Out of all these studios I suppose I like Microsoft’s games the most, but I still think it’s bad that the regulators didn’t shoot down this merger from the view of competitiveness.
I don’t think the gaming market is healthy when only a handful of corporations like Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA Games and SquareEnix hold what I assume to be 75% of the gaming AAA market. It restricts creativity and stifles competition and the ones paying the price are going to be us consumers.
Even worse if they go and start vendor locking games to Windows, which sucks for us Linux gamers or Xbox which sucks for Playstation gamers.
Steam Deck has put a small thorn in their OS side. It used to be ridiculous to have a Linux gaming computer, but it’s become much more viable thanks to the Deck’s existence.
Basically to say Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull a massive move like requiring Windows subscription prices without a lot of gamers going to Linux.
I had to do some digging on the name since almost every search engine was just throwing articles like this when trying to find a voice clip of him, he voices the statue “Arnold” in this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZz37olVf I think his voice will be pretty good to adapt to Mario. Here’s his IMDb page www.imdb.com/name/nm12041073/
That youtube video is gone… I’m guessing it’s “Ask me for directions Arnold”, right? That’s the only Arnold I can think of in GI. www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZz37olVfI
That’s actually awesome for Kevin Afghani because he was a lot of fun in this role. Hoping to see more of his work in the future.
I guess. It’s not like he’s being thrown out on his ass though. Which is more than the actual workers can say. You know this merger will require “consolidation and remove redundancies” or whatever bullshit term they like using.
Activision Blizzard was already about as anti-consumer as possible, so in this particular case at worst nothing will change, at best Microsoft might actually clean house and there might be some improvements for the consumers…
Microsoft will use this purchase to further restrict releases to non Xbox consoles, no matter when they agree to to industry bodies. It is in Microsofts interest to only release on their platforms as releasing to PS or Switch will cost them in Xbox purchases.
Yeah, sorry, I was thinking from a PC standpoint and sort of ignored the whole console perspective (though, frankly, the console market seems to have been absolutely fubared from its inception, from a consumer standpoint, so anything Microsoft does will probably be as relevant as farting into an ocean of shit…)
Kotick is retiring because he can't take direction. But will receive hundreds of millions to do so. Why would MS fire anyone else when Activision and King makes money?
I didn’t even get D4 yet (but planned to) and all my friends have stopped playing it already ☠️ I don’t think they have anything else up their sleeve at this point. Seems they haven’t made anything new since warcraft.
D4 was dead the moment they announced D2R. Why would I pay $80 for a game with microtransactions and battlepass when I can pay $50 for a game that comes complete in box?
They should have taken D2R kept the mechanics and just rolled new classes, maps, and items.
I don’t want a new game, I just want more content.
Because this won’t give MS a monopoly in the slightest. There’s still tons of Devs and publisher’s out there on various states of first, second and third party relationships with MS, Sony and Nintendo and new indie Devs pop up almost weekly. It gives them a massive advantage having CoD as a first party Gamepass title, yes, but that’s not what a monopoly means.
3rd place in… What? I’m trying to search around to see what you’re referring to here, but I can’t find anything.
By total market cap, Microsoft already blows these companies out of the water. By just videogame divisions, Sony and Nintendo are way farther ahead because of hardware sales, but that doesn’t really make sense to include in the conversation about acquiring a publisher. I can’t find any solid numbers either way isolating publishing, other than that the top 5 in recent years seems to be Tencent, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Activision/Blizzard (with EA hanging around too). Seems like any of those two merging is going to be bad for everyone other than shareholders.
Yes, third place in total gaming revenue. I agree it will be bad, but let’s not pretend this is going to shift the market in a big way, because it won’t.
How do you figure that 2 of the top 6 merging won’t shift the market in a big way?
Also, total gaming revenue wouldn’t be a good way to compare it because that includes revenue streams that’s are unrelated to Activision/Blizzard. Microsoft is hardly even competing with Nintendo at all considering they don’t have a handheld device. And Microsoft releases way more games on PC than Nintendo or even Sony, which further reduces the relevance of hardware sales.
It’s the developing and publishing industries specifically that are going to be impacted by this, because that’s what Activision/Blizzard does.
The impact to hardware sales will be indirect: I would guess a pretty small number amount of people might switch to Xbox or buy an Xbox in addition to a PlayStation just for version exclusives, but probably not a huge amount as long as Microsoft keeps COD on PlayStation.
The mating of the dinosaurs. This is the same shit that happened to record labels the minute people were able to record quality sounds in their own homes. What happens when all the gaming industry is rolled under some parent organization?
All three of them that actually get any focus under ABK at the moment? If anything we might get to see some of the ones usually ignored have a day in the sun if MS wants to diversify their Gamepass offerings. We may get that Tony Hawk’s 3&4 remake rather than Volition being thrown in the CoD mines, a Crash or Spyro game with Rares involvement, etc.
I mean, I’ve not been particularly disappointed at how Disney has handled the Fox properties. They’ve had some duds with the Star Wars and Marvel lines, but the stuff that’s come to D+ under the Fox banner, Solar Opposites, all the Simpsons, new Futurama, films like Banshees of Inershirin, Prey, No One Will Save You, etc have all been pretty good.
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Aktywne