Isn’t part of the advantage of these publishers that they can largely function as a self contained unit rather than just suddenly being a pile of new studios added to Microsoft Gaming that have to be managed? I’m sure there’s some scaling back as staff become superflous but my understanding is that Bethesda largely still exists as a corporate structure under Microsoft, not just for the studios but publishing and marketing and so on. So it might not be as simple as splitting off Blizzard as a seperate studio again.
I think we’re just talking having Activision and Blizzard being separated, not split any further than that. Blizzard alone has more employees than Zenimax.
Activision/Blizzard combined will take a strong leader since their current one will be ousted.
Ok I’ve had another look at the wording, let’s go crazy. First I’ve been on the multiplat side of the fence but I am now more on the fence of what is actually going to happen. This is all down to the wording, I’ll point out to what is interesting to me.
To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision. And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love. We are also interested in taking similar steps to support Nintendo’s successful platform. We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business.
Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision.
My understanding of what this is saying is COD and other popular ABK games will be still on PS consoles, it does not say future.
And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love.
This is the same sort of line, they won’t remove the games even after any agreement that is in place right now that those titles have to be on PS consoles. You can argue that “can continue to enjoy the games they love” means existing games because how can you continue to enjoy something that isn’t out. You could say they mean continue as in enjoying the franchise but they said games. How can you continue to enjoy games if they don’t exist or even on the platform.
Example, Xbox players can continue to enjoy the Final Fantasy games going forward but that doesn’t mean all their games like FF16, Xbox players who enjoy FF15 can continue to enjoy FF15 even though FF16 is PS5 exclusive.
With all that said they could be completely honest and want it to be multiplat and that wouldn’t shock me. I am on the fence now, I do still lean more on that is going multiplat, it can really go either way. I’ll be happy no matter what happens. So many of these words have many meanings that it is almost impossible to completely go one way or another.
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This is how I read it the first time, and still think that is the meaning. They will honor the agreements, and will not remove anything after the agreements run out.
How could Sony fans continue to love CoD 2025? It does not exist yet.
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If another Vanguard happens I’m not sure they’ll enjoy it 
Look what they said regarding Zenimax
What we’ll do in the long run is we don’t have intentions of just pulling all of Bethesda content out of Sony or Nintendo or otherwise
Reads the same to me.
Personally I believe Jeff GRUBBS initial take was correct
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Haha fair point. I have no horse in the CoD race either, I don’t play them but I do think they should be used to leverage Xbox.
I think it will be something like this:
- Existing agreements will run it’s course. CoD 22, 23 or however long that runs will release on PS.
- Warzone will continue to be multiplat, so will the sequel.
- Overwatch 1-2 will continue to be multiplat.
- An eventual WoW console release will be multiplat, but have a sub tier on GP.
- Diablo IV is 50/50. IF they do old-gen releases it will come to PS4. If not, then no.
- CoD will be restructured, either as a platform (multiplat) or release every 2 years (exclusive).
- New IP and new games will be exclusive.
I also think it’s time to separate Blizzard and Activision. That has been one unhealthy relationship since the merge, now is the perfect opportunity.
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I’m not sure I see the point, Activision and Blizzard already seem to function somewhat separately as actual game development teams, with Blizzard having it’s own internal management structure even if that does function under Activisions overall management. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of benefit to be gained from moving them around slightly on the corporate structure when the goal is already to give studios the creative freedom to make the games they want to make.
Pretty much agree with this, I think Diablo 4 is going to PS because it was announced but I think the one after that will probs go exclusive.
No matter what happens Xbox ecosystem will be the best way to play ABK games for many reasons, that would be the most bare minimum thing to come out of it.
I do like splitting ABK up too, having;
XBOX GAME STUDIOS
BETHESDA
ACTIVISION
BLIZZARD
KING
SEGA
Just looks nicer and gives Blizzard their identity back in a way.
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Afaik from people I know at Blizzard the Activisionification of Blizzard has been very detrimental. The classic Suits vs. Devs scenario. The benefit of splitting them up would be the more manageable size and letting them go their own ways within Microsoft gaming. No need for that behemoth to exist since financial security is allready there.
Yes, Diablo IV is very uncertain. I think it depends a lot on when it actually releases.
Indeed, even in the worst kumbaya-case the ABK games will be “free” on Xbox. Hard to argue with that price point if nothing else. They should do a lot with XGP perks etc. too, but then there is Minecraft which is best on… PS. So I’m not confident in that route.
SEGA would be nice too, haha.
If this was regular Activision Blizzard sure, Blizzard would absolutely be better on it’s own - but Activision Blizzard under Microsoft? They’re already going to have overhauled management with new people at the top working to Phil Spencer’s vision for the company - I don’t think much changes by moving them into their own branch other than just kind of sounding nice and removing a couple layers of management.
I haven’t been keeping up with Minecraft but keep seeing people say it’s better on PS, in what way? also I think Minecraft deal was a bit different as it was the first big deal from MS and at their worst point so there is probably a ton of clauses in there to be independent like the Bungie deal. I don’t think that is the case now so wouldn’t really expect the same for companies they buy going forward, unless it’s a Japanese publisher because they’ll probably want a clause to be on the best selling consoles in their home turf which I would understand and support if it means Japanese game fans get games on Xbox and GP.
Yes, it will still be better now under Microsoft but I think the benefits of Blizzard being able to focus more on their own identity would be beneficial.
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They have both a PS5/4K version and a PSVR version lol.
On Xbox it’s not even enhanced for One X…
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Who is going to lead Activision/Blizzard? Would it be easier to find proper leadership (like the existing leadership, Ybarra and whoever the Activision equivalent is) if split?
What is the negative for splitting them?
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Either way it’s Phil Spencer at the top, I kind of took the announcement to mean he’d be more directly running Activision but whoever takes that role there’s already a functioning structure for Activision Blizzard to be run as is, so I’m not sure if it’s necessarily much easier, and the mandate for Activision management is just going to be to give the studios freedom to make the games they want to make. The practical difference between being under Activision being run by Phil Spencer and following his mandates and being more directly under Phil Spencer seems minor.
Do they even do it with any of their current games? (though It seems they don’t have any subscription based games but either F2P or pay to join). Not to mention that we still haven’t got FF14 on our platform, they can use WOW exclusivity to bring some people…Perks in Game Pass means less profit from selling them separately and MS did not give any indications that its own GP subscribers will get juicy perks.
I wonder what lifetime Diablo 4 will have. We might not have exclusive Diablo for years to come. And games are taking more and more time to be developed so I wonder if it is safe to say that Diablo 5 is coming in 2033 if ever (I don’t think Diablo 4 is going full GaaS). I would say that Sony is extremely lucky to get all new gen full GaaS titles that Microsoft will have to support for years to come.
The problem is there won’t be a functioning structure for Activision Blizzard when their big $$ CEO is ousted as soon as the deal is complete. So yeah… I guess Phil could step in to fill that role. If he did it wouldn’t be all that different from them being split because the president of Blizzard, Activision, and King would be reporting directly to him.
No not really, there has been a month of sub here and there for Fallout 76/ESO. This is me hoping they will expand on the Game Pass tiers a bit. Make Ultimate actually…ultimate so to speak. I’ll pay more for more.