This is the most insightful post on here, thanks to the Jeffs. Microsoft can’t comment on Bobby yet, as he’s still the CEO of a publicly traded acquisition target and they can’t tamper with them prior to the sale going through some time next year. Furthermore, Bobby will likely have some sort of contract negotiated to…

I’m sure Sony would be interested in stuff like Diablo, Tony Hawk, Crash, and Spyro. 

The amount of people stuck in a Brand Loyalty/schoolyard Console War mentality is depressing.

The real reason Microsoft bought ActivisionBlizzard:

Even if Phil Spencer looks like the gaming buddy you always wanted and their Pass is a ‘great deal’ to many, Microsoft is not a force for good (or evil but that is another discussion).

Remember when the original XBOX lost them like 2 billion dollars, and Microsoft was like f**k that lets not do that again? Those were simpler times.

Its laughable to believe Microsoft wants anything to do with Bobby Kotick or honestly the vast majority of staff at Activision.

Seriously, fuck this guy.

That’s the issue from where I’m sitting though, that vague promise. They’ve owned some of these studios for going on half a decade now, many of them ones that put out smaller titles, and still have delivered just about nothing. And now they’ve acquired two large publisher groups and will have to try and manage those…

To be fair, it isn’t just our fault. Certainly, “voting with your wallet” should have been applied way, way more often and we should not have defended companies for doing bad shit when those same companies would drop us like a bad habit if we weren’t profitable anymore, but even that will only get us so far. It would…

I don’t think they’re buying these companies for the continued development at this point. Shoring up Xbox GamePass has to be their play right now: make the service absolutely irresistible with the vague promise of new content on the horizon. Much like Netflix did at first when they struck streaming deals with all the…

We have paid lip service to competition with one side of our mouths, and gladly handed Sony and Microsoft the keys to the castle with the other. I have been arguing against consolidation since the beginning of the digital age, back when I was young and pissed off at everything. The writing has most likely been on the…

Because, for Microsoft, it isn’t about creating content. It is about controlling the market by limiting consumer access to just their ecosystem.

The thing around this whole acquisition though that still strikes me is that Microsoft have spent the last, what, four years now just buying up everything under the sun and what exactly do they have to show for it?

This late stage capitalism setting we are in... is really getting tiresome.

If only the government could step in like it did in the ‘90s and pursue some anti-trust cases against them again.

So they’re buying yet another top tier third party publishing house that has some of the biggest franchises, has historically put games out on everything note, and really has no notable financial problems or requires “investing” at all. I just think moves like this are fucked up.

Well fuck this.

Well that would explain why Kotick hasn’t gone juuuust yet (no doubt will get a massive percentage of the price) and why Phil is so diplomatic about the answers he gave about behaviours at the place.

I’m not trying to be that person, but there’s just nothing that is jumping out at me to go out and rush to buy a PS5 at this point anyways. I still have a considerable PS4 backlog (hell, I still have PS3 and PS2 games I haven’t played...), and until the PS5 gets more of the types of games that are my preference…

I really hate to say this, but with the exception of a few extremely rare examples, for some reason company cultures just do not change for the better once the well is poisoned.