Nadella has to blow $100bn on gaming in five years to make 1 trillion dollars.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I just don't see how a game that's selling like 10+ million copies on Playstation could go xbox exclusive. It's just way too much money left on the table. You could do it with a smaller title, not COD. They're buying that revenue. I think it makes more sense to put it on gamepass on xbox, so it basically becomes the best deal to play on xbox, but still available on playstation for $70 for each title.

 

[iroboto]

I just don't see how a game that's selling like 10+ million copies on Playstation could go xbox exclusive. It's just way too much money left on the table. You could do it with a smaller title, not COD. They're buying that revenue. I think it makes more sense to put it on gamepass on xbox, so it basically becomes the best deal to play on xbox, but still available on playstation for $70 for each title.

Considering you’ve already saturated Xbox and PC sales, I agree, making people come over to Xbox isn’t really going to do that much more. CoD is number 1 across all platforms.
If they are interested in Game Pass with CoD they will move over. No reason to force it.

 

[BRiT]

Phil's Shelf had it there for all to see...