Where do you stand on Microsoft buying Activision/Blizzard?

[EpicRandy]

Kyuu said:

"I know enough to know MS don't want to fuck up anymore and don't want to geopardise the success of GamePass on some short term gain anti-consumer practice."

Microsoft is known as a deeply messed up, monopolistic, and greedy corporation.

• Opinions, one could make similar claims about any corp. Sony behavior in the ps2 era was monopolistic, sony ps3 reveal could make you believe they are deeply messed up, and they sure are greedy.
• Things is corporation aren't evil they just act upon the will of their shareholders, shareholders that aren't constituted any differently from corp to corp. They can get too comfortable depending on their position but that always create opportunity for competition. Look at Intel vs AMD, Intel nearly got 80% of the market at some point but got way too comfy and created an opportunity for AMD which they took and now the market is about 50-50. 

They will abuse their power when they know they can as demonstrated by their dominant divisions, and those acquisitions may enable that.

• This deal will not confer anywhere near that sort of power to Xbox. Also what dominant divisions are you talking about? If it's their OS division, which is the closest you can have to a monopoly with MS, it as a healthy competition as proven by the fact it is currently losing market share, from 90% 10 years ago down to 75% now.

I don't necessarily expect them to do anything particularly anti-consumer in the short to mid term, but I think the value proposition will diminish as they gain power. Less day and date games, higher prices, more exclusives, etc.

• I don't believe that MS will ever remove day and date game on GamePass, that's just too core for the service success. But who knows, if they do and the service still is successful that means they found another ways to propose adequate value.
• Higher prices are unavoidable because inflation, other than that it's up in the air, I'll argue that as long that they focus on growth it has a high chance of remaining at the same pricing.
• If ever they get too comfortable that they focus too much on their profits margins instead of their proposition value it automatically will create opportunity for competition.

"So your against the deal because MS might in the future be able to do what Nintendo and Sony does right now?"

 I used Nintendo and Sony to show you that having a large catalogue of must-haves will enable them to do things that they can't do now, including but not limited to Sony and Nintendo like practices that are frowned upon or objectively fucked up.

• Yes but there is simply no way having a large catalogue of must-haves isn't a goal whether with this deal or not. Also, If I put what your saying in terms of proposition/value it's basically the equivalent of saying "I'd rather MS proposition/value remain low because if it get high it will enable them to take action to lower their proposition/value".

I'm partly against the deal because it's too huge and too unnecessary and I believe I explained why in sufficient detail.

• For me the size of the transaction have no meaning by itself.
• Unnecessary? sure like anything is unnecessary when they have alternatives. This deal and dealing with it's issues is unnecessary when you can grow organically for the same investment, growing organically and dealing with it's issues is unnecessary when yo can make a deal like this for the same investment.

"Sony's panic is due to its dominant position being challenged but that's how a competitive market is supposed to work. One actor gets a dominant position than an underdog react (propose a new business line, innovate, merge with other) and try to take the lead. That's just part of competition in action."

In 2020 (before Series XS and Zenimax acquisition) Phil Spencer trivialized hardware sales and attributed Sony's so called dominance on Microsoft's "choices" to go broader (Cloud, Services, PC day and date):

https://www.techspot.com/news/86397-xbox-boss-phil-spencer-selling-more-consoles-isnt.html

To quote uncle Phil:

"If [selling more consoles than Sony and Nintendo] was our approach, we wouldn't put our games on PC. We wouldn't put our games on Xbox One; we wouldn't do xCloud and allow people to play games on their phones."

They're pushing a very different narrative now because they want the deal to go through which could help them control and potentially dominate the market in the long run.

• I don't see a narratives change at all, sure they might sell more consoles as a results but the Xbox remain only a part of their offering and is not considered as a be-all end-all measure to their overall success.

Sony and Nintendo didn't monopolize through force.

• if you exclude the 90's and early 2000s I guess

Their popularity primarily stems from strong 1st party output and 2nd party relationships (especially Nintendo), and designing great and well rounded hardware (especially Sony), their brand power is the accumulation of right choices and consistent quality, which I respect. If Microsoft is upset about their current model and just wants to minimize Sony's so called "dominance" in the console space, then do what Sony does and make Series XS exclusives, drop GamePass day and date support, and hire/cultivate talent.

• So then again we come to an argument that is basically "Xbox's ability should be limited by what Sony/Nintendo do or as done in the past". I could not agree less with this.
• Also, you keep saying Microsoft should dial down their GamePass offering to match what Sony offers. I don't see how that's gonna make them more competitive all the while it's Sony over the past few years that upped their game on subscription service ever closer to Gamepass offering

They've been in the business for over 2 decades ffs. Microsoft (especially post Zenimax) isn't inherently weak, they're just feigning weakness.

• Source please, when did MS feign weakness or said they're weak. I agree that the post-merger with Zenimax effects are still yet to materialize when speaking about the offering MS will be able to make but their combined revenues is still lower than Sony's, in fact it will still be lower with Activision under them. It's not feigning weakness, it's just factual. 

Wanting to match Sony's console business when consoles are hardly a priority to them is a blatant desire to dominate.

• Again that's not their goal, that's not how they measure their success. if it was they would not be releasing 100% of their game on PC let alone day and date but they've been doing so for the better part of a decade, the last console exclusive, to my knowledge, was Halo 5 in 2015. 

If you're happy with your model, stfu and accept being behind in hardware and traditional software sales (not you! Microsoft lol). If you're not happy about it, revert to the old model.

• I don't know how and why acquisition would/could not be part of their model.

Compromises are inevitable unless you want to monopolize which MS I think intends to through brute force.

• This deal won't result in anything close to a monopoly and you cannot judge this deal because they might possibly do other that will. Also, MS has a lot of businesses and all have healthy competition even their OS segment as previously stated. 

Conversely, if Sony isn't happy about their cloud/services/PC performance, then they should support them day and date at the cost of lower PS5 success. Can't win them all.

• they could do day-and-date releases on their service without affecting the success of their PS5, except if they measure their success through their profit margins.

"I think Forza Horizon 5 and halo infinite sold better than you think outside of GamePass, also your to dismissive of the value they bring through GamePass by the way of new subscriptions and retention of current users. Even if Starfield sold 0 copies outside of GamePass but bring value that MS estimated as greater than the title's budget through GamePass it's still a success."

And how much do you think I think they sold outside GamePass? lol. FH5 and Halo Infinite (Microsoft's two biggest original games) were released day 1 on a massive install base and yet they're barely up there with C-tier Nintendo games in traditional sales, and are nowhere near Sony's best sellers. Their public results shouldn't persuade Sony to copy Microsoft's model. They're not going day 1 service until we see Microsoft's games consistently charting high and Xbox reporting profits. There's also the possibility of Xbox software across the board (as opposed to just games included in GamePass) declining as a result of a segment of gamers being spoiled by GamePass and playing near-exclusively on it. A lot of things have to align before Sony considers Microsoft's approach.

• Why would you limit your measure of success to copy sold outside of GamePass? MS cannot create a service like GamePass and than not take it into account when measuring it's success, that would be silly. it's like saying Netflix has 0 success cause their copy sold outside the service is almost none existent. That's why unique player count and/or time spent by players is a better measure here even if you found those to be inflated/hard to compare 1 for 1 vs Sony's. Both games are considered great success by MS and the community and that should be enough, I'm not in any way attached to knowing the specific numbers of sales nor I'm I entitled to. 

Last edited by EpicRandy - on 19 December 2022