So, Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard. How will this affect the rest of the industry?

The deal is done. Activision Blizzard is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft after two years of regulatory investigations.

[MrDead]

Well no new games are coming out of these acquisitions, this is about control over the industry and IP hording for a subscription service. Seeing what a disaster subscription services have been for Hollywood I can't wait for MS to bring the joys of that to gaming.
This entire endeavour is to line the pockets of a handful of extremely wealthy people, they'll dump it as soon as they've sucked it dry or wrecked it.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

If this doesn't help to up subscription services for Microsoft by the allotted time frame then nothing. Otherwise a shift to sub-services being the primary way we game and the consequences that come with that.

[BeHunted]

Microsoft now has 35 Game Studios, while Sony has 14 Game Studios. This is huge.....

[purple101]

and yet...nothing that compares to, even - ratchet and clank in terms of fun, anyway

[Barlos]

Microsoft aren't interested in the studios they buy, they want the IPs.

[ChasterMies]

More isn’t always better, especially when Microsoft has such a poor track record of handling its own exclusives like Halo and Gears of War. And now Microsoft is in a position where its games are competing with its other games. Developers will be let go. Franchised will die.

[Profchaos]

And all they can produce is average content for their all you can eat buffet of games instead of allowing these studios to craft evergreen titles

[isarai]

I mean the only thing that has happened so far with these acquisitions is a noticeable downgrade in quality and value in the games produced under MSs management. The only undeniable banger released, Hi-Fi Rush, they really didn't give a sh!t about, just shadow dropped it with quite literally zero marketing. Even to this day the only things I've heard about it have been from word of mouth. So probably just more of that 🤷‍♂️

[Lightning77]

"they really didn't give a sh!t about, just shadow dropped it with quite literally zero marketing."

Yeaaaah that's not at all what happened but hey let's just make up things because it's N4G and that's what we do around here.

So sure let's run with that.

[isarai]

https://www.ign.com/article...

Literally the trending term regarding it's release by pretty much anyone that covered it. So who made up what now? 😂

[Flawlessmic]

I mean he's not wrong lighting, they did drop it with zero marketing lol

I remember shadow drop was the word of the month and how there should be more shadow drops

[Crows90]

Or you could enlighten people with your superior knowledge...but sure let's just run with not actually making a point.

[Stanjara]

They really don't know what people want...or do they????

[Lightning77]

You literally just killed your own argument. It went viral, internally so they shadow dropped it.

Not MS didn't care about the game and didn't want to market it.

Congrats at killing your own argument.

@crows I make way more points than anyone here. Isarai literally just took down his own argument so read his link.

[isarai]

No i didn't LMAO don't know how you came to that conclusion. If it went viral internally, why not drop, at the very least, a trailer and some banners for the game? That game dropped with nothing. Not like MS don't have the money. Even after launch I really don't recall seeing any official marketing for it. Again, if they cared about the game, even minimal marketing would show that.

Also, THAT is not my point, but a sidenote to my point. My point is so far MS has shown nothing but poor management excluding the one game. Every other game has launched with a ton of cut corners, disappointments, and/or caveat to get some fun out of it be it microtransactions, waiting for a roadmap of updates to fix it, or ignoring blaring issues.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

It went viral internally? What does that even mean? LOL you still haven't countered anything that was said, because you can't reute facts. I make more points than anyone! Lmao

[Lightning77]

@Kwiet just read the freakin article isarai linked it for godsakes.

"That's how it actually built up within Bethesda...Some people had played it and they spoke about it to their other [colleagues]. They're like, 'Did you see that game that they're making there?' There's this weird sort of viral positivity to this just playing this game, and Game Pass just felt like an excellent opportunity to let something...lose that skepticism immediately by just playing it and people just talking about it."

It was a positive reception internally and was Skepticism if it was an actual good game or not. A surprise drop that paid off. So I ask again where did MS say didn't the game was crap and didn't care about marketing it like isarai?

Again he owned himself.

I'm talking to 12 years olds I swear... I have to be. Y'all are actual children.

[isarai]

Bro stop, you're just making yourself look stupid 🤣😂

" where did MS say didn't the game was crap and didn't care about marketing it like isarai"

First off learn how to construct a sentence, damn near had an aneurysm trying to read that.
Second, I literally called the game "an undeniable banger", quite the opposite of "crap"
Third, MS didn't "say" anything, and that's the problem. Ironically you proved what I'm saying. Despite it "going viral internally" MS for whatever reason still didn't have any confidence in it. Instead they looked at something obviously good with "skepticism", and so didn't market it as not to dump more money into it. They actually cannot see something great sitting right in front of them.

