This is so f**ked for the future of gaming. Microsoft has no interest in creating anything new or impressive, they are just spending money to consolidate everything under their tent. They're gonna keep doing this with major IP's until they have a stranglehold on gaming an you are forced to buy their subscription if you want to play them. Game Pass owners are loving this, but wait until the subscription prices start jumping once they have you by the balls. I'll stop playing games before I ever buy an X-Box now, and I don't even play anything from Activision.
Activisions best days are behind them. Microsoft is only buying them because they need to spend money. They will squeeze it dry for a few extra points.
PS Fanboys hardly care about COD. That franchise is for casual gamers. Sony's exclusives are still the reason why people want to buy Playstation and that's not changing. Luckily I have Game Pass through 2025 so I am looking forward to getting the free COD soon.
Its not so much COD, for a long time PS has had the exclusive game on lock. Talking about fanbois, not people who game on multiple consoles or PC.... They really dislike Microsoft buying titles and making them exclusives because they won't be able to play them unless they betray PS by buying an XBOX....
The question is how long before Microsoft buy EA? EA Play is already on Game Pass thru a partnership, but having Madden, Fifa, and Battlefield on Game Pass as day 1 releases would be Big.
You'd think that if they tried that, they'd run into anti-trust issues. Microsoft owning a distribution platform (gamepass) and owning a significant percentage of publishing and studios would be giant red flag. Frankly if the FTC, SEC and DOJ weren't starved of smart regulators, I bet there would be a lot of scrutiny around this acquisition. Distribution has shifted from traditional retail to a smaller number of platforms (steam, Epic, Gamepass, etc..) and one of those distribution platforms concurrently controlling a large portion of publishing and studios would normally be problematic.
it's good for the gamers so smaller publishers can be exposed to millions of games who would have never bought their game.
I mean it's not good that Microsoft is buying publishers. Let's face it, Microsoft has no balls or the creativity to create new franchises. Their 1st party titles are Halo, Gears, Forza, and that's about it. Meanwhile, Sony is taking chances and coming up with fresh ideas.
So full of ****. Microsoft basically publishes. They let the studios under their umbrella have creative freedom. They want Games for GamePass now.
I don't know that Sony is coming up with fresh ideas.... Seems to me like they are ruining beloved franchises, Nintendo on the other hand.... Metroid Dread is the most fun I have had gaming since.... Maybe the 1st Halo....
I'm not necessarily for moves that consolidate huge chunks of an industry (Capitalism HO!), but beyond that, I'm actually OK with this move. Activision-Blizzard is a trash company that does trash things, and I can't see it being any worse under MS. In fact, I'm hoping it will be better, and maybe that will actually result in some good output from them. MS, at least under Phil, seems to be good for developers. Maybe instead of 15 studios working on Call of Duty, we can get some attention to Activision's other IPs (they own a lot of good ones, but they seem to have forgotten). Also, maybe some long-time Activision directors can get a pay out, leave, and form their own studios to make some interesting "spiritual" successors to games we like. I'd probably rather MS spent this money elsewhere, but if I no longer have to hear about Bobby Kotick, then so be it (even if he does get a ton of money from this...ugh).
