Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

[Morgoth]

Hatchets are flying!

Spoiler

The consoomer will get shafted anyways.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

This is all stupid because of course this deal is going to happen no matter how much Sony or whoever cry about it. Microsoft is under both Sony and Nintendo when it comes to the video games market. And...this isn’t even as big a deal as Disney’s Fox buyout that was OK just a few years ago. There’s no way this deal doesn’t happen after the bigger Disney Fox deal.

Sony’s fake position on why they don’t want this to happen is also pretty funny because Microsoft would fucking love to have Xbox Game Pass to Sony systems. Sony is afraid they won’t get Call of Duty anymore? Well, beside it not even being beneficial to not have a free-to-play Call of Duty on everything they can. Microsoft wants to bring everything they’ve got on Game Pass to PlayStation by way of Game Pass.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...ning-over-activision-deal-sources-2023-01-16/

Microsoft faces EU antitrust warning over Activision deal - sources​

BRUSSELS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O) is likely to receive an EU antitrust warning about its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O), people familiar with the matter said, that could pose another challenge to completing the deal.

The European Commission is readying a charge sheet known as a statement of objections setting out its concerns about the deal which will be sent to Microsoft in the coming weeks, the people said.

The EU antitrust watchdog, which has set an April 11 deadline for its decision on the deal, declined to comment.

Microsoft said: "We're continuing to work with the European Commission to address any marketplace concerns. Our goal is to bring more games to more people, and this deal will further that goal."

The U.S. software giant and Xbox maker announced the acquisition in January last year to help it compete better with leaders Tencent (0700.HK) and Sony (6758.T).\

Microsoft logo is seen on a smartphone placed on displayed Activision Blizzard logo in this illustration taken January 18, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

U.S. and UK regulators, however, have voiced concerns, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission going to court to block the deal.

Microsoft was expected to offer remedies to EU regulators in an attempt to avert a statement of charge and shorten the regulatory process, other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in November.

The EU competition enforcer, however, is not expected to be open to remedies without first sending out its charge sheet, although there are ongoing informal discussions on concessions, the people said.


Microsoft last month reached a 10-year deal with Nintendo (7974.T) to make "Call of Duty" available on Nintendo consoles, saying it was open to a similar agreement with Sony, which is critical of the acquisition.

The deal has received the green light without conditions in Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Serbia.

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Alienman]

10k Indians cried out in pain.

 

[lycanwarrior]

I have a feeling this won't be the first or last gaming company to do so.

2022 wasn't a great year for the gaming industry.

 

[Caim]

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

 

[Alienman]

About time. One of the most mismanaged gaming companies in recent times that was awarded for it.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Xbox game studios is shit show...

Perfect dark? Fucked and with no release date

Fable? Rebooted countless times with no release date

Halo? 343 managed to turn one of the biggest franchises in gaming into the laughingstock of first person shooters.

Doom? Missing in combat

Elder scrolls? 10 years away

Starfield? Will be Bethesda's buggiest release yet

Forza? No one plays driving games

Those two shit games from bethesda released exclusively on the PS5 and that one played and I can't even bother to remember the names

Redfall? Minorities fighting vampires with magic and Goonies gadgets... How can you go from prey and dishonored to this shit?

Mentally unstable women fights trolls game is also missing in combat with no release date.

Compare this stellar lineup with the sales numbers Sony is pushing, and it's apparent that MS is one step away from nuking their gaming division like they did a years ago.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I have a feeling this won't be the first or last gaming company to do so.

2022 wasn't a great year for the gaming industry.

Well, Microsoft is more than just a gaming company.

Schreier’s framing in that tweet is pretty funny. It sure seems like he’s trying to spin that story as “Microsoft is trying to spend $65 billion over here, yet is firing these people over here because they presumably “can’t” pay them” when the two things are unrelated.

I wonder which framing of that story would get people on Twitter and ResetEra the most pretend outraged?

Microsoft Fires 10,000 Employees

or
Microsoft Fires Less Than 5% Of Employees

The total number of Microsoft employees has also gone up by like 77000 people since 2019.

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

​

 

[Dexter]

Only reason I'm slightly enthusiastic about Microsoft buying shitty game studios like Activision Blizzard is that Gaming is basically a minuscule part of the Microsoft empire/business, the planning and strategy for such buyouts only last about a console generation and they're just a "reorganization" away from dissolving them like they did to Ensemble, Digital Anvil, FASA, Lionhead etc. when they switched from PC to console and didn't know what to do with them anymore. Basically use the power of being a unwieldy corporate behemoth to do some good and get rid of some of these shit companies.