[Lightning77]

"viral internally, why not drop, at the very least, a trailer and some banners for the game?"

Why does it matter? It had over 2 million players and Tango even opened up new posistions and expanded the studio. Complaining for no reason.

"Again, if they cared about the game, even minimal marketing would show that."

Nintendo dropped Metroid Prime remaster from GameCube with out advertisement I guess they "didn't care"about that game also right? Btw that game also turned about to be a success. So where does it say MS didn't give a shit about Hifi like you claimed?

Sometimes just releasing a game is better than over hyped ad campaigns. Yes they even advertised the game afterwards through ads on social media Xbox store etc. You're not winning this argument so might as well stop while you're ahead.

As for the rest your comment your taking about Redfall. What Microtransactions? Forza or Redfall doesn't have Microtransaction? Question why do you make up things?

[isarai]

"Why does it matter?" ... So when you've been proven wrong, you just say it doesn't matter? 🤣If it doesn't matter why are you so hellbent on proving otherwise? I couldn't have asked for a funnier argument. And if you want the answer to that go back and read my comments, learn to read and do your own research. Figure it out.

[Profchaos]

Been seeing this for years since Crackdown 3 was one of my earliest realisations that the quality wasn't there and gamepass with simply a dumping ground.
Sure they may have one big game per year that receives a little extra love but happily shive something like halo infinite out there to be picked apart for a few weeks by the masses

[Lightning77]

"First off learn how to construct a sentence, damn near had an aneurysm trying to read that.
Second, I literally called the game "an undeniable banger", quite the opposite of "crap"

I was multitasking. This how it all went down.

You said "Hi-Fi Rush, they really didn't give a sh!t"

You linked an article that went completely went against your little theory in fact they said it was a positive reception internally. I asked where didn't say MS didn't give a crap about the game?

"Third, MS didn't "say" anything, and that's the problem."

Ok cool so clearly did give a damn about the game. Btw the shadow drop was 100% on Tango.

"MS for whatever reason still didn't have any confidence in it."

Not enough confidence they showed it off at the xbox direct and dropped it that same day? Again it was Tangos call to do so not MS. You don't have any facts just the typical "MS is bad 100% of the time because so that must be it!" Argument. Yeah it's not gonna fly and you'll have to try harder than that.

[Lightning77]

"Why does it matter?" ... So when you've been proven wrong,"

Proven wrong about what!? You didn't prove Jack. You were concern trolling about hi fi not having marketing and said MS didn't care about the game. In which I not only showed you where you were wrong in your own post, that you linked, you decided to make up claims that MS didn't care about the game. In which again they made a whole direct about Hifi and dropped out that same damn day hence "shadow drop" and it was Tango who made that call.

One last time and keep up. I said why does it matter in the grand scheme of things when the game was a success regardless of marketing? Context is everything.

It's a K. O. I told you were losing this one.

Smart of you to avoid the microtransactions comment. You knew you were wrong.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

This is end of gaming industry rn we need a crash imo to restart gaming and the industry with Nintendo coming in and saving it again.

[-Foxtrot]

We can't have a Crash, Microsoft bought that aswell

https://media.tenor.com/SYj...

[shinoff2183]

Perfect, foxtrot

[shinoff2183]

Yea maybe with a proper console. Screw those joycons.

[isarai]

Honestly a crash sounds great. But I think it's too big to crash at this point

[Stanjara]

Basically they bought live service games with indefinite seasons and no need for new ideas.
Milk it till it's dead.
Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Fallout 76, ES Online, Cod... and King garbage. All live service trash.

You know... you could make a lot of cool stuff with all of this...but nope.
Warcraft is still retail trash that needs a sub, diablo 4 is endgame garbage, Overwatch is F2p $40 skins trash.

Bobby actually managed to sell garbage to MS and that is impressive.
Bobby I love you!

[gold_drake]

it wont afgect it immediately but you can definitely see change happen by next year.

for the worse i might add.

[Futureshark]

We're going to see a huge rise in retro gaming before the end of the decade.

