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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Where do you stand on Microsoft buying Activision/Blizzard?

 

For or against the acquisition?

For 58 41.43%
 
Against 54 38.57%
 
Neutral 28 20.00%
 
Total:140
EpicRandy on 15 December 2022
Zkuq said:
EpicRandy said:

Gabe Newell certainly disagree on your statement of MS' trustworthiness. For Nintendo, they themselves have helped MS out by accepting the CoD 10 year deal. But that said I totally understand and respect your opinion even if I don't share it.

Gabe is in a different position though. Steam has been doing very well even without Call of Duty, so clearly there's not that much threat against Steam even if Call of Duty strayed away from Steam again. Additionally, Microsoft has demonstrated its willingness to put its games on Steam for years now, probably because that's where the money's at on PC. That is, Gabe has good reason to believe that Microsoft is actually interested in releasing its games on Steam, and even if they weren't, Steam would still do just fine. He can definitely afford to be trusting. In the console market however, the belief seems to be that exclusives matter a lot, and I'm sure both Microsoft and Sony are looking further than just the next ten years.

I pretty much agree to all this.

I would like nothing more than if they were no exclusive at all and console from manufacturer only represented what they view as the best way to play their titles.

There's precedent to that in the movie industry. Were movie company only released movie in their own theater before being force by the governement to divest their theater so every movie could be seen in any theater. Would like noting more than this hapening in the gaming industry as well. 



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Kyuu on 15 December 2022
EpicRandy said:
Kyuu said:

I waver between netural and against it. First of all, it's naive if not disingenuous to say it's only bad for Sony:

1. An acquisition of this magnitide is guaranteed to push Sony (and others) to step up their acquisition plans, which could affect Nintendo consoles in addition to Xbox and to some extent PC. Sony is more traditional than Microsoft and is more likely to make exclusives.

2. Unless the above happens and Sony gobbles up a publisher or two, it will be harder for MS to acquire a large number of smaller developers and publishers.

3. This "nice" Microsoft is temporary and directly tied to their "only 30% marketshare, next to Sony's 70%!!!". GamePass as I and many others predicted will increase in price, and lots of the future games people assume will be there on day 1 in fact won't be. And to any GamePass user who isn't a fan of CoD and AB games, a GamePass price hike caused by inclusion of CoD is definitely a negative. A higher entry price is worse value to a segment of people.

The deal has some obvious positives though:

1. GamePass day 1 is a good thing. The future, no matter how evil I think Microsoft are, is guesswork after all.

2. It hints to a positive change in the toxic workplace.

3. Promises support for Nintendo platforms.

4. Makes Sony less reliant on videos games I consider garbage, and hopefully forces them to innovate and diversify their 1st party lineup.

Sony is the only company making arguments against this deal so I don't think saying so is naive or disingenuous. If any other actors resent this deal they have yet to manifest themselves publicly and to regulators.

If Nintendo themselves believed the scenario you highlighted as anything serious or likely they would say so to the regulators and won't be making deal with MS improving their chance of success with the deal. 

Sony might very well acquire more studios because of it or buy studios they already planned to we would never know but Microsoft can't be blocked by what Sony might plan to do or not do.

The nice attitude from ms is not because they are behind in console sales, it is because they're in front of subscription base game delivery and don't see Sony's (and others') existence as a threat but as an actor that adds to the potential of the overall market. And this is also true for Sony if MS can bring more consumer to the market some will certainly end up playing Sony games and even some will use the cheaper way of playing MS propose to also buy a PS5+.

As for the pricing, to have read many discussion around it I could guarantee you no one here believe Microsoft will ever increase the price. The best I can hope is that the price won't increase as long as Microsoft heavily focuses on growth but that has an end. 

As for removing the day 1 release to GP, there is 0 indication this will happen short, medium, or long term. If the argument is anything is possible then yeah but 99% sure Sony will add a day 1 release to their subscription way before MS even thinks of stopping it.

