Microsoft Tries to Buy Activision Blizzard

[hudson]

How will importing work in the console-less netflix-style service future?

[Dogg Thang]

no-one is forcing you to subscribe to game pass. The direct purchase option is going to continue to exist...

Not necessarily. Good luck buying Cobra Kai on blu ray. Stranger Things. And so on. When the competition becomes about the subscription services, they'll do everything they can to keep exclusives only on those platforms.

[Neon Ignition]

Yup, in future there's going to be a lot of permanently lost media

[Cassius_Smoke]

I for one welcome our Microsoft overlords.

Jokes aside, the 4th largest gaming company buying the 5th largest gaming company (which itself was formed of two companies) is a stride towards corporate oligopoly.

[Asura]

Not necessarily. Good luck buying Cobra Kai on blu ray. Stranger Things. And so on. When the competition becomes about the subscription services, they'll do everything they can to keep exclusives only on those platforms.

Disney have already said the MCU's not gonna appear on 4kBR anymore.

[Golgo]

Then just buy those four games... no-one is forcing you to subscribe to game pass. The direct purchase option is going to continue to exist...

Thankyou, but yes I was aware of that. I was merely contributing to a discussion about perceptions of value vis-a-vis digital subscription predicated on the glut-provision of titles on a temporary-licence basis.

[MartyG]

It's available on DVD, BluRay & digitally https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cobra-Kai-S...9MZTGNCC&psc=1

It'll continue to exist whilst there's a market there for it to make business sense, which it currently does as people are buying them, this is less so with movies and music (the mass market clearly like the convenience of streaming it). If there's market share there to be had and one platform in that market space abandons it, the others will gobble it up in short order.

[nonny]

I for one welcome our Microsoft overlords.

Jokes aside, the 4th largest gaming company buying the 5th largest gaming company (which itself was formed of two companies) is a stride towards corporate oligopoly.

I think I would rather MS buy them then Tencent. At least the top 3 gaming companies are all current console manufacturers with a long history in the market... plus even with this purchase MS are still 3rd in overall size (in this market).

I guess it's gets really interesting when Apple buys Sony...

[Neon Ignition]

I love that we're on a Cobra Kai tangent
I think Seasons 01-03 are on disc as they were produced by Youtube. From Season 04 onward they're made by Netflix so the disc releases will stop.

[sadat]

It's much easier to buy a developer, use the games it has in production and then bin them off. EA do it, and now MS. I don't believe, except for maybe COD and WoW that we will see anything actually new and interesting come out of this. In 10 years it'll be a dead company.

People are expecting a new Crash or Spyro game. Ridiculous. If MS wanted a classic platformer they already own the IP Banjo and haven't bothered. MS want head turner's. COD gets attention.

Same thing happened to Rare.

As long as nobody buys Nintendo, it’ll be business as usual for me. Never understood the attraction of a high fidelity shooting people in the head sim when you can have something like Splatoon.

Microsoft may be able to buy all these studios up for billions, but they’d never come up with a Splatoon

[fishbowlhead]

I guess it's gets really interesting when Apple buys Sony...

My money would be, long term, on a Nintendo & Sony partnership, mainly to slow the inevitable gobbling of the entire industry by MS or someone like Apple.

[Neon Ignition]

Honestly, I don't think we'll see much movement from here on. I can imagine MS will circle some smaller companies and Sony will likely continue as they are with acquisitions of stand alone ones that fit in with their current growing line up but:

Nintendo - will be completely unaffected and unmoved by any of this
Microsoft - will likely hit some notable legal roadblocks if they make another big purchase move any time soon after this
Sony - Covers so much besides gaming that anyone looking at them wouldn't be doing so with PlayStation as their primary reason

What we're likely headed to is three equally pitted players rather than MS being left behind like last gen.

Apple - I think if they had any interest in gaming they'd have made their play many years ago. To Apple I think the console gaming market is like watching children fight for scraps.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Honestly, I don't think we'll see much movement from here on. I can imagine MS will circle some smaller companies and Sony will likely continue as they are with acquisitions of stand alone ones that fit in with their current growing line up but:

Nintendo - will be completely unaffected and unmoved by any of this
Microsoft - will likely hit some notable legal roadblocks if they make another big purchase move any time soon after this
Sony - Covers so much besides gaming that anyone looking at them wouldn't be doing so with PlayStation as their primary reason

What we're likely headed to is three equally pitted players rather than MS being left behind like last gen.

Apple - I think if they had any interest in gaming they'd have made their play many years ago. To Apple I think the console gaming market is like watching children fight for scraps.

I still don't think MS will come out of 3rd place. Both the purchases are unlikely to produce regular games for at least 4 years, by which point Sony will be well established and Nintendo will be Nintendo.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, it'll allow them to flood Game Pass with content (which will be one key factor in this) and Call of Duty will be a massive needle shifter for them but the likes of Warcraft won't make a material difference as far as shifting hardware goes given the audience.

I know AB is a big company and does very well financially but it'd honestly be such a waste to let Activision continue to increasingly sink resources and dependency on annual COD's and for Blizzard to continue to dwindle itself away on its dependency on past successes. Even without MS, the company was due a shake up.

[wakka]

Yeah. In terms of quality of creative output, I'm optimistic that this will be a positive. MS's priority will be to create exciting games that draw and retain subscribers - not balance sheet bolstering activities like ensuring an annual COD is on shelves and rinsing players for MTX purchases.

On the other hand of course it's monopolism par excellence. But at least we might get some better games out of it.