Diablo IV on Game Pass day one would cost a crazy amount, it would make all their other deals so far look like indie payments, Lol.
Few issues with it aside from that, one being that Activision have straight up said to regulators in an effort to pass the deal that they don't care about Game Pass, that without this acquisition, Activision-Blizzard titles will never launch day one into Game Pass or similar services, to suddenly do a deal would show they lied to regulators and that these benefits of this acquisition could happen without Microsoft owning ABK.
Other is the cost and the last is that Activision-Blizzard is likely being honest in that they don't believe in these services, in the same way that Take-Two has made very clear over the years, not all publishers are onboard with Game Pass day one and you'd have to offer them an extreme amount of money to get them onboard.
Activision has to operate business as usual, until the acquisition actually closes. Microsoft could take a risk and offer them an amount too good to say no to on the confidence that the deal will pass anyway and ABK will come under them, money included, but at this stage that is a decent risk on top of the $3bn they're going to owe Activision, Lol.
Although CMA have said they don't care about the Game Pass market and are only concerned about Console exclusivity and Cloud but I don't know if it's wise still to basically show that you lied to CMA and other regulators, Lol. Might not cause them to bring up a Subscription market cause for concern since they've already dropped that angle but it could make them doubt the usefulness of Microsoft's Nvidia/Nintendo contracts.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 13 March 2023
