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

[Ry]

10 minutes ago, K said:

 

I don't think they're buying Call of Duty to make money off Call of Duty, they're buying it to get people to buy Microsoft consoles rather than Sony ones, and subscribe to Microsoft services and use Bing and Outlook and all the other stuff that's tangled up in the web of Microsoft's empire. I mean, it's going to take a LONG time to recoup that $70bn if they're just going off the revenue that each game makes. The point of acquisitions like this is to make the overall offering more attractive to consumers.

 

I think you will be surprised how quickly they recoup it (I think 5 years)

 

Mobile gaming fucking trounces traditional gaming in regards to revenue.

[Flub]

I wonder how WoW is going to work on gamepass. Sub free? It'd be a bit weird to get the expansions free and then have to pay extra to play. That would probably drive a lot of new (or lapsed) players to WoW and Gamepass

[monkeydog]

Or it won't be on Game Pass beyond the usual up to level 20 freebie.

[Giddas]

6 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

yeah depends how much they are losing with this loophole. Eventually we’ll be unable to stack and we will all have to pay the full price. But if they keep adding and adding IP then full price will be acceptable or people will have to make choices (see you later Apple Arcade subscription).

 

I would think it would be more than the current price, or they'll have some premium tier. A World of Warcraft sub (not saying this will go on GP) is £10 / month alone!

 

 

[Down by Law]

Ten years ago this would have been a big deal to me but seeing as Activision only makes Call of Duty, a series well past it's sell by date then I couldn't give a fuck. 

 

[JPL]

I honestly can't remember the last Activision/Blizzard game I played - probably Sekiro, but that was only published by them - and that image MS are showing doesn't really excite me, so what other games are they bringing to the table? Is there a list of games they'll now have anywhere?

[Strafe]

1 minute ago, Down by Law said:

Ten years ago this would have been a big deal to me but seeing as Activision only makes Call of Duty, a series well past it's sell by date then I couldn't give a fuck. 

 

Lol.

[Thor]

So, aside from what they're already doing with PSVR, what do people think Sony should do here, if anything?  Personally I think they should be eyeing up Square Enix, and also going after exclusive licence of Marvel's entire gaming IP if possible. 

[Ferine]

11 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

How many Rewards points is $70 billion though 

66,150,000,000,000. I think.

 

You're definitely going to want to use ABS.

[K]

Is it true that most of Activision's revenue comes from mobile? Looking online, Activision-Blizzard had revenue of about $8bn for 2020, and King had net revenue of $2bn for the same period. Presumably Call of Duty mobile brings in a lot of cash too, but more than Warzone and the yearly campaigns do on PC/console?

[Strafe]

So the deal doesn’t close until June (?) 2023. I assume that means we won’t see anything on gamepass until then.

[Giddas]

3 minutes ago, Thor said:

So, aside from what they're already doing with PSVR, what do people think Sony should do here, if anything?  Personally I think they should be eyeing up Square Enix, and also going after exclusive licence of Marvel's entire gaming IP if possible. 

 

Get bought by Apple 😄

[Alex W.]

1 minute ago, Strafe said:

So the deal doesn’t close until June (?) 2023. I assume that means we won’t see anything on gamepass until then.

I don’t think there’s anything to stop Activision deciding that they’re going to go Game Pass tomorrow. If the Microsoft deal falls through, what’s the worst that happens?

[Unofficial Who]

As a PS5 owner and therefore pretty invested in it this gen I can confidently say...Sony just lost this gen.

 

Totally. I'm not into COD but most PS owners are. And my partner would love to play Blizzard games guilt free again. If MS cleans house it could happen.

 

Has @Boozy The Clown been paged to the thread yet or is he too busy doing well earned victory laps on the Sony threads?

[MidWalian]

PS5 Candy Crush. 

 

[Alex W.]

4 minutes ago, Thor said:

So, aside from what they're already doing with PSVR, what do people think Sony should do here, if anything?  Personally I think they should be eyeing up Square Enix, and also going after exclusive licence of Marvel's entire gaming IP if possible. 

I suppose the next logical step after “a big expensive scarce console which basically only exists to play platform exclusives” is to pivot to arcade cabinets.

[Gabe]

2 minutes ago, Thor said:

So, aside from what they're already doing with PSVR, what do people think Sony should do here, if anything?  Personally I think they should be eyeing up Square Enix, and also going after exclusive licence of Marvel's entire gaming IP if possible. 

