Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer Speak with CNBC

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer on CNBC.

[DigitallyAfflicted]

This will make all gaming things more interesting...

[monkey602]

Damn I cant stand either of those two!

[DEEHULK88]

You mad

[monkey602]

Nope. The pair of them are just slimey

[1nsomniac]

Big business seems to breed these super creepy dudes. It comes across mainly as an American thing but it’s not we’ve got them here in the UK too.

[Gamer79]

Seem to be a certain section of people on here that don't like Phil Spencer, same as digital foundry. I've never seen him talked about that anywhere else with channels like easy allies for example saying how good he is.

[CJQNSNYC]

Should that really surprise you?

Didn't you know that this site has LONG doubled as a Sony/Playstation lovefest site? It's been that way for many, many years. Anything that could possibly be construed as positive in favor of Microsoft is instatntly and immediately followed by at least a dozen or so articles in opposition.

Nothing new really.

I can almost gurantee that if it had been Sony that was purchasing Activision-Blizzard, it would have been met with rejoicing on this site, as if some new holiday had been announced!

[KeyAppearance]

yeah it's genuinely odd they are hating him on the same level as the slimey predator...

[Silly gameAr]

Man, If I really said what I wanted to about these 2 industry breaking clowns, I think I would rightfully get the banhammer asap. All, I'll say is, even if you're a huge xbox fan, but consider yourself a gamer, this is nothing to celebrate. MS is getting closer and closer to that monopoly that they want soooo bad, and I don't believe a word that comes out of either one of their mouths.

Acting like Phil swooped in at the last minute to save poor ol Activision from big bad facebook seriously makes me want to throw up.

[gangsta_red]

https://venturebeat.com/202...

MS wants a monopoly by providing games on their console, PC and any device that has streaming capabilities...lol, okay.

[Magog]

Through their own service that they own and operate. Yes, that's a monopoly.
Microsoft Windows PC
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Gamepass Streaming

So many choices and guess what they have in common?

[Orchard]

@Magog But you can get Microsoft games on Steam... so you aren't locked to their store/gamepass/streaming - if anything, this might be an improvement for PC gamers in that Activision/Blizzard games may return to Steam.

[gangsta_red]

"Through their own service that they own and operate. Yes, that's a monopoly."

That is definitely not a monopoly

[CaptainHenry916]

I expect the quality of games to drop as well. Activision hasn't made a great game in over 5 years unless you count Call of Duty yearly releases great. Imo it's not anymore

[S2Killinit]

Oh look whose back! Lol gangstared where you been?

[LOGICWINS]

You'd be dancing in the streets if Sony bought Square Enix tomorrow morning lol.

[Crows90]

Id be quite sad personally. It would be a horrible purchase. Id rather they go for something more iconic like capcom or from software. But either of those purchases would be bad for gamers.

Dont get why people dont see the problem with Microsofts stream of multiplatform dev purchases.

[Silly gameAr]

Oh, hi Gangsta red. Hope you've been well.

And, yes. MS wants to dictate what the future of gaming is by buying instead of building. It's not as innocent as providing games on their console and PC, it's OWNING, and dictating what streaming device gets those games, games that have been on Playstation for decades, and in fact do better on PS.

[gangsta_red]

Hello Silly

MS is buying and building, this is what companies do if they want to stay relevant in an industry that has been making more money than Hollywood for the last decade. You do this by doing both.

"..it's OWNING, and dictating what streaming device gets those games,"

Which basically means playing the games on PC, Xbox and every other streaming device out there, sounds innocent to me.

"..games that have been on Playstation for decades, and in fact do better on PS."

Ah yes, here is the real concern, the real issue. Has nothing to do with the illuminate conspiracy theories of MS controlling everything or dictating how you play, it's just as simple as the games not being on PS anymore. If they truly did better on PS, why didn't Activision approach Sony for a buy out?

[Christopher]

How it affects existing customers is pretty important.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

How are you going to prove monopoly with hundreds of gaming companies along with thousands and thousands of user created content. Grow up.

[ABizzel1]

It's not about multiple companies existing. That's not an issue. The issue happens, when some of the largest companies in the industry merge or combine together because that often leads to monopoly tactics.

That's why big mergers like this are often blocked. AT&T is a prime example. There are PLENTY of cellphone carriers, however, when AT&T tried to buy T-Mobile it was denied regardless of all the other carriers out there, because it would cause AT&T to be a near unrivaled company in the telecom industry with Sprint nearly out of business at the time it would be AT&T with over 60% - 70% of the market share, Verizon knocked down to less than 30%, and all the other hundreds of carriers sharing a tiny portion. At that point AT&T can charge all the smaller carriers to purchase space on their towers to use their service since it would have the largest coverage nationwide, and then Sprint would be dead, and Verizon would slowly be against the walls as well. Yet T-Mobile was able to merge with Sprint simply because Sprint was dying and filing for bankruptcy, and it would allow the 3rd and 5th largest players to merge together and still be 3rd in marketshare, but bringing more competition.

