If Microsoft wants to kill Call of Duty as the top brand, they can go and make it exclusive.  It will drop to the level Halo is.  EA or possibly Ubisoft, which will have a multiplatform title, will end up taking the place of Call of Duty.  A maximize profits standpoint says to not make Call of Duty exclusive.  

Raaaare ;)

Turn10 sells less and less with every game - Forza 4 sold half of Forza 3.
Bungie wanted to leave so badly cause they didn't want to make Halo anymore
The Head of Lionhead did run away cause he couldn't stand it there anymore - Fable never was any good.Don't be delusional.The whole Franchise wasn't the ULTIMATE GOD OF GAMING they promised.
343 Studios is just milking Halo even further - Selling Halo on the 360 in the USA is soo hard - As next you are telling me every Call of Duty is refining the whole genre new and does so many new things so it deserves the numbers LOL - But hey the REALLY LAST TRILOGY AFTER THE LAST TRILOGY WILL BE REALLY THE LAST TRILOGY :D
EPIC is doing Smartphone Games cause they make more money in relation to worktime and income.They also said they would love to work together with Sony in the future.
Remedy BEGGED they could bring Alan Wake to PC cause it sold THAT poor(after all that hype) - Alan Wake only sold a few 100k before it was droped to under 20$ 1 month after release.The PC Version made them a lot of money btw.So Alan Wake is now a PC IP cause there is the BEST version.

Blizzard will never bring their games directed to consoles.Dream on.
They aim for competitive gameplay - Starcraft will never work on consoles.Their games is designed for PC.And please don't compare Halo Wars to Starcraft.
Every WoW Content and the Gameplay is aimed at PC COntrols - No you can't raid with a Gamepad except they would add some "ultra noob mode"(yes even under the raidfinder)...Rotations and stuff with those controll style wouldn't work.
Diablo the same - But here is the possibility Console can get an own version.And here is Blizzard more in Love with Sony.If you read about Diablo for consoles its always in combination with Sony.
Then Blizzard has TItan - Its so long in work the concept is probably already finished with PC in mind.They won't change it.
So Blizzard has no Franchise that would work on consoles except a Diablo that is directly made for them and that means its nowhere near the quality level and fluent gameplay.

And again please don't compare Starcraft with Halo Wars.
This is like comparing Battlefield 3 PC with Call of Duty - One is played by people with awesome skills and directly aimed at those and the other...well...Ranting little kids that death threaten you with their Justin Bieber voice over XboxLive/PSN

@Activision
M$ could buy them - Wouldn't change that much to be honest.
What would happen?Call of Duty goes 360 Exclusive - Won't affect anything at all.
The people in the US would continue like it is now > Play their game with an Engine from 1999 again and again.
The few people in the USA with a PS3 will just change to Battlefield or the new "CoD" - In Europe the PS3 is destroying the 360 and even there CoD is selling better on that console.German PreOrder Charts show that the PS3 Version is so far above the 360 version of Black Ops 2.Mostly in Europe the case except maybe the UK but no one is taking them seriously.
What would happen in Europe if CoD goes M$ Exclusive?Battlefield here is already as strong as CoD and EA/DICE are pretty much in love with Sony.
Here Battlefield would pretty much overtake completely.

What would it mean for the CoD Franchise?
From 25 Million sold units it will go down to 12-15 Million sold units,maybe less if the Franchise really starts to lose its appeal,even to the hardest fanboys.
Activision aka Bobby Kotick would lose numbers - There M$ would have to pay a lot to make them the exclusivity tasty cause Activision would only lose otherwise.
And all other Franchises Activision has aren't really anywhere near "OMG ITS GONE" worthy.There are enough better games from the few things they have that are either multiplat or Sony Exclusive.

I tend to be verbose.

My observation was that the vast majority of Activision's work is within two baskets - one is Blizzard with MMOs, and the other is CoD, which they have something insane like 8 different studios working on it. Skylanders isn't big enough to really be more than a tiny basket in the meantime, and beyond that, they have external companies in publishing deals. And a 10-year publishing deal where the IP remains with the developer isn't exactly long-term, in the end, especially given that such a deal likely has certain "outs" to prevent a case where one of the two mismanages things. But then, the point is that Bungie can't make more Halo, or any of their other, previous franchises. That means that a Bungie deal is risky by nature.

And the real point with Time Warner is that, if they did buy Activision, they'd most likely reorganise - it's the studios that Time Warner wants, not the management. And given that stock prices would likely fall for Activision on the sale (as it's a buyer's market in this case), Kotick would probably want to cash in his stocks now, when the price is so high. And it's not that Kotick "might" make Activision less profitable in the future, it's that he has already done so. Franchise after franchise has been driven into the ground by Kotick, franchises that should have been alive and kicking now. Consider that, under Sony, Crash Bandicoot was huge. When Activision got hold of it, it rapidly dwindled.

