NoLootBoxDev
Member
Well, around 2550 people are without a job due to this, I think this is the biggest change after getting them.
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Eurogamer: It’s been 12 months since Microsoft purchased Activision-Blizzard, so what’s changed?
- Thread starter RetroGamingUK
- Start date
Fess
Member
I got to play Call of Duty after 2 decades ignoring the IP. Excited to play the new Black OPs soon.
And I plan to try Diablo.
Besides that nothing has changed for me. I thought I would get all their past games on Gamepass so from my perspective the changes are too small at this point.
And I plan to try Diablo.
Besides that nothing has changed for me. I thought I would get all their past games on Gamepass so from my perspective the changes are too small at this point.
BlackTron
Member
In their situation yeah they probably have to. Although to be fair, even if they had good enough Xbox sales to try and go console exclusive, the deal stipulates they can't anyway.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
is this you asking the question or the article?
i think is common knowledge that
1. MS overpaid for ABK and it's investors were not going to let MS just walk away.
2. without ABK, xbox would've been shut down.
what is happening is like the classic married couple with a trouble reletionship that choose to have a baby to save their marriage
BlackTron
Member
I didn't say 70 years to repay the debt. I said 70 years to recoup the cost.
You buy a food truck for 50k. You do not care how long it will take sales from said truck to recoup the 50k, why? Well you already spent it, so it's old news now.
RetroGamingUK
Member
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
Man… if you told me 10 years ago that next gen Microsoft would own Zenimax and ABK, I’d have predicted that Xbox would be absolutely dominating the gaming market by now.
djjinx2
Member
As a PS owner:
- got 300€ and 11 miniatures painted selling my Series X.
- will still probably be able to play next Halo.
- still can get Indy if Machine Games delivers.
- still get Doom if id delivers.
- still can play Space Marine 2 with my Xbox Series friends.
- I no longer have a platform where to play Halo 4 and Guardians.
- still have access to what Bungie does.
- waiting like everybody else to Hi-Fi Rush to be physical.
- now I only need batteries for my hand blender.
As an Xbox owner and CoD fan I get more GamePass content.
Including all those games listed above. Couldn't give a fuck about anything else. I see that as a win.
diffusionx
Gold Member
they obviously wanted exclusives, see what they did after they bought Bethesda.
But, market realities and the failure of Xbox changed course on that.
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Indeed. I’ve never seen something as mishandled as Xbox. At least, not in gaming!
Cyberpunkd
Member
What happens is they self-destructed due to GP. People don’t buy games on Xbox and with no exclusives the console sales plateaued. Probably around the same time Satya had enough and told Phil to dramatically increase profits. Only one way to go: multiplatform.
So they just wasted 70 billion. Bobby is a fucking genius.
clarky
Gold Member
You might be pleasantly surprised. I had ten off only to return for 2019 and now its my go to game in-between games if you get me. Its great.
D4 also seems to be in a good spot
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
I really just wanted to drop that joke in here and move on lol. I don't agree. They literally said it's going to stay multiplatform the day they announced it. It's illogical to even want Call of Duty to be an exclusive and that was never the plan. I don't blame them for not wanting to sign contracts for 10 years of releases on PS when no one else in the industry has ever signed something like that ever, for any reason. You don't need contracts to be a multiplatform publisher. No one else does this and it was a ridiculous request. Not to mention, the OP says "exclusive to Xbox" when obviously MS would keep it on PC at a bare minimum. In reality, they were going to keep it everywhere and add it to Nintendo systems and cloud, literally the opposite of any kind of exclusivity.
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Moriarty1889
Member
Bobby took his money and ran with it. Phil and Co. bit off more than they could chew and now have to put games on their biggest competitors console in the hopes they make some money. Pitiful and terrible is what describes Xbox management. All that money and no brains.
They said they would keep cod exclusive for three more years until the sony/activision contract ended. After that it was a "we'll see". They only agreed to ten years after the courts forced them to.
All other Activision/bethesda games were to become console exclusive, just like starfield, in an attempt to push Sony out of the business. Now not only will all those originally multiplatform games remain multiplatform, MS' original first party games are going multiplatform as well while their own console business will be shut down soon. Just a colossal screw up from every angle. And a well deserved kick in the ass to all the gloating pro-acquisition stooges.
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
There is not a single publisher in the entire history of video games that has ever signed a decade long commitment to release games on PS. It's an absurd invention of Jim Ryan and the CMA. It is not at all proof that they're not going to be a multiplatform publisher with Call of Duty. It means they have competent lawyers that refused to sign one of the most ridiculous concessions ever. They were literally already going to do that.
SweetTooth
Gold Member
Making any type of investment doesn't mean you make your money back, look at Nokia, Zune, Skype and Xbox
MS has been laying off people left and right! Also has been humbled to complete silence regarding anything hardware Xbox.
HeisenbergFX4
Member
Fess
Member
I played through MW3 and it was great! people said that was bad compared to other COD so I have high hopes for both BO6 and the previous COD games.
My only experience in the Diablo franchise is a couple hours on D3 on Xbox One. Was great but I stopped for some reason I can’t recall right now. Should start D4 soonish, hearing good things about it from a coworker. I have too many games to play…
Negotiator101
Member
Brand new COD coming to Gamepass Day 1 this month 
let me think who benefits most 
let me think who benefits most 
XXL
Member
Microsoft will most likely make their money back over time.
The questions are.
1. At what expense?
2. How long will it take? As they overpaid for ABK.
3. Will it appreciate or depreciate?
As a 3rd party publisher they are in a good position, what I question is their viability as a 1st party publisher and console maker.
Imo being a 3rd party publisher just makes more sense as a business decision. It's more reward and way less risk. Which is why I'm so bullish that they're done with consoles and most of their business decisions are suggesting that more and more.
