Microsoft buys Activision

Come on Des, you have to admit that was pretty good.

Even a stopped mart is right two times a day.

Isn't Destiny quietly enormous? I'm sure I read it had more players than CoD.

Last weekend, Destiny had 320,000 players on PS4/5. It's at the quietest part of the season in the longest season we've seen in a long time and it's still got a really healthy user base on PlayStation. They're also eyeing up movies and TV shows for it (not sure how that's gonna go but more power to you) so a partnership with Sony makes a lot of sense.

It's got a new expansion coming out in a couple of weeks too so should see an uptick.

Its main problem is the same as all long-running games - it's now pretty much impenetrable for new players. So it's inevitably in a slow decline, albeit it's quite impressive how slow that decline is. It keeps existing players invested, at least.

28 million new players on Apex last year. As long as a game keeps itself fresh the decline isn't inevitable.

C'mon Microsoft, buy everyone else and put everything on XBox/PC game pass. You're rich, Microsoft, eating up all the other game companies is totally doable, right?

So Square Enix sold Crystal dynamics and Eidos-Montreal studios to Embracer Group along with the IPs like Tomb Raider and Deus ex for 300 million. Square Enix seemed unhappy with their western studios for a while now. Always reporting "failed to meet expectations". I feel like Microsoft and Sony dropped the ball with this one. 300 million seems like a steal. I guess this Activision deal is a handful already for Microsoft.

$300m is crazy, for the amount of IP they're getting alone.

Apparently Squenix are using this as an opportunity to invest in the blockchain. 🤮

Yeah, I haven't been keeping up with all that stuff these days, but last I heard was a statement saying that they believe in it and doubling down.

Sony still wins best Beal of all time with Insomniac for 250 million. How did that even happen? Haha 😂

Always reporting "failed to meet expectations".

This was what they always did, wasn't it? Launch a big game, announce it needs to sell 16 squillion copies then declare it a failure when it only sells 8 squillion. Just a completely unsustainable business model. They did it again this year with Guardians of the Galaxy. And all their games get discounted / GamePassed really fast so it’s no wonder no-one buys them at launch.

Tomb Raider aside, I'm not sure of the value of much of the IP here. Deus Ex is mostly remembered as the series that's never lived up to the original, Thief hasn't had a good entry in decades, and there can't be many people holding out for a Legacy of Kain sequel. So maybe the price isn't that surprising.

I'm happy this hasn't all gone to one or the other of the two big platform holders, but I know nothing about Embracer Group. Hopefully this leads to more than a bunch of quick ports and mobile cash-ins.

there can't be many people holding out for a Legacy of Kain sequel.

AHEM.

(I'd happily take remasters of the two Soul Reaver games)

I have a friend who talks about a remaster of Soul Reaver at let once a month. I didn't play them really, but I want it for him now, haha.

@Garwoofoo Yeah, I think overall it's not a bad thing. At least they will stay multiplatform this way. It's just crazy to think that Microsoft was willing to pay 100 million just for a one year exclusive deal for Rise of the Tomb Raider and not pay for this. It's a lot of developers too, and now with Crystal dynamics working on Perfect Dark it feels like there's more to this story.

Soul Reaver is done, even if we get Amy back imo. There's no way they will be able to carry on the story as good as it was like the time gap never happened.

there can't be many people holding out for a Legacy of Kain sequel.

AHEM.

(I'd happily take remasters of the two Soul Reaver games)

Yeah ditto. Soul Reaver is one of my fav Dreamcast games and I voted for it on the top Dreamcast games poll I posted here.

I didn't realise Embracer were THQ Nordic… Makes more sense now! They've been pretty true to the IP they've picked up so far, and seem unafraid of single player, non-micro-transaction-littered, fan service type games, so reasons to be cheerful about these too I think.

In setting up my Vita again to play Zen Pinball 2, I discovered it also has Soul Reaver (PSOne) and GTA: Chinatown Wars (PSP) on it. Awesome. Both will be played.

