What happened to all the people that were cheering over that MS Activision acquisition?

aerts1js said:
So many people were awfully smug during that entire acquisition of Activision trying to paint it as somehow being good for gaming. It made zero sense.

What has the acquisition actually resulted in? Layoffs, studio shut downs, and a complete implosion of the xbox brand.

The threads now are mostly people just (rightfully) dunking on phil or whatever but I genuinely wonder where the people that were pro acquisition are now AND at what point they realized they were a clown?
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They were last seen on the final page of the Xbox Power King Meme thread

 
aerts1js said:
The acquisition resulted in a forced third party stance which resulted in people no longer feeling the need to purchase the console. This new strategy resulted in being their worst year - ever for console sales. You really couldn't connect the dots?
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Being bad for Xbox console sales isn't the same as being bad for gaming. Is it bad for PS users that they will have access to 1st party Microsoft titles?

I thought the doom mongering about the acquisition was precisely about MS locking out Activision titles.
 
I got to play a brand new Call of Duty campaign for 12$ instead of having to pay 70 or wait 2 or 3 years to buy the game for 20$ at a discount so, so far I'd say the deal has been alright for me tbh.
 
I supported the acquisitions and have to admit that my main desired outcome has not come to fruition. I wanted a lot of the ActiBliz catalogue added to GamePass but we only got a small percentage and at random intervals. The layoffs were sad but a part of me thinks they were going to happen anyway. The price hike doesn't bother me, these subscription services (across all industries) have only trended upwards in price.

COD and Indy on GamePass last year was nice.
 
GHG said:
As has the price, which so many of you were insistent it wouldn't throughout the regulatory approval discussions.
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You should name and shame whoever said the price of GP will never increase.

Every sub increase price, even Nintendo Switch Online is getting a price increase now.
 
In the end it did 3 things IMO:

-None of those studios have games that have 3rd party exclusivity partnerships with PlayStation anymore

-All those studio games are now on Gamepass day 1

-Microsoft spent so much money they now need to recuperate by putting every 1st party game everywhere

Right now the main difference between a Xbox and PlayStation is 1-3 PlayStation console exclusives a year. Xbox's superior subscription service. And their controllers are slightly different.
 
Right here. I wasn't cheering but hoped it would go through. And since then I've got to play a couple CODs and Diablo without paying a cent extra. So no complaints here except how slow they are on adding new GP games.

I've seen platforms come and go in the past so no real concern on how it's affecting Xbox consoles. But it would suck if they don't update the Xbox app to play all console games before truly pulling the plug on the console.

The people making games will keep on making games either way. And before the ABK circus I already played less than 30 hours per year total on all consoles combined. So I can't say the console war side of things affects me personally. Sony won but I don't use my Pro either because of the PC ports so potato potahto.
 
GHG said:
As has the price, which so many of you were insistent it wouldn't throughout the regulatory approval discussions.
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Sub price would have gone up whether or not there was an acquisition. Sony raised theirs and they didn't buy Activision. Almost everyone has been raising their sub prices in and out of gaming. Still only like $7-8 a month for me which isn't a big deal.
 
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I supported it because the suggestion that they would become a monopoly was laughable to me. If anything I underargued my position and understated how dominant PS is. Having CoD on GP is nice and the revenue is going to help the Xbox studios. Switch will get some games too. No downside as far as I can tell either. Nothing was kept off PS like all the fearmongers insisted.
 
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Rockman33 said:
In the end it did 3 things IMO:

-None of those studios have games that have 3rd party exclusivity partnerships with PlayStation anymore

-All those studio games are now on Gamepass day 1

-Microsoft spent so much money they now need to recuperate by putting every 1st party game everywhere

Right now the main difference between a Xbox and PlayStation is 1-3 PlayStation console exclusives a year. Xbox's superior subscription service. And their controllers are slightly different.
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You're underselling the impact of its exclusives.
 
Punished Miku said:
I supported it because the suggestion that they would become a monopoly was laughable to me. If anything I underargued my position and understated how dominant PS is. Having CoD on GP is nice and the revenue is going to help the Xbox studios. Switch will get some games too. No downside as far as I can tell either. Nothing was kept off PS like all the fearmongers insisted.
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Anyone who feared for MS removing COD from PS was naive to begin with.

COD needs the PS playerbase, even if ABK is part of Xbox.
Without PS, the franchise will decline and die.
 
Rawbutt Jellybean said:
Sub price would have gone up whether or not there was an acquisition. Sony raised theirs and they didn't buy Activision. Almost everyone has been raising their sub prices in and out of gaming. Still only like $7-8 a month for me which isn't a big deal.
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Except we were explicitly told that the sub price wouldn't change from people like yourself.
 
What has the acquisition actually resulted in? Layoffs, studio shut downs, and a complete implosion of the xbox brand.
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Layoffs are not relevant to the acquisition, it's happening industry wide.

Studio shut downs again not relevant to the acquisition, it's happening industry wide.

Implosion of the Xbox brand is not relevant to the acquisition, they were doing a good job of it before.

None of what was stated is relevant to the acquisition.
 
