Pretty surprising. Some of the IPs acquired in this buyout are Warcraft/Starcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Tony Hawk, Spyro, and Crash Bandicoot. Curious how Nintendo will be affected since they seem to have a pretty amicable relationship with MS at the moment (Cuphead and Ori).
While I've never been a huge fan of the series, owning the Call of Duty property is a game-changer by itself... I mean, the top 2 selling titles of last year belong to that franchise!
As far as Nintendo is concerned, Activision never really shared much love for the Switch, so it's not like we'll be missing out on much more than we already have been from that publisher... the PlayStation, tho?? This is pangea-levels of shift in the console wars, and I'm struggling to see how Sony could possibly compensate for this brobdingnagian hit to their future software lineup
Yeah pretty crazy. I wonder if Microsoft will share these Activision properties with Nintendo going forward. The only franchise that hasn’t been on Switch in some capacity is Call of Duty. That’s a lot of games that are potentially not coming to Nintendo anymore!
Of course, it'd wouldn't be 1/5th, because a lot of those COD fans who currently buy it on the Sony machine would buy an Xbox. But how many exactly? What percent would they just... lose? Making COD Xbox exclusive would be a huge risk / reward situation for Microsoft. It's possible that it would pay off. It's also possible that someone else would come along with the next big shooter, put it on both consoles, and steal Sony console owners would be like fuck it, I'll just roll with this one instead.
There is a reason Microsoft didn't make Minecraft an Xbox exclusive when they gained ownership of it. A different situation, sure, but in the end they ran the numbers and realized they could make way more having it multiplatform.
From what I've seen Sony consoles are just plain selling way better. Xbox still does alright though. And if they do decide to make COD exclusive, that will surely add a boost.
@Oldmanwinter The reports of Activision pushing Blizzard to output more games is definitely concerning. Blizzard games in the past took forever to come out and delays were inevitable, but the product was always worth it and the games had legs. It's not a death knell for Blizzard yet but it is concerning about the reports of Activision forcing Blizzard to push out Overwatch 2 instead of continuing support for Overwatch and how Warcraft III Reforged was rushed out.
Regarding the original post, the only reason I kind of like this is because of Game Pass. Game Pass is one of the best gaming services I’ve ever used. The sheer volume of games on there, and the ability to do cloud gaming to my phone, is a great deal. I was shocked at how many great new games come out included with your subscription day 1. In the past year I’ve played Halo Infinite, Crusader Kings 3, Age of Empires 4, The Ascent and Forza Horizon 5 all the day they launched. I would have paid retail for all of those. Then when you combine that with the Bethesda titles, EA Play which is included and now Activisions catalogue, Game Pass as far as current gaming subscription services go is far and away the most bang for your buck. I have PlayStation Plus and admittedly they give out some great games and it’s well worth the money, however compared to what Microsoft is doing it’s not even close.
Yeah I have no idea how Game Pass works. There is no way they are making money on this, right? They're giving away brand new games for a fraction of the cost if players bought them themselves. No way is this profitable.
Unless there is something about it that I'm not seeing. Because clearly they have enough cash to drop SEVENTY BILLION DOLLARS on a company, so something is working in their favor. I understand this is Microsoft, but still...
I don’t get it either. However none of these subscription services seem like they should make money. Netflix for instance must spend an absolute fortune on programming. Every time I log in there are twenty new shows they just put out.
Yeah, this is insane. And almost ancillary to Nintendo, except for some Blizzard and smaller Activision ports. It's a bad freaking day to be Sony, though.
But would MS really keep CoD exclusive? You could say that MS paid 70 bills for a bunch of moribund or declining franchises. Considering that, I can't see them publishing too many on Playstation, even if that would be leaving tons of money on the table. They MIGHT keep publishing on Switch, though?
As far as ActiBlizzard goes, this might actually be a good thing. It's been mismanaged to hell in recent years, and I don't even really care about CoD. Microsoft can bring back some dormant IP for strategic reasons. Like Blur!
Anyway, seismic news. From a Nintendo perspective, not as seismic. They can survive and even thrive without big third-parties. But where will it end? Is Sony going to buy Capcom? Is Microsoft going to buy EA??
All I know is, for Joe Mainstream, who probably still hasn't jumped into next-gen, Game Pass is one hell of a deal. Most/All of your dumb sports games and your dumb shooters are included in the service. Like, the BIGGEST selling games of the year, perennially. And now some might even be exclusive? After Sony tossed all of their chips into the Western market?
The idea that Playstation sells on the strength of its first-party library is mostly a fallacy. It was just the leading MainstreamBox. Exclusive FF or Persona notwithstanding, like I said, it's a baaad day in Sonytown.
If anything Nintendo might have a better chance getting COD since MS seems to enjoy playing nice with them.
The ports they've gotten from MS studios have even good.
For whatever reason MS has seemed to learn some hard lessons and their openness has been pretty good.
I dunno if they'll withhold COD from Sony but I guess we'll have to see.
And yes I agree with Anand. Sony is good at being the mainstream box, it's their bread and butter. So if MS holds onto some of these they'll be screwing Sony bad.
When you look at it though, in a weird way MS is kind of deserving owning COD. They put the series on the map really. COD2 launched with 360 and XBL made it really thrive. They also started those marketing deals too. So from that perspective I'd say MS has more of a claim to COD than Sony does...
I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if they allowed Game Pass to run via an app on the PlayStation. You can already stream to a PC or your iPad or Android or whatever. It seems that everyone is moving to a subscription model and it’s just a numbers game. I’m sure they would rather have 100 million PlayStation gamers sign up for $15 a month forever than maybe get some of them to jump ship and buy an Xbox.
Oh yeah and bullet dodged btw cuz apparently Facebook was this close to being the ones buying them.
I'd much rather have Xbox/MS owning them cuz at least they know something about gaming unlike creepy ass fuckin' Facebook and their weirdo Metaverse plans.
That Metaverse presentation was the creepiest, tone deaf shit I've ever seen. Makes Stadia look like the Switch.
@carlosrox Chillingly, both Spencer and Kotick mentioned the Metaverse when talking about this deal. Weird, because MS never seemed all-in on VR.
Hopefully, they're just talking about King, or something. Virtual multiplayer Candy Crush with enormous pieces of candy!
First-person Candy Crush! Get all up in that sweet, sweet candy! Crush it with your hands!
I agree that CoD has a better chance of hitting Switch now. Any chance is better than zero. Hell, the least they could do is port Call of Duty mobile. They'll probably just port Candy Crush...
