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Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

MidWalian

By MidWalian
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Consoles are usually sold at a loss (at least at first), so it’s hard to see how having a set spec for a platform could work. The manufacturers would presumably want to make a profit through their consoles, so they’d either be much more expensive than they are now, or built to a much lower quality. I can’t see many people buying a Panasonic Xbox-compatible console if it cost £600.

 

That was one of the problems with 3DO - you would get the different manufacturers competing on price, but they were still madly expensive because they’re never going to compete to the stage where they’re not making a profit. Whereas Microsoft or Sony can take the hit if they’re making money through licensing and subscriptions and that sort of thing. 

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mushashi

mushashi

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5 hours ago, Gabe said:

Bungie are probably the only other premier maker of FPS titles, yet there wasn't much noise about that deal really. Does that not reduce competition? (I appreciate there is a question of scale here, but at the same time drilling down into the detail is perhaps more useful.)

 

There wasn't a problem with the deal Bungie did because unlike the Microsoft takeover of Activision, Bungie are retaining their independence and remaining entirely multiplatform for their own games, so nothing changed, except the name on their legal ownership documents.

 

Publisher consolidation outside of platform holders if fine as nothing changes in terms of platform support usually as independent publishers don't have an incentive to stick everything on a single platform they happen to also control, unlike platform holders. The main casualties are games with middling financial viability in those cases, but they are arguably on borrowed time anyway.

 

EA have Borged multiple publishers and developers, but it didn't change things in any material way.

 

And Tencent, despite their massive size and prolific buying spree, haven't upset the general market.

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Talk Show Host

Talk Show Host

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14 minutes ago, mushashi said:

 

There wasn't a problem with the deal Bungie did because unlike the Microsoft takeover of Activision, Bungie are retaining their independence and remaining entirely multiplatform for their own games, so nothing changed, except the name on their legal ownership documents.

 

Publisher consolidation outside of platform holders if fine as nothing changes in terms of platform support usually as independent publishers don't have an incentive to stick everything on a single platform they happen to also control, unlike platform holders. The main casualties are games with middling financial viability in those cases, but they are arguably on borrowed time anyway.

 

EA have Borged multiple publishers and developers, but it didn't change things in any material way.

 

And Tencent, despite their massive size and prolific buying spree, haven't upset the general market.


Do you mean that the next games from Bungie will be multi platform?

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Giddas

Giddas

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8 hours ago, RubberJohnny said:

Who are you talking about, I don’t see anyone hoping that in here? If they do think that they haven’t been paying attention because in addition to the multiplatform agreement CoD has some “no game pass” agreement with Sony lasting a number of years.

 

We’ve got people trying to puzzle out the confusing logic of the regulators, but that’s not remotely the same thing.

 

Not sure if you realise but that multiplatform agreement is not MS "being nice".

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Giddas

Giddas

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7 hours ago, rgraves said:

 
What? I Support it as I think it’ll open up more content to more people. I think Sony have spent a long time locking CoD stuff behind marketing agreements and it’s better for that not to happen.

 

Im supporting it as I think this will lead to CoD on PS/XBox/Switch being relatively level. I support it as I think MS will be less shitty to work for than Acti currently are.

 

 There are plenty of reasons to support this that aren’t just ‘I want this on GP’ - although to be honest it IS massively shitty of Sony to tie people into contracts that aren’t about content on their own platform but are about simply denying content for people on others IMO.

 

If anything, it’s short sighted to believe that losing CoD as a semi-PS exclusive will somehow massively alter the state of the market. It won’t.

 

Quick question, do you own a PS5?

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rgraves

rgraves

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17 hours ago, Giddas said:

 

Quick question, do you own a PS5?


Quick response - unless you want to turn this into some fanboy nonsense, why does that matter?

 

Longer response - not yet, still just a PS4. I just don’t see how what Sony is doing with CoD (paying for exclusive content and paying to deliberately keep it away from other platforms and services) is good for gamers. Where’s the plus side to what Sony are doing to XBox or Switch gamers? I can say what it will be for Switch gamers and GP subscribers if this goes through. But what pluses for gamers are there for it not?

 

I guess there may be the consolidation argument, but honestly that’s the way the industry is going. If it’s not MS it’ll be someone else. Would Tencent be better for some reason?

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Giddas

Giddas

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19 minutes ago, rgraves said:


Quick response - unless you want to turn this into some fanboy nonsense, why does that matter?

 

Longer response - not yet, still just a PS4. I just don’t see how what Sony is doing with CoD (paying for exclusive content and paying to deliberately keep it away from other platforms and services) is good for gamers. Where’s the plus side to what Sony are doing to XBox or Switch gamers? I can say what it will be for Switch gamers and GP subscribers if this goes through. But what pluses for gamers are there for it not?

 

I guess there may be the consolidation argument, but honestly that’s the way the industry is going. If it’s not MS it’ll be someone else. Would Tencent be better for some reason?


You might have a point if CoD was the only game published by Activision. But I think you know that.

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RubberJohnny

RubberJohnny

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I think Sony would be absolutely fine if they lost CoD, I mean they've got an excellent first party slate, enviable mindshare among gamers and have moneyhatted basically every major third party AAA game this generation.

 

It's a bit weird to see people treat that as if it's a mock-worthy position, it's basically the consensus, no?

 

(And this is all y'know ignoring that they wouldn't even lose it! It's really weird to see people talk of taking multiplats exclusive for the last few pages when that's not even the deal on the table)

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Mr. Gerbik

Mr. Gerbik

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7 hours ago, Quest said:

Tony Hawk's 1+2 and they published Sekiro. Think that's about it in recent years.

 

1 hour ago, deerokus said:

Aye but they immediately canned the Tony Hawk studio.

This. It was just a blip. And Sekiro afaik was because the project started out as a Tenchu reboot and Acti was the western publisher for those titles back in the day. So From just ended up going to them before the project became Sekiro as we know it. Until someone takes over Activision they will remain a COD factory until they run it and the company itself into the ground. I'd rather have their ip and back catalogue in the hands of Microsoft instead of Tencent or Amazon, but hey whatever floats your boat. 

 

There are older games I'd like see on Xbox BC, remasters of older (legally) unavailable classics, new entries into their better ip. And not just being a company that sucks up devs, chews them up, and spits them out as a COD DLC factory.

 

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footle

footle

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And that’s the other reason Sony won’t want the sale: it won’t be a multi thousand employee yearly call of duty studio any more.

 

you’ve got to imagine the scope of the games will shrink a bit, or go every other year.

 

the other games revenues will be dwarfed by Sonys cut on CoD. 
 

(and similarly other publishers would get a share of that CoD money, perhaps)

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mushashi

mushashi

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On 10/12/2022 at 16:55, Talk Show Host said:


Do you mean that the next games from Bungie will be multi platform?

 

It's in the PR on the Bungie website.

 

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50988

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50989

 

Quote

 

Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives?

 

No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community.

 

 

Sony have bought Bungie to get a very expensive inhouse consultant for their Service Game rollout as Bungie have ~9 years experience operating a successful Service Game. They've also bought a decent future revenue stream. The deal is more like the sort of ownership that multiple independent developer/publishers have been under in the past, where they operate with full autonomy from their corporate parent. That's a crucial difference.

 

Tencent basically seem to also do this, the amount of developers they have a financial stake in dwarfs everybody else, yet they remain hidden in plain sight, though they have finally established an actual Western publishing arm, with Level Infinite.

 

 

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