What Marvel gaming IP though? They haven't done an awful lot in gaming despite the wealth of opportunities. 

 

Again though, I'm not even sure Sony need to do much - they still make significantly more than MS without going on a big spending-spree, so they can just keep on trucking I reckon - the PS brand is still more valuable I think. 

[Unofficial Who]

5 minutes ago, Thor said:

So, aside from what they're already doing with PSVR, what do people think Sony should do here, if anything?  Personally I think they should be eyeing up Square Enix, and also going after exclusive licence of Marvel's entire gaming IP if possible. 

 

Loads of Square Enix games are already on GamePass. I wouldn't be surprised if Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 ends up being a Microsoft exclusive.

[Waggo]

 

[Isaac]

6 minutes ago, K said:

Is it true that most of Activision's revenue comes from mobile? Looking online, Activision-Blizzard had revenue of about $8bn for 2020, and King had net revenue of $2bn for the same period. Presumably Call of Duty mobile brings in a lot of cash too, but more than Warzone and the yearly campaigns do on PC/console?

 

Call of Duty was the biggest selling ps4/5 game last year, so I would be very surprised if that wasnt making them a truckload of cash too.

[Unofficial Who]

1 minute ago, Gabe said:

What Marvel gaming IP though? They haven't done an awful lot in gaming despite the wealth of opportunities. 

 

Again though, I'm not even sure Sony need to do much - they still make significantly more than MS without going on a big spending-spree, so they can just keep on trucking I reckon - the PS brand is still more valuable I think. 

 

They've lost Fallout and Elder Scrolls. They just lost COD, Diablo and Overwatch. If they lose FIFA and Final Fantasy they're done in much the same way as Nintendo and Sega were on the ropes around 1996.

[moosegrinder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_games:_2010–2019

 

Activision made a fucking shitload of licensed games in the 2010s

[Triple A]

Cor wouldn't it be great if they got Bobby out for cause after the integration has completed.  I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the plan, they'd get a shitload of good PR off the back of it.

[Unofficial Who]

1 minute ago, Isaac said:

 

Call of Duty was the biggest selling ps4/5 game last year, so I would be very surprised if that wasnt making them a truckload of cash too.

 

It's about to make Microsoft a ton of cash as COD fans switch back to XBox. No way it's not going to go exclusive.

[RubberJohnny]

6 minutes ago, K said:

Is it true that most of Activision's revenue comes from mobile? Looking online, Activision-Blizzard had revenue of about $8bn for 2020, and King had net revenue of $2bn for the same period. Presumably Call of Duty mobile brings in a lot of cash too, but more than Warzone and the yearly campaigns do on PC/console?

 

Cod: Mobile is nearly a billion a year, I think. Plus Hearthstone certainly used to do those numbers and that's on mobile too, so it could work out that way, seems pretty close though.

[Benny]

38 minutes ago, Girth Certificate said:

Blackthorne sequel please. Hyper violent cover shooter. yusss

 

This already exists and it's called Huntdown.

[bear]

15 minutes ago, Ry said:

 

I think you will be surprised how quickly they recoup it (I think 5 years)

 

Mobile gaming fucking trounces traditional gaming in regards to revenue.

Steady on, If Activision was capable of making those sort of profits then they'd cost a lot more than $70 billion.

 

 

It isn't necessarily about recouping the cost anyway. As long as Microsoft can show shareholders that spending $70 billion on Activision was a better investment than leaving the money sitting in their bank accounts then its a positive for them. Pachter did a video on this sort of thing years and years ago when they bought Minecraft. 

[moosegrinder]

I mean, Activision bought King in 2016. So Microsoft now own all that whale fodder too.

[kensei]

At that money, why didn't they go after Nintendo? That would gives gives types of games they don't have, rather more of those that do. Competition concerns?

 

If it was, surely Capcom / Atlus / Konami / Square would have been a better bet?

[Alex W.]

Really curious about the calculus that must be involved in the “exclusives” decision. I wonder if Activision’s got a lot of income tied up in microtransactions that their board’s skittish about losing? Probably more so than Bethesda, but it’s hard to imagine an end point that doesn’t look like FIFA Legacy Edition: a way of keeping access to the existing customers who already bought in on the “wrong” platform while they put their real effort elsewhere.