They already own Tango Gameworks, I don’t see why they wouldn’t buy another Japanese studio. Microsoft tried before to rely on third party Japanese support for exclusives and it failed when they abandoned the platform.
Bethesda created Tango who were then bought by MS. The latter have only ever used XGP in Japan, and they have just activated them up again with Matt Smith.
Honestly I’d rather see them take risks and have some failures instead of just rolling out the “core” successful games time and time again. This holds true with Xbox as well. That’s why I hope we continue to see games like Bleeding Edge, Grounded, Redfall, etc. “Risky” games that developers want to make that may or may not hit but are interesting and different in their own way. Variety is the spice of life, less third person cinematic AAA might actually do the industry some good. Reducing overinflated development times and budgets would be nice. Giving developers more control and creative freedom would be nice. Getting games more often - even a few bad ones - would be nice.
Having Ubisoft would basically mean Gamepass is set for the forseeable future.
2 Likes
Everyone lamenting this opportunity as missed should remember all the missed opportunites preceding The ActiBlizzion gambit.
Microsoft cant buy everyone. There will be long gaps where they buy no-one. When they do it it will be worth the wait.
1 Like
Activision is one of the acquisitions with the biggest possible impact, but I play games not impact.
3 Likes
It does become the situation that sometimes certain buys aren’t going to be toward our personal tastes.
This is exactly how I felt about Undead Labs and Compulsion, but now I’m interested to see them up their game. ABK is basically just Blizzard and Spyro for me. If they can revive the love for CoD and Guitar Hero that’d be huge for me personally.
In the end though, ABK is objectively one of the best purchase Microsoft could’ve ever dreamed of, especially toward their goal of Game Pass adoption.
3 Likes
Ubisoft and WB confirmed thanks Hindle 
Well at least we know now that MS won’t acquire Ubisoft
You don’t look cool saying “you don’t care” about CoD when MS is the only mega corp that can substantially improve the work life of Actiblizz’s employee’s.
6 Likes
Cool and great for them, I don’t care about CoD still.
5 Likes
You might pull a muscle reaching like this lol
Anyway, I agree with Hindle. I think MS goes after the big dogs after ABK closes. T2 or Ubisoft next. I would prefer WB but it doesn’t seem likely at this point.
2 Likes
Bethesda was just too good not to do and ABK was a deal they couldn’t pass on. But do we really think they won’t get a smaller one if the said studio really would want it to? There are still plenty of independent ones.
Then again, we do know that Ubi might be ready to sell, Take Two though?
4 Likes
Ubisoft are ass and bloated as hell, hope MS go nowhere near them
Other than some devs like NRS/Rocksteady + the usual mentions IOI/Certain Affinity etc which would all be nice, xbox is more than set for western content after the ABK deal
After that I want them to set their sights elsewhere
1 Like
You’re right maybe a zero sum attitude towards acquisitions might not be the greatest perspective but most of us are just gamers and not M&A experts with knowledge of MS strategies. I’m just going off of their last 2 acquisitions. I do think they go smaller eventually but I don’t think they will until after their next publisher. *
*That’s assuming they weren’t interested in Square West
1 Like
People here are so petulant that it makes me actively root for against the acquisitions that folks want even if they’re the ones that I want too.
What sells GP is a constant stream of quality varied content.
1 Like
The problem is that people refuse to realize that ABK is the largest third party gaming company other than Tencent’s games division, the situation was there for a once in a time deal, they wouldn’t waste it because it was opportunity and they could buy a publicy traded company for much less and still have to face the FTC and reviews anyway.
“oohh but i don’t like Call of Duty” I rarely if ever play any kind of RPG, including Bethesda games, but it would be illogical to complain about it, plus its not just about Call of Duty, its about revitalizing the whole company to bring back old ips and new ones.
1 Like
Yep. The only people refusing to see the value of the Activision deal are those swimming in ignorance. Warzone makes 5.2 million USD in revenue per day. 5.2 million dollars per day. Just the F2P Battle Royale. It’s absolutely bonkers.
12 Likes
Totally agree. Gamers are seeing the ABK acquisition with extreme short sighted lens.
4 Likes