Dan

True. That looked like an attempt to push people away from Gold by making Game Pass seem like a better deal. From The Verge a year ago:
Though I do wonder... just how much do people expect Game Pass to increase (monthly, quarterly, or yearly, depending on the subscription option chosen by the user), and more importantly, what is everyone's actual limit?
I ask because I pay $20 for Netflix (4K + HDR, baby!) but feel like I personally get next to nothing out of it anymore. If my family didn't watch it so damn much, I'd drop it.
Everyone has their limit for what the monthly fee should be, and I do think GP will go up every couple years, but I don't think it's going to jump drastically.

Yeah, the issues have been pretty apparent for a long time. As others have said, and as has been all but confirmed in the news, Kotick is out once this deal is done. There's zero chance he, the CEO of one of the biggest gaming companies of all time, will allow himself to work under someone else. He's going to cash out and walk.

While this is true, I think Minecraft is a very special case where it was already everywhere when MS bought the company, so they weren't just going to yank it. So many people play it on their phones, tablets, PCs, consoles... it's everywhere.
And I don't see them going with "Minecraft 2!" just to 'fix' that, when it is practically a platform within itself that benefits from being everywhere.

And I honestly don't think MS is going to play that nice with Call of Duty. To be blunt... they didn't just spend $69 billion dollars in cash on what is effectively The Call of Duty Company to give other platforms Call of Duty games indefinitely. New mainline COD games will definitely be exclusive by the time existing contracts are played out, is what I think, but no existing games will be pulled. Some can say that's "unfair" to gamers who have played COD on Playstation consoles since they've been available, and yeah, it sucks in that sense... but again, MS just bought The Call of Duty Company. Their plan, at least as it seems today, is to use that leverage to get people playing on Xbox, and more specifically, subbing to Game Pass.

RichC2

Activision had already mostly abandoned Steam in 2018 (I think the last game of theirs was Spyro, and the last Call of Duty was COD:WW2 in 2017, around the same time Ubisoft did the same), though Microsoft has slowly been adding titles to it (Forza Horizon 4 was added last year, just prior to Horizon 5's launch)

I could see Microsoft adding the Bethesda games on Steam as an advertisement for Game Pass: Pay $60 or get in included for $10-ish a month.

Coral

MS won't shut out other consoles entirely... and especially not for a while. It would be dumb to do that - there's too much money to be made from PS and Nintendo gamers.
They'll start going exclusives for smaller titles to start, and then eventually move the bigger titles to timed exclusives.

I think MS's big play here is to try to get GP on the PS and Nintendo. MS already provides cloud services to Sony - so they're halfway there already.

spainlinx0

As mentioned above, MS has been adding more games lately to Steam, not less. I bet you're going to be wrong about this one.

spainlinx0

I agree. I think they will do timed exclusives. It might be tough to do that though with something like COD, which gets almost all of its revenue during first year multiplayer. So this will all be interesting.

dsa_shea

This news happening 10 years ago might have caused me to jump on and swoop up another console. The past few years has seen my desire to play everything go further and further down. You just start disregarding games that are not readily accessible. One can hope that MS acquiring the COD franchise will have them push the developers to make a better product than they have the past few years. This is a good thing for Xbox users, as long as the developers continue to improve their content and not simply add more.

Michael Corvin

Exactly. Sony buying up studios that only make Sony games is different than MS buying up companies with libraries of multiplatform games, and even traditionally Sony only franchises. That's a whole new ballpark.

Coral

So Sony buys them because they don't want the games on the XBOX. The only difference is when it was done - before or after the game is available for the competitors console.
MS isn't doing anything Sony hasn't done - it's just done a different way. Too bad, so sad Sony.

Decker

Give me a single example of Sony buying a large studio that primarily makes series of multiplatform games - - that Sony has then gone out and purchased. Just one example. I see them buy the studio that makes Ratchet and Clank, the studio that makes Resogun, the one thst makes The Show. They acquired studios that primarily make Playstation exclusives. They bring them under their wing because they have been making outstanding Playstation exclusives and they want them in-house. Nobody would have had any issue with MS buying Bungie when they were still making Halo games - - it's a damn shame they didn't.
Not saying that MS did anything wrong in their approach necessarily, but it's not the same thing and you keep insisting it is (without providing a single example) .

