And vice versa. Again lets just leave it as it as as we are going nowhere with this.
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
And vice versa. Again lets just leave it as it as as we are going nowhere with this.
It's just a longer and larger term arrangement with a 3rd Party.
Well apparently 16 regulatory bodies around the world disagree that this is the equivalent of a temporary arrangememt with a third party or the equivalent of any of the previous acquisitionsIt's just a longer and larger term arrangement with a 3rd Party.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Sony are making fools of themselves. If this acquisition goes through (better than even odds still I think), their crying about MS getting ABK is going to hurt their brand. The truth is that gamers benefit from MS getting closer to Sony's level in the industry. Bad things happen for consumers when Sony gets arrogant and has free reign to do whatever it wants.
That doesn't matter. Sony fans will be sony fans through all the good and bad decisions. The real issue is when Sony goes to buy a gaming company that the CMA or EU has to approve of. Think of every argument sony put forth here being used against them as the market leader. It's much more compelling to hear that oh buying this company and keeping x game off the company with the least market share is foreclosing on them vs on the market leader
First it will not arrive because Sony don't have enough money to buy a big publisher where CMA, EU or FTC will have something to say but if Sony would have the money to buy Take Two, it would go under the same scrutiny and probably blocked and this is normal.
If you don't want scrutiny buy little studio or build new one, make them grow and don't mismanaged big franchise.
Does the CMA ,EU or FTC only have the power to stop a company form buying activision ? Pretty sure there are companies valued from 100m dollars all the way up to EA size that would fall under that distinction.
After this I think the only way forward as microsoft is to push for every concession possible no matter the size of the company sony is buying
Silent_Buddha
Legend
So what you're saying is that it would be better for Sony and the industry if MS are denied the ability to acquire Activision-Blizzard and instead spend 60+ billion USD to arrange for 3rd party exclusives and exclusive content since that's what Sony are doing ... albeit with less money.
I'd imagine with 60+ billion spent on doing that instead of buying Activision-Blizzard, they'd be able to make almost all AAA 3rd party games exclusive to Xbox. Yup, that sure sounds a whole lot better.
Especially when you consider that MS never even considered making COD exclusive to Xbox in the first place. Instead they'd likely do what Sony is doing right now. Making content for COD either timed exclusive or exclusive.Regards,
SB
Did I say this? I talk about buy studios. Sony didn't have any problem doing it because they don't run after the very big publisher. They bought multiple studios and even Bungie.
Yes and that is very anti competitive behavior for the market leader and allows them to create a foreclosure even on Microsoft and nintendo and all cloud gaming . Every single sony purchase from now on should be looked at and stopped Imo
I don't know the bigger studio they bought Bungie release multiplatform games on PC and Xbox too. All other are studios they worked years with like Bluepoint Games or insomniac. And they make the studios grow later. It is called work. They don't mismanaged their franchise.
Sony is the market leader but they work for it. Microsoft could have been market leader after 360 but they fucked up. The biggest enemy of Microsoft is Microsoft. They have more money, more studio but they aren't competent enough to win.
it's called buying up companies to create a successful first party platform. Insomniac for instance worked with Microsoft in the past and now they are owned by Sony making only exclusive sony content. Bluepoint has worked with many other companies and now they are sonys. Even Bungie was a big supporter of Stadia with their game Destiny 2.
Sony is already in the lead market share wise and they have a huge amount of developers that they own. They have actually sped up with acquisitions of new developers as of late allowing for even more exclusive content. This is forcing MS to purchase more and more developers to not increase market share but just to keep the status quo as it was. Which means MS has to step it up even more if they wish to make headway into the market.
When the look at the current games sony is known for it seems that they are all from companies that Sony has bought outside of GOW and GT.
Spider-man / Spider-man Miles morales made by Insomniac games purchased by Sony
Horizon was made by Gorilla games which was formerly a third party studio
Ghosts of Tushima was made by Sucker Punch productions formerly a third party studio
last of us was made by naughty dog formerly a third party studio .
We can go on. But Sony has bought a lot of studios and a lot of this has lead to their continued success. I think its silly to act like Microsoft buying third party studios is an issue or problem. Even nintendo has bought 3rd party studios.
I also don't see how you think MS could have been the market leader after the 360. Sony's worse console was the ps3 and still sold better than the xbox 360. I also don't know why you have a problem with MS trying to become the market leader now. You'd think after having one company raising prices on games nad hardware you'd want a company to come in and upset the status quo. You know like during the ps3 era when sony wanted to increase console prices by $200-$300 but a strong competitor was able to stuff a banana in that tail pipe of a plan ?