 

[Lambach]

Basically use the power of being a unwieldy corporate behemoth to do some good and get rid of some of these shit companies.

All this accomplishes is that instead of 6-7 massive companies dominating the market you'll end up with just 2 supermassive behemoths doing the same.

Cowadooty won't stop having yearly iterations for the rest of eternity even if Activision gets absorbed into an even larger Borg hivemind that now has even less of a reason to care about putting out a good game because it has less competition.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Only reason I'm slightly enthusiastic about Microsoft buying shitty game studios like Activision Blizzard is that Gaming is basically a minuscule part of the Microsoft empire/business, the planning and strategy for such buyouts only last about a console generation and they're just a "reorganization" away from dissolving them like they did to Ensemble, Digital Anvil, FASA, Lionhead etc. when they switched from PC to console and didn't know what to do with them anymore. Basically use the power of being a unwieldy corporate behemoth to do some good and get rid of some of these shit companies.

Not one of those companies is even kind of as big as Blizzard or any of the major companies that make up Activision.

It’s not exactly like the shift in focus from PC to console did them in either. Outside of Digital Anvil, who made the horrible Brute Force game, all those studios made it into the 360 era. Lionhead made in well into the Xbox One.

 

[Ravielsk]

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

Microsoft is hilariously bad at managing their own studios. If they did not have a monopoly on the PC operating systems they would have been forced to abandon the console market after the launch of the OG Xbox. Just as far as I can remember they cancelled more games than they released and what they managed to squeeze out was a lot of things but "impressive" or "memorable" is definitely not one of them. 343 being awful is just another symptom of that.
In fact they more or less openly stated that the only reason they got into the console business was to cock block Sony from achieving dominance on the gaming market. Which is I suppose a good enough motivation to start something but a utterly shit one for anything long term.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

The corporate leash around their neck is doing as intended. Good Microsoft Good, beatings must continue until morale improves.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Considering how Blizzard has gone downhill, I wouldn't shed a tear if they were dissolved completely. Their RTSes were mechanically fun, altho the writing was crap and I got PTSD from trying to explain to idiots that they're actually poorly written and this sort of thing is normal for video games (I'm a masochist, sue me). You wouldn't believe the mental gymnastics that fans go through to justify keeping Queen of Blades and Amon when they're completely antithetical to the rest of the IP (we already had Overmind as the hammy ultimate villain, we don't need more and especially not clearly inferior ones with blatantly shortsighted idiotic motives). To say nothing of how 90% of modern warcraft is unnecessary garbage that makes Age of Sigmar look well constructed by comparison. Remember how WC3 had Archimonde sending Lich King to prepare the way for his invasion? Turns out that the dreadlords, scourge infrastructure, magic artifacts, etc were outsourced from the Shadowlands and actually had no reason to help Archimonde in the first place. If you're going to invalidate the fictional history of your own IP, then at least have the good sense to reboot the damn thing for consistency.

This sort of stupid shit is why I've become critical of stories in general, not just ones in video games. Modern writers don't have the good sense to end their stories, so they keep going on like zombies and accumulating more and more inconsistencies until they lose all coherence. It's gotten to the point where I'm praising fucking Hasbro of all companies for rebooting Transformers every few years.

I'm not even looking forward to Stormgate. I fully expect it will make all the same mistakes over and over again, and the sycophants will viciously attack me if I say anything even vaguely critical.

 

[DeepOcean]

Microsoft bought a bunch of zombie companies like Obsidian and is trying to buy a senile company that is so disfunctional that isnt able to produce anything new for more than a decade and is only able to live off of previous successes and the fact that their closest competitors like EA and 2K manage to be even more incompetent than them. I won't be surprised if all those studios Microsoft bought turn out to be massive liabilities as they arent producing anything new of worth for a LONG time.

 

[lycanwarrior]

I have a feeling this won't be the first or last gaming company to do so.

2022 wasn't a great year for the gaming industry.

Well, Microsoft is more than just a gaming company.

Schreier’s framing in that tweet is pretty funny. It sure seems like he’s trying to spin that story as “Microsoft is trying to spend $65 billion over here, yet is firing these people over here because they presumably “can’t” pay them” when the two things are unrelated.

I wonder which framing of that story would get people on Twitter and ResetEra the most pretend outraged?