Coral

I'm saying they bought out studios who weren't currently making games for XBOX in order to ensure the games don't come to XBOX.
They've also paid studios to keep their games exclusive to Playstation.

And If there's nothing wrong with what MS is doing (which I agree), then why is any of this being brought up in the first place? Sony does it this way... MS does it this way. Who cares?

Adam Tyner

Microsoft did buy Bungie. But when Bungie wanted to go solo, a deal was struck to allow for that.

Not that it takes away from your greater point, but MLB: The Show isn’t an ideal example since Sony has always made those with internal teams.

OldBoy

What kind of games does Blizzard/Activision put out? Or what have they that I would know?

fujishig

I can't even...

I mean, they're a pretty boutique company.

Blizzard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tainment_games

Lost Vikings or Justice League Task Force are probably their most notable hits.

Activision:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...on_video_games

Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter, iCarly 2: iJoin the Click! and Build-A-Bear Workshop: Friendship Valley

stingermck

Justice League Task Force was great!

Dan

Looks like A/B may have went to MS looking to make a sale... Not necessarily the other way around, which makes me ask... If Activision was set on selling, who do y'all think should have bought them?

It's all very interesting and a good reminder that big companies don't 'just buy' other ones if those companies aren't open to selling in the first place. It's weird that the focus is "MS is taking multiplatform games away!" and not "Activision chose to sell their entire catalog to the highest bidder, multiplatform legacy be damned."

But again, I'll reiterate that while I think this move potentially hurts Playstation, I don't think it's anything they can't just brush off. They'll develop an in-house FPS that PS fans will flock to in order to compete with COD. Or they'll just make Bungie an offer for their Next Big Game.

I think this has a far bigger long term effect on Amazon, Google, and those other companies trying to make some inroads into gaming (via cloud streaming or otherwise). Those companies aren't going under, obviously, but this dampens their efforts in this specific area.

Anyway, my stance is that all of the employees should resign, start indie studios, and build up new exciting 100% multiplatform games for decades to come, until they're inevitably bought up by Taco Bell.

Adam Tyner

I'm paywall'ed out of Bloomberg right now, but I seem to remember that once discussions were underway with Microsoft, A/B sought out other offers (to see if they could get an even bigger price), including Facebook, and a merger with EA was also considered.

I actually think an EA/Activision combo would make a lot of sense, especially if EA management were the ones taking the reins. They'd still be able to support every platform under the sun. Having both Battlefield and Call of Duty in rotation could lessen the pressure on those teams. Bioware plus Blizzard! EA has a far more eclectic slate that would seem supportive of titles that Activision seems to have had its fill of (Tony Hawk, Spyro, Crash).

JayTL

Would EA have been able to afford that though?
I think Microsoft makes the most sense. If someone like Apple or Disney bought it, I don't think it would help them out that much.

Adam Tyner

It would've been more of a merger than an acquisition.

Adam Tyner

Michael Corvin

The long play is clearly putting Gamepass on everything. Don't want to burn that bridge.

redbill

anyone who's been forced into using MS Office tools over the past decade can tell they want to shift everything to a monthly subscription plan, and then next step will be digital-only, and then cloud-only; all peppered with price increases once they have their monopoly. Surprised EA hasn't tried to sell to them yet, they're a perfect fit.

Decker

That's good to hear. Of course the wording is "honor all existing agreements" which OF COURSE they have to do. We shall see how long those agreements are for and what happens when they are up. But sure, that's good to hear for those who don't have both systems.
I fully expect a lot of new Xbox-exclusive games, which is great. But things like CoD really belong on both systems (even if I'm long-since burned out on those games).
I hope Overwatch 2 and Diablo 5 also come to both systems.

LorenzoL

I’ll be okay with timed exclusives as MS needs to get value for their big purchase.

JayTL

That's not a surprise if you've seen the landscape of Xbox in the past few years either.

fujishig

If you're going to do timed exclusives for something like COD (assuming the actual game and not extras), you might as well just not go multiplatform, IMHO.