Every industry has its rivals: Two big companies duking it out for customer loyalty and king-of-the hill status.
In the cell phone world, it's AT&T vs. Verizon. In the computer world, it's Apple vs. Microsoft. Among video game companies, it's Electronic Arts vs. Activision Blizzard and it's about as ugly a fight as you've ever seen.
While the rhetoric gets shrill in any corporate battle, it has moved well past that in this fight, with high profile employees being wooed away and gamer loyalties being put to the test. Ultimately, though, it's shareholders that, for better or worse, could be caught in the middle.
The ripple effect from that could be felt for some time, as current Infinity Ward employees decide whether to join their old bosses or stay put. Already, four high-ranking developers have quit Infinity Ward. While none have officially joined Respawn Entertainment (West and Zampella's new studio), most industry observers expect they eventually will.
If it's the beginning of a greater exodus, that could have significant repercussions for Activision.
"All of this turmoil around Infinity Ward has certainly been a distraction, and if a significant portion of Infinity Ward's staff leaves for the new studio, it could impact Activision's 2011 release schedule," says Ben Schachter, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech.
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.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.