REDRZA MWS
Member
Because they will make a shit Ron putting CoD on every platform. Why do people like you keep this 20 year old mentality of a multibillion dollar corporation caring about plastic 500 dollar boxes outselling another one, when their games are everywhere now. The Xbox console is now just giving consumers options. Xbox is a PLATFORM once they fully incorporated PC. They don’t care where you play, buy subscribe or whatever.
It's been 12 months since Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard, so what's changed?
It has been one year since Microsoft finally acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7bn, making history as the biggest company buyout in the video games industrywww.eurogamer.net
It has to be one of the most boneheaded moves in gaming history.
If Microsoft went in with the intention of making Activision games exclusive to Xbox they ended up with the most unimaginable opposite.
As soon as Xbox console sales started to plummet and they realised they wouldn’t be able to make CoD exclusive for a decade why on earth didn’t they back out?
You just keep counting plastic box sales, let the multi billion dollar corporation worry about profit. I mean with a title alone like CoD why WOULDNT you sell it everywhere?
Bumblebeetuna
Member
After they bought Bethesda they made some games exclusive. Some games exclusive and all Activision games exclusive aren’t the same thing at all.
diffusionx
Gold Member
After Bethesda got bought, they said basically that all future games will be exclusive but games in pipeline with deals like Deathpoop will be multiplatform as contractually obliged. If things didn't go belly up ES6 would be exclusive.
I don't see any reason to believe they felt any different about Activision.
SmurfMustard
Member
That's because the average poster knows shit about fuck. Or they just want to leave their warrior spunk in every thread.
GamePass users definitely won by getting all new ActiBliz games day one via their subscription.
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Shin-Ra
Junior Member
I make that two counts of ‘plastic boxes’
One count of ‘pro-consumer options’
One count of ‘anything with Xbox games is another Xbox’
One count of ‘billion (trillion) dollar corp’
clarky
Gold Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
They're in the red when you consider the losses Xbox was making prior to purchase of ABK.
Also FWIW post-acquisition ABK have generated less revenue for MS vs. when they were still an independent 3P publisher. IJS.
12 months later
2nd pic looks like a mugshot in progress.
But how much of that was net profit? MS probably need the costs for ABK (and Zenimax) to recoup through net profits. So that $1 billion from D4...how much net is that for MS after giving Sony & Valve their cuts, having covered development costs (MS probably absorbed those costs into Xbox after the acquisition), after marketing, after whatever taxes?
Obviously I'm not an accounting expert, but that wasn't simply $1 billion in free money for MS off of D4.
Were ABK really ever at risk of bankruptcy? They were probably at risk of certain credits for easy loans going out the window, but it's not like COD, WOW, D4, Candy Crush etc. were going to stop making money. They'd of been perfectly fine w/o the acquisition.
Completely different from Zenimax, who actually were at risk of going bankrupt.
The allure is understandable, but some of these companies need to realize that player time and money and finite. Do any stop to think that the GAAS market is simply saturated for big heavy-hitters?
Like, the only way someone can get a new heavy hitter now is if one of the currently entrenched IPs had a massive drop-off. Closest we've seen to that recently was Helldivers 2 making huge waves, and I think that was due to declining Destiny 2 player base & COD players looking for something new after MW3.
And, stupid SIE, didn't capitalize on the moment the way they should've. Now they're scrambling to recharge HD2 and get another big GAAS out.
clarky
Gold Member
I wasn't considering that. MS bought ATVI as far as im aware not xbox.
ATVI is part of ms gaming just like Xbox unless I'm mistaken
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laynelane
Member
I can see your point but, on the other hand, nothing much changed for PS owners overall. As well, whether making titles like CoD exclusive was ever financially viable is debatable.
HeisenbergFX4
Member
Would have been a terrible idea to make COD exclusive
Fess
Member
Once I can’t get the service cheap through prepayment I’ll cancel the sub. But I still pay $5/month for everything, it’s nothing.
clarky
Gold Member
Non game pass subscribers act like its black death or something lol
clarky
Gold Member
Awesome game. Very unique. We need more like it.
Although you could play it a 10hz it would make no difference lol
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Bumblebeetuna
Member
Nah they said they’d honor existing deals and then future games would be a case by case basis. Since they’ve bought the studios they’ve bought, they’ve put plenty of the games out on other consoles. They never said they’d make ABK games exclusive and it wouldn’t make sense for them to do it.
Shin-Ra
Junior Member
You’ve layered an extra warped expectation of quarter-price subscription value on top of not buying the individual games you love.
That’s a big shock to the system when a third party game not on Game Pass releases.
XXL
Member
They announced the PS5 version of Indiana Jones before the Xbox version even released and Halo looks very much like its coming to PlayStation.
Nothing is off the table at this point.
Case by case doesn't seem to be what's happening, considering what they did with Indiana Jones.
laynelane
Member
Yeah, Phil's "case by case" with regards to Zenimax titles was all just PR nonsense at the time.
Xbox went all-in on ZeniMax and Bethesda exclusives in November 2021
Xbox chief Phil Spencer caused a stir after deciding that all future ZeniMax titles would be platform exclusive during a November 2021 meeting.
Fabieter
Member
I own it on ps5 and steam and didn't finish it on either platform. I liked the artstyle alot but the pacing bothered me. Does that get better if I keep playing.
tommib
Gold Member
Not if you don’t like reading.
clarky
Gold Member
if you get invested in the story then id say yes but mileage may vary. its not for everyone for sure.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Yup. Short-term, this makes Phil look good in quarterly sales presentations. Long term, Microsoft has a new obscene revenue stream + a fuckton of users in a market(mobile) they(Gates & Balmer) dropped the ball hard on.
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