Most older publishers have a set of older IPs that they continue to use, that they've built up over time. Capcom has, for instance, Mega Man and Street Fighter. Ubisoft still has Rayman and has created a new spinoff franchise from it. Square Enix has Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (amongst others). What does Activision have? Their oldest "current" IP is Tony Hawk's games, from 1999, despite Activision having been around since 1979... and Tony Hawk's is a shadow of its former self, mostly barely surviving thanks to the Wii giving it just enough to survive. The top 13 Tony Hawks games (counting platforms separately) all released between 1999 and 2005. No Tony Hawks game since 2006 onwards has managed to sell over 1 million copies on a platform, and the only ones to come close were a Wii title and a PSP title.

And Vivendi sold their share of NBC Universal in 2010, mostly because GE was selling their share to Comcast. I don't think you can honestly claim that their decision to sell Activision is in any way related.

I agree with your overall argument, but I feel I should correct this.

Forza 4 isn't selling any worse than Forza 3. The difference is that Forza 3 has been out more than three times as long. Forza 3 sold less than 2 million in the year it released. Forza 4 sold roughly the same amount in that year. The year after that, Forza 3 sold almost 2.5 million. Forza 4 isn't up to that level now, but that may be because it's only mid-year, and game sales are mostly holiday-heavy. The only thing that will really dampen Forza 4 from selling as well as Forza 3 is the announcement of the Xbox successor.

And claiming that Turn 10 sells "less and less with every game" just doesn't make sense. Forza 3 outsold Forza 2, which outsold Forza 1. The Forza series is Turn 10's only output, and two out of the three successive games (not counting Forza 1, since it set the starting point) saw greater sales than the one before it. And Forza 4 may make it three out of three.

My only criticism is that Turn 10 seem to be making another Forza for release less than a year after the previous one.

why you care that

every thread about MS will have someone get in and crash it

it's usual

If true I think MS is waiting to see how this years and probably next years CoD sales turn out assuming that Cod is the main reason to MS buying activision...if the sales show decline then it might keep MS at bay.

did you read it? I dont think you did. it specificaly says why. they are refocusing on telcoms as that is their main business and their compitor has a big bank roll (the french telcom company) so they are selling off all of the entertainment divisions to raise capitol and to refocus on telcom, their main business. It also says they may split in two companies a media company and a telcom company. You asked for why, we gave you an article explaining it in detail and you still refuse to aacept the facts. No point in discussing this if you will be blind to things around you.

"

Video game maker Activision Blizzard and Maroc Telecom head up the list of candidates for sale, analysts and bankers said, but his successors could now also mull a Murdoch-style split of the business into a telecom and media arm.

"Look at what Murdoch announced, look at all the precedents of a well executed split, and it always releases the conglomerate discount and it creates a lot of value for the shareholders," said one source close to the matter adding while Levy had been opposed to such a move, Chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou was "much more pragmatic."

Vivendi, whose debt burden soared by roughly a third last year to 12 billion euros ($15 billion), has seen its stock price slump 13 percent this year on growing concern about competition faced by its long-time cash cow, French telecoms operator SFR."

That is the reason, its clearly stated right there. they need money to compete with the other telcom (wich is their main business, not a company they own 60% in.

I think you're reading a whole lot more into it than is actually there. It doesn't say that Vivendi are getting rid of non-telecom subsidiaries. It says that the main reason for their lowering stock price is the competition against one of its main telecom subsidiaries. And what it actually says is that their biggest problem is debt.

And I'm not sure you noticed, but the section right before that speaks of the possibility of simply splitting the company in two - this would do nothing to help them get money to compete with other telecoms. It's far more likely that they are choosing to get rid of subsidiaries that they feel will be a liability going forwards.

So no, it doesn't address the "why", it only addresses the circumstances surrounding it. You are the one hypothesising based on what was said.

Agree. CoD is already bigger on XB360, but its sales are huge on PS3 too, so a few, almost painless touches to keep the XBox version the biggest, while keeping on profiting princely on rival platforms too could be the best choice. Also because XB already has a huge FPS and a huge TPS exclusives and the former, Halo, is the biggest FPS after CoD and together with it is already able to make the difference amongs most die-hard FPS fans. Not to mention that abandoning Sony platforms would be a huge gift for EA's BF. Finally, other Activision shareholders would sue MS, should it damage the company giving up profits from PS consoles and portables just to damage Sony.

Anyhow, CoD becoming XB exclusive could be a very interesting experiment, and I'd be very curious to see it.

Ubisoft have 8 different studios working on Assassin's Creed as well... You say that they are putting all their Activision devs into one basket yet everything else they do somehow doesn't count because it's not as big as CoD. Of course most of their resources are in their biggest franchise and of course their other projects aren't as big as CoD, if they were they would get the same number of resources. Activision also have their licenced games, pubilshing of 3rd party games, Tony Hawk HD, and the up and comming Skylanders. 

What exactly would you have them do may I ask?

I don't see why Time Warner would really want to mess with them TBH not until they stop making money hand over fist anyway.