Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

Luckily, I personally care about AB games even less than Bethesda (from whom I enjoy the likes of Doom Eternal and such). Don't get me wrong, I think CoD are solid games but I can easily live without them and I never enjoyed Diablo's loot craziness myself.
I just hope this doesn't put the competition in actual trouble.

Also this has huge "rich kid gets whatever they want" energy (even though this is obviously good for Xbox and MS). Nobody likes that kid.

@Kidfried What's worse is the revelations surrounding the culture of harassment and misogynistic abuse hit Activision's share prices, in turn (potentially) benefitting Microsoft. Given the length of time these deals are in the works, there is no way Phil Spencer was unaware when he wrote his hollow and disingenuous tweets. Bobby Kotick's days may be turn out to be numbered, but the payday he will get from this deal will be astronomical, as will any future severance package. Capitalism rewards exactly who it's meant to. And it still doesn't change the deeply rooted problems with Blizzard's studio culture or the lives ruined by it.

It’s genuinely sickening. So much for speaking out about ActiBlizz. Extreme benefit of the doubt, they could clean up the company but that’s not really how capitalism works.

@Kidfried Well that’s horrifying. It’s indefensible. I genuinely do not see how anybody could be happy about this.

@Kidfried Ah. Never mind. “Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming." So basically Bobby’s being booted once they’re acquired? Awful but if that happens then it’s something.

Apparently the only thing morally wrong is to turn down a big stack of money!

@Kidfried It’s not good at all. I genuinely don’t think Kotick is long for the company though, Microsoft’s image matters more than him when it comes to these massive deals. They should really just outright make an example of him as soon as the deal goes through. I’d assume that they need him on board in order to get the deal through but he’ll end up going off with a ridiculous severance package anyway. All this deal shows is that those who abuse get away with it richer than before.

@LtSarge just picked up an 8-bit do Xbox controller and what a boss piece of equipment. £30??? Like what??? Amazing. The d-pad is fantastic, warmed up on Tetris Effect and it's so so good. Best 3rd party controller I've ever used, only day 1 so wear and tear could be an issue but I am extremely impressed. 8 bit do are well and truly on my radar now

@Kidfried LMAO, those quotes can't be real. Any sane human being wouldn't write something like that with the knowledge of what's happening at Activision/Blizzard.

@themcnoisy awesome purchase, the wired one? I paid like £36 for it. I was waiting for it to go down in price for a few weeks but I bit at 36 in the end!

@LtSarge The problem is how much they give him in severance. Someone like Kotick doesn’t deserve to just walk away with millions. The victims need justice.

@nessisonett I agree, but on the other hand, what would've happened to Activision if Microsoft hadn't acquired it? Would Bobby have left eventually, would the company culture improve on its own after several years more of his leadership, and so on.

I remember last week when Spencer stated that Xbox has changed how they do things with Activision: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/01/xbox-boss-weve-changed-...

I think this is what he meant; they're removing Bobby and improving the company culture by integrating it with their own. It makes sense to me, Microsoft cares about its image a lot so of course they wouldn't want to damage it by acquiring a publisher with an awful reputation. It will take time but ultimately I think Microsoft will be able to improve the situation at Activision, even if Bobby gets away with a lot of money. It's definitely not a perfect solution but I don't see how things would've changed without an outside force.

What this means moving forward - CoD will release a Free to Play MP Game that releases on PS5 whilst also supporting Warzone. Maybe even expand warzone to include MP to support fans on that platform. That is still keeping CoD and their MP fanbase on PS5 happy.

That frees up Treyarch, High Moon, Raven, Infinity Ward etc to make 'New' games - maybe a CoD story, maybe not bit whatever they are free to make, they will all be on game pass.

This is all about GAME PASS and yes as Xbox owners, that's fantastic news as the Xbox is a Game Pass Platform. If you want to play Ratchet & Clank, Demon Souls, etc, on Day 1 you have to buy a Sony PS5. They may come to PC later but day 1, PS5. With Xbox, you can play ALL those games ANYWHERE Game Pass exists - PC, Mobile/Tablet or 'currently' Series S/X

Until Sony allows Game Pass, ANY NEW game, once all contractual obligations are fulfilled, those studio's and any non MP focussed community will miss out. I'm sure CoD will still have a presence, because they'll keep Warzone (and/or include some F2P MP) so keeping their MP fans happy, but 'new' games inc CoD based single player stories on Game Pass - Same with Bethesda and any other Xbox deal.

@BAMozzy pretty much guarantee Game Pass will be on PS5 in the next year or so.

I didn't realise how insane the quality is. Even since Ive had it like 9 games have entered the rotation. Dangaronpa, Spelunky 2, Mass Effect and loads of others. Then you get the Xbox gold games. Honestly it's too many to keep up with, but that's a good thing

@ralphdibny nice, I was looking at an elite but I can't warrant paying that much on one controller.

How you getting on with It Ralph?

@Kidfried Yeah, Gamepass on PS is not happening.

An interesting thing is that while Xbox after all these acquisitions might seem huge compared to PlayStation, they would still lose to Sony when comparing gaming revenue from 2020 (that's Sony vs Xbox+Activision combined) - which means Sony might not be in as much trouble as it might seem.
That said, Call of Duty money is likely a non-negligible part of that revenue for Sony and they'll have to find an alternative.

Microsoft buying Activision is terrible for the industry.

It's terrible in the sense that Bobby Kotick walks off into the sunset with billions of dollars laughing his back off about how he got away with all of this.

It's also terrible in the sense that Sony might retaliate and buy someone. Or Nintendo. And then Microsoft do it again. Etc. Consolidation breeds stagnation. This sucks.

It's also terrible because it proves once again that Xbox - despite creating little of any worth on their own - are amassing a legendary treasure trove of intellectual property that they frankly don't deserve because they've got a rich daddy to bail them out.

But for me I don't really care. I don't care about Call of Duty so like the Bethesda acquisition I'm not upset about this on a personal level.

But on the Gamepass on PlayStation thing I do think it will happen, I just think it'll be a different version of Gamepass without third party titles.

@johncalmc I think there's an argument that actually, microsoft purchase of Activision blizzard results in some of those smaller ips that Activision acquired (like tony hawk, spyro, geometry wars etc) getting green lit to feed the content machine of gamepass and being handled with more care than Activision ever would! They pretty much ground the Activision side of the business into one COD every year and warzone support. The wider points of how bad for the gaming community this is, we have to wait and see. Gamepass has a whole heap of indy support and I hope that's not dropped. I love sony prestige titles and the mechanical genius of nintendo 1st party. Hopefully there's space for everyone but it's getting harder to see how that all works.