That's a short sighted way of looking at consolidation. An acquisition like this will impact the industry forever, for better or worse, at the very least gaming will look like the entertainment industry, where everything is fragmented even for PC. It can very well lead to Microsoft doubling the price of XBLG/GamePass or having their gaming division operate similar to Microsoft 365.

The latter is especially possible with the direction Microsoft is going in terms of subscription services. 

MS is going to be pumping out, in the next few years when they get things organized, on average probably at least one major AAA game a month. Like Halo, Skyrim, Call of Duty, Diablo, Doom-level major. No way PlayStation will be pumping out their exclusives even close to that rate. And sure, MS may not be making all or even most of those games exclusives, but they will have a lot more games going out and making profit, have a lot more evergreens, and a lot more incentive to subscribe to Gamepass than gamers will have to subscribe to Sony's version of Gamepass.

I say this as someone who loves Nintendo primarily and is enjoying gow 2018 on PC quite a lot.

This is what I had an issue with.  This was a direct jab at Microsoft and Phil, not to mention you said they were happy to do it.

This is where I was at, but glad you are there as well.

If this had been Nintendo making the purchase and then Sony and Xbox fanboys saying that Nintendo rewarded Activision's bad behavior, then that would have been equally as bad.  

But I expect the butt-hurts to make this connection going forward anyways and it will make for some lame distractions to actual discussion.  

How is it short sighted? They could make Gamepass $100 a month and I still would have saved money looking at what I've played on it and the value of those games over the past couple years. I fully expect them to raise the Gamepass price with this massive buyout and I'm fully okay with that. I'm saving money, especially when one considers the fact that purchased games are starting to go the route of $70 for AAA.

I am a huge Blizzard fan and i can say that since these recent events, they were dying. Also majorly of Blizzard games are monetized so nothing really changes moving forward.

That CEO now has bigger bosses. He will need to earn his money now. His not even a drop in a pond to a company like MS.

Phil just became a CEO himself. So now we've got a CEO (Activision/Blizzard, if they stay unified under MS) reporting to a CEO (MS Games) reporting to a CEO (MS). I'm not confused at all.

Activision Blizzard will fall under the Xbox Game Studios banner which means that they report to Phil. However like Bethesda, they will still be ran by their internal leaderships and do their own things. Phil will report to the high end management at MS. 

Microsoft> Xbox Game Studios> All gaming divisions

Wow....what an acquisition! I can only hope there isn't an acquisition bigger than this. At which point, MS would be on the radar for monopoly. Holy smokes!