I was a bit conservative, yeah. 
And not counting deals, as it’s harder to put a number on it.
Was it renewed in 2019 starting with the 2019 game or the 2020 game?
If it was for the 2019 game, that’d make the deal end in 2023.
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The predictions about COD deal are tales from people asses, literally. XD
Nobody knows, maybe the one from this year is the last one, or maybe it lasts since 2026, we don’t know.
That said, I can’t see MS not marketint COD fo GP from fall 2023 when the deal will be closed, for this thing they’ll buyout any stupid clause they need.
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100%. I don’t care how much Phil said they ‘intend’ to honour any contracts, that would get bought out right away.
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At worst they will keep the status quo for 2023, but for 2024 I really don’t think so.
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Just wanted to point out that Sony centric fanboys and media aside, there has been nothing but positivity towards MS’ acquisition of AB from nearly all sides.
The COD content creators who have millions of subscribers were incredibly happy and the entire COD fanbase as well. Same for Overwatch content creators and fans, same for WoW and every other fans. They’re even more happy and hopeful than us. Even Japanese gamers are happy MS is sticking it to Sony. The PC fans are happy. Even major content creators who aren’t Sony/Xbox centric are happy. There hasn’t been any “this is awful” comments (Sony centric fanboys/media aside).
A major reason for this (and why I think MS can buy even more in the future without major problems) is the amazing reputation they are slowly building on how they take care of developers by giving them a great workplace, hands off approach, promoting creative freedom and limiting crunch even if it means eating cost by delaying games. Investing even more, creating more jobs. Essentially the best place to work for bar none. The amount of comments I read in the lines of “MS will not release a game if it’s not ready and crunch devs to death just look at Halo Infinite as an example” or “Devs under MS can finally pick what they want to work on, look at NT with Bleeding Edge or Obsidian with Grounded”. If MS can truly fix AB as well that’s going to boost MS’ reputation so much more in this space.
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It’s as you say, people are beginning to see that Xbox is backing up their words when they say they are going to be hands-off and give studios the freedom and support to make what they want. You also need to consider that everyone knows AB is a garbage company and literally give their studios no creative freedom, so honestly the only way is up for that publisher.
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Even 2023 is a bit shaky for me if the deal goes through this year.
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Interesting. I saw Ono’s respone to the news but do you have anymore Japanese impressions on the aquistion?
Kotaku did a quick article
It’s almost all mockery. This really doesn’t affect the Japanese market that much as it’s all Switch anyway, so they just like seeing Sony get knocked down a peg for pretty much abandoning Japan.
If you want the full picture of it… Well, here ya go. Just use your browser’s translate function and have fun (Watch out for NSFW ads on some of these sites)
http://krsw.5ch.net/test/read.cgi/ghard/1642512644/
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I know that everyone likes the attention and drama, but it is really laughable to see a bunch of gamers and gaming “journalists” online with all of the emotional takes. Of course, something unexpected could always come up in review of this deal. But it really shouldn’t be a big concern for any antitrust reviews:
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Most importantly Xbox still only ends up in third place in overall gaming revenue behind Tencent and Sony after the deal, which makes any case here almost impossible to make. And that doesn’t even consider the reasonable Microsoft argument that gaming extends much wider into mobile and such that makes it even more of a joke to question this.
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I really think the fact that even AFTER the acquisition a Chinese owned company in Tencent is the clear overall leader in revenue with a Japanese owned Sony still in second gives the U.S. based Microsoft a big advantage here. As any reviewers and even lawmakers learn more about the gaming industry throughout any process it would be very odd to let foreign owned companies lead even more in this growing industry.
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Even the talk of whether COD remaining on PlayStation somehow might help with scrutiny is somewhat laughable to me. This is a single video game franchise that Xbox would still be making available through multiple readily accessible means to consumers even if not on PlayStation: Xbox consoles, PC, cloud streaming. And it would be available through a Game Pass subscription service across all of those places. Regulators could care less that some online fanboys are butthurt because a competitor to their favorite plastic box and gaming company is getting stronger in the competition.
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it also funny when people are thinking short term about this when they should be thinking long term as this is a long-term play.
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Yep. Another angle here too that I think would serve Microsoft very well in any review process is that Sony’s use of money hats for 3rd party games to keep them off of Xbox could be relevant. You can’t be trying to make some antitrust case about potential harm to consumers (Xbox ecosystem covering pretty much all consumer options but PlayStation hardware helps here) for games availability when one of the leaders in gaming revenue could be argued to be “abusing” their market position to gatekeep games from consumers on a competing platform.
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I really hope when deal goes through Microsoft seeks out Marvel licenses. Hear me out because Activsision used to make so many Marvel bangers. Activision Spiderman games were great, incredible hulk was dope, and their rpg Marvel Ultimate Alliance and x-men legends were nice too
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Will be exciting to see what the studios choose to work on if/when given creative freedom.
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Really curious what they would make because Raven and the other studios that got delegated to COD factory made lots of interesting games. I think the creative freedom for all studios and stopping COD from being annual got me the most excited about this deal.
The games they release will determine how we look bad at this move. Was it a bad move for the industry because consolidation or a good one because it revitalized the output of the largest publisher.
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Well… BC for those old-arse games would be a good start. Bonus point with the FPS boost. All 360 Spidey games on Gamepass would be amazing.
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The other portion of this acquisition that makes any regulatory action less likely is the diversity of the portfolio. Xbox is not acquiring someone with a stronghold on any portion of the market. Xbox is really making entries into two newish areas or currently very small areas for them with Esports and Mobile. Those are significant and expensive portions of the acquisition. It’s not like this is monopolizing content on console for example. It’s very spread out.
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