Also, the transaction would be done with cash on hand as an exchange for the equivalent value in assets, MS may well be increasing the price of their subs pricing afterward but doubt this transaction will be the culprit though, as inflation and a shift of focus from growth to sustain and growth are more like it. Also, keep in mind that Gamepass is still at the same price as in 2017 when it was released. With only a 2% yearly inflation it already makes GamePass $1.02 cheaper than at release and so a 1-dollar potential increase could be solely attributed to it.

I was clearly referring to the consequences on players. Among corporations, mainly platform holders are affected, and between those, only Sony is negatively impacted for obvious reasons. Nintendo is self sufficient and wouldn't panic at the mere thought of Sony buying Square Enix or Capcom (which don't represent much for Nintendo anyways), let alone FromSoftware which means nothing to Nintendo. They're not so paranoid as to think that deep into ABK's acquisition and per-emtpively attempt to block a Sony response. Zenimax/Bethesda was more important to Sony than any individual Japanese publisher is to Nintendo, and yet Sony made no attempts at blocking that, and only retaliated after the ABK news because it was then clear that Microsoft intends to control the future of gaming and manage huge IP's that sell super well on Playstation consoles.

Microsoft has clear intentions to monopolize the future of gaming via brute force (they will fail). When they gain complete control over some of the most popular gaming IP's and developers, they won't be so nice anymore. They're already raising prices after speaking against it for temporary PR points, and they attempted to double Live Gold's price and only stopped because Xbox isn't powerful enough to absorb the backlash. Things should and will change when they're more comfortable.

A lot of people argued that GamePass won't need any price hikes anytime soon, and the "possible" loss in traditional sales from the inclusions of CoD and the likes would be offset by an increase in subscriber count. I argued that price hike is inevitable if every big Zenimax/ABK game is added day and date, or else Xbox profitability would decline (if it's not in the minus already) and MS higher ups may not be happy about it forever. MS missed their GamePass subs target for two consecutive years.

It's one thing to argue that the benefits/potential outweigh the negatives/risks (fair take), it's another to argue it's only bad for Sony.

"As for removing the day 1 release to GP, there is 0 indication this will happen short, medium, or long term. If the argument is anything is possible then yeah but 99% sure Sony will add a day 1 release to their subscription way before MS even thinks of stopping it."

Hard disagree but we'll wait and see. Sony's not gonna put any AAA game day 1 on a service unless MS's biggest exclusives on GamePass sell nearly as much on Xbox as Sony games do on Playstation. this would send the signal that services aren't hurting sales much, and Sony would put it to the test. There is a chance that they may do a test on their own regardless, but I doubt they'd like the results.

Starfield should be the first "real test", ignoring Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 which left the charts as soon as they entered. Ragnarok sold the majority of copies on PS5... let's see how the Xbox version of Starfield fairs against the PC version. Oh wait... we can't... MS hardly shares anything! The only milestone in recent years they proudly shared is Sea of Thieves selling 5 million on Steam, without announcing Xbox numbers (where the vast majority of GamePass users are).

Last edited by Kyuu - on 15 December 2022

zero129 on 15 December 2022
EpicRandy said:
Zkuq said:

Gabe is in a different position though. Steam has been doing very well even without Call of Duty, so clearly there's not that much threat against Steam even if Call of Duty strayed away from Steam again. Additionally, Microsoft has demonstrated its willingness to put its games on Steam for years now, probably because that's where the money's at on PC. That is, Gabe has good reason to believe that Microsoft is actually interested in releasing its games on Steam, and even if they weren't, Steam would still do just fine. He can definitely afford to be trusting. In the console market however, the belief seems to be that exclusives matter a lot, and I'm sure both Microsoft and Sony are looking further than just the next ten years.

I pretty much agree to all this.

I would like nothing more than if they were no exclusive at all and console from manufacturer only represented what they view as the best way to play their titles.

There's precedent to that in the movie industry. Were movie company only released movie in their own theater before being force by the governement to divest their theater so every movie could be seen in any theater. Would like noting more than this hapening in the gaming industry as well. 

