So Microsoft just bought Activision

Following up on them buying Zenimax last year, now Activision is theirs for a staggering 68.700.000.000 USD. This means everything from Call of Duty, Starcraft, Diablo, WoW, Candycrush to Crash Bandicoot to Tony Hawk to even Sekiro are theirs. Notes on them coming to GamePass are already rumored.

This does offer up the question: where will this end. Of the big studios, only Ubisoft is really left in terms of the West. If this trend continues Microsoft will keep buying up all the big names, in its goal to offer the 'netflix of gaming'. Opinions?

Really insane deal, Microsoft aren't fucking around. After the rocky Xbox One generation they sure tried their best to improve their reputation (hence why backwards compatibility was even a thing IMO) and to offer more value.

While I mostly don't care for modern games, I'm a bit worried that once M$ has too much power, things will take a turn for the worse again. Really hoping there will not be any games that can only be played with Gamepass without the option to buy them. The Series X DRM is already a concern.

On another note, I wonder if CoD will become PC and Xbox exclusive from now on (with the exclusion of Warzone). Will be interesting to see if M$ will give up all the money it's making off of PS players in hopes of more players switching to their Xbox ecosystem.

Yeah the downside is that currently, their MO is client-service. This nets them customers and keeps them around, but values and principles tend to become very shaky when you're the only one with the product. We already saw the first victim of Gamepass in terms of game preservation, i.e. Halo Infinite not having a physical release (the disc is basically empty, just contains a downloader and some pre-data). This will only escalate further down the line I'm afraid.

> call of duty
I think we'll mostly feel these results in 3-4 years. The next wave will probably be multiplatform still, but with Xbox getting more bonusses i.e. earlier DLC and exclusive DLC/seasons, already pushing the consumers to their machine/service first before making it fully exclusive.

That said, it's no secret that Microsoft has tried to make GamePass available on Playstation and Switch, a product they'll probably keep on pitching in the future.

Now the question remains: who's next? Ubisoft or EA?

Are they interested in selling anyway? Activision did have some troubles lately with all the controversies so I guess M$ saw an opportunity to get them for a good price.

I'm also worried about the same things you said regarding preservation. Phil Spencer is a great PR man no doubt, all their preservation talk and still only like 63 OG Xbox games are backwards compatible... Yet they still get praise like they are actually preserving games.

Now M$, Please give me Tenchu Return From Darkness on bakcwards compatibility!

Wild stuff. Probably good for the near future, but bad for the long-term. Hopefully this will clean Activision up some as a company, but I'm wary of what effects this much industry consolidation will have.

Yeah the buy-out was probably at a lower price due to the controversies for sure. Considering stuff like warzone makes about 5 million per day while WoW still has a very low-maintance fanbase, goes to show how stable the company still is despite its lowered quality.

> preservation
Yeah it's more that they are the only ones. If you compare what they do now compared to what the PS2 (or vanilla PS3) or Xbox 360 did, it's laughable. There is a case to be made for compatibility in terms of hardware/software, as well as even just having a method of playing (i.e. the new system has no disc-drive). They really need to find a method for this.

> Tenchu Returns
They noted that the Compatability program is officially over. As all the other games were frought with issues regarding copyrights that wouldn't budge.

Preservation - Agree with everything you said, I guess they see no benefit in actually tackling true preservation, and perhaps they don't want to upset publishers with remaster plans etc? I mean Genma Onimisha isn't BC, I'd assume it's because Capcom didn't want it to overshadow the remaster, and Microsoft would not want to upset them.

Tenchu - Yep I know that no more BC games are coming, I said this half-joking since Activision published Tenchu 3.

It's hard to know. I think there are warning signs with things like the Wii/WiiU in terms of backwards compatability being an issue (all those damned controller-options and ports).

One concept that I've always found interesting is from another hobby of mine, Warhammer. The studio that makes the figurines obviously only runs production on the 'latest' releases. But what they do is that (excluding limited edition figures), they run "made-to-order" offers. This is basically their entire catalogue of products that are no longer in production.

They cost extra and you have a longer wait (usually a few extra weeks, since it's made especially for you), but it does make the products still available.

Would this be possible for the videogame market? I.e. Nintendo has a site where you can still buy fully functioning NES's and NES games in their original cartridge and packaging, except there's of course a pricetag to it and a longer waiting time since it's "made to order".

Wii / Wii U - All the controller options are indeed a hindrance, but I thought Wii U has 100% backwards compatibility with every Wii game and accessory/controller?

In addition, a modded Wii U can also natively run Gamecube games in Wiii mode (though with disc images and not real discs), with options for virtual memory cards, and even using real Gamecube controllers with the adapter.

Made to order - I couldn't find anything regarding Nintendo doing it (NES/SNES classic don't count I'd assume). Would be great especially for "special" accessories no longer being sold, like all Wii and Wii U accessories or the DualShock 3 (pressure sensitive controls). I can't see Sony, M$ or Nintendo manufacturing 6th gen consoles and above though, so the ideal solution would be full emulation + selling accessories IMO, just can't see it hapening sadly.

Regarding the Wii, I more meant towards the fact that it was basically a Gamecube in there as well with an entire side of ports relegated to it. Imagine a modern Nintendo machine, with fullbackwards compatability, it's just not doable.

Agree full emulation should be the way to go, but even then you'll run into issues like "cannot use that game since we don't have the rights to that song anymore" etc. that you circumvent by having the original copy. Difficult problem.

And now Sony bought Bungie for 3.6 billion. Is Destiny really that important or profitable? It seems like more of a dick swinging move than anything else.

Could be dick swinging, or maybe they do have plans for them (despite Bungie stating they will have creative freedom and all of that). How much money is Destiny 2 making for them anyway?

They said that Bungie games will come out on other platforms and that they'll retain a certain degree of freedom (as you said). We'll see. Also it seems that there are other Sony acquisitions on the way.

Acquisition notes show that the purchase has been in the works for about 6 months now, so it isn't as much of a reaction.

Personal guess: they're prepping for a GamePass-esque feature. Sony's been hinting at this for a while and it's a similar war we saw in the TV industry. Companies would snag famous IPs or studios and make them work exclusively for their streaming platform. Think videogaming is going to go that way.

Which seems familiar. Currently GamePass is fantastic, and it reminds me of early Netflix when it was just the go-to stop. Now you've got all these billion streaming services, and I fear gaming will go the same route (with all the negatives).

That's just my prediction though.

Yeah, I heard about it from Metokur. Then Sony bought Bungie or some shit (rather than going for Sega, Capcom, etc.). Not even for exclusives, apparently. Letting CA run their business is working out splendidly, I see.

>streaming vidya
Fuck all that.