Ah, I thought GTA Chinatown was A DS title? I must be getting mixed up with something else.

It was.

Ah, was it on both. I only remembered the DS one because it was a GTA game on a Nintendo system.

It was apparently rather good

It was both DS and PSP, and yes, it was very good.

Hopefully this means we'll get the final part of the Deus Ex reboot trilogy now. They're actually really good games, and the most recent one ended without finishing the story. Squeenix forced the team to work on that dreadful Avengers game instead. I wonder how many of the key members of the team are still there, though.

Hopefully this means we'll get the final part of the Deus Ex reboot trilogy now.

Sadly I can't see them revisiting a niche series from seven or eight years ago, at least not to the extent of going back and actually finishing it off. If we see any Deus Ex at all I'd say it's likely to be another reboot.

I played the first one (on Wii U!) a few years after it came out and it was good, but already dated in terms of its small, boxy environments. It would be very out of step with modern trends.

https://twitter.com/VG247/status/1521519124534419457

SEE, GAR?!

Oh, nevermind.

https://www.eurogamer.net/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-blizzard-deal

(Stolen from the Hit Points Discord)

Whether or not it's the right decision, I couldn't say; but the reasoning seems rather odd. Apparently this acquisition will give Microsoft an unfair advantage in the cloud gaming market. You know, that cloud gaming market that doesn't really exist and has never taken off despite everyone from nVidia to Google chucking loads of money at it. I mean, it's there and it works but it's considered by most gamers to be a fallback option at best, and I'm a bit perplexed that it's been used as a reason to block this acquisition.

Literally the only cloud solution that works currently is Xbox, and no-one uses it anyway. But I guess that's a monopoly when everyone else did it badly?

I'm not particularly fond of multinational corporate conglomeration, but I don't think that "the only people who've managed to do X successfully" is the same thing as a monopoly.

I have no opinion in this fight but I think it's funny how Europe is becoming the guardian of the electronics world. First you all make me click on a "yes, I do want to use your cookies/no, fuck off/just use some cookies so you can track me but some random other site can't" button on every single site I ever visit on the internet, now you deny two American companies their Bald Eagle, God-loving, Yay Guns, hamburger-eating right to become a massive company! How dare you. /s

Spoiler - click to showThanks for the first thing, seriously, it's a good thing. Annoying but good.

Literally the only cloud solution that works currently is Xbox, and no-one uses it anyway. But I guess that's a monopoly when everyone else did it badly?

GeForce Now is technically miles ahead of what Xbox is doing, and is the only cloud gaming solution I've used where I could genuinely mistake it for playing locally. But it's very much aimed at the PC market, and the games it supports are limited.

I find Xbox Cloud Gaming surprisingly unreliable for the amount of focus they are putting on it - the idea of being able to play your Xbox games anywhere, on anything, is a great one but every time I use it I just end up dealing with technical issues.

The hilarious thing of course is that the very last game anyone would ever try and play over the cloud is multiplayer Call of Duty.

This kinda suck I think. Wanted this deal to go through as a consumer. I want to see the day the Game Pass Twitter account post "available today" with a bunch of Activision games on it like they did with Bethsaida.

This kinda suck I think. Wanted this deal to go through as a consumer. I want to see the day the Game Pass Twitter account post "available today" with a bunch of Activision games on it like they did with Bethsaida.

It would force people into buying an Xbox though. I've wanted to switch back to PS5 for a while now, and a key part of not doing so was knowing I'd never get any Blizzard games on the Sony machine.

If Blizzard stay independent it's great for gamers generally. Although I appreciate it means those already locked into Game Pass end up paying more.

As I understand it, there's nothing to stop Microsoft from making some kind of GamePass/exclusivity deal with Blizzard separate from the attempted buyout, though; I guess owning them outright just makes that easier.

They should've done that first. I'm sure there's licensing and other money they'd get from owning the whole business, but if the exclusivity was already in place it'd presumably soften up the arguments the merger affecting multiplatform availability.