This is setting a similar precedent. If Microsoft and Activision merge, that does still leave other companies, but what it also does is pave the way for Microsoft to strong arm other developers and publishers into submitting to GamePass being the new industry standard, because their games may not sell otherwise as their fanbase has clearly shown they will flat out not support some games if they aren't on GamePass already without the Activision Blizzard boost. It also stifles competition with the other major players as well.

I personally think this has a good chance of going through, sine Xbox is the 4th and AB is the 6th largest publisher, and even merged they're still going to be ranked as 3rd on paper. However, where the monopoly comes into play is Sony now loses a large part of the revenue from Activision which will likely drop their overall earnings, and realistically put Xbox as the 2nd largest and if sales increase due to player bases having to swap to Xbox exclusively it puts them at Number 1, and that is the legal issue they face and why lawyers are already trying to block this.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

It's not going to be blocked. Sony and Tencent are still larger.

[porkChop]

It would be difficult to legally argue that they have a monopoly, even with this purchase. They've literally said they would bring all their games to PS and Nintendo if Game Pass was allowed on those platforms. They also put their games on Steam, a service they don't own.

I don't personally think MS needed to make this purchase. But I am glad for the devs that will finally have a supportive and safe workplace. I think the devs are the ones who benefit the most here.

[DarXyde]

What irritates me the most is that Kotick is an industry parasite and human garbage, yet Spencer is sitting here, being diplomatic because he wants the company. He's allegedly stepping away, and the fact that they're giving him the chance to resign with grace is gross.

But then, why am I acting surprised? The head of a branch of a company founded by someone who was friends with Jeffrey Epstein and has effectively murdered hundreds of thousands of people to promote his covax program is defending someone like that, and for a company for income to protect shareholders and his job, no less.

Super scummy move, Spencer.

[FanboysKiller]

That's the good part , the ugly part in how they gonna generate sales.

[darkrider]

Yes, Activision was in very bad place getting billions each year just with Cod and almost zero investment on a next Gen engine. Number one game sold in the market... Save by a publisher that doesn't have a single number one on any month in how many years? Anyone knows? The last time that Microsoft was able to have a game number one in the charts worldwide....

[darksky]

It won't be number one if it's removed from the Playstation platform. That's a huge customer base they will be eliminating.

[Pancit_Canton]

I hope Sony bring back Playstation Home with Playstation VR support. It would make Metaverse look like garbage. I think this deal would backfire on Microsoft in a big way. It would be hilarious, if they still lose this gen with Sony. It would prove time and time again that Quality over Quantity matters.

[DEEHULK88]

Playstation home was a flop.

[Pancit_Canton]

Nope. It was ahead of its time with limited hardware. Ultra-fast SSD would solve its issues with loading times and faster access to contents. Playstation VR support would make it a cool experience with gaming events and contents.

[darksky]

CoD will not entice th majority of PS owners to Xbox. I certainly won't mainly because I have a pretty big collection on PS and prefer God of War, Uncharted and Horizon Zero Dawn over the ageing CoD series.

[Lightning77]

COD was number one sold on PS followed by Xbox at number 2. That's how it's been every year with COD. The mass majority don't think the way you do at all. The hardcore cod fans outweighs a ton of popular franchise's. The only game that's slightly more popular is Fornite.

[rippermcrip]

Can someone explain to me what the race tk the metaverse is?

[Sephiroushin]

Dunno I for one don't want everything to be digital although thats wherr we are headed, but dunno why so much hurry with these companies (it didn't work for xbox when they wanted to make xbox one all digital), the all digital world would come step by step ...

[DFresh]

I just hope that them being apart of Microsoft will improve the quality of Activision games, release more games in a timely manner, minimize delays and improve the working environment of those studios.
I’m just glad I play some of those on PlayStation still.
Ex.) Overwatch, Diablo, Spyro and Crash
Obviously some games will be exclusive and being apart of Game Pass but that’s cool.

[QSPR]

Microsoft record shows otherwise.

[Sephiroushin]

Some? Most will be exclusive, i would not be surprised if only COD went multiplatform with certain advantages on ms ecosystem...

[Andrew336]

You're almost 60, everyone hates you, and you're about to make hundreds of millions of dollars on this. Why the hell would you even want to stay on?

[Orchard]

This 100%. He’s going to ride off into the distance, having been responsible for a terrible work culture at Activision, with a big fat payout.

I guess we should just be glad he’s gone.

[Str8Chaos74]

Because he likes the power / feeling important in big business. He is a billionaire if I am not mistaken and also sits on the board for Coca-Cola. I agree he is a total POS, but I think it's a control, ego, power thing with dudes like him.

[anast]

Yeah, finally. They publicly announced their engagement. I thought gaming was going to get better fo MSXbox, it's going to hover around low fruit entertainment it seems.

[Redrex7000]

if Kotick end up staying for w.e reason it show
ms is not serious about protecting there employee regardless of what they say

[gold_drake]

i really dislike both of them.