Microsoft Fires 10,000 Employees

or
Microsoft Fires Less Than 5% Of Employees

The total number of Microsoft employees has also gone up by like 77000 people since 2019.

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

​

Well Schreier is a flaming leftist/Marxist...

 

[lycanwarrior]

Riot Games Also Hit by Layoffs in eSports, HR, and Support Areas​

https://wccftech.com/riot-games-also-hit-by-layoffs-in-esports-hr-and-support-areas/

 

[Morgoth]

I have a feeling this won't be the first or last gaming company to do so.

2022 wasn't a great year for the gaming industry.

Well, Microsoft is more than just a gaming company.

Schreier’s framing in that tweet is pretty funny. It sure seems like he’s trying to spin that story as “Microsoft is trying to spend $65 billion over here, yet is firing these people over here because they presumably “can’t” pay them” when the two things are unrelated.

I wonder which framing of that story would get people on Twitter and ResetEra the most pretend outraged?

Microsoft Fires 10,000 Employees

or
Microsoft Fires Less Than 5% Of Employees

The total number of Microsoft employees has also gone up by like 77000 people since 2019.

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

​

Well Schreier is a flaming leftist/Marxist...

Well, you are a fucking idiot so your opinion is worthless.

 

[Lambach]

Well Schreier is a flaming leftist/Marxist...

>flaming leftist/Marxist
>works for fucking Bloomberg

Nah, he's just an opportunistic cocksucking Kike chameleon. He'd start wearing a Swastika armbrand tomorrow if that happened to become popular and trendy in society, specially among the corpo/journo clique.

 

[lycanwarrior]

I have a feeling this won't be the first or last gaming company to do so.

2022 wasn't a great year for the gaming industry.

Well, Microsoft is more than just a gaming company.

Schreier’s framing in that tweet is pretty funny. It sure seems like he’s trying to spin that story as “Microsoft is trying to spend $65 billion over here, yet is firing these people over here because they presumably “can’t” pay them” when the two things are unrelated.

I wonder which framing of that story would get people on Twitter and ResetEra the most pretend outraged?

Microsoft Fires 10,000 Employees

or
Microsoft Fires Less Than 5% Of Employees

The total number of Microsoft employees has also gone up by like 77000 people since 2019.

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

​

Well Schreier is a flaming leftist/Marxist...

Well, you are a fucking idiot so your opinion is worthless.

Hitting a little too close for home eh, lmao

 

[Morgoth]

I have a feeling this won't be the first or last gaming company to do so.

2022 wasn't a great year for the gaming industry.

Well, Microsoft is more than just a gaming company.

Schreier’s framing in that tweet is pretty funny. It sure seems like he’s trying to spin that story as “Microsoft is trying to spend $65 billion over here, yet is firing these people over here because they presumably “can’t” pay them” when the two things are unrelated.

I wonder which framing of that story would get people on Twitter and ResetEra the most pretend outraged?

Microsoft Fires 10,000 Employees

or
Microsoft Fires Less Than 5% Of Employees

The total number of Microsoft employees has also gone up by like 77000 people since 2019.

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

​

Well Schreier is a flaming leftist/Marxist...

Well, you are a fucking idiot so your opinion is worthless.

Hitting a little too close for home eh, lmao

Nah, just getting annoyed with all those retarded "Leftist/Marxist" red herrings for anything Schreier reports.

 

[Caim]

343 Studios apparently got hit pretty hard, which isn't strange given how Halo Infinite was received.

The only thing that’s strange is Microsoft didn’t do something about 343 years ago. I wonder if when they get Activision Blizzard they just hand Halo off to one of the FPS studios they’ve got...wouldn’t totally surprise me if that happened.

Watch them hand Halo off to Todd and Halo 7 (a number with great importance in Bungee lore) is Master Chief in Skyrim. Infinite's already an open world, so why not crank it up a notch?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

They’ll soon have Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, High Moon Studios, Treyarch, and Raven Software all under their roof. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next Halo gets handed off to one of them...one of them that isn’t Infinity Ward anyways, they seem to be back to being the top CoD developer again.

If they gave it to Bethesda it’d be id or Arkane making it. Most likely Arkane because I’m sure they want a new Doom. It would be interesting if they just gave Halo to Tango Gameworks, and essentially just let Shinji Mikami use the name to make Vanquish 2. Vanquish, like Halo, also started out with RTS stuff; would be interesting to see them go back and put that in.