I have been saying this for years. And the biggest people against me saying it have always been some Sony fans. at the time i used to point out how the biggest selling games where multi plats such as Fifa and Cod etc and thats what people where buying consoles for. And they would be like "no they buy them for the exclusives and the multi plats come next" well thanks to this gen i been proving right both by Ms releasing all their games on PC day and date and still having the fastest selling xbox ever and by Sony and some of their fans saying how CoD going to Ms would ruin them as its their biggest game.

I mean why do people buy a Sony Blu ray player over another companys or a TV? its what they put in the hardware!. If it was like that with consoles we would be getting great deals on consoles with more features and them all trying to out do eachother!.



zero129 on 15 December 2022
Mar1217 said:

While diluting my argument to the basic, I can't accept the merger of a big AAA publisher resulting in the shift and consolidation of a major corp. Whether anyone thinks the positives will outweight the bad, it is to you to value this deal on a short-term or long-term perspective.

Anywoo, the mismanagement stories of studios like The Initiative and the complete abandonment of their flagship series Halo in the hands of 345 Industries tell me that in some way, probably not now but in some way later .... They'll mess it up

Halo is now coming back in a big way thanks to the new season. But since you clearly dont follow it you wouldnt know that.

And i dont get what you are saying about the Initiative care to explain? anyways qoute me directly in your replys and id also like to know about all them studios MS has ruined like in your original post. And like i said are you going to talk about the ones with Sony too?. I mean Sony's Japan studio talk about some mismanagement there right?. for one example.



PaulPortland on 15 December 2022

I am for the purchase...

1st... The Gamepass will be better
2nd All the forgotten Ip's of Activision could have a second opportunity to come back
3rd Activision urges for a change inside its offices... I don't talk only about Kotick, but all the process and management that is root from the base to the peak



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Mr Puggsly on 15 December 2022

If it adds value to Gamepass, I am all for it.

I don't benefit from Sony protecting its own interest.



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kazuyamishima on 15 December 2022

I'm all for it.

But then don't complain about other companies like Sony, Amazon, or others doing the same.



zero129 on 15 December 2022
kazuyamishima said:

I'm all for it.

But then don't complain about other companies like Sony, Amazon, or others doing the same.

I dont think Sony would ever be able to buy something this big. However i would hate for sony to do the same as then i would have to wait a year or more before i could pay it on my PC Thats he huge difference..



SvennoJ on 15 December 2022

I changed my mind, let the deal go through quickly. The sooner the realities of a game streaming / subscription monopoly surface, the better. Acti-Blizzard (King) is on my avoid list anyway, so If MS wants to waste 69 billion on that, go ahead.

As for Sony, I don't want their subscription / streaming service either. And if this deal takes revenue away from Sony, that's only a good thing. Take the shooter crowd and Sony might focus more on games I like :)

Also the sooner the better, this nonsense has to stop
https://variety.com/2022/biz/news/activision-blizzard-california-department-fair-employment-housing-lawsuit-1235454921/
Gives you real confidence in Activision-Blizzard cleaning up, instead just attacking the allegations again. So the sooner new management steps in, the better.




zero129 on 15 December 2022
SvennoJ said:

I changed my mind, let the deal go through quickly. The sooner the realities of a game streaming / subscription monopoly surface, the better. Acti-Blizzard (King) is on my avoid list anyway, so If MS wants to waste 69 billion on that, go ahead.

As for Sony, I don't want their subscription / streaming service either. And if this deal takes revenue away from Sony, that's only a good thing. Take the shooter crowd and Sony might focus more on games I like :)

Also the sooner the better, this nonsense has to stop
https://variety.com/2022/biz/news/activision-blizzard-california-department-fair-employment-housing-lawsuit-1235454921/
Gives you real confidence in Activision-Blizzard cleaning up, instead just attacking the allegations again. So the sooner new management steps in, the better.


sarcasm or not i have to agree with you.  this deal does nothing for me and id much sooner if ms got some smaller pubs like sega/atlest so their games would always be day and date with pc. faster this deal ends the better if they get them or not