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Microsoft, Activision Deny Report Regarding Financial Performance

LectureMaster

LectureMaster

Gold Member
My man adamsapple adamsapple at the moment:

9W6fiu.gif
 
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U

ungalo

Member
From what i recall the original article was mainly about the lack of impact on Gamepass subscriptions, which is true but it used this to imply that the acquisition had not a lot of impact on Xbox overall, which is obviously false.
 
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D

DeltaPolarBear

Member
ungalo said:
From what i recall the original article was mainly about the lack of impact on Gamepass subscriptions, which is true but it used this to imply that the acquisition had not a lot of impact on Xbox overall, which is obviously false.
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Well, it is certainly true it had a lot of negative impacts...

As it were, Activision is actually more valuable than Xbox itself. Which means now just like how Activision absorbed Blizzard, now it is Xbox's turn to be assimilated into Activision. Don't forget, Activision was founded by former Atari developers. They INVENTED 3rd party console studios!
 
Astray

Astray

Member
mayham2199 said:
Haha surprised MS responded to this at all. Looks like they didn't like that report. Well be interesting to see what they say during their next quarterly report.
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The information is a really well-respected outlet amongst high-powered execs, and they are known for high-quality journalism.

For example, they broke the FTX scandal that led to Sam Bankman-Fried's incarceration.
 
M

mayham2199

Member
Astray said:
The information is a really well-respected outlet amongst high-powered execs, and they are known for high-quality journalism.

For example, they broke the FTX scandal that led to Sam Bankman-Fried's incarceration.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that. Well it makes perfect sense why MS responded then.
 
U

ungalo

Member
DeltaPolarBear said:
Well, it is certainly true it had a lot of negative impacts...

As it were, Activision is actually more valuable than Xbox itself. Which means now just like how Activision absorbed Blizzard, now it is Xbox's turn to be assimilated into Activision. Don't forget, Activision was founded by former Atari developers. They INVENTED 3rd party console studios!
Click to expand...
I don't understand your point. There is no Activision anymore, not in the sense of an independant company, it's a subsidiary of Microsoft. If they take more space than XGS it's because Microsoft Gaming wants it that way.

I didn't mean Xbox as the console and the specific division XGS, i'm talking about Microsoft. That's obviously what the article is talking about since we're talking about the financial impact.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
DeltaPolarBear said:
Well, it is certainly true it had a lot of negative impacts...

As it were, Activision is actually more valuable than Xbox itself. Which means now just like how Activision absorbed Blizzard, now it is Xbox's turn to be assimilated into Activision. Don't forget, Activision was founded by former Atari developers. They INVENTED 3rd party console studios!
Click to expand...

That's not how it works, lol.
 
StereoVsn

StereoVsn

Gold Member
DeltaPolarBear said:
Well, it is certainly true it had a lot of negative impacts...

As it were, Activision is actually more valuable than Xbox itself. Which means now just like how Activision absorbed Blizzard, now it is Xbox's turn to be assimilated into Activision. Don't forget, Activision was founded by former Atari developers. They INVENTED 3rd party console studios!
Click to expand...
What if Satya hired Bobby back? 😉
 
GHG

GHG

Member
Astray said:
The information is a really well-respected outlet amongst high-powered execs, and they are known for high-quality journalism.

For example, they broke the FTX scandal that led to Sam Bankman-Fried's incarceration.
Click to expand...

It's not only that, reports from them also have the ability to have an impact on stock performance.

The article here quoted a portfolio manager from Janus Henderson, who have roughly $12 billion invested in Microsoft.

adamsapple said:
Click to expand...


It stops being an opinion piece when the person being quoted manages ~335 billion dollars.
 
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Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Feels weird to come out and deny this, and that kind of suggests that while the report might not be fully accurate, the actual numbers still leave something to be desired.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Well anyway, looks like that analyst missed the mark on this one.

After reaching out to Activision and Microsoft for comment, representatives from both companies not only said The Information’s report wasn’t accurate and “through omission is misrepresenting the business”, but provided context to show how the company has performed since the purchase along with the state of Microsoft gaming.
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Regarding Xbox Game Pass, Nadella said that the service set a record for the number of new Game Pass subscriptions on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s launch day. He added that the service “set a new Q1 record for total revenue and average revenue per subscriber.”
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Moving on to the suggestion from the report that, in 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the company could “wind down its games business entirely”, the company flat out denies that. They point to comments made around that time with Nadella expressing that Microsoft is “all in on gaming”.
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insider-gaming.com

EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft, Activision Deny Report Regarding Financial Performance

Microsoft and Activision have denied a recent report regarding the financial performance since the acquisition.
insider-gaming.com insider-gaming.com
 
Astray

Astray

Member
GHG said:
It's not only that, reports from them also have the ability to have an impact on stock performance.

The article here quoted a portfolio manager from Janus Henderson, who have roughly $12 billion invested in Microsoft.
Click to expand...
I've always said that the next quarterly release will be critical for MS Gaming:

- 1st quarter since Black Ops 6 got added to Gamepass.
- 1st quarter where Activision revenue is part of the baseline of the YOY comparisons, meaning this report will actually start to showcase how well MS is managing ABK as a subsidiary.

Now you got the pressure of respectable, non-cuckhold news outlets doing deep dives into a division that no one gave a fuck about before, and its gonna be interesting af.

GHG said:
It wasn't an analyst. It was a portfolio manager from Janus Henderson.

Huge difference.
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The fact they're just outright sending the actual PR troops to handle this instead of the shill podcasters is very telling.
 
M

mdkirby

Gold Member
Feels like microsoft are likely playing a little fast and loose with some cherry picked data to tell the story they want to tell.