[-Foxtrot]

Honestly give me something like Gargoyles where it has the remastered version and the original…I’d be content

Either that or big collections

I’d kill for a retro Disney collection with all the old school Sega / PS1 games on it

[Walalon]

Xbox and Gamepass for me it's like going for a buffet. You have everything to taste, from sushi to BBQ Steaks, but in the end every one of the different meals are just "meh"(you can find a gold nugget between the mediocrity but like that, it's a bit hard). Xbox can have 1.000 studios around it but all of them doesn't have the talent or the creativity to innovate... It's just that, a mediocre buffet that you pay monthly because... Yeah.
Now they have ActiBlizz IPs, so what? Diablo 4 it's a mess with an squeleton crew trying to keep it alive, Overwatch 2 it's becoming 1 again because they found out before was great, WoW it's dying because the wow token(and much more issues) and Hearthstone it's just a card game that was cool years ago. Now on the other hand, with Activision they have the golden goose named Call of Duty.. but if they do the Halo Infinite idea on it, Playstation have the chance to create a good thing with Bungie on their side or hell even Valve with updates can make Counter Strike 2 shines more than that cesspool of cheaters and reiterations every year.
Microsoft can have ton of golden goose, but if they don't know what to do with them.. they are going to fail if not now, in a couple of years.

[ejf3471]

Who cares?.............

[ejf3471]

All u PlayStation fanboys apparently u all r shallow n closed minded

[ejf3471]

I support both consoles equally

[ChasterMies]

If you want to see the future of gaming, look at the Netflix. Lots and lots of junk content that Netflix abandoned. I would say this is the future of Game Pass, but Microsoft Studios is already publishing junk on Game Pass. Now we’ll get more junk.

[CoNn3rB]

Short term, not much. Long term we'll either end up in a bidding war for publishers until one company buys out the other or triple A gaming will somehow get worse with the emphasis on games as a subscription service titles to prob up platforms like Game Pass and PS+ Premium until we get the gaming equivalent of the streaming wars and my favourite hobby begins to die a slow and pitiful death

[RAFTECH26]

This means that subscription is the future. Hard copies will be gone. And Microsoft will have all the developers.

This is what I see.

What do u think?

[Abear21]

I stopped playing COD years ago—don’t care about M$ buying the “old and proven” devs whose best games are regurgitated with a new coat of paint every few years. I’m way more interested in Wolverine over anything those studios have coming. Smh and going back to playing BG3 and waiting on Spidey 2 in couple days.

[jznrpg]

I would guess ABK’s love for 30$ skins and other MTs , pay to win , battle passes etc will creep into almost everything MS releases. Halo and Forza being GaaS was happening before the deal so it is most likely going to be the case for the majority of their games.

How can gamepass be sustainable without subscribers going up by 20-30 million? By making billions from MTs ,Gacha , pay to win and milking their customers as much as they can is the only way how.

[Petebloodyonion]

The article brings up lots of great questions Like if MS brings COD to Gamepass why would you try the next indy gem when COD is established as the most valuable game?

Or how much creativity the industry will really have with MS controlling the majority of studios?

Personally, I believe that MS will need to find a balance between retails, available on Gamepass and Gamepass Day1
Also, it's important to remember that ABK was a shadow of their former self when discussing creating and publishing games. In 2020 - 2023 ABK worked on 6 IPs consisting of COD, Diablo, Overwatch, Saikero Shadow Die Twice, Crash, and Tony Hawk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Just compare vs 10 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

[Profchaos]

How will this affect the rest of the industry?

Negatively

Time to get some retro pickup's in before everyone else realises the modern gaming crash is coming.

Unsustainable business models will cause a sharp dip in quality and will flow on industry wide while every single studio will continue to push for a gaas model because the executive team sees dollars in the stars.

Microsoft is way to happy to release a 6/10 game onto it's all you can eat buffet pushing the team to make a game highly regarded means nothing to them because everyone will have moved on a month later so just make it ok enough to get some interest.

After activitision best believe they have others in their sights.

[Ninver]

Beginning of the end. I give the ip 1 more gen before it goes the way of RARE.

[InUrFoxHole]

Ask sony fans... write your will. Life is over
Ask xbox fans... Gaming lives forever

[Trilithon]

They aren't out of the console game just yet. Question is, will they increase console exclusives in an attempt to drive sales or will they need any money from potential sales outside of pc and xbox. They def don't need any money

[DFresh]

The way I see this working out is the same scenario that happened with Bethesda for example in that some games will be exclusive and some games will be multiplatform.
M$ kinda made it known they care more about Game Pass then they do selling consoles in multiple interviews.
M$ also made it known they want to support multiple platforms with their service as possible as well.
Hell M$ owns the Minecraft series for god sakes and that series is on every system plus moblile phones.
My only concern with this deal is that M$ will have less incentive to compete with Sony or Nintendo in the future.
Only time will tell.

[RomanPSX]

Xbox is King! Is always good when MS gets a W!

[gufubb]

WoW is a great gaming franchise. I'd say they made a great purchase with a world of business in mind. (If all is alright with God)