Didn't the guy say the main reason they're buying Acti was for Candy Crush, given Acti owns King? No-one's complaining about that, interestingly.

I don't know that I'd trust anything anybody is saying as regards the motive for the buyout (beyond $$$).

This kinda suck I think. Wanted this deal to go through as a consumer. I want to see the day the Game Pass Twitter account post "available today" with a bunch of Activision games on it like they did with Bethsaida.

It would force people into buying an Xbox though. I've wanted to switch back to PS5 for a while now, and a key part of not doing so was knowing I'd never get any Blizzard games on the Sony machine.

If Blizzard stay independent it's great for gamers generally. Although I appreciate it means those already locked into Game Pass end up paying more.

I get that, but people are force to buying a PS5 I think. Sony has big hold in the console space. They can go almost a year without any first party and it doesn't affect you much because of all the third party deals they do. We're at a point when your game needs to release on playstation but doesn't need to on Xbox so I feel Sony can use that to pay them off to not release on the Xbox anyways. Look at this year alone. They haven't released any games and only announced spiderman at the end of the year and it's fine because they have games like Final fantasy 16. Business is business at the end of the day but I hate the fact that things like COD has more content on PS every year, Street Fighter V being exclusive was a massive one for me too. They managed to get Death Loop and Ghost wired Tokyo but I can only imagine the damage to Xbox if they were successful in locking Starfield exclusively. It could be more an Xbox issue, but Microsoft has been too nice in my opinion. They always release first party games on other platforms. I guess I just don't want Microsoft to go full third party by the end the the gen.

They always release first party games on other platforms.

I'm not sure Windows PC really counts.

Death Loop and GhostWire were announced for PlayStation before MS bought Bethesda, so I'd be reluctant to call those releases "generous" more than "contractually obligated".

I guess I just don't want Microsoft to go full third party by the end the the gen.

Me neither, but it would be kind of hilarious if the side-effect of this decision was that the CMA ended up giving Sony the exact "monopoly" they're trying to deny Microsoft.

Today's Hit Points has what I thought was an excellent run-down of the CMA decision and why the industry should maybe have seen it coming.

The whole "console exclusivity" thing seems increasingly ridiculous with each generation. It seems to be just widely accepted that there will always be two £500 boxes on the market that do pretty much exactly the same thing and that run 80% of the games in the exact same way. Then one box exclusively runs 10% of the games and the other box runs the other 10%. If you want to play the best games each gen then you need two functionally identical boxes under your TV plus all the associated paraphernalia (controllers etc).

Whenever this situation has arisen anywhere else (VHS vs Betamax, HD-DVD vs Blu-ray) the situation has quickly resolved itself to leave a single hardware platform that everyone buys into, but somehow gamers are always:

(Don't get me started on the amount of time, energy and money that is spent each gen on not only making sure games run on both platforms, but that they do so identically, lest Digital Foundry decides your 1 fps discrepancy makes your game worthless).

The last time the console dichotomy made sense was in the PS1/N64 era - two completely different machines with totally different designs that led to libraries on each that were almost unique. Since then it's been various flavours of exactly the same thing.

It does feel a bit weird considering the accepted wisdom that hardware is a loss-leader, but I do think the interactivity of games pushes creativity in a different way than you see in traditional entertainment media that, to some degree, benefits from hardware innovation.

MS and Sony clearly have different priorities when it comes to the experiences they imagine for their hardware – the PS5's haptic triggers promoting some nebulous next-gen idea of immersion, while the Xbox seems content with a more iterative approach – that a VHS manufacturer never needed to consider. Most Blu-ray players still don't support 3D (nor most TVs) and that's arguably the biggest innovation to film viewing technology right now.

Maybe a closer comparison would be the smartphone market. There's no significant difference, really, between the experiences offered on an Android vs. an iPhone (and even fewer differences in hardware than home consoles), but there's no chance of either company throwing in the towel just to provide software for the other.

I'm fairly sure I wrote gar's post two generations ago in the old clubhouse.

Did you also leave out the Sega Saturn despite it being the BEST box of that era!?