The deal is done. Activision Blizzard is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft after two years of regulatory investigations.
Outriders developer People Can Fly's next game has been canceled after its publishing agreement with Take-Two Interactive fell through.
"the capital group of PCF Group S.A."
If you're getting funding from a group that needs two different ways of Acronyming itself, things will not go the way you want them to.
Outriders was crap. They slapped that game together and threw in a loot system to get players' attention. This game was absolutely jank and the always online nonsense made it stutter like crazy. People Can't Optimize.
I liked Outriders but I could see where the artistic vision was compromised. The way the industry is now, it wouldn't surprise me that upper management would scrap something that didn't pull in money via gaas, mts, or other means.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
Blizzard writes: "After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024. This decision was not made lightly as BlizzCon remains a very special event for all of us, and we know many of you look forward to it. While we’re approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years."
How about you not hold Blizzcon anymore period. You fucking POS company. I really hope Blizzard would just die.
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.
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.
Microsoft now has 35 Game Studios, while Sony has 14 Game Studios. This is huge.....
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 🤷♂️