On this day, the scourge known as battlenet... IS... NO... MORE!!!!!!!

Maybe now people will understand why I kept arguing that Elderscrolls being exclusive is not a given based on MS's pattern of behaviour and past statements on their big aquisitions... or do people now expect COD to also skip PS5 this year?

That's the only shitty part to all of this actually

Insanely huge consolidation. I wonder if Sony will be forced to respond (maybe with something like Take-Two).

more gamepass titles and cod on gamepass? LFG microsoft. Amazing deal. Hopefully EA is next and we can get Madden/Fifa day one on gamepass

I expect exactly that.  MS is going after US market hard with their acquisitions.  Clearly a western focus and I expect a number of exclusives as a result.

*at the very least timed exclusives at a year or more

Lmao, this made me cackle 

I'm 99% sure he wont last for long. They just need the time to rebuild completely. He'll be out by the end of 2023.

We will see, but what needs to be understood is that MS is interested in Money and its money comes from sales of games and subscriptions to its services. I imagine they will seek to maximise both. Exclusivity is not necessity in order to do that, in fact its a hindrance. What I do expect will be exclusive is Xbox being the only place where you can play all COD games for $15 a month on release (+exclusive content/marketing/Spinoffs etc)

Edit: Its one thing to expect a number of exclusives, another to expect mainline COD to be that exclusive

I think this a little more than a mere reaction.

This comes off as near astronomical, since it's not only Activision and it's IP's, but also Blizzard's. This means MS has CoD/WoW under it's belt, as well as the insane money maker that is Candy Crush (which already makes more money than either WoW & CoD combined). 

As much as I hate Bobby and Acti, I'm really starting to not like this direction where only a few corps exist and they'll have everything under lock and key. This is just insane to watch happen.