Again did Microsoft was blocked for buying studios? CMA and other regulators didn't care. This is the sheer size of Activision Blizzard the problem. It would have been the same if they tried to buy Take Two with GTA or EA with sport franchise.
And the same Sucker Punch big success with Ghost of Tsushima comes after they were bought by Sony.
All studios they bought are more successful than before when they were third party. This is call do a good job.
Again Sony is now behind Microsoft in number of studio and MS has huge franchise with Halo, Gears of war, Forza, Fallout, Elder Scroll, Doom and so on if they can't be market leader with this and Gamepass it is a problem of being competent enough.
Out of CD Projekt and Dragon Age, Microsoft has nearly a monopoly on big AAA WRPG genre.
EDIT:
This is not like Sony franchise were huge from the get go. They worked years after years to build big franchise, improve studios. And Sony was on the verge of being bankrupt during PS3 era. This is just being competent.
Imo this is not the case of Xbox division if no they would be leader and have crush Sony probably post PS3 era. They would have follow the 360 strategy, Sony was on the verge of collapse. They had the momentum for them.
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First of all, both Sony and MS make acquisitions and 3rd party agreements with less money. Hence why previous MS or Sony acquisitions were greenlit and this one is not because it is 69billion buy out.
If MS was spending 69billion with 3rd parties that would have also been an extraordinary amount and might have potentially also caused litigations or step ups from regulators.
So far though this is a hypothetical scenario.
The fact is that no other agreement or acquisition is comparable from either Sony or MS to the ABK buyout
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Again did Microsoft was blocked for buying studios? CMA and other regulators didn't care. This is the sheer size of Activision Blizzard the problem. It would have been the same if they tried to buy Take Two with GTA or EA with sport franchise.
And the same Sucker Punch big success with Ghost of Tsushima comes after they were bought by Sony.
All studios they bought are more successful than before when they were third party. This is call do a good job.
Again Sony is now behind Microsoft in number of studio and MS has huge franchise with Halo, Gears of war, Forza, Fallout, Elder Scroll, Doom and so on if they can't be market leader with this and Gamepass it is a problem of being competent enough.
Out of CD Projekt and Dragon Age, Microsoft has nearly a monopoly on big AAA WRPG genre.
EDIT:
This is not like Sony franchise were huge from the get go. They worked years after years to build big franchise, improve studios. And Sony was on the verge of being bankrupt during PS3 era. This is just being competent.
So the only issue you have is size ? Because its the only thing your consistent on in this whole thing
Yea sucker punch had a successful game after being bought but what about insomniac they had successful games before and same with bungie ? There are a bunch of dead studios in sonys past
Sony dropped billions on Bungie but its not okay for MS to do the same on Activision ?
And yea MS with Activision will have more studios than Sony and your point ? Sony has had more studios than MS ?
Sony was almost bankrupt and had to sell off or shutter other ventures of theirs. I could only imagine how bad the console market would be with only two companies in it
Can you compare Bungie to Activision? Bungie is a unique studio with only one big franchise, Activision have the bigger shooter of the market Call of Duty + Warzone, Overwatch, Diablo and so on. But MS have more studios than Sony since they bought Bethesda.
Ratchet and Clank was not a big hitter. It is a 5/6 millions games now before it was less and Sunset Overdrive was a commercial failure. Insomniac did not have any big franchise when Sony bought them. And Marvel propose Spiderman to Sony and MS, MS refuse because they prefer to mismanaged their own franchise. Sorry for but what they have done to Halo is a crime. Same they could have keep Bungie and have Destiny as an Xbox exclusive.
Before PS4 many Sony franchise sold between 2 and 5 million only, no big hitter like Halo out of Gran Turismo.
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I think the ultimate fool making move would be for them to succeed in blocking the acquisition, but have Activision board members and management be so burned by the process that they sign an exclusive deal with Microsoft, even if it's only marketing/DLC like they have with Sony now for COD, but full portfolio. Or, Activision just sells off a few studios and IP (like Blizzard, all of the Sierra IP, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, Crash and Spyro) and all that becomes exclusive, While Activision just makes COD.
Many? I mean I guess. They also have Gran Turismo. Over 80 million copies sold. So there's that.
I want to see the vengeful Microsoft timeline if it doesn't go through.
I think it's more likely that Activision is upset about it. They are trying to cash out, right? They have a lot to lose. Microsoft can simply try again with another company.
This is the only one and funnily this is the only franchise to be down but this is not only GT the racing games are in decline out of Forza Horizon.
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I think Uncharted 4 sold more than the first three games combined. God of War Ragnarok sold more first week than any of the first three God of War lifetime. Infamous was a 2/3 million game. Killzone sold the same around 3/4 million.
I forget TLOU as great success before PS4 but the game sold well on PS3 and PS4 and probably more on PS4.
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