Ofcourse it’s contributed a massive amount to xbox divisions revenue…there’s a lot of big games that are now part of their revenue…if you forget to include the -$80bn, and the vast staff costs.

It’ll also look much rosier depending on what window they choose to look at, last few months? Probably not a pretty sight given all the big recurring revenue IP under acti are in pretty sudden and fairly significant decline, whether that’s cod losing 80% of its players a month after cod6, or similarly with overwatch after rivals launched etc.

And how much has it actually boosted gamespass? They need year on year 40% growth? Did it do that year 1? How’s its current trend?
 
Hero of Spielberg

Hero of Spielberg

Member
GHG said:
It's not only that, reports from them also have the ability to have an impact on stock performance.

The article here quoted a portfolio manager from Janus Henderson, who have roughly $12 billion invested in Microsoft.



It stops being an opinion piece when the person being quoted manages ~335 billion dollars.
Click to expand...
I read the article and this was all I could find from that investor:

“[Activision] has been disappointing,” said Denny Fish, a Janus Henderson Investors portfolio manager who oversees two funds that included a total of more than $800 million in Microsoft stock as of November. “It’s also a business that had some degree of consistency over, like, a three- to five-year period but was highly volatile from year to year, because you’re so dependent on the big releases like Call of Duty.”

Doesn't provide a lot of context
 
Astray

Astray

Member
Even Taul Passi does not buy what MS is selling lol.





adamsapple said:
I don't know who he is, just using the terminology in the article, which calls him both.
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Idk if this shows for all countries, but you can actually see the full article if you give them an email. I did this and thus have access to the full piece.

Like GHG GHG said, he is a portfolio manager from Janus Henderson. This is not some analyst, he's a guy who runs a team of analysts and makes investment decisions, making him an investor.

The pertinent quote:
“[Activision] has been disappointing,” said Denny Fish, a Janus Henderson Investors portfolio manager who oversees two funds that included a total of more than $800 million in Microsoft stock as of November. “It’s also a business that had some degree of consistency over, like, a three-to-five-year period but was highly volatile from year to year, because you’re so dependent on the big releases like Call of Duty.”
Click to expand...
 
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GHG

GHG

Member
Astray said:
The fact they're just outright sending the actual PR troops to handle this instead of the shill podcasters is very telling.
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If there is a similar feeling amongst other fund managers who have sizable holdings in Microsoft stock then this sort of thing can trigger a huge sell-off. We are talking about a 80 billion dollar investment (the biggest in Microsoft's history) not yielding desired results.

adamsapple said:
I don't know who he is, just using the terminology in the article, which calls him both.
Click to expand...

Calling someone who is a fund manager an analyst is wide of the mark. Typically people who end up in those positions start out in the world as analysts, but his role is much more significant than that.

Hero of Spielberg said:
I read the article and this was all I could find from that investor:

“[Activision] has been disappointing,” said Denny Fish, a Janus Henderson Investors portfolio manager who oversees two funds that included a total of more than $800 million in Microsoft stock as of November. “It’s also a business that had some degree of consistency over, like, a three- to five-year period but was highly volatile from year to year, because you’re so dependent on the big releases like Call of Duty.”

Doesn't provide a lot of context
Click to expand...

The context is that when you manage such huge amounts of money it is your duty to do investigative work and stay close to people inside the businesses you invest the fund's money in. If he's saying that it will be because the people he speaks to within the respective businesses have indicated as such. Of course, their interpretation of the situation could be incorrect, but there's rarely smoke without fire in these kinds of situations.
 
diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
"the article is wrong, and no we won't tell you why" - that's not how it works Microsoft. If you can't refute the report then don't say anything.
GHG said:
If there is a similar feeling amongst other fund managers who have sizable holdings in Microsoft stock then this sort of thing can trigger a huge sell-off. We are talking about a 80 billion dollar investment (the biggest in Microsoft's history) not yielding desired results.
Click to expand...
If there are similar feelings amongst other fund managers, then it means that they did their analysis independently and came to the same conclusion. Which means that MS denying it with "no u" really isn't going to move the needle.
 
Hero of Spielberg

Hero of Spielberg

Member
GHG said:
The context is that when you manage such huge amounts of money it is your duty to do investigative work and stay close to people inside the businesses you invest the fund's money in. If he's saying that it will be because the people he speaks to within the respective businesses have indicated as such. Of course, their interpretation of the situation could be incorrect, but there's rarely smoke without fire in these kinds of situations.
Click to expand...

I understand that he is managing a lot of money, but the quote itself doesn't provide a lot of context. I've worked with investors before from JPM (where this guy worked previously apparently) and despite managing a lot of money they aren't necessarily privy to any more detailed information day to day than any other investor, they have to make educated assumptions.

Would be good to be able to see the full quote to see how he believes Activision has been disappointing. As it stands it looks like the journalist needed a quote from an investor to back up his article and squeezed this one in.
 
Astray

Astray

Member
GHG said:
Calling someone who is a fund manager an analyst is wide of the mark. Typically people who end up in those positions start out in the world as analysts, but his role is much more significant than that.
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To be fair to Adam and others, it's the Insider Gaming reporter that called him an analyst.

Gaming journalists being bad at their job is nothing new.
 
coachmcguirk91

coachmcguirk91

Member
I think it's telling that Microsoft never announced/leaked the Gamepass impact of COD. I think as a company, they outrageously overestimated how many gamers are interested in a subscription service

Don't get me wrong, Gamepass has incredible value, but there are not enough hardcore gamers playing 10 plus games a year to sustain Gamepass growth that Microsoft is seeking
 
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