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I didnt pretend it was good for gaming. I pretended tbat it was goos for ME. Which it was. There are two bigger games that im excited this year. Clair obscur and doom. I'd be saving money on doom for a service i already was paying for.

That being said i dont longer care about gamepass and will just buy them on steam instead so it ended up not being an upside for me after all. But that's because i changed. But no downside either. Business as usual, doom will probably keep being good, KI will keep not being announced and the rest will keep being games i dont care about.
 
GHG said:
Except we were explicitly told that the sub price wouldn't change from people like yourself.
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No, people like me were saying the acquisition wouldn't cause a price change, not that there would never be a price change after the acquisition. Again, Sony didn't buy Activision so why did their sub price go up? Same for Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, etc.
 
cormack12 said:
Layoffs are industry wide. Aside from switching owners its pretty much business as usual isn't it?

I think it's probably more likely they made the acquisition already knowing their strategy when we were in the dark.

Those who were looking forward to COD being on Game Pass were proven right, and Sony's fears were proven to be misguided and it didn't impact them at all.

All in all, it's just a talking point and hasn't impacted us as players at all.
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We have internal emails showing that it wasn't the plan the whole time. Things changed drastically for them between the start and end of the acquisition.
 
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COD did not make difference because the 20 or whatever million users it has already have PS5 or Xbox. I do not think GP strategy is working but we will see next gen if PS6 COD numbers drop and Xbox increases we can probably guess people moved over. But I do not think it will happen. I also think at some point BF or may be a new IP shooter will give COD some competition in future.
 
Because now we see what the acquisition really was. It was a deal with the devil and the price was sacrificing the Xbox brand as a whole.
 
Rawbutt Jellybean said:
No, people like me were saying the acquisition wouldn't cause a price change, not that there would never be a price change after the acquisition. Again, Sony didn't buy Activision so why did their sub price go up? Same for Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, etc.
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Ok cool. Well glad to know you were in fact here during that period.

Welcome back.

Marvel Studios Smile GIF by Disney+
 
Bobby Kotick and the ATVI investors are all happy to have dumped it and move on. Let someone else worry how they're going to maintain, much less grow, the revenue when they've tried to milk the franchises as much as they could to drive up takeover valuations.
 
Scrawnton said:
Because now we see what the acquisition really was. It was a deal with the devil and the price was sacrificing the Xbox brand as a whole.
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How so?

Microsoft made a deal with a devil (who?) to gain what at the expense of the Xbox brand? I only just started paying attention to neogaf after the acquisition was almost done. I know there were antitrust questions so maybe that is what you mean?
 
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This is such an odd take? I feel like I'm missing something

People were excited to have the titles on gamepass so they don't need to spend $70 on CoD each year

Did something change? Are they taking the games off game pass?
 
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Who really cares. They bought ABK with the intent of making money and having a certain type of foothold in the games biz.

As like as they keep making hardware, and their games keep coming in GPU I could care less.
Let's not forget this is one of the richest companies in the world we are talking. We ain't gotta feel sorry for them. But as a long time Xbox customer with a huge backlog I just wanna know I can keep playing my collection on something called an Xbox. I have a series X in my, living room, my trusty X1X sitting in one of my stores in Jamaica as a fifa and cod machine and people comment on how crisp sports games look on it all the time. My PCs are all windows based, and even they have some crossover with my Xboxes.


I love their eco system and gamepass and I hope they keep doing that. Am I bothered if people who don't own an Xbox can play forza/ halo etc….? No. Why would it. As long they keep making hardware for me and give my backlog can eventually all be played in 4K, 60FPS, I don't care what else they do. They can put whatever they want wherever they want. They have a business to run. I just play the games.
 
adamsapple said:
You should name and shame whoever said the price of GP will never increase.

Every sub increase price, even Nintendo Switch Online is getting a price increase now.
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It's a classic argument. "They said". "You people". "Lots of them". "Numerous of the Xbox fans said".

Not a single example in sight, anywhere.

Same as this one. Vague and literally made up on the spot to secure likes from his friends.

Sebastian1295 said:
They hide in the gaming threads mostly and pretend that they're neutral gamers or that they never championed the acquisition to begin with to save themselves the embarrassment. And some of them have switched allegiances from xbox gamers to PC gamers or nintendo gamers etc.
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Busy telling us now that an Xbox-branded PC will be a $1000+ superbox, will be the only one "enthusiasts" will shout for, and that it will send meaningful "ripples throughout the industry". You know, the usual delusion that zealots often chase.

Reality will do what it always does — bitch smack.
 
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Zacfoldor said:
They only post on bluesky now.
Swag Trying Not To Laugh GIF by AfterThis
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Cringe.


Anyway. I don't like the main scenario with monopolistic tendencies. MS, Apple, Meta, Google, Sony... In a perfect world none of them would be able to buy up the market.

So in general I don't like it. But nothing is binary, there are negatives, and then some less so. If someone was to do it, it's a good thing it was MS instead of some others because MS was at least already on the path to multiplatform. I think some people felt a kind of relief from that. On a personal level, for my household one positive was that the GP library got expanded with quite a few good games which we can use on the same account on both on PC and Xbox.


Edit: This thread is so chock-full of strawmen it's unbelievable.
 
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